News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
The same could have been said in feudal times. However, thanks to smarter people, silly arguments like this didn't stop attempts at progress. If people of the past followed your own logic, you'd be a slave right now. Think about that.
Feudalism is a fixed structure of society, that was also capitalist.
To day we have democracy which is better but is also capitalist.
In principle capitalism is usually about free markets that are generally controlled, because otherwise the system quickly collapses.
Attempts at non free market systems is generally planned economy, for instance the infamous Soviet Union 5 year plans.
To get rid of capitalism we need to get rid of all shortages for everybody, and that is not on the near horizon.
Feel free to think of a solution, but let's not throw overboard what has worked better than anything else, before we have something real to replace it with.
And not just philosophical bullshit about how nice it would be.
These two points seem both contradictory, as well as inaccurate to me.
Feudalism is "a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs (...)" Feudalism - Wikipedia
While capitalism is "an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit." "In its modern form, [capitalism] can be traced to the emergence of agrarian capitalism and mercantilism in the early Renaissance, in city-states like Florence. Capital has existed incipiently on a small scale for centuries in the form of merchant, renting and lending activities and occasionally as small-scale industry with some wage labor." Capitalism - Wikipedia
First of all, feudalism is a system encapsulating various parts of society, including the economy. Whereas capitalism is focused on the economy, but also affects other parts of society. Feudalism is by no means capitalist, as it's an entirely different system that predates capitalism by centuries. Naturally, there are similiarities and, in the end, feudalism transitioned into capitalism.
However, that does not mean it's the same system or that one is a feature of the other. These systems, or sets of customs and policies, change over time, adopting new policies and revising existing ones according to the changing world - that is a perfectly natural, as well as unavoidable process. Sometimes it may be difficult to tell precisely when a shift occured, kind of like what is happening in some European countries today. Although, using currently established definitions, we can separate the two.
This makes no sense to me. There's nothing that inherently links democracy and capitalism. They are entirely different constructs. A democracy can exist without capitalism, just like a capitalist economy can exist without a democratic government. Furthermore, democracy predates capitalism by 2000 years at the very least.
Democracy "is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state." "Democratic assemblies are as old as the human species and are found throughout human history (...)" "Under Cleisthenes, what is generally held as the first example of a type of democracy in the sixth-century BC (508–507 BC) was established in Athens." Democracy - Wikipedia
Not necessarily. I'm not sure where this conclusion comes from. There are no requirements that have to be met in order for a society to transition from capitalism to a different economical system. And actually, as of right now, we do in fact have enough resources to meet the basic needs of every single person on the planet. Housing not yet, but it could be achieved soon.
This argument, usually coming from capitalists, is not only counter-intuitive, but also short-sighted. Broadly speaking, to solve a problem, the very first thing you need to do is acknowledge it. If you don't acknowledge a problem, meaning it doesn't 'exist', you won't be able to solve it. Which is exactly why people are complaining about capitalism.
Then you may suggest which parts are the most problematic and propose improvements or solutions. At this stage capitalists will often say, like you, that there is nothing else, or that nothing else works or is proven, etc. Firstly, in the context of American capitalism specifically (as this is what the post is about), there are many existing, working and proven solutions to some of its problems. All you need to do is take a look at Europe, especially the Scandinavian countries.
Furthermore, socialism exists and, unlike what capitalists would have you believe, has been at the very least proven to work in limited capacity. That is, until it collapsed due to external sanctions or the leader being assassinated. I'd be curious to see what capitalists would say if we judged capitalism under similar circumstances.
All in all, we do have at least some improvements readily available for deployment. The problem is not that they don't exist or are unrealistic. Keep in mind you're not restricted to choosing either capitalism or socialism. You're entirely free to mix and modify policies. Again - like in Europe, adopting socialist policies while fundamentally sticking to capitalism. Seems to work quite well, and there's still room for improvement.
Well that's too bad, because that means you don't understand the fundamentals of capitalism, and how capitalism works with either democracy or other systems of governance.
Capitalism is very flexible, it's all about the regulation and other economic policies by governments. The Scandinavian model is capitalistic, but emphasizes human values and not just profits.
What matters is the political balance between those, and in both cases capitalism is the proven best method we have yet. and mind you I am a traditional social democrat, meaning I am left of the Social Democratic party we have in Denmark.
I hate what stereotypical "capitalism" stands for, but the part about regulated free markets, is the best model that actually works yet.
Oh boy wow.