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Shopping in 2026 (thelemmy.club)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/memes@lemmy.world
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[–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

So just because it’s possible for any system to become corrupt that means they are all the same?

I’m claiming that capitalism in particular is one of the most corruptible systems, it’s basically by design.

It tries to harness the power of greed and turn it into positive sum games, which don’t seem to work in practice after early stage capitalism.

It’s an optimization problem, how can we minimize corruptions by changing what forces drive our society. I think greed driving society maximizes corruption and think we should replace that with something else. Saying all systems can become corrupt doesn’t add anything to the task at hand.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    You're claiming that if capitalism tends to backslide into X, then X is part of capitalism. My point is that every system can backslide into something more primitive where a strong man makes the rules. They're not all the same, so your idea that X is an inevitable part of capitalism is wrong. Capitalism is what we call it when it has a certain set of characteristics. If it no longer has those characteristics it's no longer capitalism.

    I’m claiming that capitalism in particular is one of the most corruptible systems

    And you're wrong. There's nothing about capitalism that makes it more corruptible than feudalism or oligarchy. In fact, those systems are much more corrupt in general.

    It tries to harness the power of greed and turn it into positive sum games

    Whereas feudalism doesn't even try to do that. It just skips the positive sum games part and accepts greed. At least with capitalism there's an attempt to make things better.

    I think greed driving society maximizes corruption

    Maximizes corruption? You think capitalism is more corrupt than a strong man system where everybody is forced to constantly flatter and pay tribute to the strong man? A system where the rules are whatever the strong man says, so bribery is baked into everything?

    think we should replace that with something else

    Sure, let's do it, what do you propose? And how do we get there from here?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (1 child)

    You're claiming that if capitalism tends to backslide into X, then X is part of capitalism. My point is that every system can backslide into something more primitive where a strong man makes the rules.

    I mean, that’s such a broad take, any system can change, doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. My point was that the core mechanism of capitalism, which is the private ownership of capital and means of production, will always concentrate wealth and power further and further.

    We have had systems of feudalism and monarchies that have stayed steady for hundreds of years. In pre history, people lived in communes for thousands of years.

    What is unique about capitalism is that it must move as fast as possible, hence why it can’t stay steady, thereby it changing to late stage is part of the design (as in you can’t have capitalism without it), whereas any other system does not, through its own mechanism, move towards some kind of endgame.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    I mean, that’s such a broad take, any system can change, doesn’t mean it’s inevitable

    It also doesn't mean that they're all the same system. So, if capitalism is one of the many systems that can backslide into authoritarianism doesn't mean that authoritarianism is a part of capitalism, despite your claim to the contrary.

    We have had systems of feudalism and monarchies that have stayed steady for hundreds of years. In pre history, people lived in communes for thousands of years.

    Yes, in the modern world things change much more quickly. Technologies didn't change for thousands of years. That meant that the number of people a farmer or a plot of land could feed stayed constant for thousands of years. That meant the maximum size of a city was pretty constant. That dictated the kinds of governments that were stable.

    It was technology that has made systems unstable, not capitalism.

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