668
this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
668 points (98.4% liked)
Solarpunk
8174 readers
122 users here now
The space to discuss Solarpunk itself and Solarpunk related stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere.
Join our chat: Movim or XMPP client.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's capitalism, power is wealth by definition. These are compatible concepts.
By perceived value i mean speculation.
You have less power but more wealth than a Mycenean king. You have a more steady diet that is healthier for you, with better healthcare, better housing, more time for leisure, less chance of being robbed or murdered or killed in battle, etc. etc. But the king could have people killed or tortured; he could send people to their deaths; pass judgment in any moral dispute between hundreds of his subjects; etc.
The capitalist elite gladly loses wealth to gain power. And the power a rich person has over someone who must work for them to eat is incomprehensibly greater than the power a rich person has over someone who can eat regardless of whether they work for them. Thanks to ICE and other anti-immigration laws, rich people can effectively keep undocumented migrants as slaves again. What are they going to do? Complain and get themselves sent to a concentration camp?
What do you think a billionaire would rather have? A hundred mansions, ten private jets, twenty yachts, and a thousand unionized employees; or ten mansions, one private jet, two yachts, and a hundred slaves?
Wealth truly is not equivalent to power.
I agree that wealth is not equivalent to power but I continue to assert that it is the fundamental concept of capitalism. It's rule by those who can exploit a market most effectively amassing the greatest amount of capital (by money/property value).
I find wealth in having hobbies and relationships that don't return monetarily on my energy investment. This is incompatible with capitalism. While living under capitalism, i could have the highest quantity of relationships of the highest quality with other humans and it would still be worthless compared to someone with more capacity than me for taking on debt.
I wonder if I'm being misinterpreted here so if it's unclear at this point; i see capitalism as a direct assault on our very humanity and a psychological disease that tears from us our empathy and feeling for one another through the pursuit of "wealth". I despise it.
They use the aesthetics of capitalism to intellectualize and explain why we should not question their supremacy.
In reality, capitalism does not in any way justify monopolization of natural resources, or the large-scale destruction of the environment.
Capitalism is the ideology of thr petit-bourgeoisie, not the actual bourgeoisie. They are just social-darwinists.
I do not understand what this adds to the concept of capitalism other than introducing the term "social darwinism".
There is no difference between "the aesthetics" of capitalism and its actualization, and neither base a capitalist's actions in regard to benefitting society beyond "the market". Capitalism is simply the current method of accruing power for someone to push their personal ideology on others. It just happens that the most effective method to exploit capitalism is to reject any sense of empathy or consideration for anything external or internal, especially flesh and blood humans because they are the only real threat to your power.
Let me try to rephrase this, so that maybe it makes sense. The point I'm trying to make is that social-darwinism is not an extension of capitalism, they're two different things but with aesthetic overlap.
Capitalism aims to optimize work, by naturally rejecting inefficient ways to do things. The production line wins over the workshop. It's about things and processes, not about people directly.
Social-darwinism is about rejecting people. To refuse people the space to thrive or reproduce. To push them to the edge of society until they die from exposure or suicide or simply that their bloodline ends when they can't support their families over the course of generations. Thus the noble classes dominate by right, and whoever is unsuccessful deserves to die and rot.
I see no point in making a differentiation between mechanism and the methodology to which that mechanism enables the most exploit.
I disagree with your thought that capitalism optimizes work. It either ensures work is done many times over in parallel (competition) or arbitrarily based on the whims of the owner class (olig/monopoly), and that alternative/more efficient means are snuffed out where a more profitable option exists. It's an unstable and inefficient system that relies on civil expenditure (bail outs, infrastructure, etc) to function.
The capitalist system that requires you labor to for food and shelter is exactly the same mechanism that rejects people, pushes them out, exposes them, and props up the wealthy class. Your "Social Darwinism" is a fundamental consequence capitalism, not an unrelated ideology that just happens to exist simultaneously. Capitalism drives people to do [more] evil. Then they rationalize their behavior to protect their ego and power.
I'm not making the claim that capitalism optimizes work, it's the claim that liberals make. I think it's important to actually study and understand what other people believe, and as I stated before the idea of capitalism does not allow destruction or monopolization of natural resources, or to block others from using natural resources in a responsible manner (which was the core problem with feudalism).
The point is that billionaires are not liberals, and they don't believe in capitalism.
I'm not arguing whether capitalism is a flawed theory of economics which naturally leads to either fascism, social darwinism, or some third thing. I'm arguing that billionaires actually do believe in social darwinism, which is a different thing than liberalism or capitalism.
I think you're conflating liberalism with capitalism, which isn't necessary.
Capitalism can exist without liberalism. Liberalism is just one way the ideology has manifested but it can also become fascism under different circumstances, and fascism is still capitalist.
No, I'm literally giving examples of how Adam Smith defined the foundations of capitalism, which both liberals and so-called conservatives normally favor as their preferred economic theory, and how these foundations contrast with a different philosophy favored by different people.
Anyway, I'm done beating a dead horse here.
Adam Smith didn't invent capitalism. It's not a philosophy, it was an economic system that emerged from certain material relations. Liberalism, and fascism, are just two of the ideological frameworks that can reproduce capitalism's material base and both of which emerge from the material base of capitalism.
Ah, I see, I guess we don't have to consider what liberals think and how they view the world, because after all we possess the objective truth and their opinions don't matter.
We don't have to consider capitalism to have some kind of doctrine Orthodoxy, as if Adam Smith was a prophet and that deviations from liberalism aren't capitalist. It's still capitalism even if it isn't what Adam Smith envisioned.
Billionaires believe in capitalism, even if they don't believe in liberalism.
At a certain point of wealth inequality under capitalism it becomes more efficient to make everyone else poorer than to acquire more wealth.
Yeah, and that's certainly an effective strategy from the very moment an inequality exists at all.