cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/36828107
ID: WookieeMark @EvilGenXer posted:
"OK so look, Capitalism is right wing.
Period.
If you are pro-capitalism, you are Right Wing.
There is no pro-capitalist Left. That’s a polite fiction in the US that no one can afford any longer as the ecosystem is actually collapsing around us."
Nah. It’s a form of economics that rewards supply following demand. I’m pretty lefty liberal and I’m 100% in favor of fair capitalism. For most things.
Capitalism is just a machine, a system, and I fully believe in intelligence and hard work being rewarded over sitting on your couch playing video games. Capitalism also requires a well regulated system, progressive taxes, safety nets,etc. There are also some areas where capitalism doesn’t work and another system should be used, such as health care, police, fire, etc.
However the idea that capitalism is right wing is bullshit. Maybe uncontrolled capitalism is right wing, but I take strong issue with the most effective economic system in the world being considered “right wing”, it’s not.
How funny! I am 100% in favor of magic pixie dust!
Capitalism is much bigger and more insidious than just a economic system. Despite irrefutable proof to the contrary, people still look at the world in this very limiting way that allows them to see capitalism as just this little neutral effective economic system. Its intellectualizing and abstracting reality to fit a narrative. The fact that you look at things in this narrow way, despite centuries of evidence to the contrary proves capitalism is not only an economic system but an ideology as well. And if it is both an economic system and an ideology, then where does the ideology come from?
Liberal ideology covers up the worst abuses of capitalism, fixates on the individual, guarantees rights it can’t protect in the face of capitalist expansion.
Liberal isn’t even an economic category to a liberal, it is a set of ideals that protect freedom and guarantee safety, prevent against corruption. Never mind that people have always been oppressed under liberalism, always been enslaved under liberalism. Liberalism is, and always has been a set of economic beliefs, that claim to guarantee certain human rights, through the individual ownership of private property.
I’m sorry, because I know that many liberals are extremely well meaning people, leftists who genuinely care about those rights. These people are exactly the ones this ideology hopes to trick. I’m sure that you personally are a good person with lovely friends, who donates to good causes, maybe shows up to a demonstration or two, votes for Democrats and believes in fair rational governance. But capitalism is just another form of class domination, one that hides its incredible cruelty through its total domination of every part of our lives.
The fact that you can’t see it should concern you. I assure you I am a rational and well meaning person. I’m an organizer and work hard to understand the forces at work, I’m not just repeating stuff I heard on the internet or whatever. Some of these thing I worked out when I was a well meaning liberal, whose curiosity unravelled my worldview. I can’t say that my views are perfect while yours are flawed, that’s not what I’m trying to accomplish. I just ask that rather than dismissing me and other critics of liberalism who are also on the left, consider that your very narrow view might be why you believe what you do. The same is consequently true of me too, its a basic philosophical problem. But i question myself on my views constantly, and I understand your tradition and history. I just wish you and other well meaning liberals understood it a little better.
100%
Uh oh, something not blatantly anti-capitalist! Here comes the down votes!
None of that is capitalism.
Capitalism is when a small number of people (an elite, by definition) control the majority of the Capital, which is property that can be used to conduct business and make money. What lefties call “the means of production.” Capital is things like factories, data centers, power plants, mines, large acres of land used for farming, and so on.
What you’re failing to describe properly is Markets. Markets aren’t evil, free trade between well-informed parties isn’t evil. Money, in fact, is the root of all evil but is not in itself evil. None of those things are Capitalism.
Wrong. Capitalism is not defined by its criticisms nor by any eventual outcome. Everything OP said is the definition of capitalism. Everything you’re saying are the criticisms of Capitalism which state that eventually, Capitalism will lead to that. Early capitalism does not have a small few controlling the majority of the means of production, but it is still capitalism.
That’s like saying Communist governments are defined by never reaching full communism, or that a First Past the Post voting system is defined by a two party system. Those are not what define those things, but they are the criticisms of them and their eventual outcomes without something new implemented to correct it.
It’s not like they reset the fucking market when they boot up capitalism. The king had the most money, the king’s heirs and friends still have most of the money. The small ruling elite come with the system, because they brought it.
Nothing you underlined indicate that it’s owned by a small number of people, just that’s privately/corporate owned.
1 person can own one business in a market, and a separate person can own a second business in the market. A million different people can own a million different businesses in that market. All are privately or corporate owned.
The way to uncover the nature of domination and exploitation, to prove that it isn’t just an economic system, is to instead of thinking of it as an objective thing with certain defining characteristics, but instead look at it as interconnected relationships that drive infinite growth, then it becomes apparent how it actually functions as a mechanism of class domination. The way you look at it, you only see the appearances of capitalism, you have an idealist view.
This is why so many people say things like “such a policy doesn’t make sense, its irrational.” But when viewed as a class struggle, it makes perfect sense, the system exploits the problems created by the relentless search for profit, by exploiting those problems for profit. Its the system that is irrational, and your desire to make it rational is well intentioned, but is basically just naval gazing. “This is what I learned it is so that’s what it is”. Its easier to see the illusions of capitalism for what they are than to hold on to them, but because they are a part of our identity, how we evaluate the world and our place in it, we don’t want to let them go. This is understandable.
But the stakes are higher than ever and the system is destroying, not building, killing and starving, not emancipating. This isn’t progress, its suicide.
The way anyone here looks at Communism is idealistic and Communist governments never fall into that ideal definition. Does that mean Communism is a bad thing? No. It simply means we haven’t found a way to make it work. Is Capitalism a bad thing? No. It can be great when it works. It’s just not working right now in Amurrica.