holy fuuuuuk, that very last sentence
“… and most importantly, how do we pay for it?”
She’s a Sunday morning tv ghoul. She’s a ghoul’s ghoul - as they all are.
“Yeah we could save the planet, preventing a coming decline and potential extinction event, but at what cost”
These are the questions they have students answer in business school.
- You have a 100% guaranteed cost right now with uncertain benefits
Or
- You have uncertain future costs down the line with uncertainty around those being worse than now on top of uncertain benefits now and in the future.
WWYD
It’s basically a time value of money problem. That’s the genius of the free market.
the “defining health crisis of our time.”
Wow, I can’t wait to see how libs try to fix it.
How about another 75 billion for Ukraine ?
But there's a solution!...
Vote!
-–
I have to stop making such dem jokes. But they are nearly always topical and I just can’t resist.
Now I’m genuinely curious: are there any problems that have been solved by neoliberalism?
Creating jobs for middle managers
the existence of a biosphere
How many 9/11s is that, twenty? If only there was another country to blame it on then something could be done about it.
If only there was another country to blame it on
Russian disinformation and meddling is driving innocent Americans to suicide.
Passing a law that you can be charged with manslaughter for talking badly about the economy because that data bares out that it’s doing well.
For comparison, I remember reading before the pandemic that the yearly number of deaths in America from lack of healthcare is almost 70,000
So…fuck. Almost as many suicides as that.
Ok so every couple of years this same headline comes out.
But there is never a % or per-capita number for suicides. Of course there’s going to be more suicides when there’s more and more people. What has the suicide rate per capita been? How much has that gone up?
They do the same thing with overdose deaths. Never give a per capita rate.
Not that i don’t see suicides and overdoses as a problem caused by capitalism. Of course they are. An honest conversation is important though.
Edit: here is more data that makes the picture much more clear than the media sensationalism which is all we ever get: https://sprc.org/about-suicide/scope-of-the-problem/suicide-deaths-in-the-united-states/
This is some dark shit…it reminds me of an old onion news video without a punchline. Just a failed, miserable state with an evil propaganda mouthpiece to go “HEY WHA HAPPEN?”
We The People have the power to criminalize the ownership of more than $1 billion dollars of wealth.
We have the power to re-establish punitively high, confiscatory top-tier tax rates on income, forcing the highest earners to spend their earnings, or lose them.
We have the power to create, and phase in a progressive tax on SEC registered securities. A wealth tax. We can confiscate the shares of publicly traded companies held by individuals, and turn them over to IRS liquidators. They can dispose of those shares by selling them on the open market in small lots, no more than 5% of the total traded volume.
We have the power to drive the wealth of the richest among us out of the market, making room for the rest of us to invest our own capital, and more equitably share our societal gains.
The cure for mass suicide is the same as it is for most of today’s problems: A new French Revolution, where we strip the first and second estates of their power to continue fucking us over and making us want to kill ourselves.
We the people have the power to establish a student loan debt forgiveness program for Pell Grant recipients who start a business that operates for three years in disadvantaged communities.
We the people have the power to establish a congestion tax on cars program for wine moms who open a jail that operates for 4 years in a foreign country.
I am totally with you in the broad sentiment you’re expressing, but almost everything you said is ultimately just bandaids that still don’t address the real deep, systemic problem, and this mode of production that will always reward greed. You were most onto something towards the end. But rather than a new French Revolution, which just sets things up for this to happen all over again, how about a new Bolshevik Revolution that aims not just to try to do capitalism more fairly, but reorganizes society in such a way as to eliminate poverty and all need in what is already a post-scarcity human epoch.
We the people have the power to seize the means of production. We the people can set society on the road to the complete abolition of class.
But rather than a new French Revolution, which just sets things up for this to happen all over again, how about a new Bolshevik Revolution that aims not just to try to do capitalism more fairly, but reorganizes society in such a way as to eliminate poverty and all need in what is already a post-scarcity human epoch.
Basically, because socialism fundamentally requires centralized control, and I don’t trust centralized control. I fully expect corruption and greed to exist, and to gravitate toward power.
I don’t trust society not to deliberately appoint a tyrannical megalomaniac: I’ve seen them do it entirely too often.
You say “centralized control” but that doesn’t really mean anything. After all, the capitalist class already have centralized their power, and their class interests mean they structure every feature of both business and government to keep it that way. Socialism, as defined by a dictatorship of the proletariat, upends this class dynamic entirely. So no, socialism does not “require centralized control” just because a classless society would utilize central planning efficiency to meet societal goals. This is fundamentally, scientifically different from the current system of bourgeoisie control.
After all, the capitalist class already have centralized their power
Please elaborate. I am not sure what you mean when you say that the capitalist class has centralized their power.
You’re the one who said:
socialism fundamentally requires centralized control, and I don’t trust centralized control.
What did you mean when you said that? There is no way in which socialism “requires” anything like this that capitalism also doesn’t require in terms of controlling the population. At least in socialism the population has control over the population rather than a small elite class (the bourgeoisie aka capitalist class aka owning class) as in capitalism. If you are talking about a planned economy, then again, capitalism does this too and you need look no further than fucking amazon as an example. The economy is just planned around gaining more capital for a small class instead of actually serving the needs of people as in socialism.
Finally,
I don’t trust society not to deliberately appoint a tyrannical megalomaniac: I’ve seen them do it entirely too often.
No, you haven’t. You’ve been told that happened as a means of propaganda to make sure you and everyone like you (people not part of the owning class) think exactly what you do now think “ooooooh noes scary socialism always turns ebil dictatortotship!” Show us what socialist societies (AES) “appointed a tyrannical megalomaniac” and we’ll show you a load a bullshit that has been force-fed to the people of a capitalist society ruled by the real tyrannical megalomaniacs: the capitalist class.
No, you haven’t
I didn’t say socialism appoints them. I said society. Socialism is not a prophylaxis against society fucking itself over by declaring itself subject to a tyrant.
With socialism comes the first mass state and genuine rule by the majority. You can’t just generalize “society” as having a tendency of “fucking itself over” when this “society” is ruled by completely different classes depending on the level of development of the productive forces.
What I mean by this is that there is no choice for capitalists but participate in our economic system. If a “nice” business owner tries to be fair to their workers, give them the full value of their labor, etc., then they will be out-competed by a company that does not. As long as workers continue working for a company (no strike or anything), then the safest course for a business to take is maximum profit and wage exploitation. This way, they keep wages down, their shareholders are happy, etc. Now, there’s always a balancing act they put on so that workers don’t realize this, be that platitudes like game rooms at tech start-ups, all the way to traditional methods like raising wages.
Because of this, businesses will naturally gravitate toward anti-worker practice. As late-stage capitalism progresses, this becomes even more brutal. Now the biggest companies maintain their competitive advantage by lobbying, PACs, propaganda, owning the news stations. Joe Biden and Donald Trump both have lavish dinners with donors and business owners who discuss politics and national policy. And because these business owners are from Microsoft and Raytheon, they further America’s goals (substitute America for any Capitalist country too). The capitalist class has centralized power because any individual in the class who tries to steer policy toward worker protections and limits on their own class are quickly out-competed.
I’m basing this analysis on some of the later chapters of Capital like Vol. 1, Ch. 25, Section 2 (I skimmed this just now to make sure I could word this response correctly). I do recommend the entirety of Capital for a scientific breakdown of worker power and commodity production. Hexbear has a reading group for the book going on now.
TL;DR: The growth of banks concentrates capital more closely, and also development causes the creation of truces between capitalists and mixes capitalist control between industries.
Basically, because socialism fundamentally requires centralized control, and I don’t trust centralized control. I fully expect corruption and greed to exist, and to gravitate toward power.
Socialism is not a political philosophy based on belief, but simply the epoch that must follow capitalism, as it’s the first step in really resolving the fundamental contradictions of the latter—done halfway by the capitalist state apparatus, which aims to reconcile class contradictions whilst preserving their originator, and so itself falls into contradiction; the increasing socialization of production coming along with development contradicts the private ownership of enterprise, even still imperialism lends to the centralization of production/distribution as a resolution of the fall of the rate of profit (and this rears its head also in the sphere of automation, where capitalist development requires greater and greater productivity for competition, and yet, the greater the reliance on automation (for extension of productivity beyond human potential), the lower the rate of profit becomes as surplus value/variable capital comes from human labor power—this contradiction is unique to capitalism as it holds exchange-value over use-value, and so the necessary outcome is the resurgence of use value as the dominant force with a mode of production which serves the whole working populace rather than a few profiteers).
I don’t trust society not to deliberately appoint a tyrannical megalomaniac: I’ve seen them do it entirely too often.
Wrt socialism? Do you understand how material conditions work? Which “societies” as a whole deliberately appointed tyrannical megalomaniacs? “Entirely too often” means you have to name at least five.
How would you implement your progressive tax system without centralized control?
Centralized control over whom?
Socialism controls the means of production, which means (in theory) it has a direct affect on every shop, every worker. Any errors, mistakes, or corruption in the system that causes harm will impact our entire society.
A punitive cap on wealth at $1 billion directly affects only 756 people in the US. If we progressively apply a securities tax above $16.7 million, it directly affects a maximum of 1% of the population. Any errors, mistakes, or corruption in that system affects only a very small segment of society, and only that segment most able to mitigate the damage of such harm.
I’m less concerned with the harms that come with centralized control when those harms only affect the most privileged among us.
The billionaires won’t let you tax them out of existence.
making room for the rest of us to invest our own capital
This is absolutely not the solution either.
The choice is theirs: they can give up their ill-gotten wealth directly (philanthropically), or they can be taxed out of existence (peacefully), or they can be fined out of existence (criminally), or they can be guillotined out of existence (violently). What they can’t do is continue to exploit and devastate all of society for their personal benefit.
If they make the first three options impossible, they make the fourth option inevitable.
This is absolutely not the solution either.
This is how the means of production is owned in modern society. Shares. The problem isn’t the idea that corporations look after shareholders. The problem is that the workers aren’t shareholders. Workers are compensated primarily with dollars; executive-level management is compensated primarily with shares. When the worker starts receiving shares of future profits along with their hourly pay, the major problems are solved.
I don’t want shares of a company, I want capitalism to end.
The choice is theirs: they can give up their ill-gotten wealth directly (philanthropically),
This is wishful thinking, if you wish in one hand and shit in the other which fill faster.
or they can be taxed out of existence (peacefully), or they can be fined out of existence (criminally),
These two options are at the barrel of a gun, so violently. I don’t know why you don’t seem to get that. Whose guns you may ask. Theirs. So more wishful thinking.
or they can be guillotined out of existence (violently)
We’re here. Please catch up. However pointless violence will get us nowhere. A proper revolution must have goals to upend the current system and replace it with a better one. Much ink has been used to model this more can be read about it at marxists.org
This is how the means of production is owned in modern society. Shares. The problem isn’t the idea that corporations look after shareholders. The problem is that the workers aren’t shareholders. Workers are compensated primarily with dollars; executive-level management is compensated primarily with shares. When the worker starts receiving shares of future profits along with their hourly pay, the major problems are solved.
This is a continuation of the capitalist system and would be a tragedy if we revolted and got this.
Edit: rewrote some stuff, I should be less glib you seem to be earnest.
They’ve already chosen to not do the first three. I hope your guillotine is sharp, you’re on the schedule this week.
Surely you don’t just mean that there are workers along with capitalist shareholders, right? Shares as a speculative asset are valuable in a context of expected growth, and any system based on endless growth towards no other end is going to produce conflict with out finite planet and its finite resources, as we’re already seeing around the world. Co-ops won’t save you from the basic contradictions of capitalism, and that’s without getting into the need of capitalism to have a destitute lower class (whether domestic or abroad) or how even the co-op employees are really just overseeing their own exploitation in order to stay competitive (as we see today with co-ops). You need to challenge yourself a little more to think beyond the paradigm of liberalism.
When the worker starts receiving shares of future profits along with their hourly pay, the major problems are solved.
This is so unbelievably stupid.
We also have the power to separate the heads of capital from their heads.
hilarious post
We have the power to create, and phase in a progressive tax on SEC registered securities
new French Revolution
read a book. during the french revolution they didn’t phase in shit, they cut peoples heads off
we don’t have the power to do anything, not even the lib-brained respectability-pilled watered down shit you listed. we won’t have any power until we seize it violently
Death to America
yesssss
