To be fair experimenting is good. It’s still better than feudal system. I just wish we experimented with other models once in a while too.
I will read a sci-fi novel thousands of years into the future with fantasy-magic system, and economic model is still “21st century capitalism but we replaced the word money with credits so it’s future now.”
No need to read the entire article. Just skim through it a bit.
Btw, I can attest that the 1964 regime change in Brazil was real because I live here and we study the military dictatorship period in middle/high school and the theme is still relevant to this day (hence why we jailed Bolsonaro). (Edit: I forgot to mention that the reveal that 1964 had a hand from operation condor is recent. it was just a “leftist hoax” before but, “today”, the papers of US involvement in Brazil’s coup made the “leftist hoax” not be a hoax anymore)
We will need to wait a a few more decades before going public that US also interfered with our politics on the impeachment of Dilma and raise of Bolsonaro to power.
But at least Obama government bugging Dilma’s phone was true
Also, did anyone ever mentioned that the only country who used nukes in wars up to this day was US? the country that bombed 2 civilians cities for “research purposes”?
If Russia and France didn’t got their bombs in time, I can almost assure you that history would be different a lot of other countries would receive radioactive democracy blessings from US intead of the “boring” democracy US employs in the world nowadays.
It just seems so US centric that it’s always the US this the US that, there’s like the whole rest of the world too but the discussion always is “socialist country do something bad” “well what about the US???”. Like goddamn
because it’s them bombing and propagandizing and financing the coups. a lot of it has even been openly admitted to by the CIA.
european countries do it too, but they are allowed to. colony capitalism is imposed on most countries by the aforementioned violence, not chosen democratically.
Would be harder to explain it away if they weren’t brutal undemocratic regimes though
They aren’t though.
Cuba passed a new constitution by referendum in 2019 with 90%+ in favor.
A common perspective I’ve heard here in Vietnam is “socialism means the government has to represent everyone”. (Another common perspective is that the party is openly corrupt and not meaningfully democratic. Those typically aren’t held by the same people)
Most every Chinese would tell you 1. Democracy is important. 2. The CPC represents my views via democracy.
Capitalism exists to replace feudal systems. It’s easier to have kings, and to have a handful of them so they aren’t fighting as much for a single spot, when you convince the average idiot that now they can also be a king and its their own fault that they aren’t(or better yet, another person’s fault as you oppress them both).
When all the people who had gotten rich by being parasites because of who they were related got afraid they just changed the rules so that it wasn’t ahout blood relation anymore(on paper) but they still had all the money they’d stolen. Nothing functionally changed.
The entire system “the rich get everything they want and no one gets to stop them” does not have a good version. It’s fucked every single way.
According to whom? I wonder what we would see if we were to compare the average amount of labour time feudal peasants had to put in to survive vs. that of the current global proletariat.
I’d agree that capitalism has been better for some - like, for instance, white ex-peasants who now gets to be members of the (so-called) “middle class” or gets to cosplay as pseudo-nobility in colonised spaces- but it has been an unmitigated disaster for lots of others.
According to Marx, Engels, Lenin and any other respectable communist.
Capitalism is a historical progression rather than something you adopt willy nilly, and it has expanded productive forces significantly allowing us to produce stuff far more efficiently in far higher quality and complexity. With feudalism, it’s mode of production was far more individualized, with peasants essentially producing for their and their family’s subsistence only, and artisans in guilds would only work in small groups, limiting to what they can produce.
Therefore, this expansion of productive powers in capitalism in theory leads to better life quality, less socially necessary labor time to provide for everyone, less mortality given how we can now produce things like insulin in complex labs, etc.
Keyword is in theory - in practice, everything else in the system goes against that, leads to overproduction and having us proletariat work for much higher hours than is socially necessary, it concentrates wealth to private owners giving them immense political power. That’s what communists are trying to do - progress forward so we produce not for profit, but for use based on need which would solve these issues.
Btw, comparison between feudal peasantry and proletariat is flawed - peasants were based in countryside and essentially were the middle class of it, owning a small amount of land that they worked for themselves. Proletariat are urbanized, work in factories they don’t own and produce for thousands of people. A more apt comparison in work hours would be proletariat vs guild apprentices - their exploitation and work hours were essentially the same and this system was precursor to capitalist wage labor.
Progressive =/= better. The Capitalist social relation inevitably reproduces itself across the globe because of the social forces. Not because it is an improvement.
Therefore, this expansion of productive powers in capitalism in theory leads to better life quality, less socially necessary labor time to provide for everyone, less mortality given how we can now produce things like insulin in complex labs, etc.
Regardless of the debate that these modern conceptions can be attributed entirely to a change in the mode of production rather then simply the inevitable progression of humanities technological knowledge, Marx actually argued Capitalism inevitably immiserates the proletariat rather than advancing quality of life.
You try to hedge this by saying “in theory”, yet not even in theory. It is a lie of the bourgeoisie the proletarian slavery is an improvement over peasant slavery. In theory, Capitalism is simply the reproduction of the capitalist social relationship and the replacement of the nobility class with the new bourgeoisie class.
Btw, comparison between feudal peasantry and proletariat is flawed - peasants were based in countryside and essentially were the middle class of it
The comparison is not to equalize the proletariat and peasantry in their relationship to the means of production, but in the demographic comparison for who is the majority of the planet. In Feudal times, peasants, including serfs make up the majority of people. And serfs are decidedly not middle class. Peasants were an exploited class under feudalism, duped by the bourgeoisie to support the inevitable capitalist revolution that would “improve their quality of life”, only to find themselves alienated industrial laborers and at the bottom of class society once again.
Do you think mining workers had it better under feodalism? Not sure things went worse for them because of capitalism, mining was always a dangerous and shitty job, often done by slaves or convicts because of how shit the conditions were.
Do you think mining workers had it better under feodalism?
In the pre-capitalist world mining practices were all over the place… it wasn’t just chain-gangs and overseers. And the conditions for it isn’t fundamentally any shittier than working a farm or a factory - I know because I can literally walk down the street and ask a zama-zama (an artisinal - “illegal”, according to our bootlicking media - miner) and ask him who and what it is that actually makes their work conditions shitty and dangerous.
We all know what happens to miners under the capitalist mode of production, however - it’s literally why some of the most vicious crackdowns on organised labour in history involved the mining industry.
Mining conditions are all over the place right now. Some workers have it good, with good compensation, perks and with a lot of attention paid to safety and others live in horrible deathly conditions and are practically slaves
Some workers have it good, with good compensation, perks
Only in places where labour organising have managed to win concessions in spite of the capitalist mode of production - a capitalist mode of production that is reproduced globally to this very day. If it wasn’t for the need to stabilise the imperial core, coal miners in Germany would be treated no differently than cobalt miners in the DRC. There is nothing comparable to that in the pre-capitalist world - not even the brutal exploitation of the Americas by the Spanish was reproduced globally.
We’re talking about how not all conditions are the same, you can’t just discard some conditions because they differ from the point you’re trying to make. Some miners have it really good inside a capitalist system, same as some might’ve had it good under feodalist system.
The unmitigated disaster part existed under feudalism also. Capitalism is slowly turning back into feudalism, which is kinda why it sucks so much now. I hate capitalism, but feudalism was worse.
Fuedalism with a fuckload of democracy might work. But it always turns into a bloodline thing.
The unmitigated disaster part existed under feudalism also.
Perhaps, but I have to wonder how many feudal peasants would willingly exchange their existence for the precariat one we exist under.
Capitalism is slowly turning back into feudalism
If that is true, then it must mean that capitalism never replaced feudalism, but was instead built on top of feudalism - which is not that difficult to believe if you live in a 3rd-world extraction zone (like I do).
Its also not hard to believe if you ́look at the continuation of power across much of Europe. Its not a 1:1 comparison but lots of families of feudal lords are still wealthy and powerful today if they didn’t completely fuck up. The power has spread out but has concentrated in other ways.
To be fair experimenting is good. It’s still better than feudal system. I just wish we experimented with other models once in a while too.
I will read a sci-fi novel thousands of years into the future with fantasy-magic system, and economic model is still “21st century capitalism but we replaced the word money with credits so it’s future now.”
we do. those just get bombed away a lot of the time they pop up.
or explained away as a brutal undemocratic regime or something.
Would be harder to explain it away if they weren’t brutal undemocratic regimes though
don’t be silly. the most brutal and undemocratic country in the world is the us.
Erm, Somalia anyone?
african countries are still bad mostly because of the empire’s imperialism.
What relevance does the US have here
its literally the country pulling the lever in the meme, AND the one bombing or propagandizing against others trying to do things differently.
Why do you think it’s the US specifically and none of all the other capitalist countries?
Maybe because of this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
No need to read the entire article. Just skim through it a bit.
Btw, I can attest that the 1964 regime change in Brazil was real because I live here and we study the military dictatorship period in middle/high school and the theme is still relevant to this day (hence why we jailed Bolsonaro). (Edit: I forgot to mention that the reveal that 1964 had a hand from operation condor is recent. it was just a “leftist hoax” before but, “today”, the papers of US involvement in Brazil’s coup made the “leftist hoax” not be a hoax anymore)
We will need to wait a a few more decades before going public that US also interfered with our politics on the impeachment of Dilma and raise of Bolsonaro to power.
But at least Obama government bugging Dilma’s phone was true
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/7/5/us-spied-on-brazilian-president-and-top-officials
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/246869-wikileaks-nsa-spied-on-brazils-president/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-25441408 (Angela Merkel was another target for spionage from NSA).
Also, did anyone ever mentioned that the only country who used nukes in wars up to this day was US? the country that bombed 2 civilians cities for “research purposes”?
If Russia and France didn’t got their bombs in time, I can almost assure you that history would be different a lot of other countries would receive radioactive democracy blessings from US intead of the “boring” democracy US employs in the world nowadays.
It just seems so US centric that it’s always the US this the US that, there’s like the whole rest of the world too but the discussion always is “socialist country do something bad” “well what about the US???”. Like goddamn
because it’s them bombing and propagandizing and financing the coups. a lot of it has even been openly admitted to by the CIA.
european countries do it too, but they are allowed to. colony capitalism is imposed on most countries by the aforementioned violence, not chosen democratically.
They aren’t though.
Cuba passed a new constitution by referendum in 2019 with 90%+ in favor.
A common perspective I’ve heard here in Vietnam is “socialism means the government has to represent everyone”. (Another common perspective is that the party is openly corrupt and not meaningfully democratic. Those typically aren’t held by the same people)
Most every Chinese would tell you 1. Democracy is important. 2. The CPC represents my views via democracy.
Lay off the kool aid
What’s that
Capitalism exists to replace feudal systems. It’s easier to have kings, and to have a handful of them so they aren’t fighting as much for a single spot, when you convince the average idiot that now they can also be a king and its their own fault that they aren’t(or better yet, another person’s fault as you oppress them both).
When all the people who had gotten rich by being parasites because of who they were related got afraid they just changed the rules so that it wasn’t ahout blood relation anymore(on paper) but they still had all the money they’d stolen. Nothing functionally changed.
The entire system “the rich get everything they want and no one gets to stop them” does not have a good version. It’s fucked every single way.
According to whom? I wonder what we would see if we were to compare the average amount of labour time feudal peasants had to put in to survive vs. that of the current global proletariat.
I’d agree that capitalism has been better for some - like, for instance, white ex-peasants who now gets to be members of the (so-called) “middle class” or gets to cosplay as pseudo-nobility in colonised spaces- but it has been an unmitigated disaster for lots of others.
According to Marx, Engels, Lenin and any other respectable communist.
Capitalism is a historical progression rather than something you adopt willy nilly, and it has expanded productive forces significantly allowing us to produce stuff far more efficiently in far higher quality and complexity. With feudalism, it’s mode of production was far more individualized, with peasants essentially producing for their and their family’s subsistence only, and artisans in guilds would only work in small groups, limiting to what they can produce.
Therefore, this expansion of productive powers in capitalism in theory leads to better life quality, less socially necessary labor time to provide for everyone, less mortality given how we can now produce things like insulin in complex labs, etc.
Keyword is in theory - in practice, everything else in the system goes against that, leads to overproduction and having us proletariat work for much higher hours than is socially necessary, it concentrates wealth to private owners giving them immense political power. That’s what communists are trying to do - progress forward so we produce not for profit, but for use based on need which would solve these issues.
Btw, comparison between feudal peasantry and proletariat is flawed - peasants were based in countryside and essentially were the middle class of it, owning a small amount of land that they worked for themselves. Proletariat are urbanized, work in factories they don’t own and produce for thousands of people. A more apt comparison in work hours would be proletariat vs guild apprentices - their exploitation and work hours were essentially the same and this system was precursor to capitalist wage labor.
Concerning peasants, some (serfs) didn’t own any land, while others (freemen) did. Serfs could be better off than freemen though.
Progressive =/= better. The Capitalist social relation inevitably reproduces itself across the globe because of the social forces. Not because it is an improvement.
Regardless of the debate that these modern conceptions can be attributed entirely to a change in the mode of production rather then simply the inevitable progression of humanities technological knowledge, Marx actually argued Capitalism inevitably immiserates the proletariat rather than advancing quality of life.
You try to hedge this by saying “in theory”, yet not even in theory. It is a lie of the bourgeoisie the proletarian slavery is an improvement over peasant slavery. In theory, Capitalism is simply the reproduction of the capitalist social relationship and the replacement of the nobility class with the new bourgeoisie class.
The comparison is not to equalize the proletariat and peasantry in their relationship to the means of production, but in the demographic comparison for who is the majority of the planet. In Feudal times, peasants, including serfs make up the majority of people. And serfs are decidedly not middle class. Peasants were an exploited class under feudalism, duped by the bourgeoisie to support the inevitable capitalist revolution that would “improve their quality of life”, only to find themselves alienated industrial laborers and at the bottom of class society once again.
Who has switch over from feudalism been a disaster to?
I mean, just off the top of my head…
And, let’s not forget, those conditions never ended - they were just exported.
Do you think mining workers had it better under feodalism? Not sure things went worse for them because of capitalism, mining was always a dangerous and shitty job, often done by slaves or convicts because of how shit the conditions were.
In the pre-capitalist world mining practices were all over the place… it wasn’t just chain-gangs and overseers. And the conditions for it isn’t fundamentally any shittier than working a farm or a factory - I know because I can literally walk down the street and ask a zama-zama (an artisinal - “illegal”, according to our bootlicking media - miner) and ask him who and what it is that actually makes their work conditions shitty and dangerous.
We all know what happens to miners under the capitalist mode of production, however - it’s literally why some of the most vicious crackdowns on organised labour in history involved the mining industry.
Mining conditions are all over the place right now. Some workers have it good, with good compensation, perks and with a lot of attention paid to safety and others live in horrible deathly conditions and are practically slaves
Only in places where labour organising have managed to win concessions in spite of the capitalist mode of production - a capitalist mode of production that is reproduced globally to this very day. If it wasn’t for the need to stabilise the imperial core, coal miners in Germany would be treated no differently than cobalt miners in the DRC. There is nothing comparable to that in the pre-capitalist world - not even the brutal exploitation of the Americas by the Spanish was reproduced globally.
You are trying to compare apples with oranges.
We’re talking about how not all conditions are the same, you can’t just discard some conditions because they differ from the point you’re trying to make. Some miners have it really good inside a capitalist system, same as some might’ve had it good under feodalist system.
The unmitigated disaster part existed under feudalism also. Capitalism is slowly turning back into feudalism, which is kinda why it sucks so much now. I hate capitalism, but feudalism was worse.
Fuedalism with a fuckload of democracy might work. But it always turns into a bloodline thing.
Perhaps, but I have to wonder how many feudal peasants would willingly exchange their existence for the precariat one we exist under.
If that is true, then it must mean that capitalism never replaced feudalism, but was instead built on top of feudalism - which is not that difficult to believe if you live in a 3rd-world extraction zone (like I do).
Its also not hard to believe if you ́look at the continuation of power across much of Europe. Its not a 1:1 comparison but lots of families of feudal lords are still wealthy and powerful today if they didn’t completely fuck up. The power has spread out but has concentrated in other ways.