Re:Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism
by pjc50 on Friday July 21, 2017 @09:57AM
(#14820563)
Quite a lot of those people are "into" actual communism out of a mixture of ignorance and edginess. Revolutions sound great when you're naive. And it's not actually a great number of people as a proportion of the electorate!
The key is what happens to suggestions for "good tweaks". Do they get considered reasonably and implemented fairly? Or are people denounced for even seeking tweaks?
Flexible mixed-economy capitalism seems to be pretty stable. Capitalism that's blind to inequality produces an increasing long tail of disaffected victims with nothing to lose. Hence the rise of kick-over-the-table politics, epitomised by Trump.
Re:Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism
by rayiner on Friday July 21, 2017 @11:04AM
(#14821081)
I think it's an understatement to categorize the changes as "tweaks." In the U.S., the prevailing view seems to be that social services are a concession capitalists make because they're forced to. We glorify and fetishize capitalists and achievers and optimize the system to benefit them. Even our left does that (e.g. HN). You can have free markets without that mentality, and that might be a good thing because I think people are chafing at that.
At the end of the day, the actual change in the mix of social services might just be tweaks, but you're also talking about a very significant change in worldview.
I think you've made a great point here - but I've seen people explicitly saying they want communism. Look at how often /r/LateStageCapitalism, an explicitly communist subreddit is on the frontpage of reddit.
If people were just pushing for a few more socialized services, I think they've got a good argument to make there. There are good tweaks that can be made. But if they're pushing for a complete change to the system I think they're off their rockers.