this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (28 children)

I mean... I'm a capitalist who doesn't defend billionaires and also doesn't feel left out... ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Are you though?

Do you own the means of production and employ people to operate it, paying them a fraction of the value their labor produces?

Are you able to live comfortably without working for the foreseeable future? Do you exert outsized control over municipal, regional and state government far beyond your “vote” if you live in a place that claims to be a democracy? Does that control come from your power over the means of production that you control?

Supporting a society controlled by the people described above does not make you a capitalist, being one of the people described above does.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I do not agree with you, gayhitler420. That sounds as polarized as US politics.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Does lemmy.ml/c/rimjob_steve exist yet?

Edit: nope :(

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Are you able to live comfortably without working for the foreseeable future?

I'm pretty sure that's just a strawman version of capitalism. Plenty of capitalists who had their life's work taken during a communist revolution and were at best told they could come back as a manager worked plenty hard. Didn't save them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No, capitalism is the system that creates this. Capitalists are the ones living comfortably at the top of their piles of money while we work to make them that money.

And yes being a capitalist didn't save them from having to work like everyone else, boohoo evil commulism.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Right? There are pros and cons with every system. People disagree based on value judgements not based on misinterpretation of facts. People in their echo chambers will have you believe that everyone on the other side of the political spectrum all thinks the same way “the same people who say X also say Y!” Rarely is that the case. Most people are actually centrists who have their own independent beliefs on a wide range of topics.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (16 children)

Not everyone on my side of the political Spectrum thinks the same way. But if you are pro capitalist. You simply aren't thinking. Capital, markets, and currency. All existed before capitalism. The only thing capitalism did was justify the wealth and power of the wealthy and Powerful Beyond being simply born to wealthy powerful people. Now you get to be a wealthy powerful person by having capital. Which ironically just so happens to be most common among people born too powerful people. New boss same as the old boss. Funny how that works.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I hate capitalism, I just don't know of a better alternative. Nordic socialism is just capitalism with a big government. Soviet socialism failed miserably (it turns out, it is very hard to plan an economy). I have never heard a solid plan for communism that works on a national scale, never mind a plan for transitioning to such a society.

On the other hand, capitalism works reasonably well most of the time and we can just fix issues with it when they crop up (and we have a big backlog of issues to fix).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Capitalism does not work reasonably well most the time. Unchecked it leads to countless busts and Booms that leave the average person destitute. You really should look into the history of the early 20th century. The only reason we even still have capitalism. Is because of two massive world wars. Slaughtering and grinding up many tens of millions of people. As well as passage of basic Social Security nets. We've largely at least abandoned the spirit of. If if not in practice as well.

Capitalism has been a failure at every level. Constantly. That isn't a justification or Praise of leninism. There's a lot of other ideologies on the Socialist side Beyond leninism. And they don't require large National level government. Look into them sometime.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (53 children)

If you support capitalism, then yes, you defend billionaires.

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