Capitalism is a game where only a few people get to win.
We have also seen time and time again that it is a game that is able to manipulate and change whatever ideology or behaviour you have to work towards its own benefit.
So the only way to actually “win” is to not play the game.
Right now that seems impossible because it is a massive collective action problem, however this whole platform is a testament to show that it’s possible to overcome that kind of problem.
Reddit is a dominant platform that is starting to destroy itself. People are in turn finding alternatives such as Lemmy to satisfy the need that Reddit once did.
I view capitalism in the same way. It will never truly completely cease to exist (the same way Digg never truly died), but it can become irrelevant over time if we collectively decide to just use another system to satisfy the same needs that capitalism is satisfying today.
The one example that I can think of that tries to tackle this problem is the idea of free stores that are based on a gift economy. If more people decided to use this system instead of capitalism then capitalism will have less sway over people’s lives.
And in the end it doesn’t have to be specifically a free store that needs to be adopted by wider society but whatever it is does need to satisfy the same basic need that capitalism does in our current society.
Nah, the way to end Capitalism is to make people not want to participate in it. It holds too much power to ignore. But if you make participation in it more costly than not, people will choose to not participate.
Interesting take. Could you elaborate?
Wealth (at the level of being part of the “Owner” class of Capitalists) carries social implications and practical implications for people living with it. It’s difficult to live amongst people with whom you share a large wealth disparity, which is why wealthy people tend to move to wealthy communities, or even to countries with higher rates of wealth or wealth enclaves. There is already significant anti-billionaire sentiment amongst the general populace, and billionaires already tend to live in isolation from people of normal means, partially for practical considerations like safety, but also just due to social considerations (like not wanting the shame and embarrassment of having people call them out in public places for the harm they do, as we’ve seen people do with politicians, for example). That sentiment is growing, and extending further and further into the Capitalist owner class as a whole, even for non-billionaires.
The systems that the wealthy use to insulate themselves from people of normal means always rely on the labor of a subset of people, such as delivery services or chauffeurs or pilots or nannys or guards, etc, who are willing to provide services to the Capitalist class.
Boycotting providing services to the wealthy is one way to make it more “costly” for them. Calling them out when they do go places outside of their constructed enclaves is another. And more.
Once that “cost” rises above the threshold of their membership in the Capitalist class being more advantageous than not, people will stop aspiring and working towards it.