Welcome to todays episode of criticizing things you haven’t read:
and won’t read. lol
Liberal doomerism based on imaginary restrictions, how new.
it’s not just imaginary, humans thrived of mutual cooperation for tens of thousands of years while capitalism has only existed for a few hundred, but somehow that it’s became the default position of everyone.
I wouldn’t call pre-capitalist society “thriving on mutual cooperation” and neither would Marx. It was different, yeah, but ultimately still exploitative for most people. Consider that Tsarist Russia was still largely pre-capitalist (in the transition to being a capitalist economy) and that this fact led to a lot of debate among socialist and communist thinkers during the leadup to the Russian Revolution because Marx himself believed that Capitalism was a necessary stepping stone to Communism. But yet, people still felt conditions were bad enough that they revolted, killed everyone in charge, and instituted socialism. Even going back to the bronze age shit was pretty brutal. Read about how kings dealt with disobedience back then and it would make anyone today seem like a saint.
Yes. I am pointing that out. That is the imaginary thing.
“Somehow,” looks behind us at five centuries of European settler-colonialism.
“Everyone,” looks ahead at the millions of people who defy hegemonically enforced constructions of human nature despite the overwhelming power those systems possess.
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My opinions about it are obviously great actually thanks
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Capitalism doesn’t work, and it’s for the same reason.
It used to be human nature. Nowadays it’s nothing more than social engineering that teaches us what is up is down and what isn’t, is.
that’s human nature
Marx didn’t forgot such thing he refuted it. No such thing as " human nature "
Observing humans in capitalism and assuming greed is just human nature is like observing humans on the Titanic and assuming drowning is human nature.
It’s just rejecting your responsibility in the way you behave. “It’s not me, it’s the nature”
One has to wonder how capitalism arose, if the traits which gave rise to it aren’t part of human nature.
Capitalism arose from European feudalism. Which in turn arose from Christianity. Which in turn became mandated by the Roman Empire right before it totally coincidentally collapsed. The decisions behind this progression were limited to a tiny subset of the local human population, the ruling class which back then was basically seen as a completely different (superior) race compared to the commoners and peasants, to the point they chose to breed with their own relatives instead of polluting their blood with that of the people below them. Therefore, they absolutely did not represent the wishes of most humans at the time and certainly did not represent the “nature” of most humans, just the ones most corrupted by power and exceptionalism in a system they created specifically to keep themselves in power and separate from the masses. They’re not human nature, they’re the societal cancer that actively rejected and suppressed real human nature.
So the ruling class, with all the wealth and power and ability to do whatever they wanted acted against their own natures to create a system which would create in humans the desire to hoard wealth and power?
If you have to keep in mind that the ruling class is always fighting against itself. So when you say they could do whatever they wanted, actually that’s not exactly true. Throughout history they’ve often been killing each other and locking each other up.
Yes. When your rule is based on seizing wealth and power you’ll keep doing that perpetually so you don’t lose your place in the ruling class. The fact that they did that is more consistent with the Marxist notion that human “nature” is shaped by the material conditions they’re born into.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of peasants of that time fully accepted and even embraced their position due to all the religious brainwashing. Most had no real aspirations of power (supposedly despite their nature to desire power) because they’ve been taught their whole life that it’s better for that to be taken care of by someone else that “God” supposedly chose. If anything, our uncritical acceptance of our place within capitalism is closer to what the serfs thought.
So then it’s not capitalism which causes in humans the desire to hoard wealth and power?
Any system predicated on obtaining as much wealth or power as possible will see people fixating on that and eventually divorcing the wealth/power itself from the material conditions that they arose from. Why do you think so many corporations turn into death spirals where they try to increase profits at all costs, abandoning their actual products and customers, and then act all shocked when they inevetably go bankrupt due to no longer having a customer base because they alienated everyone with their shitty profit oriented practices? The only way to solve this is to change the system people live under.
If it’s not in human nature to hoard wealth and power, then how do systems arise which are predicated on obtaining as much wealth or power as possible?
You know that humans lived in communal societies for a long fuckin time before all the bullshit we know today, right?
Human nature is not greed. That’s capitalism.
Mesopotamians tracked agricultural debt on clay tablets in 3000 BC
Debt and capitalism are not the same thing if that’s what you’re insinuating. Markets are not a feature of capitalism either, they are simply tools for economic control.
But have humans have never had a non-hierarchical large scaled society?
This is kind of the elephant in the room that every large scale political/economic model like to ignore.
While I don’t agree with a lot of what he writes about, Murray Bookchin makes some pretty persuasive arguments about how hierarchical structures themselves are an issue no matter what system theyre found.
Pretty sure humans have been bashing in each others heads over resources since the dawn of humanity.
Capitalism made it worse and more efficient tho.
Half the problem with capitalism is that we aren’t allowed to bash in the heads of the people who took all the resources.
Came here to say this, the problem is the system of government because everyone can be bought. We need direct democracy where there are no representatives that can be bought
Then the direct votes will be bought…
A lot harder to buy off the general population than it is to buy single representatives, everyone would have to know about the corruption and anti corruption watchdogs would have plenty of evidence
No, it’s not hard, it happened many times in Greek cities. Polish noble democracy in Commonwealth also became corrupted in exactly this way. You can see it even nowadays in the part of bourgeois democracies that are direct, for example European presidental elections, “vote x no matter what” blocks are found and it result in electing such people like Nawrocki in Poland. I mention him because he’s incredible example, barely anyone ever heard of that guy before elections (except prosecutioner) but the magical hand of PiS chairman marked him as the desired candidate and suddenly he actually won against very well known liberal politician Trzaskowski (and Trzaskowski was least horrible lib in Poland).
The mode of production takes priority, capitalism with direct democracy would still fall to the same problems intrinsic to capitalism.
That’s basically true, but I think capitalism would overthrow direct democracy.
People would vote for higher wages and then there’d be a coup.
Sure, the base will shape the superstructure. Any levers that can be pulled within capitalism will either be destroyed or nerfed if proven too effective at gaining what workers want.
How could corruption run rife when there are no bribable politicians?
The government is tied to the mode of production, it isn’t above it. When capital owners hold sway over how society functions, it isn’t through bribes alone that this happens. Control of media, control of the state, administration, cultural hegemony, etc all influence it. As such, no direct democracy could really exist in capitalism.
Even an honest and well meaning politician will be blocked at every step. Like corporations and big businesses sabotaging key supply chains, media engaging in character assassination, and if all that fails then either a military coup or a literal assassination (like they did to Salvador Allende in Chile). Unless the politicians try to gain concessions from the ruling class in exchange for complacency, which means we still have our status quo.
Direct democracy gets rid of politicians and the general population vote on each bill/law change
And compulsory voting?
So everyone who doesn’t care to do their own due diligence can vote how the media they consume pushes them to?
Yup. Works well for Australia.
All the best countries have it…
Thats the thing, if we build a system where all needs were met, it would seem that greed and bashing heads becomes unneccesary
He wealthiest already have all their needs met. Still greedy.
They don’t, there is an empty void in them, typically from an insecurity in child hood. For example I know a very successful guy whos goals are amassing wealth because he said as a kid they were poor and it made him feel insecure and unsafe. So now his happiness is earning more and more. Billionaires have this trait. Whether that be financial, or I have to be better than the next guy to feel like I’m not a failure.
If life is happiness and living and not economic success, you’d see that billionaire trait die out, its a selfish trait that serves no need in a community
They do have all their needs met, according to Marxism
I mean currently, not after growing up in a Marxist society that has healed generations of familial issues
Yeah of course, this meme is meant to be making fun of the idea that “human nature” (whatever that may be lol) in any way disproves communist or anticapitalist theory
You’re right that the best arguments against Marxism are the falsity and over-simplification of economic determinism, and the falsity and over-simplification of the labour theory of value.
Sure, but we freely traded with each other.
No matter how many wish communism to work and devote themselves to it, it will fail. They can hold back agorism indefinitely by great effort, but when they let go, the ‘flow’ or ‘Invisible Hand’ or ‘tides of history’ or ‘profit incentive’ or ‘doing what comes naturally’ or ‘spontaneity’ will carry society inexorably closer to the pure agora.
This is a deeply idealist view of production. There is no “invisible hand,” no universal Spirit of Hegel. Trade and industrialized production gives way to centralization and the death of competition, and it makes more and more sense economically to plan production and collectivize it as this competition dies out of itself. Communists aren’t “holding back” trade, trade naturally gives way to the very structures that compel communism and kill off trade.
Human nature on its deathbed when it realizes it forgot to account for Karl Marx
Even if you assume human nature is greed, it’s also human nature to have their babies eaten by wolves but I don’t see anyone suggesting we should center our society on baby tossin’ wolf pits.
Killing people who don’t worship the same Gods as you, taking slaves from the neighboring city state, and having a harem of
sex slaves“wives” are all “human nature” that have all been done since before we had the technology to record them all the way up to today. Should those be tolerated in modern society too? Hell no.Dying from infections, cancer, accidents etc is also human nature.
Well that’s WHERE youre wrong buddy. Wolf pits are the Last GREAT thang ABOUT this cuntry and I won’t HAVE no liburels Taking them!
Edit: capitalized more words.
It’s in Human Nature to be violent, which I why I’ve made sure to arm my kindergarten class with knives. Because otherwise I would not be accounting for Human Nature.
(note: this is sarcastic, I did not arm a kindergarten class with knives)
you armed them with knives in a gun fight?!
They’re doing the best they can with a teacher’s salary
it bet we’ll get gun equity before we get healthcare, childcare, or educational equity. lol
(However I did give them hard plastic clubs shaped in the form of shovels)
In some ancient text I read it talks about how the ancient Greeks had stopped wearing swords all the time for protection, but there were still some primitive areas where they did. Civilization reduces the necessity and the rate of return on individual violence it would seem.
Oh, you are being sarcastic? Wouldn’t have guessed
Me when I take all napkins and salt shakers from every restaurant because apparently greed is just human nature
?
Common refrain from capitalism fans is that communism can never work because humans are inherently selfish/greedy as proven by their observation that humans are selfish and greedy in the system that rewards selfishness and greed.
OP is selfish and can’t imagine why people would want to be nice to one another.
Begging you to click on my profile this is meant to be a joke 😭
I think you need to go to HR for an hour long meeting about what jokes are.
I guess it gets understood a little different when it is not posted in explicitly communist spaces :/
even so. it isn’t a joke and more a reflection of what you think. at least that what it sounds like. don’t blame the audience for the way your joke is interpreted
Most people are interpreting it correctly, though.
I just don’t get how saying a statement you believe is wrong without any indication of it as a joke.
Seems more reminiscent to people who say something shitty, then when they get complaints say “it was a joke, bro”.
And I personally have no patience for that. Also, there is no punchline, it is just a BS quote.
