Capitalism is not a panacea and its history is steeped in blood.
The Dutch VOC, considered one of the first capitalist enterprises, carried out genocide in its pursuit to control spices in the Indies.
Capitalist interests in the US interfered in South American politics for decades, overthrowing democratically elected leaders and funding militias aligned with corporate interests. One of my closest friends is Guatemalan and most of his family was killed during the United Fruit Company conflict.
The Russians experienced one of the largest declines in quality of life in human history after the Soviet Union fell and the country became privatized.
History as a whole is full of unsavory things, but we have to decide between things that can happen — and many atrocities have been committed trying to build Utopia. For example, the massive casualties of the USSR. Or those killed in South America — eg, by the FARC.
If we look at a map of places where Socialist Democratic parties are active [0, 1] it actually looks like a map of people who generally have pretty terrible living conditions for the poorest in society. Mainly because it covers most of the known world so it'd reflect the normal living conditions for poor people. And is an ideology that is well integrated with capitalism, I happen to note.
It is pretty hard to say that the social democracy is free from a bloody history vs capitalism when people like the US Dems claim to be part of the social democrats. They're pretty blood-spattered. They're part of the governing system of the largest and most aggressive military in the world.
It's not just about the parties, but about the systems. Dutch social democratic parties haven't been in power in ages, but the foundation of our economy is social democratic, and right-wing parties don't dare to touch it. People like not having to worry about paid sick leave, maternity leave, unemployment, healthcare, disability, and a million other little things. That stuff is the fabric of our society.
All over northern Europe, you find high taxes, strong social safety nets, good healthcare, little violence, high levels of happiness and personal freedom, and high GDPs. This is the combination that works.
And the US was also on this path after WW2, but reverted course during the Reagan years, with all the consequences you see today.
And is the argument there that the Dutch no longer practice capitalism? They are one of the major names in the history of the limited-liability stock corporation, we've already had the VOC invoked in this thread. Pretty easy to see that representing the blood steeped face of capitalism. They still have stock exchanges in Amsterdam, so they haven't sworn off the shareholders.
Having a welfare state isn't capitalism but having one isn't the complete antithesis of capitalism. It is easy to see how a society could simultaneously support the VOC and a welfare state. Really easy, in fact - the VOC was mostly external and welfare is mostly internal, the systems don't need to interact at all.
It is impossible to hold the Dutch up as a group who have rid themselves of the blood-steeped history of capitalism when they are (1) a poster child of the blood-steeped history of capitalism (2) still supporting and encouraging capitalists. And (3) your comment could be interpreted as saying the social democrats don't actually hold power. At best that just establishes that capitalism isn't fundamentally steeped in blood since the Dutch have theoretically learned to behave responsibly over the centuries.
And to throw in a (4) have they apologised and made reparations for the VOC? It isn't obvious they've even repudiated the blood-soaked history of capitalism although maybe they have; I don't track Dutch politics.
I suppose the real question here is what exactly do you think "social democracy" is if not just standard democracy + welfare?
> And is the argument there that the Dutch no longer practice capitalism?
Who is saying that? Nobody.
> They are one of the major names in the history of the limited-liability stock corporation, we've already had the VOC invoked in this thread.
That's quite some time ago, though. That's not what we do today. What's your point with this?
> Having a welfare state isn't capitalism but having one isn't the complete antithesis of capitalism.
Exactly. It's about finding the right balance between the best parts of different ideas, while avoiding the worst parts.
> It is easy to see how a society could simultaneously support the VOC and a welfare state.
But it didn't. There was extreme poverty in the Dutch Republic during the days of the VOC. It was neither social, nor a democracy.
> At best that just establishes that capitalism isn't fundamentally steeped in blood since the Dutch have theoretically learned to behave responsibly over the centuries.
How does that undo the blood? It's that responsibility that's putting the brakes on the excesses of capitalism.
> I suppose the real question here is what exactly do you think "social democracy" is if not just standard democracy + welfare?
I'm really wondering what you think social democracy is, with a rant like that. It's certainly more than democracy + welfare, although those are definitely big parts of it. It's regulation, it's capitalism within responsible limits, it's cooperation and negotiation between unions and corporations. And it's government investment where it's necessary. That last part is something governments like to do less and less since neoliberalism, and they're also rolling back too much of the regulation.
It's undeniable that they've been weakening the social democratic system, but the core of it is still there. It's proven itself effective enough that all the toxic shit the right has been spewing about the left, even the right-wing parties don't truly dare to dismantle it.
>> > And is the argument there that the Dutch no longer practice capitalism?
> Who is saying that? Nobody.
Well a few comments ago you had that throwaway that the social democrats were less blood-steeped than the capitalists. Then you've held up, as social democrats, a group of capitalists with a long bloody history of capitalism and as far as I know never really did anything much to repudiate that history. And still practice capitalism today. You can still notionally buy shares from the same stock exchange that hosted the VOC [0].
And the follow up is me being a bit bemused. If the social democrats are the blood-steeped capitalists, how are they less blood steeped than the capitalists? Which capitalists are the blood-seeped ones if not the British, French and Dutch? I'd assumed you were talking about those 3 and the Americans until you held the Dutch up as a counterexample to bloodied capitalists.
I get it. You don't really know what social democracy is. So let me give you the briefest definition: social democracy tries to balance the best parts of socialism and capitalism, while trying to avoid the worst parts. Those worst parts include that blood-steeped history. Social democracy explicitly tries to avoid that, by regulating corporations and protecting people's rights. The corporations can still make profit, but not by any means; not by hurting people.
That is something that didn't happen during that blood steeped history. The VOC had no meaningful restrictions. They could wage war, kill people, enslave people. They could sentence their own employees to death. These are the kind of excesses you want to prevent.
Social democracy is something that was invented about a century and a half ago, although in the early days, the difference with socialism and anarchism wasn't very well-defined yet; those three terms were used fairly interchangeably much of the time. But at least it was explicit about democracy, and it grew to become the dominant form of socialism in capitalist democratic countries. And there it grew to be what it became over the course of the 20th century: a balance to capitalism, instead of an outright rejection of it.
It hasn't always been perfect; there have been slip ups and poor decisions, but it doesn't have the kind of blood-steeped history that capitalism and totalitarian communism have. It's been fairly effective at what it tries to do. More so than any other ideology, except maybe liberalism. But they go fairly well together.
And would you accept then that capitalism as an ideology is no longer implemented anywhere? Because there aren't many modern nations more capitalist than the Dutch. And those that arguably are are only marginally more capitalistic. Like, if you do a search for "capitalistic countries" you can find [0] people who consider them to be in the top 10.
Must admit I'm having trouble getting over the idea that the Dutch of all people are being held up as different than the capitalists. Good bad or otherwise this conversation is going to be a high point of the week. What's next? Socialist Switzerland?
No country has a pure implementation of any ideology. Ideologies are directions you want to take society, and economic systems are always a balance. But the US is quite a bit more blatantly capitalist, with its lack of holidays, lack of worker rights, and everything geared towards an even more extreme division of wealth.
Netherland, and northern Europe in general (I never meant to single out Netherland specifically; Scandinavia is probably ahead of us), is absolutely capitalist, but not nearly to the extreme that the US is, and has more labour protection, better social welfare, better regulations. Not to the extent that it should have; it's still falling way short, and Netherland in particular has been falling further short since the neoliberalist wave of the 1990s and the string of right-wing governments of the past 25 years. But it's not the worst of the world in this regard, and it still has a fairly effective balance that consistently puts it near the top of most freedom and happiness indexes with the rest of northern Europe.
It's by no means perfect, and there's a lot that needs to be improved, but compared to most other countries, this is clearly a pretty effective system.
Did you know the Netherlands, back in 2019, scored [0] the highest wealth inequality globally according to Wiki? Just saying. It does look like a bit of a fluke but I found that hilarious. Although the wiki article actually specifically cites them for having good statistics so there must be some confidence.
So earlier, when we're talking about blood-soaked capitalists, we're not talking about the Dutch with their history of blood soaked capitalism and their ongoing largely uninterrupted capitalist tradition. But we are talking about the people who don't take very many holidays and lack "workers rights" - where I note that the US has had their ability to negotiate with their corporate overlords eroded so far that they get a median income of maybe 10% higher than the Netherlands [1]? Most workers should really work on chipping away at their rights, it appears to improve their bargaining position! Maybe PPP can give the Dutch an edge, but we're talking about a pretty marginal difference to start talking about one obviously being the more blood-steeped.
I mean, look. We don't really have anything to talk about here but I am going to say I'm not sure you know a capitalist country when you see it. If we're talking about the blood-soaked ones, the Netherlands are capitalist heartland. Not quite as bad as the UK. But bad enough that I suppose I can see why they'd rather rebrand as something other than straight capitalists.
You should also include casualties of the coup in Indonesia, the Casualties of the Korean, Vietnamese, and secret war in Laos. Perhaps also the massacres performed by the Contras in Nicaragua,
The Dutch VOC, considered one of the first capitalist enterprises, carried out genocide in its pursuit to control spices in the Indies.
Capitalist interests in the US interfered in South American politics for decades, overthrowing democratically elected leaders and funding militias aligned with corporate interests. One of my closest friends is Guatemalan and most of his family was killed during the United Fruit Company conflict.
The Russians experienced one of the largest declines in quality of life in human history after the Soviet Union fell and the country became privatized.