emt02
2. Well you're free to disagree, but the point remains that capitalism is comparable, if not worse, to other systems (namely state capitalism / "communism") in regard to responsibility for deaths and suffering.
About your final sentence, first of all you apparently have no clue of the ideologies you're talking about. Claiming anarchism (for instance, but the same can be said on communalism and many others) is the same of communism in regard of authoritarianism and human rights is plain misleading, as being anti-authoritarian is like the main point of anarchism.
And the point in anti-capitalism is not about being against people who are rich, but being against the fact that they are rich while other people are extremely poor. Nothing against people themselves (I think everyone would be happy to be rich), the problem is that the system is so fundamentally flawed that some few people can own more than billions of other people combined.
This is just plain misleading. Marxism/Leninism is not the only school of thought against capitalism, or that distinguishes between proletariat and capitalist class in the capitalist systems.
And I would argue that
1. the "slavesystems" you're talking about (I guess you refer to soviet russia, china and other similar dictatorships) never applyed the Marx theory, but they rather implemented a state capitalism system (IMHO because the idea of dictatorship of proletariat as a means to reach communism is plain stupid).
2. even considering those cases, which I agree were fundamentally flawed and unjust, there's still debate about whether they caused more or less death and suffering than capitalism. I think this answer [0] on Quora gives a good summary of the main points in that regard.
[0] https://www.quora.com/What-has-killed-more-people-communism-...
The division of the society in capitalist and working class is a well studied topic, it's not like I invented it at the moment.
But your argument about holding penny stocks making people comparable to capitalists makes me think that you're just attempting to mislead instead of keeping a meaningful discussion.
And by the way, rich and poor is a consequence and not the cause.
I think that everyone can understand the difference here, even though the line between proletariat and capitalist class may be a little more blurry than it was 50 years ago.
That's the whole point. People do not voluntarily work for shitty wages at shitty jobs, they are forced by the need of money.
Workers in western countries are extremely lucky, since they live in very wealthy countries where even the shittiest job usually gives the possibility to live a decent life.
However, I'm not sure (to make an example which is extreme in the opposite way) congolese children do voluntarily work in cobalt mines, getting intoxicated and often dying just to be able not to starve in the short term.
Regarding the rest of your comment, I just have to say that:
1. yes, people can start their own ethical corporation, and some people actually did that. But they are pretty much irrilevant in the global market. Actually, I would argue that following ethics often puts a corporation in a less competitive position.
2. just because I could do that myself doesn't mean that's a good thing. I'm not saying that the capitalist class is evil and trying to destroy the world, I'm just saying that the system is flawed in allowing such a restricted pool of people to accumulate so much wealth, and to actually encourage the exploitation of people and resources in order to stay competitive.
(A part of) the world already did some good progress on this front with the gradual switch from absolute monarchies to democracies, and I hope it will eventually be able to continue on the path towards a more just world.
However, the usual definition of the capitalist class is about owners of capital, or people who earn wealth from the work of others. This includes industrial capitalists, who own the means of production, the land owners and the financial capitalists.
The average Joe may have some little money on the stock market, but he doesn't have any influence in corporations or the global market, contrarily to what your previous comment hinted.
Rather, they are made by the capitalist class.
> Then there are very tiny individual nations, like Lichtenstein. > Why should they have more power than a voluntarily group(corporation) of much more people than that small state?!?
Because a corporation is not a voluntarily group of people, it is, well, a corporation! The workers have no control on it and its aim is to make the maximum profit, even when this means polluting oceans, exploiting people and doing any kind of unethical action.
> Or do you prefer statecorporations like in socialism?
Just because I recognize flaws in the capitalist system does not mean that I support other flawed systems.
I even clearly stated in my comment:
> I don't know what the solution to this problem may be. Alternatives to capitalism have been proposed in the past, and are continuously studied now, but shifting to another economical system would not be easy, if possible at all at this point.
Regarding anarchism, it's known that the reason it didn't work out in the attempts so far has not been an inherent flaw in the system, but external ingerence.
In the two cases that are most known to the public, i.e. anarchist Catalogna and Free territories of Ukraine, the reason why the revolution finally failed has been in both cases the intervention of Soviet Russia, that in the first case supported an antagonist faction (i.e. communists front in the Spanish Civil War) and in the second case it invaded the free territories.
I think in general it's not possible to disregard some ideologies on the basis that they never managed to be implemented, without looking at the context. In today's world, which is dominated by capital, it would be even harder to establish a non-capitalist society, but that doesn't mean that such a society would be less fair, free or just than capitalism.
There are several social and economical theories that consider a central government, and thus the state, unnecessary. Historically the anarchism movement is maybe the most known, but recently other schools of thoughts are getting relatively important, such as communalism and democratic confederalism (mostly relevant in the context of the revolution in northern Syria).
Even communism in its final form (i.e. past the dictatorship of proletariat transitioning phase) should be a stateless and classless society, however historically "communist" states failed to get past this transitioning phase (due to a refusal to give up power by the State, I guess) and ended up in a State Capitalism system, as in the USSR and in China.
However, to be honest I don't know this topic in detail enough to teach anyone, so I can only suggest you to look for more info in case you're interested.
No, I'm not sure. But we're talking about private companies now, not governments. Governments and companies in the end are two faces of the same coin: the first aim at power, the latter aim at profit (with some exceptions of course).
Moreover, many proposed alternatives to capitalism consider the governments (as we know them today) harmful and unnecessary. I'm not saying I agree, just wanted to point out that removing capitalism does not automatically mean to give more power to governments.
> Anyhow, the way to deal with pollution in a market based economy is to tax it.
Sure, but that doesn't solve the problem, it just reduces its impact. And in a world that runs on profit, limiting your local companies may in the end give an advantage to the foreign ones, so this solution may not always be practicable, unless a truly global coordinated action gets taken.
Especially given the current trend in automation, the risk that a relatively small group of capitalists will slowly take full control of almost all the means of production is real.
Another huge problem of having a world run by corporations is the environmental situation. Personally I cannot accept a world where profit is considered more important than the environment to such an extent.
I don't know what the solution to this problem may be. Alternatives to capitalism have been proposed in the past, and are continuously studied now, but shifting to another economical system would not be easy, if possible at all at this point.
That is just a mean to reach the final goal, and it does not mention labor camps or anything like that.
I'm curious on which communist government are you talking about, since pretty much all the "communist" revolutions so far did not actually implement communism but state capitalism (as Lenin himself said), except for some libertarian communist revolutions (e.g. revolutionary Catalogna, Ukraine) that were then defeated militarily.
On one thing I agree with you though, which is that putting all the power into the state is not a good way to achieve communism, as it is dangerous and it pretty much never worked so far.
I think you're confused about communism. What you're talking about seems more about soviet russia and other countries that run/ran an authoritarian state-capitalism system (often calling it communism).
However, communism has nothing to do with enforcing people to work under a threat of death, rather the contrary.