Actually, now that I think about it, has there even been a piece of media showing a utopia as capitalist? All the genuine utopias I can think of are usually at least socialist leaning. I say genuine cause there’s also a huge number of works about “utopias” where the whole plot is about how the society isn’t actually a utopia.
There has to be one, but i think most sci-fi authors are left-leaning so their utopias and dystopias both reflect that.
I think you’re, uh, pretty super wrong about sci-fi authors being leftists. Maybe the modern ones, but historically they’ve been pretty right wing.
You’ve got a point there… Robert Heinlein’s books were so fashy that Verhoeven decided the only way Starship Troopers could be turned into a film was if it was done as satire.
that’s because a capitalist Utopia is in no way realistic (and acutally self-contradictory). The only future Capitalism offers is a dystopian one (if we even get to have a future, which is not all that likely under current circumstances)
Where’s the funny?
Hehe basing actual society on media representation of the extremes lol
the cynical side of me liked it. ofc that may not be your kind of humor
political memes are always forced and unfunny
There isn’t any. Just the typical 14 year olds railing on about the same ten commie phrases as if it was ever funny. Looking forward to more diverse meme communities coming to Lemmy so I can block the communist stupid.
Both scenarios could actually happen at the same time
I just want to point out that starfleet actively oppresses certain groups of people (genetically modified races usually), ignores the needs of their border worlds while simultaneously demanding they adhere to federation laws, and their entire legal system is broken. A judge forced Riker to prosecute Data despite the obvious personal connections.
Star Trek is not as much of a socialist utopia as people like to pretend it is. Its definitely a more liberal society, but equality is not a given.
I think it depicts a communist future quite well actually. Errors can and always will be made, Administration will always have to be done, it’s just how do we go about those things once we achive a communist society? Proper Star Trek explores those questions and ofc the show in it of itself isn’t flawless either
That’s the future under post-scarcity, not socialism. They have replicators, which has made manual labor, capitalism, and socialism obsolete. We do not have any such technology and therefore cannot achieve such a thing at this time.
We already live in a “post-scarcity” world… there is absolutely nothing humans could need that we couldn’t grow or produce. All the scarcity you see around you is artificially created and maintained - and that means socialism is far, far from obsolete.
there is absolutely nothing humans could need that we couldn’t grow or produce.
Yes, but much of it is made using human labor. Labor is what’s scarce in real life and not scarce in Star Trek, and a technological Holy Grail is required to bridge that gap.
So no, present-day scarcity is not artificial. Not entirely artificial, at least.
Labor is what’s scarce in real life
No, it isn’t. We have more labor on this planet that we would know what to do with if we stopped repressing it in order to keep a small group of billionaire parasites in the money.
and a technological Holy Grail is required to bridge that gap.
Absolutely not… there is nothing humans would need that we couldn’t produce in spades using already existing methods. The heinous abuse and mismanagement of human resources in our current mode of production does not require techno-fetishizing non-solutions - it requires a social solution. Hence, socialism.
We have more labor on this planet that we would know what to do with if we stopped repressing it in order to keep a small group of billionaire parasites in the money.
We would run out of it very quickly if there wasn’t anything compelling laborers to perform labor. Nobody’s going to grow crops for you out of the goodness of their hearts. That’s hard, miserable, thankless, dangerous work. That’s why capitalism exists in the first place.
The heinous abuse and mismanagement of human resources in our current mode of production does not require techno-fetishizing non-solutions - it requires a social solution. Hence, socialism.
That has already been attempted several times, each attempt ended in catastrophic failure, and that failure itself involved heinous abuse and mismanagement of human resources.
Machines may yet solve this problem for us, but humans definitely won’t, and we’ve got the history to prove it.
We would run out of it very quickly
No. We wouldn’t. The labor would simply be spent on that which people find important.
Nobody’s going to grow crops for you out of the goodness
Says who? PragerU?
That’s why capitalism exists in the first place.
No, Clyde… that’s not it. Maybe don’t extrapolate your politics from Civilization games, okay?
That has already been attempted several times
Yes, it has… and everywhere it was tried it was destroyed by fascists, capitalists and other power-hoarders because they were afraid it might work. For instance, Catalonia in the middle 30s and Ukraine in the early 20s.
Machines may yet solve this problem for us,
No, they won’t.
and we’ve got the history to prove it.
Alt-history doesn’t actually count as real history.
It’s like with famines: globally we produce more than enough food to feed everyone, we just choose not to.
Our problem isn’t the production of goods, but the allocation.
Talkies are cringe, both is bad
back to reddit with you
This makes me sad.
remember: Pessimism of the Mind, Optimism of the Will! revolutionary Optimism is hard to upkeep but helps with not falling into despair (I know that all too well unfortunately :/)
The bottom is the society that will happen post-socialism. No matter what political system follows, it will always end up in the hands of those who seek to abuse it. Everybody wants to be wealthy and pain free, socialism requires that everyone feel the same degree of pain and suffering no matter what.
We are doomed to be on this rock to the end of our days, unless we can destroy it slowly enough to show us that we are ruining it, and give us the ability to feasibly evacuate it.
No tankie… go away.
There’s nothing tankie about this. Nobody’s celebrating genocide or conquest here.
What’s up with this place being too pro socialism.
There is no such thing as being “too pro-socialism.”
Reality has a left-wing bias, my friend
Pretty sure Star Trek is actually full on communism given that they’re a classless and moneyless society.
you are correct. though the path to that kind of communism leads through the socialist stage of development
Right, there has to be a transitional state from society the way it is shaped by capitalism to a different kind of society that’s based on communist economic relations. Incidentally, I thought this was an excellent explanation of the relationship between socialist and communist phases of development https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3228-lenin-s-three-theoretical-arguments-about-the-dictatorship-of-the-proletariat
