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But after the Cold War ended, America/ns conflated Capitalism with Democracy, thinking they are one and the same, and that if we could bring bring the former to authoritarian nations, the latter would inevitably follow.
But they aren't, and it doesn't. If you want to spread Democracy and human rights, you have to spread Democracy and human rights. If Capitalism follows, fine, but it needs to be built on a foundation of freedom, represenative government, separation of power, checks and balances, and institutionalized protection of human rights, and it can't be relied upon to guarantee that.
And after that, we need to learn that capitalism does not only “not necessarily bring democracy”, but that capitalism is fundamentally incompatible with and limits realization of democracy (but less so than, say, feudalism); the transition from relatively pure capitalism to the modern mixed economy in the developed West was important in continuing the advance of meaningful democracy, but the significant remaining capitalist elements are still in tension with democracy.
(Which, while it is problematic in many places isn’t necessarily all bad; unrestrained democracy isn’t a universal good, though the places capitalism is in tension with it aren't even approximately 1:1 with the problem areas of democracy.)
When 1% of the country can determine who gets to run for, and stay in, office, and which political parties are viable and which are marginalized, then such a Democracy is flawed at best and doesn't always represent the will or interests of most people.
But Democracy does solve a number of issues capitalism has. Free-markets allocate tangible and (pardon the cliché term) fungible goods quite well.
Non-tangible (e.g. intellectual property) and non-fungible (e.g. environment) goods are not managed well in a purely capitalist system. Some sort of a majority vote and public goods solution work much better and in fact create the necessary infrastructure (safe streets, reliable electricity, clean water) for capitalism to function.
So Capitalism ≠> Democracy, but Democracy => Capitalism is more true than not.
So yeah, better than the Soviet system.
They're clearly not though. While the successor state isn't communist, the successor state still acts in aggressive ways. We can also find many examples of people supporting the ideology in groups online, eg reddit's r/communism. Some of them even defend Stalin.
Clearly the ideology isn't dead.
Capitalism has all the murders and atrocities you can think of. It’s just not attributable to a single entity, but hidden behind ideas like „not profitable“. Ebola vaccine anyone? Tuberculosis? Cobalt exploitation? Climate change. Peak phosphorus. Pollution. How many annual death in the US are preventable with a better welfare system? I shiver when privileged Americans talk about social darwinism like it’s a good thing, and it makes me sick that you celebrate videos of people being generous to some poor fucks on the streets. Aww, he bought him shoes! Is it the projection into the imbalance of power? One day being the one to let another live? And GoFundMe campaigns for cancer treatment… W.T.F. Maybe I am missing some degrees of freedom those people indulge in, or maybe…
Monetary profit is not a metric for human welfare, no matter your narrative need for it to be. If you put systemic pressure on profit, you won’t select for prosperity and our collective future‘s benefit, but optimize for - can you guess? - monetary profit. Your economic dogma is called overfitting. Don’t mix up correlation and causality, when bringing up stats about global developments. That’s just bad science and you should know better, with the best education system in the world. Or is that an „anyone, but not everyone“ kinda thing too? Or did you sign an NQA to get the crippling credit for your degree? Sorry, what do I know about those things being oppressed by collectivized European education… Funny how not being 100k in debt kinda gives you the illusion of freedom. Like choosing a job I like, over one which frees me of that debt. Or maybe I just travel a bit, maybe to America, and educate my self on real freedom. Working can wait, what’s more important than understanding freedom?
Most academic economists don’t believe in the whole unregulated free market fantasy, anymore. For quite some time actually. That’s an American culture thing, believe it or not. Turns out, humans are not really rational actors. Who would have thought? Don’t trust me, tho, look it up, or ask economists (real ones, not some tech bro bitcoin investors): Most markets can’t regulate shit. And please while your at it, ask sociologists about 'freedom' and 'oppression'.
Really tho, have you ever allowed yourself a critical take on capitalism? Open outcome? Without defaulting to „Nice in theory, but communism…“?
I dare you, fellow human <3
It's not even close to the combination of mass purges and economic failure-driven mass starvation under the Communists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_...
>It’s just not attributable to a single entity, but hidden behind ideas like „not profitable“. Ebola vaccine anyone? Tuberculosis? Cobalt exploitation? Climate change. Peak phosphorus. Pollution. How many annual death in the US are preventable with a better welfare system?
Agree with all of the above, no argument there.
>I shiver when privileged Americans talk about social darwinism like it’s a good thing,
Agreed, it's the ultimate form of self-back-patting complacency.
>And GoFundMe campaigns for cancer treatment…
This is certainly a modern absurdity and indictment of US healthcare. I suspect single payer would be a net savings on healthcare for society, along with some reforms like requiring healthcare providers to publish prices for procedures and services, instead of having some back office financial engineer figuring out different prices for different patients based on how much he can squeeze out of their insurance plans.
>Most academic economists don’t believe in the whole unregulated free market fantasy, anymore.
After the deregulation of the 90s, and resulting wealth concentration, instability, and resulting Global Financial Crisis, more and more Americans don't believe it anymore either. In hindsight, the post-Great Depression Glass-Steagal regulations seem to have effectively applied the generally desirable principles of decentralization and separation of concerns to the financial system. It would probably be a net win for most of society to reinstate them.
All that said, as problematic as capitalism can be, let's not be in too much rush to forget how much worse other alternatives have been and are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_of_European_Memory_an...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Communism_Memorial_...
Just pointing out how capitalism isn’t exactly free of horrors, but they are hard to measure. E.g. tuberculosis claiming 1.5 million lives each year, but not in the west, so there is very little done about it. Or HIV.
The thing is we are not comparing individual countries but ideologies here. And capitalism fails those deceased for economic reasons. It’s easy to overlook.
You can mix capitalism and collectivism, as most countries did. It’s not black and white.
Do truly not see the difference between the government making the active choice that you die vs someone not producing free labor for you to exploit.
Which EU country are you from? You guys have a habit of trying to brush ur issues under the rug wether its homelessness or massive Antiziganism.
And yes, racism is a problem in Germany too. As is the bureaucratic barrier of state welfare for people with mental health issues, especially schizophrenia.