And the thing to me too: all governments are prone to failures outside of their control. And any government policy can fuck up with genuinely good intentions and research. In the 20th century especially ecological issues because the science of understanding ecology was still catching up to the technology that could alter it imo (obviously not in every case, but when you rapidly industrialize and change you get unintended consequences).
Like it would be silly of me to blame the dust bowl (entirely; lot’s of nuance regarding settler colonialism and the structure of agriculture markets but out of scope for the point I’m getting to imo) on capitalism: it’s pretty obvious a bunch of farmers from rural areas in the early 1900’s wouldn’t really have a grasp on macro-scale soil errosion enough to understand the situation they were making.
But what I /can/ blame on capitalism is that there were limited levers to assist those people, limited power to monitor and correct the issue until FDR established it, and a derth of incentives for the government and power in the country to remain apathetic or become outright exploitative towards the suffering. We can draw lines to all of those things directly to how capitalism as a system molds a government.
I guess that’s to say: yeah I think it’s fair to judge by the response more than the cause (not entirely more but weighted diffy) in a lot of those allegories or pictures people use. Those mismanagements happened everywhere as the world industrialized. Socialist states had breadlines and stalinkovs. Capitalist states had hoovervilles, union busting murder cops bombing camps, and sometimes the occasional goodwill of a religious group or charity effort in cases where they didn’t implement an ultimately socialist consession into the system. One of those systems had a more consistent response and a clear sense of altruism that the other doesn’t. I’ll take the breadline if it means more of my neighbors stay fed. I’ll live.
I’m probably simplifying things a bit while simultaneously rambling too much but this topic is interesting!
And the thing to me too: all governments are prone to failures outside of their control. And any government policy can fuck up with genuinely good intentions and research. In the 20th century especially ecological issues because the science of understanding ecology was still catching up to the technology that could alter it imo (obviously not in every case, but when you rapidly industrialize and change you get unintended consequences).
Like it would be silly of me to blame the dust bowl (entirely; lot’s of nuance regarding settler colonialism and the structure of agriculture markets but out of scope for the point I’m getting to imo) on capitalism: it’s pretty obvious a bunch of farmers from rural areas in the early 1900’s wouldn’t really have a grasp on macro-scale soil errosion enough to understand the situation they were making.
But what I /can/ blame on capitalism is that there were limited levers to assist those people, limited power to monitor and correct the issue until FDR established it, and a derth of incentives for the government and power in the country to remain apathetic or become outright exploitative towards the suffering. We can draw lines to all of those things directly to how capitalism as a system molds a government.
I guess that’s to say: yeah I think it’s fair to judge by the response more than the cause (not entirely more but weighted diffy) in a lot of those allegories or pictures people use. Those mismanagements happened everywhere as the world industrialized. Socialist states had breadlines and stalinkovs. Capitalist states had hoovervilles, union busting murder cops bombing camps, and sometimes the occasional goodwill of a religious group or charity effort in cases where they didn’t implement an ultimately socialist consession into the system. One of those systems had a more consistent response and a clear sense of altruism that the other doesn’t. I’ll take the breadline if it means more of my neighbors stay fed. I’ll live.
I’m probably simplifying things a bit while simultaneously rambling too much but this topic is interesting!