Comment by deepsun
2 hours ago
Crime rates going down and down. Purchasing power grows everywhere in the world (but we want much nicer things now, so don't feel it). Travel is more accessible that it ever was in humanity history. Information keeps getting more and more accessible.
And literacy rates are increasing. I don't know why you say it's not, just google "literacy rates trend".
Efficiency gains have primarily benefited the capital owners. Workers ability to buy essentials like housing and healthcare have not gotten worse, not better.
I can cover every wall of my living space in flat screen color television more cheaply than feed, house, heal, and educate another child in my family.
I started reading about the industrial revolutions and the evolution of capitalism recently. And it is my understanding that something similar was happening around the second industrial revolution - normal people barely making a living while owners of massive factories and other "means of production" getting richer rand richer.
That's why communism got so popular in some places and why after capitalism won, it demonized communism so much that people now think those are the only two options and communism is the bad one so capitalism must be the good one.
There are other options like mutualism or market socialism and people (including me until recently) have never heard of them.
Cooperatives exist and most people don't even know what that word means.
We need a system where ownership of both the means of production and more importantly the product goes to the workers. If production is more effective with an assistant ("manager") overseeing them, then can hire one and negotiate his salary collectively. If they need an investment, they can quantify the risk and agree how much the investor gets in return after how long but it should not give the investor a massive chunk of or complete ownership - at most it should give small ownership according to his hourly rate compared to other workers.
> Crime rates going down and down.
This scares me. Humans are getting so domesticated and docile they might soon be content with being pets. I am not sure US independence or French revolution could happen today.
I am obviously not a fan of crime against other peaceful individuals. But crime against an oppressive regime is still crime by that regime's rules.