this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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People blame capitalism, but capitalism isn't the problem. The problem, as always, is power.
Under feudalism things were much worse. Serfs worked 6 days a week, 12+ hours a day. Up to 3 days of that week was spent tending your lord's lands for free.
Under absolute monarchies, dictatorships and police states you work as hard as you can for whatever hours your employer sets, and you keep any complaints to yourself or you're dragged off to a camp, or summarily executed.
So far, every time "communism" has been tried, it was just a dictatorship or police state where the leaders pretend that there's a higher ideal.
Capitalist republics don't give people at the bottom much power, but they get a little bit. And, that little bit is the best that the people at the bottom have ever had, even if it isn't much.
The fact that there are people at the bottom isn't the fault of some political system, and especially isn't the fault of capitalism, it's the fault of human nature.
You were two steps away from discovering libertarian socialism/democratic confederalism and then you crawled backwards.
If your political system is based on hierarchy, there will always be someone at the bottom of said hierarchy. It's the logical consequence.
This is literally capitalist propaganda. Humans are a social specie, by nature they seek cooperation, not competition.
Riiight, a tried and true political/economic system which is sure to work perfectly as soon as it's tried, just like communism.
If you're human, your political system will involve hierarchy as soon as more than about a dozen individuals are involved.
Suuure... it's capitalist propaganda to acknowledge that all mammals act in ways that are hierarchical and unfair.
Capitalism is better than feudalism, yes. The problem is that Capitalism inevitably gets to the point where it is more detrimental to the population as a whole than it is beneficial (Global Warming, Wealth inequality, power imbalances, etc.), and that point is now.
Capitalism did bring us many advancements, but we have outgrown it. Just because it did good things at some point doesn't mean that there isn't something better. We should all be striving towards better as a species, but we aren't.