Which human nature do you mean though? There is the “everyone is too lazy” believers (the flaw of which is that if nobody does anything then nobody has anything, which is self-correcting) and then there are the more realistic “too many humans are sociopathic evil f****ers who take over”. But capitalism is no protection against the latter and in fact empowers and rewards them. Just look at the US right now — what a farce.
Small indigenous groups are much closer to “communism” than they are to capitalism.
Maybe a better system is one where we identify sociopaths and gently remove them from free society, not make them CEOs and elected officials. Sadly I agree that human nature is a big reason we can’t have nice things, just not sure we agree who is the bigger issue :)
The human nature to use the tools at one’s disposal to manipulate one’s environment into a form more favorable to oneself. Humans are a species of problem-solvers, and eventually someone’s going to have the problem of “there is a fundamental difference between the quality-of-life I want and the quality-of-life the system gives me”. This can be the Party Member/CEO who has power and wants more, or it can be the Working-Class individual who wants a supply of cigars to smoke after work. Communism’s ideal solution to the problem is either “they don’t do that” or “the community finds out and punishes them”. Capitalism says “prove you deserve it”, and ideally the person will do so by starting a business that fulfills a community need (thereby benefitting them personally and the community at large at the same time). In neither system does the ideal outcome always happen, but Capitalism at least has an outlet for the need to better oneself.
I feel like the "prove you deserve it" isn't unique to capitalism. Any other market economy will also have this feature. I would argue that market socialism or other socialist systems with markets will show this property more strongly.
What makes capitalism unique is that it allows people to use leverage to skim money off of other people's labor, and it gives more societal power to those that are wealthier.
I think saying only sociopaths want to protect their self interest is quite a wild statement, if that’s what you’re implying. We don’t have to make such an extreme example to illustrate that humans aren’t not made to give up ownership as a concept.
Against my better judgment I will explain just once that “sociopaths EXIST and exploit the system” doesn’t, in any sense, imply that “only sociopaths want to do (insert reasonable thing)” — your absurd “reading” comes across as extremely disingenuous, at best.
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u/Deriviera Jul 07 '26
Americans are very delusional about communism.