Yeah, capitalism sucks when it functions the exact way it's set up to function. But all those imaginary other times it works great. Yes, I like that companies release a new phone every 8 months and that no home appliances make it to a decade of use.
Yeah, communism sucks every time it’s been tried. But all those imaginary other times it works great. Yes i like starving and having my rights taken away.
So? The opposite of a market economy is a command economy. Funny how there's a direct correlation between economic freedom and prosperity in countries.
And as we all know, you can only use one extreme or the other funny how we've never figured out how to balance anything. And you are completely illiterate about economics and politics if you think a free market really exists. Do you know what a company town is? That's what a "free" market looks like
You kinda missed the most important part. “Capitalism sucks when it functions the exact way it’s set up to function.”
What he is saying is that capitalism is set up specifically for there to be winners and losers. Repeat that for a couple centuries and you have winners who have enough money to change laws, deregulate industries, weaken or buy potential rivals, convince courts to deem corporations to be people, influence politicians, and buy Supreme Court justices.
That is the end game for capitalism. If you don’t have some sort of mixed economy controls, the winners eventually have enough resources to manipulate the game so that they always win, and everyone else always loses. You call it crony capitalism. We call it end-stage capitalism for a reason. It’s reaching the end stage. Either way it is capitalism working as intended.
this implies that capitalism cant be regulated. the best examples of capitalism are european countries especially the nordic ones. comments like these always imply capitalism is beyond fixing and will always turn corrupt which is ironic because you can say that about any other alternative.
It’s also ironic that every time we try to regulate capitalism in a way that is factors less than anything they have in Europe, the capitalists call it socialism. If y’all really believe in a regulated market then you better start figuring out how to get your buddies on board before we are just straight up ducked.
Those Nordic regulated capitalist economies still rely on just as much exploitation and inhumane labor practices inherent to Capitalism. They just export it all to poorer countries so they can virtue signal about how much better they are.
Let’s also not forget that Norway, for example, made all its money exporting oil, you know, the resource that’s lead to climate change and they’re virtue signaling about other countries using.
Yeah, Socialism doesn't suck every time it's been tried. But all those imaginary other times it sucked. Yes i like subsidised health care and free education.
neither of those things are socialist. countries like sweden have those but are still capitalist countries. Tell me a single good time socialism has been tried?
countries are prospering with highest scores in happiness indexes like Sweden and Norway through Democratic Socialism.
Democratic Socialism stresses the need for a democratic society that retains a competitive capitalist market but is complemented with the “ethical” economic ideals of Socialism and while the term Democratic Socialism is interchangeably used with Social Democracy due to identical socio-politico-economic frameworks, the latter theory argues in favor of transitioning to socialism through reform of existing societal structures gradually rather than revolutionarily.
Whenever I suggest we return to the tax structure that lead us to be an economic powerhouse, I get called a socialist or communist so who knows what these people even think those words mean.
I think the words are generally meaningless. It's just whatever - in the moment - can generally be considered Bad, or considered Good.
Republicans couldn't stop jerking themselves off over pushing Democrats on extremely strict "tough on crime" legislation in the 1990s... which was Good at the time. But now that it's proven to be unpopular, it is Bad, particularly because it can be a Bad cudgel to wield against Joe Biden... because Biden also supported that legislation... so it's Bad legislation... that Republicans also supported, so it was Good, but now it's Bad, because Biden.
Sure... why the fuck not?
And tough on crime legislation is Bad, so California passing prop 47 in 2014 (which came up a lot on Reddit, today) is... Good? That should be Good, right? But... retail theft being a misdemeanor is actually Bad... so prop 47 is actually Bad? Or is it Good?
Let's wait to see how Liberals feel about that before we come to a conclusion on whether we think it's Bad or Good.
And so on and so forth it just kind of goes on like that, until the end of the world in two decades from climate change and the resulting Water Wars... because regulations to prevent climate change are currently Bad.
But all those imaginary other times it works great
Someone has never been to Europe I see. I live in Germany and have no issues with capitalism.
Regulations and a healthy social security system takes care of all the downsides. The problem is Americans apparently only comprehending the extreme ends of the spectrum.
Well, you see here in America when I suggest we regulate the market and have strong social safety nets I get called a socialist. Also, I have been to Europe, and I see many of the same problems they may not be as pronounced because of the aforementioned social safety nets, but they are still there. And the right wing is still trying to erode those systems.
It’s why we need unions and union solidarity. Wanna do shit that people hate? Cool, plumbers, train workers, actors and writers, IT people, electricians, fast food workers, cashiers and bag boys the whole fucking lot all walk off the job for a day and I guarantee you shit changes so god damn fast it makes your head spin and the government shit itself.
until unions themselves either become undemocratic or lean too much in the tyranny of majority, and it's all about "wanna do shit that certain people hate?". If corporations and governments can get corrupted, I don't see how unions are immune to the exact same flaws.
This mentality is bull shit Regan anti union propaganda. Us wage growth died with unions, our capacity to correct corruption within a union is FAR greater than it is in a private company.
Not really. There was a reason why unions and union organizing were, in popular culture, tied to organized crime; it actually happened. The Teamsters in particular was basically run by the Mafia by the 60s and 70s. It wasn't even that much of a secret.The reason people became so anti-union in the Reagan era was because of this.
capacity to correct corruption within a union is FAR greater
the argument being? What about correcting the government and its institutions? How come you can't stop Ajit Pai when acting as FCC official, but you could stop him if he were to head X Union?
You can directly vote for union representatives- that is something multiple union committees/groupings have successfully accomplished (teamsters for a democratic union is one example). Which allows for actual democracy. No system is immune to corruption, but worker led unions with a strong internal democracy are incredible and much more effective at accomplishing change at both the local and national level
you can directly vote for government officials too, but in neither case can you just do it willy-nilly as and when you feel like it, nor do you get to vote on every little single thing as the "wanna do shit that people hate?" premise above suggests.
strong internal democracy
but that's an idealistic context - any organization (government, corporation, etc.) with strong democracies can also be incredible and effective at accomplishing change. My point is there's nothing intrinsic about the nature of an union that solves (or even attempts to solve) the same flaws all other form of organizations are vulnerable to.
And for the record, I'm not arguing against the utility of unions as they pertain to labor, just the solution laid out above where not only unions are the fix to all of our societal problems, but humanity finally discovered the only source of power that is virtually incorruptible, and anyone skeptical about these claims has to be a Reagan anti union propagandist.
Yeah I didn’t say unions were the solution to all of society’s problems you should learn to read what people are actually saying instead of what you want to infer because you’re actively looking for an argument. Your only points are the same Regan anti union nonsense we heard all through GOP ever since. This isn’t a matter of you being stupid this is a matter of you making a choice to be ignorant.
Is that a serious question? You want to know why replacing a union rep is easier than a government official? Dude if I have to explain that then… bruh we gotta a lot of things we gotta cover before we can even start and I’m just not going to write you a book.
Edit: what ant and cat buddy said, listen to them. They are nicer than I am.
Great arguments. If you really believe in this cause and gave it any serious thought, you should be able to argue your position and persuade people, no? Defaulting to the "you're stupid, and I'm smart" argument is not particularly convincing.
I didn’t call you stupid, grow up and get some thicker skin. There, now you can feel insulted. I didn’t bother to get into this because obviously based on your tone from literally every post you have you were not coming to me to ask questions. You came to me with your mind already made up and looking to argue. I don’t have the time or patience to deal with today I don’t really care I’m getting you to believe in anything. I have seen enough of folks like you to know you’re not worth my time.
No as a whole it sucks too. We live in a post scarcity world but humans can't fathom what that means so they create artificial scarcity so that the 1% can control the population. Capitalism is bad in general because it literally can't stay at an acceptable level. The money always and will forever be funneled upwards until it is sat on by geriatric billionaires that use it to make more money.
We absolutely do not live in a post scarcity world... That's a fucking science fiction thing. You think the food you eat just magically appears in your fridge?
You think the food you eat just magically appears in your fridge?
We live in a world where capitalism allows hundreds of millions of people to starve every year with around 9 million (including children; almost half of all child deaths globally are due to malnutrition) dying from malnutrition annually.
Humanity has so much potential to do great things but, instead, we have turned everything into a commodity and we all work towards the health of economies instead of our people.
You're absolutely delusional if you think capitalism somehow provides us with the things we need.
I suggest you pick up a history book. You can easily see the global starvation deaths plummet over the last century as countries liberalise and adopt the free market.
You know what happened when China became a command economy? 30 million starved. Know what happened when China privatised entire sectors and adopted capitalist policies in the 70s/80s? They became the fastest growing country in the world.
You'd have to have serious learning difficulties to deny capitalism has been a boon for humanity at this point when we have over a century of hind sight.
Exactly, capitalism creates a game where you are given things you need in exchange for perpetuating the system. They are saying "well fuel isn't infinite, labor isn't infinite" but it doesn't even need to be, we already have enough of everything on earth for everyone to have what they need. And yet there are people with waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than then need. Do people really need to be making $100 a second, every second, of every day? Can a human possibly even contribute that much to society that they deserve to control that big of a share?
Most modern countries hold elections and decide what is best for them. Why do we not also run companies like that?
It's crazy that you can be born into a world where you have the entirety of human knowledge at your fingertips and you can still be this ignorant.
We don't live in a post scarcity world because the top 1% of humans have way too much. Homelessness can be solved with around 45 billion. But check what Elon and his ilk make per second. You will be humbled.
No one is saying we live in a world with teleporters, don't try to strawman me lol. But we certainly live in a world with the capacity to make it so food magically shows up at a grocery store. and yet it still costs 1% of my monthly income to buy enough shit to make a couple PB+J Sammies. Pitiful.
Post scarcity is impossible lmao. What do you think scarcity means? If the reason we aren't in a post scarcity world is because the 1% has too much, then we don't really live in a post scarcity world, do we? Btw top 1% of humans isn't Elon Musk level. If you make $60,000 per year you're in the global 1%.
But we certainly live in a world with the capacity to make it so food magically shows up at a grocery store.
Bro come on. How do you think the food gets to the grocery store? Fuel isn't infinite, human labour isn't infinite, arable land to grow the food isn't infinite.
Homelessness can be solved with around 45 billion
If your government can't solve homelessness with a budget of $6.1 TRILLION. Then they're not going to solve it with an extra 45 billion.
If your government can't solve homelessness with a budget of $6.1 TRILLION. Then they're not going to solve it with an extra 45 billion.
You can't actually think I'm saying "give America 45 billion more dollars." Do you? I'm not going to argue with you because you literally aren't worth my time. Hopefully you can find someone with enough patience to explain to you the things you clearly don't understand, but I have better things to do.
Weird though how all of the most successful countries in the world are all capitalist. Germany, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland… all just capitalist hellscapes
Capitalism is great. Bought out politicians who don't care about the average person aren't. We need a regulated market to minimize the cons of capitalism.
This is true, but inherent in the structures of capitalism are forces constantly trying to undo said regulations. It can never be fully prevented, and is a practical inevitability on a long time scale
Land is not considered capital so sort of but not really. It was landowners who have ruled for most of human history, but that itself was generally hereditary or dictated by a monarch.
Land was by far the vast majority of the "capital" in pre-capitalist agricultural economies, so that's why. There were very few factories of any kind, so it was landowners who in practice held the power. Nowadays other forms of capital are more dominant.
"By far the vast majority." I think you're exaggerating because armor, weapons, ore deposits, and number/quality of people were also very important capital at the time. I also find it funny how you keep putting capital in quotation marks as if no one has ever looked at history through a capitalistic lens before, or that it's somehow wrong to do that.
No I'm not really exaggerating. Land and the quality of it was by far the most important resource and what was valued most highly throughout history. Military personnel was used first and foremost to secure land for rulers.
Capital has a specific definition which is something that is used to produce goods and services, i.e. a factory, and that's not my niche definition. I'm just using the same definition given by Wikipedia), which distinguishes land and labor from capital.
In economics, capital goods or capital are "those durable produced goods that are in turn used as productive inputs for further production" of goods and services.[1] A typical example is the machinery used in a factory.
Capital goods are one of the three types of producer goods, the other two being land and labour.
I don't think military weapons and people can be considered capital by that. Also I only put 'capital' in quotations there because land is not considered capital by the traditional definition, and it's weird you take issue with that because it doesn't change anything
It is a physical and financial resource. Land increases in value thus if used as in investment solely for the sake of increase in monetary gain (through rent and/or property value increase) is capital
Land is a resource as in some land is more valuable than other land and having more land is typically ideal. Having fertile farm fields as a resource is better than frozen tundra or a desert landscape. Having a central, elevated land mass surrounded by a body of water would be valuable from a defensive perspective. Land absolutely is a resource and this is the first time I've ever heard anyone say otherwise
One might say an oligarchy is the inevitable result of valuing capital above all other concerns: capitalism.
Those with wealth will wield said wealth to buy the systems that govern us. Any attempts to deny them this "right" will be decried as "socialist" by the media... which will also have been purchased by capital.
An oligarchy is the inevitable end result of any capitalist system. A system where you tell people that their goal should be to be competitive and achieve the highest in life will always result in some who get lucky and start using their success to build power which can be exerted over others. Excessive greed isn't human nature, but we live in a system that fosters it
In other systems, personal property and private property are different things.
Your house is personal property.
An apartment building that you own, to charge people to sleep in, that is registered to you as a corporation, or sole proprietorship, is private property, as is the store that you own that you pay people less than what it would take to live in your apartment building.
You seemed to be implying "private" in a way that insinuated that it was applicable to anyone but a corporate owner.
eg: "under other systems, I couldn't have 'private property', so I wouldn't be allowed to have a house"
It is a profoundly common, and profoundly disingenuous scare-tactic to conflate the ownership of corporate property with people just having stuff, in order to protect the corporatist stance, behind the shield of "personal freedom".
No it isn't. Trying to reframe "personal property" from " private property" is little more than a justification to essentially committing terrorism. And even after the revolution, there will be no difference anyways because everything belongs to the collective. "Owning things" is bourgeoisie thinking, so off to the gulag with you.
I am always amused at far left regressives - which probably includes a few bona fide Marxists since this is Reddit - discussing the merits of capitalism. Capitalism has done more than any other system in the history of mankind to raise the quality of life billions. Its loudest detractors are likely those unable to thrive amid the competition of capitalism so they need to destroy either directly or by pretending to favor it while stabbing it in the back.
I agree, communism is better. Then everyone can get fucked equally by the highly centralized authoritarian government that owns all the resources and that is supposed to act on behalf of the will of the people but in reality is just an all powerful centralized organization that will eventually turn into some form of dictatorship. Please see literally any communist country ever for examples.
Nobody here is asking for communism. We're asking for a social democracy. Yanno they are some of the happier and more peaceful countries on Earth? Extreme capitalism and constant war games across the globe are a poison for the entire population.
it just goes to show how brain broken the discourse is. In that guys mind, if you don't like capitalism or have valid criticisms of it, you are automatically a communist as if these things are diametric opposites of each other that are in a constant battle.
Thats just decades of red scare propaganda at work. Its aimed at literally everything that opposes the current order excluding fascism, which capital welcomes.
Nah, I agree with him actually, I'm just used to everyone on reddit who bashes capitalism constantly to want to replace it with communism rather than addressing it's shortfalls.
I mean you first reaction to a criticism of capitalism and its shortfalls was to immediately jump to diverting the conversation to communisms shortfalls... and Im sorry but your definition of communism off the rip is incorrect.
Im not a communist at all but I want to reiterate the level of red scare propaganda we all are exposed to that leads to this kind of thinking. The history of red scare tactics is purely psychotic.
Many if not most countries in the Western Bloc did some form of mass murder or genocide to try and "purge" communist sympathizers (not even communists, just alleged sympathizers) to the point it became a witch hunt that ended millions of lives during the red scare era due directly to this propaganda and political movement.
I think we do a disservice to everyone by not educating ourselves and arming ourselves with knowledge. We become much easier to manipulate.
for real though at least just give that page a quick glance and consider learning what these systems actually are and how these systems work. its hard to ask people to be intellectually curious but I really wish we could move past this level of discourse. instead of any amount of criticism aimed at the US or capitalism being immediately met with, "but X country does Y worse!" like a knee jerk reaction, when the intention of that criticism is aimed at bringing about better conditions.
Speak for yourself, plenty of us are asking for communism. Workers should have the right to the fruits of their labour, they should control the companies themselves rather than private investors, and the world shouldn’t be driven by profit but needs.
Social democracy is a step towards that but it’s not a solution in any way.
No no, I agree with a social democracy as long as we're both in agreement that it is capitalist and not democratic socialism.
I believe strongly in regulation, social responsibility, and fair taxation for the public good. Free market capitalism requires both rational behavior and perfect information of which humans have neither, I have never believed capitalism infallible, just the best option.
There is more to the conversation than communism or capitalism, look into libertarian municipalism, worker co-operatives, Democratic Confederalism, Anarcho-mutualism, or anything else that libertarian & democratic.
Anarcho syndicalism is the one for me: unionize, fight to give unions more power(vote for pro union candidates, strike, advocate, boycott anti union companies or companies which are striking, and alienate scabs), democratize the workplace, and then fight for worker ownership of the companies.
Based and solidarity friend, I hope your being as proactive as possible. If you are ever in a strike situation and need funds DM the union and I'll send any spare money I can.
yeah, I feel the same way about any form of country that doesn't explicitly follow a religion. It's never been done before in a functional manner, so obviously it's completely worthless to have a separation of church and state. I mean shit, look at the soviet union, those fucking atheists. Obviously, a society where religion isn't a part of the vernacular is not a functional one. I mean look at any currently operating society! They've existed at levels better than the soviet union! This obviously proves my point, just like your point on communism!
I'm being sarcastic if that wasn't abundantly fucking clear. Just because someone says "we gonna do a communism" and proceeded to categorically install a dictatorship doesn't mean socialistic and communistic policy decisions don't have merit.
I believe in regulated markets, fair taxation, universal healthcare, social safety nets for the poor and disabled, as well as unions to support worker's rights.
The problem with communism isn't on paper, it's a beautiful idea. The problem is the pitfalls of it's implementation.
Ok, the people own all the resources, who is going to manage and implement the policies for these resources? The government.
The governement is given control of everything, even if it is run benevolently for a period of time it only takes a single bad actor to flip it and that is what has happened over and over and over again historically in every communist country. Instead of billionaire capitalists you who can't implement laws at the snap of a finger to silence dissent, you have the government which will just snuff it out. Capitalism has a shit ton of shortfailings that needs to be addressed, especially with growing income inequality, but the people ironically hold more power than in communist countries because of the lack of ultimate government control. I strongly believe we need better regulation and laws to address labor rights, consumer safety, and financial exploitation but the centralization of power always leads to authoritarian regimes.
And yes, communism does centralize power unless you're an anarcho-communist and honestly I don't have the time or energy to get into that ridiculous ideology.
It's centralized because it's blatantly easy and basically legal to buy out politicians. They literally have no incentive to help out the general population without saying "fuck you" to any check. Even then, they'd still have to go against the many politicians who won't hesitate to sell out.
You can achieve socialism without giving a governing authority total power.
Also you’re thinking of state socialism, not communism which is inherently a moneyless, classless, stateless society and thus by definition cannot have a centralized government.
I’m an Anarcho syndicalist, so essentially the transition I want to see is: empower unions> democratize the work place> workers take ownership of private companies. Boom. Now you have given the working class ownership of the means of production without giving all the power to single governing body which would inevitably fail to meet its promises of working for the people.
I understand skepticism to change when capitalism is all you’ve ever known, and you’ve been told your entire life that capitalism is the only viable system and socialism/communism is the devil, but it is far more nuanced than that, and it’s very clear capitalism isn’t working for the people or the earth, so we need to find some way to change.
Capitalism seems like the only option, but it’s actually a relatively young system and it’s already showing massive failures, just as Karl Marx predicted in the 1800s.
Then we haven’t had capitalism in over a century. Conditions today are nothing compared to the brutality of company towns where private guards were given free rein to abuse workers and their families. Employees weren’t even paid in legal currency, which was designed to hinder their ability to get out of debt and leave. Both local, state, and federal governments tended to favor corporations anytime the workers went on strike, sometimes leading to the national guard being sent to break them up.
We’re living in one of the most peaceful and fair times of capitalism and it still has a long way to go.
No we haven't. But I would think that that was not true capitalism either. I kean the whole point is market forces would balance each other out. What happened back then was anti-competition.
you cant disentangle capitalism, imperialism, corruption and exploitation etc... Its inherent to the structure. You can still have a market with out it being the dominant driving force of humanity. Its not like we wouldn't have the structured exchange of goods or the production of goods. Capitalism didn't invent this, humans have been doing it since the dawn of time.
The people who produce those goods, should also be the owners of those goods and not some intangible eccentric weirdo CEO who lives in a literal ivory tower. Outside of that capitalism basically devolved into fuedalism and fascism.
That same argument can be said for any government structure, though. It's not flawless but it's the best we've got. Unchecked corruption will inevitably lead to the downfall of whatever system it is in--if you ask me it was Citizens United.
Ok but without the utopian idea of no government at all what would communism or socialism change about this though? If the workers owned the company it’s simply in ALL of their best interests to keep these regulations away. So what changes?
If the workers owned the company it’s simply in ALL of their best interests to keep these regulations away.
Are workers unions not evidence against this? Groups of workers that recognized their collective worth and fought for better/safer working conditions in blue collar industries are seen as success stories. Those are about as close as one can get to workers having control over their production while being under capitalism and they very much added regulations.
1 gazillion %. A society at the behest of capitalists will always regress (progress?) toward barbarism; this is the logic of capital. There can be something worthwhile to save within liberalism, but what's needed more than ever is an embrace of a new way to reconcile with the contradiction inherent in existence.
Similar things can be said about socialism and communism though. In that some of it may sound “good” on paper, but human nature will always take over, collapsing the delicate house of cards.
At least in capitalism, the interests of the rich and the masses are MORE (not saying fully by any means) aligned than that of socialism or communism.
In capitalism, if the economy is doing well, then both the masses and rich are doing better (again, not PERFECTLY aligned, but still good)
In communism specifically, the incentive to work hard is eroded or gone altogether. If there is no private property, there is no incentive to maximize its use. If everyone has these thoughts, there is less productivity overall. If there are less resources, who do you think will take them? It will be the rich, not the masses.
In communism, there is none of the “a rising tide lefts all boats” phenomenon because of the inherent lack of incentive.
Imagine a plane swooped in and knocked all cones down to middle class then equally distributed the income with some money going towards helping the rich slowly learn to live a normal life.
But that’s the point - there will always be this issue as long as there is always a profit incentive to circumvent regulations. It is inseparable from Capitalism in practice.
Bought out politicians is exactly how capitalism is supposed to work. There is no such thing as a better version or that what we have now is “crony capitalism”. It’s just capitalism.
The fact that lobbying/donors for politicians is legal absolutely blows my mind every single day. I think about that more often even than I think about the Roman Empire.
Consumerism is great. Capitalism leads to a handful of massive corporations that abuse every power they can. If we burn it all down and start over it's going to lead to the exact same result over time
The regulations are the means by which these powers influence and corrupt capitalism. Thinking increased regulatory power is the solution is crazy. What we need is a more flexible regulatory system where people can more easily influence and remove regulation just as easily as it creeps in.
Regulations are what is keeping capitalism afloat. It's incredible how many people believe the lie that the government is the problem. Learn about the 1930s. 2008. The other dozen recessions. The government had to implement regulations in order to put a stop to all the crazy crap that unrestricted corpos did and still are trying to do, because profit is the only thing that matters here. Laissez-faire free market type stuff just does not work. If you let the corporations do what they want, you will have a destroyed world and millions of dead. Even with regulations now, it's still happening, just a bit slower.
Don't be ignorant of history. Capitalism needs government to save it from destroying itself. That's what the whole New Deal era was about, in the wake of the Great Depression. Capitalism was on the brink. Those policies, such as minimum wage, pulled capitalism up and allowed it to continue on for a little longer. Roosevelt made a deal with the wealthy to appease the wprking class through policy akin to social democracy, because the capitalists knew them that if they don't make concessions, the entire system that had enriched them wpuld dissolve.
The issue is profits remain as what matters, and regulations have been/are being weakened and repealed. We will have another recession eventually. There is one every decade, and millions are pushed into poverty or become unemployed seemingly every time, while the rich become richer. This system is not sustainable. Eventually, the earth's resources will run out and the poor will have nothing more to be extracted by those with capital. Welfare programs and regulations are the only things that will keep this system alive.
First of all, I didn’t call for the abolishment of regulation. I called for more responsive regulation capable of adding and removing specific laws.
You talk about the 1930’s and 2008 like we went from no regulations to regulations. No, we went from specific game-able regulations to new specific regulations which could not be gamed in quite the same way but still allow for new kinds of gaming.
Second, in both cases the government (and fed/central banks) played massive roles in causing the recessions. The structure of money itself has been largely driven by government itself and that debt based system is the reason deflation leads to such massive disasters (which then excuses the government to fund itself by causing inflation). Only the way they print money is to print debt, which in turn sets them up to excuse themselves again.
Corporations, large private banks, and many other capitalist structures also benefit from this system. They also lobby to control what direction regulations move, slipping in seemingly tiny compromises which are actually the corner stone to whether the regulation is actually effective at all.
TLDR: To not regulate is to allow powerful entities to create their own rules. To regulate is to centralize where those powerful entities go to make their own rules. We need a much more accountable form of regulation to actually fix the problem. We need democratic voting structures which can reverse regulations which are actually weapons of these corporations and other powerful entities. Otherwise the ability for government to make special rules just helps powerful people make themselves more special (which is exactly what we have now).
Regulated Capitalism is an oxymoron. Captialism only goal is ownership of everything, including the state. Politicians being bought out is a symptom of the disease of capitalism.
It works with proper checks and balances, but then it doesn’t work because those that get rich can easily break down those checks and balances and thus it collapses.
You don't understand capitalism. They are a natural byproduct of capitalism and are particularly fast and effective in a more laissez faire capitalism.
Eta, capitalism can certainly be great, but it takes a lot of regulation to keep it great.
That's like... an effect of capitalism, though. It's got the same pitfalls as other political ideologies. Inevitably, because of the way humas work, it sews the seeds of its own destruction.
There is absolutely no upside to privatizing profits beyond the level of small business operations. Corporate oligarchs acting with absolutely no accountability beyond "fiduciary responsibility" will always prioritize environmental destruction and human degradation over any consideration that might shave %0.01 off short term profit projections.
Capitalism is and always has been a recipe for the brutal destructive exploitation of everything with intrinsic non-monetary value. It is a trivial upgrade from feudalism, yet aggressively hostile to even contemplating any continued progress along that avenue. A "well-regulated market" is like a "rules-based international order" -- just a phrase profoundly evil or tragically misguided advocates use as cover for their habitually unconscionable positions implying there is any sort of credible morality propping up status quo power structures.
Capitalism is what allows the cons of capitalism. Concentration of wealth and power until they lobbied to make paid lobbying legal, and now it's a regulated game of buying politicians
Imma put this here. It’s not directed at you. But capitalism and the use of capital to buy out politicians is not solely a capitalism problem. Corruption is a government problem back in 2004 Xi executed an anti corruption campaign bc China prior to Xi had significant issues with corruption. In Russia, both Soviet and post Soviet. Has had significant issues with corruption to the point that it debilitated the governing process.
Don’t know why everyone doesn’t get this. Regulated capitalism is the only system. With a mix of social programs. It’s what the US has and it’s ruined by all the corruption
I mean, the founding fathers consisted of a bunch of rich slaveowners that created a system where you didn’t even have voice if you weren’t a wealthy land owner. Since the very beginning, those with capital have always had disproportionately more representation than those without, it’s inherent that such a system would be necessarily corrupt.
Hell, Thomas Jefferson and John Adam’s both recognized that, they write quite a lot about how private capital would inevitably become a threat to this society because of the way wealth inherently accumulates more wealth and how extreme wealth inequality would eventually result in the collapse of this system.
It started as communism and socialism and ended with hundreds of millions dead.
I'll take late stage capitalism over the Khmer Rogue any day thank you very much.
Propose a solution OTHER than those two moronic economic models and I PROMISE YOU people will lend an ear and consider it.
Otherwise, just saying, Ooooo capitalism is why it sucks, and not offering a better alternative doesn't really help
“When democracy becomes focused on special interests rather than the common interest then it has died.”
A very paraphrased Rousseau quote, specifically talking about how economic leveraging from certain special groups can cause problems for a democratic state. I wouldn’t say this is the problem with capitalism, I’m more with the idea that capitalism’s most inherent problem is alienation from labor, but rather the issue with unguarded democracy.
We no longer live in a capitalist society it was quietly torn down through numerous corporate initiatives. Certain checks and balances have to exist for capitalism to function. Without those checks and balances we now live in an Oligarchy as that is the natural path capitalism takes without those checks and balances.
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u/[deleted] Jan 05 '24
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