It’s not a bug that capitalism is based on greed, it’s a feature. It works (relatively speaking) because it leverages humanity’s shittyness.
Communism has failed to operate without corruption or authoritarianism, because it depends on people actually giving a shit about each other long term.
They both fail, but the problem isn't the system. The problem is people. People try to put themselves into positions of power, retain their position of power and exploit that position of power. Capitalism and communism are simply attempted solutions, however unfortunately they don't adequately deal with the human problem.
With capitalism, people exploit the value exchange. They lie about how much something costs to source or produce, then lie about how much someone else should pay for it, and also about how much a worker's time is worth. Such that you end up with people doing a lot and getting nothing and people doing very little if anything but getting lots.
With communism, people put themselves in positions of power to decide how things should be distributed, then vigorously quell and dissenting voices that ask whether things are being distributed fairly. The end result is more or less the same as capitalism - a small portion of people getting a large portion of wealth.
Any solution must take into account human tendencies to abuse the system, and make efforts to prevent it. However quite often perfection ends up being the enemy of progress - we don't try new things because they might be abused, and end up sticking with the current system which is definitely being abused. This only benefits the abusers. Rather, we should aggressively try new social systems, but also regularly review and either reverse or continue to improve upon them. If nothing else, the changing system will disrupt abusers, as they have to constantly develop new methods.
Thanks for the thought provoking reply!
My impression is that all systems fail long term and need to break down and be renewed after crisis. Once it becomes entrenched, I think odds are heavily against being able to try social systems.
Have you seen a system like you describe, where a structure to continue change and experimentation is built in? To me capitalism with strong controls seems the most stable and successful (assuming your benchmark is population qualify of life not just GDP), e.g. some European systems.
Can confirm. I'm on disability and cannot afford food and medication and bills at the same time. My Internet will be cut later this month because I did the crime of paying for my medication so I didn't want to kill myself. I am starving but at least I didn't feel like my soul was being drained.
It's just depressing that if I want to feel slightly okay I have to not eat for days so I can justify getting my medication. Or dumpster diving to supplement food, which I'm gonna be doing in a couple hours.
Life is suffering and I'm tired of it.
If you're in the US, the Affordable Connectivity Program is available to low income families and it covers $30 a month off your existing internet bill.
PCsForPeople (not sure if I can provide links on Lemmy) offers a free mobile hotspot plan with unlimited data that you can use as home internet, if you qualify for the ACP.
Just an FYI, since there are programs that help, but not everyone is aware of them.
Alas I am not American, but I appreciate it.
The gains from capitalism have dropped the costs to produce foods to previously unheard of levels. The productivity of a modern farm is incredible compared to farms of 25, 50, 100 years ago. The amount of labor and land needed to produce the food humanity needs has dropped considerably.
I realize these are not the statements that people posting here want to read, but that's reality. Take the good with the bad because regular capitalism is not bad. Unfettered capitalism is the problem.
But that's not because of capitalism, that's because of technological advances. We have centuries of technological advances in agriculture before we even had proto capitalism. There's no reason to believe those advances wouldn't have happened under any other economic system.
Anyone care to argue against generic opinions generated by bots? If so, you are in the right place.
Im14andthisisdeep
During the pandemic I watched grocery stores buy poison to dump on their trash, which they paid armed people to guard. They then paid other people to haul it away. All this to prevent poor people from taking it away for free.
It costs money to produce food.
The more people you want to feed, the more money it costs.
Food production is not free. Food distribution is not free.
If you have an alternative to capitalism, I'm open, but you can't just stamp your feet and go "but it should be free!" It's not, someone has to pay for the seed, irrigation, fertilization, equipment fuel and labor involved in production and distribution.
p.s. Is it just me or is it the same people wanting $20+ hour minimum wage who also think food should be free?
It does however get considerably cheaper to produce more food when production is scaled up. If enough people got together on the "free food" they could potentially do it cheaper than what capitalism provides.
The issue however is that capitalism has already made food really fucking cheap. It's actually too cheap. And that is because someone else is paying the true cost of providing it. Obviously the animals who sacrifice the their lives, but also the human workers who also sacrifice their lives, just to bring food for everyone. Everyone eats, nobody gets paid, except for the owners who also do none of the work.
On a per capita basis, yes. But the Doritos that sell for $6 a bag come out of a multi billion dollar organization (Frito Lay, part of Pepsi).
Individuals coming together to produce a single bag of Doritos aren't going to be able to do it for $6. They need the infrastructure of that multi billion dollar corporation to get there.
It costs money to produce food.
The more people you want to feed, the more money it costs.
Food production is not free. Food distribution is not free.
Then it should be a task of the State, as "feeding people" is, quite obviously, a task Too Big to Fail. And, as such, the State can (and should) just automatically print the money needed to reward the work done. Feeding the hungry should not depend on a "budget". A budget is basically putting a price on human lives.
Great, you just caused hyperinflation for everything else and destroyed the economy.
https://www.netsuite.com/portal/resource/articles/business-strategy/hyperinflation.shtml
"Our labor has conquered scarcity"... Bro they've conquered scarcity now? I didn't even know! If someone has conquered the universal reality of scarcity they can ask whatever they want as minimum wage. 🤣
under communism, food is only produced because the central planning committee set a quota for it. unfortunately, distribution requires resources the central planning committee did not account for and the foodstuffs rot in the fields.
Capitalism is on of the worst thing happening to humanity. :( It promotes greed and punishes people who aren't greedy. It makes more problem than it answering problems.
And yet people are saying that the system isn't the problem but people. When it's the system that creates and promotes those people.
Those people are correct. Capitalism is a reflection of our collective misery. Look at how many people are on anti-depressants today, how many are suffering from mental health issues. Our ability to engineer the world to our advantage is not the problem here, that is something human beings are extremely good at. The problem is that we lack the ability to engineer ourselves.
This is part of the reason that the governments pay farmers to grow various crops etc.
we need food it needs to be as cheap as possible
we need food it needs to be as cheap as possible
I agree that we need food. Why do you say it needs to be as cheap as possible? The cheaper it is the less value people will give it and the more food will go to waste.
Dangit bobbi
Under socialism food isn't produce.
In your fantasy maybe
Name just one socialist country that have produce any :)
