I don't disagree, but the answer to this, which is a topic often discussed in leftist movements in the U.S., is degrowth in western imperialist countries. There's so much waste and redundant product produced under capitalism that can be trimmed to eliminate our reliance on imperialism and exploitation of the global south without really impacting the quality of life of the average citizen all that much. Even if it does mean a leaner existence for some period of time, I do think a global collapse of capitalism and arising of some kind of international socialist movement would inevitably lead to a higher quality of life for everyone in the long term.
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Serious The Politics Thread
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I don't disagree, but the answer to this, which is a topic often discussed in leftist movements in the U.S., is degrowth in western imperialist countries. There's so much waste and redundant product produced under capitalism that can be trimmed to eliminate our reliance on imperialism and exploitation of the global south without really impacting the quality of life of the average citizen all that much. Even if it does mean a leaner existence for some period of time, I do think a global collapse of capitalism and arising of some kind of international socialist movement would inevitably lead to a higher quality of life for everyone in the long term.
This is 100%, but we do have to face that some products just wouldn't be easy to buy goods that you can grab in a supermarket anymore. The way they are accessible is from poor workers, insane shipping routes, disenfranchised countries and massive carbon footprints. Bananas, tropical fruits, chocolate, avocados, all of these would disappear from the "extremely easy to buy" reach of an american.
It sounds silly and stupid, but there's a rejection of the idea that "communism isn't just capitalism but things are free" when it comes to what you have access to, and that you would lose certain options due to how unsustainable they are to maintain in large scale. I gave food examples because they're much easier to give track, but technology would also be affected. Americans live in excess and luxury, even down to the poorest class (compare a poor american to a poor brazilian or a poor angolan), and while we can cut a lot of the fat with no penalties to anyone that isnt overly rich, we will have to give up certain things, even if temporarily
yea i agree with this description/analysis, i just dont think 'being an actual real party that does shit' was rly on the table, people j were hoping that it would be. the core of the democratic party are tied to the politics of their right wing wealthy donor base, and they understand and accept their role of trying to appear progressive while maintaining the status quo. (not negating that there are some on the margins of the party who may not fall within this description)
every pres campaign they try to do some symbolic reaching out to more progressive dems. even if the party were using better 'messaging' in the examples u give, still wouldnt rly change the fact that it is just an image for the campaign and is not intended to correspond to actual policy afterward if they do win.
i dont doubt that there are reactionary aides and advisors influencing the 'messaging' to be even further to the right
Honestly at this point idk what dishearts me more in these current times. Israel-Palestine has been talked ad nauseam in this thread, the industrialized world is descending towards fascism and putting minorities into the chopping block again for problems they're not responsible for or often are made up propaganda nonsense in the first place. And as if it wasn't terrible enough some of the worst conflicts/wars in the last few years like the war between Ethiopia government and Tigray and the terrible civil war going on in Sudan (which is described as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world currently by humanitarian aid organisations with rough estimations counting 150k dead people after 1.5 years) barely get any attention whatsoever, which says more about US the rest of this world than Africa.
Getting to hear and read these things makes it hard for me sometimes to not just go full into doomer mode and sometimes i try to not hear or read news as much as possible just to keep my sanity and live my everyday life as best as i can and enjoy time together with people i care about since there might be not much time left i can continue to do so.
Sorry if this isn't on-topic much with current discussion, but i just needed to ramble right now and get these words in my mind across.
Getting to hear and read these things makes it hard for me sometimes to not just go full into doomer mode and sometimes i try to not hear or read news as much as possible just to keep my sanity and live my everyday life as best as i can and enjoy time together with people i care about since there might be not much time left i can continue to do so.
Sorry if this isn't on-topic much with current discussion, but i just needed to ramble right now and get these words in my mind across.
America is very unlikely to change in any dramatic way without a major crisis in the same vein as the Great Depression. Most Americans these days have not and do not face "great hardship," even the poorest parts of the American landscape have access to more resources than most are probably consciously aware of (electricity, heat/ac, foodbanks, technology, etc). A major class uprising is extremely unlikely to ever happen despite the growing "eat the rich" rhetoric present in American discourse; almost all of this would be sated by an even moderate increase in the taxes on the ultra-wealthy.
Americans are extremely complacent and believe strongly in incremental change. I can only imagine how frustrating this is for those impacted by the greater American imperialist complex directly and how they would love to see it uprooted, but Americans by and large play nice and will continue to do so unless they are extremely and deeply affected materialistically and existentially.
Americans are extremely complacent and believe strongly in incremental change. I can only imagine how frustrating this is for those impacted by the greater American imperialist complex directly and how they would love to see it uprooted, but Americans by and large play nice and will continue to do so unless they are extremely and deeply affected materialistically and existentially.
This will probably be controversial but whatever. The right is more organized than the left in the usa, They've already tried to overthrow the government once and you can bet your ass they'll try to do it again. The left is too afraid to take a step forward and fight if need be to restore order instead choosing the pacifist route which clearly hasn't helped anything. We can risk getting a little violent against the fascists that who'd be more than happy to erase us all but at what point that becomes a necessity is beyond me though i think we're getting dangerously close.
I don't think this has ever been debated like everywhere. Leftist infighting is a memed on thing for a reason :(
It’s clear that Donald Trump doesn't offer a substantial alternative for Israel beyond Biden's current ceasefire. In fact, during the debate, he shifted his focus to addressing Ukraine instead.
This is why I've previously said and will continue to say that conditions in the "developed world" (read: Euro-America) aren't revolutionary. Liberal capitalism has successfully provided its citizens with just enough material comfort and just enough feelings of agency that they don't mobilize in numbers sufficient to force fundamental change. Revolution is an intensely unappealing prospect because it necessitates enormous uncertainty: If you fail, you probably die, and success doesn't necessarily mean getting the system you want put in place. Consequently, material conditions have to be dire for revolution to be a serious prospect, and they just aren't dire enough in Euro-America. Barring a significant decline in material conditions (which may well happen in my lifetime), America's not getting toppled from within any time soon.
Americans need to shape up and start building the blocks for a revolution, because as tension rises and americas grasp on things become more tenuous, a revolution will happen anyway, and you won't get to decide what happens. We can talk about solidarity as individuals, but the truth is that there's very little reason major global south countries should have any solidarity to you, and a more violent reshaping of the global order will not spare americans who don't get in the wave quickly
ngl first time visiting this thread and the support for the collapse of capitalism in favor of socialism sounds like a great way to completely ruin the country
this radical and unfounded idea followed by a complete revolution of probably the most successful economic system we have seen in human history (has its faults ofc), is as damaging as people on the far right talking about the vaccines being fake because a few dumb scientist claimed so, or that hurricanes are caused by the government. there is a reason 90% of the academic field disagrees with u
Which is which in here? Not sure I can follow
seeing that 200 or so countries are operating under some form of free market right now, u should probably take the hint, unless all the academic consensus on this are just a big propaganda that fooled nearly every country in the world...kind of like the same logic no vaccine people use!
some socialist ideas are super cool tho, but they are way better off funded by tax money rather than some form of centrally planned economy that has never been pulled off successfully to the same extent the free market has done do
have you been paying attention? The country is already plenty ruined and it's been made that way by the economic system you think is so successful.
Many countries are capitalist because they're colonial projects of capitalist empires, have been invaded and couped by these same empires, or were embargoed, sanctioned and/or bombed until they folded to the current world order. I recommend reading books such as open veins of latin america and of course karl marx's work, but also engels.
true to some extent? but also there are probably 80+ examples of countries going towards capitalism independently, because it just the more effective system, especially for poorer countries that rely on global trade
there is only so much u can use this boogieman for of big countries forcing this economic system down the throat of smaller countries, when so many others willingly chose it. Again the core of my point was capitalism vs socialism. im aware both have their problems, but one happens to actually thrive, while the other continuously fails over and over and over and over and over again. in before u blame every socialist country failing because of US interference
U can talk about a specific fault of capitalism, but unless you bring up relevant solutions that socialism brings up for that problem, while addressing all the other negatives as well that comes with overhauling the whole system, this is all just fairy tale talk. (hence why the vast vast majority of economist clown on this idea)
im aware marx made some excellent critics of capitalism, but feel free to read one of the hundreds of papers or books that talk about why a centrally planned economy is just not a very good idea, with concrete real world examples
Capitalism failing in some aspect does not mean that u have to now go to the complete opposite end of the spectrum, its ridiculous naive and honestly one privileged ahh take
Poorer countries are exploited by capitalism, forced to sell brute material to enrich the global north, which in trade sell refined goods at much higher rates and will force governments to not develop their own industries. Look at how europe and the us are scrambling to get chinese cars away from their markets: china is a rising power from the global south which they no longer can chain, and they're doing desperate measures to keep it a bay to maintain hegemony.
It's always funny when people bring up this point. "Ummm you can't argue something that happened, and the US has admitted they've done because uuum it makes you a stupid poopoo head. So it's invalid!!!!"
Sorry that you live in a fantasy world I guess, but the war against communism is very well documented, from the embargos in cuba to the complete shutdown of the ussr to participate in the global economy.
Economists are pretty much worthless to me. They are beholden to capital and are as biased as a bishop who says all other religions are fake and only christianism works. They are more interesting as a showcase of what capital favors and what narratives they want to input, since they're a microcosm of that.
I promise you have infinite more privileges that I have, considering you think capitalism is so good lmao
Not exactly in the mood to response to the rest of this post right now, but since this part was relevant news for my country Germany...
It's in fact a desperate and foolish EU parliament decision who are implementing EU-wide higher import taxes for chinese cars (35% iirc). The car industry of Germany sees these desperate taxes as terrible and a boomerang (aka against their interests) which will make it even harder on them in chinese / east asia regions carmarkets, which is infinitely more important to them because of its growth potential (at least short-midterm) than chinese electric cars potentially flooding the european car markets. This is why at least my home country Germany voted against these new nonsense taxes that are supposedly to "safeguard" EU car-industry. Italy & France not sure, since their car companies basically have no presence in China anyway.
Haven't really followed USA on this at all, but since USA car industry is less reliant on exports than Germany and their car industry i can see that such measures may be more to that countrys car industry interests (or at least Elon Musks and Teslas) than EUs nonsensical decision that at best delays China from taking over european market anyways since they are so far ahead in the race of delevoping mass compatible electric cars.
The spiral of conflicts of interest with this whole car tax thing has been fascinating to watch. It feels like trying to put a bandaid over glass that's about to crack. There has been backlash with non-brazilian brands in brazil and fears of "breaking the market", but cars here are getting more and more expensive, so truth being told that bubble was going to pop soon, with or without china.
the same way how u socialists are quick to hand wave every single failed socialist attempt because the way it was executed was poor or the government was corrupt, u fail to see that u urself use the exact same critic for capitalism
BUT i assume u gonna argue that the state and the economy align hand in hand, so any bad or immoral action from the government is also a fault of capitalism (never with socialism tho, especially the authoritarianism :)). even tho the premise is p bullshit, i can play along with this
bigger countries have been "abusing" smaller countries for cheap resources far before capitalism even existed. its just an unfortunate reality of the world at this point, but these modern "exploitations" at least help the middle class in those countries. feel free to look up all the socialist African countries (like 6-8 countries from 70s to 90s) and compare their terrible economies the second they dropped their mid ahh system, and started to get "exploited" by richer countries. Again it is not ideal, but there is no comparison between the system when the conversation is about whether or not socialism would be better for the world. it is an excellent critic of capitalism and a profit driven system tho
also the usa vs china is far more complicated than just capitalism, its just about national interest for their own industries vs a big rival. but ig in ur mind every bad global economic conflict are cause of capitalism. wait until u realize these stuff have been happening in old egypt and greek as well, without any capitalism. who knew countries would want to protect their own industries vs rivals, regardless of the economic system!
the point i was tryna make is that there are plenty of reasons besides some US interference that caused the failure of every socialist country in human existance. I just know socialist like to hand wave everything to america bad or etc, and not acknowledge the simple failure and inefficenes of a centralized economy, which the ussr u talk about was heavily damaged by
yes im aware. academics who spend decades in the field with 10000x more knowledge than u are all just victims of the system and they dont know any better, or bias for the system because those professors want that money or etc etc and etc.
exact same line of logic as an anti vaxxer would use or a climate change denier. going against the academic consensus only makes sense when its about something i care about heh. different sides of the same coin
war against communism was a thing, but also genuine critics of it were also a thing, and has been a thing for a couple decades now without the need of any propaganda. do u know why? because socialism just never works the moment u talk about anything specific, even as small as how a workplace would look
also ye, when ur rooting for an revolution that can have devastating effects for the entire country, for an economic system that has been thoroughly criticized in hundreds of papers and books, by nearly every prominent economist, blatantly going against the academic consensus, and ignore EVERY huge failure whenever it has been implemented in every other country, and having all the reasons for its failure but the core issues that u probably dont even understand, this is about as privileged as it gets
I dont see socialist any different from people who deny climate change or dont believe in vaccines.
Who let the liberals back into this thread lmao.
"Economists from western liberal capitalist countries who literally get paid to do western liberal capitalism say western liberal capitalism is the best system and socialists are stinky and dumb" is not the own you think it is, and all your posts actually show is a fundamental lack of understanding of both socialism and economics broadly.
Anyways I enjoyed the adult conversation we were having before that guy interjected.
"Economists from western liberal capitalist countries who literally get paid to do western liberal capitalism say western liberal capitalism is the best system and socialists are stinky and dumb" is not the own you think it is, and all your posts actually show is a fundamental lack of understanding of both socialism and economics broadly.
Anyways I enjoyed the adult conversation we were having before that guy interjected.
Germany, could you please like - stop being wrong on genocide - just once? Please?
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/...weapons-to-israel-chancellor-scholz-announces
When France and now Spain, two of your closest allies, are physically carrying out and calling for an arms embargo, you doing the exact opposite thing is not the show of support for Israel that you think it is. What you’re doing is enabling genocide.
How can Germany, with the history it has, be so goddamn wrong on Israel so consistently in the last year? My mind boggles.
The German people, like the rest of the world, are actually more pro Palestine currently according to polls, but they’re also receiving some of the most brutal crackdowns in law enforcement too:
https://hyphenonline.com/2024/10/04...e-protest-free-speech-police-arrest-violence/
Like come on Germany. I get the mass guilt over the history of the holocaust, but guilt of enabling one genocide is being used to justify the enacting of another genocide.
Western governments are absolutely complicit in this across the board, the general public across western countries across the board with few exceptions like Hungary (who have gone very far right in recent years) are for the Palestinian cause and increasingly speaking out.
Which means increasing levels of policing and police brutality.
Except in the UK where I have been surprised, time and again, by the police’s handling of the Palestinian protests here. They have been pretty exceptional throughout actually, with very few arrests overall.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/...weapons-to-israel-chancellor-scholz-announces
When France and now Spain, two of your closest allies, are physically carrying out and calling for an arms embargo, you doing the exact opposite thing is not the show of support for Israel that you think it is. What you’re doing is enabling genocide.
How can Germany, with the history it has, be so goddamn wrong on Israel so consistently in the last year? My mind boggles.
The German people, like the rest of the world, are actually more pro Palestine currently according to polls, but they’re also receiving some of the most brutal crackdowns in law enforcement too:
https://hyphenonline.com/2024/10/04...e-protest-free-speech-police-arrest-violence/
Like come on Germany. I get the mass guilt over the history of the holocaust, but guilt of enabling one genocide is being used to justify the enacting of another genocide.
Western governments are absolutely complicit in this across the board, the general public across western countries across the board with few exceptions like Hungary (who have gone very far right in recent years) are for the Palestinian cause and increasingly speaking out.
Which means increasing levels of policing and police brutality.
Except in the UK where I have been surprised, time and again, by the police’s handling of the Palestinian protests here. They have been pretty exceptional throughout actually, with very few arrests overall.
it's not a big propaganda, but instead a field of science that operates on assumptions made hundreds of years ago that either were never proven or are unprovable, which exclusively rewards "scientists" that propagate the needs and wants of their sponsors
I don't think socialism or communism could work and I think that a free market isn't neccessarily bad, but the way it's done now is unsustainable in every meaning of the word and just doesn't work anymore for most of the population at this point. And even the definition "free market" is questionable when it's exclusively determined by Blackrock and associates and couple of rich people
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