A Future Beyond Capitalism? Socialism Explained.

This episode was made in collaboration with Azure Spiagoat, they have a fantastic channel that covers all kinds of leftist topics so be sure to watch their video after this, this is Marxism and Marxism is based on the belief that no person He has no value as an individual. I think I was one of the first commentators to point out that it was a very Marxist movement and that the organization is part of a global movement to destroy life as we know it in the United States and probably the rest of the Western world are just bad.

I believe in free enterprise. They are Marxists. I believe in equal opportunities. They believe in the government. We guarantee an equal result. We will honor their bravery with my administration's determination to defeat communism and

socialism

, and we will do so in our own country as well. We are in the process of doing so right now, the brave veterans here today witness how the radical mobs of

socialism

and violent communists ruin a nation. If there is one thing that the United States has as a science, it is twisting the meaning of words and using them to terrorize the population.

Since the Soviet Union rose to fame to the point of competing with the United States for global supremacy, the powers that be have fought hard. to etch the image of communism and socialism as great evils into the mind of the average American in this episode that we are going to correct For the record, there is nothing wrong with criticizing ideas you don't agree with, but to do so you must get involved with accurate representations of those ideas, so let's talk about America's favorite bogeyman Marxism, but before we do we should briefly discuss the history of

capitalism

once.

There was a time when there was an economic system that was neither

capitalism

nor communism. Under this agreement, lords granted plots of land to the lower levels of society and the recipients, known as vassals, in return worked the land and promised to fight for their lord. he called them, this was a pretty good deal for the nobility because they got workers to work their lands, grow food for them, and fight their wars. The vassals had no choice but to enter into these agreements to avoid hunger and abject poverty. This type of arrangement later became known as feudalism and, from a modern perspective, seems outdated and cruel.

Fast forward several centuries and we begin to see a budding new economic system take its first steps sometime between the 14th and 15th centuries. Feudalism lost ground to the market. System based on capitalism, one that elevated some of the lowest levels of society creating a new merchant class not entirely peasant but certainly not nobility. Various interpretations of market-based economies have since been implemented with varying degrees of success around the world. When proponents of capitalism say that it raised the standard of living for millions of people, they are right, capitalism has its place in the history and has unquestionably increased global production many times since the days of feudalism, but just as technology continues to advance, history also needs to continue to advance. and just as feudalism was overcome when it became obsolete, capitalism will also need to be replaced with a superior system.

We have a tendency to believe that history is just something that happened in the past. Now we have reached the end of the story. This perspective. makes it difficult to see that life and progress are continuous processes and that there will come a time when capitalism will seem as obsolete as feudalism. I believe we are at a point where large portions of the world's population are beginning to realize that global capitalism is actively making their lives worse, as the system has generated such vast oceans of capital in the hands of the powerful that it has left that the majority suffer unnecessarily, even in tremendously rich countries.

This turning point, the shift in public perception towards a less favorable view of capitalism, signals the beginning of a massive social change. Capitalism is falling from grace just as feudalism did hundreds of years ago, so what exactly is it? what is wrong with capitalism? This is the part where you may have to grit your teeth and expect some things you don't want. Hearing that in America our self-identity is so wrapped up in our economic system that we see capitalism and America as the same thing. Capitalism is our national identity and therefore any criticism of capitalism is an attack on the nation itself.

This should not be the case. An economic system is just a way of structuring the monetary relations of a country. It is not a national culture. Capitalism is a tool that in theory should uplift the people of that country and materially improve their lives. Let's look at some examples. As to why this is no longer the case, we'll start with the most obvious problem: The huge discrepancy between worker and executive compensation and the power of their paycheck isn't actually based on how good the job is. you don't really have. He chooses which people to hire and which to fire The people who work for him produce goods or services that he then owns and which he then sells for a profit His paycheck is actually determined by his minimum needs and labor requirements work of your boss in relation to the number of people competing for jobs, the more people who are unemployed, that is, the more people who are looking for work, the easier it will be for companies to hire poor people desperate for a minimum wage.

In this way, unemployment in society is really beneficial. for capitalists and having a large reserve of people willing to step in and work for minimum wage means that the average employee always lives in fear of losing his job if he makes a fuss, if he complains, if he tries to get a union involved, there is There is always someone who takes your place before the capitalist. You are expendable, simply another cog in the machine that must be replaced when it suits you. It is in your boss's interest to make your salary as small as possible and at the same time increase the prices of goods and services.

This maximizes profits. him, but he forces you to tighten your belt when your boss pays you peanuts compared to what you could earn and your landlord increases your rent, leaving you with a lower quality of life and less financial mobility. All of this works wonderfully for the owning class. Profits increase year after year, however there is a flaw in this system, well you know, besides the blatant disregard for human life, the unemployed and low paid workers do not constitute a profitable market when workers are paid so little that they can barely pay the rent, how could I?

We expect them to buy goods and services in the market. Businesses produce more and more consumer products, but what happens when consumers can no longer afford the goods their work produces? This creates a snowball effect. Low wages and precariousness lead to an unprofitable market. The market means that the production of consumer goods is limited, which inevitably leads to economic depression. Have you ever noticed how there seems to be an economic crisis like once every 10 years? Well, it's actually no accident that these crises have been occurring since the very beginning of In capitalism, this up and down movement of the market is known as the boom and bust of the business cycle, which goes from one end to the other every decade or so. .

The boom comes from the accumulation of wealth, when prices rise and wages fall, companies make money, but if the people are pushed too hard and the market becomes unprofitable, which then leads to a depression, companies close. people lose their jobs debts are not paid banks collapse governments run out of money that is an economic crisis and they will keep coming even though everyone Many of them will dress up as if they were once in a lifetime and will surely never come again happen, just as we heard in 2008 and just as we heard during the corona collapse, which in order not to be too pessimistic is just a preview of what we will see in the next two years.

Don't be fooled, capitalism is unstable by its very nature. the system encourages greed and because of this capitalism will always shoot itself in the foot in the name of short term profits over long term stability just look at the 2008 financial crisis, the largest upward transfer of wealth in history. modern American history until the coveted pandemic, of course, in short, the stock market crash was caused because predatory institutions got too greedy and started offering shaky mortgage loans to people who normally wouldn't have qualified. This led to millions. of people who took out loans that would implode and could not pay house prices rose creating what is known as a speculative real estate bubble and when the bubbles burst causing the largest single day stock market drop in history up to that moment.

At that time, millions of Americans lost their homes, their jobs, their health care, and many of them never recovered from the financial devastation following millions of evictions and foreclosures. Big real estate companies and banks snapped up empty houses at bargain prices and many of them are captive on the rental market to this day. In the end, the average American suffered the consequences and the executives and capitalists behind the disaster emerged unscathed. The real estate crisis is a very complicated issue and I encourage you. To read more about this, but the most important thing is to understand that what should have been a completely avoidable catastrophe was inevitable due to our rabid devotion to ever-increasing profits.

We have seen a similar occurrence since the beginning of the pandemic. The richest people. in the country have increased their wealth at a staggering rate, while average Americans have once again lost their livelihoods and health care, which is bad enough to lose in the middle of a plague, but given that providing our citizens with care Universal medical is not profitable. For the insurance companies our health care is tied to our employment when we lose our job we also lose our right to live in the eyes of our corporate overlords for them a human life has no value except the benefits that can be extracted from it, this does not It's like that.

Due to some inherent evil in every corporate executive, it is simply a byproduct of capitalism. Capitalists are highly conditioned to be cruel because cutting wages and other actions harmful to workers rewards them with increased profits and giving their workers benefits like maternity leave punishes them with reduced profits. Even in another way, good people are affected by this, the problem is not the rich as individuals but capitalism as a system, business owners learn to see everything in terms of income and expenses, taxes are an expense, the Income is an expense, raw materials and machines are expenses, and that means that labor is also seen as another expense, human beings are reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet, which brings us to the next point. .

Capitalism does not care about human well-being, the main concern of every nation should be the well-being of its citizens. but in modern hypercapitalist countries the only factor worth considering is that almighty dollar profit is the only driver, contrary to what we are taught about classical economics. Capitalism does not follow the law of supply and demand. Housing is in high demand but is not profitable. to supply it for people to become homeless in 2019, the United States had a homeless population of almost 600,000 people. We also have more than 17 million empty homes. We could house almost the entire population of the New York metropolitan area, that is, the nearby cities of New York.

Jersey and Connecticut, but we won't house just 600,000 people because it's not profitable. We would prefer to let them die from exposure because under capitalism their lives have no inherent value and remember that the homeless and empty house numbers are from before the pandemic we currently have. We have somewhere around 50 million Americans facing evictions or foreclosures due to our toxic system's inability to handle crises like the coveted pandemic. This will never change unless we are able to move beyond capitalism and affirm that yes, humans have innate value beyond what capitalists can extract from their labor and of course the internal problems pale in comparison to the way rich capitalist nations treat the rest of the world, especially smaller or weaker nations, which we can bully in almost every case of American foreign intervention in the last 70 years. has been in the name of capital, whether we are securing oil fields, overthrowing leaders who want to escape imperial rule, or creating environmentsFavorable to American corporations, we are not afraid to use our military to destabilize and destroy other nations and regions to make a quick buck.

The Middle East is the most recent example. We have been meddling in the Middle East for decades. We entered Iraq under false pretenses. We propagandize the American population with false intelligence reports. The global community knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. in Iraq, but it was undoubtedly a convenient cover to start a war that was unjustifiable, otherwise the threads of capitalism do not stop at the borders of our nation, they unfairly influence the daily lives of innocent people around the world, Not because the US is necessarily evil and wants to kill people, but because our capitalist system demands it, there is no alternative if we want to maintain complete global supremacy.

Well, then what's the alternative? I know a lot of people are frustrated because videos like this usually provide nothing more than a critique of the current system I will do my best to explain why socialism is the necessary next step under capitalism your paycheck is as small as possible unemployment It is positive for the ruling class that there are more empty homes than homeless people It is simply a profitable automation of the housing market It leaves people without jobs and health care is a luxury instead of a human right Socialism gives the Back to all those negatives Your paycheck is scaled fairly according to the quality and quantity of your work There is never a shortage of new jobs Homelessness can be easily eliminated and automation allows people to spend their time pursuing their goals real passions instead of working hard in factories;

Struggling artists who wanted to write symphonies but couldn't do so because of their financial situation will now have the opportunity to move forward. Their aspirations are like the American dream, except that it is real. The fundamental difference between capitalism and socialism is that capitalism puts the interest of the people first. market to the interest of the people and socialism is the opposite, one of the most fundamental defects of capitalism, including Scandinavian social democracy, although it may seem like a good compromise between capitalism and socialism, is that capitalism and markets fundamentally depend on profits each year a company's profits have to increase every year a country's gdp has to increase forever and ever for the rest of the time we always have to keep growing keep expanding our economies keep building new factories keep producing more consumer goods in an ever increasing land increasingly finite infinite growth is a recipe for disaster a disaster of which we are already seeing the beginnings not to mention the fact that we already produce more than we need the problem of poverty or homelessness or hunger is not that there is not enough for everyone the problem is not scarcity it is artificial scarcity we produce a lot but we do not distribute to those in need capitalism tells us that the market follows the law of Supply and demand say that the market is simply the most efficient way to distribute goods to a large number of people, but if that were the case, then with our current level of production we could give every human being on the planet their own house and their own car, free access. to kindergarten through college education and free universal healthcare, we could do it at any time, but we actively choose not to, or rather, Jeff Bezos and his ultra-rich friends actively choose not to.

Jeff Bezos has the power to end world hunger on a whim. If you get up every morning and make the decision not to, if the thought even crosses your mind, the world collectively produces enough food to feed all of humanity, in fact, the world produces more than enough food, and without However, the number of undernourished people in the world has increased. increasing since 2014, reaching an estimated 815 million in 2016. Rich countries not only have obesity problems but also throw away metric tons of food every day. Private corporations have deemed food unsellable. Expired milk. The tomatoes that cannot be sold.

There are no bananas red enough or bright enough that aren't twisted enough to throw in trash bins and pour bleach on them so the hungry and homeless don't eat them, not just to deny food to the hungry when there is enough. but going to great lengths to ensure that the hungry don't even eat their garbage is a barbaric and inhumane practice. Under socialism, all workers would be allowed to reap what they sow and receive according to the value of the work they perform as well as democratically deciding how the workplace is managed, workers are the ones who produce value they are the ones who should CEOs receive benefits and other corporate demands do not contribute to the value produced by the company, and yet they are paid hundreds of times more for a worker to earn as much as a CEO earns in a single year would have to work 45 years socialism puts political, social, economic and financial power in the hands of the 99 the proletariat, normal people in a system like this people are paid According to the quantity and quality of their work, workers have the right to reap what they sow for really benefit from your hard work and isn't that what capitalists always tell us that hard work should pay off?

Jeff Bezos earns $321 million a day. Anyone who earns the federal minimum wage earns 58 a day, I don't think Jeff Bezos works five and a half million times harder than the average minimum wage worker, frankly, I think the average person works much harder than Mr. Amazon, if you're Interested in what real democracy in the workplace seems like worker cooperatives are a good place to start. They're not perfect, but they're a huge improvement over the average predatory company. I made a video on the topic that you can watch if you're interested now. With any term that has been hijacked by bad faith actors, there is a veritable mountain of misconceptions that need to be addressed.

Covering them all would take hours, but first let's look at some of the most common ones. Let's consider the mistaken notion that the free market. policies enrich poor countries, I think this is best summed up by Hajun Chang, author of 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, says that, contrary to what is commonly believed, the performance of developing countries in the period of state-led development was superior to what they achieved during the later period of market-oriented reform. There were some spectacular failures of state intervention, but most of these countries grew much faster with more equitable income distribution and many fewer financial crises during the old days than in the old days.

Furthermore, in the period of market-oriented reforms it is also not true that almost all rich countries have become rich through free market policies; The truth is more or less the opposite; with only a few exceptions, all of today's rich countries, including Britain and the United States, so-called free-trade and free-market households have become richer through combinations of protectionist subsidies and other policies. which today they advise developing countries not to adopt. Free market policies have made few countries rich so far and will make few rich in the

future

. Don't Tell You About Capitalism is a great book for someone interested in ideas outside the scope of standard capitalist economic teachings but not sure where they stand, but it's also not entirely antagonistic to the idea of ​​capitalism that you simply is willing to commit. the reality of modern neoliberal capitalism and its many problems, so even if you consider yourself a capitalist, it is worth reading.

I'll leave a link to check it out in the description below. Next, let's consider the myth of the American dream. Remember to criticize an economic system. It is not an attack on the nation as a whole or its people, we just have to address certain realities of modern life under late capitalism. When you hear the expression the American dream, you probably picture a smiling family grilling in their backyard behind a white picket line. nearby probably two children and a dog is a pleasant image, of stability, satisfaction and fulfillment by definition, the American dream declares that life should be better, richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunities for each according to their ability or achievement , regardless of their social class or circumstances of birth.

There was a time when the average American could afford a house on one salary where we could afford to have children or a new car or pay for our studies on a part-time salary. Those days are long gone, there are some Americans still alive. who experienced that reality and for them it is often difficult to understand why the younger generations seem to have such a difficult time when they could have prospered the second world war catapulted the united states to the top of the world power rankings the postwar years provided To many whites, the prosperity that we associate with the image of the American dream, that period began more than 70 years ago and the next 20 or 30 years represented the peak of American prosperity, but as was inevitable, the nature of the Capitalism began to work against normal people during the last few years.

For years, the quality of life of the average American and their ability to afford luxuries and eventually necessities have been in decline since at least the Reagan years in the past, a college degree practically guaranteed you a job that paid well enough to afford a house and support a family. On a single income, even those without college degrees could land a job with a smile and a firm handshake and earn far more inflation-adjusted money than today's workers could ever dream of. Today, a college degree means almost Nothing in early 2020 the unemployment rate for new graduates exceeds that of the general population among those who are employed. 41 of them work in jobs that do not require a degree.

I was one of those people. I graduated from a nice, expensive school thanks to the generosity of my parents and I was done. selling cameras at best, the only reason I can support myself now is because I got lucky and the YouTube algorithm picked up my channel one day. I now spend my time actively fighting that same algorithm as it tries to bury my content even with my struggles on this horrible platform I am still much better off than most of my friends who work traditional jobs my position is not unique the only people I know The ones who can achieve what could be considered a modern American dream are other YouTubers and people in non-traditional jobs, but that's not the American dream, is the American dream supposed to be for all of us, not just the lucky few?

If you accept a position at a typical American company, you won't be able to live the life your grandparents lived. or even your parents to support a family on one income it's unfathomable paying for healthcare in the market it's unfathomable even affording the most basic things like food and rent is becoming a real challenge for millions of Americans the American dream died long ago time, long before most The people who watched this video were born, that doesn't mean we can't rekindle that possibility, but we must recognize that it doesn't exist now and will never be possible again under capitalism.

Finally, let's address perhaps the biggest mistake of all of socialism. It worked, this one comes up in every conversation about capitalism, whether you're defending socialism or not, it's knee-jerk propaganda that most Americans have bought into. We must first realize that socialism, like any system, is a spectrum. You can implement socialist policies in capitalist countries and vice versa saying that socialism has never worked is as silly as saying that capitalism has never worked, but let's look at some details, we will start with Bolivia if you are more American. Probably what I've heard about Bolivia is that its former leader, Evo Morales, was some kind of horrible dictator, as always, this is anti-leftist propaganda.

Moral served as Bolivia's 65th president and its first indigenous president from 2006 to 2013. He was democratically elected and well liked by the general population. He is not well liked by the United States because he is a socialist and tried to free Bolivia from the influence American and control of multinational corporations during his moral mandate worked to improve the lives of Bolivia's poor more equitably distribute national gas profits and introduce programs to combat illiteracy, poverty, racism and sexism.These strong socialist policies led to a period of notable economic growth, as well as a reduction in poverty. Morality is considered by many, with the exception of the United States, as a defender of democratic reforms.

Anti common sense policy. -imperialism, environmentalism and genuine care for the poor and working families, he objectively improved the lives of his people in the US, he is a great terrifying dictator, then there is Burkina Faso, under the leadership of Thomas Senkara, Sankara took over position at age 33 after leading a popular movement to overthrow him. dominance of French colonial power as a Marxist revolutionary Sankara was deeply concerned about the health and well-being of the people of Burkina Faso immediately after taking office he launched a massive campaign to feed households and provide medical care to the entire population and followed this with a large-scale vaccination program to eliminate polio, meningitis and measles, vaccinating two and a half million people in a single week, earning praise from the world health organization in terms of foreign policy.

As mentioned, the Cenkara administration was staunchly anti-imperialist and focused on land reform to prevent famine rather than relying on foreign aid, prioritized strong education, and planted more than 10 million trees to stop desertification in environmentally threatened areas. Sankara appointed women to high government positions and encouraged them to work outside the home in an attempt to reform the outdated patriarchal system. notions that he also had the integrity to lead by example, accepting only a military officer's salary and redirecting the presidential salary to an orphan fund. Thomas Sankara's socialist policies did more to improve the lives of his people in a few years than most nations do in a hundred.

Poverty was reduced Hunger and famine were reduced Preventable diseases were essentially eliminated Education and literacy rates skyrocketed Environmental concerns were addressed and imperialism's control over the nation diminished What did Sankara get for his efforts? he was overthrown and murdered by French colonial sympathizers there. There are so many examples of socialist policies being implemented with great success around the world and for each of them the story ends the same way: a coup d'état, an assassination, a war fabrication or an American intervention, when people say that socialism has never worked, what they should really say is capitalist.

The powers have never allowed socialism to continue functioning. These socialist policies work, they are incredibly popular with the general population of every country they are implemented in, and they always produce results that embarrass the rich capitalist nations until, of course, we come in and destroy them. Everything you have worked so hard to build, why do we do it? because the united states can't stand the idea of ​​people getting a glimpse of what life could be like under a more progressive, humane, common sense system, so let's get this over with if you're an american like me you live in the richest and most powerful nation in the history of the world we have almost infinite resources that could be used to solve any problem we face we could universally fund healthcare that would even save us money we could fund climate change mitigation measures we could fund free higher education better public transportation infrastructure we could end the lack of housing build state-of-the-art schools libraries parks and hospitals we could ensure that every American worker is fairly compensated for their work we could have the American dream, instead all that money goes to the military to fund interventions in other countries, It goes to tax breaks for corporations, it goes to rescue criminal industries that destroy the planet and the lives of countless human beings, Marxism, socialism. communism pick whatever scary word you want they represent the rejection of our dystopian state of affairs they represent the expansion of human freedom the recognition of universal rights kindness decency and care for the less fortunate an America that embraced at least some of the tenants of Marxism would be a nation that did not destroy the lives of innocent people around the world would be a nation that would care for its own that would address the material concerns of the many above the greedy demands of the few would be a nation that could truly open the way to the

future

, a bright, just and righteous future, this video would not have been possible without the collaboration and knowledge of Azure Chivo Expiatorio.

They just uploaded their own companion video about capitalism and alienation. I highly recommend you watch it. their episode following this link they have all kinds of videos with the same sharp criticism and perspective that you just saw here. I left links to all of their social networks in the description below. Help support Marxist voices by subscribing or joining their patreon. Every dollar helps. keep the lights on so channels like ours can continue producing content to counter the mainstream narrative. If you are a leftist channel and would like to contribute, email me at secondthinkchannel gmail.com if you enjoyed this video and would like to To see more like this, consider subscribing to stay up to date with my latest episodes.

If you hated it, go ahead and drop the thumbs down. You can watch my previous episodes by clicking the links on your screen. Thanks for watching and see you around. next week you