this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2022
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This mode of production results in incredible waste with huge quantities of goods being destroyed to keep up the prices, planned obsolescence, modes of failure you describe, as well as many other kinds of idiocy.
However, even more importantly, this doesn't actually help with solving the problem of delivering goods to people who actually need them because those are who can least afford them.
Around half the food produced under capitalism is thrown away while people are literally starving on the streets. Thanks to the wonder of capitalism roughly 3.5 million people die from lack of clean water, 1.5 million people die from vaccinable diseases, and 9 million people die from hunger each and every year. That's over a 140 million deaths every decade.
http://horizons-newspaper.com/index.php/2020/02/27/tallying-capitalisms-death-toll/
Not to mention the millions of people who die from pollution. EDIT: By this I meant air particulate pollution. If you are looking at pollution in general, this is caused by all life forms. The comments below were referring to the claim above as it was originally stated.
Thankfully, the Soviet Union was a pollution-less utopia, eh?
I never said that. All I said was that under capitalism, millions of people die from pollution, which is true.
EDIT: Here is my source: https://doi.pangea.de/10.1038/s41467-021-26348-y
EDIT 2: This statement as written is not true, and the source does not mention anything about pollution in general. However, if I instead said that "millions of people die from air particulate pollution," then I believe that statement would be true.
Then you don't have a point at all. All human cultures and ideologies are, at their fundamental core, polluters. Capitalism holds no special place on that spectrum. Millions dies from pollution everywhere.
There were two economic systems in countries that industrialized: soviet-type socialism (where the means of production are controlled by a state) and capitalism (where the means of production are controlled by corporations). Of the countries with soviet-type socialism, none of them are democratic. This effectively means that none of the countries that industrialized had a means of production controlled by the community. While all human cultures and ideologies could very well have pollution at their core, we do not know this is true. I think the problem is that the rich can deal with pollution and the poor cannot. Since the poor outnumber the rich, with the poor actually in control, maybe pollution can be solved. This might not be the case, but we will not know unless we try.
Go look up the word "midden" and get back to me.
Yes, if you are looking at all forms of pollution, you are indeed correct, as all life forms have to excrete waste. An extreme example of this is cyanobacteria likely causing a mass extinction.
However, I was referring to air particulate pollution, as shown by my source. I apologize for not being clearer. I have updated the original comment, but yes, you are indeed correct that all human cultures and ideologies have pollution at their core if you are looking at pollution in general.
I'm not sure the distinction is worth mentioning. If you want to limit to air pollution, that only absolves those cultures which haven't reached an industrial age. Any that has, pollutes the air.
Maybe it's time to switch back to your No-True-Communism fallacy or something.
Renewable energy has little to no pollution. EDIT: Excluding biofuel which is not a solution to pollution or climate change.
Sure.
And the alternative you guys offer is huge levels of deprivation, underground/gray/black markets, and so on.
I know which I prefer.
It does. The goods that people tend to need are commodities that are cheap enough that they're given away.
No one but anorexics starve in my country.
Please find some documentation that supports the extraordinary hypothesis that people are starving on the streets. Of all the problems that we have, that's just not one of them. No one starves, few go hungry and never unless their personalities compel them to avoid welfare.
Find another criticism. There are real ones, real ones that are pretty extreme even by my standards, ones compatible with your ideology. This one's just fiction.
Having actually grown up in USSR, I can tell you that the levels of deprivation I've seen living in the west are far greater.
Except that they're not given away. Poverty and need are rampant under capitalism.
Literally linked you a source. Here's what things in US look like https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/31/us/food-insecurity-30-million-census-survey/index.html
Ironic that you're telling somebody who has actual lived experience under both systems. You're a victim of propaganda, and it's very sad to see how close minded you are.