this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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Why does anyone need capitalism to get anything done? Are you saying nothing got done for all of human history before the 19th century? How does that work?
In addition to weapons and suffering, the huge capitalist economies of the modern first world produce vaccines, computers, abundant food, and so on, and I wouldn't want to throw that away. My personal belief is that the development and modern production of those things can't be wholly separated from the power and breadth of the market economies where they happened. In its current incarnation, it also involves a lot of suffering to create it, but to me that's not inherent to the system, it's just how we currently do it. You might disagree; if so, where would you point to as a good example of where and when it's been done well (fully non-capitalist economy that produced good quality of life for all of its citizens)?
Tweaking the system so that everyone (of every race i.e. not like we did it before) is living what white people experienced during the New Deal or the post-WW2 US sounds great to me. I realize that that's purchased with the blood of a lot of miners and labor activists during the late 1800s and early 1900s, but I think once that system was created, it worked great for the citizens, better than did a lot of countries that went further from there full-on into a complete Communist overthrow. No?
They happen to be capitalist and they do produce a lot. But they don't produce a lot because they are capitalist. Those things have no clear relationship.
Soviet Russia had industry. Soviet Russia had research and science. Soviet Russia made vaccines and was very prolific about vaccinating their population. Soviet Russia wasn't capitalist, or even communist for that matter. So how were they able to do that without capitalism? Everything that applies to Soviet Russia applies to China the same btw.
So, clearly it has nothing to do with capitalism. And funny you mentioned the new deal. The last time the United States bucked capitalism for socialist policy. Republicans/fascists/capitalists were literally plotting to kill/overthrow FDR over his new deal policy. We literally didn't get there because of capitalism. We got there in spite of capitalism.
Suffering and inequality are inherent to capitalism. That doesn't mean capitalism wasn't better than mercantilism or feudalism. It was. But that doesn't mean it's perfect, or the best system humanity has created does it?
Also, post world war II there was no communist overthrow anywhere. Russia, China and Korea aren't communist and never have been. They're Leninist. Most communist despise Leninist almost as much as capitalists. Russia was as communist as the Nazis were socialist. Which is not in any meaningful sense.
You or I could theorize about the causality, but I would say it's very hard to deny that there's a correlation. That's most of my argument here -- not philosophy, but how it seems like it works out in practice. The way it works in practice (evil capitalism producing better-run businesses than worker-owned factories with buy-in from everybody) actually doesn't make sense to me philosophically. I don't understand why capitalist systems + big-government intervention seem like they produce almost everything that needs producing in the modern world. I'm just saying that to me (and you may disagree), it seems like evidentially that's how it is.
The Sinovac vaccine was very different from the Moderna vaccine -- it worked fine, but it wasn't the same step forward in vaccine technology. Soviet computing and heavy industry was far behind the West for the whole of the USSR. We didn't have millions of people dying of starvation, for one. I'm not saying command economies are always worse at everything than quasi-fascist-but-sorta-free-if-you-have-enough-money economies like the modern US. China in particular is better at solving certain types of governmental problems that tend to hamstring the US. But, you can't possibly be saying Soviet Russia was the equal of the West in terms of the well-being of their people. Are you?
If you're saying USSR and China don't count, what does count? Where has what you think would work better in the US been done on a big scale, and worked well? That's not some kind of rhetorical question, I really want to hear what the answer is.
Yeah. That's what I mean -- I like Bernie Sanders, I like FDR even if some of the business leaders at the time thought he was Josef Stalin come to life in a wheelchair. That, to me, is a good economy. If that's not left enough for you and you want to go further, I think it's fair to ask where that system has worked well before I really agree that it'd be a good idea to completely overturn the US system in favor of it, that the result is clearly going to be better.
You've yet to point out any correlation. I specifically pointed out how there is no correlation. Which you just ignored or hand waved away completely.
Yes but it's hard to know where to start with the problems with this statement. First that's not a creation of the Soviet Union since it hasn't existed since the early 90's. Further the efficacy of a vaccine is non sequitur. You said it was capitalism that gave us vaccines. Yet non capitalistic systems make them too. So you move goalposts claiming they aren't as effective. If you're going to make an argument stick to it.
Again not relevant. They shouldn't have had any at all if it was capitalism that gave them to us. The fact they were making their own in any capacity disproves your statement.
At that exact moment? Maybe not. We've had our own famines however. And starved an uncounted number of people. Even then, those famines were not caused because communism. They had nothing to do with communism. They were naturally occurring famines. Made worse by unanswerable ignorant authoritarian leaders. Unwilling to listen to actual experts or those with experience. It had nothing to do with any actual social or economic policy inherant to socialism/comunism. But if you disagree please point out where in Marx's writing the fault lies. Engles is a spiteful lunatic who's musings and philosophy have caused untold damage to the ideology as a whole. But even his philosophy didn't cause the famines. But if you disagree please explain how "because communism".
I'm not saying that. They do. Naming something Communism or Communist doesn't make it that. There are specific points that make something communism. Which none of those countries really have had. Specifically they're Marxist-Leninist. Though Lenin's ideology runs counter to a lot of Marx's. Making that label an oxymoron more than anything. Regardless, marxist-leninism wasn't and still isn't communism. It's goal was to develop the infrastructure to the point that somehow. Through hand wavy magic the powerful autocrats in charge would magically give up their power and control, switching everything to communism when the time was right. Yes, it's stupid magical, and irrational thinking. But not communism
Most the rest of the industrialized world. No really. Most have single payer. It works well. Scandanavian taxation, regulation, and governing philosophy. It's not perfect, but far better than what we have in the US. Not to mention their public central heating. Austrian style public housing. It's comfortable, affordable, and many of their celebrities even choose to live in it even. Public high speed rail and mass transit like Europe and much of the rest of the industrialized world. The sort of stuff capitalists and capitalism keep us from. Not because they don't work. But because there's no money in it for them.