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Purchase of the device is Capitalism, because your money IS your vote, and YOU are the Capital of Capitalism!
Capitalism describes the division of labour and profits, not the purchasing of goods. YOU are not theCapital in capitalism unless you are working for the profits of the owner. The root word of Capitalism is Caput, meaning head or cattle. Capitalism’s root definition is basically the ownership of cattle or chattel.
In a planned economy, there are beepers and payphones. No one builds the most expensive commercial endeavor in all of human history – advanced silicon fab nodes
According to? The Soviets made it to space before we did, and China currently fabricates the vast majority of that technology. Technology isn’t native to any economic structure.
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Semantics do not create meaning, they describe it, poorly in most cases as vernacular evolves.
Claiming something is a semantic dispute by rote when being corrected is different than engaging in a reasonable semantic dispute.
Words do have meaning, and vernacular hasn’t changed enough to completely alter the meaning of an entire economic system…
Most of the people that worked for William Shockley have been interviewed and recorded, along with their protégés. Bo Lojek of Motorola also wrote History of Semiconductor Engineering (Springer).
Are you claiming that certain technologies can only be developed under capitalism? Or that semiconductor engineering would have never surpassed a certain stage without a particular economic system? What does any of that have to do with the division of labour and profits?
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do not care to argue with you like this. I come here to hang out with digital neighbors, not to have some angry debate.
I don’t think we’re engaging in an angry argument? At least, I’m not upset. I think I’m just rebutting some of your claims and asking for clarification?
I get nothing out of this, and for a disabled guy in social isolation, these have a disproportionate negative impact. On my original LW account I just blocked everyone that argues or down votes as such toxic negativity is unwelcome, unnecessary, and mildly harmful to everyone.
So anyone who disagrees with you is being negative or harmful? I don’t really see how being disabled gives you the right to make inarguable inflammatory claims in a public forum.
The trials of physical disability may include a much reduced margin for adversarial encounters and contention. It is a subtle prejudice that is impossible to avoid.
You may want to talk to someone about that, but In my experience any prejudice you are self aware of are prejudices that can be avoided.
Have a great day.
You too.
But capital is. Both Russia and China are fighting for capital.
With the space race the capital was military research, propaganda and money.
In China it’s just money military research and propaganda
No different than the United States where the capital is money, military research and propaganda
End of the day it’s all just capital. How it’s controlled and what the capital is changes.
But it all still the same thing being fought over.
Why would anyone build beepers if there are no mobile phones? That’s an entire wireless infrastructure that doesn’t need to be created or maintained. Beepers were the impetus for early wireless repeaters and signal towers. Phones created the data and load bearing standards but the hardware was built for the devices before phones.
In a planned economy the onus is on the person to be where they need to make or receive a call. Like the 70s and rotary phones. “Plan your day around what the day has planned for you” is what one of the most annoying teachers I’ve ever had said and it’s the perfect model for blaming the individual for problems outside their control. And that’s why central planners will use it to deflect from criticism.
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Absolutely nothing requires the only two options to be capitalisim and planned economy. Market socialism is a thing.
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Idk kind of sounds like capitalism with extra steps. Seems like the major difference between people who oppose capitalism and everyone else is just how they define the word.
What exactly does the meme imply the solution is? State operated companies? Only allowing cooperative companies? Lynching CEOs and hoping the next batch will be better, AKA “doing a luigi”?
The reason it isn’t capitalism with extra steps is that the defining trait of capitalism vs socialism isn’t the presence of markets (which long predate capitalism as a distinct concept), but rather who owns what and how that ownership is justified and structured. Now, arguably market socialism is more similar to capitalism than a planned economy is, but capitalism doesn’t just mean an unplanned economy either (as those, again, are much more ancient than the term implies).
I don’t think the meme implies any particular solution. To be honest, it doesn’t really even imply a problem to be solved. To my eyes it just looks like it’s just mocking a particular argument used to defend capitalism, without really communicating much beyond a distaste for that argument and presumably with capitalism in general.
creation of a surplus of devices, through exploitation, for the purposes of profit is capitalism.
just buying stuff is just markets. barters and lemonade stands are not capitalist.
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Humans did invent lemons to enjoy them, though. It was a very large and organized undertaking which led to commercial success for Egypt.
and during a time … before capitalism. ;)
TBH Egypt was everything Communists claim about Capitalism. Idk why you would think otherwise.
But not before capital. It was state controlled common economy. Common economy are basically proto communism.
And capitalism and communism both rely on capital. Just the controlling sector changes for the purposes of differentiating a common economy vs a modern capitalistic or communistic economy.
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Where can I find this arbitrary definition of capitalism? Because barters and lemonade in a free market stands still sounds like capitalism to me, just on a smaller scale. Just because it seems more sympathetic doesn’t mean it’s not the same thing.
Im not saying that what you describe in your first paragraph isn’t bad, but words have meaning. If you intend to spread your thoughts on them, you’d do well to go beyond “capitalism bad mkay” because it makes people take your thoughts less seriously. So you end up preaching to the choir who’s already on your side and we’ve learned from reddit, Twitter and Fox that echo chambers are bad.
from wikipedia, for instance, with my highlights:
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by a number of basic constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth.
All of which can still be present for your hypothetical lemonade stand.
yeah. cause a 8yo hires people and exploits them for profit while also buying up neighbors stands and closing them so they remain a monopoly. lol.
Careful with that rhetorical question or they’ll bring out a bunch of nutjobs books and ask you to read through untested and unrealistic theory from the past hundred years and then call you unintellectual for choosing the dictionary and textbook definitions over their pseudoscience.
I think you could make the argument that Communist Nations maintain the sweathshops responsible for creating the components of iPhones. Also for the profits.
there is no such thing, nor can there be, as a communist nation.
Then there are no communist nations, nor in contrast does the phrase “capitalist nation” have any meaning.
I think its okay to talk about Capitalism’s flaws and want to fix it, but to completely oppose the only system of production and distribution to exist outside of Autocracy is not helping.
why does there not being any actual communist nations (by the very definition) mean to you there is no capitalist nation? we are in one right now.
If it’s the only kind of nation then it’s a distinction without purpose.
Capitalism is a historical development from feudalism, so you don’t need communism as a point of comparison/contrast for capitalist nation to exist.
Also, the “communist” countries are, strictly speaking, capitalist if you look at their mode of production and mode of distribution. Stuff is made largely for profit, there’s private ownership, markets, things are distributed via money. As a wise man once said, name doesn’t make a thing.
Calling China’s economic system “communist” is a big stretch.
And you would be the fourth person here to point that out.
The comment only has one other reply that I can see, and that one takes issue with something else.
Me, Flandish, User Communism, and you have all made the point that non-capitalist nations currently don’t exist.
Under communism there would be no state. So a “communist nation” cannot exist by definition.
I don’t see how collective ownership completely invalidates a state. Technically a direct democracy without private ownership is a communism, for example.
But yes they don’t currently exist.
I don’t see how collective ownership completely invalidates a state
States exist to protect class interests through exploitation, war, police, and armies. They protect the interests of the owners, the bourgeoisie. Without classes separating people, the state loses its purpose and withers away.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withering_away_of_the_state
Under communism there are no classes, everyone is equal. Therefore there is no purpose for a state, therefore it dies.
Democratically controlling production != state
If there is no enforcement / enactment of democratically decided policy then the democracy is ineffective and it’s just plain anarchy where anybody can get away with doing anything. You cannot have democracy without a state.
When there is a line at a restaurant do you cut the line?
Is there laws in place to deal with people who cut the line?
If the answer to both of those is no, then you’ve already participated in a system in which group decisions are adhered to, without any enforcement mechanisms. And arguably, the group decision to wait in line instead of cutting is a democratically decided one. Nobody likes having somebody cut in front of them, so most people prefer that waiting in line is adhered to.
That’s just a small thought experiment, applying the same rational to larger society is straightforward. And these kinds of things already exist in the form of community gardens, mutual aid orgs, really really free markets, community cleanups, community workshops, and other similar things. Some of these are set up as nonprofits out of a necessity of working under capitalism, but not all of them. And they work together despite nobody enforcing usage or contributions.
They are also democratic, if the group working the local community garden decides as a collective that the existing garden is too small, they may find that they agree to expand it by adding an extra row of beds along some section of the plot. This is also, all without enforcement.
And yes, what I am talking about is anarchy. I’d recommend you look into some anarchist schools of thought.
People do cut in line because it is not illegal, just like how people did murder other people and their families and in some cases entire tribes in the Wild West Frontier because it was not illegal.
But how does the concept of collective ownership invalidate a state?
People do cut in line because it is not illegal
You’ve missed the point, which is to show that you already participate and adhere to a democratic decision despite there being no enforcement.
just like how people did murder other people and their families and in some cases entire tribes in the Wild West Frontier because it was not illegal.
And that happened under a system in which labor was not collectively owned, where automation was not anywhere where it is now, and the resources were not spread fairly. Scarcity causes exactly that kind of strife.
But how does the concept of collective ownership invalidate a state?
It doesn’t, the dissolution of classes is what does that under Marxist theory.
I always blame Edward Bernays for a lot of things we have today.
Because he was responsible for taking his uncle’s insights and weaponizing them for profit and power?
What the capitalists did was pay all the workers right after they did the work, even though the phones wouldn’t actually be sold for some time after that. Capitalists bring capital. Money. It takes money to get things started.
I completely agree that the rewards are all disproportionate. The people who put up the capital shouldn’t get all the rewards. But it’s just dumb to claim that they play no role at all. If that’s true, walk out of your house and make a phone you designed yourself out of sticks you find on the ground.
It only “takes money to get things started” because our economy is organized that way.
How else are you going to get 200 people together to assemble phones for a week?
A much higher financial incentive because they’d actually be the ones profiting from the sale of the phones. There are organizational structures other than corporations.
I was once asked to join a startup, and after a few chats I was ready to talk turkey. Then they sprung it on me that since there was no revenue yet, no one was making a wage. But my equity in the company would be correspondingly high.
I couldn’t do it. I had bills to pay. I was stunned that they thought I could do this, and I slowly realized that everyone else there was an ex-Googler and basically rich already.
So you see, I’ve been in the exact position you suggest your workers will jump at, and it does. not. work. People need to pay rent this month and can’t wait through a months long production chain and months long sales cycle all of which is full of risk. They need to get paid, for sure, not maybe, and now.
I’m not in here touting the glory of capitalism as if it’s a wonderful system. But I’m also not spouting pure fantasy bullshit about alternatives we can just switch to easy-peasy, because that’s a bunch of half-baked idealistic crap.
Yeah I mean I know it doesn’t work under this economic system, but that’s kind of the point I was making
Where did that capital come from?
The same place the fed and skilled laborers came from: the proceeds of previous enterprises.
The only thing you can remove from the process and still get the same result is capital…
And while I get that capital does “play a role”, at least insofar as incentive predicated on people’s ability to function in the capitalistic society we currently inhabit goes, to imply that somehow without it people would be left to trying to “design a phone out of sticks on the ground” is extremely disingenuous.
Capitalist funded the creation of the iPhone and withdrawal rent on their funding.
There are many ways to fund the process.
Capitalists like capitalism because they get to extract more than they funded with no upper bound.
They leech off of the value of the workers who created the product because they think funding the arrangment entitles them to infinite returns on their investment.
It’s rent seeking with more steps and no overhead. There is zero upkeep because the input is the output, capital.
If capital was additive then adding twice as much capital would result in twice as much output and that is clearly not the case.
It’s a valve and it is like a damn operator taking credit for the river.
Its just such a stupid argument on its face. We wouldn’t argue that tribalism gave us agriculture, or that somehow feudalism is good because of windmills. As a society we have ideas, we direct resources to those ideas, and then we reap the benefits of those ideas. Capitalism is simply a more effective driver of resources than the systems before. But mathematically driven aristocracy is still aristocracy.
Capitalism is destroying the Earth… and causing climate change at an unprecedented pace. Its all in what you view as valuable. If you dont value a habitable planet, sure capitalism is an effective system at exploiting workers for a few people’s benefit.
TBF if everyone ate locally raised grass fed beef that would kill the planet at an even faster rate. In the frontier days people sustained on Pigs which they would let roam wild and devour everything they came across, and then stored their meat in barrels of salt.
If every community supplied their own power and lighting such as oil lamps and furnaces, it would be worse.
If every community made their own plastics and devices instead of sophisticated centralized productions with higher efficiency and minimal material cost, that would be worse for the planet.
Capitalism is not inherently worse for the planet, nor better really. Extreme and polar distribution methods don’t change demand only processes and supply.
Yes it is.
Always fun to see a nuanced Marxist concept escape lemmy.ml and be argued against by people who have zero idea what they’re talking about.
I love when these assholes try to convince you that the capitalists created the company and therefore deserve all the capital.
Like, ok, give all your money to your parents and grandparents.
It’s really not that complicated. Someone or something. Had to finance the research that lead to the technology. So, yes. Capitalism did indeed make your iPhone. It’s the driving factor of financing technological advancements outside of perhaps the military
That doesn’t mean those working the lines, writing the software, cleaning the office, maintaining the buildings, etc, deserve a fiftyeleven:th rate payoff.
It’s the same with all of your paraphrasing posts. It’s just unnecessary. You could just let the content speak for itself without looking like a clown.
It can be true that capitalism did indeed make your iPhone, and that it’s growing out of control in terms of exploitation and evolving into an oligarchy.(US)
Wouldn’t capitalism be the whole system and capitalists menaing here the top owning class?
Capitalists told workers to make the iphone.
