Capitalism

SCOTUS just ruled that US presidents have the divine right of kings.

Hot take (not entirely serious):
Now that Presidents can't be prosecuted for official acts that are crimes, Biden should enact Project 2025 EARLY give himself unitary executive power, and refuse to leave office.
This would either destroy the country, save the country, or force SCOTUS to reconsider their ruling.
Of course he could just deem the imbalance on SCOTUS a threat to national security, and write an official law saying that all major parties must be equally repressented by the judges on there (a one out, one in law).
That would also work, and run less risk of tearing the country apart.
- That isn't how p2025 works, but in theory...he could do something a lot like it. While it is better than the other guy, it would be a deeply fucked precedent...
From this day forward, every day that Biden doesn't have the Republican judges killed is a betrayal of democracy.
- He can't because it was tossed to the lower court to be put on ice until the election decides how they should rule.
- That is as dumb as the typical right-wing ideas. Impeach, and abuse executive orders would be less stupid.
The King-Maker ruling will be a blight if it is not fixed fast!

Not to be downer, but there are people literally thinking Donald Trump is the second coming of Christ.

If anything, I'm more concerned with folks like Jamie Dimon and Satya Nadella and Andy Jassy. People who have trillions of dollars of capital at their command exert immense influence over my quality of life. Arguably much more so than any king or high priest or even any American president.
We talk about Divine Right of Kings like its a thing that came and went, but consider how a guy like Elon Musk has accrued phenomenal amounts of wealth and authority. Consider how people see him. And how he sees himself. Its chilling to consider how much power some of these people wield and how blind we all are to their intentions.
- I think you can be concerned by both. All these examples are of people that can exert and incredible amount of power through their respective means.
And there are people who thought their kings were divine.
Oh, it is worse than that. There are accelerationist Christians that are certain he is the antichrist. They believe bringing him to power will bring about the end of days, the rapture(that will save them), and the 1000 years of peace promised after revelations. Religion is vile.
- Oh my fucking god. We are fucked.

I read the comic and was like "didn't Le Guin say something similar" than I read the subtitle and apparently, I was right

The comic's author should have add the proper quote.
Her father was an Anthropologist, where as she seems to be more of a Sociologist.

Kings never went away, they just changed to a different form and name to remain accepted in society, as the ones with the crowns ended up in the gallows.

This isn't good historical analysis. The feudal class society, with its aristocracy, church and peasants, was highly rigid in terms of class mobility. Peasants stayed peasants and aristocrats stayed aristocrats. The current dominant class, the capitalist owners, exert their power not by god-given rights over the population, but by legal control of the means of production. The current exploited class, the workers, aren't tied to a lord anymore and pay tributes in kind on exchange for land and protection, but instead are "free" to work where they want for a payment in cash, and unable for the most part to have ownership of the means of production they themselves work.
Kings have disappeared, classes in society haven't
- Up until the last part I thought your point was going to be "but now we have class mobility". Yeah, we don't 😫 freedom is an illusion for the most part, but a convenient one
Already has more than a hundred people would ever need, yet takes every opportunity to oppress the have-nots in order to make their ego number go up?
I’d make a punch line about billionaires, but it’s way, way more than just them.

Divine right of kings lasted for a long long long time, and caused the deaths of untold millions

What point are you trying to make? That it would have been better if the divine right of kings ended sooner? I'm sure Ursula K. Le Guin would agree.
Or are you trying to say we shouldn't be complacent in working to end capitalism? Because I'm sure Ursula K. Le Guin would agree as well.
The point of even saying this is to rally people who might feel there's no point in trying, because the current system seems unstoppable.
- to me it read like "that's a nice thought and I'm sure one day we'll move beyond it, but i doubt I'll live to see that"
- Just pondering the difference between something that is practically inescapable in a finite human lifespan vs something that is surely escapable given a removal of that metric. Merely the first thought I had when enjoying the art, no point to be made of it... More mumblings of a idle fool/thinker?
- I'm sure one day we'll achieve some sort of utopia if we aren't killed off by climate change or some other catastrophe, but my bones will have eroded to dust by then.
Millions of deaths compared to what alternative? The difficulty with attributing causes in history is that we have no ability to conduct controlled experiments.
- "Listen, the Crusades seemed bad, sure. And the Mongolian hordes did kill a lot of people. And maybe the globe spanning feudal industrialization of Victorian Era England leading headlong into a pair of World Wars decimated whole continents. But hear me out. Maybe coulda been worse?"
- That is the question best asked I suppose.

socialize the costs, privatize the rewards

Confused British noises

The Supremos: on second thought, let's have a King after all.

In contrast to a monarchy, where people cannot choose their leader, in capitalism people can choose from which company they buy, or even create their own.

As another person already pointed out, these are obviously two different categories.

The question then is, why do people choose the way they do, both when buying and when running a company? To me it seems, they don't because of some external pressure (like monarchy requires).

The point can be summed up as a question: Why don't people run (more) non-capitalist services and productions, and why don't they prefer them when looking to satisfy their demand?

These non-capitalist things exist, it's certainly possible. But as far as I know, they are all very niche. Like a communal kitchen, some solidary agriculture or housing project. Heck, entire villages of this kind exist.

So the alternative is there, but it requires actual commitment and work. I don't see how capitalism could be abolished in an armed uprising (in contrast to monarchy). But it can be replaced by alternative projects. Partially. Why are they so small and few?

♫ monopoly duopoly oligopoly cartel ♫
♪ anti-trust, pork barrel, propaganda lobbying ♪
♫ economies of scale, information asymmetry, regulatory capture and personal responsibility ♫
♪ unions, pinkertons, labor theory of value and the CIA ♪
♫ rent seeking, georgism, tax incentive, scarcity ♫
♪ free trade, minimum wage, petrodollar and the MIC ♪
♫ we didn't start the fire, it was always burning since the world's been turning ♫
_provided _as _is, _no _warranty _in _regard _to _serving _any _particular _rhyme _or _meter, _express _or _implied, _consult _a _licensed _physician _before _attempting _to _sing _along
This is my personal opinion without any real evidence than my experience and knowledge of what I read somewhere:
People are stupid and lazy mostly. The education is going down for most industrial countries. Changing habits is stressful and avoided if possible.
Manipulation works. Media and advertisements successfully change people behaviour without them noticing. If you put enough money into a campaign people think they are responsible for your co2 emissions.
As long as you don't drive people too fast and too deep into an existential crisis they will tolerate a lot!
The system is rigged. People who are honest and social are pushed down. While greedy and lying people are being pushed on top.
- Why are people stupid and lazy? Is this a new thing? Why are conditions worsening?
  Correct.
  Correct.
  Kinda vibes-based but strikes the target. It's less that lying is encouraged, but that profit drives the system and money greases its wheels. Follow the dollar.
The question then is, why do people choose the way they do, both when buying and when running a company? To me it seems, they don't because of some external pressure (like monarchy requires).
The ideas that people have are shaped by their Material Conditions, and people generally act in their best interests. People will buy what is available in the market, and Capitalists work to accumulate more and more money in an M-C-M' circuit.
The point can be summed up as a question: Why don't people run (more) non-capitalist services and productions, and why don't they prefer them when looking to satisfy their demand?
These are 2 questions.
People generally don't run Socialist services as frequently because in the framework of Capitalism, it is excessively difficult to gain the Capital necessary to start one, and furthermore the people with access to Capital continue to act in their own interests and accumulate more profit off of ownership.
People do not care where their commodities come from, largely, as they work for their income and thus their access is limited by the money they have.
These non-capitalist things exist, it's certainly possible. But as far as I know, they are all very niche. Like a communal kitchen, some solidary agriculture or housing project. Heck, entire villages of this kind exist.
This is known as Mutual Aid, which is a big cornerstone of Anarchism. The issue is that Anarchism generally relies on individuals making the right decisions due to their horizontal structures and has issues with scaling horizontally. These structures tend to have great success locally, such as Food Not Bombs feeding people, but without strong organization scaling becomes difficult and action becomes unfocused.
So the alternative is there, but it requires actual commitment and work. I don't see how capitalism could be abolished in an armed uprising (in contrast to monarchy). But it can be replaced by alternative projects. Partially. Why are they so small and few?
Why don't you think Capitalism could be abolished via revolution? It's been done before.
Secondly, it is not simply capable of being replaced entirely via parallel systems because that depends on individuals outcompeting the immense resources of the Bourgeoisie. It's certainly possible at a local level, but at a state level takes enourmous power and unity.

We agree that the current situation won't change itself, and change to this system from inside of it would likely be stifled and repressed.

I agree that we need to keep trying to find a better way, because there are many people are will certainly keep trying to make things worse for us.

The first step is a better way to communicate between ourselves about what we want, why we want it, and how to enact our intentions.

With the advent and use of the internet we now have the possibility for a new way to organize our collective wants.

This system, which I call a consensus engine, would let us as a species make long term goals and work towards their fruition. Without some way to communicate that is less sustainable to misinformation I don't see any way we can get out of this into something better.

Now everyone can understand why Twitter is being dismantled
#Metoo ruffled some feathers
You've described liberal democracy. The combination of individual freedom plus democracy is supposed to provide a framework for curating precisely the kind of political agency you describe.
- They've described the opposite. A collective, grassroots, democratic institution in which people can freely discuss their thoughts and political opinions and direct the policy of their country in that way, is less reminiscent of top-down political parties with representatives voted every 4 years as in liberal democracy, and more reminiscent of worker democracy or direct democracy as anarchists or communists defend.

I read an interesting take on some site and it said that we are leaving Capitalism for Feudalism where the kings are now big Companies.

Kind of. American Proletarians have a unique position of enjoying the benefits of a super-exploited class of domestic immigrants paid lower wages via threat of deportation, and Imperialistic hegemony, but are also enslaved by vast amounts of debt. This is very different from standard Capitalism, but not quite feudalism. It depresses the revolutionary potential of the American Proletariat for as long as Imperialism is the status quo.

There are still plenty of kings in the world.

If old man Charles starts talking shit about divine right they'll put him in a home and replace him with another inbred fuck in like a month
- There are also kings in the Middle East, and all over Asia and Africa.
  I'm sorry to be a wet rag but the comic is simply innacurate.

SCOTUS got you covered, fam. The new King-Maker ruling by the regressives should get us back there in no time flat!

My favourite author. LeGuin, that is.

I mean that's the rub right? Enlightenment liberalism clawed its way out of the corpse of feudalism. Marx assumed communism would do the same thing to the corpse of capitalism. So far he's just been wrong, at least in terms of the revolutionary/vanguardism model. That's why there's been an entire century of revision to that model to incorporate more democratic forward values. It's just you average internet leftist refuses to acknowledge this, because the fan service isn't as good.

That's why there's been an entire century of revision to that model to incorporate more democratic forward values
How is a representative election every 4 years in a system where mass media are owned by the capitalist class more democratic than the ideas of Marx? The Soviet Union started out as the name implies, as a union of republics in which soviets, or worker councils, had the decision power. The fact that international interference and civil war (such as 14 countries invading the USSR militarily and many more sponsoring the tsarist loyalists or the anti-revolutionary Mensheviks) didn't allow for a high degree of work democracy without extreme risk to the stability or the country, has more to do with the material and historical conditions of the USSR than it has to do with the ideas of Marx and Lenin.
Part of the problem is that, while Marx writes well regarding the economic flaws of capitalism, he isn't as good at writing about the politics of change.
When induced by the body politic, we see that some of the economic surplus can be reallocated to the workers provided there is political pressure. It can come in the form of state backed rights, progressive taxation, and even direct welfare payments.
It probably isn't the perfect system Marx envisioned, but enlightened liberalism is able to make subtle shifts over time in a way that absolute monarchies can't.
- Your comment portrays a lack of reading of Marxist literature. Lenin, as far back as 1916, talks about this surplus being reallocated to workers through political pressure. He describes the leftists who pursue this as "opportunist socialists", and explains why this is only possible in imperialist countries which exploit the resources and labor of other countries. It's why basically all socialist revolutions have taken place in less developed countries, whether it be democratically like Chile under Allende or Spain and its second republic and Iran under Mosaddegh, or a coup as happened in Libya, or a bloody revolution as in the USSR or Cuba.
- What problems are there with the solutions he gives? Welfare Capitalism solves none of the problems with Capitalism Marx describes.
In what manner has Marx been wrong? Where in the history of Marxism has democracy not been core to the central ideas of it, especially when compared to Capitalism?

the bottom picture would look pretty cool in a shaun video

The quote is correct, but as I recall the divine right didn't end because the people cried out for freedom. Royalty was replaced by governments of the nobility or military, neither of which are necessarily better for the people.

And how did such replacement happen? It wasn't out of nowhere but after a lot of turmoil, uprisings, and guillotines. The point being, there's people outcries, prostest, and so on. I'm not endorsing violence, but we can't just ignore that there was a process in-between. That's the whole point of the quote, is up to grassroots movement to try and find a way to open a crack and then make it grow...
- I might be endorsing violence this time. You can't always make nice with a bully. We've given them plenty of chances to stop kicking over our sandcastles
- I don't see how anyone can look at 99.9% of history and not endorse violence.

I saw panel 2 and only saw a sales funnel, am I broken? ;)

At least you saw a funnel.

I don't really fit in that well here at times because I don't consider Capitalism as having anything to do with governance. Capitalism is a market system that uses competition to drive efficiency of creation of satisfaction of needs and luxuries both. If your democratic system of laws is being leveraged by highly efficient non-state entities, then you should really fix that shit, but fixing it doesn't require abolishing private property nor would that end corruption.

Who wants to abolish private property? You don't need capitalism to have private property.
- Some users on here use Capitalism as an opposite term to Communism.
- I want to abolish private property, as in "private ownership of the means of production". I don't want to abolish personal property such as your house or your toothbrush, neither does anyone, which is proven by the home ownership rates in communist or post-communist countries hovering or being above 90%, compared to the sad 50% of Germany and slightly higher values in the US or UK.
- Ok, any other historical solutions that have worked?
  Most of Europe has phenomenal education and happiness rates with low crime rates despite the massive impoverished refugee camps they've taken in out of goodwill. If competent legislative reform and regulation doesn't work then businesses wouldn't be fighting tooth and nail to stop it. Better question: When has that other option ever worked?
  It doesn’t “use” competition, competition is sometimes a condition, but capitalism works actively against competition.
  And the absolute authority of the state to seize any and all assets, allocate all resources wherever they see fit, works actively against competition to a much higher degree, among the many other reasons not to do that. For an example look at Chinese housing infrastructure: everybody was built a home, massive complexes paid for by the public by lowest bidders and people with connections rather than by developers and contractors. The problem is the homes weren't built in the places those people live and work, so there is a massive homelessness problem in China and many housing units have sat vacant since they were built. And the amount of blood sacrificed to build this ineffective system under Mao was astronomical.
  And that's a controversial take. I could have brought up the USSR.

I do think that every cultures political system is structured the way that it is for a reason. Based off the history and experiences of the peoples of that country.

This comic would slap harder if not for the Supreme Court under christofascist influence from the belief in the divine right of kings having today ruled that Presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts.

That whole divine king thing isn't nearly as dead as the last panel would like to portray it.

Read Marx, everyone.

Sure, but if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow

If you don't open or shift the overton window, no change is possible.

You can always move to North Korea and enjoy communism!

You can always move to Senegal and enjoy capitalism!

The whole point of capitalism (unintentionally?) is to make everything so efficient that there no longer is a reason to have profit.

The point of capitalism is that the aristocracy hated the idea of having to work for their money, like the rest of us. So, they came up with a system so brilliant that the rest of the population had to be starved, dispossessed of their land, branded, imprisoned whipped and sent to workhouses until centuries of generational trauma knocked the fight out of them.
It was never about utopian efficiency, although it is touted to be the benefit now. The problem is, people don't realise that the "inefficiency" they look to do away with is all the people below the top having more than just enough to live on. We have nations of workers who have been convinced that they should run their countries as if they were shareholders of it.
And they call socialists utopians.
the point of capitalism is to make it so that there's no longer a reason to have profit.
That's gotta be the stupidest take I've seen in the whole 28 days I've been in Lemmy, congratulations. The whole point of capitalism is the revalorization of capital, i.e., a capitalist owner having $1mn, and investing it into a company or finance or housing to turn it into more than $1mn. In what universe is the objective of capitalism to eliminate profit?????? It's the polar opposite...
- People are greedy and given tools that make it easier and easier to start more and more types of business, profit margins will continue to get thinner and thinner as competition increases to keep portfolios growing.
  Standards of living will continue to rise(average over time as it always has) as the amount of human labor hours needed to maintain the standard continues to drop. Fully automated food production is not that far away. When that happens there will be a large incentive for more and more business startups as food producers with very low cost and very low profit margin. Competition will keep prices extremely low to the point that individuals may be able to produce their own food as the process gets cheaper and more efficient.