 “I don’t understand why everything is so fucked up and we seem incapable of fixing any of it!” This is because you believe you live in a democracy when you actually live under capitalism. (And it is functioning exactly as designed.) PS. Not your fault; you’ve been taught your whole life that the two are complementary when they’re diametrically-opposed. 17 comments
 @aral I'd be very curious to hear how democracy without capitalism could be structured (putting aside for now the more interesting question of how the corresponding transition from the current state would happen). The closest to a response I can think of is the ideas of Cornelius Castoriadis, but as many other things in life, it shows that the problem is that it's us not doing enough for a change: one example is democratic confederalism by councils and delegates look at Michael Albert, or Occelan/Bookchin. The question of how to get there is a more important and is the same question, someone could give you a structure, but in a true democratic space that means nothing because it is the democratic principle which will define the structure in real time. If people don't participate and define their own freedom, they are not free at all.  @mapto @aral One of the various forms of economic democracy is most likely imo. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_democracy So many variations possible, like https://mastodon.social/@jlou/112080581372175879 @mapto @aral @Radical_EgoCom @mapto @aral I would also add that I want democracy without authoritarianism.  @aral I've been thinking about the first job I liked. It was at a non-profit and the team was strong on cooperation. Ten plus nationalities in a group of around 30 people, which means people need to communicate clearly and ask rather than assume, and the colleague who trained me on one task said 'it's not I do this, you do that, it's we do it together. we help each other' and I want to believe that with this mindset and such skills (ask, help) we can fix things (and yes, overthrow capitalism) @soupisgood @aral  “I don’t understand why everything is so fucked up and we seem incapable of fixing any of it!” I started reading thinking you were referring to technology. But in that case one would need to realize that it is fucked up in the first place let alone understand that it gets worse with every update and product release. Won't turn out good for civilization. I imagine that someplace there are always coders using phrases like "it's good enough for government work".  @aral I know I keep dropping into threads to say this, and I have it in my profile, but it's important to think of "Capitalism" not as "free markets and stuff". It's actually a political system of rule-by-investor: those with the capital make the laws and pressure the executive arms that enforce them. |
Gregory's Server
@aral Very well said