this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2025
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Its hard to decry the evils of capitalism when there's never been any other successful systems. Id like to hear your thoughts.

This'll be a doozy.

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[–] mycatscool@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

all systems of societal organization have been successful and failures depending on what your criteria are.

if we are talking about people living together in groups with relative safety and most physical needs met, pretty much every economic/political structure has had "success." monarchies, republics, feudalism, theocracies, agrarian societies, tribal communities with fairly democratic structures have all existed throughout history and have been very successful in many respects and have also contributed to social challenges.

it could be argued that the quality of life that modern people enjoy in developed nations is in large part thanks to technology not necessarily capitalism though capitalism, as any form of economy, certainly plays a significant role in the distribution of those resources and technology.

im not sure if we should define as the mass accumulation of material goods, consumerism, and the grotesquely imbalanced concentration of wealth as "success" necessarily, as all contribute greatly to the incredible destruction of the biosphere, mass extinctions, climate change, and basically the reason society and life on earth is spiralling into a giant pit of hell.

nor is capitalism the most "peaceful" system as proponents claim; the greatest wars and genocides on earth have occurred during the capitalist era. the united states, the great capitalist nation, is in perpetual war and has been pretty much throughout its entire history. how many armed conflicts are happening right now in the world? every one of those countries involved exists in capitalism. 

there is enough wealth in the world to afford every person a decent life, to provide healthcare, education, shelter, resources to live and yet this does not occur and as a bonus every ecosystem on earth is in imminent collapse. does not sound like a "success" to me.  

could we manage to have a more sustainable and equal society with capitalism? surely it is possible but currently our capitalist structure is deeply sick.

if we are talking about finding the most egalitarian societies, it would probably be some societies in pre-colonial north america or maybe some ancient societies in the indus valley, which are said to have very interesting and fairly equal communities.