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Both colonialism and slave trade occurred in authoritarian anti liberal states. The east india company specifically engaged in creating monopolies and limiting free trade to protect its revenues. Free traders at the time even protested and proposed legislation and argued for breaking the monopoly. Do you really think we have lived in a capitalistic free market world throughout history? how shockingly ignorant.
Anyway, mental health issues are real and certainly not limited to blue-collar workers.
Tf you mean colonialism and slave trade are opposite of what a capitalist system would have. Both have already occurred in a capitalist society.
What do you think the East India "COMPANY" was?
My god
Better get some real work.
im just gonna say, first and foremost, im a cultural conservative. i believe that a lot of new gen philosophies and ideologies are self destructive and often downright egotistic and narcissistic. i also believe that capitalism is the best system we currently have at our disposal. that being said, i don't think it is flawless. no economic system ever is, and if you worship an economic system and consider it to be as sacred and unchangeable a religion, then you've clearly lost it.
coming to your first point, you missed the essence of what i was saying. i was providing an argument analogous to what was being stated above. the argument above goes like "well, don't forget that this system has brought about the material prosperity you're utilizing today! that's reason enough to keep it around forever!". the point is that many systems have brought about a certain level of progress, but it is not worth keeping them around simply because they can bring progress/have brought about progress at one point of time. it must be examined what cost we're paying for that progress to determine the efficiency of an economic system. i never stated that colonialism, bonded labor and slave trade are a part of capitalism. i drew a parallel argument to show how flawed the comment above was.
and y'know, the funny thing is, if you look at the prime days of capitalism, the days when it was bringing never before seen levels of prosperity to the west, you'll see that those times were fraught with conflict that the west exploited. they would exploit the cheap labor of underdeveloped countries in order to cut labor costs, they would extract natural resources at a low cost from third world nations and prop up regimes that would facilitate their arms trading and war mongering, all the while portraying the picture of being a beacon of liberty and a symbol of the success of the "free market". a market can never be truly free if there exists such a massive wealth and power imbalance (as is visible in most capitalist countries, please do check the Gini index). you can tell a poor man about his freedom of occupation and such forever, but in the end the directions he can go in are very restricted in practicality. that is why a free market can never exist as long as there isn't a certain level of social equality that is present between the citizens of any state.
as for your second point, i.. don't get what made you believe that anywhere in my message i talked a single time about "office going AC havers" being sad about.. not being influencers? what?
"but the population has grown manyfold. several economies have been hit by successive recessions. the mental health of most people has dropped tremendously while they work in jobs paying peanuts given by the benevolent corporate capitalist gods. unemployment and underemployment are on the rise. "gig work" is becoming more common too, which is basically the same thing as hookups in the job market. companies cut off employees and employees cut off companies much faster and with much less hesitation than they did in, say, the 50s or 60s, leading to an era of great uncertainty."
please do read this part again. it's a clear reference to the low wage workers who have to travel all the way to big cities in order to get a minimum wage job so they can send money home to their family, all the while living in miserable conditions themselves. all because mr free market capitalists decided to exercise their freedom and not pay these folk enough. it's his free choice to work there, right? and the boss can decide how much he wants to pay, right...? if he doesn't like the pay, he can just leave, right....? except it's not so simple, considering this man will be impoverished and starving if he doesn't accept the terrible working conditions, while the boss could care two hoots about whether he joins or not. you see why freedom can't truly exist when there's such a huge disparity in resources?
Mental health and all- please. You dont even know what youre talking about. People who stay in AC offices and make stacks doing professional work feel sad theyre not influencers? Thats something a leftist is supposed to worry about? Not the farmers committing suicide because of debt or the factory workers not getting paid or the children working?
Law school leftism sucks.
Pretty useless stuff!
any system can bring about progress. look at the Soviet Union from the 30s up to the late 70s. they were rivalling the Mecca of capitalism, USA, in terms of economic and technological growth, as well as geopolitical influence. the same stands true for China in the modern world. They have been able to bring about a great deal of progress and advancements with a combination of an authoritarian regime and state owned companies.
the efficacy of a system is not decided simply by looking at whether it can or cannot induce material progress. it is determined by judging the cost of the said progress. can this progress be brought about ethically and sustainably?
during a certain era, for a certain part of the world, the answer was yes. but the population has grown manyfold. several economies have been hit by successive recessions. the mental health of most people has dropped tremendously while they work in jobs paying peanuts given by the benevolent corporate capitalist gods. unemployment and underemployment are on the rise. "gig work" is becoming more common too, which is basically the same thing as hookups in the job market. companies cut off employees and employees cut off companies much faster and with much less hesitation than they did in, say, the 50s or 60s, leading to an era of great uncertainty.
looking at these factors, and the increasingly common failures of capitalism in maintaining a stable economy for countries not named USA (and at this point, not even for them), i don't think it's unnatural to question capitalism. capitalism is a system which determines how resources must be allocated. that is it. it was made to fit human needs.
it did well for itself, and that too only for a specific part of the world, during a period of time when they could easily exploit slaves and bonded servants. it's not doing all too great now, neither in terms of bringing about societal progress, nor in terms of bringing fulfillment to individuals. which is why there is an increasing number of people questioning it. nobody's going to be loyal to capitalism simply because of what it "used to be able to do" when my great grandfather was alive. that's a logical fallacy.
even the progress you speak of has slowed down big time because of capitalism. the world's brightest scientific minds are no longer conducting research and discovering new phenomenon and uncovering the essential truths of the world. they're designing the next samsung galaxy fold or iphone 9000+. another bunch of them are programming the next algorithm to process user data for some social media platform. there's a reason why pure scientific progress has slowed down. so i don't see the progress aspect being extremely robust when it comes to modern day capitalism as well. however, if you consider adding a screen to every single item possible as growth, then we're truly having a lot of technological growth.
See how that works both ways? The truth is institutions have cultures all of their own. no one is really more intelligent or objective if theyre succumbing to group think and tribal identities like LW and RW.
Proof that youth makes you rebellious and leftist, age makes you conformist and right-wing.
Learning subjects in one order or the other wont sway your political orientation just as much as eating entrees before appetisers will change the calories you consumed. Please stop treating students like idiots. There is a free marketplace of ideas and they can choose what to believe- and they will change what they believe as they grow. If there is suppression of any political ideas on universities that is a problem we can discuss, but this and all is nonsense. Left wing orientation doesnt happen by and large because people dont have jobs. They have pretty socialist governments in scandinavian countries where people are very employed. And theres a lot of unemployed right wing folks.
Mostly people lean to the left because the left makes a moral case that is appealing on identity, workers rights, inequality, and poverty. No one is choosing to stay unemployed because of their left wing orientation either. at least not in a poor country like india. Make a better moral case. The left is vulnerable on a lot of that stuff- how we resolve problems of identity or inequality or poverty or provide for workers rights- capitalists have good answers to that stuff sometimes. But they never make it. Even more polarizing issues- abortion for example- right wingers have a good moral case on that- they just dont make the good moral case. Instead of questioning the value of life and whether there might be better options than abortions right wing goes on to shame women for having sex or worse getting raped. Thats the problem.
If you find yourself on the losing end of an argument- improve your argument. This whole- indoctrinate them by making stupid changes to curriculum strategy is old and it doesnt work. Maybe in schools- but at universities? No way!
Yall are so polarised and inside your own bubble you have no idea how to even begin convincing someone who doesnt agree with you.
Most students who come in to law school arent firmly left wing in the first few years- most people as a whole are centrists- they change their mind because there are moral cases made by left wing scholars that students are exposed to. If you dont like that sociology for example is taught by predominantly left wing folks- go into sociology, get degrees, teach it. Economics certainly is not taught with any real left wing tilt. Neither is history or political science. You read lock and hobbes and smith and mill and a fair number of what would today be considered capitalist literature in all those disciplines. The right wing students on campus simply dont have the courage of their convictions to engage in argument or the interest and ability to make a case for people who disagree with them. Thats where you get in to trouble.
i feel like i fell for obvious bait but oh well.
Now, here’s my suggestion: just flip the order and place BA subjects in 5th year. You will thus have students taking Contract Law, Corp Law etc seriously from Day One. By the time they get to 5th year, they will have internships and PPOs under their belt and be believers in capitalism. Also, their GPA in 5th year won’t matter, as they will have got job offers by then. So, the left wing orientation will be diminished.