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There is no plan. Capitalism is not a cohesive scheme deliberately engineered and steered by the bourgeoisie. It’s an engine that was set into motion at one point and has been trucking on by itself ever since. It preserves itself by rewarding those who uphold it and punishing those who dissent.
Let’s say Jeff Bezos got the Ebenezer Scrooge treatment tonight and woke up a changed man who genuinely cares about his workers. If he tried to improve labor conditions at Amazon and it cut into profits, Amazon shareholders would sue into oblivion and some board of directors would appoint a new guy who’s willing to do whatever it takes to make number go up. Every politician who tries to change the system gets drowned out by corporate donors simply protecting their short-term interests and every corrupt politician who works to maintain it gets rewarded.
There’s nobody at the steering wheel here. The bourgeoisie is along for the ride just like you and me, they just have nicer seats. Capitalism sustains itself through the immediate short-term incentives it creates. If you sell out, you can have a nice life right now. If you don’t, someone else will.
To prevent possible misunderstandings, let me say this: I don’t paint the figures of the capitalist and landlord in rosy colors—far from it. But individual persons play a role here only insofar as they are the personifications of economic categories, or the bearers of particular class relations and interests. My approach treats the development of society’s economic formation as part of natural history, as that type of process, and no other approach does less to make the individual responsible for conditions that he remains a creature of socially, however much he manages to transcend them subjectively.
— Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Preface to the 1867 Edition (Paul Reitter translation)
Correct analysis, and why systemic change is necessary and reformist movements are doomed to fail. Reformers necessarily disempower themselves under capitalism but keep the fundamental systemic incentives that ultimately lead to their efforts being undermined and themselves supplanted.
Great comment!
But to add to this, I think there could be, and sometimes even were, someone at the wheel of the capitalist system. This is the purpose of the US government. At some points in its history, it had people who were willing to moderate the tragedy of the commons enough for the bourgeoisie to benefit long-term by being forced to make short-term concessions (think FDR).
However, this is one of those cases where the base eventually overpowered the superstructure. The underlying law of capitalism (namely that of exponential capital accumulation) selects and/or bribes politicians to allow capitalists unlimited short-term profit maximization; after all, capitalists who don’t bribe their way are eventually outcompeted, stripped of their capital, and replaced by those who do.
Ironically, this short-term maximization of profits lowers the long-term stability of the system itself, and gives us a path to destroy the system eventually.
Order of Lenin post. Really well put.
Your leaders were lying. NOBODY’S DRIVING buh-dugududa-buh-dugudusa-buh-beeneenowneeeow
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
It has a level of tacit cohesion because its all underpinned by white supremacist logic. That’s what makes western empires effective.
Capital, not people, is in control of the prevailing world economic system. It does not have a point beyond increasing itself and its tendencies emerge from interactions with other social relationships and knock-on effects. Nobody is in charge, there isn’t a point, and that’s why it must be dismantled and replaced with a system run by and for the people.
Ian Wright’s essay Capitalism as a Real God expands on this idea. The paradox of being rich and powerful is that you have tremendous agency to do whatever you want… provided that you expand Capital.
That is probably one of my favorite essays. It’s a fantastic theory on why some of the actions of billionaires seems so alien. They’re literally possessed by a parasitic creature that drives every last facet of their lives.
There is no endgame. Its fiefdoms fighting for next week’s resources.
Hungry ghosts don’t have an endgame, they just keep eating. The billionaires want to eat everything, and once there aren’t any poors left to eat they’ll eat each other, and once they’re the only person left alive they’ll eat themselves. Endless hunger forever.
Actual vampires
Definitely incapable of self reflection.
A cancer doesn’t do anything but grow
they want to own slaves and die of old age
This is what I’m thinking. They probably think deep in their hearts they can weather the storm then emerge from their bunkers and repopulate the earth in their image and be ruler of mankind.
[farts]
Yeah good luck with that buddy.
I think back of that one prepper who was morbidly obese, had giant stockpiles of canned food, and who wanted to do a practice run of staying in the bunker for a month.
Got a heart attack.
When you are so concerned with survival that you get yourself killed.
Well, nothin else to do in a bunker but eat
There’s a significant amount of them trying to bring about the biblical endtimes. There is no plan for the future, it’s only for the right now
What’s especially odd to me is that usually what I hear them describe as the “biblical end-times” is mostly unique to baptists. Like, I was brought up southern Baptist and went to a different denomination of Christian school, and they all but ridiculed the idea of the rapture and tribulation period. Many of them seemed to agree that Revelation was just symbolic of the church’s persecution at the time of writing. Also there was at least one more disciple who wrote a “revelation,” but it disagreed with John’s, so it was struck from the canon.
you’re thinking small, buddy, there are so many planets out there we can ruin (no I will not invest in science and education so we can actually build the rockets, i’ll just give a trillion dollars to the ketamine man)There is no endgame, that’s the thing about money brain and the addiction to profits.
They are simply following the logic of their class
unfortunately the 1918 German Revolution failed so we’re cookedThe plan is that humanity is obsolete. In order to travel the stars we need machines. We are the Gods that create those machines. We can upload our minds into them and live forever.
Well not we but like, Elon musk.
as if uploading yourself has continuity. that’s not you in the robot it’s a copy.
I want my mind file to get lost forever. Kill my body and burn it.
Based on the shit the tech bros say I think they genuinely want to engineer some master race in a bunker to retake the earth.
I know where the keys to the cement trucks are. I figure two loads over the front door should do it.
We need to develop intelligence and a target base in order to get them all.
No one near me but there is one I know about near Hawaii. We might need to hand mix cement from the bags.
If you know where the air vents are, a few tires soaked in kerosene and a match will suffice as well
That would be WAY too fast.
Nice and slow so they can think of what they’ve done for a week or so.
They lack the capacity. I’m serious the neural circuits in their brains have more in common with horseflies than humans they’ll just go around and around seething in aryan rage. It’s just a waste of the world’s time not to make it quick.
Musk straight up wants an army of children to command. The designer baby shit is clearly popular among billionaires and if you actually listen to the designer babies who have grown up and are now activists, they’re gonna have a ROUGH time with that.
Capitalists will accuse Stalin of genetically engineering an army of humanzees then go on to try and breed a brood of genetically engineered uberchildren.
TESCREAL ideology has taken over Silicon Valley. They view AI as the next stage of “humanity” and view our continued existence as superfluous. They feel a sick sense of glee when they think about all the water being used and environment poisoned in the pursuit of their AI children because it’s getting rid of all the undesireables as a side effect.
They’re white supremacists so if everyone else dies its fine (from their perspective) the only real lives will be in a bunker.
I bet they think they can transfer their “consciousness” into a computer network and exist in a destroyed environment… Or they dumb and greedy idiots
They’re actively trying to ethnically cleanse the west so they can vy for inventing Vault Tech and win some stupid long game
Its TESCREAL
Yes they all have companies for this exact thing yet people ignore it.
