Hey friends, just trying to get an idea of how people think of capitalism in different communities. What first comes to mind when you think of that word? Is it your national or international retail giants, resource extraction, or logistics companies? Or perhaps your local diner, hardware or convenience store? The black market? Or something else?
I can’t decide between a cancerous growth or a ball of wriggling intestinal parasites - I guess it’ll have to be the former since this is insulting to intestinal parasites.
We should update it. The wealthy are above soldiers and police with bail out money or just taking a private jet to a private island without laws.
Heck, some fucks are so rich they might actually stand above the ruling class. Which is logical considering the only thing that does matter in capitalism isn’t who you are but how much wealth you hoard.
I was just thinking I’d love to see this with a modern cast of characters.
I always loved this illustration
Rape.
It is rape, in every possible sense, in many different contexts or layers of complexity.
Coercive, forceful and subtle, manipulative and brash, extraction and destruction, that gaslights and lies and normalizes itself.
It never asks for consent, it either assumes it or demands it, and escaping it is often quite difficult and very risky to attempt.
But it rapes everything.
The land, the environment, people’s bodies and minds and their time and their thoughts, language itself, etc.
The more technical details of how and why this metaphor is apt… the various aspects of complexities of different systems or aspects of subsystems… at the end of the day, the nature or character common to any specific instance of capitalism is that of a rapist.
When I used to call capitalism and colonialism rapacious I got a lot of finger-wagging and handwringing from people calling themselves leftists… so I guess this means progress?
Maybe in five years’ time we could get leftists to actually start referring to capitalists as parasites.
Those kinds of ‘leftists’ largely turned out to be an idpol flavor of shitlib, in at least my personal experience.
They really just wanted rainbow capitalism with approximately 25% more welfare state.
Ask any of those people, back then, to attempt to formulate a political strategy that… you know, might actually achieve that?
They either got offended by the question, or their answer was somewhere between ‘just keep raising awareness (via wholly corporately owned communication platforms)’ and ‘manifesting’.
Wow, this is easily the most extreme response I’ve received on the topic. What led you to feel this way?
There is no response extreme enough when it comes to this topic.
I have degrees in both econ and poli sci and have worked at multiple Fortune 500 companies as a high level data analyst / software dev / db admin.
I got those degrees during the GWOT and GFC, and argued against bailouts without jailing those responsible…
…and got called a conspiracy theorist by a Poli Sci professor when I wrote a paper on ‘conflict goods’ about the US military guarding opium fields in Afghanistan.
Despite me citing my sources and even linking to an on the ground Fox News interview with a soldier who just straight up said that is what his unit was doing.
I also have studied the history of the industries I worked in, as well as just human history in general, in my spare time.
… I have also been homeless for a year or two.
I have lived a life of the extremes most people only ever come close to one of, stuffy and cocky corpo wealth and entitlement and social status jockeying mind games, and immense deprivation, near constant direct physical and mental trauma.
But if you would like maybe a more formal argument that capitalism objectively is raping the planet to death:
Here’s London’s Society of Actuaries, they’ve run the numbers and determined that our capitalism-driven, collective inability to stop climate change…
… is going to destroy the world, and thus future GDP projections.
My own guesstimate models point at something like 1 to 3 billion people dying in the next 25 years from the chaos that will result from increasingly extreme climate and climate disasters.
But those are roughly in line with more updated versions of MIT’s old World 3 / Limits to Growth model.
tl:dr;
Why do I feel this extreme way?
Because I know what I am talking about, theoretically, practically and personally.
Thanks for the write up my friend. Was that Fox news report with Geraldo Rivera? I remember seeing something like that back in the early or mid 2000s. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I… don’t remember if it was Geraldo.
I want to say it was a less well known reporter, who actually made the trek all the way out to… I think Helmand Province (sp?)?
But… yeah.
That was almost 20 years ago now lol.
Found it, fucking wild - https://youtu.be/AUATfLDiwVA
I still can’t believe it. I’m watching it and it feels like I’m currently experiencing a fever dream.
Same here bud… its all gone so utterly, thoroughly wrong.
But hey, nice work finding that!
The Marines weren’t ordered to protect the poppy fields, they were ordered to not destroy them. Big difference
they were ordered to not destroy them.
Most of the Afghanistan vets who I’ve heard talk about this doesn’t seem to place much importance on that distinction.
Thank you for putting to words what I’ve been feeling for a while.
Exploitation. Everything is built around exploitation. Of course capitalism is not the only exploitive system that exists, it’s just the one most visible to us.
Exploitation of workers (and others) through means of private property rights that are enforced through state violence to the benefit of only a few.
Hierarchy and exploitation.
A big ball that consumes all it touches, that will destroy the world if it can because that is part of its purpose.
It is disabling, and has conditioned people to accept it through its unlimited use of propaganda and wars in order to control the populace.
It takes and takes and gives little back.
It is against how things should be, and could be said to be unnatural.
It is about power and control over the populace, sadly few realise this because of said propaganda and because they believe nothing better could exist due to it limiting their imagination, time, energy and organising.
The ‘big ball that consumes all’ might be my favorite imagery used as a response to this question. Thank you 😊
You’re welcome. It is genuinely how we imagine it.
For me capitalism is the rudimentary ideology that values capital/power above life.
Greed without personal responsibility.
There’s a looney toons episode t remember watching in the 80’s about a guy who makes a pair of boots and sells them for the material to make two, selling those to get more material, and keeps growing. Eventually he’s got a factory, a bunch of workers but he can never rest, never enjoy the fruits of his labor because capitalism demands perpetual growth. He dies wealthy but his soul died years before. I’m pretty sure my memory of this is somewhat twisted being that it was 40+ years ago, but that little guy repeatedly asking “now I get to relax?” And being told by the narrator “no” has always seemed so sad to me. Capitalism was painted as soul crushing even during the Cold War, and yet we still blindly go that route.
Thanks for to the response. I think I found it - https://youtu.be/89buUHeuT44
That looks more like a bunch of different episodes smashed together. The one I’m thinking of is in there, it was the parts where Elmer Fudd is an elf wearing a crown talking to the random old man.
In practice? Inequality. Increasing inequality until something cracks and there are riots, then laws change. Then increasing inequality, rinse and repeat.
In theory? Small entrepreneurial businesses generating value, the grassroots little shops everywhere. If it was working correctly, those would be very profitable and the money spread around better. Growth from the bottom not the discredited “trickle down” bullshit.
Hey congrats! I think you are the first person to give something close to the textbook definition of what capitalism says it is supposed to be! 🤸
Death cult. You can’t infinitely extract value from a finite system.
Mmm, the shrinking markets problem. Thanks!
i think of it as the most basic and rudimentary economic system.
whenever a more advanced system fails or can’t apply, people fall back to capitalism and start trading/hoarding tokens etc.
it’s dangerous to let it run completely unchecked. usually societies will implement rules and taxes to make sure basic needs are met and there isn’t too much exploitation going on.
Basic and rudimentary is a unique take. What led you to this conclusion?
no, it’s not a unique take.
capitalism is the next step after an exchange economy, which is the most basic economy possible. just add some sort of token to the exchange economy and it becomes capitalism.
I feel like you are referencing some well known economic model progression or evolution that I’m unfamiliar with. Is there a name for this or someplace I can read more about it? What is the more advanced economic model after capitalism?
idk how it’s called. it’s something kids have early in school. it’s about the four types of economic systems. it’s not really about progression, but about how difficult they are to set up and how they start from the need to exchange goods and can transform from one type to another. for example bartering (traditional type) to capitalistic monetary systems (market type) and then maybe someone takes control and establishes socialism (command type) etc…
Interesting, thanks for the feedback and followup!
Agreed! Capitalism works great until the wealthy buy the politicians and the voters lose their moral compass. Then you have what we see today, late stage capitalism. No reason we can’t break the monopolies and tax the snot out of the rich, but your average Joe Blow either doesn’t realize what’s happening or care, doesn’t demand good governance.
Thugs explaining that you owe them for protection and a interest on that too.
Also ayn rand slutty face with a whip and a cocktail
Haha, you’ve placed an image of Ayn Rand in my mind that I wish I could erase. 😂
A positive feedback loop of wealth disparity.
