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Comment by ta8645 | Hacker News Reader

Why is it people like yourself can not learn from history? I'm all for moving in a better healthier direction, i'm not interested in repeating the mistakes of the past. For all its failings, capitalism has done more to improve the lives of every human on this planet more than any other system before.

The burden of proof is thus on those who want to destroy it, to prove they have a viable and useful alternative that will ACTUALLY make the lives of people better. Instead, what I see is a direction that is guaranteed to lead to bloodshed and misery, with only a dreamers hope that what comes afterward is any better.

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> For all its failings, capitalism has done more to improve the lives of every human on this planet more than any other system before.

I'd like to see some real numbers for this. Capitalism creates inequality which even the feudal eras of various countries couldn't match. Serfs enjoyed more spare time in their day than the modern full-time worker. Granted, they had their own problems to deal with, but to pretend that capitalism is the best because it's created the most inequality (i.e. someone's hit a really high score)

Capitalism enables sociopathic behavior. In fact, it rewards it. The more profit you get from something, the better you're playing capitalism. Doesn't matter if what you're selling is remotely close to what you're charging, in value. Endless growth and profit must come from somewhere. Money and resources do not just poof into the world. Money can be printed, but that has consequences.

A corporation exploiting my labor so they can profit, and shareholders giving them money with the expectation to make more back later (i.e. gambling) is not making the world any better. It's trapping people into a cycle of giving their most valuable resource -- time -- to others of its kind that wouldn't care if they died tomorrow.

I'm not sure what an alternative would be. People act like there's only 2 or 3 systems out there. That dogmatic myopia is part of what traps us in shitty systems.

Without capitalism, I could have control over my life. Why should an economic system dominate one's waking life? Businesses are not more important than individuals. They have no more right to exist than we do.

I can't think of any human society in all of history where I would have more control over my life than I do now.

> Without capitalism, I could have control over my life.

Says who? You think people in China and Russia have more control over their life than those in the west? You've still not offered anything other than wishful thinking. You've not proposed any system to replace capitalism. Ultimately you're just offering destruction, with no vision for rebuilding other than, "I hope it gives me an easier life".

Do you think China and Russia aren't capitalistic in nature? They structure their markets very much like the West, because they end up having to do business with the West at some points.

Do you really think there isn't a better system than accepting that some other human out there is going to get more out of your work than you?

In nations with extreme abundance, it should be trivial to solve problems of homelessness and hunger. We have the means, but capitalism says "no, people must not be allowed to survive without working for others".

Why are we the only animal on Earth that pays others of its kind to survive and exist?

If capitalism cannot bring people up then its cancerous nature will naturally give way to unrest and change. Expecting me to know what that change would be, and what conditions would settle, is unreasonable.

Labor should be a choice, and you should get the vast majority of the benefit for it. Capitalism cannot offer such things. It has nothing to offer except exploitation. It rewards preying on your fellow person and justifies everything with profits. Cancer incarnate.

The problem with homeless people is not that they don't have homes, it's usually that they're mentally a wreck (very often from traumatic childhoods), which leads to addictions and a host of antisocial and self-harming behaviors. Not to mention, people who are plain mentally ill.

People who are mentally ok and who land on the streets via a series of unfortunate incidends are often back into a house and a job a year later - it's really not that hard in most developed countries.

> In nations with extreme abundance, it should be trivial to solve problems of homelessness and hunger. We have the means, but capitalism says "no, people must not be allowed to survive without working for others".

There's unemployment benefit. In the UK, that's £85 a week. There's also council housing.

Which works famously well… err.

I propose libertarian socialism or Anarchism, either the left-wing market variant or the communist variant.

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