Kinder Capitalism?

The unfortunate truth is that there seems to be no way to gradually transform from capitalism to a more just economy like socialism. History as well as a quick analysis of both ideologies teach us that social democracy, the popular halfway-station between these two systems, is bound to relapse back to full-on capitalism.

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It's a dilemma that I and a lot of leftists struggle with. Most of us don't want to see a revolution, as those are almost always violent, and most leftists, myself included, don't like violence. It's sad then, to have to admit that the way of small incremental steps, from "capitalism in your face", to "capitalism with a friendly face", to no capitalism at all has always failed, and is bound to always fail in the future. Even now, when we live in a world where 8 filthy rich individuals own as much wealth as the poorest half of the world population, the term "wealth redistribution" makes the hairs on the back of the necks of millions of poor and middle class people stand up. The method of redistributing wealth from the top to the bottom through progressive taxation is highly unpopular. Which amazes me because we already have constant wealth redistribution from the bottom to the top, in the wrong direction.

Why do so many poor and working class people feel the need to protect the filthy rich by opposing higher taxes on those rich individuals? That's easy: the rich own all the media, all the TV stations, all the newspapers, all the online social platforms, and they use them to great effect. They've used all the platforms they own, which includes Hollywood and other entertainment platforms, to brainwash the public into believing that capitalism is the best we can do, that capitalism "is just the way it is", and that all other systems ever tried have done only harm. "Communism has killed 100,000,000 people!!", they scream... Really? Do you really want to measure dicks here? How many people have been killed in capitalism? How many people are starving to death right now because of capitalism? Trust me, you don't want to go there if you want to defend the ideology that guarantees the existence of widespread abject poverty, that causes wars for resources and wealth, and that incentivizes more wars through a vibrant military industrial complex.

Social democracy is capitalism with its sharpest edges dulled. It's "capitalism with a friendly face" where the rich pay more taxes, so that the young can get a free education and the old have some decency and dignity in their autumn years. That's what we're told here in the rich part of the world. But that's only half true. Our social democracy is in great part funded by the exploitation of poor and developing countries. It's neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism, just a continuation of colonialism and imperialism. Only difference is that we now don't go out to conquer and enslave black and brown people, we don't use weapons and soldiers anymore, although sometimes we still do that too, but instead we use the weapons of finance, lending and international trading rules to suck those countries dry through unelected institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. When defenders of capitalism claim that it raised so much people out of poverty, they're just misinformed by the media that wants us to believe that, they're fooled by poverty line that's artificially kept way too low by the World Bank.

Rich countries can afford to have "capitalism with a friendly face" because poor countries are left bearing the burden of "capitalism in your face" in the capitalist world-economy. So that's not an option if, as a leftist, you have any consideration for international solidarity within the working class. Is revolution the only option then? My answer is "no, not in this climate." There's one common trait between populism on the extreme left and the extreme right; they both have no love for the filthy rich. That's why Trump in America and Boris Johnson in England and many more right wing populists could rise to power; they, just like the left, promise to take care of working class people. Trump promised to "drain the swamp". And we all saw how his presidency ended; with a violent storming of the Capitol with the intended goal to steal the elections. That was almost a coupe, almost a revolution... Accelerationism in the current socioeconomic world climate only serves the far right. And incrementalism doesn't serve the far left. Which leaves me with the sad conclusion that right now social democracy is the best we can hope for here, to the detriment of the poorest half of the world's population...

That was a pessimistic rant, I know. But it's the truth as I see it; we're a long way of from creating a better, fairer world in which we don't let the capitalists decide everything for us. Capitalism is a race to the bottom in which every nation deregulates its business environment and reduces tax rates for the rich in order to attract or retain economic activity in their jurisdictions; every country tries to offer their work-force for as low a price as possible and every business is constantly on the hunt for that cheap labor. Until they don't even need that anymore... I'll leave it here; watch the video for a slightly more optimistic view on all this.

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