• Nougat@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Using money to buy commodities is a currency system. (As opposed to a barter system, where commodites are directly exchanged for other commodities.)

      Capitalism is where there is an ownership class and a labor class, and the ownership class operates businesses for profit. The profit which flows to these owners comes from value which labor adds and is not compensated for; that compensation is diverted to the owners, who receive a (much) greater amount of compensation than the value they add.

      Otherwise related, when the currency is not backed by a commodity (most commonly a rare metal like gold), that’s fiat money. It’s value is affected by the faith in the government which supplies it, as well as the total supply of said currency. When the price of products and services is determined by consumer demand, that’s a free market economy.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Buying goods is not even slightly the same thing as investing in the business selling them, of course.

      I’m gonna assume you realized how dumb that claim was just after posting it, and I’d just like to say I appreciate your integrity for removing your default self-upvote.

    • TheHolyChecksum@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      Ah, yes, the good old sumerian capitalists buying bronze ore then complaining by clay tablets to their suppliers that quality has gone to shit because of how capitalist they are.

      • lugal@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I can confirm this. I’m the last living sumerian king and this is all true.

        spoiler

        Look up the word for king in sumerian. I don’t expect many people to understand the joke without help, otherwise I wouldn’t explain the joke.

    • lugal@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Traditionally, the term “capitalist” means “person with capital” in contrast to workers who only have their workforce to sell. The term “capitalism” is a later development linguistically.

      If you have been to other countries, you saw what the capitalist world systems does. It’s not that some countries are capitalist and others are not, it’s that some are exploiting others in the capitalist world system. That you can buy the newest iphone means that someone made it.

    • banneryear1868@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I say we have it pretty damn good to be part of a capitalist society

      This community is for posting anti-capitalist memes

        • banneryear1868@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          If you went to a sub for a hobby just to say you dislike it then you’d expect a similar reaction. Just saying this place exists to spread anti-capitalist memes so you shouldn’t be surprised that people disagree with pro-capitalist opinions, if anything it’s the one thing you should expect, and if you don’t like it just don’t engage, easy. Doesn’t mean you can’t comment as long as you’re in line with the same rules as everyone else.

          I don’t think my point of view is intuitive because I didn’t come to it easily, but it’s not like you know my point of view anyway you’re just expressing a prejudice. I’m surrounded by a society that is fueled by a suicide pact with the planet and fundamentally disagrees with my point of view, a random angry internet commenter doesn’t even register on this scale.

            • banneryear1868@lemmy.worldOP
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              1 year ago

              Expressing a contrarian opinion for the sake of getting people to disagree so you can call them dumb basically, on a meme page, then being self-aggrandizing about it. Assuming that people who disagree with you simply haven’t considered your point of view is a touch grass moment.

        • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          Well if you want to see anything that supports capitalism you can go to millions of other places, it’s exhausting hearing the same tired comebacks over and over again so people that support true leftism tend to like spaces that are more specific for that. This is a community called “Lefty Memes”, I’m sure most people that follow this follow other communities as well that are less specific. Though I think it can be good for less left or pro-capitalists to discuss their views in these sorts of places.

    • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      They are a supporter of capitalism but in the terminology of socialist critique they are not a capitalist, as in a member of the capitalist class who owns the capital and therefore does not need to use their labor to earn money. This is in contrast to the proletariat or worker class who must use their labor to earn a living.

      Many people in the world are impoverished, but what causes that? Was that caused by the lack of capitalism there? I assure you most people in poverty in the world are living under a capitalist system.

      One factor in the impoverishment of the global South is due to people manipulating markets because of their ownership of the means of production. They are able to shift manufacturing to where they can get the most profit, while governments benefit from their business at the detriment of their citizens who are pushed into poverty by the corporations and governments who reduce regulations to benefit the capitalist class.