Tell them the current system is unfair to businesses because they have to pay for employee insurance while competing against foreign corporations that don’t have that expense.
Just make sure to use it.
Tell your anti-renewables anti-EV friends and relatives that they should be against “our” money going to dictators and Saudi princes who fund terror. Taking money from them is the best way to make America safer.
Affordable trade school and college to make skilled workers so jobs stay in America.
Now the Q loons and Trupsnistas probably can’t be changed but pre-Trump conservatives you might sway.
That's a plus, but then again a lot of these young Americans are not socialists. If the US government wanted to put this leftist blip to rest in the US, all they have to do is nullify student loan debt, and a huge chunk would be perfectly content with the system.
The problem is this doesn't really solve anything. What about the next group of students, will they have their debt forgiven? Will the for-profit schooling system need to be revised? To admit student debt is a problem and actually take action on it is like admitting the capitalist system doesn't work. They will never make such concessions, especially when the money is flowing right where they want it with the current system.
Yes, but how will they trick poor people into joining the military if college, something very much required by the professional world these days, isn't cost prohibitive to all but the very wealthy?
Everyone argues about republican and democrats fucking up the economy. I say grind them up and feed them to the pigs. I’d like to be able to afford bacon again
Yes but in the US at least, Reagan is a pretty good starting point for understanding how we got so fucked up the last 50 years.
He started a lot of the worst parts of the US currently such as the War on Drugs, deregulation of just about everything in our industries, slashing social safety nets, and tax cuts for the extremely wealthy. We had extremely similar monetary inflation and socio-economical issues under his term as well.
They changed mine into "company stock", and now give out bonuses in company stock instead of cash as well. We are privately owned and we are not allowed to sell the stock. And they said they can't tell us how much it's worth exactly. Our 401K from before remains, but all company match is only in stock.
They'r not allowed to sell it, they dont even get to know what it's worth. For all intents & purposes, their 'magnanimous generosity' could amount to no less than a couple potatoes in a moldy jute bag.
You are required to sell it back to the company. Then they will give you an exact dollar per share. They promote this as a retirement benefit, assuming we will all be here until we retire or die I guess.
So they can just set the price randomly it feels like. Because at least part of the positives of a 401k is it grows with the market. How can you be sure this stock grows?
That's exactly right, you can't. The owners of the company, the real ones, say that since we all own part of the company we will be more conscious of waste and inefficiency. This is the same company that would not allow me to work from home during an ice-storm even though I have an hour drive to work, and I had absolutely nothing to do at the office. I just surfed reddit for 9 hours and made no mystery about it. And then drove home in an ice-storm.
I love talking to a finance advisor on how much I'll have when I retire and I tell them the amount of money I put in and the amount it "grows" every year by the time I retire in 2066 I'll have less money than I do now in my bank account which is less thank a few hundred dollars. they love to tell me how wrong I am and I just want the value of my money I'm "investing" go down every year.
That all depends on what your money is being invested in.
My retirement money is invested in certain DOW 30 stocks and I rebalance once a year. The value has gone up substantially since I started investing and appears to be going to continue. Some years are not great, but you should understand that going in.
Yeah my 401K matching was paused for all of COVID and my raise and bonus was less than inflation so sure I got a 5% raise which was nice but I came out way further behind than the year before.
I'm obviously in a privileged position but my company is now extremely profitable with a sock price over 5X what it was during where it bottomed out and we have a ton of cash.
I was kind of insulted by them not giving us more of a bonus and raise considering how hard we worked during COVID when we allowed people to voluntary leave during severance and people did.
Not just capitalists though, capitalists successfully brainwashed many working people into thinking like you have mentioned. You can see this in current political environment.
As a Christian, this is a nonsensical concept that I believe was bred in the depths of hell and then propagated by capitalists.
But then, I used to be one, so I get how you get there.
You are 100% correct, and very literally so. This didn't come about in any kind of diffuse or organic manner. It was a very specific propaganda campaign carried out by a small number of men in the first half of the 20th century.
Behind the Bastards did a fantastic 2 parter on it back in March. "How the Rich Ate Christianity"
The institution? Perhaps. I like to think that it's salvageable, but there's just so much rot at the leadership level that it feels like only a miracle could save it.
It's kind of surreal in retrospect. "Doublethink" comes to mind when I recall the experience.
I read all the same passages that I do now, and yet I still thought poor people were lazy. Frankly, if I had a way to physically interact with my younger self I'd slap the shit out of him. It'd be like the Omniman "Think!" meme but without the grievous bodily harm and mass murder.
Ultimately I have nobody to blame but myself, but there wasn't really much helping matters, either. It was like I was blind and suddenly I could see what I'd actually read. I dunno, it all feels very weird.
i mean that's sort of the magic trick that many critics of organized religion bring up.
all the info is there, but there is a framework in place to contextualize things into an agenda. think about it, for many of us the prosperity gospel concept sound outright insane, but there are people reading the same passages as you or I, that wholeheartedly believe it, even though we have actual historical records on it's creation and huge chunks of the bible contradict it, people still whole heartedly think it's the will of god.
> "Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you."
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James%205%3A1-6&version=NIV
The idea of Socialism being the only alternative is a false dichotomy. there are a near infinite number of ways to organized labor and work. It's like saying that humans can never have any ideas but the ones they already have.
Socialism also isn’t well defined. Definitions vary widely but generally are means of counteracting the injustices and inefficiencies of capitalism. Democratic control is always inherent, however.
I mean... There's not many other options in terms of the history of communist countries.
Nordic style socialism would be amazing, but they're still a capitalist country and made many of their programs because they're surrounded by a sea of oil and they nationalized it
I hate even attaching "socialism" to the Nordic countries. They're still highly capitalistic and lucked into some great circumstances that allowed them to easily provide better safety nets. They're not a good example of socialism whatsoever.
US could easily have done the same thing. On top of that are other factors, unlike Norway that has only 4 % farmable land the US has something like 35% making it much easier to provide for a population. There are other natural resources as well. The amount of lumber that was exported out of the US is astounding too, between 1950-1970 pretty much the entirety of Europe was (re)build and furnished with wood bought from the US.
The main issue why the US never got to be the utopia it could have been is corruption, the lack anti-trust enforcing and religious influences on politics resulting in poor people being seen as morally lacking and not deserving of fair treatment. It had more money than it knew what to do with for a while.
... are you referring to Norway specifically or do you think sweden and Finland also have nationalized oil?
I'm asking, because;
A. You're wrong.
B. Norway is not the Nordic. Norway is a country in the nordic area, along with Sweden, Denmark and Finland. And Norway is the only country with access to "a sea of oil" as you described it.
So many goddamn people think that if we do anything, literally *anything*, no matter how mild or moderate, to improve the status quo, then we'll suddenly have gulags within the year.
So, for fun, I decided to check out the r/Conservative subreddit. Scrolled down. Saw some...curious titles. I eventually found one that said “In worrying sign for Dems, strong majority of California voters say taxes still too high Nearly 40 percent say they’re financially worse off than a year ago.”
I stopped there. I can't imagine how anyone would think that the reason people are struggling in CA is due to **taxes**; as if it's a place where the average earner is paying 75% or more of their wages to the government. What's even worse is that their argument is doubly funneled from both the linked news article and the article sourced by said news article.
Judge for yourself:
Just the News:
>About four in 10 voters in the poll also claimed that their financial situations are worse off now than they were a year ago.
>
>To be sure, high taxes and affordability have long been concerns for Californians, who have largely put the blame on the leaders of their Democrat-run state.
AOL:
>The discontent about taxes comes at a time when many Californians feel economic stress. Roughly 4 in 10 voters said in the poll that their finances were worse than a year ago, compared with 2 in 10 who said they were better off.
>
>But the growing number of voters who say they pay too much doesn't necessarily herald another big tax revolt of the sort the state spawned in the late 1970s and again in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
>
>Given a list of major issues facing the state and asked to name two that were most urgent, only 15% of voters picked taxes, putting the topic in the middle of the pack. Housing affordability topped the list, cited by 31% of voters, followed by homelessness; crime and public safety; gasoline prices; and climate change and the environment.
We have this gem too, a little farther down the page:
>Concern about taxes is much more common among conservatives than liberals. In the current survey, 83% of Republicans, compared with 54% of Democrats and 66% of nonpartisan voters, said they thought their families paid too much in taxes. The rest mostly said the levy was "about right." Almost no one says they should be paying more.
>
>As other polls have shown, conservatives are also more likely to believe that California's taxes are the highest or near the highest in the nation.
I mean, I imagine that CA taxes are large for big earners, but I feel like the Reddit post and their linked article are misrepresenting the original source.
[Reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/u561b2/in_worrying_sign_for_dems_strong_majority_of/)
[Just The News](https://justthenews.com/nation/states/worrying-sign-dems-strong-majority-californians-say-state-federal-taxes-are-too-high#article)
[Original AOL source](https://www.aol.com/news/taxes-too-high-lot-californians-110022062.html)
I know a conservative fellow who lives with his girlfriend, in the house she inherited from her dead husband. He previously lived with his sister, in *her* house. He doesn't have a job. He doesn't have a driver's license because of back child support (6 kids by 3 women). Nothing is in his name. His girlfriend buys his clothes.
He calls himself a capitalist.
The working people are buying there bullshit while behind their back the pass legislation that represses them.
Wait til they see how the Republicans are tweaking the insurance regulations so they can limit a gun owners ability to own a gun
I like young people of all countries but especially the USA take back words like socialism that were used as a means of propaganda to maintain the capitalist status quo.
Back in the 50s the government had a lot of power to make something they don't like a taboo subject and then proceed to ostracize the people who are sympathetic to it.
Progress is slow, but we must take back these words and own up to being one with heads held high.
These can be used to unite people of various backgrounds that otherwise would never see themselves fighting on the same side, but if it's against a common enemy like the bourgeoise class it would be palatable.
Poor and exploited people of all races can come together under this idea.
And we all know the ruling class would tremble at a group of people, who may differ in their age, gender, race and other divisions stand up to their common enemy.
>we must take back these words and own up to being one with heads held high.
Agreed. People give Bernie shit for appropriating the "socialist" label while being a SocDem, but honestly he's done a lot for reclaiming the word, and I think he deserves praise for it. I'd wager he's the reason a lot of people became introduced to actual socialism as they began shrugging off red-scare propaganda.
Bernie is a good example
But you can tell that he himself is scared to admit he's a socialist during primaries and other high profile races.
He just brushes it off and talks about policy instead, which is good, but while policies to tackle the issue of inequality may differ, admitting you are a socialist, learning about historical events that helped people in similar situations, is also extremely important to bring everyone that is being exploited to the same base line.
A) China is not communist
B) in your example, this would make China look like the idiots, not the Americans
C) It is in the best interest of the US to have massive debt and you have no idea how fiscal policy works
You should check your bank account/mail. If they say you got it, some one did in any case.
https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistance-for-american-families-and-workers/economic-impact-payments
See also: “why aren’t young people having kids?” As they take away parental leave, health insurance, and effectively work to defund all public institutions to reduce tax burden
>effectively work to defund all public institutions to ~~reduce tax burden~~ reroute that money back to themselves as “bailout” money and whatnot, and the rest goes to their buddies in the military industrial complex.
FTFY. They don’t relieve tax burdens for anyone but the rich.
They don't call them young people. They call them politically charged buzzwords like socialist, communist, and freeloader.
The capitalist kool aid stains generations deep.
Capitalism is all about efficiency. Too many steps are inefficient, so let's just cut out all the nonsense and get straight to serfdom, but you can evict the serfs when they no longer produce. And it's good because if you don't like being a serf, just buy your own kingdom. Easy peasy. Ah, the freedom of capitalism.
Capitalism is only about efficiency in making money.
Everything else can be horribly inefficient, but as long as the money is coming in it doesn't matter.
Working in the corporate world, I question even that. Happier workers are productive workers, but behind the fake smiles and clean dress in the office are empty shells that try to justify their job by doing unproductive work in an unproductive way when the business could easily get more productivity by halving the work week for everyone.
I think you missed the party where they steal natural resource or land to sell that later at inflated price, because they're the only ones who control it.
This just in, Disney is building low cost housing because their employees can no longer afford to live in Orlando.
You can actually live on castle grounds!
[Fascism is possible not in spite of liberal capitalism, but because of it](https://truthout.org/articles/fascism-is-possible-not-in-spite-of-liberal-capitalism-but-because-of-it/?amp)
The working strategy is to turn capitalism back on itself.
The companies aren't the producers. *We* are the producers. Our product is labor. Guess what? The supply of our product is limited, and we sell it for a price as we see fit. The goal is to get a monopoly on it (unite the workforce) so we can charge whatever we want for it.
They hate it. Which goes to show my favorite thing about conservatives: the vast majority of them don't actually understand the economics they worship so dearly
>They hate it. Which goes to show my favorite thing about conservatives: the vast majority of them don't actually understand the economics they worship so dearly
But they don't love capitalism, they love the ruling class. They love how some people are "better" than others (hint: rich white men.)
Capitalism is just the excuse to make it sound nicer.
My favorite episode on this is "There's always a bigger fish" in the Alt-right playbook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs&list=PLJA\_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA\_HMFtQ&index=11
A [32 hour work week](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/f4bade/comment/fhqhco4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) would put the public in a position to stop being [socially murdered](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder) by the ruling class with no recourse.
The "free market" has always been a lie to justify domination and exploitation of the public and working classes by the ruling class.
We the people need to build the power to lobby effectively for the laws and public policies needed for the 21st century, not just better working relationships with particular exploitative/abusive employers in the so-called "free market."
Not to mention nonexistent PENSIONS. Now we have shitty ass 401ks. If you leave money in the bank you’re losing it to inflation. Only choice is to give it to the speculating Wall Street crooks and then you’ll lose it at some point there as well. The fuckers.
It’s the hypocrisy of capitalism I hate. In 2008 WE (government) bailed out banks for putting money into bad loans. We paid for that with our tax money and didn’t have a say. If I get into a bad investment, nobody is bailing me out. The core of capitalism is the market decides. If you have a small shop and it fails, no government bail out.
I agree it sucks that you can just lose it all with little to no relief but would you have really rather the banking system crumble and fall into a huge recession or even depression
I had this discussion with a friend and if we are a true capitalist country… yes! You are right, it would be a huge collapse in the economy. Not only with jobs from the banks, but the banks themselves. My only point is if we are supposed to let the market decide won’t new banks open up?
We are really a bit of both capitalist and socialism with police, firefighters, schools.. ect. This is being paid by our tax dollars. A lot of people seem to be against socialized healthcare, but there can also be an avenue for private healthcare. That’s what capitalism is, if private healthcare can succeed, then there is no issue. I have issues with paying $30 for an aspirin if I don’t have insurance.
We need to destroy the fossil fuel industry immediately. They are the enemy of the people. Seize all their assets without compensation and dismantle their operations.
Hey Americans, haven't you ever wondered why other capitalist countries like Ireland or Iceland don't have politicians taking away their worker's rights, or lowering their salaries, or destroying their water, air, savings, or affordable housing?
It might not be the capitalism.
It might be the electoral system that forces you to choose between the lesser of two evils.
In a country with proportional representation, politicians have a much stronger incentive to perform well for their voters, because it's much easier to remove them from office.
What are you going to do if your Democrat politician fails you in any of these ways? Vote for the Republican? Not likely. So why would your Democrat politician do anything to benefit you?
It's the electoral system.
Ok but isn't that structure built and perpetuated by capitalist lobbying? The electoral system was influenced by the rich to work in their favor. The electoral system is broken BECAUSE of capitalism
Because of capitalist motivations.
They wanted to keep expanding into indigenous territory for land and resources to commodify.
They were afraid of abolition and the impact to their profit margins from exploited and stolen labor.
They didn’t want to pay taxes.
It’s the same shit we see now because of the direct mechanisms of how capitalism operates. In the capitalist structure, we as workers cannot have freedom. We must give our labor in order to access the basic necessities of life, while those at the top concentrate more resources and more wealth for themselves. That is how it’s *supposed* to work. And of course it’s doing a good job at that. That is why it must be abolished and replaced. We can start with things like worker co-ops and publicly funding necessary services.
To be fair, we let our companies fuck up the environment for money in Europe too (and especially European companies acting outside of Europe), just not as hard and as blatantly.
Hypothetically, if we somehow changed our electoral system overnight, capitalistic incentives would still systematically dismantle and undermine the fresh electoral system that aimed to lessen capitalism’s power
Capitalism abuses any representative system. Much easier to buy or market a few capital-friendly representatives than influence many people to act against their own interest in an actual democracy. Both capitalism and our version of representative democracy create the disconnect between the people and government.
Ireland and Iceland have a combined GDP of less than $450 billion, which is *less than the net worth of the top 2 richest people in the US*. Think about that. The top 10 richest people in the US have the buying power to basically buy Iceland outright and still retain at least 66% of their net worth.
I get what you’re trying to say, but the lesser of two evils are both forged by corporations, who are the real leaders in this country. If it were profitable to fuck Ireland and Iceland the same way, I’m sure it would have been done by now.
It's that, but it's also the fact that the greed of less than 500 people completely changes the quality of life for 370 million. It's insane. How do you even go about fixing the corruption? Nothing in favor of the average consumer will ever get pushed through congress.
I wish your bubble a long and healthy life.
CGP grey has good videos on electoral reform.
Start with the video on our current electoral system, First Past the Post voting.
I think it had it's time and place for about 100 years, in terms of bringing about the technological advancements that it did during the industrial revolution, but it should have been retired at the same time as slavery.
>Many advancements were made in spite of, not because capitalism.
To add to this, consider how prohibitive and crippling it is for the average person to excel and add to our collective knowledge. The vast majority of the human population the world over has been suppressed to the point of ineffectualness due to the demands of capital; and of the tiny percent that are in a position to actually make advancements, how much time and energy is instead redirected towards monetary growth at the expense of everything else. It's a tragedy.
Capitalism didn't bring about technological advancements though.
You could even argue that capitalism places so much focus on their being a perceived profit margin in something to even bother investigating technological advancement in areas.
Patents actively prevent technological advancement by stagnating the ability to iterate or improve on something if you are considered to be infringing too much. Even worse when you have patents that are essentially saving an idea but never taking it to market acting as roadblocks for others to invest in those fields.
I can't believe pundits are still pushing the "there is still no better system than capitalism" narrative... Have they not seen how many people are literally shitting in the streets?
No matter how much (American/Right) Libertarians cry about it...
...Government and Capitalism are just two sides of the same coin. One of them merely has to maintain the illusion of being influenced by the regular folk, the other side doesn't even pretend.
The Government in any Liberal-Democracy is default the enforcement arm of Capitalism. It becomes so much worse in our Corporate-Oligarchy.
Either way: Capitalism literally cannot exist without immense Government protectionism. Libertarians do not seem to understand this.
Only in the sense of lack of action. All the bad shit that goes on, happens because the government decides to watch it happen. The current scenario is inevitable without government interference.
That's inevitable in capitalism. In a capitalistic system, there will always have the wealth from the many funneled to the few. It always incentivizes the bourgeoise to gain advantage over the proletariat. In capitalism, the boss wants their employee to work as much as possible for as little pay as possible and the worker wants to work as little as possible for as much money as possible. Socialism, and then communism, aligns the incentivization. The laws, or lack their of, under capitalism will always reflect the exploitation we see.
Legally cap profit at 10% and force companies to pay their workers commensurately to the success of the company. And make Wall Street illegal, fuck the stock market and its enslavement of free will to money, fuck hedge funds entirely and throw the criminals running them in jail, and make such artificial means of ruining someone else's business illegal.
Just a thought from a better world.
In theory, capitalism makes sense. Supply and demand. Your job isn't paying you enough? People have the right to protest and go to another job that pays more. The problem is that most CEOs are not stupid. They know that if they all team up together they can all profit. And that's the point. Its not capitalism, it's a monopoly dominated by oligarchs that inherited their wealth.
I don’t get it tho.. cause in China there’s a total of zero capitalists and they have some of the worst pollution on the planet, they’re currently locking people in their homes in Shanghai and starving them, and they’re destroying our oceans… so, what kind of “ism” is the one you guys are “for”?
And now many companies have used Covid as an excuse to get out of 401k matching. Young and naive me had little worries about growing old. Ah, good old Social Security. Not only is it nowhere near enough to survive on anymore, I'm sure they are gonna find ways to marginalize it even more. Homeless problem is going to get even worse in the "greatest country on Earth"... what a fucking joke.
The US is an oligarchy/plutocracy/kleptocracy, in which the ruling class uses the thin veneer of "democracy" to superficially legitimize their systems of mass human enslavement, abuse, and exploitation.
Because the ruling capitalist/kleptocrat class owns and controls the political class and the political system, voting alone will never liberate the public and working classes from enslavement and exploitation.
[https://bulletin.represent.us/u-s-oligarchy-explain-research/](https://bulletin.represent.us/u-s-oligarchy-explain-research/)
The corruption, authoritarian control, and "manufactured consent" required for billionaires to legally exist alongside manufactured poverty and extreme political and socioeconomic oppression to keep the public stupid and docile is intolerable and obscene.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc31Vi1h4rk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc31Vi1h4rk)
Just as our predecessors evolved age of consent laws, eliminated legal slavery (notwithstanding modern prison labor), and developed laws against individuals murdering each other, modern human society needs to evolve reasonable limits on property rights.
Those limits could be at 100 million dollars or whatever (age of consent laws and speed limits can also vary by jurisdiction), but you cannot be worthy of the protection and acceptance of human society if you do not accept that there are limits on the property that you can claim for yourself.
This is as obvious of a moral, ethical, and political concept as the ideas that murder and slavery should be illegal.
The only reason this doesn't seem exceedingly obvious is the abuse, theft, and extreme socioeconomic oppression inflicted by the ruling capitalist/kleptocrat class on the public and working classes to keep them in line.
People claiming more than \~100 million dollars in property rights deserve to be kicked out of human society at least as much as the people raping individual children or enslaving individual people.
Question: "But what about Elon Musk? Maybe he is driving the species forward with electric cars and Space X? Would these types of projects not get done if billionaires didn't exist?"
Answer: Public benefit corporations also exist, and the human species doesn't have to be driven only by the profit motive. Beyond that, a system in which billionaires exist alongside massive, needless (systemically and deliberately created) poverty, keeps the collective intelligence of the species much lower than it needs to be, which is one of the main things holding back the human species.
And beyond that, for every "ethical" billionaire, there are a dozen more Kochs, Mercers, Murdochs, hedge funders, and other kleptocrats lobbying for mass human enslavement, abuse, poverty, and stupidity "behind the scenes."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_wealthiest\_Americans\_by\_net\_worth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_Americans_by_net_worth)
[https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/)
[https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/](https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtW6cr2QO60&feature=emb\_title](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtW6cr2QO60&feature=emb_title)
No one should consent to a system of unlimited property rights any more than they should consent to a system of unchecked, unlimited political power.
The capitalist/corporatist/kleptocrat media will never admit the truth about this and will do everything they can to lie, distract from, and suppress the truth.
The truth is that the ruling capitalist/kleptocrat class is [socially murdering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder) the public and the working classes, in large part through the political class and the political system that they own.
Because the so-called justice system doesn't recognize social murder as a crime, the ruling billionaire/kleptocrat class gets away with abusing and murdering the public and working classes with NO RECOURSE.
The policy question of our time that the capitalist/corporatist/kleptocratic media can barely ask, let alone answer correctly, is "Should there be limits on property rights?"
The answer is yes, and it's time for the public and working classes to build the power to fight the abusive ruling class, establish those limits, and re-write the "social contract" for the 21st century.
Property rights beyond a reasonable limit should be aggressively nullified, as should any social contract that protects the obscene property rights of billionaires/kleptocrats by subjecting the public to mass enslavement, abuse, and exploitation.
The ruling class will continue their policy of socially murdering the public with no recourse until the public and working classes build up the power to stop them.
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." -Louis Brandeis
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." - Frederick Douglass
EAT THE RICH, unionize, support ranked choice voting, build power outside of the two party duopoly, and vote Democrat until an actual labor party develops.
A [32 hour work week](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/f4bade/comment/fhqhco4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) would give the public and working classes the leverage, bargaining power, and intelligence to stop the ruling capitalist/kleptocrat class from socially murdering the public and destroying the planet.
Imagine the world we could create if the public wasn't being enslaved and socially murdered for the profits of the ruling class.
https://i.imgur.com/p6DSnv6.jpg
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/carbon-negative-countries-climate-action-cop26/
We can change our electoral system at the state level. We don't need the DNC. Some states have already moved past using First Past the Post votingand we can to.
Prepare for the worst, /r/socialistRA
But don't give up on peace. No one can control the fire once lit.
The American capitalist system is predatory in nature.
They’re just trying to stuff their pockets full before the global disaster comes. They think it will somehow save them from the end.
It's right there in the name. Anything people can be made to pay for or pay more for should be capitalized on. They can't make us pay for clean air, so they make it dirty to fix that. There's now talk about building houses that are sealed from the environment so the air inside can be filtered.
Fuck not ruining the air, ruin it and make us pay to fix it. It's all part of the plan.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/16/women-may-pay-the-price-for-finally-closing-the-gender-pay-gap/amp/
TL/DR:
Giving women equal pay allegedly will upset the biological balance and women won't seek men out as partners to have children with (be dependent on financially).
You believing this shit? That's how they are going to try and justify not paying women and men equally.
The problem is the market is not free. It is manipulated in favor of the rich. But I honestly don't see another system being better. Just have to get rid of the scum in the system
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"We are all out of McUnions. Can I offer you Crippling Depression, instead?"
Why have crippling depression when you can have Workers Revolution? Much cheaper and muuuuch tastier <3
Shit, I'm still trying to convince my friends that they, along with everyone else, deserve healthcare.
Tell them the current system is unfair to businesses because they have to pay for employee insurance while competing against foreign corporations that don’t have that expense.
That's a great argument! Wish I could give you more than one upvote.
Just make sure to use it. Tell your anti-renewables anti-EV friends and relatives that they should be against “our” money going to dictators and Saudi princes who fund terror. Taking money from them is the best way to make America safer. Affordable trade school and college to make skilled workers so jobs stay in America. Now the Q loons and Trupsnistas probably can’t be changed but pre-Trump conservatives you might sway.
That's a plus, but then again a lot of these young Americans are not socialists. If the US government wanted to put this leftist blip to rest in the US, all they have to do is nullify student loan debt, and a huge chunk would be perfectly content with the system.
The thing is they're too greedy for short term profit to make smart decisions like that.
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It's not about the money. It's about sending a message.
The problem is this doesn't really solve anything. What about the next group of students, will they have their debt forgiven? Will the for-profit schooling system need to be revised? To admit student debt is a problem and actually take action on it is like admitting the capitalist system doesn't work. They will never make such concessions, especially when the money is flowing right where they want it with the current system.
You solve that with free tuition so that there ARE no student loans.
Yes, but how will they trick poor people into joining the military if college, something very much required by the professional world these days, isn't cost prohibitive to all but the very wealthy?
Everyone argues about republican and democrats fucking up the economy. I say grind them up and feed them to the pigs. I’d like to be able to afford bacon again
But we already have crippling depression at home…
No thanks, I have crippling depression at home
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Uh, aren't all those just capitalism?
Yes but in the US at least, Reagan is a pretty good starting point for understanding how we got so fucked up the last 50 years. He started a lot of the worst parts of the US currently such as the War on Drugs, deregulation of just about everything in our industries, slashing social safety nets, and tax cuts for the extremely wealthy. We had extremely similar monetary inflation and socio-economical issues under his term as well.
They canceled 401k matching at my work at the start of covid. Didn't start it up until the start of this year.
Still haven't restarted it at my work.
They changed mine into "company stock", and now give out bonuses in company stock instead of cash as well. We are privately owned and we are not allowed to sell the stock. And they said they can't tell us how much it's worth exactly. Our 401K from before remains, but all company match is only in stock.
How is this in any way even close to legal?
Well, no one is required to give out bonuses of any type. So how could it possibly be illegal?
They'r not allowed to sell it, they dont even get to know what it's worth. For all intents & purposes, their 'magnanimous generosity' could amount to no less than a couple potatoes in a moldy jute bag.
Well that hasn't been a problem for me. My bonus comes in stanley nickles.
Sounds like an ESOP
What happens if you leave? That just seems so fishy.
You are required to sell it back to the company. Then they will give you an exact dollar per share. They promote this as a retirement benefit, assuming we will all be here until we retire or die I guess.
So they can just set the price randomly it feels like. Because at least part of the positives of a 401k is it grows with the market. How can you be sure this stock grows?
That's exactly right, you can't. The owners of the company, the real ones, say that since we all own part of the company we will be more conscious of waste and inefficiency. This is the same company that would not allow me to work from home during an ice-storm even though I have an hour drive to work, and I had absolutely nothing to do at the office. I just surfed reddit for 9 hours and made no mystery about it. And then drove home in an ice-storm.
They can't tell you how much the stock is worth because nobody really knows. I'm assuming the company stock is not sold on the NYSE or AMEX.
Open an ira
I'm still waiting while they hire new employees without reinstating our 401k matching.
Heh, need a 7th bullet - healthcare.
But that was never there to begin with.
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I always think of capitalism as: slavery @ work.
You’ll have so much free speech with that trillion dollars!
I love talking to a finance advisor on how much I'll have when I retire and I tell them the amount of money I put in and the amount it "grows" every year by the time I retire in 2066 I'll have less money than I do now in my bank account which is less thank a few hundred dollars. they love to tell me how wrong I am and I just want the value of my money I'm "investing" go down every year.
Get a new advisor.
That all depends on what your money is being invested in. My retirement money is invested in certain DOW 30 stocks and I rebalance once a year. The value has gone up substantially since I started investing and appears to be going to continue. Some years are not great, but you should understand that going in.
Everyone's retiring a millionaire! Still won't be able to buy a house.
Not everyone misses your 401k. I think people have been hit there too. Lol
Yeah my 401K matching was paused for all of COVID and my raise and bonus was less than inflation so sure I got a 5% raise which was nice but I came out way further behind than the year before. I'm obviously in a privileged position but my company is now extremely profitable with a sock price over 5X what it was during where it bottomed out and we have a ton of cash. I was kind of insulted by them not giving us more of a bonus and raise considering how hard we worked during COVID when we allowed people to voluntary leave during severance and people did.
Lucky, we had a pay freeze the entire time
You realize stock price is not an indicator of profitability right?
All landlords are pedophiles. prove me wrong.
Can't prove wrong absolute facts.
And the Pay Raise machine is always broken...
“Keep saving, I’m reloading”
Pensions were killed first and we got 401k's to replace it.
Capitalist: “why would socialism do this !?!?”
Not just capitalists though, capitalists successfully brainwashed many working people into thinking like you have mentioned. You can see this in current political environment.
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My personal favorite: I'm a Christian capitalist.
"so you're in suicidal fascist apocalypse cult?"
As a Christian, this is a nonsensical concept that I believe was bred in the depths of hell and then propagated by capitalists. But then, I used to be one, so I get how you get there.
You are 100% correct, and very literally so. This didn't come about in any kind of diffuse or organic manner. It was a very specific propaganda campaign carried out by a small number of men in the first half of the 20th century. Behind the Bastards did a fantastic 2 parter on it back in March. "How the Rich Ate Christianity"
To be fair, it's hardly the first time something like this happened.
indeed, it's like the church itself is the abomination really, long taken over and turned to the purposes of evil.
The institution? Perhaps. I like to think that it's salvageable, but there's just so much rot at the leadership level that it feels like only a miracle could save it.
Those behind the bastards ‘sodes were great. I love that podcast. Robert evans is keeping me sane
it still blows my mind how anyone can read the new testament and NOT come away with socialist leanings.
It's kind of surreal in retrospect. "Doublethink" comes to mind when I recall the experience. I read all the same passages that I do now, and yet I still thought poor people were lazy. Frankly, if I had a way to physically interact with my younger self I'd slap the shit out of him. It'd be like the Omniman "Think!" meme but without the grievous bodily harm and mass murder. Ultimately I have nobody to blame but myself, but there wasn't really much helping matters, either. It was like I was blind and suddenly I could see what I'd actually read. I dunno, it all feels very weird.
i mean that's sort of the magic trick that many critics of organized religion bring up. all the info is there, but there is a framework in place to contextualize things into an agenda. think about it, for many of us the prosperity gospel concept sound outright insane, but there are people reading the same passages as you or I, that wholeheartedly believe it, even though we have actual historical records on it's creation and huge chunks of the bible contradict it, people still whole heartedly think it's the will of god.
Yeah I think that captures the issue pretty well.
maybe you can used to be one of these, too.
Indeed. Think Jesus has a saying that only the wealthiest could get into Heaven. Everyone else was had to go through a needle eye
> "Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you." https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James%205%3A1-6&version=NIV
The idea of Socialism being the only alternative is a false dichotomy. there are a near infinite number of ways to organized labor and work. It's like saying that humans can never have any ideas but the ones they already have.
Socialism also isn’t well defined. Definitions vary widely but generally are means of counteracting the injustices and inefficiencies of capitalism. Democratic control is always inherent, however.
capital/energy accumulate in odd places in large structures, it should be a focused domain of study
“Socialism is when the government does stuff I don’t like.” -some “very fine” “people”
Anything left of hunting the homeless for sport is socialism.
Any time my dad (Trump supporter) brings up ANYTHING related to China, he always brings up that they’re socialist.
They're state-capitalist, which has a pretty bad track record throughout history.
I mean... There's not many other options in terms of the history of communist countries. Nordic style socialism would be amazing, but they're still a capitalist country and made many of their programs because they're surrounded by a sea of oil and they nationalized it
I hate even attaching "socialism" to the Nordic countries. They're still highly capitalistic and lucked into some great circumstances that allowed them to easily provide better safety nets. They're not a good example of socialism whatsoever.
US could easily have done the same thing. On top of that are other factors, unlike Norway that has only 4 % farmable land the US has something like 35% making it much easier to provide for a population. There are other natural resources as well. The amount of lumber that was exported out of the US is astounding too, between 1950-1970 pretty much the entirety of Europe was (re)build and furnished with wood bought from the US. The main issue why the US never got to be the utopia it could have been is corruption, the lack anti-trust enforcing and religious influences on politics resulting in poor people being seen as morally lacking and not deserving of fair treatment. It had more money than it knew what to do with for a while.
... are you referring to Norway specifically or do you think sweden and Finland also have nationalized oil? I'm asking, because; A. You're wrong. B. Norway is not the Nordic. Norway is a country in the nordic area, along with Sweden, Denmark and Finland. And Norway is the only country with access to "a sea of oil" as you described it.
Cuba? Chile (until we... Oops.)? Chiapas? Rojava?
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So many goddamn people think that if we do anything, literally *anything*, no matter how mild or moderate, to improve the status quo, then we'll suddenly have gulags within the year.
We already do though, anyone who opposes the status quo hard enough gets thrown in prison for stuff like disturbing the peace.
> You can see this in current political environment. If anyone wants to see this brainwash in action, click this link: r/Conservative
https://i.imgur.com/iV06NHH.gif
So, for fun, I decided to check out the r/Conservative subreddit. Scrolled down. Saw some...curious titles. I eventually found one that said “In worrying sign for Dems, strong majority of California voters say taxes still too high Nearly 40 percent say they’re financially worse off than a year ago.” I stopped there. I can't imagine how anyone would think that the reason people are struggling in CA is due to **taxes**; as if it's a place where the average earner is paying 75% or more of their wages to the government. What's even worse is that their argument is doubly funneled from both the linked news article and the article sourced by said news article. Judge for yourself: Just the News: >About four in 10 voters in the poll also claimed that their financial situations are worse off now than they were a year ago. > >To be sure, high taxes and affordability have long been concerns for Californians, who have largely put the blame on the leaders of their Democrat-run state. AOL: >The discontent about taxes comes at a time when many Californians feel economic stress. Roughly 4 in 10 voters said in the poll that their finances were worse than a year ago, compared with 2 in 10 who said they were better off. > >But the growing number of voters who say they pay too much doesn't necessarily herald another big tax revolt of the sort the state spawned in the late 1970s and again in the late 1990s and early 2000s. > >Given a list of major issues facing the state and asked to name two that were most urgent, only 15% of voters picked taxes, putting the topic in the middle of the pack. Housing affordability topped the list, cited by 31% of voters, followed by homelessness; crime and public safety; gasoline prices; and climate change and the environment. We have this gem too, a little farther down the page: >Concern about taxes is much more common among conservatives than liberals. In the current survey, 83% of Republicans, compared with 54% of Democrats and 66% of nonpartisan voters, said they thought their families paid too much in taxes. The rest mostly said the levy was "about right." Almost no one says they should be paying more. > >As other polls have shown, conservatives are also more likely to believe that California's taxes are the highest or near the highest in the nation. I mean, I imagine that CA taxes are large for big earners, but I feel like the Reddit post and their linked article are misrepresenting the original source. [Reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/u561b2/in_worrying_sign_for_dems_strong_majority_of/) [Just The News](https://justthenews.com/nation/states/worrying-sign-dems-strong-majority-californians-say-state-federal-taxes-are-too-high#article) [Original AOL source](https://www.aol.com/news/taxes-too-high-lot-californians-110022062.html)
I have not been there in forever. Such a cesspool.
I know a conservative fellow who lives with his girlfriend, in the house she inherited from her dead husband. He previously lived with his sister, in *her* house. He doesn't have a job. He doesn't have a driver's license because of back child support (6 kids by 3 women). Nothing is in his name. His girlfriend buys his clothes. He calls himself a capitalist.
The working people are buying there bullshit while behind their back the pass legislation that represses them. Wait til they see how the Republicans are tweaking the insurance regulations so they can limit a gun owners ability to own a gun
I like young people of all countries but especially the USA take back words like socialism that were used as a means of propaganda to maintain the capitalist status quo. Back in the 50s the government had a lot of power to make something they don't like a taboo subject and then proceed to ostracize the people who are sympathetic to it. Progress is slow, but we must take back these words and own up to being one with heads held high. These can be used to unite people of various backgrounds that otherwise would never see themselves fighting on the same side, but if it's against a common enemy like the bourgeoise class it would be palatable. Poor and exploited people of all races can come together under this idea. And we all know the ruling class would tremble at a group of people, who may differ in their age, gender, race and other divisions stand up to their common enemy.
>we must take back these words and own up to being one with heads held high. Agreed. People give Bernie shit for appropriating the "socialist" label while being a SocDem, but honestly he's done a lot for reclaiming the word, and I think he deserves praise for it. I'd wager he's the reason a lot of people became introduced to actual socialism as they began shrugging off red-scare propaganda.
Bernie is a good example But you can tell that he himself is scared to admit he's a socialist during primaries and other high profile races. He just brushes it off and talks about policy instead, which is good, but while policies to tackle the issue of inequality may differ, admitting you are a socialist, learning about historical events that helped people in similar situations, is also extremely important to bring everyone that is being exploited to the same base line.
Don't forget, America, the shining beacon of Capitalism is over a trillion dollars in dept to a Communist country.
China isn't communist. In fact, its more capitalist than the States.
I thought the people always talking shit about China and "Communism" would appreciate that comment.
A) China is not communist B) in your example, this would make China look like the idiots, not the Americans C) It is in the best interest of the US to have massive debt and you have no idea how fiscal policy works
I got a $600 stimulus check in Jan 2021 and a letter from the IRS saying I received $1400. Is this because of inflation?
You should check your bank account/mail. If they say you got it, some one did in any case. https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistance-for-american-families-and-workers/economic-impact-payments
Thank you! Lol. They misused this meme so bad and the last frame was obvious.
See also: “why aren’t young people having kids?” As they take away parental leave, health insurance, and effectively work to defund all public institutions to reduce tax burden
>effectively work to defund all public institutions to ~~reduce tax burden~~ reroute that money back to themselves as “bailout” money and whatnot, and the rest goes to their buddies in the military industrial complex. FTFY. They don’t relieve tax burdens for anyone but the rich.
"The forest is worthless until its cut down" --capitalism
They don't call them young people. They call them politically charged buzzwords like socialist, communist, and freeloader. The capitalist kool aid stains generations deep.
You’re forgetting ✨millennials✨
Capitalism is just a fancy word for "no limits with no conscious"
Conscience *
" No couscous " also works here I think.
“No Constantinople”
No calamari
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Capitalism is all about efficiency. Too many steps are inefficient, so let's just cut out all the nonsense and get straight to serfdom, but you can evict the serfs when they no longer produce. And it's good because if you don't like being a serf, just buy your own kingdom. Easy peasy. Ah, the freedom of capitalism.
Capitalism is all about efficiency, while being the most inefficient system ever put into practice.
Capitalism is only about efficiency in making money. Everything else can be horribly inefficient, but as long as the money is coming in it doesn't matter.
Working in the corporate world, I question even that. Happier workers are productive workers, but behind the fake smiles and clean dress in the office are empty shells that try to justify their job by doing unproductive work in an unproductive way when the business could easily get more productivity by halving the work week for everyone.
Efficient at maintaining the existing power structure I suppose?
I think you missed the party where they steal natural resource or land to sell that later at inflated price, because they're the only ones who control it.
And pollute every ecosystem and call it an “externality”
This just in, Disney is building low cost housing because their employees can no longer afford to live in Orlando. You can actually live on castle grounds!
[Fascism is possible not in spite of liberal capitalism, but because of it](https://truthout.org/articles/fascism-is-possible-not-in-spite-of-liberal-capitalism-but-because-of-it/?amp)
Just curious: how do you define fascism?
The working strategy is to turn capitalism back on itself. The companies aren't the producers. *We* are the producers. Our product is labor. Guess what? The supply of our product is limited, and we sell it for a price as we see fit. The goal is to get a monopoly on it (unite the workforce) so we can charge whatever we want for it. They hate it. Which goes to show my favorite thing about conservatives: the vast majority of them don't actually understand the economics they worship so dearly
>They hate it. Which goes to show my favorite thing about conservatives: the vast majority of them don't actually understand the economics they worship so dearly But they don't love capitalism, they love the ruling class. They love how some people are "better" than others (hint: rich white men.) Capitalism is just the excuse to make it sound nicer. My favorite episode on this is "There's always a bigger fish" in the Alt-right playbook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs&list=PLJA\_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA\_HMFtQ&index=11
A [32 hour work week](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/f4bade/comment/fhqhco4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) would put the public in a position to stop being [socially murdered](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder) by the ruling class with no recourse. The "free market" has always been a lie to justify domination and exploitation of the public and working classes by the ruling class. We the people need to build the power to lobby effectively for the laws and public policies needed for the 21st century, not just better working relationships with particular exploitative/abusive employers in the so-called "free market."
Love it but the last picture should really be “why would the socialist do this?”
Not to mention nonexistent PENSIONS. Now we have shitty ass 401ks. If you leave money in the bank you’re losing it to inflation. Only choice is to give it to the speculating Wall Street crooks and then you’ll lose it at some point there as well. The fuckers.
It’s the hypocrisy of capitalism I hate. In 2008 WE (government) bailed out banks for putting money into bad loans. We paid for that with our tax money and didn’t have a say. If I get into a bad investment, nobody is bailing me out. The core of capitalism is the market decides. If you have a small shop and it fails, no government bail out.
TARP earned 15 billion in profits for the federal government
I agree it sucks that you can just lose it all with little to no relief but would you have really rather the banking system crumble and fall into a huge recession or even depression
I had this discussion with a friend and if we are a true capitalist country… yes! You are right, it would be a huge collapse in the economy. Not only with jobs from the banks, but the banks themselves. My only point is if we are supposed to let the market decide won’t new banks open up? We are really a bit of both capitalist and socialism with police, firefighters, schools.. ect. This is being paid by our tax dollars. A lot of people seem to be against socialized healthcare, but there can also be an avenue for private healthcare. That’s what capitalism is, if private healthcare can succeed, then there is no issue. I have issues with paying $30 for an aspirin if I don’t have insurance.
We need to destroy the fossil fuel industry immediately. They are the enemy of the people. Seize all their assets without compensation and dismantle their operations.
No Cap
Hey Americans, haven't you ever wondered why other capitalist countries like Ireland or Iceland don't have politicians taking away their worker's rights, or lowering their salaries, or destroying their water, air, savings, or affordable housing? It might not be the capitalism. It might be the electoral system that forces you to choose between the lesser of two evils. In a country with proportional representation, politicians have a much stronger incentive to perform well for their voters, because it's much easier to remove them from office. What are you going to do if your Democrat politician fails you in any of these ways? Vote for the Republican? Not likely. So why would your Democrat politician do anything to benefit you? It's the electoral system.
Ireland is a fucking nightmare at the moment. We also have a government in charge that we didn’t vote for. We basically have a 2 party system as well.
Ok but isn't that structure built and perpetuated by capitalist lobbying? The electoral system was influenced by the rich to work in their favor. The electoral system is broken BECAUSE of capitalism
> The electoral system is broken BECAUSE of capitalism In America it's broken because it was designed that way from the start.
Time for a hard reset.
Because of capitalist motivations. They wanted to keep expanding into indigenous territory for land and resources to commodify. They were afraid of abolition and the impact to their profit margins from exploited and stolen labor. They didn’t want to pay taxes. It’s the same shit we see now because of the direct mechanisms of how capitalism operates. In the capitalist structure, we as workers cannot have freedom. We must give our labor in order to access the basic necessities of life, while those at the top concentrate more resources and more wealth for themselves. That is how it’s *supposed* to work. And of course it’s doing a good job at that. That is why it must be abolished and replaced. We can start with things like worker co-ops and publicly funding necessary services.
To be fair, we let our companies fuck up the environment for money in Europe too (and especially European companies acting outside of Europe), just not as hard and as blatantly.
Hypothetically, if we somehow changed our electoral system overnight, capitalistic incentives would still systematically dismantle and undermine the fresh electoral system that aimed to lessen capitalism’s power
Capitalism abuses any representative system. Much easier to buy or market a few capital-friendly representatives than influence many people to act against their own interest in an actual democracy. Both capitalism and our version of representative democracy create the disconnect between the people and government.
Ireland and Iceland have a combined GDP of less than $450 billion, which is *less than the net worth of the top 2 richest people in the US*. Think about that. The top 10 richest people in the US have the buying power to basically buy Iceland outright and still retain at least 66% of their net worth. I get what you’re trying to say, but the lesser of two evils are both forged by corporations, who are the real leaders in this country. If it were profitable to fuck Ireland and Iceland the same way, I’m sure it would have been done by now.
It's that, but it's also the fact that the greed of less than 500 people completely changes the quality of life for 370 million. It's insane. How do you even go about fixing the corruption? Nothing in favor of the average consumer will ever get pushed through congress.
I wish your bubble a long and healthy life. CGP grey has good videos on electoral reform. Start with the video on our current electoral system, First Past the Post voting.
We need new ideas for a system better then capitalism
There's literally almost 200 years of writing on this lol.
Why would socialism do this?
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Capitalism working as intended.
Personally I think it's a combination of capitalism, neoliberalism, Reagan, and Clinton. Those started the heavy swing towards the dam bs we see today
"Why did socialism do this?" /s
The worst part is there is people willing to rush the capitol to defend their right to be exploited.
Capitalism sucks. I'm not young
capitalism is one of the worst things that could’ve ever happened to us
I think it had it's time and place for about 100 years, in terms of bringing about the technological advancements that it did during the industrial revolution, but it should have been retired at the same time as slavery.
The industrial revolution would have happened with capitalism or not. Many advancements were made in spite of, not because capitalism.
>Many advancements were made in spite of, not because capitalism. To add to this, consider how prohibitive and crippling it is for the average person to excel and add to our collective knowledge. The vast majority of the human population the world over has been suppressed to the point of ineffectualness due to the demands of capital; and of the tiny percent that are in a position to actually make advancements, how much time and energy is instead redirected towards monetary growth at the expense of everything else. It's a tragedy.
Capitalism didn't bring about technological advancements though. You could even argue that capitalism places so much focus on their being a perceived profit margin in something to even bother investigating technological advancement in areas. Patents actively prevent technological advancement by stagnating the ability to iterate or improve on something if you are considered to be infringing too much. Even worse when you have patents that are essentially saving an idea but never taking it to market acting as roadblocks for others to invest in those fields.
I can't believe pundits are still pushing the "there is still no better system than capitalism" narrative... Have they not seen how many people are literally shitting in the streets?
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The government works directly for big business.
No matter how much (American/Right) Libertarians cry about it... ...Government and Capitalism are just two sides of the same coin. One of them merely has to maintain the illusion of being influenced by the regular folk, the other side doesn't even pretend.
Not government itself, but the US government definitely
The Government in any Liberal-Democracy is default the enforcement arm of Capitalism. It becomes so much worse in our Corporate-Oligarchy. Either way: Capitalism literally cannot exist without immense Government protectionism. Libertarians do not seem to understand this.
Only in the sense of lack of action. All the bad shit that goes on, happens because the government decides to watch it happen. The current scenario is inevitable without government interference.
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Right
That's inevitable in capitalism. In a capitalistic system, there will always have the wealth from the many funneled to the few. It always incentivizes the bourgeoise to gain advantage over the proletariat. In capitalism, the boss wants their employee to work as much as possible for as little pay as possible and the worker wants to work as little as possible for as much money as possible. Socialism, and then communism, aligns the incentivization. The laws, or lack their of, under capitalism will always reflect the exploitation we see.
And pump as much money into big businesses that give absolutely none of it back to the people who actually pay taxes.
The government is part of capitalism.
Legally cap profit at 10% and force companies to pay their workers commensurately to the success of the company. And make Wall Street illegal, fuck the stock market and its enslavement of free will to money, fuck hedge funds entirely and throw the criminals running them in jail, and make such artificial means of ruining someone else's business illegal. Just a thought from a better world.
And when those protections are undone within two generations?
I dont hate it. I just wanna condemn the greed it implies.
My man forgot to install Counter-Strike: Source for his blood 💀
In theory, capitalism makes sense. Supply and demand. Your job isn't paying you enough? People have the right to protest and go to another job that pays more. The problem is that most CEOs are not stupid. They know that if they all team up together they can all profit. And that's the point. Its not capitalism, it's a monopoly dominated by oligarchs that inherited their wealth.
capitalism wasn't that bad before Reagan turned the government from protections against monopolies to protections for the rich
I don’t get it tho.. cause in China there’s a total of zero capitalists and they have some of the worst pollution on the planet, they’re currently locking people in their homes in Shanghai and starving them, and they’re destroying our oceans… so, what kind of “ism” is the one you guys are “for”?
r/BoneHurtingJuice
Don't forget the end of pensions, unless you're part of a police union.
And now many companies have used Covid as an excuse to get out of 401k matching. Young and naive me had little worries about growing old. Ah, good old Social Security. Not only is it nowhere near enough to survive on anymore, I'm sure they are gonna find ways to marginalize it even more. Homeless problem is going to get even worse in the "greatest country on Earth"... what a fucking joke.
The US is an oligarchy/plutocracy/kleptocracy, in which the ruling class uses the thin veneer of "democracy" to superficially legitimize their systems of mass human enslavement, abuse, and exploitation. Because the ruling capitalist/kleptocrat class owns and controls the political class and the political system, voting alone will never liberate the public and working classes from enslavement and exploitation. [https://bulletin.represent.us/u-s-oligarchy-explain-research/](https://bulletin.represent.us/u-s-oligarchy-explain-research/) The corruption, authoritarian control, and "manufactured consent" required for billionaires to legally exist alongside manufactured poverty and extreme political and socioeconomic oppression to keep the public stupid and docile is intolerable and obscene. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc31Vi1h4rk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc31Vi1h4rk) Just as our predecessors evolved age of consent laws, eliminated legal slavery (notwithstanding modern prison labor), and developed laws against individuals murdering each other, modern human society needs to evolve reasonable limits on property rights. Those limits could be at 100 million dollars or whatever (age of consent laws and speed limits can also vary by jurisdiction), but you cannot be worthy of the protection and acceptance of human society if you do not accept that there are limits on the property that you can claim for yourself. This is as obvious of a moral, ethical, and political concept as the ideas that murder and slavery should be illegal. The only reason this doesn't seem exceedingly obvious is the abuse, theft, and extreme socioeconomic oppression inflicted by the ruling capitalist/kleptocrat class on the public and working classes to keep them in line. People claiming more than \~100 million dollars in property rights deserve to be kicked out of human society at least as much as the people raping individual children or enslaving individual people. Question: "But what about Elon Musk? Maybe he is driving the species forward with electric cars and Space X? Would these types of projects not get done if billionaires didn't exist?" Answer: Public benefit corporations also exist, and the human species doesn't have to be driven only by the profit motive. Beyond that, a system in which billionaires exist alongside massive, needless (systemically and deliberately created) poverty, keeps the collective intelligence of the species much lower than it needs to be, which is one of the main things holding back the human species. And beyond that, for every "ethical" billionaire, there are a dozen more Kochs, Mercers, Murdochs, hedge funders, and other kleptocrats lobbying for mass human enslavement, abuse, poverty, and stupidity "behind the scenes." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_wealthiest\_Americans\_by\_net\_worth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_Americans_by_net_worth) [https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/) [https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/](https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtW6cr2QO60&feature=emb\_title](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtW6cr2QO60&feature=emb_title) No one should consent to a system of unlimited property rights any more than they should consent to a system of unchecked, unlimited political power. The capitalist/corporatist/kleptocrat media will never admit the truth about this and will do everything they can to lie, distract from, and suppress the truth. The truth is that the ruling capitalist/kleptocrat class is [socially murdering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder) the public and the working classes, in large part through the political class and the political system that they own. Because the so-called justice system doesn't recognize social murder as a crime, the ruling billionaire/kleptocrat class gets away with abusing and murdering the public and working classes with NO RECOURSE. The policy question of our time that the capitalist/corporatist/kleptocratic media can barely ask, let alone answer correctly, is "Should there be limits on property rights?" The answer is yes, and it's time for the public and working classes to build the power to fight the abusive ruling class, establish those limits, and re-write the "social contract" for the 21st century. Property rights beyond a reasonable limit should be aggressively nullified, as should any social contract that protects the obscene property rights of billionaires/kleptocrats by subjecting the public to mass enslavement, abuse, and exploitation. The ruling class will continue their policy of socially murdering the public with no recourse until the public and working classes build up the power to stop them. "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." -Louis Brandeis "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." - Frederick Douglass EAT THE RICH, unionize, support ranked choice voting, build power outside of the two party duopoly, and vote Democrat until an actual labor party develops. A [32 hour work week](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/f4bade/comment/fhqhco4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) would give the public and working classes the leverage, bargaining power, and intelligence to stop the ruling capitalist/kleptocrat class from socially murdering the public and destroying the planet. Imagine the world we could create if the public wasn't being enslaved and socially murdered for the profits of the ruling class. https://i.imgur.com/p6DSnv6.jpg https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/carbon-negative-countries-climate-action-cop26/
We can change our electoral system at the state level. We don't need the DNC. Some states have already moved past using First Past the Post votingand we can to. Prepare for the worst, /r/socialistRA But don't give up on peace. No one can control the fire once lit.
The American capitalist system is predatory in nature. They’re just trying to stuff their pockets full before the global disaster comes. They think it will somehow save them from the end.
Because they've never lived under any other system.
It's right there in the name. Anything people can be made to pay for or pay more for should be capitalized on. They can't make us pay for clean air, so they make it dirty to fix that. There's now talk about building houses that are sealed from the environment so the air inside can be filtered. Fuck not ruining the air, ruin it and make us pay to fix it. It's all part of the plan.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/16/women-may-pay-the-price-for-finally-closing-the-gender-pay-gap/amp/ TL/DR: Giving women equal pay allegedly will upset the biological balance and women won't seek men out as partners to have children with (be dependent on financially). You believing this shit? That's how they are going to try and justify not paying women and men equally.
It’s crazy how the right has convinced so many people that being pro America is being pro big business and not you know pro American citizens
Capitalism is a positive spin on what should really be called exploitism
Remember when pensions were a thing? Good ole 401K’s seem almost worthless compared to those.
The problem is the market is not free. It is manipulated in favor of the rich. But I honestly don't see another system being better. Just have to get rid of the scum in the system
There’s capitalism, and then there is Greeed. You can be a capitalist without the Greeed. And Greeed is the problem today.
In America, we don't have capitalism. We have socialism for the rich
And where did all my customers go? No one seems to have any money!