You're Anti-Capitalist. But, What are you for?

@Walter Hinteler,

https://www.mccourtesy.com/i/1537989216236/n/uploads/22_000_Website.jpg

Now you are making me laugh. Working for any big capitalist corporation is like being part of a family... just ask them. Mercedes is no different than Target, Walmart or Amazon in this respect. I have a family. My employer is my employer and they should stay that way.

I respect several things about German labor relations. There are also well known problems in Germany including stagnant wages. It is still a capitalist system. I suspect your utopian fairy tale of German labor bliss is somewhat exaggerated.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

maxdancona wrote:
Robert Reich is not an anti-capitalist.
No, of course not, because as he said:

Quote:
Capitalism is now global. There is no country that is not capitalistic in the sense of basing its economy mainly on ownership of private property and the free exchange of goods and services. Even communist China is capitalist in that sense.
Q&A: Robert Reich on Saving Capitalism

There he said that the "Nordic countries—Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands—practice a very different kind of capitalism than we do, for example".
In Germany, we have a different kind as well- a "third way", since our Social Market Economy is regulatory policy between centralist socialism and unbridled capitalism.

Generally speaking, capitalism is still (some say: again) considered a dirty word in the German-speaking world (= not only in Germany).

The point is that socialistic countries are smart enough to see the capitalistic tweaks needed to improve their systems...and make those tweaks. We capitalists sometimes reluctant to even to see the tweaks we can learn from socialism that will improve our systems.

The system is nearing a breaking point, Max. Many of us would hate for us to learn that needed lesson the hard way rather than the easier way...of simply recognizing it BEFORE the break.

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@Frank Apisa,

The "breaking point" is a political construct. Every extremist from the anti-immigrant right, to the pro-gun movement, to the anti-capitalist left use the same rhetoric.

We are always close to the breaking point, and why wouldn't we be? The breaking point gets votes, suppoters and political cash.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

The "breaking point" is a political construct. Every extremist from the anti-immigrant right, to the pro-gun movement, to the anti-capitalist left use the same rhetoric.

We are always close to the breaking point, and why wouldn't we be? The breaking point gets votes, suppoters and political cash.

Bad thinking on your part...starting with equating the "extremist from the anti-immigrant right" and "the pro-gun movement"...

...to the "anti-capitalist left."

THERE IS ALMOST NO ANTI-CAPITALIST LEFT...

...and there is a HUGE anti-immigrant right, just as there is a HUGE pro-gun movement.

You are equating a grain of rice with Mt. Everest.

Anyway, the "breaking point" is more real than you have been willing to acknowledge here in this thread.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

The "breaking point" is a political construct.

No it isn't. The term is commonly, and usefully, applied to a host of situations where growing stress and pressure critically threaten a situation or a condition. It is not a "political construct".

Quote:

Every extremist from the anti-immigrant right, to the pro-gun movement, to the anti-capitalist left use the same rhetoric.

No they don't. If they did we wouldn't be able to tell them apart. The fact that they refer to a "breaking point" – a two-word term – doesn't mean they use the same rhetoric, as would be obvious if you compared their usage of the term side-by-side.

Quote:

We are always close to the breaking point, and why wouldn't we be?

There are many situations at any time which can be described as being close to a "breaking point" but the fact that you refer to the "breaking point" merely illustrates your own extremism.

Quote:

The breaking point gets votes, suppoters and political cash.

So does the side denying that this breaking point is a serious problem – you've said nothing.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

THERE IS ALMOST NO ANTI-CAPITALIST LEFT...

If that were true, this would have been a rather short thread.

I have no problem accepting regulation of corporations, or admitting that corporations sometimes act wrongly. If you accept capitalist for profit corporations are an important and productive part of our economy then we are in agreement.

Many people here have problems with that second part (even if they have received their Pfizer or Astrozeneca covid shot).

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

If that were true, this would have been a rather short thread.

Well, it's at least true in Europe.

The European Anti-Capitalist Left (EACL) is an informal network for left-wing and anti-capitalist parties in Europe. It should be noted, though, that it represents rather marginal groups which exert strong activities in social movements, but have little or no representation on an electoral level and no influence outside their few members. (The organisation's website is down.)

The Left ("Die Linke"), the German political party being most to the left, has an anticapitlism group - because the party itself isn't anti-capitlism.

But it might be that the situation in the USA is different to Europe

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@Walter Hinteler,

You are confusing me Walter.

Weren't you arguing that Germans were actively rejecting capitalism?

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You are confusing me Walter.

Weren't you arguing that Germans were actively rejecting capitalism?

You are easily to be confused.

My above post is about German political parties not about the opinion of German people.
And I didn't say that Germans are actively rejecting capitalism but they oppose it in the majority. (Only just about 1.2 million Germans are members of a [any, including the smallest] political party.

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You're Anti-Capitalist. But, What are you for?

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