It’s because capitalism the pejorative is distinct from capitalism the naturalistic economic theory and a lot of people actively refuse to understand this. Unless your anarchist society is truly post-scarcity, you will end up with commerce and value proxies regardless of how much you wish otherwise. And even in a material post-scarcity society, there will still be scarcity in the form of things like artistic talent, companionship, etc. If you don’t want to call that capitalism, then you might as well just define capitalism as monsters under your bed.
There is no post-capitalist society besides the one focused on harm reduction. And then there is no utopia, no end goal, only an eternal struggle to combat the evils of where material scarcity and human greed intersect.
I think you are misunderstanding the conversation. I am a leftist, and I am not saying it’s “human nature,” more that “capitalist” structures are an inevitable byproduct of scarcity. This is not particularly controversial economics, and if anything, I am making a linguistic argument against reducing capitalism to “everything bad about modernity.” Just like many people do in terms of reducing leftism to “everything bad about the USSR.”
More generally, making leftism liturgical and literally blocking out any discussion of first principles is one of the biggest things about online leftist communities which turns people off.
The whole issue is that you go into pretty much any Lemmy thread and it’s like “man I hate getting up early for work” and there will inevitably be a bunch of comments being like “yeah fuck capitalism.”
Because communism is when sleeping in, or whatever.
It’s just kind of juvenile and completely misses the point about the nature of the anti-capitalist struggle and the nature of effective praxis, and I’m honestly sick of it. And to make matters even worse, on top of that you have people smugly spouting off day one political science 101 like it is some kind of enlightenment, and then literally blocking out any conversation about more contemporary leftist thought, literally calling it propaganda, because I guess it doesn’t scratch the itch for revolutionary fan service enough. And this is the “intellectual side” of internet leftism.
As someone who has actually studied political science and economics, being lectured by ignorant internet leftists after gently questioning their reductive, outdated dogma is just exhausting.
It’s because capitalism the pejorative is distinct from capitalism the naturalistic economic theory and a lot of people actively refuse to understand this. Unless your anarchist society is truly post-scarcity, you will end up with commerce and value proxies regardless of how much you wish otherwise. And even in a material post-scarcity society, there will still be scarcity in the form of things like artistic talent, companionship, etc. If you don’t want to call that capitalism, then you might as well just define capitalism as monsters under your bed.
There is no post-capitalist society besides the one focused on harm reduction. And then there is no utopia, no end goal, only an eternal struggle to combat the evils of where material scarcity and human greed intersect.
Oh look, the “capitalism is human nature” folk have arrived!
Thoroughly debunked propaganda. Blocked.
I think you are misunderstanding the conversation. I am a leftist, and I am not saying it’s “human nature,” more that “capitalist” structures are an inevitable byproduct of scarcity. This is not particularly controversial economics, and if anything, I am making a linguistic argument against reducing capitalism to “everything bad about modernity.” Just like many people do in terms of reducing leftism to “everything bad about the USSR.”
More generally, making leftism liturgical and literally blocking out any discussion of first principles is one of the biggest things about online leftist communities which turns people off.
i would argue that leftists constantly arguing about what their words even mean is one of the biggest turn offs.
people don’t love pedantry.
The whole issue is that you go into pretty much any Lemmy thread and it’s like “man I hate getting up early for work” and there will inevitably be a bunch of comments being like “yeah fuck capitalism.”
Because communism is when sleeping in, or whatever.
It’s just kind of juvenile and completely misses the point about the nature of the anti-capitalist struggle and the nature of effective praxis, and I’m honestly sick of it. And to make matters even worse, on top of that you have people smugly spouting off day one political science 101 like it is some kind of enlightenment, and then literally blocking out any conversation about more contemporary leftist thought, literally calling it propaganda, because I guess it doesn’t scratch the itch for revolutionary fan service enough. And this is the “intellectual side” of internet leftism.
As someone who has actually studied political science and economics, being lectured by ignorant internet leftists after gently questioning their reductive, outdated dogma is just exhausting.