Asklemmy

Capitalism is inherently contradictory to my basic values, terrible at efficient economic allocation, actively destroying everything, and is built on a foundation of war and genocide.

I believe that everyone should have as much autonomy as possible. Capitalism's basic premise is that economic allocation is determined by those who own capital, allocation of the resources communities and individuals use is an autonomy problem. Since Capitalism concentrates power among a very few, it is actively limiting the autonomy of literally billions of people for the benefit of less than a thousand.

The allocation of resources itself, the basic purpose of any economic system, is incredibly inefficient undee Capitalism. Take food, vast amounts are produced, enough to feed everyone, yet people starved to death while I was writing this. Not only that, food itself is peoduced in such a way as to maximize profit. This comes at the expense of local food systems, which have been in large part dismantled by environmental damage. It comes at the expense of vast CO2 emissions to run the machines that mine phosphorous, manufacture fertilizer and pesticides, run the various pieces of farm equipment, process food, and the planes, ships, trucks that ship it to stores. It comes at the expense of soil health, which monocropping, tilling, fallow, and agrochemicals all harm. This is just food, look at any other sphere of human activity and you will find a similar story. Meaningful measures of efficiency and system health are ignored to pump out as much profit as possible, and this gets called "efficient".

Capitalism is the great machine that is destroying everything. Under it's logic of endless expansion we have seen entire ecosystems bulldozed and turned into suburbs, watched millions of people be enslaved even in the present day, witnessed war and genocide on a scale never before fathomed. Both world wars happenned under Capitalism, and war has continued unabated ever since. The so-called United States is the dominant Capitalist power on Earth, and holds millions of people in legal slavery, if you don't believe me read the 13th amendment to its constitution. Many other people are describing the results of ecosystem destruction, the Climate Catastrophe, as their primary reason for anti-capitalist beliefs.

Capitalism as a system grew under feudalism before supplanting it, and directly springboarded off of Colonialism to become the dominant economic system of this world. The horrors of colonization follow(ed) a similar logic of expansion to capital, exploiting millions of people through slavery and genocide, spreading plagues that have killed countless individuals and entire cultures, introducing poverty to places where the concept had not preciously made sense. Capitalism cannot be separated from its historical roots, if you want to learn more about this I recommend the, "A ______ People's History of the United States" series of books. I'd prioritize the Indigenous and Black histories.

This is an indictment of Capitalism, but presents no alternatives. I will do that here.

Indigenous cultures had/have land-based economies that center care. This is not an alternative, it is thousands of them, each adapted to a local ecosystem. In order to survive we need to localize resource production, and land-based economies are the way to do that. I would recommend learning about how Indigenous people groups in your area thrived before Colonialism forcibly severed many of their connections to place, how they survive today, and how they are working to heal their relationships to the land. A related concept is that of the gift economy, a common practice for many groups world-wide, the particulars of which are as diverse as our species. Look into it, gift economies work, and operate on principles that are essentially as "anti-capitalism" as one can get.

Commons-based peer production is another, complimentary option for future economic systems. It is directly born out of the open source software movement, and imagines structuring all production around simular principles. People produce for themselves and their peers, keeping resources in common to ensure equitable allocation. If you do not believe commons can work, I would recommend looking into Ostrom's eight principles for managing commons, just highlight that phrase and paste it into a search engine. A related concept is that of "cosmo-local production". The idea is that physical production is localized to reduce impact on the planet (local), while information on process is shared freely with everyone (cosmo). This ties into the idea of "donut economics" which is basically the idea that we should meet human needs while staying within planetary boundaries, the inside and outside of the metaphorical donut respectively. Look up any of these terms and you will find loads of thought-provoking writing, imagining a better world. Plus many of the people doing the theorizing are programmers like you, I'm sure you'll find ideas that resonate with you if you look for them here.

It took courage to make this post, thanks for starting some interesting discussions. I might believe you are wrong about Capitalism, but I respect your honesty and willingness to engage with other ideas here. I would strongly encourage reading further to understand these concepts on a deeper level than a Lemmy comment can give you, especially the economic alternatives, I basically just skimmed over a whole field of emerging theory.

Edit: accidentally posted before I was done, added 3 paragraphs.