What do left wingers mean when they say that the "system" is wrong, rather than on individuals? I legitly don't understand this. Otherwise I'm sympathetic to leftism, because I think society needs to get fairer, but I don't get this
Usually they're talking about capitalism but sometimes its even society in general. Like, why is racism "systematic" and not just a few racist cops. Or why is wealth hoarding by dipshit billionaires "systematic"
What even is a "system". Like, we all do our individual acts, but when does that become a system? Idk if I'm making sense or not
when we say a problem is systemic, we mean yeah just a few cops killed alexis grigoropoulos, but 50% of greek cops voted for golden dawn and literally all cops mainly exist to protect property
Andrew Thomas
It's not.
Cause Capitalism. Capitalism needs profit. Capitalists need to have capital to invest at any given time. Capitalists hoard "money" that don't even exist.
…Is it Systematic or Systemic though?
It becomes a system when there are laws and regulations, or social constructs and contracts that set how individual acts are to be done.
Feudalism was a system. Capitalism is a system. It's about how society is organized.
Jacob Brown
muh nigga
Jordan Miller
Fucking slave master dialectics. For example in a system of slavery the master of the slaves would be influenced and changed by the system just as much as the slaves themselves. In a capitalist system the capitalists are not to blame for anything other than maintaining the system that created them. If you were to kill every single rich person and distibute their wealth without touching the system in any way it would only be a matter of time before we're back at square one.
Ian Reyes
From wikipedia: In a system, you are pushed to act in a certain way, and going against this way would be more or less detrimential to your interest. Example: Under capitalism, a billionaire starting to behave ethically in his business, not sacrificing absolutely everyhting to profit, not bribing his way into power: more wealth ends up eaten alive by its competitors. The "if i'm not doing it someone else will do it" mentality. As for racism being systematic, if you're talking about clapistan, this is not really a thing anymore.
Oliver Lee
What? Are you joking?
Thanks, this is making some more sense now, but are you aware of the giving pledge. I lot of rich people give a majority of their money to charity and they stay successful
Lincoln Cooper
Why would i be joking? If private property remainst it will eventually collect in the hands of the few again as it has done before. It might even take a few generations but the ones who end up on top of others will be able to claim their private property and perpetuate a system of the owning class.
Kayden Anderson
Not him, but why are you surprised?
Capitalism is not some conspiracy, but an inevitable consequence of unmanaged socioeconomic interactions in industrial age. If you do not criminalize murder, you'll get lots of people extorting money for not killing people. If you do not criminalize slavery, you'll get slaves and slavers. If you do not criminalize wage-labour, you'll get capitalists.
Carson Long
But they don't change the way they're doing their business, which is what truly matter and cause the problems targeted by thoses charities in the first place. It's like you trying to extinct a fire with one hand when you still have the flamethrower in the other.
Thomas Price
When someone does something that other people in a similar situation rarely do it's an isolated incident
When a certain behavior in that situation is encouraged by society it's systematic.
Owen Walker
Systems are made of individuals, however an individual changing their actions won't fix the system.
Take wealth accumulation by the 0.1%, for instance. We say it's a systematic problem because it won't be helped by a single billionaire giving away all their money. Someone else would just move in to take their place at the top. The problem can only be solved by lots of people acting together to change the rules.
Basically systematic problems are tragedy-of-the-commons problems.
David Butler
We're not liberals; socialist are not just liberalier liberals.
so are you saying we need to alter the superstructure in order to change the base? because that's what it sounds like. and it doesn't sound very dialectical. especially considering the aim is to one day have a socialist mode of production without a state or similar body of authority to maintain wage-labor as illegal.
Cooper Roberts
in any transition you need to tackle at least some of the superstructure just to control the reactionary forces
Gavin Young
pack the bags then, base will change itself and superstructure will change accordingly.
Dominic Thomas
...
Joseph Gomez
You really do not need to criminalize waged labor. Without private property, there is no way for capital to accumulate. Without the accumulation of capital, there is no way for a person to pay someone else's salary. Even if they could, a potential wage-laborer would have little incentive to do so.
Henry Diaz
System just means that capitalism is built to work against you. Yes, it is individuals but individuals are influenced by society more than society is influenced by individuals usually because society wont budge unless the collective agrees on it by majority.
Grayson Edwards
i totally agree
Anthony Smith
liberals go and stay go.
Lincoln Thomas
In a given society, what % of people match this definition of capitalist?
Blake Green
That's a tough question If by capitalist, you mean the ruling class, it's whoever owns a business and hire people to run it. Small business owners are imo a bastardized class because even if they hire people, they often directly work i their enterprise. There is also a subtility in that hedge funds and banks exists are managing capital on behalf of savers, the lazy ass heir leaving everything to his counsellors is obviously capitalist, but that would make a salaryman saving for retirment a mini capitalist?
The evolution of financial system makes a clear distinction between classes quite difficult, what truly matter in the end is the amount of capital owned… hence the success of the 1% formula even it'a an imperfect definition. I need to find a work about the anatomy of contemporary capitalism.
Landon Roberts
I mean by the definition of user above. How many people 'horde capital to invest at any given time'. I'm coming up 30 and know very few people who meet your description. I know a few guys who're well off from the motor or building trade but these people worked the job themselves initially. And when/if these people step back, tehy'll likely hire employees to work and run their business. A business that wouldn't have been there otherwise. This is my biggest issue with leftism, that some of you here would write these people off as porky scum just on some arbitrary snapshot of their situation. You touched on my concern . I guess to put it more clearly, at what point do self employed become porky scum?
Jeremiah Harris
To put it very simply: individuals are not completely detached from society, they are always influenced by how society is structured.
Think about this: what produces the kind of billionaires that exploit people? What generates crime? Etc. etc.
