Any ideology or system that justifies and fosters self-interest over solidarity will lead to a concentration of power. If someone, whether by a stroke of luck or by intentional manipulation, can end up having and holding more power than others, cumulative probability will make it a question of time until such a someone succeeds in using that power to amass more.
I generally agree, that’s why I am an anarchist - If you haven’t heard much about anarchism before, you probably have some misconceptions about it, so I encourage you to watch the Q&Anarchy video series by Thought Slime or have a look through an Anarchist FAQ, because it’s almost definitely nothing like what you think. I personally believe that it’s the most coherent philosophy which adequately explains and addresses all of the problems which plague our society, and which holds the most promise for a path out of the inevitable cycle of the continuous rise and fall of fascism that capitalism makes inevitable.
I try to avoid dropping the term (precisely because of the misconceptions involved) and personally am not a fan of the heavy-handed “here’s a block of information for you to absorb” approach that has long deterred me from looking into it. I just can’t easily work up the energy, attention span and time to commit to longer reading or video series.
Hence, my attempt is to “sow” the rough ideas in a format I personally found more digestible. We all know the “didn’t read the article” phenomenon, so I try to sum it up in a shorter comment rather than expecting people to click through to some treatise where the table of contents for Section A already spans three mobile screens, the third paragraph of the introduction to it (not even A.1 yet) metions five sections (A-E), dubs them just the “first part” and strikes a very much academic tone.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good source to read up on the theory, but not what I’d consider an approachable FAQ for curious laypeople.
I’m doubling down on the point made by the previous comment: Capitalism as a system enables that aggregation of power.
I’m not sure what you mean by “advance”. If you mean self-improvement or improving living conditions, that doesn’t have to come with a detriment to others. We can lift each other up. Life isn’t a zero-sum game, if technological advancement is focused on increasing our productivity in order to generate overall prosperity and leisure to pursue fulfilment rather than maximising unsustainable profit and pushing most of us to pursue subsistence while a few become ever more obscenely powerful.
If you mean advancement in a hierarchy of power, then that’s exactly the issue I’m criticising: self-interest instead of solidarity, sabotaging quality of life by pushing us into a rat race of having to do better than others.
Any ideology or system that justifies and fosters self-interest over solidarity will lead to a concentration of power. If someone, whether by a stroke of luck or by intentional manipulation, can end up having and holding more power than others, cumulative probability will make it a question of time until such a someone succeeds in using that power to amass more.
I generally agree, that’s why I am an anarchist - If you haven’t heard much about anarchism before, you probably have some misconceptions about it, so I encourage you to watch the Q&Anarchy video series by Thought Slime or have a look through an Anarchist FAQ, because it’s almost definitely nothing like what you think. I personally believe that it’s the most coherent philosophy which adequately explains and addresses all of the problems which plague our society, and which holds the most promise for a path out of the inevitable cycle of the continuous rise and fall of fascism that capitalism makes inevitable.
That’s what I was getting at.
I try to avoid dropping the term (precisely because of the misconceptions involved) and personally am not a fan of the heavy-handed “here’s a block of information for you to absorb” approach that has long deterred me from looking into it. I just can’t easily work up the energy, attention span and time to commit to longer reading or video series.
Hence, my attempt is to “sow” the rough ideas in a format I personally found more digestible. We all know the “didn’t read the article” phenomenon, so I try to sum it up in a shorter comment rather than expecting people to click through to some treatise where the table of contents for Section A already spans three mobile screens, the third paragraph of the introduction to it (not even A.1 yet) metions five sections (A-E), dubs them just the “first part” and strikes a very much academic tone.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good source to read up on the theory, but not what I’d consider an approachable FAQ for curious laypeople.
What is your point? Most people want to advance, ideally their whole live long, instead of standing still or even regressing.
I’m doubling down on the point made by the previous comment: Capitalism as a system enables that aggregation of power.
I’m not sure what you mean by “advance”. If you mean self-improvement or improving living conditions, that doesn’t have to come with a detriment to others. We can lift each other up. Life isn’t a zero-sum game, if technological advancement is focused on increasing our productivity in order to generate overall prosperity and leisure to pursue fulfilment rather than maximising unsustainable profit and pushing most of us to pursue subsistence while a few become ever more obscenely powerful.
If you mean advancement in a hierarchy of power, then that’s exactly the issue I’m criticising: self-interest instead of solidarity, sabotaging quality of life by pushing us into a rat race of having to do better than others.