Seize the Memes of Production
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the “ML” influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Rules:
Be a decent person.
No racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, zionism/nazism, and so on.
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The idea behind capitalism is to use the greed of the people as the driving force behind the economy. What is the result of this? Greedy people are being rewarded, and therefore bad people get more power.
Who could have known that this is not the best idea? I mean, it works somewhat well as long as the corporations are held in check by laws and oversight. Too bad that the lawmakers who should do this are largely bought off...
excuse me WHAT is this meme format
Forgive me for bringing my favorite obsession into this, but I'm always reminded of Ancient Roman discourses on nature.
Romans sometimes noted that such behaviors as 'speech' and 'wearing clothes' were unnatural. Rather than a criticism of these behaviors, it was only a casual observation - that which is natural and that which humans find useful are not always one and the same.
Even if greed was human nature, to the exclusion of altruism, that would still not make it the best course of action to enable. Something many capitalist apologists seem to 'forget'.
But any system that includes humans must account for greed and personal ambition. What is the best course of action in the long term is not always the best course of action in the short term, and people tend to be short term minded.
So, imagine an elephant in nature. The natural drive of the elephant to juggle will after a while to the development of circuses to facilitate the juggling elephants. Checkmate, socialists.
/j
This one’s silly. Lots of animals display greed. They gather way more food than they need for the winter. They steal each other’s food. They engage in surplus killing. Greed is everywhere. Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw.
Counterpoint: Kropotkin
I wasn’t advancing a position that cooperation did not exist in nature (that would be absurd). Multicellular life is essentially defined by cooperation. No, I was arguing against the meme’s implication that greed is unnatural or even unique to humans.
As for a counterpoint to Kropotkin, I would advance game theory, which shows that greed and selfishness are successful strategies in otherwise cooperative environments (Free rider problem). In nature (and in human society) we find free riders everywhere we look.
I don't think the meme implies greed is unnatural, just that it isn't the sum of human nature as some seem to think.
Who thinks that? Usually when I see “X is human nature” it’s implied that “X is part of human nature.” I’ve never heard anyone suggest that anything was the sum total of human nature, never mind greed.
As for capitalism being human nature, that’s quite silly too, given how long humans have lived without capitalism in the past (the majority of our species’ existence). And as for capitalism being interchangeable with greed, that’s a fallacy of composition. Capitalism attempts to leverage individual greed for wider good. It doesn’t always succeed, but who has?