I’m morbidly curious. There are a lot of folks advocating communism who seem to lack any historical context. I’m curious as to whether it’s sort of like lemmys instinctive downvoting of anything negative about biden/upvoting of anything negative of trump, or maybe it’s genuine ignorance (I don’t imagine tik tok communist enthusiasts talk all that much about the tens of millions dead) or if there is actually some sort of group rationalization.
A carbon tax falls well within a capitalist system (much the same as any other tax or method of dealing with externalities) so I’d put that as a failure of democratic systems more than anything.
I’m also not convinced communism would actually solve the problem. Communists have historically been pretty reluctant to share bad news, from letting folks know about mass starvations to, oh, most of the world news in China.
The Irish potato famine was more an exogenous factor (a blight) not the direct result of mismanagement, which is generally a feature of communism. So that’s a pretty poor comparison.
Bengal was a mostly agrarian state so not really an advanced capitalist society. Again, not a particularly good comparison.
If I borrow a half million from the bank, I have to pay it back in monthly installments, commonly known as a mortage. Those costs are now added to your regular expenses.
Most rents are cheaper than mortages. So taking on a giant purchase + the cost of the mortage is a huge financial cost. Yes, she gets an asset (which she could sell at any point) but it’s going to be more expensive.
A quick look at Denver apartments for rent confirms this, a lot of 1 bedrooms available for between $400 and $500 cheaper a month.
Yeah because rental properties are often shitholes and it skews the numbers
Sure but my point is that this lady has made an extremely expensive purchase and now continues to pay for it.
Most rents are cheaper than mortages.
Yeah because rental properties are often shitholes and it skews the numbers
Rent is usually paying for someone’s mortgage for them, why would they make it lower? Who are these generous landlords?
Ahhh, there’s the misunderstanding. Local/single owner rentals are actually a small proportion of tenancies. Most are large organizations which have purchased a large building etc. It’s actually a kind of fascinating issue but worth reading about!
Capitalism. For all the awfulness goodness gracious, quality of life has skyrocketed as we’ve figured it out. Parents almost never bury their children anymore, disabled folks who aren’t royalty have better lives than almost ever before, if you break a bone you can get it taken care of rather than have it heal poorly and cause pain for the rest of your life, almost no one gets literally crucified and most have access to clean drinking water in their house!!!
Yeah, we maybe don’t have it as good as our parents generation but goddamn we have it so much better than their parents and grandparents etc.
(I’d argue climate change is more a political problem than capitalism. A sane society would’ve put a carbon tax in place decades ago and let the free market sort it out. But we get into stupid political fights and the youth, who are most affected, don’t vote in primaries when it really matters.)
Ahhh yes, who can forget the glorious communist food sciences that led to the mass starvations of millions?!?
(Heck, have you ever seen that photo of Gorbachev in a supermarket, stunned by the variety and availability of food?)
Yeah, science tends to advance more quickly under capitalism. It’s not a coincidence that the scientific revolution and capitalism advanced hand in hand.
What services do you think people had for free earlier?
And you misunderstanding how capitalism works doesn’t mean a carbon tax is against a free market any more than rules againat pouring nuclear waste into rivers goes against a free market. A free market had all sorts of rules to protect us from the excesses of capitalism, that’s literally the entire point of anti-trust law, because the correct capitalist move for a company is to become a monopoly, which would be bad for consumers. Thus, we tame the excesses of capitalism.
What? Wait… So when parents were burying most of their children back in the day and now don’t, that is somehow despite capitalism giving us the goods, services, hospitals, nurses, doctors, ample nutritional supplements etc?
And under capitalism, capital and labour are generally in conflict. Same way most capital owners are in conflict with each other (that’s basically the engine of growth.)
Saying that labour battled for these advancements is no more an indictment of capitalism than the fact that McDonalds battles with Wendys for revenue.
A president’s budget proposal is seldom passed into law. Instead, it’s an expression of the priorities the president promises to fight for, often coming on the heels of an agenda laid out in the State of the Union address....
Is this just your way of saying “I refuse to read the article” ?
They simply point out that the 150 days nonsense comes from a study that ignores large swathes of labour. You are welcome to look at the original study, which they link.
It’s pretty basic stuff. Yet again, with what specific part do you disagree? I’m not wild about searching through academia for a probable source troll
When you refuse to engage with the material in a meaningful sense, not just “I dislike the source and that’s enough for me!” It doesn’t really inspire any hope this will be a productive conversation.
When they worked, it was from dawn to dusk doing hard labour. And if the harvest wasn’t good, they died because the Lord took his tithe regardless.
And that’s not to mention the household labour, all of which we take for granted (consider chopping wood every time you wanted heat, mending clothes or the ridiculous process of cleaning them.) Or looking after farm animals etc. The only stuff that’s counted in that 150 days silliness is working the land which was only a portion of their real labour.
When they worked, it was from dawn to dusk doing hard labour.
Read Witold Rybczynksi’s Home when he talks about medieval life, pages 24 - 36 in my copy.
And if the harvest wasn’t good, they died because the Lord took his tithe regardless.
That’s how feudalism worked.
And that’s not to mention the household labour, all of which we take for granted (consider chopping wood every time you wanted heat, mending clothes or the ridiculous process of cleaning them.)
These are pretty self evident. Unless you think they had chainsaws and washing machines in the dark ages?
The only stuff that’s counted in that 150 days silliness is working the land which was only a portion of their real labour.
How do folks bemoaning the lack of a global communist revolution in the 1910s reconcile that with the mass starvations that happened in the two largest communist countries?
Having large numbers of people starve to death seems like a pretty damning indictment of a system. But I dunno, maybe I’m overly attached to food?
40-year-old homeowner says economy doesn’t add up: ‘I’m making the most money I’ve ever made, and I’m still living paycheck to paycheck’ (fortune.com)
“There’s this wild disconnect between what people are experiencing and what economists are experiencing,” says Nikki Cimino, a recruiter in Denver.
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Biden’s populist budget marks the overdue end of trickle-down economics (thehill.com)
A president’s budget proposal is seldom passed into law. Instead, it’s an expression of the priorities the president promises to fight for, often coming on the heels of an agenda laid out in the State of the Union address....
Kids Are Watching Brain Melting AI-Generated Videos on YouTube Without Parents Realizing (futurism.com)
Dune Two Little – How can a movie be so big and, at the same time, so small? (slate.com)
Whoever invented the eight hour five day work week is Satan. (lemmy.world)