538
The Billionaire-Fueled Lobbying Group Behind the State Bills to Ban Basic Income Experiments in the U.S.
(www.scottsantens.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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Capitalism is a domination based economic strategy that's killing most of the life on this planet.
There's also partnership based economic strategies that probably would be more in harmony with the earth as well as other human beings, like cooperatives, non-profits, and of course socialism etc.
So, I guess as far as domination based strategies go, Capitalism is very efficient. And offers a veil of autonomy that feudalism and slavery didn't. But it's only a veil. The rich get richer, the poor relatively poorer. And while the planet burns, most human beings are still slaves to their paychecks while the oligarchs call the shots.
I don't see any benefit in this, but you do?
I don't really understand. Perhaps you're looking for a net benefit. As I said, things aren't all bad or all good.
As you said yourself, Capitalism is very efficient.
It's technological or administrative requirements are minimal. If you want to get from a pre-industrial feudal society to a sophisticated modern utopia, you can't go straight to socialism. We needed capitalism.
It's very efficient at extracting resources from the environment and working class. It's more efficient than slavery and feudalism. That doesn't make it a net benefit for either the planet or the working class.
And plenty of non-Western cultures had economic systems similar to socialism before we colonized them and forced capitalism down their throats. So no, your socialism must follow capitalism equation isn't real. Sorry.
What Marx meant was if we don't evolve past Capitalsm, we're fucked. That's what he meant by socialism must follow capitalism. It's a moral must if we want the planet and species to survive. He wasn't talking about causation.
Like it or not, contemporary tech was created from those resources extracted from the environment and the working class.
First of all, you're cherry picking one paragraph out of three while ignoring my point. Second, you seem to be doing so in hopes of creating a false dichotomy (technology is dependant on capitalism, it's not) and a strawman (that all extraction is bad).
Non-captalist economic systems can certainly extract resources from the environment and they're quite capable of producing new technologies without worker explotation. Capitalism is ruthlessly effecient at it because it ignores things like negative externalities while passing them onto local governments, workers, and consumers. Ruthless being the keyword here. In fact, I'd say it's inefficient and simply irresponsible.
If you want to argue that the economic system we're all watching literally destroy most life on this planet has some benefits the burden of proof is on you. List the benefits and compare them to other systems. If the benefit is that it's better than slavery well, you're basically comparing two diseases to each other and saying the benefit of disease A is at least it's not cancer. If my Dr used language like this I'd fire him.
Capitalism is a disease on this planet. Diseases don't have benefits. Only worse choices. Feel free to prove me otherwise, but you'll have to do better than tired right wing and neo-liberal talking points. I've been through them to many times, sorry.
Cherry Picking means selecting a single set of data that supports my argument while ignoring other data to the contrary. It does not mean selecting only a part of your argument to rebut.
A false dichotomy means reducing a large set of choices to merely two. an assertion that technology is dependent on capitalism is not that.
Pretty much any argument can be categorised as a strawman.
Listing logical fallacies in order to make yourself appear more knowledgeable would work better if you could identify them correctly.
Regardless, I'm not going to be able to reason with someone who makes ridiculous claims like "Capitalism is a disease on this planet" (which is an appeal to emotion by the way), so I'll leave you to congratulate yourself on winning this little tete-a-tete. I look forward to reading your parting witticism.
Okay, I don't know the logical fallacies by name. I do know when someone isn't arguing in good faith and being dismissive. I do know when they're resorting to passive-aggressive personal attacks, too. So, I'm just going to restate my argument that you continue to dismiss, in plain English, not for you, but for anyone else that comes across this.
Capitalism is a primary contributing factor to global mass extinction that is currently taking place. That's comparable to a disease. Its competitive advantages are not showing to be beneficial because they're based on negative externalities. In the long wrong (i.e. right now), those negative externalities are proving to be destructive, rather than beneficial, for almost everyone that lives on this planet. Its advantage is that's irresponsible. It's aggressive. Most of the life on this planet is not benefiting from this aggressive behavior. And, there were, and still are, less aggressive options.
I may not know all my logical fallacies, but I do know economics.
And you've done nothing to change my mind because ultimately you refused to engage with the argument in good faith.