I’ll bite. Until we have machines doing most things, communism is unlikely to work, especially in post agrarian societies. We need to first fully realize not just post scarcity, but post work. In theory it seems like things like anarcho syndicalism and basic communism should work, but I don’t think they really function at a large scale. Socialized democracy and worker owned cooperatives within a capitalism system gets the closest to solving the problems imo. I like the idea of anarcho syndicalism the most, but I just don’t see how it can survive in todays world.

With all systems the same problems crop up. Powerful people seek to exploit ANY system to their benefit, and unmotivated people seek to do the least to get by. Who cleans toilets in a equitable communist country, who picks up the trash? Do we force people into job roles to fill the need? Without economic incentives I don’t see how the system stays healthy. Removing class barriers to some jobs does not always make them desirable enough to fill the need. Capitalisms structure inherently results in people that are strongly incentivized into those roles, because the wage will usually rise to meet the demand for employees. (Low educated citizens seeing opportunity in jobs that make a living wage.)

Currently the biggest problem we have, imo, is really that people with power expend tremendous resources on controlling the flow of information, and that has left a lot of people very misinformed. No matter the system, those same people will be fooled into voting for things that benefit the powerful to the detriment of the rest of us. That’s not so much a capitalism problem, but an information problem. That’s a problem we have no solution for. It has been an issue with humans since civilization has existed. We can’t individually know everything, so we rely on others to fill in the gaps in our thinking and assumptions, and many of those people have a motive to only give you the information that benefits them, or worse off just lie. A lot of peoples anger towards capitalism, is a result of unbridled capitalism in a world where most people have incomplete information to make good decisions at the voting booth. We only have unbridled capitalism because of misinformation, not because capitalism is inherently bad.

One was implemented and is actively ruining the planet.

The other was only used as a façade by dictators that didn’t feel like labeling themselves as right-wing.

Exactly. No revolution occurred because everyone wished really hard it would happen but still played by the oppressor’s rules.

Yeah, but I don’t think communism is a bulletproof solution either. Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses.

The real issue is that people think the disparity in wealth should grow instead of shrink.

I think many of the socialist states of Asia and Eastern Europe are or were ridiculously corrupt. How democratic those were is of course questionable.

You’re not joking. You’re saying “I agree with you” in the most obnoxious smarmy way possible.

IMO Degrowth would have to start with finding better, less destructive metrics than GDP to measure and plan economic prosperity with

I believe that the intent is to shift focus away from material goods, since we have long passed the point of diminishing returns on increasing material wealth increasing individual well-being, and focusing on things that actually do improve it, which our system overall neglects. That would be things like meaningful work, community, art, leisure, et cetera. In short, the things that make us happy, but which GDP doesn’t measure.

at least to my understanding degrowth is about not doing things that are ultimately not actually productive for our quality of life, the prime example being the clothing industry which churns out more clothes than we would ever need every year and literally just throws it in the garbage, going so far as cutting things up just so people won’t fish it out of the container and wear it without paying.

There are a ton of things like that, which basically only serve to enrich the already wealthy, and if we stop doing that shit and just give people what they need to live regardless of if they have an employment, we can all enjoy life more while also being more sustainable.

The solarpunk movement shows one take on what degrowth can look like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk

you get less production and less stuff

Not really.

then increased poverty.

You mean the poverty we already have thanks to capitalism?

Lemme give you a very small concrete example where reduced consumption will not alter the quality of life.

Take a small neighbourhood, maybe 10ish families there. Everybody in that neighbourhood has basic tools that they use maybe once a month or less. Hammers, screwdrivers, spanners, etc. Instead of each family having those tools, have a tool library where you have 2-3 of each tool. Anyone in the neighbourhood can borrow the tools they need when they need them and give them back when done. Congratulations, you’ve reduced tool consumption by 70-80% with no downsides.

This is just one small example, but there are methods for more efficiently allocating resources within communities.

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Or not going into store to buy a new knife every time previous one dulls and just sharpening it instead somehow decreases quality of life. TIL.

Decreasing someones consumption will likely decrease their quality of life.

Riiight… because the sugary sewage water sold by Coke and Pepsi is so vital for life, eh?

I would argue that a lot of consumption, at least in “developed” nations, is driven by artificial demand. Some examples: the tobacco industry, the invention of “halitosis,” bottled water, planned obsolescence. So much of what we produce doesn’t raise, and often lowers, quality of life. Having to meet these levels of demand is deleterious directly and indirectly; being overworked and living in a polluted environment also lowers quality of life.

But that’s not really the point. Viewing quality of life as identical to consumption is pathological and borderline offensive. If you want to increase your quality of life, spend more time with your friends, family, and neighbors. Create in ways that inspire you. Rest and relax. Spend more time in the moment. Go outside and visit nature. Volunteer and give back to others. There is so much more to being human than having the latest phone.

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So if I consume 0 bullets with my body instead of 4 bullets will somehow decrease my quality of life?

It’s working great for those in power.

Handing out new rain to the trees in the canopy may or may not increase rain at the lower levels, but reducing rain at the canopy for sure reduces rain at lower levels.

R&D resources are usually small compared to the efficacy improvements they allow. You don’t need advertisement. Though to achieve sustanability , you’d also need a very long life on products and almost complete recycling.

Fuck vendors who do not publish kernel sources.

The matter from previous phones can just be recycled. We don’t really do it now because we’re nowhere near the growth limit OP was hypothesizing, but if it really came to it we’d mine our landfills instead of mountains.

Talking about children is changing the subject, important as that may be. We’re talking about finite materials.

No, that’s literally the definition of growth (the variation of GDP from one year to the next, the GDP itself is defined as the sum of gross value added). We can make growth out of thin air if we want, it’s a purely accounting metric.

I sell you a pebble for a $1000 and you sell it back to me and we created $2000 of growth without anything physically happening.

At the scale of mankind, the universe is effectively infinite. The sun has another billion year to go and outputs so much energy it’s virtually infinite to us.

Exactly, that’s why you can always improve, which is usually reflected in increasing wealth.

Marketing is the distribution of information. Its value is not just a trick or something. You can argue we’re over valuing it, but it’s definitely extremely valuable.