Ye the world was a peaceful place before capitalism, there were no wars, no slaves and no …
checks history books
Oh no
Oh no no no no
Scale. It’s about scale and centralization. Sure there were slaves but capitalism made more than ever in human history. Sure there were wars but capitalism made them bigger and further away from the rich nations committing them’s population.
It’s about scale. It’s like comparing a single thief to a crime syndicate of organized thieves and saying “well there has always been thieving”
Yes. But never with so much damage.
Sure there were slaves but capitalism made more than ever in human history but capitalism made them bigger and further away from the rich nations committing them’s population
Wouldn’t completely agree here. There has simply been a massive technological advancement if we compare, for example, the “norse raids” with “european raids”. Europeans could transport more and travel further. Also, there have been way more people alive if we compare those timeframes. Global population has grown steadily.
Don’t get me wrong, capitalism certainly had a certain impact, but pretending like capitalism is the sole source is dishonest at best and stupid at worst. There have always been powerhungry people. Capitalism just gave everyone a chance to be power hungry instead of just the select few that were born into places of power.
Something I’d also like you to keep in mind that every communist regime that wasn’t 50 people on a deserted island has resulted in a disaster for the population and surrounding countries. The soviet union has waged more than 15 offensive wars, for example georgia, poland, finland, iran, czech etc., which is almost as much as the US which has existed for like 250 years at this point. So pretending that communism is completely free of the things you criticize capitalism for is pretty dumb tbh.
And theres the rub. You are willing to grant this system that HAS committed great evils every kinda leeway in the book. You’ll handwave away any kind of evils it has committed as “well those things just happen, and its not really capitalism as a systems fault” but when it comes to communism you will do away with those same excuses. So lets play the game where no system has excuses, count the bodies and then compare then? Or we excuse both for their human failings, count the bodies and compare. Either way you cut it, capitalism comes out worse, so you wont do that. You’ll excuse the one and not the other. It’s the only way you can see past your bodies.
Scale. It’s about scale and centralization. Sure there were slaves but capitalism made more than ever in human history.
Depends on who you ask, and when, I guess. For instance, if you asked one of the nations conquered by the Mongols, they would’ve said that empire was the largest enslaver in history.
The Mongol Empire established a massive international slave trade founded upon war captives enslaved during the Mongol conquests, which were distributed by market demand around the empire via a network of slave markets connected through the cities of the empire.
Considering this was the largest contiguous empire in human history, the exploitation and damage was pretty extensive.
Yes. Capitalism is a tool that allows us to scale industry up. Good or bad. Just like fire is indispensable for our society, but if you don’t regulate it properly, it will burn things down.
Capitalism allowed for scaling things up. Assholes got a hold of it first and used it to scale up slavery and wars. Doesn’t mean it is inherently evil.
Sure, it is an imperfect and dangerous tool, but by far the best we have.
Mmmm, that’s what you say. But take a step outside what you were taught all your life and it is soon revealed as an ideology that you bow down to worship, defend against any criticism, and demand all others bow down to it as well, no matter how they feel, on pain of their total subjugation.
So you know nothing about the extent of pre-industrial slavery? Because it dwarfs the tiny bit they bought over to the Americas.
There are so many good arguments against capitalism, why make such a terrible one full of holes, lies, and fallacies?
Reducing widespread human rights abuses in the Soviet Union to “one famine” shows a heady mixture of deliberate ignorance with hubris that only a western university educated leftist can posess.
The sad thing is, famines weren’t that widespread after a while, unless your standard of “famine” is “not eating beef steaks in a country where beef aren’t that common”.
Mao and Stalin are both often cited as killing more of their own citizens than Hitler managed to do.
For Stalin is was a result of the 1930-1933 changes in policy to heavily prioritize heavy industry over food. Honestly hard to blame him, going from a war to a bloody revolution then overthrown for militaristic autocracy probably complicated a lot of things with no time between to normalize.
For Mao is was the result of making all private agriculture a offense worthy of capital punishment and instead made a grain quota for peasants to fill and send to the central government for distribution, then heavily investing in steel production and urbanization. Peasants didn’t fill the quotas because the surpluses just didn’t exist, if the central government just took what they wanted then in those cases the farmers just starved reducing next year’s yield. Mao’s came much later so he had no excuse.
So, yeah, they didn’t get to eat meat every day. Or bread. Or even cereals.
The ussr was infinitely better for human rights than what came before or after in Russia and the baltics, and was better than all “free nations” at the time until the late 1970s, when a few European nations decided to ignore France, the UK, and the US and write their own laws.
The WHAT?
Please explain to me how sending most of the Baltic intelligensia to die in Siberia and replacing them with Russian settlers who held most positions of power was better for my rights than what I have right now.
Please tell me how great my grandmother in law had it living in the outskirts of Archangelsk in a wooden barrack because she was sent there against her will, how much more rights and opportunities she had back then.
Please explain to me how great the industrial management in the USSR was, where they built a bunch of heavy industries in countries that had few mineral resources to support them locally, leading to plant closures in the 90s.
Before WWII, Estonia was a bit richer than Finland. Not it is lagging behind by decades.
Except you know, no homelessness, by Stalin’s time no starvation, free healthcare, guaranteed days off, guaranteed vacation time, wages significantly higher than the majority of the population has ever seen, oh and free education.
Yeah, you couldn’t be a Nazi or other enemy of the state, how oppressive.
Capitalism didn’t invent slaves lol
Also gotta remember about the Irish Potato Famine where the English just literally stood by and said “well yeah that’s just how it is” due to “free market” reasons. (In fact, they made everything worse by demanding that Ireland continue to export wheat)
The Irish Potato Famine killed approximately 1 million people due to “free market above all” ideology.
Don’t forget the, “no, you can’t grow what you used to eat, you have to grow potatoes” part.
The worst part is they could and did grow what they used to eat. It just was packed off to England while the Irish starved as their own potato crops (which they could afford to eat) failed.
There was no famine. It was a deliberate and political choice to let the people who grew the crops starve.