- cross-posted to:
- flippanarchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- cross-posted to:
- flippanarchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/36828107
ID: WookieeMark @EvilGenXer posted:
"OK so look, Capitalism is right wing.
Period.
If you are pro-capitalism, you are Right Wing.
There is no pro-capitalist Left. That’s a polite fiction in the US that no one can afford any longer as the ecosystem is actually collapsing around us."
Okay instead of walls of text speak plainly what do you mean?
Look the problem with ideological folks like you is you go off on rants and never clearly define your terms. (I’ve talked to a couple different people like you so the whole wall of text thing is kind of familiar and I’ll admit I do it myself from time to time but I do try to clearly define terms.) Then when people debate with you you get all worked up. I may or may not agree with you but I have no idea at this point since your terminology is all over the place.
In as much as I’m able to gather from what you’re talking about yes there is a core ideological divide. Though I wouldn’t say it’s between rationalism and capitalism. More between democracy and imperialism, or decentralized and centralized power systems. Money is just one way to obtain and utilize power. But if your core goal is to build an empire as opposed to establish a decentralized cooperative say or some other egalitarian system then the structure your business takes will be massively different even if the same amount of money is accumulated. Capitalism isn’t the problem it’s what people are doing with it. Money is just power. So what are people doing with their power? Most people structure their families as dictatorships and their businesses as extensions of those familiesm. And a kingdom of empire is just a family with a lot of accumulated power. It takes quite a bit of thinking to get people to want to redistribute power out to the whole community. Or you have to start from the ground up. How do you structure your families and communities? How do you treat those around you? Do you take care of those around you or only look after your own? Potluck or private dinner? Basic stuff. So instead of getting angry about politics maybe try something smaller. Host a potluck dinner and invite a bunch of friends. Teach people about gardening and maybe get together to start a community garden or an initiative to help one another with various projects. Mutual support on a local level is just as much a part of decentralization as trying to wrench production back from big corporations. I mean if you grow your own food and make your own stuff won’t that add up? But again you don’t need to be all angry about it. Just help people.
This is a really funny comment. What’s the difference between your WOT and mine? Also as far as that last comment goes, you assume I am just angry at capitalism. No, I am actively organizing against it. As much as you might like to strawman me, I do help people, I volunteer my time, I host and help organize any number of events. So spare me the sanctimony? I may have an ideology but I understand it, and yours, while you seem to think you don’t have an ideology. Its like a blind person saying there is nothing to see.
Is that all it is? What is power? Its effort expended over time. What effort, what time? It is the accumulated value of the commodities that workers create. So you admit one of Marx’s basic premises, but ignore it out of incurious and dismissive nature.
So according to your definition of power we can answer your own question about what capitalism is: it is a system that pays an individual wage for socialized production methods (like assembly lines) where the compounding effects of socialized production are owned and realized by the capitalist. Its a complex topic. Wealth of Nations is 500 pages, Capital is over 1000. So you may like digestible little bites of info, but you might have to actually read a book if you want to understand it. Which you plainly don’t, you just want me to waste time giving answers that are insufficient to answer your question, and then nit pick those answers to make yourself feel smart.
What you describe in your second paragraph is an epistemic crisis, and its very true. What you don’t understand is that it is a two way street. Just because you don’t understand me doesn’t mean I’m speaking gibberish, it could be you just don’t want to, or want to strawman me as unintelligible.
I already explained how it is an ideology and an economic system, try to understand instead of just claiming everything as incomprehensible. I actually teach this stuff, so the burden of learning is on you. Its not just an ideology. But how would we define ideology? Well in any historical era, the dominant ideology is the ideology of the ruling class.
Liberalism does have a through thread, in all historic forms and it is the development and state protection of private property. It has different aspects which appear at different times in different places, as you allude to, but it is the ideology of capitalism that emerged in the 17th-20th centuries which defeated the ruling kings and queens of Europe and established global capitalism by the middle of the 20th century.
You probably aren’t going to investigate any of my sources, but a good place to begin is Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels, Wage Labor and Capital by Marx, Capital by Marx (just read Marx he’s amazing) and Imperialism the highest stage of Capitalism by VI Lenin.
But really you could try and read any books on the topic to improve your understanding, which is actually ignorance of how much you don’t know. And I mean this in the most generous way possible. I think I already partially addressed some of your questions in my first post so go back and read it before assaulting me with 1001 bad faith questions. I’ve spent years as an organizer and educator, don’t belittle me to give yourself some wiggle room to hang on to your misconceptions. Actually test your own assumptions and see if they hold up under scrutiny; or if every “answer” as you see it leads to more questions, and doubts, about what is really going on.