Film productions are also a workplace, therefore they should democratize. Right?

Many people in productions are underpaid and some other are overpaid.

Film productions can also exploit its workers and also make them die in a fatal accidents like Brandon Lee and the Rust shooting incident.

Post a problem down below and I'll tell you how government will fix it.

I guarantee 100% the problem will be fix, but I can't guarantee there will be no bigger consequences to said fix, or that it will be worth the cost-benefit.

I'll prove that the government can fix ANYTHING.

Ok, here’s the difference

Marxism: Is a totalitarian [ far left ] ideology where the State assumes all ownership of property and suppresses the rights of its citizenry condemning them to poverty or death as the historical history of genocides shows empirically

Liberalism : An oligarchic [ moderate left ] political ideology where the means of production is managed by the State either through State-mandated worker co-ops [ true socialism ], or regulations, taxation, prohibition, and subsidies for the private ownership of production [ Democratic Socialism ]. Taxation [ theft ] is used to fund a large welfare estate and a progressive [ leftist ] agenda of taking from one side to give to the other

Fascism: Is a totalitarian [ far left ] political ideology which is defined as National ( because it was for Italian Nation ) Syndicalism ( because its was trade unionism which evolved from the Marxist anarcho-syndicalist movement in Italy ) with a philosophy of Actualism ( the act of thinking as perception, not creative thought as imagination, which defines reality. )

I know some still believe this, but I just had this idea:

you can literally just create an income tax and then use that tax money for subsidies for businesses.

In theory nothing stops you from maintaining whatever rate of profit you want with this arrangement so rate of profit crisis is impossible (per socialists' understanding of market economics) and it could never decline (we can debate this point, but solution below solves it completely).

Example:

Economy is very advanced and very efficient, profits are very low and not enough due to market competition and hardly any monopolies due to good anti-trust measures.

Solution:

All incomes are taxed flat 30% and that tax money is then directly sent to businesses as subsidies so that they can reinvest into their businesses and still make profits.

It's that simple

Edit: Just for the reference, I am personally neither strictly pro-worker nor fully pro-business. I personally like big business - especially integrated industrial giants - compared to both workers and small business owners (including small farmers). I just think both are pretty inefficient for my taste. Economy should be ran by vertically and horizontally integrated corporate supergroups IMHO

Ok, here’s the difference

[Edit: yes this is a Marxist take… that’s why it’s more coherent than all the equivocating and convoluted takes in this sub!]

Marxist and anarchist socialism: seek a resolution to class conflict through workers coming out on top. Workers become a ruling class who don’t need to exploit other classes to produce wealth, therefore class conflict and class become redundant.

Liberalism: seeks to keep class conflict contained within legal and institutional structures (rights, etc and later including welfare reforms to ease class conflict.) We all have the same individual rights and so it’s a fair playing field - class doesn’t even really exist.

Fascism: seeks to keep class conflict contained through illiberal means. Might makes right (“winning” or “owning” in more recent terms) and rather than equality, everyone has their proper place in the functioning of the (capitalist) economy. It seeks to reshape liberal institutions to create a more ordered social hierarchy of “the deserving.”

Fascism united both owners and workers to adhere to an unquestionable state leadership. It a form of ultimate collective. It justifies the state as the ethical representation of the people - and as such, if you are against the morality of the state, you are against the ethical principles of humanity itself. (Sounds a little too close to identity politics for comfort).

So let me clear out some questions:

Is it right or left? - First we look at how you define right or left in the political spectrum:

If you define them based on the modes of production (Who owns what) - private or state owned, it is right winged. (Individuals own the means of production) (This seems to be the general modern consensus)

If you define them based on the power and scope of the state, in a direction towards more, attempting ultimate power (the state, as in, everyone, owns everything, as in, ultimate collective), it is very far left (Ultra-left) (It hangs around communism in how much on the left they are).

But there is a caveat:

If we are to define it right winged because there are private owners of the MOP, under Fascism, we must keep in mind the state forces the owners and the workers to work together, based on whatever the state wants. It asserts syndicates (Trade unions) to represent the workers, and then forces them to work with the owners, to do whatever the state wants. This is why its called "Nominal" ownership (in name only).

Personally, after all that nuance, I reduce it to this term: Fascism is a form of collective system, in which the state directs the economy completely, and is declared to be the ethical representation of all people, and as such, the rights of the state are above the rights of the individual (With the justification that the state is the individual).

Seems Ultra left to me. (This also extends to the Nazi party).

Do you agree? Why? disagree? Why? Discuss please.

Worker ownership of the means of production entails ownership by concrete groups of workers of concrete means of production.

All this nonsense about all workers owning all MOPs as a class just means the government owning everything in practice and (allegedly) acting for the benefit of the workers and totally not starting to behave as a distinct class with a distinct relationship to the MOP. As we all know, this is bogus; invariably this means workers have even less freedom and the situation becomes known as 'state capitalism' after the state pooches the economy.

Now, if workers actually are allowed to act as owners of their own factories etc, then they must have all the rights of owners over the MOP, but that's just capitalism, by definition. Private ownership by a group is still private ownership.

There's only 2 types of 'socialists' really: tankies in denial, and capitalists that happen to think coops are a preferred method of organization of private businesses.

So many arguments on here are driven by poor definitions. So I propose a set of three simple definitions:

Socialism: An oligarchic [ moderate left ] political ideology where the means of production is managed by the State either through State-mandated worker co-ops [ true socialism ], or regulations, taxation, prohibition, and subsidies for the private ownership of production [ Democratic Socialism ]. Taxation [ theft ] is used to fund a large welfare estate and a progressive [ leftist ] agenda of taking from one side to give to the other

Capitalism: Is an economic model of the free market where supply and demand dictate prices and there is no interference from the State

Fascism: Is a totalitarian [ far left ] political ideology which is defined as National ( because it was for Italian Nation ) Syndicalism ( because its was trade unionism which evolved from the Marxist anarcho-syndicalist movement in Italy ) with a philosophy of Actualism ( the act of thinking as perception, not creative thought as imagination, which defines reality. )

Communism : Is a totalitarian [ far left ] ideology where the State assumes all ownership of property and suppresses the rights of its citizenry condemning them to poverty or death as the historical history of genocides shows empirically

These are the definitions as shown by history not by someone's opinion

So many arguments on here are driven by poor definitions. So I propose a set of three simple definitions:

Socialism: when the means of production are utilised for public good.

Capitalism: when the means of production are utilised for private interest.

Fascism: when the means of production are used for militaristic expansion.

While it doesn't cover every little aspect of each system, I think they do a good job covering the basics. The most important thing for me, is they cover the essence of a system. Even if societies may use similiar methods in their economic activities, you can see past that into the fundamental "point" of the system in question. For example: social democracy is still a form of capitalism since the means of production are geared towards private interest. Even if they have strong unions, robust safety nets and free at the point of use public services; which are usually more associated with a socialist economy.

What do you think?

Say that I’m buying something that’s a lot more expensive than run-of-the-mill groceries, but not so expensive that it would be unheard of for someone relatively well-off to get 2 or 3 at a time (motorcycles, electric guitars, computers… the technical details don’t matter for this part as long as it’s something you can picture someone wanting to buy 2 or 3 of if they had an above-average amount of spending money).

I try to buy 2 of the thing from the sales clerk, and they tell me “Good news! These are Buy One, Get One Free.”

Would I then say “No, I will pay for both of them because I believe in freedom, and freedom is when goods and services are traded through voluntary exchange. A totalitarian communist government forcing hard-working, successful, job-creating business owners to give their goods and services away for free would be slavery, and I believe that slavery is wrong, so I refuse to do that”?

That doesn’t seem like it would make sense to me. Obviously, the business was not forced to provide the BOGO deal by a totalitarian government, and obviously I would not be “enslaving” them by taking them up on their offer. Why, then, would I feel that it was in my rational self-interest to pay for something that I could otherwise have gotten for free?

When anarchist communists here talk about our ideal society as being free and moneyless, a common response from conservatives is “Would I have the freedom to enter into voluntary exchange with other free individuals for mutual benefit — where we trade my currency for their goods and services — or would the communist police arrest us and send us to prison for breaking the government’s laws against entering into voluntary trade with one another?”

How is “I pay $1000 get X” so much better for them than “I get X” that they feel victimized by the prospect of not needing to do this?

Liberals and even many who consider themselves Marxists are guilty of using the world fascist very loosely today. They fling it around as an epithet or political swearword against right-wing figures whom they particularly despise, or against reactionaries in general.

But the term "Fascism" has a stricter definition than being vocally far-right. The genuine basis for fascism is the petty bourgeoisie, the layer of people who rely on the labour of people who own nothing but their labour, mobilised against those labourers by the bourgeoisie when they have no other option to secure their interests. It is the strongest repression the Capitalist class can possibly inflict upon the working class, and is the last resort after a number of repeated defeats and demoralisation of the workers.

To any sincerely looking to learn and fight, I recommend studying "What is Fascism and how to fight it"

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm#p1

What do you think of the following compromise?

1. Corporate taxes are abolished.
2. If a business engages in any kind of intentional wage theft, their assets are immediately given to a worker co-operative of their employees.

Do you think business owners would accept this?

Capitalism has its flaws. Socialism and communism have their flaws. In an attempt to fix these flaws, I have began creating a new economic system that aims to generalize goods and services naturally through the solidarity of cooperatives and people. More details can be found on the subreddit I created.

Generalism Subreddit

Socialism in essence is a simple classification system:

1. Divide society into two classes: the rich and the poor.
2. Are you rich? Or are you poor?
3. Great! Now fight the other class to the death!

And when you mix in with the post modern garbage you get something like this:

1. Divide society into two classes: the powerful and the powerless.
2. Are you powerful or are you powerless?
3. Great! Now fight the other class to the death!

Now, socialists tend to think that capitalism is simply the rich vs the poor i.e. the opposite class within their own classification syste.. This couldn't be further from the truth.

You see, capitalism is a different classification altogether:

1. Divide society into two classes: productive people and leeches
2. Are you productive or are you a leech?
3. Great! Now fight the other class to the death!

The real question you should be asking yourself is which classification do you want for yourself?

Realistically if you're currently a brainwashed socialist, there can only be 4 possible outcomes for you:

1. You are poor, and you fight the rich.
2. You are powerless, and you fight the powerful.
3. You are productive, and you fight the leeches.
4. You are a leech, and you fight the productive people.

So which one are you going to pick?

Just like the religious position, the socialist position is not based on logic. It is based on crookedness. Socialism fails the tests of history, economics, and morality. It cannot be defended. Socialism is NOT about what is right or what is true. Socialism is about trashy people using the political principle to justify an existence of cheating and stealing.

Fascism is a far left ideology like Communism which Fascism used as a template

The fascist movement began with the Italian Trade Unions which were called Syndicates or Fascio with the plural being Fasci in Italian. They adopted the Marxist ideal of forming these unions to control the means of production who dropped out when the failures of Marxism were exposed.

They pushed forward with their own objectives which were "through strikes it was intended to bring capitalism to an end, replacing it not with State Socialism ( Marxism ) , but with a society of producers or corporations" - which are state sanctioned syndicates

Source : https://www.amazon.com/Mussolini-New-Life-Nicholas-Farrell/dp/0297819658

Source : https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486437078/ref=nosim/hinr-20

Fascism literally means Trade Unionism ( Syndicalism )

The truly technical definition of Fascism is "National Syndicalism with a philosophy of Actualism - Source : https://www.amazon.com/Mussolinis-Intellectuals-Fascist-Political-Thought-ebook/dp/B002WJM4EC

National ( because it was for Italian Nation ) Syndicalism ( because its was trade unionism which evolved from the Marxist anarcho-syndicalist movement in Italy ) with a philosophy of Actualism ( the act of thinking as perception, not creative thought as imagination, which defines reality. )

Actualism was Giovanni Gentile's ( God father of Fascism ) correction of what he saw as Marxist's flaw in his Hegelian Dialectic - Source : https://www.jstor.org/stable/2707846

Gentile defined his creation of fascism as " the true state - his ethical state - was a corpus - a body politic - hence a corporate state - and that the state was more important than the parts - the individuals - who comprised it becuase if the state was strong and free, so too would the individuals within it; therefore the state had more rights than the individual - Source : https://www.amazon.com/Mussolini-New-Life-Nicholas-Farrell/dp/0297819658 ( Chapter 11 )

So as Gregor ( sourced above ) stated : Fascism was the totalitarian ( ultra left ) , cooperative, and ethical state - the final collectivist ( leftism ) synthesis syndicalism and actualism

Hence it is left wing like Communism and National Socialism. This is re-enforced by the words of each of these ideologies founders

Fascism ( Gentile ) - The Fascist State, on the other hand, is a popular state, and, in that sense, a democratic State par excellece" - Source : Orgini e dottrina del fascismo, Rome: Libreria del Littorio, (1929). Origins and Doctrine of Fascism, A. James Gregor, translator and editor, Transaction Publishers (2003) p. 28

National Socialism ( Hitler ) - "The People's State will classify its population in 3 groups : Citizens, Subjects of the State, and Aliens - Source : Mein Kampf, page 399

Communism ( Marx ) - "We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class to win the battle of democracy" - Source : Communist Manifesto, page 26

Democracy = People Rule

People = The Public = The State

This makes Democracy = State Power which is why the Founders called the US a Republic, becuase they understood how bad Democracy was

This sub has shown some interest in Fascism but it doesn't seem like people agree with what it is. I would like to propose a clear, unambiguous definition of fascism, because saying it doesn't have any is fascism. This way we can agree on what it means, because saying someone doesn't understand it is fascism.

First let's stick to this sub, and find out if it's capitalist or socialist, it is in fact capitalist, the far end of capitalism, laissez-faire capitalism, declining capitalism, while also being a derivative of marxism or creative socialism.

This may seem contradictory, but that's only because Fascism is Ultra left and Far right. This is because it supports welfare, while opposing welfare because of social darwinism.

Let's see how the country is structured. It's a collectivist, syndicalist, populist, corporate ruled democracy. It has assumed complete and total power and despite being afraid of workers and being against them, sets production quota's for them. This is because it is centrally planned due to nationalizing all industries despite reprivatizing banks. It's non profit industry is renowned for profiting off bibles

On recent events, signs of fascism include liking trump, liking the DNC, liking AfD, making amends to Auschwitz, saying musk didn't do a nazi salute, and of course: global warming

Being a single party state, the leader is an important role. A good fascist leader is someone who signs executive orders, imprisons people, nominates people to the executive branch and promotes Zionism. Furthermore they employ a lot of censorship and platform nazi's, this is because they are against discourse, except when quoting the western journal.

A large amount of time goes to colonialism, characterized by Manifest Destiny. People who oppose this get accused without evidence and then undergo shock therapy.

With these definitions at hand, you are always prepared to know when someone is literally Hitler! This is of course whenever the fuck you want him to be!

I hear the claim made often that government intervention and regulation is necessary in order to maintain the stability of the economy. Some even go so far as to say that this government intervention and regulation IS socialism.

But that is not really the point of this post, what is or isn’t socialism. The point is whether or not government intervention is necessary, or even good, to deal with economic downturns.

As we know, it is basically impossibly to get a perfect scientific experiments in the field of economics. We cannot control all the variables and we cannot get control groups. But sometimes we get lucky and naturally get something about as close as we can get.

There was a significant depression (as big if not worse than the Great Depression) in 1920-1921; but nobody talks about it because the recovery was so swift. The reason it was so swift was because the people in government stayed out of the way.

The Forgotten Depression.

This is in stark contrast to the next depression in 1929. It was worsened and prolonged by the tremendous government interference.

If it were true that the government was needed to save capitalism from itself, we would expect to see the exact opposite in these two situations.

The Economic Super Bowl

This seems like pretty strong evidence to me that free market responses to downturns work better than government interventions. But, there is always the chance that I could be wrong. So I am curious to hear other perspectives that can explain the difference in results and corresponding government intervention between the two economic downturns.

Socialism starts to fall appart if you look at value as being subjective. While subjective value theory is obviously true, it can be fun to entertain other scenarios.

Let's say subjective value is false and all value is objective. Why would you ever bother doing a fair trade?

Let's say I have $5 worth of rocks, and you have $5 worth of lumber. Why would I trade my $5 of rocks for your $5 worth of lumber? Objectively they have the same value.

You can't say: I like lumber more than rocks. Because that is subjective.

You can't say: Lumber is more useful to me than rocks. Because that is subjective.

You can't say: I know the person I'm trading with needs my rocks more than I do. Because that is subjective.

So, what is the point? If value is subjective, socialism is poppycock. If value is objective, there's no point in fair trades. You'd have to do win/lose trades all the time.

My answer, as a classical libertarian:

1. The bad person: Amos Yee. He was from Singapore and could have been a hero for making some strong critiques of the government. Unfortunately, he was a pedophile and is now in prison in the USA. According to Wikipedia, he identifies as an anarcho-communist.

2. The cool person: Clara Thalmann. She was from Switzerland and joined the communist party, but was expelled due to having anti-Soviet sympathies. She went to Spain in 1936 to compete in a different Olympics. (People's Olympiad, held in protest of the 1936 Olympics being held in Nazi Germany - was called off due to the Spanish Civil War) She then fought in Spain with the anarchists and Trotskyists (she disliked the anarchists infighting) and met George Orwell. After the war, she lived in France, hiding Jews from the Nazis and later supported pro-Algerian protests.

#Preface My goal is to describe Marxist position as laconic, but also as clearly as possible since it's heavily misunderstood or not known at all. I want to know if this description left you with any questions or suggestions. Feel free to use this as a start point for a discussion.

#Capitalist Production Three characteristics of the capitalist system:

1. Production for the market

2. The Monopolisation of the means of production by the capitalist class

3. Wage Labour

1. Production for the market.

Under the capitalist system, all products are produced for the market, they all become commodities. Every factory or workshop produces in ordinary circumstances one particular product only, and it is easy to understand that the producer is not producing for his own use.

Example

When an undertaker, in his workshop, has coffins made, it is perfectly clear that he does not produce these coffins for himself and his family, but for the market.

A commodity economy necessarily implies Private Ownership.

Example

The independent artisan who produces commodities owns his workshop and his tools; the factory owner or workshop owner owns the factory or the workshop, with all the buildings, machinery, etc. Now, wherever private ownership and commodity production exist, there is a struggle for buyers, or competition among sellers.

***

2. The Monopolisation of the means of production by the capitalist class.

In order that a simple commodity economy can be transformed into capitalist production, it is necessary, on the one hand, that the means of production (tools, machinery, buildings, land, etc.) should become the private property of a comparatively limited class of wealthy capitalists; and, on the other, that there should ensue the ruin of most of the independent artisans and peasants and their conversion into wage workers.

Formation

In all countries alike, most of the independent artisans and small masters have been ruined. The poorest were forced in the end to sell their tools; from “masters” they became “men” whose sole possession was a pair of hands. Those on the other hand who were richer.

Little by little there passed into the hands of these wealthy persons all that was necessary for production: factory buildings, machinery, raw materials, warehouses and shops, dwelling houses, workshops, mines, railways, steamships, the land — in a word, all the means of production. All these means of production became the exclusive property of the capitalist class; they became, as the phrase runs, a “monopoly” of the capitalist class.

***

3. Wage Labour

The essence of wage labour consists in the sale of labour power, or in the transformation of labour power into a commodity.

The workers are enchained by hunger. Under capitalist monopoly the worker no longer owns the means of production, the very land is all in private hands; there remains no spot unowned where an enterprise can be carried on. The worker cannot make use of his labour power for the conduct of his own enterprise; if he would save himself from starvation, he must sell his labour power to the capitalist.

Simple Commodity Production Vs Capitalist Production

The mere existence of a commodity economy does not alone suffice to constitute capitalism. A commodity economy can exist although there are no capitalists.

For instance

The economy in which the only producers are independent artisans. They produce for the market, they sell their products; thus these products are undoubtedly commodities, and the whole production is commodity production. Nevertheless, this is not capitalist production; it is nothing more than simple commodity production.

Only when Monopoly of the Capitalist Class and with it Wage Labor occurred have we entered Capitalist Production

In the simple commodity economy there were to be found in the market: milk, bread, cloth, boots, etc.; but not labour power. Labour power was not for sale. Its possessor, the independent artisan, had in addition his own little dwelling and his tools. He worked for himself, conducted his own enterprise, applied his own labour power to the carrying of it on. That ceases to exist as Capitalist Production became dominant.

***

Credit goes to Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhenskyi for writing "ABC of Communism" on which this post was based on.

If you were forced to pick between a backwards, conservative society that shared its resources, and a cut-throat capitalist society with full rights and affirmative action for racial and sexual minorities, which would you choose?

Caveats:

• The conservative society would not be fascist. We're talking something like modern-day, US rednecks decided to build their own country somewhere and were moderately successful.
• You may believe that either scenario is impossible, and that e.g. class and racial oppression are inextricably linked. If so, you will have to suspend your disbelief to answer the hypothetical.

It is no surprise that the ideology of theft is most revered by people who are thieves. Ask any shoplifter, looter, robber, squatter, scammer, vandal, or any other trashy human, about their moral justification, and they will invariably give some sample of socialism in their answer. Ask them about their political views, they will be socialists every single time. This is because socialism fits perfectly with their victim mentality, laziness, crookedness, and negation of personal responsibility.

"For first, [Lycurgus] voided all gold and silver coinage, and decreed that they should use only iron; and to this he assigned only a small price for a large weight and volume, so that a value of ten mnai required a lot of storage in the home, and a pair of oxen to transport it. When this was ratified, many kinds of crimes disappeared from Lacedaimon. For who was going to steal something, or take bribes in it, or steal it, or take it by force, when it wasn’t possible to conceal it, to possess it jealously, or even to make a profit by cutting it up? For the red-hot iron was quenched with vinegar, it’s said, so that the hardening took away its usefulness and value for any other purpose, making it weak and unworkable." - Plutarch

Who the fuck knows if Plutarch was just passing around an old wive's tale. Quite probably so. But the very notion of intentionally making a bad currency is, well, something.

We humans want to have something backing our currency, buuut in the modern era the reality is, that isn't so. Modern state fiat currency works despite existing just at the say-so of today's states.

Going backward in time, measuring exchange value in terms of metal, whether coinage or ingots (bars) certainly has a long history. However, the trading of the actual items was long superseded by chits (paper or otherwise) that represented the value.

The gold-and-silver-standard so to speak needs not be the only storage of value. In modern times folks tried to use crypto as a store of value, however while the actual amount of bitcoin specifically might only increase so much, the reality is that an infinite number of cryptocurrencies can be generated, imo debasing the possible value of all.

It's a little humorous, but a guy wrote out a legal document and created his own cryptocurrency whose cumulative units were to equate to the value of his house, and then proceeded to pay people in these fractional units of his house-value.

Some took an alternate approach, to create a basket-currency comprised of multiple commodities or services, so credit could easily be created and removed from circulation easily. Precious metal could certainly form a core of that, but not necessarily be all of it. Historically, even things like coal were used as a commodity currency.

Complementary currencies have existed. The Spanish Anarchocommunists look a little funny because while they vociferously stated they were antimoney, when you look at the details they mostly didn't like the Spanish peseta (whose supplies were heavily restricted, given they were at war with those who controlled it), yet they literally issued stamp books that externally functioned as pesetas and literally were treated 1:1 with it.

The agorists have a great point that you can't practically ban money, just suppress it partially, but black and grey markets can and will arise anytime anywhere and have done so throughout history.

Carson makes a point that throughout much of history, while credit and debts may have been counted, they were more socially mediated within a network of trust, and directly-balanced exchange with actual money was something you did with external folks with whom you didn't really have a history and trust with. You could divide the economy into the network of those who get the 'friends and family discount' (your local village, whose economic activity could thus be considered a sort of every day communism), and the outsiders.

In a society where money was banned (this is tongue in cheek), where you had the money-police going door-to-door to arrest money users, furtive bands of rebel farmers meet in secret to make transactions which are numerated in terms of beans. Actual beans need not exist, they are merely theoretical, the important part being that the actual traded goods are valued in terms of beans, enabling a rough approximation in value in an exchange to occur, or a credit and debit to be counted for possible future balancing should be desired by the participants.

Literally anything can be used as money. Using the concept of the basket-currency, you can literally use everything as money, all at once. And practically you can use nothing as currency.

As for me? I'm not really a fan of being obliged to mainly use only one thing as currency, nor to have its value debased at the whim of the state deciding to do so. Nor am I a fan of being functionally obligated to use any currency. I would like a really really freed market, where I could have the option of engaging with any sort of currency anyone wants to freely use with me, and also have the option of engaging in free nonmonetary economic activity in a created commons (instead of being obliged to repair my car or bike at a paid shop, though I could do that if I wished, I could also go down to the local library's section entitled Library of Things, check out the relevant tools, and fix it myself). One lens of how free a system is is how many options are within it, another lens is how easy and practical it is to step outside it.

One take on the free market is that it serves those who have money. If everyone's needs were roughly similar and everyone had a roughly similar amount and income of money it's hard to argue such a market would be unfair. It's easy to balance an imbalance of needs with some sort of insurance. But today's markets look totally unlike such a set of affairs. When wealth and income are concentrated so heavily into the hands of so few, it is absurd to think the market serves everyone's interests, rather it caters massively to the interests of those few.

Consider Plumber Bob who savse and saves and saves, he works hard all his life, providing valuable services towards others for which he is justly compensated. He stuffs this money under his sofa. And never spends but a tiny fraction of it. Has Bob harmed anyone? Nah. He dies, his house gets hit by lightning and he and his sofa pile of cash go up in smoke. An alien happens by, who has the unique quirk of being unable to see money, but can see back in time. What a curious thing, he thinks. Was Bob a slave? He worked and worked his whole life to serve others but to all the alien could tell, other folks did little to benefit Bob.

It ain't the money, for better (basket cases of commodities and services) or worse (Spartan iron bars). It's systems of power and rentierism where the owners of systems and writers of laws are able to accrue to themselves the produced value from economic activity, not the actual creators of the commodities and laborers producing the services.

Last thought: favorite all-time example of currency: Rai stones, aka giant nearly immoveable stone blocks. These suckers are the real chad currency, they make Sparta's iron bars look like chump change.

Let's imagine we're facing an impending economic crisis, either in the roaring 1920s or the tech-boom 2000s. Signs are emerging – maybe from speculative bubbles, rising inequality, or unsustainable debt. From your capitalist or socialist perspective, how would you try to prevent or lessen the impact of this crisis in both eras?

If the past 100 years have shown anything, it’s that the dogmatic pursuit of these two systems ultimately results in economic failure. One of the most interesting economic choices of the modern age was equal parts controversial and out-of-the-box and that of course is Deng Xioping’s economic reforms in China.

Deng was a committed communist, but turned away from decades of Marxist-Leninist dogma to create a robust private sector within China. While there are many criticisms of the Chinese system, they are undeniably becoming the 21st century’s powerhouse. The rest of the world ought to learn from Deng’s example.

At the end of the day, “capitalism or socialism?” is a flawed question. The economic system itself isn’t the end goal. The end goal is the maximization of resources for the greatest benefit of society. The communist dogma was failing China. Maybe the country united around the CCP, but they were still poor. Amongst the poorest in the world. But this is quickly changing.

When we look at the issues of the west today, what do we see? We see record wealth inequality, expansive and inefficient governments, political polarization, fewer economic opportunities for younger generations.

The solutions to these problems will take a combination of measures that we would normally consider “capitalist” as well as “socialist.” But more than that it is going to take a re-evaluation of what it is we actually want. Because from what I can tell, that’s fundamentally the same thing. We all want economic freedom. The ability to work a decent job for enough money to live comfortably and feed our families.

So what we should do is throw away the labels, throw away the dogma and start finding actual common ground

The following is my humble opinion. Feel free to correct it.

Capitalism, for me, suffers from the following shortcomings:

1. Inheritance - people (especially rich kids) with no merit and no extra effort get to live better lives than poor people's children.

2. Too much power concentration - too much money in one man's hand creates unstable system and may cause actual conspiracies and rampant corruption

3. Poor treatment of workers and classism - in capitalism, capitalists and customers are treated well. Workers? Not so much. The 18th/19th century Industrial Revolution era London was what gave rise to communism because they treated workers like shite. It has improved, yes, but still workers are treated poorly. Not only that, there exists rampant classism because of capitalism - rich people not wanting to mix with poor people. One of the fixes of global warming is public transportation but rich people don't want to travel with 'lower class people's and that contributes to the problem.

My problem is that socialism does not solve anything. Socialism also gives way too much power to one person/one party like the Vanguard party. Socialism creates power classes and rampant bureaucracy which becomes a problematic replacement of the inheritance problem of capitalism. I am from India, when there was red tape socialism in 20th century, people used to get a lot of jobs by 'connections' to political parties or powerful people in these parties and unions. This also creates a kind of classism, albeit of a different kind. 'Democracy' in work place, which sounds great in theory, often creates bullies in workers' Unions who force you to confirm to their whims.

Basically I have never been convinced that socialism can actually properly replace capitalism.

So much talk in here is hypothetical, theoretical, and abstract…which is great but we need to address this simple question: are things better right now than they have ever been? If so, doesn’t “capitalism” or whatever form of it we are currently practicing deserve that credit and recognition?

Is this the best it’s ever been? If no, when have things been better? There’s never been less poverty. Poor people in America are fat, not skinny and starving. Healthcare isn’t perfect, but is it not better than any time in history?

I’m not saying things couldn’t be better, that we shouldn’t aim to improve and perfect, but we should at least recognize and give credit where it’s due, no? Even if you say there’s more wealth inequality, still on average life is better for everyone than ever? I don’t think it’s a given that things will naturally always get better either.

A lot of socialists or leftists will say all the examples of those famous examples (Russia, China) failing or resulting in mass death is they didn’t truly practice it right, or they’ll point to some tiny Nordic country that’s 100% white homogenous aryan (hitlers dream) with zero immigration and doesn’t pay for military bc they’re protected by the USA.

Too wordy but in summary I feel socialists are so caught up in some negativity around hating this modern world and how things could/should be totally radically different that there’s not enough recognition of how far we’ve gotten.

FTR I’m American and naturally view everything through the American lens.

Seeing as communism is based on the liberation of class and egalitarianism, why still hold onto this form of hierarchy? What is more exploitative than breeding a breathing, sentient creature just to be slaughtered for pleasure?

I often hear that central planning doesn't have the benefit of price indices to know how much they should allocate their labour and resources, so they have to make estimations, causing inefficiencies. But that doesn't make sense to me because every private company has to do this as well, right? When a company is created, they sell their commodities for a base price and adjust their supplies according to demand. Why can't the government do this as well?