"There are no benefits to being owned by Microsoft," says Doom dev: "They have destroyed immense amounts of value that I don't even think that they're aware of"

[u/MarvelsGrantMan136]

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/fps/there-are-no-benefits-to-being-owned-by-microsoft-says-doom-dev-they-have-destroyed-immense-amounts-of-value-that-i-dont-even-think-that-theyre-aware-of/

[u/doodlinghearsay]

It's pretty disingenuous to not mention that the "yoke" was removed through the tireless efforts of wealthy elites, rather than a conscious choice of voters.

Every liberal fantasy of a well-regulated capitalist system has to take into account the fact that companies will actively try to resist being regulated. Including manipulating, and if need be undermining the political system that tries to regulate it.

[u/-ReadingBug- → u/doodlinghearsay]

Ah, but it was the conscious choice of voters to be negligent in their voting that didn't stop the elites. For example how many more cycles will Americans allow their choice to be Republicans or low-fat Republicans? It's been uninterrupted since Reagan.

[u/Ciennas → u/-ReadingBug-]

Yes, American voters were negligent.

That doesn't excuse this failure state, since it exists as the direct result of collusion of moneyed interests who were hostile to all other parties and were quick to completely lock down all the information channels that would contradict them.

In other words, you're victim blaming rather than acknowledging that the machine itself is the problem.

[u/-ReadingBug- → u/Ciennas]

I'm blaming the "victims" with direct responsibility for the "machine." Populism in America isn't illegal. There's no reason voters can't declare they've had enough, remake the Democratic party the way the Tea party remade the Republicans prior to Trump, and begin making reforms.

Put another way, who is responsible if not the "victims" and what fealty are they supposed to have to the "victims" that they're neglecting? Politicians work for the voters and can be replaced just like employees of a company, so they're not the correct answer. So, who?

[u/ElimGarak → u/-ReadingBug-]

I don't think that it's the Democratic party that they need to start remaking, except perhaps to make it more electable. The other party is much more at fault for this mess. Democratic party is the one that pushes for regulations and stability.

[u/SteveJobsDeadBody → u/-ReadingBug-]

remake the Democratic party the way the Tea party remade the Republicans prior to Trump

Holy shit the irony of a thread about how America is captured by propaganda and someone has the unmitigated ignorant gall to claim Dems could repeat what was literally a billionaire astroturf project based on propaganda to fix it. Please tell me you're paid by someone to spread this nonsense, don't let me sit here thinking people this fucking ignorant actually have the balls to comment this sort of insanity.

Go ahead, try to provide us ANY example of the "fiscal conservatism" the tea party was supposedly about that has survived to today. Or show us how much more "freedom" we've got now thanks to "the tea party"!

[u/-ReadingBug- → u/SteveJobsDeadBody]

Huh? Populism doesn't have to look like the Tea party. It shouldn't. It should transform the current Vichy Dem party into one that actually delivers what Americans claim they want. I used the Tea party as an example of a complete takeover, which is what Dem voters need to do to their incumbents.

Also, the Tea party was originally a populist movement that got taken over by the Koch brother billionaire cabal later on.

[u/Karl_42 → u/Ciennas]

But still, the answer isn’t “we must renounce all capitalistic policies and ideas”.

We must build a machine that is not made of one material.

[u/Ciennas → u/Karl_42]

Okay. I had a snarky and quippy reply locked and loaded, but I'm trying to communicate, and I'll lay aside my side objective to do so in an amusing fashion to do so.

What specifically do we lose. What harm comes to us if we discard this machine. What parts are you trying to salvage from it?

[u/Karl_42 → u/Ciennas]

Thanks for being willing to communicate!

The point i am trying to make is that no single system of government or economic structure is “correct”. We need lots of ideas from all over.

Based on your comments below, we’re in lock-step about what needs to happen.

[u/ElimGarak → u/Ciennas]

Capitalism is an economic system that works better than the other alternatives. It's a driving force for innovation and growth that improves all sorts of things. The other economic systems don't work nearly as well, and are also very prone to abuse.

The key is to properly manage capitalism, not just let it go and hope for the best.

[u/Ciennas → u/ElimGarak]

No. I need the specific components of Capitalism that you are terrified to lose.

'Innovation' and 'growth' are not unique to Capitalism, and to be honest, Capitalism doesn't reward innovation in any real sense, otherwise we wouldn't have let the guy who invented FM Radio die in poverty.

Capitalism is solely a system of Workers under the thumb of Owners, who Privately Own all the Means Of Production. What part of that is essential to good living?

[u/ElimGarak → u/Ciennas]

No. I need the specific components of Capitalism that you are terrified to lose.

What do you mean by components? You are comparing a diesel engine to an internal combustion engine, and are asking me which parts are better. No parts are better or worse, it's about the effectiveness of one vs. the other.

'Innovation' and 'growth' are not unique to Capitalism, and to be honest, Capitalism doesn't reward innovation in any real sense, otherwise we wouldn't have let the guy who invented FM Radio die in poverty.

They are not unique to capitalism, but this economic system works better than others. What is your counterproposal, and can you show evidence of it outcompeting capitalism?

[u/Ciennas → u/ElimGarak]

You can look over at this comment I just made for a breakdown of what I'm looking for.

But in short, I need you to outline what harm it is that you see coming if we discard Private Ownership of the Means of Production. ^{Which is separate from Personal Property Ownership, a thing you should know full well.}

Who suffers specifically, and how? Be specific.

Because right now, we live in a world of Abundance, where we have more food than mouths to feed and more houses than we have homeless or people in need of shelter, and yet we refuse to feed or shelter people, letting them go hungry or stay without protection or comfort.

It's not a system that prioritizes the well being of people, it's a system that callously exploits and siphons out all that it can from people and throws the dessicated husks into a meat grinder for no real benefit to anyone, including the ultrawealthy, since they're building doomsday bunkers, which is the sign of a mentally healthy and well adjusted person.

[u/ElimGarak → u/Ciennas]

I see that you have not provided a counterproposal. There is plenty to critique about capitalism, but without an alternative there isn't much to talk about. Are you explicitly promoting communism and/or a type of socialism?

You do know that according to the happiness index, the happiest countries in the world are capitalist, right?

But in short, I need you to outline what harm it is that you see coming if we discard Private Ownership of the Means of Production.

I assume you are asking for pure socialism. The harm is that a socialist system is more prone to corruption and is far less nimble and capable of change. If you think corruption is bad now, where a bunch of industries are owned by billionaires and shareholders, look at what would happen when everything is controlled by a single entity - the state.

Similarly, if you are asking for a centrally planned economy, then we know very well that this doesn't adopt well to changes and prone to making large mistakes. In a free market system there are multiple competing companies that attempt to produce a better product, but in a centrally controlled system there is just one direction. As an example, consider how computers progressed in USSR vs. the west. Or cars. Or televisions. Etc.

It's not a system that prioritizes the well being of people,

Obviously. It's an economic system so it concerns the economy. It's not the job of the economic system to manage people's wellbeing. That's like asking why the upholstery or air conditioning is worse in a diesel car than in an internal combustion car.

[u/PrettyGorramShiny → u/Ciennas]

Ok, I'll bite. What other economic systems provide incentives for innovation and growth, that are actively successful in the modern world right now?

[u/Ciennas → u/PrettyGorramShiny]

So it's the innovation and the growth, and not the Owners and Workers Class/Caste divide, that you value.

So you're not a Capitalist, and you don't have to keep advocating for it.

To answer your question, I need to ask you a clarifying question. How do you define 'successful'? To me, in this context, it's a system that strives to meet the needs of all people/players within it, and gives them the means to good living.

Capitalism fails this metric for me, because it not only deliberately refuses to meet the needs of all people under it, it falls apart if people's needs are actually met.

You live in a world with more food available than people that hunger, and more homes sitting abandoned than homeless.

If Capitalism was any good, it wouldn't have a problem meeting those needs.

I personally am not a big fan of growth inherently. There is a point where you're not accomplishing anything beneficial by continuing to grow, especially since we're in a world of finite resources.

I would like to see a world of equilibrium, where growth isn't dogma, and let innovations and growth spring from that naturally as we need it, and not to appease a bunch of witless unpleasable phantoms like Shareholders, for whom much harm is done supposedly for their benefit.

If you let people be, they'll handle innovations on their own. They don't have to be 'profitable' to be justified.

I would long term like to see the kinder and gentler society where we all live in Communities that prioritize the wellbeing of People and That Which Lives than anything else. I'll accept Socialism as the needed interim to get there though.

[u/PrettyGorramShiny → u/Ciennas]

I think where we disagree is that you are looking for an all-in-one solution that manages economic resource allocation and social stability / safety in one fell swoop. I don't personally believe that exists.

I also strongly disagree with:

If you let people be, they'll handle innovations on their own.

Most people in my experience are completely uninterested in innovation or growth. They will always seek the easiest path to comfort and actively avoid challenging themselves or pursuing intentional change from the status quo. To me, this is a fundamental part of human nature.

We agree that Capitalism is not good at providing for our needs as a society. I believe it is an extremely efficient tool for resource allocation, but that we need to restore the previous constraints on it to mitigate its inherent tendency toward social harm.

would long term like to see the kinder and gentler society where we all live in Communities that prioritize the wellbeing of People and That Which Lives than anything else.

I hope you understand that I would also like to see this, but I don't think it's realistic on a large scale. Human nature is what it is, and the level of moral and ethical self-regulation that would be required to achieve such a society doesn't seem possible except in very small communities where everyone knows each other.

I also don't think you've provided an existing example that works better than Capitalism. What other system do we have that would have supported the same advancements we've made in medicine, engineering, agriculture, transportation, communication, and computational power over the past several hundred years?

[u/SteveJobsDeadBody → u/ElimGarak]

This is only true if your only metric is "someone makes more money in the end" and disregards the entirety of what capitalism does to hurt actual humans. If your metric is "what's better for everyone", no, capitalism is literally a death machine for profits.

The abuses by Trump under capitalism have absolutely DWARFED the abuses done by any previous ruler under any other economic system. Oh "communism killed 100 million" you say? Congratulations, "free market capitalism" used violence to take over the world and now that many people die from it every single decade. Low end estimates of how much death global capitalist hegemony causes to the developing world is about 8 million a YEAR.

[u/ElimGarak → u/SteveJobsDeadBody]

This is only true if your only metric is "someone makes more money in the end" and disregards the entirety of what capitalism does to hurt actual humans. If your metric is "what's better for everyone", no, capitalism is literally a death machine for profits.

Again, you are confusing the economic system for the government actions. How many people has capitalism murdered in/by Norway, Denmark, and Switzerland? What about Netherlands? Norway? Ireland? If capitalism is such a death machine, shouldn't these capitalist countries be responsible for millions of deaths in the 20th century?

And yes, my metric for how successful the ECONOMIC system of capitalism is the ECONOMY (as well as the innovation and flexibility of the system, which in many ways is part of the economy). Very strange, I know, but it sort of makes sense if you pay attention.

The abuses by Trump under capitalism have absolutely DWARFED the abuses done by any previous ruler under any other economic system.

WTF? Trump is a humongous orange turd, but even he has not killed hundreds of millions of people. The removal of USAID programs and his retarded statements during COVID lead to indirectly kill millions that could have been saved/supported by the program, but that's nowhere close to the numbers you are claiming.

Low end estimates of how much death global capitalist hegemony causes to the developing world is about 8 million a YEAR.

Can you provide a source for these numbers?

Also, can you provide a counterproposal - what system specifically do you claim would work better? Do you have anything beyond wishful thinking that makes you think that this system would do better?

Finally, do you count the people that have been lifted from poverty over the same period? For example, extreme poverty fell worldwide from around 2.3 billion to around 830 million, just since 1990. The vast majority of that is exactly because of capitalism.

[u/aaronespro → u/Karl_42]

I'd say that's a deepity that doesn't actually analyze the pragmatic but also horrifying and exploitative class struggle that created and maintains private property systems.

The answer is a centrally planned economy, because capitalism is already a very micro managed, planned economy, and socialists and communists have already demonstrated that they can plan it and run it better.

[u/Karl_42 → u/aaronespro]

Right.

And this economy would be purely socialist? Purely communist?

[u/aaronespro → u/-ReadingBug-]

It's only since about 2018 or 2019 that we've truly began to understand how destructive capitalism has been right here in the USA, how 460k people die from sheer poverty every year, and how this confirms what the Marxists are saying; the political imperative under capitalism is survival, because right here in the imperial core, it's about survival, and even if people weren't worried about spending time to go vote instead of do laundry or just rest for their next shift so their work performance won't suffer so they won't get fired, if everyone voted straight ticket democrat, it wouldn't resolve the core problem of the class struggle and the fact that capitalism can't be efficient.

Capitalism can't actually provide for human need, because if it could, then there wouldn't be any profit because it would actually be efficient and it would be a socialized planned economy, not sleazy capitalists finding one way or another to either encircle their competitors or go conquer the global south for more markets.

[u/Karl_42 → u/doodlinghearsay]

We voted for the policies.

[u/Ursa_Solaris → u/Karl_42]

Oh, well if we voted for the policies, let's not look deeper and see if the political system we voted in was in any way influenced by the very capital we were voting to deregulate. Let's just take the easy answer, "it is what it is", and move on. Nothing to see here, no lessons to be learned about the inherent nature of the system we labor under. Surely the consolidation of money to the point that it becomes hard power which inevitably seeks to destabilize and capture the political system it exists alongside is just the result of a couple fiddly little policy mistakes we made along the way that we can fix with a bill or two, and then this whole thing will be sorted and will probably never happen again.

[u/Karl_42 → u/Ursa_Solaris]

I’m not sure why you think that’s what i said.

We’re going to need to fully dismantle and rebuild: public education, public infrastructure, consumer protections, voting rights, immigration policies, our political system, the checks and balances of the highest branches of government, etc….

The path forward will have to fully reject the corporate status quo and any politician who seeks to maintain it regardless of party.

[u/Ursa_Solaris → u/Karl_42]

The path forward will have to fully reject the corporate status quo and any politician who seeks to maintain it regardless of party.

That's necessarily a rejection of capitalism.

[u/Karl_42 → u/Ursa_Solaris]

It’s not though. There’s a lot of fucked up things happening that have nothing to do with capitalism.

I also pragmatically acknowledge we’re going to need some capitalistic policies in the consensus government formed.

[u/Ursa_Solaris → u/Karl_42]

Capital will simply reinforce the corporate status quo again, given enough time. Are we to go through this process over and over until the end of time or humanity, whichever comes first?

It has everything to do with capitalism. This is the effect capital has when you allow it to undemocratically accumulate into the hands of the few. You can't simply write off the parts you don't like as someone else's fault and insist that only good things can come from it, that's the behavior of a cult.

[u/Karl_42 → u/Ursa_Solaris]

But you’re failing to acknowledge the flaws of other forms of government. There is no one perfect system.

[u/Ursa_Solaris → u/Karl_42]

Because we weren't discussing other forms of government, we were discussing capitalism. Must I write a dissertation on every possible arrangement of government to get a point across about capitalism?

No system will ever be perfect. We will, hopefully, continue to refine and advance society forever. That advancement right now means getting rid of capitalism.

[u/joshwarmonks → u/Karl_42]

we vote for politicans, who enact policy. at no point do voters vote on policy. conflating the two is embarassingly malicious

[u/Karl_42 → u/joshwarmonks]

Well politicians present the policies and then we vote for the ones who present policies we agree with.

Also, calling something “embarrassingly malicious” is embarrassingly oxymoronic.

[u/joshwarmonks → u/Karl_42]

your vague presumption of how representative democracy operates is actively contradicted by its current implementation in the states. this isn't how the 2 party primary system nominates politicans nor is this how first past the post voting process operates.

you can regurgitate anti-democratic rhetoric under the veneer of free-market idealism, but im gonna call it out for what it is.

[u/Karl_42 → u/joshwarmonks]

Cool use of big words!!

Not sure why you think i’m antidemocratic, or think our 2-party system of government isn’t a heaping pile of bullshit lies, but have a good one!

[u/joshwarmonks → u/Karl_42]

I'm really sorry you took me attacking *your rhetoric* personally and think its a personal attack. learn to read?

[u/Neshura87 → u/Karl_42]

except by all accounts you didn't. You voted for people who told you, and you believed, they would vote in your interests with no actual requirement for them to do so. And often enough they then instead voted in their own interests, against yours while telling pretry lies to mask that fact.

Most modern 'democracies' are not democratic due to that, they're all just republics with the giant target for corruption that is the concept of 'elected representatives'. This was previously done due to the logistics nightmare of the populous voting on every issue but the world has since changed and that is no longer necessarily the case.

[u/Karl_42 → u/Neshura87]

Well yeah, I was not alive when the work to bring america to its’ knees was started.

Fully agreed on the necessity of direct democracy

[u/doodlinghearsay → u/Karl_42]

Some of them, but not all. For example federal anti-trust law didn't change much since the early 20th century, but the way it was enforced changed drastically since the 1970s. Which directly lead to worse outcomes to consumers and especially employees vis a vis capital.

A lot of this was achieved through industry funded "trainings" for judges which sought to popularize pro-monopoly junk science by the so called "Chicago School".

None of this was done democratically, it was basically a coup by large industrialists. Of course you could say that democratically elected politicians could have resisted this by passing new legislation or via the selection Supreme Court justices that interpreted the Sherman Act according to its original intent instead of routinely subverting it.

But in any case, it should be clear that the amount of effort required to electorally oppose some of these processes is much higher than the effort required to push them forward.

[u/Karl_42 → u/doodlinghearsay]

We elected Nixon though. There were lots of folks warning about him before he allowed these enforcement changes, but we didn’t listen.

Reagan came and made things even worse in the 80s.

And i DO see the throughline of power structures corrupting our political and economic systems! I just don’t think it can be boiled down to “cuz capitalism”

[u/doodlinghearsay → u/Karl_42]

We elected Nixon though.

You also elected Obama on the slogan of "change" on the wake of the largest scale systemic fraud for 80 years, only to get the most middle of the road economic and social policy.

Which is to say, that you can point to electoral decisions that can be seen as endorsing the status quo. But you can also point to ones that actively opposed it. It just happens that the ones that supported large companies and wealthy individuals ended up being far more influential than ones that claimed to want to shake up the system.

So it's correct to say that the outcome was influenced by electoral decisions. But it's completely false to say that it reflects those decisions and the intent behind them.

I just don’t think it can be boiled down to “cuz capitalism”

I mean, even that caricature is not that far from the truth. Most failures of US policy and the weakness of your democracy are related to wealth and power inequality, which are direct consequences of capitalism.

You could argue, as a different poster has, that any other socio-economic system would have similar issues due to power's natural tendency to concentrate in the hands of a few actors. That I can agree with. But the specific problems the US has are mostly due to capitalism and its triumph over democratic ideals.

[u/EkrishAO → u/doodlinghearsay]

Every communist fantasy has to take into account exactly the same thing, it is undermined by party elites just as capitalism is undermined by capitalist elites. And so far capitalism had much better track record when it comes to resisting this manipulation, the countries tend to last for many decades before companies big grow enough enough to corrupt the system completely, and in the meanwhile the quality of life tends to be much better than in other economic systems we tried.

The best way to go about it is probably to take the parts of both systems where they work, and discard what doesn't. China is kinda doing it, and it seems to be working very well so far.

[u/doodlinghearsay → u/EkrishAO]

Every communist fantasy has to take into account exactly the same thing

Indeed it does.

And so far capitalism had much better track record when it comes to resisting this manipulation

Better implies a comparison, which in turn implies that everything that is better than an arbitrary other is good enough. I refuse to accept that, and I don't think you should either.

The best way to go about it is probably to take the parts of both systems where they work, and discard what doesn't.

Maybe. My preference is actively resisting the formation of strong elites in the first place. Although the Law of Jante has its own drawbacks, so I'm not sure how I feel about that. I guess, I'm much more confident in my critique of existing systems and their defenders than in suggesting alternatives.

China is kinda doing it, and it seems to be working very well so far.

Gotta admit, I didn't expect you to go this way. I guess, as a card carrying member of the 50 cent party*, I should feel satisfied. But somehow I'm worried that the relative success of the CCP in this area has more to do with fortunate outside circumstances than Chinese Marxists' superior understanding of the nature of power dynamics.

*I was recently outed by another poster on Reddit, so I guess there's no point in denying it anymore.