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History will not be kind to the USA
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2026
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The last anything anyone needs is European anything. European capitalism brought the world the USA, two world wars, and imperialism. They're on a 80 year experiment of having a small amount of welfare but it has never been enough and that is about to end when they remilitarize
Colonialism was not capitalism, there's nothing capitalist about taking prisoners and stealing land for government charted monopolies.
Meanwhile northern Europe has the highest standard of living, healthcare quality, accessibility and life expectancy. And all of it is being paid for with the spoils of capitalism
You're seriously going to tell me that Victorian imperialism wasn't capitalism? That the rape of India wasn't capitalism? That the Belgian congo wasn't operated by capitalist investors? You're ahistorical and an idiot. You think the Algerian colonies weren't operated by European capitalists? Nazi Germany is a great example of European capitalism as well.
Your highest standard of living is based on capitalist exploitation of the entire world and the working class. Your sick, violent, white supremacist countries are about to flush it's social democracy directly down the toilet to go to war with Russia too. Guns or Butter.
You're delusional.
Talk with some actual capitalists, and they'll all tell you that their core values are pretty much the opposite of whatever you're describing here.
Capitalism is simply the most successful system in the world, so it's an easy target for edgy teens who want something to blame for their failures.
But please do tell me how I'm exploiting the world, or how I'm violent or racist. Maybe you can call me an fascist incel so the word salad has all the cool things kids say nowadays
Brazil follows the great northern European style of capitalism and this shit doesn't work if you don't exploit the global south.
Brazil? Their maximum tax bracket isn't even half of what I'm currently paying in taxes, and I'm not even in the highest bracket
The only word I have for you is dipshit. Fuck off.
I speak with liberals all the time, you're again confusing the values espoused by liberalism to justify capitalism with the actual material system as it exists in the real world. As for imperialism, it functions as follows:
-The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
-The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.
-The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.
-The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels) and multinational corporations.
-The domination and exploitation of other countries by militaristic imperialist powers, now through neocolonialism.
-The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers.
The global north, Europe included, uses this export of capital to super-exploit foreign labor for super-profits. It also engages in unequal exchange, where the global south is prevented from moving up the value chain in production, allowing the global north to charge monopoly prices for commodities produced in the same labor hours.
Y'know, I was expecting a word salad of being called an incel, instead this is just a word salad of calling everything a monopoly. Half of the things you point to here are governmental actions, not capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system, not an ideology, it doesn't control what the government should or shouldn't do. And none of it even relates to the topic at hand, which was colonialism.
And financial oligarchies are 100% just a hallucination, prettied up in fancy words so it sounds like you're making an argument. You do not need permission from an oligarchy to make financial transactions.
If the global north would stop trading with the global south, to "fix" this supposed exploitation, people like you would be the first to start crying about how an embargo on the south is preventing them from moving up the value chain in production. There is no logic here, just accusations. You have nothing to show but an attitude
This is the third time you say you expected to be called an incel.
95% of people who think the left just calls everybody a Nazi turn out to be Nazis.
You're incorrect on a few key factors.
The economic system is the base, but laws, culture, the state, etc is the superstructure that reinforces the base. The base is what determines the superstructure, and they work together.
Capitalists, those with capital, are those that control the state. This is because whoever controls the large firms and key industries, the principle aspects of the economy, controls the state via controlling production and distribution.
The fact that the global north is controlled by the wealthiest of finance capital doesn't mean it isn't a problem. Calling the fact that banks control Europe and the US Empire a "hallucination" is just cope.
If the global north stopped trading with the global south, we'd collapse overnight, because the bulk of our consumption rests on value created by the global south stolen by us. The way for the global south to escape underdevelopment and overexploitation is to form alliances like the Sahel States, partnering with countries like the PRC that don't practice imperialism or unequal exchange, and engage in mutual development and cooperation along socialist lines.
Read How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney, and maybe toss in Super-Imperialism: The Origins and Nature of US World Dominance by Michael Hudson and Imperialism, the Current Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin.
Dude's on another planet xD
wtf 💀
Colonialism was absolutely an aspect of capitalism. You are correct that these high standards of living are paid for by capitalism, just that it's stolen value from the labor of the global south through imperialism, not through European labor.
Private property and freedom of association are core aspects of capitalism, colonialism did none of those things. Capitalism didn't arrive in the colonies until the colonists left.
You're confusing values espoused by liberalism with the consequences of economies dominated by private property. Colonialism was driven by capitalism, and justified by liberalism. Further, I am talking about ongoing imperialism, not just colonialism.
just what exactly is liberal about invading foreign countries and submitting them to production quota's at the threat of death?
The free movement of capital and the pursuit of profits is the purpose of liberalism, including the devastating impacts on the working classes that come from that. Liberalism is the justification for capitalism, not capitalism itself, and the necessary consequences of capitalist plunder is intrinsic to capitalism.
I recommend reading Domenico Losurdo's Liberalism - A Counter History.
Liberalism is the ideology of advocating for liberty.
Invading foreign coutnries and submitting them to production quota's at the threat of death is not liberty.
I recommend reading a dictionary https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/liberalism
I'm well aware of the history of liberalism and how its apologists try to hide its use to justify colonialism, imperialism, crushing worker movements, etc. I've read the dictionary definitions. You aren't changing the way liberalism functions in real life, just trying to avoid complicity in the damage its caused by trying to paint a better picture of it.
Slaves were considered private property in the USAmerica, right?
Was USAmerica a colony during their civil war?
The US Empire is still a settler-colony, to be clear.
Private property alone doesn't make capitalism, by that logic the ancient civilzations of egypt and sumer would already be capitalist. Capitalism is a collection of ideas, from the right to own private property to freedom of association, none of which is compatible with slavery.
Which is a big reason why the capitalist countries were the first to outlaw slavery.
Capitalism is a mode of production built on private ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. You're confusing the values espoused by liberals with the actual system itself as it exists in the real world, and as such are trying to pretend the same system that created the triangle trade is somehow anti-slavery. Capitalism caused and accelerated the slave trade when the colonizers needed agrarian labor for the land they were settling after genociding the natives.