[staunch]

Socialism is only a valid answer if you don't understand technology. If you think there's a fixed pie and we have to forcibly break it into rations so that everyone gets at least something.

But technology offers a much better solution, which is grow the pie large enough that everyone has as much as they want. There are no physical limitations to this concept. The universe is rich with everything we need for billions of years. Karl Marx didn't understand asteroid mining.

And it turns out that unchecked capitalism is shit but it's just the right kind of manure for the garden of technology to bear its fruit of panacea.

[weirdstuff]

This is a sentiment that I think is termed "technological utopianism" and it has limits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_utopianism

[staunch]

Or more generally, this is just a description of Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology

There may be "limits" in terms of scope and trade offs to society, but there are no practical "physical limitations" with respect to available atoms.

[chickenfries]

I'm not so sure that there are no physical limitations to technological growth, which is ultimately a function of investment in to technology.

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...

[jacques_chester]

Marx wasn't really advocating that there is a fixed pie which needs to be forcibly carved up. Mostly he built his ideas around the distinction between different kinds of "value", particularly the labour value and exchange value of goods.

His clever insight, the basis of his theory of exploitation, was that labour value and labour power are different. The labourer sells labour power. The difference between the labour value of the good and the labour power sold accrues to the capitalist.

One of the several ways he was wrong was that prices aren't really set by labour value at all. All economic value is subjective, influenced by many factors. The average amount of labour is neither here nor there.

[tarboreus]

For the last 50 years, the pie has gotten larger and larger. And yet, the median slice is getting smaller. How big does this pie have to get before everyone is allowed to have a bite?

[RyanZAG]

Why do you say the slices have gotten smaller? The absolute percentage of people in poverty in the world has had a very rapid decline over the last 50 years. So something we are doing is working.

[makotech222]

I don't think you know what socialism is.

[ryanwaggoner]

Could you provide an example of socialism done right (not social democracy) where you'd love to live?