- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/19046336
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The reason capitalism leads to fascism is that inevitably capitalism will lead to untenable inequality. Injustice will be too great to ignore between the rich and the rest. This will lead to populism.
There are two forms of populism. One will seek to rectify the imbalances caused by capitalism. The other will seek to divert blame to minorities. If there were less blacks, immigrants, gays, Jews, etc. etc. then our society would not be in decay. One is much more useful to the Capitalist and so it will ultimately prevail. The capitalist will devote all resources to crushing the leftist populism up to and including directly funding fascism.
*unregulated undemocratic capitalism
Some might even call it ancap. Proto-fascism.
What does capitalism do when there is nothing left to take? It keeps taking
It goes keto and eats itself.
That’s called autophagy, not keto.
It’s not exclusive to it, but I used the term intentionally to point out the how the capitalists target the “fat” and also the “muscle” in the system to create very expensive ketones.
If you’re suggesting that a ketosis state doesn’t produce autophagy, maybe check your sources.
A ketosis state doesn’t produce autophagy, autophagy is a constant ongoing process in your body. Inanition is a better word.
You know very well that I was referring to the higher intensity of autophagy going on. Useless semantics bullshit. Enjoy being blocked.
- gets proved wrong
- blocks people
Yup just what I expected of the average Reddit refugee.
Not proved wrong.
I’m not wasting time with “but actually” memes.
If you’re not familiar with the keto fanbase, good for you, btw.
Line must go up and up! I work at a company that has been booming on the stock market, and the pressures for “line must go up always” don’t seem sustainable
We’re gonna find out as soon as AI, automation, and robotics are more cost efficient at performing most functions than humans.
My expectation is genocide/mass murder, as there are somewhere between 10-100x more people than the planets resources can sustain long term, at a developed world rate of consumption and the current level of technological efficiency/advancement.
Okay but how does AI/Automation/etc. cause a mass murder if the preoccupying assumption of automation is, quite literally, increase of technological efficiency and advancement?
That’s a classic one. All the money flows to the top. It leaves the majority of the population without jobs or money. If there are no serious welfare programs, people get very angry and hungry. Humanity is hardwired to start to revolt, riot and plunder in the face of large inequalities and with the astronomic levels it will be massive. The Hamptons and other places like it will be burned to the ground. It’ll be very ugly.
It seems like our only hope is that maybe the uber rich will decide that turning the world into a bloodbath just to max out their high score isn’t how they want to spend their time on Earth. I’m not optimistic on that front.
uber rich will decide that turning the world into a bloodbath just to max out their high score
That’s several chapters of my country’s history book summarized
Who do you think will control the kill bots? It’ll be the ultra wealthy who lead the remaining governments and corporations. Populations have historically revolted under severe economic stress, even when unemployment reaches 30-50%, and capitalism requires people receiving money in exchange for labor, so they can pay for goods and services; at a certain level of automation/unemployment that cyclical system shuts down. Robots don’t get paid, and they don’t buy goods or services.
When that happens the ultra wealthy will no longer have any need for the unemployed majority. They will have a means to suppress them (kill bots, wealth, political power), and numerous ecological/environmental reasons to cull the population down to a more manageable, sustainable size.
China is way ahead on this kind of automation.
Thing is…there is no real free market with proper competition, anyway. If there was such a thing, my groceries wouldn’t cost double now from what they were a mere five years ago (or quadruple, if looking at soda like Coke and Pepsi products). There is rampant collusion and price-fixing going on and not a damn government official seems to be doing anything about it. And yeah, the “but but the pandemic” excuse runs pretty thin as the years of this gouging continues.
The truth is, a real market is never actually truly competitive. In an unregulated market, competing firms always collude with each other to set prices and wages for the industry. “Free market” ideology is based on nonsense, they’ve proven this over and over.
In a free market, aren’t you free to collude with your competitors in order to fix prices?
In a Hayekian free market, yes. Most (all?) actual free markets prohibit cartels, though.
In an unregulated market
There’s no such thing. All markets are regulated. Even ones dominated by cartels. Markets do not meaningfully exist without regulation. The only question is how they’re regulated.
“Free market” ideology is based on nonsense, they’ve proven this over and over.
The theoretical model of the free market relies on perfectly rational actors acting on perfect information. If those are given, then resource allocation indeed is perfect.
Those conditions of course don’t exist in the real world, best we can do is to regulate away market failures to approach the theoretical ideal. That’s the kind of thing ordoliberalism argues for, and it can indeed work very well in practice. Random example: You want companies to use packaging with less environmental impact. You could have a packaging ministry that decides which company uses what packaging for what, creating tons of state bureaucracy – or you could say “producers, you’re now paying for the disposal of packaging yourself”. What previously was an externality for those companies suddenly appears on their balance sheet and they self-regulate to use way more cardboard, easily recyclable plastics, whatnot.
or you could say “producers, you’re now paying for the disposal of packaging yourself”
Definitely wouldn’t solve the problem as they’d just find the cheapest method of disposal to match the letter of the law and go about their day.
Corporations don’t self-regulate. They regulate the regulators. They work and then later buy the refs.
Definitely wouldn’t solve the problem as they’d just find the cheapest method of disposal to match the letter of the law and go about their day.
Those are illegal. Already were before. I’m not talking about a hypothetical, here, the policy is over 30 years old.
Corporations don’t self-regulate. They regulate the regulators. They work and then later buy the refs.
Yeah if they do that were you are then maybe elect better politicians. They sure as hell try it over here but it’s not nearly as much as an issue as e.g. in the US.
I dunno if I were in Germany I wouldn’t be so smug about electing politicians that prevent a slide into fascism.
Are you actually trying to make a point or did you simply want to be hostile.
My point is that it’s not as simple as setting “common sense” neoliberal rules when the corporations actively evade them. The problem in the US is also more complicated than you’re making it, here we need to basically redo a court which is full of people on lifetime appointments in order to roll back their ruling that political corruption is basically free speech.
The theoretical model of the free market relies on perfectly rational actors acting on perfect information. If those are given, then resource allocation indeed is perfect.
That’s not even remotely true. Natural monopolies exist because of how natural resources work, and oligopolies or undercutting of prices to destroy weak competition can happen with perfect knowledge by sellers and buyers.
weak competition can happen with perfect knowledge by sellers and buyers.
It can’t happen given perfect rationality as it’s not in the rational interest of the majority to allow a minority their monopolies.
It’s a fucking theoretical model. The maths check out, that’s not the issue the issue is that it’s theory, with very glaring limitations.
In the USA, the FTC is actually taking grocery store chains to court over collusion and price fixing, presumably will target specific brands once more data gets released via the court proceedings.
So there are government officials doing things about it, but nobody ever seems to give them any fucking credit and every few years we vote in new politicians who gut the agency.
This is news to me! You got a link to a credible source? I’d love to read it so I can hopefully change my opinion some.
EDIT>> Found it on my own, and it’s the FTC, not the FCC.
And this was posted one day ago, so I would think I could be forgiven for that :)(Seems it’s been in the works since March, at least) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/grocery-cost-inflation-investigation-b2594782.htmlThanks! That’s definitely more than I found. I didn’t know it goes back to March. Much appreciated.
Well you can find various FCC lawsuits going back decades but nobody ever talks about any of that stuff.
I think you mean FTC, but I’ll research to learn more. Thanks!
FTC oversees securities exchanges, primarily. Things like the stock market.
The best bureaucrat we have is Lina Khan and all the wealthy donors on both sides want her gone.
Is the pandemic really the main claimed reason in the US? Here in central Europe it seems that since February of 2022, all products have been coming exclusively from Ukraine, so that is why they just had to become more expensive you know…
That joke was good, but it’s old now. Everyone should understand that it was due to the peak of oil/gas prices due to the Ukraine war, that had cascade effects on the price of transportation, fertilizer, energy, groceries…which then compounded into general inflation with some price gouging too to keep it from going back as quickly.
If you want to keep that from happening again, gradually reduce your dependence on fossil fuels for your security, not just to “be green”.
Many businesses in the US still cling to that trope, yes. We all understood that it was to a be a temporary issue in 2020 and 2021, but businesses took that to mean they could just never drop their prices now that people were willing, at the time, to pay for it. I’m not talking luxury goods either, I’m talking about staples to maintain life, such as meat, vegetables, and even water prices have risen. This is untenable for many, many people.
By the nine divines… Why does it take libs 80 years extra to reach the conclusions that Marxists have already described in detail in the last century…
Most people who were paying attention to the world when 1929 happened and witnessed the consequences up to 1945 are dying now. The people who were paying attention to the world when 2008 happened haven’t seen how the story ends.
Oddly, 1929-1945 and 2008-2024 are the same distance apart. Were you trying to do that or is it just eerie coincidence?
eheh, I’m a pessimist, what can I say 😅
Mainly because we spent 80 years being told to snitch on our neighbors and that commies are the devil himself come to wipe the world clean of good moral people.
It’s still going to be a long time till Marx is given an objective position in western society, if ever.
because they live in a delusional fantasy world where belief in things corellates with warm fuzzy feelings more than congruence with material reality, “truth” is socially reinforced, and… shit, shit this reminds me of something.
He is not taking a Marxist position. Possibly agreeing with parts of the same analysis as Marx but definitely not the same prescription. Not every criticism of Capitalism is an endorsement of Marxism
He is not taking a Marxist position
Precisely that’s why it’s taken him 80 years longer than Marxists to reach that conclusion.
Not every criticism of Capitalism is an endorsement of Marxism
Which is why non-marxist anti-capitalist movements such as Salvador Allende’s socialism in Chile, or Mosaddegh’s Iran, inevitably fail within a few years due to the lack of understanding of class struggle and the history of capitalism.
I take it you have a Marxist state as a counter example showing it’s superiority and longevity?
USSR lasted much longer than Allende’s project, and Cuba is still ongoing
The question was superiority and longevity. Are you claiming those are both superior states as well?
The USSR and Cuba are much more desirable than the short-lived wannabe socialist regime that led to Pinochet’s dictatorship, yes, how do you not see this?
Thanks Reagan
*Milton Friedman
And every president since Reagan, including him.
Well of course it has, fascism is the end result of capitalism. Some would say it’s natural conclusion.
fascism is the end result of capitalism
I wonder what sort of echo chamber you must live in, in order to believe this
Late stage capitalism?
Fascist regimes generally came into existence in times of crisis, when economic elites, landowners and business owners feared that a revolution or uprising was imminent. Fascists allied themselves with the economic elites, promising to protect their social status and to suppress any potential socialist revolution.. Then Fascists allied themselves with the economic elites, promising to protect their social status and to suppress any potential socialist revolution. There’s more specifics here if you want them.
Fascist regimes generally came into existence in times of crisis
Too bad that modern capitalism produces wealth like no other system - the supposed resurgence of fascism never happened despite EU running capitalism for 79 years since the World War 2.
the supposed resurgence of fascism never happened
hahhahahahhahahahahhahahahhahahahahahhahaha
hahahahah ’ hahahahaha
hahaahahahahahahahahahaha
What a lemmy moment.
hahhahahahhahahahahhahahahhahahahahahhahaha
hahahahah ’ hahahahaha
hahaahahahahahahahahahaha
10/10 argument. You lost
Just to be clear, your argument was Checks notes “Too bad that modern capitalism produces wealth like no other system” had the proof “the supposed resurgence of fascism never happened despite EU running capitalism for 79 years since the World War 2.” was truly a masterclass.
It’s like you had this well thought out idea, and really just made sure everyone understood that yo-
sorry, hahahahhahaha i just cant, every time I read it I laugh again, hahahahah thank you so much this made my day.
Enjoy being ratio’d though, the view is incredible from up here.
You live in your own little world, aren’t you?
being ratio’d
By people as misguided as you.
Nah. This is all on you.
producesextracts wealthextracts wealth
Produces. Wealth comes from efficient allocation of resources - capitalist free markets are really good at it.
Efficiency under capitalism?
We waste tremendous amounts of food but people go hungry.
We produce absurd levels of clothing, much of which is destroyed and sent to landfills without being worn, but there are people who need it.
We have more houses than unhoused by a huge factor.
Capitalism optimizes for profit and profit only. Sometimes that leads to good outcomes, sometimes it leads to bad outcomes.
It’s not “efficient” in terms of taking care of people’s needs. It’s only efficient in terms of producing profits for the owner and investor classes.
We waste tremendous amounts of food but people go hungry.
This waste may look big in absolute numbers, but probably isn’t meaningful as percentage of total economy - we’re wealthy so many of us can afford to be a little wasteful.
Capitalism optimizes for profit and profit only. Sometimes that leads to good outcomes, sometimes it leads to bad outcomes.
Usually bad outcomes are the corner cases - I’m perfectly aware that they exist (harmful monopolies, CO2, ect.) But it’s the role of solid legal framework to deal with these issues.
On the other hand you have at best no idea what sort of pathologies can arise in alternatives to capitalism, and at worst it can be repeat of the of USSR or North Korea.
Oh my sweet summer child.
Yep, nothing inefficient about an intern commuting via plane from South Carolina to New York everyday because it’s much cheaper than living in New York. /s 🙄
Exactly, capitalist markets are really good at extracting resources from the land and labour from the people to make a profit, they just don’t know where to stop until it’s too late, unless they are regulated.
extracting resources from the land and labour
You’re trying to paint production in a negative way, while in reality competitive markets converge to most fair prices
Law of supply and demand dictates that too low wage will fail to attract workers, while too high wage will result in product that is too expensive and won’t attract customers willing to buy.
It’s a beautiful, self regulating communication network that pays well for stuff that is in demand and pays little for things nobody wants
I would argue that it was not capitalist benevolence that kept social peace for 80 years, it was partly the existence of the USSR that forced capitalist governments to make concessions to the social state to prevent communist influence from expanding westwards, flawed as it was.
capitalist benevolence
Capitalism is neither benevolent nor malevolent - it just happens it has most aligned incentives between egoistic actors
forced capitalist governments to make concessions
Really, really not. People were escaping from socialist USSR republics to western countries. This is why USSR decided to build a wall - their disfunctional system couldn’t compete
The New Deal is an example of capitalists understanding that you need to make some concessions to keep the peace, I’d call that sorta benevolent.
About the USSR: yes, people escaped it, but there was a chance that democracies would flip communist if you squeezed the population too much, so there was a political incentive to creating social policies to control capitalist forces. Without fear of the USSR agitators and backing, they had less incentive to compromise a.k.a. TINA.
Fascism was maintained in several European countries way beyond 1940s, such as my homeland Spain. There were also fascist regimes after WW2 outside Europe, such as in Chile or arguably in South Korea and Taiwan.
The real world.
lemmy.ml isn’t the real world
You dont have to be a tankie to understand that the neverending capitalist search for growth leads to exploitation and eventually backlash.
if you want to implement unpopular policies, authoritarian regime is the way
The depressing thing is that fascists are popular enough to gain power. The populist pose, some scapegoating of minorities, and a dash of lying about their goals, is enough to win over many voters, and in a first-past-the-post system it doesn’t matter if the majority of the people don’t like them.
Pretty much sums up the UK since 2010.
Sums up many places, unfortunately.
The market is authoritarian.
That’s not necessarily true, many supposedly democratic regimes consistently pass unpopular policy and don’t pass popular policy. E.g. welfare state cuts to expenditure in education, healthcare and pensions in post-2008 EU, or the lack of progressive policy in USA healthcare.
It’s precisely this ignoring of the popular will that turns people to fascism
A lot of economists don’t listen to anything Joseph Stiglitz says, because he’s not from the Chicago school. Economics is so stupid.
dismal, even
Except “dismal science” wasn’t meant as a critique.
I used to be a libertarian and believed in the whole ‘freer the market freer the people’ shit…
But then I grew up.
no shit, Sherlock. Still, glad to see it in the news.
In other news, meteorologist says the sky is blue.
I would be more open to these sort of arguments if they weren’t being promoted or perpetrated by actual dictatorships.
I feel like, as an american, I can’t really talk shit about other countries being dictatorships.
Hurrhurrhurr yes comrade us americans, we should learn to accept Xi Jinping into our hearts. /s
yes, anyone who has literally any problem with my shit head oligarchs whose dogs overthrow democracies 3x a day is OBVIOUSLY a pupped of the nefarious xi jinping, who is different from our proudly gaslighting oligarch vampires because he has to hop everywhere, instead of having a cool cape, and also likes trains. (which, to be fair, is a pretty fucking huge difference with the climate doing what it is)
Look, the USA are no saints by any metric, but on a comparative scale to actual dictatorships you’d have to be a concaveman to think they’re one of the baddies.
cool, like iran! yeah, those guys are bad. we had nothing to do with that. or the current russian regime! totally not an american project. or afghanistan.
the american empire is the fucking pandora of dictatorships, but without any hope in the box.
Exhibit A
so who DOES have the right to criticize you?
Joseph Stiglitz is an American economist, not a dictatorship, and he’s advocating for better capitalism.
I wasn’t calling Joseph Stiglitz a dictatorship, I was calling Russia and China dictatorships and they often use the same words to different ends. The fact that this is crossposted to Hexbear and lemmy ML isn’t doing the post any favors, either, those places are flowing with pro-CCP propoganda.
As much as this can be a productive conversation analyzing the faults of the system we live in to reform and fix it, it can also be used as justification for voting against our interests, violence, and subterfuge. It’s unfortunate, but that is our context.
This is not an article about communism or socialism or dictatorships or any of the other things you’re talking about.
No but it is an article whose headlines use the same words as pretend-anarchist/socialist dictatorships when they try to stoke flames online to promote political division and violence.
Jfc I feel like a skipping record, how do you not understand the context of the conversation you’re in? Did you get dropped off in the middle?
I think I don’t understand the context because you’re not responding in context, you’re just continuing an imaginary conversation you’ve had elsewhere because you saw some keywords.
You seem really upset about me discussing how genuine this sentiment is and where it leads. Are you feeling defensive about something?
Are you questioning whether Joseph Stiglitz is a secret communist? Because that’s the only genuine sentiment at play for your top level comment. If you instead wanted to call out some other poster and argue with them about communism, maybe you should have replied to that person?
Or maybe you should have read the article before you commented so you wouldn’t have to be trying to figure out a post hoc justification about the nonexistent context making your comment correct all along.
kill enough people, eventually you’ll get a genuine piece of shit who deserved to die.
similarly, if you talk enough shit (and they do), you’ll eventually be right. kind of like a stopped clock, you know? shitty people can be right about things, and that doesn’t make them any less shitty. arguably doesn’t even make them right.
What a stupid analogy.
what about it is stupid?
The part that normalizes mass murder.
no, its pretty normal. lotta people will get pissed about it if you object. ship’s already sailed on that one. we swim through a river of innocent blood. only ever that, our entire lives. pointing out the statistics of the more obvious instances of it isn’t pro or anti.
im not a fan of this state of affairs, BTW. just where we are. is≠aught.
A lot of dumb takes in the comment section here. It’s astounding the conclusions people come to. Joseph Stiglitz is absolutely right, but a lot of you need to view societies in a less rigid, linear, and positively Manichean manner.
Class conflict from inequalities keeps resulting in the same patterns across many different countries and throughout history and we’re supposedly black and white thinkers for calling it out? Bernie keeps saying the same thing over and over too, but that’s because it’s true.
Bernie’s not saying “Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds” and insisting that all forms of capitalism inevitably lead to fascism. All forms of capitalism are bad (or, at least, worse than socialism), but the idea that fascism is just an outgrowth of liberalism, and of liberalism specifically, ignores… so goddamn much history. The atmosphere in here is very anti-SocDem.
Liberalism allows asymmetric power between the wealthy and the working class and the wealthy aren’t threatened by fascism, but they are threatened by socialism. That’s one of the ways in which liberalism leads to fascism.
When times are good liberals don’t directly try to implement fascism, but as times get tough and the working class begins to have unrest then fascism is the direction the pressure releases in, because given the choice the capitalists will take it over socialism every time.
Not reining in capital is the fault of liberalism
Liberalism allows asymmetric power between the wealthy and the working class and the wealthy aren’t threatened by fascism, but they are threatened by socialism.
If we’re counting that as ‘leading to fascism’, wouldn’t that be true of every system with power imbalances?
Fascism has a specific definition that also relates to capitalism but otherwise you’re right that those in power will cling to power.
Fascism is one such outcome that occurs when capitalism is under threat.
In that case, when you say “Liberalism leads to fascism”, what you mean is “Liberalism creates the preconditions necessary for fascism”, just like liberalism creates the preconditions necessary for socialism.
Not exactly. Part of the characteristics of liberalism is that it’s supportive of capitalism and capitalism can be regulated but will tend to move towards increasing power imbalances, artificial scarcity, and environmental destruction.
Those things cause strain on a liberal society, and that strain leads that society to go into turmoil. Populism begins to happen, but collective resistance to the capitalist ruling class is strongly suppressed while other forms of harmful populism like racism and desire for war are allowed to fester or even amplified.
Capitalism is the dog, but liberalism is the neglecful owner that lets go out the leash
So, TL;DR: copy Europe?
Parts of it, sure. But not all of it. Europe hasn’t been immune to the current rise in fascism. But there are clearly some countries in Europe that are fairing better than others.
This feels like an appeal to authority. He’s an economist, not a political scientist. His Nobel prize was in contributions around screening, which is important but has jack shit to do with fascism. And he’s held some opinions before that were highly controversial to say the least, like advocating for the breakup of the eurozone. Just because he says it and he has a shiny prize doesn’t mean it’s right.
Right, because orthodox economists are so good at listening to what political scientists are saying.
The scholars outside economics have been screaming about it for years.
But it seems it takes one of their own for them to maybe potentially consider the possibility that there might exist some specific corner case in which they might need to ponder the necessity to listen. And even then, economics reductionists will still pretend it’s suspect.
Doesn’t mean he’s wrong either.
I can see many pathways from neolib capitalism to oligarchy to fascism.
I think you may just be anti-intellectual and looking for any hook to discredit the discussion.
First, the definition of appeal to authority, since it’s one of the most misunderstood fallacies. Citing someone based on their area of expertise is not appeal to authority. The problem is when you cite the stated opinion of someone, but their area of expertise is not directly relevant to that opinion. I’m a software developer, I could give you an expert opinion on various topics in that area. But outside of topics I am an export on, appeal to authority.
I didn’t say he’s necessarily wrong. But at the same time, he got his Nobel prize by being an economist who made a substantial contribution to economics. He is not an expert on fascism. His expert opinions in economics often run counter to many other credible expert economists, so you should consider those other expert opinions as well and not just listen to the person who tells you want you want to hear. That’s certainly not anti-intellectual.
Experts and intellectuals should absolutely be considered to better understand a subject, but they’re not some infallible oracle of truth. They contradict each other, are often limited by an ivory tower environment, and operating in the same societal context as everyone else.
