Quote (NetflixAdaptationWidow @ 16 Jul 2021 20:12)

So then abusing other countries to provide cheap resources and outsourcing your slavery is capitalism then? Because that's been pretty constant for all of modern capitalism, not just from America, but from most capitalist nations.

It's no stretch to say that without the abuses in other nations providing cheap resources to the first world, Capitalism wouldn't provide nearly as lavish of a lifestyle as it has. Most of our drug development is outsourced to 3rd world nations with less patient protections as an example.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 16 2021 11:08am)

Famines and shitty food supply are a staple of communist countries and encountered in almost all of them.
People being unable to afford even basic healthcare, by contrast, is not a feature of capitalism, it's pretty much exclusively a MURICA thing. Other capitalist first world countries do not have this problem to nearly the same degree as the U.S.
(Developing countries will struggle to provide healthcare to their citizens irrespective of their economic model because of a general lack of resources and organization.)

Quote (Doggyfood @ 16 Jul 2021 20:22)

Is there a way for these reforms to reign in capitalism, given that the logical conclusion of capitalism is to control the means by which it would be reigned in?

The reforms are overwhelmingly popular by the citizens but, curiously, unpopular with policy-makers.

Quote (NetflixAdaptationWidow @ Jul 16 2021 12:04pm)

There certainly are instances of massive crop failure, but for the vast majority of human history when individual families had crop failures the community would assist. We are far less connected to each other and less willing to help than we had been for most of our history. It used to be that if you were starving and you were caught eating food from somebody else's field... that was just normal. It wasn't theft, and if you were somebody who didn't help a stranger at your door you were a giant piece of shit. There's a reason why "Leader of the pantheon comes to your door dressed as an old man and punishes you if you don't help him" is such a common trope, and why head-gods so often have as part of their domain an aspect of hospitality. Plenty of stories survived of Odin doing this, it was a central tenant of Jesus message, it was explicitly Zeus's domaine in classical Greece to test people in case they weren't being good hosts to travelers and the downtrodden. So yes, it could be a death sentence, but unless it was a country wide event you would survive with help from your neighbors.

As for suicide rates, the biggest factor for suicide is social isolation. Ethnic groups with multi-family households commit suicide at far lower rates than others, and the greatest suicide rate is rural Montana. IMO, that's a far better explanation for why pre-industrial societies have far less suicide. Far greater connectedness, stronger communities, and the sense of purpose that comes with it. I think that QoL driving suicide rates is more or less untestable, since it's not a very specific metric, and it can be explained by other factors much better.

As this relates back to sweatshop workers and suicide, when you take somebody and put them in a much worse condition relative to farming, and isolate them from their family, that's a recipe for massive suicide and shitty QoL.

Quote (Leevee @ Jul 16 2021 12:06pm)

Those are just two bullet points in the bigger argument that nor capitalism nor communism lead to anything good if you play those games by their rules.

In my personal opinion, capitalism almost has it right. Take capitalism, add regulation for all markets related to basic necessities and finance those markets publicly, and you're already miles ahead of where any capitalist of communist nation has ever gone.

Anyway, this is a shit thread and should just be closed.



There wasn't any joke.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 16 2021 11:29am)

You're quickly burning through the greatest hits of anticapitalist and communism-excusing talking points. Now, we've arrived at the good old "all of our wealth is based on exploitation of the third world". :lol:

Capitalism has lifted literally billions of people out of poverty over the past decades; the share of the global population living in extreme as well as conventional poverty has been on a steady downward trend. The true engine behind the success of capitalism is not quasi-slavery, it is the technological and organizational progress that it fosters. This progress is what has allowed a larger number of people to enjoy the "lavish" first world lifestyle while the number of "outsourced slaves" and poor has simultaneously gone down, not up.

Quote (inkanddagger @ Jul 16 2021 01:51pm)

3 billion people currently live in poverty because of capitalism.

Quote (inkanddagger @ Jul 16 2021 08:51pm)

3 billion people currently live in poverty because of capitalism.

Quote (thesnipa @ Jul 16 2021 01:42pm)

1. help from neighbors is a great argument against the state and for libertarianism, so i agree.

2. neighbors cant help if you have a drought, you all starve

in short farming pre-industry was a terrible existence. im not sure you understand just how shitty of a lifestyle it was, how back breaking the labor was, how common failures that led to starvation were, and how common death was as a direct result of that lifestyle. it shouldn't be romanticized, it was complete hell. i can hardly count on both hands the number of "subsistence homesteaders" ive seen on youtube break down in tears and completely unravel as a result of failing in an aspect of subsistence. it can be complete hell, and success is subject to a great deal of randomness even for learned practitioners.

i agree 100% with this post.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 16 2021 01:29pm)

You're quickly burning through the greatest hits of anticapitalist and communism-excusing talking points. Now, we've arrived at the good old "all of our wealth is based on exploitation of the third world". :lol:

Capitalism has lifted literally billions of people out of poverty over the past decades; the share of the global population living in extreme as well as conventional poverty has been on a steady downward trend. The true engine behind the success of capitalism is not quasi-slavery, it is the technological and organizational progress that it fosters. This progress is what has allowed a larger number of people to enjoy the "lavish" first world lifestyle while the number of "outsourced slaves" and poor has simultaneously gone down, not up.

Quote (NetflixAdaptationWidow @ Jul 16 2021 01:57pm)

Sustenence farming is indeed terrible, but if it's between sustenence farming and working as a child in a sweat shop, I'd take sustenence farming. The reason we don't have famines anymore isn't really due to capitalism. We still had famines well into the 1900's. The dust bowl was a thing. The great famine in the 1840's was a thing. The reason we don't experience famines in the first world anymore has very little to do with capitalism, and mostly has to do with The Haber-Bosch process for fixing nitrogen, and our massive country-spanning irrigation system. Although I should also point out, I think this famine-free period for the past 80 ish years is going to come to a halt very soon. Our aquafers are nearly tapped and global warming is disrupting rain patterns.

Also, I was reading a bit more on Mao's China, and it seems like they had plenty of grain but exported it to Russia to pay their war debt. Idk, I'm not an expert.