Why are folks so anti-capitalist?locked

o_o@programming.dev to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 453 points –

Hi all,

I'm seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I'm wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I'm pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.

If this isn't the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I'm happy to take this somewhere else.

Cheers!

902

You are viewing a single comment
View all comments

*gestures vaguely at everything*

I'm not even full on anticapitalist but come on that's just obvious.

Gesturing vaguely at everything is not an argument for anything. Supposing the person you're talking to agrees that everything is bad, then it's simply an argument for radicalism, not necessarily anticapitalism or whatever your particular strain of belief is. Someone could, while gesturing vaguely, just as easily argue that it's because of moral decline, that society isn't capitalist enough, for race realism, for the need for a strongman to take over, or really anything that'd promise (but almost certainly not deliver) to vaguely fix everything.

Quoting my reply to a similar sentiment: (link here: https://programming.dev/comment/1167202)

I’m really not trying to be a dick, but uhh… Look around? The world is literally on fire and efforts to put it out or even to stop pouring more gas on it are put down at every turn by capitalists in the never ending pursuit of more money for it’s own sake.

Well I mean it’s unclear to me that we’re much worse than previous points in history. I’d rather have the climate crisis over the nuclear one, or either of the world wars, or live under a feudal system where I’m owned by the local lord in his castle.

I sympathize (and agree) with the belief that the current system isn’t serving everyone, much less serving everyone equally. But the world is a complicated thing and we’ve got >7 billion people to feed! I think we should be very careful before deciding “yeah it’s time to tear down the existing systems and hope that there are better systems out there”. It’s easier to make things worse than to make things better.

But the world is a complicated thing and we’ve got >7 billion people to feed!

Yes, and capitalism works to deny those people as much food as possible, to give it to others who can pay more. If you buy groceries and literally throw them away, that's better for the companies selling the food than you using it. We've known for 50 years that climate crisis was coming, but in order for capitalism to keep expanding, they kept pouring (literal) fuel onto the fire.

I think we should be very careful before deciding “yeah it’s time to tear down the existing systems and hope that there are better systems out there”. It’s easier to make things worse than to make things better.

Worse for whom? We're literally looking at unlivable temperatures popping up all over the globe, not to mention the storms, land erosion, lack of water, and the fact that soon, we won't even be able to grow food like we do now. You think we'll have cattle farms in 50c heat?

We don't need a new system, we have one: Socialism. Not communism, socialism. Governments should exist to enrich and help their people, not to enrich a tiny percentage of them at the expense of everyone else.

Capitalism is about exponential growth, on a planet with finite resources. Eventually, you get to where we are now: End Stage Capitalism. A tiny number of people have a bulk of the wealth of the world. The game is over, they won. They made the planet unlivable for humans in a few generations in order to do it, but they won. Congratulations (confetti)

Ok so if you agree that everything is fucked idk why you'd take issue with my answer being "because everything is fucked." I already said I'm not a full on anticapitalist so idk what your point in telling me we shouldn't throw the whole thing out is, I don't think that in the first place.