hunk wrote:

There has to be education and class consciousness of how our capitalist society works.
And more importantly how to improve on capitalism.

Capitalism will stop this happening though

@acemuzzy
Exactly why I think we're fucked.
This forum is an exception as many of us have a working class background but had the privilege to attend uni. The rest of the population tho...They just fall back to random conspiracy theories.

Capitalism can get things done but it's a mad dog that needs kept on a leash.  It cannot be unfettered because it ends up being anti-competitive.

Unfortunately the way too many businesses work allows people with psychopathic tendencies to get into positions of influence via their ruthless, short term profit view which pleases greedy shareholders. Once they are there then they start doing damage by consuming the competition which reduces competition and choice (forces that keep capitalism under control). When that goes you end up with companies like Thames Water.

hunk wrote:

It's kindof obvious big business (in part. banks) won't allow themselves to be regulated. Ever since the crash of 1929 they've been pushing for more market deregulation resulting in the crashes of 1987 and 2008. The panama papers gave us a glimpse of the huge amounts of money they've been siphoning off since forever (since the inception of capitalism in the enlightenment). There is no balance whatsoever in the current system.

Governments worldwide are on the leash of big business, not the other way around. You can see it in how labour/democrats cannot get anything done without coming to some agreement with big business. Either you play along with the charade or they'll find someone else to fund who will play along and is willing to 'manage' the populace.

Everything that came out from the global financial crash implies that hedge funds and banks were expecting to get bent over by Obama and punished and…nothing.

There’s no conspiracy, just mutual self interest and self selection on the basis of cowardice. There have been a LOT of opportunities to deal with disaster capitalism in the last 20 years (the global financial crisis, the housing market, zero hours contracts etc) and no one gives a shit.

But this is not because of deep state lobbying or bribery. It’s just how the whole thing is set up. Lobbying sucks, for sure, but fundamentally those people in on the grift don’t need convincing.

Not disagreeing because that's 99% true but as a footnote Labour are committed to banning zero hour contracts. Of course we will see if that pledge lasts and gets enacted but as it stands that's the situation.

LivDiv wrote:

So its gonna fail then. Those are incredibly high bars.

There's no point walking in circles making the same mistakes states like the USSR/China did. Nobody wants that. The global left needs to wake up and realise that the capitalist game is organically rigged against them from the ground up. As cinty explained, no conspiracy required. The amounts siphoned off must be in the trillions going by the centibillionairs popping up recently.

Labour winning one election is one thing but when Starmer has to make concessions (Gaza, implementing austerity) it's one step to the left and 3 steps to the right and the pendulum still shifts to the right every other election. And suddenly in 10 years time you end up with some far right grifter as head of state.

The only way to break the cycle is to win back the populace; take back the narrative from the populist rightwing. They've hijacked the anger and disillusion of the working class (because of tory policies like austerity/ migration/ increasing inequality) and are using it to uphold their status quo. The left has to forge bonds internationally and use social media to produce a counternarrative to all the conspiracy laden bullshit. We may not have billions of wads of cash but we outnumber them in numbers.

If it doesn't happen now conservative rightwingers will entrench themselves with the help of AI powered social media algorithms and we'll end up with capitalism devouring itsself. Doomsday clock is ticking and chances are we will end up with forever wars spiralling out of control and climate change ravaging the planet.

If the above happens we will really have to start from scratch.

How dare you respond to us bombing your embassy!

Also, the first time a global market crash occured (1929) and right winger populism reared it's ugly head it did result in a global war (ww2). We're walking in circles, it is not the first time we've been here.

Not a stretch at all. Wanna bet on it?

Wow talk about misinterpretation.
You do you liv, you entertain me.

All of it. Not pulling your leg.
(Will clarify later)

Ok.
Here's a question.

What does WW3 look like to others?

I watched an interesting podcast with an ex CIA guy and he seems to think we've been in WW3 for a while now, it just isn't going to be a boots on home soil affair and much more based around cyber attacks, proxy wars and the like, mainly because you cant push a nuclear armed country too far.
I can go along with that at least to an extent, if we are desperate to label something WW3.

If going off that though you could say we haven't really been out of war, at least not for long. WW2 bleeds into the Cold War, The Gulf War and various Middle East interfering which runs into 'The War on Terror', to Syria, Ukraine and now Israel/Gaza.

We aren't going to get to something as vicious, up close and wide reaching as WW2 without someone nuking someone else, which I dont believe will happen (and is so catastrophic it isnt even worth stressing over).

So whats the tipping point that turns what is pretty much the usual state of affairs post WW2 into WW3?

edit: not meaning the causes but rather the "You'll know when X happens" moment.

I'm a traditionalist, and won't consider it a World War until we're fighting the Germans.

Minnesänger wrote:

I'm a traditionalist, and won't consider it a World War until we're fighting the Germans.

Haha

I'd say Russia and the US could go at it and not involve nukes, unless it came to an actual invasion and overthrow of governments.