The Nords found it because they keep their capitalism restrained as it should be to serve the interests of the people in their societies instead of the reverse as it has become here.
The problem, of course, is the market crony hyper-capitalists that spawned mostly out of the US are using their power/capital to do what they did here everywhere else in it’s insatiable quest for growth/metastasis. The UK has already fallen to the faustian bargain of “YOU can live large, just sell out your fellow citizens.” Germany is getting on board, France’s people are fighting but losing. Unrestrained capitalism high on its own greed is absolutely cancerous and deadly.
Capitalism CAN when tightly, tightly straight jacketed, be used to incentivize labor as communism cannot, but it must be tempered by the heaviest of taxation for the commons. Being a doctor or a lawyer should yield better rewards than a janitor, but within fucking reason/sanity.
Should a Doctor be able to afford a bigger house and a nicer car than an average worker for their effort? Sure. Should they be able to afford 3 houses to the janitor’s studio apartment in a bad neighborhood? No, both provide essential services to society after all.
There needs to be a drain for out of control capital acquisition or that capital will eventually be used to propagate greed and capture the regulatory bodies meant to keep the sociopath that is capitalism sedated and restrained. No individual should possess enough capital to have more power over socetal structures than their single vote allows.
In exchange for not allowing greed to run absolutely rampant as it does here, they go to college based on merit, get healthcare when they need it, don’t end up homeless in hard times, don’t sweat job security, on and on…
At least until the global markets find enough greed driven traitors in those societies to “turn the bull loose” there too. Because once they get a foothold, that’s the ball game until collapse. Once that happens, they start using their for profit media machines to propagandize division within the citizenry, ensuring no meaningful counter movement, they use their power over government to indoctrinate children through education to call greed “rational self-interest,” deify profiteers as “job creators,” to feel hatred rather than empathy towards those that are struggling(herp derp those evil powerless homeless people are lowering my property values! If they can’t/won’t work, why won’t they just die?), etc. That’s why the US will need to collapse under the weight of its own corruption before things can even begin to improve. We’re too far captured.
Because there isn’t a global regulatory body to handle workplace relations. Norway, Sweden and Denmark cannot exactly tell developing countries how they should treat their workers; no more than the US could tell Swedish unions to shut up and submit to Tesla’s low pay demands.
We could have a global regulatory body… oh wait… most people around the world don’t want that because “'muh sovereignty.”
Oh wow, India and South Korea are still to this day under somehow subservient of Western imperialism, despite their own government implementing neoliberal policies after the Cold War! Somehow BJP, the ruling right wing party of India that deregulated the country, is a CIA stooge despite rebuffing sanctions on Russia. Gee, I wonder why? Thank you for your most enlightening, educated take! I am now so woke and class conscious like yourself!
Dude, this isn’t the 20th century. Your communist utopia did not work and will never work, old fart. Countries have their own agency. Have you met people in Asia and Africa and asked them if they will want communism? Just like you never asked any former gulag members, yes? Take your meds called… reality…old wanker.
You do realize that the US has control of South Korea’s military during time of war, correct? It’s an explicit part of their structure. South Korea quite literally does not have complete agency, despite what you’re saying.
That’s actually ahistorical. There were numerous pro-democracy protests, and subsequent massacres by the ROK. Gwang-ju is perhaps the most famous example of the ROK slaughtering countless civilians protesting for democracy, but it happened during wartime as well. Korea’s modern history, North and South, is intensely complicated and messy, and to pretend it’s a simple matter of the US protecting the defenseless South Koreans from the big bad North Koreans is just as wrong as saying that North Korea is 100% good and just.
There’s also the No Gun Ri Massacre, by which American soldiers murdered hundreds of South Korean men, women, and children.
South Korea in particular has a history of military dictatorship, coups, and massacres of pro-democracy civilians, and even in recent years is still having trouble with fascism.
You obviously did not read the article or at least skim read the earlier paragraphs.
And unsurprisingly you revert to historical fallacy to post-Cold War decisions that has zero bearing to more recent events, namely North Korea keeps firing missiles every so often.
Amazingly well put. Capitalism is necessary. Unrestrained capitalism is deadly. The unfortunate reality of capitalism is that even as it is in the process of burning everything to the ground, it looks for all the world like glorious success. And it is glorious success, if you don’t compare it to what could be in a system where it was properly restrained.
Capitalism is in no way necessary. It’s a poison, a cancer, a virus which at all given times threatens to destroy the fabric of society, all for the next quarter’s profit.
Capitalism isn’t necessary; a new economic system that takes some aspects of capitalism is necessary. If you have to strip capitalism of all of its core features to make it work, you’re no longer dealing with capitalism but rather a different economic model.
I agree. People who say, “nuhuh, capitalism works!” are 99% of the time thinking of the basic concept of markets or money. Which … Very specifically, are NOT capitalism.
They are used (and abused) by capitalists, but they are not inventions of capitalists.
So what’s the difference between capitalism and markets? I would have thought the freer the market the more capitalistic it was, not so much that there’s a separation of the two.
Kind of. The market can have Capitalist entities and Socialist entities, but the market itself isn’t Capitalist.
Not necessarily. Co-operatives are more difficult to start in a predominantly Capitalist system, and Capitalist entities usually can exploit their workers more in order to gain temporary competitive advantage. I don’t believe this is sufficient reasoning to value Capitalism over Socialist entities.
I’m not a Market Socialist, for clarification, as I do think there are issues. However, Capitalism isn’t markets.
In their pure forms, I see capitalism and communism as extremes specifically with regards to human nature.
Communism starves our human impulses to succeed and grow, but capitalism gluts and force feeds our worst impulses exclusively, selfishness, unhealthy competition, jealousy, schadenfreude, sociopathy, self-delusion, narcissism, dehumanization, on and on, which is why I see it as the greater evil of the 2 in a vacuum.
A successful communist society would be very difficult to grow, but maybe that would be a good thing on a planet of finite resources that can take finite finite pollution. That’s why the answer lies somewhere in democratic socialism, imho.
That’s all academic though. The rigged market hyper-capitalists own this fucking place and have an iron grip on it. Plus communism would have kept the population low, as it should have been. It wouldn’t be able to accommodate the needs of our ridiculously massive human population as it is. That ship has sailed unless we want billions to starve to right it and live within sustainable means in this finite habitat.
Communism starves our human impulses to succeed and grow
Nothing about communism forces human impulses to be ignored, unless you mean the impulses we already suppress as sentient beings, such as fucking everything that moves or eating until we literally die.
We are socially competitive animals, just as you can observe in other evolutionarily programmed creatures. We compare ourselves to others, we want to impress mates, etc.
Equality of economic outcome regardless of effort goes against that, which is probably necessary on a planet of finite resources and the scale of our waste, but it does go against that large aspect of our nature.
For the record, I’m probably closer to you ideologically than you think. I think unfettered capitalism does more damage to humanity and the planet than communism ever could, but if you think communism lacks any drawbacks and is perfect, you are mistaken.
There is no such thing as perfection, especially any construct made by mankind. That’s coming from someone who is all for going Old School French on Wall Street and socializing entire economic sectors for the good of the citizenry.
We are socially competitive animals, just as you can observe in other evolutionarily programmed creatures. We compare ourselves to others, we want to impress mates, etc.
All of which can be achieved in a communist system, only instead of “look at my huge paycheck”, it’d be “look at all these skills I’ve acquired thanks to free public education and more free time”. People would stop mindlessly showing off innane manufactured waste and start actually acquire useful knowledge.
Man you’re naive…you really think people are going to go around busting their asses to study, only to be rewarded with I have skills that allow me to do even harder mental tasks for the same physical rewards as someone who gets the same free time and paycheck and house and car as I do…
You mean my inability to be naive… you’re the type of tankie who would want to be in a position of power while not breaking sweat while the rest toiled away doing the hard manual labor…
Lol I run a equine and livestock rescue, and pay for peoples animals vet bills…out of my own pocket…the fuck are you to tell me my moral code is broken… I’m not the one advocating for communism…which always ends in dictatorship and death from those who want to keep it in place…naa you’re absolutely naive.
Sorry, but you’re highly wrong about your misconceptions of Communism. Communism in no way starves human impulses to succeed or grow any more than Capitalist success does. Communism eliminates the profit motive, yes, but that is historically a highly flawed motive in general.
Socialism/Communism/Anarchism are not fairy-tale Utopias where everyone magically gets a pony, people still work to produce goods and services. However, this production is democratized, in opposition to anti-democratic privatized systems.
The Nords found it because they keep their capitalism restrained as it should be to serve the interests of the people in their societies instead of the reverse as it has become here.
The problem, of course, is the market crony hyper-capitalists that spawned mostly out of the US are using their power/capital to do what they did here everywhere else in it’s insatiable quest for growth/metastasis. The UK has already fallen to the faustian bargain of “YOU can live large, just sell out your fellow citizens.” Germany is getting on board, France’s people are fighting but losing. Unrestrained capitalism high on its own greed is absolutely cancerous and deadly.
Capitalism CAN when tightly, tightly straight jacketed, be used to incentivize labor as communism cannot, but it must be tempered by the heaviest of taxation for the commons. Being a doctor or a lawyer should yield better rewards than a janitor, but within fucking reason/sanity.
Should a Doctor be able to afford a bigger house and a nicer car than an average worker for their effort? Sure. Should they be able to afford 3 houses to the janitor’s studio apartment in a bad neighborhood? No, both provide essential services to society after all.
There needs to be a drain for out of control capital acquisition or that capital will eventually be used to propagate greed and capture the regulatory bodies meant to keep the sociopath that is capitalism sedated and restrained. No individual should possess enough capital to have more power over socetal structures than their single vote allows.
In exchange for not allowing greed to run absolutely rampant as it does here, they go to college based on merit, get healthcare when they need it, don’t end up homeless in hard times, don’t sweat job security, on and on…
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/happiness/
At least until the global markets find enough greed driven traitors in those societies to “turn the bull loose” there too. Because once they get a foothold, that’s the ball game until collapse. Once that happens, they start using their for profit media machines to propagandize division within the citizenry, ensuring no meaningful counter movement, they use their power over government to indoctrinate children through education to call greed “rational self-interest,” deify profiteers as “job creators,” to feel hatred rather than empathy towards those that are struggling(herp derp those evil powerless homeless people are lowering my property values! If they can’t/won’t work, why won’t they just die?), etc. That’s why the US will need to collapse under the weight of its own corruption before things can even begin to improve. We’re too far captured.
The whole Nordic system is built on brutal exploitation of the global majority. They simply outsource the worst horrors of capitalism where their people don’t have to look at them. Here’s the reality of enlightened capitalism https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/12/mars-nestle-and-hershey-to-face-landmark-child-slavery-lawsuit-in-us
Because there isn’t a global regulatory body to handle workplace relations. Norway, Sweden and Denmark cannot exactly tell developing countries how they should treat their workers; no more than the US could tell Swedish unions to shut up and submit to Tesla’s low pay demands.
We could have a global regulatory body… oh wait… most people around the world don’t want that because “'muh sovereignty.”
The actual reason is that the west colonized these countries in the most brutal fashion, murdered millions of people who opposed western imperialism, then put in despotic regimes in place that serve western interests. You’re evidently utterly ignorant of how the world actually works. Here’s a book you should read that explains the reality of things https://ia800309.us.archive.org/26/items/fp_Killing_Hope-US_Military_and_CIA_Interventions_Since_WWII-William_Blum/Killing_Hope-US_Military_and_CIA_Interventions_Since_WWII-William_Blum.pdf
Oh wow, India and South Korea are still to this day under somehow subservient of Western imperialism, despite their own government implementing neoliberal policies after the Cold War! Somehow BJP, the ruling right wing party of India that deregulated the country, is a CIA stooge despite rebuffing sanctions on Russia. Gee, I wonder why? Thank you for your most enlightening, educated take! I am now so woke and class conscious like yourself!
Dude, this isn’t the 20th century. Your communist utopia did not work and will never work, old fart. Countries have their own agency. Have you met people in Asia and Africa and asked them if they will want communism? Just like you never asked any former gulag members, yes? Take your meds called… reality…old wanker.
You do realize that the US has control of South Korea’s military during time of war, correct? It’s an explicit part of their structure. South Korea quite literally does not have complete agency, despite what you’re saying.
And you do realise that South Koreans wanted that set up to begin with, because they get more out of this security structure more than the US does? Why do you think that is? Who is South Korea’s neighbour to the north, do you think? The peaceful West Korea? Both parties delayed handover of wartime control of ROK army numerous times, for reasons that should be obvious to those who are student of geopolitics. https://isdp.eu/publication/not-a-sovereignty-issue-understanding-the-transition-of-military-operational-control-between-the-united-states-and-south-korea/
That’s actually ahistorical. There were numerous pro-democracy protests, and subsequent massacres by the ROK. Gwang-ju is perhaps the most famous example of the ROK slaughtering countless civilians protesting for democracy, but it happened during wartime as well. Korea’s modern history, North and South, is intensely complicated and messy, and to pretend it’s a simple matter of the US protecting the defenseless South Koreans from the big bad North Koreans is just as wrong as saying that North Korea is 100% good and just.
There’s also the No Gun Ri Massacre, by which American soldiers murdered hundreds of South Korean men, women, and children.
South Korea in particular has a history of military dictatorship, coups, and massacres of pro-democracy civilians, and even in recent years is still having trouble with fascism.
You obviously did not read the article or at least skim read the earlier paragraphs.
And unsurprisingly you revert to historical fallacy to post-Cold War decisions that has zero bearing to more recent events, namely North Korea keeps firing missiles every so often.
South Korea is literally occupied by the US right now. 🤡
Oh so, your commie brethren could take them over when US leaves.
Least stupid commie plan. 🤡
Yeah, Korea should be reunified instead of being occupied by racist scum of your ilk.
And North Korea should be de-communist, instead of being propped up by your racist ilk.
Amazingly well put. Capitalism is necessary. Unrestrained capitalism is deadly. The unfortunate reality of capitalism is that even as it is in the process of burning everything to the ground, it looks for all the world like glorious success. And it is glorious success, if you don’t compare it to what could be in a system where it was properly restrained.
Capitalism is in no way necessary. It’s a poison, a cancer, a virus which at all given times threatens to destroy the fabric of society, all for the next quarter’s profit.
Capitalism isn’t necessary; a new economic system that takes some aspects of capitalism is necessary. If you have to strip capitalism of all of its core features to make it work, you’re no longer dealing with capitalism but rather a different economic model.
I agree. People who say, “nuhuh, capitalism works!” are 99% of the time thinking of the basic concept of markets or money. Which … Very specifically, are NOT capitalism.
They are used (and abused) by capitalists, but they are not inventions of capitalists.
Reason 1 that I’m happy to ditch reddit for Lemmy completely is watching these ideas explained by other people, every day.
Not having to explain the difference between capitalism and commerce feels 😩🔥
So what’s the difference between capitalism and markets? I would have thought the freer the market the more capitalistic it was, not so much that there’s a separation of the two.
Ownership of Capital. Capitalism has markets, but not all market systems are Capitalist.
Market Socialism, for example, has competing worker-owned entities like Co-operatives in a market system, with no Capitalists.
Capitalism is a relatively new phenomena in the grand scheme of things.
Can a cooperative compete in a capitalist market? As in shouldn’t the better system win out in a free market?
Kind of. The market can have Capitalist entities and Socialist entities, but the market itself isn’t Capitalist.
Not necessarily. Co-operatives are more difficult to start in a predominantly Capitalist system, and Capitalist entities usually can exploit their workers more in order to gain temporary competitive advantage. I don’t believe this is sufficient reasoning to value Capitalism over Socialist entities.
I’m not a Market Socialist, for clarification, as I do think there are issues. However, Capitalism isn’t markets.
Thank you!
In their pure forms, I see capitalism and communism as extremes specifically with regards to human nature.
Communism starves our human impulses to succeed and grow, but capitalism gluts and force feeds our worst impulses exclusively, selfishness, unhealthy competition, jealousy, schadenfreude, sociopathy, self-delusion, narcissism, dehumanization, on and on, which is why I see it as the greater evil of the 2 in a vacuum.
A successful communist society would be very difficult to grow, but maybe that would be a good thing on a planet of finite resources that can take finite finite pollution. That’s why the answer lies somewhere in democratic socialism, imho.
That’s all academic though. The rigged market hyper-capitalists own this fucking place and have an iron grip on it. Plus communism would have kept the population low, as it should have been. It wouldn’t be able to accommodate the needs of our ridiculously massive human population as it is. That ship has sailed unless we want billions to starve to right it and live within sustainable means in this finite habitat.
Nothing about communism forces human impulses to be ignored, unless you mean the impulses we already suppress as sentient beings, such as fucking everything that moves or eating until we literally die.
We are socially competitive animals, just as you can observe in other evolutionarily programmed creatures. We compare ourselves to others, we want to impress mates, etc.
Equality of economic outcome regardless of effort goes against that, which is probably necessary on a planet of finite resources and the scale of our waste, but it does go against that large aspect of our nature.
For the record, I’m probably closer to you ideologically than you think. I think unfettered capitalism does more damage to humanity and the planet than communism ever could, but if you think communism lacks any drawbacks and is perfect, you are mistaken.
There is no such thing as perfection, especially any construct made by mankind. That’s coming from someone who is all for going Old School French on Wall Street and socializing entire economic sectors for the good of the citizenry.
All of which can be achieved in a communist system, only instead of “look at my huge paycheck”, it’d be “look at all these skills I’ve acquired thanks to free public education and more free time”. People would stop mindlessly showing off innane manufactured waste and start actually acquire useful knowledge.
Man you’re naive…you really think people are going to go around busting their asses to study, only to be rewarded with I have skills that allow me to do even harder mental tasks for the same physical rewards as someone who gets the same free time and paycheck and house and car as I do…
Your inability to imagine only reveals how pathetically greedy and underdeveloped you are.
I hope one day you develop an actual skill so you too can know the joys of not being a waste of oxygen.
You mean my inability to be naive… you’re the type of tankie who would want to be in a position of power while not breaking sweat while the rest toiled away doing the hard manual labor…
I’m not naïve, it’s just that you are a bad person whose moral code can’t fathom working not for oneself, but for the betterment of the collective.
I already do just that, by the way - study for the sake of knowledge, not for increasing my capital.
Lol I run a equine and livestock rescue, and pay for peoples animals vet bills…out of my own pocket…the fuck are you to tell me my moral code is broken… I’m not the one advocating for communism…which always ends in dictatorship and death from those who want to keep it in place…naa you’re absolutely naive.
Sorry, but you’re highly wrong about your misconceptions of Communism. Communism in no way starves human impulses to succeed or grow any more than Capitalist success does. Communism eliminates the profit motive, yes, but that is historically a highly flawed motive in general.
Socialism/Communism/Anarchism are not fairy-tale Utopias where everyone magically gets a pony, people still work to produce goods and services. However, this production is democratized, in opposition to anti-democratic privatized systems.
This made up thing you call communism sounds really terrible.
Have you ever actually read any communist theory that was not written by anti communists?