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Comment by cryptoz | Hacker News Reader

> presence of greed and actively harnesses it for the benefit and advancement of everyone.

This is not what capitalism does. Much of capitalism today and in US history is that of a destructive force that hurts the entire population without consequence, enriching mostly the already wealthy.

The improvements and conveniences of modern society are unevenly distributed and brought to the masses at great cost to our society.

Unchecked global climate change due to infinite-growth-greed-capitalism has dramatically decreased the quality of expected life for much of the world's poor.

Capitalism absolutely does not, in theory or practice, make its benefits available to everyone.

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I worry that the term capitalism means different things to different sides of the debate and therefore the arguments are non-substantial.

What does capitalism mean to you?

Today's capitalist system is lifting people out of poverty at a pace we couldn't have imagined 200 years ago. If you really believe that quality of life for the world's poor has decreased in recent years you are living in a bubble and I urge you to leave it.

Until it all comes crashing down because we did it by covering the planet in plastic trash, cooking the atmosphere, and eating all the animals.

But hey, at least the poor can buy cheap meat. /s

> Today's capitalist system is lifting people out of poverty at a pace we couldn't have imagined 200 years ago.

It also creates poverty at a pace we couldn’t have imagined 200 years ago. This is some Steve Pinker bullshit right here.

You are inter-mixing capitalism with the individual actors and humans that participate in it. Even Socialism relies on "idealistic human behaviour" in its more optimal states.

Capitalism with an egalitarian mindset can work wonders. But it requires humans to be egalitarian - which lets be honest - those with drive and real desire to win are rarely egalitarian.

> those with drive and real desire to win are rarely egalitarian.

Could this be breed out of people?

With an intensive enough Eugenics program? I’m sure anything is possible.

The real question here is: why would you want to?

Sure. But it could always return.

Historically what has worked better?

I'm not sure this is a meaningful question to most anti-capitalists who want to move beyond capitalism to a non-exploitative economic system rather than return to some real or imagined historic system.

Honest question: what is the non-capitalist alternative economic system? European socialism and Chinese communism are still very capitalist. I'm always generally confused by these debates.

Purportedly per-agricultural hunter-gathering, depending on your goals.

Nothing really prevents you from doing that.

Lots of things prevent someone from doing that, and certainly there's a very good reason why everyone can't do that. I mean why do you think no one is doing that? It can't just be because it painful or unpleasant, lots of people have terrible hobbies.

Try to actually think about what would be required, what resources they would have had available to them, instead of just putting hunter/gatherer in a magic box. There are a bunch of different reasons why you can't do it these days, poaching laws being one of the most obvious.

Who's land are you going to hunt/gather on? I feel like you haven't actually thought about this.

A lot of the barriers are in one’s own mind.

Historically, from the pyramids, to the wonder that is Rome, slavery did some impressive feats too... Should we have continued with that?

In capitalism, agreement or disagreement with someone doesn’t lead you to death.

Yes, this is externalized in capitalism to the developing countries which it plunders (and which well into the 60s, most major capitalist forces used to have directly as colonies)...

Colonialism predates capitalism and feudalism. It's not caused by it.

Ancient colonialism had different forms (e.g. settlement).

Modern colonialism (Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, England, France, and to a lesser degree US, Italy, and Germany) was a practice of the emerged capitalist states that started and flourished after the historically agreed upon dawn of capitalism (circa late medieval Italian city states and later the rest of Europe), and fed it.

Colonialism is theft. If they bought land from the natives that would be moral. Native people have all rights to home it has built, the land it has tilled and the livestock it has raised. Nothing to do with capitalism.

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