Can Capitalism Be Goood????
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoK0bkafE-0
Lil thought experiment
Imagine you are given a magic "cure problems" wand and a society to fix. In the society people are divided into two groups: Owner and Person Forced to Work Under Threat of Death aka slave
At first all the Owners are white and the slaves are black so that's obviously really racist + evil so we wave our wand and fix the racism
Now all the owners are straight and all the slaves are gay and that's obvs really homophobic + evil so we wave our wand and fix homophobia
Now all the owners are men and all the workers are women and by now we're really getting tired of all this so we think fast and wave our wand to cure all prejudice!
Now no one is discriminated against on the basis of religion ethnicity ability gender or anything! Not even by which caste their parents were born into!Now when each child is born someone just flips a coin and that decides whether or not they become an owner or a slave
We've gotten rid of all the prejudice!! But we haven't actually made a fair or just society, have we?
Those prejudices were wrong certainly but they didn't cause the slavery and getting rid of them did not make the slavery ok. The slavery system just perpetuated the prejudice and used it as an excuse to justify making them slaves
The only way to make the society good is to get rid of the slavery
So what does this have to do with real life?
Well one of the main arguments for keeping Capitalism is that "Capitalism isn't the real problem! If we got rid of all of the problems getting in the way of True Capitalist Utopia then it'd be fine!"
But it wouldn't. Because Capitalism has the same problem our imaginary society did.
One portion of the people own the farms factories and machines we need in order to feed clothe and house people (those things are called the means of production).
The other portion don't own those things and have to obey the owners and work for them or else the owners will deny them the food and clothing and shelter we all need to live.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHWAi_xCA_s
Add to this the fact that poverty actually perpetuates prejudices and it's even worse! Think of it this way:
Ownership of the means of production and money are the basic forms of power now. Almost all of the power is held by white people, and nearly none of it is held by people of colour
https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2018/04/06/wealthbyrace-avg.jpg
So, it doesn't matter if any group/person "hates black people" or not. The fact is that people who are white have more power in society than people who are not white. Even if absolutely no one held any racist bias in their heart the system itself will still be racially biased! This is called systemic racism. The system causes more problems than any individual racist could. And it's not just racism that's got systemic parts either! Every minority group faces a lack of power by definition, but more specifically the inherently unjust distribution of wealth under capitalism contributes to that lack of power
If we get rid of capitalism will all those prejudices magically disappear? No of course not. But it will sure be a whole Hell of a lot easier to address those problems without an entire economic system getting in the way!
The whole basic idea of anti-capitalist movements is that this divide in society between owners and workers is wrong + until we dismantle this system and create a different one, we can't fix any of the dangerous and harmful power imbalances in our society!
Ask yourself
Does modern work really benefit humanity?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_X-812q_Jc
What does the profit motive really encourage?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHys1jc2Png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvirpCAbGSY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2EWQ4v9wbA
People claim the rich have our best interests at heart, but do they really?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8hpNqnyA9I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtfnQ69_i7g