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Eat the Rich

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member

It's no real surprise to me. Despite its numerous cheerleaders, capitalism really doesn't have that much to cheer about.

One could argue that industrialism and other scientific/technological advancements and achievements have enhanced and improved the overall quality of life of the masses. Some might argue that capitalism played a key role in that process. On a practical level, perhaps capitalism served some sort of purpose in history, although it may be time to move forward from that.

Capitalism itself has changed since the bad old days of the 19th and early 20th centuries, although many reforms had to come about through revolution, upheaval, and/or government fiat. Still, there's a great deal of poverty throughout the world, along with huge disparities between rich and poor.

I think many people are looking to the future. In a world faced with climate change, a perceived dwindling of resources, and rising international tensions, I think people's priorities will start to shift. We might still have some semblance of a free market economy and private ownership, but "capitalism," in and of itself, will not be the be-all and end-all of our existence, as it seems to be for many people today.
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
It's no real surprise to me. Despite its numerous cheerleaders, capitalism really doesn't have that much to cheer about.

One could argue that industrialism and other scientific/technological advancements and achievements have enhanced and improved the overall quality of life of the masses. Some might argue that capitalism played a key role in that process. On a practical level, perhaps capitalism served some sort of purpose in history, although it may be time to move forward from that.

Capitalism itself has changed since the bad old days of the 19th and early 20th centuries, although many reforms had to come about through revolution, upheaval, and/or government fiat. Still, there's a great deal of poverty throughout the world, along with huge disparities between rich and poor.

I think many people are looking to the future. In a world faced with climate change, a perceived dwindling of resources, and rising international tensions, I think people's priorities will start to shift. We might still have some semblance of a free market economy and private ownership, but "capitalism," in and of itself, will not be the be-all and end-all of our existence, as it seems to be for many people today.
Yes, and given the simple fact of the aging of populations, capitalism supporters will be dying off, replaced by younger socialists. In the UK we have had the joys of 10 years of a government of free market ******** but younger people are far more supportive of the left (as noted in the article*).

* https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
Thoughts?
One of the links failed. It went to a poll about USA titled "50% of Young People in the Heartland of Laissez-Faire Economics Reject Capitalism."

I get the dissatisfaction this article is talking about.

My thoughts are, once again, that this is a religious thing, not economic. Religion is continuing its long slog of a war against greed with victories and failures. Greed wasn't invented in capitalist times. Capitalism is an invention, a tool; and it is rusty. Like any economic tool it has to be used in the right way, or it destroys. Everything goes back to religion. Religion is still barely holding up the end that the government isn't supporting: the downtrodden, poor, those who are scrambling just to stay afloat and have no hope or expectation of a self respecting end and death. Religion has not managed to compel the government to take a more sensible approach to welfare, not currently. Instead welfare is popularly feared to be sugar for bacteria, and struggling people are the bacteria, a threat that threatens to grow and kill the country. "Cut it off! Cut it off!" we hear. "Sever the infected limb!"

Thus there is naturally a reaction. People are reacting. They are mistakenly blaming capitalism. What's really happened is that people have lost their integrity. Without integrity nothing works, not socialism, not capitalism.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
As the cost of living goes up, and with the benefits of things like insurance going down, and wages not really keeping pace to allow the accumulation of assets, it's no wonder there is fear and dissatisfaction with the status quo economic system. It's rigged for the wealthy, mostly thanks to republicans cutting their taxes. There is a bad set of rules that allows billionaires to accumulate more wealth as workers still struggle to make ends meet and avoid debt.
 

Yerda

Veteran Member
Give them a few years and they'll be voting for tax cuts for billionaires, keeping out migrants, and right wing culture war nonsense.
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
Give them a few years and they'll be voting for tax cuts for billionaires, keeping out migrants, and right wing culture war nonsense.
That seems a standard idea, the moving to the right with age. I wonder if it will happen given the failure of capitalism for younger people. No housing, crap jobs. Those with no stake in a society will see no need to help sustain it, but will see reasons to disrupt or break it. Imo.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
History shows that classical socialism (state capitalism) is a failure. History is showing that classical capitalism is failing as the rich use their power to increase their wealth at the expense of all the rest.

That's the problem. Solution? That's a tough question.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
I'm a 26 year old who's not against capitalism :shrug:

It worked for the west, we're some of the richest nations on earth with plenty of opportunity and many folks want to move here.

I'm unashamedly pro-capitalism.

:)
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member

Capitalism is not well supported in the education system so it's a system that most coming out of school don't understand. It's only actually being in the business world that people begin to get an education on capitalism. While most feel this change from socialism to capitalism is a age related phenomenon, I suspect it has more to do with experience.

Good capitalist values need to be taught to the young. Unfortunately, I don't see much hope for this in our education systems.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
Capitalism is not well supported in the education system so it's a system that most coming out of school don't understand. It's only actually being in the business world that people begin to get an education on capitalism. While most feel this change from socialism to capitalism is a age related phenomenon, I suspect it has more to do with experience.

Good capitalist values need to be taught to the young. Unfortunately, I don't see much hope for this in our education systems.
It seems many young folks have an impression of capitalism in the hardcore Victorian sense, not realising there's not just one concept or implementation of capitalism.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
Good capitalist values need to be taught to the young. Unfortunately, I don't see much hope for this in our education systems.
There's a simple solution for that. Start paying the teachers. Give them a reason to be capitalists.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
It seems many young folks have an impression of capitalism in the hardcore Victorian sense, not realising there's not just one concept or implementation of capitalism.
Capitalism, even in "socialist" Europe has (once again) become hardcore. My generation (boomers) still had a perspective to life. We could become comfortable by our own work. That has changed. The outlook for life, according to all statistics, for the following generations was to have nothing more when retiring as they have/had in their twenties. The average income is stagnating, only the rich get richer.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
Capitalism, even in "socialist" Europe has (once again) become hardcore. My generation (boomers) still had a perspective to life. We could become comfortable by our own work. That has changed. The outlook for life, according to all statistics, for the following generations was to have nothing more when retiring as they have/had in their twenties. The average income is stagnating, only the rich get richer.
When I said hardcore I was referring to ideas like dismantling the NHS and so on. I'm not defending exactly what we have now, especially not after 2008.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Capitalism has failed us. And if we continue to allow it free reign, it will destroy us. Or rather, we will destroy ourselves, through it.

By the way, no one wants to "eat the rich". Not millennials, nor anyone else. But anyone with an active brain in their head will recognize that we cannot continue allowing individuals and corporate entities to amass huge piles of wealth which they can and do use to corrupt business, government, and culture for their own advantage, and at the expense of the well-being of everyone else, and of the nation as a whole. This has to stop, and because millennials have grown up with the internet and have a far greater awareness of the threat this system poses to them, and to the future of mankind, they are more concerned than most.

I only hope their concern will translate into real and positive action.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
But anyone with an active brain in their head will recognize that we cannot continue allowing individuals and corporate entities to amass huge piles of wealth which they can and do use to corrupt business, government, and culture for their own advantage, and at the expense of the well-being of everyone else, and of the nation as a whole.
This is not unique to capitalism, tho.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
It's no real surprise to me. Despite its numerous cheerleaders, capitalism really doesn't have that much to cheer about.
For not so smart, not so skilled, & not so ambitious people,
capitalism is indeed rough these days. Automation is causing
low skill jobs to disappear. But for the rest, there's much high
paying work available.
Some things that would help....
- UBI
- Loosened zoning, housing code, & building code regulations
to allow higher density, less expensive, & flexible housing.
- Loosen licensing requirements for professions posing no
health or safety risk, eg, hair braiding, car service.
- Changing the primary education system to be not only about
college prep, but to also teach trades & life skills.
- Reform the unemployment insurance system to be less
onerous to employers, thereby making lower wage jobs &
temporary jobs less costly.
- Ban rent control so that housing markets can expand faster
where needed.
 

Laika

Well-Known Member
Premium Member

Socialists have fought, died and killed for the advancement of the working class through most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There was no level of sacrifice or suffering they were not willing to undertake (or inflict) in the belief it was for the advancement of mankind. Communists and Socialists were fierce resistance fighters in Nazi occupied Europe, especially the Partisans in Yugoslavia. They defended the Spanish Republic in the face of it's defeat to General Franco. They resisted even in the concentration camps and in the death camps. And the Soviet Union sent tens of millions of it's own citizens to die to ensure that Fascism was defeated, even as it faced the brunt of the final solution and Nazi atrocities and war crimes.

And when people were sent to the Gulags in Russia, their ideological fervour was so strong, they believed that if only Joseph Stalin knew what was going on, he would put a stop to it. We know now of course that was a mistake and despite the efforts by Khrushchev and his successors to remedy the situation, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union with it.

I simply don't see a comparison between a comfortable western elitist using "Eat the Rich" as an empty slogan and the people forced to engage in cannibalism because collectivisation produced famines in China, Ethiopia and the USSR. And when pushed, these millennials and gen Z will almost always dissociate themselves from their ideological predecessors because they are too "extreme", "inhumane" and "dictatorial". They only wear Che Guevara on a T-shirt because they don't know he was a homophobe and that Cuba put gays in concentration camps. I find efforts to "redefine" socialism to a level of shallow wokeness that you can "swipe left" for as an insult the horror, tragedy and heroism of those who actually dedicated their lives to it and are definitely not equivalent to one another.
 
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