BRUH EARLY STAGE CAPITALISM WAS SNAKE OIL, SLAVE TRADE, WORK HOUSES AND CHILDREN IN SALT MINES, WTF DO YOU MEEEEAN?!

And it always has been, we just moved those things to the brown countries and they’re coming home now! Fuck you!

Ahem. I’m fine.

  • LeninWeave [none/use name, any]@hexbear.netM
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    2 months ago

    “Capitalism isn’t bad, it’s just late-stage capitalism that sucks”

    Even if it was true, it’s funny because of course the late stage of something comes after and from the early stage of it.

    This is also just a labor imperialist perspective. They yearn for the time a few decades ago with stronger unions and slightly less domestic exploitation in the imperial core, they don’t care about the exploitation of the global south.

  • quarrk [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    That sliver of a few decades between, on the one hand, slavery, ethnic cleansing, and brutal industrial labor including children; and on the other hand, the current “late-stage capitalism” involving debt traps and monopoly —

    Those few decades were enough to convince liberals of the “true” benevolent nature of this system. Just don’t look outside of your own immediate circumstances, nor read history; that might ruin the illusion. Don’t even ask your parents what their own life was like during this fabled golden age.

  • hyperpoopsucks [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    The capitalism that works is always conveniently outside living memory (or in childhood nostalgia - yeah that time you didn’t know what rent is was the best period of human history, no shit)

  • TinyMoose [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    My favorite is “we haven’t had REAL capitalism for x years, it’s all crony corporatism now”. I actually got one of those comments this very week. LOL. Tell me you know absolutely NOTHING about anything in one sentence, plz.

  • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Also, besides all that, what’s the point in saying “well, it’s ‘just’ late stage capitalism”? We don’t really have the option of reverting to an earlier stage, do we? If you want capitalism, this is the capitalism you get, so trying to save the sterling reputation of what you imagine older versions to be like when you concede that this is their legacy seems silly.

    Obviously this is not what I’d view as the most profound point one could make about the topic, but I think it might be easier for getting someone to think critically about their thought-terminating excuses.

  • Strayce@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 months ago

    Even taking that at face value it doesn’t make sense. Capitalism necessarily leads to late stage capitalism. Therefore, even if you could RETVRN you’d just be kicking the can down the road. Which I guess is fine if you don’t give a fuck about your grandkids.

  • batsforpeace [any, any]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    very popular line in alt/youtube media, jeffrey sachs, yannis varoufakis, and so much more, ‘we need to return to the older good capitalism, just a few bad people in charge right now we have to replace and then we’ll get those nice high speed trains and everyone will be happy

  • invo_rt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Has any country successfully turned the clock back to an earlier economic condition or, like everything else, is the only option to not dwell on the past and push forward to something new?

      • jack [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        The post-USSR wasn’t really turning back the clock to pre-USSR though. The post-socialist states and economies bear little to no resemblance to what came before the revolution.

        • Keld [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          Its not 1:1 but the guys who run sectors of extractive economics aren’t entirely dissimilar to robber barons like Yusupov and Nobel (Yes, that Nobel)

    • Dort_Owl [they/them, any]@hexbear.netOP
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      2 months ago

      Logically one would use the knowlege of the things that did and didn’t work in the past to spur people to make something better, but capitalism seems to think improving things is childish idealism.

  • FlakesBongler [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Gee, it’s weird how the good thing turns bad if you give it time, but if you want to replace it, people get mad and demand you just try to make it how it was before it turned bad and change nothing else