Current Events > Remember kids, capitalism is perfect and has never killed anyone ever.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Only communism has killed people. Capitalism is absolutely flawless and nobody has ever died from being unable to afford food or medical treatments.

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Remember also, everything less than perfection is equally failure.

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Not sure what point you're trying to make here.

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DevsBro posted...

Remember also, everything less than perfection is equally failure.

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yeah no one ever dies in a war for resources

your side isn't what you think it is!: the topic

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Have we already forgotten the utter devastation of the Cola Wars?

Questionmarktarius posted...

Have we already forgotten the utter devastation of the Cola Wars?

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Dr. Pepper Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

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Capitalism didn't make them unable to afford it. You guys need to drop the notion that you are entitled to wealth just for being alive.

The world starts off as nothing, and you go get resources. People create goods and services to trade. You don't have some magic birth tokens that the rich stole from you.


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there is no alternative to capitalism. capital is a fundamental substratum of human existence. we are not sufficiently advanced as a species to do away with capital; we are too advanced as a species to do away with capital.

even communism deal in capital. so does anarchism. it's always been around in the same way globalism has been around.

i know you're refering to liberal economics but yea, minor nitpick.

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For someone so pro-status quo, this is a weird topic to make.

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

even communism deal in capital. so does anarchism. it's always been around in the same way globalism has been around.

Scarcity doesn't really have any solution, just various theories of management.

Squall28 posted...

Capitalism didn't make them unable to afford it

Of course it did, by design there are a large number of people who live in squalor that's just how capitalism works.

Squall28 posted...

You don't have some magic birth tokens that the rich stole from you.

Without a substantial estate tax there may as well be

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Questionmarktarius posted...

Scarcity doesn't really have any solution, just various theories of management.

it's doesn't have a practical (read: profitable) solution. if private citizens could plunder corporate wealth in the same way corporations plunder the planet and citizenry, there would probably be more equality economically.

you hate to see it, i guess, but the only solution to global poverty would be a planned and concerted effort to end it, which is essentially communistic at the most basic level. ironically this would also give a shitton of people jobs and something worthwhile to do, but it's fucking hard and people might lose money as a result so why bother.

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IMNOTRAGED posted...

Of course it did, by design there are a large number of people who live in squalor that's just how capitalism works.

Capitalism "by design" is just letting the world be. Like animals in the wild. If one tiger dies from starvation because it is a bad hunter, you don't say capitalism caused his death because the better tigers didn't share their catches with him.

If you have no laws and regulations, capitalism comes up naturally.

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

you hate to see it, i guess, but the only solution to global poverty would be a planned and concerted effort to end it, which is essentially communistic at the most basic level.

Were we to somehow liquidate the wealth of the entire planet, and equally distribute the resulting $37000 or so each to everyone, we'd be right back to rampant weath disparity within a decade.

Capitalism is flawed but is the only economic solution that won't cause mass oppression and 200+ million dead.
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Hop103 posted...

Capitalism is flawed but is the only economic solution that won't cause mass oppression and 200+ million dead.

...not as quickly, anyway.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Were we to somehow liquidate the wealth of the entire planet, and equally distribute the resulting $37000 or so each to everyone, we'd be right back to rampant weath disparity within a decade.

i am talking more about infrastructure and housing, not necessarily equally distributing the sum total of wealth. i'm not saying everyone has to make an equal amount of money, in fact i'm more or less fine with wealth disparity (though i am less fine with property disparity, i think it's a shame that land ownership is kind of a non-concept these days, but there are a lot more people...). it would be nice if everyone had a cell phone, clean water, and a toilet. it's doable.

in terms of food, this sounds fucking crazy but i think the concept of food needs to be done away with entirely. humans have a very intimate relationship with food and it is the backbone of many cultures, sure, but how we are not all subsisting on efficiently produced powder or pills in 2020 is beyond me.

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

in terms of food, this sounds fucking crazy but i think the concept of food needs to be done away with entirely. humans have a very intimate relationship with food and it is the backbone of many cultures, sure, but how we not all subsisting on efficiently produced powder or pills in 2020 is beyond me.

now we're getting somewhere
abolish food

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

but how we not all subsisting on efficiently produced powder or pills in 2020 is beyond me

You expect fatass americans to not eat those pills by the handful?

TheGreatGeno6 posted...

nobody has ever died from being unable to afford food or medical treatments.

Capitalism didn't invent scarcity.

Socialism is to economics what flat earth is to science.

goddammit. communism is not about equal distribution of wealth, and the idea that it is is a completely idiotic strawman argument.

it's about having societal mechanisms in place to ensure that everyone has their needs met, and to prevent accumulation of wealth

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averagejoel posted...

to prevent accumulation of wealth

Yeah that's the problem in all this. We need to find a way to keep everyone poor!

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Squall28 posted...

We need to find a way to keep everyone poor!

A couple of German aristocrats worked that out about 170 years ago.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf

Hop103 posted...

Capitalism is flawed but is the only economic solution that won't cause mass oppression and 200+ million dead.

Tell that to the victims of US imperialism

Squall28 posted...

If you have no laws and regulations, capitalism comes up naturally.

Capitalism exists because there are laws and regulations that say that private property exist. Whether it comes into existence naturally or not is irrelevant.

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IMNOTRAGED posted...

Capitalism exists because there are laws and regulations that say that private property exist.

Private property has existed since the first caveman decided to be a man in a cave.

i hate capitalism and blame it for all the wrongs in the world / my life
i won't consider relocation to a place with a better system, like venezuela or sweden

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Scarcity is artificial

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-offshore-wealth-idUSBRE86L03U20120722

inb4 they can't spend it all: Because the system is built around fake scarcity

Rexdragon125 posted...

Scarcity is artificial

lmao what does this even mean

The Trent posted...

now we're getting somewhere
abolish food

i just ate a fish salad, it was pretty good

but i'd be happier if i was subsisting off space powder

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

i just ate a fish salad, it was pretty good

but i'd be happier if i was subsisting off space powder

uh definitely abolish fish salad wtf

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Communism has a pretty damn high death count.

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Solid Snake07 posted...

Communism has a pretty damn high death count.

i think you mean to say industrialization, urbanization and modernization have pretty high death counts. it's pretty hard to separate a lot of communist nations historically from those concepts. by and large capitalist nations had slaves and empires which took the brunt of the brutality.

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cathbol gang rise up

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

i think you mean to say industrialization, urbanization and modernization have pretty high death counts. it's pretty hard to separate a lot of communist nations historically from those concepts. by and large capitalist nations had slaves and empires which took the brunt of the brutality.

No I mean a lot of communist uprisings directly resulted in millions of deaths in the form of executions and starvation

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Humans kill each other.
Through governments and systems of commerce, we try to pick systems that kill the least. Capitalism has brought humanity's greatest growth. Communism has brought about some of the largest bouts of death the world has ever seen, even more than a literal genocide attempt. There are major issues with how it is expressed, but it fundamentally surpasses any other system we've tried so far.

Solid Snake07 posted...

No I mean a lot of communist uprisings directly resulted in millions of deaths in the form of executions and starvation

yeah, that is true. and it's quite tragic. but guess what the endgame was for all of those deaths and executions? modern states with urban centers and strong industrial bases. it's literally the atheistic communist ideal. but feel free to miss the forest for the trees if you want.

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-offshore-wealth-idUSBRE86L03U20120722
Super rich hold $32 trillion in offshore havens

Something I will never understand: the idiotic self-harm billionaires inflict upon themselves. As the general population becomes poorer, less innovation occurs. Fewer small businesses open, and fewer inventors are able to put cool products on the market.

If I was a billionaire, I would be pushing so hard for redistribution of wealth even out of purely selfish desire for more interesting stuff to buy.

Hell, if all the billionaires banded together and dedicated half their collective fortunes to some pie-in-the-sky project (for instance, extreme life extension, or the elimination/mitigation of aging) then they could all benefit from the rewards and not see their lifestyles change one iota for the worse.

It's pure, distilled greed. They want money for the sake of having money. They don't even seem to realize that they could selfishly benefit from a wealthier society.

It's so absolutely mind-boggling. They're trying to be selfish, but because they're so absurdly short-sighted about it, they're missing out on so much potential benefit.

Just to illustrate this point: would you rather be one of the richest people on the planet in the 18th century, or would you rather live a comfortable middle-class life today? I 100% choose the latter. I have access to modern medicine, the internet, video games, all kinds of sights and sounds that the wealthiest people on the planet could never have dreamed of 300 years ago. And the only reason it's all been possible is because we have millions upon millions of people with enough money and education to innovate. Imagine the kind of world we could live in if every single person currently living in poverty was instead afforded a middle-class lifestyle.

We could have eliminated age-related health problems and established a Mars base by now if the billionaires of the world could just be satisfied with a few hundred million dollars instead. No matter how selfish you are, the argument for wealth redistribution still benefits you.

yeah seize the means of wealth!

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Rexdragon125 posted...

As the general population becomes poorer

the exact opposite of this is happening

you probably don't want to admit this but a lot of your political positions are based on misinformation

Rexdragon125 posted...

Hell, if all the billionaires banded together and dedicated half their collective fortunes to some pie-in-the-sky project (for instance, extreme life extension, or the elimination/mitigation of aging) then they could all benefit from the rewards and not see their lifestyles change one iota for the worse.

Start a planet-wide wealth tax, and the uber-mega-rich will fund a colony on Mars just to evade it.

MedeaLysistrata posted...

yeah, that is true. and it's quite tragic. but guess what the endgame was for all of those deaths and executions? modern states with urban centers and strong industrial bases. it's literally the atheistic communist ideal. but feel free to miss the forest for the trees if you want.

Lol, literally excusing the likes of stalin and pol pot

Never change CE

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

the exact opposite of this is happening

you probably don't want to admit this but a lot of your political positions are based on misinformation

Not true in the past few years http://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/

Solid Snake07 posted...

Lol, literally excusing the likes of stalin and pol pot

Never change CE

clearly i'm in need of a brain because i'm made out of straw, apparently

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TheGreatGeno6 posted...

Only communism has killed people. Capitalism is absolutely flawless and nobody has ever died from being unable to afford food or medical treatments.

this, but unironically

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

yeah, that is true. and it's quite tragic. but guess what the endgame was for all of those deaths and executions? modern states with urban centers and strong industrial bases. it's literally the atheistic communist ideal. but feel free to miss the forest for the trees if you want.

Ah yes the modern and advanced USSR. Chinas also a prime example of modern communism once you ignore all those pesky special economic zones that every major city is a part of.

Blue_School posted...

Ah yes the modern and advanced USSR. Chinas also a prime example of modern communism once you ignore all those pesky special economic zones that every major city is a part of.

i literally don't understand why you wandered in this topic just to say that. China and Russia were both backwater agrarian countries before becoming communist, and they became industrial powers with major urban centers while they were communist (tbf i'm not as sure of this when it comes to China. but it's definitely true for Russia.), even if they're not or mostly not communist anymore. I say this and fully accept that the means were brutal and tragic: I wouldn't want something like that to happen again even if it meant a great leap forward, so to say.

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You'd think if the communists were so good at killing people, the Nazis would hang up their swastikas and join the party instead of fighting them.

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