Cyberpunk 2077 and “Late Stage Capitalism”
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- Опубліковано 21 лип 2024
- Cyberpunk as a genre is a great critique of modern capitalism, but it’s also a caricature that often makes some unfounded collectivist assumptions. CDPR’s Cyberpunk 2077, the story of V and Johnny Silverhand, gives us a starting point for examining questions about post-capitalism, collectivism's tendency toward inexorable expansion, and whatever other topics this meanders into.
I'm a little disappointed in myself for not working in a joke about Gramsci Burger.
Also, I want to thank all the subscribers for getting the channel over the 1K hump. I guess I have to start taking production value a little more seriously now.
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00:00 Intro
01:30 What is Capitalism?
03:08 Power Disparities
04:34 The “Punk”
05:45 Socialism
07:45 Post-Capitalism
09:12 The EIC
10:45 V and Collectivist Fatalism
12:45 More Post-Capitalism
15:15 Muh Roads
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.
Yooo same ❤
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.
To me, MR ROBOT is the most realistic "Cyberpunk" series that I ever watched.
"It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism".
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."
@@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.
@@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.
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
@@nickv1212So since Star Trek is a prosperous socialist utopia, does that mean a thriving sci fi fictional capitalist society would prove capitalist right ?
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.
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.
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.
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
@@kuricodes_ and occasionally robespierre the shit out of their management.
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.
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.
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.
@@feralhistorian a few key authors have libertarian views, including Gibson and Pondsmith.
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
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.
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@feralhistoriansame. Wish we had the tech at least so I could see like normal people without glasses and thus not be legally blind anymore
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.”
Something I would do
Go against tyrants
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
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!
I remember seeing "devilspalm" come up on one of the Draka vids. There's still some things to cover with that series . . .
@@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.
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.
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.
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 🙏
Congratulations on 1k subs man! Love your stuff. The first vid of yours I watched was the one about for all mankind
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.
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.
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.
@@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...
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.
That would be a good one to cover. I'll add that to the re-watch stack.
An excellent film
This is the best video I’ve seen on both cyberpunk and socioeconomics in a long time.
Thanks. If I succeed in making economics remotely entertaining I'll call it a win.
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!
Thanks, and respect for the A1.
Sometimes the UA-cam algorithm works just right. I'm loving this content, thank you!
Amazingly underrated channel
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.
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.
"Companies love having stuff that makes them no money while being extremely expensive to maintain, it is known."
Well, that would explain Amazon Studios...
Thank you for the longer video.
This commentary was fantastic. I loved it bro. ❤
Thanks, I appreciate it.
Great content as always my man
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 !
There's more Fallout content in the works. A lot to talk about in that franchise.
This is such a great channel. You go ...
There's a backlog of material so I'll keep going for a while at least.
I actually really liked how this video is presented, explains complicated stuff in a simple way!
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.
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.
Congrats on 1k!
"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
That's the subject of today's video in fact.
This was really good, keep it up!
Loved this. Thank you! East India Company as analogue is a brilliant lense!
not gonna pretend like i understood all of it
For an easier explanation of the cyberpunk genre in relation to capitalism can be found by a UA-camr 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 UA-camr SecondThought
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. 👍🏼
The commentary and analysis is spot on, so is the history!
man... this was one heck of a video... you got yourself a sbuscriber.. yisus, so good. thanks for your insights
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.
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."
Your dumb
Muh roads!!! NICE!
Excellent and informative, thought provoking
Best thing I’ve listened to this week. Well done.
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.
thatsss what i needed thank you professor ( a clear distinction between 2 Completely Differently different terms and Ideologies ),
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.
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.
@@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
@@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.
@@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.
Star Trek and Cyberpunk, this channel is gold
Cool video, glad I found it!
Great video - Vid popped in my feed after spending the last few weeks , 200+ hours, completing and beating CP2077.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
this was a great video!
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
Man someone my age being able to articulate this is a breath of greasy air ❤💪🏾💯
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.
_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.
@@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.
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?
Very informative I fully endorse this channel got my subscription
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.
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
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.
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.
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".
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?
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.
@@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.
I used clips from other endings too, the "join the Nomads" ending has V and Panam chillin' on the panzer deck.
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.
What specific success in India?
@@keanuxu5435 they put a lander on the south pole of the moon
@@murunbuchstanzangur Thanks
@@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.
Omni Consumer Products
You call THIS a glitch!?
Ill byy that for a dollar
Great video!
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.
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.
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.
@@feralhistorian there is the problem. "If the people". We cant even get people to take care of themselves mutch less a wider community.
@@feralhistorian there is the problem. "If the people". We cant even get people to take care of themselves mutch less a wider community.
You just earned a subscriber.
“We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.” Seems that capitalism isn’t the problem, but centralization is.
This video is excellent!
Excellent work. 👍
Smartest take I’ve ever heard on this. Figures it would be from a historian.
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?
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.
@@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.
*I can listen to bro talk forever. 10/10* 🗿🔥
"It's just feudalism with new bosses" man what...? Once the workers seize the means of production, the capital that was formerly profit is given to each worker based on their needs and the production capacity of the society as a whole, rather than being hoarded by a single individual or group of individuals. There is no "single manager", it is up to the collective to make decisions democratically, while some individuals are selected, again collectively, to communicate with other representatives of the workers for practically enacting the policy changes.
This allegory only makes sense if you think socialism is just capitalism with red flags with no class, social or mechanical changes to each person's relationship to labor. You can figure out the basic tenets of socialism by doing like 30 minutes of reading. That is probably something you should consider doing.
It sounded reasonable when Marx was writing. Since then we have learned that socialism in theory and socialism in practice are two very different things.
@@feralhistorianbut there has been different versions of socialism enacted. Even under the USSR different eras had different ways of implementing what was socialism. Chile had project cybersyn which in its final goals was to level out the control. The Soviet councils in the early years of the USSR.
What should really be the question is how does the more authoritarian socialist states live longer than the democratic ones. When you look into history all socialist states were attacked one way or another. The USSR was invaded by many countries like the U.S., France, Britain, etc.where local Soviet councils were either arrested or killed and replaced by white army sympathizers. The USSR was also embargoed all its life. Chile a more democratic socialist state was taken out by a U.S. backed coup and replaced with a fascist dictatorship. Capitalist nations also going under embargo also become authoritarian. We also done seem to mention the way more total authoritarian capitalist countries compared to the liberal democracies. So wouldn’t that mean in practice capitalism is just authoritarian. Or how the authoritarian the US is not to just its own people but the globe also from replacing prime minister in Australia because they didn’t agree with the US to aiding extreme right wing groups to take out governments.
Not to mention George Orwell never even stepped foot in the USSR. He also really antisemitic, and hated minorities. Also for a guy who supposedly didn’t like authoritarianism he sure helped the British government a lot and even admitted to never disliking the German dictator and even found him “appealing”. I know he considered himself a socialist but socialism was very popular back then especially in the early 20th century anyone called themselves socialist. I mean there was a communist revolution in Germany (which was destroyed when the capitalist sided with the fascists to take out the socialists).
So in practice capitalism is also authoritarian. Even when the theory tries to say other wise.
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.
Well done!
Maaan i would love your take on the ned dlc when it comes out and the respective ending if you ever get around ot
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.
Small channel Big video keep it up!
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.
UA-cam Algorithm brought me here and thanks corporate overlord computer for doing so. Great video.
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 UA-camrs 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).
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.
@@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.
This is a great presentation
Some interesting points here
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.
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.
@@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
I will add that to my reading list. I really should review Burnham again anyway, it's been a long time.
@@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.
The knowledge shown by this older gentleman was badass
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.
You should give the original Deus Ex games a go and also the newer ones
@@RestlessRebel Which Deux Ex game do you recommend I start with?
@@beige_projection
Deus Ex (2000) and then Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003)
Then Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011) and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016)
you still can!:D
Awesome video
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!
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"
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.
Great video
Do a video on Total Recall, The running man and Command and conquers GDI and NOD factions.
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.
I see where your friend is coming from.
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).
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.
The best part of the game was helping river and saul. I hated taking down the av.
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.
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.
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.
Very good video
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.
And with a Dialectic pun unlocked, my day is complete.
The answer is a walk in the woods with a sweater you knit yourself.
I have been looking for a post capitalist model that is more than just state controlled business.
I would listen to anything this man says.
My simple brain : “haha cyberpunk fun cool game”
Your brain : “I could teach a college class on this game alone”
Cyberpunk, or: "the street finds its own uses for things."
Ghost in the system - ghost in the shell
Your gonna love the dlc lol
I have no doubt that it will spark a reaction, one way or another.