Yeah the guy you’re arguing with isn’t great. They should have more consideration for others ideas even if they are flawed.
That being said there are serious holes in your thinking. Mainly that capitalism doesn’t actually align with human values. Humans are not purely self-interested and rational like some economic models are based upon. Human greed is part of what makes the rich behave so badly. You’re arguing that socialism doesn’t fit as well with human nature when in reality capitalism doesn’t fit at all either. Systems that rely on infinite growth don’t even fit with the laws of physical reality.
The true answer is to build a system that aligns with both physical reality and human nature, such a system would likely be socialist in nature, though maybe not. It is hard to say. Either way it should be an engineering problem, not something to get tribal over. You could also try to change humans to fit a given system, but this hasn’t worked in the past. US and China try this all the time, bend people to fit their systems and it just doesn’t work.
Finally, a someone with somewhat actually thought through opinion, not any ideological maximalist.
My main take is that capitalism is a shitty, yet reliable system that actually works through ages. I think that pure socialism is still too revolutionary.
What you said in your second paragraph is actually how I think about it. An engineering task. And in general, your opinion is something I can agree with.
P.S. I think, when social networks like lemmy will take over the corporative ones, we could discuss about socialistic revolution. All this fediverse thing kinda shows to people that you can be both non-profit and successful at the same time. Until then, we have what we have.
My main take is that capitalism is a shitty, yet reliable system that actually works through ages.
This is false. Feudalism and mercantilism are much older systems. Capitalism has only been in most countries since the industrial revolution which still hasn’t happened in some places Capitalism is not only destroying the planet but it regularly has crisis because it doesn’t work reliably. If any of these systems were reliable then war, famine, and poverty would not exist. Some communist implementations might not work with humans, but capitalism doesn’t work with either humans or physical reality as I have said. Feudalism by comparison could at least avoid violating physical laws in it’s time. It is probably not compatible with modern technology and society though.
I think that pure socialism is still too revolutionary.
I would argue the opposite. Most socialist and communist philosophy predates the soviet union. New ideas have been added in some cases, but they still largely harken back to either Marx or Proudhon. These are not fundamentally new ideas any more. While some of them are still applicable I think we need to learn from how revolutions have gone and build newer systems taking only what worked from the old ideas and modern analysis of capitalist and other systems. Trying to make capitalism and socialism work together is like trying to make oil and water mix, it’s possible to make mayonnaise but it is difficult. Maybe we should be making alcohols instead. Something like socialist market economy that is a true socialist ideology but also has markets like capitalism and mercantilism.
I think, when social networks like lemmy will take over the corporative ones, we could discuss about socialistic revolution. All this fediverse thing kinda shows to people that you can be both non-profit and successful at the same time.
Open source anyone?
Finally, a someone with somewhat actually thought through opinion, not any ideological maximalist.
I find it weird you think ideology and pragmatism are opposites. The best ideology is pragmatic and pragmatism is itself just another ideology. Just because I don’t believe in the current ideologies doesn’t mean I don’t like ideological thinking as a concept. In engineering we talk about something called design philosophy which is about the goals of the engineer and how they intend to achieve those goals - you could very much call it opinionated. People call each other ideological to avoid actually disproving what they have to say when they themselves are trying to push a specific ideology. The only way to not have an ideology is to not have opinions or views about things. /rant
Yeah the guy you’re arguing with isn’t great. They should have more consideration for others ideas even if they are flawed.
That being said there are serious holes in your thinking. Mainly that capitalism doesn’t actually align with human values. Humans are not purely self-interested and rational like some economic models are based upon. Human greed is part of what makes the rich behave so badly. You’re arguing that socialism doesn’t fit as well with human nature when in reality capitalism doesn’t fit at all either. Systems that rely on infinite growth don’t even fit with the laws of physical reality.
The true answer is to build a system that aligns with both physical reality and human nature, such a system would likely be socialist in nature, though maybe not. It is hard to say. Either way it should be an engineering problem, not something to get tribal over. You could also try to change humans to fit a given system, but this hasn’t worked in the past. US and China try this all the time, bend people to fit their systems and it just doesn’t work.
Finally, a someone with somewhat actually thought through opinion, not any ideological maximalist.
My main take is that capitalism is a shitty, yet reliable system that actually works through ages. I think that pure socialism is still too revolutionary.
What you said in your second paragraph is actually how I think about it. An engineering task. And in general, your opinion is something I can agree with.
P.S. I think, when social networks like lemmy will take over the corporative ones, we could discuss about socialistic revolution. All this fediverse thing kinda shows to people that you can be both non-profit and successful at the same time. Until then, we have what we have.
This is false. Feudalism and mercantilism are much older systems. Capitalism has only been in most countries since the industrial revolution which still hasn’t happened in some places Capitalism is not only destroying the planet but it regularly has crisis because it doesn’t work reliably. If any of these systems were reliable then war, famine, and poverty would not exist. Some communist implementations might not work with humans, but capitalism doesn’t work with either humans or physical reality as I have said. Feudalism by comparison could at least avoid violating physical laws in it’s time. It is probably not compatible with modern technology and society though.
I would argue the opposite. Most socialist and communist philosophy predates the soviet union. New ideas have been added in some cases, but they still largely harken back to either Marx or Proudhon. These are not fundamentally new ideas any more. While some of them are still applicable I think we need to learn from how revolutions have gone and build newer systems taking only what worked from the old ideas and modern analysis of capitalist and other systems. Trying to make capitalism and socialism work together is like trying to make oil and water mix, it’s possible to make mayonnaise but it is difficult. Maybe we should be making alcohols instead. Something like socialist market economy that is a true socialist ideology but also has markets like capitalism and mercantilism.
Open source anyone?
I find it weird you think ideology and pragmatism are opposites. The best ideology is pragmatic and pragmatism is itself just another ideology. Just because I don’t believe in the current ideologies doesn’t mean I don’t like ideological thinking as a concept. In engineering we talk about something called design philosophy which is about the goals of the engineer and how they intend to achieve those goals - you could very much call it opinionated. People call each other ideological to avoid actually disproving what they have to say when they themselves are trying to push a specific ideology. The only way to not have an ideology is to not have opinions or views about things. /rant