You can tell that this audience is primarily American because they still defend capitalism, even after being shafted by it over and over. Careful everyone, big bad socialism is going to take your kids and your wife!
Don’t dare dream of something better, instead keep swallowing the propaganda of the state and its controlling elites.
Man socialism keeps sounding better and better they will even take those pesky wife and kids off my hands/s.
But in serious most Americans don’t know shit about socialism our capitalism they live under. Dumb fucks look at you with surprise when you mention our highway system would be considered socialist program.
Sounds interesting, what does that mean?
Roads and streets are funded 100% from taxs which make them a social program. I know not true 100% socialism but it’s as close as the United States will allow.
Also most Americans always going on especially fucking Republicans and their voter base about how the government should be run like a business. But don’t realize the government should never be ran as one.
The corruption already bad enough.
which make them a social program. I know not true 100% socialism
This is part of the problem of people not knowing what socialism even is. Even the ancient slavery systems could have social programs (for example famed Roman grain handouts in Rome), and the first modern, universal state funded social programs were introduced in 1889 in German Empire. neither of them was by any means socialist because socialism is not when the government does stuff.
socialism is not when the government does stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq0EYo_ZQVU
Just wanted to put the clip here. :D
The closest you get in America to socialism is public libraries and free school meals. And they managed to make the latter controversial and, if not, incredibly shitty.
And the GOP and their far right cronies are trying to get public libraries shut down.
They should be forced to run their businesses as businesses - no more bailouts
All these big names seriously run their businesses like social programs.
Yeah, run America like Elon runs Twitter. Absolutely brain dead
American here and fuck capitalism.
Hey now, that’s unfair!
As à Canadian, I can attest that we also blindly defend capitalism.
We are poor and our freedoms are exploited, but at least we’re free!
That’s right, real freedom is being able to scream into the void without actually having the power to improve your material conditions. :)
Is there a communism society that has succeeded? Lol
Can you name a pure capitalist state that’s succeeded without socialist elements keeping it afloat?
Follow-up: Why hand money to the leeches that do nothing but own shit rather than the workers that fuel the economy?
You didnt answer my comment.
If you can’t point to an actual capitalist society that’s succeeded, why would there be any meaning in pointing out a communist one that has?
Look around you
Who paid for the roads, fire department, police, Military, postal service, bridges, dams… Shall I go on?
You think taxing people and using that money to fund public infrastructure and services is pure capitalism that’s operating without socialist principles?
😂
Well I’m not starving and I can choose how to live my life.
I’m not currently dying, so that’s about as much as I can ask for.
You do see how cucked you are, right?
Maybe solution is somewhere in the middle, not one of extremes?
We’ve already tried the middle
This
Most socialist states are better after their revolutions as opposed to before. The USSR went from a borderline feudal society to putting people in orbit in 50 years. Additionaly, socialist states outperform capitalist ones in similar wealth categories.
The USSR collapsed and it was later discovered that it had major internal issues
who says the only alternative to a shafting capitalism like you have in the states is pure communism?
This instance
Where?
That would be a decent question if we had examples of socialist experiments that were actually left alone to develop and not invaded 2 sevonds after america heard about them
Most socialist states are better after their revolutions as opposed to before. The USSR went from a borderline feudal society to putting people in orbit in 50 years. Additionaly, socialist states outperform capitalist ones in similar wealth categories.
Did they get to the moon? /s
Anyway they aren’t around today without capitalism (modern russia) so your point is kind of useless
Depends on what you mean by socialism. All systems have upsides and downsides. Late stage capitalism in the US has a lot of downsides, but workers taking over the means of production does not have a good track record.
Communism does not have a good track record in places like Poland. After the absolute shithole that the PRL was, I dont kniw how you except people to defend communism.
Did they say communism? I don’t think they said communism. In fact, I’m pretty certain they said socialism, which is not the same thing unless you’re a propagandized American who licks boots.
Communism is not the only alternative to capitalism, my dude.
Absolutely correct.
Why complain when capitalism ruins something that it created? Isn’t that how it works? Something else will come along and don’t better or differently and people will flock to it until it sucks too.
Finnish person here to say fuck socialism.
What are your criticisms of how Finland is run?
I like capitalism. It is cool sometimes.
(Comment gets downvoted to oblivion)
Because it’s unsustainable and actively degenerates everything in its environment in pursuit of an insatiable need for capital growth.
Saying capitalism isn’t that bad is like saying early stage cancer isn’t that bad. It doesn’t change the nature of the cancer and what it will become unabated.
Going with the cancer metaphor, what does “late-stage” capitalism look like? How do we know that it will happen? Are there any other possible timelines that has something resembling capitalism but is not terrible? Capitalism is a pretty broad term that can describe all types of economies from the american gilded age to modern social democracies, and while I would certainly consider various forms of extreme capitalism to be cancerous to a functioning society, are they truly representative of all types of capitalist systems?
Edit: spelling
Anti-capitalism is centered around removing power from holding capital. By tying power to capital, there is an incentive to accumulate capital in disproportionate exchange.
Anti-capitalism is NOT anti-market. Markets are an economic tool used in all economies. Socialism is offered as an alternative to shift power to collective agreement through direct vote (direct democracy) or reprentative agreement (republic). By not granting economic goverance to a democratic government, there is a limitation on the ability to keep commodities responsibly sourced and consumed.
Capitalism means that we vote with our dollar and when those with capital have more votes and those without, they control policy generation and governance.
Based on your definition of what it means to be “anti-capitalist” vs “anti-market” I think there may be a difference between the definitions of capitalism we are working under. Could you give me your definition of capitalism?
While I do understand that non democratically accountable forms of economic activity may harmful or explotative in many situations, I do also see the argument for private ownership of “the means of production”, in so far as it can be beneficial to the overall effectiveness and efficiency of production and innovation. I don’t think anyone can scientifically or even philosophically completely justify one economic system over the other, and that so far, a mix of the two has been what most countries have settled on.
Capitalism means that we vote with our dollar and when those with capital have more votes and those without, they control policy generation and governance.
One last thing I’d like to point out, while in capitalism, the collective choices of those with money decide what products are made and services provided, this decision power doesn’t (and shouldn’t!) in well-functioning democracies extend to the government. I do understand the concern of large accumulations of wealth causing large imbalances of power which then affects government policy, and I believe this is a major problem (especially generational wealth). But I do not believe it is one that cannot be prevented and protected against, nor do I believe it is a defining property of “capitalism”.
On the topic of efficiency: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/3/17/the-tragic-downside-of-efficiency
The article seems to characterize efficiency solely in the context where it optimizes a process to the detriment of other useful aspects of the process (i.e. removing redundancy makes a system more “efficient” in some sense, while also making it more prone to disruption).
Putting aside the article’s weird definitions, I do like the article’s overall message: grow slow and sustainability rather than as “efficiently” as possible. I can see how the impulses of growth at all costs and short term efficiency gains at the cost of long term stability might be related to certain forms of capitalism, however capitalism is not defined (as in the definitions given in your other comment) by rampant disregard for caution and sustainability, (there are capitalist societies today known for their careful planning and risk management!). Capitalism as a concept is only defined via private ownership of capital, so I think my original comment still stands: capitalism is good, sometimes.
These seem good: https://www.wordnik.com/words/capitalism
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
noun An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development occurs through the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.from The Century Dictionary.
noun The state of having capital or property; possession of capital. noun The concentration or massing of capital in the hands of a few; also, the power or influence of large or combined capital.from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
noun An economic system based on predominantly private (individual or corporate) investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods and wealth; contrasted with socialism or especially communism, in which the state has the predominant role in the economy.from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
noun politics, uncountable a socio-economic system based on private property rights, including the private ownership of resources or capital, with economic decisions made largely through the operation of a market unregulated by the state. noun economics, uncountable a socio-economic system based on the abstraction of resources into the form of privately-owned capital, with economic decisions made largely through the operation of a market unregulated by the state. noun countable a specific variation or implementation of either such socio-economic system.from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
noun an economic system based on private ownership of capitalMost of these definitions (with the exception of the Century Dictionary) would suggest a definition for “anti-capitalism” as primarily being against an economic system based on private ownership of capital, not the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. While these two things are compatible and perhaps even causal, they don’t inherently require each other. You can have extreme wealth in a non capitalist system, or a capitalist system with strong caps on wealth accumulation. Perhaps a better description for your position would be “anti-extreme wealth” rather than “anti-capitalism”?
Careful this sub is full of people who are actual communists.
I like communism too, it can be cool sometimes as well.
If I don’t swallow the propaganda, I don’t swallow anything. We’re hungry, man.
You can swallow my 🍆 instead 😉
Lol, enshitification of these services are happening because the owners want to extract as much money as possible from the users. Workers would do the same even if they owned it. How many people would turn down millions of dollars because users don’t like the change?
Yeah I’m not sure why it’s nowadays common to simplify socialism as “workers owning the means of production”. It’s not exactly wrong, but it is often misunderstood.
A company being owned by it’s employees is not necessarily “socialism”. In today’s global capitalist economy, there are worker-cooperatives as well, but they too exist within the capitalist economy and have to follow its rules, which is above all the profit motive. If you don’t orient yourself based on profit, you will be out-competed eventually.
Traditionally, when socialists talk about “workers owning/seizing the means of production”, they are not talking about individual workers or individual businesses.
Workers means “the working class”, which would be pretty much everyone (“the 99%”). Means of production means industry and the economy overall, not individual factories and businesses.
What makes FOSS special is that the software is not privately owned by anyone, not by the devs, not by a couple of programmers, not by a company. It is commonly owned, anyone can use, copy and alter the code however they want without any artificial barriers. This of course makes it a lot harder to extract money from users.
I’m realizing I may have misunderstood you, sorry! .
I think you might have replied to the wrong person?
In publicly-traded corporations, long term wealth extraction isn’t the goal. Getting sales up next quarter is. Employee-owned cooperatives are more likely to think long term. Plus, I’d vastly prefer to trust the average worker to do the right thing in a coop situation vs a manager doing it in a situation where they’re legally required (as standard publicly-traded corporations are) to prioritize the financial gains of shareholders above all other interests. Maybe you’ve lost so much faith in people that you think no one would ever choose to be slightly less rich for any reason. But plenty of people know there’s such a thing as enough, that there are interests as important as next quarter’s profits. They just don’t usually get MBAs.
Ah, yes, we can see it with all the communities running their own Mastodon servers and extracting the maximum of wealth from their users. /s
You must think that humans are inherently greedy and/or are projecting what you would do in a scenario where you’re part of a worker co-op. Most workplaces aren’t worth millions. Most folks who round themselves in a worker co-op would most likely try to better the operation for everyone.
I see you haven’t met my co-workers. Or my neighbors.
Yah, if workers own a tiny portion of the means of production, as they do now in various co-ops around the globe, they will be either (1) required to operate on the basis of profit in order to outcompete entities that are not worker-owned, or (2) cease to exist because they get outcompeted by those who operate on the basis of profit.
This forces all existing co-ops to behave in line with capitalism as a whole. The point is to overcome that system of socio-economic relations: When calls are made for workers to own and operate production, as in this meme, they mean that the class constituted by workers — the proletariat — should be in control of all productive means. Not just that some workers should start co-ops, for this primary reason.
The idea that owners would sacrifice their profits if their business were merely a co-op is, I agree, not necessarily true. (Though workers in co-ops who are directly connected to the point of value production would definitely be more willing to sacrifice profits for decisions that enhance social value.) The point, however, is to move beyond an economy owned and operated for profit and forge a society in which profit is not the basis for operation in the first place. If, for example, workers’ needs were guaranteed, the impetus for profit-seeking would evaporate, though will not be absent, at least while the artifacts of capitalist society persist in us and our institutions.
That’s not exactly how things be.
If means of production were all owned by workers, then that means they are operating them for their own benefit and the benefit of their communities. Why? The profit motive is not quite as strong. You are no longer needing to amass wealth to live a happy life. Because those who control the local farms are part of the community. Those who control local factories are workers that are part of the community. Each of those operates the means of production to fulfill their own needs, and their community
Workers should control the beans of production.
Rise up! Seize the beans of production!
Rice up*
Amazing how many people will step in to defend the ownership of everything to a small minority. They will not reward bootlicking yet yall continue.
Look, they’re just temporary inconvenienced billionaires.
What I learned from observation is that they tend to believe that, one day, they will be part of the “small minority”. The American Dream!!!1
“It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it”
Damn, a lot of capitalist bootlickers in this thread
As if workers give a shit about customers.
They do when they work in a cooperative and have a stake in the business being successful.
My question is always: so if me and 10 other people have a great idea for a business, where does the money to start it come from? Most businesses take years to turn a profit, so in this collective, are we all just pouring in our savings until it takes off?
What if we all bust ass for 3 years, never getting paid because we’re building the product, we launch and start getting orders, and find that we’re getting a lot more orders than we expected, so we hire / bunch of people to help fulfill orders. Do those new hires all get an equal share, even though they weren’t there for the 3 years of unpaid R&D? Do they have to contribute money when they get hired for the share of the building that the rest of us already own?
I’m all for workers rights, and workers standing together collectively to get fair wages and working conditions, but when people say “workers should own the means of production”, they can never seem to explain how that would actually work.
Simply, the central bank can play the role of a VC where people with great ideas apply for loans or grants.
You expect a bank to make high risk loans to unproven ideas? What about loans did things which are controversial (think dispensary or brewery)?
Yes, I expect the state bank to make loans for unproven ideas. This isn’t nearly as outrageous as you seem to think. State funding in China is used precisely in this way to stimulate businesses in areas where China wants to advance right now. And if a dipensary or brewery was seen as socially necessary and viable they could get a loan like anybody else.
Two things stand out about this comment:
You’ve framed the idea of worker ownership in the context of profit maximization. It’s important to keep that in mind when running a business because you gotta know how your opponents are thinking and making decisions, but the point of worker ownership isn’t profit but instead agency.
I find it hard to believe that in always asking this question no one has ever answered with an overview of the different collective ownership forms that have existed throughout recorded human history or even a brief synopsis of how your country’s corporate law structures allow for it.
That would be an improvement actually, because the customers of these companies are not users, they are other companies looking to advertise or buy users personal data. The users of for profit social media are in fact the product, not the customers.
Great counterpoint. This is what Reddit has been missing for the last 6-8 years: actual thought instead of regurgitation.
Workers don’t give a shit about customers because that’s how the incentive system is set up. Give workers the profits, you give them a good reason to give a shit about how clients feel.
As well as ensuring those profits will keep flowing through their retirement, and you get the long term planning incentive.
I’m reminded by that guy on TikTok
“You just lost a customer”
“Good”
You skipped over the part where he says “You think I own this business? You think I own IKEA?” implying he would care if he actually had any skin in the game which he would if his job operated as a worker co-op.
Co-ops are still capitalism.
Capitalism is a system of capital accumulation with the people who own the means of production hiring workers to operate them. Co-ops are a market economy, but they’re demonstrably not capitalism because capital is distributed fairly amongst the workers doing the work. Learn the difference between markets and capitalism.
Co-ops can be capitalistic and are capable of functioning under capitalism, but they would also work much the same under any market economy. Decisions and would be profits are democratized/socialized.
Unsurprisingly, those who manage their own small business and aren’t at mercy of a giant corporation do. So…🙄
Commie memes on my front page? This place is cool AF
The problem is: capitalism.
Co-ops
What do you mean?
Goes without saying. Look at the profits of the companies providing essential resources like energy. They most certainly didn’t let a good crisis go to waste.
Attention, people of Bikini Bottom! You have been cheated and lied to! The gentle laborer shall no longer suffer from the noxious greed of Mr. Krabs! We will dismantle oppression board by board! We’ll saw the foundation of big business in half, even if it takes an eternity! With your support, we will send the hammer of the people’s will crashing through Mr. Krabs’ HOUSE OF SERVITUDE!
KRUSTY KRAB IS UNFAIR!
MR. KRABS IS IN THERE!
STANDING AT THE CONCESSION!
PLOTTING HIS OPPRESSION!
What the heck does that mean?
No, lol 😂
Listen, socialism doesn’t work.
Using socialism as a boogeyman by definition, is a poor argument. There are merits to many different economic systems, many of which have pros and cons, capitalism and socialism included.
The laugh, and “listen” while providing absolutely no reasoning demonstrates a certain level of arrogance, while at the same time demonstrating a lack of knowledge on the subject
Yeah I could have given arguments in the same comment.
You had two chances here and you didn’t. The platform you are on is brought to you by a communist.
Thank you for providing a great example of being confidently incorrect.
Do you have any example of working socialism?
Every single socialist country is an example of working socialism having lifted millions of people out of poverty, provided them with, food, housing education, and jobs. Meanwhile, we’re still looking for examples of working capitalism where majority of the population is not being exploited for the benefit of the capital owning oligarchy.
Wow. Read the rest of the thread because I’m not gonna rewrite stuff.
But as I was saying. I live in post communist country and the influence of socialism was extraordinarily destructive and I can see damage made from it to these days.
I grew up in USSR, and I lived through the collapse of USSR. It was one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in history. People who are cheering that on are the ones who benefit from all the exploitation under capitalism today. People who got theirs and don’t care about anything else. Deplorable.
Only a small percentage of socialists (albeit larger in this instance) hold the USSR up as anything but an example of an early, ham-fisted attempt at socialism with a lot of mistakes. If there have been no places socialism has worked yet (debatable, but I’ll argue from this position), that disproves nothing. The first several hundred tries at the lightbulb were probably failures, too, but capitalists talk about that failure as a side effect of innovation without realizing that social systems might need innovation too. I’m sorry if you suffered under an authoritarian socialist government; there’s nothing inherent about the connection between those two characteristics. But authoritarian governments tend to survive better against the kinds of conspiracies and attacks established capitalist governments launch against socialist ones, so you get to see what’s left. (If you don’t know about this, go to a library, start with…maybe Allende in ‘73…It’s very well-documented.). In sum, it has nothing to do with not caring about people harmed by authoritarianism. It has to do with seeing the evils of the system around us and refusing to accept that this is the best humanity can do. I’m sorry you can’t see that. But I’m not letting my friends’ access to insulin sit in the greedy hands of insurance companies without a fight. I’m not living in a pay-to-play political system where donors’ interests matter more than voters’ my whole life if I have anything to say about it. Regardless of your beliefs.
I think perhaps you meant to reply to the parent comment, I certainly did not suffer in USSR and the dissolution of USSR was a great tragedy in my view.
USSR obviously wasn’t the ideal of socialism. In fact, it would be pretty surprising if the first ever attempt at building a socialist society didn’t have problems. Obviously we can learn from USSR and do better going forward. However, I do think that despite all its problems, USSR did manage to achieve many positive outcomes for the majority of the people. It provided everyone with education, housing, healthcare, jobs, and all the necessities of life. This was done despite USSR having been under duress during its whole existence and it’s something that current capitalist regimes are unable to achieve.
“Lifted millions out of poverty”
Some people were effectevelly not much different from slaves up until 1970 as they had no passport, worked for food (oh, sorry, for workdays, which is even worse) and required permission to move from kolhoz. Ah tankies never change.
All wcommunists did for citizens is: lost the election, overturned it with force and forced millions of people back to medieval society with fancy goals.
NoT MuCh DifFeReNT FrOm SlaVes. Should really read up on what actual serfdom was like before the revolution instead of making a clown of yourself in public.
You are making the extraordinary claim, that despite socialism being used throughout the world, it simply doesn’t work. Therefore the onus of proof is on you. So, can you please describe why socialism doesn’t work?
Where. Give me an example of a socialist country
China, Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos are all examples of socialist countries today. China alone lifted over 800 million people out of poverty in recent decades. Compare that to the capitalist paradise in India.
China is a terrible example of a socialist economy, and the others are still mired by poverty. One could claim that is due to capitalist sabotage, but I don’t think it does socialism any favors to use them as success stories.
China is in fact an excellent example of a socialist country. Here’s a detailed explanation for you that’s well sourced and referenced https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT7Th2aV0wM
Does countries of Nordic model count? I heard good things about them.
Not really, Nordic model is capitalist because the capital owning class owns the means of production and holds power in society. Nordic model has generous social services and a social safety net, but that of itself does not make it socialist. A socialist model implies that it is the working class that holds power and that means of production are under a mix of public and cooperative ownership. This is the model that all western countries fight against.
Some of the richest countries in the world have a socialist framework in place lol. Norway, Switzerland, The Netherlands etc. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
That’s not socialism. That’s socdem. And it’s still capitalism
Oh you’re moving the goal post.
No that really isn’t socialism.
Socialist policies aren’t socialist? You’re either trolling or retarded.
Those countries are actually capitalist, but with strong worker protections
None of those countries are socialist.
What’s your definition of socialiam
Honestly I don’t even know where to start with this, so I’ll keep it simple. Enshittification of Twitter, Reddit et al. is not necessarily a result of capitalism, and likewise Fediverse doesn’t exist because “workers took the means of production”.
For example the disastrous YouTube monetisation policy comes in part from a desire to keep the site “child friendly” (that’s why swear words and gore are banned), and in part due to a need to follow existing copyright law.
Even if YouTube was run by a worker co-op, or was a state enterprise those two factors would likely still lead to stringent monetisation rules.
Monetisation rules are a direct result of capitalism. Profits are what motivates the decision making. In a post-capitalism economy it would be the needs and wants that motivates the decision making. One of the failures of capitalism is that we assume wants/needs has a correlation with profits, when clearly the enshitification demonstrates otherwise.
In socialism nobody wants to work so good luck with your YouTube. There is a reason for proprietary software being most popular and often more feature rich. What we need is capitalism + more opensource work from us, regular people. Capitalism + opensource is way to go.
You posted this on an open source platform built by volunteers without any hint of irony. 🤡
If you seriously compare socialism with opensource then I’m sorry for you.
I’m huge advocate for opensource software and I can even say it’s my life passion and I really know how important the relation between capitalism and opensource is.
You wouldn’t have react.js without capitalism. You know what is made in react.js? Mastodon
They could have used different library for js. one made totally by volunteers, but they haven’t. Why? Capitalism and opensource provide reliable products because there is a money factor and it fuels development
If you seriously compare socialism with opensource then I’m sorry for you.
This is how big tech saw free software until quite recently. Microsoft used to call linux communist.
FOSS basically goes against the concept of private property of software and embraced common ownership of software. Without private property, there is no capitalism. I wouldn’t call FOSS communism or socialism, but there are elements in it.
You wouldn’t have react.js without capitalism.
Ok, and what’s your point? If you read Marx, one essential point he claims is that without capitalism, there cannot be socialism.
They could have used different library for js. one made totally by volunteers, but they haven’t. Why?
Probably because they saw no use in reinventing the wheel? And why should they?
It’s as if you told a revolutionary during the French revolution “You used weapons that you looted from the Bastille, weapons that were produced by the king.”. What exactly would be the argument here?
😂
Constructive reply
When somebody thinks that something like react.js wouldn’t be possible without capitalism, you can only laugh or cry. If you really can’t understand that open source existed long before corps started messing with it, then you’re an utter ignoramus not worth having a discussion with.
Clown shit doesn’t deserve ‘constructive’ replies tbqhwu
Nobody? Look to be honest there are some lazy people that dont want to work but most of us will be happy to work in a socialist economy where we the workers get compensated fairly. Capitalism and open source dont go hand by hand. People is literally creating all of this amazing products for free!! Workinf for the community thats what socialism is. And also the proprietary software is more “popular” because big companies just take open source and make it proprietary then they said they created just look at Apple and RedHat.
huge part of opensource is funded and developed by capitalistic companies. Take Linux for example.
And imagine if you wanted to open your own coffee shop. Where would you get a place for it? From the state probably. But what if they decide that there is no need for new coffee shop? You would have problem. In capitalism on the other hand you have your free will and as long as you have money you can open your coffee shop anytime anywhere. I know it’s not really as easy to make money but if capitalism isn’t broken by stupid regulations and other nonsense it really can work, allowing you to take cheap loans and start your own businesses.
I live in a post communist country and trust me I know how shitty socialism is
I understand your point on the coffee shop in that you are right. Thats not exactly how capitalism works , if you open a coffee shop and become very profitable then a big company comes in putting out of business forcing you to work for them or close your place. Capitalism is brutal against small businesses. I totally support small business , that’s why I believe that people should have more power not corporations.
Free market is a democracy. That’s awesome you support small business and if more people were doing the same thing I can guarantee that big corporations wouldn’t be a problem.
Another really important factor are regulations. Capitalism right now is way to regulated which makes it really difficult for small businesses to exist. On the other hand big corporations are not regulated enough tho.
We should work on existing system, try to improve it rather than change it to totally different.
Also if you wanted to make a switch to socialism you would have to rob a lot of people from their private property
Your conflicting points on regulation show that you don’t actually understand the problems with capitalism.
My problem with Capitalism is the profit over anything. The environment , workers , resources , quality , control over the things you bought. There are so many examples where corporations abuse their power.
That and the cancerous need for infinite growth on a finite planet, which is destroying our home…
Not from the state. From the community. And the community would be happy for more nice stuff
In socialism nobody wants to work so good luck with your YouTube
They said, on a decentralized, free and open source platform, developed by socialists.
the disastrous YouTube monetisation policy comes in part from a desire to keep the site “child friendly”
Sure, but the reason why they want to keep the site “child friendly” is because content for children is incredibly profitable and because advertisers don’t want their ads getting related to “controversial” content.
Even if YouTube was run by a worker co-op, or was a state enterprise those two factors would likely still lead to stringent monetisation rules.
This is the reason why I don’t like equating socialism with “workers owning the means of production”. Worker-cooperatives can exist in a capitalist economy, which means they have to follow capitalist rules (including the drive to generate profits).
When leftists say “workers”, they generally mean “the 99%” or “the working class”, not individual workers. When leftists say “the means of production”, they mean the economy/industry overall, not individual companies.
If youtube was owned and operated in common, it would not be bound to profitability, but to use.
We can also look at something like peertube, which is essentially a commonly owned version of youtube. Instead of being guided by profitability, it is used based on many different use-cases. There can be peertube instances that are completely private, there can be peertube instances that are used for a specific topic or community (for example kids) and there can be peertube instances which are not for children at all.
Enshittification of those services is a direct symptom of capitalism.
No one is arguing that the fediverse exists because of workers owning the means of production.
You should really look into what “enshittification” means and how it’s a direct result of capitalism.
deleted by creator
Yes, or at a bare minimum, CEO-proof everything and put more power in the hands of users of monolithic infrastructural utility products like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit
Capitalism generally allows for a range of ownership structures, including traditional privately owned businesses, publicly traded corporations, and worker-owned enterprises.
I guess an argument would be that privately owned companies are already too wealthy to allow for fair market competition, but in worker owned companies nothing is stopping them from becoming large corporations that can also do everything a private lobbyist company does. If you don’t believe me, just look at your democratically elected capitalist government. Just because something is democratic doesn’t mean it will be ethical or fair internally or externally.
Uh… No.
Or at least have them be publicly owned common good, owned by multiple countries with editorial independence from the get go and funded through taxation. That would be a start.
