Ask Lemmy

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, Pëtr Kropotkin (1902)

I asked chatGPT to extract the question from that as I struggled to pinpoint it myself. I'll put it here as I'm probably not the only one wondering. So it seems like what OP is asking is (correct me if I'm wrong):

How do you adjust or change your beliefs (about capitalism, communism, libertarianism, or other ideologies) to deal with the fact that some people or countries naturally have more advantages than others?

Tl;dr?

::: spoiler You're asking the wrong questions IMO. No one loves capitalism. Capitalism is an acknowledgment that humans are inherently corrupt and the concentration of power is a primary corrupting force. If anything the capitalist countries are failing at capitalism in the present.

Capitalism is also an acknowledgement of the true complexity of the world. No overarching human authority can encompass the true complexity of human enterprises. We simply lack the cognitive scope to manage at all scales without some forms of natural selection in play. Real competition drives people like no other force.

It is a terrible system, but there is no chance that a concentration of power in an alternative system will be better for the average person. Broad scale and scope altruism is not a long term successful form of governance. It is like the best form of governance, altruistic monarchy. However it suffers the same fatal flaw of a succession crisis. The naïveté of idealist is a recipe for authoritarianism.

No one loves capitalism. If they are intelligent, capitalism is the lesser of evils in the big picture. The alternative is a return to monarchy or feudalism in our conflict strewn past... IMO

I hate capitalism BTW. I don't think we are there yet, but I think AGI is our best chance at a broad scale idealist future alternative. An entity that can never die and can plan long term with scalable and nearly infinite attention is the kind of manager that can achieve what we are empirically incapable of achieving. The systems it will take to institute and protect such an AGI are enormous, critical, and unlikely to get it right the first time, but the outcome is inevitable IMO. We will likely never see such a future in our lifetimes, but it will happen eventually. It will start by politicians either publicly or secretly deferring their policy and decisions to an AGI entity. Corporate offices will do the same. Humans can not compete with a true AGI when such a system emerges. We simply lack the cognitive scope and persistence. At present, AI is still orders of magnitude away from AGI. At the present the building blocks required are already in play. We can build a stacked stone wall and a house, but we need a palatial fortress, and that is still a big ask.

Capitalism sucks for all but a small elite. However, capitalism has an effective hook for people to oust bad actors through a entirely separate government. Such separation and protection does not exist when the government is expected to play some major management role in the market. If the government is such an authority, it will devolve into authoritarianism because nearly all humans are corruptible. There is nothing more dangerous than trust in others to do the right thing. Someone will always take advantage of the opportunity to exploit and pillage their neighbors when they can get away with it. Capitalism is hated by everyone but fools. It is just hated slightly less than succession crises and authoritarianism.

Australia has some of the largest rainforests: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondwana_Rainforests

All things in moderation. The world is a spinning plate and extremes are to be avoided. Instead, the correct course is an ephemeral point somewhere around the middle which we must continually chase as it moves in response to the world. We all do our best to balance the world a little closer to what we want it to be.

Assuming I am even making sense of what you're asking, because this is pretty unclear.

I'm not entirely clear on what your angle is (or even what you're particularly asking about). But I'll try my best to offer something meaningful.

From what I can gather, you are making the rather common mistake of equating captialism with corporate capitalism/venture capitalism It may seem convenient (and depressing to think of the things as intertwined, but they're really not.

Capitalism is very simple. It's the exchange of goods and services for monetary reward. The harder you work (theoretically) the more you're rewarded. It's only when corporations, venture capitalists and stock prices become involved that that notion begins to become corrupted.

If I make a point to trying to do my grocery shopping at the local grocery store rather than the big chain, that's still capitalism. I'd argue it's more pure capitalism than corporate douchebaggery.

If I have a neighbour who likes to make wooden furniture in his garage and I procure a table and chairs from him instead of going to IKEA. That's still capitalism.

If (as I had all the time growing up) our neighbours kept cows while my family kept chickens, we would purchase beef from them and they would purchase eggs and poultry from us. THAT'S CAPITALISM.

Seeing the reward from your own sweat rather than a corporation seeing the reward from other people's sweat.

I guess in some sort of answer to your question, take back the notion of capitalism from the greedy corporations that have hijacked it. Support your local community. Go to your local farmer's markets. Buy from local artisans and farmers. THAT'S how we reconcile (and fix) capitalism.

I think it's a miracle that we found a way to get humans to cooperate whatsoever. It's fragile but by assuming everyone is fundamentally self-interested then it just about works.

Other systems assume a higher degree of altruism than humans actually have. Paradoxically this leads to more corruption in those systems, like endemic corruption in communist countries once some people start to play the system.

Capitalism facilitates cooperation but with an underlying game theory assumption of self interest holding it all together.

There is no quirk. Hierarchy and inequality are natural and good. Equal opportunity sounds nice but like you explained it doesn't really make sense anyway.

I think the big problem is the concept of state and corresponding geographical boundaries. If humanity could get rid of geographical binding of territories to states, it would stop all wars, and capitalism would work much better for everyone. Instead of states there could be some kind of unions and they could be represented in different geographical locations, and the infrastructure of any geographical location could be managed by cooperation of unions existing there.