And many who live under capitalism still read the Animal Farm connecting the themes to their own experience of being an exploited worker, rather then that of the Soviet Union (which the book was obviously written about). But that is not the point. George Orwell never thought our only choice was capitalism or soviet style communism. He obviously sympathized with the animal revolution but hated the results. A real worker liberation is not when you switch out one oppressor for another, but when the workers seize the means of production for them self.

Similarly I don’t think the authors of Severance are advocating for a Soviet style communism as an alternative to capitalism. In fact I don’t see them advocating for any alternative (at least not during the 1st season). Simply they are stating that our current system has issues.

Even if their founders deride communism in spirit, almost every corporation is run pretty much exactly like Soviet communism was. Even the aesthetics are sometimes similar.

I'm not saying that these things are equivalent -- they obviously operate at different levels of society. But the similarities are striking which makes some of the criticism a tad hollow.

Most of the public discourse on the current problems of capitalism is not serious. Many folks aren't actually comparing capitalism to an alternative, instead they're comparing their current situation to a mythical alternative reality. The is exacerbated by the fact that Marx himself and other communist/socialist authors make similar mistakes. The whole marxist obsession with "alienation" is a perfect example. They are largely delusional about the plight of the working class in non-capitalist systems.

Workers in socialist systems are inundated in propaganda in ways that would make the most ardent Fox News producer blush. They don't experience alienation between their work and their non-work life, they experience alienation between the life in their head and life in the physical world. Similarly, workers in a feudal system also experience fear and domination at the hands of a system that vests in them little power or autonomy.

> Workers in socialist systems are inundated in propaganda in ways that would make the most ardent Fox News producer blush.

This is ignoring the fact that not all workers in our economy are working for a for profit capitalist entity. There are non-profits, there are co-ops, there are even state corporations and institutions that employ millions of people. I’m not aware of any propaganda these workers are exposed to which workers in a for-profit capitalist organizations aren’t.

In fact the for-profit organizations I’ve worked for has many many mandatory “meetings” which only purpose seems to be to tout the superiority of that corporation, and spout propaganda on how much better it is to work there. The state provided jobs I’ve worked at don’t do this.

> The whole marxist obsession with "alienation" is a perfect example. They are largely delusional about the plight of the working class in non-capitalist systems.

You make two claims here. You provide some examples of the second claim in the second paragraph; for the first one, do you have any justification for why obsessing over alienation is bad?

More precisely, do you agree or disagree with the premise that alienation exists (in some form) in the capitalist system? If you agree, do you think workers would be better off if they were not alienated?

If you don't agree that alienation exists, how would you describe/judge modern IP rights and corporate hierarchy structures?

Would you say it's a good or bad thing that all of an employee's work product (during and outside of office hours) belongs to the company (assuming you accept my premise that this is enforced)?

I'm concerned that you've selectively ignored parts of my comment and have read meaning out of it that I did not put into it.

>do you have any justification for why obsessing over alienation is bad?

Obsessing over alienation is bad for Marxists (and good for capitalists). As I said, Marxists are not being serious (maybe credible is a better word here) when using alienation to critique capitalism. Of the economic systems in discussion, capitalism has the least alienation. Marxist solutions are either pure fantasy, or have been tried and lead to worse outcomes and other socio-economic systems sfrom history are also worse than capitalism. In other words, Marxist concerns with alienation are hypocritical.

>do you think workers would be better off if they were not alienated?

Again, I'm discussing the Marxist use of alienation and how they undercut themselves when discussing it.

> Would you say it's a good or bad thing that all of an employee's work product (during and outside of office hours) belongs to the company (assuming you accept my premise that this is enforced)?

Nothing in my comment can be taken as arguing one way or another on this topic. However, given that you've decided to focus on the goodness/badness of alienation, it sounds like it's important to you. How do you feel about alienation?

> Of the economic systems in discussion, capitalism has the least alienation

is it true though?

I believe it's never been measured by anybody and you're only speculating here.

> Marxist solutions are either pure fantasy, or have been tried and lead to worse outcomes

If that was true, why the most capitalistic power in the World and recent history was so scares by them that went to war against them and used every dirty trick in the book to replace them with dictators or puppets (sometimes they were literally Nazis...)

> how they undercut themselves when discussing it.

you keep saying it, but the how it's not clear to me.

It looks to me your knowledge of Marxism is incomplete.

Marx was impressed by capitalism, he simply thought that capitalism was detrimental for the working class and that through the class struggle they could improve their conditions and participation to the wealth.

Marx wasn't against capitalism, but he knew it was tuned to favour the ruling classes and the bourgeoisie, but also argued that it was the most productive system the World had ever seen.

It's only a matter of where you stand: with billionaires that amass capital like never before while their employees do not earn enough money to make a living, while also being alienated by the work they do, or not.

It's bad enough to be alienated, it's much worse if the system only rewards those that do not actually do the work and/or do not need or deserve so much wealth.

Marxists systems were not worse of capitalistic ones on average, for example at the times Yugoslavia wasn't in worse shape than Greece and what happened in Romania wasn't much different from what Franco did in Spain, a fascist dictotator supported by the USA in exchange for military bases. Life in Cuba or Peronist Argentina was probably similar to Portugal, if not slightly better.

Of course USA had a better life style than communist Poland, but they literally had the highest standard of living in the World, it really doesn't describe capitalism in general, USA are an outlier where the good and the bad of their system show themselves to the extremes (and now it's mostly the bad i.e. the tribalism and the violence).

it's the distribution of wealth that is much different in the two systems, capitalists simply don't like that: to share

But even if it was true that all non capitalistic countries were much worse than capitalistic countries, literally everyone was in the same boat and services were free for everybody.

> What world is the author living in? What system of political economy is better, Soviet style communism?

This is a pefectly by the book false dichotomy.

The issue is real: capitalism leads to alienation.

Actually, it's capitalism that needs alienation to work (I explain why later)

The more extreme is capitalism the more people living in it are alienated.

It's not necessary to live in other systems or propose an alternative to simply realize what's in front of our eyes.

Besides: there are many ways of being a capitalistic economy, some are worse than others.

The Elon Musk 80 hours work week or you're free to go (aka fired) while he impregnates every female he encounters just because he can't keep it in his pants is probably less desirable than the French 35 hours work week with mandatory 16 weeks of paid maternity leave (26 from the second child onward) and 4 weeks of paid holidays.

Just to name one.

Have you read "bullshit jobs"?

People tend to defend their way of life even when their way if life is shit. many people living in capitalistic economies identity themselves with their job and changing priorities looks scary to them: suddenly their identity and their carriers could become not so important and probably even be seen as detrimental to mental health.

Like many parents see football as a dangerous activity right now because the awareness around brain traumas is much higher than in the past.

Doesn't need an alternative to talk about it and having doubts when it's about your child's well being.

There's one thing we can be sure, beside death, people would go incredible lengths to keep their status and avoid changes, even if they could potentially benefit from that change.

It's the reason why avoidance is the most popular way to deal with problems in life.

Ask a psychologist if you do not believe me.

Anyway, it's very easy to explain why it is: capitalism without alienation doesn't work.

See, for example, "Amazon had employees Brett Daniels and Jason Anthony arrested on Wednesday in retaliation for their involvement with the union"

or

"Amazon has apologised to a US politician for falsely denying that drivers are, at times, forced to urinate in plastic bottles"

Alienation is key to become Amazon. But it only benefits Amazon and the shareholders who are already rich enough to not have to worry about money for generations to come.

Specifically when we talkbput alienation in capitalistic systems we refer to "the process whereby the worker is made to feel foreign to the products of his/her own labor" which is exactly how modern capitalism works.

The urge for the typical workers is to pay the bills, not make something that other people really find useful or need, because that either doesn't pay the bill or it's too immaterial or disconnected fro the worker's grasp to even be possible. Aggravated by the fact that the aforementioned Amazon driver knows very well that most of the items being delivered are not necessary for the buyers, they bought them out of compulsion and fabricated needs.

That divide between the need for money and the lack of meaning in the job being carried on, it's what causes alienation.

It's a direct consequence of how the system works.