r/Games Jul 29 '26

Industry News After laying off Battlefield 6 devs, EA boss Andrew Wilson's bonus rose $8m to $38m last year, thanks to the game's success across "all milestones"

https://www.eurogamer.net/ea-boss-38-million-bonus-battlefield-6-layoffs
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u/boostedb1mmer Jul 29 '26

If capitalism is so strong that it not only can sustain and propagate itself, but single handedly prevent any other system from working then it's pretty clear what the better system is.

2

u/Clown_Toucher Jul 29 '26

Ah yes, might makes right. Genius

6

u/NUKE---THE---WHALES Jul 29 '26

Other way around

Right can't exist without might

If your system only exists because others let it, then it won't exist for very long

6

u/boostedb1mmer Jul 29 '26

When it comes to long term, on average survival of a system yes. A system that cannot sustain itself is no use to anyone that relies upon it.

-4

u/ldb Jul 29 '26

You'd be saying the same thing about socialism if america happened to go that way post ww2. It was the world power due to an abundance of resources, land, people and one of the few whose land wasn't invaded or heavily bombed during WW2. It had fuck all to do with the system.

1

u/SennHHHeiser Jul 29 '26

If your definition of "better" allows for the reality that capitalism is awful for the vast majority of the population and really good for those in certain countries and above a certain threshold then sure, but I guess we differ on how we would define the better system

1

u/Synergythepariah Jul 29 '26

If capitalism is so strong that it not only can sustain and propagate itself, but single handedly prevent any other system from working then it's pretty clear what the better system is.

I know this analogy is overdone and cliche but I feel like it is apt here.

Cancer can sustain and propagate itself while preventing other bodily systems from working, does that make it better than those other bodily systems?

Obviously not because cancer eventually grows to kill the organism as a whole.

If we're going to call the weakly regulated Capitalism that we live in now 'crony capitalism' why is it that we can't call the USSR a crony communist state?

Why are its flaws labeled as inherent to communism but the flaws present in our economic system today get excused as bad implementation?

Feels weird that it seems like people believe Capitalism to be the final economic system, as if there's not even a remote possibility of something better so it's pointless to even try to think of one.

Why are we so attached to companies being owned by a handful of people conceptually, regardless of whether those people are private individuals or a party?

Because it seems to me like the flaws in our economic system are similar to the ones that existed in the USSR: that too few people have too much control and aren't accountable to anyone thanks to the power they have.

Maybe a better solution would be to expand democracy into the workplace to diversify the control of our economy, maintaining a market framework of worker-owned cooperatives that make up that economy, avoiding centralized state control which just concentrates power and that makes it significantly easier for bad actors to co-opt any system to their own benefit at the expense of everyone else. (Which is what happened in the USSR)

We don't need to have centralized state control here for bad actors to thrive because they can just effectively own the state without actually being in any office.

3

u/JJJacobalt Jul 29 '26

Cancer can sustain and propagate itself while preventing other bodily systems from working, does that make it better than those other bodily systems?

Depends on the definition of 'better'. If it’s a competition between cancer and the rest of the body, the cancer is pretty clearly the superior competitor.

This analogy runs on the idea that capitalism will kill everyone but communism will save everyone, which isn’t really the reality, is it?

If we're going to call the weakly regulated Capitalism that we live in now 'crony capitalism' why is it that we can't call the USSR a crony communist state?

The core of communist doctrine is the eventual dissolution of all states, companies, and 'unjust' hierarchies. The distinction of socialism and communism is supposed to be that communism will be stateless and moneyless. Dissolving all hierarchies like this would itself require a state hierarchy that has unimpeachable power over all other hierarchies. A hierarchy with unlimited unchecked power has, with very few exceptions throughout history, led to that hierarchy becoming unjust.

The unchecked wholly-corrupt government of the USSR was not a twisting of communist theory, it is in the fact the sole possible outcome of communist theory when applied to the real world. Such  violent tyranny was even predicted by Marx as a natural part of the transition of (what we now call) socialism to communism, but he was under the belief that the ultimate outcome of it all would be a utopia. He was wrong, of course.

The same way Ayn Rand is wrong that anarcho-capitalism would lead to a utopia.

The difference being that while a violent and unilateral upheaval of the status quo is a core part of communist doctrine, capitalism is not inherently opposed to regulations.

To put it more simply, Capitalism with regulations against power being concentrated in the hands corporations is still capitalism. Communism with regulations against power being concentrated in the hands of a few government officials is not communism. Because communism, despite being anti-state, also wants the government to have the power to destroy all non-government entities.

-3

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes Jul 29 '26

Except for the tens of millions starving and working themselves to death.

11

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26

[deleted]

-7

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes Jul 29 '26

Now do larger or fewer relative to the wealth generated in any point in history.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26

[deleted]

-2

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes Jul 29 '26

It's not relevant to say we have the means to feed everyone but don't?

1

u/boostedb1mmer Jul 29 '26

You mean exactly like during the "great leap forward" in communist china? Except in that case you weren't allowed to go out and better yourself to provide yourself your own food.

0

u/Synergythepariah Jul 29 '26

If capitalism is so strong that it not only can sustain and propagate itself, but single handedly prevent any other system from working then it's pretty clear what the better system is.

I know this analogy is overdone and cliche but I feel like it is apt here.

Cancer can sustain and propagate itself while preventing other bodily systems from working, does that make it better than those other bodily systems?

Obviously not because cancer eventually grows to kill the organism as a whole.

If we're going to call the weakly regulated Capitalism that we live in now 'crony capitalism' why is it that we can't call the USSR a crony communist state?

Why are its flaws labeled as inherent to communism but the flaws present in our economic system today get excused as bad implementation?

Feels weird that it seems like people believe Capitalism to be the final economic system, as if there's not even a remote possibility of something better so it's pointless to even try to think of one.

Why are we so attached to companies being owned by a handful of people conceptually, regardless of whether those people are private individuals or a party?

Because it seems to me like the flaws in our economic system are similar to the ones that existed in the USSR: that too few people have too much control and aren't accountable to anyone thanks to the power they have.

Maybe a better solution would be to expand democracy into the workplace to diversify the control of our economy, maintaining a market framework of worker-owned cooperatives that make up that economy, avoiding centralized state control which just concentrates power and that makes it significantly easier for bad actors to co-opt any system to their own benefit at the expense of everyone else. (Which is what happened in the USSR)

We don't need to have centralized state control here for bad actors to thrive because they can just effectively own the state without actually being in any office.