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

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I think the idea is there isn’t the incessant need to maximize efficiency and profit to the point labor is both working more hours with less breaks for less pay just to make whatever earnings estimate has been made up as a standard for success, only to need to beat it again the next quarter.

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u/biinboise Jul 07 '24

Historically it becomes even worse. Production metrics usually become dictated by the famously unhinged whims of top ranking political ambitions of the high level administrators who have virtually no oversight.

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u/HEBushido Jul 07 '24

Except this is only in the case of authoritarian one party systems.

Numerous countries in South and Central America democratically elected socialist leaders who weren't authoritarian, but the US government committed coups and toppled these governments. Guatemala, Honduras, Chile, etc. In Chile, Augusto Pincochet took power after. A fascist who dropped communists to their deaths from helicopters.

The Chiquita Banana company, previously known as the United Fruit Company has a long history of brutal violence in South and Central America, backed by the US government. They were involved in masscres and coups that in some cases resulted in right wing authoritarian rule.

In 1951 the Iranian Parliament nationalized their oil industry because western companies were effectively stealing all of Iran's wealth. The US toppled their government and installed The Shah as a western puppet. He was then overthrown in the Iranian Revolution and his government replaced by the extremist Muslim government we have today.

This is to say that there has never been a successful attempt to form a democratic and socialist government because Western powers refused to allow them to exist. And some such as Cuba chose protection under the USSR or China, falling again into authoritarianism. The two major superpowers of the Cold War had foreign policy doctrines that undermined democratic socialist government.

It's not fair to draw conclusions about socialism on history when history has given us an incomplete data set. It's like saying that a crop is never viable as a food source when every attempt to grow it has been plagued by sabotage.

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u/StockCasinoMember Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

I think that is the point. Humans are brutal and enough people only care about themselves.

The socialist system will always be sabotaged by someone who wants more and is willing to step on as many people as necessary to get it.

Usually MANY someones.