this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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I have seen that in a civ game....
Didnt end well.
In my experience, late game domination runs don't end well
Just for information, how endgame is an endgame in Civilization? I assume at some point you do so well that you can't do anything else and all new nations must bow to ur immense nuclear power
It depends, but in civ 6 at least, if you don't go for science or culture, someone else will win those eventually. Usually you become so overpowered compared to the AI by the endgame that you're just waiting for the win screen to show up.
Oh so there is a win screen? For context I only played Civ V on java mobile. But I do have CIV 6 cuz Epic gave it for free
Yes, there are win conditions but you can play beyond those if you want. That never interests me, though.
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You must not have enough nukes.
I had enough once but it was the lack of AA that turned my cities to ash.
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Capitalism is financial, fascism is political. They can be concurrently implemented.
Capitalism is a politicial and economic system.
Can you elaborate on how capitalism is a meaningful political system?
I think the argument is that economics and politics are not independent of each other. They are two sides of the same coin. Whomever controls the food supply has power over the population, which means it has political power. Whomever has power over the population, has power over the food supply. Basically, economics and politics are different perspectives on power.
For example, the political structures in the West create the rules over who gets to obtain power through the economy. From the other direction, the people with economic power get to control who gets to obtain power through the political structures.
Thanks for this, I like the pragmatic view that those with economic power select those who obtain political power. I certainly don't think they're independent. The economic system influences the political system for sure, but categorically/formally we're still talking about two distinct systems, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about a separate political structure
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Definitionally, anything that prescribes the way things are to be distributed is political. There has been a desensitization to the word politics with an ever present right using words loosely adjacent to their true meaning, but capitalism is inherently political. Now it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem with western democracies kinda being formed around it, but that doesn't make it any less true. I sincerely doubt anyone would argue communism or socialism aren't political because they are economic theories.
You can't meaningful separate these. Sure, capitalism is not mutually exclusive to say parliamentary democracy or dictatorship or monarchy, but you need a state that enforces the "will of the market". Capitalism values property very highly. That's a political decision. It allows a very hierarchical relation between workers and bosses by enforcing the property laws of the latter. At the end of the day, it's the police (and therefore the state) that evicts you, not the landlord and not the market.
I see, I think there are a couple things to clarify. Causally, you can view it as the political system of decision-making determines the economic system, so keeping capitalism is a political decision made through a political system such as democracy or theocracy with downstream political consequences, e.g. property has high capital value, which affects citizens.
You may also be conflating decisions that carry a political quality with decisions made by a political system. Or conflating systems that carry political qualities such as economic systems and education systems with political systems proper, which are system for instituting decisions that govern societies. For example, the market may "decide" that asbestos is the best insulation, however, the market does not set political policy about insulation. It is up to the political system (e.g. democratic parliament or dictator) to decide whether or not to pass policy about limiting asbestos insulation, not capitalism. This distinction is also present in your own argument. Like you said, the market (capitalism) doesn't create and enforce property law, it's the state (political system) that creates the law and is responsible for enforcing it.
-EDIT- Okay I think I see the semantic disagreement. What others are emphasizing is that the economy is political in nature and therefore it is a political system. What I understand for the term "Political System" is more narrow to be more narrowly "system of government". I certainly agree that the economy is political in nature. And honestly, I'm not married to my definition of political system. What I cared more about is drawing the distinction between "system of government" and "systems that are political in nature". The only reason why I'd disagree is that by the latter definition, any system of social structure such as religions, education systems, human transportation systems, communication systems, language systems etc. Are also political systems because they're political in nature. So the term "political system" may be too broad as to be useful.
What is politics? People spend have their waking hours in a strict top down system, instead of a democratically organized economy. Tbf that's not only true for Capitalism but also for Soviet style socialism.
For example, the market may "decide" that asbestos is the best insulation, however, the market does not set political policy about insulation.
The market is not the only aspect of capitalism. Plutocracy is another strong one. Being rich makes you influential in capitalism in contrast to systems where your ancestry is important or systems that try to get rid of power altogether respectively try to distribute it as evenly as possible. So while I said it's compatible with monarchy and democracy, this is true on a scale. If the monarch is listening to rich people instead of their kind, it's less monarchical and parliamentary democracies are more prone to capitalism than more direct forms of democracy.
To put it differently: it's not only about who makes the decision according to the constitution, it's also about how this decision comes about. Besides: the institution at least makes capitalism possible, if not enforces it in one way or another. The existence of a state alone is something capitalism needs, a punitive justice system that enforces property rights, which often also are constitutional themselves, ...
If your political system uses wealth as a means to create policy. Then whatever economic system you use becomes political.
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It's an economic system that seeks to control the political system enough to further itself with no thought or care for anything that doesn't fit that goal, in the same way a malignant cellular mass seeks to control the host environment enough to further unrestrained and out of control growth. Both kill the host.
Economics is politics, and fascism must be concurrently implemented or it isn't fascism.
Not even tough... just like... slightly inconvenient
Things aren't tough yet. Wait until the effects if climate change absolutely destroy our shore lines, food and water supply, etc.
How is fascism a result of capitalism? It would exist just the same way without capitalism.
The argument is that as more people are harmed by capitalism and realize it's flaws, the more likely the ruling class is to embrace fascism rather than let their ill-gotten gains slip away from them.
Definitely clumsy here, but I can make sense of it.
I mean, yes, but you should understand that when the creator of this meme wrote "capitalism" they really meant "liberalism" but didn't want to scare the normies.
It's not just about the ruling class, it's about uncertainty leading people to look for "strongmen" to provide direction and certainty, no matter how false it is, creating the popular support needed to overthrow democratic institutions.
Strongmen like Lenin and Stalin who provided direction and certainty in uncertain times?
Or a strongman like George Washington?
1: Anarchists and democratic socialists literally coined the term red fascism to describe Leninism.
2: Your examples all overthrew the rule of absolute monarchies, neither of which was quite exactly capitalist thanks to the owner class often being nobility.
3: Leaving aside for the moment that post-colonial America would absolutely be considered fascist by modern standards, even as its existence began to solidify the ideology of liberalism, I don't think the meme is literally stating liberalism becomes fascism the moment it stubs its toe.
If anything, based on the characters used, it implies the fight over institutional power as the fascists try to seize control.
And, ironically to authoral intent I assume, Superlib there would absolutely body Homelander lol
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Imperialism is a result of capitalism...
When the resources of your home country are insufficient to feed the need for constant growth of profits, the resources of other people begin to look attractive. It's just a matter of convincing your people that it's worth it to go take those other people's resources. Its easier to convince your people to exploit other people if you have dehumanized the other people, so you revert to racism and other tactics of making the others look like barbarians. Then you go make colonies and suppress the native population while exploiting them for labor and resources.
Fascism is imperialism turned inward...
Either the flow of resources from your colonies are insufficient to feed your need for the continual growth of profits or you don't have the means to colonize far away lands, so the resources of countries closer to home begin looking very attractive. Its easier to suppress people at home first, so you turn that imperialist oppression on for a portion of your population at home, exploiting them more than other parts of your population. This doesn't satisfy your needs for more resources for long, so you continue to exploit your own people more and expand the definition of who gets to suffer the imperialist oppression.
When your population can no longer satisfy your needs for continued growth of profits, you turn that imperialism on countries nearby. This process is why people say fascism is imperialism turned inward.
More food for thought...
Some argue this process is why Hitler and the Third Reich are looked on as the ultimate evil. The Nazis took imperialist oppression, a tool that every European country had historically only used on people in far away lands where the culture and the way the people looked was strange to the people at home and they turned that imperialist oppression on the white populations of Europe. Europeans finally began to experience the horrors they had been inflicting on the rest of the world for centuries.
Okay... and what about Alexander, Ceasar, Ali, Genghis, Napoleon, and all the rest? The claim that empires are only motivated by profits is absurd.
I'd say that, generally, imperialist motivation is a matter of gaining power. In a capitalist system, capital is power, so they are seeking capital.
The way I explained it was meant to break it down into a modern context to help answer the question, not to address imperialism in the context of feudalism or other systems. End of the day, someone is exploiting someone else for their own gain. It was just a matter of the context of the question and I erred on the side of keeping the scope within capitalism.
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Neoliberalism is agnostic to the form of government so long as profit keeps moving. Business is still done in the worst countries. And that keeps capital voting with their wallets for an increase in evil.
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Well good thing that fascism and imperialism only happened under capitalistic systems and nowhere else 🤡
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