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Comment by phillryu | Hacker News Reader

I think this is a pretty common and growing sentiment that I've felt too. One thing that has grounded me is learning and reminding myself that capitalism has driven extreme poverty across the world to the lowest share in known human history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#:~:text=Extrem...

I'm not sure if this on its own is enough to make up for the negatives, but it did personally restore some perspective that there is some real good to it alongside the bad. So I've personally shifted from more doomer sentiments on peak capitalism to feeling a little more hopeful. (That despite the dysfunctions of it there could still be a functional good foundation worth keeping and iterating on rather than the only solution being throwing the baby out with the bathwater.)

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Let's fix that right there.

Capitalism is a concept, a tool to organize production in a society. It doesn't do anything by itself.

And the capitalist didn't do any of those things.

It was the social democracy that demanded and made capitalists around the world to share the benefits of the system to the rest of the society.

For example in the Victorian era Britain the working class people were dirt poor working 16h a way 7 days a week. The capitalists didn't give anything willingly the working people had to demand these things via unions, labor movements and social democracy.

Trying to understand what you're saying, especially with 'let's fix that right there'.

Is it basically the idea that the good we've gotten out of it (like driving down extreme poverty) has required 'social democracy' as another concept or force, to bend capitalism towards something better? And that a more useful perspective is zooming out from just capitalism by itself to include that?

I do feel like I still have a pretty limited understanding of how all of this fits together, so I appreciate you trying to teach me something here.

The fundamental precondition for all these changes is that capitalism massively increased the overall wealth of Britain. The market did the rest: higher wages, lower prices, new inventions improving life for everyone, increased living standards.

Workers negotiating and fighting for better condition, and joining forces with other workers have nothing to do with social democracy, it's a normal market mechanism to regulate the supply and demand of workers.

Where social democracy enters is with the political activism and the relative legislation, limiting working hours and banning child labor.

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