I see this canned response all the time. But it's a gross oversimplification of the issue designed to keep the ignorant happy.
The cheap things from china, all your amazon crap, your iPhones and all the rest of the so called "nice things" of today's society are only gained through (near) slavery conditions elsewhere.
This delayed effect on how bad things are that is now reaching rich countries like the US, but it has been around on every other "developing" nation in the world for a long time.
I don't think we're talking about the local grocer. We're talking about multi-billion corps that can do anything. Banks that are literally "too big to fail". Industries that control entire sections of governments.
This is the endgame of capitalism and nobody ever wants to face. It's an unsustainable system that will likely end in a dystopian-like world with mega corporations controlling everything and everyone (even your salary through UBI). The theory that corporations get too big then break down resetting the cycle no longer applies because the technology evolved.
I mean, the sole purpose of a business is to generate profit.
It's not to improve human kind, to cure diseases, end the world hunger or make everyone's lives better. It was always, and always will be, in the name of profit. When we realize that profit is literally ripping people off from their work, maybe some might change their views.
Yes, this is Marxism. Marxism was tried quite a few times already, particularly in the USSR. I was born in the USSR and lived there until it collapsed, so I am pretty familiar with what Marxist socialism used to look like. Thank you, I prefer capitalism, which brings prosperity, innovation and peace to the world.
Massive amounts of innovation have coincided with the activities of despotism, and far more and far longer than the historical record provides for "capitalism."
No, this is not Marxism. I can't even claim to have ever read his books. It's the reality of what I see today. Note that I'm not saying in any way how we should solve these things. I'm neither smart enough to think of those solutions or naive to think they'll ever come to life. But it's undeniable that we live in a dire world and capitalism is one of the biggest forces behind it all.
Peace? Seriously? Of all the things you could cite from capitalism, you mention the one thing that never stopped happening. Perhaps war stopped nearby your home, but capitalism never brought peace to the world. On the contrary, it created many, many wars. As it's often said: war is profitable.
Innovation is a tricky one. I agree a lot has been brought because of the pursuit for profit, but I believe they are happy coincidences. Many of the worlds greatest brains are today trying to find out how to exploit people through ads.
Perhaps your personal experience makes capitalism the lesser evil compared to the soviet USSR, but I'd urge you to not fall into this false dicothomy. It's not a binary choice.
The cheap things from china, all your amazon crap, your iPhones and all the rest of the so called "nice things" of today's society are only gained through (near) slavery conditions elsewhere.
This delayed effect on how bad things are that is now reaching rich countries like the US, but it has been around on every other "developing" nation in the world for a long time.
I don't think we're talking about the local grocer. We're talking about multi-billion corps that can do anything. Banks that are literally "too big to fail". Industries that control entire sections of governments.
This is the endgame of capitalism and nobody ever wants to face. It's an unsustainable system that will likely end in a dystopian-like world with mega corporations controlling everything and everyone (even your salary through UBI). The theory that corporations get too big then break down resetting the cycle no longer applies because the technology evolved.
I mean, the sole purpose of a business is to generate profit.
It's not to improve human kind, to cure diseases, end the world hunger or make everyone's lives better. It was always, and always will be, in the name of profit. When we realize that profit is literally ripping people off from their work, maybe some might change their views.