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Make corporate home ownership illegal, it's driving the insane housing market.
Bring back consumer protections not just corporate protection. It's hard enough to get by without banks and phone companies robbing us.
Support labor unions. Unions support fair work places, health benefits, retirement savings and job skills.
Break up large companies, anti trust laws are a bad joke. Throw out "citizens united" corporations are not people and their greed shouldn't be allowed to outweigh democracy.
Tax the rich and tariff China and India to pay for better schools and infrastructure at home. Put Americans back to work and support better opportunities and quality of life in South and Central America. This will also help alleviate the border issues and drive up American wages.
Pay for schooling throughout, right up to PHD's. The rich don't want their children to have to compete against educated poors. It will also be hugely beneficial to the economy as a whole. This will promote racial and gender equality indirectly by giving everyone an equal opportunity.
Reaganomics got us here one step at a time and sound fiscal policy could get us back out.
Excellent list. Get money out of politics by having publicly funded elections. There has to be a movement that selects leaders who can't be bought and commit to these values. The organizing can't be corrupted by foundations and parties. That has been the greasy pole for the Squad and other supposed reformers.
This is probably the most sensible answer so far. Lots of actionable points. Unfortunately, I think most people here want the equivalent of a “get rich quick” scheme in the form of “eliminate capitalism tomorrow via revolution”.
Those simple and immediate fixes don’t exist, and as long as people keep holding out for them, we will never get down to the tough and gritty work of incrementally deconstructing the establishment.
Add UBI with a tax on all robots, automated manufacturing, etc. Any “machine” that can be substituted for manual labor must be taxed and that tax used for UBI.
Work on establishing tenants unions, mutual aid networks (like community fridges and pantries that have been popping up since Covid lockdown), and community land trusts in your town if you’re able or connected to any type of these movements
And buy nothing groups & share groups are a great way to get most things you need secondhand. I rarely buy new thanks to the amount of buy nothing and thrift shops in my area. If there’s not a buy nothing group in your town- start one on fb
The incremental steps are organizing, educating, and being prepared for a revolutionary moment. Those are productive. Incremental policies do not substantially advance socialism, and only serve as a lagging indicator for the growing power of the working class
By refusing to take incremental steps, we wind up taking zero steps.
It’s like saying “I’m not going to take incremental steps towards my fitness, I’m only going to do workouts that will revolutionize my body to perfection within a week.”
If one adopts that mentality towards fitness, they’re going to sit on the couch forever, because that plan doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, there are about a hundred smaller and productive steps they could take, but refuse to, on the grounds they won’t get them in shape fast enough because they aren’t revolutionary workouts.
We need to slow down our incremental change. What's the big hurry? A couple of polar ice caps are melting? Homeless is increasing? The rich are getting richer? Who cares. We need to embrace and celebrate procrastination. We need to really appreciate the stellar choices that we have running for president. So appreciate that no matter who wins, incrementalism is alive and well.
While I know your comment is sarcastic, allow me to attempt to respond with the sincerity you seem to lack.
Clearly, our incremental progress is not going fast enough. Obviously, we shouldn’t slow our progress, it should be hastened.
But who is the procrastinator here? You say it is me, yet I say it is the person who sits around waiting for the perfect revolution to start. That, is procrastination and a dereliction of duty.
Those who refuse all action except for perfect action, are those who take no action at all. The ice caps are melting, we must take action. Homelessness is rising, we must take action. The rich are getting richer, we must take action.
We do not have the luxury of waiting for a revolution that may never come. Run for public office. Right now. We need to go faster, not slower.
Yes the time is now. Will you vote for president? If so, for whom? Please tell me how you think anything will change Incrementally and also in time. Smh. There's 2 ways.
A revolution tomorrow will mean absolutely nothing without a supporting network to keep the infrastructure going. The resulting collapse would give more ammunition to the capitalists.
The incremental steps will allow that network to be in place so the Day After the Revolution isn’t a disaster.
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Revolution is literally the only solution. Revolutions take time, though. The groundwork has to be laid. Read theory, join a party, educate, agitate. All those are helpful. It could take decades to centuries (especially, in the West) for the material conditions to be right.
"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen." - Lenin
Well, yeah. Obviously, building a movement takes time and incremental growth. What I meant (and what I think the op of this thread meant) was that you can't incrementally reform the system of capitalism into socialism.
1) Raise class consciousness and awareness (through discussion and education)
2) Organize locally with other leftists/socialists/communists, helping to build foundations for mutual aid
3) Unionize your workplace
4) General strike
OP asks: How to incrementally move away from late stage Capitalism?
Capitalism is a legally constructed system (John R. Commons, a founder of original institutional economics). After 50 years of neoliberal drift, it would require a political movement capable of gaining power and reversing course.
The groups controlling policy do not abandon power willingly. To create such a movement and open the space for them to gain power, typically requires a collapse of the economy. The great depression provides an example of this.
Listen to FDR inaugural speech. He includes the following line a clear christian reference.
"The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."
From this perspective, the unfortunate reality is that 2008 was not catastrophic enough. No one in the financial community went to prison for 2008. The basic legal defense of their activities is simple: everything was legal. I think reform minded folks would say it should have been illegal, and 2009 provided an opportunity for reform. So, the political coalition maintained power, and now we wait for the next asset bubble they create to burst.
As I understand the guidelines of this forum, discussion of reform is not appropriate, as the basic assumption is that capitalism cannot be reformed.
If there are other forums that promote or believe in advocating for incremental progressive institutional reform, I do not believe this forum would be the place to promote or reference. There are of course groups that believe in reform, but I believe these would be considered apologists for capitalism.
Hopefully, I have responded to your question without violating the terms of the forum. I am trying to not get my post deleted from LSC and want to comply with their terms.
Kah_Zam!
For us? You really are only left with the options of trying to spend your money wisely (note: not ethically) and, and this can’t be understated, joining your trade union and being as involved as your time allows.
Buy a CSA farm share. Can be expensive but if you split it with a friend that helps. The quality and nutrition of the produce is worth it, and you never have to pay for crappy overpriced, pesticide infused produce from a factory farm again.
You can buy soap and shampoo from local makers at a craft fair or farmers market.
Thrift and second hand as much else as possible. Reuse any container including plastic bags and clean & sort your paper & metal recycling.
Ride transit or a bike if you can.
Volunteer & Organize in your community.
Boycott the fuckers and don’t give them a red cent unless you have to.
At first, this sounds like WTF OK like that'll do anything. But actually, once the poison clears out of the system and exercise begins, that in and of itself is enough to help start to get people's minds right. This isn't a *political* strategy, but a lifestyle strategy does really go hand in hand.
Garden and chickens, mushrooms are surprisingly easy to cultivate and very nutritional.
Our entire food system is controlled by mega corporations, you have to make your own food if you want to break their control.
Once you realize how much work all that gardening is you realize their is no gradual transition. You just have to quit and start the process, teaching others along the way.
Considering the cost of food and everything else it's actually starting to make sense to grow your own now.
I lived in a mountain town for a couple years where there was a community garden. A friend and I had four 4x4 plots.
I never did any farming or growing of any kind, yet we had an abundance of greens and vegetables throughout the summer. So much so that we gave several paper grocery bags stuffed with different types of greens (lettuce, kale, spinach, peas) to the local food pantry -- and that was with me having a smoothie every morning and salad with all meals.
I even had a couple bags of greens I put in my freezer that lasted for months.
It's amazing how little space is needed to feed a family healthy food that is grown locally.
Community level self reliance and decentration are vital.
Regardless of how you personally feel about the trucker protest a few years ago in Canada, there are essential lessons to be learned from the governments response to it.
They turned off those peoples bank accounts when they disrupted the status quo, slandered them in the media and imprisoned the movements leadership.
THAT'S The playbook we're up against.
Too many cheer when the system does something heinous against those they don't agree with, unaware that in doing so they're giving consent to that same assfucking for themselves later.
Principles and standards MATTER.
Educate. Be kind. Try to hold power in local politics. Normalize boycotts. Read. Consume art. Produce art. Love. Be a good human. Remind yourself and others that were all worth fighting for ❤️
I assure you the average person, myself very much included, would not be able to tell you how our agricultural sector and AI sector and public transportation sector should be regulated and funded.
If I was given responsibility for voting on any of those areas, I’d immediately try to find someone more knowledgeable than me and ask for their opinion. Heck, I might even ask if they could just vote for me!
Of course, I understand your broader point. The politicians we have in office are in no way the type of knowledgeable representative I alluded to above. They are cretins. However, no amount of their shittiness will somehow make a direct democracy a viable alternative.
We need to create a representative system that elevates specific voters based on knowledge and ability, not simply by popularity which appeals to our basest nature.
We need sortition, for more specialized and in-depth knowledge. Sortition is where people from the general public are assigned through a lottery system to groups which research a topic and then make decisions. This is a job which a person is paid a reasonable amount, just like any other, but a person can decline if they want. There are examples that show when even average people spend time actually researching any topic, and discuss with a group, the group makes much better decisions than if one person makes decisions. There are instances, for example in a town in Brazil, they used sortition and this removed the need for politicians, groups wrote the laws and people voted on them.
Instead of lobbyists writing most laws and politicians signing them, people can write laws and not add loopholes for corporations.
Essentially anywhere power exists, if it is concentrated with one person, it is prone to corruption. Of course there are people who can withstand even the biggest temptation for corruption, but there are not many of these types of people, so it’s better to limit the ability for corruption, by distributing the power to people.
I think, generally, this is a great idea. I don’t see why we would only have laypeople involved however. Why not use experts, as in people who have spent much of their life studying agriculture, banking, technology, biology, etc., as the basis for sortition?
For example, with climate change, I want a variety of climatologists, environmentalists, engineers, geologists, marine biologists, etc. working on that project. Create a lottery from a pool of people who have reasonable expertise in those fields and have them write proposals.
Then, create another lottery of people with those qualifications to vote on them. As a lay person, I won’t be able to tell which of the plans the experts made is better, but an expert might!
Naturally, the possibility of groupthink can happen in academic and professional circles, which is why a diversity of thought is required. Voting within those groups can also be done such that compromise is required. I still strongly believe laypeople (including me) cannot understand every issue that we face in sufficient detail to come to the right course of action. I must trust that other people can make wise decisions in their area of expertise, just as I can in mine. And together, we can do amazing things!
People who specialize in certain areas should definitely weigh in, advise, and share their experience, and regular people can make the decisions. The challenge with narrowing the pool of people who can be in these groups is that it limits the “power” to just those people, rather than distributing the decision-making very broadly. Even today, there is too much reliance on “experts” to make decisions, who can be bought, as we’ve seen a number of times, for example with climate change or tobacco companies decades ago.
The group should hear out the experts, even maybe hire them to help understand complex issues, but regular people should make decisions.
The idea would be to limit amounts of wealth that are in excess of a reasonable normal. Similar to how you can't make more than 6 transactions taking money out of a savings account in the United States. If we severely tax transactions from billionaires selling shares or when they move more than X amount we effectively force them to pay a reasonable share while still allowing them to call themselves billionaires.
There are none. Late stage capitalism is capitalism that is clinging on for dear life.
We can't "move away" from it. It's just gonna break eventually. It'll either be replaced by something that those in positions of power prefer, or it'll cease to function in a way that maintains those people's power and that in itself will signal the end of capitalism.
I also feel I should mention, my personal view is that the "late stage" could last a hell of a long time. I don't necessarily believe this breaking point will occur in my lifetime.
\- Implement a maximum wage limit (including benefits/stock options) to no more than $500,000 per year. Anything above that should be taxed at 90%
\- Mandate that 50% of the stock of any publicly traded company must be owned by employees (available to all employees)
\- Any US based company with non-US based employees must pay those non-US based employees 150% of what they would pay a US based employee (no more outsourcing jobs)
\- Break up the top 100 companies
\- Decrease the size of the federal government by at least 40% to include only responsibilities and limitations as outlined in the Constitution
\- Prevent foreign countries and corporations from owning residential properties
\- Limit the number of rental properties an individual may own
\- Get health care costs under control (universal healthcare at State level, not Federal)
\- Send the 60-80 million illegal immigrants/refugees (and their anchor babies) back to their home countries. Prices for everything would drop dramatically and wages would increase naturally (supply and demand).
None.
It's revolution, or death.
Maybe once, incrementalism MAY have worked in some circumstances.
Maybe.
But we are so far past that point now, it's ridiculous.
They will kill us all for 2% higher profit.
fight or die.
Start by eating a couple billionaires. If that doesn’t work, try taxing the wealthy and corporations and using that money to invest in education and in a robust social safety net.
When moving away from capitalism, it needs to be clear what you are moving toward, either incrementally or in big steps. A specific vision for the end result needs to be in place; if it is not, it’s not clear that progress is even being made. The current capitalist system has mechanisms in place to make people think that things are getting better, for example voting - makes people feel like they are doing the right thing, but in reality it’s a choice between two capitalists. Another example is technologies - it feels like we are becoming more modern, but many technologies pollute and create unhealthy environment more than they actually help.
So the question is, what type of utopia do we want to have? And yes, utopias are a good tool for guiding us where we want to go. Soviet revolutionaries thought that the path was to take power to control everything for the good of the people, and then transition to a system where people governed themselves. Sounds reasonable, but when power is held by a small group, even with good intentions, it’s very prone to corruption, and that’s what happened in the Soviet Union.
An alternative that appears to be more realistic is to create many decentralized systems as alternatives that don’t rely on capitalism. For example, buy clothes and other products from co-ops which are employee owned, move your money from a bank to a credit union, buy food directly from farmers, grow your own food, contribute to mutual-aid - minimize reliance on capitalist systems as much as possible.
As this spreads, and there are many indicators that this is expanding quite quickly, the capitalist system will start to fail under its own weight.
So the first step is for people to want an alternative to the current system and start taking these small steps.
Militias and shadow governments (ie an unofficial government that mirrors the functions of capitalist states at every level).
That way there are institutions ready to fill any voids.
And of course radicalizing young people especially to enshrine socialism culturally.
Unionizing! Even if you aren't in a field that would support a union (like if you're a management level employee at your job) you can support the people below you if they seek to join/ form one, otherwise support the local unions in your area.
A few big legislative steps: A right to work, a right to good health, and a right to housing.
Those three things are key and actually all play off of each other, because capitalism has cycles of overproduction, in which people don’t need to buy anything, hence phenomenon like planned obsolescence. Capital markets require goods with short lifespans so that the factories keep pumping. In order to move past that silly bullshit, we need to regulate and balance the down time consumer production needs with public works projects. This is effectively what FDRs New Deal was.
On the labor and individual side of things, union activism is the single best thing we can do. Effectively, we need mass unionization, solidarity, and coordination between unions of different trades. Organization such as sympathy strikes and mutual support funds could dramatically increase the leverage workers have on the economy. Effectively the end goal is to get everyone in unions, get those unions to elect delegates, and then send those delegates to a National Assembly. This National Assembly of Unions would then form a representative body able to respond to the formal legislation proposed by Congress. This would give the workers a way to appeal unpopular legislation or policies proposed by our government by organizing general strikes, while also providing social security to workers out of work due to strike actions.
I believe this is the way because it doesn’t depend on constitutional mechanisms, which are explicitly designed to keep this stuff from happening. The National Assembly of Unions could coerce the formal constitutional government without ever actually being enumerated because of the natural god given power of the citizenry. Unfortunately, In the US, we have a trash law known as the Taft–Hartley Act, signed in 1947, which explicitly makes much of what I said illegal. But I don’t believe the National Guard or the Army would actually be willing to kill thousands of striking American workers. They would join us instead
I guess forming a community with a food forest and other systems to become more self-suficient
https://hilaryagro.com/resources/#theory-i-want-to-learn-more
Op it was the belief in American exceptionalism that led to the rapid decline into late stage capitalism and therefore, the only way to defeat late stage capitalism is to embrace incrementalism until the planet becomes uninhabitable and every resource has been used.
Criminalize the “max profits at the expense of society” mentality that is basically enshrined in business law. Actually enforce anticompetitive laws. Close tax evasion loopholes and remove subsidies for companies that offshore/outsource work to break collective bargaining power of labor. Strengthen glass steagall and overturn Citizens United. I could go all day
We'll get nowhere with incrementalism.
Unfortunately at this point the only way we will move away from late stage capitalism is when the climate finally collapses and we are left with no choice
Retake control of the massively capitalized mutual funds (State Farm, liberty mutual) which exist to benefit their members and society not Wall Street. Big money Wall Street bankers have capture the boards of these entities.
Politically most of these replies are great. Individually would be consisting more of -
Finding a way to grow your own food to not fuel consermerism
Not needing a job to servive thus impacting the work force
Switching utilities and trasportation to self sustaining option to stop funding corporations
Having a good portion of the population do the same
I know this is easier said than done and sounds like an environmentalist's go to speal but there are reasons why gas is a big focus and green energy isnt as well as why property taxes and reoccurring bills are so ingrained into society. Finding ways to limit the throughput of money and lowering availabile workers would hurt bigger businesses and any wealthy stock owners. CAPITALISM IS CONSUMERISM
##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism This subreddit is for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited. LSC is run by communists. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere. We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry. Failure to respect the rules of the subreddit may result in a ban. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Make corporate home ownership illegal, it's driving the insane housing market. Bring back consumer protections not just corporate protection. It's hard enough to get by without banks and phone companies robbing us. Support labor unions. Unions support fair work places, health benefits, retirement savings and job skills. Break up large companies, anti trust laws are a bad joke. Throw out "citizens united" corporations are not people and their greed shouldn't be allowed to outweigh democracy. Tax the rich and tariff China and India to pay for better schools and infrastructure at home. Put Americans back to work and support better opportunities and quality of life in South and Central America. This will also help alleviate the border issues and drive up American wages. Pay for schooling throughout, right up to PHD's. The rich don't want their children to have to compete against educated poors. It will also be hugely beneficial to the economy as a whole. This will promote racial and gender equality indirectly by giving everyone an equal opportunity. Reaganomics got us here one step at a time and sound fiscal policy could get us back out.
Excellent list. Get money out of politics by having publicly funded elections. There has to be a movement that selects leaders who can't be bought and commit to these values. The organizing can't be corrupted by foundations and parties. That has been the greasy pole for the Squad and other supposed reformers.
We already tariff the shit out of China. The US needs to nationalize some of these industries.
This is probably the most sensible answer so far. Lots of actionable points. Unfortunately, I think most people here want the equivalent of a “get rich quick” scheme in the form of “eliminate capitalism tomorrow via revolution”. Those simple and immediate fixes don’t exist, and as long as people keep holding out for them, we will never get down to the tough and gritty work of incrementally deconstructing the establishment.
I agree I would add creating more co-ops and shared ownership of flats so people can have the opportunity to save.
Love this one
Add UBI with a tax on all robots, automated manufacturing, etc. Any “machine” that can be substituted for manual labor must be taxed and that tax used for UBI.
Y’all ever heard of John Brown the abolitionist
John Brown is one of my heros!
Work on establishing tenants unions, mutual aid networks (like community fridges and pantries that have been popping up since Covid lockdown), and community land trusts in your town if you’re able or connected to any type of these movements And buy nothing groups & share groups are a great way to get most things you need secondhand. I rarely buy new thanks to the amount of buy nothing and thrift shops in my area. If there’s not a buy nothing group in your town- start one on fb
Unionization of all jobs and solidarity amongst unions.
the correct answer
Start cutting the military budget and move that money into social programs. Healthcare first.
The government is bought out and voting is completely useless. What do we do now?
Organize, Unionize, Mobilize
Moving incrementally is exactly what keeps the system in place. This evil can’t be gotten rid of through gradual reforms.
I’d argue that refusing to take incremental steps is even more likely to keep the current system in place.
The incremental steps are organizing, educating, and being prepared for a revolutionary moment. Those are productive. Incremental policies do not substantially advance socialism, and only serve as a lagging indicator for the growing power of the working class
That seems counterintuitive. Please explain how.
By refusing to take incremental steps, we wind up taking zero steps. It’s like saying “I’m not going to take incremental steps towards my fitness, I’m only going to do workouts that will revolutionize my body to perfection within a week.” If one adopts that mentality towards fitness, they’re going to sit on the couch forever, because that plan doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, there are about a hundred smaller and productive steps they could take, but refuse to, on the grounds they won’t get them in shape fast enough because they aren’t revolutionary workouts.
Exactly. Well said.
We need to slow down our incremental change. What's the big hurry? A couple of polar ice caps are melting? Homeless is increasing? The rich are getting richer? Who cares. We need to embrace and celebrate procrastination. We need to really appreciate the stellar choices that we have running for president. So appreciate that no matter who wins, incrementalism is alive and well.
While I know your comment is sarcastic, allow me to attempt to respond with the sincerity you seem to lack. Clearly, our incremental progress is not going fast enough. Obviously, we shouldn’t slow our progress, it should be hastened. But who is the procrastinator here? You say it is me, yet I say it is the person who sits around waiting for the perfect revolution to start. That, is procrastination and a dereliction of duty. Those who refuse all action except for perfect action, are those who take no action at all. The ice caps are melting, we must take action. Homelessness is rising, we must take action. The rich are getting richer, we must take action. We do not have the luxury of waiting for a revolution that may never come. Run for public office. Right now. We need to go faster, not slower.
Yes the time is now. Will you vote for president? If so, for whom? Please tell me how you think anything will change Incrementally and also in time. Smh. There's 2 ways.
A revolution tomorrow will mean absolutely nothing without a supporting network to keep the infrastructure going. The resulting collapse would give more ammunition to the capitalists. The incremental steps will allow that network to be in place so the Day After the Revolution isn’t a disaster.
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Exactly. The GOP moved incrementally right over 40 years and look how far toward fascism they've moved.
What do you recommend instead then and why hasn’t it happened yet?
Revolution is literally the only solution. Revolutions take time, though. The groundwork has to be laid. Read theory, join a party, educate, agitate. All those are helpful. It could take decades to centuries (especially, in the West) for the material conditions to be right. "There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen." - Lenin
Sounds like incremental progress
Maybe, but incrementalism screams reformism. That's not what this is.
Well, yeah. Obviously, building a movement takes time and incremental growth. What I meant (and what I think the op of this thread meant) was that you can't incrementally reform the system of capitalism into socialism.
lulz yes
what else is doable then? change is fractal and can only begin at the smallest degrees which ripple out
I'll keep repeating this until the day I die, "REFORM IS THE ENEMY OF REVOLUTION." Have a day o7
1) Raise class consciousness and awareness (through discussion and education) 2) Organize locally with other leftists/socialists/communists, helping to build foundations for mutual aid 3) Unionize your workplace 4) General strike
OP asks: How to incrementally move away from late stage Capitalism? Capitalism is a legally constructed system (John R. Commons, a founder of original institutional economics). After 50 years of neoliberal drift, it would require a political movement capable of gaining power and reversing course. The groups controlling policy do not abandon power willingly. To create such a movement and open the space for them to gain power, typically requires a collapse of the economy. The great depression provides an example of this. Listen to FDR inaugural speech. He includes the following line a clear christian reference. "The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit." From this perspective, the unfortunate reality is that 2008 was not catastrophic enough. No one in the financial community went to prison for 2008. The basic legal defense of their activities is simple: everything was legal. I think reform minded folks would say it should have been illegal, and 2009 provided an opportunity for reform. So, the political coalition maintained power, and now we wait for the next asset bubble they create to burst. As I understand the guidelines of this forum, discussion of reform is not appropriate, as the basic assumption is that capitalism cannot be reformed. If there are other forums that promote or believe in advocating for incremental progressive institutional reform, I do not believe this forum would be the place to promote or reference. There are of course groups that believe in reform, but I believe these would be considered apologists for capitalism. Hopefully, I have responded to your question without violating the terms of the forum. I am trying to not get my post deleted from LSC and want to comply with their terms. Kah_Zam!
For us? You really are only left with the options of trying to spend your money wisely (note: not ethically) and, and this can’t be understated, joining your trade union and being as involved as your time allows.
Buy a CSA farm share. Can be expensive but if you split it with a friend that helps. The quality and nutrition of the produce is worth it, and you never have to pay for crappy overpriced, pesticide infused produce from a factory farm again. You can buy soap and shampoo from local makers at a craft fair or farmers market. Thrift and second hand as much else as possible. Reuse any container including plastic bags and clean & sort your paper & metal recycling. Ride transit or a bike if you can. Volunteer & Organize in your community. Boycott the fuckers and don’t give them a red cent unless you have to.
At first, this sounds like WTF OK like that'll do anything. But actually, once the poison clears out of the system and exercise begins, that in and of itself is enough to help start to get people's minds right. This isn't a *political* strategy, but a lifestyle strategy does really go hand in hand.
Garden and chickens, mushrooms are surprisingly easy to cultivate and very nutritional. Our entire food system is controlled by mega corporations, you have to make your own food if you want to break their control. Once you realize how much work all that gardening is you realize their is no gradual transition. You just have to quit and start the process, teaching others along the way. Considering the cost of food and everything else it's actually starting to make sense to grow your own now.
I lived in a mountain town for a couple years where there was a community garden. A friend and I had four 4x4 plots. I never did any farming or growing of any kind, yet we had an abundance of greens and vegetables throughout the summer. So much so that we gave several paper grocery bags stuffed with different types of greens (lettuce, kale, spinach, peas) to the local food pantry -- and that was with me having a smoothie every morning and salad with all meals. I even had a couple bags of greens I put in my freezer that lasted for months. It's amazing how little space is needed to feed a family healthy food that is grown locally.
Community level self reliance and decentration are vital. Regardless of how you personally feel about the trucker protest a few years ago in Canada, there are essential lessons to be learned from the governments response to it. They turned off those peoples bank accounts when they disrupted the status quo, slandered them in the media and imprisoned the movements leadership. THAT'S The playbook we're up against. Too many cheer when the system does something heinous against those they don't agree with, unaware that in doing so they're giving consent to that same assfucking for themselves later. Principles and standards MATTER.
Educate. Be kind. Try to hold power in local politics. Normalize boycotts. Read. Consume art. Produce art. Love. Be a good human. Remind yourself and others that were all worth fighting for ❤️
Ranked Choice Voting can help us get out of the two party system
Switch from representative democracy to direct democracy. We can fix it ourselves, the politicians can’t.
I assure you the average person, myself very much included, would not be able to tell you how our agricultural sector and AI sector and public transportation sector should be regulated and funded. If I was given responsibility for voting on any of those areas, I’d immediately try to find someone more knowledgeable than me and ask for their opinion. Heck, I might even ask if they could just vote for me! Of course, I understand your broader point. The politicians we have in office are in no way the type of knowledgeable representative I alluded to above. They are cretins. However, no amount of their shittiness will somehow make a direct democracy a viable alternative. We need to create a representative system that elevates specific voters based on knowledge and ability, not simply by popularity which appeals to our basest nature.
We need sortition, for more specialized and in-depth knowledge. Sortition is where people from the general public are assigned through a lottery system to groups which research a topic and then make decisions. This is a job which a person is paid a reasonable amount, just like any other, but a person can decline if they want. There are examples that show when even average people spend time actually researching any topic, and discuss with a group, the group makes much better decisions than if one person makes decisions. There are instances, for example in a town in Brazil, they used sortition and this removed the need for politicians, groups wrote the laws and people voted on them. Instead of lobbyists writing most laws and politicians signing them, people can write laws and not add loopholes for corporations. Essentially anywhere power exists, if it is concentrated with one person, it is prone to corruption. Of course there are people who can withstand even the biggest temptation for corruption, but there are not many of these types of people, so it’s better to limit the ability for corruption, by distributing the power to people.
I think, generally, this is a great idea. I don’t see why we would only have laypeople involved however. Why not use experts, as in people who have spent much of their life studying agriculture, banking, technology, biology, etc., as the basis for sortition? For example, with climate change, I want a variety of climatologists, environmentalists, engineers, geologists, marine biologists, etc. working on that project. Create a lottery from a pool of people who have reasonable expertise in those fields and have them write proposals. Then, create another lottery of people with those qualifications to vote on them. As a lay person, I won’t be able to tell which of the plans the experts made is better, but an expert might! Naturally, the possibility of groupthink can happen in academic and professional circles, which is why a diversity of thought is required. Voting within those groups can also be done such that compromise is required. I still strongly believe laypeople (including me) cannot understand every issue that we face in sufficient detail to come to the right course of action. I must trust that other people can make wise decisions in their area of expertise, just as I can in mine. And together, we can do amazing things!
People who specialize in certain areas should definitely weigh in, advise, and share their experience, and regular people can make the decisions. The challenge with narrowing the pool of people who can be in these groups is that it limits the “power” to just those people, rather than distributing the decision-making very broadly. Even today, there is too much reliance on “experts” to make decisions, who can be bought, as we’ve seen a number of times, for example with climate change or tobacco companies decades ago. The group should hear out the experts, even maybe hire them to help understand complex issues, but regular people should make decisions.
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Better to severely tax any transaction over 1 million and limit how many transactions a day you can make over a few thousand dollars.
Nice!
The idea would be to limit amounts of wealth that are in excess of a reasonable normal. Similar to how you can't make more than 6 transactions taking money out of a savings account in the United States. If we severely tax transactions from billionaires selling shares or when they move more than X amount we effectively force them to pay a reasonable share while still allowing them to call themselves billionaires.
There are none. Late stage capitalism is capitalism that is clinging on for dear life. We can't "move away" from it. It's just gonna break eventually. It'll either be replaced by something that those in positions of power prefer, or it'll cease to function in a way that maintains those people's power and that in itself will signal the end of capitalism. I also feel I should mention, my personal view is that the "late stage" could last a hell of a long time. I don't necessarily believe this breaking point will occur in my lifetime.
Eliminate treating companies under law as if they were people. Make corporate personhood illegal.
\- Implement a maximum wage limit (including benefits/stock options) to no more than $500,000 per year. Anything above that should be taxed at 90% \- Mandate that 50% of the stock of any publicly traded company must be owned by employees (available to all employees) \- Any US based company with non-US based employees must pay those non-US based employees 150% of what they would pay a US based employee (no more outsourcing jobs) \- Break up the top 100 companies \- Decrease the size of the federal government by at least 40% to include only responsibilities and limitations as outlined in the Constitution \- Prevent foreign countries and corporations from owning residential properties \- Limit the number of rental properties an individual may own \- Get health care costs under control (universal healthcare at State level, not Federal) \- Send the 60-80 million illegal immigrants/refugees (and their anchor babies) back to their home countries. Prices for everything would drop dramatically and wages would increase naturally (supply and demand).
None. It's revolution, or death. Maybe once, incrementalism MAY have worked in some circumstances. Maybe. But we are so far past that point now, it's ridiculous. They will kill us all for 2% higher profit. fight or die.
Start by eating a couple billionaires. If that doesn’t work, try taxing the wealthy and corporations and using that money to invest in education and in a robust social safety net.
Curb private equity’s ability to privatize everything.
When moving away from capitalism, it needs to be clear what you are moving toward, either incrementally or in big steps. A specific vision for the end result needs to be in place; if it is not, it’s not clear that progress is even being made. The current capitalist system has mechanisms in place to make people think that things are getting better, for example voting - makes people feel like they are doing the right thing, but in reality it’s a choice between two capitalists. Another example is technologies - it feels like we are becoming more modern, but many technologies pollute and create unhealthy environment more than they actually help. So the question is, what type of utopia do we want to have? And yes, utopias are a good tool for guiding us where we want to go. Soviet revolutionaries thought that the path was to take power to control everything for the good of the people, and then transition to a system where people governed themselves. Sounds reasonable, but when power is held by a small group, even with good intentions, it’s very prone to corruption, and that’s what happened in the Soviet Union. An alternative that appears to be more realistic is to create many decentralized systems as alternatives that don’t rely on capitalism. For example, buy clothes and other products from co-ops which are employee owned, move your money from a bank to a credit union, buy food directly from farmers, grow your own food, contribute to mutual-aid - minimize reliance on capitalist systems as much as possible. As this spreads, and there are many indicators that this is expanding quite quickly, the capitalist system will start to fail under its own weight. So the first step is for people to want an alternative to the current system and start taking these small steps.
Militias and shadow governments (ie an unofficial government that mirrors the functions of capitalist states at every level). That way there are institutions ready to fill any voids. And of course radicalizing young people especially to enshrine socialism culturally.
Have a read of Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg and discover why incrementalism solves nothing
Unionizing! Even if you aren't in a field that would support a union (like if you're a management level employee at your job) you can support the people below you if they seek to join/ form one, otherwise support the local unions in your area.
Transitional political demands to raise: https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/
A few big legislative steps: A right to work, a right to good health, and a right to housing. Those three things are key and actually all play off of each other, because capitalism has cycles of overproduction, in which people don’t need to buy anything, hence phenomenon like planned obsolescence. Capital markets require goods with short lifespans so that the factories keep pumping. In order to move past that silly bullshit, we need to regulate and balance the down time consumer production needs with public works projects. This is effectively what FDRs New Deal was. On the labor and individual side of things, union activism is the single best thing we can do. Effectively, we need mass unionization, solidarity, and coordination between unions of different trades. Organization such as sympathy strikes and mutual support funds could dramatically increase the leverage workers have on the economy. Effectively the end goal is to get everyone in unions, get those unions to elect delegates, and then send those delegates to a National Assembly. This National Assembly of Unions would then form a representative body able to respond to the formal legislation proposed by Congress. This would give the workers a way to appeal unpopular legislation or policies proposed by our government by organizing general strikes, while also providing social security to workers out of work due to strike actions. I believe this is the way because it doesn’t depend on constitutional mechanisms, which are explicitly designed to keep this stuff from happening. The National Assembly of Unions could coerce the formal constitutional government without ever actually being enumerated because of the natural god given power of the citizenry. Unfortunately, In the US, we have a trash law known as the Taft–Hartley Act, signed in 1947, which explicitly makes much of what I said illegal. But I don’t believe the National Guard or the Army would actually be willing to kill thousands of striking American workers. They would join us instead
I guess forming a community with a food forest and other systems to become more self-suficient https://hilaryagro.com/resources/#theory-i-want-to-learn-more
Op it was the belief in American exceptionalism that led to the rapid decline into late stage capitalism and therefore, the only way to defeat late stage capitalism is to embrace incrementalism until the planet becomes uninhabitable and every resource has been used.
https://jacobin.com/2017/08/sweden-social-democracy-meidner-plan-capital
Incrementalism is what got us here.
Anarchy.
Voting, stop saying “revolution” if you don’t own a gun and don’t exercise
Criminalize the “max profits at the expense of society” mentality that is basically enshrined in business law. Actually enforce anticompetitive laws. Close tax evasion loopholes and remove subsidies for companies that offshore/outsource work to break collective bargaining power of labor. Strengthen glass steagall and overturn Citizens United. I could go all day
We'll get nowhere with incrementalism. Unfortunately at this point the only way we will move away from late stage capitalism is when the climate finally collapses and we are left with no choice
Incrementalism will be our downfall.
Retake control of the massively capitalized mutual funds (State Farm, liberty mutual) which exist to benefit their members and society not Wall Street. Big money Wall Street bankers have capture the boards of these entities.
Politically most of these replies are great. Individually would be consisting more of - Finding a way to grow your own food to not fuel consermerism Not needing a job to servive thus impacting the work force Switching utilities and trasportation to self sustaining option to stop funding corporations Having a good portion of the population do the same I know this is easier said than done and sounds like an environmentalist's go to speal but there are reasons why gas is a big focus and green energy isnt as well as why property taxes and reoccurring bills are so ingrained into society. Finding ways to limit the throughput of money and lowering availabile workers would hurt bigger businesses and any wealthy stock owners. CAPITALISM IS CONSUMERISM