Cyberpunk 2077 and “Late Stage Capitalism”

[@ecksofresh]

This just popped up in my feed. I gotta say I love the format of this video. It felt like hearing my college professors breakdown a complex topic and using the veil of cyberpunk to explain it.

[@xXToxicXxification]

Yooo same ❤

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

the system this guy refers too is COMMUNISM. Communism is where all the resources are controlled by a governing body. In cyberpunk and countries like the usa, The top companies ARE BASICALLY THE GOVERNING BODY BECUZ THEY CONTROL ALL THE RESORUCES. THE CEOS who control all the countries resources are the GOVERNING BODY because the own the governmEnt through bribes, lobbying, control over laws, recieving special bailouts that allow them to fail at any time. A TRUE CAPITALISM SYSTEM DOES NOT EXIST IN THE USA OR ANY COUNTRY. A true fair system would provide bailouts for all companies not just the banks oil companies and the military. We are ruled by 1 large CEO class>>>this is communism not capitalism. Please get educated.

[@crozraven]

To me, MR ROBOT is the most realistic "Cyberpunk" series that I ever watched.

[@antherthalmhersser7239]

The EIC popping up here is a surprising and interesting insight that I don't often see correlated with the economic freebooting of cyberpunk. Very thought provoking.

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

the system this guy refers too is COMMUNISM. Communism is where all the resources are controlled by a governing body. In cyberpunk and countries like the usa, The top companies ARE BASICALLY THE GOVERNING BODY BECUZ THEY CONTROL ALL THE RESORUCES. THE CEOS who control all the countries resources are the GOVERNING BODY because the own the governmEnt through bribes, lobbying, control over laws, recieving special bailouts that allow them to fail at any time. A TRUE CAPITALISM SYSTEM DOES NOT EXIST IN THE USA OR ANY COUNTRY. A true fair system would provide bailouts for all companies not just the banks oil companies and the military. We are ruled by 1 large CEO class>>>this is communism not capitalism. Please get educated.

[@cristianpino1262]

"It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism".

[@nickv1212]

I dunno, Star Trek did a lot of the heavy lifting for people. We need more media like that, hopeful and willing to not need serious conflict in every episode, because a society that works that well for everyone should be pretty damn peaceful and great to live in. Leave the real drama for the capitalists. You don't know how many times I've heard people unironically say "we need another war, people are growing soft, demanding more money while working fast food, etc."

[@altechelghanforever9906]

​@@nickv1212I reckon the people who say shit like "wE nEeD aNoTHeR wAR!" are the least likely to fight in it themselves. It's the type of shit people who never served say just so they can look tough on the internet because they lost their shit when they saw a pride flag sticker on a car.

[@boobah5643]

@@altechelghanforever9906May I direct you towards Theodore Roosevelt. Who was hardly alone in that in his day. Mind, his opinion changed when, over the relatively brief period the US was involved in WWI, his sons were all killed or maimed.

[@derrickjohnson4952]

It is easier to just have a free society so people who want a more socialistic system can try things their way & capitalist try things their way

[@derrickjohnson4952]

⁠@@nickv1212So since Star Trek is a prosperous socialist utopia, does that mean a thriving sci fi fictional capitalist society would prove capitalist right ?

[@londonnoobsss719]

there is something to that dystopian feel, even though night city is a corporate mess, we are still attracted to it. Always been interesting to me how we find comfort in these dark futuristic settings, and cyberpunk presents it really well. The game makes you feel like another nobody trying to make it to the top, and the beautiful yet uninviting nature of the city strengthens that feeling. I also like the depressive nature of all this games endings, even if you made it to the top you will die and there is no way you can stop it. When you are at the bottom you wanna make it to the top, but once you reach that point you want to go back, you can never be truly happy.

[@kuricodes_]

I suppose it's because you get shit on by corporations in both the real world and in fictional settings - at least in fictional dystopia universes, you get to have a laser eye

[@mallardofmodernia8092]

@@kuricodes_ and occasionally robespierre the shit out of their management.

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

the system this guy refers too is COMMUNISM. Communism is where all the resources are controlled by a governing body. In cyberpunk and countries like the usa, The top companies ARE BASICALLY THE GOVERNING BODY BECUZ THEY CONTROL ALL THE RESORUCES. THE CEOS who control all the countries resources are the GOVERNING BODY because the own the governmEnt through bribes, lobbying, control over laws, recieving special bailouts that allow them to fail at any time. A TRUE CAPITALISM SYSTEM DOES NOT EXIST IN THE USA OR ANY COUNTRY. A true fair system would provide bailouts for all companies not just the banks oil companies and the military. We are ruled by 1 large CEO class>>>this is communism not capitalism.

[@vincenthernandez1646]

I appreciate the perspective. This was great. I always saw Cyberpunk as the extreme opposite: a 20th century Libertarian’s warning for 21st century corporatism. That being said, your points are very valid. The funny thing is libertarianism and communism can share common concerns, albeit for different reasons.

[@feralhistorian]

Most of my discussions of cyberpunk have been with communists, skewing my perception a bit. but yes, there's definitely a libertarian bent to a lot of it.

[@vincenthernandez1646]

@@feralhistorian a few key authors have libertarian views, including Gibson and Pondsmith.

[@JamesVanCleaf]

there's a lore shard in the game that alludes to night city as a libertarian hellscape. it does in some ways appear libertarian but i see it as a criticizing libertarianism as well

[@brucesnow7125]

By libertarians do you mean pathetic right-wing weirdos who stole the term from leftist anarchists or the actual libertarians? Because the former don't have any consistent concerns at all. Their entire ideology is based on inadvertently creating a feudalist society because that is exactly what the capitalist version of libertarianism leads to and a person has to be brain-broken to think otherwise. Hoarding is at the heart of this system, and those who hoard the most will easily gain the greatest monopoly. They are just replacing the government with a few oligarchs who control everything. I can't even imagine how utterly horrible infrastructure is going to be under this system lol. Now, if we are talking about leftist anarchists, then that is a different question altogether. A much more interesting question I would say.

[@nickv1212]

​@@filidhdeklend893Corporatism is capitalism. Show me when capitalism worked for people and didn't involve a shit ton of unions fighting for worker's rights and pay.

[@produccionesquino]

Congratulations on your 1.000 subscribers man, I knew that your channel would grown since I first found you thanks to your "Drakas" videos. Now you really make a good analysis about the politics of cyberpunk, it's sad that it's seems we are going to that kind of future but without the cool cyborg augmentations. Still I'm optimistic that what ever the big "corps" are planning it's gonna fail spectacular and explode in their faces.

[@feralhistorian]

It often feels like I live in the cyberpunk dystopia I was promised as a child, but I thought I'd have better eyes and more gunfights.

[@kingdomofvinland8827]

@@feralhistoriansame. Wish we had the tech at least so I could see like normal people without glasses and thus not be legally blind anymore

[@TrampMachine]

I was kinda scared about what you'd say post capitalism was. But as a "self described marxist" I have to say I'd agree. Though what I'd say late stage capitalism is from a Marxian framework is the natural trajectory of capitalism towards consolidation of wealth and power. Capitalism spurs on competition, and competition has winners. Winners tend to gain advantage over losers and use that advantage to further cement their position. So late capitalism is just a vague description of what that world looks like.

[@feralhistorian]

I tend to agree about capitalism having a tendency toward consolidation of wealth, while noting that when capitalism is actually functioning that’s offset by competition made possible by open markets and a stable currency. But when you get a situation like we have today, where the State manipulates the currency and picks favorites in the market, it ceases to be capitalism and becomes some kind of neo-feudalism. This neo-feudalism is one possible post-capitalist system. But it’s also partially offset by decentralizing technology, making it highly unstable and requiring a lot of force to maintain. And unlike medieval peasants, todays workers can communicate across long distances and the system of control has a lot more leaks in it. And the pitchforks can poke from a lot further away. This reminds a bit of long debates with Marxists back in University. I usually agreed with the analysis of the problems, it was the proposed solutions where things got loud.

[@ericjohnson2024]

No, that is real Capitalism in the same way that North Korea is real Communism. For every Chernobyl, there is a Union Carbine. You open with Gulag, and I will raise you one Unilever. It is this that made me realize that there is no morals in economics.

[@devilspalm16]

Congrats on reaching 1,000 subscribers! I first discovered your channel through your Draka videos and I was one of your first 100 subscribers to boot. I love your content, man!

[@feralhistorian]

I remember seeing "devilspalm" come up on one of the Draka vids. There's still some things to cover with that series . . .

[@johnecoapollo7]

​​​@@feralhistorianSpeaking of that, I recently went through the Stone Dogs on Audible and remembered an excellent part between Eric and President Hiero where they basically explain that they neither don't want to start the Final War nor end the Protracted Struggle merely because they was such a mammoth effort put into it (corporate profits, careers, whole lives, etc.) that it became a self-consuming and expanding beast. It definitely remind me of how our timeline's Cold War was fought. Probably a topic that could be covered if you are so inclined.

[@dogestranding5047]

I like the idea of V using the tech and their system against those who have power and control. This is a central idea in Watch_Dogs too. Using the ctOS system against the people who helped create it and currently maintain it. “I’ll use their city against them.”

[@RestlessRebel]

Something I would do Go against tyrants

[@tyreeroberts90]

This is the true definition of being woke and I’m here for it, I appreciate the comparison honestly because we basically have the blueprint of what we “might” need to do eventually

[@rumplstiltztinkerstein]

Thank god! We need more of this! I am tired of seeing people only seeing capitalism and socialism as the only options. We need something else. Something more! We can all agree that both options aren't working, so which rules should we change, and how can we change them?

[@Purssona]

This felt like the political version of “engineering an empire” with Peter Weller! I could eat these videos up all day! More, just like this 🙏

[@andybassman99]

This video popping up in my algorithm was the best thing to happen to me this month! I’ve binged almost all your recent videos and I really hope you keep making them.

[@kingdomofvinland8827]

Congratulations on 1k subs man! Love your stuff. The first vid of yours I watched was the one about for all mankind

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

the system this guy refers too is COMMUNISM. Communism is where all the resources are controlled by a governing body. In cyberpunk and countries like the usa, The top companies ARE BASICALLY THE GOVERNING BODY BECUZ THEY CONTROL ALL THE RESORUCES. THE CEOS who control all the countries resources are the GOVERNING BODY because the own the governmEnt through bribes, lobbying, control over laws, recieving special bailouts that allow them to fail at any time. A TRUE CAPITALISM SYSTEM DOES NOT EXIST IN THE USA OR ANY COUNTRY. A true fair system would provide bailouts for all companies not just the banks oil companies and the military. We are ruled by 1 large CEO class>>>this is communism not capitalism.

[@kylereece5511]

Have you considered making a video about Children of Men? I’ve seen some more discourse about it recently and it seems to hold a lot more relevancy to people now than it did in 2006.

[@feralhistorian]

That would be a good one to cover. I'll add that to the re-watch stack.

[@murunbuchstanzangur]

An excellent film

[@johnecoapollo7]

I felt so heard when you mentioned how the EIC gradually become a government apparatus before being totally subsumed by the British Government. Lots of people always bring it up alongside its Dutch counterpart as a "Company with a State" and draw comparisons to Amazon or the like. My answer to that has always been "Show Jeff how much it takes to maintain the US nuclear arsenal and around 12 aircraft carriers and see how quickly you get laughed out of the room when you propose to him to get some". Edit: I should have said "how much it takes to maintain the US Nuclear Arsenal and 12 Aircraft Carriers, whose express raison d'etre is to exist and project power and not make a single dime while being kept online. Companies love having stuff that makes them no money while being extremely expensive to maintain, it is known.

[@gregmita]

Exactly. Just some numbers - the *total* annual operating expense for Amazon (something like the 5th biggest* company in the world) is around $500 billion. The US military costs around $800 billion per year, being a small portion of the overall $6 trillion annual spending of the US Government. Jeff is welcome to take up that expense. * Interestingly, Apple is the biggest company in the world (by market capitalization), but its operating costs are around $270 billion per year.

[@boobah5643]

"Companies love having stuff that makes them no money while being extremely expensive to maintain, it is known." Well, that would explain Amazon Studios...

[@MajorLeagueTenacity]

This is the best video I’ve seen on both cyberpunk and socioeconomics in a long time.

[@feralhistorian]

Thanks. If I succeed in making economics remotely entertaining I'll call it a win.

[@c.f.g.svideo3221]

Love the video. I just am kinda curious, as I remember in the ending where you run off with the nomads wouldn’t that be the post-capitalist ending? I mean I know it’s uncertain if V would live in that ending but the nomads do have there own hyper advanced tech that they plan on making contact with “in lore I think they are talking about the Technomamcers nomad or the Meta Corp” which are basically completely what you described as a decentralized network or trade and government through the Americas and the world. That’s why all existing companies and governments want to destroy the nomads despite they fact they need them in most cases. That’s my take on the nomads and the nomad ending at least.

[@feralhistorian]

The game does establish that V has about 6 months, so time is short and it's not really a win. I think the Nomads are really interesting as a societal cast-off, kind of like the Scraps in Demolition Man (there's a video on that coming). They're a good alternative for individuals, but not as a system. The Nomads aren't a model for a self-sufficient society, they exist on the fringes of the corporate techno-states that own most of the world and most of their equipment comes from that corporate world one way or another. Now, a story where the Nomads start to establish their own decentralized economy with production of food, manufactured goods, energy, all independent of mega-corp involvement . . . That has potential. Something like that could be system-breaking in the game world and ours.

[@paulleach3612]

@@feralhistorian Nomads, in the TTRPG 2020 version (though probably transporting more legitimate cargo in 2077) were the quickest way to move cargo globally. Pondsmith envisioned a "gig economy" but with neotribal mobile 'states' comprised migratory workers. Though in 2077 Panam wants to move away from selling their labour to Biotechnica, a relic of the old capitalist system, and re-embrace the gig economy and maybe looking into new ways to make a living with the corporation tech and A.I. knowledge that they've acquired...

[@ellie_vargr]

Laissez-faire capitalism inevitably turns into this. Corporations are designed to maximize their profits, and eventually, that reaches the logical endpoint of the corporation taking control of society. Unregulated capitalism invariably will turn into neofeudalism, hence why Arasaka CEO Saburo Arasaka is referred to as "the Emperor."

[@goatskin4487]

Your dumb

[@tianchris2517]

Feudalism is a decentralized system where the power of the monarch was strictly limited. There was no powerful emperor or king who could degree everything - in fact his position was reliant on that law so any attempt to change law meant harming himself. In centralized systems like absolutism, the Emperors of Europe required bureaucrats loyal to them. But companies are primarily interested in selling stuff. They are by nature self-serving and would not be loyal to a ruler or emperor unless they get monetary gain from that ( like the state being a customer ) or the state passing legislation in their favour. To link feudalism with Empire shows you don't understand feudalism, absolutism and empires in the medieval and modern sense. The latter form of empires are directly linked to centralisation of power. Historically, when companies achieved control over certain territories like a certain banana company it could only do so with the help of governments. It was not capable of reaching that point by itself. Corporations seek profit - that much we should be able to agree on. They sell you a product - whatever you can imagine for monetarty gain. If someone else offers a better product you choose that other one, or you are satifsfied and don't want to pay more than you already do. So you have a competetive relationship with different suppliers. Now your idea is that a company uses legislative power to influence the market. But ruling - governments - that COSTS money. A LOT. The only way to pay for that for an entire city or nation is to get taxes - or to leave it to the citizens. It is a process that destroys money, and does not form it. And when you pass legislation people WILL form black markets - look what happened in the Soviet Union. That should cover in a short form why your fear is completely ridiculous. The author of cyberpunk seems to be a historical illterate who doesn't understand basic historical concepts. But then again, what can you expect from a marxist who holds true to an ideology which ended in authoritarianism and has failed every single time while what he warns about has never happened?

[@RedGeist]

Sometimes the KZbin algorithm works just right. I'm loving this content, thank you!

[@M16A1-nw4jy]

Fantastic video. It really helped put a lot of thoughts I had swirling around in my head into a concise, easy to understand and yet still detailed format. Subscribed!

[@feralhistorian]

Thanks, and respect for the A1.

[@Vienna3080]

Amazingly underrated channel

[@padfa3939]

Capitalism is a descriptive rather than a position or a philosophy, political or not. The corporations are themselves , internationally now a political force. The false opposition between socialism and capitalism fails as socialism is a social and political position that can and does exist within a capitalist society and indeed can be co-opted by "the system".

[@aedilanigiro]

Loved this. Thank you! East India Company as analogue is a brilliant lense!

[@Patchesy]

I actually really liked how this video is presented, explains complicated stuff in a simple way!

[@ashaide]

The Sprawl Trilogy - William Gibson's magnum opus of the genre - were such heavy reads because not only did it not have any heroes (although Count Zero's Bobby Newmark kind of comes across as one, but still; Neuromancer's Chase definitely wasn't) but its endings didn't really... slay the dragon. Or free the kingdom from an oppressive ruler. Even the results of Chase's actions in Neuromancer ended up being... for what, later on, in Count Zero? And Mona Lisa Overdrive gave us AN ending, but... then what? Shadowrun can be brighter sometimes, but that's probably because magic is part of the equation, and there are entities in its meta story beyond the original real antagonist of the genre: late-stage, digitally fueled capitalism. Pretty hard to contemplate the thesis of Marx vs the Antithesis of Smith or Rand in the context of a hyperdigital landscape when a Horror is trying to eat your soul.

[@crazymcgee3604]

11:20 There is such an ending made in the Phantom Liberty DLC. Johnny is removed and V can live a long life....(SPOILERS).... ...At the cost of having V's brain damaged in such a way that they can never take on any cybernetics beyond the internal phone. V goes from a character who used the tech sold by corporations in an effort to rail against them to a person who becomes locked out of that life forever. V now has four choices on hand: 1) Become a good little consumer like everyone else in their megablock, unable to climb the socio-economic ladder with nearly the ease as they had; 2) Take up the offer from Reed and join the CIA as (presumably) little more than a paper-pusher since they can be of little use in the field; 3) Try and rejoin the merc game, albeit with a massive disadvantage when compared to their peers; and 4) bite down on the barrel of a Unity and pull the trigger. (Something tells me that MIsty's parting words to V make this choice the least likely.) In a world where even the blind mice can get cybernetic eyes V is the only one-eyed mouse in the crowd.

[@mygetawayart]

not gonna pretend like i understood all of it

[@keanuxu5435]

For an easier explanation of the cyberpunk genre in relation to capitalism can be found by a KZbinr named JustWrite in his video “ Blade Runner, Altered Carbon, and the Relevancy of Cyberpunk.” For even more info, I recommend “Is The US Becoming A Dystopia?” By KZbinr SecondThought

[@Jay-ho9io]

That puts you ahead of the game of most of the people that like to pretend they understand everything while being clueless. Being curious and humble is the best kind of flex. 👍🏼

[@SusCalvin]

Schizmatrix and some other cyberpunk started to imagine this sort of post-capitalist world. With a growing amount of communes, wonky collectives, semi-independent subcultures etc.

[@Mikey-xz4vn]

"What would a post-capitalist society look like" Star Trek, it looks like Star Trek When everyone has access to replicators that can replicate replicators, the needs for markets and currency evaporate - that is, assuming those replicators don't become exclusive to those at the top of existing/entrenched power structures

[@feralhistorian]

That's the subject of today's video in fact.

[@BubblegumCrash332]

I can't believe I just found your channel. I have a backlog to catch up on

[@Svevsky]

"Late-stage capitalism" is a naive term. Capitalism, if left on its own, will not collapse or end. Its a self-reinforcing algorithm that is slowly phasing out humans from its internal economy. Instead of humans growing beyond capitalism, we are now in the middle early stage of capitalism outgrowing humanity.

[@AnthonyGarcia-hc7uh]

Really liked this video. Cyberpunk is my obsession because of the gameplay/story and what that story is saying about the state of the world. Fallout was my first obsession of video game commenting and critiquing of our world so your fallout video is gonna get played next. Thank you !

[@feralhistorian]

There's more Fallout content in the works. A lot to talk about in that franchise.

[@pumpyronaldrump_4417]

I think many people do not understand that some centralisation does seem to be needed. Additive manufacturing is great and all, but who do you think will provide it to you? It will still be the big corporations. The truth is, capitalism has allowed people who could never hope to understand what exactly they can use and own use and own these things nontheless.

[@feralhistorian]

One of the most interesting aspects of decentralized industry is that while it requires centralizing capitalism to develop it, there comes a point where it can be self-sustaining. For example with additive manufacturing, if we get to a point where machines that can print both metals and plastics are affordable enough to be in widespread use, they can be used to make anything. Including new copies of themselves. At that point no one needs big corporations to make anything, we'd have industrial-level goods without industrial-level centralization. Of course that would spawn a lot of other changes. Production capacity would go down, but durability of goods might well increase because conditions would incentivize longer-lasting products. Technological innovation might slow down too, but that gets into a whole mess of other questions about "quality of life" and resource use vs "progress" however one chooses to define it.

[@ziggyinc]

Muh roads!!! NICE!

[@jasonrodham9063]

This is such a great channel. You go ...

[@feralhistorian]

There's a backlog of material so I'll keep going for a while at least.

[@patricklarm5462]

as a fellow historian: my dear friend, you totally understand Marxism and what socialism and communism are wrong. Marx only gave us the analysis tool to understand class structures and especially the structures in capitalism. Seitzing the means of production can mean seizing decentralised means of production, the question there is still how we rule ourself. communism in its most boiled down essence is a classless, stateless utopia. You really did not give any valid arguments why workers couldn´t organised in a post capitalist and decentralised manner. Also they can use automatisation to have more free time and have human wellbeing in the focus, not productivity and profits. Socialism and communism is not one ideology, as is anarchism, all these ideologies have many, many branches and we have only seen few of these models put into action. Most of them being the Marxist-Leninist kind or they got brutally crushed by capitalists and the state.

[@russofam.1090]

This commentary was fantastic. I loved it bro. ❤

[@feralhistorian]

Thanks, I appreciate it.

[@bombfog1]

Thank you for the longer video.

[@julianmunoz7836]

In the Soviet Union Viktor Glushkov talked about a centralized network in the 60's named OGAS, as a part to make the URSS a efficient power with less bureaucracy and then bureaucrats, cuz that was unfinanced by the government. OGAS was a step to the socialism with and local planning but not dependant of a government, with an AI Bureau, kinda late stage of socialism.

[@feralhistorian]

The OGAS story is a fascinating chapter in Soviet history, not least because there was an inherent conflict between the efficiency gain of information flowing throughout the USSR and the need for the State to control the flow of information. All the funding issues and political resistance aside, their ideology and repressive system wouldn't allow for a nationwide information network to decentralize enough to achieve its stated goals. Whether those goals are achievable at all is an open question. I don't think lack of information was the core problem of the USSR's shortages, but it would have been interesting to see how they tried to use the information.

[@julianmunoz7836]

@@feralhistorian thanks for your answer, I meet your channel thanks to de algorithm. BTW I love how depth is the pop entertainment, and you review a lot of it! Thanks for your videos.

[@hishi464]

thatsss what i needed thank you professor ( a clear distinction between 2 Completely Differently different terms and Ideologies ),

[@codex3693]

Great video! I was wondering though, why would the post-feudal society you described necessarily revert to a feudal state? With their current technology could they not still build a democratic/socialist state, which could interface with the surrounding barons? I agree that there are lack of conception of the government structures that we have now would severely limit their progress, I’m just not sure if their lack of technology would be as inhibiting as that lack of knowledge.

[@feralhistorian]

In that scenario, they’re extremely limited in their options. They have to continue to grow enough food to feed everyone in the lands they control and without any mechanized agriculture or chemical fertilizers, the only way they can do it is through extensive cultivation of the land. They don’t have any way of increasing productivity on a given piece of land. The same applies to their manufacturing capability, it’s all at the craftsman level, making one at a time. However they choose to organize their governing structure, in practical terms they still need to spend most of their time working the land. That’s essentially why Marx and Engels expected “the Revolution” to happen in industrialized European states, they assumed capitalism was a necessary step on the way to socialism and/or communism because only by reaching capitalist levels of development would they have the necessary productive capacity to then scrape of the capitalist class and turn it all over to the workers. Russia doing it first kinda broke the mold, and they spent quite a few years racing to build up that industrial base, largely buying it from Europe and US, essentially skipping the capitalist phase. Without that industrialization phase, it’s just a question of who’s working the plow.

[@Ghostie.]

Star Trek and Cyberpunk, this channel is gold

[@oneproudbrowncoat]

I've never seen a "cyberpunk" story that's based around one of the people close to the top. It's always street-level, which makes it impossible for me to suspend disbelief.

[@SpongeBobaFett]

Love this perspective. Thanks for your insight pointing out the shortsightedness of marxism and the inherent problems with capitalism

[@johnwalsh4857]

I used to play the Cyberpunk 2020 tabletop RPG in the late 80s to early 90s. yah its the proto game to the Cyberpunk 2077 PC RPG. yah Cyberpunk RPGs were big in the late 80s to early 90s. and Cyberpunk 2020 RPG is one of the best, excellent easy to learn rules, rules flow was great, rules elegant. with an interesting setting. In the 2020 setting, The EEC(European economic community ) which encompasses all of Europe except for Russia is the world superpower. Japan is the 2nd economic military superpower and the USA is a dodering former superpower, having to deal with depressed economy, very high crime rates bordering on civil war. , a inept US gov. The USSR also still exists in this game, being in worse shape than the USA and with a situation bordering on civil war.

[@boobah5643]

_CyberPunk 2077_ was explicitly an interpretation of _CyberPunk 2020/2022;_ CD Project Red paid for the license and even hired Mike Pondsmith. Virtually _everybody_ during the Cold War assumed the USSR would last forever, in part because nobody believed anyone capable of earning the top spot there would be stupid/idealistic enough to do what Gorbachev did. Never played _CyberPunk 2020;_ my late 80s/early 90s cyberpunk roleplaying game of choice was _Shadowrun,_ because what's better than a street samurai? A street samurai dodging fireballs and slaying dragons.

[@johnwalsh4857]

@@boobah5643 yah including me, I thought the USSR would last forever. and was surprised when it collapsed. in 1990. I also played Shadowrun 1st ed. about the same time I played Cyberpunk 2020, yah I also LOVE shadowrun, love the world. I tried playing ICEs Cyberspace, good setting, system very clunky.

[@RedOkamiDev]

man... this was one heck of a video... you got yourself a sbuscriber.. yisus, so good. thanks for your insights

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

the system this guy refers too is COMMUNISM. Communism is where all the resources are controlled by a governing body. In cyberpunk and countries like the usa, The top companies ARE BASICALLY THE GOVERNING BODY BECUZ THEY CONTROL ALL THE RESORUCES. THE CEOS who control all the countries resources are the GOVERNING BODY because the own the governmEnt through bribes, lobbying, control over laws, recieving special bailouts that allow them to fail at any time. A TRUE CAPITALISM SYSTEM DOES NOT EXIST IN THE USA OR ANY COUNTRY. COMMUNISM IS THE SYSTEM THAT RESTRICTS ACCESS TO WEALTH TO NORMAL CITIZENS. COMMUNISM IS THE SYSTEM THAT OVERTAXES THE MIDDLE LOWER CLASS!!!!! We are ruled by 1 large CEO class>>>ALL 1st world countries are CommunisT not capitalisT BY DEFINITION.

[@hughgrection7246]

I love how the launch / technical problems contrasted with the slick marketing and hype train surrounding the game is a microcosm it's self for capitalism .

[@gregmita]

It's more the contrast between large companies unable to build good products, but small indie developers can run rings around them and build beloved games, that's more of a microcosm of capitalism. Competition and agility promote quality, monopoly and stagnation destroy quality. Capitalism enables and rewards that competition more than any other system.

[@Kyepo]

​​@@gregmitaindie games are not safe either. Many are also greedy (targeting children) and just deliver bad products, specifically modern mascot horror

[@gregmita]

@@KyepoNo company is "safe". If they get complacent, they become like the big companies and either stagnate or die. Then the cycle continues. The key is to keep competition alive. Something like socialism doesn't allow that in the first place, and will be doomed to stagnation or collapse from the very beginning.

[@Kyepo]

@@gregmita uh not exactly what I meant. Correct me if I misunderstood but I meant that there are as much bad indie games as there are bad AAA games

[@gregmita]

@Kyepo Sure, indie game companies can make bad games (it'll be rather inhuman if no one makes mistakes), but they also make games that take risks and are far more refreshing than anything coming from bigger companies. But bigger companies do tend to have access to a much larger customer base. They compete by doing different things, which provides us with much more variety.

[@pauljensen5699]

Omni Consumer Products

[@HKBuilderDIY]

You call THIS a glitch!?

[@murunbuchstanzangur]

Ill byy that for a dollar

[@Churchmilitant67]

The commentary and analysis is spot on, so is the history!

[@SusCalvin]

A fun detail of the different east india companies had the crown as partial owners, with many given privileges and protection by the crown. Exactly how varies. The VOC had good relations with the dutch state.

[@antherthalmhersser7239]

India's recent success has given me a desire to rewatch Moon, the Sam Rockwell space station isolation film. Might be a cool comparison piece for this game.

[@keanuxu5435]

What specific success in India?

[@murunbuchstanzangur]

​@@keanuxu5435 they put a lander on the south pole of the moon

[@keanuxu5435]

@@murunbuchstanzangur Thanks

[@boobah5643]

@@murunbuchstanzangurThey put a lander near the moon's Antarctic Circle. And for contrast, the Russians crashed into the moon while attempting to do the same a few days later.

[@3dartxsi]

It is incorrect that there is not an ending to Cyberpunk 2077 that ends with Arasaka being laid low and its executives suffering some form of comuppance. Multiple endings do feature that. It's just that V is not the one who brings that about directly. Also, even in an ending where Arasaka is knocked down a peg does not end the dystopia.

[@steampunknord]

It's very comforting to hear a sound argument for, we don't know what a post capitalist society would look like but it will be new and interesting.

[@jamesgeorge7579]

The idea that post-capitalism will come when states and corporations can no longer control technology makes imagining a world after capitalism a little easier. Makes me wonder if stuff like AI, ironically pushed at the moment by billionaires, will play a role in capitalism's demise

[@anthonydolan3740]

This was a great, nuanced discussion. One question I am left is this: Corporations, governments, and other collectivist organizations are able to marshal resources and coordinate large numbers of people. How can disorganized individuals compete with this? Wouldn't they be too weak?

[@feralhistorian]

It's mostly speculative at this point of course, but I think part of it would be macro-level social forces, as communities and individuals become less dependent on the goods and services corporations and governments provide, the less leverage those organizations have to compel compliance. But there's also a cultural factor. People generally default to obedience these days. To completely break out of centralized structures there would have to be a stronger tendency to question. People that can be told what to do will always be ripe for someone else to control, but people that have to be convinced are much harder to force into centralized, coercive organizations. In the end I think it's not a question of direct competition so much as building toward a critical mass of self-reliance and non-compliance leading to a shrinking of market share for big corporations and less influence of government. They never really go away, they just get relegated to the things they do well and ignored when they try to step out of their lane.

[@anthonydolan3740]

@@feralhistorian That's a good point. I'd like to add that an important part of this would be building counter institutions now that take on some of the jobs that corporations and governments are doing. Right now people are not educated to be non-compliant and self-reliant. Participation in these counter institutions would raise political awareness, facilitate networking, and serve as a school in self-reliance. Examples of these counter institutions are labor unions, financial and agricultural coops, NGOs, and so on.

[@jeffskarski6644]

As an Anarchist, I think you have unnecessarily narrowed your conception of "post capitalism". For all the reasons you mentioned, I would argue that modern "socialist states" are not meaningfully "post capitalist". Certainly if and when anything actually does supplant Capitalism, they will need a more coherent ideology than "Marxism-Leninism", which I describe as a collection of post hoc rationalizations for all the bad shit capitalists were already doing. If the defining legal structure of Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production, only genuine collectivization of those means can actually move us "past" it.

[@feralhistorian]

I'm curious how you, as an anarchist, envision collectivization working in practice without someone doing the "collectivizing" in a top-down Marxist sort of way. I can see a mutualist sort of arrangement on a small scale, but it doesn't seem like it would scale up to national-level industrial economies without devolving into a hierarchal model with de-facto "owners" in control, whether capitalists or socialist state managers.

[@jeffskarski6644]

@@feralhistorian well, I'll start by saying that I posted this comment before I finished the video, and you do address some of this. My personal perspective, to answer your question, is that the goal is not to directly attack institutional power, but rather to build dual/alternate power structures based on mutual aid and common defense. With enough people working together, you CAN reap the benefits of things like subsistence farming without actually offending the letter of the law. Obviously, I don't know how extant institutions of authority will adapt to that expansion of dual power. As they begin to perceive the threat to their own interests, they may resort to active hostility, even if the anarchists in question are faithfully obeying all laws. Ideally, they will simply find their ability to extort individuals diminishing as people gain access to support and resources without necessarily agreeing to sell their labor to a capitalist. There's a lot of ways it could shake out, and it will probably shake out lots of different ways across cultures, communities, geographic zones, and sectors of the economy.

[@jeffskarski6644]

@@feralhistorian Another side of Anarchism, generally associated with the term "syndicalist", focuses more on legal acquisition of the means of production by collectives of workers. Although it is not my natural focus, I am by no means at odds with this school of thought, and a serious Anarchist "revolution" would certainly include both aspects, and possibly others I have not considered. To focus on this case, we would expect the resulting society to function very much like ours in terms of market interactions, except that there would not be any (or not as much as currently, at least) "bourgeois" or "proletarian" classes in opposition. This is definitely something I should have mentioned before, and probably a more direct answer to your question than a focus on mutualism. If we assume a complete transformation from private ownership to cooperative ownership, one can spend a lot of time imagining how our society might change from there. Revolutionary Catalonia could serve as a decent example, ideally absent the looming threat of eradication by an equivalent to the Franco regime.

[@SpookyTanukiGaming]

It is refreshing seeing someone criticize capitalism and not jump to socialism as a solution. As nice and idealistic as socialism sounds on paper it doesn’t take into account human nature and the inevitability of any centralized power structure to become oppressive. Also I wouldn’t call the system of cyberpunk to be capitalism but rather corporatism. As capitalism is all about free markets which is something you can’t have when corporations control at least a majority of the market.

[@bogatyr2473]

If you look into the background, the 4th corporate war was between Arasaka and Militech. It was truly awful but it was a corporate war. In the end both Japan and the US nationalized their respective corps to make them stop. Both screwed up and didn't clean house. They wound up legitimizing both corps and by 2077 there is no real difference between the corps and their respective national governments. The the point where the last few NUSA presidents have all been formed Militech CEOs.

[@ab5olut3zero95]

“We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.” Seems that capitalism isn’t the problem, but centralization is.

[@joan_of_craft4690]

scythe has a pretty interesting look at postcapitalism with a centralized setup that went well, if you ignore the scythedom. Just goes to reiterate the points made early on about how the seat of power is awfully comfortable

[@zupremo9141]

Cyberpunk is not post capitalism, CBP is just modern day Monarchy because ARASAKA was owned by one family. NUSA is still there but the game was not happening in the government controlled area, it is basically set in a piece of land owned by the corporations that is trying to turn it to their kingdom.

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

yes this youtuber seems to be intentionally lying or is just ignorant. Communism is where all the resources are controlled by a governing body. In cyberpunk and countries like the usa, The top companies ARE BASICALLY THE GOVERNING BODY BECAUSE THEY CONTROL ALL THE RESORUCES. THE CEOS who control all the countrie's resources are the GOVERNING BODY because they own the governmEnt through bribes, lobbying, control over laws, receiving special bailouts that allow them to fail at any time. When one ceo ruling class owns all the wealth that is communism, BECUZ THE CURENT TAX laws IN MODERN SOCIETY ARE designed to ovetax the poor and middle class and send all the resources upwards to the government which is owned by the corporations. SO COMMUNISM the system where 1 governing wealthy class owns the means of productiona and wealth is what we ave in the cyberpunk universe and unfortunately all the 1st world countries are communist as well.

[@boukm3n]

*I can listen to bro talk forever. 10/10* 🗿🔥

[@TK-en2hq]

Neat video, have you read any of James Burnham's work? Cyberpunk seems to be more in the vein of Burnham. Also: the marxist definition of capitalism is basically a mid point between feudalism and socialism.

[@feralhistorian]

I read Burnham's "Managerial Revolution" it seems like a thousand years ago, and I would agree that there's a lot of commonality with cyberpunk themes. Might have to expand on that in the future.

[@TK-en2hq]

@@feralhistorian managerial revolution definitely has aesthetic parallels, but I think the machevallians: defenders of freedom also paralleled the personal aspects of the people you interact with in night city

[@feralhistorian]

I will add that to my reading list. I really should review Burnham again anyway, it's been a long time.

[@TK-en2hq]

@@feralhistorian reading lists are like steam backlogs, massive, full of great content, and ultimately limited by our lifespan. I am working through the bible, Schopenhauer's works and the unqualified reservations recommended literature atm myself.

[@Robert_Douglass]

Yesterday I was watching Washington Journal and the Libertarian candidate for President, Chase Oliver, was on, and in response to my question on X a Libertarian responded that government is a necessary evil at best and should be treated with that regard which it has earned, or words to that effect. It got me thinking because I'd been listening to lectures here on the Tube about Marx and Engels and Eduard Bernstein about socialism, communism and how Americans other than myself (I'm an American) confuse it with fascism and Soviet-style "state capitalism" - your typical MAGA Partisan sees anything other than MAGA style Republicanism as outright communism and thinks all Democrats are secretly Communist plotters trying to turn the USA into a new USSR. But I realised that, strangely, and this will probably alarm some people and make them think I'm a communist, libertarianism has more in common with true communism than anyone might realise. Both systems aim for minimal to zero government involvement in the means of production and distribution, so both have a quasi-anarchical society as their end goal. But while communists seek the eventual absolute abolishment of government and currency in favour of collectivism ("nobody can do this alone, we're all in this together, but we can't leave it to a chosen few to manage cause every one of us must be both managers and workers"), libertarians favour a more individual-based anarchism ("we work best with each other when we leave each other alone, just leave me alone to live the way I wanna live and don't take my money").

[@feralhistorian]

Definitely there is a lot of common ground, particularly if you go back to some of the non-Marxist leftists like Proudhon and Kropotkin. There was really a hard split in the Left during the mid-19th Century and (I’d argue) libertarians borrow as much from the anarchists as they do from anything right-wing or conservative. Sometimes I wonder if the preference between a more libertarian or communistic approach comes down to personality types. Some people seem to have a need for heavy involvement in groups and social activities while others look forward to long days without seeing another human being.

[@Robert_Douglass]

@@feralhistorian And yet Humanity is a social animal. Far more often than not, we instinctually seek community, because numbers guarantee security. And if you look at historical trends, communities have organically become ever larger, from tribes to city-states to nation-states, finally to multinational conglomerates such as the European and African Unions, NATO, the UN, the former Warsaw Pact, the BRICS alliance and ultimately the global community. Capitalism and socialism, yet, are still rooted in eighteenth and nineteenth century thought, which couldn't conceive of the labor reforms of the United States in the early 1900s, let alone the technological and computer-dominated world of the 21st Century. The closest thing to the socioeconomic system that could arise from current technology trends might be seen, I think, in the Nordic social democracies such as Norway and Denmark. But even they would need to evolve somewhat to achieve the hybrid system of which I speak. The closest term I could think to coin to describe this system, which even thinking about it now likely doesn't do the notion justice, would be "communo-capitalism". The ownership of production and distribution, the evolution of which you described as more decentralised yet still privately owned as more people individually become capable of manufacturing goods and services than entire factories were once required to do, begins to reflect the very ideals that communism and capitalism both strive for. An individual can in fact be an island unto himself or herself, with the potential manufacturing capacity of an entire city. The evolution of this notion might just be a post-scarcity, resource-based moneyless economy, if we can only manage to vault over that hurdle of _COST_ that limits our overall resource and energy production capacity.

[@Robert_Douglass]

@@feralhistorian "non-Marxist Leftists" Yeah, Marx himself suffered a bit of myopia in that regard -- he couldn't see past the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Bernstein did.

[@Phantomshell]

Great video - Vid popped in my feed after spending the last few weeks , 200+ hours, completing and beating CP2077.

[@MattGM97]

Great content as always my man

[@stevemcallister4965]

One of my favorite elements of cyberpunk as a genre is the perpetual tension between individualism and collectivism that transcends the nominal conflicts between punks and corpos; both the "good" and "bad" guys struggle with the contradiction, and there's no clear way to (dare I say) synthesize the two.

[@feralhistorian]

And with a Dialectic pun unlocked, my day is complete.

[@ngcmhaven]

The answer is a walk in the woods with a sweater you knit yourself.

[@dagon99]

I don't know if this is apt, but a close friend always refers to capitalism as a sex cult and communism as a death cult. Great analysis/video production as always.

[@feralhistorian]

I see where your friend is coming from.

[@beige_projection]

I'm a gen z cyberpunk subgenre fan and Cyberpunk 2077 was my gateway into it. I wish I can go back in time and experience the 80s where cyberpunk subgenre was at its peak.

[@RestlessRebel]

You should give the original Deus Ex games a go and also the newer ones

[@beige_projection]

@@RestlessRebel Which Deux Ex game do you recommend I start with?

[@RestlessRebel]

@@beige_projection Deus Ex (2000) and then Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003) Then Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011) and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016)

[@needy3535]

you still can!:D

[@LeonardTaylor700]

Man someone my age being able to articulate this is a breath of greasy air ❤💪🏾💯

[@lagaul5124]

Enjoyed the video. One point I would like to make is that power and resources will always aggregate in an ever smaller number of locations. Resources flow up like water flows down. Its like a natural law.

[@feralhistorian]

That does seem to be the way it goes. I think it could be mitigated if people were generally more suspicious of anyone claiming authority, but that too seems to go against the natural tendency.

[@lagaul5124]

@@feralhistorian there is the problem. "If the people". We cant even get people to take care of themselves mutch less a wider community.

[@lagaul5124]

@@feralhistorian there is the problem. "If the people". We cant even get people to take care of themselves mutch less a wider community.

[@rottenmeat5934]

Smartest take I’ve ever heard on this. Figures it would be from a historian.

[@Hanekem]

Regarding the game, technically speaking and without counting Phantom Liberty, two of the endings see Arasaka Gutted and in a downright spiral with (at least) most of the board brain dead. it doesn't change the world as others would fill in the void, but an argument can be made that it is very, very likely in those endings Arasaka might outright collapse and trigger an economic clusterf*ck that might start a new corporate war and a massive recession. it is not a flawless ending but...

[@BManStan1991]

I must admit I appreciate you bringing up my biggest critique in this debate. We always view it in a binary between capitalism or socialism. It's like we're stuck in the 1800s still mentally. I look forward to a point where we can fathom alternatives made available by AGI and automation, along with UBI potentially. Im not claiming what will work (or wont), I'm stating its time we start to adapt to new tech and think outside the box instead of outsourcing all our critical thinking to men whom are long gone and from a different world. Good to see this mentioned.

[@futuza]

This is a fantastic take. Also I really enjoy how your footage from the game actually goes with the sentences of your lecture, far too many lazy KZbinrs don't make that amount of effort and just have generic footage playing against their essay. Big props for that. At 11:25 I do want to add that the "secret" ending (where you solo Arasaka) ends in V "winning" (sort of, while it still implies that V has 6 months to live, it also implies they may have found another means whereby to continue living/beat the Relic/escape their death sentence), however to your point V basically becomes top dog in that ending and is basically running/controlling the Solo/underworld of Night City and reaping the benefits from that (just as Rogue was). That ending doesn't go into this because the ending is left vaguely hopeful, but it's also hypocritical because to be on top of a system like this it means taking advantage of those under them, just as the corporate executives and governments did to V earlier. So the victory is basically tainted by becoming part of the 0.1% (and sure maybe V is a decent human being and shares that wealth with others in poverty situations), but the implication is a bit damning because the only way V survives/fixes the Relic situation is by becoming fabulously wealthy, powerful, and famous - which means they certainly used a lot of that wealth selfishly for themselves in order to buy up the resources needed to solve their problem. Thus V "wins" capatalism by getting on top, instead of by breaking, replacing, or destroying the system. (V can even choose to drink to themselves with a special drink at The Afterlife named after them lol - supposedly because they "died", but really it's because they're Claire's boss).

[@feralhistorian]

I had forgotten that the secret ending teased a slim thread of hope. I was thinking in character and figured the space-station job was about doing something legendary if you're going to die in a few months anyway.

[@futuza]

@@feralhistorian Yeah the space station job is a sort of hail mary, last ditch effort that, if it works, is implied to save V from their inevitable death, but if it doesn't work, they'd go out in a blaze of glory (so it's still very much like nothing has really changed which is what you were doing earlier in the game before anyway). That said it's left very vague and open ended, so we can't really draw any solid conclusions from it that are really that different from the other endings.

[@antherthalmhersser7239]

Congrats on 1k!

[@theirresistableE]

i don't get how people can so consistently with a straight face talk about the rapid rise of unprecedented living standards, without the fact that this was/is only for some people. It also corresponded to the rapid rise of genocide and unprecedented misery. Both. Saying there was a rapid rise of living standards and wealth accumulation, is inaccurate unless you have a corresponding mirror graph showing the corresponding increase of genocide and mass scale theft e.g. colonialism, vicious resource extraction, etc.

[@feralhistorian]

Which is a fair point. The productive capacity of the world vastly increased under a few hundred years of capitalism, but the benefits were absolutely not equally received. And part of that increase certainly involved greatly increased extraction of resources, often at the expense of non-capitalist societies that found themselves behind the technology curve. Where it gets harder to weigh the good and ill of it though is that, while the death toll became much higher, so too did the population. Capitalist economies could support vastly more people than any previous system even as they industrialized killing.

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

@@feralhistorian Communism is where all the resources are controlled by a governing body. In cyberpunk and countries like the usa, The top companies ARE BASICALLY THE GOVERNING BODY BECAUSE THEY CONTROL ALL THE RESORUCES. THE CEOS who control all the countrie's resources are the GOVERNING BODY because they own the governmEnt through bribes, lobbying, control over laws, receiving special bailouts that allow them to fail at any time. When one ceo ruling class owns all the wealth that is communism, BECUZ THE CURENT TAX laws IN MODERN SOCIETY ARE designed to ovetax the poor and middle class and send all the resources upwards to the government which is owned by the corporations. SO COMMUNISM the system where 1 governing wealthy class owns the means of productiona and wealth is what we ave in the cyberpunk universe and unfortunately all the 1st world countries are communist at the TOP as well. THE USA might have started as a capitalist system after the american revolution but as a soon as wealthy individuals started to take control of the government the usa became a monarchy communist state where the kings are the corporations and where laws are made so the big companies succeed and the smaller ones dont and get overtaxed. I dont think you are a bad person but you are intentionally misrepresenting true capitalism, when the systems that allow a cyberpunk city to form are communist and socialist systems like brazil because in socialism ultimately someone has to hand out all the resources and that governing body that hands out all the resources always becomes corrupt

[@nickv1212]

​​@@definitelytherealsaitama6986Not true at all. You can run a socialist business as a co-op, the government doesn't need to be involved at all. Co-op leadership is voted on by the workers, they're not CEOs that board members elect or people that got lucky hitting an oil goldmine. And they can be voted out. Every worker also has a say, in their pay, vacations, benefits, who the best person to lead is, what the business needs, etc., and it can all be voted on. Again, the government doesn't have to get involved whatsoever. Socialism doesn't mean big government anymore than capitalism means small government. And I'll take co-ops over working for a corporation where I have no say anyday. The definition of socialism in this video distinctly leaves out the part where we don't have to listen to this new leader if he turns out to be a shithead. We can vote them out, but also, we should be able to negotiate our pay so the one guy doesn't get to take it all. Socialism is about collective power, if one socialist shows themselves to be a capitalist actually who doesn't believe collective ownership, that's what the collective power is for. They're one guy vs. everyone else. Unless you're Stalin then what you can do is have every single one of your political opponents killed during a hectic, tumultuous time and reign with an iron fist so nobody else can defy you. I don't know if I'd call that socialism or communism though, considering he killed all the other communists who had a different definition, which is why they were killed. It sounds like his definition of communism I guess, which conveniently works like a dictatorship and nothing like what every other communist suggested. Maybe chip away the language and see the system and its history for what it is.

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

@@nickv1212 im sorry the "collective power" system you speak of isnt called socialism. Socialist movements all started with ideas of sharing power and the result always is the same like in brazil. Democracy is the word for "collective power" not socialism. Socialist systems are systems in which all people share in the systems and services, but the word socialism doesnt imply voting because votign isnt in the definiton of socialism. SOCIALIST systems such as socialized medicine always end of being poor quality compared to paid systems. "healthcare for all" is standardized for everyone just ends up being a worse version of a non socialized system where everyone has to pay taxes for a service that doesnt cover special services. A paid free market healthcare will cover specific tests someone with a chronic illness needs because thats how demand works if you provide incentives (money) for a company to provide special tests A COmpany WILL provide those special tests becuz they know they will be paid. IN socialist systems IN the REAL WORLD, There is no such thing as everyone will just provide shit out of the kindness of their heart, SOMEONE (being the goverment) needs to manage what services will go on a healthcare plan for everyone and what wont.>>>> Other Socialized systems exist already and ultimately there is no such things as unlimited resources, so a fully socialized system ends up attempting to provide the same stuff fro everyone but in the end NO ONE gets what they need just generic services and no special care. Socialism is probably the worst idea in the history of humanity>>> ITS nothing but idealism shrouded in happy buzz words used to sell socialist ideas to you.

[@Bee_Mavrick]

The best part of the game was helping river and saul. I hated taking down the av.

[@feralhistorian]

I bailed on River. But with Phantom Liberty on the way I'll just start a new playthrough and make a point of doing all the stuff I missed before.

[@Local_Guild-Socialist]

I genuinely hate that part of the game lol, taking down the av is pure pain. The quest is literally just listening to Panam's bullshit for like 30 minutes straight, all accompanied by 2 sub-par turret sections and a hostage negotiation that will always end the same no matter what you chose.

[@feralhistorian]

I tend to remember games fondly, then when I start replaying it years later I hit those tedious points. The AV, the braindance tutorial, ugh.

[@alexanderrose1556]

Great video man, i really enjoyed an analysis of this that didnt just resort to talking about the evil of capitalism through a marxist historical worldview.

[@MrChopsticks1-x6g]

My take on “LSC” is people tired of the powers that be provide more political power to the corporations and dictate policies that made Night City rife with shit. While you have talk with communist on CBP and many of my friends want more power to the government to do something. While I’m in the minority that it was the government’s fault giving corporations contracts and bailouts that made them powerful today. Coming from an Asian perspective. Most major corporations did not do it on their own, the Chaebols of Korea are the best examples. A number of hereditary family own companies controls a large portion of the economy all by getting that first government contract. My take would be to keep government out of the economy as they pick and choose whoever can pay the largest bribe or give contracts to family members. Love the video, keep it up!

[@therussian6201]

This was really good, keep it up!

[@rickl9462]

Do a video on Total Recall, The running man and Command and conquers GDI and NOD factions.

[@cynbartek9324]

Colorful shirt. Some of the scenes are very similar to videos of driving around Tokyo. Since 2016 I'm tired of the ongoing wrangling between capitalists and marxists, but that's not going to end any time soon I suppose.

[@Quzxpon]

Excellent and informative, thought provoking

[@sillybirdy1994]

Technically, there is one ending in Cyberpunk where its kind of implied that V is able to finally be cured. This is a huge spoiler so if you don't want to know dont read any further... V does the job knocking the Crystal Palace out of orbit by the robotic/AI called Mr Blue Eyes during the end of the game. Its implied that Mr Blue Eyes, using his hyper technology, is able to finally fix V after doing the job although this is never directly said. Probably to leave a cliff hanger for the next game.

[@TheIrishTexan]

I'm curious about the background footage, seeing V in third person during conversations. Where is that footage from? Is there some kind of mod that does that or something?

[@feralhistorian]

That footage is from one of the endings. There's one where you don't take either pill, just chill on the roof with Johnny and wait to die. It's a lame end, but it made for good B-roll.

[@TheIrishTexan]

@@feralhistorian All of it's from that? Looked like there were also things in other parts of the game with different people, like stealing the tank with Panam, which I thought I remember being part of a different quest not near the endgame. It's so rare that the game shows V in any other perspective other than through their own eyes, so it immediately got my attention.

[@feralhistorian]

I used clips from other endings too, the "join the Nomads" ending has V and Panam chillin' on the panzer deck.

[@Aurwenn]

Maaan i would love your take on the ned dlc when it comes out and the respective ending if you ever get around ot

[@feralhistorian]

I have no doubt that Phantom Liberty will be discussed as soon as I get my mitts on it and have time to dig into it.

[@johnwalsh4857]

at its core basic , captialism is basically buy and sell, someone sells products, skills labour etc. someone buys it with product(barter trade) or currency of some kind(USD, sea shells, new yen etc. ) uses it to produce product or service and it goes round and round. and yah its competition for more money or trade goods to buy more product or services either to trade , survive or just enjoy yourself.

[@feralhistorian]

It's more than that though. I mean, Vikings and Roman merchants transported goods to markets where they'd get the highest profit, but they weren't capitalists. It isn't until the collapse of feudalism in the late 14th Century (due to a bunch of causes) that we start to see that kind of specialized production, for example farmers growing a single cash crop instead of a balanced array of crops, or artisans focusing on serial production instead of one-off custom pieces. That specialization in production is where capitalism's benefits come in, prior to that methods of production didn't change much for thousands of years. Living in a capitalist system, we don't really recognize it as a "system" any more than people living under feudalism generally thought about the social-property relations of it and the link between wealth and land. But it's self-reinforcing just like feudalism was in its time, with economic incentives to perpetuate its model. The best survival strategy for peasant was to be as self-sufficient as possible and grow an array of crops, but for a modern member of our capitalist society it's much better to be specialized even though it makes you market-dependent.

[@feralhistorian]

@@lljkgktudjlrsmygilug That's a really good point. I'm going to chew on that a bit. It reminds me of the baffled outrage I encountered once when trying to argue with my professor that socialism in practice is just "shitty capitalism" because it relies on the same organizational and production methods. I wasn't able to properly articulate it at the time.

[@johnwalsh4857]

@@feralhistorian I remember in 1990 my professor told the entire class that Communism was the only way for the country, I almost bust a gut laughing,

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

​@@feralhistorian the system this YOU DESCRIBE in your video refers too is COMMUNISM. Communism is where all the resources are controlled by a governing body. In cyberpunk and countries like the usa, The top companies ARE BASICALLY THE GOVERNING BODY BECUZ THEY CONTROL ALL THE RESORUCES. THE CEOS who control all the countries resources are the GOVERNING BODY because they own the governmEnt through bribes, lobbying, control over laws, receiving special bailouts that allow them to fail at any time. A TRUE CAPITALISM SYSTEM DOES NOT EXIST IN THE USA OR ANY COUNTRY. BECAUSE MONOPOLIES DONT EXIST IN A FREE MARKET SYSTEM BUT THEY DO IN A COMMUNIST STATES!! When one company owns the means of production for an entire industry they are the "governing body" for that industry. WHEN an entire industry allows for all companies to participate in the production of that industry fairly this is true capitalism. COMMUNISM IS THE SYSTEM Where MOST OF THE POPULATION ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE WEALTHY BECAUSE GOVERNING BODIES CONTROL THE WEALTH AND CAPATILISM IS THE SYSTEM WHERE ANY NORMAL PERSON CAN BECOME WEALTHY which makes cyberpunk universe a closed market communism. COMMUNISM IS THE SYSTEM THAT OVERTAXES THE MIDDLE LOWER CLASS!!!!! We are ruled by 1 large CEO class>>>ALL 1st world countries are CommunisT not capitalisT BY DEFINITION.

[@Iandar1]

@@feralhistorian you call yourself a libertarian but describe how socialists view it.

[@logan9189]

Best thing I’ve listened to this week. Well done.

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

the system this guy refers too is COMMUNISM. Communism is where all the resources are controlled by a governing body. In cyberpunk and countries like the usa, The top companies ARE BASICALLY THE GOVERNING BODY BECUZ THEY CONTROL ALL THE RESORUCES. THE CEOS who control all the countries resources are the GOVERNING BODY because the own the governmEnt through bribes, lobbying, control over laws, recieving special bailouts that allow them to fail at any time. A TRUE CAPITALISM SYSTEM DOES NOT EXIST IN THE USA OR ANY COUNTRY. COMMUNISM IS THE SYSTEM THAT RESTRICTS ACCESS TO WEALTH TO NORMAL CITIZENS. COMMUNISM IS THE SYSTEM THAT OVERTAXES THE MIDDLE LOWER CLASS!!!!! We are ruled by 1 large CEO class>>>ALL 1st world countries are CommunisT not capitalisT BY DEFINITION.

[@murphy1138]

KZbin Algorithm brought me here and thanks corporate overlord computer for doing so. Great video.

[@therealbfunke]

I think its funny when i compare our real world to the world of cyberpunk THEM: "corporations arent doing thing you think" ME" GE literally makes my dishwasher, toaster, and the gun on a A10 warthog"

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

the system this guy refers too is COMMUNISM. Communism is where all the resources are controlled by a governing body. In cyberpunk and countries like the usa, The top companies ARE BASICALLY THE GOVERNING BODY BECUZ THEY CONTROL ALL THE RESORUCES. THE CEOS who control all the countries resources are the GOVERNING BODY because the own the governmEnt through bribes, lobbying, control over laws, recieving special bailouts that allow them to fail at any time. A TRUE CAPITALISM SYSTEM DOES NOT EXIST IN THE USA OR ANY COUNTRY. COMMUNISM IS THE SYSTEM THAT RESTRICTS ACCESS TO WEALTH TO NORMAL CITIZENS. COMMUNISM IS THE SYSTEM THAT OVERTAXES THE MIDDLE LOWER CLASS!!!!! We are ruled by 1 large CEO class>>>ALL 1st world countries are CommunisT not capitalisT BY DEFINITION.

[@Local_Guild-Socialist]

Post-capitalism to me seems to be a more possible outcome rather than marxist-socialism (as the latter has been proven to failed) But it is still by no means ideal. although it is fundamentally less Exploitive in comparison to the neoliberal regime, a post-capitalist system will still function on a for-profit initiative meaning the existence of those who have plenty and those who have nothing will still be an inevitability and thus the fundamentally exploitative concepts of class and the owner-worker dynamic will still be present. Also, do you consider yourself to be an anarchist or a minarchist?

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

Communism is where all the resources are controlled by a governing body. In cyberpunk and countries like the usa, The top companies ARE BASICALLY THE GOVERNING BODY BECAUSE THEY CONTROL ALL THE RESORUCES. THE CEOS who control all the countrie's resources are the GOVERNING BODY because they own the governmEnt through bribes, lobbying, control over laws, receiving special bailouts that allow them to fail at any time. When one ceo ruling class owns all the wealth that is communism, BECUZ THE CURENT TAX laws IN MODERN SOCIETY ARE designed to ovetax the poor and middle class and send all the resources upwards to the government which is owned by the corporations. SO COMMUNISM the system where 1 governing wealthy class owns the means of productiona and wealth is what we ave in the cyberpunk universe and unfortunately all the 1st world countries are communist as well.

[@Local_Guild-Socialist]

​@@definitelytherealsaitama6986like is said communism is not the same as state socialism you idiot! Communism is the abolition of class, property, AND the state! According to Marxists it is the final end goal of socialism after the (supposedly) temporary dictatorship of the proletariat, maybe if you actually read Marxist theory you would know this!

[@paxvictori2385]

Honestly with the coming of AI I feel like capitalism (At least as we know it) will end with it's competitive nature automating human workers out of most industries, leading to most societies basically running on UBI so the economy can still go round and round. It's neetbux all the way down while corporations and companies still exist ig.

[@GameVibzMason]

Small channel Big video keep it up!

[@Luemm3l]

i have some takes or critiques on this critique, but would be way too long to put in comment or video and at this point i have no desire to do so. however, just one little remark or rather train of thought. I think the punk spoken aspect spoken about in this video is best exemplified in something like the nomads in the badlands. true, also other gangs use technology to create their own little subspaces, but the sense of community, not being bound to a nation or gang or corporation but just your "family" is to try to escape this system. however, if we view the "family" unit, it is again just the hyperindividualization that is apparent in capitalist societies we also experience today. funnily enough, such a counter system to the system would even maybe stabilize the "main system", cause the people now have no alternative other than to live literally "off the road". we even see this in current cinema when in movies like fast and furious the nuclear family unit (insert vin diesel voice here) is taken as the ideal again and again. oh Ill am sure conservatives will eat that shit up for breakfast, but it is again a very limiting life- and mindset. no counterculture would have sprung up from it, so it is essentially missing the "punk". telling that a lot of the badland nomads are ex-military and johnny as the "punk" character even makes comments on it in the game. we as the player also indulge in that lifestyle cause who doesnt want to drive a big ass tank and drive their enemies into dust. but then the system has you again by the balls, you use their technology, are dependant on their products, dance according to their rules. I think in some aspects we already live in a post-capitalist society. things like amazon or alphabet are not simply participants on a market, they rather ARE the market. dont like the new amazon rule book or as a small self-employed shop owner want to play according to their rules? good luck finding other hosters or services that have the same quality, spread, reach, etc. pp. you will always be a disadvantage by being "out" of the games. but that means no longer is the best idea, the most cunning innovation a winner on a "free" market, but rather the well-known, tried & trodden, leading to stagnation or maybe even regress than to real progress, whether in political, socioeconomic or technological aspects. also nicely ignoring stories counter to his capitalism saves coutnries is that the US and A and their chicago boys actively toppled good running socialist-like countries in the latin americas but will point to said socialist politicians or systems as point of failure rather than their privatization and treating workers like livestock basically. so how come Cuba got such a good heath system? how come that after the "saving" regimes in countries like greece or spain that were supposed to fuel economy it is even worse off than before, mass poverty and joblessness among the youth and so on? also, the dichotomy between market and state. I view it as a power balance, both need each other, but also each one can topple the other, leading to extreme states (i.e. communist china, the soviet union which obviously were tyrannical and had not much in mind or common with the socialist values themselves, just how a lot of capitalist countries today operate under totally different aspects than what early liberal or neoliberal thinkers in the capitalist ideologies had in their heyday, whether that is the old dutch merchants, the austrian school or people like keynes , thacherism, reaganism, you name it.). a iphone would be unthinkable without key technologies like the internet, gps, liquid crystal displays and so on. know where they came from? mostly military research or publicly funded by.... the state! so in order to have infrastructure to produce, to provide, to sell, to transport goods, wares and services as a company you gotta have a functioning state. a functioning state without no private capital and investment is not gonna be able to run smoothly either. I am in general a left leaning person but neither deny the good capitalism has done in a relatively short timeframe or think about something as utopian or fantastical as a "revolution" of the proletariat, but I think it needs checks and balances and has far too little these days. if we really want to take seriously our own morals and values we pride ourselves on in the west like dignity, universal human rights and so on, why do we still not manage to fight hunger, poverty, etc. pp? Cause a few profit from the misery of the many. and whenever something progressive comes along that would at least make lives for a lot of people a little better, you have smear campaings from liberals or conservatives all over. the bad thing is, people often believe them and vote themselves into their own misery. No I am not saying that by simply voting "left" we magically will have a better world tomorrow, I am not that naive. But I think in terms of the big problems we are facing nowadays (climate change, migration, poverty, biodiversity loss, stagnating birthrates and older demographic in western countries, less economic growth and incentives, transitioning key industries, digitalization) we either do radical change by design or later have to implment and force it cause disaster already struck. covid was one such preventable thing. wars are another. hunger , homelessness and migration are too in principle. and where do technologies this "feral historian" talks about have made a big change, noticeable across the industry? yeah, you can now print guns or even whole houses, but has that really revolutionized our lives so far? i hear about it since years, but I do not really see it if I am honest. musk has made the space race more affordable than ever before, but where in your lives has made this the world better? I bet the ukrainians are thankful since they could rely on it during the war and a bunch of people living in remote places now have internet thanks to starlink, but this also places a lot of power into an individuals hands, re twitter for example. in that case, we talk about nothing else, but even more power lies in other industries mega-industrialists like musk have and that is almost not talked about. so take his takes (pun intended) as well as my stance with a bit of salt on the side, both are tainted by ideology. if someone tells you they have none, they lie or are just ignorant. we all have our blind spots and view the world to a certain lens due to our education, experiences, values, etc. pp. Still appreciate this video, interesting and valid in a lot of points, but also I think drawing some wrong conclusions. technology shapes society, but also society can shape technology (i.e. regulatinos for AI as an example).

[@maxdon2001]

Great video!

[@civishamburgum1234]

You know what strikes me about the term "late stage capitalism"? For how long it is sticking around. I have definitly seen it in wiritings from the eraly 20th century and am honestlyy convinced that the term was coined by Marx himself by now and i wonder through how many itterations the capitalist system has gone since. Anyways. I discoverd your channel this evening and a, bingin it since. You're great and I'd watch on, but I#ve gon quite tired by now. Good night.

[@deviljocky598UT]

Very informative I fully endorse this channel got my subscription

[@definitelytherealsaitama6986]

the system this guy refers too is COMMUNISM. Communism is where all the resources are controlled by a governing body. In cyberpunk and countries like the usa, The top companies ARE BASICALLY THE GOVERNING BODY BECUZ THEY CONTROL ALL THE RESORUCES. THE CEOS who control all the countries resources are the GOVERNING BODY because the own the governmEnt through bribes, lobbying, control over laws, recieving special bailouts that allow them to fail at any time. A TRUE CAPITALISM SYSTEM DOES NOT EXIST IN THE USA OR ANY COUNTRY. COMMUNISM IS THE SYSTEM THAT RESTRICTS ACCESS TO WEALTH TO NORMAL CITIZENS. COMMUNISM IS THE SYSTEM THAT OVERTAXES THE MIDDLE LOWER CLASS!!!!! We are ruled by 1 large CEO class>>>ALL 1st world countries are CommunisT not capitalisT BY DEFINITION.