Discuss.
Remake of Communist propaganda piece.
Dicuss.
I actually don’t know much about politics or economy. I’m not in agreement or disagreement with the image, I thought it was interesting and I genuinely thought it would be nice to hear other people’s thoughts.
This is what it’s inspired from.
Made by the “Industrial Workers of the World” in 1911.
I don’t know what layers 2, 3 and 4 (judged from the top) have to do with capitalism specifically. Layer 2 seems to be about some sort of monarchic regime…not really related to capitalism. Layer 3 is the clergy…not really related to capitalism. Layer 4 is the army…not really related to capitalism. The top layer vaguely makes sense (though presumably every society is based on profit – ie taking raw goods, turning them into more valuable goods [eg turning metal into computers], and then distributing them). The bottom two layers obviously make sense – seems to be the middle class resting on the labor of the lower class, a common motif in capitalism critiques.
Anyway, if you’re looking for wisdom about economic and political positions, you won’t find it in a half-assed cliche cartoon. There are some great critiques of capitalism, and some great critiques of all the alternatives, but you can bet your bottom dollar you won’t get a solid understanding of them by googling “political cartoons.”
I came across the image, I didn’t google it.
And I was hoping that it would spark some conversation about capitalism, not about the merits of cartoons but knowing this forum I should have known better.
I’d like to hear what your honest impression of capitalism is. What does capitalism mean to you? What would result if that was implemented in society?
The image reasonably portrays society and capitalism works within that context. I have no doubt that a different society could have a different capitalism, but centralisation seems fundamental to how capitalism works, and as such the image [characters aside] tells us what it does to society ~ at least early 20thC society. I think it’s a lot more mixed up now with workers and users ~ and even worker-users throughout the system.
We still have that 1% with 47% of the wealth, then 70% with 7% of the wealth, and far more wealthy centralised institutions feeding the imbalance. Theoretically if you redistributed the wealth of that 1%, then everyone would be roughly 7-8 times better off, only problem is that housing and other prices would rise accordingly, then you would end up with the same thing but without that top 1%. You’d have to control prices to avoid that; some manner of socialism could do the trick ~ but we’ve never properly had that.
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Capitalism is parasitic. A few benefit from sucking many dry. Parasites that kill their hosts don’t often survive, unless of course, there is a ready supply of hosts. The cartoons depict the situation appropriately.
I don’t disagree with the overall message of the image on capitalism.
What I disagree with is oligarchic democracy, socialism, or communism being any better.
Somehow being a anarchist for me is the most logical choice.
Pretty accurate depicition. T. B. H.
A hundred years ago the depiction was a relatively accurate summation of the existing capitalist society. Now, I’m not so sure - you could possibly keep the general outline, but the cast of characters would need to change somewhat. This is a bit like saying that every social system can be pyramidised, if you see what I mean…