Thread by @NicholasKeats96

Your typical capitalist shill responses to anyone who mentions the word socialism:

1. It's human nature to be selfish, thus capitalism.
2. It's never worked before.
3. Humans can't co-operate without monetary incentive.

Let's explore these, shall we?

1. Being self-interested doesn't undermine cooperation. You wouldn't want to live in a household full of people who exploit each other, would you? If anything, it's in my interest to build a world in which everyone is happy and not exploited.

Workers co-ops are an excellent example of people being able to work together and decide how the surplus value of their labour (profit) is to be spent, democratically. It is not a requirement that there be a dictator at the top of the hierarchy that the rest MUST obey.

2. Socialism has never worked before, but it's also never been tried before. Socialism is the END RESULT of capitalism. It is the transcendence of capitalism. Thus, for socialism to appear, it must do so within an advanced capitalist society.

The examples of the USSR, China, Cuba, Venezuela, are all examples of societies which had little-to-no industry to begin with. They were forced into creating industry in order to one day transcend it. But this wasn't the establishment of socialism.

- It was the attempt at establishing the prerequisite for socialism.

However, there has not been a single advanced capitalist society in which the working class seized the means of production.

Any reference to those other examples are references to non-socialist states.

3. Perhaps the most ridiculous claim made by anti-socialists. Modern humans have been around for around 200,000 years. Capitalism has been around for 250. Money, as a concept, has not been around for much longer, relatively.

For the majority of human history, humans worked together in small tribes, each contributing their part for the common good, with nothing other than that common good (as it is in their interest for the tribe to be healthy) as a motivator.

So, humans can, in fact:

1. Co-operate not despite, but out of, self-interest;
2. Transcend capitalism, despite the claim that it has failed before (it's never been tried); and
3. Live and work in a community without money.

Furthermore, the claim that Communism = death and destruction conveniently forgets:

Colonisation;
Slavery;
Sweatshops;
Environmental destruction;
Government manipulation (lobbying);
And war,

That capitalism is the explicit cause of.

#socialism #capitalism #pol #auspol