this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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I mean... current democracies are, and all of them throughout history have devolved into plutocracies, before eventually falling. e.g. the USA is neoliberal, and it is not the only one:-(.
But I don't know if all "social democracies" inherently imply that. Then again, that term might just be a fantasy one rather than applicable to irl structures, especially in the modern age of the internet and therefore the "disinformation age". Who could have guessed (cough Reagan cough) that some nations might want to take over other nations, not with overt warfare that could cause mutual nuclear annihilation but by simply buying out a single TV station and being allowed to label it as "news"?
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But from a personal standpoint, isn't gradualism the only way to have any hope of any kind of impact at all, without the weight of a corporation or government behind someone? e.g., upon hearing that children without protective gear are being used to gather cacao used to make chocolates and not being paid fairly, do we personally avoid purchasing chocolate forevermore, or upon further learning that children harness cacao without protective gear purely for fun (apparently it's easy and enjoyable?), and that their only other alternative is actual slave labor like in a mine or some such, continue our purchases and maybe even buy more (getting fair trade wherever available)? Personally I have no fucking clue, but I could see someone ethically going either direction, and that's something, though on an individual level neither seems like it would do much good. (personally I am leaning in the latter direction, lately, b/c you cannot regulate or improve an industry that does not exist, but I suppose that depends on what else you would purchase instead - bananas? sugarcane or a derivative? what foodstuffs even don't involve slavery at some point!? but that's what I mean: you can't improve something unless you keep it alive, so if you switch to something that doesn't involve slavery, that's awesome, but if you cannot, then maybe pick something to improve and work on that until it gets better - which is gradualism, aka vote for Biden now and hope for better later, even if it seems unlikely, b/c you know for sure that Trump will move things in a direction for the worse)Social democracy maintains that very exploitation. There is little disagreement among liberals when it comes to the exploitation of the third world.
You want food stuffs that don't involve slavery? End neocolonialism.
Right, it maintains that exploitation... by keeping the democracies of the Western world functioning. Whereas in contrast, Right-wingers want to end all of that - the democracy, the modern society (of e.g. middle-class), etc. - and replace it with both even higher exploitation abroad, as well as similar levels of it at home as well.
An analogy is a person who stinks, due - in part - to the fact that they refuse to wear deodorant or wash. If we kill said person, they won't stink less - in contrast, they will stink quite a bit moar! - and they still will refuse to put on deodorant and to wash themselves (and in fact, perhaps they could have been persuaded to do such before, but now they are flat incapable of either no matter what amount of either carrot or stick are used).
That said, when I mentioned "keeping the democracies of the Western world functioning", I don't mean to imply that democracy is the only way to survive. Rather, I meant that the two things are not mutually exclusive - we need some kind of government, and then the principles that (meta-? hehe) govern said government will dictate what radiates outwards from it.
To pick one notable example, an "Emperorship" (oh right, "for a day"... r-r-RIIIIIIIGHT) where one man (person? no, who are we kidding) ruling the masses might do it? But that seems extremely doubtful, especially given the propensity of Trump to just grab whatever he wants that is within reach - even if that thing is someone's genitals.:-( (of either gender, one to pet and the other to crush ruthlessly, like Chris Christie's hopes & dreams)
Um... I think you are perhaps not listening to the right set of liberals? Probably there is a more specific (narrow) meaning to what you said like modern philosophers or some such, perhaps adding constraints like what might be viable in the modern world, in the sense of traversing a pathway from here to the desired end-goal, and if so then I probably could not educate you further than you already know. But not all liberal-minded common folk agree that exploitation is either good or even that it is not horribly bad, I can tell you that much! John Oliver is one such exemplar - I know, he's no "philosopher", but at some point shouldn't the opinion of the masses weigh in, especially if the way to get to there from here would be by voting?!
Absolutely, we should! Except right now, Boomers are still in charge, so how about we play Russian roulette with the very existence of our nation instead? And then, even if we survive, we'll leave Mitch McConnell and Mike Johnson in charge of our budgets from basically here on out, while also paying lip mere service to liberalism (which doesn't mean that liberalism, in theory, does not espouse certain values, only that like Magats follow "Christianity" and "Patriotism", we'd rather merely say that we do but we really do not).
Most of those "democracies" are dictatorships of capital who depend on the exploitation of the third world to maintain a standard of living at home, the essence of social democracy. Maintaining them isn't a good thing.
I think you are not looking at the history of their actions or reading between the lines. The sales of weapons to western-backed dictatorships for the purpose of putting down restive populations in the event they try to rise up don't stop when a democrat is in charge.
So just let America fall... right into the hands of Putin?
So just let the UK fall... right into the hands of Putin?
So just let Ukraine fall... right into the hands of Putin?
What happens to these nations after they fall, especially those with nukes? Putin will cite a "worry" that the nukes would fall into the "wrong" hands, invade, and start WWIII.
This is not a theoretical game-theory setup we are talking about here, where we could get to wherever we want to from wherever we are, in order to explore some possibility space - irl we have to deal with the practical realities in front of us as they are. Much like a chess game (for the sake of this illustration lets presume the constraint of having to play through a full one) where you may have this fantastic end-game moveset in mind... but you have to get through the middle-game and even before that the early-game portion to even get the opportunity to try it out. Those opening moves might not be all that critical... but they can't be total throw-aways either.
These days, with access to the internet, I don't think many people other than the entirely uninformed are advocating anything other than that the Western world is evil. That's not even a question in my mind? The question is what to do about it, practically speaking.
And remember: Facebook, now Meta, is already all over the world, as too is Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc. The USA birthed the likes of Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk, Cook, etc. - so that's legit on us that's true - but it's already happened, and that horror is unleashed upon the world now. So after America falls, what then - do any of these companies now cease to exist, or without the income that previously came from America (but also most other Western nations), do some or all of these people try to more directly take over other nations, make their own empires, and directly subvert their governments by installing themselves a literal emperor?
And if not, what then - China just takes over the world by default? Right now it projects the aura of strength, but like most such nations, that is only b/c they prioritize fighting their enemies over actual internal development (I mean, they do some of that too, but even that is prioritized in order to "pwn" their enemies), and once there are no more external enemies, it too will fall apart, like all the others before it.
Which is not to say that the democracies won't fall apart too - like all others before them. It is difficult to know who to "root for", when there are such troubles on all sides. One thing I know is that Western nations do not have the sole monopoly on being evil - we all are that way, it is the natural human condition, sad to say:-(. Another natural human condition is short-sightedness, i.e. it is far easier to tear down & destroy than it is to build up, but even if the entire Western set of nations were all to fall at once (the tear down part), at some point someone is going to have to start building things up again. And there will be problems with doing so... b/c of humanity. So the Western nations falling only solves the short-term issues, leaving the long-term ones untouched. There are no solutions that I am presenting here, b/c I do not know them, only endlessly new problems as each (pair of) step(s) forward is matched by a step back to discover the next problem after that - e.g. climate change may make all of this a moot point if that ends all human habitation on earth. :-|
lmao you think Russia is capable of invading America? You understand Call of Duty games are fiction right? Modern day Russia can barely take the russian-speaking part of Ukraine, and saw a hostile Ukraine as such an existential threat they went to near total war.
They go to re-education camps and then get real jobs.
Or they don't, historically speaking, it's up to them.
From the french revolution to slavery to segregation to the Russian and Chinese revolutions to apartheid, in every instance the privileged assured everyone else that they would be just as brutal and cruel to them as they were to the oppressed class. They've been wrong every time. The indigenous people of the Americas and Africa are not waiting to put you in camps and erase your language or sell your drinking water to richer countries.
There is more than one way to influence another nation.