I will be stepping down in ~7-14 days any suggestions on how to find someone that could take care of this community better than me? Thank you.
It’s not a bug that capitalism is based on greed, it’s a feature. It works (relatively speaking) because it leverages humanity’s shittyness.
Communism has failed to operate without corruption or authoritarianism, because it depends on people actually giving a shit about each other long term.
Has capitalism operated without corruption or authoritarianism?
has any economic system ever operated without corruption?
that's a fair question. it seems like corruption is universal to all systems of organization and therefore not a good measure of the validity of any given system
In a way: when you legalize the most common forms of corruption and gaslight people into thinking of your favorite kinds of authoritarianism as normal and necessary, suddenly you don't officially have a problem!
That's how the US and many other supposedly free and uncorrupted capitalist nations do it, anyway.
A note: Most countries subsidise their farmers because those countries realise that leaving food security up to the market is a bad idea.
under communism, food is only produced because the central planning committee set a quota for it. unfortunately, distribution requires resources the central planning committee did not account for and the foodstuffs rot in the fields.
Capitalism is on of the worst thing happening to humanity. :( It promotes greed and punishes people who aren't greedy. It makes more problem than it answering problems.
And yet people are saying that the system isn't the problem but people. When it's the system that creates and promotes those people.
Those people are correct. Capitalism is a reflection of our collective misery. Look at how many people are on anti-depressants today, how many are suffering from mental health issues. Our ability to engineer the world to our advantage is not the problem here, that is something human beings are extremely good at. The problem is that we lack the ability to engineer ourselves.
Can confirm. I'm on disability and cannot afford food and medication and bills at the same time. My Internet will be cut later this month because I did the crime of paying for my medication so I didn't want to kill myself. I am starving but at least I didn't feel like my soul was being drained.
It's just depressing that if I want to feel slightly okay I have to not eat for days so I can justify getting my medication. Or dumpster diving to supplement food, which I'm gonna be doing in a couple hours.
Life is suffering and I'm tired of it.
The gains from capitalism have dropped the costs to produce foods to previously unheard of levels. The productivity of a modern farm is incredible compared to farms of 25, 50, 100 years ago. The amount of labor and land needed to produce the food humanity needs has dropped considerably.
I realize these are not the statements that people posting here want to read, but that's reality. Take the good with the bad because regular capitalism is not bad. Unfettered capitalism is the problem.
But that's not because of capitalism, that's because of technological advances. We have centuries of technological advances in agriculture before we even had proto capitalism. There's no reason to believe those advances wouldn't have happened under any other economic system.
technology advances because people in power pay for it. it doesn't passively increase.
societies eventually stagnate without capital investments into technology.
You do realize that we have roughly 3-4 millenias of technological advancements, before we even invented early capitalist theory? The vast majority of human history contradicts your statement.
Absolutely false no matter how much you want to believe otherwise. Capitalism brings about the motivation to improve efficiency unlike anything else.
Well, those yield gains are from capitalism subsidized with government-sponsored ag research at hundreds of college campuses, and subsidized by intellectual property protections for patents and copyrights, and government price supports, and government crop insurance, and government land-bank programs to pay farmers to not overuse the land, and ag labor subsidized by special exemptions for minimum wage and citizenship verifications, as well as tight border controls and political vilification of the immigrant labor force to keep the wages low.
But yeah, when society throws enough money into capitalism and soaks up the external costs, it sometimes delivers results.
In short, modern US agriculture is hardly a good example of either unfettered markets or unfettered capitalism. Big US ag is privatized profits and socialized losses, like a lot of other US industry, albeit with much better PR than (for instance) the banking industry.
During the pandemic I watched grocery stores buy poison to dump on their trash, which they paid armed people to guard. They then paid other people to haul it away. All this to prevent poor people from taking it away for free.
A community for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles.
Active stats from all instances
Subscribers: 2.9k
Date Created: June 15, 2023
Date Updated: July 17, 2023
Start here! These are probably the most talked-about essays on the topic.
Tap or click to expand
1. Server Main Rules
The main rules of the server will be enforced stringently. https://lemmy.fmhy.ml/
2. No spam or reposts + limit off topic comments
Spamming posts will be removed. Reposts will be removed with the exception of a repost becoming the main hub for discussion on that topic.
Off topic comments that do not pertain to the post at hand may be removed if it is deemed they contribute nothing and/or foster hostility at users. This mostly applies to political and religious debate, but can be applied to other things at the mod’s discretion.
3. Post must have Antiwork/ Work Reform explicitly involved
Post must have Antiwork/Work Reform explicitly involved in some capacity. This can be talking about antiwork, work reform, laws, and ext.
4. Educate don’t attack
No mocking, demeaning, flamebaiting, purposeful antagonizing, trolling, hateful language, false accusation or allegation, or backseat moderating is allowed. Don’t resort to ad hominem attacks against another user or insult other people, examples of violations would be going after the person rather than the stance they take.
If we feel the comment is uncalled for we will remove it. Stay civil and there won’t be problems.
5. No Advertising
Under no circumstance are you allowed to promote or advertise any product or service
6. No factually misleading information
Content that makes claims or implications that can be proven false or misleading will be removed.
7. Headlines
If the title of the post isn’t an original title of the article then the first thing in the body of the post should be an original title written in this format “Original title: {title here}”.
8. Staff Discretion
Staff can take disciplinary action on offenses not listed in the rules when a community member's actions or general conduct creates a negative experience for another player and/or the community.
It is impossible to list every example or variation of the rules. It is also impossible to word everything perfectly. Players are expected to understand the intent of the rules and not attempt to "toe the line" or use loopholes to get around the intent of the rule.
