Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
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Capitalism has fuelled the industrial, technological and green revolutions, reshaped the natural world and transformed the role of the state in relation to society. It has lifted innumerable people out of poverty over the last two centuries, significantly increased standards of living, and resulted in innovations that have radically improved human well-being, as well as making it possible to go to the Moon and read this article on the internet.
✏️ The positives?
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Prioritising short-term profits for individuals has sometimes meant that the long-term well-being of society and the environment has lost out
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as people increasingly asserted their right to individual liberty. This push for a greater focus on the individual favoured capitalism as an economic system because of the flexibility it allowed for private property rights, personal choice, entrepreneurship and innovation. It also favoured democracy as a governing system for its focus on individual political freedom.
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changed the social contract. Previously, many resources were provided by those in power (land, food and protection) in exchange for significant contributions from citizens (for instance, from slave labour to hard labour with little pay, high taxes and unquestioning loyalty). With capitalism, people expected less from governing authorities, in exchange for greater civil liberties, including individual, political and economic freedom.
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The social movement has exposed the deep sources of discontent in Chile: entrenched and growing inequality, the ever-rising cost of living, and extreme privatisation in one of the world’s most neoliberal states.”
✏️ When capitalism overtakes a government, it leads to these things (cost of living, inequality, ignoring citizens needs, extreme privatization) as well as erasing the role of the state in social and economic areas.
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Economies cannot become completely divorced from the demands of democratic majorities who seek jobs, affordable housing, education, healthcare and a clean environment. As the Chilean, Yellow Vest and Trumpist movements show, many people are asking for change to the existing system so that it accounts for these needs, rather than only enriching private interests.
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Their statement proposes that companies must do more than deliver profits to their shareholders. In addition, they must invest in their employees and contribute to the improvement of the human, natural and social elements of capital
✏️ Let’s pat everyone’s back that they “signed statements” and “proclaimed” we should care about more than money, as if it were some novel and revolutionary idea. Meanwhile, these are just statements. Even if they did minor efforts, is it enough? Can we truly course correct the system or does it need to be demolished and built anew from the ground up? (Ala the whole thing with defunding the police and abolishing vs course correcting the racist systems)
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it is worth remembering that citizens in a capitalist, liberal democracy are not powerless. Collectively, they can support companies aligned with their beliefs, and continuously demand new laws and policies which transform the competitive landscape of corporations so that they might improve their practices.
✏️ This seems dangerously naive, giving hope at best and placing blame at worst on citizens to regulate capitalism and saying that it’s in their hands to do this. It’s like saying the environment is in individuals’ hands to save thru small recycling efforts, while corporations do the most damage and make no efforts at all.