No, it doesn't even work on paper. We don't need to build two competing factories to see what is best. We invented science. Somebody can just make a graph. It's that easy

[–] PoY@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago

I dunno.. even on paper the idea of infinite growth in a system of limited resources doesn't seem to work ..

[–] usernamesaredifficul@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

capitalism only works if you just really hate feudalism but also want to keep the rich people in charge which is what it was designed to do. In much the same way that the united states of America was only really created to form a singe legal entity to be responsible for sharing the debt of the revolutionary war accross the states and everything since is just mission creep

which is a large part of why the American constitution is so messed up and such a dysfunctional and stupid legal foundation of a country, the country wasn't really designed with maintainability or long term existence in mind from the start

[–] Parent@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

keep the rich people in charge which is what it was designed to do

Under capitalism didn't the monarchs that were formally in charge lose power to the new capitalists though? For one, King George losing the colonies. I'm guessing a lot of the founding fathers probably were descended from feudal lords though.

[–] usernamesaredifficul@hexbear.net 7 points 1 year ago

Well George Washington wasn't poor. The american revolution isn't a great example though as on top of being a bourgeoise revolution it was a break away of a colony. Added to that the fact that British society was at that point primarily capitalist with feudalism having been gradually whittled away by enclosure.

Britain in general is not a good example of this as the transition from feudalism to capitalism didn't happen in a clean one then the other switch but by a more gradual process and Britain still has feudal elements like the land largely being owned by the aristocracy, a monarch, and a legislative body with a power over which laws are passed with heritable seats for members of the aristocracy. That said the aristocracy weren't what they were and many are flat broke. Britain is a complicated case study for my point here

The French revolution is a much better example as it was one group of rich people overthrowing the aristocracy and abolishing the traditional rights of the aristocracy because they were ideologically motivated to by liberalism and then proceding to establish a capitalist economy

(the socialist movement is in many ways recognisably older than liberalism for example the preaching of John Ball in the 14th century and was opposed to feudalism so in the french revolution and english civil war was noticably present in the anti feudalism movement but the movements themselves weren't socialist) - like how socialists also revolted against the shah but the movement ended up being islamist not socialist

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