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Hey tech billionaires, if you want to talk about radical change, let’s abolish venture capitalism
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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I'm gonna say what the author - as well as many here - don't dare to.
We all know modern capitalism is bad, many know capitalism in general is bad and its modern form is inevitable, but that's magically where people stop.
I'm gonna say it. We need to revisit socialism. This is the only way.
What ultimately helped to solve the issue luddites have raised is the rise of socialist agenda, the idea of secure workplace, fair pay, and technology bringing equal prosperity for everyone.
You can relate to socialism whichever way you want, but through the previous industrial revolution the socialist rise was the thing that finally delivered that prosperity, even in capitalist countries, and allowed people to actually benefit from progress. When first states turned socialist, we suddenly got fairer working conditions, free education and healthcare (except for redscared America), and yes - a giant boost in prosperity and equality.
Now, on the brink of the next technological revolution, we either allow those on the top to reap everything they can, or we fight back again to reclaim technology for the benefit of everyone. And socialism is the structure allowing us to do the latter.
We should return to that discourse, no matter how much red scare we face to this day. Saying capitalism is bad is not gonna hurt them. Saying "capitalism is bad, and here's an alternative" will.
I agree.
Like, more people should ask themselves, what is the function of a society? Is it to merely deliver wealth to the ruling class? Is it to create endless growth for corporations? Is it to maintain the status quo at all costs?
No, when all is said and done, the core fundamental of society should be the following, "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" meaning, if you are able to be a good teacher/ doctor/ engineer/ farmer/ programmer/ writer etc etc then do that. Do what you do well. Society requires all of the above to function effectively. However, on the other hand, as a reward or payment for this, you should be guaranteed all the things that a human needs, like housing, education, medical care, heat, food, water, transport, electricity, internet access etc.
Make sure everyone has at least what they need, so that people can then focus on what they want and like.
Now, the above lacks nuance and is probably a huge over simplification, but I truly believe modern society should be more in line with this philosophy. But it's not. It is largely designed to send wealth and profit to the 1% and everyone else be damned. And there is no good justifiable reason for it.
Elon Musk bought Twitter for 43 billion. His standard of living didn't change not one iota after the transaction. All he's done is piss people off and drive away staff and users alike since then. He doesn't need 43 billion. Heck, he doesn't even need 1 billion. How many people could be given a home, an education, a clean bill of health with that money. It sickens me to think about it.
But then, if you mention socialism or communism or Marx or Engels, then suddenly, you are the devil incarnate. Like, we don't need to be saluting statues of Lenin or or adding a hammer and sickle to flags, but maybe just implementing legislation that undoes that money siphon from the working class and ensures people have what they need isn't such an evil idea ffs.
Anyhow, feel free to downvote, just my thoughts.
Nothing to downvote, that's spot on
Do you have sources where I can read more about this line of thought?
This is a complex thought, but if you refer particularly to socialism and technology, here are some off the top of my head.
General academic overview: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10455750600704638
Video essays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRepEvmCCIg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WwHvNDrGV0
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The socialist rise has been also asociated with stagnation, hunger, neighbors turning neighbors to the secret police, and at least 20 year wide gap in the mindsets of people compared to their western peers. It's inherently violent, authoritarian ideology. It's rising popularity in the developed world is similar tragedy as a rise of fascism. Another violent authoritarian ideology.
Capitalism has been also associated with stagnation(recessions, austerity, stagflation or economies such as Japan's), hunger(poverty, famines), neighbours turning neighbours to secret police(Americans reporting people who have gotten abortions), and at least 20 year wide gap in the mindsets of people compared to their western peers(read this one as conservative Americans and other similar countries vs more liberal and social democracy style countries). It's inherently violent(state violence eg. police in protecting property), authoritarian ideology. Facisms rising popularity in the developed world is a feature of capatilim.
The capitalist rise has been associated with exploitation, mass executions, imperialist wars, banana republics, extension of international slavery, human trafficking, and inhumane living and working conditions for workers (not only for slaves, mind you). Lots of unchecked power and lack of historical precendents have a tendency to build flawed societies, that's no secret.
But, just as with the history of capitalism, now we can learn from the mistakes made and correct the course. We have positive examples (early USSR driven internally by worker's councils, i.e., well, Soviets; Chile with democratically elected socialist leadership; Yugoslavia with League of Communists being elected by the people and republical committees; et cetera et cetera), and we have negative ones (Stalin's USSR, Mao's China etc.). We know what to do, and we are not doomed to repeat this in whole, just as we don't have to come back to slavery despite it being present in capitalist societies before.
On the economic side, a lot of it stems from the original disparity in the amount of capital, so just tracing who got more at the end isn't fair; what is fair is to compare economic dynamics, and on that part socialism wins hands down, especially in times of an industrial revolution. Socialism allows for a rapid change, it is the system that produced some of the highest GDP growths ever recorded, it is the system that took people out of the poverty loop and dustributed the new gains fairly.
But what we're left with if we continue our course under capitalism? Continued concentration of wealth and unchecked power of certain people over our economy. Those people were not elected, they are not responsible to us, they can do what they please with the capital they have accumulated. And they always get more and more, not just in absolute numbers, but percentage-wise too. This goes in full accordance with an economic theory, and this trend will not change any time in the future.
So essentially we're left to three choices:
-Continue with status quo and end up under the control of unelected people with unchecked power (see the first paragraph)
-"Starting again", forcefully redistributing wealth back to an equal state, only to come to this point again later on
-Building a functioning socialist society and finally moving on to the new chapter in the development of humanity.
What do you pick?