That goes beyond capitalism. People are just selfish. The hoarding of wealth was a thing way before capitalism. I think the left sort of shoots itself in the foot by obsessing over capitalism and ignoring the much deeper cause of a lot of societal ills. Being evil is part of human nature, just as much as being benevolent is.
Not really.
There have been extensive sociological studies over this. Condition in a capitalist society and the promotion of the “homo economicus” model continually reinforces “greediness” and leads to people in capitalist societies being far “greedier” on average.
It isn’t a natural thing, it is conditioned. Obviously everyone is greedy to an extent. But in anthropological examinations of different forms of societies, altruism scored far higher than greediness in non-capitalistic societies.
Kate Raworth, Oxford Economist, wrote an excellent chapter about this in her book called “doughnut economics”. The chapter is “Nurture Human Nature”.
The view that all humans are greedy and rational was promoted by Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill and is the precursing foundation of capitalism. But modern economics have rejected this view as it has been proven to be inaccurate, and increasingly rely on theoretical models built within behavioural economics.
Yeah I don’t think talking about food production and distribution is a good method to promote socialism given how many people starved in socialist countries.
Seems to me this would be a subject socialists would want to avoid.
All hunger in the origins communist countries happened in preindustrial societies. Once agriculture was mechanised, hunger disappeared forever in USSR/China (countries that I assume you refer to). That’s not the case in industrialized capitalist countries or their colonies. To quote Chomsky:
“in India the democratic capitalist “experiment” since 1947 has caused more deaths than in the entire history of the “colossal, wholly failed … experiment” of Communism everywhere since 1917: over 100 million deaths by 1979, tens of millions more since, in India alone”
Except from gulags where they were starving to death. I come from the " behind the iron curtain" countries. Gulags are not myths and the prisoners not punished with death pebalty should be fed with at least minimal provisions making them able to survive ( I am not against either death penalty or work in prisons )
Gulag repression and hunger took place during a very specific and limited period of time in the late 30s and early 40s. The Stalinist great terror was unjustified and horrific, and it served no purpose and was purely a consequence of paranoia. After WW2 and for the rest of the USSR, the reeducational ideal of gulags was restored, and conditions in gulag were better than in normal prisons, to the point gulag inmates earning a low but significant wage for their labour, and normal prison being used as punishment for gulag inmates who kept violating the rules.
Not quite true. Lysenkoism was a completely unforced error all on its own whose failures couldn’t have been conquered by more tractors, but that was ultimately a failing of authoritarianism, not socialism. A mad king or fascist dictator whose advisors feared to tell him the truth, that his ideas were shit and didn’t work, would have resulted in the same thing.
Failures of applying science aren’t exempt in capitalism, we’ve literally had climate change denialism for what, 5 decades now?
And anyway, the peak of Lysenkoism (first time I hear about it btw) according to the article you sent, was on the 40s, which is after the last famine of the USSR, kinda proving my point that once the agriculture was mechanised, hunger disappeared in socialist countries.
Of all the meme images to use, Dr Manhattan would know that it isn’t Capitalism manufacturing scarcity, Capitalism is just indifferent to scarcity.
Couldve made the point just as well without the nekkid blue bobby
It, unfortunately, is an efficient distribution of labor, at least relative to other systems. Not because wasting food for profit isn’t fucking heinous, but because the mobility of investor capital and responsiveness of market prices is less inefficient than reciprocal economies or central planning.
However, we are at a point in human society where raw efficiency is no longer the bottleneck for our quality of life. Capitalism was an ugly solution to a real problem, but we can probably bid it farewell at this point, if only we can dislodge the elites who benefit from perpetuating it.
Capitalism was an ugly solution to a real problem
Not really, though. I mean, if you want to stick to looking at the last 2000 years, we still have cities that were fed in a feudal rather than capitalist system. Not that those systems were better or more efficient mobilizing labor, but the problem you’re referring to wasn’t really there.
That’s not to mention at least several examples in the anthropological and archaeological record of large scale societies that did not rely on what we define as capitalism to feed their people.
I think it’s a pretty crazy oversimplification to say capitalism just popped up as a solution to a problem.
Not really, though. I mean, if you want to stick to looking at the last 2000 years, we still have cities that were fed in a feudal rather than capitalist system. Not that those systems were better or more efficient mobilizing labor, but the problem you’re referring to wasn’t really there.
Feudal societies are notably horrendous at efficient resource distribution, and don’t get me started on the weird fetishization of reciprocity economies.
There’s a reason that capitalist economies exploded in growth once the main features of modern capitalism took root, and it sure as shit ain’t because capitalists are just that eager to contribute to the national good.
That’s not to mention at least several examples in the anthropological and archaeological record of large scale societies that did not rely on what we define as capitalism to feed their people.
And those societies, much like any pre-modern societies, did not feed their people particularly reliably. Notably, when the Roman Empire united the Mediterranean under a unified proto-capitalist market, famine conditions drastically reduced (though very much were not completely eliminated, mind you). Not because the Roman Empire was particularly concerned about the plight of the poor - it very much was not. But because market economies and capitalist (or proto-capitalist) investment behaviors can redirect excess resources from Region A, to Region B which lacks them, with astounding speed and responsiveness, and with minimal additional labor or material investment (at least compared to alternative methods).
I think it’s a pretty crazy oversimplification to say capitalism just popped up as a solution to a problem.
The problem was inefficient methods of resource distribution. Capitalism was the solution. Modern technology, both material and organizational, allows us other choices now, but capitalism didn’t spread because it was just the chic aesthetic of the time. Capitalism spread because it is significantly more efficient than feudal or guild/mercantilist economies.
Or it’s because of nitrogen fertilizers and the scientific method vastly improving productivity.
One of the two.
David Graeber has written two ~700 page anthropology books that pretty much debunk this entire line of thinking, one of them a collaboration with archaeologist David Wengrow. That latter includes an almost immediate refutation of the utopian egalitarian hunter gatherer bands that so many pop scientists love to idealize, the same fetishization that you’re talking about. They’re pretty rigorous about it.
You should really check them out. ‘Debt: the first 5000 years’ and ‘The Dawn of Everything’, if you want I can pop the audiobooks on google drive and DM you the link.
I literally just came off listening to both of them in the span of 2 weeks, which is why I see such a generalized statement as “Capitalism was a solution to inefficient resource distribution” as a bit silly, because no one just thought, “oh you know what we need? Capitalism! It will be the solution!”
It has an insanely long history originating from pre-coinage, debt-based societies, some of which had huge populations. They definitely rail against the “agricultural revolution > cities” line of thinking, noting that archaeological evidence across the globe for agriculture shows the whole process took something around 3000 years, during which, again, there were mega-sites (essentially cities) that relied on a mix of agrarian and hunting and gathering.
The second book is, granted, more about hierarchical structures in ancient civilizations and Debt is more about social inequality when it comes to money, but I really really suggest you check em out. Lmk if you want that google drive link, I just gotta upload em
It, unfortunately, is an efficient distribution of labor
Uh… No. I feel like half the fucking western world works on finance, which is quite literally just maximizing the revalorization of capital for the few at the top. Besides, how can be the only system in history to have millions of people unemployed, be efficient at distributing labor?
responsiveness of market prices is less inefficient than reciprocal economies or central planning
This is empirically false. You can’t provide a scientific source for this because it’s wrong. Central planning is the most efficient tool, that’s why Amazon and Walmart (extremely centrally planned systems which have power to control their supply chains at will) systematically outcompete all other businesses. Amazon doesn’t outcompete other stores being “a competitive market of warehouses”, it’s a digitalised, centrally-planned behemoth that can so much as smell when a customer is going to conceive making a purchase, and generate all the immediate responses in the supply chain from manufacturing to distribution to optimise the whole thing.
If you wanna talk about countries, please explain how the transition from planned economies to free markets plunged the entirety of Eastern Europe into a deep crisis that killed millions and ruined millions more of lives, to the point of many countries like Belarus, Russia or Ukraine not really having recovered from the impact in 30+ years. So much for the efficiency of capitalism, amirite? A centrally planned economy is what brought the USSR from being a poor, backwards-ass agrarian country in 1917, to defeating the Nazis and being the second power of the world by the 60s.
Read some theory, buddy. Marx in particular. I know he’s probably a capitalist pig by your estimations, but it might do you some good.
Dude I’m a Marxist-Leninist. Saying that Amazon is a centrally planned behemoth of efficiency amounts to saying that the capitalist will sell us the very rope with which they’ll hang them, you’re misunderstanding my comments
Also, where does Marx talk about the efficiency of markets and inefficiency of central planning???
The owner class will never willingly give up power, their actions are why capitalism is a religion.
I dislike dividing people into owning and worker classes. If the workers save up their earnings to make their living in the old age, does it make then “owner class”? Should they stay penniless in your world vision? It’s the utopian world you propose
I’m not arguing semantics or gradients, eat/compost the rich to save the planet. Period.
I’m not proposing a utopian world, those are words you are shoving in my mouth.
I"m proposing a world where the global temp is slowed down enough that our grandkids have a chance at a life on a planet that isn’t an ecological disaster.
I tend to lean more towards ‘consume’ and ‘mulch’, myself. Though I understand why others would find that distasteful.
Has to happen every few hundred years it seems, slave uprisings. When the owner class gets too fat and cruel towards the hands that make their wealth, those hands have to pick up some stones sometimes to remind them why noblesse oblige was once not considered optional.
All we need is something that could realistically replace it, and a complete rewriting of all of our laws to allow for it to happen.
Easy enough.
Market socialism, ez. Shame about the whole “entrenched powers that be” bit.
Seems like you could get most of the way there by just keeping the current system but adding a social dividend which would form a basic income for everyone. If the dividend is pegged to economic growth then it should also be fairly resistant to inflation.
Postcapitalist systems can use market prices and, in principle, be Pareto optimal on non-institutionally described states of affair
