The average American doesn't know what capitalism, socialism, communism, or fascism means. They don't know what representative democracy means. They don't know what first past the post means. They don't even know that they have an electoral college let alone its role. The 3 branches of government are largely a mystery. And most Americans are under some kind of impression that the POTUS is some kind of benevolent dictator.
I'm not surprised that someone on twitter thinks capitalism solves poverty.
I find it confusing why you put that in quotes, then suggest it's not necessarily their opinion, but following it up by implying that was the implied statement.
The guy just said American political literacy is embarrassingly lacking, which is far worse than what is needed for a functional democracy. Which has nothing to do with your "interpretation"
Actually, I think it's a system which uses a medium of exchange to facilitate trade, e.g. capital. As opposed to a barter system. You can have a capitalist system without a free market. I think you could even have a communist system which uses capital to assign value, technically.
Yes, it was very clear (native speaker here). Something like this is more commonly spoken than written, so I can see why it might be confusing. If your experiencing with English is more formal (via education, reading, etc) vs talking to a whole bunch of different people, that would explain it.
I’m a native English speaker and had no issue… but I come across (or hear) contractions like “ain’t” often enough that it barely registers as being non-standard… just much less formal, really. Some punctuation might’ve helped you here.
It's so, so sad that none of them, or the FBI, has had to pay for their crimes. Not to mention all the other murders the US has committed around the globe. The people who planned and carried out these murders haven't paid for them in the slightest.
Why not? Capitalism is private control over the factors of production - it's not "equal freedom" or anything like that. The American South was capitalist during chattel slavery.
I mean, it gives deference to rich people, but when it was legal to discriminate against POC, they had a massive disadvantage in pretty much every aspect of their lives. Not perfect, but much improved now...
Africans enslaved and sold other Africans by the millions for centuries before white people arrived on the continent. Though they certainly made it worse when they did.
People enslaved their opponents in war for essentially as long as humans have existed, until we decided slavery was an evil we should avoid. However, this was not generally chattel slavery. Usually their offspring were not slaves and they were not bread to create more slaves, like livestock.
I'm not sure you have enough of a historical framework on population to make the claim you're mindlessly repeating, but I appreciate that you "people" out yourselves so readily so normal humans can avoid you. Good luck on truth social or Facebook or x I guess.
In 1800, 80% of the world lived in extreme poverty. Now it's under 10%.
Fact is, the vast majority of the so-called "exploit[ed]masses" rose out of poverty over the same period of time that capitalism established itself as the primary economic system the world over.
So who were they all exploiting, to get out of poverty? Each other?
"Black capitalism" is historically the approach of some African American* communities and individuals to resist racial oppression by embracing capitalism and out-competing whites in it, essentially. This met its most famous manifestation in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which developed a wealthy black capitalist class, but neighboring white towns got mad at this and basically leveled a good portion of the town and killed many people. For reasons beyond me, some liberals hold up Tulsa as some wonderful thing and proof that black people should just be more engaged in capitalism, and they ignore how the experiment ended.
The most famous "black capitalism" proponent is the Jamaican-born American Marcus Garvey, who some Rastafarians worship as a prophet. To poison the well immediately, he was supported by the KKK in his projects to send African Americans "back to" Africa, because their ideologies and aims of ethnonationalism broadly aligned.
*It's mostly an American thing, but it's not exclusively an American thing by any means
For reasons beyond me, some liberals hold up Tulsa as some wonderful thing and proof that black people should just be more engaged in capitalism, and they ignore how the experiment ended.
The easy answer is that racism destroyed Tulsa, not capitalism. Were it not for racist fucks, that experiment would have worked wonderfully. But that's a tale as old as time, unfortunately.
So.. corporate collusion between black businesses owners? I suppose that would equalize the market a bit if they do manage to kick down corps like amazon
Except that is simply not true. Capitalism is far more recent that racism, unless of course you define capitalism as just "everything bad". Racism exist because of tribalism and collectivism, capitalism is a recent individualist system- and individualism amongst governments is fairly recent.
Indeed brains are real and we are really fucking good at making the consequences of said brain's beliefs just as real. But, recognizing that things such as race have absolutely no scientific, empirical basis whatsoever is kinda a really important step in repairing the racist damage that we've done. Race is only useful in sociology as long as we continue to pretend it exists, otherwise it serves no purpose other than as an excuse to hate each other.
Capitalism or socialism or anything else is irrelevant when most people are dumb, easy to manipulate and ready to harm others. There will always be someone willing to be a leader of these people, harming others to gain something.
I mean, it helped bolster rationale for enslaving black people. It's fair to say that capitalism tips the scales, steals your car, and then runs over your neighbor before disappearing with your spouse and your dog/cat.
It didn't just bolster the rationale for enslaving black people, it largely executed the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Those boats weren't publicaly owned, and neither were the captured slaves, the slavers were entrepreneurs and their employees doing business.
No, most of the world is capitalist, and most of the world is poor. Only a minority of imperialist capitalist countries, primarily in europe and the US, have wealthier populations due to hundreds of years of colonial exploitation.
In fact world poverty is increasing, if we exclude China and it's poverty eradication efforts.
If you're comparing things to what existed before capitalism was coined, sure. Yeah, we're doing better than literal fudalism, which was still a capital and hierarchy based system. No one is asking for a return to fudalism though! It very easy to say "we're doing better than them so we need not try to improve." It's not helping anyone though, except those who benefit from maintaining the status quo.
Doesn't matter when the cost of living is outpacing wages, the poverty line is held artificially low and the wealth gap is growing absurdly fast. Material conditions are getting significantly worse, and telling people "uhm actually the poverty rate is lower" doesn't help people pay rent or put food on the table.
Feudalism is alive and well and it's name is capitalism, and I'm not alluding to some vague comparison I mean it literally. Farmers in the US specifically are increasingly working land they do not own because it's bought up by investors and private equity. Bill Gates owns a fuck ton of farmland but he sure as hell isn't working it.