People in this thread: BUT WHAT ABOUT LIFE EXPECTANCY?!?!
Bro you really want to argue life expectancy in favour of the ideology that argues whether curing a patient is makes business sense?
Your long life expectancy is thanks to science, which has existed for a far greater percentage of human history. To argue it’s because of capitalism is dumb as hell.
Also life expectancy took a nosedive when the Soviet Union fell. Wonder why.
People in this thread: BUT WHAT ABOUT LIFE EXPECTANCY?!?!
Bro you really want to argue life expectancy in favour of the ideology that argues whether curing a patient is makes business sense?
Your long life expectancy is thanks to science, which has existed for a far greater percentage of human history. To argue it’s because of capitalism is dumb as hell.
We’re also literally watching it nosedive in the west and skyrocket in china but unfortunately the west is full of morons such as the one in this very thread who think that “everyone starved in medieval times” and that capitalism somehow liberated us from it
hey wait, let’s ask John Steinbeck how capitalism ACTUALLY TREATS AFFECTS FOOD SECURITY
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
huh
context for those unfamiliar with the reference https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html
For the people who are dunking on this by saying that historically things have been fucked up:
I think the point of the tweet is that systemic development doesn’t stop at capitalism.
I’m pretty sure lots of educated people during the feudal era were saying that it was the best system available and at least they were dying less often than the Romans.
This is why liberals claim capitalism isn’t a specific material circumstance, but an abstract set of values, or simply when trade exists. They want to make it seem like capitalism is an intractable part of human existence that’s existed for as long as we have. One time I was talking to a guy who didn’t seem to be joking who told me capitalism began when the universe did, because chemicals trade electrons.
capitalism began when the universe did, because chemicals trade electrons
Type of shit they’d say in Starship Troopers
Communism is when covalent bond
Pretty sure it’s when ionic bond cause your can’t spell union without ion. Checkmate commie
You’re right. At least under feudalism we had job security. We should return to tradition /j
Motherfucker, people were already commenting on how ACTUAL labor relations for LITERAL SERFS weren’t ACTUALLY as bad as wage labor (a form of slavery if you’re not too brainwashed to realize what it means to have to work for a wage TO SURVIVE) in the motherfuckong 1800s
This isn’t the own you think it is, it’s just an admission of your vast and all encompassing ignorance
We cry shame on the feudal baron who forbade the peasant to turn a clod of earth unless he surrendered to his lord a fourth of his crop. We called those barbarous times. But if the forms have changed, the relations have remained the same, and the worker is forced, under the name of free contract, to accept feudal obligations. For, turn where he will, he can find no better conditions. Everything has become private property, and he must accept, or die or hunger.
The result of this state of things is that all our production tends in a wrong direction. Enterprise takes no thought for the needs of the community. Its only aim is to increase the gains of the speculator. Hence the constant fluctuations of trade, the periodical industrial crises, each of which throws scores of thousands of workers on the streets.
Pyotr Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread
Let me tl;dr that for you: literal fucking peasants would give up a quarter of their crop, and this was seen as barbarous. The wage laborer GIVES UP THE ENTIRETY OF THE PRODUCT OF HIS LABOR. In exchange, he recieves A FRACTION OF ITS VALUE IN WAGE. The relative exploitation here is obscene, and yet people like you, ignorant, think it’s some sort of voluntary contract that benefits us all.
But the wage laborer only “chooses” to work because they’ll starve in the streets otherwise. The employer only has the privilege of benefiting from their work by owning the means by which they can do profitable work. They EXPLOIT THE WORKERS’ SURVIVAL NEEDS and in doing so reap shares of profit from their labor that would make the cruelest medieval lord envious.
And now, you dumb motherfuckers sit here, reading all this, and think, oh, so you want to return to feudalism? like that in any way makes sense
How about ending the exploitation of labor entirely? That’s what socialism seeks to do. But you dumb motherfuckers are out here acting like your fucking landlords do you any favors (while somehow pretending to yourselves they’re any different from the evil feudal lords capitalism supposedly saved you from)
Capitalism replaced feudalism, and socialism is replacing capitalism.
I mean, tbf Feudalism and Capitalism isn’t all that different from one another. The only difference is that Feudalism has the hierarchy embedded into government via the monarchy whilst Capitalism’s hierarchy is enforced by corporations controlled by a different select few people.
Whether Socialism actually does replace Capitalism we have yet to see, I’d definitely prefer it over Capitalism.
Feudalism doesn’t necessitate endless growth on a finite planet. It had other terrible contradictions, which were solved by capitalism by introducing new contradictions wich lead to crisis faster, more often and with more devastating effects.Of course, I wouldn’t want to go back to having Lords own all the land, but wait, we still have those, they’re called landlords.
No, they are quite different. Both are class societies, but feudalism was tied to agrarian production, while capitalism is driven by industrial production. It’s less about hierarchy and more about class. As for socialism, it’s already usurping capitalism, the PRC is the world’s largest and most important economy and it’s in the developing stages of socialism.
Usually the way Marxists analyze the difference between systems like Feudalism and Capitalism, the focus is on how production is carried out, and what kinds of property exist. Under capitalism, generally, industrial capitalists who own private factories transform money into commodities (capital and labor, where labor imparts its value on the capital) which are sold back for more money than the capitalist paid (the surplus coming from labor, which isn’t fully compensated). Feudalism is characterized because instead of the principal mode of production being industrial, it’s agrarian and relies on serfs working on their lord’s land for some period of time, then being allowed to work on their own lands.
The fact that the structure of who owns what kind of property is different is very important. In a lot of ways, this change in how production is carried out (what is called the material base) is more relevant in deciding the direction society is headed than how the government is organized (society’s superstructure). The superstructure is shaped by the social relations in the base, but it can only maintain the base.
‘Feudalism’ in how it operated was also incredibly varied and regional, power was less concentrated.
yeah, it’s really too bad that these are the only options
Under the Roman Empire, life expectancy was 50/60 years for the 30/40% of people who managed to survive past the ripe age of 10. Slavery was so normal that even intellectuals could be slaves and the concept of human rights was not even invented yet. It was also possible to die for a wide range of causes including being crucified, eaten by lions in a public show, and being sewn alive inside a bag with various animals and thrown in the river to drown.
But indeed the ecological footprint was negligible so I guess it was better than what we have today according to this guy.
“…including being crucified, eaten by lions in a public show, and being sewn alive inside a bag with various animals and thrown in the river to drown.”
We’ve barely evolved at all. I just heard the President of the US relishing the idea of escapees from his concentration camp being eaten by alligators.
Sadists always existed and always will. I’m more concerned by the democratic system that is vulnerable to stupidity and wealth.
OP is advocating for socialism, not for a regression to feudalism.
It’s not what the meme says, nor the apparent general opinion here.
The meme says that Capitalism did not exists for 99% of history (save for the fact that apparently UK was a capitalistic society in 1500s according to some) and that the world was better without it, failing to acknowledge that besides the many defects, Capitalism also brought prosperity to a large portion of humanity (which according to some here is a bad thing since exploitations still exist somewhere), and that it was partially adopted also in ex Communist countries.
Oh, and apparently any western country is an Authoritarian regime, and China is the best country for the improvement of life quality (no mentions for dissidents, but the US is surely much worse).
This is basically the summary of the whole thread. I haven’t heard so much ideology since the high school.
Are you deliberately being disingenuous or are you really that stupid?
No, you’re the only one here that doesn’t realize that OP is advocating for socialism. This is a meme attacking capitalist realism, not stating that feudalism was better. You’re in the fringe minority with that misinterpretation.
The west is authoritarian in that capitalists have full control, yes, and the PRC is making tremendous strides thanks to socialism.
The west is authoritarian
Ok, bye.
Why would you say it isn’t? The west is made up of dictatorships of capital, workers have little to no power.
How many times are you going to say “bye” before you actually fuck off?
Take the exit for chauvinists, don’t let the trapdoor hit you on the way down
Don’t suffocate in your bubble.
Mate, you’re the one running away because you can’t deal with people having different beliefs to you
The greatest measurable increase in life expectancy and quality of life happened in China during the second half of the 20th century, during which it developed from backwater feudalism to centrally planned socialism.
The greatest measurable reduction in life expectancy and quality of life occured in former Soviet countries in the 1990s, where they devolved from centrally planned socialism to internationally financed capitalism.
The rise in life expectancy has fuck all to do with capitalism given that life expectancy in both Cuba and China is higher than the US right now. Meanwhile, slavery continues to be the backbone of western economies.
I’m not claiming that capitalism improved life expectancy, but that in 99% of recorded history people died horribly very easily and at a very young age.
If you want to stay political, feudalism is a great example of glorious non-capitalistic system. You could starve to death because your crop had been taken by the lords or die hanged to a tree because you complained, but the system did not do considerable harm to the environment!
Not sure what point you’re even trying to make here. Life expectancy has been improving due to science and technology improving.
You could starve to death because your crop had been taken by the lords or die hanged to a tree because you complained
That’s literally how things work today where western corps exploit the workers in the global south. That’s what your lifestyle in the west is built on. Go read up on the coups, death squads, and other atrocities the west regularly commits around the world to keep the system of exploitation going. Here’s a good primer for you https://archive.org/details/KillingHope
Not sure what point you’re even trying to make here. Life expectancy has been improving due to science and technology improving.
In the XV/XVI century there was the equivalent of the Palestinian genocide, but scaled up to the entire surface of America, north+south. How can you tell that it was better then?
Last I checked, the genocide of the native population of America was fuelled by the British capitalism. Notably, capitalism was also the primary driver of African slave trade.
Of course there were the seeds because systems do not appear overnight, but that was not the Capitalism as we intend it today.
Wow, how convenient: “it wasn’t a perfect utopia so you’re not allowed to blame capitalism for it”.
A reasoning as perfectly smooth and circular as your brain
“It wasn’t real capitalism!”
Capitalism as we intend it today
Lol
No one is currently being starved to death (or otherwise being deprived of being alive) because of capitalism
is youAre you saying that since now only part of the world is starving, it was better in the medieval age when everyone was starving?
I’m a huge fan of arguments of the form "Are you saying [absurd nonsense that in no way resembles what they say said]?
That simply isn’t true. You’ve made some pretty broad claims about the middle aged already and putting them together it’s a pretty easy guess you don’t know jack shit about that time period. Cause so far it seems like you’ve gotten all of your information from pop culture.
The Middle Ages were a long period with a lot of variety, but I hope we can agree that modern life is better than that for a large portion of humanity, if not all of it.
The Middle Ages were a long period with a lot of variety
omg just shut the fuck up you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about
It’s always so crazy how people can get ego trapped in the most pointless internet arguments. Like you aren’t saying anything! Just trying to wiggle your way through this when you could just walk away from the computer and do anything else.
so we’re to the point where you’re not even making substantive arguable claims anymore, you’re just expecting people to agree with you because you use reasonable sounding framing
No
No one is currently being starved to death (or otherwise being deprived of being alive) because of capitalism
Are you saying that since now only part of the world is starving, it was better in the medieval age when everyone was starving?
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Motte-and-bailey_argument
Also, the nobility & clergy weren’t starving during feudalism, only the peasants during famines.
In every society (even animal) the leaders tend to have a better life than the rest. However, I would argue that also the nobility of the past was subject to all sorts of “inconveniences” that would be unthinkable today.
Contextualising to the discussion, I find quite ridiculous to “forget” that Capitalism brought more prosperity than any system before it, or to focus on the exploitations of minorities as if they weren’t the norm for the majority in the past.
in the medieval age when everyone was starving?
Mao has a great quote about how if you don’t investigate something, you have no right to speak. Basically “shut up you stupid fucker” and statements like this are what it was for.
in the medieval age when everyone was starving?
Mao has a great quote about how if you don’t investigate something, you have no right to speak. Basically “shut up you stupid fucker” and statements like this are what it was for.
That’s cool. Do you imply that starvation was uncommon in the medieval age?
if “everyone was starving” how did humanity survive you dumb fucker
jason hickel talks a lot about actual medieval living standards if you’d ever like to be less of an ignorant dipshit
Yeah, the classical mode of production was worse than what we have today. Slavery was worse than feudalism. Feudalism was worse than capitalism. Objectively speaking, for almost all of humanity, capitalism has brought about massive improvements in many aspects of life compared to previous modes of production[1].
The point isn’t that capitalism is uniquely bad. When it’s not crashing and burning, capitalism is very good at creating wealth. The problem is that liberals today often assume that because capitalism is better than the systems that came before it, it means it is the best possible system, and will never be replaced. We know, due to the contradictions at the foundation of capitalism, that it inevitably will destroy itself.
Mind you, this does depend on when you start counting for much of the colonized world; I’m not counting the period of primitive accumulation under colonialism as capitalism, despite the fact that capitalism couldn’t have come to, say, Latin America, without the Spanish and Portuguese colonial period having accumulated capital in the hands of the future bourgeoisie. A similar point also applies to Asia and Africa ↩︎
capitalism couldn’t have come to, say, Latin America, without the Spanish and Portuguese colonial period
Oh come on we all KNOW that the Inca would have created industrial socialism by like 1750 if it wasn’t for the damn Spanish
I mean, the Incan mita system was kind of a centralized public works socialism before the Spanish arrived. Maybe that’s what you were getting at
Maybe that’s what you were getting at
It’s sort of a niche history meme that the Inca could have made a kind of socialist state if they had more time. The idea goes back to a book from the 1930s
My Civ VI games have those foos landing on Mars in the 19th century.
Finally someone reasonable here!
Sooner or later Capitalism will be replaced by a new -ism that will be the new best system possible, and that future generation will blame anyway with idiotic memes.
It’s just in the nature of things.
Who are you, Schopenhauer?
If each new mode of production is measurably better than the last (otherwise, why even bother making the negative comparison from capitalism to Rome as you did?), why are you acting like it’s meaningless for humanity to surpass capitalism? Do you really think it’s all the same or is it different?
I never said that humanity shouldn’t surpass capitalism. Actually I think it will happen like it always happened with every system.
Your nihilistic disregard for the improvements that could be offered by surpassing capitalism, and your detached attitude, seem to suggest that you don’t think very highly of the OOP for criticizing capitalism.
Yes, I criticise OP for how he expressed the idea.
No, I believe that things change constantly and that includes political and economical systems.
What specifically is wrong with how the idea was expressed?
why are people pointing out the material reality of capitalism destroying the planet, don’t they know that is just the nature of things? Only idiots use memes to blame systems of oppression for the suffering of billions.
Finally someone reasonable here!
i hope you’re thrown head first into a pit
Capitalism hasn’t done shit for you you brainwashed piece of shit
Capitalism hasn’t done shit for you you brainwashed piece of shit
And how do you know that? I’m curious.
It made iPhone
Hey, that’s not fair, their boss probably pays them a wage that makes the reproduction of their labor possible.
OP doesn’t say that an older system was better - especially not some super-specific one. Just that it’s NOT the only possible system and likely not the best there can be.
So I’m not sure who exactly you’re arguing with.
I’m arguing that if you lived in any of the previous systems, you would have dreamt to live in today’s Capitalism because it is the first system that produced a world where a large portion of humanity lived a safe and happy life.
It doesn’t mean that Capitalism is perfect. It’s just the best system so far.
Waiting for OP to tell us what should come next.
Waiting for OP to tell us what should come next.
Socialism obviously
Waiting for OP to tell us what should come next.
Our current system is also going to consume itself and the entire planet in a couple generations. So sure, QOL for the select few who live in the Imperial core have increased massively. But it’s completely unsustainable.
it’s completely unsustainable
Probably a large portion of the world would agree on that. A change, especially for the environment, is inevitable.
Given that your account is 6 days old, and you’re just stirring up an argument by being deliberately obtuse and engaging in bad faith, I’m going to assume you’re a ban evasion account and you already know perfectly well that OP is a communist (and so are most of the people replying to you) but you’ve just decided to go about this conversation in the most annoying way possible.
Given that your account is 6 days old, and you’re just stirring up an argument by being deliberately obtuse and engaging in bad faith, I’m going to assume you’re a ban evasion account
You’d be wrong, but I’m not going to argue. In this whole thread I’ve read enough granitic opinion not open to debate.
Bye!
granitic opinion
all my opponents have very solid understanding of history and political economy, and that’s so unfair to me full of propaganda and vibes
The “not open to debate” part is what gets me. Dude, if you brought me something I hadn’t heard before, I’d have a much more charitable conversation. But as they’re talking right now it’s just an array of thought terminating cliches that I used to hear repeatedly on reddit and when talking with older family members.
Correlation != Causation
As others have pointed out we have better lives today because of scientific and technological progress not because of capitalism.
Progress that did not happen at the same rate in non-capitalistic societies.
You’re right, USSR managed to accomplish an equivalent of a century of progress under capitalism in the west in a couple of decades.
first-class example of whataboutism, favourite of useful idiots worlwide!
What’s the problem with my example? Roman Empire qualifies for “recorded history”.
Do you prefer more recent times like 1800? Life expectancy comparable to the roman period, but the main causes of deaths were tuberculosis, pneumonia, cholera, and diarrhea. Yes, you can die of diarrhea.
i’m pretty sure the idea with anticapitalist sentiment isn’t to go backwards anymore, you know?
That’s not what OP implies when he says that capitalism only existed for 1% of recorded history.
I can see you already got told multiple times in these comments. But then again, I think, most can also see you don’t actually know anything you are talking about, OR don’t care to know because you are a right-wing fucknut. So, uh.
None of the two.
My “fault” is that I didn’t notice that this was a bubble of people reinforcing each other’s far-left views and eager to insult anyone contradicting their black&white reality.
Although I enjoy having a political debate, and some were able to reply without behaving like rabid dogs, this is clearly a place for zealots, which is not who I am.
Nope, that’s exactly what I implied when I point out that capitalism is the wrong direction of human development.
I’m curious now: what would be the right direction without going backwards?
The right direction would obviously be socialism with public ownership of the means of production and an economy being directed towards meeting the needs of working majority as opposed to a handful of elites. Should be pretty obvious, yet here you are.
You’re just fucking illiterate
Which was under capitalism. Capitalism was the dominant mode of production in the 1800s. And directly responsible for the increase in diseases because it forced people to move to cities when Enclosure happened and people had to go work in factories.
What’s the problem with my example? Roman Empire qualifies for “recorded history”.
If you weren’t a shit lib jabroni intent on knee jerk defending a system that does literally nothing for you unless you own capital, so smug and self assured and addicted to the smell of your own farts, you’d realize the point of the “recorded history” statement isn’t “the systems used before were better”
the point of the statement is to illustrate how fleeting and ephemeral the supposed “only system that works” is. It has literally only existed for ~300 years, but stupid fuckers like you act like capitalist wage labor and property relations are just common sense “human nature”
Anyway, hope you’re thrown into a pit you dumb fucker
If you weren’t a shit lib jabroni intent on knee jerk defending a system that does literally nothing for you unless you own capital
So you fail to understand how basic investment works, but you criticize Capitalism copy-pasting ideological statements.
Ok.
I fail to see what any of this has to do with an economic system. These are scientific or legal topics.
And indeed, slavery is present under unchecked capitalism as well.
I fail to see what any of this has to do with an economic system. These are scientific or legal topics.
Don’t you see relationships between political and economic systems? Capitalism is probably the most evident example of that.
