There are no answers, not capitalism, kot socialism, not hunter-gather society, only ad hoc expedients which at best prove temporary. After some 5,000 years of recorded human history, we can find examples of every type of human society that proves successful for a time, and ultimately all of them fail, whether as a result of external enemies who are stronger and more ruthless, or internal corruption and contradiction.
This is because power is to sociopaths what catnip is to cats, and sociopaths will corrupt any system, because sociopaths are precisely the humans who will do whatever it takes to get power. However, humans who see every interaction as a zero-sum no-holds-barred winner-take-all game rarely build anything that lasts for long, because the sociopath is loyal to nothing other than himself, he will either betray or be betrayed by another sociopath. Note how european dynasties rarely lasted for long.
Even turning one's back on power doesn't work. That power is still there, and even if you do not use it, others will. And you may not like what they do with that power.
At the same time, power continually increases with humans' technical knowledge. Feats that would have been too loopy for science fiction are now unremarkable. This is why, with all due respect to MLK, the arc of history does not bend towards justice. It bends towards power.
“The essence of oligarchical rule is the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living.” George Orwell
Some societies collapse faster than others. Maybe, instead of turning backs on power, it might be more useful to educate people differently. We are all educated to believe that if we work hard and follow the rules we will get what we need and what we want. Maybe that needs to change. Maybe we need to be educated to understand that constantly attaining more money and power is not a positive. Societies in and of themselves are not failures. It is the money grubbers entering the picture that causes the failure.
What is needed in the Educational system is: schools and kids helping in their neighbourhoods. The kids would learn more about life than sitting in a classroom all week learning next to nothing.
We are not going to find a complete solution right away. We need to start somewhere. Just saying nothing will work may be correct, but for me, we need to try. Nothing will change, for sure, if we don't try to educate ourselves, if we don't look further into the situation. You have let them get to you feral. You have drank the kool aid.
What you say is broadly true, human nature being what it is. But some societies are more humane than others, and that can persist for many generations in some cases. In the western world, Scandinavian countries existed happily as social democratic societies for a decent period of time, until the capitalists took over. Sigh.
Has there ever been a time when tribes or countries were not frequently at war? You'd be hard pressed to find one even in the most remote places where capitalism did not exist.
I completely disagree with you. Not the about the power aspect, but the claim that there is no solution. That smacks of nihilism. I will continue to support the struggle for socialism and that is the hill I will die on.
Nihilism arises out of a certain social situation. It is not the objective take on reality that it claims to be.
Our own village - about 600 souls - works according to a "primitive communism", "hunter gatherer society", call it what you will. People share what they have and look after each other. They have private lives, but come together as whanau (family) on the marae (community meeting space), whare kai (communal eating hall) and at the kura (school). If we have any sociopaths, they are well hidden. Consequently, I am not a nihilist. Nor do I have to struggle for socialism. I enjoy the benefits of a sensible and humane social order. The world beyond our valley is not looking too great right now, but I my own experience of life tells me that there is a way forward.
So long as there is the project for socialism, nihilism is a leap of faith, an unwarranted inference, so who is going to do that? But if you think capitalism is the triumphant end of history, and it is what it is, cosmic pessimism would be more appropriate even than nihilism. But because reality is change, and there is a case even to be made for some form of historical inevitably of socialism under the right conditions that need be actively achieved, and if you aren't too damaged, there's a lot to learn and do without needing an absolute philosophical verdict on the nature of existence. So socialism is a necessity of human being slowly working itself out through the horrors of the current system, and there is no conclusive cause for despair.
When did I say that I don't care? I simply question whether there are any one-size fits all permanent solutions to the human condition. Pointing out that the law of entropy limits activity doesn't mean that I hate people.
Power in the 21st century is bleak I’ll give you that FF. Retain some room for optimism though. There are way more of us good people than the current crop of power brokers. Who knows, some huge paradigm shift may come.
There always are more normies than sociopaths, just as there usually are more sheep than shepherds.
The human problem is simple and repeatedly results in our current condition: Good people are only willing to do good things to try and stop bad people. Bad people are quite capable of enduring all the good things good people do to try and stop them.
And bad people are quite willing to do bad things in order to get whatever they want. Good people are not willing to do the bad things that are necessary to stop bad people from doing bad things to them.
So bad people end up ruling over good people who only do good things to try and stop them. This will remain a fact of life until good people are willing to do the bad things that are necessary to stop bad people.
Is it bad to kill a rabid dog? Is it bad to restrain a lunatic? Maybe your moral dualism is a bit oversimplified, and the problem lies more in establishing consensual rules and institutions that amount largely to external reinforcers of creative self management, or something...
Recorded history was written and edited by those realizing their finiteness and persisting need for eternal glory that their power trained them to attribute to their merit above all others. I would throw a scientific fresh eye on “recorded” history
doing socialism and striving for communism is as good as it gets. i don't care if it's temporary for as long as we can suppress the sociopaths. i'd at least try to learn from every past failure, because what else is there?
I’m not arguing for expansion. I’m arguing for redesign and enforcement. And that society begin to take seriously the behaviors that indicate a person is abusive, etc and that we actually address it.
Sometimes someone being an asshole is an indication of something. Do they have an unmet human need that would solve the problem or are they an abusive person that needs to be confronted. We should probably pay closer attention and intervene.
Being an asshole may be an indication of something, granted. However, under current law, being an asshole is not a crime, so yeah, you're arguing for expansion, or at least a shift in focus.
I was looking at some of the proposed laws that made it seem like being in a toxic relationship is now a crime.
No you don’t have to do anything like that. Geezus. It’s just pattern recognition. Look at what people say and then at what they do. Understand manipulation tactics. It’s not that difficult to recognize once you understand. Then stop allowing that behavior. If they won’t stop they go to prison. It’s pretty simple. Most destructive people leave a trail behind them. There are clear indicators that we just do not currently take seriously because we’ve been groomed for a very long time to look away.
"Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose… one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites—polar opposites—so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love…. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."
That's the Essence of Capitalism - constant, excessive CONCENTRATION of Capital and therefore Power in the hands of a small group (Oligarchy).
***
The Capitalists, through their ownership of the Means of production and Capital which came from the previous exploitation of workers (or just inherited), are thereby in a position to further exploit workers.
***
Look up how many apartments the orange man inherited. Not Earned, inherited.
Blackstone also owns a lot of houses.. Willing to rent you one at a "fair" price.. For life.. 'cause you and your children won't be able to buy one. Hope now you understand why.
So the Rich just keep hoarding the Real Assets (Means of production/Real estate), borrowing money against those assets for their luxurious life in order to avoid any taxation:
"The institution of a leisure class has emerged gradually during the transition from primitive savagery to barbarism; or more precisely, during the transition from a peaceable to a consistently warlike habit of life."
- Thorsten Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, 1899
I would look at it from quite a different angle. The 5 thousand or so years of recorded history proves that hierarchical civilisations don't last. In every case they have collapsed and people return to a more egalitarian mode of existence. The dark ages if you will! But even through the few millenia of the civilisation experiment the large majority of people were not directly under its yoke. Even today there are regions that are successfully living outside of the clutches of centralised power structures and the communities that live outside of the civilised world have developed many strategies to deal with the sociopaths who would try to enslave them.
"We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable - but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings." Ursula K. Le Guin.
The search for justice never ends! The Hind Rajab Foundation is tracking down Israeli criminals, and bringing them to justic. This is vital in the effort to hold Israel accountable. May they also turn their sights on the criminal leaders of the countries of the west who are co-perpetrators of these crimes.
Capitalism builds Empires. Capitalism is like the Highlander maxim: "There can only be one."
"You are about to cross your own rubicon. You are about to walk down from the sterile, mahogany boardrooms of the Dulles brothers and step directly into the mass graves of Guatemala, the flooded villages of the Saamaka, the torture cells of Battalion 3-16, and the blood-mud of the Salvadoran mountains. We will not allow you to observe from the radar panopticon. We will force you to smell the white phosphorus. We will force you to read the exact ledgers where the CIA priced the slaughter of the innocent to fund the logistics of their cocaine pipelines.
"Once you turn this page, the anesthetic of the empire wears off permanently.
"While this series focuses on the so-called “Western Hemisphere,” you will know by its end what is happening around the globe, in Africa, Asia, the Pacific. You can no longer hide behind the polite fictions of the evening news. You can no longer claim that the violence was an anomaly, a bureaucratic misstep, or the tragic byproduct of a noble defense of democracy. You will see the machinery of death operating exactly as it was designed to operate. You will see the “Angel in Public” smiling for the cameras while signing the death warrants for the “Devil in Secret” to execute. You… will see You."
This isn't unique to Capitalism, but Western Eurocentrism generally.
This video helps explain why Western Socialism, Marxism, Communism, etc has the same problem, and we need to be looking at the source for information (and not the version filtered through White Supremacy) to understand alternatives for the future.
I used to think exactly this way. I grew up thinking this way. I struggled, then eventually came good, through determination, hard work and using my skills cleverly. I got to be 'okay', not wealthy. I survived, am surviving, and that's enough for me. 20 years ago I couldn't understand why, if I managed it, others couldn't. Then I woke up.
I think most people end up thinking that way. It’s the mass propaganda system’s aim, after all. Some of us grow out of it. Others, not so much. Same with religion, or the royal family.
My first role, when I passed out of training, was troop commander in Northern Ireland. Maggie was PM. I went, expecting catholics to have cloven feet and pointed tails. The shock of them being, well, normal was my wake up call. However, most of my unit didn’t have the same experience. Even today most of them live in the same paradigm. It’s very sad.
That is sad. You obviously had an open mind and a normal empathy gene.
The start of my wake up was Maggie with the poll tax in Scotland and her subsequent descent into obvious madness. It continued steadily through Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya to Syria, then along with most people, all remaining remnants of illusion died with Gaza.
I can't even engage with anything Gaza-related. It is just too distressing. But some good news - one of my regular gaming buddies has been a true believer in our great capitalist endeavour for the 20 years I have known him. He has started sharing some fairly strongly anti-establishment memes recently so there may be hope for us yet. Or he may just have bumped his head.
Let's hope it's the former...and hang onto that glimmer of hope. The next generation seems to be around 50/50 divided between stuck on their phones shopping for false eyelashes on Amazon, and very switched on.
The concepts "justice" and "fairness' have about as much relevance to the Capitalist as they do to a card sharp about to bluff his way to winning a big pot with a pair of deuces.
Capitalism is the worst economic system ever. Except for all the others. Your analysis, while sounding educated and correct misses an important point. In any “system” there will be winners and losers unless of course everyone is a loser (except for the leaders who rule over their subjects). This capitalist system which you so dislike has raised more people out of the grinding poverty you wish to eliminate than any “system” devised by man and there are reasons for it not the least of which is the freedom it is based upon. You are correct in assuming that I am one of the winners because I favor the market economy that gave me the opportunity to succeed or fail.
This is nonsense. Capitalism pushed many into grinding poverty and gave a few a chance to survive by competing for a minimum wage. This best of the worst idea is also rubbish, because no one knows what the future system will be, provided humanity survives this successor of feudalism, which retains its arrogant class structure while allowing more room for the hypocrisy that characterises the misrule of the self proclaimed " masters of the universe ".Blathering like jesus about an endless supply of losers to console you just shows the extent to which your perceptual system has been subordinated to the master servant relationship behind the fetishisation of private property and the abject and ignorant veneration of " winners", of which the orange sack of dung is the generic refutation of the entire system and its psychotic claims.
Well said again! Thank you for correcting some of the many false narratives of Capitalism that are unfortunately more persistent and propagandized imaginable.
"Capitalism is the worst economic system ever. Except for all the others."
I used to think that. Not anymore. I believe a hybrid of Capitalism and Socialism works better for everyone. Capitalism, turns out - just works out for a relatively few obscenely greedy fucks.
I just don't know how anyone can make any absolutist claims about any system as if time didn't exist. Perhaps its a symptom of the psychosis called capitalist realism.
So many people do this, and I think part of it is tied up with their identity -- they were successful, and everyone else could be if they worked hard enough, despite the economic musical chairs we're all playing.
The super wealthy and those who slam the poor depend on the myth of meritocracy, that the system works equally for everyone, and if you are poverty stricken it is your own fault. It's a myth - a lie, to justify the inhumanity of making others work for your own well-being and taking the lion's share of the profits from their labor, and leaving them (and their families) out to dry.
No socialist familiar with the labor theory of value or the contradiction of the social production and private appropriation of wealth will accuse you of that. Only the false consciousness of the bourgeoisie does that, which tries to occupy every mind, but can never ultimately succeed. A scientific determinist will also point to the huge factor of luck involved in the accumulation of wealth, which would induce some modesty in the wealthy mind if it did not have to be the most bamboozled of the victims of its own fairy tales. But take heart, because the increase in anti commie propaganda shows that serious cracks are beginning to appear in their facade of confidence, and in the end they'll beg to be taxed rather than expropriated. Of course we need a culture of understanding how wealth really is produced, and how it is luck and not merit that is the primary determinant of life situations. So there's a lot to do before taking up armed struggle, which maybe at this stage of development might not even be necessary....?
Capitalism has never been more than a fever dream conjured by David Urquhart and his cut-out Karl Marx. The term does not match the canard that is the crypto-oligarchy we find ourselves in. Start there. False dichotomies are so last century.
The problem is that socialists want to give more power to the government. The same government that is thoroughly corrupted to the core. Where is the plan to give power back to the people? Reduce the size of government and allow entrepreneurs to flourish? Its either fascism (which you confuse with capitalism) or socialism (government controlled economy). If you were advocating for reducing the government criminal class vs increasing their power, I would support you.
The socialists want a government of for and by the people called democracy. The government you refer to is that serving as the managers of capitalism. The false veneration of the entrepreneur is meant to reinforce the lie that Musk and the rest of the Epstein class worked hard to steal their way to the so called top. What is stopping whatever computer geeks from flourishing is not government but big geeks eating little geeks.
You need to do more research into socialism, as at the moment your consciousness is floundering in the tatters it is meant to be in, as designed by the bourgeoisie.
Socialism, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Ligottis' masterpiece of capitalist decay, Metaphysica Morum, means " a whole new context" , in which i presume the individual human consciousness will be free to thrive in the social context that is our element as human beings, and not chained to the stifling specifications of the capitalist exploitative wage system.
>>"The false veneration of the entrepreneur is meant to reinforce the lie that Musk and the rest of the Epstein class worked hard to steal their way to the so called top. What is stopping whatever computer geeks from flourishing is not government but big geeks eating little geeks."
No socialists do not want to give more power to the government. Don’t get caught up with that propaganda. They twist things every which way to confuse people
And Capitalists want no government i.e. no rules or regulations whatsoever. That doesn't work either.
There needs to be a balance. Right now, the balance here in the US has gone completely bonkers - where the Capitalists now control the government and control a rigged economy, that increasingly treats most Americans as economic wage slaves.
But when commerce, finance, and government are merged into one monster, is it the capitalists who control the government, or the government that controls the capitalism? I think the terms "capitalism" and "capitalist" as used in this article and commentary need to be defined.
Oligarchs taking control of government is as old as ancient Greece and was much written about even then. What we have right now in the US is oligarchic control of what is suppose to be an open democracy.
The problem we have right now is not government, but oligarchy. Oligarchs using government as a means to control the population for their own self-serving ends.
Agreed there, but "oligarch" is not necessarily the same concept as "capitalist." We could equally say: The problem we have right now is not capitalism, but oligarchy.
We've moved into a new systemic phase, and I think using this old Marxian term "capitalism" to describe it is producing more confusion than clarity.
We need to be careful of terms. Money evolves naturally from the advantages of division of labor and the inefficiencies of using barter at large scales. So is the use of money “capitalism”, or is capitalism something else? If I pay my neighbor to paint my house, am I a “capitalist”? So, is a free market “capitalism”?
its rather self-evident that issues arise when greed comes together with power or nepotism to create monopolies, or to misuse or privatise public resources, when nepotism or market manipulation or immoral incentives/disincentives or blackmail are engineered to create unfair advantage and disadvantage
you carry on painting your neighbour's house, you're alright
Some systems facilitate greed more than others. Creating or finding a system that facilitates it the least is the objective. A perfect system is not possible. After that, we humans need to work on ourselves.
Or, perhaps an arrangement that recognizes that greed, along with a suite of other common human emotions, is inevitable, and is built to limit its negative outcomes? The greed per se is a fact of life, but opportunities for people to satisfy their greed in ways that harm others might be better minimized under some systemic circumstances than under others.
Ignoring the systems and pointing fingers towards individual humans is individualism, itself a Western European "Enlightenment" ideology that has been spread through settler-colonialism and Empire. -- Systems!
Far too few people examine the social programming they have existed within their entire lives, with Western European individualism, universalism and linear time being like putting on blindfolds and blocking ones ears.
What’s hard for me is deciding how long to speak to an intentionally blind and deaf socially programmed human who has the right heart to go along with a mind that just won’t open…
Within 3D reality there exists scarcity. Greed fosters scarcity. Within 3D reality natural law is in play, applies to everything and everyone, and cannot be changed. The more aligned a system is with natural law, the better. Natural law is not subject to western / eastern / left / right thinking. Be productive and share, or perish.
Well I think we know now what a system that is built entirely on "greed" how it ends up. Luckily, there are other human traits besides just greed. Some of them are actually more productive than "greed" IMO
"...They [socialists] have a reality-based perspective on the abusive nature of the capitalist status quo."
Yes, we do. We see from the outside of the "system" how it doesn't work for all people. We want everyone to have access to the basic necessities of life--food, shelter, healthcare, education, etc. Capitalists are living in Lala-Land thinking that eventually everyone "wins" under their system. There's no evidence that it ever has worked for everyone.
'Capitalists are living in Lala-Land thinking that eventually everyone "wins" under their system.'
That's news to me. I don't see that anyone believes that. What I have heard is "it's the worst system except for all the others." That is, capitalism is the lesser evil. This is their faith.
The capitalism of the 1960's USA was very different from what we have now so who is even to say what capitalism is? I lived in Japan for a while, it's capitalist but I thought it was much nicer than the USA's system. So I avoid using the word and instead focus on individual issues.
You reminded us of the phrase, "it's the worst system except for all the others."
Democracy is where that phrase came from, and this is the first time I've ever seen it used to refeence Capitalism.
We can then have interesting discussions about what constitutes "Democracy", and what non-democratic systems get labelled democratic as a form of social engineering.
I did a thought experiment a few years ago, and surprised myself at the answer I came up with.
I like to think their "reptile" part of their brain has gone completely rogue and grown abnormally large to the point where it hijacked their prefrontal cortex - which greatly diminishes their empathy part of their neurocircuitry.
I don't think any purist system is ideal, capitalist or communist. As has been said there are always the sociopaths that will find ways to abuse either system to their own advantage. That said, I think if we can lose the dogma and recognise that a mixed economy - where utilities and infrastructure are responsibilities of the state and consumer goods left to the market - might be the more sustainable system model.
Here are some complications/considerations with "consumer goods left to the market' proposition -
(1) When it comes to food and health products, who regulates them? (eg. the chemicals contained in them, their acceptable levels of toxicity, and a hundred other issues). Thus, there needs to be 'some organization' that necessarily needs to regulate the industry of 'consumer goods' - if only for the safety of all involved.
(2) Similarly, on the same logic, there needs to be regulation in almost EVERY industry/sphere/domain (one example here - technology goods (social media, AI, internet, etc.)) - unless you are going to suggest that "AI consumer goods/services' should not be regulated or 'regulated by the very industry that creates this technology and the goods and services in the first place'.
It's not a clear-cut distinction/separation like "X is state regulated, Y is market regulated" - the reality of modern life is much more complicated and intertwined.
There are no answers, not capitalism, kot socialism, not hunter-gather society, only ad hoc expedients which at best prove temporary. After some 5,000 years of recorded human history, we can find examples of every type of human society that proves successful for a time, and ultimately all of them fail, whether as a result of external enemies who are stronger and more ruthless, or internal corruption and contradiction.
This is because power is to sociopaths what catnip is to cats, and sociopaths will corrupt any system, because sociopaths are precisely the humans who will do whatever it takes to get power. However, humans who see every interaction as a zero-sum no-holds-barred winner-take-all game rarely build anything that lasts for long, because the sociopath is loyal to nothing other than himself, he will either betray or be betrayed by another sociopath. Note how european dynasties rarely lasted for long.
Even turning one's back on power doesn't work. That power is still there, and even if you do not use it, others will. And you may not like what they do with that power.
At the same time, power continually increases with humans' technical knowledge. Feats that would have been too loopy for science fiction are now unremarkable. This is why, with all due respect to MLK, the arc of history does not bend towards justice. It bends towards power.
Learn well The Iron Law Of Oligarchy.
“The essence of oligarchical rule is the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living.” George Orwell
Some societies collapse faster than others. Maybe, instead of turning backs on power, it might be more useful to educate people differently. We are all educated to believe that if we work hard and follow the rules we will get what we need and what we want. Maybe that needs to change. Maybe we need to be educated to understand that constantly attaining more money and power is not a positive. Societies in and of themselves are not failures. It is the money grubbers entering the picture that causes the failure.
What is needed in the Educational system is: schools and kids helping in their neighbourhoods. The kids would learn more about life than sitting in a classroom all week learning next to nothing.
Guess why schools had been imposed on us in the fist place.
I would say most of us know on this site know the reason BUT you presume that all schools all over the world are the same as US schools..
Is it bad to learn Geography for instance. My daughter learned NO Geography in the US. Sri Lanka had a better system of education than the US.
an educational start.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IIlpN67l6o
Education isn't much of a solution, either. All you get are more educated sociopaths. See, e.g., Renaissance Italy. Cesare Borgia was no dummy.
We are not going to find a complete solution right away. We need to start somewhere. Just saying nothing will work may be correct, but for me, we need to try. Nothing will change, for sure, if we don't try to educate ourselves, if we don't look further into the situation. You have let them get to you feral. You have drank the kool aid.
Humans should try, but keep in mind that anything they do is a temporary expedient at best.
Otherwise, don't presume to read my mind.
I don't think you want a solution, Feral.
What I want has nothing to do with it. Reality is indifferent to you, me and to anything you or I may want.
See, e.g., the rulers of today's Europe.
What you say is broadly true, human nature being what it is. But some societies are more humane than others, and that can persist for many generations in some cases. In the western world, Scandinavian countries existed happily as social democratic societies for a decent period of time, until the capitalists took over. Sigh.
Has there ever been a time when tribes or countries were not frequently at war? You'd be hard pressed to find one even in the most remote places where capitalism did not exist.
I completely disagree with you. Not the about the power aspect, but the claim that there is no solution. That smacks of nihilism. I will continue to support the struggle for socialism and that is the hill I will die on.
Nihilism arises out of a certain social situation. It is not the objective take on reality that it claims to be.
Our own village - about 600 souls - works according to a "primitive communism", "hunter gatherer society", call it what you will. People share what they have and look after each other. They have private lives, but come together as whanau (family) on the marae (community meeting space), whare kai (communal eating hall) and at the kura (school). If we have any sociopaths, they are well hidden. Consequently, I am not a nihilist. Nor do I have to struggle for socialism. I enjoy the benefits of a sensible and humane social order. The world beyond our valley is not looking too great right now, but I my own experience of life tells me that there is a way forward.
So long as there is the project for socialism, nihilism is a leap of faith, an unwarranted inference, so who is going to do that? But if you think capitalism is the triumphant end of history, and it is what it is, cosmic pessimism would be more appropriate even than nihilism. But because reality is change, and there is a case even to be made for some form of historical inevitably of socialism under the right conditions that need be actively achieved, and if you aren't too damaged, there's a lot to learn and do without needing an absolute philosophical verdict on the nature of existence. So socialism is a necessity of human being slowly working itself out through the horrors of the current system, and there is no conclusive cause for despair.
Or?
Well, that settles it, then. You otherwise appear to be arguing from consequences.
Ah, I see. You are a total misanthrope. Unreachable. I suppose it's easy when you give up so you can lecture others from your position of not caring.
When did I say that I don't care? I simply question whether there are any one-size fits all permanent solutions to the human condition. Pointing out that the law of entropy limits activity doesn't mean that I hate people.
Power in the 21st century is bleak I’ll give you that FF. Retain some room for optimism though. There are way more of us good people than the current crop of power brokers. Who knows, some huge paradigm shift may come.
There always are more normies than sociopaths, just as there usually are more sheep than shepherds.
The human problem is simple and repeatedly results in our current condition: Good people are only willing to do good things to try and stop bad people. Bad people are quite capable of enduring all the good things good people do to try and stop them.
And bad people are quite willing to do bad things in order to get whatever they want. Good people are not willing to do the bad things that are necessary to stop bad people from doing bad things to them.
So bad people end up ruling over good people who only do good things to try and stop them. This will remain a fact of life until good people are willing to do the bad things that are necessary to stop bad people.
Little point FF, you speak with great authority.
I am not in love with my own words. If I am wrong, explain, so that I understand.
Over simplistic FF.
OK, explain.
And then we all go to heaven? :-)
Well, dumbass humans are always yammering about "karma" but the Hindus had to invent reincarnation, because there is no justice in this lifetime.
Is it bad to kill a rabid dog? Is it bad to restrain a lunatic? Maybe your moral dualism is a bit oversimplified, and the problem lies more in establishing consensual rules and institutions that amount largely to external reinforcers of creative self management, or something...
Not sure how that follows from what I wrote.
Bleak but true!
Recorded history was written and edited by those realizing their finiteness and persisting need for eternal glory that their power trained them to attribute to their merit above all others. I would throw a scientific fresh eye on “recorded” history
History is written by the winners. Fair enough.
doing socialism and striving for communism is as good as it gets. i don't care if it's temporary for as long as we can suppress the sociopaths. i'd at least try to learn from every past failure, because what else is there?
So your saying the answer is to find and imprison all sociopaths. Sounds like they are unable to be apart of society and we need to deal with them.
Do you imprison someone for pre-crime? That's an honest question.
Anyway, even if one does, I am not aware of any reliable test for sociopathy, and clever sociopaths can fake empathy.
I’m not arguing for expansion. I’m arguing for redesign and enforcement. And that society begin to take seriously the behaviors that indicate a person is abusive, etc and that we actually address it.
Sometimes someone being an asshole is an indication of something. Do they have an unmet human need that would solve the problem or are they an abusive person that needs to be confronted. We should probably pay closer attention and intervene.
Being an asshole may be an indication of something, granted. However, under current law, being an asshole is not a crime, so yeah, you're arguing for expansion, or at least a shift in focus.
I was looking at some of the proposed laws that made it seem like being in a toxic relationship is now a crime.
No you don’t have to do anything like that. Geezus. It’s just pattern recognition. Look at what people say and then at what they do. Understand manipulation tactics. It’s not that difficult to recognize once you understand. Then stop allowing that behavior. If they won’t stop they go to prison. It’s pretty simple. Most destructive people leave a trail behind them. There are clear indicators that we just do not currently take seriously because we’ve been groomed for a very long time to look away.
So you're imprisoning people on basically a hunch. Or for being assholes, without any other crime.
Who decides this?
The lesser narcissists are not much better. I wrote an article on the subject: https://isaiahantares.substack.com/p/one-in-ten-thousand
"Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose… one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites—polar opposites—so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love…. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."
~Martin Luther King Jr
Your a great Cat!
That's the Essence of Capitalism - constant, excessive CONCENTRATION of Capital and therefore Power in the hands of a small group (Oligarchy).
***
The Capitalists, through their ownership of the Means of production and Capital which came from the previous exploitation of workers (or just inherited), are thereby in a position to further exploit workers.
***
Look up how many apartments the orange man inherited. Not Earned, inherited.
Blackstone also owns a lot of houses.. Willing to rent you one at a "fair" price.. For life.. 'cause you and your children won't be able to buy one. Hope now you understand why.
youtube.com/watch?v=2e6iFp4KHj8
youtube.com/watch?v=7Zi3jL-C8I0
***
So the Rich just keep hoarding the Real Assets (Means of production/Real estate), borrowing money against those assets for their luxurious life in order to avoid any taxation:
youtu.be/aLKacgW6YOI?t=181
***
The richest people have the smallest tax rate:
youtube.com/shorts/eiSZt4_rgCk
"The institution of a leisure class has emerged gradually during the transition from primitive savagery to barbarism; or more precisely, during the transition from a peaceable to a consistently warlike habit of life."
- Thorsten Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, 1899
bgsp.edu/app/uploads/2014/12/Veblen-Theory-of-the-Leisure-Class.pdf
so explain China.
OK, then why hasn't evil ruled the world ever since the dawn of time?
I explained above.
<fill in sarcastic comment>
I would look at it from quite a different angle. The 5 thousand or so years of recorded history proves that hierarchical civilisations don't last. In every case they have collapsed and people return to a more egalitarian mode of existence. The dark ages if you will! But even through the few millenia of the civilisation experiment the large majority of people were not directly under its yoke. Even today there are regions that are successfully living outside of the clutches of centralised power structures and the communities that live outside of the civilised world have developed many strategies to deal with the sociopaths who would try to enslave them.
"We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable - but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings." Ursula K. Le Guin.
If you look at the last 5,000 or so years of human history, I'd conclude that non-hierarchical civilizations don't last.
And cats are famously resistant to being told what to do.
But cats have built a wonderful and warm and fuzzy civilization being anarchists, IMO.
It's not a "civilization" excactly. That's the beauty of it.
The search for justice never ends! The Hind Rajab Foundation is tracking down Israeli criminals, and bringing them to justic. This is vital in the effort to hold Israel accountable. May they also turn their sights on the criminal leaders of the countries of the west who are co-perpetrators of these crimes.
Find out what they’re doing here:
https://www.hindrajabfoundation.org
The least we can do is donate to help them:
Support the Hind Rajab Foundation
https://donate.stripe.com/cN228hbY5g7jaM84gg
Rest In Power Hind Rajab
Capitalism builds Empires. Capitalism is like the Highlander maxim: "There can only be one."
"You are about to cross your own rubicon. You are about to walk down from the sterile, mahogany boardrooms of the Dulles brothers and step directly into the mass graves of Guatemala, the flooded villages of the Saamaka, the torture cells of Battalion 3-16, and the blood-mud of the Salvadoran mountains. We will not allow you to observe from the radar panopticon. We will force you to smell the white phosphorus. We will force you to read the exact ledgers where the CIA priced the slaughter of the innocent to fund the logistics of their cocaine pipelines.
"Once you turn this page, the anesthetic of the empire wears off permanently.
"While this series focuses on the so-called “Western Hemisphere,” you will know by its end what is happening around the globe, in Africa, Asia, the Pacific. You can no longer hide behind the polite fictions of the evening news. You can no longer claim that the violence was an anomaly, a bureaucratic misstep, or the tragic byproduct of a noble defense of democracy. You will see the machinery of death operating exactly as it was designed to operate. You will see the “Angel in Public” smiling for the cameras while signing the death warrants for the “Devil in Secret” to execute. You… will see You."
https://griobhtha1.substack.com/p/hemisphere-of-plunder-foreward-or
Capitalism and white supremacy are joined at the hip.
This isn't unique to Capitalism, but Western Eurocentrism generally.
This video helps explain why Western Socialism, Marxism, Communism, etc has the same problem, and we need to be looking at the source for information (and not the version filtered through White Supremacy) to understand alternatives for the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBFvxkvpi2w
I used to think exactly this way. I grew up thinking this way. I struggled, then eventually came good, through determination, hard work and using my skills cleverly. I got to be 'okay', not wealthy. I survived, am surviving, and that's enough for me. 20 years ago I couldn't understand why, if I managed it, others couldn't. Then I woke up.
I think most people end up thinking that way. It’s the mass propaganda system’s aim, after all. Some of us grow out of it. Others, not so much. Same with religion, or the royal family.
My first role, when I passed out of training, was troop commander in Northern Ireland. Maggie was PM. I went, expecting catholics to have cloven feet and pointed tails. The shock of them being, well, normal was my wake up call. However, most of my unit didn’t have the same experience. Even today most of them live in the same paradigm. It’s very sad.
That is sad. You obviously had an open mind and a normal empathy gene.
The start of my wake up was Maggie with the poll tax in Scotland and her subsequent descent into obvious madness. It continued steadily through Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya to Syria, then along with most people, all remaining remnants of illusion died with Gaza.
I can't even engage with anything Gaza-related. It is just too distressing. But some good news - one of my regular gaming buddies has been a true believer in our great capitalist endeavour for the 20 years I have known him. He has started sharing some fairly strongly anti-establishment memes recently so there may be hope for us yet. Or he may just have bumped his head.
Let's hope it's the former...and hang onto that glimmer of hope. The next generation seems to be around 50/50 divided between stuck on their phones shopping for false eyelashes on Amazon, and very switched on.
The concepts "justice" and "fairness' have about as much relevance to the Capitalist as they do to a card sharp about to bluff his way to winning a big pot with a pair of deuces.
Capitalism is the worst economic system ever. Except for all the others. Your analysis, while sounding educated and correct misses an important point. In any “system” there will be winners and losers unless of course everyone is a loser (except for the leaders who rule over their subjects). This capitalist system which you so dislike has raised more people out of the grinding poverty you wish to eliminate than any “system” devised by man and there are reasons for it not the least of which is the freedom it is based upon. You are correct in assuming that I am one of the winners because I favor the market economy that gave me the opportunity to succeed or fail.
This is nonsense. Capitalism pushed many into grinding poverty and gave a few a chance to survive by competing for a minimum wage. This best of the worst idea is also rubbish, because no one knows what the future system will be, provided humanity survives this successor of feudalism, which retains its arrogant class structure while allowing more room for the hypocrisy that characterises the misrule of the self proclaimed " masters of the universe ".Blathering like jesus about an endless supply of losers to console you just shows the extent to which your perceptual system has been subordinated to the master servant relationship behind the fetishisation of private property and the abject and ignorant veneration of " winners", of which the orange sack of dung is the generic refutation of the entire system and its psychotic claims.
Well said again! Thank you for correcting some of the many false narratives of Capitalism that are unfortunately more persistent and propagandized imaginable.
"Capitalism is the worst economic system ever. Except for all the others."
I used to think that. Not anymore. I believe a hybrid of Capitalism and Socialism works better for everyone. Capitalism, turns out - just works out for a relatively few obscenely greedy fucks.
ps: Privatization is a scam.
I just don't know how anyone can make any absolutist claims about any system as if time didn't exist. Perhaps its a symptom of the psychosis called capitalist realism.
Well - we have to pick some direction to go. Or what's the point in any of it?
It's all about The Benjamin$. Make Palestine Again. U$A and others are Zio Controlled. $hut It Down.
So many people do this, and I think part of it is tied up with their identity -- they were successful, and everyone else could be if they worked hard enough, despite the economic musical chairs we're all playing.
It's a kind of willful blindness.
The classic example of this is when you suggest: "Tax the rich".
You are accused of wanting to "punish" the successful people who have "worked hard".
The super wealthy and those who slam the poor depend on the myth of meritocracy, that the system works equally for everyone, and if you are poverty stricken it is your own fault. It's a myth - a lie, to justify the inhumanity of making others work for your own well-being and taking the lion's share of the profits from their labor, and leaving them (and their families) out to dry.
No socialist familiar with the labor theory of value or the contradiction of the social production and private appropriation of wealth will accuse you of that. Only the false consciousness of the bourgeoisie does that, which tries to occupy every mind, but can never ultimately succeed. A scientific determinist will also point to the huge factor of luck involved in the accumulation of wealth, which would induce some modesty in the wealthy mind if it did not have to be the most bamboozled of the victims of its own fairy tales. But take heart, because the increase in anti commie propaganda shows that serious cracks are beginning to appear in their facade of confidence, and in the end they'll beg to be taxed rather than expropriated. Of course we need a culture of understanding how wealth really is produced, and how it is luck and not merit that is the primary determinant of life situations. So there's a lot to do before taking up armed struggle, which maybe at this stage of development might not even be necessary....?
Capitalism has never been more than a fever dream conjured by David Urquhart and his cut-out Karl Marx. The term does not match the canard that is the crypto-oligarchy we find ourselves in. Start there. False dichotomies are so last century.
The problem is that socialists want to give more power to the government. The same government that is thoroughly corrupted to the core. Where is the plan to give power back to the people? Reduce the size of government and allow entrepreneurs to flourish? Its either fascism (which you confuse with capitalism) or socialism (government controlled economy). If you were advocating for reducing the government criminal class vs increasing their power, I would support you.
The socialists want a government of for and by the people called democracy. The government you refer to is that serving as the managers of capitalism. The false veneration of the entrepreneur is meant to reinforce the lie that Musk and the rest of the Epstein class worked hard to steal their way to the so called top. What is stopping whatever computer geeks from flourishing is not government but big geeks eating little geeks.
You need to do more research into socialism, as at the moment your consciousness is floundering in the tatters it is meant to be in, as designed by the bourgeoisie.
Socialism, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Ligottis' masterpiece of capitalist decay, Metaphysica Morum, means " a whole new context" , in which i presume the individual human consciousness will be free to thrive in the social context that is our element as human beings, and not chained to the stifling specifications of the capitalist exploitative wage system.
Well said, 'poetry aside' - I love your response!
>>"The false veneration of the entrepreneur is meant to reinforce the lie that Musk and the rest of the Epstein class worked hard to steal their way to the so called top. What is stopping whatever computer geeks from flourishing is not government but big geeks eating little geeks."
🎯💯
No socialists do not want to give more power to the government. Don’t get caught up with that propaganda. They twist things every which way to confuse people
And Capitalists want no government i.e. no rules or regulations whatsoever. That doesn't work either.
There needs to be a balance. Right now, the balance here in the US has gone completely bonkers - where the Capitalists now control the government and control a rigged economy, that increasingly treats most Americans as economic wage slaves.
But when commerce, finance, and government are merged into one monster, is it the capitalists who control the government, or the government that controls the capitalism? I think the terms "capitalism" and "capitalist" as used in this article and commentary need to be defined.
Oligarchs taking control of government is as old as ancient Greece and was much written about even then. What we have right now in the US is oligarchic control of what is suppose to be an open democracy.
The problem we have right now is not government, but oligarchy. Oligarchs using government as a means to control the population for their own self-serving ends.
Agreed there, but "oligarch" is not necessarily the same concept as "capitalist." We could equally say: The problem we have right now is not capitalism, but oligarchy.
We've moved into a new systemic phase, and I think using this old Marxian term "capitalism" to describe it is producing more confusion than clarity.
We need to be careful of terms. Money evolves naturally from the advantages of division of labor and the inefficiencies of using barter at large scales. So is the use of money “capitalism”, or is capitalism something else? If I pay my neighbor to paint my house, am I a “capitalist”? So, is a free market “capitalism”?
you're over-simplify a tad too much
its rather self-evident that issues arise when greed comes together with power or nepotism to create monopolies, or to misuse or privatise public resources, when nepotism or market manipulation or immoral incentives/disincentives or blackmail are engineered to create unfair advantage and disadvantage
you carry on painting your neighbour's house, you're alright
So the true issue is greed, yes? Don’t blame the system, blame the humans. Without greed any system would work.
Some systems facilitate greed more than others. Creating or finding a system that facilitates it the least is the objective. A perfect system is not possible. After that, we humans need to work on ourselves.
Or, perhaps an arrangement that recognizes that greed, along with a suite of other common human emotions, is inevitable, and is built to limit its negative outcomes? The greed per se is a fact of life, but opportunities for people to satisfy their greed in ways that harm others might be better minimized under some systemic circumstances than under others.
Ignoring the systems and pointing fingers towards individual humans is individualism, itself a Western European "Enlightenment" ideology that has been spread through settler-colonialism and Empire. -- Systems!
Far too few people examine the social programming they have existed within their entire lives, with Western European individualism, universalism and linear time being like putting on blindfolds and blocking ones ears.
What’s hard for me is deciding how long to speak to an intentionally blind and deaf socially programmed human who has the right heart to go along with a mind that just won’t open…
Within 3D reality there exists scarcity. Greed fosters scarcity. Within 3D reality natural law is in play, applies to everything and everyone, and cannot be changed. The more aligned a system is with natural law, the better. Natural law is not subject to western / eastern / left / right thinking. Be productive and share, or perish.
Well I think we know now what a system that is built entirely on "greed" how it ends up. Luckily, there are other human traits besides just greed. Some of them are actually more productive than "greed" IMO
Isn't that the whole point that's being made? That the best pragmatic system would reflect equity and fairness, and caring for all?
What's the point you're trying to make? Is there a point?
Stop gazing at your navel, Mr. Clinton.
Ad hominem attacks are not helpful and lack class.
You masturbate in a comments section, with stuff like ‘don’t blame the system, blame humans’, you’re going to get called out. Deal with it.
As to class, I’m comfortable when compared to a capitalist system simp, as far as class status goes.
Blocked
"...They [socialists] have a reality-based perspective on the abusive nature of the capitalist status quo."
Yes, we do. We see from the outside of the "system" how it doesn't work for all people. We want everyone to have access to the basic necessities of life--food, shelter, healthcare, education, etc. Capitalists are living in Lala-Land thinking that eventually everyone "wins" under their system. There's no evidence that it ever has worked for everyone.
'Capitalists are living in Lala-Land thinking that eventually everyone "wins" under their system.'
That's news to me. I don't see that anyone believes that. What I have heard is "it's the worst system except for all the others." That is, capitalism is the lesser evil. This is their faith.
The capitalism of the 1960's USA was very different from what we have now so who is even to say what capitalism is? I lived in Japan for a while, it's capitalist but I thought it was much nicer than the USA's system. So I avoid using the word and instead focus on individual issues.
You reminded us of the phrase, "it's the worst system except for all the others."
Democracy is where that phrase came from, and this is the first time I've ever seen it used to refeence Capitalism.
We can then have interesting discussions about what constitutes "Democracy", and what non-democratic systems get labelled democratic as a form of social engineering.
I did a thought experiment a few years ago, and surprised myself at the answer I came up with.
Is Canada a democracy?
https://r.flora.ca/p/canadian-democracy
I like to think their "reptile" part of their brain has gone completely rogue and grown abnormally large to the point where it hijacked their prefrontal cortex - which greatly diminishes their empathy part of their neurocircuitry.
I don't think any purist system is ideal, capitalist or communist. As has been said there are always the sociopaths that will find ways to abuse either system to their own advantage. That said, I think if we can lose the dogma and recognise that a mixed economy - where utilities and infrastructure are responsibilities of the state and consumer goods left to the market - might be the more sustainable system model.
Here are some complications/considerations with "consumer goods left to the market' proposition -
(1) When it comes to food and health products, who regulates them? (eg. the chemicals contained in them, their acceptable levels of toxicity, and a hundred other issues). Thus, there needs to be 'some organization' that necessarily needs to regulate the industry of 'consumer goods' - if only for the safety of all involved.
(2) Similarly, on the same logic, there needs to be regulation in almost EVERY industry/sphere/domain (one example here - technology goods (social media, AI, internet, etc.)) - unless you are going to suggest that "AI consumer goods/services' should not be regulated or 'regulated by the very industry that creates this technology and the goods and services in the first place'.
It's not a clear-cut distinction/separation like "X is state regulated, Y is market regulated" - the reality of modern life is much more complicated and intertwined.