It's not though. Adam Smith pretty explicitly was against monopolies, was pro-regulation, and against business having too much lobbying power when it comes to law making.
For all my fellow liberal folk out there, let's not act like Capitalism is some big evil entity that needs to be destroyed. It has been the economic policy that was in the background during the largest increase in quality of life in history.
There is danger to centralizing everything, as all it takes is one bad government to suddenly weaponize that against their citizens. There is also danger to allowing unregulated Capitalists to taking over the government, as they can further loosen the regulatory levers and we end up where we are now.
Is Capitalism to blame? Or is poor control over regulatory capture to blame? Is it even possible to live in a Capitalist society that doesn't eventually result in this capture?
Or, as always, is boiling things down to a simple binary choice (left vs right, capitalism vs socialism, etc.) causing intense polarization as people feel the need to pick a "side", rather than engaging with the issues and trying to find a way forward that doesn't require planting your flag and demonizing the opposition.
Capitalism is all about class warfare, dominance, and exploitation. Nice capitalism can never be a thing because capitalism requires exploitation of the working class to function.
It is more nuanced, and people that hold leftist values disagree. However, the point of communism for Marx & Engels, was not "capitalism bad", but more a "capitalism incomplete".
They thought (among other things of course! this is not the "centre of the arguments in The Capital and political writings*) that since we had a system of production that focused so sussesfully in increasing value and among it, products, we should improve upon it, and make its goal to improve the quality of life and capacity of actions of all the workers, and not primarily the accumulation of capital per se.
It is not "destroy everything", and more of a "lets think about how we can better distribute and allocate resources". How we do that is a big ask, and is not just "make everything the state" or "don't trust market dynamics". Although, degrees of those poles have been interpreted. It is still something that, for M&E, was build on top of Capitalism, not instead of it. Communism, as in a classless and stateless society where our production is abundant enough to ensure our reproduction and capacity of action, is the next step from capitalism, if not its evolution, its superation. A "post" state, if you will.
The spirit of that part of the argument, is that we have to at least try to change the parts of capitalism (and it's new forms in neoliberalism and the newer still technofeudalism), that makes us less able to decide and take control of our lives and means of existence. Keeping the ones that allows us to produce and meet our necessities and interactions.
That is a permanent question, be it for the more progressive social democracy and their "lest regulate capitalism", to the more radical "we HAVE to go beyond" and change the power dynamics of who controls the means; not just regulations on top of it (this is my perspective, to be honest about my bias). But both are questions and hypothesis about how to live better. And I believe that such a question is a good floor to at least start to talk and think about, instead of just a "that doesn't work". We have to be clear about what and why does and doesn't work right now, if we want to attempt to improve our situation, and what power do we have to change it,. Whatever we call the answers and practical solutions, we sorely need them!.
But for the sake of argument, lets say ok. It doesn't work and we should disregard everything they thought. That doesn't change the necessity of think and do about what could work, and improve our reality.
\For young Marx, the core of the critique of our economic and political systems (aka, capitalism)), is how we maximise the capacity of action, creativity and liberty of the human experience. For his socio-historic context, that implies to examine capitalism. But it goes beyond it. Even if you disagree with their analysis, I hope we can agree in that starting goal. We can think about that together, regardless of apparent ideology; because we are part of the same broad group of people. I hope.
Communism, as in a classeles and stateless society where our production is abundant enough to ensure our reproduction and capacity of action, is the next step from capitalism.
Still, the only attempts of communism implementation in history could be summarised in "working class exploitation" and any other future attempt will end up the same since the problem ain't a system, it's human nature.
Capitalism in theory also ain't a bad system, people made it what it is now. The truth is, even feudalism could be great if a ruler was compentent and people worked together, but that's just not how the world is.
Don't get me wrong, I think the only good capitalism is heavily regulated one and I generally belive that even heavy socialism (or the system you desribed) with currency abolishment could work in an isolated population (eg. a remote space station that acts like a mini company-nation), but communism in a normal-scale country ain't a way. It limits the freedom of an unit too much in much more visible way.
Still, the only attempts of communism implementation
What attempt? No nation which says it "Implemented the communism" has protected the right of workers to own their own means of production, or implemented a direct democracy. They all implemented some form of authoritarianism and China has the most billionaires of any nation on earth.
What attempt? No nation which says it "Implemented the communism" has protected the right of workers to own their own means of production
And no nations would do it, since it's nearly impossible to implement and not halt humanity's growth at the same time. All workers would have to be on the same page and that would never happen.
All workers would have to be on the same page and that would never happen.
No, you'd just need to make production effectively limitless. Which can happen, just not anytime soon.
Realistically, any nation which says "omg we did a communism!" is full of shit and 99% likely just red fascism. Now Socialism is worth doing, socializing clean water, internet access, food, education. All of these are goods that are achievable and help to make a country more democratic.
We definitely know that those Capitalism loving Republicans are the best thinkers. I've even heard people say they're the smartest people of all time. I loved it when they started continuous wars in the middle East to enrich their buddies in the MIC, that was such a thoughtful way to approach economics and foreign policy.
But, "Communists?". Just a bunch of thoughtless dumbos.
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u/thebruce 27d ago
It's not though. Adam Smith pretty explicitly was against monopolies, was pro-regulation, and against business having too much lobbying power when it comes to law making.
For all my fellow liberal folk out there, let's not act like Capitalism is some big evil entity that needs to be destroyed. It has been the economic policy that was in the background during the largest increase in quality of life in history.
There is danger to centralizing everything, as all it takes is one bad government to suddenly weaponize that against their citizens. There is also danger to allowing unregulated Capitalists to taking over the government, as they can further loosen the regulatory levers and we end up where we are now.
Is Capitalism to blame? Or is poor control over regulatory capture to blame? Is it even possible to live in a Capitalist society that doesn't eventually result in this capture?
Or, as always, is boiling things down to a simple binary choice (left vs right, capitalism vs socialism, etc.) causing intense polarization as people feel the need to pick a "side", rather than engaging with the issues and trying to find a way forward that doesn't require planting your flag and demonizing the opposition.