It's a simple world view

And most of the time you'd be right.

I wouldn't say all problems are because of capitalism. I do believe that most of the problems I face are exacerbated by capitalism.

Average Lemmy user
- Neither of those are what leftists say. Capitalism doesn't work because of the structure itself, you have problems like the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, and the inherent exploitation within. You cannot have Capitalism without exploitation, and you can't have Capitalism with democratization of production, even if you had a perfectly selfless Capitalist, it still wouldn't be democratic and would still have the same structural issues.
  Similarly, Communism isn't "people working for the common good," it's people working to improve their own material conditions. Just because production is democratized doesn't mean it depends on people working for absolutely no reason.
  There are non-strawman arguments you could make, but this ain't it.
  
  "Capitalism does not work because people are selfish, and selfish people are incentivized to harm their fellow man by capitalist structures. Under socialism, selfish people will work toward the common good because working toward the common good is the easiest way to earn recognition and status"
  "People are selfish, and it is in 99 percent of peoples self interest to overthrow capitalism in order to improve their material conditions"
  
  I don't think most people are selfish to the point of it being harmful. I think the problem is that a small number of people are, and those are the people who are in charge of things, where their selfishness can do way more harm.
  As others have mentioned, though, a lot of behavior is heavily influenced by the incentive structures people live within. This can apply in very obvious ways: for example, when trying to get from point A to point B, people will use the mode of transportation that makes the most sense for that trip, which is heavily dependent on the infrastructure that exists between those two places, and that's why the Dutch will bike five miles, the Spanish will catch a train across the whole country, and people in Houston will drive across the street. It can also apply in more subtle ways, though, and that's where capitalism comes in. To pick one example, companies that are owned by their workers are more stable and better places to work than traditional privately owned or shareholder-owned companies, but it goes far deeper and gets far more complex than that, too.
  People are responsive to economic incentives. If the incentives favor doing good things, then good things happen. Otherwise, you get what we have now.
- aww, sounds like somebody misses reddit
- I wonder if this meme still applies to those who have fled communist countries?
  Its kind of ironic that Lemmy was created to take away centralized power, but the same people want to create a communistic society which will...centralize the power?
  
  It doesn't matter whether communism is good or bad, capitalism is still terrible.
  
  No. That's a wrong take.
  While Communism is a centralisation of power, it is also decentralisating the decision of what the power does.
  Ideally, Communism is like a democratic monopoly. However, in reality, communism has been abused to create a non-democratic monopoly. This is unfortunately very much like what capitalstic non-democratic monopolies do too - albeit more slowly.
  Lemmy, like other fediverse projects, is not challenging the democratic or non-democratic part of it. It's challenging the monopoly part.
  If we spread out the functional part of systems, nobody will be able to create a monopoly of power, neither through communism, capitalism nor democracy. This is because the power is not centralised at all.
  It's not anarchy or chaos though, because each party is capable of embracing or rejecting any other parties, based on their own choice of government. People who run fediverse servers can choose by votes or not which other parties to include or not. Some servers are democratic, others are not. Some might be communist, others might be fascists, but they're not a meaningful power without users, so it'll inevitably be up to the users to decide.
  
  Hey you may want to learn a thing or two about communism, because you seem very ignorant about it.
  
  Communism is, at first, Socialism. You're confusing Communism with Monarchism, or Oligarchy, when in reality Communism and Socialism are primarily about democratization and decentralization.
  Compare 2 factories.
  Factory 1 is Capitalist. It is owned by a businessman, and he employs workers to use said factory to produce commodities for sale on the market. The largest forms of voice the Workers have is Unionization, or, failing that, working somewhere else, if available.
  Factory 2 is Socialist. The Workers are the Owners, and as such elect a manager to represent them in worker councils.
  Looking at the 2 structures, Socialism is more democratic, and more decentralized, in theory. We must take this theory and see why or why not historical examples have measured up to this, from a practical, Materialist perspective. Tools aren't mystical, they don't corrupt the minds of those who share ownership of them.
  It's easy to see why Lemmy, a platform based on decentralization and a rejection of the Profit Motive, has far more leftists.
  
  As opposed to capitalism, which evenly distributes power and everyone gets a fair shot.
  
  Well yes and no. There are communist systems that centralize power (mostly to establish a system without it) but there are a lot of different ways to do it other than that. Anarcho Communism for example is the complete opposit which does not want to go the authoritarian way even short term. Because well that did not quite work out. Authoritarian states still are authoritarian states. And i myself dont like/want those ^^
  
  Communism is not dictatorship Capitalism is not democracy
  A lot of the people exiled from communist countries were the ones doing slavery and fucking over the working class max
  
  How about anarcho-syndicalism?
  
  I grew up in a communist country, and I absolutely feel this way. Next question.
  
  Everyone who upvoted the person before you, downvoted you.
  Perfectly balanced

Wherever there is a need there is potential for exploitation by greed. Of course capitalists without a leash are going to wreak havoc on everything.
- Capitalism by definition is about exploiting labor and extracting wealth. Commerce is the ethical application of purchasing goods and services.

Capitalism acts like a car hurtling down a highway with no brakes, powered by the roaring engine of industry.
Its insatiable thirst for growth and profits accelerates industrial activity to reckless speeds, steamrolling environmental concerns in its pursuit of relentless expansion.
Industry isn't the villain; it's merely the engine being pushed to its limits by capitalism's uncontrolled, destructive momentum.
- can people on lemmy stop being right for once? you guys are always on point, say the earth is flat or something lol

Funnily enough, capitalist do the same thing. See a problem? Apply capitalism
- I disagree and I'll explain why for $20
  
  $20? That's amateur stuff. Buy my $999 course and you'll learn from a master how to apply capitalism to problems!*
  *For legal reasons, note that I did not say "how to apply capitalism to solve problems"
  
  Do you acceot Monero?

Blaming everything on capitalism is oversimplistic and reductive, to be honest.
Climate collapse is a result of industrialization and not capitalism, to start. Unless you want to explain how Stalin and Mao were still burning coal.
- Whatever social economic model which can funnel power and authority to the very top is bond to ruin us. Humans are too greedy to sit at the top of such hierarchies.
  
  Yep, that's why decentralization is so important, and why leftist organizational structure ie decentralization and democratization of production is going to be so critical moving forward.
- Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution are inseparable from one another. The failure of 20th century Socialist states to adequately address green energy goals can be attributed to rapid industrialization to attempt to keep pace with Capitalist entities.
  Going forward, the reason why Green Energy isn't the standard in the US is due to oil companies, not efficiency. The profit motive stands in direct confrontation with the good of all.
  That's just Climate Change, too. Capitalism's failures of hierarchical and consumerist nature will exist as long as Capitalism exists.
  Not every problem is because of Capitalism, but many are, and at the end of the day this is just a meme.
- Besides what another commenter noted about indistrialization being product of capitalism and then fierce competition, here's one more thing:
  Do you see all those green activists buying reusable bags? Taking their bottles, recycling everything? Well, this has already been there in the past, and most notably - in socialist countries. Pretty much till its death USSR, for example, heavily favored reusable things, there just weren't plastic bags and plastic bottles and all that waste, and recycling, especially of glass and metal and paper, was a super normal thing and people got money/trade-in for that.
- What kind of f*cked up argument is that? I don't think the climate models were quite as advanced back then.
  They had no idea that influencing the global climate was even a possibility, so you can hardly judge the morality of their decision-making by how much CO2 they produced. Or do you want to blame them for not building enough solar panels as well?
  The problem with capitalism in this regard is not that it produced a lot of CO2 back in the days, but that it won't stop even after learning about the destructive effects.
  
  The USSR totally knew about climate change being a thing. Climate change is not a "new thing". Oil companies have known about it for almost a century now, they built their oil rigs to withstand rising sea levels for example.
  The USSR did know about it as well, at least since the sixties: https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_329370_smxx.pdf
  Fedorov’s article appears to be one of the earliest direct engagements with the problems associated with climate change and, more specifically, anthropogenic climate change in the Soviet Union. However, this theme received more concerted discussion and debate from the early 1960s. Two meetings of particular note took place in Leningrad in April 1961 and June 1962, both of which were organised by the Main Geophysical Observatory in tandem with the Institute of Applied Geophysics and the Institute of Geography and brought together a range of Soviet scientists, including geographers, in order to discuss the ‘problem of the transformation of the climate’ (see Gal’tsov, 1961; Gal’tsov and Cheplygina, 1962).
- whines about reductionist rhetoric, uses insanely reductionist example
  
  If that's how you feel, imagine how I feel every time you talk
- Capitalism provides incentives to externalize as many costs as possible (such as pollution), and incentivizes and cannot even function without growth (which leads to more resource usage and pollution). Just because the forms of government/society under Stalin and Mao were also bad for people, doesn't mean capitalism is not also bad for people.

And it's the root cause vast majority of the time.
- Not really
  
  yes really

Most times is Ronald Reagan, but yeah, capitalism in it's most exalted forms of exploitation is the reason.

The greatest crimes are caused by excess and not by necessity.

It's funny cause it's true.
- It's funny because it's the dominant system and any other proposed system would handle the respective situation worse on average but is highly situational. You get into arguments that devolved into, "well, there's massive starvation and war but at least we are all equal"
  
  You're expressing the notion of "capitalist realism" which is argued to be an effect of neoliberal ideaology. The idea that not only is capitalism the only viable solution, but you can't even imagine a viable alternative. There's a book of the same title that you'd probably get a lot out of since it might make you more critical of ideas you may have taken for granted, which is my personal favorite kind of book.
  
  On what grounds do you think that it's worse for Workers to democratically control production, rather than a class of owners?
  Do you think crops care about who shares ownership of them, and kill themselves if they are shared, rather than owned by 1 dude that employs other people to harvest it?
  
  Because capitalism has famously prevented mass starvation and warfare.
  Edit: Also communism has nothing to do with a vague notion of equality.

Republicans when trying to solve any problem anywhere:

Well, you're usually in the general vicinity of the root cause of any problem by that assumption.

99% of Lemmy, but unironically.

And here I was thinking it was religion
- It's definitely both. They also are both rooted in greed/control. Just come at us in different ways.

I am not that simple , some issues are due to my horrible mental health which is horrible for reasons which are not entirely caused by capitalism , I think

I hate how dated this is now

- Many people have problems related to income inequality. We went to college, got good jobs, and we still don't have enough money to maintain the lifestyle we were promised. We don't live in a socialist country, we live in a capitalist country.
- It's also clear that people who deny the extent to which capitalism actually makes the world worse either a) don't know what capitalism is, or b) are rent seekers

- No, in a real free market the banks would lobby to be bailed out. Removing even more regulation from it would result in more lobbying. Even with anti-corruption measures, without worker ownership or massive Unionization, eventually these protections will slide back once someone more opportunistic takes office.
  Worker Ownerhship and decentralization are the correct path, rather than antidemocratic Capitalist production.
- In a real free market companies will lobby the government to bail them out.

Me when I see any problem anywhere:
Overpopulation
- Overpopulated is bullshit corporations and the elite are selling you, so you can feel responsible for the world's problems, and you won't look at them and the massive exploration they are doing.
- Overpopulation is also because of capitalism to a large degree
  
  In the sense that it is fascist rhetoric sure.
  Overpopulation is a myth.

I'd encourage you to expand your worldview - a lot of problems we attribute to capitalism are mostly because of hierarchy.
- Not only capitalism entirely based on the hierarchy of ownership, but it also reinforces already existing social hierarchies as those in power receive more profits and capital, and thus more power and influence in a broader society. You cannot say hierarchy is bad and be pro capitalism. Leftist ideologies are ways to try to democratize the economy, which flattens hierarchy. Anarchism is inherently anti capitalist.
- Capitalism is fundamentally hierarchy established in property rights. Doing away with hierarchy does away with Capitalism. Unless, of course, you're arguing for Anarcho-Communism or something.
- Hierarchy is baked into capitalism. Your take is incorrect.
- This is the neuance. Could there be a fair form of capitalism? It depends upon the systems and the people that run them. Centralisation of ownership is the next step beyond the centralisation of power, because after a while they become intrinsically the same. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, absolute wealth corrupts absolutely.
  But also, the stock markets which can be beneficial are also forms of glorified gambling where the house always wins, the commodification of the housing market, the silly notion of shell and shelf companies (easiest, most effective way of side stepping regulations and laundering money), debt slavery, the price gouging of life saving medicine, the race to the bottom where costs, quality of product and salaries need to be cut, where the line between product and service becomes thinner for every day to the point where you retain less and less ownership by each year, which you can't really blame anyone for, because all of these systems are designed to be a constant, churning, soul killing rat race, turning the pace of life to a literally unlivable speeds, which also reveals that even the ones up in the hierarchy become degenerate with greed, mostly because they live so far up that their human brains can't fathom the effect they have down the chain, because it goes against their interests.
  Instead of then going on another witch hunt, we need to look at these systems and the effects they have on the human psyche.
  But hey, that's just my take.
  
  No there cannot be a fair form of capitalism because it is centered on exchange. You have to center your life on turning your time into a profit to afford the whole rest of society's product also sold at a profit, at its most basic level it is unsustainable.
  
  The word you're looking for is "commerce".
- I think so too. If there is hierarchy someone will abuse it. But i also think that capitalism creates structures of hierarchy in itself.
- Nah, the problems are due to capitalist economic relations and systemic pressures these relations create in society.
- Problems of hierarchy that we don’t have a solution for, unfortunately; and I say that honestly.
  No system of society I have ever seen proposed truly eliminates the issues of power hierarchy. Sometimes, they even make them worse.
  
  Wouldnt a communist society not have a hierarchy because its classless, moneyless and stateless
  
  Yes, we do. It's called anarchism. It's literally what it is for.