What do you think we should replace it with? Some years back, when my country replaced a corrupt, entrenched coalition govt of 60+ years, the winning party sort of looked around and said: ‘uh… huh, OK, we won. We werent expecting to win. Now what? We have no plan. Lolz?’
In that light, what do you think should replace the big C, and how do we ensure human nature doesnt juat exploit it for a few individuals benefit?
Socialism. True economic and political democracy, that isn’t managed by capitalists, landlords, or other centralised powerful groups, and where elections are not won by money.
It really is as simple as that. These comments are baffling. We can’t have Norway or Switzerland globally, that is possible only by continuing to rely on the poverty of the global south.
Socialism, Syndicalism, im fine with either. But this time PUT GUARD RAILS UP SO NO ONE FUCKER CAN JUST GRAB POWER AND RUIN THE DEMOCRACY!
The democracy is fine. Its the people who choose to be stupid.
Yeah, democracy doesn’t work when techno facists control the media and the people are too stupid to know what’s real and not. Most Americans cannot think critically.
Democracy is at the heart of socialism! Educated people dont vote stupid
problem is OP you don’t just bring down/destroy/disappear capitalism
capitalism is an umbrella term for the economic system that emerged from the most basic early trade/money systems/financialisation
so in reality you start with capitalism and change it to enable things you like
anyone that doesn’t start answering your question with capitalism is a bullshit fantasist
judging by the other replies you’ve had that’s what you got. that’s why these transition plans to communism are so threadbare and disfunctional. they are just hand-wavey dreams
Even with socialism the use of currency is a useful tool for allowing people to acquire what they need then what they want. Capitalism as we know it now and how it has been needs to fall but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some usefulness to be gained from it. And there will be a huge transition period as well that will likely take a couple generations to then start rotating away from capital being desirable.
Capitalism > democratic socialism > socialism > communism > anarchism. That is my head cannon.
I actually love the thought of protecting us from humanity itself. Its kinda the “human nature is inherently selfish” idea. Which i disagree with. Here are some links that might heko you feel the same
https://pca.st/episode/1b0edfd7-89f4-48d5-ae23-f67fea46a41
However, if you are still not cinvinced; I think you could draw a lot of strength from the idea of: “the dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Creating a system which prevents the worse characteristics of human nature from thriving, is a must. That must happen in order to achieve communism
Simple, you replace it with socialism. That doesn’t mean history just ends and there’s nothing else to worry about in the future. Suppose “human nature” just exploits the system and ends up with a few party elites benefiting - so? Is it worse than what we have? Will the new elite be able to hold on to power permanently without offering the mass of the people concessions?
The first real liberal revolution ended with an empire, but the empire was still better than the old regime that the revolution overthrew, and it spread liberal ideas throughout Europe. Then Napoleon was defeated and there was a reactionary monarchist restoration, which was overthrown and replaced with a constitutional monarchy in under 20 years. The constitutional monarchy was itself overthrown and replaced with a second republic less than 20 years after that. Then there was an imperial restoration under a lesser Napoleon, who went on to lose a war and get overthrown, replaced with a third Republic. They’re on the fourth Republic now, but they haven’t had a monarch since 1870 or a king since 1848. I would say the chances of France undergoing a monarchist restoration at this point are very low.
At no point in this process was “it” over. It’s not over now. Maybe something is over, but that something stopped being “it”, and was replaced by a new “it”.
I’ve asked this multiple times and no one ever has an answer.
In the end nothing works because humans are terrible, and the terrible ones always gain power. Capitalism at least works for some people. Communism is easily harnessed by a small power group to starve everyone and have them live terrible lives.
I’d actually be all for just keeping this current system, put in Norway style socialism for taking care of sick poor and old, tax billionaires 99%, and make money in politics illegal. Oh and outlaw controlled centralized social media while we’re at it.
I am not for a system that gives everyone everything. The lazy shit heads are gonna sit on their butts smoking weed all day and playing cod when they could be providing work for society. I know many people like this. There still needs to be people who do the real work or you’re not going to have power or heat, good luck surviving that! But we could also change to a 30 hr work week easily for many jobs.
Internet based direct democracy. Only a minority is evil, get rid of representatives to block their door to abusing power over others once and for all.
I’d actually be all for just keeping this current system, put in Norway style socialism for taking care of sick poor and old, tax billionaires 99%, and make money in politics illegal. Oh and outlaw controlled centralized social media while we’re at it.
Well they’re not going to do that. At this point you would need a revolution to get it done, so why not just go all the way and actually overthrow them rather than just asking concessions?
There was an interesting tidbit in the Epstein files released recently. It was from a third person to Epstein, referencing a conversation Epstein had with Bill Gates about “how to get rid of poor people as a whole.” Given that the only other interpretation of that is “how to ensure all the poor people have a good standard of living and are therefore no longer poor”, and that’s the least likely thing that Epstein would be talking to Bill Gates about, it’s pretty obvious what it means. They certainly aren’t doing much about global warming, and it’s poised to kill an awful lot of people, but I strongly suspect there’s more to it than that.
You say that communism is “easily harnessed by a small power group to starve everyone and have them live terrible lives.” The USSR had its last famine in 1947, and China had its last famine in 1961. They also both had massive increases to the standard of living. Compare that to the capitalist world order, which I will remind you is run by Nazi pedophiles - 10 million people die of hunger every year, and they’ve been supporting Israel’s genocidal bombing and starvation campaign against Gaza. I don’t see how some theoretical communist tyranny could be any worse than this.
Production caps, energy expenditure caps, more efficient redistribution systems. Basically “produce what we need and then stop.” Redirect energy from acquiring more resources to developing intellectual thought and artistic talent.
Wouldnt that also require people stop buying/ using more than they need? I know people who go through 5 blouse a day. Or the guy who needs twelve different edts to feel good about himself.
Even with people using more than they need we still overproduce by an alarming amount. Also someone wearing 5 shirts a day doesn’t contribute that much to consumption, just extra laundry detergent, which is a resource that can be stockpiled for a long time.
There are a lot of ways that we do over consume, though many of them just… Do kind of go away when we’re not run ragged constantly. Don’t need to buy shinies to numb the pain when the pain is gone, y’know?
A lot of overconsumption is fueled by industries doing it on purpose, too, clothing being a prime example of that. Clothes used to last, but that’s not as profitable as making things without enough seam allowance to alter them, and making them out of cloth so bad it falls apart if you even think of wearing it anyway.
Some of it is definitely personal choice, but I’d wager that most of it is down to the second one, with a runner-up being the first.
Capitalism+. Every business must be majority owned by their workers.
I’m sorry, but Capitalism+ sounds like a premium subscription service.
I like the ‘ceo cannot be paid more than nx, where n is a reasonable number and x is the lowest wage on the payroll’ concept.
reasonable number
Rojava/DNAS has some good ideas.
I think there will be a sudden abundance when food waste is distributed instead of landfilled, housing is rent free and not locked away as an investment.
Most of the systems that make society function are already not profit motivated so most will continue to function in transition. We see this happen every natural disaster, the workers of a critical facility sticking through because their work is meaningful.
Won’t be totally comfortable but i disagree with the opinion it will be a death sentence for many.
how do we ensure human nature doesnt juat exploit it for a few individuals benefit
So how to avoid the history of all governments ever created?
Shit isn’t binary…
The current situation doesn’t have to be the only economy we can have where people earn and spend money.
People would just have basic needs met and work for extras. When people got sick, they’d get healthcare. When theyre young, they’d get an education.
Surface level shit would look the same as it did 30 years ago, it just wouldn’t actually be rotten at the core
This whole thread is just so adorable.
ANARCHY!!!
IMO our population is already too high to be sustainable without capitalism grinding people down to survive off their blood and suffering. We would need to heavily automate most of the labour intensive industries like mining and especially farming; however, I don’t think this will happen any time soon, partially in thanks to how the current system maintains the status quo and is very much regressive in that respect. There’s a steep curve to get over to achieve this technologically, and I don’t think we’re that close to implementing it on such a massive scale to be effective.
I know of a few companies that are working on these issues; like one company that uses special suction cups on robotic arms to pick fruit and maybe humanoid robots will become rugged enough for continuous outdoor labour but from what I see and the amount of people working on this issue, I don’t think we’re even close.
We’re trapped in the belly of this horrible machine, and the machine is bleeding to death.
*Especially because AIs are too inaccurate and energy intensive to be useful… it was a good idea but in practice, it’s basically useless.
*Also I don’t believe it’s human nature to exploit other people, just how the current system works I guess. Human nature is picking berries, hunting animals, taking your kid fishing and just chilling with your community. I think your idea about human nature is skewed because very few people are able to experience a healthy community.
Heh. Whats to stop people from indulging in more procreation, if such a level of automation is ever achieved? Or is it that the novelty of sex will wear off and peopoe will devote time to other pursuits, e.g. music/ the arts?
I don’t think most people will suddenly indulge their creative side, more likely they’ll just behave much as they would if they had a day off, at least for the first year or so (video games, pizza, alcohol, etc.). After that, who knows. Kind of like someone’s just retired, except for the whole population at relatively the same time… like no idea what would happen there lol. Definitely a societal shift at a massive scale.
I’m quite certain about one thing though: we’ll get a hell of a lot more dank memes.
Probably a lot of crime would occur is my guess.
I imagine if we get rid of it, we’ll just muck about until we reinvent it under a new name. After all, as far as I can tell capitalism is damn close to feudalism. I’m sure there are technical differences, like you own wealth instead of land, but the end result looks pretty similar.
