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Why are folks so anti-capitalist? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

881 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi all,

I'm seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I'm wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I'm pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.

If this isn't the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I'm happy to take this somewhere else.

Cheers!

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Because people these days have lived through their parents losing a lot during the housing crash while wages continue to get lesser, prices continue to get greater, and rich people continue to get richer.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Also the planet being destroyed, with no end in sight as long as the entire society is organized around the sole purpose of enabling those with the most money to have more money, rather than anything actually meaningful or beneficial for those who live on the planet.

[+] [email protected] -10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Quoting my reply to a similar sentiment: (link here: https://programming.dev/comment/1167202)

I’m really not trying to be a dick, but uhh… Look around? The world is literally on fire and efforts to put it out or even to stop pouring more gas on it are put down at every turn by capitalists in the never ending pursuit of more money for it’s own sake.

Well I mean it’s unclear to me that we’re much worse than previous points in history. I’d rather have the climate crisis over the nuclear one, or either of the world wars, or live under a feudal system where I’m owned by the local lord in his castle.

I sympathize (and agree) with the belief that the current system isn’t serving everyone, much less serving everyone equally. But the world is a complicated thing and we’ve got >7 billion people to feed! I think we should be very careful before deciding “yeah it’s time to tear down the existing systems and hope that there are better systems out there”. It’s easier to make things worse than to make things better.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Dude, in this case what make it hard is not nature, is not our technology or even the will of most people.

We have means to feed everyone on this planet. Make clean water available to everyone. To make everyone have a house. And to revert clima change.

What is stopping that to happen? Most people here will answer "capitalism", but explain and prove that is not so simple because, as you said, the world is complex and we live inside the system. Think about how someone on ancient times trying understand a critique about their own society made by an outsider. Not that easy. And to make that even harder, we feed get propaganda from all sides.

I suggest you to make more basic/small questions. Like "why food companies don't donate excess food for people in need instead of trashing it?", the answer will be an excuse about risk of being sued. That's not true, the are laws in US to protect companies donating food in good faith.

Or maybe "Are there options to capitalism? What is socialism? What is communism? Why do they failed? Did they failed? What can we learn with history? Where can I find good sources?"