
Tell Me It’s Going to be OK - animo
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/tell-me-its-going-to-be-ok-tokumitsu
======
ivraatiems
I think this piece is excellent. I'm shocked it's getting attention on HN -
not usually the place I go for my anti-capitalism screeds.

I don't know if I agree with the author that neoliberalism (or capitalism,
which I think is closer to what she's really talking about) is the cause of
all the ills she mentions, mainly because I don't think we should frame it
that way. "Neoliberalism bad, [other system of choice] good" is not the way to
consider it. As bad as neoliberal democracy/captialism is, would she rather
live in autocratic China or feudal medieval England? The question isn't
whether the current system is bad, it's whether there exists a demonstrably
better system we can now attempt to implement.

I think, at least for the United States, the answer to that question is very
much so, yes. It's called socialism, and most all the other democratic
societies are already doing it. It also doesn't necessarily mean the end of
capitalism, so much as an adjustment to the rules and formula.

~~~
seniorivn
If you think that so called democratic socialism is not capitalism, than you
just delusional, look at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_economic_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_economic_freedom)
European 'social democracies' have comparable economic freedoms, some even
more, and expenditures are also comparable
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#As_a_perce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#As_a_percentage_of_GDP)

The difference is efficiency of the government, if your government is
inefficient and corrupted, and your political system has a lack of
competition(US is the greatest example of that among democracies), than
increase in government spending will lead you to disaster like it did with
Venezuella, Zimbabwe, USSR, Kuba and etc

The question is, do you think US Government on all levels is efficient enough
to be trusted with even more jobs/resources to manage? And if it's not, what
the people of us should actually do to make it happen?

~~~
ddw
> The question is, do you think US Government on all levels is efficient
> enough to be trusted with even more jobs/resources to manage? And if it's
> not, what the people of us should actually do to make it happen?

Instead we're ruled by large, monopolistic corporations that have so much
power they can avoid paying taxes, pay off almost any politician and basically
set any policy that they want. I'll never understand why people are fine with
our current system.

I think your comment is basically neoliberlism in a nutshell. Let the market
decide, right?

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jerf
Also, you gotta watch out for all those people telling you to "think for
yourself"... you're walking right into their trap!

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poilcn
The author just lists a bunch of things that most people consider being bad
mixing it with things she considers being bad and makes a conclusion that it's
the fault of a movement called X. If you see an article in such format for the
first time it can be something like a revelation and you can feel some
emotional response, but when you saw them multiple time by multiple authors
from different movements blaming other movements for the same things you start
to see the pattern and it becomes just annoying. They just turn some terms and
names into insults. "Communists", "bourgeois", "postmodernists",
"neoliberals", "leftists", "fascists". These terms lose any sense when you
just throw them at people. It doesn't help that people use them to describe
themselves or others when named people don't actually support these movements.
They just have an opinion that differs from yours. In many cases it's not even
an opinion, it's just a mere feeling they have due to comradery with some
people they like.

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sctb
We've updated the link from [https://longreads.com/2018/09/25/mind-your-
mindfulness-youre...](https://longreads.com/2018/09/25/mind-your-mindfulness-
youre-playing-right-into-their-hands/), which points to this.

