← Back to context

Comment by dostick

1 day ago

Why “no capitalism required”? Competition of this kind is only possible with capitalism.

Have you been human before? competition for resources and status is an instinctive trait.

It rears its head regardless of what sociopolitical environment you place us in.

You’re either competing to offer better products or services to customers…or you’re competing for your position in the breadline or politburo via black markets.

Even in the Soviet Union there were multiple design bureaus competing for designs of things like aircraft. Tupolec, Ilyushin, Sukhoi, Mikoyan-Gyurevich (MiG), Yakolev, Mil. There were quite a lot. Several (not all, they had their specialisations) provided designs when a requirement was raised. Not too different from the US yet not capitalist.

Unfortunately it's called war and it appears to be part of human nature.

Not really, it's possible with any market economy, even a hypothetical socialist one (that is, one where all market actors are worker-owned co-ops).

And, since there is no global super-state, the world economy is a market economy, so even if every state were a state-owned planned economy, North Korea style, still there would exist this type of competition between states.

  • Worker owned coops are not socialist unless the government forces it.

    • Worker-owned co-ops is the basic idea of socialism (that is what "workers owning the means of productions" means in modern language).

  • I mean, if you wanna get technical, many companies in Silicon Valley are worker-owned (equity compensation)

    • They are not worker owned, they have some small amount of worker ownership. But the majority of stock is never owned by workers, other than the CEO.

      3 replies →