I won't deny that racism exists within the Democratic party, but if "soft bigotry" gets qualified immunity abolished and acknowledges the racism inherent in a rigid, outdated system, it's still a helluva lot better than the alternative. AKA the entirety of the Republican party foaming at the mouth every time Fox News mentions immigration.
As a general rule, when you’re trying to extinguish a fire, you should avoid pouring gasoline on it. More racism is not a solution for racism - the solution is equal treatment.
Almost like your flimsy excuses for the flaws inherent in the system take this discussion in circles. Real shocker that.
It’s not a discussion - one system was inherently better than the other, and won. The discussion ended in 1989.
So now we've demoted it from "consensual" exchange down to just exchange. At least you're sugarcoating it slightly less.
Nobody is forcing you to participate - consent is implied.
This discussion isn't about me, and the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of jobs created by any capitalist market are service industry positions. These jobs are essential to society's daily functioning, but the wages tied to them do not reflect that. You can't just tell 70% of a country's population to "get a better job" or negotiate wages in a non-union position. Well, you can, but it's not a real solution to a systemic issue.
The system doesn’t create jobs, nor is it supposed to - people generate jobs. That’s the difference between a system of free exchange and a controlled economy. As a side note, I can say that, and I do. I’m not here to solve people’s problems - people should solve their own problems.
That reasoning would be perfectly fine if capitalism stayed in its own little corner and allowed the public sector to provide for those basic needs. Instead the profit motive is constantly interfering with people receiving the necessities.
By the public sector solving people’s issues you mean spending other people’s money - let’s be frank here. The public sector can spend its own money, as soon as it starts making some. For the record, the profit motive is the single most effective impetus of progress.
It does, but only in the loose sense that the invasion was in Putin's best interests as a capitalist. He thought the world would continue to trade with Ukraine's ports even during Russian occupation of the country. Turns out they may not be able to even reach the point of occupation at all, the way things are going.
Putin’s motivation is not capitalist, although it is profit-driven. Putin is strictly motivated by Russian imperialism. That’s not the same thing, although there is some overlap in the sense that the war is over money - that’s about the extent of commonality here.
The bottom line is this: there is no perfect economic system, and pretending capitalism has no flaws whatsoever when all evidence points to the contrary isn't productive. You can keep on hating communism while still acknowledging that there are some aspects of capitalism which are equally dehumanizing. And while I personally think that trying to fix US capitalism while we're in the middle of our descent into full-blown oligarchy is like trying to polish a turd, if you truly believe it's a system worth saving then you should embrace ideas for improving it.
It is more appropriate to say that people have different perspectives on what would be ideal for them. To me, capitalism is about as close as we can get to a perfect system, and its various shortcomings you mention are primarily caused by improper government intervention, not inherent systemic flaws. Capitalism in its purest form doesn’t care about whether you’re a man, woman, black, white or a space alien - it cares about generating value. The entire point of the system is to allow private individuals to freely exchange goods and services with each other in a manner that creates wealth for all participants, it’s a system that enables people to produce more than the sum of the parts they put into it. All of this is achieved through consensual exchange and contract. That’s capitalism, the litany of issues you mention are specific problems with specific implementations. When boiled down to base components, I think it would be hard for anyone to disagree that it is good for people to be able to engage in commerce freely - those are the precepts we can all agree to be good. Where we differ is the detail.
I don’t need a third wheel of the state to get involved and I accept risk as a given when I engage in any economic activity. Not everyone is comfortable with that, so they opt for more forgiving systems that provide more safety. All countries around the world oscillate between the two extremes of full government control via planned economy and complete laissez-faire where everything, including people, has a price. We can both agree that the golden mean is between those two points, we disagree on where that point is based on personal value systems and level of propensity towards risk taking, which is why the conversation is and always has been silly. It’s like arguing what pie is best. As long as we agree that a turd pie and a dirt pie are not acceptable, there is no issue - we can find more agreeable pies in between those two. I like apple.
On the flip side, I find the communist system wholly reprehensible and unacceptable from the outset, because it deprives me of the very basic human right of owning property and, via said ownership, forging my own destiny. That I will never find agreeable. As such, facing the choice between the two, I will always choose the former over the latter. Nobody is entitled to the fruits of my labour besides me. Concessions can be made in regards to exchanging some of that wealth for services provided by the state, and throughout the myriad of conversations we’ve had I’ve enumerated the ones I see agreeable. Again, we’re retreading the same waters over and over again.
In any case, in the context of how this relates to Russia, with the pipeline construction continuing and some pre-existing connections, it is in Putin’s, and Russia’s national interest to have a stooge in Ukraine. In addition, Ukraine is also the world’s premier supplier of neon, among some other precious materials. Expansion in that direction is profitable, and keeps the NATO at bay while he fucks around on other fronts. You can call that capitalism if you will, I treat it as Russian imperialism, and Putin is keen on admitting that the latter is the case - he wouldn’t be revising history if it wasn’t. Putin aims at a revival of great Mother Russia that’s a self-sufficient industrial titan, in the vein of what China has achieved by holding onto its communist roots, but saving itself from collapse by introducing some, not all, capitalist principles into the marketplace. That’s his actual goal, personal gratification and wealth-building is a secondary consequence.
you just discredited 70years of communists rule
