I hate capitalism

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Shh. I don't think you're allowed to point out just how flawed that sort of logic is. It isn't polite.

Whoops!

At least he seems happy not to engage anymore, so everyone wins.

Some of my favourite products were made by corporations.

Would your smartphone have been made under communism? I don't think it would have been. Not because I think communists always have bad technology. The technological accomplishments of the Soviet Union were significant. But because they don't make technology for the individual. They would probably consider the Smartphone to be bourgeois.

I've spoken to some communists on the internet who bait with "we will lift the masses out of poverty" and switch with "we consider not being in poverty to be bourgie".

They talk about getting rid of the rich people but getting rid of the rich people doesn't necessarily stop people being poor.

I don't understand how letting Stalin hoard all the wealth and power while four million Ukrainians starved was any better. That and colonialism / neo-colonialism. Colonialism really f****d up Africa and some other parts of the world. It's not just a thing of the past. In some ways it's still going. Now that's the type of capitalism we should hate.

So does North Korea. It's a part of Juche.

So did the ancient world. Just look at the Pharaohs and emperors of China.

 

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019 ... erty-chart

When asking "how many people has this policy killed?", there needs to be a baseline to compare against. When we compare capitalist and comparable non-capitalist countries, it is clear that outcomes are better in capitalist countries.

I already made a few suggestions for comparisons, but here are some more:

- The USA from 1945-1991, compared to the USSR in the same period.

- West Germany from 1945-1990 compared to East Germany in the same period.

- South Korea from 1992-present compared to North Korea in the same period.

- Colombia from 1999-present compared to Venezuela in the same period.

- Taiwan 1984-present compared to PR China in the same period.

- Botswana 1980-present compared to Zimbabwe in the same period.

It's probably not fair to bring up Costa Rica vs Nicaragua.

You can also see the effects of a country moving away from communism, either slightly or dramatically. China of course has gone from being as poor as the average African country to a middle-income country as a result of Deng-era liberalisation. Other examples are... well, basically all of Eastern Europe. Estonia and Latvia are the most dramatic but Poland is also a success story, as is former Czechoslovakia. Vietnam has quietly been through a similar process to China. And on less-dramatic scales, you can see the growth that countries have achieved after walking away from social democratic policies in favour of neoliberal ones, most famously in the UK and Australia but to an extent in countries like India, Malaysia, and Uruguay too.

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A Mixed Free Market With A Balance of Social Welfare

Works Better in Some Countries Than Others Yet

It Does Seem to Be The Best of What Humans Have
Now As That Relates to Potential Human Wellbeing, Overall...

It's Truly Alarming Though As A Study by Harvard Recently Done Shows:

"Across every dimension of well-being that we looked at
— happiness, health, meaning, character, relationships,
financial stability ... those who are 18 to 25 felt they were worse off"

And This is Applicable to All Older Than 'Generation Z' Demographics As A Steady
Rise in All Elements of Wellbeing, Where The 'Silent Generation' Above the Age of
77, Actually Reported The Highest Levels of 'Health Wellbeing,' Where Generation Z
Was in Last Place; Two Decades Ago, Well-Being Was Studied As Being 'U' Shaped

With the Youngest And Oldest Generations Reporting Highest Levels of Well Being.

Recently, A CDC Study Showed Girls in Grade School With 57% Levels of Negative Life
Functioning Impacts of Depression and Close to A Third Experiencing Suicidal Ideation.

While This Mixed Market Economy Has Worked Well For me Personally in All Aspects of
Well-Being Now at my age of 63, i Surely Had Great Difficulties Across the Entire Lifespan

Attaining Full Well-Being Now at Ages 53 to 63; Yes, Financial Independence Helps Yet It is far
More Complicated Than Only Economic Concerns; And This is Where Researchers are a bit Lost;

Although, Social Media Is Taking A Big Hit As Well As Loneliness That Seems to Go Hand-in-Hand
With Our Immersion in Electronic Media Tools, Where Humans Seem to Be Losing So Much of Their Humanity

in Terms of Social-Empathic Intelligences And Abilities to Successfully Navigate the Inner Parts of Their Humanity
With Each Other...

It's True, the Mental Health Business
is Booming, For Those Professionals
Able to Keep Up And Not Burning Out Leaving

Big Holes, Even For Those With Good Insurance Looking For Good Help...

Of Course, Capitalism is Related to Overconsumption of Environmental Resources
And Abuses of Environmental Resources As Well; The United States Uses 40 Percent
of the Human Resources Currently Used on the Planet Earth with 4 Percent of the Population

According to Study too; Additionally, Although the Goal for many Countries and People Who Live
in Those Countries is to Attain the Kind of Economic and Material Success the United States Has;

Study, Also Shows it Would Take the Resources of 5 Earths to Make that Happen per How We Currently Consume the
Earth.

We Have Very Intelligent People in the World, Working Together Who May Be Able to Provide Viable Solutions to these
Problems for Now and the Future; Additionally, Artificial Intelligence May Contribute to a Kind of Abundance With
Renewable Energy Resources that Are Currently out of Our grasp.

One Reality for Sure, The Folks Who are Currently the Most Satisfied With Their Well-Being Per the Silent Generation
Of Those Ages 77 Plus, Won't be around forever to Vote For Change in Our Current Political System Now.

Younger Generations Are Much More Willing to Entertain The Reality of A Society Weighted More
Towards Social Welfare With a Free Market Economy Than is Currently the Case With Older
Generations...

Change; It's the Only Reality.

Change is Coming For the Better or Worse... or Worst...

Anyway, i Have FRiEnDS From Other Countries, Some who are of
the Cream of the Crop of their Fields, Spending Nearly a Decade
of Their Life Making Their Way Through All the Obstacles of Education
And Work Experience, Just to Have the Opportunities a Life in the United States Brings...

The Perspective Of Others, Surely has Brought More Perspective to me, How Lucky to
Be Born in the United States When i was, And Able to Make it Through Life Challenges to this Point...

An Idea That it is Hypocritical to Live in A Family, School, Work Place, Church, Economy, Politics, Culture,
Or Nation And Suggest Change for Improvements for Those Who Are Not Either Surviving or Thriving Well Is

Ridiculous; At Least If One Has the Ability to Put Their Self in the Shoes of Those Less Well Heeled or 'Healed'...

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/09/why-are-young-people-so-miserable/

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Is no one going to comment how billionaires are buying our politicians in order to secure themselves being above the law? That's one product of capitalism is it not?

The same influence can be said of any type of government you have in play. Billionaire property owners have vast power in communist countries, such as China and Russia. The leaders of those countries listen to their rich friends that keep them in power. If you go to socialist countries, you will find the influences of wealth there also. The greed of money corrupts at multiple levels of human society, not just in capitalism. The only way that is not the case is in a situation that does not use money at all (utopian society in concept, but not possible in modern reality).

From the outside North Korea sure looks like a kingdom that's on it's third generation of hereditary monarchy.

I'm not suggesting ML dictatorships don't tend to produce an elite with excessive control over wealth and power, only that North Korea is a absolutist monarchy cosplaying as commies.

Lovely strawman.

Yup!  Just like these guys:

The day that a meme can settle an argument is the day I give up bowling.

Except the one actually encapsulated common position espoused in this thread and the other is acting like complaints about capitalism boil down to not being wealthy.

Swing and a miss.

I see the only people objecting to Capitalism are those who are NOT wealthy -- many seem to also be unemployed and living on the dole.  Others seem to be reaping the fruits of the slackers' lifestyle during their school days, or seem to have somehow made themselves undesirable to well-paying employers.

It also seems that when someone complains about being "forced" to work, they also want the things that more affluent people have earned to be given to them, and then they act as if their personal privileges are being denied because they do not deserve any of it.  This is an expression of jealousy, which the meme I posted exemplifies.

Please note that if a person is unable to earn a living, I believe they should receive the necessities of life automatically and without effort.

However, for those who can work, but who either complain about the necessity of labor, and/or refuse to work at all, I have no sympathy whatsoever.

I am retired -- I am no longer employed.  The wages from my labors over the last 40+ years have all gone toward my own current slackerhood lifestyle, which I enjoy only because I have already earned the privilege!

So when someone half my age declares that he or she deserves the same privileges I have earned, not only is it a personal affront to me, but it is a ridiculous claim to make in the first place!

A fair comparison? Hey you're supposed to compare how many people were killed by capitalism vs how many people were killed by communism?

The hope is that you will just accept their figure that capitalism killed 100 gazillion people and that it will never even occur to you to ask how many people communism killed or which number might be higher.It sure does. That's just a consequence of late stage communism.

How is having a despotic king any different from having Stalin? He was king in all but title.

It's not a product of capitalism. In most capitalist countries, bribing politicians is both against the law, and difficult.

Alternative systems do not eliminate cronyism and corruption.

Let's have a look at Transparency International's corruption perceptions index: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2022

The top 22 spots are advanced capitalist societies, and almost all of them are democracies.

Contrastingly, if you go to the bottom then it's dominated by dictatorships, failed states, and, yes, countries with a recent history of socialism, like Venezuela and North Korea. There is, of course, varying degrees of overlap between those categories. China and Cuba are the two least corrupt communist countries, in joint 65th position.