this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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The problem with this argument is that the risk for someone taking advantage of the situation to accumulate power is the same under any system. I would rather take that risk for an economic system that aims to treat everyone more fairly than for one that, by design, sends wealth up to a select few who hoard it.
If the risk is so equal, why did the USSR fall to it very quickly, where the US, 300 years after our founding, just resisted Trump when he tried to do the same?
I think your risk is higher, because you are taking down the current system in order to put in a potentially improved one. But during that downtime you have extreme vulnerability.
We do not have that problem unless we also dismantle our system to a similarly vulnerable state.
I don't stop with authoritarianism as the only measure of people being oppressed. There are a ton of ways USA citizens are being oppressed. We just vote for who our oppressors are.
"Dictatorships are inherently unstable: you can slaughter, imprison, and brainwash entire generations and their children will invent the struggle for freedom anew. But promise every man a chance to impose the will of the majority upon his fellows, and you can get them all together behind a system that pits them against each other." Source
"Vote for our oppressors". Maybe we are, but if you look through history, you'll find that every time period has oppression. Doesn't matter where. You can't get rid of oppression. It's not something you can toss away.
This is true and sort of adds to my point. If I am going to risk being oppressed oppressed anyways, I might as well risk it for a system that, if done halfway decent, can lead to more fair distribution of resources. Currently a lot of wealth is being funneled into the hands of a few.