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Same goes for any technology, from power loom to AI.
Convincing the working class it’s the tools that are the problem, and not the system that abuses them (both working class, and tools), is one of capitalism’s greatest achievements.
https://www.globallearning-cuba.com/blog-umlthe-view-from-the-southuml/marx-on-automated-industry
Yep, I just didn’t know how to add that succinctly to the title 😁
You’re good, the point is clear, was just adding info. 😊
Ironically the Luddites were very aware the system was the problem, they made system changing demands.
Mainstream history has decided to make them into a terrified of new technology pastiche of the truth.
I’ll repost comment I did recently:
I remember how few yesrs ago I said “capitalism exists because perfect replicators do not exist”. Eventually I realised that perfect replicators of information already exist and capitalists made sure we can’t use them against capitalism.
When computers became mainstream and all sorts of media got into the open Web, many have seen this as the end of copyright history.
But it wouldn’t be capitalism if it wouldn’t build sophisticated instruments and twist legislation in unprecedented ways only to protect publishers.
Nooooo we don’t want to do critical thinking and systemic analysis of root causes! Modernity bad! People lived better before antibiotics! Math is evil! /s
Hence the Free Software Movement.
What do you mean capitalism WAS a misstake? Did I miss a memo?
Yes, Das Kapital by Marx.
Doesn’t he specifically say capitalism is an improvement over pre-capitalism and a necessary step for industrialized society to reach socialism? He wouldn’t have called it a mistake unless he was really pissed
Yes you are correct. I usually interpret people who say “capitalism was a mistake” to mean “to continue to peruse unregulated free market capitalism in light of all the evidence that is causes harm was a mistake”. I interpret it this way because I have never seen anyone who was seriously advocating for feudalism. I have seen a lot of people seriously advocating for socialism, communion, or unregulated free market capitalism.
I figured you were one of the free market capitalist type when reading your initial comment because it seemed like your point was very nit-picky on the meme.
Were you concerned that this meme was being made by someone who wants to return to feudalism?
In debian and graphene we trust
Tech won’t save us! (The podcast with the same title is very recommandable)
Capitalism was a necessary step in the development of socialism. It wasn’t a mistake, it’s just run its course. Just a technicality I know and I shouldn’t overanalyze but I felt it was worth stating
That’s like saying “everything happens for a reason” to someone whose whole family has just been murdered.
No. Capitalism was never necessary.
We were never going to transition directly from feudal society to socialism, the peasant class could not organize in those conditions to rise up against their opressor. Capitalism developed the material conditions necessary for a truly liberatory revolution rather than a passing over of keys from one ruler to another.
Yes capitalism is responsible for truly horrific things, that is why it needs to be dismantled and replaced. However, it also concentrated the working class into closer quarters and developed the machinary necessary to move past scarcity.
Sure yeah maybe we could have transitioned from hunter gatherer society to socialist agrarianism and never developed the power structures we see today but that didn’t happen for a reason. Agriculture solved the food problem of hunter gatherer societies, feudalism solved the military problem of early agrarian societies that left them vulnerable, capitalism solved the technological development problem of feudalist societies that caused them to stagnate and socialism will solve the resource problem that causes capitalist societies to constantly murder eachother and themselves. Note all of these social structures caused the problems that necessitated the next reorganization of society.
Also, telling someone who isn’t already socialist/communist/anarchist that capitalism was a mistake will seem rediculous if they live a comfortable life.
Except the peasant classes did rise up many times, and were repeatedly betrayed by the petit bourgeois and pushed back down in order to establish capitalism more fully.
Plus, lots of the benefits of capitalism that people felt were really using imperialism and colonialism to import benefits and export suffering - not an actual increase in overall comfort or “good”.
Classical Marxist historical materialism is, honestly a load of bunk.
Yeah, but you’re talking to an authitarian, so lots of people being hurt for the benefit of the few is always “necessary”
