Originally posted by Old Man Whirly!
I think it's pretty accurate tbh mate.
I don't think so, it's much to limited really, and certainly some of the things they put on the same level is bizarre. I mean the New York Times Opinion page...that's the one that Thomas Friedman and Bret Stephens right for......on the same level as Jacobin....on the same level as Vox.
And then the Wall Street Journal opinion page is surely a completely different kind of right wing from Fox News and that is completely different from Reason magazine. And The Economist, a 170 year old right wing magazine founded to justify British imperialism as left as The Guardian...I'm flabbergasted.
Originally posted by ArtolYeah, the Economist being put to the left is silly. They describe themselves as "radical centrists", and have endorsed everyone in recent years at different points: Labour, Tories and the Lib Dems. I've read a lot of their material, and they're certainly not left-skewed. I'd put them into the neo-liberal globalist camp, if anywhere.
And The Economist, a 170 year old right wing magazine founded to justify British imperialism as left as The Guardian...I'm flabbergasted.
Originally posted by Scribble
I disagree. Sanders is a democratic socialist, not a social democrat (although I agree with him on healthcare, the US needs a social system, even if it is hard to implement). He was also surrounded by activists who used hard communist rhetoric and slang ('gulags', etc.). I'd say that the whole way we see politics is skewed. Centrists and liberals are almost always considered right-wing by modern standards.Pol Pot was a Marxist, and the Khmer Rouge was communist. Again, this isn't a point of debate; it is a fact. Use any basic search function and you will find this.
China these days is complex so let's not get too far into that (I'm no expert). But, their human rights system is ****ed, and they're still an autocracy. Not great. These countries are doing better now that communism has largely left, but it was the implementation of communism that started it, regardless of what happened afterwards. Communism literally equals bad, bad times. Fascism is easier to recover from.
And yes, maybe it has brought people out of poverty — through a hybrid system. So, with a bit of capitalism, they started doing better. Without capitalism, they had 45 million people die because their nutjob leader wanted all the sparrows killed. Capitalism is, without a doubt, the single biggest influencing factor in bringing people out of poverty in world history. Communism is a bloody-handed murderer.
Regardless of what is in Sanders heart, his platform is a mid-90s social democratic platform.
Capitalism alone is responsible for immense amounts of poverty and suffering, only through social programs fought for by leftists did any of the wealth that was created actually get slightly spread around. These programs are more and more being considered far-left ideas to be destroyed. You can see it in the destruction of the NHS under the Tory government, you can see it in the privatization waves in France, Germany, etc. we are moving from a relatively humane form of chained up capitalism to a hyper capitalism that has made inequality far, far worse (not to speak of the devastation neo-liberal trade policies have done to the growth of third world nations), while destroying anything that used to give meaning and identity to people, which we can see in the crises of suicides and ill mental health throughout the west.
But you need capitalism to fund those social programs.
I always see people citing Nordic countries too, but in some places their taxes are high as hell. They take in a lot of money from what people earn in order to provide all that stuff.
It's not perfect, nothing will be perfect. The alternatives are worse.
Originally posted by Artol👆 I've argued this many times here, top notch.
Regardless of what is in Sanders heart, his platform is a mid-90s social democratic platform.Capitalism alone is responsible for immense amounts of poverty and suffering, only through social programs fought for by leftists did any of the wealth that was created actually get slightly spread around. These programs are more and more being considered far-left ideas to be destroyed. You can see it in the destruction of the NHS under the Tory government, you can see it in the privatization waves in France, Germany, etc. we are moving from a relatively humane form of chained up capitalism to a hyper capitalism that has made inequality far, far worse (not to speak of the devastation neo-liberal trade policies have done to the growth of third world nations), while destroying anything that used to give meaning and identity to people, which we can see in the crises of suicides and ill mental health throughout the west.
Originally posted by Surtur
But you need capitalism to fund those social programs.I always see people citing Nordic countries too, but in some places their taxes are high as hell. They take in a lot of money from what people earn in order to provide all that stuff.
It's not perfect, nothing will be perfect. The alternatives are worse.
Those nordic countries that lefties like to cite as "examples of successful socialism" are not even really socialist. Can't believe people are still claiming they are.
Originally posted by Surtur
But you need capitalism to fund those social programs.I always see people citing Nordic countries too, but in some places their taxes are high as hell. They take in a lot of money from what people earn in order to provide all that stuff.
It's not perfect, nothing will be perfect. The alternatives are worse.
Marx actually mostly agrees with you, in the sense that he views capitalism as an improvement over the feudalism we have before, leading to enormous creations of wealth unthinkable beforehand. He'd just say that this enormous wealth should not be capitalized (pardon the pun) by a small elite. I'm not a Marxist myself, but it is true that if the wealthiest can make the laws most people live at the bare minimum in squalor (you can see that in the miner towns in the north of England and around the world).
Taxes are high in social democracies, though I would disagree with the framing, a fair amount of money is not taken from people who earned it, but people that were the beneficiaries of how the system was laid out (i.e. capitalists). Social programs have the advantage that they give some of the wealth that capitalists have extracted from worker labor back to the community.
Originally posted by ArtolThe mining towns are gone, where they were is third generation unemployed.
Marx actually mostly agrees with you, in the sense that he views capitalism as an improvement over the feudalism we have before, leading to enormous creations of wealth unthinkable beforehand. He'd just say that this enormous wealth should not be capitalized (pardon the pun) by a small elite. I'm not a Marxist myself, but it is true that if the wealthiest can make the laws most people live at the bare minimum in squalor (you can see that in the miner towns in the north of England and around the world).Taxes are high in social democracies, though I would disagree with the framing, a fair amount of money is not taken from people who earned it, but people that were the beneficiaries of how the system was laid out (i.e. capitalists). Social programs have the advantage that they give some of the wealth that capitalists have extracted from worker labor back to the community.
Originally posted by Artol
Marx actually mostly agrees with you, in the sense that he views capitalism as an improvement over the feudalism we have before, leading to enormous creations of wealth unthinkable beforehand. He'd just say that this enormous wealth should not be capitalized (pardon the pun) by a small elite. I'm not a Marxist myself, but it is true that if the wealthiest can make the laws most people live at the bare minimum in squalor (you can see that in the miner towns in the north of England and around the world).Taxes are high in social democracies, though I would disagree with the framing, a fair amount of money is not taken from people who earned it, but people that were the beneficiaries of how the system was laid out (i.e. capitalists). Social programs have the advantage that they give some of the wealth that capitalists have extracted from worker labor back to the community.
I do think changes need to be made. I'm uncomfortable with the amount of control corporations have here. A select few control social media, which is rapidly becoming akin to the public square. So in a way they control a fair amount of our speech. They control youtube too, which a lot of people use to earn a living now.
And the problem is it's not like the government would do any better.
Originally posted by Surtur
But you need capitalism to fund those social programs.I always see people citing Nordic countries too, but in some places their taxes are high as hell. They take in a lot of money from what people earn in order to provide all that stuff.
It's not perfect, nothing will be perfect. The alternatives are worse.
Sorry, I just saw your edit, about the alternatives being worse. We don't need to have live in an alternative to capitalism to have huge improvement. The lives of working Americans were far better comparatively before Reagan's neo-liberal. Even going back to a (more inclusive) version of capitalism as the United States had in the 50s and 60s, would help almost everyone, except perhaps a tiny, tiny amount of billionaires, and, tbh, even they'd be better off, even if they can't see that at the moment.
Originally posted by Surtur
I do think changes need to be made. I'm uncomfortable with the amount of control corporations have here. A select few control social media, which is rapidly becoming akin to the public square. So in a way they control a fair amount of our speech. They control youtube too, which a lot of people use to earn a living now.And the problem is it's not like the government would do any better.
The government does better in some aspects, but it also does worse in others, I totally admit that. What we need is a truly mixed economy. We need to turn back Milton Friedman's changes to society, so that more people can take part in the immense wealth. The United States is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, yet millions of people sleep rough every night, millions more can't afford health care, and millions of others can never find any job that has any potential of fulfillment or security. The US is at the same time the most successful state (from a capitalist POV) and a failed state (from a humanist POV).
Originally posted by Old Man Whirly!
The mining towns are gone, where they were is third generation unemployed.
Yes, I should have specified, I was talking about late 19th and early 20th century mining towns as a product of unchained capitalism. The devastation done to these places by Margaret Thatcher is of course also unspeakable.
Originally posted by ArtolI mostly agree with you on the Sanders issue. I'm fine with many of his policies. I just don't like the people he surrounds himself with.
Regardless of what is in Sanders heart, his platform is a mid-90s social democratic platform.Capitalism alone is responsible for immense amounts of poverty and suffering, only through social programs fought for by leftists did any of the wealth that was created actually get slightly spread around. These programs are more and more being considered far-left ideas to be destroyed. You can see it in the destruction of the NHS under the Tory government, you can see it in the privatization waves in France, Germany, etc. we are moving from a relatively humane form of chained up capitalism to a hyper capitalism that has made inequality far, far worse (not to speak of the devastation neo-liberal trade policies have done to the growth of third world nations), while destroying anything that used to give meaning and identity to people, which we can see in the crises of suicides and ill mental health throughout the west.
I mean, you're wrong. Pre-capitalism, all of the wealth was owned by the aristocracy. It's only since the free market fully materialised that poverty has gone down. Your analysis of capitalism is very narrow-minded and slanted. It's essentially just a Freedom Model. It's dispassionate. Yes, we need social programs to flesh out society's needs and wants, to iron out the creases and right some wrongs; but without the freedom of capitalism, you can't do that.
A lot of what you're seeming to take umbrage with is the more modern model of corporatism / greed-conservatism. Also tied in with neo-liberalism, and economic imperialism. But, I do think your underlying points have merit. Consumerism has been disastrous for our shared cultural mental health, as it were, and due to the influx of postmodern thought, which was completely embraced by corporatism, much of our inherent truths have been wiped away. Also, just as a general point, **** the Tories.