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We live in a post information scarcity society and we still haven't moved on from capitalism. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by Danterious@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

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Edit: Changed title to be more accurate.

Also here is the summary from Wikipedia on what Post-scarcity means:

Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely. Post-scarcity does not mean that scarcity has been eliminated for all goods and services but that all people can easily have their basic survival needs met along with some significant proportion of their desires for goods and services. Writers on the topic often emphasize that some commodities will remain scarce in a post-scarcity society.

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[-] Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 15 points 9 months ago

I'd be willing to bet 3 out of 4 people in this thread couldn't even define capitalism. I count myself among them.

[+] Menteros@lemm.ee -25 points 9 months ago

Capitalism: The best system for harnessing the greed inherent in humans for the benefit of others. Capitalism produces the most wealth, and it's spread more evenly, than any other system.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 13 points 9 months ago

Not sure how anyone can sanely argue that Capitalist wealth is spread more evenly than any other system when disparity is rising everywhere it's practiced, even if at slower rates in Social Democracies.

[-] Menteros@lemm.ee 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

In response to the food crisis, communities rallied together, giving rise to social movements and calls for change, as a sense of solidarity developed among the people. These interconnected issues eroded public trust in the government’s ability to fulfill the basic needs of its citizens. It, in turn, fueled public dissatisfaction and ultimately led to widespread calls for political and economic reforms. The downfall of communism in Eastern Europe was, therefore, not solely a consequence of political factors but also deeply rooted in the economic challenges and fundamental survival concerns faced by the population.

https://calxylian.com/food-scarcity-and-the-fall-of-communism-in-eastern-europe/

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago

Nobody brought up the USSR, and your linked comment has several issues, even as someone who is a critic of the USSR and does not wish to rebuild the USSR:

None of that fundamentally addresses the fact that Russia had higher rates of disparity both under the Tsarist Regime and under the Russian Federation than under the USSR: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-and-property-russia-1905-2016
The article you linked goes largely without citations, and both articles cited at the bottom of the article state that the USSR improved food production from an initial state of instability through investment in industrialization: "The paper summarises the East European experience with socialist agriculture and notes that while production often failed to meet plan targets (thereby giving the impression of a sector in crisis), there was steady growth based on substantial investments in buildings, machinery, fertilisers and irrigation systems which provided food for the population at affordable prices."
The Marxist-Leninist USSR is absolutely NOT the only form of non-Capitalist economy. Market Socialism, Anarchism, Syndicalism, Democratic Socialism, and more all exist and can similarly solve the issues of inequality.

What is the point of your comment?

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this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024

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