/lit/ - Literature

>>19633904
why not? it's pretty short

It's very different from modern lefty narratives. I was surprised at how based Fisher sounded desu. The book is incredibly insightful and not at all the typical retarded SJW popshit i expected it to be.

>>19633904
This is only recommended to people who are being scammed by liberal art colleges by getting a worthless degree.

I wanted to read it but I nead long breaks between reading bad books, and I know I'd need a few months to recover after this one. I'm a responsible reader so I always make time for bad books, but leftist literature is on an another level of bad. Modern leftist literature from a blogger? Good heavens.

>>19633904
Read mises not commie garbage

>>19633988
>don't read this commie read this jew!!

>>19633904
as this book is a short read, you should also read 'ghosts of my life' too as it really shows how neoliberal policies affected the cultural milieu

I liked it because I'm not really into purely political books, so I found it insightful. Great film and music recommendations in his books too.

I'd also recommend his blog articles.

>>19633904
I hear it's dollar store pop critical theory, just done very well. You might just get more out of reading the philosophers he draws fron like Derrida and Adorno directly.

>>19634145
for articles, 'exiting the vampire castle' is a good starting point. It was one of the last articles mark wrote and also got him cancelled before the whole "cancel culture" bs(CC is psyops btw)

>>19633988
read both become spectrum agnostic

midwitcore, hard pass

>>19633904
Is it a decently fun read? Maybe. Does it have any real substance? No.

>>19634237
Define substance.
>>19633988
Weak bait, but at least it's less evident than suggesting Ayn Rand.

>>19633988
Hayek is the only good libertarian thinker, and even he is deeply flawed. Mises and Rand are jokes. The best capitalist thinker is Keynes.

>>19634297
Schumpeter

Yes, for sure. It’s not like it’s long or a difficult read anyway.

>>19633904
No, you should not. It’s already aged terribly with it’s references.

>>19634178
great article, I started reading it and will continue when I get back home, thanks.

>>19633962
>Hmmm, every cause leftism supports gets co-opted by the elite, making them stronger. I guess we just must keep doubling down with more leftism!
Fisher was a massive retard.

>>19633904
its a good introduction into a particular strain of leftistism which isn't retarded - other adjacent authors might be graeber. ( I like utopia of rules and dawn of everything myself). Pretty much the only more radical intellectuals I can tolerate

>>19633904
Only if you strongly agree or disagree. Everything else is a waste of time.

>>19633904
Capitalism is the worst economic system apart from all the others.

Love it or hate it Capitalism is the most efficient way to distribute scarce resources and use it in a way that fulfils the desires of the population. No other economic system could create global supply chains

>>19636566
>how did the USSR double production every year while the US was in the midst of the Great Depression for 500, alex
>How did anarchist spain even exist for 300, alex

>>19636572
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%931933

Forced collectivization helped achieve Stalin's goal of rapid industrialization but it also contributed to a catastrophic famine in 1932–1933.[41]

According to some scholars, collectivization in the Soviet Union and lack of favored industries were primary contributors to famine mortality (52% of excess deaths)

>>19636549
Both are full of shit to be honest

>>19636572
Russia was the fastest growing economy in the world pre WWI

>>19636581
What kind of famine deaths have happened under capitalism?

>>19636593
Caused directly by the principles of Capitalism itself and not because of environmental factors or natural disasters? None as far as I know.

>>19636593
Ask the Irish.

>>19636593
Every death that occurs in a capitalistic system is capitalism fault for not giving us the utopia we crave for so badly. I don't know if communism is better or not, but at least it tries.

>>19636611
Dummy baby

>>19636611
You're blaming capitalism for what is actually the fault of Samsara, tanha and Mara. Take the tonsure before Yama plucks you out of the field of life.

>>19636572
>>19636590
No shit dipstick. I wonder why a state that was literally stuck in feudal agricultural production doubled their output when they industrialized compared to- oh wait, a state that was already industrialized?

We gonna compare every other state that doubled their output industrializing while the US economy was in a dip or recession?

>>19636664
Oh like China today.

>>19636271
Read Realism and this was pretty much my take too, though I assume this was probably a fairly milquetoast reactionary take when you get to look back 12 years later. What is the lefty counter to it?

>>19636664
What did I say fucking faggot? Russia was already growing before the soviets

I read it and it's the most blatantly politically charged shit i've ever seen. It literally says mental illness is a fake social construction created by evil greedy 'capitalists'

>>19636678
Notice how we never cured cancer but we have plenty of designer drugs that make the psychological costs of wage slavery okay. We don’t have flying cars, we have the police state. No warp drives, just drones.

You see this thread is divided.
You have nothing to lose by reading it.
I thought it was fine, just a bit dated now.

>>19636694
1000 iq take

>>19636673
Fine I grouped you in with the other moron my mistake.

>>19636669
Correct 5 points.

>>19636694
Jeez could designer drugs be easier and cheaper to produce than fucking curing cancer, talk about a non sequitur ?

>>19636694
Maybe you should stop conflating sci-fi with reality anon~

>>19636566
>No other economic system could create global supply chains
Depending on your definition of capitalism (and allowing for a practical substitute for "global"), this isn't right. See: the late Bronze Ages in the Mediterranean.

lbr w/o mkt
piracy is l/acc
lbr w/o mkt

>>19636593
bro hasn’t seen america’s health care system lmaoooo

he started referencing jason bourne movies and i dropped it

>>19636710
Older generations got their visions of the future to manifest into reality. People of the 1800s and early 1900s imagined jet planes and video cameras and cross country phone lines and cars and computers and solar panels and the cures to many diseases that tore across the world. To write off what I say as merely looking at the world through science fiction is to ignore the fact that science fiction got us here and it just stopped.

>>19633904
overrated meme book that says nothing about capitalism that a person with a sliver of intelligence wouldn't have figured out by themselves by just observing the development of recent history and how popular culture works. I don't know why it's so popular other than the fact that people like to be blackpilled by it

>>19636271
>the status quo keeps moving to the left generation after generation
>the elite only gets more powerful
>the system only gets more oppressive
It never crossed Fisher's mind that leftism is actually the problem? He unironically had to make mental gymnastics about how his ideas never brought the desired results because they were so good that his enemies stole them to use them against him.

>>19636786
>>the status quo keeps moving to the left generation after generation
People like Fisher are unable to see this because for them TRUE LEFTISM is an utopian state, and therefor anything that isn't utopic is right wing. That's why they believe they are the rebels even when they control almost every institution, and why they believe we're always at the cusp of fascism even when the conservatives parties around the west fight for gay rights in twitter.

>>19636807
Critique of the Gotha Program
also,
i think the left in general is just missing god

>>19636807
High quality LARP, finally one that's actually believable.

>>19636807
Are you implying that Biden, for example, is in any way a leftist? LMAO. It's the right wing that controls everything. Actual marxists can't even get elected in most counties if they don't keep their beliefs a secret.

>>19636786
>>the status quo keeps moving to the left generation after generation
We went from Obama to fucking Trump. In what world the world keeps moving to the left? Seriously. And Obama wasn't even a leftist. In most countries he would have been considered right wing.

>>19636694
and we don't have electric cars either, they were killed off by a capitalist conspiracy! oh wait

>>19636786
>the status quo keeps moving to the left generation after generation
That doesn't tell the whole story because "left" can describe both the contemporary political ideology and something else that Fisher may be more likely to subscribe to. I'm not very familiar with Mark Fisher specifically but a common Marxist critique of the contemporary political ideology called leftist that goes all the way back to Adorno and Horkheimer is that what is supposed to be the revolutionary class has become more concerned with the democratization of consumption under the current system rather than any radical social reorganization. This runs the gamut of contemporary leftist ideologies from your -ism advocacy groups (trannies, racism, feminism, sexism, etc) down to your wealth redistribution types.

So what you call the contemporary left may be more on board with the rights of trannies and niggers but ultimately those people don't envision any radical reorganization of the means of production (as a classical Marxist may be concerned with) and so ultimately perpetuate the system. This is outlined in The Culture Industry. Meanwhile, you're right: the elite only becomes more powerful, the system only becomes more oppressive, and as any Marxist worth his salt would be quick to note, the concentration of wealth becomes more lopsided. None of these things are leftist hallmarks of either variety (though the contemporary left undoubtedly contributes to it). It's telling that the major movement Fisher supported wholeheartedly was the "We are the 99%" thing.

>>19636857
He is making the argument that
>sleeping on beds is better than sleeping on hay, why would you want something better?
>you aren't a slave anymore sweetie, what's wrong?
>You eat more calories than anyone ever in history, why are you complaining?

He thinks anyone outside of whatever that poster defines as "good" and "right" is LEFTIST LIBURALS

>>19636863
>Trump
The first american president ever to be pro gay marriage before even running. And yet the compass has moved so far to the left he was considered an enemy of the LGBT movement for not wanting trans freaks to serve in the military, something everyone would have agreed 10 years ago.

>>19636879
>sleeping on beds is better than sleeping on hay, why would you want something better?
unironically curious what could be better than sleeping on beds?

>>19636884
Why do you care about identity politics? Why are you defining left and right by identity politics? When did being a tranny gay nigger start to matter so much to you? I feel like I am taking crazy pills here. Why is the economy so depoliticized today? It's absolutely insane.

>>19636884
also he eliminated the "salt tax" something rich people in blue states use to dodge paying federal taxes by claiming their sprawling mansions as deductions. ironically the dems want to bring it back, but hey, wait are you gonna do, not vote blue?

>>19636902
Sleeping on air. Imagine some sort of large fan, or air jets, or magnetized pajamas where you could just float. Sleeping in water without drowning or getting wet. Sleeping on a biologically engineered heap of flesh that smells and feels like a pretty girl. A standing cryostasis pod that injects restful chemicals into the air. A microscopic Roomba implanted into your head that does all the cleaning and functions of sleep, getting rid of the need.

THERE IS SO MUCH TO THE FUTURE, YET WE DO NOT SEEK IT

>>19636908
>Why are you defining left and right by identity politics?
Because that's what defines the right and the left today. It's also what the left supports and what the elite uses to expand its power. Economic classes became irrelevant because it's no longer useful for the establishment, so leftists stopped supporting it. Also the fact that the kind of people who could support something like that, such as rural workers, don't have a leftist character and therefor are not useful to the establishment nor the left.

>>19636933
>left and right are identity politics and not class politics
Have you read a history book, nigga?

>>19636943
Left and right are descriptive terms, not prescriptive. What is right and what is left is not something specific, but purely contextual. At some point, for example, being right wing meant being pro-monarchy, now it means being pro-republic. What exists though, are two sensibilities in which people look at the world, and depending of the context it defines what is right and left. In this context, being left wing means identity politics. If Che Guevara, Marx or Adorno were zoomers they would be rallying behind identity politics too, even if it's in complete contradiction to the ideas of their time, but they would because that's how the leftist sensibility is expressed nowadays, the same way a monarchist now would be a republican.

>>19636965
So then how would one define someone who is completely uninterested in identity politics and only interested in class politics in this modern age?

>>19636965
> If Che Guevara, Marx or Adorno were zoomers they would be rallying behind identity politics too
very suspect statement

>>19636979
They would. After all, people are defined by our material relations. Capitalism today mandates social liberalism and identity politics, therefore any older Marxist would also align with those if they were around these days

>>19636943
>Have you read a history book, nigga?
Do you know that the left has existed from before Marxism was a thing? You have a very narrow idea of what the left is, which belongs to a specific time time in history, yet you act like it's the true and immutable definition of it, even when it's not the original (bourgeois values) nor the current one (identity politics).

>>19637004
I know about the diggers you nigger

>>19636975
>So then how would one define someone who is completely uninterested in identity politics and only interested in class politics in this modern age?
An outlet who will still vote for Biden after they get tired of whining about how Bernie got the election stolen yet again.

>>19637010
Okay, you got me kek

>>19636715
>See: the late Bronze Ages in the Mediterranean.
Shipping goods back and forth between two cities doesn't come anywhere close to the complexity of the modern supply chain used to create your goods. Even something as simple as nuts get shipped halfway across the world to be salted and packaged before being shipped right back to where they were grown to get sold. There's no way to organize such logistics under a communist system. Under Capitalism all the pieces come together because there's profit to be made in being the one who offers the shipping service, the packaging service and the salting service, and economies of scale mean it can all be done incredibly cheaply.

How do you even begin to get multiple groups to work together on things of this scale without the profit motive as incentive?

>>19637010
Damn. Got me lol

>>19637030
You wouldn’t need globalist trade like that if profit wasn’t the motive.

>>19636738
>doesn’t know the definition of famine

>>19636965
>If Che Guevara, Marx were zoomers they would be rallying behind identity politics too
Bullshit. They were true leftists warriors who wouldn't sold out no matter what. Perhaps the average leftist can be brainwashed to stop worrying about class, but not them. They would have called out everyone trying to hijack the movement and now we would have an actual powerful left lead by people who actually understand that class is all that matters.

>>19637034
>a communist denying being a globalist to own the capitalists
I've seen everything now. Also you're a massive retard if you think the only reason for global trade is profit. Resources are scattered all over the earth.

>>19636593
>What kind of famine deaths have happened under capitalism?
The absolute banality of firstworlders lmao

>>19637069
yeah i was gonna say if i can't put spices from india on my food then i don't want your revolution

>>19637069
Okay, then if there isn't profit motive why can't resources be exchanged to where they are most needed without relying on capitalist structures to impalement the process?

>>19637088
What motive is there for the Chinese factory workers to put your iPhone together and ship it to fat Americans if they're not profiting from it?

>>19637030
You're oversimplifying. Trade in the Bronze Age was much more complex than you give credit for. Not as complex as today sure, but how much of that is simply due to the scope of the market today versus then?

And your idea of capitalism seems to be reductive. Simple profit motive does not constitute capitalism. I'm not arguing for communism.

>>19637104
Who said I wanted an Iphone?

>>19637088
Because we haven't come up with a more precise way of knowing how much of something is needed other than demand and the exchange of money. The URSS actually tried it and it was a massive failure. The exact reason is rather complex to explain in a post, but, basically, when a lot of people buy something they give profit to the people making it so they can make more of it and satisfy the increasing demand. If you mess with this feedback loop, you end up with a bunch of companies that don't know how much they should produce. It may sound silly. The URSS thought too, but they could never make a money-less system work. They eventually just started copying the Germany's princes and freezing them every five years or something like that. It was still a shitty system that was barely functional.

>>19637128
Couldn't we do that again but this time with the help of modern computer processing and algorithms? Aren't we already doing this with the stock market?

>>19636908
You're not insane, anon. This is a standard divide and conquer tactic, and it's working masterfully.

>>19637134
Algorithms could be useful to calculate how much food starving people need in third world countries or things like that, but modern economies are way too complex. Demand is not something logical. How do you train an algorithm to know how much demand there will be for a new technological product? An algorithm may tell you that each bakery should bake 10000 breads per day to fulfill everyone's need, but perhaps the bakery in the next street is much better than the others and therefor it has much more demand. The government could decide to close the bad ones and increase the budget of the good one, but that takes time and by then the demand could change to something else anyway. It's not efficient at all. Centralized economies are complex stuff to pull off. The best we have so far is Singapore, which is hardly a communist's wet dream, since it's one of the most capitalistic countries in the world.

>>19636786
>the status quo keeps moving to the left generation after generation
this is the dumbest thing ive ever heard in my life. you dont understand what leftism is or what it looks like. learn what things are before talking about them

>>19637191
>How do you train an algorithm to know how much demand there will be for a new technological product
Amazon literally does this every day. The technology is there.

>>19637195
When the concept of right and left came around people were arguing if we should have a republic or go back to monarchy. Things have moved so far to the left that today right wingers would be considered far left if they traveled even 200 years back in time. You will have a hard time finding a single normie who isn't more to the left than their parents at their age. Trump is considered far right for things that were the status quo in the 80s and 90s. Something like the Build Back Better build and the 1 trillion dollar budget would have been seen like some sort of Stalinist nightmare even a decade ago.

It's tiresome seeing people defend capitalism. I'm not coming from any sort of milquetoast Marxist-adjacent perspective either. The unhindered expansion of the market into every facet of life is impossible to ignore and its effects are lamented even if you choose to not see the direct causes. The disintegration of the family, the depersonalization of the education and socialization of children, the transformation of humanity into agents of the maximization of capital for its own sake, the death of true democracy and democratic ideals and their voodoo reanimation into what we have today, the replacement of respectability, duty, and community with the social status and power granted by wealth are never touted or perceived by anyone as benefits and yet the two major political forces in the United States are united in their upholding of that status quo.

The story provided by the ascendence of advanced capitalist economies has been about how fast luxuries become necessities for us and so the easy critique ("Well that's easy for you to say, but look at how we all have smartphones and smart TVs and VR porn and sex machines that are so nice now!") is a convincing one for most, but in the end what do we have, even in those advanced countries? Rampant individualism, alienation and isolation from one another, rising mental illness, and an attitude that views life as something to be escaped from via technological anesthesia. If you are misfortunate enough to sit down and contemplate your position on this earth you might find yourself spiritually bankrupt and lonely, and for what? The economic growth that is supposedly a proper indicator for the wellbeing of the population?

The market has a place but it's too hard to ignore how insidious it is even on a cursory look of the past four or five hundred years. The human condition is not translatable into an economic metric without loss of dimension.

>>19637229
>what is the new deal for 500, alex
>what is the great society for 400, alex
>what is american empire for all your money or I'll drone strike your family, alex

>>19633904
>muh capitalism
Boring, tired, bluepilled topic for midwits or worse, and women. So no, not worth wasting time on.

Also, leftist (even the older class kind) is so gay and beta. These people are dumb animals who probably belong on a brutal slave plantation, and that's what they get when their delusional ideas of "revolution" come to fruition. Keep smonking weed, my retards.

>>19637195
>NOOOOO! ONLY COMMUNISTS ARE LEFTISTS! EVERYONE ELSE IS A CHUD!
Communists didn't invent the left. They are just a school of leftism out of many, and even then they are quite influential in the elite circles, although they look more like Sally Rooney than like Che Guevara.

>>19637243
Fucking hell go back to r3ddit you dumb dyke hambeast (yes, we can tell)

>>19637254
I'm not sure whether you should have been bullied more or less as a child.

>>19637264
>makes a good point
>gets called a woman
I guess to prove I'm a man I have to make a retard argument and ignore all the salient points of the previous post, which will be easy, because you are also a man.

>>19637238
Do you think you're smart for recognising capitalism has issues or something? Any intelligent 10 year old can see it. At least we don't live in a socialist shithole where you're starving and freezing to death. You comfortable little manbaby. Make money and get ahead in life.

>>19637271
>claims to be male
>types like an obese leftist dyke on r*ddit
Thanks for the laugh.

>>19637254
truth.

>>19637243
>>what is the new deal for 500, alex
>>>what is the great society for 400, alex
So you agree things keep progressively moving to the left with these kind of programs then?
>>what is american empire for all your money or I'll drone strike your family, alex
The so called American empire is one of the least effective empires in the story of humanity. At least if you see it purely as a military empire. How many wars has America won after WWII? America's true power is its propaganda machine and its cultural industries, which are decidedly leftist and keep control of the entire west by telling us what is socially acceptable.

America could have easily killed every Taliban if they had wanted. The UK conquered the world with a far weaker military. Yet America doesn't seem interested in that. Instead they opened colleges to teach gender studies hoping they could dominate Afghanistan with leftist propaganda, like they dominate the rest of the west.

>>19637238
Based!

>>19637265
You deserve to be oppressed. You live in the most materially wealthy civilisation possibly ever and you whine about it. You belong in a work camp, that would shut you up. So I guess in that sense all these psychopathic mass murderers like mao, stalin, polpot (rest in piss to all of them) were actually kind of based. 3rd worlders would sacrifice limbs to be in your position and you whine about your comfy little life.

>>19637238
It sounds like you're ready to take the Caes-pill, brotha.

>>19637278
>replies with the same joke
Epically based and redpilled my friend.

>>19637291
Le based fellow redditor! Right goys??

>>19637296
>3rd worlders would sacrifice limbs to be in your position
I'm a third worlder and I would rather stay here than to become american, or worse, an eurofaggot.

>>19637291
that was one of the dumbest posts in the whole thread. the guy doesn't seem to know anything about capitalism or leftism but that doesn't stop him from typing up two bloated paragraphs of pseudy pablum.

>>19637303
It isn't a joke, you type like a mentally ill hambeast who sits on r*ddit all day whining about white patriarchy and capitalism. Do you have some sort of mental disability?

>>19637238
Capitalism isn't the problem though. Capitalism is just an economic system and it's very good and very efficient at what it does. The issue at it's core is that the western world has become spiritually dead, disconnected from it's roots and the nations have lost sight of themselves as a united people with a common destiny. In this environment yes consumer capitalism is corrosive but capitalism itself is not the problem.

You're falling into the Marxist presupposition that history is predominantly moved by economic forces which simply isn't the case. The current state of the west is not because of capitalism, the current state of capitalism is because the west has rejected it's cultural and intellectual heritage in favor of a epicurean type short sighted hedonism, the leaders no longer lead their people but try to herd them as best they can. The populations of countries are masses of deracinanted, fungible consumers who utilize capitalism to feed into those desires but you cannot change that fact by changing the economic system.

It's true that if you switch to an inferior economic system perhaps some things will improve, but it's hardly an elegant solution and one that does not address the core of the issue. You think that if we ditch capitalism people will stop being coomers? They'll go to church, find meaning in their lives and return to tradition? Of course not. They might not be able to as efficiently access those things that enable those proclivities but the debased desires will still be there.

Capitalism is fundamentally good. It just needs to be brought to heel by Catholic Theocracy.

>>19637296
Cool story bro. I'll just shut up and pray to god and thank him for putting me in the most perfect of all realities and be grateful for what I have been given. The fuck do you think this is nigger? Of course things were worse once, it doesn't mean we can't make it fucking better for everyone involved you narrow minded ape.

>>19637305
>I'm a third worlder
JUST

>>19637312
Nice one bruh.

>>19637315
Bro, it's fine to want to improve things. The point here is that leftists keep making things worse. Even the midwit of Mark Fisher noticed it.

>>19637329
>The point here is that leftists keep making things worse
It's obvious you haven't read Deleuze, because if you had you would know those aren't real leftists, because the left is intrinsically good so it shouldn't produce these shitty systems of control. They just call themselves leftists, but they are not the real thing. True leftism can't even be achieved, because in the real world things are never perfect. It's still better being an imperfect leftist than a right winger though.

>>19637315
Make sure to stay up to date on the vaccines and wear 2 or 3 masks even when you're alone in your car, trust the experts, dumb slave. God doesn't exist btw, at least not in the religious sense. Don't worry about metaphysics or pure spirituality though, you are too busy squabbling over material things, like a pleb or a jew.

>>19637314
Absolutely based. Although Christianity is for the plebs (semitic in origin), pre-Christian Western spirituality ("paganism") is superior.

>>19637320
Epic post fellow redditor xD, fuck capitalism and fuck racism!

>>19637352
Deleuze pilled. Based.

>>19637352
>worse
>It's obvious you haven't read Deleuze, because if you had you would know those aren't real leftists
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Why are you even here you dumb npc?

>>19637362

>>19637364
>so BTFO he's responding to himself
JUST

>>19637371
>too afraid to type anything
Good, you people need to be bullied off here, it improves the quality of the board.

Yes

>>19637379
>posting in a /pol/ thread on /lit/ that will inevitably be scrubbed by the jannies in a few hours
Oh yes, the board quality is very important. It's not like those filthy jannies can even do their work right. They are disgusting commie anarchist. Who in their right mind would do it for free

>>19633904
This is one of those books where you read it and realize it sucks because you could've written it yourself

>>19636928
I hage these reddit scifi faggots so much it's unreal.

>>19636928
>THERE IS SO MUCH TO THE FUTURE, YET WE DO NOT SEEK IT
Moviebob tier.

>>19637479
>>19637483
I thought capitalism was supposed to breed innovation

What is more real about class than gender? Likewise what is more real about gender than class? Where do leftists get off affirming the reality of one identity while denying the other? It's all a mystery to me and I doubt I'll ever have common intellectual ground with any of them.

>>19637314
It is the problem. Capitalism is responsible for the spiritual desolation of the west, and the total mobility of capital is responsible for disconnecting people from their roots and from realizing their common destiny.

Why do the gifted children from small towns move away after high school and stay away after completion of university? Why is the American dream and notion of opportunity centered around social mobility (aka the opportunity to enter the professional-managerial class)?

>You think that if we ditch capitalism people will stop being coomers? They'll go to church, find meaning in their lives and return to tradition?
No, but capitalism actively facilitates and rewards this behavior. And again, I'm not advocating for "ditching" capitalism. As for religious behavior, of course not, but the expansion of the market again has ensured that religion's function has been relegated to spiritual fulfillment, and even then it is only one among a number of alternatives.

>Capitalism is fundamentally good. It just needs to be brought to heel by Catholic Theocracy.
This is dumb. You cannot counterfeit religious belief. Capitalism is not "fundamentally good," and you would do well to realize the influence of the markets and technique on facets of human life such as education and socialization that did not exist prior to industrialization. Debased desires and short sighted hedonisms come from the failure to instill the responsibilities and reverences that used to come with experiencing life and were most obviously executed through the ownership and maintenance of property, as well as plain hard work.

>>19637306
That guy was being facetious, but go ahead and elaborate to enlighten me then. Eat shit.

>>19633988
>Reading that shit in the current year

>>19637296
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

>>19637595
You don't know anything about the left if you think identity matters. Leftism is all about economical class and nothing else. Read some Marx.

>>19637296
>You live in the most materially wealthy civilisation possibly ever and you whine about it
Definitely (demonstrably) the most wealth civilization ever. And it's still shit. I love that it makes you seethe.

>>19637618
Economic class is identity, retard. That's my point. It's just as "real" as gender.

>>19636917
>ironically the dems want to bring it back, but hey, wait are you gonna do, not vote blue?
This just reinforces the notion that things are in fact moving right not left

>>19637626
It's not. Read Marx, retard.

>>19637618
Who gives a shit about economics?
The economy is merely a tool that serves to promote some ideological or sociological interest. It is a second-order manifestation of social organization.
Marxism isn't free from this, then or now. It certainly claims to be, but there is no reason to take this at face value. It started as the obsessed project of a seething intellectual who never held a real job in his life and it has since become a seething religion for the stupid, starving, and envious (who greatly outnumber the other two in the current day). At best, it puts on a cloak of Whig empiricism and materialism for cynical reasons, so that it can better subvert modern societies and tear down pre-modernized societies; and at worst it actually takes these elements seriously when they are treated in a dogmatic fashion.
Anyways, that was all pointless. You don't know anything about the Left if you think identity is unimportant, because the Left is entirely subverted and the old class-conscious Left does not exist any longer. It does not exist. You might as well be a medievalist.

>>19637626
Identity is a red herring used by those in power to segregate and split the working class as a whole. The oppression of blacks and women are things that materially happened. They aren’t made up and they were and are still activities both acted upon and propagandized by those in power. To give intersectionality any more authority beyond it being simply another step in the oppression of the bourgeoisie is to perpetuate said propaganda by the bourgeoisie. To think that racism isn’t a direct result of class warfare is silly. Redlining is as much an affront to blacks as it is the poor. Individualistic identitarian signifiers as this thread has bickered about and as /pol/ has obsessed over is all a big distraction from solidarity.

>>19637632
Yes it is, and I've read Marx. He doesn't touch on anything i just said, The closest he came is in his "refutation" of Stirner where he just sperged out like a fat ape without actually putting forward any legitimate arguments.

>>19637663
>To think that racism isn’t a direct result of class warfare is silly
Racism is a direct result of reality, because some races are inferior to others. AI is not racist because it's been programmed with capitalist ideology, it's racist because niggers are actually more criminalistic and stupid.

>>19637663
>big distraction from solidarity.
Solidarity for YOUR IDENTITY. Which is the "proletariat." Anyone who isn't with your identity, is against it.

>>19637670
Crime is a social construct bro and those laws were designed and implemented to target one group more than another. Despite only 13% of your brain not working you made 52% of the shitty posts in this thread.

>>19637663
>split the working class as a whole
The people who fall for the identity meme aren't working class. In what world do you live? Identitarians are either urban criminals or rich kids larping as communists because their parents are doctors and lawyers instead businessmen, so they think they are part of the proletariat, even if they go to elite colleges.

>>19637677
So then all politics is identity politics and there’s no reason to make any distinction at all. Why even call it identity politics and not just politics at that point? Why even talk about any of it if it’s all the same? Why do you keep posting?

>>19637682
Raping a woman because your animal instincts can't be overpowered by the rational part of your brain is not a social construct. The fact that this is considered ILLEGAL and IMMORAL IS a social construct, but it is a social construct for a good fucking reason. And AI, being equipped with far better analytic capability than us mortals, is far better at spotting group-tendencies between races and correlating them with this animalistic behaviour.

>>19637686
No, it's not. Most politics is identity politics. The only legitimate politics is one which does not divide based on party, class, gender, or anything else. In other words, a properly holistic political philosophy. I'm not a Hegelian but I have far more respect for Hegel than I do for Marx. His raw intellect (as opposed to Marx's "acquired" intellect of rummaging through thousands upon thousands of pages of histories and documents) dwarfed Marx's.

>>19637690
But there are 20 ways in which that rape statute could be written, each having their own particular definitions of what the act is and what can actually be prosecuted. What hole, what force, what gender what party is, what constitutes aggravated. Not to mention any defenses or affirmative defenses. The discretion of the judge, the prosecutor, or the jury. It’s all made up and the points don’t matter. The law is a joke and so are you.

>>19637663
I don't really see how you can fail to understand the reason identity politics works.
Black people look ugly and smell like shit. Their sweat literally smells like shit, and if they're sweaty it's instantly repulsive more than if other people are.
They also talk like morons and act likewise, and it doesn't matter if it's cultural, it is a prized aspect of their own identity and it gets noticed.
For their part they think whites are weird angular uptight sour-smelling snakes, so it goes both ways.
Some people can't tolerate that. Most people will recognize it on a deeper level and therefore internalize the greater relations between these groups, even if they ostensibly want to get rid of any divisions between them.

>>19637699
You almost gave a whole answer and then didn’t give an example you absolute buffoon.
>real politics is not x, real politics is… I like Hegel
Is not an answer.

>>19637686
Yes, it is a false distinction, which people like you are promoting. There is a very good reason identity and group / tribe relations used to be considered SYNONYMOUS with politics, before the advent of universalist ideologies which tore down that distinction (baselessly).

>>19637596
>Capitalism is responsible for the spiritual desolation of the west
It isn't. You're mixing up cause and effect. Again, capitalism is just an economic system. The west is not spiritually dead because it uses a certain method of distributing resources over another (likely inferior) method.

>No, but capitalism actively facilitates and rewards this behavior.
Yes but this is very different from capitalism CAUSING that behavior. A spiritually bereft, deracinated and materialistic populace will utilize capitalism to fuel their hedonistic desires but that's only capitalism doing exactly what it's supposed to do which is to allocate resources efficiently to meet demand.

>Why is the American dream and notion of opportunity centered around social mobility
Because of liberalism which is a political philosophy, not an economic one. The American dream is independence and freedom, economic independence only being one part of that.

>Capitalism is not "fundamentally good,"
It is. Economics is not the be all and end all, get your head out of the Marxist historical materialism trough. Capitalism is a tool that is currently wielded by a degenerated civilization, you don't blame the knife for the injury it causes you blame the one who is wielding it.

>Debased desires and short sighted hedonisms come from the failure to instill the responsibilities and reverences that used to come with experiencing life
Yes but that's a cultural issue. You can't fix cultural issues with economics. Your solution is stupid because you're trying to get people to instill their children with civic virtue and piety by making things economically shittier for them which is a roundabout way of dealing with the issue. It's perfectly possible to have both a virtuous society with people who recognize their duties to their people AND have all the wealth that capitalism provides. Look at fascism for example.

>>19637713
Read Hegel then, retard. You expect me to summarize someone even more complicated than Marx in a single sentence, when you won't even give me the time of day with the Jewish nigger himself?

>>19637708
>b-b-but things are complicated and therefore they aren't real
You're a retard.

>>19637709
Most all people are ugly and smell bad. Most all people look less ugly and smell less bad if they are fed, clothed, and given access to a shower and soap.

Most people are retarded. Most people will be less retarded if they are exported to less retarded people and education.


I just don’t get how skin color makes that much a difference when your complaints stem from material conditions.

>>19637737
That wasn’t my argument at all. You are purposely mischaracterizing it to make me seem foolish!

>>19637744
What is your argument then? That every judge in every country around the world is conspiring to convict niggers of false rape charges, even hiring victims to pretend they were raped, all due to some inexplicable capitalist brainwashing which makes it impossible for judges to resist convicting niggers of rape? Or is your argument even less plausibly that rape does not exist?

>>19637751
My point was that basing something on the framework of “illegal” is not authoritative within an abstract conversation because the application of laws are not uniform and are subject to multiple layers of individuals subjectivity while influenced by those in authoritative positions to tailor their statutes and modes of prosecutorial conduct thus to achieve the intentions of those that support their political objectives and elections.


So basically yes.

>>19637763
Just follow the law, it's not fucking hard. Also your argument only applies to human law, not divine law which is eternal and immutable.

>>19637740
>Most all people are ugly and smell bad.
The ugliest white European is still better looking and better smelling than most niggers. Blacks actually have a distinctive odour which cannot be washed off, the same applies to Indians and Pakistanis. You do not want to live with the latter. Even if they shower regularly it never goes away.

>>19637723
Not him but you seem to be fundamentally confused in a few ways.
Firstly, the point of capitalism is not to allocate resources efficiently, nor to safeguard private property in general, but rather to increase the general share of capital, which is specifically the investment which exists to cultivate its own growth and return profits. Therefore even as a mere economic system it directly empowers amoral elites whose interests are to destroy all barriers to the growth of their own wealth. It promotes an economization and dehumanization, intrinsically, in the name of private profits.
Secondly, you are ignoring the corruptive power of perverse stimuli, as though it is impossible for the ailments of the current system to be caused in major or most part by the particular perverse stimuli that capitalism promotes - despite OVERLAPPING EXACTLY with its set of downsides. I am a Christian as well and I can't see how this particular flaw in capitalism is so difficult for most of us to grasp - it works the same as any other sin.
Finally, you are promoting a very recognizable Anglo individualist ontology where the agent takes all the responsibility for their actions, and the tools or systems in play are blameless - even if those factors were created by the agents, even if the systems are cultivated specifically to enable this evil behaviour.
You are complaining that the populace is materialistic, hedonistic, insatiable for more comforts, and demanding growth at the cost of cultural and spiritual health; refusing to recognize that capitalism cultivates all these traits no matter the existing system; and wondering why your society has declined in that sense for hundreds of years, and drastically in the past 70 years, when it's been the exact same group of people who have been driving these changes the entire time - the directors of this "neutral" economic system, to feed the beast, because those measures bring success within the system.

>>19637771
>>19637773
You people are impossible lol I give up. I’m going to bed. Sleep well you two! :3

>>19637763
>because the application of laws are not uniform
In the case of rape, they are. They are extremely uniform across different countries, so much so that Interpol basically does not even have to cross-reference laws between states, except where primitive countries are concerned (and age limits, which is not the rape we are speaking about anyway). You have no clue what you're even arguing about now. If a nigger pins a woman down for sexual gratification against her will, it is rape. And it happens a lot, far more than any other race statistically, even taking into account marginal cases where the truth is not fully certain (ie, cases where semen cannot be extracted from the vagina after the rape and DNA-tested). This stuff is far, far more certain and validated than you know. I hope you never get jury duty or any position of authority, because I would seriously doubt your ability to make a solid judgement on any matter like this.

>>19637740
If you feed and clothe and bathe the average American he will thank you for the savings and spend them on booze money and streaming services.
> Most people are retarded. Most people will be less retarded if they are exported to less retarded people and education.
This is not an argument for leftism alone, it's an argument for "90% of people deserve to be slaves with their entire lives directed for them", which is in all honesty a right-wing perspective. I would agree with that.

>>19637723
>The west is not spiritually dead because it uses a certain method of distributing resources over another (likely inferior) method.
The west is spiritually dead because the mindset fostered by capitalism (technique and systematism) is not confined to the domain of capitalism. That mindset actively destroys barriers (ie to capital mobility, to efficiency, to mathematical exactitude, to certainty) that do not stand up to scientific examination. Because these things work to minimize risk and maximize profit. Unfortunately for spiritual ventures, they rarely stand up to that sort of earthly scrutiny. Hence the loss of belief and the relegation of religion from a primary force in community life to the domain of spiritual wellbeing. Again, belief is not something that can be counterfeited. When the technical mindset encroaches into the spiritual realm it only be ignored and coped with for so long. Hence what we see today.

For more relating to the uprooting nature of capitalism, which is far easier to understand, see the history of industrialization. It really is fairly plain to see, I don't see how you can just deny it out of hand without providing some sort of refutation or alternative explanation.

>Because of liberalism which is a political philosophy, not an economic one. The American dream is independence and freedom, economic independence only being one part of that.
This is patently false. The notion of opportunity and the American Dream as social mobility originates as a response to industrialization and the establishment (and realization) of a permanent class of wage laborers in the United States, as early as the 1870s but commonplace by the Great Depression.

>>Capitalism is not "fundamentally good,"
>It is. Economics is not the be all and end all, get your head out of the Marxist historical materialism trough.
I'm not approaching this from Marxist perspective. Please explain to me how it could possibly be "fundamentally good," especially if, as you say, economics is not the be all end all.

>Yes but that's a cultural issue. You can't fix cultural issues with economics. Your solution is stupid because you're trying to get people to instill their children with civic virtue and piety by making things economically shittier for them which is a roundabout way of dealing with the issue. It's perfectly possible to have both a virtuous society with people who recognize their duties to their people AND have all the wealth that capitalism provides. Look at fascism for example.
You continue to fail to comprehend how the attitudes and sorts of decisions encouraged by capitalism (the acquisitive impulse) can bleed into other areas of life, not to say how capitalism has a habit of marketing things that were before not in the domain of things to be bought and sold with money. Why take care of grandma and grandpa or mom and dad when we can send them to a home? Why give back to my community when I can reinvest that money for profit? Cont...

>>19637763
>My point was that basing something on the framework of “illegal” is not authoritative within an abstract conversatio
Whereas my point is that it is authoritative. And the fact that you base your own life's moral compass on this same framework means, by denying it, you are both hypocritical and already, deep down, agreeing with me, despite trying your best to wiggle out of the implication. It's true, there are people with authority who have shaped common law precedent, but especially in our society these laws could not have been shaped without public approval and sponsorship. This does not apply to every law, but at least the natural laws which govern communal life, and which would cause public revolt if they were overturned (if indiscriminate rape were legalized, it would not be long before the people overturned the courts through force - or formed their own legal bodies).

>>19637776
>Firstly, the point of capitalism is not to allocate resources efficiently, nor to safeguard private property in general, but rather to increase the general share of capital, which is specifically the investment which exists to cultivate its own growth and return profits.
The point is to allocate resources efficiently which capitalism is very, VERY good at compared to any other economic system. Furthermore it's the economic system that grants the most individual freedoms as every person is free to utilize their capital in any way they see fit to generate their livelihood.

Sounds like you've taken your big swig of socialist propaganda. Capitalism as a system does not necessitate the degenerated form of consumer capitalism in effect today, it is only the way it exists now because of cultural decay, which again cannot be fixed by changing economic system.

>>19637776
>the point of capitalism is not to allocate resources efficiently
Can't say if it's the point of it or not, but capitalism is incredibly efficient in allocating resources. Someone already talked about this in this thread. When the USSR tried actually getting rid of capitalism it was a massive failure because of how inefficient they were in allocating resources. Marxists are so obsessed with class and economy and yet often they don't know shit of it.

>>19637814
>Please explain to me how it could possibly be "fundamentally good,"
Because it is provably and demonstrably the economic system that best creates order out of chaos and efficiently distributes resources to best serve the people. Any other economic system would require some level of centralization and by that fact places a hard cap on the level of complexity that can occur with regard to trade, and by extension the level of complexity that a civilization can achieve.

There is simply no other economic system that can work to sustain a modern style civilization. If your argument is that we should all regress to locally ruled fiefdoms and completely give up the modern nation state then sure, but there is literally no way to ditch capitalism while maintaining the level of technological development we have. None.

An economy consists of billions of transactions occurring between private actors. There is no way to place any restriction on that which would distinguish it enough to not be recognizable as capitalism without having the entire system fall apart.

>>19637875
>Can't say if it's the point of it or not, but capitalism is incredibly efficient in allocating resources
Not only that but the most important part is that it's efficient with zero central oversight. Capitalism operates 90% through individual private transactions between economic participants. Meaning the government isn't saying to individual businesses "Hey supply this area", they're all making their own decisions based on their own economic interests.

Capitalism is the way you go from a small civilization to a large one with ant type organization where every ant goes where it needs to without any actual direction. No other economic system can achieve that goal so there's no point discussing whether capitalism is good or bad because the only options are accept capitalism and fix the other areas that degenerate it or regress to a lower level of civilization where transactions are few and manageable enough that we don't need the financial infrastructure necessary to power an economy the size of a country with over 10 million people.

>>19637862
> The point is [repeats himself]
> Capitalism as a system does not necessitate the degenerated form of consumer capitalism in effect today
You just doubled down, you aren't addressing the premise. The point of CAPITALism is to serve CAPITAL. Capitalism necessitates investment and investors across all sectors will demand increased consumption of products and utilization of services - therefore creating consumerism as a downstream effect.
Capitalism doesn't necessitate consumerism in the same way motor vehicles don't necessitate highways.

Any efficiency is a byproduct of the primary aim, as >>19637875 concedes, but we are currently living through the biggest refutation of the neoliberal idea of efficiency. COVID destroyed the just-in-time supply chain and caused cascading failures which are still worsening with no sign of respite. This happened because the global economy was economized and there was no buffer capacity, no extra stock sitting around in warehouses that could buoy the economy if tough times arrived.
There are many other criticisms that could be made, like whether or not this consumerist system can be called efficient if so much economic activity is dependent on frivolous consumption.

Finally, the Soviet collapse isn't a be-all end-all pronouncing the end of history and the eternal victory of capitalism. Neither does it mean that everybody criticizing capitalism is a Marxist of any description.

>>19637896
"capitalism or collapse" is not a dichotomy that automatically resolves in favor of capitalism. Why should I care about this hive society of yours?

>>19637927
>but we are currently living through the biggest refutation of the neoliberal idea of efficiency
Capitalism works perfectly fine as an uncentralized system. Force centralization with bullshit restrictions. The system falls apart. Big corporations get even richer because of it. It's capitalism's fault somehow, so leftists start pushing for more centralization, which will make the problem worse. It spirals into an infinite loop. Welcome to Argentina.

>>19637927
>You just doubled down, you aren't addressing the premise. The point of CAPITALism is to serve CAPITAL
The definition of capitalism is that businesses are owned by private citizens not the state. You say this to make it look scary but it just boils down to the observation that a person who outlays capital to start a coffee shop gets the profits. Wow, great observation. Capital is owned by private citizens so when you say CAPITAL in big scary caps you just mean small business owners like Grandma Josephene who owns a small Mom & Pop store and you're damn right that it's the economic system that best serves their interests and I'm not apologetic for that at all.

>Capitalism doesn't necessitate consumerism in the same way motor vehicles don't necessitate highways.
Capitalism doesn't necessitate rampant materialistic consumerism no. Not if you have a population brought up to exercise restraint and civic virtue.

>COVID destroyed the just-in-time supply chain and caused cascading failures which are still worsening with no sign of respite
That's the fault of the leaders of government who retardedly shut down everything over a flu. Just a reminder that if capital isn't in the hands of private owners you're defacto saying that it should be in the hands of those retards who make awful decisions so you're not inspiring me with your alternative here.

>Neither does it mean that everybody criticizing capitalism is a Marxist of any description.
Listen. Pitch me your alternative. I can tell you how it's going to go because it's much like having a discussion with a libertarian who says we don't need a state. TYou point out that they'll be vulnerable to bigger groups, then they say well they just need to group together, then designate some people as enforcers to stop crime, and some as administrators to administrate the community, etc, etc until you end up with the state again. The financial apparatus that exist exist for a reason and if you pitch me your perfect capitalism alternative we'll go through and you'll see why they all exist.

Lets start then, I want to open a coffee shop on the corner, how do I go about this in your utopia? How do I get the finances, organize the materials, hire labor and source the product?

>>19637943
You're spouting non-sequiturs which have nothing to do with what I said. Are you underage or senile or trolling?
The system fell apart because every private enterprise, on its own initiative, cut costs and spare resources wherever possible to boost profit for owners and/or shareholders. There was no room to handle burden on the system so the whole thing unraveled when an unexpected event came along.
This has absolutely nothing to do with centralization at all.

>>19637927
>"capitalism or collapse" is not a dichotomy that automatically resolves in favor of capitalism.
Uh yes it does because your entire argument hinges on the idea that there is something that results in better outcomes than Capitalism. If you want to be out living an agrarian lifestyle you can do that right now.

>Why should I care about this hive society of yours?
Why should I give a shit whether or not you're asshurt about capitalism when you've conceded you have nothing better to offer?

>>19637964
The supply crisis is consequence of the container ships getting fucked over by forced covid related restrictions. Do you even read economic news, brotha?

>>19637964
>The system fell apart because every private enterprise, on its own initiative, cut costs and spare resources
Couldn't be anything to do with global lockdowns keeping entire cities offline and stopping people from buying anything resulting in a massive drop in demand?

>>19637957
>The definition of capitalism is that businesses are owned by private citizens not the state.
Sure, capital is a form of private ownership. But like always you're trying to conflate the interests of small businesses with holdings groups which actually fit the definition of capital. Capital is not synonymous with private property, private property existed in pre-capitalist economies without any issue.
Capitalism means that Grandma Josephine gets priced out and outcompeted by StarbucksTM, and sent to a home by her ungrateful children where ungrateful migrant labor abuses her until she dies in squalor.

>Not if you have a population brought up to exercise restraint and civic virtue.
Capitalism has corrupted many such populations into hedonistic consumers. You are really blind if you don't see that. In the short term economic liberalization and modernization makes restraint and civic virtue seem redundant and outmoded and once the rot sets in, it only gets worse. The Republicans are a total joke for this reason among others. They now wave the fucking rainbow flag.
Again, capitalism and liberalism are totally inseparable.

>That's the fault of the leaders of government who retardedly shut down everything over a flu.
Yes. It was barely a challenge and the system fell apart anyways. Anyways, I'm not sure what all of you people >>19637981 >>19637985 are on, because industry leaders were overwhelmingly in favor of the lockdowns. The private sector wanted this.
>Just a reminder that if capital isn't in the hands of private owners you're defacto saying that it should be in the hands of those retards who make awful decisions so you're not inspiring me with your alternative here.
I only seem to be implying this because you're stuck in a binary mode of thinking where anything that isn't capitalism means retarded soc-democracy.

>my utopia
I am not a utopianist. Within the constraints of modernity I would suggest corporatism under the strict definition of an illiberal constitution.
To start a coffeeshop you'd mostly do everything as you would today. You'd be subject to regulation from trade associations because your entire sector would be incorporated, and also from religious and secular authorities who rightfully see your enterprise as a font of unnecessary excess. Some trusted body in the government would have full veto power, along the lines of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
My real preferred alternative is medievalism because it is the highest form of society which can possess a consistent ideological and material character and defeats tribal or hunter-gatherer societies, while being immune to industrial or modern dependence on rare minerals or high-density energy sources, not to mention the industrial demographic black hole. This society is minimally decadent and ignorant while being maximally resilient. You could essentially implement the above system in such a society, although the range of viable economic activity would be locally defined.

>>19637981
Do you read economic news? What did your beloved WEF say on the matter, you neolib cocksucker?

>>19637977
You're a hedonist and nothing you would consider "better" is actually better in any real way. To your addict mind, it would be better.
I don't care that I can go join the Amish, I am not an individualist, morality is a public concern and so long as you are spreading your cancer we are going to have a problem.
And by God the Amish are a far better society than your retarded Mammon worship, but then again, so is almost everything else.

>>19638090
>because industry leaders were overwhelmingly in favor of the lockdowns
Of course they are. A centralized economy helps big corporations while fucking everyone else. Again, look at Argentina. Sure, mostly everyone is broke, but there are still big corporations with big monopolies who are happy that the government mess with the free market because it keeps them at the top.

>>19638106
The only thing a lack of regulation would do is ensure that these massive companies would cut corners and cheat even more - like Enron did - and be even more aggressive in their efforts against competitors - like Wal-Mart lobbying against zoning regulations that favored small business.
No regulation would cut out these middle steps in that process.

>>19637881
You refuse to reply to any part of my post except to reiterate the same thing you've said twenty times already in this thread, which I've conceded from the get go.
Unfortunately the world is not so easily compartmentalized that the nearly-global method of economic organization does not have profound social effects on the rest of civilization. Come to terms with that. Alternatively, point out how or where I went wrong in my analysis (which is admittedly reductive and topical) or provide an alternative explanation for the state we find ourselves in. Just stop saying the same thing over and over and over. I'll stipulate it for the rest of the conversation.

For what it's worth I also never advocated for returning to fuedalism, but then again I doubt very much you ready very far into my posts. Why don't you see that you're grasping at straws?

I do agree that our current level of consumption could not be maintained by any radical alteration in economic organization; we've lived through enough in the past two years to see that directly.

>>19637862
>Sounds like you've taken your big swig of socialist propaganda.
The irony of this is hilarious considering nobody's taken decidedly socialist positions and you are intent on denying anything could be possibly be wrong with capitalism in the way we are describing.

>>19638090
>Capital is not synonymous with private property
Private property personal property distinction. But you're totally not a marxist!

Isn't it time to drop the facade?

>>19638116
A lack of regulation would make goods for consumers cheaper by getting rid of overhead. Also, your example is terrible - you think small businesses should use government to limit their competition because are terrible at what they do? That's fucking ridiculous.

>>19638090
>The private sector wanted this.
Small business owners wanted to go out of business? Can you justify this? You seem to consistently conflate "capitalism" with "multinational mega corps" so I think I can see the problem here. 70% of Americans are employed by small businesses. There are thousands more small businesses than there are large corporations. The "private sector" consists overwhelmingly of businesses with less than 100 employees plus sole traders, partnerships, etc.

Maybe we can agree that the excesses of the large corporations need to be curbed while understanding that the fundamental structure of capitalism maintained by the majority of small businesses is perfectly fine.

>>19638116
>No regulation would cut out these middle steps in that process.
Very few people support an absolute lack of regulations. Most people agree governments should break monopolies, for example, which isn't happening anyway though, even if the state keeps getting bigger. That being said, as a rule of thump, imposing dumb regulations tends to help big corporations by virtue of fucking small business even more.

>>19638127
That isn't what I said. The personal property distinction is a retarded cope. But there are other distinctions which apply here.
Capital is an investment of goods or funds whose foremost purpose is to produce a greater return for the investor. It is not even necessarily private property, governments often depend on the markets in this way.

>>19638090
>Some trusted body in the government would have full veto power, along the lines of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
I'm an unironic Catholic Monarchist and even I think you're a fucking retard

>>19638134
>Maybe we can agree that the excesses of the large corporations need to be curbed while understanding that the fundamental structure of capitalism maintained by the majority of small businesses is perfectly fine.
But that necessarily involves centralized economic direction from a government entity that would by definition be interventionist, less efficient, and non capitalist. Economies of scale and history shows that your large multinational mega corps can provide better goods for cheaper than mom and pop shops. How do you reconcile your interventionism for the sake of keeping small businesses operating and not realize that it is the tendency of capitalism to organize into those large mega corps? And then you deny that there are larger social consequences.

>>19638140
Eh, are you the same guy that said we can enjoy the spoils of capitalism combined with civic virtue under fascism? Wouldn't put much stock in your input either lmao

>>19638147
>But that necessarily involves centralized economic direction from a government entity that would by definition be interventionist, less efficient, and non capitalist.
No it doesn't. It just means enforcing the current anti-trust laws. You don't need to actually change anything, just enforce what is already there. Why don't we? Once again we return to the fact it's fundamentally a cultural issue and your country is led by cowards. Ditching capitalism won't change the fact your leadership is shit.

>Economies of scale and history shows that your large multinational mega corps can provide better goods for cheaper than mom and pop shops
True, and for that reason they should be allowed to keep operating. Now you're catching on. I said "need to be curbed", not dismantled. China does it right.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/05/china-sentences-top-banker-to-death-for-corruption-and-bigamy

>>19638128
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_integration

>>19638134
You're overestimating that number, and also failing to take into consideration the explosion of contracting, let alone the longstanding fact that franchises are legally considered to be small businesses.
I highly doubt the course on these graphs reversed after 2010, at which point small businesses were already a minority of the economy.

>>19638152
Nazi Germany was the greatest society in the west for the past 300 years and it was strongly capitalist. It is proof that you can have capitalism working hand in hand with removing degeneracy.

>>19638140
You aren't, you're the guy who thinks le hecking traditionalism can counter the moral corrosion of an industrial consumerist economy lmao

>>19638158
Nazi Germany was corporatist like that other anon is broadly prescribing.

>>19638155
Is your entire position a defense of the status quo except "we need to enforce the laws!"? That's so milquetoast lmao

>>19638160
Yes. Because for the thousandth time the problems of the west are NOT economic in nature they are cultural. How can you look at what Hitler did to Germany within a generation and think you need to upend your entire economic system to achieve what he did?

>>19638163
The term privatization came from Nazi economic policy. This is cope on the level of saying that the Nordic states are "socialist" or that the USSR was ackchually "state capitalism"

Anyway it's become clear you're simply a leftist who has donned the mask of a traditionalist to try and claim that "Hey guys all our problems are because of those evil capitalists we could totally fix our society if the workers of the world unite".

>>19638147
>Economies of scale and history shows that your large multinational mega corps can provide better goods for cheaper than mom and pop shops
And yet local shops still exist, because they offer other things to make up for it, like convenience. You may pay slightly more, but it's around the corner and you don't need to drive all the way to the supermarket. That being said, if they can't compete, then it's fine if they close. That doesn't mean we should intervene to force them to close anyway because we assume they will. Also what you said is not necessarily true either. In many countries street markets are cheaper than supermarkets, for example, specially when it comes to vegetables.

>>19638158
Yes we all remember the great masterpieces of art and humanities that came out of it. Or the civic virtue involved in implementing the extermination of part of your own population, even if they are kikes.

>>19638166
>Is your entire position a defense of the status quo except "we need to enforce the laws!"?
Not him, but what's the problem with that if it works?
>That's so milquetoast lmao
Oh, so you're just looking for an excuse to change the whole system for something more convenient for you.

>>19638171
I like how instead of arguing you just try to put labels on things so you can discard them. Very good coping strategy.

>>19638182
I like how when you get called out for being the snivelling leftist rat you are you say calling a spade a spade is unfair.

>>19638176
>Yes we all remember the great masterpieces of art and humanities that came out of it
I'm not a nazi, but let's not pretend great art didn't came from it. Nolde, in particular, was better than any american painter that came after him, and I like a many of them.

>>19638176
>Yes we all remember the great masterpieces of art and humanities that came out of it
Unironically don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, because I feel like you are, yet it's such an stupid statement it's hard to believe someone could actually believe it.

>>19633904
you need to live in this reality and not the mises/lit one where a cabal of scientists conspired to fake the ozone hole for it to be any good

>>19638181
Not quite, but if your plan to deal with the spiritual desolation and cultural filth of contemporary America is to start enforcing the antitrust laws (even though capitalism isn't the problem) then you must not be too concerned. The problem with that is that it is exactly what led us here. It's laughable.

>>19638171
The term "privatization" was in use in German since the 1800s long before the Nazis ever came on the scene.
Anyways, the Nazi privatization mostly reversed the dysfunctional late Weimar nationalization and these private businesses were under strict regulation.
Corporatism is the public-private partnership writ large and kept honest by the secret police.
>leftist who has donned the mask bla bla
nope faggot
most of the "workers of the world" deserve to be serfs with no say in their living conditions

The idea that it's capitalism that is making people trannies, or have gay sex, or have abortions, or generally responsible for the degeneracy of the modern west is utterly bizarre.

>>19638185
not me, also kill yourself

>>19638197
>The problem with that is that it is exactly what led us here.
What brought is here is the fact we stopped enforcing the law, and without the law we get spontaneous chaos instead of spontaneous order. Do you know how Augustus fixed Rome? By enforcing the law again in a clear and virtuous way.

>>19638185
Not a sniveling leftist rat, just what you're gonna be when you stop sucking capitalisms cock and realize that I've been right the entire time.

>>19638192
>>19638186
Enlighten me.

>>19638198
>Corporatism is the public-private partnership writ large and kept honest by the secret police.
It's still fundamentally capitalism so it seems to me rather than overturning capitalism as a system entirely you're just advocating for a more regulated and restricted version of it.

>>19638197
>if your plan to deal with the spiritual desolation and cultural filth of contemporary America
No it's to adopt fascism

>>19638201
It's not capitalism in itself, otherwise trannies and faggots would support it instead of being massive leftists, but the success of capitalism brings technological progress, which brings automation, which brings moral decadence. Moral laws exist because at some point they were needed to survive, but when technology makes it possible to survive without them, then decadence appears. Uncle Ted was right.

>>19638201
What's the common denominator? Individualism. The notion that what I do should be for my own gain and comfort and nobody else's. That what I do at the expense of others is alright if it's what works for me.

>>19638209
And what led us to stop enforcing the law, and what is going to ensure it doesn't happen again?
Something else that might have led to the "fixing" of Rome at the time is the resolution of the Civil War that Augustus was involved in.

>>19638215
It's capitalism in the way other anons have referred to it, in terms of the primacy of private ownership, which was never the issue.
It isn't capitalism in the sense that investment is practically hamstrung and can never spiral into the massive tumor that has overtaken our current societies. "Capital" is controlled and fundamentally transformed from its wild state. This may be capable of keeping industrialization in check.
That said, there is a reason I said I am a medievalist. This stability would be set in stone without any way to claw back to an industrial level (since all accessible resources would be depleted or trapped in supertoxic landfills), thereby depriving the system of the other ingredient required for malignancy.

>>19638215
>It's still fundamentally capitalism so it seems to me rather than overturning capitalism as a system entirely you're just advocating for a more regulated and restricted version of it.
I'm not who you're replying to but one of the other people who've been arguing along similar lines the whole thread and yes, from the beginning, this is what I've said: >>19637238

>>19638228
>And what led us to stop enforcing the law
Bad agents, like leftists.
>and what is going to ensure it doesn't happen again?
Nothing. Shit is cyclical. But right now the solution is to enforce the law. Not change the system.
>Something else that might have led to the "fixing" of Rome at the time is the resolution of the Civil War that Augustus was involved in.
True, because when you're drowning in filth it becomes necessary to remove the bad agents so you can get in a position to enforce the law. A war isn't always necessary though. Look at El Salvador with Bukele. There's an ongoing conflict between him and the elite, but it hasn't escalated to a war.

>>19637740
>Most people will be less retarded if they are exported to less retarded people and education.
unfathomably stupid take.
retards drag everyone else down you absolute fucking mong.

>>19638239
>there are problems
>they get worse (things always go more left)
>they are cyclical
>the solution is not to change the system

>>19638228
>Individualism
Has anyone ever in the story of mankind suggested a system that doesn't, in anyway, benefit them? It's easy to be self righteous and treat everyone else of individualism, but no one is willing to sacrifice themselves.

>>19638248
>>the solution is not to change the system
Changing the system will only make a new kind of leftists appear. It's not about the ideas, it's about the people and those kind of people will never go away. You can only deal with them by enforcing laws that will keep them away from abusing their power. It's a never ending watch.

>>19638260
What the fuck is with your obsession with leftists?

>>19638266
I fucking hate leftists.

>enter ideological discussion
>make offensive ill informed post
>close tab
>never return

>>19638269
Clouds your judgment. Read books that aren't mental masturbation. You might learn a thing or two, like how capitalism facilitates cultural and spiritual bankruptcy.

>>19636593
ALL famines that happened in economies with semi free markets happened because
1) State intervention (so, lack of actual free market), or
2) Natural disasters

Capitalism is simply the unrestricted respect for the life project of others.
If you are against this, you are a psychopath, or an ignorant of the benefits that a free society brings.
Nothing can compete, nothing is better, nothing is more just. There is nothing unjust or wrong about contractual relationships and free association. It was never about capitalism vs socialism or anything like that. It's about individual freedom vs totalitarism. There is right wing totalitarism (fascism, traditional monarchies etc) and left wing totalitarism too. The only real Third Position is that of freedom and unrestricted respect for the life project of others: that is, Liberalism.

>>19638287
>t. commie LARPer

>>19638366
kek

>>19638371
Cope and seethe. Totalitarism doesn't last for long unless it loosens its grip on people. That's why the Soviet Union and its puppets failed :)
We can say the same for Nazis, italian fascists, etc. Even North Korea had to slowly liberalize itself if it wants to survive. Even China survives to this day because they loosened their grip on their people in the 70's (Deng Xiaoping liberal reforms that enabled private property etc at least to some degree).

Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years.

>>19638367
See, it gets you into the mindset that if you're not a Joe Rogan watching Jocko Willinks reading faggot then you're a commie. If you discard the works of Marx and the Frankfurt School among others out of hand you're missing out on some of the most interesting, profound, original work of the last couple hundred years. And you're a faggot. Eat shit.

>>19638366
this is pretty good bait

>>19638388
>If you discard the works of Marx
How does the labor theory of value explain why a house in central London has a higher price than an identical house in the suburbs of Norwich, even if both are identical houses and took an identical amount of time (or socially necessary labour time) to produce?

>>19638405
How does the labor theory of value explain why an 18 year old whiskey will cost you more than a 10 year old one, even though it has just been sitting in a barrel for the additional 8 years, unmixed the socially necessary labour?

Keep in mind you can't use the classic goalpost moving of Marxian economists (nooo the LTV is not about those kind of commodities because they are irreproducible/art works!!! even Marx would consider both commodities, so don't say that.)

>>19638412
>nooo the LTV is not about those kind of commodities because they are irreproducible/art works!!! even Marx would consider both commodities, so don't say that.
It's literally chapter 1 of Capital if you ever cared to read it

>>19638266
They’re the dregs of civilization and if any country wants to be stable they must violently purge them. Even commies did it to their own people because they also knew what a bunch of fucking parasites leftists are.

>>19636694
>Notice how we never cured cancer
Nigga we tryin

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/04/personalized-melanoma-vaccines-show-lasting-effects/

>>19633904
>Nothing could be a clearer illustration of what Žižek has identified as the failure of the Father function, the crisis of the paternal superego in late capitalism, than a typical edition of Supernanny. The program offers what amounts to a relentless, although of course implicit, attack on postmodernity’s permissive hedonism. Supernanny is a Spinozist insofar as, like Spinoza, she takes it for granted that children are in a state of abjection. They are unable to recognize their own interests, unable to apprehend either the causes of their actions or their (usually deleterious) effects. But the problems that Supernanny confronts do not arise from the actions or character of the children – who can only be expected to be idiotic hedonists – but with the parents.

>>19638405
See, you get so stupid that you think if one idea doesn't stand the test of time then the man's entire contribution can be discarded. Marx is way more than the labor theory of value. That's like reducing Aristotle to "human beings are made of semen". Here comes your reply where you say the same thing again.

>>19638414
>It's literally chapter 1 of Capital if you ever cared to read it
You didn't get my point. Both houses and whiseky are commodities, even according to Marx. So what i meant is, you can't just say UHHH the LTV is not about that so i won't reply. Actually i think you are confused, when i said " even Marx would consider both commodities" i meant both houses and whiskey, not irreproducible goods/art works. Now answer my question.

>>19638415
Good to know they live rent free in your head at least, as a non leftist. You sound like a faggot.

Why did this dude kill himself?

>>19638426
All of Marx's work is based on his critique to capitalism in Das Kapital. He explains some concepts related to commodities and their value, where does their value come from etc. From there he concludes that since the value comes from labour then if capitalists make a profit it is solely because they are stealing some of the value that workers produce (what he called surplus value).
Anyways, even if the LTV was wrong or right the conclussion that he makes (that the relationship between capitalist and worker is exploitation) is pretty naive to say the least.
Especially when we know the alternative he briefly proposed (collectivization of means of production and no free market) can't work properly in real life (see Economic calculation problem).

>>19638433
Woah you really did it. You actually debunked Marx without reading a word of his. Well done man.

>>19638449
Stop moving the goalposts. Explain why why a house in central London has a higher price than an identical house in the suburbs of Norwich, even if both are identical houses and took an identical amount of time (or socially necessary labour time) to produce?

>>19638448
>All of Marx's work is based on his critique to capitalism in Das Kapital
No, it's not. You fucking mongoloid retard. How can you be so fucking stupid that you reduce the entire body of work of one of the most noteworthy and studied philosophers in history to a single one of his works on what is, for him, a pretty narrow topic? Holy shit, I can't believe I wasted whatever time I spent on this thread talking to such a stupid fucking faggot.

>>19638383
>China
See here even in china your entire fantasy crumbles because despite china cracking down on the private sector in Xi era they are still going to surpass the united sates which is a country with much larger private sector. This especially goes for the Chinese political system which as stayed basically the same since Mao founded the country is more effective at creating a stable society than the US. If anything china should have completely liberalised to avoid colipase by now.
> Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years.
Nice meme but the poverty line is at $1.90 which is barley enough for most people to feed themselves.

>>19638445
Did they live rent-free in Lenin’s head too

>>19638458
Dunno, but it's not important, they live rent free in yours. That's enough for me. :)

>>19638457
>See here even in china your entire fantasy crumbles because despite china cracking down on the private sector in Xi era they are still going to surpass the united sates which is a country with much larger private sector.
Chinese growth has been slowing down the last 10 years, retard.
>they are still going to surpass the united sates which is a country with much larger private sector
Got any proof of this? Surpass in what sense? GDP? GDP adjusted to PPP? GDP per capita (what actually matters)?

>>19638471
And by the way, the United States is not even the best country to compare China with in this context. There are way more free market economies in the world (btw turns out all of them have a higher GDP per capita than China and the US). Countries like Switzerland for instance. It would be more fair to use Switzerland for your forecast instead of the US which is not as free.

>>19638433
>whiskey
Value is not the same as price. In volume 3 of Capitalthere is a procedure for converting values into prices, which is discussed. As a result of this, profit rates are equalised, and the battle between industrial and financial capitalists leads to the establishment of the general rate of interest.
In the case of whiskey, the value does not increase as it ages (ignoring labour in storage, which is negligible). As a result, the price of aged whiskey must include the rate of interest accruing on the capital that has been storedup in the form of agedwhiskey.
Prices adjust to reflect the equalisation of profit margins. The aggregation equations of Marx, which state that total price = total value and total profit = total surplus value, are crucial. This entire profit is dispersed to equalise the profit rate, which might cause prices to deviate significantly from their true worth.

>>19638480
>there is a procedure for converting values into prices, which is discussed
Discussed, but never solved
The transformation problem has never been solved so far...

>>19636566
Here's a pic related for the Capital apologist. Tl.dr: it's over.

>>19638446
General depression brought on by capitalist realism shattering the leftist dream of a proud and engaged proletariat. The scene that sticks out for me in Fisher's writing is him trying to teach a bunch of youths at some college and them showing no interest in subject matter, instead playing around on their phones and trying to copulate with each other.

>>19638480
>As a result, the price of aged whiskey must include the rate of interest accruing on the capital that has been storedup in the form of agedwhiskey.
lmao what an idiot no wonder he never published capital 3

>>19638478
Switzerland is also the oldest and most profitable tax haven in the world. Pretty easy to have a high gdp per capita when the rich all over the world shower your country in cash.

Labour theory of value makes no sense if you replace labour with a machine, what is the labour theory of value in a water wheel milling grain? It is all about energy, no economic value can be created without energy as an input. Why didn't Marx account for this, or any other economist?

> whiskey
Not even a proponent of LVT but ageing whisky isn't just leaving it to sit there. An expert has to set this up and supervise it post facto as well or it can spoil and ruin the whole batch

>>19636857
>Actual marxists
Name a single living example of an "actual marxist".
Reminder that if live in million dollar homes that have walls expelling homeless you are not an "actual marxist" e.g. sanders aoc etc.

>>19638412
Use value =/= Exchange value =/= Value.
Read the actual book before trying to debunk it you pretentious child.

>>19636271
This, pretty much.

>>19636271
This is how every leftist since 1968 has operated and it’s why leftism never wins. They’re well aware that all of their views are no threat to the system and inherit most aspects of liberal ideology, but they double down and just keep LARPing instead of thinking of something new.

>>19642047
>it’s why leftism never wins
They win more often than not though. The problem is that they never recognize it as winning, which is way they keep doubling down.

>>19642135
They win socially since all of their social beliefs is are literally just liberalism. They never win materially (revolution) since leftists are not actually interested in revolution to begin with. Leftists desire the desire for revolution itself hence why they are never satisfied with any victories. the whole point is that they must perpetually see themselves as oppressed, otherwise their ideology wouldn't even work

>>19642355
Seems like the Right has borrowed that tactic, constantly talking about being oppressed?

>>19642918
All sides of the political spectrum have. That’s why the world is so decadent and nothing is fundamentally changing about how the system operates. Things just get worse and never improve, especially during this pandemic. But with leftists they claim to be the people that stop this decadence and genuinely revolt in order to make progress, so their pathetic self-victimization is particularly dishonest

>>19636715
Late Bronze Ages did not have a supply chain, there was almost no raw product that got processed in some way and sent back. Furthermore, the world back then mostly relied on wealth-building by using powerful militaries to plunder and loot the tribes/city-states adjacent to them. Anyone who didn't usually got wiped off the map by those that did.

>>19637243
Overton Window is definitely shifted over 200 years. And need I bring up how the Confederate flag prominently figured into Clinton '92's campaign whereas any mention of being vaguely pro-Confederacy is RAYCIST?

>>19638455
based lmao

>should I read an 80 page book that will take 2 hours to read

>>19638185
Bro this has been a thoroughly embarrassing display, you should be glad for the anonymity.

>>19638090
I think it's often better to ask the right questions than to propose the "right solutions." You're not a Marxist, but one insight from Marxists is that economic substructure determines political superstructure which in return reinforces the former. Marxism also argues the relationship of production should correspond to social productivity. What they mean is that when social productivity is strong enough, socialism will come out to replace capitalism as the latter can no longer escape from its cycle of crises.

I even agree with Milton Friedman's strict technical analysis (although I'm not a fan of his economic policies) in that businesses are built to deliver a profit to their owners such as shareholders. The question everyone should then ask themselves is whether they think Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and other CEOs -- for all their organizing talents which I won't deny -- should have more power over their societies than political leaders. The reason I think that's a bad setup is that CEOs and shareholders are focused on the practical, short-term interests of their companies and not the society as a whole. It can't be any other way if you believe in Milton Friedman.

But I don't believe that can solve the mounting problems facing the society as a whole. I think you'll get a society -- we have a society -- based more and more on rentier-like speculation than actual production, as investing in real production ceases to be profitable (hint: given the falling rate of profit in the system as a whole). The result is what we see: a stagnant economy with widening inequality along with growing instability that (paradoxically) threatens the capitalist class' long-term rule. But again, they're more interested in feuding among each other or protecting their own narrow interests in various sectors of the economy from their competitors. Markets aren't really the problem. The problem is that capital holds the power, in my view.

>>19636933
I think the capitalists simply won. In fact, the capitalists are quite disorganized today because they don't need to be organized on a class-wide basis, because the working class was shattered and doesn't pose a threat to them. Money rules politics, and "politics" as such is like different groups of capitalists feuding with each other over which respective sectors of the economy should be favored (like globally integrated services vs. resource extraction and small manufacturers). Parties barely exist anymore, they're basically shells, or conduits for money to flow from donors to candidates (who are ultimately in the pockets of special interests) who cater to the fears, prejudices and self-regard of their constituents ("identity politics" of left and right). What distinguishes politicians is not really the policies but *how* they mobilize their voters, in the main.

>>19638448
Well, Marx was also interested in the working class if defined by their ability to stop society from reproducing itself... if they stop working. It's actually a relatively narrow framework for thinking about it, but important, because that distinguishes the proletariat from peasants who largely grew food for themselves or whatever. If the working class got organized and formed a party, they could act in an organized way and paralyze the economy. The working class becomes a *political* force and it can vie for state power, and if they went on strike on mass scale, nothing would move unless the working class is compelled by force to do it. And in the Marxist framework, that's basically what fascism is which was one response to the Great Depression. Another response to an organized working class is the capitalist class making concessions (social democracy).

What's interesting to me today is the fact that social democracy has fallen apart. But a big chunk of the working class in the world is Chinese and they make most of the stuff, and the government there is ostensibly a Marxist political party. So what happens if they organize a "strike" and withdraw the collective labor of the Chinese economy from the world? The Western economies would probably collapse. Their economy would probably collapse too and it'd mean a big war. But that gives them a lot of leverage. There was a Hillary Clinton talk at Chatham House earlier this year where she was talking about how "we have to get smarter because the Chinese have a controlled, top-down economy and you will never win against them unless you take back the means of production." She actually said that.

https://youtu.be/9wPq0M_T8JQ

>>19636943
>>19636908
The people themselves refute your class theory. In the presidential election, race was a much stronger predictor of one's vote than income.