Hi all,
I’m seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I’m wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I’m pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.
If this isn’t the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I’m happy to take this somewhere else.
Cheers!
Pretty simple really: capitalism requires infinite growth. We have finite resources. The world is literally melting around us due to unsustainability.
The pet peeve of many people is the greed (of billionaires, politicians, global companies, etc) for wealth (paper, essentially) yet not giving a flying fuck about the anyone else or the rest of the planet.
Billionaires and their companies could at least pay their fair share in taxes.
At least? I’m convinced they have a moral obligation to do so much more than that.
Well, that’s because the rich folk are the ones destroying the planet and we’re the ones left with the bill. And I refuse to feel guilty for their wrongdoings.
Don’t you know if you would just use paper straws the earth would stop warming? Just ignore the shipping and energy companies massively destroying the ecosystem.
What about capitalism requires infinite growth? And what does it require infinite growth in? What happens when growth stagnates in a capitalist system? Does it suddenly not become capitalist anymore?
Feel free to be pedantic, but my point remains: historically and currently capitalism strives for infinite growth and cares not for resource limitations.
Now, can capitalism serve both purposes? Of course. Technological improvements developed by capitalism can (and must) improve environmental and resource impacts of population needs. Does it currently? Not nearly enough. How to direct capitalism to become a better steward for the planet and its resources is a separate topic and discussion. OP asked a question that I was answering without getting into the weeds.
This isn’t a property of capitalism, though. It’s a property of humanity, and really of life. What capitalism did was just to efficiently provide food and medicine to people, and the population graph turned into a hockey stick.
Is starvation and infant mortality preferable? Do you think if people had found some (as yet unknown) economic system that was as effective at supplying food and medicine, people wouldn’t have had kids? And if they did keep having kids, wouldn’t that have taxed the planet like capitalism has done?
People have tried alternate systems, some have even gone extremely well until they are destroyed by capitalists
The fact of the matter is, the only reason there isn’t another system is because capitalists have gone out of their way to destroy every other system that has been tried.
You can’t make a fair comparison when you factor in that capitalists already control the world.
Even democratically elected communists were destroyed by the US government.
Alternative systems such as…? I can think of several, but none I’d describe as ‘successful’.
It’s kind of a red flag (no pun intended) when your preferred system can be destabilized with some money stuffed in the right pockets, isn’t it? Most failed systems that were ‘undermined by capitalists’ mostly involved funding and support, not invasion or anything. Meanwhile, democracy and capitalism emerged in the midst of hostile aristocracy and royalty, and survived decades of attempts by the USSR (and now Russia) to undermine it.
My personal opinion is that those systems were doomed from conception, though I don’t deny that the US certainly engaged in speeding their demise.
Anyway, that’s all beside the point. Both populations and consumption increased under the Soviets, and any other system you care to name, proportionate to their effectiveness at keeping people fed and healthy.
You are objectively wrong that capitalism offers an effective system at distributing medicine and food amongst societies. I’m amazed you’ve come to that conclusion when hundreds of millions of people die every year because they can’t AFFORD TO BUY food or medicine… Further more the world is melting because of horrific mismanagement by the elite class and not much else. The technology, money and resources exist to solve most problems on earth but the monetary COST is deemed too high. See capitalists and capitalism will always choose wealth over human life, always, it’s literally how capitalism began with old mate Columbus and the new world slave trade. From top to bottom, start to finish, capitalism is fucking shit and irredeemable.
Then what’s your explanation for the huge rise in life expectancy and food availability–starting in capitalist Western countries, and then spreading to the rest of the world along with the market economy?
Capitalism is certainly imperfect at distribution of food and medicine. As the saying goes: it’s the worst system, aside from every other that has existed. And the margin isn’t particularly close.
You date the origin of capitalism to Columbus? Seems pretty arbitrary. Markets date back thousands of years, and recognizably capitalist forms of government emerged in the 18th and 19th century at the earliest. Columbus was sponsored by a king seeking new land, not capitalists seeking new markets.
