What's wrong with Capitalism?

[creature6]

[creature6]

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by viscus

Her post isn't nearly as hyperbolic as you would make it seem.

hu·mor [hyoo-mer or, often, yoo-]
-noun.

1. a comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement: the humor of a situation.

[KontanKarite]

Originally Posted by Saya

Maybe, if you want to see a huge bloody revolution, but in the meantime people are dying because they are too poor to pay for health care, ten billion land animals are killed annually for food consumption, not to mention the billions of marine life and millions of lab animals, food is thrown away in the tons, and left to rot so that prices will stay profitable, the environment is being killed to the point of no return, and lobbyists are stuffing the pockets of politicians to stop them from interfering. Its already pretty damn desperate, but by fighting to try and make it better maybe you can prove that socialism isn't so scary and maybe the leftists are right, the poor shouldn't be punished for being poor and everything is fucked up.

And yet with the state of the way things are, you'd think there'd already be a violent and bloody revolution. So... technically, it's STILL not bad enough for the public as a whole to do what's actually the right thing to do.

Now we can also debate the actions of Ozymandias in Watchmen, but that may trivialize the conversation at hand.

Now, the main problem is either human indifference on a wide scale or those that are abusing the people are REALLY that efficient. I'm willing to bet it's the former than the latter and it's STILL not bad enough to get an indifferent and docile America to really do anything about it.

[creature6]

[Saya]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

And yet with the state of the way things are, you'd think there'd already be a violent and bloody revolution. So... technically, it's STILL not bad enough for the public as a whole to do what's actually the right thing to do.

Now we can also debate the actions of Ozymandias in Watchmen, but that may trivialize the conversation at hand.

Now, the main problem is either human indifference on a wide scale or those that are abusing the people are REALLY that efficient. I'm willing to bet it's the former than the latter and it's STILL not bad enough to get an indifferent and docile America to really do anything about it.

True but there's always a denial of oppression. Oppression is something you must learn to see, yeah you can wait until its so oppressive that no one can deny it but we'll probably all be dead and unable to say if you were right. But look at other social changes that existed, there was the woman's suffrage movement, and back then when women got the right to vote Emma Goldman predicted in The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation that while women were now legally equal, true emancipation has not been achieved no matter what people would say. And people do say that, "well you can vote so you're equal, feminism is irrelevant now." Most people just don't understand how systematic and ingrained exploitation and oppression is in capitalism, so even if we got to the point where we were so oppressed there was no denying it there's no guarantee that the revolutionaries would look to the left, just blame it on the crazy administration and put a democrat in power instead, and go back to be a bit less oppressed. They might not see the problems inherent in capitalism, it has to be taught to the masses and told how to see the bars on their cage before they can speak of ever revolting. In America this is a particularly hard problem, not so long ago communism was the nation's number one national security threat, and say "anarchy" to anyone off the street and they will say it means chaotic disorder. There's a big stigma about being a leftist and that has to be overcome.

[Joker_in_the_Pack]

Creature6, those are full of win

[Alan]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

You want to see something like what's going on in Argentina happen in America? Start supporting the most extreme whacked out right wing parties in the system. ALLOW capitalism in America to totally dominate it to the point that it's absolutely clear to the layman that what we really have is a totalitarian state guided by the hands of democracy. STOP trying to make things better and allow the infection to run its course. All I've ever seen is how America tries to contain those problems.

You don't find that bourgeois at all?
Millions of people die because of this system. Let things run their course and have much more die yet; it's not like you're going to be one of them, so who cares?
THEN we will make the world better with the ones that manage to pull through. Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs, huh?

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Alan

You don't find that bourgeois at all?
Millions of people die because of this system. Let things run their course and have much more die yet; it's not like you're going to be one of them, so who cares?
THEN we will make the world better with the ones that manage to pull through. Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs, huh?

I think you missed the point Jilly McJillerson. People don't WANT Anarchism, the only reason the workers seized that factory was that they were driven to it by necessity.

To tell you the truth, I don't think the good things we saw out of those workers we saw really had much to do with anarchism at all. Yes they functioned in a collective, as a community and overcame horrifying obstacles. Really, I think that was more a paroduct of their environment and not any method of trading. The same story is just as likely to take place in a capitalist community, provided everyone including the boss is struggling (ie: It's a Wonderful Life). Similarly, you would not see so much cohesion and community spirit in a anarcho/socialist community that was not in such dire economic straights.

Trying times bring out the best and worst of humanity, and I think it's a major fallacy to attribute that behavior to a method of trading (tempting though it may be).

[Alan]

What does that have to do with my post?
People don't want anarchism, therefore we should let the most far-right-wing groups rise to power just so that people have no other choice but to become anarchists?

[viscus]

Originally Posted by Joker_in_the_Pack

Creature6, those are full of win

No, they aren't. They're fucking annoying. She's like a little kid who just figured out how to use the image post feature.

[Apathy's_Child]

Yeah, Saya's Kampfy Chair pwned pretty much everything Creature has ever posted.

Now THAT was win.

[viscus]

Originally Posted by Despanan

hu·mor [hyoo-mer or, often, yoo-]
-noun.

1. a comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement: the humor of a situation.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Alan

What does that have to do with my post?
People don't want anarchism, therefore we should let the most far-right-wing groups rise to power just so that people have no other choice but to become anarchists?

I don't think Kontan was actually advocating that. Unless he's gone mad in my absence.

Kontan? Are you a super-villian?

[creature6]

Originally Posted by viscus

No, they aren't. They're fucking annoying. She's like a little kid who just figured out how to use the image post feature.

look who is talking.
Please, i do use those images for a reason but if you can not interpret them.
well then i advise you to go outside and play .
the same go for your little friend.
you can both play nicely.

[Apathy's_Child]

Wow, that little exchange was unKampftable for everyone.

[Methadrine]

Originally Posted by creature6

Please, i do use those images for a reason but if you can not interpret them.

They would be enjoyable if you actually grasped the concept of capitalism, which you surely do not (amongst others in this very thread).

[creature6]

Originally Posted by Methadrine

They would be enjoyable if you actually grasped the concept of capitalism, which you surely do not (amongst others in this very thread).

Maybe you don't see it.
It's not my problem. why don't you go and play with the other two.

[KontanKarite]

Originally Posted by Alan

What does that have to do with my post?
People don't want anarchism, therefore we should let the most far-right-wing groups rise to power just so that people have no other choice but to become anarchists?

Well, as Desp said, certain kinds of times brings out the best and worst of humanity.

And exactly how do you know that I wouldn't be one of the many that would be ruined by the rise of an extreme right? Do you seriously think that's what I really want? That would totally suck. However, I do believe it's possibly the most expedient way to get where ever it is we want to be.

If not, we're just as cool appealing to our elected leaders to ensure what's best. I'm also down for a slow progression to better ideas. Whatever floats the people's boat.

BTW, Desp, yes. I was slightly serious about electing right wing nut jobs. But even Americans aren't that insane. America is happy with what they got. That's the crux of my statements.

[Despanan]

You madman! You'll never get away with this Kontan!

[Joker_in_the_Pack]

People as a whole must evolve, socially and mentally, to the point where the government is not only unnecessary, but obstructive and incompatible with all sovereign societies. Humanity must reach a state where it does not need a caretaker, a protector, and a provider. A state where cohesive, self sustaining communities are the rule, not the exception. All advances in all societies that can be construed as positive are a step closer to this goal. When the poorest, most friendless, most hopeless, and most ignorant man in the world is a free, honest, and learned man. It's a state that may in all likeliness never be reached, but it's a state that must be the ultimate goal of all progressive movement and ideals. Anything less should be deemed unacceptable. Humanity has unlimited potential to do evil, but equally has unlimited potential to do good, and putting limits on the latter will remove any constraints of the former.

</thoughts>

[Despanan]

I actuallly agree with everything you just said Joker. Having an eventual goal of self-sustained communities in which no coercive for is used or needed is a noble aspiration.

However, carry this thought, coupled with what we've seen in Argentina, and I think one can invariably come to one conclusion:

There is no need for Anarchists, nor for an Anarchist movement. When people are socially and mentally evolved enough to live under an anarchist system, it will happen organically. To be an anarchist now, and to push for an anarchist revolution would require you to force the world you want now on others by coercive means, even Jillian agrees that this is wrong, and it would, ironically, violate anarchist principals.

There's. Nothing wrong with progressive ideals, nor with having such a noble end goal, but to try to pass it off on a world which is not ready for it and wants nothing to do with it now is a wasted effort at best and a great evil at worst.

[JCC]

Why does being an anarchist automatically mean that you are forcing something upon others? When Noam Chomsky writes his newest piece of polemic, or makes a speech at a university, or appears in a documentary, is he forcing something upon others by expressing an idea or theory? If you see anarchism and revolutionary politics through the narrow mindset of violence and pre-emptive strikes then it is coercive, but there's nothing coercive in holding or propagating an ideal.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by JCC

Why does being an anarchist automatically mean that you are forcing something upon others? When Noam Chomsky writes his newest piece of polemic, or makes a speech at a university, or appears in a documentary, is he forcing something upon others by expressing an idea or theory? If you see anarchism and revolutionary politics through the narrow mindset of violence and pre-emptive strikes then it is coercive, but there's nothing coercive in holding or propagating an ideal.

I agree (sorry if my post might have made it seem otherwise). I really don't see any problem with holding it as an ideal or an overall goal. My problem with anarchism comes from the more practical/right now implimentation of it. At best there is the danger of wasted effort in pursuit of a currently unattainable ideal (I previously compared it to a guy drawing up plans for an elegant golden palace he's going to build, when all he has access to are logs and the most rudimentary tools) and at worst a wide open door for the clever and immoral to engage in manipulation and exploitation of the mob.

Basically I don't see working towards and hoping for an anarchist society sometime in the future as a bad thing, more demanding it now.

I guess what I'm saying is that the statent: "this is how I want people to be, how do I change them?" is the realm of artists, priests and philosophers. while the statement "this is how people are, how do I deal with it?" is the realm of cops and politicians.

[Alan]

The answer anarchists give is, why make them a dichotomy?
We deal with both at the same time. Simple as that.