Comment on The Sodium-Ion Battery Revolution Has Started

• Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  That’s reductive. Seeing capitalism as the root cause of all problems is disingenuous. The particular ideology oligarchies are using to justify their rule is incidental.

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  • TheJesusaurus@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    But… It is the root of a lot of problems and it helps the oligarchs… And it just sucks and makes no sense in general?

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    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It makes a lot of sense, but I doubt we can have a rational debate about that. In short, people tend to be motivated by profit, so theoretically productivity goes up when the economic system rewards that.

      The root of the problem has little to do with the economic system, and it’s like blaming bombs for war. The real problem is government structures that reward and encourage consolidation of power, both in the government itself and in the private sector. If you strip away capitalism, you just consolidate that power into the public sector, and for examples of that look at China and the USSR.

      I would think that people on Lemmy who likely left other social media due to centralization wouldn’t be so enamored w/ more centralization in the government space. We need solutions that look like Lemmy in the public space to decentralize power so we don’t run into this type of problem. I don’t think there’s a magical structure that fixes everything, and I don’t even necessarily think that capitalism has to be the dominant economic system in play, I just think we need to come up with ideas on how to reduce the power of those at the top.

      Specific example of the US military

      We should dramatically reduce the federal standing military, increase the National Guard to match, and put stricter limits on when the President can use the National Guard. IMO, the only way the President should access the National Guard is if one of the following happen: - governor explicitly yields control, or the state’s legislature forces the governor to yield control - states vote with a super majority to declare war - legislative branch votes to declare war with a super majority That’s it. The President would otherwise be left with a small standing military that’s enough to deter or perhaps assist in peacekeeping, but nowhere near large enough to invade another country.

      I personally think we should embrace capitalism as it’s decentralized by nature, unless forces centralize it, and then create rules that discourage/punish over-centralization. For example, I think small companies should have liability protections, and larger companies should lose it, such that lawsuits could target specific individuals in the organization instead of allowing the organization to be used as a shield. For example, if a company files bankruptcy and it’s over a certain size (maybe $1B market cap? $100M?), then shareholders and top executives become responsible to cover whatever the debts are still unresolved after liquidation. If a crime is committed, it shouldn’t simply result in a fine that’s factored in as the cost of doing business, it should result in arrests. The problem isn’t capitalism, it’s corruption and protectionism.

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      • arrow74@lemmy.zip ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        In short, people tend to be motivated by profit

        Only in a society that commodifies your existence and success based on the wealth you generate/hold

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      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        the people can hold their politicians more easily accountable if the politicians live closer to the people.

        it’s some kind of “pitchforks and torches” thing: In historical times it was usual that people simply walked up to the castle of the feudal lord and demanded improvements if their life was too shitty or if they were treated too unfairly. That was possible because the feudal lord mostly lived within walking distance of where the peasants lived, like, maybe in the next village or sth, but not farther than that in most cases. As a consequence, feudal lords had a very significant interest in being on good terms with their neighbours and keeping the people happy enough so they won’t start a revolt over high taxes or sth.

        Today, that’s not possible because all those politicians that decide the law (and therefore our fate) live far-away (thousands of miles!) in places that neither you or me can ever personally visit. Hence, there is no accountability. We need to shift power back to the local levels; only that way we can personally ensure our wellbeing.

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  • Telemachus93@slrpnk.net ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    No, it’s not. Not seeing that it’s capitalism is the reductive view. Instead of trying to type down a huge text while I’m tired, I’d like to introduce a 112 year-old text that still seems extremely relevant today:

    Moreover, capitalist production, by its very nature, cannot be restricted to such means of production as are produced by capitalist methods. Cheap elements of constant capital are essential to the individual capitalist who strives to increase his rate of profit. In addition, the very condition of continuous improvements in labour productivity as the most important method of increasing the rate of surplus value, is unrestricted utilisation of all substances and facilities afforded by nature and soil. To tolerate any restriction in this respect would be contrary to the very essence of capital, its whole mode of existence. After many centuries of development, the capitalist mode of production still constitutes only a fragment of total world production. Even in the small Continent of Europe, where it now chiefly prevails, it has not yet succeeded in dominating entire branches of production, such as peasant agriculture and the independent handicrafts; the same holds true, further, for large parts of North America and for a number of regions in the other continents. In general, capitalist production has hitherto been confined mainly to the countries in the temperate zone, whilst it made comparatively little progress in the East, for instance, and the South. Thus, if it were dependent exclusively, on elements of production obtainable within such narrow limits, its present level and indeed, its development in general would have been impossible. From the very beginning, the forms and laws of capitalist production aim to comprise the entire globe as a store of productive forces. Capital, impelled to appropriate productive forces for purposes of exploitation, ransacks the whole world, it procures its means of production from all corners of the earth, seizing them, if necessary by force, from all levels of civilisation and from all forms of society. The problem of the material elements of capitalist accumulation, far from being solved by the material form of the surplus value that has been produced, takes on quite a different aspect. It becomes necessary for capital progressively to dispose ever more fully of the whole globe, to acquire an unlimited choice of means of production, with regard to both quality and quantity, so as to find productive employment for the surplus value it has realised. From Rosa Luxemburg: The Accumulation of Capital, Chapter 26 - The Reproduction of Capital and Its Social Setting

    This passage is kind of an introduction to Rosa Luxemburg’s definition of imperialism. Back then, capitalism was not yet developed in the whole world and she argued that simply because it’s a question of survival for companies, these companies will push for the right to exploit the whole world. And now, 112 years later, I’m pretty sure we can agree that happened. And in the past few decades, when they can’t expand spacially, now it’s all about squeezing every last bit of profit from nature, the workers and the consumers.

    The particular ideology oligarchies are using to justify their rule is incidental.

    Here, we have a point of agreement. The USSR developed into something that was no better than capitalist states. In my opinion, that’s because it’s bureaucracy developed into something very similar to the burgeoisie in capitalism, resource hoarders led by self-interest.

    But I believe your answer built on another false dichotomy here. The alternative to capitalism I have in mind isn’t a one-party state with central planning and communist aesthetics. I’m more of a proponent of decentralized power, dismantling the state and people governing their surroundings cooperatively.

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  • save_the_humans@leminal.space ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Personally when I say I want to ditch capitalism, the first thing I think of, among many, is simply about democratizing the workplace. Cooperatives have proven themselves to be superior than the current private model in a variety of metrics. If we reduce the defining characteristic of capitalism as needing capital to produce more capital, the current issue is that cooperative enterprises struggle to obtain the initial capital necessary to get started. Even though they have much greater success rates, banks have historically refused to give loans to these endeavers. There exists non profits to try and fill this void but its not enough.

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  • melfie@lemy.lol ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Capitalism may be workable with strict regulation and proper social safety nets. The problem is that we have crony capitalism, which allows billionaires to essentially control the laws, which concentrates power into too few hands, similar to other oppressive forms of government. A key piece we are missing to make capitalism more workable is right in the word itself: “cap”. There should be a cap on how much wealth any one individual can accumulate.

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    • FlyingCircus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Capitalism is not reformable because it fundamentally relies on ever increasing rates of profit and exploitation. The first is impossible in a finite world, and the second is untenable to anyone who believes in justice.

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      • melfie@lemy.lol ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Corporations that are incentivized to make number go up and grow indefinitely at the expense of all else are a big part of the problem. Proper anti-trust regulation that is actually enforced to limit their size, as well as an aggressive wealth tax to limit individual wealth would go a long way.

        Fundamentally, though, capitalism rewards those who seek power over those who contribute to society and also doesn’t incentivize long-term societal well-being. Regulation would only limit how much power any one psychopath can gain. If we could start from scratch and create a new society with any system we wanted, it would not be Capitalism.

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    • Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I agree. The US have oligarchic crony capitalism supported by an utterly corrupt political system. Trying to abolish capitalism without restoring democracy and the rule of law is a fools errand. Not like it’s never been tried. And every time it just replaced one ruling clique of assholes with another one.

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