This is fine
This is fine
59 comments
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So when the communist party came into power after the Bolshevik revolution, Wilson went to the League of Nations to negotiate a common embargo of the Soviet project, essentially sanctioning Russia the way we might sanction a nation for humanitarian wrongdoing.
This is to say Wilson was afraid of it actually working, which would jeopardize the industrial moguls who were already running the US.
This is also to say, the Soviet Union was doing a communism in hostile circumstances, much the way European monarchs pressured France to raise a new king after the revolution (leading to Napoleon's rise to power, the Levée en masse (general conscription) and the War of the First Coalition (or as is modernly known, Napoleon Kicks European Butt For A While ).
Historians can't really say, but the fact the red scare started with Wilson (and not after WWII) might have influenced events, including the corruption of the party and the rise of Stalin as an autocrat.
Also according to Prof. Larry Lessig, Boss Tweed in the 1850s worked to make sure the ownership class called all the shots in the United States, eventually driving us to Hoover and the Great Depression. FDR's New Deal (very much resented by the industrialists) was a last chance for Capitalism, which then got a boost because WWII commanded high levels of production and distracted us with a foreign enemy. Then the cold war.
So communism was really unlucky and didn't get a fair shake in the Soviet Union, and US free market capitalism got especially lucky in the 20th century, and we don't really know if either one can be held together for more than a century or two. EU capitalism is wavering, thanks to pressure from the far right, and neoliberalism failing to serve the public.
In the meantime, check out what's going on in Cuba, which isn't perfect, but is interesting.
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You lost me at "the Soviet Union was doing a communism". Hard to see a dictatorship as the workers owning the means of production.
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This is such a weird thing people believe in, no?
"USSR was communist!" everyone says, when there was nothing communist about how the country was governed. But, somehow, these same people don't consider North Korea a democratic country, even though they even have that in their name.
And every time I mention that "we don't know if communism works, nobody has tried it yet", I'm getting downvoted to oblivion...
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Putting aside it is a baseless speculation, how is a system that falls into authoritarianism under a little bit of pressure a good system? If it wasn't capitalists, wouldn't it be something else? Drought? Covid?
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It’s the best system when combined with strong regulation and good social safety nets. I wish everybody would focus on those things falling down and needing to be fixed instead of pretending we’re going to throw the whole system out tomorrow.
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It’s the best system when combined with strong regulation and good social safety nets.
Sure, it's just too bad it's also a system in which the most powerful are incentivized to cut regulations and destroy social safety nets.
This utopic version of capitalism sounds really nice, but it's fully incompatible with the actual reality of capitalism.
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This utopic version of capitalism sounds really nice, but it’s fully incompatible with the actual reality of capitalism.
All it takes for capitalism to work flawlessly is... checks notes... a fundamental change in human nature, where we no longer feel greed.
EZPZ. Best system ever designed!
(don't tell anyone that this would equally make communism work)
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This perverse incentive, however, is at least limited to a very small group of people, whose influence, with the correct exercise of state power, can be contained.
In a capitalist economy or capitalist-like economy, everyone's individual self-interest aligns with the collective self-interest a good percentage of the time, so relatively little state intervention is needed to keep it working well. The problem with alternative economic systems is that it is in almost nobody's interest to work for the common good, either because of a collective action problem (in communist or communist-like systems) or other reasons. That is why governments in non-capitalist countries are comparatively more heavy-handed with their application of state power. They have to do so in order to maintain their system when it is in nobody's interest to do so on their own.
Without addressing the more obscure systems which I do not know enough about to give an informed take, the difference between capitalism and communism is that the former works by assuming the worst of everyone and the latter works by assuming the best of everyone. And humans acting in large groups tend to act shitty and selfishly.
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when combined with strong regulation and good social safety nets
🤣 I’m not disagreeing with the sentiment but to think we’ll see those anytime soon is a bit of a sad joke. I think too many people in power have made too much money for anything but a sundering to change their minds and allow themselves to be regulated and work for the good of all, instead of themselves.
In a slightly different vein of thought, I think there is truth to the sentiment that fascists don’t cede power willingly. I get that we should focus on things we can change that aren’t unimportant, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a fascist government being voted out.
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The strongest safety net would be to do away with capitalism and move to socialism. Which is why the U.S. diplomatically isolates, trade embargos, or just fucking assassinates countries/leaders that try to start socialism.
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It’s the best system when combined with strong regulation and good social safety nets.
Both regulation and social safety nets run counter to the concept of a free market and a free market is central to the definition of Capitalism.
That's like saying "The best form of travel is unrestrained forward acceleration" with the caveat that it must be combined with the ability to break and steer.
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No, it’s like saying that the best form of transportation is some form of forward locomotive force kept in check by brakes and steering. Like, you know actual cars.
Basically you’re looking at a Toyota Corolla and saying “What? Some of its parts move it forward, and some of its parts stop it from moving? That’s a total contradiction! It’s central to the definition of a car that it move forward!”
Yes regulation and social safety nets run counter, that’s the point.
There’s no one concept which makes for a good system in a totally undiluted form. Pure centralized economy: disaster. Pure capitalism, disaster.
Capitalism tempered by regulation and socialism: a balance of economic dynamism and humanist restraint.
The core of your argument seems to be that the only form of capitalism is unrestrained capitalism and we just don’t agree on those semantics. I believe a free market system can be governed and taxed to support social welfare. You believe that capitalism can only be unrestrained. Well, my version of reality is everywhere we look: both Europe and the US are examples of free market economies with some safety net and regulation attached. Europe is stronger on the latter two but the US is hardly at zero.
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Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, was pretty clear that a free market still needs protection.
A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation...
Every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the means of their subsistence, and no species can ever multiply beyond it. But in civilised society it is only among the inferior ranks of people that the scantiness of subsistence can set limits to the further multiplication of the human species; and it can do so in no other way than by destroying a great part of the children which their fruitful marriages produce.
The liberal reward of labour, by enabling them to provide better for their children, and consequently to bring up a greater number, naturally tends to widen and extend those limits. It deserves to be remarked, too, that it necessarily does this as nearly as possible in the proportion which the demand for labour requires. If this demand is continually increasing, the reward of labour must necessarily encourage in such a manner the marriage and multiplication of labourers, as may enable them to supply that continually increasing demand by a continually increasing population.
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Look at the scandinavian countries. Arguably the best example of how to do capitalism, regulation and socialism. Seems to work out for their citizens.
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I think we're just tried of thinking we can fix the things falling down cuz the people in charge are perfectly happy getting rich AF right now. Why change anything?
Thinking you can fix the system is kinda laughable in 2025.
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Not as laughable as thinking you can throw the system out. Incremental improvement is the only thing that has ever worked, and many generations have faced challenges. This is not the first time that wealthy interests have squeezed the working class. This is not the first time that politics has been dysfunctional.
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Why It's So Hard To Imagine Life After Capitalism
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That was good, thanks.
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best
*Least worst so far, maybe, if we're being generous (which tends to be frowned upon or downright illegal under capitalism, so better let's not).
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Was the .com crash bad for average people? I was not yet financially responsible for myself then.
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I was average people and watched a lot of layoffs happen over it.
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It didn't feel that way, not like 2006 felt. I think the crash got quickly overshadowed by 9/11. I also believe that the bubble itself was actually managed better, instead of becoming instant tax cuts and handouts like bubbles under Republicans, so the fallout didn't feel so bad.
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The worst thing that happened during it was the Enron scandal, a bunch of startup website companies failed, and the ones that didn’t are evil mega corps now.
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Being close to tech, it was a hard time with friends losing their jobs.
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It's just a little austerity for the poors, bro, relax.
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It's just a little austerity for the poors
Maybe, but then again Gary thinks it's the middle class who will pay .
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You are not like them poors bro, you will be a billionaire any day now! You don't wanna pay taxes on those billions right?
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We're not in the crash yet. We've been very close a few times, but they keep reviving the dying horse while they beat it.
It helps when you have a fiat currency that the world is tied to. Won't last forever.
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I agree with this. It's gotten bad, like, great depression bad, at times, but it never lasted. There has so far been bounce backs in a relatively reasonable timeframe.
When it crashes, you'll know.
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F1 memes crossover plz
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Economic crashes are not related to capitalism. All human activity increases and decreases at different times. Capitalism is irrelevant.
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Room temp IQ take.
It's true that civilization is inherently brittle but those ebbs and flows logically come from things outside of human control. Eg. natural disasters, crop failures, spikes in population pressure, etc...
In no sane universe does a society (producing 10x it's true resource demand) rubber band on the brink of destruction just because a few rich fucks need to make their high score bigger. The whole gambit of civilization is sacrificing individual flexibility for group stability, an economic system that misses that mark is antithetical.
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59 comments
Because these only happen in capitalism. Yeah, sure. Wanna buy a bridge?
Let me guess: you think China is a communist country?