this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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Greed, not capitalism is the root of evil. Fight me.
Greed is not the cause of capitalism. Capitalism exists to create value for society. My grandfather, an immigrant, opened a bakery 50 years ago to serve his community and raise his family. I, an immigrant, opened a grocery store 10 years ago to serve my community and raise my family. Capitalism can be honest & hard work. In both cases, community over profits was a core principle.
Greed comes with accumulation and has to be restrained.
Capitalism doesn't really exist soley in the micro, you must factor in the macro. A small gorcery store exists in the context of Capitalism, it isn't Capitalist itself. The purpose of Capitalism systemically is Capital accumulation and the increase in profits through the general process of converting money into commodities, and into a higher quantity of money, thus seeding even more money for more commodoties and even more money after that in an endless loop.
I disagree. The purpose of capitalism systemically is to simply allow for value creation for the entire ecosystem (customers, employees, vendors) and give anyone the individual freedom to do so.
Current Western flavor of capitalism has allowed short-sighted greed to take over because Wall St demands so.
On an ideological level, you and I are the same - community over commerce. I support capitalism only under such principles.
Capitalism did not arise out of ideological reasons, but as a material process with the shift from small manufacturing to large industry. It arised historically, not because it is natural (it's only a few hundred years old) nor because someone thought it was a good idea. The mechanical process is as I described. Ideological justifications for it, ie liberalism, arose after the fact.
Value is created even in non-Capitalist systems, and further, western Capitalism is Capitalism of a more developed stage. You cannot perpetuate small market mechanics, small firms will either grow or die. Once markets coalesce, there really is nowhere to go but revolution and Socialism, or barbarism and collapse.
The problem of 'growing big' has to be solved via cooperatives operating in the same markets, not by disbanding the entire system.
That's not a solution, though. Cooperatives within Capitalism are subject to the same rules as other firms, only without firm control of the state. These cooperatives will either grow or die, and you end up at the same necessary point, revolution and Socialism, or barbarism. Centralization is a fact of markets that sustain over a long period of time, ergo we should master those laws to make it as democratic and equitable a system as possible. In other words, Socialism.
My brother, I gave you a version of capitalism where workers globally own the means of production. We'll even put measures against monopolization, labor exploitation, and short term profit seeking. Hell even add 100% taxation over a billion dollars so nobody gets too big. You'll still won't like it because it ain't communism.
We won't get to that fantasy land you described, so why bother creating it in our mind palaces? Utopia-building isn't a useful form of analysis when describing how we get from A to B. You need to take ownership of the State for that to work, and end Capitalism to begin with.
You're the one in the fantasy land. We're already in capitalism, I'm only adding cooperatives, you know the whole workers owing the means of production that you advocate for. I'm literally taking us from where we currently are to a better place, A to B. You want to erase the whole drawing board and start over.
Wrong on multiple fronts, which is why I recommended you read up more on Marxism, as it's evident that you do not in fact know what us Marxists are advocating for.
You are correct, we are already in Capitalism. Replacing the entirety of the firms within a Capitalist system with cooperatives is a monstrous task without first overthrowing the State to help facilitate things, at which point there is no reason to not implement Socialism. This is not jumping from A-B, this is jumping from A-Z.
Secondly, I do not want to start over. I want revolution, then a nationalization of key industries like the banks, railroads, airlines, energy sector, raw materials, telecommunication, etc. Not a replacement, but a nationalization. Additionally, large firms will be nationalized, ie Amazon, Google, Meta, Nvidia, other huge firms that dominate the private sector will be folded into the public. The small firms and sole proprietorships can remain, gradually working up to the size of public ownership, or fading away due to failing to compete.
This has an actual A-B, B-C, C-D, etc step process. The hardest part is revolution, of course, but we know it can be done because its happened before. What you describe is more akin to a grand prayer than an actual plan.
Study Marxism, even if you want to be a Capitalist, otherwise you argue against ghosts and strawmen that don't exist. After all, us Marxists have to study Capitalism, why shouldn't you study Marxism?
Disagree, cooperatives already exist. Everywhere! We just need more and more, one at a time. Bigger and stronger! Where is the need to overthrow the state?
And I want the same level of nationalization as you here, but you are still asking for a revolution as a starting point, i.e erase the entire drawing board and start over.
There is no evidence of cooperatives being capable of out-competing the megacorps of today in a system already controlled by megacorps. There is no growing systemic pressure for cooperatives to overwhelm megacorps, only further proletarianizaton and social stratification.
Further, revolution is not erasing the entire drawing board and starting over. We do not nuke the entire country back to the stone age and go at it again, we erase the oppressive bourgeois state and replace it with one run by and for the Proletariat. This has been done successfully many times.
Nature tells you the power of cooperative working, look at ants, bees, fungi. The fediverse is a smack in the face of Reddit, Unix in the face of Microsoft. These things only grow, never shrink. There are more people in credit unions in America than any private bank. There are so many cooperatives in the agriculture space you wouldn't believe. Look up mondragon, the largest cooperative employer with over 70k employees. Look up IFFCO, the largest agriculture cooperative connecting farmers in India, which has a revenue of over $7 billion/yr. These are behemoths, a force for good. They are not being overwhelmed by megacorps, rather they overwhelm the megacorps.
I am not against cooperation, I'm a Communist. What there isn't any evidence of is worker cooperatives like Mondragon being capable of working within systems owned by large megacorps and overpowering them and outscaling them. There's plenty of evidence for Socialism.
We are not bees, nor mushrooms, nor ants. FOSS is fantastic, and has many benefits, otherwise I would not be here. However, the idea that we can carve a cooperative niche out in a system dominated by Capital is Utopianism a la Saint-Simon, Fourier, Robert Owen, etc, and this Utopian model has been discredited for centuries.
With these measures, there won't be a free market, which means the creation of value will be regulated. I don't see why you would call it capitalism.
What is a free market and how will it cease to exist? I can still make any cake and sell it to anyone at whatever price. Free market still exists.
I think the way forward is to have socialism provide all necessities for people - meal kits, utilities, shelter, transport, free gasoline, healthcare, and so forth that are designed to be boring but effective. Capitalism can be used to obtain luxuries - a wider variety of food, fancier cars, bigger houses, brazilian buttlifts, singing bass decorations, and so forth. Money is solely used for such things.
By doing it this way, people can choose to protest or strike without suffering too much from doing so. Work becomes optional, since survival is ensured. Combined with imposing floors and ceilings on wealth, we can promote democracy and socialism, without sacrificing the vitality of a healthy capitalism.
That's not really an accurate overview of what constitutes Capitalism and Socialism. Capitalism is not "markets" and Socialism isn't government services, either. They are each determined by which aspect of the economy is principle, ie in control of the state, large firms, and key industries. Private Ownership as principle is Capitalism, Public Ownership as principle is Socialism. Both systems have a private and a public sector, but the trajectory of the system is very different.
It sounds like you're talking about the Nordic countries, ie deteriorating Imperialist states that are seeing crumbling worker protections and rely on super-exploitation of the Global South to subsidize cost of living and safety nets.
That sounds lovely to me!