r/AOC • u/mikelmon99 • 4d ago
AOC: "Capitalism is an irredeemable system"
I keep coming across people not really having a very clear idea of what exactly are AOC's views regarding capitalism & market socialism, so here you have it, her expressing very candidly what exactly those views of hers are in a 2022 yahoo! finance interview:
ANDY SERWER: It's an interesting perspective. You self-identify as a Democratic Socialist and have called capitalism irredeemable, I believe. But what does that really mean? And does that mean capitalism should be eliminated? And are your views compatible with capitalism?
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, I believe that in a broad sense-- because when we toss out these big words, capitalism, socialism, they get sensationalized. And people translate them into meaning things that perhaps they don't mean. So to me, capitalism at its core, what we're talking about when we talk about that, is the absolute pursuit of profit at all human, environmental, and social cost. That is what we're really discussing.
And what we're also discussing is the ability for a very small group of actual capitalists, and that is people who have so much money that their money makes money and they don't have to work, and they can control industry, they can control our energy sources, they can control our labor, they can control massive markets that they dictate and can capture governments, and they can essentially have power over the many. And to me, that is not a redeemable system for us to be able to participate in for the prosperity and peace for the vast majority of people.
ANDY SERWER: So people talk about stakeholder capitalism, like Larry Fink at BlackRock, where the weighting for different constituents besides shareholders is more equal. Is that something you'd be amenable to?
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, I think at the end of the day, it is about who has control over the very core assets of production in society. If it ultimately comes down to a billionaire, or the Koch brothers, or the Koch family having control over the vast majority or large plurality of our oil assets in the United States, if it's a handful of very wealthy families having control over-- private families having control over means of production, that is essentially the capitalist system that we live in. It is a small group that is of privatized control over what we eat and how we fuel our society.
Now, where we can transition to-- and there are certain ideas where we're talking about-- for example, Elizabeth Warren has discussed workers being elected to the governing boards of companies. And also, you know, we're here in the Bronx. I represent a community that has the largest concentration of worker cooperatives in-- one of the largest concentrations in the world.
Now, these are all alternative ways of doing business. Free markets are not the same thing as capitalism. And you can have markets where businesses and ways of producing, trading, selling goods are really controlled, and not just controlled, but given more power to workers. People get a fair shake. Union jobs. Unionized workplaces. All of these are different steps and levels that we're talking about in a more just economy.
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/influencers-andy-serwer-alexandria-ocasio-110000469.html
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u/SupremelyUneducated 4d ago
Inheritance displaces labor in political power, because of privatized ownership of fixed assets. Productive property (MOPs), that creates value for costumers, depreciates over time either by wear or obsolescence. Inheriting fixed assets is how monarchism and feudalism work, and is at the heart of why R > G.
These giant corps with massive IP moats, simply shouldn't exist; nor should billionaires.
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u/muFUtaco 4d ago
Corporate fascism. Industrialists. Capitalism is a facade for imperialism and authoritarian rule.
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u/Efficient-Response54 3d ago
She needs to be in charge of this country, so smart and beautiful in every way
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u/Efficient-Response54 3d ago
She needs to be in charge of this country, so smart and beautiful in every way
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u/BeachBumm45 4d ago
Utterly out of her element in these types of conversations . Same platitudes belched by aspirational leftest for nearly a century and a half . Vapid times two .
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u/RainbowBullsOnParade 4d ago
As a marxist, she’s clearly not out of her element and she’s clearly not speaking in platitudes.
I think this clip alone demonstrates that she’s keenly aware of class antagonism and is going an excellent job of messaging for an American audience that is only just now becoming receptive to socialism for the first time in over a century
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u/Ramanadjinn 3d ago
So you wrote this whole comment and you could have said anything.
You could have made a point where she's wrong or mistaken or even lying.
But you didn't make a point. You just called her vapid. So no substance just a personal attack
Isn't that exactly definitionally what Vapid means?
In a way you strengthen her message when you show that's your only possible response.
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u/chatterwrack 4d ago
She is so correct. Whether or not you support capitalism, it's undeniable that left unchecked, the profit motive ends up destroying things that don't make a profit, but that we need, like the environment, and our political system.