I'm extremely well-read which is probably the problem. I am as absolutely against liberalism, modern morality and Marxism as it gets. I have studied it and I do not agree with it one bit. It doesn't lead to a good outcome for society at all. You'd think you'd have proof of concept already enough with the way society is today. We're living in a liberal marxist modern moral society. This is what you get. You're happy with this? Or are you going to pull the "this isn't REAL modern liberal marxism"...
Capitalism is merely an economic system. Most everything else you describe is a moral system. Do you know what Free Enterprise is? Here is a simple definition:
Free enterprise, or the free market, refers to an economy where the market determines prices, products, and services rather than the government.
That is all I am advocating for. Prices being set by owners. Thing such as "requiring growth", Diversity & Inclusion. Neoliberal Globalism. Climate Change. These are all moral values not inherent in capitalism at all. There's nothing that says capitalism must have these qualities. There's nothing to say socialism must either. Today we have a bunch of LGBTQ+ leftist socialists meanwhile National Socialism was anti-LGBTQ and so too were the Bolsheviks. These things are moral values which underpin a society's economic system.
I can tell from talking to you that you believe capitalism is more than free enterprise and that everything you inherently believe is fucked up with this world is inherent to capitalism. This couldn't be further from the truth. Most of the things that are a problem of society are inherent of liberalism and the moral values it has setup as a foundation to this society. It's liberal values that persist that you must give "liberty" to capital owners to do what they want with what they own. Liberty to do immoral things is not liberty worth having at all. Oh sure, set whatever prices you want but don't sell weapons to our enemies. Don't import in slave labor from other countries to increase profits by driving down labor. Don't tax citizens more and use the funding to subsidies business ventures to exploit the masses. Liberal values though is what is being used specifically to exploit the masses. This idea that we must provide healthcare to all, that we must save the world from climate change, that we must promote equal rights for all sexes, genders, races, handicaps, etc... is specifically how capital is exploiting people; by using your worthless ideal of altruism to extract value from you so you can feel morally virtuous with your joke liberal values.
Just because someone wrote it in a book doesn't make it true. Almost every critique Marx has of capitalism is actually an inherent trait of marxism itself and not capitalism.
I do not put materialism above all else. You only presume this because your conception of capitalism is quite skewered. You're conflating way too many concepts into capitalism itself which is evident by your "economic system > ruling ideology". You think economic system controls how people think but this isn't actually true at all. Economic systems are how people try to control things based on how they think already. How many Marxists became Marxists after living in a Marxist system? None. They conceptualized the idea of it because it is in fact ideology > economic system not the other way around.
If you can't understand that, we're way off base. Yes, I fully agree that the current rules of the system promote the system itself. Most systems works like this until the system doesn't work. That can change at any moment that rulers implement the ideologies they want, just like you can fathom a world where materialism doesn't drive purpose without living in such an economic system.
You just refuse to get it through your head. I know the "capitalism" you speak of, the problem is that you don't know it... I'll try another way to get through to you. There is a moral value system that presupposes that the best society is one that maximizes utility. Utility being "happiness" more-or-less. The theory goes that each individual understands what makes them happy better than others. (This is the inherent liberal argument that full negative liberty is superior to a society that limits negative liberty in order to maximize positive liberty. It's an argument grounded in equality where there doesn't exist superior people that can make better decisions than inferior people. It's entirely wrong but that's not the point here, yet...) Since each individual understands what will maximize their utility more than anyone else, the best way to maximize utility in a society is to let each person demand any product/service they want as long as they are willing to pay for it while anyone who is willing to supply a product/service should do so as long as they are paid whatever they want. This theory forms the basis of "free market capitalism" and is essentially the "evil capitalism" you promote. This underlying value is what promotes "capitalism" as you understand the word. Where everything that can be monetized is monetized. Absolutely anything. If there's something willing to pay for farts in a jar, that's a good thing!
This not what I'm argument for at all. Not even close. I don't believe the underlying assumption inherent in this. That anything that can be bought and sold should be bought and sold and that all individuals understand what is in their best interest so it's best to give total freedom to the consumer to buy and sell whatever they want. WRONG. Totally wrong. I would agree with you that this sort of materialism is bad but it's not what I'm arguing for.
To give you an idea of the kind of capitalism I would argue for it would have the following rules:
Profits earned domestically could not be used to invest in non-domestic ventures unless those ventures had the profit reinvested domestically in a manner that was a net value gain for the domestic country not just for the owners of the capital.
Immigration of non-whites would only be allowed if white people made up > 95% of the total population, otherwise it would be banned.
It would be illegal for a business to hire a woman when a man who was equally qualified or better applied for the same job
Advertising targeted toward children would be illegal.
Any use of sex appeal to sell a product/service would be illegal and so too would the selling of sex. This includes instagram influencers, tiktok stars, onlyfans, etc...
Any product or service promoting LGBTQ+ would be illegal.
All forms of welfare and economic transfers by the government would be abolished. Income taxes would be abolished and replaced with tariffs on international products. If this isn't enough income, then a consumption tax would be implemented in its place.
Free trade would be illegal under the law. Only trade agreements that benefit the country domestically would be allowed. A trade board would be setup to adjust tariffs on an annual basis to main benefit while not encouraging inefficiencies in domestic production by overly protecting any industry
Human rights laws would be abolished. Discrimination is perfectly allowed under the law.
I would look to revise liability laws with regards to corporations. I believe board of directors should be able to be held personally responsible for major fuck ups similar to how a sole proprietor is. If that means no one wants to start a corporation, then so be it but it's something I'd consider because the limited liability aspect of corporations is a big problem.
Anyway, I think you get the idea. All of these rules can be made under capitalism. All I'm saying is that people are free to set prices for their own products and services as well as free to come up with whatever product and service they want so long as they play by the rules. The rules are what determines whether a society is moral or good and these rules set the stage for what people promote in the society. Of course people are going to break the rules and the rules are going to need to be enforced. Even under socialism, people break the rules ALL THE TIME. That's human nature and not anything to do with economic system. You don't get some perfect utopian society of everyone being good people with the right economic system. That's fairy tale fantasy. You need power to enforce your rules and then you need to enforce them on any who break them.
I mean, you are right that this discussion is probably pointless if we can't agree on certain fundamentals to our discussion.
I'm extremely well-read which is probably the problem. I am as absolutely against liberalism, modern morality and Marxism as it gets. I have studied it and I do not agree with it one bit. It doesn't lead to a good outcome for society at all. You'd think you'd have proof of concept already enough with the way society is today. We're living in a liberal marxist modern moral society. This is what you get. You're happy with this? Or are you going to pull the "this isn't REAL modern liberal marxism"...
Capitalism is merely an economic system. Most everything else you describe is a moral system. Do you know what Free Enterprise is? Here is a simple definition:
That is all I am advocating for. Prices being set by owners. Thing such as "requiring growth", Diversity & Inclusion. Neoliberal Globalism. Climate Change. These are all moral values not inherent in capitalism at all. There's nothing that says capitalism must have these qualities. There's nothing to say socialism must either. Today we have a bunch of LGBTQ+ leftist socialists meanwhile National Socialism was anti-LGBTQ and so too were the Bolsheviks. These things are moral values which underpin a society's economic system.
I can tell from talking to you that you believe capitalism is more than free enterprise and that everything you inherently believe is fucked up with this world is inherent to capitalism. This couldn't be further from the truth. Most of the things that are a problem of society are inherent of liberalism and the moral values it has setup as a foundation to this society. It's liberal values that persist that you must give "liberty" to capital owners to do what they want with what they own. Liberty to do immoral things is not liberty worth having at all. Oh sure, set whatever prices you want but don't sell weapons to our enemies. Don't import in slave labor from other countries to increase profits by driving down labor. Don't tax citizens more and use the funding to subsidies business ventures to exploit the masses. Liberal values though is what is being used specifically to exploit the masses. This idea that we must provide healthcare to all, that we must save the world from climate change, that we must promote equal rights for all sexes, genders, races, handicaps, etc... is specifically how capital is exploiting people; by using your worthless ideal of altruism to extract value from you so you can feel morally virtuous with your joke liberal values.
Just because someone wrote it in a book doesn't make it true. Almost every critique Marx has of capitalism is actually an inherent trait of marxism itself and not capitalism.
I do not put materialism above all else. You only presume this because your conception of capitalism is quite skewered. You're conflating way too many concepts into capitalism itself which is evident by your "economic system > ruling ideology". You think economic system controls how people think but this isn't actually true at all. Economic systems are how people try to control things based on how they think already. How many Marxists became Marxists after living in a Marxist system? None. They conceptualized the idea of it because it is in fact ideology > economic system not the other way around.
If you can't understand that, we're way off base. Yes, I fully agree that the current rules of the system promote the system itself. Most systems works like this until the system doesn't work. That can change at any moment that rulers implement the ideologies they want, just like you can fathom a world where materialism doesn't drive purpose without living in such an economic system.
You just refuse to get it through your head. I know the "capitalism" you speak of, the problem is that you don't know it... I'll try another way to get through to you. There is a moral value system that presupposes that the best society is one that maximizes utility. Utility being "happiness" more-or-less. The theory goes that each individual understands what makes them happy better than others. (This is the inherent liberal argument that full negative liberty is superior to a society that limits negative liberty in order to maximize positive liberty. It's an argument grounded in equality where there doesn't exist superior people that can make better decisions than inferior people. It's entirely wrong but that's not the point here, yet...) Since each individual understands what will maximize their utility more than anyone else, the best way to maximize utility in a society is to let each person demand any product/service they want as long as they are willing to pay for it while anyone who is willing to supply a product/service should do so as long as they are paid whatever they want. This theory forms the basis of "free market capitalism" and is essentially the "evil capitalism" you promote. This underlying value is what promotes "capitalism" as you understand the word. Where everything that can be monetized is monetized. Absolutely anything. If there's something willing to pay for farts in a jar, that's a good thing!
This not what I'm argument for at all. Not even close. I don't believe the underlying assumption inherent in this. That anything that can be bought and sold should be bought and sold and that all individuals understand what is in their best interest so it's best to give total freedom to the consumer to buy and sell whatever they want. WRONG. Totally wrong. I would agree with you that this sort of materialism is bad but it's not what I'm arguing for.
To give you an idea of the kind of capitalism I would argue for it would have the following rules:
Anyway, I think you get the idea. All of these rules can be made under capitalism. All I'm saying is that people are free to set prices for their own products and services as well as free to come up with whatever product and service they want so long as they play by the rules. The rules are what determines whether a society is moral or good and these rules set the stage for what people promote in the society. Of course people are going to break the rules and the rules are going to need to be enforced. Even under socialism, people break the rules ALL THE TIME. That's human nature and not anything to do with economic system. You don't get some perfect utopian society of everyone being good people with the right economic system. That's fairy tale fantasy. You need power to enforce your rules and then you need to enforce them on any who break them.
I mean, you are right that this discussion is probably pointless if we can't agree on certain fundamentals to our discussion.