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this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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~~Conservatism~~ Capitalism has always been an ideology that's opposed to progress, democracy and freedom.
There you go, I fixed that for you.
All political entities serve the needs of capital first and foremost in a capitalist system, people are only a secondary...if that.
Speaking as a Marxist, this is false. Capitalism was once the historical progressive force against feudalism. This was already waning two centuries ago, but it was not always true.
Glad another Marxist said it. The problem isn't that capitalism was always the wrong choice, it's that we're clinging to it long beyond its best before date.
And now it's rapidly turning back into feudalism, while the masses clap and cheer.
Sure but did capitlism really defeat feudalism? Seems like the other side of the same coin.
Yes, it did, though vestiges still remain. That's what the French Revolution overwhelmingly was, the bourgeoisie claiming power over the old feudal nobility and the monarchy (as anything but a figurehead). Also the American revolution and many others.
They resemble each other because they are in all cases the "owning class" claiming the seat as the "ruling class", just as the slaveholders of classical antiquity and the patriarchs of pre-historical agrarian/pastoral societies.
It's kind of a tangent, but in explaining the concept of equality, Lenin discusses some of the differences between feudalism and liberal capitalism in a letter here.
There are places such as Thailand and Bhutan where the struggle is still alive between the two modes of production, but those are the very rare exceptions to the global order of liberal capitalism (in various forms) vs whatever you want to call the theocratic capitalism of Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. vs the state socialism of the PRC, Cuba, etc.
This isn't true, though; politics is in the driver's seat, and capital is at the mercy of government. We can see this even in the US where the Biden administration is pushing decoupling/deglobalization for geopolitical and domestic reasons, to the discomfort of US-based multinationals. On the other side of the aisle, the business-friendly cosmopolitan arm of the Republican party has lost ground to the Trumpian populist wing. You see a similar story elsewhere in the world. In the case of Russia, a lot of people thought that Putin was a tool of the oligarchs, so you can change his behavior by putting pressure on the oligarchs. Surprise, it turned out that the oligarchs have to do what Putin tells them, not the other way round.
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say, are the democrats not friendly with ANY big businesses? Is the extreme right wing of US conservatives not motivated by money (Donald Trump is often thought of as a successful venture capitalist, the amount of money funneled out during his presidency, etc...)?
Russia is one of the most inequal countries in the world in terms of wealth distribution, and for decades now oligarchs in Russia have gone hand in hand with the state in eroding any form of democracy and exploiting what freedom those citizens do have.
So, can you really say democracy can exist with money?
This is ridiculous. "Politics" cannot be in the driver's seat because "politics" is not an entity. Domestic capital legally falls under the jurisdiction of the government, but that does not mean that it is actually at the mercy of the government. Capital since before the country was even founded has owned the vast majority of politicians and dictated the way that the government is organized and the laws it passes. That's why people without land couldn't even vote at first and why we still retain a senate, which is 100% just a body for checking the power of people who do not own land versus those who own a lot of land.