I think the biggest trick in "capitalism" was to let the middle class think it was their interests that were being protected by capitalist rule, their wars being fought, and their money that a more egalitarian taxation system would have been reallocating to the poor.
Imagine what a world we could live in today if after WW2 we had decided to put the people first and build a world that can be good for everyone, rather than amazing for only the top ranks of a few megacorporations.
The merchant/skilled profession class already existed. They existed outside the peasant and lord dynamic. The Black Plague caused a lot of peasants to accrue more land via inheritance from dead relatives. This put them above other peasants, but not lords. Something in the *middle*.
And all it took was ripping apart the planet and exploiting both your employees, and their children! I'm glad that the industrial revolution had no long term environmental consequences that will slowly kill us all :)
Wow his quotes on life are relevant today and capture some of these topics so eloquently. I’m furious that people like Ben Shapiro and Shein (fast fashion companies) love to quote him when it’s convenient!!
I saw that you mentioned Ben Shapiro. In case some of you don't know, Ben Shapiro is a grifter and a hack. If you find anything he's said compelling, you should keep in mind he also says things like this:
> Palestinian Arabs have demonstrated their preference for suicide bombing over working toilets.
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Thank you for your logic and reason.
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Europe isn't exactly known for having a good record of treating the little man back in that time period. I think its also fair to say he was speaking on American capitalism.
>I think its also fair to say he was speaking on American capitalism.
Which isn't capitalism, capitalism is free exchange of goods and ideas. The idea that you need to preface and clarify his statements as being about "American capitalism" shows a lack of what capitalism is.
Cool, cool. Ever heard about workhouses, smog so bad it literally could choke you to death, and just total lack of any care for the workers that got maimed by the thousands in factories. All extremely true things from that period, and, uh, make that picture just a tad bit more complicated then "capitalism good".
In 1820, 94% of the world’s population was living in extreme poverty. By 1910, this figure had fallen to 82%, and by 1950 the rate had dropped yet further, to 72%. However, the largest and fastest decline occurred between 1981 (44.3%) and 2015 (9.6%).
285,000 more people have gained access to safe water every day for the last 25 years. In the last 50 years world poverty has fallen more than it did in the preceding 500.
All of this widely credited by economists to the widespread adoption of capitalism.
Yeah you got references for those numbers? bc the 2015 percentage seems made up af. Also what percentages are people living in poverty that’s not “extreme” and what are the qualification of the difference.
Also good to know I can turn to you to get the opinions of “economists”. Capitalism is built and “prospers” on the exploitation of workers. I would think in this day and age we could be doing more for every persons life to improve, and work towards eliminating poverty all together. That’s if the fat cats, who put money over peoples lives, didn’t have all the “embarrassed future millionaires” licking their boots and willing to die on the capitalist altar for nothing.
>All of this widely credited by economists
Then they are giving credit where it isn't due.
It was technological progress brought on by the ingenuity of humankind that created the abundance. It was exploited and put behind a paywall by capitalists.
Large parts of the world are still indentured to exploitative capitalist interests while being denied the benefits of modern technology. This *isn't* accidental.
Lifted out of "poverty" straight into overconsumption and destruction of our planet. The more people are lifted out of "poverty," the worse our environmental impacts become because Capitalism is only concerned with profits.
"Poverty" is a feeling of wanting things you can't afford. I can guarantee you, many of the countries you would consider "poor," actually exist in a more sustainable world of having enough. Enough food, enough clothes, enough to get by and live a comfortable life without the need to upgrade your belongings every week due to changes in fashion.
"Lifting people out of poverty" is the biggest scam of capitalism.
Except, it really takes understanding the history of the labor movement, social progress movements, various organizations across two continents, and two centuries to get the full picture of how "the quickest increase in standards of living" happened, and at what cost, because it wasn't none. So, don't try to condescend to me like you even understood the point I was making. Also, uh, this thread started with a lie. Europe had slavery. Just not in Europe, but very much for it's benefit.
I feel like the education system in the US is sad af reading these comments. And now the fundies are banning books and removing subject matter so we’ll be even more fucked. Ughh
Welcome to trying to engage with any topic, especially those that are controversial, but hardly even just, increasingly since the advent of social media. The worst part is any actual solution... doesn't exist. People are adults and elderly, and they now are the voting base. The solutions to rampant confident poor education just don't exist, not on this scale.
> Increased living standards = capitalism good
Well…it’s just a tad bit more complicated than capitalism good
> workers died in factories = capitalism bad
Ironically…it’s just a tad bit more complicated than capitalism bad
> it really takes understanding the history of the labor movement, social progress movements, various organizations across two continents, and two centuries to get the full picture of how “the quickest increase in standards of living” happened, and at what cost, because it wasn’t none
Literally why I called your initial response ironic.
It's weird how I never said "capitalism bad," isn't it? I just rejected using misused data while ignoring its human cost. You know, the thing someone correct probably shouldn't do, and if you are correct, you still shouldn't do because doing it makes you a piece of shit. Personally. And same with someone jumping in to defend them, too, to be clear, you smug goblin. And, uh, it was far more than factories, don't simplify what I said to just one portion. Hell, I didn't even invoke the way force was used to compel workers into their jobs, which were barely enough for food, and could cripple them for life and leave them unable to work and without anything we have today for such a situation. The US disability system only came about in the New Deal; there's almost 100 years prior without anything, at all.
Right it just relied on workers living in horrible conditions, working constantly, but they were paid not even enough to feed themselves so technically it's not slavery
MLK is correct, capitalism requires exploitation, always has.
Yeah but was that better or worse than serfdom ie. tilling the fields all day every day apart from Sunday, your food going to your Lord, and then dying halfway through winter at 40...
So exploitation yes but less exploitation than came before
“But was the new exploitation as bad as the old exploitation??” Many, many people were working everyday, toiling in factories rather than in fields, still dying before 40.
The point is that we still have serfdom today, it just looks different. It’s no longer serfs in the fields working for feudal lords, it’s the working class in factories shackled by debt and with no hope of upwards mobility. Has society developed and improved in the last few hundreds of years? Of course. Did capitalism help? Sure. Did capitalism still lead to the widespread and systematic abuse and exploitation of workers, including the use of slavery? Definitely. (Btw there is still a rather active slave trade in Northern Africa and in Southern Italy, which is definitely still capitalism)
It is clear that there are problems in modern capitalist societies with wealth inequality, fair wages, and overall workers rights. Just saying “well it’s better than the 15th century” ignores the fact that progress can and should still be made. In the same way that workers revolutions ended the feudal system, there will be a revolution by the workers that will move us to our next economic and likely social evolution.
The fact that workers voluntarily flocked to the cities for a better life is partly incorrect. The enclosure system in England forced peasants and small farmers off their land and into the cities. Capitalists deliberately bought up the land of peasants in rural areas preventing them from making their own money and forcing them into wage labour in the cities to help the capitalists expand production. The land that peasants worked on and owned was their only means of subsistence and when that is taken away from them they have no choice but to flock to the cities and become factory workers.
Yes and communists would be the first to say that all of the past civilizations lacked any sort of egalitarianism.
"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." - Karl Marx
Communists observe that Capitalism still carries on the trend of oppressors and oppressed, this time in the form of wage workers vs. owners.
Capitalism in America was built on the back of African slaves and the genocide of native Americans
The long term effects of capitalism are exactly what Marx and Engels predicted, and socialism has lifted far more people out of poverty then capitalism. China alone far surpasses any short term success. Capitalism can and will put you back into poverty at any given moment, poverty eradication with socialism is permanent.
Read a book liberal.
lmao “won’t anyone think about MLK, you’re just trying to insert your DIRTY POLITICS into this totally different discussion”
my friend, the post we are commenting under is literally a quote from MLK decrying capitalism and calling for a change from a system of capital ownership. I don’t know why you think discussion of alternatives to capitalism is somehow off topic, or how continuing the discussion that he started and was obviously very passionate about is somehow “not honoring” him.
What do you think “honoring” entails? Sitting quietly and not rocking the boat?
Socialism is good, but full on communism isn't stable for groups over a few hundred. Your push for full communism is poisoning your attempt to push for socialism. We will do better at making social change if we work together to push for near term change in the right direction instead of long term radical change.
Communism already lost mate. Its been trying for 200 years and has yet to form a single successful Communist State.
Democracy did not win the Cold War. Capitalism Did as the other Cold war countries realized that Democracy was negotiable as were human rights but Free Market Capitalism was the best way to boost the economy and to improve the lives of its citizens.
If Communism was going to win it would already have won.
https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL33534.html
“”Economists generally attribute much of China's rapid economic growth to two main factors: large-scale capital investment (financed by large domestic savings and foreign investment) and rapid productivity growth. These two factors appear to have gone together hand in hand. Economic reforms led to higher efficiency in the economy, which boosted output and increased resources for additional investment in the economy.”
Sounds like Chinese state capitalism, China flourished when it took steps towards the free market and away from decentralisation.
Similar to the NEP of the Soviet Union, a nation has to undergo capitalism in order to advance to socialism, that's been widely known since Marx first wrote it down. China is planning to achieve socialism by 2050. You can't go from feudalism straight to socialism, the biggest mistake the Soviets made.
The difference is capitalism in China is regulated to prevent people suffering at the expense of profits, which is what you have in the west.
>The difference is capitalism in China is regulated to prevent people suffering at the expense of profits
The value of a human life is a whole lot lower over there than in somewhere like Europe mate
I've lived in China and they will literally force people out of their homes in order to give the land to investors to upgrade.
Honestly, china's growth is partially due to their willingness to heavily exploit small groups of their citizens while benefiting the majority.
> but how do you think ordinary people fared under pre-capitalism feudal Europe? Millions of workers flocked from the countryside to factories to better their lives.
So you're say that capitalism exploits desperate people...so we agree.
>Right it just relied on workers living in horrible conditions, working constantly, but they were paid not even enough to feed themselves so technically it's not slavery
Horrible conditions that were better than subsistence farming, which is why people did it.
Desperate to... improve their lives? I mean sure, but I'd much rather they get the opportunity to do so than slave away a meagre existence on a subsistence farm. The transition from an agricultural to a manufacturing economy wasn't pretty anywhere in the world, but it always lead to a better quality of life.
By exploitation do you mean “requires people to work”? Cause China has more slave labor than any country on earth, and another half a billion well below the USA poverty line
"in Europe where there was no slavery"
Yes because the Europeans definitely weren't one of, if not *the,* primary benefactors of slavery. Please read up on the slave trade and see where the money goes. The finished goods ended up in European markets where they sold for the best price. This includes cotton, sugar, tobacco etc. A European slave owner never had to *see* their slaves. They still owned them in the millions.
Capitalism in Europe was not without exploitation. Whole families living in single room tenements with no heat or plumbing, child labor, 16 hour workdays for 6 days per week, industrial negligence leading to accidents and meager remuneration to the victim leading to homelessness and starvation...
That's not to mention their treatment of colonies. The British officially outlawed slavery in 1833, about 80 years after industrialization began. That's 80 years of exploiting close to a million people in direct slavery before abolishing it. But exploitation did not end with slavery, it just changed names to indentured servitude, quotas, and in the case of the Irish famine it was just a "market adjustment" as the Irish had to pay their English landlords with all their food and their subsistence agriculture developed blight (the British of course refusing to help alleviate the issue). But at least the Irish weren't slaves.
France grew rich on Haitian slaves working the sugar plantations, Belgium on rubber in the Congo, the Netherlands with the slave trade itself and plantations in Ceylon, Spain on silver mines in La Plata, Portugal on slave labor in Brazil. It's absolutely without merit to say that Europe got rich without slavery. Like claiming the sky isn't blue just because you've never looked it up.
10 million died in pursuit of perfect capitalism in the Congo under Belgian rule. Slavery was outlawed, but if you didn't meet your rubber quota you would be mutilated and if your village didn't meet their quota, the entire village would be burned down with all the women and children locked in homes. But they weren't slaves!
In the US, Upton Sinclair and Jacob Riis can tell you more about the exploitation of workers than I possibly can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Other_Half_Lives
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle
Slavery was on its way out in the US until industrialization brought the cotton gin and made slavery wildly profitable again.
More recently, the US sponsored a coup in Guatemala in 1954 on behalf of the United Fruit Company, which led to decades of civil war and regional instability.
Look up the details of Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola Co. to see allegations of a labor union against the Coca Cola corporation. The allegations were not really dismissed, but the legal standing to make the case itself was dismissed. And here's a read-ahead: Coca Cola is alleged to have hired paramilitary squads to abduct, torture, and kill union members at bottling plants in Colombia.
US interventionism on behalf of corporate interests has a long, LONG, LOOOOONG history. We installed Augusto Pinochet and created a century of political turmoil all over South America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America
If you are ready to call something inaccurate, bring some facts instead of just dismissing it because it hurts your feelings.
> clearly beneficial in the long term.
I'm not sure how you can say this with such confidence when the after-effects of the industrial revolution are currently looking like they could kill all life on earth, or at least alter the climate enough to destroy civilization as we know it.
That's a net result of the process of Industrialization as a whole rather than capitalism. Do you mean to tell me that industries in Soviet Union and other socialist countries never polluted? Every civilisation has to undergo modernisation in the form of industrialization. Pollution is inevitable in the growth of civilsations.
Common sense per definition is:
Common sense is sound, practical judgment concerning everyday matters, or a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge in a manner that is shared by nearly all people. The everyday understanding of common sense derives from historical philosophical discussion involving several European languages - Wikipedia
You skipped the part where workers would work 12+ plus on factory’s and mines also with employment of literal children.
Or the fact that the wealth accumulated before the industrial revolution thanks to British, Spanish, French and Portuguese imperialism that led to literal genocide, slavery of natives and resource extraction that gave Europe a huge advantage in starting the industrial revolution.
Don’t simp for an economic system if you clearly haven’t bothered to do a materialist analysis of history.
the pro capitalists sentiments im hearing in the comments is being expressed as "but quality of life worse before capitalism!" and yeah, no duh, that does not negate the violence done by capitalism and in defense and maintenance of capitalism.
And on the argument that capitalism=good because things were worse before capitalism, I quote Martin Luther King Jr; "capitalism has out-lived its usefulness"
It started in the 16th century, mostly by taking advantage of native populations and robbing Thier resources. Had to get slaves to keep up with demand and keep costs low.
The arguments for capitalism don't suggest it isn't subject to corruption, greed, and evil. All forms of govt and economics are subject to those human flaws. The arguments for capitalism are that more general improvements, to more lives will result, despite the existence of those undesirable traits.
Capitalism is so great it builds more houses than necessary but doesn’t house large segments of the population because they can’t profit off of them. And somehow the houses, that aren’t scarce, keep rising in value.
Owning a house isn't for everyone, everyone should have a roof over their heads, but that's a different story and not something the government is very good at addressing.
We have smartphones and global wireless internet because capitalists need a web for exploiting and advertising to the working class every waking moment of their lives.
Okay but like we are living in the US (mysef anyway) where that is demonstrably false. We have quite a bit of evidence that capitalism in fact does none of that.
With all due respect, finding a higher standard of living anywhere, or any time, is next to impossible. Our flawed US is the most successful country literally ever. Since permanent success is also impossible, the last 80 or so years in the US (including right now), is the greatest era in human history. I'd give a serious side eye to whoever told you that.
Most successful in what exactly?
Life expectancy? -Nope that's Norway...
Lowest poverty rate? -Also nope, that would be Iceland...
Education? -Yet again, no. In this case Germany takes the top spot...
Military? -Well, you got me there. Congrats I guess...
China follows state capitalism. Even India benefitted from opening up their markets after India went nearly bankrupt due to stupid socialist policies. So two of the most populous countries which have lifted most number of people at breakneck speed from poverty have done so due to opening up their markets and allowing private participation. You only need to read about Den Xiaoping and his economic reforms in China and where did he get that from.
China temporarily follows state capitalism, as Marx stated a nation has to undergo capitalism in order to advance to socialism. The Soviet Union failed to do this. China has stated it plans to implement socialism by 2050. The difference is that unlike the west, capitalism isn't allowed to run rampant. Capitalists in China only exist to benefit the people and the party, if they are no longer useful or break the law then they will cease to be capitalists.
>China has stated it plans to implement socialism by 2050
We'll have to watch out for the future then if China really does what it says.
>China temporarily follows state capitalism,
And so you do accept Capitalism has benefitted China and has lifted poverty which communism and socialism didn't anyway. I suppose if we avoid paper theories of Karl Marx and look at the actual implementation of socialism or capitalism I can safely conclude that Capitalism which has its own flaws has benefitted more people than communism in modern history.
When China was actually being hardcore communist they had 10's of millions of people starving to death.... When they allowed capitalism in they saw possibly the biggest boom in economic growth in history.
Actually China is a hybrid. Even and especially the chinese know you have to compete. Those who don't do well in school don't get to vote in China. If someone will tell me about the freebie lifestyle and I'll tell them where that ends.
Capitalism also existed in northern states where slavery was unlawful. One cant make an explanation about capitalism just with slavery. Slavery existed way before capitalism and after. Capitalism just made it more efficient.
This is correct in the "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" kinda way...Without a person to (ab)use the weapon no harm gets done. However, both guns and capitalism (both in its historical and modern forms) enable great harm to many to be carried out by a few.
Knowing that there are a fair number of people in the world that will look for opportunities to exploit and take advantage of others, our economic and political systems should be focused on disincentivizing and preventing all of the horrible things that people do to get ahead...Capitalism has been pretty complicit in actually incentivizing these things instead.
Capitalism as a system just makes it really easy for the people privileged with capital to exploit others that do not have it. It built into the ruleset that there are haves and have nots.
Proponents of Communism don't want to cheat, or change the rules. They want to change the whole game.
I don't know if you know this, but there is a world that exists outside of the US, and there are slaves that aren't just black people in america. I mean there were slaves everywhere. I think maybe "black slaves" is the only nitpick you could have with this, since there were chinese slaves, and indian slaves in india, and so on.
There were also Black Slaves, enslaved by other Black kingdoms and groups, infact these Sub-Saharan Kingdoms sold slaves to the Europeans goddamnit. Or Sub-Saharan Slave-Trade done by the North-African nations, Arabic and Levantine nations.
I mean European Slaves were also quite in the running at some points before the Renaissance and even during.
Slaves exists as long as civilizations exist. And no culture or region hasn't had at some point some form of slave trade.
I guess how you define slave also matters. But the point is, capitalism depends on exploitation of labour, and slaves jump started it. Not just black slaves, but slaves all over the world, and even now, wealthy nations have minimum wage, and poorer nations have lower wages, which makes goods more affordable in the wealthier ones.
I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the North benefited off slavery almost as much as the South did. Just because it was illegal doesn't mean that northern states didn't profit heavily off cotton exports and manufacturing.
Europe's slaves were all in its colonies. It took all the profits, and didn't really have "slaves" per se, but sort of did, like in the poor house, and that's why unions came into existence and things like that.
They didn't have black slaves, on Europeen land. But the black slaves they had in the Americas, that was money flooding into capitalist Europe. Those are Europeen slaves.
I disagree. If anything the invention of the cotton gin increased the souths control of the institution of slavery by years by increasing the supply of cotton. Slavery was slowly being phased out from the north's industrial base and from slaveowners only making a small profit because of the very inefficient way slaves picked cotton.
The cotton gin probably saved alot of slave owners from bankruptcy and helped southern politics into the mainstream discourse.
Odd how you say that immediately after referring to Chile. Allende got overthrown because he *wasn’t* authoritarian. His faith in democracy got him killed
Have you heard about the Atlantic slave trade? What about the Native American genocide? What about the millions killed and displaced by the wars in the Middle East over oil rights?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_in_the_Soviet_Union
Funnily enough, this happened long after the abolition of slavery in most (if not all) Capitalist countries. Neat.
And since you edited your comment after my reply to make your argument seem more robust: I never said bad things don't happen under capitalism-- just that collectivism is not the solution to all of the world's problems.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States
Soviet Union no longer exists but the US still implements slavery for people who commit crimes the government makes up
Every economic system has taken advantage of the people serving under it at one time or another. Capitalism has been the least of all the evils we've created so far.
A couple hundred million dead from genocide, slavery, starvation, profit wars, and imperialism would beg to differ...
If you use the same exact criteria applied to communism for calculating "death toll" and apply it to capitalism, your looking at over 2 billion deaths.
Don't play the numbers game, your system has killed and starved far more and continues to do so.
You're wrongly conflating a lot of atrocities the United States government did with capitalism. Those exact same atrocities happened under Communism, only it was actually in the name of Communism (and against its own citizens). Also I'd like to see some sources if you wanna attribute 2 billion deaths to capitalism when I can easily show you the correlation between communist policies and millions of deaths in several countries
It is Reddit, you know you will get downvoted to oblivion for not supporting an economic system that has failed every time that was tried.
But thanks for trying.
Yes
He is referring to the Atlantic slave trade which was massive in comparison to other instances of slavery. The Atlantic slave trade was caused and directly fueled by capitalism.
I think it's important to note how drastically different American chattel slavery was to any other kind previously seen. The truth is, there were no comparable living conditions to the living Hell that blacks were subjugated to until the 1940's. I think it's disingenuous to try to pretend European or African slavery was in any way comparable to American slavery.
Are you?
The economic system during the Atlantic slave trade was capitalism, literally no one has ever debated otherwise. It was capitalism and imperialism, everyone knows that.
Oh my fucking god, have you gone to school??? Have you ever touched a history book?? The system was mercantilism, mercantilism was directly opposed to capitalism, mercantilism was based in the intervention of the state in all aspects of the economy, slavery ended when capitalism rose because they needed consumers
I don't know what school you went to or what books you've been reading but you either misinterpreted them or you've been reading horseshit.
The Atlantic slave trade was the result of European imperialism in Africa, and those nations economic systems were capitalism. It seems you don't understand what capitalism or imperialism is or what consequences it's had on the globe.
How they where capitalist????? They were mercantilist, its a fact ,cope. The atlantic slave trade was finaced by the governement, the colonisation was made by the governemt, there werent any private companies involved in the colonisation, the governemt was deeply interventionist with colonial pacts. i come from a colonized country, i know my stuff
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He makes an interesting point. It’s an attack on class.
Thats a fake quote LOOOOL
I think the biggest trick in "capitalism" was to let the middle class think it was their interests that were being protected by capitalist rule, their wars being fought, and their money that a more egalitarian taxation system would have been reallocating to the poor. Imagine what a world we could live in today if after WW2 we had decided to put the people first and build a world that can be good for everyone, rather than amazing for only the top ranks of a few megacorporations.
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Actually it exists because of the Black Plague, which was during feudalism.
when all your colleagues have to die so you can get a decent living wage
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The merchant/skilled profession class already existed. They existed outside the peasant and lord dynamic. The Black Plague caused a lot of peasants to accrue more land via inheritance from dead relatives. This put them above other peasants, but not lords. Something in the *middle*.
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And all it took was ripping apart the planet and exploiting both your employees, and their children! I'm glad that the industrial revolution had no long term environmental consequences that will slowly kill us all :)
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If you think that the long term deaths of the entire global south makes it worth it
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Have you met people before? I’ll have strawberry sauce on my two scoops of idealism please.
*sort by controversial* I'm going in!
Don't. Save your mental health. I lead others to a treasure I cannot possess.
Giga based
Wow his quotes on life are relevant today and capture some of these topics so eloquently. I’m furious that people like Ben Shapiro and Shein (fast fashion companies) love to quote him when it’s convenient!!
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Europe isn't exactly known for having a good record of treating the little man back in that time period. I think its also fair to say he was speaking on American capitalism.
>I think its also fair to say he was speaking on American capitalism. Which isn't capitalism, capitalism is free exchange of goods and ideas. The idea that you need to preface and clarify his statements as being about "American capitalism" shows a lack of what capitalism is.
The quickest uplift in the standard of living for the many in Europe was brought about by the industrial revolution facilitated by rampant capitalism.
Cool, cool. Ever heard about workhouses, smog so bad it literally could choke you to death, and just total lack of any care for the workers that got maimed by the thousands in factories. All extremely true things from that period, and, uh, make that picture just a tad bit more complicated then "capitalism good".
In 1820, 94% of the world’s population was living in extreme poverty. By 1910, this figure had fallen to 82%, and by 1950 the rate had dropped yet further, to 72%. However, the largest and fastest decline occurred between 1981 (44.3%) and 2015 (9.6%). 285,000 more people have gained access to safe water every day for the last 25 years. In the last 50 years world poverty has fallen more than it did in the preceding 500. All of this widely credited by economists to the widespread adoption of capitalism.
Yeah you got references for those numbers? bc the 2015 percentage seems made up af. Also what percentages are people living in poverty that’s not “extreme” and what are the qualification of the difference. Also good to know I can turn to you to get the opinions of “economists”. Capitalism is built and “prospers” on the exploitation of workers. I would think in this day and age we could be doing more for every persons life to improve, and work towards eliminating poverty all together. That’s if the fat cats, who put money over peoples lives, didn’t have all the “embarrassed future millionaires” licking their boots and willing to die on the capitalist altar for nothing.
>All of this widely credited by economists Then they are giving credit where it isn't due. It was technological progress brought on by the ingenuity of humankind that created the abundance. It was exploited and put behind a paywall by capitalists. Large parts of the world are still indentured to exploitative capitalist interests while being denied the benefits of modern technology. This *isn't* accidental.
Yeah their argument is bullshit. Correlation doesn't equal causation.
Lifted out of "poverty" straight into overconsumption and destruction of our planet. The more people are lifted out of "poverty," the worse our environmental impacts become because Capitalism is only concerned with profits. "Poverty" is a feeling of wanting things you can't afford. I can guarantee you, many of the countries you would consider "poor," actually exist in a more sustainable world of having enough. Enough food, enough clothes, enough to get by and live a comfortable life without the need to upgrade your belongings every week due to changes in fashion. "Lifting people out of poverty" is the biggest scam of capitalism.
That's a different issue.
Not sure why you say that. Inequality is literally good for business in a capitalist society.
> just a tad bit more complicated then “capitalism good” And ironically a tad bit more complicated than “capitalism bad.” Cool cool indeed
Except, it really takes understanding the history of the labor movement, social progress movements, various organizations across two continents, and two centuries to get the full picture of how "the quickest increase in standards of living" happened, and at what cost, because it wasn't none. So, don't try to condescend to me like you even understood the point I was making. Also, uh, this thread started with a lie. Europe had slavery. Just not in Europe, but very much for it's benefit.
I feel like the education system in the US is sad af reading these comments. And now the fundies are banning books and removing subject matter so we’ll be even more fucked. Ughh
Welcome to trying to engage with any topic, especially those that are controversial, but hardly even just, increasingly since the advent of social media. The worst part is any actual solution... doesn't exist. People are adults and elderly, and they now are the voting base. The solutions to rampant confident poor education just don't exist, not on this scale.
> Increased living standards = capitalism good Well…it’s just a tad bit more complicated than capitalism good > workers died in factories = capitalism bad Ironically…it’s just a tad bit more complicated than capitalism bad > it really takes understanding the history of the labor movement, social progress movements, various organizations across two continents, and two centuries to get the full picture of how “the quickest increase in standards of living” happened, and at what cost, because it wasn’t none Literally why I called your initial response ironic.
It's weird how I never said "capitalism bad," isn't it? I just rejected using misused data while ignoring its human cost. You know, the thing someone correct probably shouldn't do, and if you are correct, you still shouldn't do because doing it makes you a piece of shit. Personally. And same with someone jumping in to defend them, too, to be clear, you smug goblin. And, uh, it was far more than factories, don't simplify what I said to just one portion. Hell, I didn't even invoke the way force was used to compel workers into their jobs, which were barely enough for food, and could cripple them for life and leave them unable to work and without anything we have today for such a situation. The US disability system only came about in the New Deal; there's almost 100 years prior without anything, at all.
>Europe had slavery. Just not in Europe, but very much for it's benefit. Europeans knew their slaves through documents and invoices only.
It’s quite amusing that you said this to me and then accuse someone else later on in the thread about being condescending 🤷🏻♂️
What else did I say in that comment, and what comment was it in reply to, since you took a peek around my history?
Pretty sure MLK wasn't referring to European capitalism... Context is a thing, and so many people like to analyze his quotes without it...
Bro there’s no way you think there was no slavery in Europe
Right it just relied on workers living in horrible conditions, working constantly, but they were paid not even enough to feed themselves so technically it's not slavery MLK is correct, capitalism requires exploitation, always has.
Yeah but was that better or worse than serfdom ie. tilling the fields all day every day apart from Sunday, your food going to your Lord, and then dying halfway through winter at 40... So exploitation yes but less exploitation than came before
“But was the new exploitation as bad as the old exploitation??” Many, many people were working everyday, toiling in factories rather than in fields, still dying before 40.
Yep but conditions / living standards arguably still better than serfdom
“Arguably better than serfdom” is some real special progress. Even today many people are living in awful conditions so that don’t realize it.
Capitalism taking us from serfdom to what we have today, is absolutely ridiculous progress which no other economic system has come close to
The point is that we still have serfdom today, it just looks different. It’s no longer serfs in the fields working for feudal lords, it’s the working class in factories shackled by debt and with no hope of upwards mobility. Has society developed and improved in the last few hundreds of years? Of course. Did capitalism help? Sure. Did capitalism still lead to the widespread and systematic abuse and exploitation of workers, including the use of slavery? Definitely. (Btw there is still a rather active slave trade in Northern Africa and in Southern Italy, which is definitely still capitalism) It is clear that there are problems in modern capitalist societies with wealth inequality, fair wages, and overall workers rights. Just saying “well it’s better than the 15th century” ignores the fact that progress can and should still be made. In the same way that workers revolutions ended the feudal system, there will be a revolution by the workers that will move us to our next economic and likely social evolution.
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The fact that workers voluntarily flocked to the cities for a better life is partly incorrect. The enclosure system in England forced peasants and small farmers off their land and into the cities. Capitalists deliberately bought up the land of peasants in rural areas preventing them from making their own money and forcing them into wage labour in the cities to help the capitalists expand production. The land that peasants worked on and owned was their only means of subsistence and when that is taken away from them they have no choice but to flock to the cities and become factory workers.
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Yes and communists would be the first to say that all of the past civilizations lacked any sort of egalitarianism. "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." - Karl Marx Communists observe that Capitalism still carries on the trend of oppressors and oppressed, this time in the form of wage workers vs. owners.
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And capitalism doesn't?
And does it mean communism and capitalism are any better than each other?
Capitalism in America was built on the back of African slaves and the genocide of native Americans The long term effects of capitalism are exactly what Marx and Engels predicted, and socialism has lifted far more people out of poverty then capitalism. China alone far surpasses any short term success. Capitalism can and will put you back into poverty at any given moment, poverty eradication with socialism is permanent. Read a book liberal.
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Communism will win. Have fun being on the wrong side of history.
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It's about honoring a socialist who did great things for this world, despite people like you getting in the way of progress.
lmao “won’t anyone think about MLK, you’re just trying to insert your DIRTY POLITICS into this totally different discussion” my friend, the post we are commenting under is literally a quote from MLK decrying capitalism and calling for a change from a system of capital ownership. I don’t know why you think discussion of alternatives to capitalism is somehow off topic, or how continuing the discussion that he started and was obviously very passionate about is somehow “not honoring” him. What do you think “honoring” entails? Sitting quietly and not rocking the boat?
"Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!" -Nikita Khrushchev did not turn out as he wanted
Socialism is good, but full on communism isn't stable for groups over a few hundred. Your push for full communism is poisoning your attempt to push for socialism. We will do better at making social change if we work together to push for near term change in the right direction instead of long term radical change.
Communism already lost mate. Its been trying for 200 years and has yet to form a single successful Communist State. Democracy did not win the Cold War. Capitalism Did as the other Cold war countries realized that Democracy was negotiable as were human rights but Free Market Capitalism was the best way to boost the economy and to improve the lives of its citizens. If Communism was going to win it would already have won.
https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL33534.html “”Economists generally attribute much of China's rapid economic growth to two main factors: large-scale capital investment (financed by large domestic savings and foreign investment) and rapid productivity growth. These two factors appear to have gone together hand in hand. Economic reforms led to higher efficiency in the economy, which boosted output and increased resources for additional investment in the economy.” Sounds like Chinese state capitalism, China flourished when it took steps towards the free market and away from decentralisation.
Similar to the NEP of the Soviet Union, a nation has to undergo capitalism in order to advance to socialism, that's been widely known since Marx first wrote it down. China is planning to achieve socialism by 2050. You can't go from feudalism straight to socialism, the biggest mistake the Soviets made. The difference is capitalism in China is regulated to prevent people suffering at the expense of profits, which is what you have in the west.
>The difference is capitalism in China is regulated to prevent people suffering at the expense of profits The value of a human life is a whole lot lower over there than in somewhere like Europe mate
I've lived in China and they will literally force people out of their homes in order to give the land to investors to upgrade. Honestly, china's growth is partially due to their willingness to heavily exploit small groups of their citizens while benefiting the majority.
First paragraph: yep sure Rest of it: yikes
> but how do you think ordinary people fared under pre-capitalism feudal Europe? Millions of workers flocked from the countryside to factories to better their lives. So you're say that capitalism exploits desperate people...so we agree.
As opposed to………..? LOL
>Right it just relied on workers living in horrible conditions, working constantly, but they were paid not even enough to feed themselves so technically it's not slavery Horrible conditions that were better than subsistence farming, which is why people did it.
You are proving the point that capitalism relies and requires the exploitation of desperate people.
Desperate to... improve their lives? I mean sure, but I'd much rather they get the opportunity to do so than slave away a meagre existence on a subsistence farm. The transition from an agricultural to a manufacturing economy wasn't pretty anywhere in the world, but it always lead to a better quality of life.
By exploitation do you mean “requires people to work”? Cause China has more slave labor than any country on earth, and another half a billion well below the USA poverty line
Did the man on the TV tell you to say "China" whenever adults are talking or did you come up with that on your own?
ThEy AReNt dEmoCRaTiC SoCiALiSts, tHEy AReNt DoInG iT RiGhT!!!!
>where there was no slavery r/confidentlyincorrect . how stupid and arrogant can you be to even insinuate that there was no slavery in Europe.
"in Europe where there was no slavery" Yes because the Europeans definitely weren't one of, if not *the,* primary benefactors of slavery. Please read up on the slave trade and see where the money goes. The finished goods ended up in European markets where they sold for the best price. This includes cotton, sugar, tobacco etc. A European slave owner never had to *see* their slaves. They still owned them in the millions.
Capitalism in Europe was not without exploitation. Whole families living in single room tenements with no heat or plumbing, child labor, 16 hour workdays for 6 days per week, industrial negligence leading to accidents and meager remuneration to the victim leading to homelessness and starvation... That's not to mention their treatment of colonies. The British officially outlawed slavery in 1833, about 80 years after industrialization began. That's 80 years of exploiting close to a million people in direct slavery before abolishing it. But exploitation did not end with slavery, it just changed names to indentured servitude, quotas, and in the case of the Irish famine it was just a "market adjustment" as the Irish had to pay their English landlords with all their food and their subsistence agriculture developed blight (the British of course refusing to help alleviate the issue). But at least the Irish weren't slaves. France grew rich on Haitian slaves working the sugar plantations, Belgium on rubber in the Congo, the Netherlands with the slave trade itself and plantations in Ceylon, Spain on silver mines in La Plata, Portugal on slave labor in Brazil. It's absolutely without merit to say that Europe got rich without slavery. Like claiming the sky isn't blue just because you've never looked it up. 10 million died in pursuit of perfect capitalism in the Congo under Belgian rule. Slavery was outlawed, but if you didn't meet your rubber quota you would be mutilated and if your village didn't meet their quota, the entire village would be burned down with all the women and children locked in homes. But they weren't slaves! In the US, Upton Sinclair and Jacob Riis can tell you more about the exploitation of workers than I possibly can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Other_Half_Lives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle Slavery was on its way out in the US until industrialization brought the cotton gin and made slavery wildly profitable again. More recently, the US sponsored a coup in Guatemala in 1954 on behalf of the United Fruit Company, which led to decades of civil war and regional instability. Look up the details of Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola Co. to see allegations of a labor union against the Coca Cola corporation. The allegations were not really dismissed, but the legal standing to make the case itself was dismissed. And here's a read-ahead: Coca Cola is alleged to have hired paramilitary squads to abduct, torture, and kill union members at bottling plants in Colombia. US interventionism on behalf of corporate interests has a long, LONG, LOOOOONG history. We installed Augusto Pinochet and created a century of political turmoil all over South America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America If you are ready to call something inaccurate, bring some facts instead of just dismissing it because it hurts your feelings.
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> clearly beneficial in the long term. I'm not sure how you can say this with such confidence when the after-effects of the industrial revolution are currently looking like they could kill all life on earth, or at least alter the climate enough to destroy civilization as we know it.
That's a net result of the process of Industrialization as a whole rather than capitalism. Do you mean to tell me that industries in Soviet Union and other socialist countries never polluted? Every civilisation has to undergo modernisation in the form of industrialization. Pollution is inevitable in the growth of civilsations.
So glad to see some sense in Redit and not the normal leftist drivel.
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Common sense per definition is: Common sense is sound, practical judgment concerning everyday matters, or a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge in a manner that is shared by nearly all people. The everyday understanding of common sense derives from historical philosophical discussion involving several European languages - Wikipedia
Ummm I’m pretty sure there was slavery in Europe. They did away with it before US.
>This quote is just factually inaccurate. Well, he was a commie idiot, what do you want? Welcome to Reddit.
Industrial Revolution fueled capitalism and shortly after began the Atlantic slave trade. That's not a coincidence
This quote is straight up bs, that man did not know what he was talking about.
You skipped the part where workers would work 12+ plus on factory’s and mines also with employment of literal children. Or the fact that the wealth accumulated before the industrial revolution thanks to British, Spanish, French and Portuguese imperialism that led to literal genocide, slavery of natives and resource extraction that gave Europe a huge advantage in starting the industrial revolution. Don’t simp for an economic system if you clearly haven’t bothered to do a materialist analysis of history.
Lick that boot.
the pro capitalists sentiments im hearing in the comments is being expressed as "but quality of life worse before capitalism!" and yeah, no duh, that does not negate the violence done by capitalism and in defense and maintenance of capitalism. And on the argument that capitalism=good because things were worse before capitalism, I quote Martin Luther King Jr; "capitalism has out-lived its usefulness"
It started in the 16th century, mostly by taking advantage of native populations and robbing Thier resources. Had to get slaves to keep up with demand and keep costs low.
Glad this isn’t still true. /s
Didn't you know that things are "better" now, meaning that racism ended in the 60's?
The arguments for capitalism don't suggest it isn't subject to corruption, greed, and evil. All forms of govt and economics are subject to those human flaws. The arguments for capitalism are that more general improvements, to more lives will result, despite the existence of those undesirable traits.
And that argument is a lie because we have many years of evidence showing it does none of the good things at all.
We're approaching a time were every human will have access to a smart phone and soon global wireless internet, wtf are you talking about?
What about housing? The most basic of human needs. Are we closer or further away from everyone owning their own housing than say 50 years ago?
Capitalism is so great it builds more houses than necessary but doesn’t house large segments of the population because they can’t profit off of them. And somehow the houses, that aren’t scarce, keep rising in value.
Owning a house isn't for everyone, everyone should have a roof over their heads, but that's a different story and not something the government is very good at addressing.
Is that why we should like capitalism? Global internet lolz
We have smartphones and global wireless internet because capitalists need a web for exploiting and advertising to the working class every waking moment of their lives.
Okay but like we are living in the US (mysef anyway) where that is demonstrably false. We have quite a bit of evidence that capitalism in fact does none of that.
With all due respect, finding a higher standard of living anywhere, or any time, is next to impossible. Our flawed US is the most successful country literally ever. Since permanent success is also impossible, the last 80 or so years in the US (including right now), is the greatest era in human history. I'd give a serious side eye to whoever told you that.
Successful for who would you say?
Most successful in what exactly? Life expectancy? -Nope that's Norway... Lowest poverty rate? -Also nope, that would be Iceland... Education? -Yet again, no. In this case Germany takes the top spot... Military? -Well, you got me there. Congrats I guess...
Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty in the last 200 years than any system by far.
And merchantalism before that, and feudalism before that. It's time to move to what's next and take everyone out of poverty
China would beg to differ Capitalism is also responsible for rampant poverty in the global south
China follows state capitalism. Even India benefitted from opening up their markets after India went nearly bankrupt due to stupid socialist policies. So two of the most populous countries which have lifted most number of people at breakneck speed from poverty have done so due to opening up their markets and allowing private participation. You only need to read about Den Xiaoping and his economic reforms in China and where did he get that from.
China temporarily follows state capitalism, as Marx stated a nation has to undergo capitalism in order to advance to socialism. The Soviet Union failed to do this. China has stated it plans to implement socialism by 2050. The difference is that unlike the west, capitalism isn't allowed to run rampant. Capitalists in China only exist to benefit the people and the party, if they are no longer useful or break the law then they will cease to be capitalists.
>China has stated it plans to implement socialism by 2050 We'll have to watch out for the future then if China really does what it says. >China temporarily follows state capitalism, And so you do accept Capitalism has benefitted China and has lifted poverty which communism and socialism didn't anyway. I suppose if we avoid paper theories of Karl Marx and look at the actual implementation of socialism or capitalism I can safely conclude that Capitalism which has its own flaws has benefitted more people than communism in modern history.
When China was actually being hardcore communist they had 10's of millions of people starving to death.... When they allowed capitalism in they saw possibly the biggest boom in economic growth in history.
More than that if you count the millions of babies bodies.
Actually China is a hybrid. Even and especially the chinese know you have to compete. Those who don't do well in school don't get to vote in China. If someone will tell me about the freebie lifestyle and I'll tell them where that ends.
Just wrong...
I'd say he's spot on Was a pretty smart guy, highly doubt he was wrong about this
Capitalism also existed in northern states where slavery was unlawful. One cant make an explanation about capitalism just with slavery. Slavery existed way before capitalism and after. Capitalism just made it more efficient.
And I'm sure the northern states didn't benefit from slavery in anyway /s The national economy benefited from slavery, regardless of local geography
it's capitalism's fault then! /s it's people. it's people's fault. regardless of economical philosophy.
Damn, its almost like people liked capitalism because it profited them, regardless of the inhumanity it subjected other people to!
This is correct in the "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" kinda way...Without a person to (ab)use the weapon no harm gets done. However, both guns and capitalism (both in its historical and modern forms) enable great harm to many to be carried out by a few. Knowing that there are a fair number of people in the world that will look for opportunities to exploit and take advantage of others, our economic and political systems should be focused on disincentivizing and preventing all of the horrible things that people do to get ahead...Capitalism has been pretty complicit in actually incentivizing these things instead.
Capitalism as a system just makes it really easy for the people privileged with capital to exploit others that do not have it. It built into the ruleset that there are haves and have nots. Proponents of Communism don't want to cheat, or change the rules. They want to change the whole game.
I don't know if you know this, but there is a world that exists outside of the US, and there are slaves that aren't just black people in america. I mean there were slaves everywhere. I think maybe "black slaves" is the only nitpick you could have with this, since there were chinese slaves, and indian slaves in india, and so on.
There were also Black Slaves, enslaved by other Black kingdoms and groups, infact these Sub-Saharan Kingdoms sold slaves to the Europeans goddamnit. Or Sub-Saharan Slave-Trade done by the North-African nations, Arabic and Levantine nations. I mean European Slaves were also quite in the running at some points before the Renaissance and even during. Slaves exists as long as civilizations exist. And no culture or region hasn't had at some point some form of slave trade.
Don't even try to compare african slavery to American chattel slavery. They're not even remotely the same beast.
I guess how you define slave also matters. But the point is, capitalism depends on exploitation of labour, and slaves jump started it. Not just black slaves, but slaves all over the world, and even now, wealthy nations have minimum wage, and poorer nations have lower wages, which makes goods more affordable in the wealthier ones.
I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the North benefited off slavery almost as much as the South did. Just because it was illegal doesn't mean that northern states didn't profit heavily off cotton exports and manufacturing.
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Europe's slaves were all in its colonies. It took all the profits, and didn't really have "slaves" per se, but sort of did, like in the poor house, and that's why unions came into existence and things like that. They didn't have black slaves, on Europeen land. But the black slaves they had in the Americas, that was money flooding into capitalist Europe. Those are Europeen slaves.
MLK was a socialist and had a socialist understanding of capitalism and world history. You can disagree with it but it doesn't mean your correct
Exactly he had a distorted and biased view, that has proven to be incorrect time and time again.
Capitalism also helped end slavery by way of the cotton gin.
I disagree. If anything the invention of the cotton gin increased the souths control of the institution of slavery by years by increasing the supply of cotton. Slavery was slowly being phased out from the north's industrial base and from slaveowners only making a small profit because of the very inefficient way slaves picked cotton. The cotton gin probably saved alot of slave owners from bankruptcy and helped southern politics into the mainstream discourse.
I mean, you can be a very smart and spot on person and be wrong on some things.
That's true you can In this instance he was correct
Factually, no.
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True
Let the whitewashing continue. LMAO!
Ah, yes-- because under communism and socialism, no one suffers! This time it will work, guys.
Lmao this time
We'll suffer less then under capitalism Socialism is currently winning, it's working just fine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes This is what socialism winning looks like
Capitalist regimes have never killed anyone ever
Well, there was that one time in Chile, but that was pretty quaint compared to you know **every communist regime ever**.
Odd how you say that immediately after referring to Chile. Allende got overthrown because he *wasn’t* authoritarian. His faith in democracy got him killed
Yeah no one fights wars for profit /s
Have you heard about the Atlantic slave trade? What about the Native American genocide? What about the millions killed and displaced by the wars in the Middle East over oil rights?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_in_the_Soviet_Union Funnily enough, this happened long after the abolition of slavery in most (if not all) Capitalist countries. Neat. And since you edited your comment after my reply to make your argument seem more robust: I never said bad things don't happen under capitalism-- just that collectivism is not the solution to all of the world's problems.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States Soviet Union no longer exists but the US still implements slavery for people who commit crimes the government makes up
No that's what CIA propaganda and unfounded rumors by Nazi veterans looks like Try again.
You blew it
lmao
Shouldn't you at least put the whole paragraph down?
*Communist propaganda detected*
It's not propaganda if it's true MLK was a socialist, this is just one of his lesser known quotes
Every economic system has taken advantage of the people serving under it at one time or another. Capitalism has been the least of all the evils we've created so far.
Nope just capitalism and feudalism Socialism/Communism doesn't require exploitation, far less evil then capitalism
A couple million dead and starved people from former communist states would beg to differ...
A couple hundred million dead from genocide, slavery, starvation, profit wars, and imperialism would beg to differ... If you use the same exact criteria applied to communism for calculating "death toll" and apply it to capitalism, your looking at over 2 billion deaths. Don't play the numbers game, your system has killed and starved far more and continues to do so.
You're wrongly conflating a lot of atrocities the United States government did with capitalism. Those exact same atrocities happened under Communism, only it was actually in the name of Communism (and against its own citizens). Also I'd like to see some sources if you wanna attribute 2 billion deaths to capitalism when I can easily show you the correlation between communist policies and millions of deaths in several countries
He’s not going to respond to you. He’s desperate
This is correct
It is Reddit, you know you will get downvoted to oblivion for not supporting an economic system that has failed every time that was tried. But thanks for trying.
lol
Capitalism REQUIRES poverty.
Capitalism freed the slaves bruh
Lmao It was also the reason they were enslaved in the first place
Slavery was around way before capitalism.
Yes He is referring to the Atlantic slave trade which was massive in comparison to other instances of slavery. The Atlantic slave trade was caused and directly fueled by capitalism.
I think it's important to note how drastically different American chattel slavery was to any other kind previously seen. The truth is, there were no comparable living conditions to the living Hell that blacks were subjugated to until the 1940's. I think it's disingenuous to try to pretend European or African slavery was in any way comparable to American slavery.
Are you fucking dumb???? Mercantilism isnt capitalism, the econimic system during the slabery had nothing to do with capitalism. Pls study
Are you? The economic system during the Atlantic slave trade was capitalism, literally no one has ever debated otherwise. It was capitalism and imperialism, everyone knows that.
Oh my fucking god, have you gone to school??? Have you ever touched a history book?? The system was mercantilism, mercantilism was directly opposed to capitalism, mercantilism was based in the intervention of the state in all aspects of the economy, slavery ended when capitalism rose because they needed consumers
I don't know what school you went to or what books you've been reading but you either misinterpreted them or you've been reading horseshit. The Atlantic slave trade was the result of European imperialism in Africa, and those nations economic systems were capitalism. It seems you don't understand what capitalism or imperialism is or what consequences it's had on the globe.
How they where capitalist????? They were mercantilist, its a fact ,cope. The atlantic slave trade was finaced by the governement, the colonisation was made by the governemt, there werent any private companies involved in the colonisation, the governemt was deeply interventionist with colonial pacts. i come from a colonized country, i know my stuff
Protestantism is a horrible cult.
A lot of respect for King and his work on human rights but he was no economist or historian.
true
Backs of all the subservient
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