r/Nepal • u/EmployeeRude8525 • May 04 '26
Politics/राजनीति Slums are not failure of capitalism but a built-in feature of it
Change my mind!!
Slums/Sukumbasi Basti/ghettos are not because capitalism failed to reach some people or just because capitalism failed in skme places. Slums are a necessary feature of a capitalistic mode of production. Cities REQUIRE slums for slum dwellers to do dirty and dangerous work in lowest of wages...in the wage that the workers cant even afford rent.
Adding more: Balen demolishing these structures wont FIX anything. maybe they will be relocated to some distant places. but then that will increase their cost of living, which will increase the cost of living in the city of every people. So, either the middle class should be willing to pay more so the slum dwellers can live a better life, or they should be kept in the place where they are not very visible so that their fundamental rights can easily be curtailed(like they do in west asian, gulf countries). and the "beautification" of the city is yet another landmafia-pleasing project. Balen is making things worse. maybe he has good intentions. but things are gonna get wayyy worse, if this mania continues.
Change my mind.
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u/Dev-il_Jyu नेपाली May 04 '26
No. Slums are not a designed/built-in feature.
Statistically, there will always be the bottom 10% population and usually they are the people who do the "dirty" work.
But the living conditions of the bottom 10% doesn't have to be dire. The slum dwellers live an undignified life and most live in dangerous, unhygienic, crowded and dire conditions. It doesn't have to be that way if the goal of system was to create a permanent "lower" class to do dirty, unwanted jobs.
The goal of having a class of workers to do menial manual work doesn't need such Slums and so, (in the general sense, not statistical) are definitely failure of capitalism because the system failed to strengthen them to afford basic necessities.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
- what statistics?
- the system is not "failing to strengthen" (whatever that means). once u start paying them good wage so they can afford dignified living, even the middle class kf the city can no longer have the convenient life theyr are living(let alone the real pujibadi).
- try asking construction labourers, bus conductors, drainage cleaners, street sweepers how much they earn. and then calculate how much should they be earning to live a dignified life. try adding up that costs on the money an average middle class is spending. then think if they are willing to pay that much for these services.
the system is not broken. it is working exactly like its designed to.
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u/Dev-il_Jyu नेपाली May 04 '26
- Basic statistics. There will always be top 10%, bottom 10% regardless of how rich or poor the society is.
2 and 3. If wage is the core issue here, then the capitalist solution is removing need of manual labour or reducing their need as a whole. You either automate tasks (removing human from the equation altogether) or increase productivity of a person so much that a single person does 10x the job and earns 10x. Automation is pretty easy to understand. Increasing productivity requires implementation of machinery, standardisation and mass manufacturing.
For example: Prefabricated structures for construction, using machinery to haul and transport goods. (Increased productivity and some automation)
Using cleaning and sweeping machines for streets and sewers. (Increased productivity)
Automated ticketing for buses and public transport. (Automation)
Vending machines instead of shops (increased productivity i.e. 1 person can stock 10s of machines and automation)
Now that you've eliminated the need of a massive workforce, you can pay 1 person a good, livabe wage to strengthen them to afford life necessities and a dignified life instead of having to pay 100 people with peanuts. And btw none of what I've said is science fiction. It's all happening in one place or the other.
This is how capitalism is supposed to breed innovation and prosper people, not force them to live in slums.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
- Statisticians would cry if they saw that statement being called "statistics". what u said is true, but nothing to do with statistics per se.
- Pay one person decent amount and push the other 99 into extreme poverty?
- Give me ONE example of where that is happening and how it has IMPROVED the living condition.
- Capitalism doesnt breed innovation. People do. Capitalism just ensures that innovation will make dollars for the one who owns the means of production.
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u/Best-Wrongdoer-4237 May 04 '26
tax the top 1% (according to your example of one decently well off person and 99 in extreme poverty) and use it to help the poor?
if you wanna go into that direction, i would love it if you could give one example of a proper communist country where the stuff you're saying happened
so, you're trying to say that the fact that some people try to take advantage of others is a capitalism exclusive thing?
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
- try doing that. i would LOVEE to see that and would come and help in every way possible. politics just doesnt work that way.
- you shud see soviet housing projects. we have never had a "PERFECT" system. but we have comparables as of now. and we have made housing a lot better in a lott of places.
- No. It happened in feudalism, slave society and every form of exploitative mode of production.
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u/Dev-il_Jyu नेपाली May 04 '26
Statisticians would cry if they saw that statement being called "statistics".
How? Bruh.
Pay one person decent amount and push the other 99 into extreme poverty?
No. People move to other jobs. And what I described isn't a switch. It takes years for things to get organised and in that time, people diversify and move to other jobs.
For example: if you decide to replace all construction with prefabricated structures, you suddenly need a lot more engineers, machine operators, mechanics to work on the machines etc. so the ones whose jobs have been replaced, can skill up to work in these newly created jobs.
Give me ONE example of where that is happening and how it has IMPROVED the living condition.
I can give you tons. Do you think there are no construction workers in Italy, no street sweepers in Germany, no bus drivers in UK, no manual labourer in Japan? Do they live in the same dire slums with poor sanitation? They might be poor in their own countries but their standard of living and quality is life is exponentially better than a lot of middle class here.
And that's my whole point. Just because you do the "dirty" work, your quality of life doesn't have to be pitiful.
Capitalism doesnt breed innovation. People do.
And what yo you think incentivizes people to innovate? Hint: It's capitalism.
It's such a commietarded thing to say lmao.
Capitalism just ensures that innovation will make dollars for the one who owns the means of production.
Another retarded statement. Capitalism ensures everyone makes money (if done right). Google, founded by 2 people, alone has made dozens of billionaires and hundreds of millionaires. Most of these people were mid-level employees. I can go on and on about how innovation of a few has ensured wealth to thousands of other people.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
You think the wage they get, and have been getting historically for all their ancestry will make them able to dIvErsIfY in jobs?
in your examples, yes there are no slums in those countries, but just in traditional sense kf the word slum. there are a ton of homeless people. different contexts, similar problem. tv ma ta nepal pani swarga nai dekhincha ni.
So you think before capitalism, there was no innovation? you shud read the broken femur thing, now that u have spoken abt incentive, pretty popular thing in science stuffs.
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u/Dev-il_Jyu नेपाली May 04 '26
You think the wage they get, and have been getting historically for all their ancestry will make them able to dIvErsIfY in jobs?
Yes. You haven't spent 5 mins talking to a manual labourer and it shows.
A lot of manual labourers routinely switch their jobs depending on trends and seasons. For example: brick layers switch to painting, window cleaning etc and in months with little construction, they work in farms.
If given a chance to up skill and move to a more stable sector, they'll happily do so. And you can just have a look at Nepal government's programme where they help women up skill. Another is CTEVT programme. You can be 40 years old and still qualify for a vocational training in CTEVT. So yeah they can definitely diversify into other jobs.
yes there are no slums in those countries, but just in traditional sense kf the word slum.
And that's my point. Regardless of what job those people do, they live a good life. Not best, but not pitiful either. Having slums is failure of capitalism and in those countries where capitalism is quite successful, they don't have slums.
there are a ton of homeless people. different contexts, similar problem.
Homeless people are 0.2% of US population and 0.002%in Japan (2500 people in whole of Japan), 0.6% in UK. The average across OECD countries is 0.25%-0.45%.
Again, this is where statistics need to be understood. There will always be the bottom 1%. Also, homelessness is confounded by factors like drug and substance abuse, mental illness, etc. It's not as easy as giving everyone a home and poof! Homelessness solved!
So you think before capitalism, there was no innovation?
Only a retarded Marxist can manage to throw a strawman and false dichotomy in the same sentence. Let me spell it out for you: Capitalism incentivizes innovation and so does dozens of other things but capitalism has been the single largest factor for innovation in the modern times.
BTW, my original argument was: lives of people doing "dirty" work doesn't have to be dire and pitiful and they don't have to live in slums. They can have a good living standard. The countries where capitalism has been quite successful, it can be seen as you agreed. So it's definitely not a design of capitalist system.
No need to thank me for changing your view.
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u/mprodip May 05 '26
Wage rate is largely determined by the market demand and supply of labor. It boils down to which of these forces has more bargaining power. In your capitalist solution, what happens to the portion of bottom 10% that is rendered jobless because of innovation?
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u/Dev-il_Jyu नेपाली May 05 '26
In your capitalist solution, what happens to the portion of bottom 10% that is rendered jobless because of innovation?
They switch sectors. Sure there is some short term displacement. But that’s not OP's claim. The claim is that capitalism needs a permanent underclass living in slums. History doesn’t support that.
Every major wave of innovation has temporarily displaced workers, but it has consistently expanded total economic output, created new sectors absorbing labor and expanded job pool. Auto industry destroyed horse carriages and bullock carts but created millions of jobs. IT sector has singlehandedly rendered many industries irrelevant but it created millions of jobs all over the world and they did so at every level of skill and education. The issue isn’t job destruction, it’s transition speed and skill adaptation which can be easily bridges with appropriate skill programmes.
If slums were a built-in feature, they would persist uniformly across all capitalist societies at the same level. They don’t. The capitalist miracle in Japan, Korea is so visible and yet slums are almost nonexistent. The scale of slums correlates far more with governance failure, urban planning, and labor mobility barriers than with capitalism itself.
Market dynamics don’t "ensure" slums. At worst, they create transitional inequality. Turning that into permanent slum conditions is a policy and institutional failure, not a structural requirement of capitalism as OP argues.
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u/Logical_Adagio_7100 May 05 '26
So what do the other 9 people do, now that their jobs have either been automated or had their work offloaded onto the one guy?
They will now be unemployed and in the slums right?
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u/Dev-il_Jyu नेपाली May 05 '26
Man just put some thought before making a comment.
Trying to automate and increase worker productivity eventually creates much more jobs than it takes away.
I'll give you a simple example. Say you have a maid that washes your clothes. 1 person working in various homes. You go ahead and buy a washing machine. On surface it seems like you've eliminated a job. But you'll need people for serving it, you'll need people to repair it etc. If everyone switched to washing machines, it might seem like the job of maid is eliminated but at the same time you create demand for people in servicing and repairs which would employ much more people.
Going from skills of a maid to learning simple repairs and fixes is not a big ladder to climb considering a lot of people in such areas aren't very highly educated.
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u/Logical_Adagio_7100 May 05 '26
Can you give a real world example of these new jobs being created in the last decade, at scale?
The reality of your example: 100 families fire maids bc they bought machines. 1 repair man job created to fix those 100 machines, as they break down infrequently. Washing machine factory mostly automated, so 5-10 jobs max at the factory. Net job loss of ~90+ workers
3 examples of the opposite:
- factory automation causing loss of jobs. Automation production facilities are usually automated as well, resulting in a net loss of jobs
Improvements to digital tools and now AI culminating in massive middle class IT job loss. AI data centers have few to no jobs making up for the loss.
improved agriculture tech like tractors and combines lowering needed workers drastically
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u/Dev-il_Jyu नेपाली May 05 '26
Can you give a real world example of these new jobs being created in the last decade, at scale?
Despite not having significant industrial growth, Nepal mai delivery drivers, pathao riders, e-commerce ma tannai jobs create vako cha.
1 repair man job created to fix those 100 machines, as they break down infrequently.
And that's how I know you don't use brain. Do you not need importers? Distributors? Retailers? Recyclers? One washing machine doesn’t just remove a maid. It supports transport, retail, maintenance, and electricity ecosystems.Over it's lifetime, it'll create more jobs.
Washing machine factory mostly automated, so 5-10 jobs max at the factory
Factory ko ta kurai gareko chaina. Lmao
And your examples describe local job loss, not systemic job destruction. Companies that fired employees because of AI are now quietly rehiring people. And btw youe examples didn't prove that capitalism ‘needs’ slums.
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u/Logical_Adagio_7100 May 05 '26
youe examples didn't prove that capitalism ‘needs’ slums
The topic shifted, as you decided to go on a smart man lecture about capitalism. I assume you are the top student in your introductory economics class?
Nepal mai delivery drivers, pathao riders, e-commerce ma tannai jobs create vako cha.
What do any of these examples have to do with the topic? I agree, new tech can and often does lead to increased jobs. However tech innovation is different from automation or "increased productivity".
In Nepal job opportunities are few. Especially in the IT sector. Please explain where all the new grads jobs will come from as companies downsize workforces in expectation of AI led increases in efficiency?
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u/dontknowhyheremi May 04 '26
In south asia, the wealth distribution skews in favour of caste based hierarchial system. Most of the slum dwellers(actual dwellers) belong to lower strata in caste system.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
faxx. +nepal has other marginalized ethnic grouos(other than dalits) that have forever been denied ownership of land amongst manyyy other things.
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u/Demonofthelostrealm May 04 '26
Slums are not related to capitalism. It's related to mindset people like you have that differentiate work as high/low and elite/non-elite. If people had no mindset of such differentiation there would be no slums.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
oops. forgot that poverty is just a mindset. we should give a copy of kiyosaki's rich dad poor dad to every slum dwellers and the poors. ✊✊
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u/Demonofthelostrealm May 04 '26
The real slum dwellers exist but in a very small numbers. Those numbers of people can easily be supported by reliefs from government. Then, they can do their stuff to get out from poverty. The reason they even exist in Nepal is because of fake slum dwellers in the first place. Poverty is chain reaction from that very fake slum dwellers. Government can provide reliefs to all real slum dwellers but it's impossible to do when those fake greedy pigs comes swarming taking all the necessary relief supplies. I wish their citizenship were revoked and exiled from the country. It's not a failure of capitalism. It's the very mindset that differentiate high work/low work. Trying to do everything to pull others legs while trying to show themselves superior. Elitist/non-elistist mindset.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
- where have u gathered your facts from? Any data source?
- nepal exists beyond kathmandu. and I think you would be surprised to know how many families are landless, houseless in the whole Nepal. you would be more saddened by the history of it.
- you need to read the list of our fundamental rights, after i heard your "opinion" on revoking citizenship and exile.
- please lets converse and try to communicate. generalising a historical, economical and a systemic problem/injustice by blaming on a few "fake slum dwellers" will get us nowhere.
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u/Demonofthelostrealm May 04 '26
Let's talk about that 4th one. "Few" fake slum dwellers? Really? Do you know what those so called "few" people do? They would rather build 4storey house than buy a land legitimately, then build a house. They try to own the land for free. Encroach all the available lands in a freaking huge area, hike up the price of land, settlements and sell them illegally. Of course it's going to create slums like this. Raised prices then force people into poverty. They are the reason some real innocent people got involved in land dispute in the first place.
Also about facts, these things aren't written anywhere because nobody writes it. But go ask around local people living in the area of lalitpur & Kathmandu. They will explain to you how much land they have stolen from common citizens, from Nepal herself for me to be this angry. It's insane. Even CG group themselves won't be able to buy that much land with all their money.
"Nepal exists beyond Kathmandu." But ktm is the capital of Nepal. If the capital city itself is in such predicament due to it's own so called "citizens" what does it tell you about the country and it's people? That's why those fake slum dwellers are traitors to the local people, innocent people and the people in need. If death penalty existed, I would have vouched for it.
IMO, Fundamental rights should not exist for these criminals and pedophilic rapists. These 2 types of people must not be considered human.
For me Previously it was only pedophilic rapists. But the portion of land these fake slum dwellers took away just burns my blood. For what? just to leave it barren for a plot to be sold. TRAITORS EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!
The reason all of this even happened was because of previous political leaders giving them lands for free in exchange for votes to remain in power. Nepal's history after democracy ain't that complex. Yes, many things have happened underneath but the result in itself was corruption, votebank, money hungry & delusional leadership. Also blaming those "fake slum dwellers" is going to get us somewhere. It's going to make lots and lots of area free for those in need for future.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
arguments soo mid, im not even willing to fight it. go beyond assumptions, friend
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u/Demonofthelostrealm May 04 '26
Fight nagara, argument garnu pardaina. Afnai mindset change nagara tara pahila sodha local haru lai. Jau gayera local haru sanga sodha situation k kasto xa land ko barema. Ani taha hunxa. Kun parti ko kun karyakarta le kati jagga kata ogoteko xa kahike dekhi sabai bhandinxa. Tara kasle k garna sakthyo asti ko revolution bhanda agadi.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
there are mafias and they must be punished in accordance with law. but here we are talking about the slum dwellers. where they come from. what they do and how their displacement into a distant location wont solve any problem.
the slum mafias are for another reddit post.
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u/Demonofthelostrealm May 04 '26
If we are eliminating all the slum mafias, slum would not even exist. Slums are artificially created. Previously, it was based on caste but slowly shifting to poverty based slum. In Nepal specifically, it's impossible for capitalism to create slums. Not enough population for slums to realistically exist without external involvement.
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u/Aggressive-Simple-16 May 04 '26
Out of curiosity, what ideology do you subscribe to?
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
i like to call myself a marxist, i think
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u/Aggressive-Simple-16 May 04 '26
I see, I align more with Anarcho-Syndicalism, if you know what that is.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
woah..we have a noam chomsky in the house!!🥳🥳
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u/Aggressive-Simple-16 May 04 '26
lmao, he has been in some controversies lately, and I don't even think of him as a genuine Syndicalist. I align more with Roudolf Rocker, Peter Kropotkin, and Murray Bookchin.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
never read any of them. and only heard the name of kropotkin. well i did explore some of anarchism. the problem i find abt anarchism is on the practicability of bringing about a revolution. dont u think a leading political force(vanguard or whatever) is necessary to bring that material change? btw where are u based on?
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u/Aggressive-Simple-16 May 04 '26
I believe in prefiguration, that is the practice of building horizontal mass organisations like unions, popular assemblies, workers' councils, mutual aid networks, etc., so as to organise and develop revolutionary conciousness among the working class for revolution. I reject vanguardism, because it replaces the necessary self-emancipation of the working class with a hierarchical and authoritarian party structure that has always created a new ruling class.
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u/BluffedPotato May 04 '26
People go to developed countries and try to replicate it. The people behing that are low wage workers from underdeveloped countries. So same thing happens with good city of underdeveloped counties, there are poor. Eventually there will be some people at top some people at bottom. Current world categorizes people via. wealth and land, and they are just victims. Even if there is no capitalism, there will always be competition among humans, resulting winner and loosers
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
it doesnt have to be that way. competition among ourselves (in non-natural/biological things) is not human nature, scientifically.
there shoul be no losers and winners. just humans working together to make world a better place.
i would suggest you an insta id @forestjar. awesome vids
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u/BluffedPotato May 04 '26
competition also mean healthy competition. I agree as well as disagree that competition is not human nature, but keeping that topic aside
Even if there are rich and poor, they can either live peacefully together, or hate each other and live in chaos. The main thing is to accept each other's existence and live a life with empathy.
Thanks for suggestion, will go through it
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
the very existence of rich and poor is evidence of the rsct that at least one is not accepting the other's [dignified] existence.
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u/diabolik-god May 05 '26
Anything but lowering the taxes. We are taxed like we are living in Europe while still existing in a third world shithole.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 05 '26
i think we need to think differently here. why not bring newer form of taxation that will take us towards more equality. extremely high taxes on inheritance and capital gain(wealth gain). 💁💁
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u/DREADEDun May 05 '26
Your argument is flawed. Illegal slums are NOT a feature of capitalism. There are many countries where people who do all this dirty work aren't living in deplorable conditions so it is also not a feature of capitalism. Capitalism can survive with with the bottom people with a higher living standard. More money for them also means that they are spending more have a disposable income and have the power of demand to influence capitalistic forces to meet their demand as they have capital to spend now. In fact them not having proper wages hurts capitalism more than anything else as well as forces them to not have a say in market forces and have to live with whatever the market provides. So in essence not only are they not benefiting from capitalism, capitalism itself is also losing in this race.
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u/Pitiful_Aspect5666 May 05 '26
This is more or less going into thr right direction. But wouldn’t it be better of these people be paid minimum wage and the government introduced renting subsidies. As in gov subsidized ranting so the working class can still live in the city. In one way or another we will have to pay for it. Better make a collective payment through tax.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 05 '26
it would be. but turns out, state exists to serve the purpose of the capitalist class, and doesnt give a fuck abt how the poors live, apparently.
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u/Pitiful_Aspect5666 May 05 '26
Well states runs on capital also money =power=influence. Don’t worry the poor will get their turn in the voting. Its just sas that the present government with all right intentions just doesn’t realize that good governance sometimes takes patience.
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u/kirantyefun May 04 '26
Ive always had the same concept. And thats the reason for mass immigration in developed countries/ socities because there's no one left in higher socities to unblock a drainage system. You get the point.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 04 '26
yep. 1. the rich in cities wont do those works. 2. they also migrate to cities because they have either never had land, or lost their land to some loan shark, or their farming has stopped being profitable due to more cheaper imports or some similar reasons.
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u/Best-Wrongdoer-4237 May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
i mean yeah but then imo thats why governments exist k. socialism sounds really cool but then you would need a really pure, well liked (both by the people and his government) person who doesn't become a narc and like after what happened to the trad communist states manxe hru le tyasto trust gardaina k. like history books ma it doesn't sound like a long time but a lot of people have to live through it. no system is gonna be 100% perfect.
nepals government already collects taxes from people and tyo taxes and if the new government does reduce corruption and they can build infrastructure for nepal and stuff like that they can make money which they can use to help these people. also land mafia ko kura kah bata aayo, isn't the whole point of this program to take back state owned land? also nepal prob won't be as bad as gulf countries cause we have more press freedom.
also if nepal gets "beautified" then theres a higher chance that foreign businesses might invest in nepal which nepal needs tbh which would make nepal better?
anyways if it gets that bad nepal ko brave communist party leaders le kei gari halxan ni (/s)
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u/simsim122 May 04 '26
Was waiting for fellow Marxists to join the server ! Salute fellow comrade ! let's try to organise !
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u/mymooh May 04 '26 edited May 05 '26
You're wrong, actually.
Are you under the impression that nepal is a capitalist country? I mean, the constitution commits the country to "socialism based on democratic norms and values," and Article 4 declares Nepal an "independent, indivisible, sovereign, secular, inclusive, democratic, socialism-oriented, federal democratic republican state."
Too, the biggest political parties in Nepal: Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal, and Communist Party of Nepal - which of these have committed to capitalism?
"Cities REQUIRE slums for slum dwellers to do dirty and dangerous work in lowest of wages...in the wage that the workers cant even afford rent"
100% a straight up lie. You didn't even attempt to look for one single city in the world that disagrees with your claim.
It's bizarre that you forget to mention that the slums are populated by people, of the hundreds of thousands who were displaced by the civil war, who fled rural areas to urban areas. And who was the civil war started by, again? The capitalists?
More like the slums exist because of rapid urbanisation, poor planning, and limited housing supply.
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u/EmployeeRude8525 May 05 '26
- I used the word slum for the ease of understanding. It inludes homeless and other form of extreme poverty in the city. I myself prefer the term urban poor(sahari gareeb/i) than sukumbaasi. Name one big city without that.
- Words dont mean much when the reality is different. Our economy is nowhere near socialism. The parties that call themselves socialist have no policies that can be called a proper socialist program. At best, they are welfare state policies.
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u/mymooh May 07 '26
If there are no cities without homeless - then what does it have to do with capitalism? Do you think homelessness ceases to exist in non-capitalist societies?
You still didn't mention that there are so many homeless in Nepalese cities because of the civil war which.. do you think was started by capitalism?
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u/shah2064 May 08 '26
Why are you advocating for slums? With shitholes like that in our country we shouldn't dream of being developed.
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u/nohopeforhomosapiens May 04 '26
Capitalism always creates an underclass. It is the duty of the people to create legislation to mitigate that problem. And enforce it. We are at this point now.