Christina Elson, the executive director of the Center for the Study of Capitalism at Wake Forest University, told Business Insider that many young people had embraced an idea she calls “safety capitalism.”
Ah yes, the executive director for the center for the study of capitalism says young folks want capitalism.
Come the fuck on.
Oh yeah. That sounds like exactly the person who would come up with a stupid fucking buzzword to get an article written they can use to show they understand capitalism extra well.
No they don’t. They want socialism. Or democratic socialism.
The fuck is safety capitalism? Is it just some bullshit word for people who don’t want to say socialism? Fuck, if that’s what it takes for people to accept socialism then they can call it whatever the fuck they want.
Social democracy isn’t sexy enough of a word I suppose. It would be capitalism but with a safety net
Also, it didn’t work out so well
Out of all countries, social democratic Nordic countries are probably doing the best. Pretty good going imo.
also looking at those countries we can see it isn’t a permanent fix though. Capitalists don’t stop fighting and will be successful in the long run
I mean that’s going to be the same for every country and every solution.
I’m not saying the work is done or that Nordic countries are anywhere near perfect or anything. Just that considering how others are doing, social democracy at least in the Nordic countries has done really well imo.
True
How much of their wealth is colonial wealth brought back by their ancestors?
Very little? None of them have been big colonial countries (Denmark was the biggest and they were a pretty small player) and Finland was itself a colonized country. Not sure if Iceland counts as a colonized country since I don’t think there lived anyone there beforehand.
Hm, Africa, the Caribbean, Indochina, all bloodily plundered by, lessee here… ah yes, the people of the Nordic countries
[yes I know nobody is innocent and the Sami would have some words but come the fuck on now]
Or just basic equality … more specifically WEALTH EQUALITY
to remove the power of the wealthy to get even more wealthy by exploiting everyone faster
And to give more power to those with little or no money and give them a chance to gain a bit of wealth.
Honestly if we just created a civilization where we spread the money around a little more equally, we’d have less psychopaths controlling the world and more people wanting to cooperate in making things better.
It wouldn’t create a utopia because we’re too complicated to be happy with one another but it would make our situation more tolerable and manageable.
So, socialism.
Or anarchism or communism.
Anarchism has too many forms and communism doesn’t work on a large scale (greed and corruption are too easy).
I’m not saying capitalism is working!!
What, specifically, about Communism is easier to take advantage of with greed and corruption than Capitalism? Why can’t these issues be cleared up with policy changes, and are structural to Communism?
Why does Anarchism having more forms detract from its validity?
Bro. Show me a successful communist nation in which its citizen are happy and with all its basic necessities covered.
Bro. Show me a successful communist nation in which its citizen are happy and with all its basic necessities covered.
Name me a country where this happens.
Good point. In that case, show me a successful communist nation.
So, just so we’re clear, Communism doesn’t work, because it hasn’t been successful.
But Capitalism does work, even though it hasn’t been successful.
We do have Socialist nations and they are doing better than everyone else, with the highest happiness rates, and most of the necessities covered. But to answer your question, we have no successful countries at all. The closest we have are Socialist nations.
Answer my question first. Until then, I’ll ask another: which Capitalist nations can be considered successful, happy, with all basic necessities covered? Not even the Nordic Countries do that, and they still brutally exploit the global south.
I don’t know, man… most developed nations are having quite a nice ride compared to the so-called communist countries.
Do you think it’s because they are Capitalist, or do you think it’s because they’re developed, and started industrializing earlier, with plentiful access to global trade?
Show me happy people.
What, specifically, about Communism is easier to take advantage of with greed and corruption than Capitalism? Why can’t these issues be cleared up with policy changes, and are structural to Communism?
Why does Anarchism having more forms detract from its validity?
Hayek’s classic The Road to Serfdom covered it pretty comprehensively: The structural issue with communism is that it is a command economy, and central planning cannot work because the planners always have imperfect information. That may result simply from the impracticality of nation-scale information gathering, or deliberate misinformation from ambitious bureaucrats trying to distinguish themselves by juicing their numbers. In computer terms, capitalism is a massively-distributed system in which the economy is directed by the interactions of all economic agents at the network edge, rather than centralized in one, huge server.
So, as far as greed and corruption go, just like in the computer analogy, I think it’s far easier for individual agents engage in it given an ideal free-market capitalist system(*), but the consequences tend to be localized and contained. In a communist system, it’s very difficult for any arbitrary individual in society to engage in corruption and greed, but for the well-connected party insiders do it, the consequences can be dire, and intractable.
(*) I say ideal capitalist system, because the fatal flaw of capitalism is a mathematical one: The math shows that even with a starting condition of equal opportunity and conditions for all people, a few people end up with most of the wealth (and therefore power) just by pure, random chance.
Hayek was debunked even by Capitalists, that’s why the Austrian school is largely abandoned even among liberals. His ECP has several issues, of which I’ll elaborate on a few.
-
Hayek assumes a lack of incentives within Socialism/Communism. Even learning the basics of Socialism and Communism can debunk this, but Hayek makes it core to his arguments.
-
Hayek ties all sources of “rational economic decision making” to price signals, ie profit vs loss. This is similarly incorrect, you can have a demanded service without profit. Some examples include single payer Healthcare, high speed rail, and other free at point of service programs.
-
Hayek pretends command economies are functionally entirely different from market economies, which is also false. Amazon is entirely internally planned, and often relies on computer automation for planning. A Socialist system would have worker ownership of a larger Amazon.
Largely, you run into issues with corruption when people aren’t accountable. The issue is, in Capitalism, Capitalists are far less accountable than people in a Socialist system might be, as there’s a level of democratic control inherently within Socialism that is lacking in Capitalism.
-
Socialism exists only as a stepping stone to the end goal of anarchism/communism.
If you don’t believe those work, there is no point in advocating for socialism.
I disagree with you entirely.
Okay.
But you do realise the Soviet Union was socialist right? We kinda need to move away from the state based control model.
To what?
An anarchist/communist based society.
We see time and time again what happens when you give all the power to a small subset of society.
Communism, as in community driven government, has never existed.
Lol yes it has, we just know the end results. Stop acting like communism hasn’t been tried.
I see you don’t know what communism is. Sad.
I see you tankies don’t know what it is at all. My family has lived through that shit, so you can kindly go fuck yourself. Bad capitalism is 1000xs better than anything communism can spit out.
Weren’t you the guy that even after a 10+ long comment chain still fundamentally didn’t know what Communism was, and then ran away when I threw an actual quote from Critique of the Gotha Programme?
“You hear about ‘billionaires should be outlawed’ — that really isn’t the issue,” Elson previously told BI regarding Gen Zers’ concerns. “The issue is the bottom. What is the appropriate bottom living standard for an American citizen, and what role should the government have in ensuring that people don’t fall below that?”
Yes, this sad situation over here has absolutely nothing to do with sociopathic pursuit of a high score in our totally unflawed economic system.
What is the appropriate bottom living standard for an American citizen, and what role should the government have in ensuring that people don’t fall below that?"
Wow. She really said those words. Like with a straight face.
Absolutely knew she was going to get quoted and then said these words.
They could not possibly have more regressive framing - gross. What a sad attempt at sleight of hand.
The lack of safety net is a feature of late-stage capitalism, not a flaw.
It was also a feature of early stage capitalism. But instead of analysing features, it’s better to orginize and fight for political change
Exactly, but my point is their view isn’t big enough, it’s the entire system that facilitates this to be the case. We need political change on a foundational level, like getting rid of 2 senators per state and the electoral college.
I agree with you in principle, but honestly, if we can get countries like the U.S. in the same position as Scandinavia in terms of a social safety net, that would be such a vast improvement over the status quo and it would be far easier to achieve.
Yep, I don’t understand this. Do people really think the euro countries aren’t built upon capitalism?
Lol “safety capitalism” the editors wouldn’t even let them say socialist. Just the state of the world in 2024 -fight harder, people. I personally can’t handle what this shit does to my blood pressure anymore
I think it’s a smart move actually. The right is really good at turning a good word/description into “pure evil.” They killed socialism so keep the dynamics and change the name.
It’s like the morons that were asked if they liked Obamacare and if they liked the affordable care act. It’s the same thing but people said they hate Obamacare but liked the affordable care act… Right wing brainwashing at its finest…
I feel like that’s the reason I tend to preach anarchism over communism in general and don’t doubt you’re right about the statistics and propaganda playing into perception but I can’t help but feel like here that comes off as rehabilating the image of capitalism. We can make a softer bed of knives or make one out of foam- I know which one I’m choosing
Ain’t no one getting excited about any kind of capitalism any more 🤮🤢
Except those that profit by it … and that group will shrink as the middle class is torn apart.
The middle class is gone friend. For 99% of America two educated working full-time adults don’t earn the same purchasing power as one of their grandfather’s.
Anyone who insists that there’s a middle class is delusional
Any home owner is delusional if they think their home ownership would survive a single cancer diagnosis.
The system is designed to ensure that you’ll lose everything by the end, no matter what. The only peaceful resistance we have left is to refuse to breed, denying them more chattal.
My friend, we can all stop going to work before we stop breeding.
Let there be lots of fucking!
Oh I never said no fucking, just no babies. There be ways, Im telling ya, there be waaaaaays.
If we are just cogs in their machine with no chance of meaningful existence; why the fuck should we harbor the cost of our replacements? That’s just another subsidy to them, and I cant fucking stand seeing the people who SHOULD pay, MORALLY, have everything gifted to them. It’s fucking disgusting.
My friend, they’ve convinced you you are trapped and can’t take everything back.
We dont have capitalism, we have some corporate-government oligarchy where we keep giving them more power for some reason. They let us yell about a couple little things while they keep circulating the power by taking our rights.
Well, what you describe as not capitalism actually is capitalism…
Theoretically, in the sort of free-market capitalism conservatives claim to espouse, the endless handouts and tax breaks to corporations would not happen.
Part of the issue is that people like them think that the government is a business and should compete like any other business, but that is not part of a free-market capitalist system as they supposedly envision.
Not that I agree with any of it, I’m a socialist. But, unlike them, not a socialist for corporations.
People like to pretend a bunch of other things are part of capitalism that have nothing to do with it.
That’s Capitalism, lmao
How is the biggest government in history of the world capitalism?
Corporations entrenching their power via statist means is a function of Capitalism. As Capitalists gain power over markets, they too gain influence over the state.
The government itself is only an issue if it’s a bourgeois state, like it is in America. A bourgeois state will act in the interests of the bourgeoisie over the Proletariat and petite bourgeoisie, because the few that make up the bourgeoisie have more money and influence than the entirety of the Proletariat when it comes to political and media influence.
The state intervention is not part of capitalism, that is the exact opposite. You can say it is an inevitable consequence and I would agree to some extent, but what is happening in america is a corrupt system having nothing to do with capitalism. When the federal government controls the currency supply, and takes something like 5 trillion out of the system, that is nothing capitalistic to that.
You seem to not understand what Capitalism is.
Capitalism doesn’t simply mean “markets.”
Capitalism is a Mode of Production by which individual Capital Owners buy and sell Capital, with which they pay wage laborers to use said Capital to produce Commodities in an M-C-M’ circuit, where M is a money supply, C is the commodity produced using M money, and M’ is the greater sum of Money.
The federal government being twisted by Capitalists that have grown to excessively large statuses with dragon hoards of their own in order to protect their interests is 100% the result of Capitalism.
The corruption absolutely is due to Capitalism, and to pretend it isn’t is intentional blindness.
I agree with most of what you are saying, but I disagree that it is a necessary part. Corruption is inherent in every system that I am aware of, but it doesnt need to be part of it. Right now, we could reduce the federal government to 1/10th of what it is with no problems, and that would be closer to true capitalism. The system currently just recirculates the money to the rich because the governmet is so big and it controls what we do.
Capitalism requires the state to function. Directly with all the laws, regulations, and courts that allow businesses to exist as legal entities, determine who owns private property, contract law, etc. Indirectly, because capitalism tends to collapse every 10 years or so, and without safety nets or bailouts, there would be a revolution.
I agree, but that system you are referring to is a very very small part of the current government. And no, capitalism doesnt just collaspe via revolution every 10 years, its the most stable system.
You made me look! It looks like the younger demographics (under 30) were about evenly split on favorable/disfavorable views of both capitalism and socialism in 2022. Pew Research Link
It skews more toward capitalism for each older age bracket, which makes intuitive sense. Regardless, some interesting stats in there.
That’s because all the Communist nations keep failing, and there’s only a couple left that haven’t already switched to Capitalism.
Which one of these haven’t been sabotaged with by a US coup? And let’s not pretend there are no failed capitalist countries either
safety capitalism has to be the most absurd stand in for socialism or welfare I’ve ever heard lmao
Really reaching new levels of copium
Who the hell cares, so long as it leads to some fundamental changes
If it is adopted we can refer to it as babby’s first socialism, right before the c-suites are rightfully purged and execs replaced with the workers on the floor
those other words have been coopted by the right so i get it
I wouldnt say stand in for socialism unless they’re talking about socilism. It sounds like they’re talking about capitalism with social benefits.
I dunno. I like the one where the workers vote for who the boss at the factory is and then they all take home a share of the profits.
Workers rights were earned in blood. Not a lot of people know that.
By design
More like return2breakingdownthefactoryowner’sdoorandbeatinghimtodeathinfrontofhisfamily, right? Woof that’s a mouthful, maybe not. But still,
The latest iteration of the same “younger people more left wing” article newspapers have been writing for 60 years.
Except that that is slowly no longer being the case.
Millennials where promised we get more conservative over time and for many the opposite appears true. Even gen x is in many ways already more left wing then the boomers.
To me it appears as the boomer generation was fed so much propaganda after the war it became ingrained in society, it took a few generations to finally get it out our system but it is starting to happen. The kids will be alright.
The old will be dragged kicking and screaming into progress, as usual.
I’ve thought a lot about it these past several years and I agree with you. Boomers were so propandized before there were any protections that they had no choice but to be narcissistic and materialistic.
that is slowly no longer being the case
Proceeds to agree with the comment that young people are more left
Did you accidentally a word there? Cuz you agree with the guy you’re responding to.
The comment above indicated that this is the same old story as it always been. It had a reminiscent of the myth that you become more conservative with age. The way i see it, this is not the case, times are changing and in many ways they are already different.
So yes i agree that in effect young people are more left but it has nothing to do with biological age. The next generation after z may have a serious chance of being free from the cycle, being about as left as their parents.
I think a more fair statement then “the young are more Left” would be “postwar propaganda made people anti-left witch became part of intergenerational trauma.” This is evidenced by how the word socialism can already trigger people into becoming upset, that is not normal.
This already has a name: a welfare state or socialism. No need to pull made up terms out of your ass.
Who comes up with these words? Boomers inventing their own propaganda
I’m fully on board with calling it “safety capitalism” or even “jesus reckoning savior economics” if i get what I want. at this point most of America just tunes out “socialism”
current social safety net is broken
To shreds, you say?
This is the stupidest article I’ve ever read.
My brain says this is related to Safety Dance, and I don’t dance.
I’m here to let you know that you can dance if you want to.
But my friends don’t dance…
If they don’t dance then… Fuck em.
Sadly, they don’t do that, either.
