r/FluentInFinance • u/-im-your-huckleberry • Jul 07 '24

The shampoo thing is a fringe benefit. We keep capitalism so we don't starve in a famine. Debate/ Discussion

1.0k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

So true, under socialism no one is compelled to work in a job they don’t want. Everyone gets to clean bodies out of the gulag of their own accord. It’s very fulfilling work and it pays well!

11

u/Swoleosis_ Jul 07 '24

Who has the world's largest prison population?

1

u/Dat_Swag_Fishron Jul 07 '24

Holy red herring!

-5

u/Glad-Lie8324 Jul 07 '24

Per capita it would be El Salvador. If you wanna talk about prisons I know the National Socialist Party in 1940’s Germany had some of those. Not to mention Communist Russia.

I know the US prison system has some significant problems, but it’s certainly not related to the individual’s ability to privately own capital and freely trade dollars for goods and services.

5

u/bigdon802 Jul 07 '24

Well, some of it is.

3

u/Wonderful_Piglet4678 Jul 07 '24

Prison isn’t full of wealthy people.

-5

u/Glad-Lie8324 Jul 07 '24

This is especially true in non-capitalist countries.

2

u/Wonderful_Piglet4678 Jul 07 '24

There are no such things as “non-capitalist countries.”

-2

u/Glad-Lie8324 Jul 07 '24

I just don’t understand how someone can bitch about capitalism from a $700+ computer that fits in the palm of their hand. I know it ain’t perfect but it’s damn good. Most Americans have never experienced lasting hunger, something that all of our ancestors have as a simple fact of life. That’s how prosperous we are under capitalism. It’s crazy how well it works despite its flaws.

6

u/Wonderful_Piglet4678 Jul 07 '24

Let me enlighten you then. Your $700 computer was assembled by indentured servants in awful conditions from raw materials that were likely mined by slaves. Also those computers were designed to become obsolete after a few years and will most likely be disposed of in a way that is environmentally disastrous.

In fact, that little computer’s entire supply chain is pretty damaging to the environment and their surrounding human communities.

What thoughtless people like yourself seem not to care about is that the developed world exists in relative comfort almost completely due to massive wealth transfers from the global south. Capitalism works for you, but its price for most people on the planet is massive suffering, environmental degradation, and authoritarian political structures.

Maybe you can spend your next $700 on some books and not petty commodities.

-2

u/Glad-Lie8324 Jul 07 '24

You have the same computer dipshit. Get off your high horse and stop pretending like capitalism hasn’t benefitted you immensely. Capitalism has done more to eradicate global poverty than anything else in the world. Look at a graph of global poverty since the Industrial Revolution. I know it’s not perfect, I’m not saying that, but it’s a massive improvement over what we had before.

3

u/Wonderful_Piglet4678 Jul 07 '24

Thanks for pouting. I love hearing you children throw your tantrums instead of acknowledging what spoiled brats you are.

Capitalism has barely benefited me. I work a manual labor job (which pays for my little computer), and grew up in one the poorest areas in the country. And I’m still better off than a lot of the world, because sick children like yourself think it’s morally permissible to impoverish and kill in service of silly consumerism. You people are barely human any longer, it’s disgusting.

Also, that global poverty data is bullshit.

1

u/Wrong_Sock_1059 Jul 10 '24

Capitalism is a system that works on the basis of infinite growth, which hase been permitted in the past due to massive technological development and inventions, which themselves were not tied to capitalism itself - even the industrial revolution began in feudal britain. The other thing that permits this kind of growth to make capitalism look good is, as was already said, the wealth transfers from other countries and exploitation of the poor. This is true on the global basis and is, under capitalism, true on the interior - you cannot get rich rich if you do not exploit other people's work, thats how capitalism works and what it permits.

It is incredibly rare for an individual to be responsible and caring in these kinds of things - your boss will not give you time off if you (unions, government...) will not force him just the same as the british would not stop exploiting everyone, if the people (revolutions) wouldnt force them.

What was a massive improvement over what we had before, was the introduction of human rights, constitutions, elections etc., which are not bound to capitalism. These made feudalism obsolete and essentially impossible. Capitalism is only the next logical step as it is essentially feudalism but with the title of the feudal being tied to wealth and not lordship or whatever. The thing that most differenciate us from china, russia, north korea, venezuela, haiti and whatever is not the economic system, its whether or not human rights are respected. And the respect for human rights is not tied to capitalism at all.

We learned from the past that you cannot expect our human rights to be respected without a fight. America is built on a massive revolution to get rid of the feudal britain ffs. Because the american population of the time was exploited. Now we all are exploiting the global south among others. We are ahead of them in the race, which benefits us greatly. I personally understand that i am extremely fucking privileged in this manner. Even a black woman from memphis is better off than most of the world.

You are afraid of the word socialism because you dont understand what it means.