#capitalist reform

[vanilla-voyeur]

[Image ID: Reply from @gorillahaut that says, 'This is called a "forming a union" :3' /End ID]

Circle of protection against capitalism

[vanilla-voyeur]

If you are willing to entertain the idea that capitalism works or could work then you need to throw out the ridiculous assumption that the reason it works is competition. It's a little weird to me how rarely I've seen this brought up. Capitalism works because of choice. Competition is one way to create choice but it doesn't always and when it doesn't it's harmful. Even when competition can create choice, that doesn't mean that it's the best way to create choice for a particular situation. Sometimes cooperation creates choice better.

Most folks who love capitalism claim to love democracy. (Sometimes to the point where they think they're synonymous.) Democracy works because of choice. Not competition.

It's pretty surprising that my fellow tech bros haven't realized this. The backbone of the entire software industry is Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Every programmer past CS 101 depends on FOSS to create new apps and libraries. The most popular software license is the MIT license, which is a permissive open source license. By providing the free ability to use, copy, and modify software libraries it provides lots of choices for developers, while remaining completely free (libre). It's not through capitalist competition to sell things at the highest price the market will allow.

Focusing on competition rather than choice means that people who have less choices get left out of the benefits of capitalism. It's a little hard to behave in your own rational self-interest to maximize marginal benefit when you live in a food desert and having a felony on your record limits your job options and redlining has cut you off from moving to a better neighborhood. Maybe a strong social safety net is against the letter of capitalism, but it does help provide the true benefit of capitalism: choice.

[madfoolish]

[exilley]

Public education is not actually about academia, it's about industry. The purpose of american schools, from day one, was to integrate members of the general people into a society that is nigh dependant on submission to the status quo. If you ask any teacher, student, parent, counselor, or any other person who is invested in public schooling, what the purpose of going to school is, they will respond with some variation on how it's meant to prepare kids for their future careers. What's important is not that one is in touch with their history, or able to perform basic mathematics, or that one can engage with literature and art in a meaningful way. The important part is that schoolchildren have a dispassionately earnest work ethic, an unyieldingly flexible standard of punctuality, and an uncompromising set of inordinate values about properness drilled into them. I don't think it's funny or ironic that school settings are commonly compared to prisons, and I don't think education should have to exist to serve the purpose of monetary and political benefit to be considered worthy of investment. Until public education as an institution is no longer viewed as an extension of industry, intellectualism will never thrive and no number of foundational reworks of the system will be effective at remedying the underlying cause of dysfunction and corruption.

[magenta-somethings]

reading tim drake's earlier comics (Batman: Rite of Passage, Robin 1991, Robin II, etc) and the politics are... Interesting.

[constructbreakdown]

Concrete Skies -- 1940's Jazz [original AI song]

[roxyandtheroxies]

Maoism-Third Worldism is based y'all, the revolutionary potential in all of these bad boys is simply, divine!

Our boy Mao was pretty much on the money, common Mao W.

But we gotta figure out how to get that Left Globalization thing going y'all...

[fuck-em-up-your-grace]

The thing the American left needs to understand is that the best thing you can do to advance leftism* is to vote for Joe Biden.

[magicaljarofbeans]

I have so many feelings about this. I am genuinely pissed off. Not in a, "this is a dumb video and I think they're stupid" way, in a "you've got me riled up and now I want to go change this whole goddamn system" way.

There are so many things wrong with how our world is set up. I'm pissed off at how our education system works, at how hard people have to work (or not) to live, how isolated people are from each other, how terrible people treat others, how hard it is for people to be healthy, and how car dependent we are!

I could make that list a lot longer. Something needs to change.

Additional recommended YouTube channels:

https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes

https://www.youtube.com/@ClimateTown

https://www.youtube.com/@sprouts (Specifically their "Alternative Schools and Education Reform" playlist)

https://www.youtube.com/@SciGuys

https://www.youtube.com/@jessicaoutofthecloset/featured

https://www.youtube.com/@leenanorms/featured

https://www.youtube.com/@evan/featured

https://www.youtube.com/@fullychargedshow (For interesting developments in EVs)

https://www.youtube.com/@slidebean/featured

Please Reblog and add your own recommended YouTube channels or other forms of media (such as books, documentaries etc.)! I am very well aware that my personal viewing content leans to a very particular demographic so additional view points is highly encouraged!

[vividdreamer]

"just get a job" i am going to eat your liver for dinner actually!

[callese]

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Michael Roberts

While the leaders ‘talked turkey,’ the economic reality is that U.S. efforts to strangle the Chinese economy are not working. Western ‘experts’ continue their never-ending message that China is close to a debt collapse. If this were really so, then Biden and American capital would have nothing to worry about – but they do worry, and rightly so.

 In previous posts, I have argued that it was a big mistake by the Chinese CP leaders to adopt the Western capitalist model for urban development.  But this does not mean China is about to have a deflationary crash.  China’s net debt to GDP ratio (debt burden) is only 12% of the average in the G7 economies.  The state holds huge financial assets, so it can easily manage this property slump.

[samaspic31]

An entire art history class about st Sebastian without uttering the world homosexuality once. Kill yourself. It’s not just any eroticism the artist is being gay it’s relevant you asshole

[scarypostscarcity]

tw: police brutality

americans when police murder an average of 3 people a day:

americans when a balloon is spotted over montana:

[thepeakylawyer]

The Hindenburg Report

Finally, we see a David vs Goliath battle. And well it appears to be very real. Having deja vu already!

[the-light-is-dim]

only a few more years until i can leave the us only a few more years until i can leave the us only a few more years until i can leave the us only a few more years until i can leave the us only a few more years until i can leave the us