There are some people who think that humanity should reach its maximum potential as quickly as possible and that we must make sacrifices along the way, even if it means dooming other life forms (including humans) into misery. That misery then acts as a deterrent, nobody wants to be poor because it means homelessness or starvation, so everyone tries their best and works as hard as they can.
There are some people who think that humanity is doing pretty well, they are not against further improvement but they prefer preservation of humanity, even if it means not living up to its theoretical potential because sustainability is inefficient over the short term. The goal should be to make sure that everyone benefits from societies' progress to the extent that they want to benefit, which in theory should eradicate homelessness and starvation as nobody is willingly risking death.
Let's call the first system capitalism and the second one socialism (not necessarily inspired by marx).
There are two obvious problems. Humans are lazy creatures, economists that postulate that human wants and needs are infinite are kind of wrong. There are lots of humans who basically do nothing but watch TV. The stereotypical "welfare parasite" shouldn't even be able to exist as he is obviously going against his own interests of being unable to satisfy his unlimited needs. So the argument that capitalists make, is that lazy humans have to be whipped into shape and motivated. However, if the capitalists go too far and overexert their workforce or destroy the environment, capitalism will become less effective over the long term. An optimal system would be hard working when there is lots of work to do and lazy when there isn't much to do. It can't be stuck in either state or maybe it needs to do both simultaneously.
In my opinion, the next step that we should take is to remove the dependence on economic growth to keep the economy stable. If growth happens, that's great, but we shouldn't force it. We need to make small steps toward the right direction. Nobody on this planet needs a big step, e.g. a Marxist revolution, etc.
I know that some people might subscribe to the latter ideal, but that's not my belief system. I believe that we should continue to innovate and improve our lives, but that the people who do the innovating should see the reward of their efforts, not just their bosses. That's why I'm a (libertarian) socialist. Socialism isn't about making sure everybody has equal resources, it's defined by the phrase "from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution", as opposed to communism's "... According to his need". Communism is meant to describe a post-scarcity economy,realistically. Socialism is about removing the class division between worker and capitalist that's really it. You can have welfare and whatnot and that's a good thing in terms of social utility, but it's not inherent to socialism. That's more social democracy, which is a reformist ideology where you just tack amendments onto capitalism, rather than a socialist ideology.
I do agree with not wanting insurrection though - the time for that in the West has probably passed. The global South on the other hand, is still oppressed enough to warrant taking up arms.
There are some people who think that humanity should reach its maximum potential as quickly as possible and that we must make sacrifices along the way, even if it means dooming other life forms (including humans) into misery. That misery then acts as a deterrent, nobody wants to be poor because it means homelessness or starvation, so everyone tries their best and works as hard as they can.
There are some people who think that humanity is doing pretty well, they are not against further improvement but they prefer preservation of humanity, even if it means not living up to its theoretical potential because sustainability is inefficient over the short term. The goal should be to make sure that everyone benefits from societies' progress to the extent that they want to benefit, which in theory should eradicate homelessness and starvation as nobody is willingly risking death.
Let's call the first system capitalism and the second one socialism (not necessarily inspired by marx).
There are two obvious problems. Humans are lazy creatures, economists that postulate that human wants and needs are infinite are kind of wrong. There are lots of humans who basically do nothing but watch TV. The stereotypical "welfare parasite" shouldn't even be able to exist as he is obviously going against his own interests of being unable to satisfy his unlimited needs. So the argument that capitalists make, is that lazy humans have to be whipped into shape and motivated. However, if the capitalists go too far and overexert their workforce or destroy the environment, capitalism will become less effective over the long term. An optimal system would be hard working when there is lots of work to do and lazy when there isn't much to do. It can't be stuck in either state or maybe it needs to do both simultaneously.
In my opinion, the next step that we should take is to remove the dependence on economic growth to keep the economy stable. If growth happens, that's great, but we shouldn't force it. We need to make small steps toward the right direction. Nobody on this planet needs a big step, e.g. a Marxist revolution, etc.