Thank you. Everyone seems to think they know what they're talking about but there is so much disinformation about the concepts of capitalism and socialism.
The problem is absolutely capitalism. That system is what causes people to behave the way they do. "Human nature" is a product of our environment more than it is any kind of inherent and unchanging thing. Otherwise humans could not have survived and evolved to changes in surrounding nature as they did.
And the solution is certainly not Soviet style state socialism. But there are so many other options. I'm most interested by the attempts at a new social order that were made in revolutionary Catalonia and other places. Similar attempts are being made right now in Syrian Kurdistan - aka Rojava - where they are doing remarkably well despite the ongoing crisis. They call it democratic confederalism.
Hey! Your comment cheered me up! I certainly agree that capitalism is the problem but whatever USSR did is not a solution. In fact, USSR had so many things wrong, I can easily say capitalism is preferable to bastardized, authoritarian state capitalism that is Marxism-Leninism. Democratic confedaralism (ideas of Bookchin, Ocalan etc...) are refreshing and we should definitely read them, but I do not think they solve the fundamental problem. As a Marxist, I believe fundamental problem is capital, and without the people, _voluntarily_ (not dictated by bunch of 'revolutionaries' i.e. opportunists) rejecting their business owners to exploit them, nothing fundamental will be solved. And then, it should be ensured that the very conditions that created capital cannot be produced again.
I wish more hackers read sociology, but unfortunately it is quite common among us to think sociology as an unimportant pseudoscience, without understanding any of it. When I discuss these issues with my friends, they quickly choose "but then Stalin killed XYZ million people" as their argument. He sure did, but that doesn't mean our world cannot be improved. And implications of this train of thought to our job (programming) are obvious too. Even though most programmers are rich, doesn't mean they're not exploited. Most programmers are forced by their companies to use certain softwares that surveil and spy on them. Some companies force their workers not to read GPL'd code _even in their free time_. Why do we accept this?
I couldn't agree more. It would be great if people working in software would gain some collective consciousness and start organising. They are such a valuable part of the economy right now that any demands they make could really have a good chance of changing things.
The problem is absolutely capitalism. That system is what causes people to behave the way they do. "Human nature" is a product of our environment more than it is any kind of inherent and unchanging thing. Otherwise humans could not have survived and evolved to changes in surrounding nature as they did.
And the solution is certainly not Soviet style state socialism. But there are so many other options. I'm most interested by the attempts at a new social order that were made in revolutionary Catalonia and other places. Similar attempts are being made right now in Syrian Kurdistan - aka Rojava - where they are doing remarkably well despite the ongoing crisis. They call it democratic confederalism.