• axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    This guy is onto something in that liberals don’t perceive actions by markets as coordinated political actions. They see it as invisible, since capitalism wasn’t formed on the basis of markets explicitly, its formation was couched in more vague rhetoric about freedom, liberty, fraternity. Some aspects of the formation of capitalism took the structure of religious debate, like protestants breaking from Catholicism.

    Whereas all socialist movements have been more explicit about the aims and goals. The communists don’t hide their intentions. That makes a communist government much more obvious in it’s pursuits to the average liberal. It’s why statements like “communism killed 100 million people” makes sense to a liberal in a way that a similar statement “capitalism killed billions of people” doesn’t make sense to them.

    They don’t see capitalism as an agreed upon movement or enforcement of certain hierarchies. They see it as full liberation of people and simply the natural consequences of full liberation. But they can see socialism as an enforced structure, since socialists don’t hide what they’re doing and socialism is formed by a single united working class interest. Capitalists aren’t always in unison with one another.

      • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I’ve noticed that many capitalists will have a knee jerk angry reaction when you utter the word “capitalism” even if you’re not communist.

        While it’s more tame in real life, on the internet I’ve seen posts about some extreme price markup and everyone complaining and asking why, then one commenter simply says “that’s capitalism for you” with no mention of socialism, then you get a bunch of replies going on angry tirades about Venezuela and North Korea. They’ll get angry at you for explaining economics 101, something they’ll smuggly tell you to study.

        You don’t get to utter the sacred, holy name of C———m.

        • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          To be fair the term capitalism was created by socialists as a way to criticize it. Adam Smith and other pre-Marx economists never used the term. It only became a common term after Marx kept saying “capitalist mode of production” and that’s just a mouthful.

          So the word comes up most often in socialist circles. Liberals don’t like calling it capitalism because the very word gives undue authority to capital, which liberals deny. Liberals don’t believe capital has supreme power and don’t want to describe society like that.

          • PeeOnYou [he/him]
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            1 year ago

            but in the same breath they will speak very highly of capitalism… it’s only bad if you’re pointing out things they don’t want to think about but it’s fine if you extoll virtue

    • ZapataCadabra [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Which is hypocritical because every single US politician talks about bringing jobs into their state or district as part of their policy. But also businesses are job creators. Somehow nobody is responsible for lost jobs though. thinkin-lenin

      • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I think the average neoliberal would interpret brining jobs to a state as stuff like removing regulations or lowering taxes. They can only interpret political action in terms of austerity vs regulation.

        These people think private industry is just a few tweaks away from delivering full utopia but the problem are those gosh darn bureaucrats always raising taxes and spending public funds on useless things like education, roads, and hospitals. If only we could unleash our poor, humble business owners from the oppression of taxes they will deliver us heaven