It’s not that I don’t care at all, or I wouldn’t’ve been busy trying to rebut peoples arguments against mine here, or propose counter, countermeasures for dealing with how capitalists and the economy might react to significant socialist reforms, it’s that in all likelihood, nothing anyone is going to say to me is going to change my mind about needing a major minimum wage increase, or some combination of substantial socialist reforms or an anarchist revolt.
No a sane definition is one that, minimizes, contributions from as many people as possible.
Humanities biggest problem is humanism, that it overvalues its own industry and innovation.
Productivity is not a good, or if it is, you can have too much of a good thing.
Infinite growth on a finite planet is a recipe for annihilation.
And I find the notion we’re going to someday colonize, farm and mine other planets for their resources anytime soon, if ever, profoundly absurd.
It would cost quadrillions of dollars, preposterously more money than we have to attempt such a feat, and it’d be just that, an attempt, we have no idea if such things are even possible.
I mean sure, that’s what they said about landing on the moon, that it was impossible, but supposedly we did (I’m not sure that we did, but I’ll leave that for another thread).
But it was also said God himself couldn’t sink the titanic.
On top of that resources like oil, gas, uranium and so on are getting harder and harder to come by.
There’s talk about massive soil erosion and water shortages on the horizon.
We don’t even have the resources or tech to even attempt such a thing, and we need to power down our economy and reverse population growth immediately.
We’ve already made such a mess of our own planet: thousands of species extinct, and thousands more to come, our own species, life as we know it on the verge of annihilation, climate change, world war 3 over the now dwindling resources, and on and on.
No combination of more efficient or greener techs is going to permit us to continue to grow forever.
Not only do we face collective destruction, thanks to modern science, social engineering and tech, but I’m not sure we’re any happier or healthier as individuals as well.
We’re certainly not any, freer, modernity is a double edged sword.
I’m pro economic sustainability…scratch that, I’m pro economic stagnation, if not outright recession.
We need to learn much more about how to live in harmony with the world and ourselves before we even dream about spreading our civilization to other worlds.
As it stands, our civilization is cancerous.
Humanity should by and large only produce what it needs to survive, and not a whole lot else.
There’s far too many toys, too much crap, junk and waste, and too many people.
Of course humanity probably won’t heed the warnings some sensible economists, scientists, thinkers and writers are making, we’re going to continue on this path of self-destruction until it’s too late.
The bulk of us are just goin to have to learn these lessons the hard way, if we’re around to learn them, that is.
Study history, civilizations, like individuals and species, come and go, many of them because of things like climate change, or political, economic and ecological overexpansion.
What makes you so certain ours is on solid footing?
To me it looks more like quicksand.
Modernity has only been around for a couple of centuries, a tiny blip in human history, itself likely a tiny blip in the history of the world.
Arguably only A few civilizations have been around for millennia, remained roughly intact, but incrementally declined until they were shadows of their former selves, and only few of them were able to re-ascend, like China.
Even if we are fundamentally progressing as a species, civs often take a few steps back after taking several steps forward anyway and we’re long overdo.
Innovation comes and goes, I think we’re less innovative now than we were in the early 20th to mid 20th century, I mean other than the internet and phones, little else has had a revolutionary impact on our day to day lives.
Perhaps most or all of the low hanging fruit sort of speak have been plucked at least for now, and it’ll be centuries or millennia before we’re able to get seriously innovative again.
The first civilizations on record Egypt and Sumer were very innovative, they gave us the wheel, courthouses, metallurgy and professional armies, so many firsts within just several centuries.
Ironically the Giza Pyramids were far more impressive than the pyramids that came afterwards, but then it took civilization perhaps till now before it saw as many or more firsts as it did then.
In summary innovation and progress aren’t givens, far from it, we’re taking it all for granted.
I find that abhorrent, putting kids and retirees to work, like they’re just machines, their lives only valued for their utility.
It’s modern scientific and tech innovation that generated the problems in the first place.
Human extinction wasn’t a serious possibility in the pre or early industrial era, now it is.
Perhaps the solution is to slow science and tech innovation down to a crawl, so potential threats can be ascertained beforehand, rather than afterward, if not stop innovation altogether.
Test major innovations on smaller scales over longer periods of time, before we even consider implementing them ubiquitously.
And the flipside of this is that some immigrants and their way of life may not be compatible with western civilization.
It was German immigrants who brought the Roman Empire down.
Of course by then their civilization was weakened, but so has ours arguably.
I want to protect our environment, the last thing I want is for Canada to have millions of more mouths to feed.
No products won’t be sold cheaper, that’s why prices almost always incline while wages almost always stagnate.
Instead capitalists will use the increase in profits they make to buy lots of shit and have fun with it at our expense, or invest it in more needless productivity for its own sake, and they will almost exclusively benefit monetarily and materially from it, or no one really benefits either way more of our precious resources are squandered.
Maybe we should scrap min wage altogether, and put the poor to work 12-16 hours a day like they do in China, making more gadgets, gizmos and toys for the rich, maybe that further increase in economic growth and environmental decay will somehow innovate us into saving the environment, kind of like borrowing yourself out of debt.
Universal welfare?
I think many-most people are too selfish, and would abuse the system you propose.
I mean for someone who criticized me earlier for proposing a big min wage increase and supposedly not being prepared for counterarguments, what you propose here seems much less feasible.
And if a lot of people abuse and take advantage of it, inflation will soar and skyrocket.
I think everyone that can work should, there needs to be some challenge and growth in life, and some shouldn’t work hard to feed others who refuse to feed themselves, it’s just that challenge should be proportionate to resources available, rather than this artificial scarcity we have now thanks to capitalism.
While increasing min wage and the amount welfare pays, if anything I’d put more checks and balances in place, to make sure only people who genuinely need it are receiving it.
Whatever has to be done, if government has to take over a large portion of the food and hosing industries to ensure people have inexpensive food to eat, so be it.
It can be done, and already has been done in Canada to an extent.
It may just be better to do this, than increase minimum wage, or it may be better to do both in conjunction.
Government will just have to print money or tax the rich, and when this causes inflation, so be it, really all that matters is essentials like food, housing and healthcare are inexpensive.
Or government can fund these industries with the revenue it makes from selling these inexpensive goods.
It may not make a lot, but once these industries are taken over, the value of a dollar will dramatically change.
Unfortunately working people don’t have much of a spine anymore, if they ever did, the establishment has them completely bamboozled.
Indeed sometimes conditions have to get really bad, before they get good.
There are genuine socialist parties in Canada, the US and the UK, but conveniently for the cryptocrats no one gives them the time of day.
I’m not sure the universe is entirely deterministic, but that’s neither here nor there.
That’s a metaphysical question, we’re talking about sociology, politics and economics here, the meaning of the word free radically changes depending on the context you’re using it in.
Your needs and desires may be completely determined by genes, social conditioning, the environment, but some systems have fewer sociopolitical and economic restrictions on your needs and desires than others.
Also, just because your society is decentralized, doesn’t mean it’s free, case in point: feudalism.
And also, you could conceivably have both a state, and a free market, but a different conception of property than the capitalist one, where either there are limits to how much real estate you can own/government will protect for you, but you can still do anything with your property that you wish, like pay someone 1 dollar an hour to work on it, or build unsafe housing and charge people an arm and a leg to live there.
Myself I never agreed to the rulers or rules our economy is governed by, many of us never did, and so I have very little loyalty to this system.
Right, that’s why when it comes to the economy and the environment I think there should be some basic restrictions on what people can get away with, unless we did away with the state and/or the capitalist conception of property altogether (which gives you the right to own as much stuff and land as you can pay government to protect for you) for the aforementioned alternative conception of property, than I think we could have a free market, we probably wouldn’t need much-any coercion.
And the more finite the space, the less free you are, which’s the flipside of urbanity and high population density, in many ways society was freer when it was more rural.
Capitalism isn’t based on self-interest really, at least not entirely.
It’s a certain way to do an economy, its rules and regulations permit people insane amounts of wealth, or none at all, depending on their luck, talent, tenacity, or how much corruption they can get away with.
It also tends to benefit the haves more than the have nots, hence rich get richer poor poorer.
In the beginning of capitalist economies, when the gap between rich/poor was relatively slight, and there were a lot of frontiers, low hanging fruit, there were lots of opportunities for poor people to strike it rich, or at least middle class.
But overtime, frontiers have shrunk, disparities have grown tremendously, and classes have become more deeply entrenched and virtually impossible to challenge within the limitations of the system.
For the people it hasn’t benefited much, or at all, it’s a kind of altruism on their behalf to continue supporting it.
And of course the system has become monstrously corrupt, megabanks and corporations form cartels, receive welfare/propped up by government so they can never be challenged/held accountable, tax breaks, loopholes…
It’s only a matter of time before it completely collapses, catapulting us into a new dark age, or there’s a revolution, either one.
But even if there is a revolution, of course it doesn’t mean things are going to get any better, for example a military dictator may rise to power in the USA or Europe to seemingly challenge the establishment, he may promise the poor some relief, and he and his immediate successors may deliver on some of those promises, for a while, but in exchange for most of the democracy and freedom they have left.
Eventually he/his successors will form an absolute dictatorship, and then people will be totally enslaved.
I think it’s a combination of capitalism, science and tech that’s allowed us to threaten the environment as much as we have.
Capitalism without modern science, without the technological revolutions of the 19th and 20th century: planes, trains and automobiles, electricity, the green revolution and so on, certainly wouldn’t’ve given us climate change or anywhere near as much overpopulation, pollution, deforestation and so forth as we have now.
It’s not just capitalism that’s the problem, it’s technology itself, especially when it’s in the wrong hands. If you have a ‘communist’ dictatorship that only cares about furthering its own power in the short term, then it may start nuclear war, or a series of events leading to nuclear war, expand itself both politically, and/or economically, with no regard for who or what gets in its way.