this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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Capitalism is a game where only a few people get to win.

We have also seen time and time again that it is a game that is able to manipulate and change whatever ideology or behaviour you have to work towards its own benefit.

So the only way to actually "win" is to not play the game.

Right now that seems impossible because it is a massive collective action problem, however this whole platform is a testament to show that it's possible to overcome that kind of problem.

Reddit is a dominant platform that is starting to destroy itself. People are in turn finding alternatives such as Lemmy to satisfy the need that Reddit once did.

I view capitalism in the same way. It will never truly completely cease to exist (the same way Digg never truly died), but it can become irrelevant over time if we collectively decide to just use another system to satisfy the same needs that capitalism is satisfying today.

The one example that I can think of that tries to tackle this problem is the idea of free stores that are based on a gift economy. If more people decided to use this system instead of capitalism then capitalism will have less sway over people's lives.

And in the end it doesn't have to be specifically a free store that needs to be adopted by wider society but whatever it is does need to satisfy the same basic need that capitalism does in our current society.

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[–] danieljoeblack@beehaw.org 4 points 9 months ago

I personally think we are going to need to move to a hybrid capitalist situation before we can hope to move past it. It will be very hard for countries to make a switch away, as it will prevent them from really existing in the global market, or force the governments to hold all the cash so they can still partake.

I think the direction some places are taking with basic or universal income is one of the most promising steps away I've heard about recently. It allows for a sort of sudo communism within the bounds of a capitalist society by ensuring all have the same basic access to resources. Obviously there are plenty of caveats with the implementations so far, such as who gets it, how much is it, can it cover basic living, etc. But I think it represents what I'm getting at.

If we can continue to implement meaningful social programs such as free and accessible healthcare, basic incomes, shortened work weeks, minimum wages, etc, etc it is continued progress towards a world where money becomes increasingly meaningless as everyone has what they need and only need to work for the extras.

Just my two cents from someone with absolutely no background in the relevant fields :)