Ahahaha, this is probably the most the most reasonable take here!

could reply that eating food falls well within a communist system, therefore you can’t blame communism for famines.

Try again when you’re sober, that’s not a particular cogent argument.

Are you… You’re trying to compare a people under a military blockade to the victims of communist governments?

Like, the Right accuses us of using palestineans as props but goddamn, in this case I’m inclined to agree.

At best, that’s a silly comparison. At worst, that’s just callous, ghoulish and ridiculous. Just… wow.

Yeah because rental properties are often shitholes and it skews the numbers

Sure but my point is that this lady has made an extremely expensive purchase and now continues to pay for it.

Most rents are cheaper than mortages.

Yeah because rental properties are often shitholes and it skews the numbers

Rent is usually paying for someone’s mortgage for them, why would they make it lower? Who are these generous landlords?

Ahhh, there’s the misunderstanding. Local/single owner rentals are actually a small proportion of tenancies. Most are large organizations which have purchased a large building etc. It’s actually a kind of fascinating issue but worth reading about!

The Irish potato famine was more an exogenous factor (a blight) not the direct result of mismanagement, which is generally a feature of communism. So that’s a pretty poor comparison.

Bengal was a mostly agrarian state so not really an advanced capitalist society. Again, not a particularly good comparison.

A carbon tax falls well within a capitalist system (much the same as any other tax or method of dealing with externalities) so I’d put that as a failure of democratic systems more than anything.

I’m also not convinced communism would actually solve the problem. Communists have historically been pretty reluctant to share bad news, from letting folks know about mass starvations to, oh, most of the world news in China.

I’m morbidly curious. There are a lot of folks advocating communism who seem to lack any historical context. I’m curious as to whether it’s sort of like lemmys instinctive downvoting of anything negative about biden/upvoting of anything negative of trump, or maybe it’s genuine ignorance (I don’t imagine tik tok communist enthusiasts talk all that much about the tens of millions dead) or if there is actually some sort of group rationalization.

And under capitalism, capital and labour are generally in conflict. Same way most capital owners are in conflict with each other (that’s basically the engine of growth.)

Saying that labour battled for these advancements is no more an indictment of capitalism than the fact that McDonalds battles with Wendys for revenue.

You are confusing capital with capitalism.

What? Wait… So when parents were burying most of their children back in the day and now don’t, that is somehow despite capitalism giving us the goods, services, hospitals, nurses, doctors, ample nutritional supplements etc?

What services do you think people had for free earlier?

And you misunderstanding how capitalism works doesn’t mean a carbon tax is against a free market any more than rules againat pouring nuclear waste into rivers goes against a free market. A free market had all sorts of rules to protect us from the excesses of capitalism, that’s literally the entire point of anti-trust law, because the correct capitalist move for a company is to become a monopoly, which would be bad for consumers. Thus, we tame the excesses of capitalism.

If I borrow a half million from the bank, I have to pay it back in monthly installments, commonly known as a mortage. Those costs are now added to your regular expenses.

Most rents are cheaper than mortages. So taking on a giant purchase + the cost of the mortage is a huge financial cost. Yes, she gets an asset (which she could sell at any point) but it’s going to be more expensive.

A quick look at Denver apartments for rent confirms this, a lot of 1 bedrooms available for between $400 and $500 cheaper a month.

Ahhh yes, who can forget the glorious communist food sciences that led to the mass starvations of millions?!?

(Heck, have you ever seen that photo of Gorbachev in a supermarket, stunned by the variety and availability of food?)

Yeah, science tends to advance more quickly under capitalism. It’s not a coincidence that the scientific revolution and capitalism advanced hand in hand.

“I just made the most expensive purchase of my life and I can’t figure out why I am living paycheck to paycheck.”

Capitalism. For all the awfulness goodness gracious, quality of life has skyrocketed as we’ve figured it out. Parents almost never bury their children anymore, disabled folks who aren’t royalty have better lives than almost ever before, if you break a bone you can get it taken care of rather than have it heal poorly and cause pain for the rest of your life, almost no one gets literally crucified and most have access to clean drinking water in their house!!!

Yeah, we maybe don’t have it as good as our parents generation but goddamn we have it so much better than their parents and grandparents etc.

(I’d argue climate change is more a political problem than capitalism. A sane society would’ve put a carbon tax in place decades ago and let the free market sort it out. But we get into stupid political fights and the youth, who are most affected, don’t vote in primaries when it really matters.)

Can’t wait for the Republicans to hold the Senate, block every part of this budget and have everyone blame Biden because politics are too complicated.

Except that definition had an absence of evidence.

When they worked, it was from dawn to dusk doing hard labour.

Read Witold Rybczynksi’s Home when he talks about medieval life, pages 24 - 36 in my copy.

And if the harvest wasn’t good, they died because the Lord took his tithe regardless.

That’s how feudalism worked.

And that’s not to mention the household labour, all of which we take for granted (consider chopping wood every time you wanted heat, mending clothes or the ridiculous process of cleaning them.)

These are pretty self evident. Unless you think they had chainsaws and washing machines in the dark ages?

The only stuff that’s counted in that 150 days silliness is working the land which was only a portion of their real labour.

This is linked in the source I already provided, you can look at the original study: https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html

Here were my claims:

When they worked, it was from dawn to dusk doing hard labour. And if the harvest wasn’t good, they died because the Lord took his tithe regardless.

And that’s not to mention the household labour, all of which we take for granted (consider chopping wood every time you wanted heat, mending clothes or the ridiculous process of cleaning them.) Or looking after farm animals etc. The only stuff that’s counted in that 150 days silliness is working the land which was only a portion of their real labour.

With which of these claims do you disagree?

Is this just your way of saying “I refuse to read the article” ?

They simply point out that the 150 days nonsense comes from a study that ignores large swathes of labour. You are welcome to look at the original study, which they link.

It’s pretty basic stuff. Yet again, with what specific part do you disagree? I’m not wild about searching through academia for a probable source troll

When you refuse to engage with the material in a meaningful sense, not just “I dislike the source and that’s enough for me!” It doesn’t really inspire any hope this will be a productive conversation.