[tynpeddler]

Most of the public discourse on the current problems of capitalism is not serious. Many folks aren't actually comparing capitalism to an alternative, instead they're comparing their current situation to a mythical alternative reality. The is exacerbated by the fact that Marx himself and other communist/socialist authors make similar mistakes. The whole marxist obsession with "alienation" is a perfect example. They are largely delusional about the plight of the working class in non-capitalist systems.

Workers in socialist systems are inundated in propaganda in ways that would make the most ardent Fox News producer blush. They don't experience alienation between their work and their non-work life, they experience alienation between the life in their head and life in the physical world. Similarly, workers in a feudal system also experience fear and domination at the hands of a system that vests in them little power or autonomy.

[runarberg]

> Workers in socialist systems are inundated in propaganda in ways that would make the most ardent Fox News producer blush.

This is ignoring the fact that not all workers in our economy are working for a for profit capitalist entity. There are non-profits, there are co-ops, there are even state corporations and institutions that employ millions of people. I’m not aware of any propaganda these workers are exposed to which workers in a for-profit capitalist organizations aren’t.

In fact the for-profit organizations I’ve worked for has many many mandatory “meetings” which only purpose seems to be to tout the superiority of that corporation, and spout propaganda on how much better it is to work there. The state provided jobs I’ve worked at don’t do this.

[texaslonghorn5]

> The whole marxist obsession with "alienation" is a perfect example. They are largely delusional about the plight of the working class in non-capitalist systems.

You make two claims here. You provide some examples of the second claim in the second paragraph; for the first one, do you have any justification for why obsessing over alienation is bad?

More precisely, do you agree or disagree with the premise that alienation exists (in some form) in the capitalist system? If you agree, do you think workers would be better off if they were not alienated?

If you don't agree that alienation exists, how would you describe/judge modern IP rights and corporate hierarchy structures?

Would you say it's a good or bad thing that all of an employee's work product (during and outside of office hours) belongs to the company (assuming you accept my premise that this is enforced)?

[tynpeddler]

I'm concerned that you've selectively ignored parts of my comment and have read meaning out of it that I did not put into it.

>do you have any justification for why obsessing over alienation is bad?

Obsessing over alienation is bad for Marxists (and good for capitalists). As I said, Marxists are not being serious (maybe credible is a better word here) when using alienation to critique capitalism. Of the economic systems in discussion, capitalism has the least alienation. Marxist solutions are either pure fantasy, or have been tried and lead to worse outcomes and other socio-economic systems sfrom history are also worse than capitalism. In other words, Marxist concerns with alienation are hypocritical.

>do you think workers would be better off if they were not alienated?

Again, I'm discussing the Marxist use of alienation and how they undercut themselves when discussing it.

> Would you say it's a good or bad thing that all of an employee's work product (during and outside of office hours) belongs to the company (assuming you accept my premise that this is enforced)?

Nothing in my comment can be taken as arguing one way or another on this topic. However, given that you've decided to focus on the goodness/badness of alienation, it sounds like it's important to you. How do you feel about alienation?

[peoplefromibiza]

> Of the economic systems in discussion, capitalism has the least alienation

is it true though?

I believe it's never been measured by anybody and you're only speculating here.

> Marxist solutions are either pure fantasy, or have been tried and lead to worse outcomes

If that was true, why the most capitalistic power in the World and recent history was so scares by them that went to war against them and used every dirty trick in the book to replace them with dictators or puppets (sometimes they were literally Nazis...)

> how they undercut themselves when discussing it.

you keep saying it, but the how it's not clear to me.

It looks to me your knowledge of Marxism is incomplete.

Marx was impressed by capitalism, he simply thought that capitalism was detrimental for the working class and that through the class struggle they could improve their conditions and participation to the wealth.

Marx wasn't against capitalism, but he knew it was tuned to favour the ruling classes and the bourgeoisie, but also argued that it was the most productive system the World had ever seen.

It's only a matter of where you stand: with billionaires that amass capital like never before while their employees do not earn enough money to make a living, while also being alienated by the work they do, or not.

It's bad enough to be alienated, it's much worse if the system only rewards those that do not actually do the work and/or do not need or deserve so much wealth.

Marxists systems were not worse of capitalistic ones on average, for example at the times Yugoslavia wasn't in worse shape than Greece and what happened in Romania wasn't much different from what Franco did in Spain, a fascist dictotator supported by the USA in exchange for military bases. Life in Cuba or Peronist Argentina was probably similar to Portugal, if not slightly better.

Of course USA had a better life style than communist Poland, but they literally had the highest standard of living in the World, it really doesn't describe capitalism in general, USA are an outlier where the good and the bad of their system show themselves to the extremes (and now it's mostly the bad i.e. the tribalism and the violence).

it's the distribution of wealth that is much different in the two systems, capitalists simply don't like that: to share

But even if it was true that all non capitalistic countries were much worse than capitalistic countries, literally everyone was in the same boat and services were free for everybody.