chukyrlaw
20625
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Jul 22, 2026 8:10 AM
chukyrlaw
20625
757
14
Chicagorooftop
Gee, like state communism did. One economic system having complete control might be bad. Having control of all the economic means creates elites who secure their own bag while pretending to have equality for the little guys. Let's pretend we have democracy, or let's pretend we have socialism. Let's pretend the top people care about you! We do see capitalism falling into feudalism, oligarchy. A system based on eternal oil growth sure isn't possible. In history, things collapse. Makes sense.
Bobbobbobobbananafanafobob
I'm not saying we could have prevented it, but I'm kind of hoping it happens fast enough to save the fucking planet.
LaughingMan2Gig
End stage capitalism will always result in capitalist backing fascism if it means holding on to power and money just a little longer. Always remember capitalist helped fascists in Italy and Germany prior to/during WW2 in order to push back against socialist. After WW2 capitalist gladly gave shelter to war crimals via operation paperclip and also Unit 731 crimals. Plus engaged in terrorism via NATO via Operation Gladio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
Lardzor
https://www.lunarmobiscuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Shareholder-value.jpg
DecapodianSaysWoopWoopWoopWoop
https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1c2Y0NmJnYmd2NmVzYXMza29mbHNzNmhjcTVhbHBzcm5xdDMydWpyaSZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/kd9BlRovbPOykLBMqX/200w.webp
StellarJay77
We've seen this same sequence of events for every major empire that has ever existed. Those in power and who are rich will always demand a bigger and bigger profit margin, not just a steady amount of profit, but an increase indefinitely which is not sustainable. They know it too, so are building moats around those fortunes and hoping they can weather the collapse. The sad part is they probably will while the rest of us get buried.
VinchVolt
tried to find a specific source for the hedges quote because image sharing sites are an easy way to propagate misattributions but from the looks of it this is basically a point he's reiterated repeatedly throughout his body of work. you can hear one such reiteration straight from his mouth at the start of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1aFnl-x_3M
Osiricus
The more I keep reading about this Marx guy in college and here, the more I like him and his wild, and utterly accurate, ideas.
quietwalker
Karl Marx was unable to predict the behavior of people well enough to realize that communism pretty much always results in a fascist dictatorship that results in an impoverished and disenfranchised population and a rich elite, sacrificing common good, roads, industry, education, etc, etc, etc etc.
The fact that capitalism does the same thing but also spends money to try to make people happy about it means it's probably in our nature, and not that Marx was right about ... anything at all.
TheDoctorCrankenstein
This is such bullshit I can't even begin to start dismantling it. This is just wrong on so many levels.
This reads from someone who has absolutely no understanding of political systems, theory, or history.
KerryCoder
Eh, I'm not entirely sure that's right. Mostly communism results in the CIA overthrowing the government and replacing it with a fascist dictatorship.
quietwalker
Heh.
CedricDur
Yeah and they don't give a shit. They will, have, cooked the planet for more money. The only defense possible is having laws that prevent it, and it works, or worked, as far as having checks and balances to prevent the law makers from being bought and corrupted.
TheDoctorCrankenstein
> "the only defense is having laws"
*Kropotkin and every other anarchist has entered the chat*
StabbyMcMurder
Oop
Hootykai
“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography
ClemClone
so true
NChomsky
Scumfuck private equity firms gutting hospitals & housing for quick payouts. Deregulated power grids failing during winters to protect profit margins. Fossil fuel giants pissing on the biosphere for quarterly returns. Not to mention we've handed over elections to dark money & labor to the destructive "gig-work". Capital is raping the public sector for short-term profit & the very society it needs to survive. Capitalism is like the fucking "blob", doomed to implode on its own grotesque weight.
BarryTheCyborg
I'm guessing they're scams, but I keep getting emails from private equity firms about buying my dad's business, which I'm not a part of. I tell each one that they are scumbag sacks of shit and to go fuck themselves.
johneventually1
I was going to ask if I could buy your Dad's business but ya know what now I don't wanna. Won't people just give my equity some privacy? Sheesh
Velv3tThunder
There's nothing that a good private equity firm can't ruin.
itsthevoiceman
The Dark Enlightenment movement, including JD Vance, Thiel, Mush, Curtis Yarvin, and more are trying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no
“The trouble with the biodiesel solution is that no one would want to live in a city whose public transportation was fueled, even just partly, by the distilled remains of its late underclass. However, it helps us describe the problem we are trying to solve. Our goal, in short, is a humane alternative to genocide.”
thatiscomedygoldrightthere
Any economic system that creates trillionaires needs to be scrapped.
trinxter
Capitalists will end up with so much money that they will own everything. All the rest of us will be serfs.
Ijustwantquiet
They may be capitalists but I believe they are psycho/sociopaths first and foremost.
Gippo53
yamsonyamsonyams
Capitalism = opportunism
Same thing, literally zero difference
LostChats
Yes, capitalism is failing. Too bad we can expect a ruling class in any economic system to be corrupted by greed (maybe couldn’t get as bad?).
zordac
Not Keynes' quote. E. A. G. Robinson, in his 1941 book "Monopoly" wrote that the great merit of the capitalist system is that "it succeeds in using the nastiest motives of nasty people for the ultimate benefit of society."
I tend to agree with your more cynical version.
Necrothean
Karl was talking about Late-Stage Cap.
We're in End-Stage Cap.
Big difference. Late stage might start the loop over. The billionaires want to find an exit strategy for the mania because they want to be the lion hunters and ivory tradesmen of the new economy as it begins.
In End Stage Cap, they don't believe there is a future. They knew they've doomed the world and our species. They've decided to go out with a bang. They won't stop the train. Ever.
NinjaCongo
Marx wrote, "No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed" (Critique of Political Economy, 1859). When that moment arrives, capitalism's need for expansion means it "must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere" (Communist Manifesto, 1848) until, unable to expand further, it begins to consume the very structures that sustained it: labor, land, and the social order itself (Das Kapital, 1867).
psmith00
Capitalism operates on a belief that unlimited growth is possible. there's an actual biological model of this. it's called cancer.
TheDefective
unluckyandbored
Capitalism demands infinite exponential growth. You know, like CANCER
hotaru251
yeah infinite growth is cancer of the world as shareholders think its sustainable when it never is.
ViperMD
I've tried explaining things like this to people I know. That profit is good, but you don't need exponential growth like that. Apparently hard to wrap your head around when you've bought the lie your entire life. Another problem is though, that the entire system is built around cancerous growth, so simply being profitable leaves you equally dead, in the long run, so you have to play by the system or perish. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
TheDoctorCrankenstein
Profit is theft of labor. Profit is in no way "good".
Also, there is no obligation to "play by the system or perish". That's a false dichotomy. There is always the third option of abandoning the system and replacing it for something that isn't inherently exploitative.
TheDefective
mohavewolfpup
Ever heard of the movie other peoples money? https://youtu.be/gtvTY3hYYQ4
Shaodyn
He also wrote that, ultimately, the capitalist drive to maximize profits while minimizing wages would lead to a situation where the worker can no longer afford what's produced. At which point, the entire system would collapse. With affordability of basic necessities becoming problematic...it's concerning.
BrickSprickly
Not if we grind up the rich for fertilizer
Antrobus55
It's when we can't pay the taxes to maintain the profitablity of the military/industrial complex that the fun will begin.
brainkandle1
Price of ground beef vs minimum wage
pgdave
Check out the price of food vs. wages over the last 50-100 years
Shaodyn
Family-size bag of Doritos: around $6
Federal minimum wage: $7.25
For some people, it requires most of an hour of their life just to buy a bag of chips
pgdave
Why use minimum wage instead of median wage? Or even median of the bottom X%?
Shaodyn
Because I don't know those numbers off the top of my head.
pgdave
Median wage is ~$31/hr. Median wage of the bottom 40% is ~$21 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1X9p">X9p2">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1X9p2 and https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t05.htm - assuming 40 hour work weeks)
NinjaCongo
Before tax.
Shaodyn
And big snack companies are all "why is nobody buying our snacks anymore?" Gee, do you think the price has anything to do with it?
pgdave
Karl Marx was wrong. I'm sure there are a lot of things he was right about, but he envisioned a mostly agrarian society because that was pretty much all that had existed for all of human civilization for thousands of years. He didn't imagine the sheer explosion of technology allowing people to become more productive than ever. For basically 100% of human civilization, the way to increase productivity was to add more people. That broke in the 1900's.
Beardedgeek72
Nothing in OPs post has anything to do with this statement tho. He was spot on about that, and that is what happens right now.
pgdave
It's not though - global GDP is expanding, so global capital isn't "unable to generate profits at former levels". And the specific way that Karl Marx actually thought it would all happen is very wrong. Just because capitalism is bad doesn't mean therefore Marx was correct any more than the potential existence of a Prime Mover would mean therefore Episcopalians got it right.
Beardedgeek72
Capitalism is eating the common good = Check. Capitalism is eating democracy = Check. Capitalism is eating public works = Check.
Global GDP is still growing? Yes it is. It doesn't mean we are entering the final stages of capitalism, as described.
pgdave
The final stages *as described* were described very differently.
Polymathena
This kills the planet
maday1br
But I'm one of the idiots who lives there!
yagswolo
*the planet's ability to comfortably host us.
Polymathena
Indeed
my1rstlaptopwas34inchscreenup
and the majority of life forms on said planet. cockroaches will survive. billionaires too, for a while longer than the rest of us at least
IamThatGuyAfterAll
To quote a legend: "The planet is fine; the people are f*cked! Dfference!"
ma8e
No, the planet isn’t fine! At least not if you by ”the planet” mean anything else than the bare rock. Ecosystems and biodiversity are collapsing everywhere with frightening speeds. And yeah, some new ecosystems and biodiversity might emerge in only a few million years, but that is like saying that you are fine after the car crash because you’ll walk almost normally in only a few years.
my1rstlaptopwas34inchscreenup
i've rsad some scientist discussing how the bubble surrounding us, keeping the oxygen in, could be affected and eventually dissapear, gradually. yeah man. we aint ok
BillyM00n
I get what you're saying but we're fucking over the planet too. We don't know the consequences of a runaway greenhouse effect but removing the ice sheet from Antarctica has the potential to change how that tectonic plate interacts with the surrounding ones. We're talking about *literal* seismic shifts.
decarnatedame
The point is, while it may take millions of years to heal, the planet will still be there.
TheDoctorCrankenstein
The point is irrelevant and serves no purpose other than to argue bullshit semantics.
Rynath
Humanity emulates cancer.
itsthevoiceman
Relevant matrix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK7nwbtlQV8
TheDoctorCrankenstein
Capitalism is not humanity
FetteredJuvenescence
Capitalism. Capitalism emulates cancer.
ArchaeoEejit
Dunno, we were still pretty fucking cancerous under feudalism and tribalism.
TheDoctorCrankenstein
This is an incredibly misanthropic view of human history. Feudalism was a blip of our history, and "tribalism" existed in so many varieties it cannot be said to be one or the other.
Read Graeber. Humanity used to be better. We can be better again.
ArchaeoEejit
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/evidence-of-a-prehistoric-massacre-extends-the-history-of-warfare#:~:text=The%20Nataruk%20massacre%20is%20the,burials%2C%20suggesting%20a%20settled%20lifestyle.
TheDoctorCrankenstein
"and "tribalism" existed in so many varieties it cannot be said to be one or the other."
Holy fuck are you slow?