(maybe I’ll make a separate comment about currency, but I feel I need to get on the soap box for a moment here)
This might be controversial so hear me out. I don’t we should assume capitalism is destroyed, AND it plays into a much larger idea that I think is critical to the mindset and success of solarpunk.
We like to pretend “direct democracy good, other systems bad”, but almost all forms of governance; dictatorships, oligarchys, capatalism, republic democracies, communism, direct democracies, and socialism have their own applications. We use them all over the place; militaries almost always function as a mostly-dictatorship with some distributed autonomy. Courtrooms function as an ad-hoc oligarchy. Companies, Unions, Churches, and Cities have thousands of different governance models, from Gabe Newell leading Valve with one of the most flat companies ever, to Steve Jobs being effectively a dictator.
Yes, Solarpunk is a rejection. But it’s a rejection of the OUTCOME (dystopia).
What I’m trying to say is reject the prescription, not the medication.
We give the middle finger equally to Xi Jinping, Ben Shapiro, and Vladimir Lenin and any other spokesperson who prescribes one medication for all situations while ignoring the dystopia those prescriptions create! All of them were/are so utterly infatuated with their style of governance that they’re blind to the consequences.
That’s where we are different; the common ground of solarpunk is almost indisputably “make a society that’s worth living in”. It’s as easy as:
“prescribe” systems of governance for specific things
See if symptoms improve
and $&!#-ing change the prescription when it doesnt work
I agree we should talk about what we want to see, and a sustainable way to get there. And I entirely reject our current prescription of capitalism:
the one where companies can literally pay politicians unlimited sums of money
the one that allows megacorps to become more powerful than entire 1st world governments with no checks and balances
the one that DEFENDS a monopoly on life-saving service, with an unlimited profit ratio, because the company filed a patent
the one where companies STILL get billions of taxpayer dollars in bailout money
the one with advertisements so extreme they’re on par with north Korea brainwashing propaganda
the one where tax-escaping “non-profit” CEO’s make tens of millions a year
the one that let companies keep the benefits of copyrights that long outlive their authors
the one where companies can use an internal dictatorship structure and leverage NDA’s and arbitration clauses to silence employees and cover up billion dollar scandals for years on end
But.
We shouldn’t be so angry that we think something as broad/simple as being able to own the ability to produce your own goods, has no use, and should not even be attempted, in creating a sustainable society worth living in.
We shouldn’t be so angry that we think something as broad/simple as a marketplace has no use, and should not even be attempted, in creating a sustainable society worth living in.
It looks like you are conflating market economy and capitalism. These are two different concepts, and the first one predates the second by a few millenia.
So in the end the question was about capitalism but you argued in favor of market economy.
After reading my whole comment again and checking some more definitions I kinda see your point, so I tried to edit it a bit to be more inline with actual capitalism.
And to your credit, there actually aren’t nearly as many vibrant game worlds that actually include private ownership of the means of production, so I completely removed that section.
This is a little long-winded, but I think a shorter summary might be this: we should look for ways to set goals, then draw from the largest possible toolkit to meet those goals, and avoid assigning assumptions that a given tool is universally good or universally bad.
I would agree with that. I’ll add that I have criticisms of capitalism, but I feel like I need to go out of my way to explain to people that they’re not some blanket rejection of the concept whole-cloth. They’re based on its utility for the set of conditions we’re in. I’m fully willing to acknowledge the circumstances in which capitalism is effective. It’s just that those circumstances don’t match our present situation well.
You are on to something here I think. Any larger activity envolving humans need to be organized in some way, and I have always liked the idea of a temporary and/or skill-based leadership - where a project is organized by someone who understands the single steps to desired outcome best. Adding to that using organization structures where they are of good use is a similar approach.
(maybe I’ll make a separate comment about currency, but I feel I need to get on the soap box for a moment here)
This might be controversial so hear me out. I don’t we should assume capitalism is destroyed, AND it plays into a much larger idea that I think is critical to the mindset and success of solarpunk.
We like to pretend “direct democracy good, other systems bad”, but almost all forms of governance; dictatorships, oligarchys, capatalism, republic democracies, communism, direct democracies, and socialism have their own applications. We use them all over the place; militaries almost always function as a mostly-dictatorship with some distributed autonomy. Courtrooms function as an ad-hoc oligarchy. Companies, Unions, Churches, and Cities have thousands of different governance models, from Gabe Newell leading Valve with one of the most flat companies ever, to Steve Jobs being effectively a dictator.
Yes, Solarpunk is a rejection. But it’s a rejection of the OUTCOME (dystopia).
What I’m trying to say is reject the prescription, not the medication.
We give the middle finger equally to Xi Jinping, Ben Shapiro, and Vladimir Lenin and any other spokesperson who prescribes one medication for all situations while ignoring the dystopia those prescriptions create! All of them were/are so utterly infatuated with their style of governance that they’re blind to the consequences.
That’s where we are different; the common ground of solarpunk is almost indisputably “make a society that’s worth living in”. It’s as easy as:
I agree we should talk about what we want to see, and a sustainable way to get there. And I entirely reject our current prescription of capitalism:
But.
We shouldn’t be so angry that we think something as broad/simple as being able to own the ability to produce your own goods, has no use, and should not even be attempted, in creating a sustainable society worth living in.
With that said, I’ll get off my soap box now.
It looks like you are conflating market economy and capitalism. These are two different concepts, and the first one predates the second by a few millenia.
So in the end the question was about capitalism but you argued in favor of market economy.
After reading my whole comment again and checking some more definitions I kinda see your point, so I tried to edit it a bit to be more inline with actual capitalism.
And to your credit, there actually aren’t nearly as many vibrant game worlds that actually include private ownership of the means of production, so I completely removed that section.
deleted by creator
This is a little long-winded, but I think a shorter summary might be this: we should look for ways to set goals, then draw from the largest possible toolkit to meet those goals, and avoid assigning assumptions that a given tool is universally good or universally bad.
I would agree with that. I’ll add that I have criticisms of capitalism, but I feel like I need to go out of my way to explain to people that they’re not some blanket rejection of the concept whole-cloth. They’re based on its utility for the set of conditions we’re in. I’m fully willing to acknowledge the circumstances in which capitalism is effective. It’s just that those circumstances don’t match our present situation well.
You are on to something here I think. Any larger activity envolving humans need to be organized in some way, and I have always liked the idea of a temporary and/or skill-based leadership - where a project is organized by someone who understands the single steps to desired outcome best. Adding to that using organization structures where they are of good use is a similar approach.
I think politically solarpunk is mostly anarchism. Consider to post this thoughts on c/anarchism for a better reply than this mine.