• 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
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        6 hours ago

        I’m an enjoyer of “checked capitalism” as in a communist party holds all the political power.

      • AgentOrangesicle@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Seems that way through enough experience and empirical evidence. I just wonder what could have happened if we enforced anti-trust law earlier on… they were meant to help prevent monopolistic companies from taking over everything. Maybe it was a lost hope, but I would’ve liked to see the system functioning as intended for once.

        • DornerStan@lemmygrad.ml
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          13 hours ago

          Government itself arises out of conflict between classes, and the fundamental mechanism of capitalism is accumulation. The former means without pretty intensive upheaval and reorientation of governmental systems, the institutions are unlikely to interfere with the core function they were designed to protect. The latter means that no matter what protections you put in place, by the very nature of how it works, capitalism will trend towards monopoly.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          15 hours ago

          The truth is that it can’t. In economic formations where private property is the principle aspect, you can’t really take control of capital and plan it to the necessary extent, those at the top are those priests of capital best suited for endlessly profiting and growing. It isn’t “meritocracy,” the system needs profit and will destroy anything that doesn’t help with that. Only socialism can truly be planned.

        • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
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          6 hours ago

          Butchering the definition, imperialism is the monopolist stage of capitalism, specifically the monopoly of finance capital. This can be expanded but there is no point in doing so here.

          The monopoly on finance capital is already formed by a cartel of mostly american+european financial institutions and so on. These countries are what we call imperialist, we do not call Russia imperialist simply because they do not have this monopoly and are actively fighting against it, their future ambitions are a story for another day.

          Let’s say that somehow the cartel completely disappeared and banks were to start from zero again, a bunch of local banks would emerge all around the world. As time went on, the most efficient banks would inevitably best its competitors, consolidate their position and gain increasingly more market share, until it becomes a local monopoly, then they go global and the process repeats until a global monopoly is formed, this is what happens on every single industry.

          This is an inevitable outcome of capitalism simply due the nature of capital growing, capital stagnates when it faces competition so capitalists inevitably organize into cartels to consolidate a monopoly. The only way to do some sort of “checked capitalism” is to completely strip capitalists off political power through a violent revolution, like China did.

          When Cowbee says that capitalism decays and leads into imperialism this is what i think he means, and he is right.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          15 hours ago

          It’s a trend observable in all capitalist nations. If you develop enough, the rate of profit falls, and so you need to expand outward to profit. This is the basis of imperialism, the carving out of the global south for profit. Across the west, this is a fact, even if it manifests in different ways.

          Those on the imperialized end cannot themselves really become imperialist, and the total capital to be imperialized is limited, so you end up with nationalist countries that aren’t imperialist because there’s nothing left to imperialize, but this stays at a crossroads where imperialist countries threaten you into opening up your capital markets to be imperialized.

          • QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.worksBanned from community
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            14 hours ago

            If it has not happened in most cases you cannot observe a trend because that trend is not actually occurring. Your whole claim starts off flawed.

            • fantoozie@midwest.social
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              6 hours ago

              Observe the resurgence of right-wing nationalism in the West.

              It’s not accidental that this phenomenon is occurring specifically within the context of algorithmic social media exclusively controlled by multinational corporations. It is collusion between these companies and certain political entities to consolidate political and economic power within the fortresses of wealthy Western countries, as a defensive posture to the projected collapse of habitability and globalized trade across the world. By exploiting peoples fears and internalized biases, these architects are redefining the West to meet their economic agenda.

              Simply put, the political moment the West is living through is a manufactured cultural shift intended to psychologically prime the populace of said regions for the steady collapse of international law and human rights in the face of unprecedented ecological disaster and the resulting mass migration of displaced people.

              Instead of reckoning with their fundamental role in creating this dire circumstance and pursuing a policy of redistribution of wealth and resources to minimize the impacts globally, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the wealthy oligarchs of the world are instead doing away with liberal values and leaning into a nostalgic ideology of social Darwinism and the belief that wealth is a product of intrinsic superiority.

              Theres a beautiful video circulating of Seun Kuti speaking to a crowd and telling them that if Europe (and by extension, the West) can free itself from the destructive ideologies of its past, it will inherently lead to resolution of the conflicts in Gaza, Sudan, and the Congo. It iterates the point I am presenting here in a beautifully succinct way and I recommend watching it.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  14 hours ago

                  Reread my comment:

                  Those on the imperialized end cannot themselves really become imperialist, and the total capital to be imperialized is limited, so you end up with nationalist countries that aren’t imperialist because there’s nothing left to imperialize, but this stays at a crossroads where imperialist countries threaten you into opening up your capital markets to be imperialized.

                  The global south is imperialized. The most they can do is become nationalist and kick out imperialists, they can’t really become imperialist themselves. They would if they could. Assuming, of course, they don’t become socialist in the process of kicking out the imperialists.

                  • QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.worksBanned from community
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                    14 hours ago

                    So it would be the case if it were the case but it is not the case and you are still somehow correct?

                    That makes no sense. Thus it isn’t happening in most nations and your claim is fraudulent.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            11 hours ago

            Can you name a developed capitalist nation that doesn’t practice imperialism? The global south cannot become imperialist because there’s nowhere else to imperialize, either they become nationalist, socialist, or remain imperialized.