For the anti-capitalists, I have a genuine question (sorry, I couldn’t find an “ask a commie” community):
In the capitalist system there is a movement called Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) where people commit to living frugally in an effort to maximize savings and investments. The goal is to achieve a balance that allows you live off a safe withdrawal rate (around 3.5-4%) and then leave the workforce at an earlier than normal age. Some people commit to a life of minimalism and lean-FIRE with under $20k in investment income per year. I believe there is significant overlap with the van-life crowd and other nomadic lifestyles.
Is this lifestyle compatible with, or is there a similar lifestyle within a communist system? To expand, can those with a different set of priorities trade away their later working days in exchange for less material things?
Let me put it this way. For capitalism to continue there’s an ever-marching goal of exponential profit. To get more profit you must work harder and the company must pay you less and work you longer. At some point you will be crushed. Nothing can expect exponential returns, yet capitalism constantly expects that.
Communism wouldn’t need retirement because such a society wouldn’t have an exponential motive for existence. Work would be done as needed instead of constantly more and more and more. I wouldn’t mind being in my 80’s and still “working” because all the work I’d do would have a direct positive result on my community instead of more money for someone pocketing the excess value of my labor over what they paid me.
Besides, who would need to push papers around for companies in an economic system that is moneyless and stateless? (communism is literally moneyless and stateless so USSR, China, Valenzuela, etc. are not communist since they have a state)
I can only answer as capitalist. FIRE relies on accumulated interest. For workers it should be the same if 10 billionaires or 100,000 FIRE investors own their companies.
UBI should be fairer.
Both scenarios are the same. Work 20 years hard and then stop working.
The FIRE owner have an interest in low wages for the workers whereas in UBI, more income for workers could mean more to be shared.
What? There are plenty of communist Lemmy subs you can ask in. I just think you haven’t tried hard enough.
To answer your question tho, no - because there would be no need. Communism does want mandatory participation, but if checked and balanced correctly everyone would work within their limits and not be relegated to a lower class of living - because that’s sort of the point of communism. You’d work within your means until there was time to retire without being limited in access to services and goods. Theoretically, under a functioning communist system, there would be no manufactured scarcity.
Tbh I believe both communism and our current form of capitalism centralises power and ownership way too much. Social-capitalism, or even libertarian socialism, might be the ticket. It would undo at least 200 years of psy-ops and gamed laws designed to favour the rich and vesting power in them, which is the issue of centralised power that we’re facing today - in what some call “late-stage capitalism” - or what I call the breaking point of society under a predatory, exploitative and imperialistic form of capitalism that seems more like the privatisation of the aristocracy than the supposed liberalisation of economy. Transparency, accountability and consequences for people in power and wealth is what’s sorely needed.
PS: New public management is a con-job disguised as decentralisation meant to encumber governments under the guise of checking and balancing them, being effectively a psy-op in of itself to make people hate public services and taxes. As per usual, goddamn liberals - and I include socially conservative liberals in that polifical grouping. Dems and pubs are the same, want the same institutions and promote US imperialism - not fiscal independence, no matter what justification and mental gymnastics they put in the form of spreadsheets.
PPS: Also, additionally, commodification of the housing market was a mistake. It will always be stupid and harmful towards society.
You have, maybe 2k users here, defederate a new insurance a day, and users are constantly finding lack of content; but yeah it’s the normal user who is quite in the corner 🤣
He wasn’t arguing, though lol. It was his opinion.
I replied to someone who had no interest in critically engaging and offered two weak and irrelevant options in efforts to downplay another commenters stance on a meme. A literal bad argument vs an opinion to a meme. Try again, you corny head ass 😂
Capitalism can never work, because it’s self defeating. The point of capitalism is to maximize immediate profits, nothing else - as a result, it will gladly destroy its own means of growth if as a result instant profits increase.
But it’s working, many are happy. If you’re unhappy it’s probably your fault and not the fault of the system you are living in. Take ownership of your situation and improve it.
20 percent of children in the US are food insecure and we have the largest prison industrial complex on the planet. If I had a shittier job and broke my leg I would end up homeless. My cousin who can’t hold down a job due to a chronic illness would die on the streets if she didn’t have family support. But yeah the system works.
Sounds like a lack of compassion in your family. Just build a unit and live together, makes live easier if you support each other. But no the system is the problem! Some people would be always losers, regardless the system.
What about disabled people who have no family? What about people who have family that can’t support them financially? What about people who can’t afford to build a unit? The system is the problem. We are more insulated from it then most.
Capitalists need workers to oppress. Without them, they would have nothing to give them a feeling of superiority. Mincing people into fertilizer would surely be a fun pastime for the rich, but it’s hardly a sustainable hobby
You have a rather one dimensional moustache twirling view of the world. Let me guess, communism is the one stop solves all problems in the world solution without any negative side effects?
You do understand that that is not how the world works, or for that matter, how anything works?
Seriously, your comment is plain nonsense. Yes, captialism has a shitload of issues. Yes, there are rich and abusive people out there. Yes, communism is responsible for countless millions of deaths and tortured…
Instead of making up weird fantasies, how about to try to come up with an idea that would actually make things better?
Thinking about how to make the world better starts with fantasizing, and moves on to theorizing and debating ideas. Calling the many decades of socialist and communist thought just fantasies goes beyond all reason. At this point you’re just ragebaiting. This is not how you talk to people.
Communism as Marx described, has to do more with the complete automatization of the means of production, and the subsequently change of the structure of society, as a result of post scarcity.
Remember that just past Mars humanity has a near infinite repository of resources, it’s only on this earth that we are subjected to the rat race, when we have the wealth of the universe so close.
You may think that I’m dreaming, but if we let capital unchecked, it will destroy us, and destroy earth. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
I am all in favor for heavily regulated and checked capitalism. Like it or not, its the most successful system and it can be a source for good when heavily regulated and used as an input source for a socialist system that takes care of all.
These capitalist and billionaire cocksuckers sure love socialism when they socialise their losses and fucking take our tax payer money to bail themselves out. if you’re working class and don’t support socialism, you should look into it more. Propaganda from these blood sucking billionaire ghouls have made most of us blind to the better life socialism can offer us.
Yes i agree. Just pointing out the fact there’s no free market. When they lose, they still win by taking our hard earned money and using it to further their interests. I’d be happier if it were used for our welfare instead.
Okay, that at most makes you petite bourgeoisie not haut bourgeoisie. But I’m guessing you can’t live off of your passive income so you’re still proletariat. You have more in common with the proletariat than not, and you have more to gain by overthrowing capitalism then preserving it.
Yes, the goal posts of definitions created by a guy who has been dead for more than 100 years. Clarifying a misunderstanding on a basic concept of Marxist analysis of capitalism written more than 100 years ago is moving the goalposts.
Also, can you live entirely off your passive income? If not, youre not even petite bourgeoisie.
Dogwhistles? Lol I’m straight up using explicitly communist language to communicate communist ideas. And the only time I insulted you was the previous comment. Unless you think being haut bourgeoisie would be a good thing?
You wouldn’t be any better off on a socialist system. The people at the top of the party would control everything and the working class would be even poorer than they are now. You’re just licking the left boot instead of the right one.
I’m not a socialist by any means (well, I have been called one by republicans…) but I’ve always hated this argument. The USSR and China are the only two I’m aware of that weren’t massively screwed over in their infancy by the US, and/or (usually and) manipulated by the USSR.
The USSR was literally invaded in its infancy by France Britain and the US. Trust me the USSR was getting fucked with by bourgeois dictatorships since the beginning.
Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos for starters China went from a century of humiliation to a superpower in less then a century thanks to socialism. The USSR was better than the feudalism before it or the dictatorships of the bourgeoisie that came after it by a wide margin. For a place much poorer than the US, they had similar nutrition, better education, more rights for women both legalistically and practically.
Oh, throw in east Germany too. Do you know what the Stasi did to the lgbt movement that they saw as subversive? Destroy it by ending discrimination against gay and trans people, including a massive education campaign to eradicate homophobia and transphobia and state funded gay bars. Compare that to how the US was treating gay people at the time.
Yes, yes. It is cool and subversive to support capitalism, or at least oppose its alternatives.(aka support capitalism) You’re part of the cool club of people who act in the interests of the bourgeoisie and not of your own class. A real independent thinker.
(Not that any of us are independent thinkers, but one of us is defending the powers that be and calling the other a chatbot)
You have no idea what systems I support, yet you assume I support capitalism because I didn’t agree with you, which says a lot. The only evidence of my beliefs I have provided is that I do not support your approach. Further, I do not believe your rhetoric is a genuine attempt to make the world any better for anyone.
It isnt generalization it is categorization. You come at things from a social democrat perspective very clearly based on a few comments talking about your politics.
Okay, so what do you believe then? I am under the impression that you want the current system but with a welfare state- free Healthcare for example- which is social democracy. Do you want society to be organized a different way?
How do you define “capital”? I own a paid-off vehicle. That’s my biggest single asset. Am I therefore evil? It’s parked in the garage of this home I rent. Used car market right now means it’s worth a bit more than it would be otherwise.
Oh, and I’m also a shareholder in my employer. Gasp!
All this talk is highly dangerous us-vs-them, black-and-white divisive crap that isn’t going to go anywhere productive. Stop it. Grow up.
Owning a car is not bourgeois. Owning a business is.
If you could stop going to work tomorrow and still pay your bills because your assets are generating sufficient income to cover your expenses and still accumulate, you’re in the capital class. If you trade your time and labour for income and quitting work would mean your resources will get depleted, you’re working class.
And if you think that you’re not working class because you sit in an office and work on a computer, then that’s exactly what the ownership class wants you to believe so you’ll be happy with your lot and not rock the boat.
How do you define “capital”? I own a paid-off vehicle. That’s my biggest single asset. Am I therefore evil?
Oh my god, we aren’t coming for your toothbrush. The idea that owning anything makes you a capitalist is absurd. We are talking about businesses that alienate workers like yourself from their labor.
Oh, and I’m also a shareholder in my employer. Gasp.
And if you had enough shares to live off of you wouldn’t be renting. You’re a member of the proletariat, not even the petite bourgeoisie who still have more to gain by overthrowing capitalism.
All this talk is highly dangerous us-vs-them, black-and-white divisive crap that isn’t going to go anywhere productive. Stop it. Grow up.
Maybe instead of being afraid of shadows you should read what socialists actually believe. We believe that the means of production (aka your workplace) should be owned and managed by the workers (you) and not some board who see the business as a paycheck every month (and probably don’t understand how it actually functions) overseen by a democratic body to coordinate between businesses. We claim to live in a democracy but nowhere is this more evidently wrong then workplaces, which are almost always run as dictatorships…what little political agency employees exercise has to be won in conflict to the goals of the system.
We oppose land commodification. People, especially children and the elderly, should not be at risk of being evicted from where they live, and if they have income they should just contribute to the collective maintaining and construction of property which is generally 5 percent of income, not 1/3 of a paycheck like it is under capitalism with all the middlemen leeches.
Thats still very much generalizing. What this meme essentially says is that if you’re a capitalist, you’re not part of Lemmy.
On a seperate note, you cant possibly know how many people on Lemmy actually support capitalism or not. It has a left tendency, yes, but I bet the majority of Lemmx users do support caputalidm in some shape or form.
No, it is saying that if you are capitalist, you will get pushed into a corner by downvotes and can’t enjoy the discussion as much as everyone else.
As is clearly shown with this comment.
If you actually read the posts made here on Lemmy (and I don’t mean the hexbear lemmygrad ones) you should still clearly see a contempt towards the capital class.
Unless you’re posting about how all landlords suck, then someone always pops in to say how “Actually my landlord only exploits people by 2010 standards, not 2020 standards. Upvotes plZ”
The upvote ratio on this comment (which is at 15up to 15down currently) is in no way representative of Lemmy. At best its representative of this specific community (memes@lemmy.ml).
And you live on your own self-sustaining compound, posting from your open hardware, fabricated in free factories, Libre software OS and applications, with compost-generated power? Didn’t think so. Welcome to the gray zone bootlicker.
“If you dont own factories you dont benefit from the system, you should not defend it”
“Oh okay, so you have completely isolated yourself from the system then?”
No, that’s not the point, the point is to end the exploitation, not escape it, which is always a fanciful idea as you cannot escape the indirect effects of it. Also do you think almost anyone is capable of doing the things you mentioned? You’d have to be really wealthy to do those things.
You used the wrong quote from yourself. What you quoted from me was a reaction to this gem of a statement:
If you support capitalism and you’re not a capitalist you’re just a bootlicker.
which is black and white, and typical of us-good versus them-bad argument fallacies. If you live and participate in a capitalist system, as the vast majority of humanity does, you are, to some degree, supporting it.
Based on the comments in this thread I take your position to be it’s a matter of degree of support. Owning a truck isn’t capital, it’s apparently got to be a lot to make someone a capitalist. That is not leftist or anti-capitalist, but simply “eat the rich”. Most people exist in classes that participate in ways that keep the lower earners below. I do not believe most humans think this great system for all but feel helpless, and participate as a way to simply exist.
Surely spreading insulting, erudite rhetoric in online is not the solution.
Owning a truck isn’t capital, it’s apparently got to be a lot to make someone a capitalist.
Owning a truck for personal transportation is literally personal property, not private property. Can you give me a quick definition according to Marxists of personal and private property?
Because you speak as if you’re qualified to define leftist:
That is not leftist or anti-capitalist, but simply “eat the rich”.
I do not believe most humans think this great system for all but feel helpless,
Can you give me a quick definition according to Marxists of personal and private property?
It is possible, but not worth it.
That is capitalist realism for you.
That is realism. Which is usually quite valuable if you want to change a system.
You seem hell bent on apply the label capitalist as an epithet on just about everyone you respond to. Can you quickly tell us what you think it will accomplish?
Okay, so no, you don’t. And you’re more interested in coming off as knowledgeable than learning (because you could just look it up in 5 seconds and give a definition), which is cowardly behavior.
That is realism. Which is usually quite valuable if you want to change a system.
Capitalist realism isn’t realism, it is specifically referring to the “end of history” narrative
You seem hell bent on apply the label capitalist as an epithet on just about everyone you respond to. Can you quickly tell us what you think it will accomplish?
I’m using preciae language that would be understandable if you knew the first thing about socialism, which you claim to.
The capitalists are on a yatch somewhere not even aware of the squabbling poors. Dunno about music and dancing, but I just see you here defending them.
Let’s call the capitalists on the yachts billionaires.
I am defending the capitalistic view that markets are key to wealth distribution. Socialists and communists agree. That’s why they want to replace them.
My point is that there needs to be competition on all markets. There must be enough housing that rent becomes cheap.
For that to happen, lemmies have to vote for politicians who change zoning laws to allow cheap housing.
Instead I see lemmies having fun with revolutions, new technologies and debates about the inclusion of anarchists. Those are all beautiful dancing partners but they won’t reduce rent because there won’t be a revolution.
That’s where I say you are a lemmy dancing to the music.
You are lamenting the current system. You believe there is a free housing market when there is none. You think of the current system when I argue that voting must be used to make a change.
The system is not working because the lemmies are dancing. Not believing in change is the music.
Wealth redistribution is good. Socialism definitely could end up being better than capitalism with the right implementation and regulations. A socialist revolution is a bad idea; wealth redistribution can be implemented in capitalism. Lobbying is real, but voting still makes a difference. Vote in more than just the presidential election and canvas for issues or politicians you support. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
All the generally established capitalist wiggleroom like minimum wages, paid holiday, affordable health care, education instead of manual labour for children etc were established by massive strikes and (threats of) violent masses.
progress isnt a continous upward climb in the short term. In the 90s crime shot up and no gay marriage soooo. We can definitely go farther with capitalism like with higher taxes on the rich, minimum base income, etc. Voting does matter, if you dont vote you have no leverage over those who speak for you.
no point of going farther with oppression, when we obviously reached its limits. shit, we are headed towards hell on earth because capitalism cannot deal with that.
you want to vote then go vote, and invariably when they do jack shit, wait 4 more years.
How has it reached its limit? I just gave two examples of ways it can improve. Voting for the president is not the only thing you can do. You can canvas for politicians or issues you believe in and vote in other levels of the government. I don’t get the sentiment of voting doesnt matter so we wont vote. Its a self fulfilling prophecy. We are not heading to hell on earth because there are a lot of people more informed than either of us working on solving all different kinds of issues. I dont understand blaming capitalism for everything. It completely hand waives the nuance of situations and how we can realistically improve them.
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