Market != Capitalism. You can have a free market without capitalism, and capitalism without a free market.
The hexbears will attack me for saying that a regulated free market is good and a planned economy is bad. The others will attack me for saying that capitalism is bad and that we should have market socialism instead. But if we can’t have that, a capitalist free market has proven much less bad than any planned economy, as long as it’s regulated enough that it stays free.
The hexbears will attack me for saying that a regulated free market is good and a planned economy is bad.
Yes, and we are right. The Soviets went from an agrarian backwater to an industrial giant in basically a decade using economic planning, doing all the complex math by hand. The US is a semi-deindustrialized state with access to supercomputers.
Since nobody agrees with terminology, we might as well just say: we should do Scandinavia
Kid, Scandinavia is falling apart. It’s being hollowed out by neoliberal regimes like those that hollowed out the UK a few decades ago.
Even before being hollowed out, the place was far from perfect. There has always been homeless and exploited immigrants. One of the largest Scandinavian firms is Mærsk, which ships all over the world - mainly using underpaid labor.
None of the “good stuff” is paid for by these companies anyway - they’re just cheating with their taxes like anyone else - it’s paid for mainly by taxes of the lower and middle classes (when you’re wealthy enough you put your money in a tax haven). At that point it’s not “well regulated markets” it’s outsized taxes on the part of the population with least resources available to them.
Is it better than the us? Very much so, but it’s not even close to good
if we try our absolute hardest to just “do scandinavia” we will only get one step forward three steps back. you can count on reactionary capitalist claw back of any progress, the only long term solution is to defeat the capitalist class and remove their dictatorship. not beg them to give us tiny scraps from their extravagant buffet.
Read “Riding the wave” about how scandinavia relies on imperialism to function.
I still disagree with this statement, insofar as it makes it seem like Scandinavia is more reliant on the third world than any other imperialist country.
This statement makes it seem like if the us just did enough imperialism it’d finally get healthcare. That’s obviously not the case. It works as a shield for the American liberals to explain why they do not have healthcare.
The welfare state was a concession won by labour movements in Scandinavia. These concessions could be afforded due to the fact that the Scandinavian countries benefitted from empire - though such a benefit is not necessary for welfare to be present, as has been shown by the many aes states that provide services for their citizens.
Dismissing this victory of labour as “a product of imperialism” diminishes what we can accomplish. We should critique Scandinavia and be aware that those countries - like the rest of the west - benefit from empire. We should however not correlate the existence with a welfare state with participation in empire.
The largest Scandinavian companies don’t pay their taxes, the welfare state is primarily funded for by outsized taxes on the poor and the “middle class”. The upper classes in Scandinavia have been embroiled in countless tax fraud scandals.
It’s not to say that Scandinavia doesn’t benefit from imperialism or that the existence of the countries as they are now aren’t reliant on exploitation of the third world - they are.
It is to say that the statement “Scandinavia can only be the way that it is due to imperialism” implies that with sufficient imperialism the us would turn into Scandinavia (it wouldn’t) and that Scandinavia somehow does more imperialism than the us or other puppet masters.
Do you mean their economy and policies, or their people? In either case, I agree.
The hexbears will attack me for saying that a regulated free market is good and a planned economy is bad.
By ‘attack’ or do you mean engaging in well sourced arguments against your assertions? And by the way we have plenty of market socialists amount our numbers
I was told me another hexbear that essentially you guys don’t believe in good faith debate on public forums, hence all the insufferable shitposting and trolling.
I can’t really speak for a site - it’s users are not a monolith - but the general culture is that you are not owed a good faith discussion , if you clearly aren’t interested in one. If you look you’ll notice that when people ask questions they get them asnwered, but when they try to make gochas or they get embroiled in an argument, but then don’t respect the other well enough to respond to their queries, then it turns into shotposting. And why wouldn’t it? Why would I wanna spend energy validating some doofus that’s pretty obviously just trying to troll? Why would I validate someone’s opinion on something they obviously know nothing about, when I’ve shared sources and knowledge which they then disregard in order to continue knowing nothing?
That’s the thing, when people say free market they mean a unregulated one and not a social democracy, markets are a effective tool to generate wealth and progress but they don’t spread that wealth very well and profit over everything isn’t a great way to help people so you need heavy regulations and certain areas shouldn’t be under market control at all because people can’t choose to use them!
Free market is the divine right of capitalism.
regulated enough that it stays free
What a perfect somersault.
Do you understand that a law banning slavery is a piece of regulation? Would you agree that society is more free with that regulation, or less free?
The same logic applies here. The market is free when everyone can freely participate in it. Which means that we have to stop (regulate) those who want to prevent people from participating (i.e. monopolists).
Look man, good on you for understanding that “free markets”, the fundamental ideology of capitalism, is antagonistic to people’s liberty. Its just wild that you acknowledge that but then go on to insist we should keep doing free markets and capitalism.
Free markets and capitalism will always both ideologically and materially put people into power who disagree with you, people who want to deregulate the market and restrict people’s freedom. In order to actually do what you want you must shut those people, the bourgeoisie, out of power. It doesnt matter if you do that through revolutionary violence like the communists or through peaceful democracy like so many Latin american nations. You will be met with violence from the bourgeoisie. Doesnt matter if all you want is an actually regulated free market.
Even without the exploitative relation of worker and owner, markets can still have horizontal exploitation between firms.
