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The argument presented here is based on complete ignorance of the history of the human race.
Reason #1
The concept of property ownership is not a product of capitalism. This idea is literally as old as the oldest known civilization to keep written records, Mesopotamia.
Concern with property, its preservation, and its use shaped not only the Mesopotamian legal tradition but also economic and social practice, notably the ability to sell and to buy land and to transfer property through marriage and inheritance.
In Mesopotamian culture, property was owned by the state, by the temple, and by private families. Records show a distinction between movable property (material goods) and immovable property (land), and the selling, trading, repossessing, inheriting and transfer of all types of property.
Here is an example of a cuneiform tablet recording an agreement about the division of property.
There is even an equivalent of eminent domain:
When Hammurabi asked, “When is a permanent property ever taken away?” he was referring to the established customary legal principle that land was the permanent property of a family.
Hammurabi was not a capitalist. Babylon was not a capitalist nation.
Capitalism did not “invent legal privileges around property”.
Reason #2
Conquest of territory happened long before capitalism ever existed. Colonialism was hardly a new concept.
Genghis Khan was not a capitalist. Alexander the Great was not a capitalist. Julius Caesar was not a capitalist. Napoleon Bonaparte was not a capitalist.
If you require citations for this part of my argument, I suggest you find a basic text on world history at your local library.
Conclusion
I’m not going to address the other “reasons” as they are faulty conclusions drawn from the previously addressed faulty premises.
I am not arguing that these things are right and good. I am arguing that linking them specifically to capitalism represents a desperately uneducated understanding of human society and history. This is such a bad take, it reeks of teenage anarchist and “money is the root of all evil” oversimplification.
Comparing property law under hammurabi with property law as it presently exists is absolutely laughably ridiculous and you know it is. You should take your capitalist apologia elsewhere.
I have made no apology for capitalism. If this is what you got from what I wrote, then you have trouble with reading comprehension.
I did not make a comparison between Mesopotamian property law and present property law. My point was that private ownership of property is a function of human society literally as old as recorded history, as well as the idea of legal privileges around property ownership.
Because the cartoon is based on the premise that these ideas come from capitalism, the entire argument is faulty.
I’ll quote from my original post:
I am not arguing that these things are right and good. I am arguing that linking them specifically to capitalism represents a desperately uneducated understanding of human society and history.
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You seem to be arguing words and not ideas.
You, "Bingo bango! You made a statement that can be technically untrue, therefore you are entirely incorrect!"Debunking someone’s point first requires engaging with it and you never even came close. So what about Mesopotamia? Let’s take your word on that, does it change the core point? Nope.
You, "Shazam! People were stabbing before capitalism, therefore when someone gets stabbed under capitalism, it's fine! Shazam!"Then you go on to say that because a certain type of violence happened before capitalism, it’s cool that it exists.
You, "Kersplat! You are icky, and I will stop there, the rest of your post is probably stupid anyway!"Do you have brain damage my dude?
As I understand it, the comic states :
1. Create penalties for not being a property/capital-owner.
2. Acquire property/capital through violence
3. With violently acquired capital-backing, use step #1 to exert control
4. Population attacks itself to avoid rule #1, clawing to attain property/capital
5. The system promotes population infighting, allowing the power-holders to exist un-noticed.Who gives a shit about who invented the baton when you’re getting hit in the face. Well, I expect that you do.
Capitalism is not violent and greedy. Humans are violent and greedy.
Economic systems and sociocultural organization principles are irrelevant and attributing historical human violence to them is fallacious.
you go on to say that because a certain type of violence happened before capitalism, it’s cool that it exists.
No, I specifically did not make any such argument, and made a statement about this in my conclusion because I anticipated that someone would attempt to dismiss what I said by deliberately misinterpreting it and then putting words in my mouth. Did you even read my entire post?
Who gives a shit about who invented the baton when you’re getting hit in the face.
The person that made this cartoon cares, and clearly so do you, as you both want to pin it on a particular source for purely emotional reasons, which is evidenced by the fact that you have made no rational argument based on fact and instead have attempted to dismiss what I wrote while presenting zero evidence for your own point of view.
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Capitaliam is an abstract concept, an umbrella term used to encapsulate a somewhat loose grouping of economic behaviors and theories. Humans might use capitalist ideas to justify greedy or violent actions, but they don’t “use capitalism to be greedy and violent”.
The distinction matters because my point is that capitalism is not the source or instrument of violence, but rather a description of and rationalization for human behavior. The violence happens whether or not you conflate the behaviors of the people committing violence with capitalism.
Ultimately I think it would be more accurate to conclude capitalism because violence and greed, not violence and greed because capitalism.
Capitalism is not an abstract concept at all: private ownership of the means of production. Sure, there are many economic theories to go on from there, but how does it change anything to the criticism of this very core idea?
Without additional qualifications on the term capitalism, that is a terrible definition of capitalism.
marx coined the term, and using his definition is the only way it makes sense.
Feel free to come up with a better definition. It’s the one you’ll find in most dictionaries and textbooks. Of course there are more elements to it depending on the exact philosophy (more or less free market et al), but in the end, it all boils down to exactly that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
capitalism is, in fact, the instrument. the extraction of wealth from the labor of the preparation is violence
This is the most persuasive argument in this thread so far… but I’m not sure it’s valid (which is disconcerting because I do think the guns argument is valid but like you said it’s the same it very similar argument)…
I think the part that is different is the scale of scope. For violence, modern firearms immediately peg the board in the red. I’m not sure that capitalism does that.
Capitalism is not violent and greedy. Humans are violent and greedy.
Economic systems and sociocultural organization principles are irrelevant and attributing historical human violence to them is fallacious.
I think you have not actually made a case for this claim, and it isn’t obviously true. To me it seems obviously untrue. The organizational structure of human society is very often a driving force for harm, because harm is simply what happens when we fail to solve the nontrivial problem of human cooperation. People with good intentions can be a part of a larger dynamic in which they are overwhelmingly incentivized to be a part of that harm, and may even be absolutely prevented from not being a part of it. Hateful people with bad intentions can be themselves a product of these failures. You can’t reduce this to the moral choices of individuals because individuals may have no knowledge or agency over the systems that shape their world and force their hands.
I think “violence” might not be the best word for this, but it isn’t “fallacious”.
I think changing the wording from “capitalism is violence” (or harm). “To capitalism enables violence” resolves the wiggle room in the argument.
Probably, but personally I think the violence/harm would happen (and does happen) regardless of capitalism/communism/feudalism/Marxism/anarchy/barter economy/etc.
Saying that the violence/harm happens because of capitalism is like saying that rain happens because there are clouds in the sky. There’s concurrence, but neither is the cause of the other, they are both the products of underlying meteorological conditions.
You are attacking a strawman.
Some societies are violent more so than others.
A social system is not simplistically the cause of all violence, and neither is any violence due to causes simplistically detached from the social system in which it occurs.
Violence is latent in capitalism.
It produces massive disparities in wealth and privilege that could not for very long be sustained except by the constant threat of force against those who are deprived, marginalized, and otherwise disadvantaged.
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arguing that capitalism is somehow a new concept, and colonialism isn’t.
I am not sure how you reached this conclusion. Yes, capitalism is new in comparison to Mesopotamian culture, and therefore the idea of property ownership. No, it’s not new in comparison to European colonialism.
I think you could argue that capitalism even entered the human world before even currency was a thing.
I have never heard or read any theories that try to make an argument like this. I would be very interested if you had some that you could point me to, but offhand this seems like it would require major stretching of the definition of capitalism in order to make recorded events fit into it. I think it would mostly be an exercise in confirmation bias.
Accumulation of wealth is not inherently capitalism, nor is simply profiting from another’s labor. This definition is so broad that it would make anyone in history who ever acquired anything that they did not previously own into a capitalist.
There’s a reason you’re unwilling to entertain other arguments, because you’re moving the goalposts and are afraid they will fall off the field.
Which other arguments am I unwilling to entertain, and which goalposts am I moving?
My argument is, as from the beginning, that the concept of private ownership of property and legal rights attached to such is not born of capitalism but is in fact as old as recorded history. Because the conclusions in the cartoon depend on this initial faulty idea, the whole thing is nonsense.
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I jive with most of what you write… but you have weird things sprinkled throughout…
Like, differentiating between the pharaoh and the state… the pharaoh was the state. I mean, there was more of a state than just the pharaoh… but practically the pharaoh was the state.
It’s like saying that there is a difference between the Russian state and Putin… technically yes, but practically no. Putin is the Russian state. Obviously there is bureaucracy as well, but is just a weird separation.
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Obviously we have different definitions of capitalism… which makes the rest of the discussion difficult.
Fundamentally, serfs in a feudal society did not own the right to their own labor for the portion of their labor assigned to their lord.
Fundamentally, people in modern capitalist societies do own the rights to their own labor.
Practically, the ability to exercise those rights is severely limited (which is what the meme is trying to point out). There are reasonable arguments that the poor in modern capitalism have less freedom than serfs of feudal societies… but that doesn’t make them equivalent.
And, for what it’s worth, Marx wasn’t arguing about 12th century feudalism… that was some 700 years before the form of capitalism that was present in his time.
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Marx identified feudalism as a system distinct from capitalism, separated historically by a transitory system called mercantilism.
Mercantilism may be considered as a kind of proto-capitalism, because it entails the employer-employee relationship, but lacks the systemic consequences of capital accumulation, which depends on continuous growth enabled by the changes in production following the industrial revolution.
Marx identified feudal and capitalist societies both as characterized by “class struggles”, that is, having multiple classes with mutually antagonistic interests, as had “all hitherto existing society”.
This is such a weird take… how far removed from reality are you to actually believe that authoritarian feudalism is a form of capitalism?
Wealth accumulation is not capitalism. Capitalism enables wealth accumulation, but the opposite isn’t true in the slightest.
All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.
I think you could argue that capitalism even entered the human world before even currency was a thing.
I’d love to see your citations and reasoning on this, assuming it doesn’t fall into “capitalism is when anyone owns anything or sells anything”
Because this
In most civilizations wealth tends to accumulate at the top of the societal pyramid, which is capitalism. The pharaohs and sumerian kings alike are capitalists
Is ridiculous.
capitalism isn’t owning land. it’s a mode of production I’m which the proletariat are robbed of the product of their labor by the capitalist class using the institution of private property and it’s violent enforcement to extract that wealth.
Where was it suggested that property and conquest are unique to capitalism?
I think there’s a simpler, more personal way to make this point. Here’s a few thought experiments:
Imagine you work for a company that lays you off, even while doing enough stock buybacks and executive bonuses such that they could’ve paid your salary for 1000 years. After you get laid off, imagine what would happen if you just ignored them and continued doing your work.
Or, your landlord doesn’t renew your lease because they think you’re ugly and they don’t want ugly people living in their building. Imagine what happens if you just stay, even if you keep sending the landlord their monthly rent on time.
Both of these situations end with armed, taxpayer-funded agents physically removing you from the premises by any means necessary; it is only the omnipresent threat of state violence that keeps capitalist control over their private property. We don’t see the violence because we’ve been trained from an early age not just to accept it, but to not even see it.
^ This is the winner, right here. The crux, as it were.
Modern society always ultimately boils down, eventually, to might makes right… just with some extra steps.
I agree with you. That said, as humans, we’re not yet evolved past defending territory we’ve chosen to live on. I think we still need “might” as an option for response, until we as a creator evolve further.
I don’t know if it’s possible to get rid of the final might destination on the continuum of responses to issues, but I think we can agree that the “extra steps” part between “an annoyance” and “possible danger to individuals and society” is extremely lacking and narrow.
I strongly, strongly dislike what the police have become, and evolved from, in the united States. Someone does need to investigate crime and murder though, and not just a few amateur podcasters. With some careful thought, and likely messy experimentation, we can handle laws being just, fair and useful. How? That seems to be the tricky part.
“Warfare is of vital importance to the state, it is a matter of life and death.” -Sun Tzu.
A hundreds of years old warlord recognized this, it’s a thought independent of economics. As long as there’s more than one nation-state on this planet, might is always the end result, including defense from an aggressor.
The idea of inherent violence solely being a capitalist trait doesn’t tell the whole truth because the need for might exists as long as there’s power dynamic, which exists as long as there is govt.
Has anyone claimed that violence has never occurred outside a context of capitalism?
You think it’s the govt that creates the power imbalances that results in violence? This is laughable… government is a result of violence that creates the power imbalance. Your point was reasonable until you conflated the two at the end.
I strongly, strongly dislike what the police have become, and evolved from, in the united States. Someone does need to investigate crime and murder though, and not just a few amateur podcasters. With some careful thought, and likely messy experimentation, we can handle laws being just, fair and useful. How? That seems to be the tricky part.
That’s not exclusive to capitalism .
True, but as an organization, protection of property seems to be their primary focus in more capital-centric societies.
I’m speaking from an admittedly limited experience, having lived in the US most of my life, so I welcome any other perspective or ideas.
I’m also from the US, and haven’t lived abroad. It did rise to my awareness in this exchange, having recently begun trying to process Bob Altemeyer’s The Authoritarians
Private property is the cause of the greatest social disparities, and protecting it is essential for our current systems to preserve themselves.
It should be no surprise that it is implicated in much of the greatest violence in our society.
I’ve seen a few solutions to the private property idea posited. I’ll admit my biases, they made me uncomfortable, mainly because they cannot be the only piece of the machine altered.
For ex, there’s a very large company near me that allows one to purchase land to build a house on, but that land is your family’s for 99 years before ownership reverts to the corporation.
I can’t really see the upside for any family, investing a lot of money into property that simply… Vanishes after a time. But that was one of the solutions I previously reviewed, no true ownership. Most of the other ideas were tweaks on that central idea.
Within the context of criticisms of capital, private property expresses a meaning that may be unexpected based strictly on a vernacular interpretation.
Whereas personal property refers to property that is used directly and personally by its owner, private property refers to property that is used by someone else, or another group, such that the owner may profit from asserting private control over such resources despite that they are useful for society or to others.
Businesses and rented properties are private property.
A house someone owns and occupies is personal property.
I don’t know if it’s possible to get rid of the final might destination on the continuum of responses to issues
Perhaps the issues themselves are not inevitable.
Very true, although I can’t think of a better solution than having the state monopolize violence and enforce things like personal property etc and that’s not necessarily anything specific to capitalism either.
Luckily solutions don’t rely on your imagination.
If people who “can’t think of a better way” would stop trying to impose their lack of imagination on the rest of us we would be able to progress.
There are smarter people than you or I in the world and they aren’t the ones running things, the ones whispering, “You’re nothing without me”
The first step of any abusive relationship is recognizing it’s an abusive relationship. The second is to stop making excuses for your abuser and just leave, no matter what they claim the cost to be.
This is a terrible argument.
Is not an argument.
Well that’s a problem.
Yes. For you.
I can no more save you from capitalism than I can save you from an abusive relationship.
The real tell is when I point it out and you get upset with me; classic response by the abused.
Are you intentionally trying to be off-putting?
It is a respectable argument in the way that matters, as identifying a previous, terrible argument, one that was nothing but an appeal to ignorance.
Yes and there are people who can’t leave, eg have no place to go, no means of survival, otherwise. Disabled, power differentiate between men/women/children, etc.
Yep. We’re all stuck and only together can we get unstuck. Unionize. Vote. Share ideas. Help others escape the fog when they get stuck.
Unfortunately some don’t want to be help. They’ll defend their abusers with violence. They are the most dangerous. Flying monkey’s doing the bidding of the powerful.
No shame when they wake though; capitalism is a mind fuck.
Doing all of it without voting probably would be just as good.
Voting is a critical step. Without voting you’ll lose the ability to the the rest.
How is voting necessary for building unions and helping others?
Some very smart and imaginative anarchist philosophers have been working on exactly that for a very long time, from Mikhail Bakunin 200 years ago to more modern writers like Noam Chomsky or David Graeber. I think their work is worthwhile.
I haven’t found Chomskys work to be convincing… it’s always so… extra…
I don’t think it’s extra. Quite the opposite. If anything, it could use a little extra, because it’s extremely dry and academic.
I think we used the slang version of extra differently is all.
I can’t think of a better solution than having the state monopolize violence and enforce things
I can’t think of a worse one.
Sorry, it’s the internet so I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not (I’m hoping hyperbole).
Are you genuinely saying you think everyone using violence at their own discretion for example is better?
Individual descretion occurs within a context of established norms and rules, which would be very different under a society in which everyone protects one another, rather than one in which such responsibility has been forfeit to a power that controls the population.
A society of the prior kind would be safer, by not being held hostage, and by not being disempowered to control itself.
Individual descretion occurs within a context of established norms and rules, which would be very different under a society in which everyone protects one another
It’s called a gang. That’s just gangs. Or tribes. Not a thing that scales up too well. Also not known for its safety.
by not being held hostage
You could literally be held hostage, unless your gang (hope you belong to a tough one) does something about it.
We aren’t disempowered, we vote and elect representatives. We give input that takes those norms and rules and puts them into laws to eliminate that individual discretion that is most often faulty (people have emotions after all, so don’t behave fairly when it’s personal).
Basically all the safest places in the world have violence monopolized by the state to enforce laws. All the most dangerous are where that isn’t the case (gangs, warlords, cartels, corruption) with few exceptions.
A gang is a criminal organization. Its relation to surrounding society is antagonistic, and it is broadly indifferent to the harmful effects it causes to anyone outside. Gangs often enrich themselves by theft supported by violence. They generally do not produce.
A group whose members live nearby to one another and who keep each other safe is a community. Members of a community generally participate in production, as the shared source of wealth and sustenance.
A tribe is a political structure often constituted as a loose affiliation of bands. A band is a kind of community. Bands are usually relatively isolated socially and geographically from other communities.
Many other communities, as often found in modern societies, are highly integrated with other communities, and maintain favorable relationships with them, seeking a minimization of violence, and fostering shared peace and prosperity through production and trade.
Voting is not empowering.
Voting is at best a choice of whom to empower. Those who compete against one another for the votes of the public generally have more in common with each other than with the public. Most rules change very little regardless of who is elected, and most rules carry the broader effect of protecting the power of those already empowered.
Broadly, voting generally maintains and protects, not challenges, the status quo and the disempowerment of the public.
For the public to become empowered, it would need to gain some power relative to those for whom it votes.
States perpetrate violence on massive scales. They function to protect themselves, not to protect the public. For almost the entirety of human existence, people have protected each other without states.
The idea that the state, even as a principle, should protect the public, is quite recent, even relative to the duration since states have emerged, and the practical reality is quite different from the principle.
When the interests of the public come into conflict with the interests of the state, then the state inflicts violence against the public.
When the capacity of the state becomes strained, to inflict violence against the public, then the state simply exercises its power to augment its capacity to inflict violence.
This applies in general to copyright.
It’s bullshit that exists solely by the power of the state. It only exists as long as we all agree it exists, ever person on the planet. It has only existed for a few centuries but no one can imagine a world without.
Capitalism is the same except worse since no one can agree on what capitalism means. The solution is always to capitalism harder.
This is a great comment. Thanks for this.
💖
Not playing devils advocate by choice: there are systems in place (at least in more democratic countries) that force the employer and the landlord to keep you if you havent done anything wrong.
At will employment is an american joke.
Still, paying more for the shareholders and CEOs than the actual work your water, food and transportation needs is insane.
The idea that I can buy my way around laws and others rights is disgusting to the core.
This is mostly on point, but it also reproduces the 100 companies 71% line.
100 corporations are responsible for 71% of emissions related to fossil fuel and cement production, not 71% of total global emissions.
Of the total emissions attributed to fossil fuel producers, companies are responsible for around 12% of the direct emissions; the other 88% comes from the emissions released from consumption of products.
It’s unfortunately not true. Just widley quoted.
It’s reddit tier misinformation post.
if they didn’t dig it out of the ground it couldn’t be used at all. they have the responsibility
So individuals aren’t responsible for making any inconvenient changes to their lifestyle but can still feel morally superior? Thanks bro, this is just what I needed to hear today!
No. It’s the System that encurages them to dog it out that is to blame. A System that is build around exponancial groth. Those 117 companies wouldn’t dig or pump that stuff out, consumers wouldn’t live lifes that use up extraordenary amounts of energy compared to any other time in human history, goverments wouldn’t make the GDP their holy grail, if not for the hyper capitalist framework that has enabled this to happen.
So, it you have to blame something, blame the bloody System.
And, btw., don’t use the “the companies are responsible” line to excuse not changing how you consume and how much you personaly continue. I am not saying that you are doing so, but I’ve read it to many times by now.
Yes, BP pushed the carbon footprint idea. Yes, BP and any other oil company has to do chance their buisness model. That does not mean that All of us will not have to degrow the way we live. Every one of us needs to start acting in a more sustainable manor, from Individual to company to government, if we want to minimise suffering for future generations. If we don’t (and honestly it doesn’t look like it) their will be a systematic reduction in complexity anyway. The only question is if it will be by design or by desaster.
“I want food and to not freeze/overheat” is not a desire based on exponential growth, but is a desire that currently requires fossil fuels.
Much like the “9 million starve” number, the argument against fossil fuels is incredibly misleading.
Again, no one believes that change is possible overnight.
Such an idea has never been mentioned.
At any time, a current condition of society is due to a long succession of events preceding it, without which the particular condition would be different.
Our current predicament has been a long time in the making. We need to unify toward directing a succession of events away from dependence on fossil fuels, for achieving a transition to sustainable energy.
If we didn’t use fossil fuels, literally billions of people would die within months.
We need to transition away, not stop cold turkey
tbf, they didn’t say to stop cold turkey.
Thank you, I was also misinformed about that number.
I think it’s closer to 25% for fuel burning, not 12% where did you get 12?
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
It would seem Industrial consumption of resources would be ≥ *collective individual consumption (possibly excluding ultrawealthy, depending on variables), but I’d need to at least see the abstracts of some credible studies.
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One way to save species is by not eating animals. Welcome downvoters. I know you dislike hearing the truth, because you like your taste pleasure above animal suffering.
You are speaking truth, going vegan has one of the highest possible personal impacts. Eating animals is one of the main reasons for the massive land use, since we need it manly to feed animals, therefore it is reducing biodiversity.
Personaly, I don’t think the second part of your comment is sensible. Beeing aggressiv and making accusations (even if warented) will not change peoples minds but make them defend themself. But again, that’s just my view.
(edit to reword a sentence)
Agreed. Agressive comments don’t really change viewpoints.
Personal responsibilities and actions are important ofc but pale in comparison to systematic, structural change that is needed. E.g. a few people significantly reducing their diet of animal products or going vegan is great (hence I did it), but as long as slaughtering and abusing animals is subsidized by billions from the state level this won’t have a large affect :/
BP’s carbon footprint propaganda did a lit of damage.
Agreed, but if you use that point not to make a change yourself you are still part of the problem, not the solution. Systemic change happens because enough individuals have made the change themselves. These are two sides of the same coin. We can not expect a change to happen that we ourselves don’t support.
You’re right, I agree and should have pointed that out myself. I’m constantly seeing both parts being used as an excuse not to change by either side respectively and it angers me. If one side starts, then at least the other can’t use them as an excuse anymore.
Thanks again for your comment :p
Sustainable agriculture (small-scale, actually sustainable, not the corporate buzzword) has a huge positive impact on wildlife. Done right it can restore habitats and increase biodiversity in a matter of years. It’s the factory farms that make meat production an environmental catastrophe.
you like your taste pleasure above animal suffering
Yes, thanks for your understanding.
Stick to the climate argument, because that argument at least makes sense.
Lol let’s present a fact to people and then make fun of them for not agreeing. That’ll make them see my point.
If your goal really is to spread a message of veganism, maybe layoff being a cunt too. That’s not to say you have to be nice and shit, but idk, maybe don’t be an ass?
Or do, I don’t care either way, this is random unsolicited Internet advice lmao. Your point rings hollow though if you have to attack people to spread your message
As if people are not an absolute ass to the person who says anything about veganism. As if this comment of mine came out of nowhere.
If it smells like shit everywhere you go, check your shoe. Stop perpetuating anger and abrasiveness. Nobody will listen to you if you just tell them they’re stupid. Figure out how to communicate if you actually want to spread a message.
Edit
As an aside, you’re entitled to exactly no one’s time. Feel free to try to spread your message. Accept that people may not want to hear it. It doesn’t give you a right to be a dick.
I know you dislike hearing the truth, because you like your taste pleasure above animal suffering.
I downvoted you because of the immediate talking down to other humans. You are 100% right, but your style of presentation makes me puke.
“You’re not wrong, Walter, you’re just an asshole”
Thanks for letting me know. I hope you puke just as much as you see people get downvoted for trying to get others to take animal suffering seriously.
No, i know i am doing good and that is enough for me. i don’t have an interest in being hostile to human beings for not immediately changing something they’ve done for more than 20 years just because i did it and now everyone else has to too.
Do you also talk to people who smoke, drink or smoke weed as if they are subhuman?
Must be a happy life you live… How long have you been vegan?
20 Years? more?You want honest answers and an open discussion or are you only interested in hating on me?
An open discussion about what? About you speaking down to people that don’t follow our food restrictions?
Never mind. Bye bye
buying beans doesn’t help animals at all
It does if instead you would have paid for animals to be murdered.
no one is ever presented with that choice. that’s an imaginary scenario.
but what if i give the beans to the animals
the buying alone doesn’t help. giving beans to animals obviously helps animals.
Funny how the people who call billionaires ‘evil’ for hoarding wealth and treat landlords as Literally Satan for owning more than one house can sometimes also ignore the fact that they literally kill and eat animals for no reason other than cows being tasty.
This coming from someone who isn’t even vegan btw, I just think the reactions to your post were hilarious.
The reactions to my post are indeed hilarious, although I also find it a bit exasperating. Especially if you take into account that normally I get downvoted to hell for mentioning animal suffering, so I thought I would pre-empt those downvoters and speak to them, but now they’ve found a new reason to downvote and hate the messenger instead of engage the message 🤷♂️
Indeed people are super resistant to any vegan message. Yet at the same time, the facts are simply the brutal facts. It’s simply super bad for the planet and a nightmare of unimaginable scale for the animals. It’d be very nice if people would just stop, which is definitely possible in 2023, but it is indeed easier to point at the evil billionaires then change your own behavior.
I think it is clear that most humans value the experiences and welfare for other humans more than those for individuals of others species.
You may not be among those who share the same values, but most do, and I expect it to remain so.
More broadly, non-human animals have different, if any, social behavior, compared to humans, and therefore are never participants in human society.
As humans, we understand that we inevitably live in systems among other humans, dependent on human capacities and human tendencies, and we seek to direct such systems in support of objectives we identify as valuable.
Leftist memes be like
This is just a comic I found, if you have some good memes feel free to share
(1/56)
The state is violent and community is violent and privacy is violent
Can anyone come up with an ideology that is not violent and can actually be implemented in the real world with real actors that aren’t smelling roses and giving out hugs?
Side note, any ideology that claims your neighbors are the enemy aren’t worth a damn.
What is your criteria for “can actually be implemented in the real world”? This varies by the individual. I need to know what your perspective on this is. Could you explain why capitalism isn’t violent?
I think it’s important to note that your neighbors might be the enemy… most people are great, some are not.
There will always be antisocial behavior (the basis for what we call crimes), yes. However, that doesn’t mean your neighbor is the enemy because they might be one of the few people that do antisocial things.
I disagree. A person who would intentionally cause me or my family harm despite having their needs met is both my enemy and the enemy of a reasonable society.
I understand where you’re coming from. But it seems like you’re assuming that anyone capable of causing you or your family harm is a threat. What I’m saying is that no one is a threat until proven otherwise.
You misunderstand the hypothetical. All, or nearly all, people are capable but only a few would. My point is that evil exists and to ignore it is a problem. Several people in this discussion have attempted to say that capitalism is the cause of evil. This is obviously untrue. Capitalism can enable evil, but to claim that a different economic system would eliminate evil is ridiculous.
Capitalism exacerbates many things, including crime, violence, and instability. From a leftist perspective, private property is given rights, which artificially increases the amount of crime statistics. If private property were abolished, the only crimes that would occur are between people. It will still happen. But most crime is committed out of desperation to meet their needs.
This is due to artificial scarcity. The world is abundant in resources. In an equitable society, people may steal, but when everyone has their needs met, anything else is extra, and surprisingly many may be happy with “enough” or “enough plus a little with storable necessities belonging to everyone.”
This is simply incorrect on so many levels. There are people who will simply not abide by the social structures you are talking about. You are assuming an idolized group of people where there is no evil. Evil doesn’t magically disappear without capitalism…
That’s a very disingenuous assertion. I quantified my statement, you are the one assigning absolutes, and unfortunately, absolutes are idolized and probably not realistic any exact sense. Variables exist but not equally, everywhere, always (unless we’re talking about carefully controlled labs, and human error and unforeseen events still happen that may not be immediately apparent.
Wtf seriously?
No I wasted my time to come up with a simple way to describe complex nuances and typed it up on my device for lulz. :-|
Personally, I think the only reason evil exists is because the world is unfair, some are advantageous and some are not. This causes people to refuse to “play” fairly which causes bad behaviors such as deception, exploitation, murder, etc. The only way to eliminate or reduce evil is to make the world fairer. One of the ways I can think of is for the fortunate to help the unfortunate.
I don’t believe this to be true. Fairness only matters to people who value fairness. Many people value fairness, but it is irrational to believe that everyone values fairness. Some, not most or even many, don’t care about fairness fundamentally. For these people, interesting fairness does nothing for them. These are the people we need to protect others from while also providing an environment that didn’t necessarily mean removing or killing them.
But what causes people to value fairness so little or so much? When I support equality, I don’t just mean wealth or resources, but everything, and in this case it’s intellect or knowledge. When people have different intellect or knowledge, there is bound to be misunderstanding or miscommunication or other issues. People who have low empathy or are ignorant or dumb to realize how fairness affects people can make things worse. I guess in this case we can make everyone equally smart so no one can deceive and no more misunderstanding. Can’t make smart people dumber so I suggest making dumb people smarter which is to give education to those who need it.
You answered it yourself, but I will elaborate.
Humans are different between individuals. Some people are dumb. Some people are mean. Some people are evil. Fundamentally the paradox of tolerance applies to fairness as well.
Well you wouldn’t like this answer probably. I suggest to eliminate the differences but i think it’s impossible. As long as there is positive, there is negative. To eliminate the negative is to eliminate the positive too, which is neutral and can make life very dull. So my other suggestion is quite radical which is to eliminate life itself. Or just make life or the world as fair as possible even if it’s impossible.
Ah, good old fashioned Nihilism. Another thing that I think is silly.
It is irrelevant what you think personally. Other people don’t necessarily think those things and assuming that they will or do abide by your positions without an incentive is folly.
I’m simply just providing my solutions or opinions. Better than nothing i guess, unless you have a better plan.
Of course, it’s impossible to please everyone. Can’t take some without losing some. So maybe just brute force it? Idk.
Except for those deformed by conditioning into abject servility, everyone values fairness at the moment of being unfairly deprived of the means of one’s own survival.
Valuation of fairness is a rather robust human trait. In some individuals it may be less pronounced, but as a tendency it is robust, not only among humans, but also among various non-human species.
Members of societies with low levels of inequality generally have more favorable subjective experiences, even those within the cohorts with greater privilege.
Nurturing the vitality of society as a whole, and the health of relations in community, has been a facet of human behavior indispensable for our survival.
“Privacy” is not violent, nor implicated in the discussion. Private property of course is mentioned and is pivotal.
Private property is a social relationship, entrenched as a social construct, and protected by the capacity of the state to inflict violence.
Without violence, neither the state nor private property would continue to exist, because both represent power imbalances, which would not long be respected by the disempowered, except by the invocation of force by the powerful.
Community is not bound in violence as an indispensable feature.
Surely, violence occurs in community, generally as a consequence of conflict that had previously escalated incrementally. Within community, members generally may resolve the root cause of conflict, including by directly addressing imbalances in power. Communities are not characterized by the necessity of violence for them to preserve themselves.
Healthy communities both seek to resolve conflict before any erupts into violence, and seek to contain violence when it emerges.
Any community that is not prevented from doing so by outside powers can achieve such a level of health.
A capitalist society at large cannot prevent violence, because violence is both an inevitable consequence and an indispensable requisite for the overarching conflict within capitalist society, of the irreconcilable and conflicting interests between those who own private property, versus those who must sell their labor to survive.
Am I having a stroke or does the first sentence make no sense? Shouldn’t it be more instead of less? If a company always sells for less than the cost to produce, it’ll go out of business rather quickly I’d think. Obviously there are temporary strategies like this that are used to beat competitors, but that’s not what this is talking about.
I think you just have it misunderstood. The comic assumes that you are the laborer, not the capitalist. As the image at this part of the infographic shows, from the perspective of the laborer, you are paid $5 for an item that is sold on the market for $50
Yes, the image is correct, but I think theUnlikely was refering to the text “Capitalism exists by selling the value you produce for less than your labor costs.”
It’s backwards, it should be the value you (the laborer) produce is sold for more than than your labor costs.
ok, yea now I can understand how that sentence could be confusing. It’s technically correct, but written kinda backwards as people would normally understand it
No, it’s not correct in any way:
“Capitalism exists by selling the value you produce for less than your labor costs.”
- you produce the value
- capitalism pays your labor costs for the value
- capitalism sells the value for… more, never less
Thanks, I thought I was losing my mind. I spent way too long rereading that sentence and wondering why no one had commented on it yet.
Capitalism exists by selling the value you produce for less than your labor costs ==> Capitalism exists by selling the value you produce for less than your labor costs [the capitalist/employer].
It’s technically correct, but unclear.
Can you give an example with some numbers? I’m still not seeing it.
Say you produce a $thousand fmv worth of x. Your capitalist employer sells x for $2000. They sold x for less than what they pay you, $500 worth of x.
ok, can you explain the contradiction? I don’t see it, at all.
If the sentence were correct, your employer would sell whatever you produce for less than what they are paying you for it. E.g. they pay you 20 for one hour of work, in which you produce one product, which they then sell for 15. Obviously they would be making a loss in that situation on every single product sold, so no business would ever do that (except in special cases like loss leaders or limited promotions, of course, but we’re talking about the general case here)
Just explained it, step by step.
If you still don’t see it, then no offense, but we’re coming into “what weights more, a pound of rocks or a pound of feathers” territory, which I don’t think I can explain through here.
So the labor costs (wages) are $5 and the value produced by the laborer is sold for $50? Yes this makes sense of course, but I can’t wrap my head around why it says it’s sold for less when $50 is more than $5. GPT4 can’t seem to make sense of it either.
The comic assumes that you could ONLY be the laborer. It’s ignoring the fact that no one is stopping you from making/buying something and selling it for a profit.
I’m a bench jeweler and I know plenty of other craftspeople who make a whole-ass living off selling shit they made for more than labor/materials cost. The fact that an employer will take advantage of you isn’t a failing of capitalism, it’s a facet of human greed that will permeate any economic/political system.
Making things or selling things is not capitalism. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production; things like factories, tools, intellectual property, etc.
On the point of greed, I disagree that it’s just simply “human nature”. However, even if it was, why should we have an economic system that prioritizes greed?
Capitalism is the ideology that defends capital as the main desirable quality in society.
Greed is a consequence of the desire for ownership, which is part of human nature.
Capitalism is the exaltation of that greed… and no, we should not have any system that blindly defends a single aspect of life.
Life is full of nuance, no single aspect should rule it all; sometimes ownership is good (like my pants), sometimes sharing is good (like riding on a bus), sometimes defending a life is good (like preventing a murder), sometimes ending a life is good (like euthanasia)… and so on.
Just a bit of pendantry as a treat, I think that greed is a consequence of people seeking to meet their needs. In a system that requires obtaining money to obtain needs that are not simply provided, it causes precarity. This precarious position is a threat to existence. Our instincts fear of this precarity, and this instinctual fear manifests as greed to make sure our needs will always be met. This isn’t to say that greed is imaginary or a product of capitalism, it is human nature. But I think that nature is influenced by nurture, and vice versa.
Agreed. I’d only add that until we switch to a full post-scarcity world, a system that does the opposite, that tries to eliminate all private ownership, also causes that same fear of precarity, which also leads to greed.
As long as scarcity exists, a system trying to minimize greed requires a tough balance between providing enough to meet basic needs, but at the same time not stifling people’s sense of safety derived from ownership.
sometimes ownership is good (like my pants)
Anticapitalist critique of private ownership isn’t about private ownership of pants it’s about private/centralized ownership of the means of production. This is a critical distinction, as many models still want a free market which doesn’t work without private property.
yeah wtf, the first sentence and nobody picked up on this. We‘re completely fucked
We’re actually “fucked” at everyone’s (my own included) inability to draw inferences from context, and! Often disingenuous character of a lot of people using this unclear manner of speaking. The cartoon isn’t presenting this ambiguous statement ini bad faith, probably just oversight or perhaps that’s not the author’s/translator’s native language.
OK, but qq: Who pumps out septic tanks if there is no coercion involved?
The dude with a passion for septic infrastructure who wants to provide a rewarding service for the community, instead of getting yelled at by customers at the convenience store he works at to make sure he can afford the microwave dinner he’s eating that night.
Pie in the sky scenario/sarcasm aside, criticism of capitalism doesn’t mean pure anarchy. It means looking at what works and what doesn’t work towards making sure people have what they need. Money is much easier to trade people to do a service than trading a goat for 2 sheep, but that doesn’t mean that some landlord deserves 1 of the sheep and half the goat for “allowing” you to raise them under threat of starvation and homelessness.
I love the enthusiasm, but see my reply to the comment above yours. Basically: do you believe that no one should work for anyone else for money? Should every single professional be their own sole proprietorship? Who runs the marketing, bookkeeping, land management, etc for all of these people doing their work? You could have a person who specializes in doing these things professionally for other professionals, but the farther you take that idea, the more you’re just recreating the idea of employment piece by piece. Am I missing something? Honest question.
I love the idea, but I’ve always been a bit confused about the end game goal for this line of thinking. I agree with the idea that landlords are trash, but everybody still needs the ability to purchase food and pleasure goods and such, and as long as the idea of money exists, the need to work for it does also.
Companies can still exist under socialism. They can exist in very similar forms to what we have at the minute. The difference is the ownership.
I suppose the question I’d put back to you is “Do you think there is an intrinsic benefit in someone (who doesn’t do the work) owning a company vs each of the workers having an ownership stake in the business?”.
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Firstly, if that is your biggest concern, then we agree far more than we disagree and we’re quibbling over details (which I’m happy to do).
Secondly, who said they do?
It of course depends on what you mean exactly by a"slice of the pie" but there’s lots of ownership models to choose from. Direct ownership is one. An employee owned trust is another. These are to a large extent solved problems - mutuals and co-operatives walk among us now, after all.
Thirdly, you mention the risk of setting up a company. If you’re not rich, why do you have to gamble your dignity and livelihood to participate in innovation? Would the world not be a better place if you could invent and create and innovate and fall back on a basic income if it falls on its face?
Finally, even if we accidentally make things a bit too equal by giving Jim the new starter the same voting rights as Bob the grizzled veteran - is that not better than the system we have at the moment where incomprehensible hoarded wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few?
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It acts as a filter so that people are only expending time and resources on ideas that will likely take hold and provide value to society.
Do you actually believe that this filter is working as intended? Or do you think it ought to work like that?
In a spherical society with no air resistance I can agree with you but it feels like it would be condescending for me to point out how this system that supposedly maximises value to society is in all likelihood going to kill your children’s children.
Personally, I’m of the opinion that I don’t have a problem with capitalism, I have a problem with the consequences of modern-day unregulated capitalism. To me, capitalism is a system of abstraction that allows us to simplify the bartering of old with money. Money is a very useful metaphor for the value of goods and time spent working, but the nature of businesses is to maximize profits, and given the chance, they will do so at the expense of their employees (more so large corporations, but small businesses can be just as guilty). Modern corporate hierarchy is basically just feudalism with extra steps.
People like to work. People like to feel like they’re contributing to their community/society. What people don’t like is not getting paid a fair amount for their labor doing something that doesn’t feel meaningful or fulfilling. Doing a job you don’t like just to put food on the table often falls under this category. It’s “do a job for the sake of doing a job, or die.” Regardless of whatever job you’re thinking of, there’s people out there who will willingly do it, so long as they feel rewarded adequately for their effort. There are people who do actually enjoy being garbagemen or whatever, because they dont mind the work and feel good providing an important service for their community. This is why socialism/socialist systems are so important. Because capitalism is a system that can easily be abused if it isn’t regulated and kept in check, and socialism and capitalism can easily coexist.
There was a study done in Canada about 5-10 years back (which the conservative party stopped and tried to destroy the results of when they got elected into power) where they gave everybody of working age (something like 16 and older) $1,000 a month. What they found was that the vast majority of people continued to work, except for 2 segments of the population: pregnant women and high-school aged kids. This coincided with a general increase in the grades of students and the number of kids who went to college after they graduated. The theory was that because kids from poor families didn’t have to work jobs after school to help their parents pay for bills, they were able to focus more on their education and more could afford to go to college afterwards. And that $1,000 per person ended up back in the economy, stimulating economic growth in all corners of the town.
What we need isn’t to destroy the concept of money and manufacturing. We need to protect workers and provide the support systems that will improve the lives of the general populace, not ensure the growth of the wealthy’s stock portfolios at the expense of everything else.
The weekend was a right given to us by socialists who fought and died for the idea of being able to work a 5 day week instead of working 7 days a week. We don’t need company towns where people use company funny money to buy food from the company store, sleeping in company beds with 2 other people in 8 hour shifts for 100% occupancy in company bunkhouses - like it was in the US around the early 1900s. We need longer weekends.
Money and trade are older than capitalism.
Capitalism emerged from the industrial revolution, as the system of unbounded accumulation of private wealth by a small cohort of society, who contribute no labor, by claiming as profit a share of wealth generated by labor of the rest of society, depriving them from realizing the full value of their own labor.
You constructed a false dichotomy, between one case of labor being organized such workers that are subordinate to an employer, versus the other of everyone working individually.
Based on the above image, I’d say its the guy who sees a demand for septic tank maintenance and is willing to do that work for pay. The first issue is the disparity between the workers and the business owner. but if they’re the same, you don’t have that issue.
Who does the marketing and bookkeeping for that one guy? Are you saying that every single professional should be their own sole proprietorship?
Holy shit you guys are not joking about not knowing cooperative of workers?
Idk, maybe sole proprietor works. Keep the communities relatively, everyone picks up an array of skills, you don’t need marketing to know jimbob and Lisa are the only people skilled w plumbing stuff in the community. And I think it’s pretty common for soleprop to do their own bookkeeping, if it’s really done at all.
How does society build spacecraft, or do high energy physics research in this scenario? Sounds like paradise if you’re willing to stay in an agrarian society, but you have to be comfortable with life expectancy dropping like a rock from its current levels, because there would be no MRI machines, or gene therapy. These things are not the work of individuals, or even small groups working on handshake agreements. Contrary to how it might sound, I’m really not attacking the premise, I just want to make sure everyone understands what their advocating when they imply that this is how society should be.
Why do people want to become doctors, astronauts, invent medical devices, invent new technology, etc
When you give people the choice to actually contribute to society with the things they enjoy doing then they will
And menial tasks such as emptying a septic tank can be automated
Right now the only way people can contribute to society in a way they enjoy is if they have enough money to do so, if not they are forced into doing jobs that they don’t enjoy and drain them
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There are always some that will “do nothing” if given the freedom to live as they want. Most won’t. What exactly will take the place of a 9 to 5 in a post Capitalist world? No idea. I’m not that smart. Humans do need more than simple pixie dust and altruistic motivations to do more than the most bare bones of things. That said, whatever the next system may be, it need not threaten peoples security (housing, food, and medical care) to be functional.
I can think of a worse future than one where our rapid advances in technology and productivity afford us the ability to create more art and beauty without fear of destitution.
Right now you can contribute to society by doing work that matters which does not always require individual expenses.
For example bar none the single most important job in any developed society is water purification. Working at the water utility is something you can do that benefits everyone and has no cost to yourself.
The second most critical task is waste management which requires no money from the worker either.
Im not being pedantic here. The claim you have to be wealthy to contribute is false
Did you read my comment properly
Some people may enjoy waste management or water purification but not all people do
People also have to lay for the cost of transport, bills, taxes, food, shelter, etc
People want to contribute to society in ways which they enjoy and tasks like water purification and waste management can be largely automated with notifications sent out to people overseeing the automation if there’s an issue
Yeah, it was really feeling like you were just being contrarian. Which led me to not really try at all to engage with you further. But since it now seems you’re coming at this in good faith….
I’m 100% on the same page with you about advanced technologies and science, though I do wonder if our individual happiness wouldn’t be greater with a bit less technology. The harnessing of tech/science to extract value out of people at the expense of mental health (corporate social media for example) is a cost that is hard to weigh against the advantages of modern health sciences.
It’d be nice if we could find a way to achieve those things without the need for obscene concentration of wealth and this global tragedy of the commons perpetuated by companies and individuals that are so far removed from the impacts of their actions.
There must be a letter way, and I have no clue how to figure it out or how we’d implement it… but the way things are now just… doesn’t feel good.
All the nitpicking aside, this is the ‘somebody’s gotta scrub the toilets’ argument right?
The simplest answer to this I can think of is, who scrubs the toilets in your home? It’s you right?
Do you do it because you own the toilet? Not necessarily because people who live in rented accommodation still scrub the toilet. So why? It’s because you have an interest in not living in a place with a filthy toilet. Now suppose you actually had a local community, you’d have an interest in making sure nobody was living with a filthy toilet they couldn’t clean because then they might get sick and you don’t want that because you’re a nice person and you don’t like seeing your friends hurt. So you’d probably set up a communal rota, which is basically what people here in the UK already do because elder care on the NHS doesn’t exist in practice.
There’s a bit more to it than just being g nice and not seeing being hurt. It’s just as much self interest in making sure their able to work, and do their part in society/community or what ever group their part of and keep it running
Sure but this was meant to be a simplistic explanation, so I simplified.
Septic tanks only require pumping when something goes wrong with them. I’ve grown up and lived on properties with septic tanks. As long as the microbiome is in check and the tank doesn’t get filled too quickly, it will never need pumping.
First of all: that’s not true. As have/do I, and it’s not a monthly requirement or anything, but it’s an important maintenance item for the longevity of the tank. Not 100% of everything that goes down there is metabolizable. Second of all: what happens when they do?
I’m more of the homesteader mindset, I think that people living out in the country within a socialist society should have the knowledge to do it themselves, and can get the tools from a library (I’m assuming a library economy here). However, socialism is not “everyone is paid the same”. Assuming that there is a state, sanitation workers could be well compensated for their valuable labor.
Edit: Continuing the side note on septic tanks, my dad’s house growing up is over 100 years old and has been in the family since my grandpa bought it before the Korean war. My grandparents put in a modern septic tank some time in the 70s/80s. While I’ve been alive, the septic tank has needed to be pumped maybe once a decade. It does need to happen, but not very often. The real trick is making sure kids don’t flush their legos
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I’m a mid-20s red blooded American, thank you very much. Socialism is American as fuck. If you don’t think so, then you need to read about the history of labor in this country.
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You’ll never be the one holding the leash.
Just remember that.
Defending the current system only hurts you.
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Interesting design choice for the capitalist to have a hitler mustache.
Not really, private companies thrived under the Third Reich. Fascism is a capitalist ideology through and through
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All journalism is biased. Why not judge the article on the merits of its contents rather than it’s source? Here’s a brief PDF from a book written in the 40s describing the Nazi economic system as “not quite capitalist” because they had elements of a planned economy. Even though we’re well aware that capitalism uses economic planning all the time. Here’s a breakdown (from a socialist source, deepest apologies for my bias) using Walmart as an example. Here’s an article from the Washington post saying essentially the same thing as the Jacobin article. Here’s literal neo-nazis discussing what national socialism and fascist economics entail. They’re very confused on the distinctions between socialism and capitalism. But you can see them advocating for private property, the success of private enterprises and pseudo state capitalism. If you have even a modicum of economic literacy you can see that they clearly want a certain flavor of capitalism that they somehow managed to think was socialist.
Rating: LEFT
Factual Reporting: HIGH
Country: USA
MBFC’s Country Freedom Rank: MOSTLY FREE
Media Type: Magazine
Traffic/Popularity: Medium Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: HIGH CREDIBILITY
why is there a hitler moustache there?
you aren’t seriously comparing capitalism and personal greed with the industrial genocide of millions of jews and romas, are you?
I am going to spare you the rant you so properly deserve…I guess it’s still a rant, but it’s a smaller one.
Behind The Bastards did this rant for me, and I expect you’ll prefer their version, in the two-parter on Reinhard Heydrich, the architect of the genocide machine of the German Reich. (On YouTube: Part One and Part Two )
Some things you might learn:
- The holocaust during the German Reich ended with immense concentration camp complex and extermination engine. It didn’t start that way. The turning point was the Wannsee Conference in 1942 in which Heydrich and Eichmann negotiated with German officials to resort to the final solution to the Jewish question, which was to shift from a policy of deportation and maintaining ghettos to a policy of extermination. (If we go by the movie Conspiracy it took them an hour just to clarify they were talking about extermination without saying words meaning extermination)
- The Holocaust didn’t start that way. In 1936 the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) run by Heydrich gathered up select undesirables and packed them into an unused munitions warehouse which became the first concentration camp. As the population outnumbered the capacity of current detention centers, more were created.
- Even though the Nuremberg Laws only specified the detention and containment of a narrow field of undesirables (e.g. Jews with known criminal records) the SD rounded them up liberally, taking anyone who couldn’t immediately defend why they shouldn’t be arrested. Compare ICE in 2016-present rounding up any undocumented immigrants they can track for deportation, despite that they are supposed to only arrest those who are violent felons. (Being undocumented is a misdemeanor.). Meanwhile compare the SS (which is loyal to the Führer rather than to the German state) to the Department of Homeland Security which is loyal to the Presidency, and not the Constitution of the United States and the US State.
- The mass annihilation of Jews and other undesirables started long before the Auschwitz (the prototype for the death camps) and the Wannsee Conference. During Operation Barbarossa (the war in the east) and the occupation of Poland (and the other annexed Baltic / Slavic regions) the Einsatzgruppen (SS Death Squads) would massacre villages that were either disobedient, or from which traitors came. Sometimes just gunning them down in front of a mass grave, or gassing them in death wagons (trucks with a sealed chamber into which the motor exhaust was piped). These proved too slow, but also was too hard on the execution troopers. Due to the high turnover rate and the frequency of PTSD symptoms, the Auschwitz camp was engineered so that no crewperson had to witness and process what was going on. Those who loaded the trains and packed the gassing chambers were a separate shift than those who picked up the bodies and transferred them to the ovens. The one who pushed the button was two steps removed from the one who had the authority to sign off on the executions, and neither of them had to see the victims or the processing zones.
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Fascism is the final defense of authorities who have run out of justifications for their power. And yes, many people would rather believe their woes come from the oddballs in the society they don’t like rather than the fundamental structure of the system. It’s a lie that people want to believe, rather than face the truth of the matter. And because we’re so eager, it might kill us all.
It also tells us our plutocratic masters would rather drive the human species to extinction rather than give up their power for a better society. We’ve evolved to be social, but we aren’t really all that great at the society-of-millions thing.
Please. The goal was always to kill them.
They started exterminating “unfavorable” people even before they started “detaining” jews and roma.
It actually started with mentally and bodily disabled.
If you think that the genocide of these people wasn’t the plan from the get-go, you are heavily mistaken. They just needed to rile up the public against these minorities before doing anything.
I know german history. I am germanswiss. And i find it frankly disrespectfuly that a Ausländer tries to explain me our history.
And the most important for the last part: Your point nr. 3, comparing what happened in Nazi-Germany to the US today, is fucking disgusting. It is relativation of Nazism and the Holocaust. I invite you to come over here to germany and say that here, because it could land you a nice prison sentence up to 5 years.
§130 StGB Abs. 3, look it up.
Fascism and Nazism didn’t come from a few oddballs, but from a society, systematically humiliated by the victors of ww1 at the end of it and humiliated by the economic crisis, that turned to extremism.
Nobody fucking belives that it came from a few oddballs.
WW2 and its causes are some of the most well-known and well-discussed topics in the world. I honestly don’t know how you can be so disinformed and even ignorant about this topic as to make such statements.
Please go and read the report of Richard Dimbleby. Maybe then you’ll truly understand the true nature of national socialism and its crimes
Maybe you should listen to the transnational white power movement here in the states.
They want to kill us. Law enforcement are using the same methods across the US as the SD, including deporting refugees into certain death or captivity, or just murdering inmates in the immense federal and state prison systems when not using them as slave labor. So yeah, I resent you minimizing what is going on in the states.
I never said it came from a few oddballs rather the circumstances in the German Reich were fit for a fascist movement. The antisemitism was global. But the industrialists and the nationalists needed to preserve popular fear to cling to power. What is fascinating isnthat our few oddballs were entirely aware of it.
I still hold that it’s folly to imagine the German Reich was unique or special, that the developments that lead to a fascist uprising are rare or could happen nowhere else. And it is dangerous in this era to assume so.
Your assertion that your nationalist status gives you privileged knowledge is concerning. With a Degenkolb mother and a Jewish grandmother, I’m not quite German or Jew by traditional standards. I don’t know where that fits in your spooky hereditary metric.
But I cited a source from where I got my information and Robert Evans cites his, so I’m going to continue assuming his research is sound and you’re arguing from personal investment. As for my own personal interest, it has been since the aughts in understanding how the holocaust came about and preventing another one here in the states.
You are not helping in that regard.
They want to kill us. Law enforcement are using the same methods across the US as the SD, including deporting refugees into certain death or captivity, or just murdering inmates in the immense federal and state prison systems when not using them as slave labor. So yeah, I resent you minimizing what is going on in the states.
awful situation, but still not even comparable to the Holocaust and it’s horrors. That’s so scary about this to me. You don’t know how bad the Holocaust really was. You see a really Bad Situation and you think “that’s a really Bad situation, it must be as bad as the Holocaust!” Not realizing how fucking evil and savage the SS and the Nazis were. Again, read the Report of Richard Dimbleby. Maybe then you’ll understand how awful the Nazis and their Actions were. Maybe then you’ll understand how awful life in a Concentration Camp was. Maybe then you’ll understand why what you’re saying is relativation of Nazigermany, its Actions and the Holocaust. Maybe then you’ll understand why what you’re doing here on the Internet would land you in Prison in Germany.
I never said it came from a few oddballs rather the circumstances in the German Reich were fit for a fascist movement. The antisemitism was global. But the industrialists and the nationalists needed to preserve popular fear to cling to power. What is fascinating isnthat our few oddballs were entirely aware of it.
yes, you said the Opposite. To which i replied (paraphrasing myself:) “That’s a stupid argument. Nobody believes it’s been because of a few oddballs, This was THE biggest Lesson that we learned from WW2. So why the fuck are you bringing this up?”
I still hold that it’s folly to imagine the German Reich was unique or special, that the developments that lead to a fascist uprising are rare or could happen nowhere else. And it is dangerous in this era to assume so.
agree with your second part. If people believe that we, as a modern society can’t repeat the mistakes of the past, we’re 100% going to repeat them. I mean, just look at Russia. They believed they could never be fascist because they fought the Nazis. And what happened now? They’re fascists fighting a war of aggression against a neighboring country. This is the exact reason why this topic takes such massive prevalence in German school, tv and everyday life. We learn everything we can about it, in order to never repeat it.
Your assertion that your nationalist status gives you privileged knowledge is concerning. With a Degenkolb mother and a Jewish grandmother, I’m not quite German or Jew by traditional standards. I don’t know where that fits in your spooky hereditary metric.
It’s not about descent, it’s about the prevalence of the topic in society. I learned about this Topic 3 times during my school-career. Every fourth Documentary i watch is in one way or the other about the Nazis, their wars, their crimes. I don’t know how much exposure that topic gets in the US, where it sounds you’re coming from, but i know that it’s nowhere near as much. sadly. Which is why i get itchy when i, a person that was confronted with this his whole life, knows as much as humanly possible about this, gets lectured by a person that i assume just watched a youtube documentary and called it a day. I am sorry if you actually did a deep-dive into this topic, read a lot of books about it and know a lot, but most people that talk big like that just don’t, so that’s what i assumed.
But I cited a source from where I got my information and Robert Evans cites his, so I’m going to continue assuming his research is sound and you’re arguing from personal investment. As for my own personal interest, it has been since the aughts in understanding how the holocaust came about and preventing another one here in the states.
i don’t have my old history books from school anymore, otherwise i would have given you their names. So I’m really sorry if i can’t give you any better source, but my source in this case is my Public Education. I am not quite sure what you mean “you’re arguing from personal investement”, so this is what i assume you mean: you mean that the reason i’m arguing is because of strongly-held personal opinions about the war.
Then you would be absolutely right. I have strong convictions to this Topic and it is one that is very close to me. And i see it as my Responsibility and Duty, not a guilt, but a Responsibility and Duty, as a GermanSwiss, a linguistic german, to:
- Prevent such Actions from ever happening again
- make sure that the legacy of the victims of nationalsocialism aren’t ridiculed or relativated
if i see someone comparing capitalism to nationalsocialism and the holocaust, all the people will think “hey, if nazism and the holocaust are similar to the capitalism that i’m living in, then it can’t be that bad” when in reality live under nazism was living hell. When jews being starved, beaten, tortured and executed in millions is being compared to working overhours in order to pay your bill, that’s not just respectless and a sign of lack of any basic human dignity and historical understanding, that is also relativation of nazism and the holocaust. And To come to your last point “You are not helping in that regard”: No, you’re not helping in that regard. By comparing the Horrors and absolute evil of nazism to the relatively small evil of personal greed under capitalism, you are relevating said Horrors. You are making them out to be less bad than they were. You aren’t making fascism and Nazism an uncomprehensible evil that must be stopped, but something that isn’t that bad and maybe even an alternative, because if capitalism is just as bad as fascism, we can just switch to fascism without becoming any worse, no?
Fascism and Nazism are the ultimate evil, they cannot and must not be compared to anything else, because there isn’t anything it can compare to. It IS the ultimate evil. And i will passionately and fiery speak up every time someone tries to compare it to anything, because it’s just wrong and it’s my Duty to do so.
I really support your fight against injustice in the US, and I’m really grateful there are people like you caring about this Topic and wishing to do something about it. I really am. But please, please, do it without desecrating and relativating the victims of Nazism, their Story and their Suffering. Thanks
I’m really sorry if i can’t give you any better source, but my source in this case is my Public Education.
Much of the history I’ve studied runs contrary to what I learned in the various history, government and civilization courses that were mandated in my own public education, and this was even before the gutting and revision that has been seen. So I’m going to continue to trust the sources I’ve read. And I’m going to continue to assert there are many similarities regarding the movements in the US (and UK, Canada and Australia, though I’ve watched them less closely).
No, I’m not saying it’s exactly the same thing. But the US is exhibiting the fourteen symptoms of Ur-fascism detailed by Umberto Eco (whether you agree those are fundamental or not). It’s also describable by the ten points by Emilio Gentile (same disclaimer). We do have the largest prison industrial complex in the world, and the highest rate of incarceration, which we are tapping for slave labor and allowing widespread abuse and killing by prison staff. And no small number of the incidents of in-prison death are in line with the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe.
And no, it’s not going to go the same route. For one thing the US is much bigger. It suffers from a greater level of complexity and correlative chaos which resistance efforts can (and do) exploit. But right now, the US is trending towards authoritarian takeover. the US Supreme Court is stripping rights away from Americans (mostly our rights to due process, our protections from illegal search and seizure, our rights to privacy) The public only became generally aware of this trend after the Dobbs decision which removed the federal right to abortion access.
I can’t say I know that it’s going to end in the construction of a genocide machine or the massacre of Americans by the millions, or even a war of expansionism to carry the movement’s agenda abroad, but these are certainly plausible futures were before the 20th century (and the 9/11/2001 attacks) such possibilities seemed remote. More than two CIA analysts (retired) have publicly stated the US fits the conditions that lead to civil war between the Christian nationalist movement and the rest of us. We can’t say if it will break out in five years or fifty, but the US state and federal government are not taking the steps necessary to prevent such an outbreak.
The Holocaust is not sacred. The German Reich and NSDAP are not ultimate evils and the best way we can serve the memories of its victims is to strive to assure that it isn’t happening again (something our Israeli brethren are failing at along the Gaza Strip, but that’s another topic). Never Again is an oath that does not apply just to Jews but to all peoples, and that means comprehending the process by which societies turn on themselves.
No, dummy. It’s a small mustache. Get some glasses, you don’t need to agree with everything in this comic, but focus on its real problems, not fake nonsense.
The initial point is begging the question. The value of labor is that point at which the seller of that labor and the buyer of that labor agree is fair. This is done, principally, in the way of a wage or salary, among other various methods of compensation.
The rest of the post relies on the first sentence. Thus the entire post is fallacious.
Your post assumes workers and owners of the means of production are on equal footing which is laughable on it’s face.
Oh yeah people working in sweatshops make a fair wage. Just complete nonsense if you analyze it for more than 1 second.
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You do understand that doesn’t mean you’d lose your house and toothbrush correct?
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Do you think what is essentially “Oooh, I bet that upsets you” is conducive to good faith conversation? Or even just general pleasantness?
If I asked you “Are you lashing out from fear that you won’t survive the revolution?”, that would be unkind. It would come across as hostile, confrontational and I would be presupposing your own thoughts on society and your relation to it.
Instead, I’ll engage with you as close to your own terms as I’m able: Do you think your country’s intellectual property laws are fit for purpose?
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Far more fit for purpose than scrapping the concept altogether as this graphic suggests.
But they are broken though, aren’t they? Like there aren’t any authors going “Oh gee, if I couldn’t guarantee the rights to my works for over half a century after I dead then I’d pack in this writing lark and go and work at the widget factory”.
You see laws evolve when they are deemed to no longer be fit for purpose, IP laws are constantly reviewed through case law.
We’re talking about revolution, not evolution. Legislation, not interpretation. I’m asking if you were told to rip out the laws and start again, what would you do? Is that not a more interesting conversation than explaining to me how case law works?
I mean if you want to play “I work in IP LOL Lefty snowflake tears” then sure. Do that. Hope you have a nice time with it. Seems boring though.
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Sounds like you’re trying to school a highly qualified professional in something that you’ve only just googled 5 minutes ago. I see Lemmy is just like Reddit in that way.
Nobody is “schooling” anyone, friend. You brought up IP, I attempted to engage with you because I thought you wanted to talk about it. And now you’re crying about nobody can disagree with a “highly qualified professional” and have turned a request for you to share your thoughts and experience into a confrontation.
just trying to think about sensible policy that’s workable in reality
That’s literally what I’ve been trying to do. To get you to tell me what you think sensible policy is.
I think I’m upsetting you, so I’m going to disengage now. Hope your day gets better, mate.
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Many theories propose making a distiction between private and personal ownership. You own your house and your toothbrush, but you can’t solely own the company that extracts value from the labor of other people.
I officially give this the moderator stamp of this being a Good post.
I appreciate a good usage of horror movie font
