memes

I want to comment on this first:

... while we have had many counties try and fail to make a thriving socialist society. We have had capitalism thrive and make everyones lives better.

First, socialist countries haven't been allowed to thrive. They're a threat to the established capitalist status-quo. That's what the entire red scare period was about; undermining leftist nations so they fail. See the Guatemala coup for example. The country removed their dictatorship and formed a democracy. It happened to elect a leftist president who implemented a minimum wage and began granting land to peasants. This pissed off the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) who were benefiting from cheap land and exploiting labor. They had the US overthrow the democracy and instate a dictatorship (which ended up committing a genocide).

This has happened many times. The only leftist nations that were able to survive this are ones with strong governments and cultural hegymony (basically dictatorships with strong restrictions on citizens). This doesn't mean that's the only possibility because that's the only ones that survived, it just means those are more stable when undermined by a powerful external force. It's like asking why everyone who has been shot in the head has died. It's not their fault someone else shot them.

(Also, many capitalist nations have failed, and that equally is not a sign that capitalism is destined to fail.)

Now for this:

So I'm curious how do you expect innovation to happen in a communist world.

Innovation happens all the time without capitalism. In fact, capitalism often hinders innovation. The requirement of capitalism is profit seeking. If you don't think something will make a profit, you shouldn't invest in it.

I think it's penicillin that almost didn't exist because of capitalism. (This is from memory, so some parts may be wrong) The company was trying to create a certain drug. During the experiments penicillin was found. The company told them to move on, but the people running the experiment saw an opportunity and continued developing it on their own. Under capitalism, you shouldn't persue unlikely but potentially beneficial, though possibly not profitable, possibilities. Can you imagine the number of times this has happened and the people involved listened to what they were told?

People like to innovate. Just look at makers online. They make all kinds of stupid shit that won't ever make money just to see what will happen. Profit is not the thing that creates innovation. Human ingenuity is. If you give humans enough resources to persue what they want, they will innovate.

Also, generally communism or other leftist ideals aren't advocating for equality in outcomes. They're advocating for equality in opportunity. If you're born wealthy, you shouldn't get special access to thing that an average person doesn't have access to. You shouldn't be allowed to persue your goals when an average person can't. However, if you create something that makes your life easier or better, that's not going to be removed from you. There's equal opportunity to improve your life, but not everyone will persue things equally.

So why do you think we should change to communism, instead of eradicating blind brand loyalty and cracking down on wealth gained through stifling others.

Personally, I'm more towards anarchism than communism, but I see value in both and they share so much in common.

How would you go about eradicating "eradicating blind brand loyalty and cracking down on wealth gained through stifling others"? Those are fundamental aspects of capitalism. The goal of capitalism is to increase profits by any means possible, which includes breaking laws when it's more profitable to do so. Eradicating brand loyalty is only possible if you elemenate labels, but that also creates the opportunity for cheap alternatives to undercut on quality. Exploiting labor is also fundamental to capitalism. If the goal is profit then you should pay as little as possible for as much as possible. If you don't then someone else will undercut you and you'll fail while they exploit.

There's no avoiding it under capitalism because the fundamental goals are misaligned with morality. The only choice is a system that favors morality, potentially by making moral options profitable or just not prioritizing profit. You can't really "fix" capitalism. The fundamentals are rotten. You can improve it, but it'll always be misaligned with what we want. There may be a place for capitalism under another system, but capitalism as the foundation is never going to prioritize humanity, good, and doing what's right.

Kudos on the respectful questions instead of dissolving into rhetoric. I love these sort of conversations.

But while we have had many counties try and fail to make a thriving socialist society. We have had capitalism thrive and make everyones lives better

Hold the phone. We have thriving socialist societies today, unless the EU is doing a lot worse than I thought. In fact in France and Germany they're nearly 100% nuclear and renewable and in France's case have secured enough nuclear fuel to power their society for centuries. All of them have socialized medicine, and judging by the new heart surgery techniques out of France lately they're not lacking for innovation just cause the government is footing the bill. Furthermore, have ALL capitalist countries stood the test of time economically? I can name quite a few that exist right now like Fiji, which is certainly capitalist, but does NOT help their people in being capitalist (selling their water has harmed their environment, and the profits really are not passed along to their people).

Why would you think innovation would disappear?

Let's take the socialist (communist) medical systems in foreign countries. There is still IMMENSE value in winning the government contracts that use your medicine. And I'm a weird communist who still values personal property and intellectual property, I still see that as integral to the process. So like, if you invent the cure for cancer you can still demand $X per treatment, we're just talking about who's footing that bill in the end. I'm just cool with the government being able to design a competing product/treatment. That's kinda really it.

NASA is purely government funded and non-profit. If NASA had been able to charge for half the stuff they gave the world for free they'd be the richest corporation on the planet, since the MRI, CAT scanner, and a whole ton of other technology was made by them. Yet NASA doesn't profit on any of it, and is one of the most innovative entities in the world. Kinda puts a dent in your 'well there'd be no innovation' right? I dunno man, have you ever met scientists and engineers? I'm convinced if you just gave them all unlimited budgets and material all our problems would be solved overnight, and most of them would refuse anything beyond the satisfaction of having made something new and decent living wages and conditions.

And that seems to be working wonderfully for the EU countries who've already adopted this system, and for the Chinese, it's not like innovation just dissipated from there, hell they're beating us in a few areas right now.

Couple things, here.

1. Define "thriving," even the most famously abusive Socialist economies like the USSR managed to double life expectancy, and achieve other good metrics like free Healthcare and education, which even modern Capitalist economies struggle with.

2. "Capitalism" did not make everyone's lives better. Development did. That's why the USSR, in spite of its top-down, brutal structure, managed to double life expectancy.

3. Simple "blind brand loyalty" and monopolization are not the only hallmarks of "Late-Stage Capitalism." Other hallmarks include rampant consumerism, bullshit jobs, stagnating wages with respect to productivity, further alienation from labor, increased Imperialism, and more.

4. Blind brand loyalty isn't the issue here, and you cannot "fix" Capitalist exploitation within Capitalism, only make it more bearable.

All in all, lots of assumptions with no ground to stand on. As a leftist, I think it's safe to say that democracy is generally a good thing, as is decentralization, so a better system than top-down Capitalism would be an economy with democratic participation from the bottom-up. Communism can achieve this.