I have seen that in a civ game…
Didnt end well.
In my experience, late game domination runs don’t end well
Just for information, how endgame is an endgame in Civilization? I assume at some point you do so well that you can’t do anything else and all new nations must bow to ur immense nuclear power
It depends, but in civ 6 at least, if you don’t go for science or culture, someone else will win those eventually. Usually you become so overpowered compared to the AI by the endgame that you’re just waiting for the win screen to show up.
Oh so there is a win screen? For context I only played Civ V on java mobile. But I do have CIV 6 cuz Epic gave it for free
Yes, there are win conditions but you can play beyond those if you want. That never interests me, though.
I don’t often get to the win screen in a domination game. Like I know I’m going to win… eventually. So I just lose interest.
You must not have enough nukes.
I had enough once but it was the lack of AA that turned my cities to ash.
I ended up running a military campaign across the entire world because nobody would stop being hostile, then I eventually lost as my own cities rose against me.
It was my first Civ campaign, I played it in one go for hours upon hours until late at night.
The feeling of utter futility after complete domination is still memorable to me, it was such a strange feeling.
Fuuuck these are some saucy memes
Capitalism is financial, fascism is political. They can be concurrently implemented.
Capitalism is a politicial and economic system.
Can you elaborate on how capitalism is a meaningful political system?
I think the argument is that economics and politics are not independent of each other. They are two sides of the same coin. Whomever controls the food supply has power over the population, which means it has political power. Whomever has power over the population, has power over the food supply. Basically, economics and politics are different perspectives on power.
For example, the political structures in the West create the rules over who gets to obtain power through the economy. From the other direction, the people with economic power get to control who gets to obtain power through the political structures.
Thanks for this, I like the pragmatic view that those with economic power select those who obtain political power. I certainly don’t think they’re independent. The economic system influences the political system for sure, but categorically/formally we’re still talking about two distinct systems, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about a separate political structure
you’re welcome 🙂👍
“Everything is politics” is an argument that right wing grifters often use. Culture? Politics! Sexual orientation? Politics! Science? Politics!
The “everything is politics” argument is the warped kind of thinking of people that are trying to gain control over others.
I would say the greater achievement of right wing grifters is the connotation that “politics” is inherently bad and shameful, as implied by your comment as well.
It’s bad but necessary. It would be great if we lived in a world where there was no need for government, therefore no need for government policy, and therefore no need to debate those policies.
But in the real world government is necessary therefore politics are necessary. The right wing confuses people with the belief that politics is bad and therefore should be eliminates. The left confuses people with the belief that politics should be good and because it isn’t people should avoid participation.
Politics is ugly, and having unrealistic expectations for it is what blocks a lot of progress from happening. The right are better able to accomplish their goals through politics (even when their goals are harmful) because they have a better understanding of the ugliness. The left is oftentimes ineffective out of a silly desire to be above the ugliness of politics.
I see what you’re saying in terms of idealism/naivete vs pragmatism. However I also get the sense that what you mean by government and politics is a bit different from what the left usually means. I’d be interested to understand what you mean by “politics” and “government”.
A couple follow-up questions that might help clarify the distinctions
- does a society make choices between better and worse practice of politics/government?
- what would a world that doesn’t need government look like if you were to imagine it?
The only part is disagree with is that the left encourages not participating in politics. I’m pretty sure a pillar of the left is encouraging informed participation in politics. Unless you mean punk/commie ideas of rejecting the establishment in favour of revolution? That’s still participation in politics.
Definitionally, anything that prescribes the way things are to be distributed is political. There has been a desensitization to the word politics with an ever present right using words loosely adjacent to their true meaning, but capitalism is inherently political. Now it’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem with western democracies kinda being formed around it, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I sincerely doubt anyone would argue communism or socialism aren’t political because they are economic theories.
You can’t meaningful separate these. Sure, capitalism is not mutually exclusive to say parliamentary democracy or dictatorship or monarchy, but you need a state that enforces the “will of the market”. Capitalism values property very highly. That’s a political decision. It allows a very hierarchical relation between workers and bosses by enforcing the property laws of the latter. At the end of the day, it’s the police (and therefore the state) that evicts you, not the landlord and not the market.
I see, I think there are a couple things to clarify. Causally, you can view it as the political system of decision-making determines the economic system, so keeping capitalism is a political decision made through a political system such as democracy or theocracy with downstream political consequences, e.g. property has high capital value, which affects citizens.
You may also be conflating decisions that carry a political quality with decisions made by a political system. Or conflating systems that carry political qualities such as economic systems and education systems with political systems proper, which are system for instituting decisions that govern societies. For example, the market may “decide” that asbestos is the best insulation, however, the market does not set political policy about insulation. It is up to the political system (e.g. democratic parliament or dictator) to decide whether or not to pass policy about limiting asbestos insulation, not capitalism. This distinction is also present in your own argument. Like you said, the market (capitalism) doesn’t create and enforce property law, it’s the state (political system) that creates the law and is responsible for enforcing it.
-EDIT- Okay I think I see the semantic disagreement. What others are emphasizing is that the economy is political in nature and therefore it is a political system. What I understand for the term “Political System” is more narrow to be more narrowly “system of government”. I certainly agree that the economy is political in nature. And honestly, I’m not married to my definition of political system. What I cared more about is drawing the distinction between “system of government” and “systems that are political in nature”. The only reason why I’d disagree is that by the latter definition, any system of social structure such as religions, education systems, human transportation systems, communication systems, language systems etc. Are also political systems because they’re political in nature. So the term “political system” may be too broad as to be useful.
What is politics? People spend have their waking hours in a strict top down system, instead of a democratically organized economy. Tbf that’s not only true for Capitalism but also for Soviet style socialism.
For example, the market may “decide” that asbestos is the best insulation, however, the market does not set political policy about insulation.
The market is not the only aspect of capitalism. Plutocracy is another strong one. Being rich makes you influential in capitalism in contrast to systems where your ancestry is important or systems that try to get rid of power altogether respectively try to distribute it as evenly as possible. So while I said it’s compatible with monarchy and democracy, this is true on a scale. If the monarch is listening to rich people instead of their kind, it’s less monarchical and parliamentary democracies are more prone to capitalism than more direct forms of democracy.
To put it differently: it’s not only about who makes the decision according to the constitution, it’s also about how this decision comes about. Besides: the institution at least makes capitalism possible, if not enforces it in one way or another. The existence of a state alone is something capitalism needs, a punitive justice system that enforces property rights, which often also are constitutional themselves, …
If your political system uses wealth as a means to create policy. Then whatever economic system you use becomes political.
Can you elaborate on your obtuseness?
It’s an economic system that seeks to control the political system enough to further itself with no thought or care for anything that doesn’t fit that goal, in the same way a malignant cellular mass seeks to control the host environment enough to further unrestrained and out of control growth. Both kill the host.
Economics is politics, and fascism must be concurrently implemented or it isn’t fascism.
Not even tough… just like… slightly inconvenient
Things aren’t tough yet. Wait until the effects if climate change absolutely destroy our shore lines, food and water supply, etc.
How is fascism a result of capitalism? It would exist just the same way without capitalism.
The argument is that as more people are harmed by capitalism and realize it’s flaws, the more likely the ruling class is to embrace fascism rather than let their ill-gotten gains slip away from them.
Definitely clumsy here, but I can make sense of it.
I mean, yes, but you should understand that when the creator of this meme wrote “capitalism” they really meant “liberalism” but didn’t want to scare the normies.
It’s not just about the ruling class, it’s about uncertainty leading people to look for “strongmen” to provide direction and certainty, no matter how false it is, creating the popular support needed to overthrow democratic institutions.
Strongmen like Lenin and Stalin who provided direction and certainty in uncertain times?
Or a strongman like George Washington?
1: Anarchists and democratic socialists literally coined the term red fascism to describe Leninism.
2: Your examples all overthrew the rule of absolute monarchies, neither of which was quite exactly capitalist thanks to the owner class often being nobility.
3: Leaving aside for the moment that post-colonial America would absolutely be considered fascist by modern standards, even as its existence began to solidify the ideology of liberalism, I don’t think the meme is literally stating liberalism becomes fascism the moment it stubs its toe.
If anything, based on the characters used, it implies the fight over institutional power as the fascists try to seize control.
And, ironically to authoral intent I assume, Superlib there would absolutely body Homelander lol
Still doesn’t make much sense, fascism is a populist movement.
It would make way more sense if it said Feudalism instead. Keep the peasants in line with your armed militia class, eventually murder-robots. The peasants might be miserable, but they’re going to work the land because that’s they’re only choice to survive.
Re robots
We won’t need them to work the land. And we will starve them as they’ll no longer be needed. There will be two classes. The ruling class, and the maintenance class. And it’s timing is perfect considering that in about 100 years every population model says humans will go from 10 billion to less than 1 billion as quickly as our population grew. And it will coincide with extreme scarcity due to climate change. Unless we start nuclear war first, of course.
Can you link a model supporting your statement? I wasn’t able to turn anything up showing a predicted population decline from 10 billion go 1 billion.
Imperialism is a result of capitalism…
When the resources of your home country are insufficient to feed the need for constant growth of profits, the resources of other people begin to look attractive. It’s just a matter of convincing your people that it’s worth it to go take those other people’s resources. Its easier to convince your people to exploit other people if you have dehumanized the other people, so you revert to racism and other tactics of making the others look like barbarians. Then you go make colonies and suppress the native population while exploiting them for labor and resources.
Fascism is imperialism turned inward…
Either the flow of resources from your colonies are insufficient to feed your need for the continual growth of profits or you don’t have the means to colonize far away lands, so the resources of countries closer to home begin looking very attractive. Its easier to suppress people at home first, so you turn that imperialist oppression on for a portion of your population at home, exploiting them more than other parts of your population. This doesn’t satisfy your needs for more resources for long, so you continue to exploit your own people more and expand the definition of who gets to suffer the imperialist oppression.
When your population can no longer satisfy your needs for continued growth of profits, you turn that imperialism on countries nearby. This process is why people say fascism is imperialism turned inward.
More food for thought…
Some argue this process is why Hitler and the Third Reich are looked on as the ultimate evil. The Nazis took imperialist oppression, a tool that every European country had historically only used on people in far away lands where the culture and the way the people looked was strange to the people at home and they turned that imperialist oppression on the white populations of Europe. Europeans finally began to experience the horrors they had been inflicting on the rest of the world for centuries.
Okay… and what about Alexander, Ceasar, Ali, Genghis, Napoleon, and all the rest? The claim that empires are only motivated by profits is absurd.
I’d say that, generally, imperialist motivation is a matter of gaining power. In a capitalist system, capital is power, so they are seeking capital.
The way I explained it was meant to break it down into a modern context to help answer the question, not to address imperialism in the context of feudalism or other systems. End of the day, someone is exploiting someone else for their own gain. It was just a matter of the context of the question and I erred on the side of keeping the scope within capitalism.
None of them were fascist. Fascism is specific phase of development of capitalist system, as MeowZedong explained, it is not just when someone do conquests and/or kills many people.
Although the mechanism isn’t entirely dissimilar, all those you listed belonged to pre-capitalist levels of development (Napoleonic France was in progress of change but quite early) and are the effect of their societies reaching the boiling point of internal development saturation when it was ready for expansion, and also all of them followed earlier successes.
For comparison you might also add one of the most characteristical examples of Spain launching its global scale colonisation and conquests immediately after finishing centuries long reconquista.
Also note that neither of those cannibalised itself like fascism did, because they weren’t capitalist. They just ran out of the force driving them and either collapsed or stabilised on some level.
What has me perpelexed is the fact that the USSR also did this, just to a slightly less genocidal degree - all the other SSRs largely served to supply the RSFSR, but some people do not consider it to be imperialist.
The greed for power and resources can stem from capitalism, but it really isn’t the only possible cause.
I agree with your conclusion, my explanation was just a matter of addressing the context of the question, not covering how imperialism can operate under all systems, just the system in question.
Less genocidal? O.o
Neoliberalism is agnostic to the form of government so long as profit keeps moving. Business is still done in the worst countries. And that keeps capital voting with their wallets for an increase in evil.
While fascism can exist without capitalism. when an unrecoverable economic crisis happens under a capitalist country and the system is not challenged, instead minorities like jewish people or immigrants take the blame
I dont think that is generally true. It may have happened in the past and may also happen in the US, but the opposite can happen with people turning to socialism like in many countries. In times of crisis people turn to extremes, but that doesnt mean it has to be fascism.
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Yeah this meme is really stupid. I’m anti-Capitalism, but fascism doesn’t not do all that well in free markets. Nazis get deplatformed, demonetized. If you have money and influence, outing yourself as a Nazi is career suicide.
Fascism flourishes under a populist authoritarian leader, an obsession with national identity and the state, fear of an external boogieman, and a feeling that you’ve been oppressed but you’re about to get the reward you deserve.
Hitler was defeated on the market place of ideas
This ironic statement is what is known as a thought-terminating cliche.
Here is the Wikipedia page so you can learn more: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_cliché
Is that so?
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Quite. Obviously Hitler was defeated by the combined military might of the allies.
But the important take-away is not, “violence is always the answer”, the important take-away is, “what socio-economic conditions in Germany lead to a fascist like Hitler rising up to dictator power”.
I see now where you are coming from but I never meant to say “violence is always the answer”. The comment above mine was about how incompatible capitalism and fascism are and if that were the case, Hitler would have been defeated by the market place of ideas
I need to make a bot to post this any time fascism gets mentioned.
The western left’s use of the term fascism, is borderline white-supremacist at this point. Fascism was a form of colonialism that died by the 1940s, and is only allowed to be demonized in public discourse, because it was a form of colonialism directed also against white europeans. It was defeated, and Germany / Italy / Japan reverted to the more stable form of government for colonialism (practiced by the US, Canada, UK, Australia, France, the Netherlands, etc): bourgeois parliamentarism.
British, european, and now US colonizers were doing the exact same thing, and killing far more people for hundreds of years in the global south, yet you don’t hear ppl scared of their countries potentially “becoming british colonialists.” They haven’t changed, and their wealth is still propped up by surplus value theft from the super-exploitation of hundreds of millions of low-paid global south proletarians.
This is why you have new leftists terrified that the UK or US or europe “might turn fascist!!”, betraying that the atrocities propagated by those empires against the global south was and is completely acceptable.
Yo man
You seem to assume that lefties are against fascism, but don’t decry previous colonialism?
Why?
Allow me to present to you a person who hates Nazis AND the British Empire: Me!
Fascism was a form of colonialism
Wow what an utterly ridiculous statement. No wonder it came from lemmygrad.
Are you joking? Every scholar of Fascism will tell you that Fascist Italy inherited numerous colonies from the prefascist period: the Dodecanese Islands, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia, and arguably a portion of Tianjin, and later Fascist Italy added Fiume in 1924 and Albania, Ethiopia, and Tavolara in the 1930s. The very expression ‘mutilated victory’ was quickly adopted by the Fascists because they were outraged that the Kingdom of Italy didn’t gain more territory from World War I. Did you seriously not know this?
From the Dodecanese Islands to Libya, to Eritrea, the Italian state’s colonial holdings were testing grounds for strategies of governance and repression that would characterize [Fascist] domestic and occupied territories during World War II.13
(Source.)
More Lemmygraders? Yawn
Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.
Well, I can thank you for sharing this unique perspective on the matter with me, even though I do find some of its conclusions either unconvincing or bizarre (‘Franchi (whose real name was Edgardo Sogno) was a monarchist, so strongly anti-Communist that after the war he joined very right-wing groups, and was charged with collaborating in a project for a reactionary coup d’état. Who cares? Sogno still remains the dream hero of my childhood.’ Seriously‽), but that still doesn’t justify hostility to a conclusion that’s very easy to reach. The statement ‘Fascism was a form of colonialism’ may be somewhat of an oversimplification, but I gave you some very good reasons why there was nothing ‘utterly ridiculous’ about it.
You didn’t answer my second question whether you know of Fascist Italy’s colonial history or not. So, you already knew of the ‘reconquest’ of Libya, the massacre at Addis Ababa, the forced marriages in Somalia, the concubinages in Eritrea, Benito Mussolini referring to Emperor Haile Selassie as a ‘Bolshevik pig’ in front of a crowd of thousands, and even the unofficial annexation of Tavolara in 1934?
On a side note, respectable scholars such as Robert Paxton would consider Iberia’s 20th century anticommunist régimes to have been at best parafascist, in part because they weren’t adventurer‐conquerors, but also for more complex reasons. For example:
After 1945 the Falange became a colorless civic solidarity association, normally referred to simply as the Movimiento. In 1970 its very name was abolished. By then Franquist Spain had long become an authoritarian régime dominated by the army, state officials, businessmen, landowners, and the Church, with almost no visible fascist coloration.8
(Source.)
Ur-fascism is about semiotics, not history.
There’s a bunch of great stuff in there, but you gotta read the twenty pages before and after any quote to get what’s being said and why.
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I have to applaud David Nolan on some next level marketing for this one.
He invented the predecessor of that chart as a way to promote libertarianism. It’s very clever in how subtly it introduces a loaded question.
The phrasing asks the viewer to consider if they want more or less political freedom and if they want more or less economic freedom. Obviously, most people want more freedom. Therefore Libertarianism is the best form of government. QED!
But that makes two big assumptions that are almost certainly incorrect:
- It assumes that choice of government is entirely, or at least predominantly, determined by your views on economic and social regulations. Questions of military, legal process, environmental policy, etc are all either irrelevant or can be entirely described within the economic and social regulation factors. That doesn’t even pass the sniff test. If two people agree that they want social and economic freedom, do we really believe that they necessarily have identical political beliefs? No, because we know that in real life they’ll define those freedoms differently.
- It assumes that complex topics such as economics and social regulation can be entirely described on a single axis of “more vs less". If you look at the disagreements that people actually have, it’s almost always about the types of regulations, not on the degree of regulation.
It’s a little frustrating that unabashed marketing is so frequently trotted out as though it were an established fact.
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You keep saying that word…
Snowflakes: block CyberGhost’s lefty posting OP: Bitches, you thought?
Who is cyberghost?
Idk but I think you do 😉
Literally unhinged, self important, and delusional.
Next time post some proof or reasoning instead of feigning like you’ve got things figured out. It’s embarrassingly obvious to everyone else that you’re grasping at straws to fulfill whatever fantasy is in your dome lol.
Lul ok buddy hexbear
When you can be brainwashed that times are tough by a news organization…
Over 11,000 people died last week because of a cyclone, and they are investigating hundreds of deaths in phoenix from the heat.
Every covid variant scare.
You’ve got the right to swing your fist as long as it doesn’t end up in someone’s face. Is that also fascism?
lol what? Explain.
You’ve got the right to spread germs as far as you like, as long as they don’t hit someone’s face.
lol oh no, neither that, or swinging my arms in the air are fascism.
If not governments stopping the spread of germs through masking, distancing, quarantining etc., what were you talking about?
I don’t give a fuck about the germs. I’m talking about governments using covid to print more money than ever before, grant themselves more power, change election procedures in direct violation of state constitutions, “strongly encourage” media and social media platforms to silence all critical discussion and critics.
When wearing a mask from time to time for a few months in certain places is your life’s persecution story you know you’re a spoiled diva.
Only one variant had mask requirements btw. And it was while millions of people were dying and out hospitals were at max capacity, and people without Covid couldn’t get basic treatment.
But POOR YOU.
Healthcare worker here.
All forms of COVID-19 have respirator requirements as it is an aerosol or airborne virus.
Masks are for community so they don’t spread via droplet contact.
A lot world mandated masks for 2 years.
Normal people have already forgot about covid
Ukraine war really ended the whole thing, feels like.
Fascism failed successfully!