this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Leftism

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

I think there's a simpler, more personal way to make this point. Here's a few thought experiments:

Imagine you work for a company that lays you off, even while doing enough stock buybacks and executive bonuses such that they could've paid your salary for 1000 years. After you get laid off, imagine what would happen if you just ignored them and continued doing your work.

Or, your landlord doesn't renew your lease because they think you're ugly and they don't want ugly people living in their building. Imagine what happens if you just stay, even if you keep sending the landlord their monthly rent on time.

Both of these situations end with armed, taxpayer-funded agents physically removing you from the premises by any means necessary; it is only the omnipresent threat of state violence that keeps capitalist control over their private property. We don't see the violence because we've been trained from an early age not just to accept it, but to not even see it.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (11 children)

^ This is the winner, right here. The crux, as it were.

Modern society always ultimately boils down, eventually, to might makes right... just with some extra steps.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (42 children)

Very true, although I can't think of a better solution than having the state monopolize violence and enforce things like personal property etc and that's not necessarily anything specific to capitalism either.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (11 children)

This is mostly on point, but it also reproduces the 100 companies 71% line.

100 corporations are responsible for 71% of emissions related to fossil fuel and cement production, not 71% of total global emissions.  

Of the total emissions attributed to fossil fuel producers, companies are responsible for around 12% of the direct emissions; the other 88% comes from the emissions released from consumption of products.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jul/22/instagram-posts/no-100-corporations-do-not-produce-70-total-greenh/

It's unfortunately not true. Just widley quoted.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (29 children)

The argument presented here is based on complete ignorance of the history of the human race.

Reason #1

The concept of property ownership is not a product of capitalism. This idea is literally as old as the oldest known civilization to keep written records, Mesopotamia.

Concern with property, its preservation, and its use shaped not only the Mesopotamian legal tradition but also economic and social practice, notably the ability to sell and to buy land and to transfer property through marriage and inheritance.

In Mesopotamian culture, property was owned by the state, by the temple, and by private families. Records show a distinction between movable property (material goods) and immovable property (land), and the selling, trading, repossessing, inheriting and transfer of all types of property.

Here is an example of a cuneiform tablet recording an agreement about the division of property.

There is even an equivalent of eminent domain:

When Hammurabi asked, “When is a permanent property ever taken away?” he was referring to the established customary legal principle that land was the permanent property of a family.

Hammurabi was not a capitalist. Babylon was not a capitalist nation.

Capitalism did not "invent legal privileges around property".

Reason #2

Conquest of territory happened long before capitalism ever existed. Colonialism was hardly a new concept.

Genghis Khan was not a capitalist. Alexander the Great was not a capitalist. Julius Caesar was not a capitalist. Napoleon Bonaparte was not a capitalist.

If you require citations for this part of my argument, I suggest you find a basic text on world history at your local library.

Conclusion

I'm not going to address the other "reasons" as they are faulty conclusions drawn from the previously addressed faulty premises.

I am not arguing that these things are right and good. I am arguing that linking them specifically to capitalism represents a desperately uneducated understanding of human society and history. This is such a bad take, it reeks of teenage anarchist and "money is the root of all evil" oversimplification.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Comparing property law under hammurabi with property law as it presently exists is absolutely laughably ridiculous and you know it is. You should take your capitalist apologia elsewhere.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I have made no apology for capitalism. If this is what you got from what I wrote, then you have trouble with reading comprehension.

I did not make a comparison between Mesopotamian property law and present property law. My point was that private ownership of property is a function of human society literally as old as recorded history, as well as the idea of legal privileges around property ownership.

Because the cartoon is based on the premise that these ideas come from capitalism, the entire argument is faulty.

I'll quote from my original post:

I am not arguing that these things are right and good. I am arguing that linking them specifically to capitalism represents a desperately uneducated understanding of human society and history.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Am I having a stroke or does the first sentence make no sense? Shouldn't it be more instead of less? If a company always sells for less than the cost to produce, it'll go out of business rather quickly I'd think. Obviously there are temporary strategies like this that are used to beat competitors, but that's not what this is talking about.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (8 children)

I think you just have it misunderstood. The comic assumes that you are the laborer, not the capitalist. As the image at this part of the infographic shows, from the perspective of the laborer, you are paid $5 for an item that is sold on the market for $50

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (12 children)

Yes, the image is correct, but I think theUnlikely was refering to the text "Capitalism exists by selling the value you produce for less than your labor costs."

It's backwards, it should be the value you (the laborer) produce is sold for more than than your labor costs.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (41 children)

The state is violent and community is violent and privacy is violent

Can anyone come up with an ideology that is not violent and can actually be implemented in the real world with real actors that aren't smelling roses and giving out hugs?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (23 children)

Side note, any ideology that claims your neighbors are the enemy aren't worth a damn.

What is your criteria for "can actually be implemented in the real world"? This varies by the individual. I need to know what your perspective on this is. Could you explain why capitalism isn't violent?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (8 children)

Ok I'll bite. God help me.

My employer bills me out for $400/hr and I make about $100/hr. I wouldn't be able to make that much on my own because I don't have the resources and infrastructure my employer has: admin, IT, expertise, manpower, marketing, legal, and so on. I have zero interest in being self employed. So this is a good arrangement for me.

My clients are happy paying those prices because we provide good service at competitive rates.

My employer is happy because they usually net about 30% profit margin so the partners walk away with $120/hr after paying me and other overhead.

It's the very definition of capitalism doing exactly what it is supposed to do: providing valuable goods and services to people who want to buy it from people who want to sell it, and everyone walks away happy from the transaction.

I fail to see how this is a violent and exploitative war on civilization itself. Fuck everything about this comic. Why is it even on my feed? Gah.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (17 children)

Upvoting for good faith engagement, even if a little frustrated. I encourage other leftists here to do the same.

The situation you describe is capitalism working smoothly. Marx himself spoke highly of aspects of capitalism many times. The problem comes when your company's owner, who has the power to abuse that ownership, does.

By analogy, monarchies are bad, even if your king is good. You can have a fair, just, wise philosopher king. It sounds like you're lucky in having a good job with a reasonable owner, but your owner could sell to a private equity company tomorrow, who will lay you off, outsource your job to lower costs, bill out the same rate even when lowering the quality, and pocket the difference. They'll do this for a few years until the brand's value has been mined, then they'll scrap your company and sell it for parts.

Socialists like myself argue that because the system can be abused, it inevitably wil be abused. It's a structural argument, not an argument about each specific case. We argue that democratic control of our jobs is a good thing, in the same way that we got rid of kings to replace them with democratic control is a good thing, because we think that system is more just and fair.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (10 children)

Now do someone making $7.25 an hour.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (6 children)

OK, but qq: Who pumps out septic tanks if there is no coercion involved?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (10 children)

The dude with a passion for septic infrastructure who wants to provide a rewarding service for the community, instead of getting yelled at by customers at the convenience store he works at to make sure he can afford the microwave dinner he's eating that night.

Pie in the sky scenario/sarcasm aside, criticism of capitalism doesn't mean pure anarchy. It means looking at what works and what doesn't work towards making sure people have what they need. Money is much easier to trade people to do a service than trading a goat for 2 sheep, but that doesn't mean that some landlord deserves 1 of the sheep and half the goat for "allowing" you to raise them under threat of starvation and homelessness.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (16 children)

Based on the above image, I'd say its the guy who sees a demand for septic tank maintenance and is willing to do that work for pay. The first issue is the disparity between the workers and the business owner. but if they're the same, you don't have that issue.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (3 children)

All the nitpicking aside, this is the 'somebody's gotta scrub the toilets' argument right?

The simplest answer to this I can think of is, who scrubs the toilets in your home? It's you right?

Do you do it because you own the toilet? Not necessarily because people who live in rented accommodation still scrub the toilet. So why? It's because you have an interest in not living in a place with a filthy toilet. Now suppose you actually had a local community, you'd have an interest in making sure nobody was living with a filthy toilet they couldn't clean because then they might get sick and you don't want that because you're a nice person and you don't like seeing your friends hurt. So you'd probably set up a communal rota, which is basically what people here in the UK already do because elder care on the NHS doesn't exist in practice.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The reality is that most people are self-interested and not at all ulturistic about things. They'll begrudgingly clean their own toilet for their own sanitary sake but that line of thinking doesn't do so well with public places.

Go into a public bathroom at a truck station or anywhere else that doesn't have a paid worker to clean up the mess and you'll see just how much people cooperate to keep it clean. Spoilers: they dont, because almost nobody wants to clean up after themselves let alone others germ filled shit stains, clogged toilets, dirty water splashed+litter everywhere on the ground, and used needles.

Maybe theres some magical unicorn ulturistic people that would haul ass to clean up the place out of kindness of their heart/for the good of community. Good for them, the next dozen people would trash it up again and undo all their hard work out of pure apathy.

Some people are great and upstanding members of society that go out of their way to improve things, most are stupid, lazy, self-interested animals who couldn't care less about their actions inconveniencing others and making environments worse than when they enter.

Lots of jobs important to keeping places running and clean are shitty, hard work and usually in nasty environments. Getting a gold star on their upstanding citizen sheet isn't enough incentive.

Now I can totally see a UBI system where people who do voulenteer for these kinds of things get paid more/ gets exclusive societal perks over someone who doesn't. But now were back to where we started, people getting paid more to do work that very few wants to do or has the skills to do.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

This is just a comic I found, if you have some good memes feel free to share

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (22 children)

One way to save species is by not eating animals. Welcome downvoters. I know you dislike hearing the truth, because you like your taste pleasure above animal suffering.

https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food#key-insights-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-food

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

You are speaking truth, going vegan has one of the highest possible personal impacts. Eating animals is one of the main reasons for the massive land use, since we need it manly to feed animals, therefore it is reducing biodiversity.

Personaly, I don't think the second part of your comment is sensible. Beeing aggressiv and making accusations (even if warented) will not change peoples minds but make them defend themself. But again, that's just my view.

(edit to reword a sentence)

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Personal responsibilities and actions are important ofc but pale in comparison to systematic, structural change that is needed. E.g. a few people significantly reducing their diet of animal products or going vegan is great (hence I did it), but as long as slaughtering and abusing animals is subsidized by billions from the state level this won't have a large affect :/

BP's carbon footprint propaganda did a lit of damage.

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