• YragNitram1956@feddit.uk
    52·
    6 days ago

    I am fearful about the extreme ignorance, simple mindedness and gullibility of some of the electorate. They are completely blind to the effects of neoliberalism, which is the main guiding force behind the bumptious, odious and fascist/racist Reform party who believe that competition is the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning. Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised; public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve. We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance, and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.

      • bloviate@lemmus.orgEnglish
        214·
        6 days ago

        Western culture won’t work like that. Germany is about as far as we go, and that’s still capitalism.

          • bloviate@lemmus.orgEnglish
            19·
            6 days ago

            This has never been reduced to practice. Completely theoretical. You need to find people where they are, not where they should be.

            • EmmiLime@lemmy.ml
              121·
              6 days ago

              This has never been reduced to practice. Completely theoretical. You need to find people where they are, not where they should be

              Because the bourgeoisie impede any attempt. And you’re wrong as GDR is proof it did work.

              Nazi Germany is capitalism’s response to Communism.

              • bloviate@lemmus.orgEnglish
                16·
                5 days ago

                I know several former East Germans. None of them was happy. They all agree that things are better now. You don’t have a good example.

                To the extent that the bourgeoisie are able to vote, buy political ads, hire private police, use private schools which reinforce their preferences, etc this will never fly. Again you need to find a third way that is popular. My solution is regulation, but I would happily jump on a bandwagon that has people on it. GDR is not that bandwagon.

                • BrainInABox@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  61·
                  5 days ago

                  "You don’t have a good example because I know a handful of people (who children or not born when the USSR dissolved)

    • EmmiLime@lemmy.ml
      21·
      6 days ago

      Capitalism is dominant because it is the only model known to survive with stability long term over massive populations.

      Gee I wonder why socialist countries you are thinking of just up and failed?! Just spontaneously happened, no external interference whatsoever, no siree!

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.mlEnglish
      20·
      6 days ago

      Capitalism hasn’t even survived with stability in the short term: it’s yet to manage even a century without a catastrophic crisis.

    • ZMoney@lemmy.world
      18·
      6 days ago

      Capitalism has instability built into its model because it generates inevitable class conflict that has to be resolved through violence. There is no such thing as a stable capitalist state.

    • Oppopity@lemmy.ml
      16·
      6 days ago

      They didn’t have to recede to survive, they were fucking killed that’s why they’re not socialist anymore. Because they were all overthrown or sanctioned to hell or invaded.

  • FlyingCircus@lemmy.world
    47·
    8 days ago

    Capitalism continues to kill vastly more people than the inflated claims about communism. Every year 10 million people die from starvation and preventable disease simply because it isn’t profitable to save them. That means that every 10 years capitalism kills as many as claimed in the Black Book of Communism, the source with the highest number of fatalities attributed to communism.

    US sanctions alone have killed 38 million people in the last 50 years.

    • FlyingCircus@lemmy.world
      30·
      8 days ago

      I should add that the Black Book includes ridiculous things like Nazi soldier deaths in WW2, and the hypothetical children that possibly could have been born if things like the 1933 famine or WW2 didn’t happen. I shouldn’t have even called it a source, but anti-communists love treating it like gospel.

    • tourist@lemmy.world
      37·
      8 days ago

      Yeah it’s literally killing people right now.

      Can’t pay for shelter, food, water or medicine? Go into debt, jail or the morgue, we don’t give a fuck.

      • Alloi@lemmy.world
        26·
        8 days ago

        i did some calculations a few years back with some friends on a whim during a sidetracked DnD campaign. we came to the conclusion that capitalism is directly and indirectly responsible for over 20+ million recorded deaths annually all over the world, as a conservative estimate

        main contributers were poverty, disease, war, lack of quality healthcare, and state violence.

        we also found that the existence of 1 billionaire has an annual death count, purely by subtracting that money from the economic cycle and direct aid. i cant remember now, but it was in the thousands of deaths per billion denied to those in need by hoarding wealth.

        billionaires are violent, purely through their existence. and we shouldnt tolerate any form of violence against us.

        we should sincerely be dragging these fuckers into the street and ripping them to pieces.

    • drag_net@lemmy.ml
      10·
      7 days ago

      And are people being exposed to lead because they’re huffing it for fun or because they work within a capitalist system that doesn’t care enough about exposing people to lead?