Both Capitalism and Communism are Scams

[Marduk]

A producer-centric economy is intrinsically better than one based around high finance, because it results in products that people can actually use, instead of just shuffling paper.

The "paper" you speak of has traditionally merely represented ownership of goods or real estate. "Shuffling it" does have a purpose, one of making market prices adjust to economic trends quickly and accurately. There certainly is some value in that.
Of course for there to be value in that there have to be loads of actual goods being produced to be traded and priced in this manner, so for a wealthy economy, both are absolutely necessary.

The idea that people can be rewarded a pittance in wages for producing all the goods and services needed by society, while watching people sitting around in wing-backed chairs collecting billions of dollars for doing absolutely fuck-all, is maddening on the face of it. People wage-slave for years and years and have nothing to show for it, only to be demoralized by the wealth and power of indolent robber-barons. This is a social ill.

Ask not why a society is poor, ask why some societies are wealthy, because historically, the former is the natural default. For most of history most people anywhere in the world were some sort of very production centered hunter gatherers or subsistence farmers and they were all incredibly poor by modern first world standards, and more often than not had to pay taxes to the lord in his castle too.
The only exceptions to that are fairly recent, no more than 3 centuries ago and usually less, and usually revolve around societies that had something to do with the meme "wild capitalism" of not so long ago.

Not to mention, in a plutocracy, the latter group will inevitably have more political power and representation than the former, which means they’ll be able to warp rules and regulations to funnel even more of society’s value into their pockets.

Why should the people who contribute the least labor to the economy have an overwhelming say in how that economy is run and for whose benefit? Every time these sons of bitches lose a gamble, they simply have the Fed print more money, deface our currency through inflation, and keep lining their pockets. Who does this benefit, really? If you have this much wealth inequality, where people can’t even afford to buy homes or start families, then society will break down.

Well that's an argument to not have these things decided by labyrinthine rules that require weeks or months for a staff of many differently specialized lawyers to read and understand.
Those who gamble should gamble with their own money, and those who are "too big to fail" should not be allowed to gamble, for gambling involves a possibility of failure.
In societies that claimed to have the economy run by workers, it was even worse, but hey, at least even their barons had to fear about keeping their wealth and lives. Not that thinking it (because saying it loudly was also dangerous) helped much when they had to worry not about affording houses and families, but about getting a state coupon for a house and whether they will get any bread for the family after standing in line at the store for hours.

 

[Cherico]

There was a long period in history where the only major faction who were allowed to make money via lending were the jews.

Under both Christianity and Islam, it's not allowed, although it's not taken seriously any more. Islamic banks, so I hear, have a complex set of fees that just happen to match what it would cost if they had interest.


I can see why. You can make money with money, but in the process, you damage those making actual goods and services.

We did that mostly because we didn't have a choice and it didn't go well for us at all.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

We did that mostly because we didn't have a choice and it didn't go well for us at all.

If I recall, you lot weren't allowed any other form of employment. Making numerous accusations against your people frankly ludicrous and deeply unfair.

 

[Zyobot]

The accumulation of capital for its own sake isn't very good, but you are falling into a lefty word trap. "Capitalism", like "Nationalism" are examples of that classic Enlightenment tradition of putting names to truly ancient concepts.

Capitalism is a posh word for bartering. It is no recent invention and hardly a scam.

That, and the fact there've been outright mercantile societies long before capitalism as we think of it became a thing. Again, I point to Phoenicia, Carthage, and the Italian merchant republics here, which went above and beyond the historical norm of people producing and trading things with one another.

(Then again, odds are if you tried to explain modern economic theory to them, they wouldn't recognize it at all, and would just go on producing and trading like they've always done. Despite that, I'm sure quite a few "contemporary" innovations and discoveries—Supply & Demand, double-entry bookkeeping, and applied calculus—would find substantial audiences among their lot. Would also be an interesting sight to see Hannibal reading The Wealth of Nations in his study, too, though that's a topic for another time.)

 

[Lord Sovereign]

(Then again, odds are if you tried to explain modern economic theory to them, they wouldn't recognize it at all, and would just go on producing and trading like they've always done. Despite that, I'm sure quite a few "contemporary" innovations and discoveries—Supply & Demand, double-entry bookkeeping, and applied calculus—would find substantial audiences among their lot. Would also be an interesting sight to see Hannibal reading The Wealth of Nations in his study, too, though that's a topic for another time.)

If you broke it down into layman terms, it would probably make perfect sense to them. We simply have the technology for a somewhat more complicated version of bartering but the basic principles remain roughly the same.

Granted, if a Roman senator of the Punic Wars took a look at things like Wealth of Nations he'd probably frown and say "...not taxing people out the nose and leaving them to their own devices is a good idea? Didn't you lot already know that?"

 

[Zyobot]

If you broke it down into layman terms, it would probably make perfect sense to them. We simply have the technology for a somewhat more complicated version of bartering but the basic principles remain roughly the same.

Granted, if a Roman senator of the Punic Wars took a look at things like Wealth of Nations he'd probably frown and say "...not taxing people out the nose and leaving them to their own devices is a good idea? Didn't you lot already know that?"

His Punic counterpart offering more or less the same response goes without saying, I'm guessing. In any case, now I'm interested in what more "commercially inclined" societies from back in the day would make of modern economics, especially given how tech/computing advances, paired with centuries of ideological experimentation, have made for quite the ideological whirlpool.

Granted, I doubt they'd be fans of the more "interventionist", redistribution-heavy schools of thought or the crushing, bureaucratic-managerial complex of twenty-first century neoliberalism, though I suppose the whole backdrop in which Classical and Austrian economics arose (e.g.: the unprecedented economic shake-up unleashed by the Industrial Revolution) would give context as to why we moderns are so preoccupied with making a full-fledged science out of the trade, production, and distribution of "stuff". But now I'm letting my digressions get the better of me.

 

[LordsFire]

The fundamental problem you have here, @*THASF* , is that you're conflating an economic system, with 'an entire culture.'

Free Market economics are just that, economics. How well or poorly the economic system does depends very heavily on what moral system it is wedded to.

Communism isn't merely an economic system, it is a comprehensive, beginning-to-end, be-all end-all system of morality, government, economics, etc. It is fundamentally based on lies, and always ends up existing solely to try to enforce a facade of those lies being true, and benefit those in power.


Free Markets exist for whatever purpose the culture and religion they are attached to say they exist for. When American culture was a Christian culture, it existed for the purpose of each man being entitled to the fruits of his own labor. That's the ideal; of course the practicality was flawed, but that was the concept it was based around.

In the mid-20th century America (and the west by and large) rejected God, and more or less set about to make gods out of men. This wasn't a sudden or instant transition, it was an ongoing cultural conflict before then, and it's continuing now, but somewhere about in the 1960's, the tide was turned largely in favor of the atheists and materialists. The social elite moved in this direction before the rest of the culture, and if you look at the Ivy League, it's easy to see they have quite thoroughly been captured by such.

So now you have an economic system married to a culture that teaches that each should pursue their own pleasure, their own idea of what is right and wrong, essentially that each man should make a god out of themselves as best they are able.

And doesn't that just look like the kind of business environment we're getting now?

 

[*THASF*]

The fundamental problem you have here, @*THASF* , is that you're conflating an economic system, with 'an entire culture.'

Free Market economics are just that, economics. How well or poorly the economic system does depends very heavily on what moral system it is wedded to.

Communism isn't merely an economic system, it is a comprehensive, beginning-to-end, be-all end-all system of morality, government, economics, etc. It is fundamentally based on lies, and always ends up existing solely to try to enforce a facade of those lies being true, and benefit those in power.


Free Markets exist for whatever purpose the culture and religion they are attached to say they exist for. When American culture was a Christian culture, it existed for the purpose of each man being entitled to the fruits of his own labor. That's the ideal; of course the practicality was flawed, but that was the concept it was based around.

In the mid-20th century America (and the west by and large) rejected God, and more or less set about to make gods out of men. This wasn't a sudden or instant transition, it was an ongoing cultural conflict before then, and it's continuing now, but somewhere about in the 1960's, the tide was turned largely in favor of the atheists and materialists. The social elite moved in this direction before the rest of the culture, and if you look at the Ivy League, it's easy to see they have quite thoroughly been captured by such.

So now you have an economic system married to a culture that teaches that each should pursue their own pleasure, their own idea of what is right and wrong, essentially that each man should make a god out of themselves as best they are able.

And doesn't that just look like the kind of business environment we're getting now?

I do see your point, but there was no conflation. An economy is a culture and vice versa, and unrestrained capitalism will always inevitably become godless and materialist over a sufficient stretch of time, doomed by its own success.

You start off with a free market and a Protestant work ethic and opportunities for entrepreneurship. This system allows for businessmen who are part of a healthy bourgeoisie to provide for the maintenance of their own communities out of their own magnanimity. These are people who are intimately connected with the fields they work in; a businessman in Early Capitalism is not just someone who manages assets. Rather, they have a deep understanding of the underlying industrial processes and the needed labor.

Over time, as capital accumulates, companies become increasingly virtualized and socially stratified. There are more absentee owners who live far, far removed from the communities they own productive assets in, who don't understand how the sausage is made and don't need to. They just collect assets and appoint their lessers to manage them. Accordingly, you end up with fast-growing armies of managers. Great big committees are formed to deal with the increasing complexity that comes with increased growth and capital accumulation. The cults of managerialism and high finance take root.






Eventually, these processes will warp society's values to be more consumerist, individualistic, and hedonistic, by commodifying things that were never commodities before, just to turn an even bigger profit. The culture changes as the underlying material conditions change. The social engineering is built right in:

Spoiler: Cosmetics Industry Insider

In summary, free markets are not value-agnostic. They kind of automatically tend towards the dysfunctional systems we see today, if left unchecked, just as a process of growth and consolidation.

 

[LordsFire]

Spoiler: Cosmetics Industry Insider

View attachment 1444

Well, his analysis right from the start is wrong. Welfare states don't immunize against revolutionary tendencies, they enable them, and normalize the concept of the nanny state.

He also mis-identifies ethnic sectarianism of being a part of the right. The left has and continues to be the primary mover and shaker with this. Socialism is often pushed hand-in-hand with racial identity politics, both policies of the left.

He also completely fails to recognize, much less address, how the political elite has been increasing a focus on ethnic distinctions and cultural distinctions, rather than trying to wipe them away. The only type of cultural element they are trying to 'wipe away' is 'white' culture, which in the Anglosphere at least, is generally associated with anti-authoritarianism.

I can agree with him that there is a significant proportion of the 'ruling elite' who want a world government which all nations are subordinate to, to the point where nations become functionally indistinct.

But if he thinks the goal is money, rather than power itself, he is actively ignoring what groups like the WEF keep doing. Making economies less efficient, ruining businesses, deteriorating the creation of wealth, and taxing away everything they can to throw at wasteful ideological white elephant projects.

The objective isn't to make people submissive so that you can make more money off of them, it's to make them submissive.

The last part of the post is outright self-contradictory. 'Take economic concerns out of politics,' and then pass economic functions to the WTO, IMF, EU, etc, and privatize them at the same time? This is utter nonsense, and the way it's written suggests the writer is also economically illiterate. Given he says he was a lobbyist, it isn't surprising he probably was drowning in the world of political power, and had no perspective of what things look like anywhere else.

I have little doubt some people, especially those who are high-up in business and almost exclusively interested in money, want to blur/remove racial and cultural distinctions enough that they can sell the same products to absolutely everyone, minimal market research needed.

The thing is, that kind of mindset is actively and visibly losing to the people obsessed with race. The other day at Wal-mart I saw a display in the hygiene/cosmetics section about 'black is beautiful.' This is just one example among many of how the media and political left have been trying to push the 'divide and conquer' political strategy, including such ridiculous methods as insisting on capitalizing the B in 'black.'

This strings together a few true things, with a great deal of speculation and observer bias, to come to a conclusion that can only be plausible if one actively avoids disconfirmation.

 

[Aldarion]

The thing is, that kind of mindset is actively and visibly losing to the people obsessed with race. The other day at Wal-mart I saw a display in the hygiene/cosmetics section about 'black is beautiful.' This is just one example among many of how the media and political left have been trying to push the 'divide and conquer' political strategy, including such ridiculous methods as insisting on capitalizing the B in 'black.'

Thing is, libertarianism always loses against authoritharianism. To stop anti-white racists, you would need to create white ethnostates. Which then likely would not be libertarian countries, because fundamentally, borders exist for a reason, yet libertarianism and civic nationalism make borders superfluous.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

civic nationalism

Civic nationalism/Imperial identity is hellishly dependent on borders. If you're letting in far too many, too quickly, then assimilation is very hard if not impossible.

 

[Marduk]

Thing is, libertarianism always loses against authoritharianism. To stop anti-white racists, you would need to create white ethnostates. Which then likely would not be libertarian countries, because fundamentally, borders exist for a reason, yet libertarianism and civic nationalism make borders superfluous.

That's more pure ideological ancap stuff than libertarianism. Sane libertarians understand that they will never have a libertarian country if they don't have a population at least somewhat amicable to their ideas - and most populations in the world aren't. Doubly so the populations that make up the bulk of immigrants to western countries.

 

[Bassoe]

The fundamental problem you have here, @*THASF* , is that you're conflating an economic system, with 'an entire culture.'

Free Market economics are just that, economics. How well or poorly the economic system does depends very heavily on what moral system it is wedded to.

Communism isn't merely an economic system, it is a comprehensive, beginning-to-end, be-all end-all system of morality, government, economics, etc. It is fundamentally based on lies, and always ends up existing solely to try to enforce a facade of those lies being true, and benefit those in power.


Free Markets exist for whatever purpose the culture and religion they are attached to say they exist for. When American culture was a Christian culture, it existed for the purpose of each man being entitled to the fruits of his own labor. That's the ideal; of course the practicality was flawed, but that was the concept it was based around.

In the mid-20th century America (and the west by and large) rejected God, and more or less set about to make gods out of men. This wasn't a sudden or instant transition, it was an ongoing cultural conflict before then, and it's continuing now, but somewhere about in the 1960's, the tide was turned largely in favor of the atheists and materialists. The social elite moved in this direction before the rest of the culture, and if you look at the Ivy League, it's easy to see they have quite thoroughly been captured by such.

So now you have an economic system married to a culture that teaches that each should pursue their own pleasure, their own idea of what is right and wrong, essentially that each man should make a god out of themselves as best they are able.

And doesn't that just look like the kind of business environment we're getting now?

With respect, that's been beta-tested and demonstrably doesn't work. The United States was still a majority christian nation during the original late eighteenth/early nineteenth century Gilded Age and that didn't stop anything. Plutocrats performatively professing the old civil religion is as useless as doing the same with the new one.

 

[LordsFire]

With respect, that's been beta-tested and demonstrably doesn't work. The United States was still a majority christian nation during the original late eighteenth/early nineteenth century Gilded Age and that didn't stop anything. Plutocrats performatively professing the old civil religion is as useless as doing the same with the new one.

The 'Gilded age' had problems, but it's largely communist propaganda that depicts it as utterly catastrophic. Part of it's taking the worst instances of 'company store' nonsense, and acting like that was what happened everywhere all the time. Part of it is the lack of perspective of what the prior era was like.

Working ten hours a day in a coal mine seems like back-breaking work to us now, but that's because we compare it to the modern luxury and ease that the hard-working men of that era played a significant role in making possible for us. They were largely coming from working ten to fourteen hour days on farms, as loggers, or similarly difficult professions.

I could go on and on, but the long and short of it is that the 'gilded age,' also sometimes known as the 'second industrial revolution,' was the period where we actually transitioned from a mostly muscle-based economy from a steam-based economy, and that was not a rough or easy process. Plenty of messed up stuff happened. We did not, however, have self-righteous blowhards lecturing us on how pedophilia and child mutilation was a good thing, and we were evil for daring say otherwise.

There's an important difference between 'people failed to live up to moral standards' and 'we are imposing new moral standards that are actually evil.'

 

[Scottty]

 

[Zyobot]

Sure, for now. But once things get really dicey for the Western political and business elite? Well, whatever tame veneer corporate globalism has now will be cast off then, “Great Reset” and all.

Personally, I don’t take issue with a genuine free market where people voluntarily trade and exchange their products; that was, as @*THASF* has said, the greatest generator of material prosperity ever seen in human history. However, I also think that in order for it to work as intended, it needs (as @Skallagrim once told me elsewhere) a backdrop of steadfast “fiscal conservatism” where money is sound, excessive debt is taboo, and people are rewarded for saving and personal austerity (rather than punished via year-over-year inflation and such). That way, the emphasis gravitates more towards building long-term wealth and buying durable, high-quality goods that have real craftsmanship to them, not just loads of cheap crap on Amazon that breaks or wears out after just one or two uses.

 

[Cherico]

Sure, for now. But once things get really dicey for the Western political and business elite? Well, whatever tame veneer corporate globalism has now will be cast off then, “Great Reset” and all.

Personally, I don’t take issue with a genuine free market where people voluntarily trade and exchange their products; that was, as @*THASF* has said, the greatest generator of material prosperity ever seen in human history. However, I also think that in order for it to work as intended, it needs (as @Skallagrim once told me elsewhere) a backdrop of steadfast “fiscal conservatism” where money is sound, excessive debt is taboo, and people are rewarded for saving and personal austerity (rather than punished via year-over-year inflation and such). That way, the emphasis gravitates more towards building long-term wealth and buying durable, high-quality goods that have real craftsmanship to them, not just loads of cheap crap on Amazon that breaks or wears out after just one or two uses.

people however are not ready to embrace those values, humanity is stuborn in its stupidity and thus everything else will be tried before going back to what works.

 

[Zyobot]

people however are not ready to embrace those values, humanity is stuborn in its stupidity and thus everything else will be tried before going back to what works.

I know, and I find human stupidity and bullheadedness every bit as lamentable as you do. Unfortunately, I doubt there’ll be much of anything left for future traditionalists to inherit once the nukes start firing.

Human nature remains a rock-solid constant, for sure... so we should be very wary of all the God-wannabes in charge getting impatient and pissing people off at a rate that’d make goddamned Sulla nervous. Really, I think the use in superimposing direct parallels with Hellenistic Rome or Qin China onto a Modern backdrop is limited, considering our tendency to put new “spins” on the same age-old tropes and behaviors, tech-driven accelerationism and all.

 

[*THASF*]

Sure, for now. But once things get really dicey for the Western political and business elite? Well, whatever tame veneer corporate globalism has now will be cast off then, “Great Reset” and all.

Personally, I don’t take issue with a genuine free market where people voluntarily trade and exchange their products; that was, as @*THASF* has said, the greatest generator of material prosperity ever seen in human history. However, I also think that in order for it to work as intended, it needs (as @Skallagrim once told me elsewhere) a backdrop of steadfast “fiscal conservatism” where money is sound, excessive debt is taboo, and people are rewarded for saving and personal austerity (rather than punished via year-over-year inflation and such). That way, the emphasis gravitates more towards building long-term wealth and buying durable, high-quality goods that have real craftsmanship to them, not just loads of cheap crap on Amazon that breaks or wears out after just one or two uses.

The system that they've created cannot survive this. It is antithetical towards it. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the modern financial world's complete and total dependency on consumerism, and the utter hypocrisy entailed in big businesses championing environmentalism while also encouraging throwaway culture.

In 1960, Vance Packard wrote The Waste Makers, which chronicled the rise of consumerism in America.



Think about how much worse things have gotten, now. Managerial capitalism is totally dependent on debt, on just-in-time logistics, on phony inflatable funny money, and on encouraging nonstop consumer spending on disposable crap. If people stop spending for one moment, the whole thing will collapse, like the globe-spanning pyramid scheme it is. This is why the Elites want servitization of things that used to be personal or private property.

I must stress this; the Great Reset is a massive rent-seeking exercise. The Overclass believe that if they own all assets and lease them to people, it ensures a constant stream of revenue, even in the face of resource shortages that would otherwise prevent the old system from working. They want us to all pay a fee to use the communal bike, so to speak.

They never want us to have all of our needs satisfied, which is what frugality and saving implies. Money sitting in a savings account is "dead". It does not contribute to the velocity of money. Likewise, someone who is debt-free and already owns all the property they really need, and who is not actively taking on debt or making purchases, is regarded by the system as "financially dead". Any time there are too many of these "financially dead" people in a society (read: happy and satisfied middle-class people), the Overclass intentionally start wars - including civil wars - to free up property so it may be relinquished to the market. That's the scam.

Managerial capitalism and utopian communism are simply two sides of the same materialist coin. They are thesis and antithesis. The eventual pillaging of the middle class is the synthesis.

 

[TheRomanSlayer]

So how should we tackle both managerial capitalism and utopian communism then? Because if we ever try to find a third path in this case, it may end up leading to something more controversial. Corporatism could be a solution, but it is discredited as something horrible after WWII. Class collaboration is virtually impossible, with the upper classes being more likely to stay with their fellow globalist classes.