Comment on Capitalism is an unrealistic death cult.
hertg@infosec.pub 6 days agoCapitalism requires continuous and unlimited economic growth. Economic growth requires accelerated resource extraction. Capitalism is not ecologically sustainable by design.
knitwitt@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Capitalism, like socialism, means many things to many different people. At it’s core capitalism is simply a philosophy built around the idea of the free exchange of goods and services between individuals. I don’t think most people would that infinite growth is an essential part of that equation as there are real examples of capatalistic economys that shrink every year.
hertg@infosec.pub 6 days ago
Where are those capitalist “economies” that don’t require growth? Are they decoupled, and not relying on the growth of the global economy? Does their pension system not explode if economic growth would come to a halt? If so, what makes them capitalist?
knitwitt@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I think government pension is probably one the least capitalist ideas out there. There’s no such thing as a pure capitalist society, just like how there’s never been a true socialist society. Only ones that subscribe more to their respective ideas more than their peers. To me, what makes a society capitalist is a foundations belief in a free markets and the voluntary trade of goods and services, and a socialist society is one where the means of production are pushed towards collective ownership.
paranoia@feddit.dk 5 days ago
The underlying mechanism of government pensions in their current state requires there to be more people paying in than being paid out, so growth is needed.
hertg@infosec.pub 5 days ago
I don’t know a lot of government pensions that pay out enough for the recipients to even stay afloat, they rely heavily on there being additional private pension funds (401k/BVG), which by themselves presuppose that the economy grows, it doesn’t work otherwise. I guess you are right that we have different assumptions on what capitalism even is, you link it a lot to free trade but not to the fact that it is about investment and accumulation (letting the money ‘work for itself’), which is kinda the core principal of it. Trade and money has existed before capitalism, exchanging commodities and services is not what makes a system capitalist in itself. I am also not necessarily arguing in favor of socialism, I don’t know why you keep bringing that up. Economic systems are more complex than a dichotomy of capitalism/socialism. What I want to convey is that there can be no ecological sustainability withing the capitalist growth imperative. It can be your opinion that capitalism works without growth, but I’d like to see how that works and how we get there. If we can get there, I’d argue that such a system is no longer capitalist.