this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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I agree with most of your individual points... But your thesis relies on a false assumption.
Capitalism is the current problem for 95% of the world.... Just like monarchies were a problem for that particular country. Just because many political and economic systems throughout history reflect an aspect of human nature to control and bequeath that control to their offspring, doesn't take capitalism off the hook. Hell, if that were the case, we could blame everything on the evolutionary drive to be sexually successful, and not place the blame on anyone or anything else. That's what those at the top would love the rest of us to believe.
Capitalism isn't the current problem for 95% of the world. The problem for 95% of the world is 1% of the people who have the power/wealth. Whatever "ism" you use, there will always be people at the top who are exploiting people at the bottom. Capitalism succeeded because it provided a new and more efficient form for the people at the top to exploit the people at the bottom. But, it was also better for the people at the bottom. Instead of being tied to the land where they were born, born into a trade, and so-on, now they at least had a tiny bit of agency in their lives.
Capitalism isn't the cause of any of these problems, humanity is the cause of the problem. Humanity forms hierarchical groups, and people at the top exploit people at the bottom. In fact, you could probably extend it well beyond humanity. This is pretty common even in apes, and even in other mammals. Dolphins don't know about capitalism, yet they still have hierarchies.
Ok, so what puts capitalism on the hook? In what ways are people exploited more under capitalism than any other previous system? What makes capitalism so uniquely bad that you have to call it out rather than just acknowledging that it's human, or even animal nature?
communism is classless. there is no top or bottom. same with anarchism.
Communism will have administrators, planners, managers, etc so it keeps some form of authority and hierarchy, to be clear, it's just that these are a necessity for large-scale production and aren't classes.
so there is no one "at the top" "exploiting people at the bottom"
Yes, technically there is a top and a bottom, like an upper level administrator and a lower level worker, but this is not a relationship of exploitation just like it isn't your manager that exploits you under Capitalism, but the Business Owner(s).
under communism, there is no exploitation
Correct. I am a Communist, I am just offering technical clarification that hierarchy exists under Communism, but not exploitation.
Yes, and there's a reason that those can't exist in actual human communities of more than about a dozen people.
this is a lie.
Ok, then disprove it. Show a counterexample.
China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stateless_societies?wprov=sfla1
the Paris commune
How did that end?
invaded by imperial france
After a whole 2 months. Clearly if one of your prime examples is something that couldn't even last a quarter of a year, you don't have a leg to stand on.
being invaded by a superpower is not an indictment of a societal structure
The point is that anarchism historically has not succeeded and cannot succeed in the real world that we actually live in today, in the face of monopoly capitalist/imperialist states that will do everything in their power to plunder the resources of all other states.
Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds:
what is your measure for success? I think liberating people from oppression is the standard, an anarchism has a great track record.
Not being able to defend itself is indeed an indictment of a societal structure.
what city could have survived an attack from France? none. you will never find any true Scotsman.
Moscow has survived attacks from France. Every viable political/economic system has to be able to defend itself. I hope you realize how ridiculous your argument is by giving an example of something that lasted just barely 2 months. That's like claiming that a perpetual motion machine exists by showing some swinging pendulum for 10 seconds.
this is just a denial that anarchist and communist societyies function. you're shifting the goalposts
They don't. There has never been a communist or anarchist society that has functioned for an extended length of time as its own sovereign entity.
now you're moving the goalposts
Moscow isn't a city state
No, it isn't. You're so very smart.
the swamp maroons
How did that end?
seems like you're no true scotsmanning.
say what you want to say
I already said it.
exarcheia
What about it?
it's an anarchist community of 55,000
And it's not in a country?
more no true scotsmanning
K
You have a very simplistic view of cause and effect. No one thing is ever the cause of anything. Everything is a result of multiple factors. Just because something isn't the sole cause of another thing doesn't mean you ignore it. Only shills would think otherwise when the issue of capitalism is involved.