Comment

Comment on Unregulated Capitalism would kill the planet.

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Capitalism rewards selfish individualism, greed, and encourages competition.

Capitalism rewards private accumulation of capital operating at a profit.

Selfish, individualistic, and greedy people often jerk themselves off about the merits of capitalism. But far far more of them fail than succeed under it. Meanwhile, tightly knit families, close friend groups, and religious collective routinely mop the floor with anti-social self-obsessed rise-and-grind types.

And capitalism does not encourage competition. Just the opposite. Cartels and monopolies regularly outperform competitive enterprises.

How about a system that rewards selflessness, and encourages cooperation? Which are also a natural part of human nature.

Human nature rewards socializing up to the Dunbar number, eating, fucking, working as little as possible, and doing unspeakable violence to your distant neighbors and vulnerable peers.

Idk why we hold it up as some kind of metric for a functional society when it’s a real mixed bag on a good day.

Also, annoyingly essentialist, as though humans - like any other species - aren’t constantly diversifying and evolving.

No issues with poor leadership would be outright eliminated, but we can do better.

We can define a target and work towards it for 40 years. And then the next generation can reevaluate progress and adjust course.

“Better” is in the eye of the beholder, in the end.

But you do need something to move towards. Utopianism gives people an idea of where they’re going. You can’t just Doomer yourself out of a bad historically moment.

source

Sort:hotnew top

Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Human nature rewards socializing up to the Dunbar number, eating, fucking, working as little as possible, and doing unspeakable violence to your distant neighbors and vulnerable peers.

Exactly. Human nature isn’t that much different from cat nature. It takes us tremendous effort to NOT follow human nature.

source
save_the_humans@leminal.space ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

You can’t just Doomer yourself out of a bad historically moment.

I agree. I advocate for democratizing the workplace. We already have a successful model for this that literally outperforms traditional capitalist firms. If only we had a system, laws, regulations, etc, that rewarded it.

And capitalism does not encourage competition. Just the opposite. Cartels and monopolies regularly outperform competitive enterprises.

Kind of my point actually. The foundations of capitalism are on shaky grounds. Currently though, internal cooperation inside traditional capitalist firms, only rewards those at the top; those with the capital.

Human nature rewards socializing up to the Dunbar number

I dont see how this is anything other than a bad faith argument. Socialism, broadly, is when workers own the means of production. Not the individual capitalists that exploit their workers for profit. How is this a goal we wouldn’t all want to strive towards? I advocate for worker cooperatives. This is a form of, decentralized, stateless market socialism. Paired with an alternative measure of GDP, like the economy for the common good, for the purpose of tax breaks, subsidies, etc. Nationalize a few key industries, and we have ourselves an economy that benefits more than just a few. Nothing about some “Dunbar number” limits any of this.

source
- Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  The only reason Coops aren’t more prevalent is capitalist propoganda and goverment subsidising of monopolies
  
  source
  - save_the_humans@leminal.space ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    That’s part of it, but its also been limited by access to capital. Banks have historically denied loans for cooperatives, and investors tend not to want to get involved. We’re also lacking a comprehensive legal framework. In some States, depending on the intended industry, it may not even be possible to register as cooperative with existing statutes.
    
    source
    Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    So the very legal system is rigged to favor capitalist corporatations.
    
    source