Current Events > author of white fragility says capitalism is bound to racism

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The_Creep_2020 posted...

How many of those work in a first world country?

well some of them (such as feudalism) were pre-capitalist.

but your question is flawed: "first world" refers to allies of the US during the Cold War, so of course any "first world country" is going to have capitalism as its economic system.

if we instead use "first world" to mean "economically developed", then it's still a flawed question: wealthy countries became wealthy by stealing from other countries. "first world" countries in this sense are generally either colonizing powers (Britain, France, Belgium, now the US) or countries that were colonized and nearly eradicated the indigenous population (Canada, Australia, the US initially).

now, bear this in mind, and consider the fact that these countries (particularly the US) have done everything in their power (up to and including funding fascist militia groups and killing democratically elected leaders) to prevent any countries from implementing a socialist state. do you think it might be unfair to restrict the question to whether or not such systems "work", effectively blaming the failure of socialist countries on those country's internal politics?

(edited for clarity)

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What are all first world countries in Europe and Asia still populated by their native inhabitants then? Not real?

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ssjevot posted...

What are all first world countries in Europe and Asia still populated by their native inhabitants then? Not real?

ok, so not all of the colonized countries nearly eradicated their indigenous populations. the rest of the point still stands though -- they're largely either colonized nations or are themselves colonizers

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averagejoel posted...

ok, so not all of the colonized countries nearly eradicated their indigenous populations. the rest of the point still stands though -- they're largely either colonized nations or are themselves colonizers

Let's take two examples, one from Europe and one from Asia, Poland and South Korea. Both spent the majority of their histories being colonized and weren't truly independent until modern times (Poland not until the fall of the Soviet Union), yet despite all the colonization and oppression they suffered they are still populated almost entirely by their native populations and are first world countries, both having achieved that in a matter of decades after becoming liberal democracies (South Korea was a dictatorship and very poor until the 90s, Poland a satellite state of the USSR and very poor until the 90s). The idea that you can only achieve economic success by exploiting and/or murdering other populations is ridiculous.

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ssjevot posted...

Let's take two examples, one from Europe and one from Asia, Poland and South Korea. Both spent the majority of their histories being colonized and weren't truly independent until modern times (Poland not until the fall of the Soviet Union), yet despite all the colonization and oppression they suffered they are still populated almost entirely by their native populations and are first world countries, both having achieved that in a matter of decades after becoming liberal democracies (South Korea was a dictatorship and very poor until the 90s, Poland a satellite state of the USSR and very poor until the 90s).

in other words, they both fit the criteria that I laid out, aside from the genocide of the indigenous population

The idea that you can only achieve economic success by exploiting and/or murdering other populations is ridiculous.

that isn't at all the point I was making, and I don't even think it's necessarily true.

however, fundamentally, that is how capitalism works on a small scale: individual people become wealthy by exploiting their employees and/or inheriting their wealth. (an ever-shrinking portion of the population can have a decent life without doing that, but that's also not what I'm talking about -- I'm talking about people who aren't merely successful, but wealthy.)

I guess my point here is that I don't particularly care if it's possible for a country to become wealthy and powerful without exploiting/murdering another population -- the fact is that the major world superpowers that became wealthy by doing that

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Okay, so that the Soviet Union, the US, and now the PRC (debatably, but I would say so) achieved Super Power status by doing that relates to your previous economic systems argument in what way? It seems you're more arguing that super powers become super powers by exploiting/murdering another population, but you phrased it earlier like that was the only way a country can become wealthy. So you accept South Korea and Poland at a minimum did not murder their own population and were exploited by other countries for most of their history and achieved wealth anyway, under capitalist systems, but you haven't shown any reason why we should believe other systems would be better. Whether you consider the USSR and PRC capitalist or not, they suggest at least a wide range of the systems we have seen in modern times can only achieve superpower status through exploitation. I honestly don't think the economic system matters much to your point because in practice it just changes who sits atop the hierarchy at best.

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ssjevot posted...

Okay, so that the Soviet Union, the US, and now the PRC (debatably, but I would say so) achieved Super Power status by doing that relates to your previous economic systems argument in what way?

I wasn't talking about the USSR or the PRC, and I am wholly uninterested in doing so with you.

I was talking about the major world colonialist powers and you've kept moving the goalposts until we arrived at... whatever this is. this is extremely frustrating, and I'm gonna have to tap out of this before I say something that gets me modded

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Uses the word super power. Claims that the USSR wasn't a super power. Man why are you so incapable of arguing in good faith? And if you don't deny genocides you don't get modded. It's a really low bar actually.

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