• Cowbee [he/they] ( Cowbee@lemmy.ml ) 
    15·
    2 years ago

    I may be misremembering Posadas but he had a bit where he imagined that any alien society that managed to make it to space travel would have necessarily developed to Communism as they would have to go through the different Modes of Production on their own alongside the necessary development of tech. If Posadas’ theory is correct, the Aliens would indeed be familiar with some form of Capitalism.

    Not a Posadist nor a Trotskyist though.

  • Kachajal ( Kachajal@lemmy.ml ) 
    1·
    2 years ago

    I sure hope intergalactic-capable aliens would be smart enough to understand the concept of ownership, which seems to be the sticking point here.

    Maybe they wouldn’t if they evolved as a hive-mind, without predators, or without inter-group competition in some other way, but I doubt it.

    • AntiOutsideAktion ( AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml ) English
      5·
      2 years ago

      If aliens hadn’t abolished capitalism at some point they would destroy themselves before becoming capable of interstellar travel.

      There’s a difference between owning your own things and owning things that other people use and extracting value from their labor. I can tell you aren’t capable of traveling the stars.

    • ArsonButCute ( ArsonButCute@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) deleted by creator
      1·
      2 years ago

      Barely related but you’ve spurred a thought into mind:

      Would a hive mind or other gestalt consciousness even have the drive to reach the stars outside of circumstances involving potential extinction? I feel as though a GC who has reached the galactic stage would perhaps (almost necessarily) be a fanatic assimilator that had assimilated a race who has a drive to be spacefaring.

      My theory, a Terran like imperialist force hailing from a dead world attempts to colonize a habitable planet, only for the colonial force to become assimilated into a fungoid hivemind who has never considered life on other worlds, nor that their world could potentially not be eternal. This spurs action in the hivemind, a drive to expand to other worlds to secure their eternium, and with this newfound difference in thought a drive to assimilate more and more species to see just how different thinking can be

  • OlgaAbi ( OlgaAbi@lemmy.ml ) English
    1·
    2 years ago

    that’s why unregulated capitalism (like in amcapistan or a minarchy) would be better, unions would actually be as powerfull as corporations

    • ComradeSharkfucker ( sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml ) English
      19·
      2 years ago

      No lol, the factory owner would just pay his private security a premium to kick your fucking teeth in if you don’t work. You actually think unregulated capitalism is BETTER???

      The whole point of a state is to mitigate the worst of class conflict, remove that and the class with greater resources (the one ruling before the removal of the state) wins the conflict.

      The removal of a state doesn’t make unions more powerful it makes the owning class more able to destroy them. An anarcho-capitalist experiment either ends in slavery or revolution.

      • Dharma Curious (he/him) ( dharmacurious@slrpnk.net ) 
        7·
        2 years ago

        No, no, the Prophetess Rand foretold what would happen! The rich would just lock themselves away in their golden city and the poor outside the gates would starve!

        … As yet, though, no word one who’s washing their dishes or making their clothes…

    • Cowbee [he/they] ( Cowbee@lemmy.ml ) 
      9·
      2 years ago

      Capitalism can’t function without a State, in a “minarchist” or “ancap” situation there would be some intermediary group with a monopoly on violence to suppress workers and hash out deals between business owners. Moreover, we exist in a world largely dominated by US Imperialism, we can’t just swap to minarchism or ancapism by gathering the infinity stones.

      Whatever system we transition to must come from where it once was, even revolutionary societies have to deal with the holdovers from the previous Mode of Production. That’s why the Soviets had the NEP, in fact, they couldn’t just snap their fingers and institute what they wanted. It was a big deal when they managed to collectivize.

      How do you personally reckon we can make it to your prefered organization of society, from where we are now? Genuinely curious.

    • I Cast Fist ( ICastFist@programming.dev ) 
      8·
      2 years ago

      Not by a long shot. Remove the guardrails and the (theoretically) neutral party that enforces them, the state, and violence abounds. Whoever has more guns will call the shots. After enough time and consolidation, any big group will become its own state. If you don’t think that’d happen, just take a look at EVE Online and how the biggest player run corps work.

    • prototype_g2 ( prototype_g2@lemmy.ml ) 
      5·
      2 years ago

      What? The only thing stopping the oligarch from buying an army and enslaving everyone who can’t fight back is the fact that the government has a bigger army to stop them before they have time to even think about it. Monopolies of violence. It’s not that hard to figure this out.

      The only reason why “ownership” even exists is because the government’s army serves as a threat to anyone who even thinks about disrespecting it. Without is, nothing is stopping someone who can exert more violence than you from stealing everything you thought you owned.

          • Cowbee [he/they] ( Cowbee@lemmy.ml ) 
            3·
            2 years ago

            Actually, Syndicalism would likely retain class dynamics unless they centralized and dissolved the syndicates, or their worker-cooperative ownership form. Each syndicate would maintain petty-bourgeois cooperative ownership, as opposed to collective ownership, leaving open the methods of Capitalist ressurection. I’m more sympathetic towards it because it still leaves the avenue for centralization and erasure of class.

              • Cowbee [he/they] ( Cowbee@lemmy.ml ) 
                3·
                2 years ago

                The syndicate would be more democratic, but the overall economy would be made up of distinct syndicates working in their interests, unless they centralized and equalized ownership across it (and went towards a Marxian understanding of class). Petite bourgeois individualism need not have people below them, but distinct from in interest. Syndicate A will want favorable conditions for Syndicate A even at the expense of Syndicate B.

                If you collectivized the syndicates across the whole economy, the interests of Syndicate A would be the same or closely linked to Syndicate B. They would coalesce. This is why Marxists and Anarchists have different end goals, they have different analysis of the roots of issues with society, class or hierarchy. The Anarcho-primitivists only manage to reject both class and hierarchy by rejecting industry as well.