People use the word “capitalism” to mean different things.
If you ask someone “Should someone who doesn’t do any work get money from people who do?”, a lot of people would say no. And they’d probably think you’re talking about welfare or communism. But that’s capitalism. The guy who “owns” the company can sit at home and watch netflix while all his office workers make stuff, and he keeps the profits. If you frame it right, you can get people to agree with you or suffer some cognitive dissonance.
But none of that is what some people are thinking of when they think capitalism. They think “free markets” and “competition”. They often don’t really think about how that trends towards monopolies or cartels. Either because of magic, or “the government will prevent monopolies.” But not too much regulation. There’s got to be a few decades of suffering before an intervention, typically.
There’s also a lot of binary thinking. Either capitalism, or total state ownership and oppression.
Total state ownership isn’t oppression for most people, though, assuming it’s a worker-run state. It’s also a necessary step towards building a fully classless society.
Also, it’s really funny how people think that private ownership by a small percentage of the population is somehow better than state ownership. It’s peak temporarily embarrassed billionaire mentality.
Yep! My biggest problem with it is that the language surrounding national minorities is… Dated… But beyond that, it’s an excellent look at the Soviet Union!
People use the word “capitalism” to mean different things.
If you ask someone “Should someone who doesn’t do any work get money from people who do?”, a lot of people would say no. And they’d probably think you’re talking about welfare or communism. But that’s capitalism. The guy who “owns” the company can sit at home and watch netflix while all his office workers make stuff, and he keeps the profits. If you frame it right, you can get people to agree with you or suffer some cognitive dissonance.
But none of that is what some people are thinking of when they think capitalism. They think “free markets” and “competition”. They often don’t really think about how that trends towards monopolies or cartels. Either because of magic, or “the government will prevent monopolies.” But not too much regulation. There’s got to be a few decades of suffering before an intervention, typically.
There’s also a lot of binary thinking. Either capitalism, or total state ownership and oppression.
Total state ownership isn’t oppression for most people, though, assuming it’s a worker-run state. It’s also a necessary step towards building a fully classless society.
Also, it’s really funny how people think that private ownership by a small percentage of the population is somehow better than state ownership. It’s peak temporarily embarrassed billionaire mentality.
People confuse private with independence and state with dominance because they don’t see the state as a product and tool of class struggle.
Precisely, Anna Louise Strong puts best it in This Soviet World:
Yep, almost done reading this book too!
it’s so good, I just love how full of optimism it is
Yep! My biggest problem with it is that the language surrounding national minorities is… Dated… But beyond that, it’s an excellent look at the Soviet Union!