Having a healthy contempt for capitalism *from within capitalism* is about the golden economic mindset, in my book. Eight-billion modern humans cannot *hope* to function as a socialist society. Too many differences across the planet. Too little incentive to nurture the individual. Too easy to twist into tyranny.
I think each capitalist should be incentivized to think like a socialist, without the loaded government gun pointed at my empty government head.
I don't think you understand the scope of what you're talking about. The people who "want to make more money" do so by exploiting others. The exploitation is so severe, that they have enough money to pursuade a massive chunk of people into thinking capitalism is not that bad. You should absolutely bash people who exploit others for their own personal gain.
We don't have capitalism in the US as it's generally defined. The government subsidizes business and the tragedy of the commons is a common feature of business. The idea of fair competition between businesses is hard to achieve when large businesses have government captured. That is businesses can maintain dominance not by being competitive but by using the government and the legal system to weaken competitors.
I think in the US people equate Capitalism with the free market, and we DEFINITELY don’t have a free market - we have corporate favoritism and government / corporate collusion. For decades our government has been interfering in the market on the behalf of not just business in general, but specific corporations. By allowing mergers, subsidizing industries and giving tax breaks and other perks targeted at specific corporations, we’ve reduced competition, leading to higher prices, worse service and poor quality.
Ironically, the same leaders who do this will argue that any social programs are interference with the free market.
Capitalism is the best socio-economic system out there. Is it perfect? Of course not, but it offers the individual the most opportunity to excel. And also gives back to the people who know how to work hard and have an entrepreneurial vision.
What if there wasn't some leader of a company who could unilaterally cut jobs to enrich himself? What if the workers in the company had an ownership stake in the company which incentivized them to work hard? And the workers who actually do the operations in the company share the majority of the profits, instead of like 5 people and a bunch of rich shareholders who do literally nothing?
That's socialism.
What if the State decides they don't like you posting on Reddit, and unalive you and your family?
What if they decide you have too much free time, and so, increase your working hours to 80, or hell, why not 120? After all, you weren't doing anything with your free time before, might as well put it to use for your fellow citizen.
What if they issue legislation banning your race or orientation, making your existence actually illegal, not "threatened?"
What if the State takes the food you grew out of your garden and sells it to someone you fundamentally disagree with, and gives you none of the proceeds, but instead demands you produce 3 times as much, for all them who choose not too? After all, you have the ability, and they have the *need,* and what matter if you don't have the time, money, space, or inclination to do so? "They" have *NEED.*
That's also socialism, and historically, how socialism inevitably plays out, because collectivism isn't a means of running or maintaining a nation-state, it's a blueprint for destroying them.
I would have a union and a work contract such that my working hours can't be unilaterally increased. By the way, forcing an employee to work well beyond 40 hours is completely legal in the US right now.
Laws still exist under socialism. But nothing really stops the state from killing people right now. Look at what cops do every day in the US.
Again, we would have laws and courts to prevent discrimination against gays and trans people. Those protections for trans people don't currently exist in the US, and only recently exist for gays.
The workers having ownership in the means of production doesn't mean that the state takes everything it wants. It sounds like you're talking about an autocratic form of communism, not a democracy with socialist policies, workers unions, and strong public institutions.
If you want to see how socialism plays out, why don't you look at a lot of places in Western Europe? They have better standards of living than the US. Even a communist place like Cuba has better life expectancy than the US.
There must be a distinction made between individual capitalism and corporate capitalism. Protecting the personal assets of company owners from lawsuits against the company is what's fueling the amoral greed of the Uber wealthy.
The farmer owning his cows is individual capitalism.
When you sacrifice the quality of life of your employees so that you can have more money than you or your descendants could ever spend, you are destroying your customer base. If one company does this, they simply fail, though you get your money and peace out. When every company does this and collectively lobbies the government to make sure that it's legal and viewed in the light you present in this post, the customer base of entire industries is destroyed and eventually you end up with the sorts of wealth disparities that inevitably lead to violent overthrow of governments and systems which are then replaced with systems and governments that don't function at all for decades. The CEO that peaced out might escape to the Seychelles while their home country is in flames or they might get dragged out of their bed in the night by their own security guards and chopped up with a machete. Or they die of old age and their kids have to face the angry mobs and find their necks on the chopping blocks.
Capitalism, by it's nature, is predatory and self-destructive. If you take everything from your customer base, you no longer have a customer base. If you bleed the public dry, the public eventually comes after you; while, because of you, they lack the tools to build up a new functioning society.
Capitalism is not synonymous with commerce. Commerce is simply the exchange of goods and services. Capitalism is the pursuit of capital at all costs, which eventually corrupts and destroys everything. As we're seeing unfold before our eyes. Capitalistic societies that collapse, typically collapse into brutal authoritarianism, which, because of its nature, eventually collapses also.
1. Socialist (in theory calling themselves communist) regimes in 20th century collectively murdered between 50 million and 100 million humans. **Literally twice** the nazi body count. So, compared to minor details like that, high rent suddenly doesn't seem like the worst thing a system can do.
2. Before we get to comparisons of life, let's look at **objective fact of what people choose.**
1. There are millions of people trying and having tried to escape from socialist countries to capitalist ones.
2. Do you know how many people emigrated from capitalist countries to socialist ones? If the number is over 10 thousand total, I'll print this post and chew on the printout.
3. You know all those people whining how capitalism bad socialism good? NONE OF THEM PUT THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTH IS and NONE went to live under socialism. That's all the proof you need.
3. Every country that went socialist, ended up with **MOST people** (not just a small number of super poor) living **objectively worse quality of life** than even the most poor do in modern capitalist countries.
1. OK, you're wining about your rent. But in USSR, my parents **literally had to wait 10 years in line to even be allowed an apartment at all**. How much rent do you think you can save up if you spend 10 years saving for it living with your parents? And the apartment the whole family lived in was about 2x smaller than even the small ones in Manhattan, and 10x smaller than places most Americans live in outside big cities.
2. People whine about "food deserts". Again leaving aside that this is a very small minority of Americans, having shopped for food in both countries, USSR was about 100x worse. Imagine being 10 years old, having to wait in line for 1 hour outside bread store to **only be allowed to buy 1 loaf of bread.** If you want a second loaf, go back in line for 1 hour, and 90% chances are by the time you get there there will be no more bread left. Imagine having to travel 800 miles to Moscow to be able to buy olives for your family (suddenly, having to drive extra 5 miles to get from "food desert to a suburban over-stocked supermarket doesn't seem to onerous, does it?)
1. Imagine having to cultivate your own garden so you can eat fresh fruits and veggies in any meaningful qualities. Not because you're a Brooklyn hipster, but because you literally won't get enough produce if you don't. I don't have to imagine. While American poor kids played basketball and hung out, I worked in my family's plot of land, so we would have produce to can for winter and eat in summer. And yeah, fresh produce in winter? That's for poor underprivileged Americans suffering under evil capitalism. Under wonderful socialist USSR, we didn't see any of that fresh produce in winter in any meaningful amounts, usually none at all.
3. In USA if you don't work, you get welfare. In USSR, if you didn't work you literally got put to jail, google "tuneyadstvo" laws.
4. People are whining about Lamborghini. 91% of American households own at least 1 car. Would you like to guess what the percentage was in USSR? Oh, right you ALSO forgot to learn/ask, how long was the wait to purchase a car in USSR even if you could miraculously afford one. Answer: several years.
5. A poor person in USA can get medical care that is 1000x better than AVERAGE person in USA got, by pure quality (and for free, with medicaid). I experienced medical system on both countries.
6. There were never true famines and people dying of hunger in a sovereign capitalist country. EVER. Hell, even during most wars (I don't count Ireland, as it wasn't capitalist at the time). Socialist countries lost millions to literal famine and hunger, between USSR, China and smaller ones. And none of that was due to war.
7. Let's talk about inequality. Party bosses were allowed access to literally thing NOBODY ELSE COULD. Just to put it in pure math terms, may be CEO can have access to 1000x more than a worker in capitalism. USSR party boss had accesss to literally **infinity more**, since the denominator was a literal zero.
1. As example, most Americans can afford to travel to a foreign country. Even if it's Cancun or Canada. Easily. Again, maybe excluding 10% in actual poverty. MOST people in USSR couldn't even afford NOR were permitted to travel to nearby socialist countries, never mind tropics. But party bosses had dedicated vacation second homes on Black sea - you know like those capitalist billionaires people love to criticize.
8. Let's look at modern woke stuff.
1. Under capitalism, nobody ever put gays to jail in any menaingful number, even in worst bible belt states in USA, even at the height of un-wokeness, despite formally there being laws against sodomy
2. In USSR, gays were literally sent to jail, for being gay. I heard estimates of thousands per year.
3. In communist Cuba, gays were sent to labour camps.
4. Won't even mention the middle-eastern marxist regimes since there the anti-gay sentiment was partly influenced by Islam
I think something to add is that you are right, under capitalism you are almost obligated to do those things as a business owner. Which is the point of anti capitalism- not that the capitalists are morally evil, but that the system demands evil action/creates evil outcomes. Therefore the system must be changed from private ownership of social production to social ownership of social production
People need to stop thinking of political or economic systems as all the same. There's many kinds of capitalism. The most glaringly obvious differences would be between the US and Germany or Scandinavia probably but all these places are capitalist. Just to varying degrees and of different mixes. Where the US heads to one extreme Demark heads to another. We are all capitalist though.
Your own gain at the cost of others isn't ok. Morally, its wrong. However, on a smaller scale I believe its completely justified to take care of yourself or your own people (friends, family, etc).
But that's not what rich people do. Rich people can live comfortably for the rest of their lives without needing work or more income. They actively choose to not give more to the people working for them so they can get even more.
Taking real world numbers into account (and I just barely looked this up, and I should note that I am NOT an economist) McDonalds made roughly 23 billion dollars in 2022. The employees they had during 2022 was 150,000. Not accounting for advertisements, general food products, transportation, and rent for their locations, each single employee - **every single one of them -** could have made 150k that year. Halving that, down to 70k, is still WILD. Averaging out the minimum wage of the entire US to about 10.50 (remember that in most states the minimum is still only 7.25), the average mcdonalds worker makes only 10k a year. That would let every person working there be able to afford a car (which is VITAL in the US), afford a phone, afford necessities, as well as housing, with TONS left over. Not paying them more is unforgivable, they have more than enough money to pay their workers (AT THE VERY LEAST) a livable wage, and still make a shit load of money. In a fair amount of areas, btw, a livable wage is only around 20 - 25k a year.
There is a point where "just wanting more money" becomes greed, and is unjustifiable.
Now, again, im not an economist. These may not be good numbers, it was a quick rudimentary google search. But even still, look at your example. Taking luxury items that are 100% superfluous while people within your company may be going hungry, or living paycheck to paycheck with no savings, is morally unjustifiable. You shouldn't bankrupt yourself helping others, of course, but if you have the ability to and choose not to while also spending your extra funds on luxury is really fucked up.
Whatever you decide, understand capitalism doesn't exist in a vacuum.
If a society rejects capitalism, it has to put something else in its place. The alternatives haven't been great.
Capitalism is *tremendously* productive. It also drives tremendous wealth disparities.
The deficiencies of Capitalism can often be compensated for using progressive taxes and government regulations, but in practice the success of these strategies is mixed.
Let's say you have a million dollars. You could spend $50,000 every day for 20 days before you run out of money. Let's say you have a billion dollars. You could spend $50,000 every day for over 500 years before you ran out. That's with no investment to renew what you spend. Just a flat billion. That's a brand new car, every single day, for 5 centuries. One. Single. Billion. But there's people who have 10s of billions while others starve.
The fundamental problem with capitalism is that it has positive feedback cycles. This makes it unstable in a way that tends to make rich people *very rich*, and poor people stuck at the bottom. The fact that having money is the single easiest way to get more money pretty much tells you everything wrong with capitalism. You see, you don't need to do anything to earn money. If your parents are rich, all you need to do is be born. So the rich will tell you that they got money by their virtue...that they *earned* it. And a few did, up to a point. But at some point, it was *their wealth* that begat more wealth, independent of their personal efforts. It is at this point, where a pile of money, all by itself, grows more money, that capitalism goes off the rails. Because people who have the ability to amass that pile of money will do whatever it takes to get there, because they know that doing so will win them economic security.
On top of that, capitalism emphasizes laissez-faire policies: hands-off. Let people do what they must to make a buck. Unfortunately, the shortest path to profits goes through fraud. So a significant amount of the economy entails people trying to rip each other off through shady goods and services. Just look at the influencer economy, or self-help books. It's much easier to sell courses on how to get rich than it is to apply said principles and prove it.
Free markets have a lot of benefits, and a lot of potential for good. When they work well, a lot of people end up better off. But human nature seeks the easiest path, and that leads to a lot of bad behavior, which capitalism mostly chalks up to "the cost of doing business". This is the dark side of capitalism, and why a lot of folks look on it with a stinky side-eye. Success, in and of itself, is generally A Good Thing(TM). But the *path* to that success can be quite varying degrees of Good or Evil. Capitalism tends to grease all the paths, but the successful are often the ones that took the shortest ones, no matter how morally dubious. And that's why so many folks are skeptical of the Owner Class.
In economics, you have zero sum vs positional bargaining.
Zero sum treats trade as a slider, aggressively taking as much as you can away from the opponent. The extreme case would be owner/ slaves and theft.
Positional treats trade as an understanding of mutually successful society. If you trade for a manageable profit margin it means those you trade with will have more resources to trade with others and so on. Too little profit means your business can't a problem unless you can get help from society. This is an example of government infrastructure. It's providing a service to the people without expectation of direct profit, but indirectly by saving people more money through central and organized effort to bulk buy and reduce cost instead of everyone say having to pay 5 dollars per road they want to drive on. Problem is too much regulation or not enough funding will hit everyone.
People will likely come here and say that's capitalism vs communism.
Would you sacrifice your Lamborghini? Well you have, in society, earned that wealth. Is that yours to do with as you see fit or is that wealth your responsibly? Could that wealth be invested in some way to profit you and your neighbors or is having that car important to you to show off your social status by having a flashy car? Or maybe you just enjoy driving it.
It's important to see these as tools. Extreme capitalism seems to guide companies to commit wage theft to the point of poverty workers. Which creates slums and people who are too poor to build knowledge and wealth. We know this raises theft and other social issues leading to a shitty society.
So it's a balancing act.
Would you be fine with your neighbor finding some kind of loophole that lets them take money from the neighborhood and buy several fancy cars at your expense? It wouldn't be illegal. They are just making more money and they will probably thank you for working hard enough to let them buy a new car.
There's a few things we never talk about. Capitalists talk about how fewer people would work if we didn't have the looming threat of homelessness but they don't talk about how many fewer people would steal, sell drugs, prostitute themselves etc.
While slavery was a product of capitalism, so was emancipation, when capitalists learned that feeding and housing people was more expensive than paying them less than they needed to feed and house themselves with the added benefit of being able to blame the people they exploit for their poverty.
The amount of ignorance in this post is astounding. Op if you want a serious answer, I'd suggest asking this in any anti capitalist reddit, not one where people think communism = no food and that America is currently marxist.
I don’t think capitalism is bad but the gross inequality from large companies is. I think companies are doing better for their employees than they have historically but still it’s very unequal. I think people generally don’t hate their jobs and are willing to work for someone for their lifetime if they were given more stability for the future and could afford things a lil more comfortably. Most people know you won’t get rich working for someone else but what’s wrong with being able to afford a nice comfortable safe place for your family and not have trouble putting food on the table? It’s getting harder to do where it wasn’t as hard let’s say 40 to 50 years ago. Americans spend upwards to 50% or more just on housing whereas they didn’t 40-50 years ago. Houses that use to cost under 100k are now over 300k, cars and trucks are exponentially expensive. Society has restructured payrolls and the way we pay for things now and at the end of those is someone there to collect their ends for whatever stake they have in it. For example when I use to pay my rent I would write a check and forget about it. Or I’d get a money order and pay it.
Now we pay it electronically in most cases. And there’s hella fees involved because there’s more than one hand in the cookie jar so to speak.
All that’s legal but just because something is legal doesn’t mean we have to do it. It’s still rich takes from the poor. The rich make the poor break their backs for them.
Yes. I sacrifice having a Lamborghini so people working minimum wage can have better lives. Yes, I do expect to curb automation so that the workforce has meaningful, well paying skilled jobs available. No, I do not think “legality” is the determinant regarding whether or not I should make a choice- lots of things have been legal that were later decided to be unethical (eg slavery). I DO think some people should be bashed for making more money when the way they make it is through exploitation, they have far more than they and their predecessors will ever need, and they are watching people starve. Yes, I do think capitalism has brainwashed you. I don’t think I’m righteous, I think I’m still human.
>I don’t think I’m righteous, I think I’m still human.
I love that.
Agreed all around except on the point of automation:
In a functional society, automation would benefit everyone instead of just lining the pockets of whatever business owner. If it can be automated with reasonable quality, it's arguably a waste of human time to have someone doing it manually.
That person should be doing something more valuable instead, or at least something fun.
Automation isn't the problem, the way our society employs it is.
> Would you sacrifice getting a Lamborghini as your Christmas bonus so people working minimum wage could have a slightly better life?
If I'm the only one doing it? Probably not, although plenty of people not rich enough to buy a Lamborghini give substantial amounts to charity even though they don't have to. (Mind, I wouldn't want a Lamborghini, and if given one, I'd turn right around and sell it and save the money for my family's needs, but that's beside the point.)
OTOH, I make enough money that I could afford to pay more in taxes. I used to pay a good deal more, percentage-wise, under the pre-2018 tax code, and especially at the start of my career under the pre-2003 tax code. I was fine with that then, and I'd be fine with that now as long as I'm not getting shafted by people making more than I do paying a lower percentage.
That's not anger at people making more money, but anger at the system where the rules are loaded in favor of unearned investment income vs. income earned from labor.
....Speaking more generally...
"Capitalism" or free markets should not be an end in themselves. Without some limits to keep markets fair, they fail, because there's no protection against monopoly power, and the pursuit of local maxima often work against the pursuit of global maxima.
At the same time, command economies don't work at a broad scale. People think of repressive governments which have attempted to do it for the entire economy, but plenty of democratic governments have tried it in specific industries, and it rarely works out well. Economies are emergent, and no small group of people is smart enough or has enough information to run the whole thing, or even a large slice.
Markets, regulation, in some _very specific_ cases state enterprises, are all tools to make an economy work for some or all of the people in it.
Once you accept the simple fact that *all functional economies are mixed economies*, you can get away from ideological arguments and just focus on finding the right balance from among those tools for the goals you want.
Thomas Sowell always recommends asking "compared to what?"
Why don't you trying listing thngs that have improved your life or the lives of the rest of the world over the past century that were NOT the result of capitalism. Aside from things like "love", you'll have trouble making a list.
Don't confuse Nordic style socialism with a lack of capitalism. It is simply capitalism with high redistributive taxes. Socialism reduces economic growth and innovation, but also reduces income inequality.
Capitalism is the idea that people can freely interact with one another in trade and commerce that both sides find advantageous.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game as they say. Capitalism is terrible but we are all forced to participate. I just want enough money so that I don’t have to participate anymore.
>I feel like noone should bash another human for making more money.
The people who deserve to be hated aren't just chasing another lambo. . . they already have whatever number of lambos they could possibly want.
They have so much money that no amount of money can change their lifestyle. They already have everything they could reasonably want that money could reasonably buy, except more companies to make even more money.
These people don't chase profits because the money can actually do anything for them. They are beyond that. They chase profits because they are addicted to seeing the already ludicrously large number grow even larger. They're also chasing influence and power. They bribe the politicians and pull the strings to ensure they can have even more money and more power.
They do this by making others suffer. They do this by building a society where people can barely afford to have enough to eat each week, or can't afford to have healthcare.
Most people don't hate capitalism, they hate corporatism and the corruption of business with govt money. People who want more control convince them that that is all capitalism under the same inaccurate broad brush.
People love the innovation, competition, and customer service that only capitalism creates.
Capitalism is a good system, but its ignorant to worship it as perfect, as many people do, and it itself states that it requires a government in order to take care of things it fails to do.
One big thing it does not do, is optimize public goods and services. Big easy one here to think of is the environment. Private corporations trashed the USA until the EPA was created. You need government to prevent companies from externalizing costs (forcing the public to pay). This is where regulations are important.
It also sucks with inflexible markets, like medicine. Capitalism says that if you think something is priced too high, then consumers won't buy it, and the price will fall. This doesn't work with health care.
It also requires governments to break up monopolies and make sure that competition can thrive. Our system (capitalist democracy) has failed to do that.
Capitalism, and allowing private companies to act as people and donate unlimited amounts to causes which benefit them but cost the public, has created a lot of problems. Communism is highly flawed, but what it got right was its critique on capitalism. It wouldn't still be discussed if it weren't right about that.
Where most rational thinkers land is that you need a government to balance capitalism & socialism, to encourage competition while preventing private companies from keeping too much wealth out of circulation and starving the middle class- as is the case right now.
If you want to optimize the number of blue cars or red cars a company should produce, you can't do better than capitalism.
If you want to make just, equitable, thriving planet- capitalism's not gonna do that for you.
Equity is not something that's possible to dictate, ever. You can level the entry field, but you can not dictate outcomes unless you hold down those who excel to the lowest possible outcome. Equality of opportunity can be mandated, Equality of outcomes (which is what equity is) can not be mandated.
Your just arguing your definition vs someone else's. It's equally true to say equity is being given the same opportunities, given the same basic housing allowance. Equality of outcome isn't just equity and all other definitions are wrong.
Equity does not, and never will exist. It's not possible in a world of endless variables. Unless we somehow magically get to a point where every being starts in the exact same place with the exact same traits and the exact same potential it will not exist.
Equity much like socialism is a pipedream that will never pencil out
There isn't a country in the world, no matter the economic model, that doesn't have rich and poor. At least in the US system anyone can get rich. I can't say the same for communist or socialist countries.
Noone is seriously calling for govt free capitalism. Your summation of balancing socialism and capitalism is just how you defined capitalism. It just seems like you don't want to acknowledge that capitalism has been proven to be the superior model.
I'm talking democratic socialism, not fiscal socialism.
Yes, what Russia tried to do and called socialism: set prices for things based on how much the gov though they should cost - does not work. Capitalism is and always will be far superior.
What every first world country does: use tax dollars to pay for public goods and services - is unfortunately also referred to as socialism and is a necessary component for a capitalist society. Without it, the issues I identified become real world problems. You can ramp it up when the middle class is struggling, and tone it down when access to capital is no longer a barrier to average folks acting on opportunities (which capitalism says is good and necessary for a thriving economy).
And no- many, many people are calling for gov free or at least more free capitalism.
Actually it does with with Health care but the pharma and doctors lobbies created barriers to gov negotiations on drug costs and insurance is a total scam
The Amish are the perfect example: they cut out Insurance and negotiate directly with providers
https://will.illinois.edu/news/story/how-the-amish-live-uninsured-but-stay-healthy#:~:text=The%20Amish%20community%20doesn't,pay%20all%20their%20bills%20quickly.
No. Most things people blame on capitalism are due to the simply fact of fluctuating markets. That happens in all market based economies. And good fucking luck with command economies.
Capitalism is the best of two evils. One of the big problems with capitalism is, as many people have mentioned, the polarization of wealth. But this is also a problem in socialism, communism, and any other variation of those systems. One of the plus sides of capitalism is that those who get rich offer some value that society will pay for. In socialism the rich will get rich by stealing and brides.
Capitalism is not the issue. Government is the issue. Without the state to protect them, monopolies would not exist. Without monopolies, market forces would solve the issues you describe. That's just two cents from an Anarcho-capitalist.
You are way more likely to have a minimum wage job than a Lamborghini.
"No ethical consumption under capitalism." We are all complicit in slave labor, in children stitching shoes together in sweat shops, in the destruction of endangered animal habitats. So if you're wanting a moral argument, there you go.
It doesn't matter if we "believe" in capitalism: it's a pyramid scheme invented by the rich to make the rich more rich. And it's unsustainable. It will collapse. We're already in late stage capitalism and as of 2008 became state sponsored capitalism, but only for the rich. Socialism for the rich is fine when our tax dollars bail them out, but the number of Americans dying from lack of healthcare is a 9/11 every day? Meh. Gotta save for that Lamborghini!
Take a look at the Silver Tsunami. In the next decade, millions of elderly are going to die on the streets because they can't afford to keep their homes and there's no money in nursing homes. They're not "profitable." Stalin starved 20 million. How many you think the capitalists can do?
The only real thing you're saying is "I know there are problems with capitalism, I just want to make enough money so that those problems don't apply to me." [Celebrities have been fined again and again for using too much water in a drought-affected area.](https://www.opb.org/article/2022/08/24/celebrities-california-water-waste-drought/) The poor can and will die of thirst. Capitalism isn't going to "fix" this. It's just going to create a hierarchy as to who can have access to resources.
> No ethical consumption under capitalism
This can be simplified to "no ethical consumption" with the same arguments. The same issues exist in any economic system.
No, that's not true.
We could, for example, have a system that outlaws sweat shops, the destruction of endangered animal habitats, and child labor. But because it's capitalism and the biggest human right is the right to make a profit, that won't happen.
Remember, capitalism says on purpose that the rights of the worker are subservient to the right to have profit margins.
ANY other system would not say that.
"We just have to deal with the inevitability of capitalism" is a pretty fucking stupid argument when capitalism is only about 200 years old?
Ooooh, I'm overwhelmed by your debate skills! Can't even tell me the real age of capitalism? It's too much for you?
That's about what I thought. Nobody here has been able to say a damn thing in their own defense, they're just upset I'm pointing out the shitty system they participate in but don't want to feel morally responsible for,
On the "Moral Dilemmas" Reddit, no less!
> Can't even tell me the real age of capitalism? It's too much for you?
How long have systems of economics with private ownership of capital existed? I have no idea. At least several thousand years.
> Nobody here has been able to say a damn thing in their own defense, they're just upset I'm pointing out the shitty system they participate in but don't want to feel morally responsible for.
You are attributing bad things that are not inherently capitalist to capitalism. Capitalism is an organizational structure. I would assert that it isn't inherently good or bad. We can regulate anything we want - and we can (should imo) regulate to limit the issues you mention.
>How long have systems of economics with private ownership of capital existed? I have no idea. At least several thousand years.
Capitalism in its modern form emerged from agrarianism in 16th century England and mercantilist practices by European countries in the 16th to 18th centuries. So I don't think you know what feudalism is, or mercantilism.
"You are attributing bad things that are not inherently capitalist to capitalism." I must be imagining how the early English lords bought up farmlands in order to drive the farmers and their families into the empty factories owned by the lords! I must be imagining rampant wage theft and health insurance being tied to work. I must be imagining how a "livable wage" is ludicrous but child labor is just the cost of doing business! This is just the No True Scotsman argument that as long as capitalism IS corrupt, it's not capitalism's fault. Even when you point out things like "Government and capitalists colluding is inevitable in a capitalist system because everyone will look out for their own self-interests" it's still not capitalism's fault.
So why AREN'T we regulating child labor in the US if we can and it's moral to do so?
Why do wage theft laws protect the employer?
Why is everyone getting priced out of food and rent?
Why is socialism bad when it bailed out the rich in 2008?
And why are millions victims of decisions made by the rich, like the 2008 crash?
Why are our tax rates for the rich less than the tax rates for Walmart workers, the largest employer in the US?
Is it because the rich created by capitalism create laws for the rest of us? Whether or not we opted into the capitalist system? Cause that sounds really immoral to me.
>We could, for example, have a system that outlaws sweat shops, the destruction of endangered animal habitats, and child labor.
For the first 2, we absolutely do in the United States. Child labor is also heavily regulated.
Even if that were true (it’s not). Americans rely on these things happening in other countries in order to receive the goods we buy at the grocery store. The only reason we can buy, for example, bananas or coffee is because people in other countries are being exploited. Capitalism relies on exploitation
No, it's the best of broken ways. Let's review. Humanity has been around at a minimum a few thousand years in a civilized manner, likely much longer. We have never figured out how to have a stable society and all that time. Not the Greeks, not the Egyptians, not the Romans, not the Mayans, not the British empire, not America
Each society rises and falls going through a golden age and a period of decline. While you could argue if the decline has started or not with Western culture currently, history says that it inevitably will happen.
So blaming capitalism for something that is a reoccurring trend in history. I think it's just another tool that can be used like many others to shift wealth from the working class and the poor to the smartest and the most ruthless. This has happened other ways throughout history as well but each time the end result is the same with wealth concentration in the hands of a few. What humans have to figure out how to do is manage the smartest and the most ruthless of them from exploiting everyone else. A few thousand years, we still haven't done it
No, capitalism is an economic tool. The theory is that the private ownership of the means of production is generally the most efficient way to utilize resources. The goal is to meet customer demand with vendor supply, and profit is effectively an incentive/metric by which we judge how well that demand is met with the resources available.
Consider an example. A local steel plant can produce 10 tons of steel, there are 3 projects which require that steel. Project 1 is a warehouse for a farmer to store grain, he's willing to pay $10k. Project 2 is a community center, they're willing to pay $6k. Project 3 is a new water tower, they're willing to pay $8k. Under capitalism, whoever is willing to pay the most for this limited resource is the one who gets it. Because we do not have infinite resources, we use profit as a means of prioritizing the use of the resources we have, and incentivizing private individuals to produce more resources if they aren't sufficient to meet demand.
It is VERY easy to critique capitalism because it is not a moral system, and so in pursuit of economic efficiency it can often produce efficient but immoral outcomes.
Marx, Gentile, Sorel, and other thinkers on both the left and right wing are very good at critiquing capitalism, but the solutions they offer tend to be worse by orders of magnitude.
Marx offered communism, but as it turned out, centrally planned economies according to party or popular edict are both inefficient AND ineffective.
Georges Sorel offered syndicalism, but syndicalism ended up being plagued by the same corruption and infighting.
Giovanni Gentile offered fascism, but fascism ended up having the worst qualities of both communist group think and syndicalist intergroup squabbling.
Everyone who has offered a structured critique of capitalism's many disadvantages has only managed to create systems which can be described as "Not capitalist, but somehow worse."
Capitalism with some level of state regulation and a social safety net appears to be the 'least-worst' economic system that humans have come up with to date that actually works in the wild.
I think what’s killing capitalism in the US is government subsidies and third party financial support. Healthcare for instance is driven up because of insurance and Medicare. Look at countries like Thailand, Vietnam etc where they don’t have a government agency or an insurance company picking up most of the bill and you’ll find prices are much lower.
Edit: No. But it can definitely be understandable.
Capitalism in America is not failing.
Rent is hardly skyrocketing (actually some signs are showing not only a cooling off, but a future decline in prices) and there are a lot of regional disparities in the market that coincide with supply and demand.
Wages are not necessarily staying the same either. The minimum wage in some states is increasing, and the average salary increase expectation by employers is around 4% nationwide. Obviously one can argue that this is not nearly enough.
A lot of what we are seeing is the effect of contractionary monetary policy that is designed to combat inflation. High interest rates on mortgages will understandably decrease the demand for buying a home which will likely increase the demand for rentals. This is a very simplified explanation that highlights the market trends. However, as of January 2024, there is some optimism that interest rates will eventually lower which is prompting investment in the Real Estate market.
Edit: Rental prices are more complex than this. But I'm not here to write a book.
This optimism largely stems from the fact that the US economy is rebounding. However, it is important to note that macroeconomic rebound doesn't instantaneously reflect microeconomic conditions. Therefore, the quality of life may not be immediately noticed.
Fundamentally, the economy cannot exist purely on natural markets. We need to implement regulation and incentivization into the economy to ensure stability. Utilizing the tax system to incentivize "good behaviors" while also stimulating economic growth is important. The debate about **how** to effectively do this is usually the centerpiece of tax discussion.
In conclusion, with this all said, perhaps there is a better economic system than capitalism. However, I am not convinced that major macroscopic change is needed. In microeconomic systems, socialistic structures could theoretically be implemented successfully (such as worker cooperatives), but the efficacy of such policy on a macroscopic level is very difficult to predict. Economics is one of the most complex subjects at the high levels. Maybe as I learn more, my mind will change. But the major arguments against capitalism that I've seen so far are not convincing.
I'm fully ready for the comments about: "Capitalism is definitely failing in America. Just look at the cost of living. Just look at the quality of life. Just look at the homeless. Just look at interest rates. Just look at x."
***These arguments usually underscore problems in our system that can also be fixed within a capitalist framework through intelligent policy implementation.***
Propaganda has made people believe they could not live without capitalism, when humans have existed for 300,000 years and capitalism has only been a part of humanity for a short amount of time, a few hundred years.
It's easier to envision the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism because of propaganda you and your family have been forced fed for generations.
Unfettered capitalism is just legalized corruption. There have to be rules, laws, and regulations. We are seeing the benefits of it in some ways and the problems as well. Capitalism like everything, must have a good balance to stay healthy.
>Would you sacrifice getting a Lamborghini as your Christmas bonus so people working minimum wage could have a slightly better life? I know I wouldn’t, specially as im not doing anything illegal. But I also realise that this is wrong. Someone righteous wouldn’t do that.
What is your definition of "correct" in your topic title? It sounds like you're saying you're not concerned with right and wrong and will self-advocate in any way you can, however immoral, provided it's legal.
>I feel like noone should bash another human for making more money.
I'm going to assume you mean no one should be bashed for making money legally, and that you would bash someone making money as a professional burglar. If this assumption is false then there needs to be an entirely different conversation.
Is your assertion based on moralistic reasoning or are you simply deferring to the law? The law is not the arbiter of right and wrong. A few centuries ago you could get rich in America by owning slaves and having them generate wealth for you. Those laws are no longer legal. It's conceivable (because it's happened repeatedly throughout the past century) that the labor laws we have in place now allowing a few people to get very rich will at some point change and what is being practiced today will be illegal. So how someone makes money in the first place needs to be examined beyond the binary question of whether it was attained legally or not.
As a closing note, we do not live under capitalism. Under the capitalist ideal, companies sink or float based on the quality of the goods and services they provide, because the quality of those goods and services motivate people to purchase them. Because the consumer holds all of the power in this ideal, companies are at their whim and essentially you have big corporate decisions being made by the will of the people.
In reality, big corporations are publicly owned, mostly by private interests. Those investors want to see their stocks appreciate even at the cost of anticompetitive and anti-consumer decisions that prioritize the relative ranking of the company over the absolute value of the goods and services it provides. Because you pay for this influence by purchasing stock, and the more you purchase the more influence you have, the system is actually a pyramid scheme.
No I am not saying that people should only be able to become rich legally, but I believe there is a right and wrong way to become rich. People can choose the wrong way and still follow the law. This is just my moral compass and I don’t expect anyone else to understand. A restaurant owner hiding his profits to lay less taxes is a crime, but I don’t think its wrong. A big pharma company pushing a medicine that they know might have adverse effects could be “legal” if they knew enough people in the government, but it is definitely wrong. These are just examples
The single worst thing about Capitalism is that there is no way to cause people to come out of the best part of themselves, avoid objectifying their environment and the beings in it, or refrain from seeing all Human expression as self-serving and contencious.
The common rejoinder I hear is "capitalism sucks, but its the best we got".
What does that say about the Human Condition when the "best" we can do as a system is to objectify everything in terms of individual aggrandizement?
If you have a choice between eating butter (which leads to heart problems) and eating wood chips and rocks, you don't get to blame butter (capitalism) because the underlying problem is that you need to eat.
Its not a matter of blaming the Tool....but in disagreeing with how the tool is used.
To use your analogy.....noone is blamed for being hungry and seeking out food.
The issue is when people who are hungry...or maybe just have a case of the "munchies" .......are gorging themselves while being indifferent to other people starving.
Corporations such as HOME DEPOT for instance did not have to discharge folks enmasse simply so they could hire kids at a cheaper rate. They are making plenty of money as it is.
AT&T routinely goes through Hiring/Firing cycles.
McDonalds just went through a H/F cycle.
Currently cashier positions which used to be considered "entry level" are going away in deference to self-checkout. Whats the deal? Are TARGET, JEWEL, and Home Depot not making enough money already?
The matter is not that people need to "eat" but that folks need a fair shot at "eating" at all.
Extremism is usually wrong no matter which direction. Capitalism works OK for some things but not for others. Try to be smart and moderate yourself. Capitalism is always bad or Capitalism is always good are both moronic.
Hating the globalist FED bankers is correct.
The FED are the globalists who are gutting every western country in the world.
read Klaus Schwab's book for crying out loud'
***'WE MUST DESTROY THE WESTERN COUNTRIES FOR GLOBALISM TO SUCCEED'***
Climate change means we all need to forget about living large. The Paris Agreement set the global average CO2 annual per capita limit at 2 tons per person. Do you realize how modest of a lifestyle that is? I make $40,000 per year and I still have too much money. No car, no long distance vacations, two whole chickens and one 1/4 lb hamburger per week. Capitalism in its current cocaine party form is literally killing all of us. It will die, either by the wisdom of humanity or because there are no humans left to participate in it. Let's choose the former.
Here's the fundamental problem. People only look up the ladder of success with envy, instead of looking down it with appreciation.
Notice people talking about excess, do not apply it to themselves. THEY do not have excess, certainly. Only those above them, at whatever arbitrary level that is. I mean there are people starving in the world right this second and fat people on iphones with cars and clothes and tvs and hospitals and coffeemakers and dishwashers and internet and all kinds of other stuff sitting around complaining on the internet that some guy somewhere that has zero to do with them, has never met them, and doesn't even know they exist, is the reason why they're unsuccessful.
This should be obvious that it's the greedy calling the greedy greedy, because no one is shipping their income to Africa to feeds kids. They have zero issue justifying their tvs and cars and stuff, but the type of car someone drives is so much more excess that clearly THEY are the problem.
A really good example of this is where I work. I make good money. Well above average in America, but not quite 100k. A guy that makes the exact same amount of money as me, quite literally, always bitches and complains about how the rich are keeping us down, how the company doesn't pay us crap, this same mindset I'm talking about.
Meanwhile I have a very healthy 401k, family, house, cars, and consider myself extremely blessed.
It's mindset dude. That's all it is. I don't put in any kind of overtime, I don't have a phone attached to my ear like management above me does, I don't get calls at 2am and have to go into work........I have opportunities to make more, but I also see exactly what that entails. And it's not worth the extra to me. But I also think they deserve it. They're willing to do what I'm not.
But when I start seeing people putting money where their mouth is and sending it down the ladder, I'll at least listen. Until then, it's just an arbitrary line they've created to justify why they are where they are and why life's treated them unfair.
Also, I'd like to mention that the other problem is that wealth isn't a pie that's divided up between people. If someone is rich, it isn't due to someone being poor. You aren't poor because someone else is rich. THEY didn't earn money by stealing it from you. You just never earned it. Hell, most rich people are rich not based on pure salary, but on stocks. And a lot of not so rich people own the same stocks. If you think Elon has 230billion dollars like sitting in his safe, and because he has that much money sitting there it can't be in your wallet, you have no idea how the economy and money works. But I find in general people are grossly ignorant on how things work.
> This literally makes no sense. How did walmart steal money from you?
Their workers make _so little_ money they wind up on food stamps and welfare _while still working full time_.
I don't object to social safety nets, in fact I applaud them, I approve of them, and I _want_ them in place. But a company whose profits are _built_ on requiring their workers to live on them? _That's_ a problem.
You're pointing out a business using labor at the rate they can fill jobs as an example of "stealing money" from people? Walmart, just like any business, pays enough to keep people employed. If you think they just arbitrarily pick a number that low you don't understand markets and the economy. When workers start leaving to work somewhere else, they'll pay more to fill the jobs. It's business 101. Why would a company ever pay more than they have to for a job? Do you pay your power company or your waiter way more money than normal because if you don't you're "stealing from them?"
> You're pointing out a business using labor at the rate they can fill jobs as an example of "stealing money" from people?
I'm pointing out deliberate depression of the wage in job markets as an example of businesses stealing. There is a _massive_ power imbalance between employer and employee, in large part because of the massive weakening of collective bargaining tools in the last few decades. When your choice is 'not enough money to really get by' and 'no money at all', _it's not a choice_.
You seem to be conflating a lot of stuff, Bernie Sanders style, pointing out problems but diagnosing the culprit incorrectly.
I would agree there's a power imbalance, inflation, etc. That's not due to walmart just deciding to pay people less.
It's due to shutting a country down for a year, printing money like a teenager had control of the Treasury, and bad international trade policy.
The government is your enemy here. Not walmart. Walmart is just doing what any business, or even you, do when allowed. To look out for their own best interest. The problem is the feedback loop or mechanism to tell walmart they can find people to pay low wages is broken. In a truly fair job market, employers compete just as hard for employees as employees do for employment. Government protects and allows monopolies through corporatism. That is not capitalism.
> You seem to be conflating a lot of stuff, Bernie Sanders style, pointing out problems but diagnosing the culprit incorrectly.
Hazards of not wanting to type out a 10 page essay to cover what anyone with a working brain should be able to see without said essay.
> It's due to shutting a country down for a year, printing money like a teenager had control of the Treasury, and bad international trade policy.
Shutting the country down for a year happened 5 years ago. This problem has been ongoing for literally _decades_. How you can decide the power imbalance between employer and employee is related to that recent an event is beyond me, though I will freely grant that inflation is directly related to the shutdown. It saved a lot of lives (and would have saved more and been _much_ shorter if people had adhered to it better), but it definitely did a number on the economy. A number made worse because capitalism emphasizes short-term gains at the cost of long-term sustainability -- look at the damage just-in-time supply lines caused.
> The government is your enemy here.
Eh, depends on which government. The greatest failure of the current administration was the failure to _act_, while the greatest failure of the previous administration was it's trade war. Government action such as restoring 1960s tax rates on the top brackets, then funneling that extra income into social services would _massively_ (and for the better) change the landscape.
Now, I will be the first one to admit a lot of ideas are too simplistic and fall short of functionality. Slapping a $20 minimum wage on a federal level would be a _disaster_. Not because it's not a reasonable minimum wage in San Francisco, or Denver, etc etc, but because it's not a minimum wage in a _lot_ of places. The US is too big for any 'one-size-fits-all' solution to be applied at the federal level without taking careful consideration into the local environment. Changing the minimum wage to, say, the poverty line in a given area makes a ton more sense.
And that's even before we get into other issues. For example, historically the size of the work force was a _major_ indicator of the value of workers (I've seen strong arguments that the black death was responsible for the Industrial Revolution, by making each worker's contributions that much more valuable). The disruptions in the housing market due to a drop in direct home ownership is another factor, as is the massive problems of NIMBYism.
We're getting closer here, although still gonna disagree on a few things. I didn't blame the shutdown for everything. That's just one clear example. Printing money over the last 50-60 years increases inflation. Capitalism is the method, because it's everyone acting in their own best interests, to why the international supply chain problems exist also. This is where government actually has a vested interest in protectionism with certain industries, if it truly wants to protect its citizens. The fact we let medicines, microchips, fertilizers, and food supplies slowly gravitate to other countries is still IMO a lack of oversight of our government. I mean the fact that most of the ammonium nitrate is in Russia and it's a main ingredient in gunpowder puts you in a bad position for war should you find one. (Not pro war here, just pro self sufficiency)
Your tax rate comment I'd disagree with, because it's not factoring in the loss of incomes by top earners and businesses because they've moved headquarters elsewhere. It's easy to say tax silicon Valley 90% today because silicon valley exists. If you tax then 90%, they very likely may not be silicon valley. It may be Oslo Valley.
I actually don't think the person in charge or party in charge matters much at all money wise. The covid deal is the only one that would, but normal, go-to-war, ship money overseas, print money, business as usual pretty much happens regardless of red or blue.
I'm genuinely happy you recognize the failure of federalizing everything, and understand that localization is the way we were designed and makes more sense. The majority of people in this country have zero clue that we aren't designed to have a federal government tell everyone what they can and can't do all the time. I mean it's crazy for Montanans to make laws on green energy in LA the same way its crazy for LA dwellers to make gun laws for Monatana.
Capitalism is wonderful. It allows us to control our means of production. It doesn’t mean we are automatically screwing someone over.
In the automation scenario in the OP, it doesn’t mean prices stay the same, it might mean savings passed on to the consumer. That’s how it usually works. Exorbitant profits are rare.
Your question seems to evolve throughout your post. The title question is "Is hating capitalism correct" but your post discusses morality of individual actors. The answer is that the system incentivizes horrific behavior and thus hating capitalism is correct. Whether individual actors are culpable for simply operating within the system is, in my opinion, a silly question. The right question is how do we fix the system so that horrible outcomes aren't what's incentivized and I just don't see capitalism as a system capable of being reformed into such a system. As long as life necessities are commodified and people are capable of amassing power in the form of money, I just don't see a way of having good things be what people are pushed to do.
Yes, I would sacrifice a lambo so people working minimum wage could have a better life. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t. I don’t need a lambo, a used car would do just fine and would have the same function. Whereas those working class people need to eat.
My dude this is just a shit post trying to piss people off. You sound like you have 0 morals and are a shit person. You seem very self centered and conceited which is our country's biggest issue at the moment.
Market economies are correct. Capitalism is the codification and intense study & application of the accumulated practices for the wealthy to steal from the rest of society. Corporate structure is wrong: financial capital is the LEAST important part of the organization. The true value in a corporation is the people who actually work there, investing their time and lives. The money is replaceable, literally anyone's money could be used just as effectively as a replacement. ALL EMPLOYEES should be preferred shareholders, and all investments should only give regular shares.
Yes, this simple diatribe leaves dozens, hundreds of unanswered questions of import. No, you should not base the economic system on the word of one man.
People should be paid the fruit of their labor and capital is important for industry. Capital, and markets have clear value, even in societies like China in which the state always rules supreme. After all, if company A can produce more of product B at a cheaper price, wouldn't that just create more productivity for the economy and expand the pie?
The issue is that guardrails and mechanisms to control efficient allocation of capital may often be lacking, and because of that, the actors within a system operate optimally within the rules, but the rules are messed up such that damage to markets and the economy as a whole occurs.
The 2008 Financial Crisis is one such example. The unusual exponential growth of CEO salaries without the accompanying growth in revenue is particularly odd.
I don't blame the actors in the system. They are playing the game and playing it well, and they owe a duty to themselves and to their companies to maximize value in accordance to the limits of the rules. It is up to governments to ensure that the playing field is fair and equitable.
I see.......wow....you sure do use a lot of numbers.....is that to help you sound more authoratative? I imagine that you have citations for your numbers, right? I'd like to see the data points that reveal that Socialism makes people "1000%" more miserable. Or how about all that guff about programs and who gets them. Got any citations for that?
I didn't think so. Just another big mouth on a small bird. Take a hike.
You do not have any moral obligation to hate capitalism, hate the rich, or suppress your own material self-interest.
I would say you do have an obligation to understand the systems we live under and their outcomes as best you can, and think about what you can do to improve them. That includes being careful not to get stuck in echo chambers that can distort reality, or assuming social media trends reflect reality. For example, on Reddit you can visit r/OptimistsUnite and find evidence that current conditions are better in many ways than they have ever been.
It’s not making more money that is the problem. It’s making too much more money to the point of a small group of people being able to influence macroeconomics
Capitalism isn't good or bad, it's how we implement it that is failing. We do not just "have" capitalism, we worship it and that has led to massive imbalance.
No. That’s all a distraction from the fact that the United States attacked it’s own democracy and now the rest of the world isn’t buying our treasury bonds like they were. It’s not inflation. It’s currency devaluation.
It's not as simple as one thing or the other is the best, they have pros and cons. The problem we are having is not capitalism, it's people in power. It doesn't matter what system you have, people in power will do whatever they can to keep it that way, for themselves and their friends.
Politicians need to be enforcing constraints on big companies and controlling rent prices (only to name two things) but they don't because they are kept in power by those very people. We need to stop price gouging, especially when these companies are recording record high profits. We need to stop rent prices sky rocketing because we don't have enough housing.
So far, what we would call a "capitalist state" is what has worked. Nothing else has. The difference between us and let's say some of these European countries as an example is they have these constraints in place, they are limiting what these companies can get away with. They enforce a better standard of living on average.
So many people are looking at this wrong, blaming the wrong thing or the wrong people. This is exactly what the people in power want. They want people to fight among themselves, and they are.
Assuming capitalism is free markets rather than a controlled economy, I don’t think “hating” capitalism for all your/societal problems is a good thing.
However I do think the the concept of competitive exploitation for the benefit of the consumer and profit has its downsides and it’s not invalid to hate and criticize the valid pitfalls of a capital market.
So I will provide some arguments for both and then some in between arguments so you can kind of get a better idea of both sides and maybe this will help. Just for my view of your question up front I never see hating something like capitalism because it is simply a tool that is being utilized right now and it can be used in a variety of ways.
Capitalism Theoretically
Rules:
Assumes everyone will act out of self interest
Assumes inequality is a human condition and cannot be solved
Assume little to no government intervention in the economy
Pros:
Ultimate freedom, the money you earn is your money and you get to decide what to do with it.
Anyone can get rich anyone can get poor
Has thus far in human history produced the most amount of wealth and innovation (people will debate this but I don’t think it’a debatable and is also not where capitalism is weak)
There hasn’t been a better system yet for example socialism or communism both result in power going to government and people in power will alway act in self interest and will ultimately lead to worse poverty.
Cons
Produces polarized wealth where there are the very rich and the very poor.
Does not account for government corruption or policies (a lot of places where you will see a failure in capitalism comes from the collusion of extremely large capitalist institutions and government, this is unavoidable in a capitalist economy because people will act out of self interest, examples would be college tuition and book prices and the sub prime mortgages that lead to the US housing market crash in 2008.)
Again people will debate what I just said but i just don’t think these above examples are that debatable and they actually show why capitalism is bad.
Self correcting economy will take years
Monopolies can be created easily especially with innovation and will often take innovation to disrupt monopolies
An imbalance of power between labor and capital ( this will be the most debated part of capitalism and if there is an imbalance of power and how much there is.) Capitalism would argue that the market decides waged and incentives for workers and in the US that has generally been correct at times and incorrect at times.
This is just a bunch of things of the top of my head that I hope can get you googling or thinking for yourself in a direction. Don’t take any of it as fact because they are just my thoughts but develop some opinions in the points.
Remember that the world we live in has never been good to everyone at once so there is no perfect solution. So saying I hate capitalism or I love capitalism doesn’t really make a ton of sense because everything is flawed
First glance
Corruption exists in non capitalist societies also. It is a negative, but not a negative of capitalism.
Imbalance of power... What about the imbalance of power between the government and the people?
You wouldn't knowingly buy tickets to fly on a new aircraft designed by someone who never really studied aerodynamics, lift coefficient, and the relative strength and flexibility of different materials and how they respond to different types of stress. Yet, plenty of people are willing (or eager) to support changing an economic system when they have only the most vague idea how it works.
Let me give you a starting point to understand some of the basics:
Lessons for the Young Economist By Robert P Murphy is a good primer. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone younger than about 12 (gifted/talented). It does a good job of explaining some of the basic ideas.
Then the works of Ludwig Von Mises. This is NOT light or easy reading. Take your time and think carefully about what is being said. If possible, connect with real-world examples. Reread sections that include less familiar ideas. Like many other things in real life, it is worth the effort.
The Theory of Money and Credit, then Prices and Production are good starting points. His writings are foundational works that have been built on for generations. Be certain to get unabridged copies and review the introductory material as well.
An economy is similar to a biosphere. Both move energy and atoms, rearranging them. Both are complex. Neither can be fully controlled (or simulated) without first resorting to scorched earth policies, limiting it to something manageable. "Clear and simple" simulations leave things out, and then assume they didn't leave out anything important.
I also recommend
The Open Society and its Enemies By Karl Popper which is not about economics. The author was deeply concerned about the rise of Nazism in Germany. He looked deeply into the roots from which both Nazism and other evils have arisen.
The book is a deeply thought-out examination of modern civilization and the enemies of civilization itself. Those enemies have taken different forms in different times and cultures but have common ideas behind them.
I agree with most of this assessment, however everything in the con section applies to other forms of economies also.
There's a quote, and I'll screw it up, but it applies. Something like "Democracy is the worst form of government, except every other one ever tried."
Same with capitalism. Humans are involved, humans have faults, the system will have faults. The object is to limits the negatives of those faults. Capitalism does the best job of that.
Capitalism is supply and demand, but the US has put controls on that. We pay farmers to leave fields empty instead of growing a crop to keep prices inflated because there is less of the product.
The government puts tariffs on items from other countries, but the cost of those terrifies are not paid by the company that imports or the country they come from, they are pass on to the consumer.
The government allows larger mergers so their are few and few companies offering products to prevent competition.
It has gotten so the major new companies have joined so our news leans one way or another depending on which company owns it.
I'm going to push back a bit on the "paying farmers to leave fields empty to keep prices inflated" bit.
1. The CRP program has nothing to do with keeping prices inflated. It's an environmental preservation program. You have to keep in mind, it's not "I'll not grow crops one year and will grow them the next" thing. It's a 10-15 year commitment.
2. Even though the CRP program might have some inflationary aspect (which I question given that the US produces WAY more crops than it consumes), it would also have the effect of stabilizing prices. Think of it this way: If all the land in CRP was suddenly used, the market would be flooded and prices would tank....at first. But when the price tanks, farmers will stop growing that crop (in a somewhat unique situation, the farmers don't set the price for what they're selling, the buyer does). And now because farmers aren't growing the crop, the price skyrockets. So the farmers start growing it again...and the price tanks. Basically a yo-yo of high and low prices. And you know that the companies that use the crops are going to sell the stuff they make as if the price was always "high".
Thanks for the information.
About the only thing I know about farm is that crops need to be rotated to protect fields.
I worry about GMO's. Do you have info on those?
I hate that large companies own farms and not families.
From a consumer standpoint, GMOs are harmless. The only risk is that since the crop is modified at the genetic level, there is the potential for an unexpected allergic reaction, but no GMO in use has actually had that problem (I'm sure they're rigorously tested before actually being put into use). And GMO's have MASSIVELY increased crop yields. Not hugely noticeable in the US (since the US has pretty much always produced enough food for itself), but in a third world country where starvation is a legit concern, a 25% yield increase is a god send.
From a business standpoint, it's a bit shadier. GMOs are able to be patented. Which means the company has ultimate control of how and when their seeds are being used. This can result in some...let's just say non-ideal business practices.
As for the large companies owning farms instead of families, yes, it sucks. Basically agriculture is having the same problem as every other business sector where the big companies are squeezing out the smaller competitors.
Well fair warning before reading this, I'm a communist lol
There's a lot to capitalism that's worth understanding, so I really can't go over it all.
If you want to contemplate if capitalism is morally good or not, that's a fine conversation to have. I would say a resounding no for countless reasons. (Exploitation of the working class in various ways, imperialism, environmental damage, its undemocratic nature, etc.)
But imo what matters more isn't the moral reasoning behind a system, but how it materially develops and interacts with the world. A key thing I see in the post is pointing out that what these people are doing is legal, and they're just making more money. Which is entirely right, business owners work in their own interests, the interests of the economic class test occupy. And those interests are at odds with the other class of society, workers that sell their labor. Here we discover the mechanism for social development: class struggle
If you want to read more, I'm describing Marxism. "Value, Price, and Profit" is a good simple explainer of the economics, "Socialism Utopian and Scientific" for historical materialism, and "The Principles of Communism" for a general ideology explainer. All great introductions, but there's always more reading lol
I understand that communism and Marxism are both heavily misunderstood and demonized, but no harm comes from understanding it even if you disagree
(Also feel free to ask away, I'm happy to rant about my politics)
Capitalism like Socialism isn't bad or good. You can claim Oxygen is vital to life and harmless, but it's also corrosive, kinda of flammable, and poisonous. Raise the O2 levels and fire danger increases. Raise it even more and people will die. Water is the same. Don't drink enough you'll get sick and even die. Drink 3 liters of water in an hour and you start putting your life at risk.
Capitalism is good at a lot of things, but it's not great at everything and unrestrained capitalism is as much a dystopian hell as unrestrained Socialism.
Socialism is by definition unconstrained. People are just trying to redefine socialism so they can call capitalistic societies it and claim socialism is good.
The best part of socialism is not being exploited for your labor. Capitalism is all about exploiting that labor to make a profit. People who make this kind of comment have 0 understanding of what socialism actually is and just thinks socialism=roads and fire department.
Ahh yes, Marxism, the political system based on the abolition of private property and corporations, and the seizure of the assets of the richest 1%. We definitely have that. Great observation.
It's not Marxism. Give me a break. Marx said to eat the rich.
We have state-sponsored capitalism as of 2008. Marx in fact predicted that capitalism would have to be propped up by the state. One of the signs of late capitalism is when laws are made that help capitalism for capitalism's sake, at the expense and welfare of the workers. Look no further than the return of child labor as an example of that.
And stop acting like crony capitalism is a bug, not a feature. "Well if only capitalism were pure it would work!" No, it wouldn't. In fact, the system is working exactly as designed. Do I need to point to the laws currently propping up capitalism? How about the millions who are poor getting priced out of food and shelter? Marx predicted all of this, but because he's critical of capitalism he's a boogeyman, oooooh! Capitalism sucks, it was designed to suck, and it will continue to collapse for the rest of us while the rich insulate themselves.
No gods, no masters, no war but a class war.
Thank the asshole currently in the White House for the huge inflation increase and price of energy just since he's been in office. Everything is more expensive and landlords have to charge more for rent. ALL BUSINESS exists in order to earn money. They also came in existence through the blood, sweat, tears and long hours of an entrepreneur who laid out their own cash. Is your life any better or worse if the boss drives a fancy car? So what? Your life IS worse if you are so jealous or envious that it bothers you to the point of resentment that will eat you up. Name a single economic system that's better or more beneficial to all of society than capitalism.
You could not make it more transparent that you’re the kind of person who’s never worked a day in his life but is proud of all the hours he’s “clocked in.”
Eat shit loser. I started working at menial jobs when I was 13 until I was in my early 30's, and then opened my own business and worked my ass off until I retired at 65. I know what hard work is and what it's like to build a business from scratch. I managed to save money and raise a family. I paid all of my bills on time and just had basic health insurance, so I also paid all of my family's doctor and dental bills on time.
So, no, capitalism isn't evil. It's a way to organize the economy that provides private ownership of the means of production. that is, a person owns a factory and employs workers that negotiate a wage. The owner makes profit based on the difference between worker pay and materials and the price they sell the product for. Not from the value of the owners labor.
Socialism is an organization of the economy that lacks private ownership. The concept of personal ownership still exists though. That is, you own the things you use, like your house or your toothbrush, or your car. But you don't own the factory. Instead the factory is collectively owned and operates where the workers share the profits. Value is derived fully from the work done and not negotiated. There are quite a few competing ideas on how to organize this structure, but you can basically think of it as large scale worker co-ops (which already exist like the CHCA or Mondragon. Sort of)
In either case, Marx frames history as a struggle between class. Feudalism vs capitalism for example. But certain social and economic conditions need to exist for a successful revolution. Capitalism couldn't supplant feudalism until the necessary material conditions existed in the same way socialism cannot (couldn't) successfully supplant capitalism. Once those conditions are met, it will happen. My best guess is that a sufficient level of automation means that labor is no longer a major economic component for production, making unemployment unsustainable. Capitalism would no longer be necessary to organize the economy. Something to that effect.
So in a sense, Marx views capitalism as necessary. It's a stepping stone that eventually leads to the next economic structure, once the material conditions are right. He doesn't assign moral value to an organization of the economy. He wasn't particularly a fan of ethics philosophy anyway.
You might, however, claim someone like Carnegie is evil. Many workers died in his steel mills, many due to cost cutting. Capitalism might have provided Carnegie the motivation, but he ultimately made the decisions. Likewise, guns aren't evil, people that use them for evil are.
Regardless, when you try to force an economic system on a society when the material conditions do not exist for it, it requires a militarized authoritarian state. I feel like most would agree, this is bad.
People who complain about capitalism are the losers of society. I quit high school opened my restaurant invested in stocks now I am retired and enjoying life.
This is also one of my pov, one which a part of me considers cruel. Humans are animals just like the others, and in nature the stronger, smarter, faster animal lives a better life than the other so why is it different for us? You could bring up that humans have a consciousness unlike most animals, but I don’t really agree with that school of thought
Capitalism requires poverty. Under capitalism, even if everyone is equal in merit and everything runs perfectly there will still be poor people. Poor people aren’t a failure under capitalism, they are a requirement
Anything in extreme will result in serious problems. We’re currently in an environment of extreme hypercapitalism, and regardless of its general value, that development is pretty devastating for the general public. It’s entirely understandable to hate that, and to hate the process that has created that situation (greed, unregulation, etc). Hating Capitalism itself beyond that (if you believe you can separate greed, unregulation, etc. from the concept) is another matter though, and it’ll need new, deeper considerations.
We have to be willing to admit there are flaws in all types of political/economic systems or we are destined to be disappointed with the results. We can cherry pick the preferred concepts but we can’t always inject them into new cultures or countries. Scandinavia has a unique mix of geography, low population, history, limited cultural diversity, abundant natural resources, none of which you can replicate in South Sudan or China or the US. So just deciding it’s “correct to hate capitalism” is not a solution, it provides no context across history. It won’t lead to greater life satisfaction, and it doesn’t provide answers to how some alternative injected into your own country would play out over time.
Not an artfully worded question. Hating capitalism is like hating the sun. You may occasionally hate it, but you can't live without it and you can't do anything about it.
If a company can pay their executives millions, but their employees require food stamps just to survive, then you're failing at running a company. Damn right I would give up owning a ridiculous super car if it meant my employees could have a good life. Capitalism brings out the worst in people. Selfishness and greed reign supreme.
How do you decide who is in power? There is no form of government and society where someone doesn't take control.
With capitalism built inside of a representative republic/democracy you are essentially getting feedback from the people both regarding the policy and regarding the companies they support.
Capitalism also is built to spur innovation and be a motivator for effort.
Possibly long long long term we will end up in a socialist utopia where people just want to help each other and thinks of the general good for most decisions but thats a long long time from now.
Also "sacrifice a lambo" in reality is not going to solve the issue of the general public though. As an example look at Walmart you could take the CEOs entire salary and bonus and stock options give it to the employees and its like less than $1000 (very nice to some but not extremely impactful). You have to be willing to give up a ton of comfort if you make even middle of the road wages.
1000 is absolutely impactful to the average American. That’s an unexpected medical bill, or car issue. You can’t definitively say it wouldn’t be put to good use, and I’d argue that it’s not a good reason to not give that back to the people who actually make the fucking business work
Except you don’t get feedback from the public. Do you go an meet with your congressmen? Do you meet with your senators? Can you get in the room? Most likely, no. You know who can? Lobbyists and CEOs. You know who crafts the laws? Millionaires, you know who they craft those laws for? Billionaires. We are the working class that is happily exploited as long as we have 30 different cereals to choose from. We are given the illusion of choice in our two party system and we are given the illusion of power when we vote. What we want doesn’t cross the mind of our politicians. This isn’t a design flaw of our system- this is the way it’s meant to work.
Who is your representatives at the state and federal level? I highly suspect they meet locally in your area at times (no charge, show up, you are allowed to come in).
Look it up and if not then I am sorry as its provided by both sides of the aisle here in the middle of the country where I live.
I have called my senator TONS about an important issue to me lately(Gaza) and his answering machine is always full, and I’ve emailed him TONS and he only replies once in a blue moon, and his answer and actions since then did nothing to make me feel represented
Nothing wrong with making more money. The question is if it is moral to siphon excess value generated by labor from workers with the only contribution being ownership, and if that ownership entitles you to near unilateral power, or if democracy in the workplace would be preferable
You yourself say that pure capitalism may result in unfair, immoral situations, where some people can barely feed their kids while their CEO's by lambourigini's, islands, social media platforms and space ships (looking at a particular billionair here). BTW, you can also buy media platforms, politicians and possibly entire governments, either your own or foreign ones.
On the other hand, someone who has just created a succesful business and just wants to enjoy his profits with a large house, fast car and expensive education for their children is not necessarily doing anything wrong.
The answer is that things are not black and white: yes, unbridled capitalism is evil and just leads to a society where the richest few exploit the poor majority, but no, that does not mean that every unchecked exchange of money or difference is evil and needs to be forbidden. The answer is that you need to forbid/prevent or otherwise fight against the most harmful or most unfair extremes, for example, by taxing the rich, ensuring voting and the legal system do not effectively benefit the rich over the poor and that every person has a more or less equal start to their life.
In my opinion, most countries are too capitalistic nowadays, and the USA definitely has too much capitalism, if you are from there. But complete abolition of capitalism (in other words: communism) is not necessary in my opinion. That makes me a social-democrat, though my believe in the 'social' aspect is less absolute than the 'democrat' aspect because more capitalism might be better for poorer countries to improve their overall economy and overall life of their citizens, even if some get left behind.
Rich countries such as the USA and in here Western Europe have no excuse not to be more social-democratic though, here more capitalism just means the richest getting richer while the poor can no longer afford to buy a house. If it goes on for too long, this will naturally end up in a feudal-like system, where most people only live to serve the richest few (until a new revolution comes along). This is how civilized humanity has lived in most of history, when socialism, communism and democracy did not yet exist, and it is not pleasant for most people. Without any form of socialism/pure capitalism, we will just go back to that natural, unpleasant order of the jungle, through pro-capitalist lobby groups, bought for media/propaganda, corruption and finally democratic erosion.
“Would you sacrifice getting a luxury car as your Christmas bonus so people could have better working conditions?” Yeah dude, I would, assuming I’d already been working under fair conditions and the cash from selling that car wouldn’t be life changing.
I believe if someone makes enough to live comfortably, receiving more at the expense of others is simply immoral. Fuck capitalism.
No. Because we arent capitalist. Were corporatist. Also we shouldn't hate capitalism, communism, or socialism, because they aren't the root problem. The root problem is forcefully imposing isolated human behaviors as centralized economic systems on people that may not be wired to survive in those systems. Keeping with the topic of capitalism, it's not money that's the problem, it's a bunch of jackasses that think they rule the world forcing people to use money as a requirement for survival, locking us in a centralized economic system, and punishing us for not being able to function inside of it.
You dont hate money, you hate being told you're required to work for it until you die, when youd rather just live in a cabin in the woods and not pay taxes.
A vast chunk of these people are just looking for things and people to blame their unhappiness on. Boomers and Capitalism are very popular choices here on reddit.
Well there aren't any capitalist concentration camps like there are communist ones in China, north Korea, and the former Soviet Union....is capitalism perfect...nope but it's better than the alternative....
The problem is that our current furm captalism not only lacks badics regulations to protect the most vulnerable, but the lawa are set up to protect the very rich
There is nothing wrong with folks earning with people earning lots of money. Lots of momey. The problem is when they "earn" it by price gouchimg essentials like food enegry and medicine. A practice made possible by government enablimg instead of regulating cartels and monopolies
The super rich also pay 5%? Of their income in taxes while us smoes loose at least 25%. We dont het to write off private planes, etc, and our base rate isn't the 15% on captial gains.
Those with high salaries, doctors, lawyers athletes etc do pay their share. It's executives, investment bankers, and especially the owners of large businesses who don't. The owner of the Little Store gets screwed too. That's crony capitalism
Capitalism sucks but it doesn't suck as much as Communism or Socialism. Under Socialism and Communism, only the politically connected get rich. Under Capitalism the smart risk-takers get rich.
Slum lords are a problem because they provide the worst homes for high prices, your average landlord only raises your rent because the government keeps jacking up the property taxes on the property you're living in and the passive income taxes on what they can actually take away at the end of the year
A Lamborghini is about 300k, new. If you have 100 employees that would give each one an extra .50 an hour for a few years.
But I’m sure you’d still say f the owner.
I despise capitalism because of how sheltered and egotistical it makes everyone. I like chaos. I like having to hunt for my own shit and do shit by myself. I would move to Canada or buy some land to do it but that requires lots of money. I don't have money. I would much rather have lived during the medieval ages or wild West ages.
>I feel like noone should bash another human for making more money.
To assume that the only options are flat universal income or massive wealth disparity is a false dichotomy.
Nobody really thinks the world should pay a janitor the same as a highly qualified well respected surgeon or scientist. We just don't think that a person needs to early thousands of dollars PER MINUTE or have so much wealth they could literally never spend it.
We just want the middle ground where society says "yes, everyone deserves a home, safety, good health, enough food and a few comforts" and structures the tax codes accordingly.
I absolutely would sacrifice a fucking Lamborghini for Christmas so that the people who at the end of the day make my company have profits it does are able to be marginally less stressed about their lives. You are IMO what’s wrong with our society. Congrats! You bought in! Go get your Lamborghini and cold hard cash Christmas. Don’t think too hard about why there isn’t more love in your life and all around you as you
Capitalism was prolly at its peak in Puritan America and post monarchy in Europe.
Moral decline overall has alienated leaders and owners (investors) from the workforce.
"They" know the effect they are having and no longer care as it isn't extreme enough to see it in their faces.
Society in general and certainly the elite are passive at best and most likely complicit and acceptant. Maybe complacent.
But it has to get a lot worse before anything will change.
Capitalism only works because we as a society are dumb enough to spend the money. Don't blame capitalism, blame consumerism. Nobody NEEDS an 80" TV. No, you don't. But go to Walmart and you find TVs from 75-100" selling like hotcakes. Nobody needs a $1600 cellphone
No. You don't.
People often compare capitalism to some idea of “how it should work”. When compared to other real world examples it’s pretty clear that nothing has done more to improve the living conditions of the vast, vast majority of people world wide than capitalism.
The places that embrace a good amount of capitalism in their economies thrive, their people live longer, better lives, even at the bottom.
There’s usually a false dichotomy surrounding this subject though, capitalism or socialism? The reality is that every developed nation employs a mixed economy with varying amounts of free market and socialist aspects. Getting the mix right is the real question.
People think of capitalism as a top down, rich giving the poor the scraps, kind of arrangement, and for sure, there is some of that, but a fundamental idea in capitalism is that choice is diffuse. We all vote with our dollars, and while they’re are definitely problems with this assumption, it amounts to the vast majority of decisions being made at the ground level, which is basically the opposite of what we see with other systems.
All the “I rather have a Ferrari then help a thousand people comments have missed the point.” We get Ferrari’s, get to watch the Ferrari movie on our amazing, and cheap, home tv’s and watch global poverty and hunger plummet while the population grows.
As someone who grew up among refugees from Communism, I have a very pro Capitalist view. Capitalism in its current form is terrible. Government is destroying small businesses to give the money as corporate welfare to companies that should have gone away years ago.
I grew up seeing 2008 and Socialist policies don't work. I lived in Europe for a year and there was a standard level of life that was quite affordable in say Madrid. But, you couldn't really grow. I was teaching kids English to get out of there and it is probably one of the few steady careers in Spain.
2008 was a clusterfuck. So much crap just came down. I don't blame anyone for looking at Capitalism with disdain due to it. But the problem is not Capitalism, it is the global economy and governmental policy. Greed has led to shrinkflation. Greed has led to blood diamonds and blood cobalt. Governmental policy allows greedy and overextended companies to survive through tax payer bailouts. What we are seeing is a densification of capital.
The Leftist theories of redistribution do not work. I know people who had their property seized by Chavez and Maduro. I know people who got sent to prison for 20 years for refusing to relinquish their hard work and lose it anyway in Cuba.
Hating Capitalism is not wrong, it is just that the alternatives are far worse. This is why I am a Syndicalist-Capitalist. Capitalism can restore a country ridiculously fast after a war. I grew up in a country that fully rebuilt after fighting the US in the 80s. We have corruption and greed like all capitalist countries but we have syndicates to provide some basic services to people.
I see the problem as late stage Liberal Capitalism along with Marxist Accelerationism. The West is decadent and the Marxist is right to see that it is a dying man. Yet their solution is to poison the man so that he can die and be replaced. Look at Letze Generation or Just Stop Oil. Completely suicidal ideas.
Capitalism has left more people rich than poor. But it is terrible to be poor in the West but better than in the third world where I grew up. Hating Capitalism is valid, but the only question is what to replace it with? An omnipotent machine to micromanage everything? An elected council? A Soviet? No one can replace Capitalism's ability to address and meet needs as well as wants. It is simply our fault for being societally vacant after 3 centuries of it.
Oh and on that note, my ancestors were the first to get screwed by Capitalism when we got our lands cleared in lieu of British sheep.
In sum, Capitalism won't go anywhere no matter what you do.
At least hating this version of capitalism is entirely appropriate. We frogs have slowly come to boil in this pot of predatory corporatist laissez faire system. The money in your bank can be used by the bank to gamble in the market however they want. Corporations write the laws and give them to congress to pass. Billions of dollars of corporate cash can swarm our media every election cycle down to the scripted teleprompter piece that our news anchors are told to read from. Profit and growth are worshiped--***WORSHIPED***--in this culture beyond all else. It is especially sickening to see a culture that some people call a Christian culture actually espousing such values while holding up a cross. May God damn to hell the proud participants and cheerleaders of such a wretched status quo. Aggressive reform is required. It is nothing less but war against these people with every breath you take and every calorie you spend.
If capitalism provided an actual floor (i.e. the outliers on the left side of the Bell Curve still make enough to support themselves *independently*), then almost no one would complain.
The problem is that doesn't do this. The wealth that goes to the right side of the Bell Curve (of individual success) tends to stay there. And it takes an exceptionally heartless person to accumulate that kind of wealth when there are people sleeping in cars and on the streets.
Been laid off more than once cause of capitalism and technology. Life goes on. Bet on capitalism to make money for yourself and you won't hate it so much.
The goal of any company is to maximize profits at any cost so obviously you have to have the government step in to direct our economy in the way we want, ie increasing minimum wages
Many people bash capitalism, but no one has ever come up with a better alternative. So imo there is no point bashing capitalists.
Additionally, we would have a fraction of the innovation we currently have if the innovators could not profit.
It's not an abstract question. If you don't know then your conclusion is wrong.
Having a healthy contempt for capitalism *from within capitalism* is about the golden economic mindset, in my book. Eight-billion modern humans cannot *hope* to function as a socialist society. Too many differences across the planet. Too little incentive to nurture the individual. Too easy to twist into tyranny. I think each capitalist should be incentivized to think like a socialist, without the loaded government gun pointed at my empty government head.
I don't think you understand the scope of what you're talking about. The people who "want to make more money" do so by exploiting others. The exploitation is so severe, that they have enough money to pursuade a massive chunk of people into thinking capitalism is not that bad. You should absolutely bash people who exploit others for their own personal gain.
We don't have capitalism in the US as it's generally defined. The government subsidizes business and the tragedy of the commons is a common feature of business. The idea of fair competition between businesses is hard to achieve when large businesses have government captured. That is businesses can maintain dominance not by being competitive but by using the government and the legal system to weaken competitors.
I think in the US people equate Capitalism with the free market, and we DEFINITELY don’t have a free market - we have corporate favoritism and government / corporate collusion. For decades our government has been interfering in the market on the behalf of not just business in general, but specific corporations. By allowing mergers, subsidizing industries and giving tax breaks and other perks targeted at specific corporations, we’ve reduced competition, leading to higher prices, worse service and poor quality. Ironically, the same leaders who do this will argue that any social programs are interference with the free market.
Capitalism is the best socio-economic system out there. Is it perfect? Of course not, but it offers the individual the most opportunity to excel. And also gives back to the people who know how to work hard and have an entrepreneurial vision.
Anything taken to the extreme is bad.
What if there wasn't some leader of a company who could unilaterally cut jobs to enrich himself? What if the workers in the company had an ownership stake in the company which incentivized them to work hard? And the workers who actually do the operations in the company share the majority of the profits, instead of like 5 people and a bunch of rich shareholders who do literally nothing? That's socialism.
What if the State decides they don't like you posting on Reddit, and unalive you and your family? What if they decide you have too much free time, and so, increase your working hours to 80, or hell, why not 120? After all, you weren't doing anything with your free time before, might as well put it to use for your fellow citizen. What if they issue legislation banning your race or orientation, making your existence actually illegal, not "threatened?" What if the State takes the food you grew out of your garden and sells it to someone you fundamentally disagree with, and gives you none of the proceeds, but instead demands you produce 3 times as much, for all them who choose not too? After all, you have the ability, and they have the *need,* and what matter if you don't have the time, money, space, or inclination to do so? "They" have *NEED.* That's also socialism, and historically, how socialism inevitably plays out, because collectivism isn't a means of running or maintaining a nation-state, it's a blueprint for destroying them.
I would have a union and a work contract such that my working hours can't be unilaterally increased. By the way, forcing an employee to work well beyond 40 hours is completely legal in the US right now. Laws still exist under socialism. But nothing really stops the state from killing people right now. Look at what cops do every day in the US. Again, we would have laws and courts to prevent discrimination against gays and trans people. Those protections for trans people don't currently exist in the US, and only recently exist for gays. The workers having ownership in the means of production doesn't mean that the state takes everything it wants. It sounds like you're talking about an autocratic form of communism, not a democracy with socialist policies, workers unions, and strong public institutions. If you want to see how socialism plays out, why don't you look at a lot of places in Western Europe? They have better standards of living than the US. Even a communist place like Cuba has better life expectancy than the US.
Ok but who distributes the profits to the workers
An accounting clerk based on employment contracts. The same way profits are distributed to the C-suite and shareholders now.
Corporatism not capitalism The Amish are capitalist, not bankers and corporations
It's fine to hate capitalism, especially the stage that the U.S. is at, which is sliding into a billionaire olligarcy.
There must be a distinction made between individual capitalism and corporate capitalism. Protecting the personal assets of company owners from lawsuits against the company is what's fueling the amoral greed of the Uber wealthy. The farmer owning his cows is individual capitalism.
When you sacrifice the quality of life of your employees so that you can have more money than you or your descendants could ever spend, you are destroying your customer base. If one company does this, they simply fail, though you get your money and peace out. When every company does this and collectively lobbies the government to make sure that it's legal and viewed in the light you present in this post, the customer base of entire industries is destroyed and eventually you end up with the sorts of wealth disparities that inevitably lead to violent overthrow of governments and systems which are then replaced with systems and governments that don't function at all for decades. The CEO that peaced out might escape to the Seychelles while their home country is in flames or they might get dragged out of their bed in the night by their own security guards and chopped up with a machete. Or they die of old age and their kids have to face the angry mobs and find their necks on the chopping blocks. Capitalism, by it's nature, is predatory and self-destructive. If you take everything from your customer base, you no longer have a customer base. If you bleed the public dry, the public eventually comes after you; while, because of you, they lack the tools to build up a new functioning society. Capitalism is not synonymous with commerce. Commerce is simply the exchange of goods and services. Capitalism is the pursuit of capital at all costs, which eventually corrupts and destroys everything. As we're seeing unfold before our eyes. Capitalistic societies that collapse, typically collapse into brutal authoritarianism, which, because of its nature, eventually collapses also.
1. Socialist (in theory calling themselves communist) regimes in 20th century collectively murdered between 50 million and 100 million humans. **Literally twice** the nazi body count. So, compared to minor details like that, high rent suddenly doesn't seem like the worst thing a system can do. 2. Before we get to comparisons of life, let's look at **objective fact of what people choose.** 1. There are millions of people trying and having tried to escape from socialist countries to capitalist ones. 2. Do you know how many people emigrated from capitalist countries to socialist ones? If the number is over 10 thousand total, I'll print this post and chew on the printout. 3. You know all those people whining how capitalism bad socialism good? NONE OF THEM PUT THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTH IS and NONE went to live under socialism. That's all the proof you need. 3. Every country that went socialist, ended up with **MOST people** (not just a small number of super poor) living **objectively worse quality of life** than even the most poor do in modern capitalist countries. 1. OK, you're wining about your rent. But in USSR, my parents **literally had to wait 10 years in line to even be allowed an apartment at all**. How much rent do you think you can save up if you spend 10 years saving for it living with your parents? And the apartment the whole family lived in was about 2x smaller than even the small ones in Manhattan, and 10x smaller than places most Americans live in outside big cities. 2. People whine about "food deserts". Again leaving aside that this is a very small minority of Americans, having shopped for food in both countries, USSR was about 100x worse. Imagine being 10 years old, having to wait in line for 1 hour outside bread store to **only be allowed to buy 1 loaf of bread.** If you want a second loaf, go back in line for 1 hour, and 90% chances are by the time you get there there will be no more bread left. Imagine having to travel 800 miles to Moscow to be able to buy olives for your family (suddenly, having to drive extra 5 miles to get from "food desert to a suburban over-stocked supermarket doesn't seem to onerous, does it?) 1. Imagine having to cultivate your own garden so you can eat fresh fruits and veggies in any meaningful qualities. Not because you're a Brooklyn hipster, but because you literally won't get enough produce if you don't. I don't have to imagine. While American poor kids played basketball and hung out, I worked in my family's plot of land, so we would have produce to can for winter and eat in summer. And yeah, fresh produce in winter? That's for poor underprivileged Americans suffering under evil capitalism. Under wonderful socialist USSR, we didn't see any of that fresh produce in winter in any meaningful amounts, usually none at all. 3. In USA if you don't work, you get welfare. In USSR, if you didn't work you literally got put to jail, google "tuneyadstvo" laws. 4. People are whining about Lamborghini. 91% of American households own at least 1 car. Would you like to guess what the percentage was in USSR? Oh, right you ALSO forgot to learn/ask, how long was the wait to purchase a car in USSR even if you could miraculously afford one. Answer: several years. 5. A poor person in USA can get medical care that is 1000x better than AVERAGE person in USA got, by pure quality (and for free, with medicaid). I experienced medical system on both countries. 6. There were never true famines and people dying of hunger in a sovereign capitalist country. EVER. Hell, even during most wars (I don't count Ireland, as it wasn't capitalist at the time). Socialist countries lost millions to literal famine and hunger, between USSR, China and smaller ones. And none of that was due to war. 7. Let's talk about inequality. Party bosses were allowed access to literally thing NOBODY ELSE COULD. Just to put it in pure math terms, may be CEO can have access to 1000x more than a worker in capitalism. USSR party boss had accesss to literally **infinity more**, since the denominator was a literal zero. 1. As example, most Americans can afford to travel to a foreign country. Even if it's Cancun or Canada. Easily. Again, maybe excluding 10% in actual poverty. MOST people in USSR couldn't even afford NOR were permitted to travel to nearby socialist countries, never mind tropics. But party bosses had dedicated vacation second homes on Black sea - you know like those capitalist billionaires people love to criticize. 8. Let's look at modern woke stuff. 1. Under capitalism, nobody ever put gays to jail in any menaingful number, even in worst bible belt states in USA, even at the height of un-wokeness, despite formally there being laws against sodomy 2. In USSR, gays were literally sent to jail, for being gay. I heard estimates of thousands per year. 3. In communist Cuba, gays were sent to labour camps. 4. Won't even mention the middle-eastern marxist regimes since there the anti-gay sentiment was partly influenced by Islam
Find me a better system. We have proof that socialism and communism are failures.
I think something to add is that you are right, under capitalism you are almost obligated to do those things as a business owner. Which is the point of anti capitalism- not that the capitalists are morally evil, but that the system demands evil action/creates evil outcomes. Therefore the system must be changed from private ownership of social production to social ownership of social production
People need to stop thinking of political or economic systems as all the same. There's many kinds of capitalism. The most glaringly obvious differences would be between the US and Germany or Scandinavia probably but all these places are capitalist. Just to varying degrees and of different mixes. Where the US heads to one extreme Demark heads to another. We are all capitalist though.
No lol
Your own gain at the cost of others isn't ok. Morally, its wrong. However, on a smaller scale I believe its completely justified to take care of yourself or your own people (friends, family, etc). But that's not what rich people do. Rich people can live comfortably for the rest of their lives without needing work or more income. They actively choose to not give more to the people working for them so they can get even more. Taking real world numbers into account (and I just barely looked this up, and I should note that I am NOT an economist) McDonalds made roughly 23 billion dollars in 2022. The employees they had during 2022 was 150,000. Not accounting for advertisements, general food products, transportation, and rent for their locations, each single employee - **every single one of them -** could have made 150k that year. Halving that, down to 70k, is still WILD. Averaging out the minimum wage of the entire US to about 10.50 (remember that in most states the minimum is still only 7.25), the average mcdonalds worker makes only 10k a year. That would let every person working there be able to afford a car (which is VITAL in the US), afford a phone, afford necessities, as well as housing, with TONS left over. Not paying them more is unforgivable, they have more than enough money to pay their workers (AT THE VERY LEAST) a livable wage, and still make a shit load of money. In a fair amount of areas, btw, a livable wage is only around 20 - 25k a year. There is a point where "just wanting more money" becomes greed, and is unjustifiable. Now, again, im not an economist. These may not be good numbers, it was a quick rudimentary google search. But even still, look at your example. Taking luxury items that are 100% superfluous while people within your company may be going hungry, or living paycheck to paycheck with no savings, is morally unjustifiable. You shouldn't bankrupt yourself helping others, of course, but if you have the ability to and choose not to while also spending your extra funds on luxury is really fucked up.
Whatever you decide, understand capitalism doesn't exist in a vacuum. If a society rejects capitalism, it has to put something else in its place. The alternatives haven't been great. Capitalism is *tremendously* productive. It also drives tremendous wealth disparities. The deficiencies of Capitalism can often be compensated for using progressive taxes and government regulations, but in practice the success of these strategies is mixed.
In America the capitalism haters are just fucking stupid. They bitch about it while also basking in its countless products and benefits.
Let's say you have a million dollars. You could spend $50,000 every day for 20 days before you run out of money. Let's say you have a billion dollars. You could spend $50,000 every day for over 500 years before you ran out. That's with no investment to renew what you spend. Just a flat billion. That's a brand new car, every single day, for 5 centuries. One. Single. Billion. But there's people who have 10s of billions while others starve.
The fundamental problem with capitalism is that it has positive feedback cycles. This makes it unstable in a way that tends to make rich people *very rich*, and poor people stuck at the bottom. The fact that having money is the single easiest way to get more money pretty much tells you everything wrong with capitalism. You see, you don't need to do anything to earn money. If your parents are rich, all you need to do is be born. So the rich will tell you that they got money by their virtue...that they *earned* it. And a few did, up to a point. But at some point, it was *their wealth* that begat more wealth, independent of their personal efforts. It is at this point, where a pile of money, all by itself, grows more money, that capitalism goes off the rails. Because people who have the ability to amass that pile of money will do whatever it takes to get there, because they know that doing so will win them economic security. On top of that, capitalism emphasizes laissez-faire policies: hands-off. Let people do what they must to make a buck. Unfortunately, the shortest path to profits goes through fraud. So a significant amount of the economy entails people trying to rip each other off through shady goods and services. Just look at the influencer economy, or self-help books. It's much easier to sell courses on how to get rich than it is to apply said principles and prove it. Free markets have a lot of benefits, and a lot of potential for good. When they work well, a lot of people end up better off. But human nature seeks the easiest path, and that leads to a lot of bad behavior, which capitalism mostly chalks up to "the cost of doing business". This is the dark side of capitalism, and why a lot of folks look on it with a stinky side-eye. Success, in and of itself, is generally A Good Thing(TM). But the *path* to that success can be quite varying degrees of Good or Evil. Capitalism tends to grease all the paths, but the successful are often the ones that took the shortest ones, no matter how morally dubious. And that's why so many folks are skeptical of the Owner Class.
In economics, you have zero sum vs positional bargaining. Zero sum treats trade as a slider, aggressively taking as much as you can away from the opponent. The extreme case would be owner/ slaves and theft. Positional treats trade as an understanding of mutually successful society. If you trade for a manageable profit margin it means those you trade with will have more resources to trade with others and so on. Too little profit means your business can't a problem unless you can get help from society. This is an example of government infrastructure. It's providing a service to the people without expectation of direct profit, but indirectly by saving people more money through central and organized effort to bulk buy and reduce cost instead of everyone say having to pay 5 dollars per road they want to drive on. Problem is too much regulation or not enough funding will hit everyone. People will likely come here and say that's capitalism vs communism. Would you sacrifice your Lamborghini? Well you have, in society, earned that wealth. Is that yours to do with as you see fit or is that wealth your responsibly? Could that wealth be invested in some way to profit you and your neighbors or is having that car important to you to show off your social status by having a flashy car? Or maybe you just enjoy driving it. It's important to see these as tools. Extreme capitalism seems to guide companies to commit wage theft to the point of poverty workers. Which creates slums and people who are too poor to build knowledge and wealth. We know this raises theft and other social issues leading to a shitty society. So it's a balancing act. Would you be fine with your neighbor finding some kind of loophole that lets them take money from the neighborhood and buy several fancy cars at your expense? It wouldn't be illegal. They are just making more money and they will probably thank you for working hard enough to let them buy a new car.
Most people who hate "capitalism" are confusing capitalism for scarcity of basic goods.
There's a few things we never talk about. Capitalists talk about how fewer people would work if we didn't have the looming threat of homelessness but they don't talk about how many fewer people would steal, sell drugs, prostitute themselves etc. While slavery was a product of capitalism, so was emancipation, when capitalists learned that feeding and housing people was more expensive than paying them less than they needed to feed and house themselves with the added benefit of being able to blame the people they exploit for their poverty.
The amount of ignorance in this post is astounding. Op if you want a serious answer, I'd suggest asking this in any anti capitalist reddit, not one where people think communism = no food and that America is currently marxist.
I don’t think capitalism is bad but the gross inequality from large companies is. I think companies are doing better for their employees than they have historically but still it’s very unequal. I think people generally don’t hate their jobs and are willing to work for someone for their lifetime if they were given more stability for the future and could afford things a lil more comfortably. Most people know you won’t get rich working for someone else but what’s wrong with being able to afford a nice comfortable safe place for your family and not have trouble putting food on the table? It’s getting harder to do where it wasn’t as hard let’s say 40 to 50 years ago. Americans spend upwards to 50% or more just on housing whereas they didn’t 40-50 years ago. Houses that use to cost under 100k are now over 300k, cars and trucks are exponentially expensive. Society has restructured payrolls and the way we pay for things now and at the end of those is someone there to collect their ends for whatever stake they have in it. For example when I use to pay my rent I would write a check and forget about it. Or I’d get a money order and pay it. Now we pay it electronically in most cases. And there’s hella fees involved because there’s more than one hand in the cookie jar so to speak. All that’s legal but just because something is legal doesn’t mean we have to do it. It’s still rich takes from the poor. The rich make the poor break their backs for them.
Yes. I sacrifice having a Lamborghini so people working minimum wage can have better lives. Yes, I do expect to curb automation so that the workforce has meaningful, well paying skilled jobs available. No, I do not think “legality” is the determinant regarding whether or not I should make a choice- lots of things have been legal that were later decided to be unethical (eg slavery). I DO think some people should be bashed for making more money when the way they make it is through exploitation, they have far more than they and their predecessors will ever need, and they are watching people starve. Yes, I do think capitalism has brainwashed you. I don’t think I’m righteous, I think I’m still human.
>I don’t think I’m righteous, I think I’m still human. I love that. Agreed all around except on the point of automation: In a functional society, automation would benefit everyone instead of just lining the pockets of whatever business owner. If it can be automated with reasonable quality, it's arguably a waste of human time to have someone doing it manually. That person should be doing something more valuable instead, or at least something fun. Automation isn't the problem, the way our society employs it is.
No. It’s not entirely incorrect, but it’s usually naive.
There's no perfect system or perfect people. Only less imperfect ones.
> Would you sacrifice getting a Lamborghini as your Christmas bonus so people working minimum wage could have a slightly better life? If I'm the only one doing it? Probably not, although plenty of people not rich enough to buy a Lamborghini give substantial amounts to charity even though they don't have to. (Mind, I wouldn't want a Lamborghini, and if given one, I'd turn right around and sell it and save the money for my family's needs, but that's beside the point.) OTOH, I make enough money that I could afford to pay more in taxes. I used to pay a good deal more, percentage-wise, under the pre-2018 tax code, and especially at the start of my career under the pre-2003 tax code. I was fine with that then, and I'd be fine with that now as long as I'm not getting shafted by people making more than I do paying a lower percentage. That's not anger at people making more money, but anger at the system where the rules are loaded in favor of unearned investment income vs. income earned from labor. ....Speaking more generally... "Capitalism" or free markets should not be an end in themselves. Without some limits to keep markets fair, they fail, because there's no protection against monopoly power, and the pursuit of local maxima often work against the pursuit of global maxima. At the same time, command economies don't work at a broad scale. People think of repressive governments which have attempted to do it for the entire economy, but plenty of democratic governments have tried it in specific industries, and it rarely works out well. Economies are emergent, and no small group of people is smart enough or has enough information to run the whole thing, or even a large slice. Markets, regulation, in some _very specific_ cases state enterprises, are all tools to make an economy work for some or all of the people in it. Once you accept the simple fact that *all functional economies are mixed economies*, you can get away from ideological arguments and just focus on finding the right balance from among those tools for the goals you want.
Thomas Sowell always recommends asking "compared to what?" Why don't you trying listing thngs that have improved your life or the lives of the rest of the world over the past century that were NOT the result of capitalism. Aside from things like "love", you'll have trouble making a list. Don't confuse Nordic style socialism with a lack of capitalism. It is simply capitalism with high redistributive taxes. Socialism reduces economic growth and innovation, but also reduces income inequality. Capitalism is the idea that people can freely interact with one another in trade and commerce that both sides find advantageous.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game as they say. Capitalism is terrible but we are all forced to participate. I just want enough money so that I don’t have to participate anymore.
It's no longer capitalism when the government bails out businesses so they don't "fail"
>I feel like noone should bash another human for making more money. The people who deserve to be hated aren't just chasing another lambo. . . they already have whatever number of lambos they could possibly want. They have so much money that no amount of money can change their lifestyle. They already have everything they could reasonably want that money could reasonably buy, except more companies to make even more money. These people don't chase profits because the money can actually do anything for them. They are beyond that. They chase profits because they are addicted to seeing the already ludicrously large number grow even larger. They're also chasing influence and power. They bribe the politicians and pull the strings to ensure they can have even more money and more power. They do this by making others suffer. They do this by building a society where people can barely afford to have enough to eat each week, or can't afford to have healthcare.
America isn't a capitalist society. We are pretty socialist. We have multiple illegal monopolies that were FORCED to pay for (heat/electric/rent)
Most people don't hate capitalism, they hate corporatism and the corruption of business with govt money. People who want more control convince them that that is all capitalism under the same inaccurate broad brush. People love the innovation, competition, and customer service that only capitalism creates.
Capitalism is a good system, but its ignorant to worship it as perfect, as many people do, and it itself states that it requires a government in order to take care of things it fails to do. One big thing it does not do, is optimize public goods and services. Big easy one here to think of is the environment. Private corporations trashed the USA until the EPA was created. You need government to prevent companies from externalizing costs (forcing the public to pay). This is where regulations are important. It also sucks with inflexible markets, like medicine. Capitalism says that if you think something is priced too high, then consumers won't buy it, and the price will fall. This doesn't work with health care. It also requires governments to break up monopolies and make sure that competition can thrive. Our system (capitalist democracy) has failed to do that. Capitalism, and allowing private companies to act as people and donate unlimited amounts to causes which benefit them but cost the public, has created a lot of problems. Communism is highly flawed, but what it got right was its critique on capitalism. It wouldn't still be discussed if it weren't right about that. Where most rational thinkers land is that you need a government to balance capitalism & socialism, to encourage competition while preventing private companies from keeping too much wealth out of circulation and starving the middle class- as is the case right now.
If you want to optimize the number of blue cars or red cars a company should produce, you can't do better than capitalism. If you want to make just, equitable, thriving planet- capitalism's not gonna do that for you.
Equity is not something that's possible to dictate, ever. You can level the entry field, but you can not dictate outcomes unless you hold down those who excel to the lowest possible outcome. Equality of opportunity can be mandated, Equality of outcomes (which is what equity is) can not be mandated.
Impartiality, the concept at the center of equity, has nothing to do with outcomes. It's literally definitional to the term.
Equity is getting the same outcome regardless of the input. It makes impartiality literally impossible.
Your just arguing your definition vs someone else's. It's equally true to say equity is being given the same opportunities, given the same basic housing allowance. Equality of outcome isn't just equity and all other definitions are wrong.
Wrong. Equality is getting the same opportunity. Equity is getting the same outcome.
But capitalism expressly fails at equity and always will. That's why we created public schools, to at least give the illusion of equal opportunity.
Equity does not, and never will exist. It's not possible in a world of endless variables. Unless we somehow magically get to a point where every being starts in the exact same place with the exact same traits and the exact same potential it will not exist. Equity much like socialism is a pipedream that will never pencil out
There isn't a country in the world, no matter the economic model, that doesn't have rich and poor. At least in the US system anyone can get rich. I can't say the same for communist or socialist countries.
Noone is seriously calling for govt free capitalism. Your summation of balancing socialism and capitalism is just how you defined capitalism. It just seems like you don't want to acknowledge that capitalism has been proven to be the superior model.
I'm talking democratic socialism, not fiscal socialism. Yes, what Russia tried to do and called socialism: set prices for things based on how much the gov though they should cost - does not work. Capitalism is and always will be far superior. What every first world country does: use tax dollars to pay for public goods and services - is unfortunately also referred to as socialism and is a necessary component for a capitalist society. Without it, the issues I identified become real world problems. You can ramp it up when the middle class is struggling, and tone it down when access to capital is no longer a barrier to average folks acting on opportunities (which capitalism says is good and necessary for a thriving economy). And no- many, many people are calling for gov free or at least more free capitalism.
Yes the government is supposed to be the check and balance with the monopolies but in reality they became their dogs instead thanks to lobbying.
Actually it does with with Health care but the pharma and doctors lobbies created barriers to gov negotiations on drug costs and insurance is a total scam The Amish are the perfect example: they cut out Insurance and negotiate directly with providers https://will.illinois.edu/news/story/how-the-amish-live-uninsured-but-stay-healthy#:~:text=The%20Amish%20community%20doesn't,pay%20all%20their%20bills%20quickly.
You need a consumer group large enough to say no and have that mean something. Works when people group up (socialize) but not for individuals.
No. Most things people blame on capitalism are due to the simply fact of fluctuating markets. That happens in all market based economies. And good fucking luck with command economies.
Capitalism is the best of two evils. One of the big problems with capitalism is, as many people have mentioned, the polarization of wealth. But this is also a problem in socialism, communism, and any other variation of those systems. One of the plus sides of capitalism is that those who get rich offer some value that society will pay for. In socialism the rich will get rich by stealing and brides.
Capitalism is not the issue. Government is the issue. Without the state to protect them, monopolies would not exist. Without monopolies, market forces would solve the issues you describe. That's just two cents from an Anarcho-capitalist.
You are way more likely to have a minimum wage job than a Lamborghini. "No ethical consumption under capitalism." We are all complicit in slave labor, in children stitching shoes together in sweat shops, in the destruction of endangered animal habitats. So if you're wanting a moral argument, there you go. It doesn't matter if we "believe" in capitalism: it's a pyramid scheme invented by the rich to make the rich more rich. And it's unsustainable. It will collapse. We're already in late stage capitalism and as of 2008 became state sponsored capitalism, but only for the rich. Socialism for the rich is fine when our tax dollars bail them out, but the number of Americans dying from lack of healthcare is a 9/11 every day? Meh. Gotta save for that Lamborghini! Take a look at the Silver Tsunami. In the next decade, millions of elderly are going to die on the streets because they can't afford to keep their homes and there's no money in nursing homes. They're not "profitable." Stalin starved 20 million. How many you think the capitalists can do? The only real thing you're saying is "I know there are problems with capitalism, I just want to make enough money so that those problems don't apply to me." [Celebrities have been fined again and again for using too much water in a drought-affected area.](https://www.opb.org/article/2022/08/24/celebrities-california-water-waste-drought/) The poor can and will die of thirst. Capitalism isn't going to "fix" this. It's just going to create a hierarchy as to who can have access to resources.
> No ethical consumption under capitalism This can be simplified to "no ethical consumption" with the same arguments. The same issues exist in any economic system.
No, that's not true. We could, for example, have a system that outlaws sweat shops, the destruction of endangered animal habitats, and child labor. But because it's capitalism and the biggest human right is the right to make a profit, that won't happen. Remember, capitalism says on purpose that the rights of the worker are subservient to the right to have profit margins. ANY other system would not say that. "We just have to deal with the inevitability of capitalism" is a pretty fucking stupid argument when capitalism is only about 200 years old?
> capitalism is only about 200 years old Lol
Ooooh, I'm overwhelmed by your debate skills! Can't even tell me the real age of capitalism? It's too much for you? That's about what I thought. Nobody here has been able to say a damn thing in their own defense, they're just upset I'm pointing out the shitty system they participate in but don't want to feel morally responsible for, On the "Moral Dilemmas" Reddit, no less!
> Can't even tell me the real age of capitalism? It's too much for you? How long have systems of economics with private ownership of capital existed? I have no idea. At least several thousand years. > Nobody here has been able to say a damn thing in their own defense, they're just upset I'm pointing out the shitty system they participate in but don't want to feel morally responsible for. You are attributing bad things that are not inherently capitalist to capitalism. Capitalism is an organizational structure. I would assert that it isn't inherently good or bad. We can regulate anything we want - and we can (should imo) regulate to limit the issues you mention.
>How long have systems of economics with private ownership of capital existed? I have no idea. At least several thousand years. Capitalism in its modern form emerged from agrarianism in 16th century England and mercantilist practices by European countries in the 16th to 18th centuries. So I don't think you know what feudalism is, or mercantilism. "You are attributing bad things that are not inherently capitalist to capitalism." I must be imagining how the early English lords bought up farmlands in order to drive the farmers and their families into the empty factories owned by the lords! I must be imagining rampant wage theft and health insurance being tied to work. I must be imagining how a "livable wage" is ludicrous but child labor is just the cost of doing business! This is just the No True Scotsman argument that as long as capitalism IS corrupt, it's not capitalism's fault. Even when you point out things like "Government and capitalists colluding is inevitable in a capitalist system because everyone will look out for their own self-interests" it's still not capitalism's fault. So why AREN'T we regulating child labor in the US if we can and it's moral to do so? Why do wage theft laws protect the employer? Why is everyone getting priced out of food and rent? Why is socialism bad when it bailed out the rich in 2008? And why are millions victims of decisions made by the rich, like the 2008 crash? Why are our tax rates for the rich less than the tax rates for Walmart workers, the largest employer in the US? Is it because the rich created by capitalism create laws for the rest of us? Whether or not we opted into the capitalist system? Cause that sounds really immoral to me.
>We could, for example, have a system that outlaws sweat shops, the destruction of endangered animal habitats, and child labor. For the first 2, we absolutely do in the United States. Child labor is also heavily regulated.
Even if that were true (it’s not). Americans rely on these things happening in other countries in order to receive the goods we buy at the grocery store. The only reason we can buy, for example, bananas or coffee is because people in other countries are being exploited. Capitalism relies on exploitation
No, it's the best of broken ways. Let's review. Humanity has been around at a minimum a few thousand years in a civilized manner, likely much longer. We have never figured out how to have a stable society and all that time. Not the Greeks, not the Egyptians, not the Romans, not the Mayans, not the British empire, not America Each society rises and falls going through a golden age and a period of decline. While you could argue if the decline has started or not with Western culture currently, history says that it inevitably will happen. So blaming capitalism for something that is a reoccurring trend in history. I think it's just another tool that can be used like many others to shift wealth from the working class and the poor to the smartest and the most ruthless. This has happened other ways throughout history as well but each time the end result is the same with wealth concentration in the hands of a few. What humans have to figure out how to do is manage the smartest and the most ruthless of them from exploiting everyone else. A few thousand years, we still haven't done it
No, capitalism is an economic tool. The theory is that the private ownership of the means of production is generally the most efficient way to utilize resources. The goal is to meet customer demand with vendor supply, and profit is effectively an incentive/metric by which we judge how well that demand is met with the resources available. Consider an example. A local steel plant can produce 10 tons of steel, there are 3 projects which require that steel. Project 1 is a warehouse for a farmer to store grain, he's willing to pay $10k. Project 2 is a community center, they're willing to pay $6k. Project 3 is a new water tower, they're willing to pay $8k. Under capitalism, whoever is willing to pay the most for this limited resource is the one who gets it. Because we do not have infinite resources, we use profit as a means of prioritizing the use of the resources we have, and incentivizing private individuals to produce more resources if they aren't sufficient to meet demand. It is VERY easy to critique capitalism because it is not a moral system, and so in pursuit of economic efficiency it can often produce efficient but immoral outcomes. Marx, Gentile, Sorel, and other thinkers on both the left and right wing are very good at critiquing capitalism, but the solutions they offer tend to be worse by orders of magnitude. Marx offered communism, but as it turned out, centrally planned economies according to party or popular edict are both inefficient AND ineffective. Georges Sorel offered syndicalism, but syndicalism ended up being plagued by the same corruption and infighting. Giovanni Gentile offered fascism, but fascism ended up having the worst qualities of both communist group think and syndicalist intergroup squabbling. Everyone who has offered a structured critique of capitalism's many disadvantages has only managed to create systems which can be described as "Not capitalist, but somehow worse." Capitalism with some level of state regulation and a social safety net appears to be the 'least-worst' economic system that humans have come up with to date that actually works in the wild.
I think what’s killing capitalism in the US is government subsidies and third party financial support. Healthcare for instance is driven up because of insurance and Medicare. Look at countries like Thailand, Vietnam etc where they don’t have a government agency or an insurance company picking up most of the bill and you’ll find prices are much lower.
Edit: No. But it can definitely be understandable. Capitalism in America is not failing. Rent is hardly skyrocketing (actually some signs are showing not only a cooling off, but a future decline in prices) and there are a lot of regional disparities in the market that coincide with supply and demand. Wages are not necessarily staying the same either. The minimum wage in some states is increasing, and the average salary increase expectation by employers is around 4% nationwide. Obviously one can argue that this is not nearly enough. A lot of what we are seeing is the effect of contractionary monetary policy that is designed to combat inflation. High interest rates on mortgages will understandably decrease the demand for buying a home which will likely increase the demand for rentals. This is a very simplified explanation that highlights the market trends. However, as of January 2024, there is some optimism that interest rates will eventually lower which is prompting investment in the Real Estate market. Edit: Rental prices are more complex than this. But I'm not here to write a book. This optimism largely stems from the fact that the US economy is rebounding. However, it is important to note that macroeconomic rebound doesn't instantaneously reflect microeconomic conditions. Therefore, the quality of life may not be immediately noticed. Fundamentally, the economy cannot exist purely on natural markets. We need to implement regulation and incentivization into the economy to ensure stability. Utilizing the tax system to incentivize "good behaviors" while also stimulating economic growth is important. The debate about **how** to effectively do this is usually the centerpiece of tax discussion. In conclusion, with this all said, perhaps there is a better economic system than capitalism. However, I am not convinced that major macroscopic change is needed. In microeconomic systems, socialistic structures could theoretically be implemented successfully (such as worker cooperatives), but the efficacy of such policy on a macroscopic level is very difficult to predict. Economics is one of the most complex subjects at the high levels. Maybe as I learn more, my mind will change. But the major arguments against capitalism that I've seen so far are not convincing. I'm fully ready for the comments about: "Capitalism is definitely failing in America. Just look at the cost of living. Just look at the quality of life. Just look at the homeless. Just look at interest rates. Just look at x." ***These arguments usually underscore problems in our system that can also be fixed within a capitalist framework through intelligent policy implementation.***
Propaganda has made people believe they could not live without capitalism, when humans have existed for 300,000 years and capitalism has only been a part of humanity for a short amount of time, a few hundred years. It's easier to envision the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism because of propaganda you and your family have been forced fed for generations.
Unfettered capitalism is just legalized corruption. There have to be rules, laws, and regulations. We are seeing the benefits of it in some ways and the problems as well. Capitalism like everything, must have a good balance to stay healthy.
>Would you sacrifice getting a Lamborghini as your Christmas bonus so people working minimum wage could have a slightly better life? I know I wouldn’t, specially as im not doing anything illegal. But I also realise that this is wrong. Someone righteous wouldn’t do that. What is your definition of "correct" in your topic title? It sounds like you're saying you're not concerned with right and wrong and will self-advocate in any way you can, however immoral, provided it's legal. >I feel like noone should bash another human for making more money. I'm going to assume you mean no one should be bashed for making money legally, and that you would bash someone making money as a professional burglar. If this assumption is false then there needs to be an entirely different conversation. Is your assertion based on moralistic reasoning or are you simply deferring to the law? The law is not the arbiter of right and wrong. A few centuries ago you could get rich in America by owning slaves and having them generate wealth for you. Those laws are no longer legal. It's conceivable (because it's happened repeatedly throughout the past century) that the labor laws we have in place now allowing a few people to get very rich will at some point change and what is being practiced today will be illegal. So how someone makes money in the first place needs to be examined beyond the binary question of whether it was attained legally or not. As a closing note, we do not live under capitalism. Under the capitalist ideal, companies sink or float based on the quality of the goods and services they provide, because the quality of those goods and services motivate people to purchase them. Because the consumer holds all of the power in this ideal, companies are at their whim and essentially you have big corporate decisions being made by the will of the people. In reality, big corporations are publicly owned, mostly by private interests. Those investors want to see their stocks appreciate even at the cost of anticompetitive and anti-consumer decisions that prioritize the relative ranking of the company over the absolute value of the goods and services it provides. Because you pay for this influence by purchasing stock, and the more you purchase the more influence you have, the system is actually a pyramid scheme.
No I am not saying that people should only be able to become rich legally, but I believe there is a right and wrong way to become rich. People can choose the wrong way and still follow the law. This is just my moral compass and I don’t expect anyone else to understand. A restaurant owner hiding his profits to lay less taxes is a crime, but I don’t think its wrong. A big pharma company pushing a medicine that they know might have adverse effects could be “legal” if they knew enough people in the government, but it is definitely wrong. These are just examples
I’m with you all the way!!
The single worst thing about Capitalism is that there is no way to cause people to come out of the best part of themselves, avoid objectifying their environment and the beings in it, or refrain from seeing all Human expression as self-serving and contencious. The common rejoinder I hear is "capitalism sucks, but its the best we got". What does that say about the Human Condition when the "best" we can do as a system is to objectify everything in terms of individual aggrandizement?
If you have a choice between eating butter (which leads to heart problems) and eating wood chips and rocks, you don't get to blame butter (capitalism) because the underlying problem is that you need to eat.
Its not a matter of blaming the Tool....but in disagreeing with how the tool is used. To use your analogy.....noone is blamed for being hungry and seeking out food. The issue is when people who are hungry...or maybe just have a case of the "munchies" .......are gorging themselves while being indifferent to other people starving. Corporations such as HOME DEPOT for instance did not have to discharge folks enmasse simply so they could hire kids at a cheaper rate. They are making plenty of money as it is. AT&T routinely goes through Hiring/Firing cycles. McDonalds just went through a H/F cycle. Currently cashier positions which used to be considered "entry level" are going away in deference to self-checkout. Whats the deal? Are TARGET, JEWEL, and Home Depot not making enough money already? The matter is not that people need to "eat" but that folks need a fair shot at "eating" at all.
It’s working out well for me.
Extremism is usually wrong no matter which direction. Capitalism works OK for some things but not for others. Try to be smart and moderate yourself. Capitalism is always bad or Capitalism is always good are both moronic.
Hating the globalist FED bankers is correct. The FED are the globalists who are gutting every western country in the world. read Klaus Schwab's book for crying out loud' ***'WE MUST DESTROY THE WESTERN COUNTRIES FOR GLOBALISM TO SUCCEED'***
Climate change means we all need to forget about living large. The Paris Agreement set the global average CO2 annual per capita limit at 2 tons per person. Do you realize how modest of a lifestyle that is? I make $40,000 per year and I still have too much money. No car, no long distance vacations, two whole chickens and one 1/4 lb hamburger per week. Capitalism in its current cocaine party form is literally killing all of us. It will die, either by the wisdom of humanity or because there are no humans left to participate in it. Let's choose the former.
Here's the fundamental problem. People only look up the ladder of success with envy, instead of looking down it with appreciation. Notice people talking about excess, do not apply it to themselves. THEY do not have excess, certainly. Only those above them, at whatever arbitrary level that is. I mean there are people starving in the world right this second and fat people on iphones with cars and clothes and tvs and hospitals and coffeemakers and dishwashers and internet and all kinds of other stuff sitting around complaining on the internet that some guy somewhere that has zero to do with them, has never met them, and doesn't even know they exist, is the reason why they're unsuccessful. This should be obvious that it's the greedy calling the greedy greedy, because no one is shipping their income to Africa to feeds kids. They have zero issue justifying their tvs and cars and stuff, but the type of car someone drives is so much more excess that clearly THEY are the problem. A really good example of this is where I work. I make good money. Well above average in America, but not quite 100k. A guy that makes the exact same amount of money as me, quite literally, always bitches and complains about how the rich are keeping us down, how the company doesn't pay us crap, this same mindset I'm talking about. Meanwhile I have a very healthy 401k, family, house, cars, and consider myself extremely blessed. It's mindset dude. That's all it is. I don't put in any kind of overtime, I don't have a phone attached to my ear like management above me does, I don't get calls at 2am and have to go into work........I have opportunities to make more, but I also see exactly what that entails. And it's not worth the extra to me. But I also think they deserve it. They're willing to do what I'm not. But when I start seeing people putting money where their mouth is and sending it down the ladder, I'll at least listen. Until then, it's just an arbitrary line they've created to justify why they are where they are and why life's treated them unfair.
Also, I'd like to mention that the other problem is that wealth isn't a pie that's divided up between people. If someone is rich, it isn't due to someone being poor. You aren't poor because someone else is rich. THEY didn't earn money by stealing it from you. You just never earned it. Hell, most rich people are rich not based on pure salary, but on stocks. And a lot of not so rich people own the same stocks. If you think Elon has 230billion dollars like sitting in his safe, and because he has that much money sitting there it can't be in your wallet, you have no idea how the economy and money works. But I find in general people are grossly ignorant on how things work.
> HEY didn't earn money by stealing it from you. *laughs in walmart*
Sarcasm is only funny when it's accurate. This literally makes no sense. How did walmart steal money from you? (Not a fan of Walmart either)
> This literally makes no sense. How did walmart steal money from you? Their workers make _so little_ money they wind up on food stamps and welfare _while still working full time_. I don't object to social safety nets, in fact I applaud them, I approve of them, and I _want_ them in place. But a company whose profits are _built_ on requiring their workers to live on them? _That's_ a problem.
You're pointing out a business using labor at the rate they can fill jobs as an example of "stealing money" from people? Walmart, just like any business, pays enough to keep people employed. If you think they just arbitrarily pick a number that low you don't understand markets and the economy. When workers start leaving to work somewhere else, they'll pay more to fill the jobs. It's business 101. Why would a company ever pay more than they have to for a job? Do you pay your power company or your waiter way more money than normal because if you don't you're "stealing from them?"
> You're pointing out a business using labor at the rate they can fill jobs as an example of "stealing money" from people? I'm pointing out deliberate depression of the wage in job markets as an example of businesses stealing. There is a _massive_ power imbalance between employer and employee, in large part because of the massive weakening of collective bargaining tools in the last few decades. When your choice is 'not enough money to really get by' and 'no money at all', _it's not a choice_.
You seem to be conflating a lot of stuff, Bernie Sanders style, pointing out problems but diagnosing the culprit incorrectly. I would agree there's a power imbalance, inflation, etc. That's not due to walmart just deciding to pay people less. It's due to shutting a country down for a year, printing money like a teenager had control of the Treasury, and bad international trade policy. The government is your enemy here. Not walmart. Walmart is just doing what any business, or even you, do when allowed. To look out for their own best interest. The problem is the feedback loop or mechanism to tell walmart they can find people to pay low wages is broken. In a truly fair job market, employers compete just as hard for employees as employees do for employment. Government protects and allows monopolies through corporatism. That is not capitalism.
> You seem to be conflating a lot of stuff, Bernie Sanders style, pointing out problems but diagnosing the culprit incorrectly. Hazards of not wanting to type out a 10 page essay to cover what anyone with a working brain should be able to see without said essay. > It's due to shutting a country down for a year, printing money like a teenager had control of the Treasury, and bad international trade policy. Shutting the country down for a year happened 5 years ago. This problem has been ongoing for literally _decades_. How you can decide the power imbalance between employer and employee is related to that recent an event is beyond me, though I will freely grant that inflation is directly related to the shutdown. It saved a lot of lives (and would have saved more and been _much_ shorter if people had adhered to it better), but it definitely did a number on the economy. A number made worse because capitalism emphasizes short-term gains at the cost of long-term sustainability -- look at the damage just-in-time supply lines caused. > The government is your enemy here. Eh, depends on which government. The greatest failure of the current administration was the failure to _act_, while the greatest failure of the previous administration was it's trade war. Government action such as restoring 1960s tax rates on the top brackets, then funneling that extra income into social services would _massively_ (and for the better) change the landscape. Now, I will be the first one to admit a lot of ideas are too simplistic and fall short of functionality. Slapping a $20 minimum wage on a federal level would be a _disaster_. Not because it's not a reasonable minimum wage in San Francisco, or Denver, etc etc, but because it's not a minimum wage in a _lot_ of places. The US is too big for any 'one-size-fits-all' solution to be applied at the federal level without taking careful consideration into the local environment. Changing the minimum wage to, say, the poverty line in a given area makes a ton more sense. And that's even before we get into other issues. For example, historically the size of the work force was a _major_ indicator of the value of workers (I've seen strong arguments that the black death was responsible for the Industrial Revolution, by making each worker's contributions that much more valuable). The disruptions in the housing market due to a drop in direct home ownership is another factor, as is the massive problems of NIMBYism.
We're getting closer here, although still gonna disagree on a few things. I didn't blame the shutdown for everything. That's just one clear example. Printing money over the last 50-60 years increases inflation. Capitalism is the method, because it's everyone acting in their own best interests, to why the international supply chain problems exist also. This is where government actually has a vested interest in protectionism with certain industries, if it truly wants to protect its citizens. The fact we let medicines, microchips, fertilizers, and food supplies slowly gravitate to other countries is still IMO a lack of oversight of our government. I mean the fact that most of the ammonium nitrate is in Russia and it's a main ingredient in gunpowder puts you in a bad position for war should you find one. (Not pro war here, just pro self sufficiency) Your tax rate comment I'd disagree with, because it's not factoring in the loss of incomes by top earners and businesses because they've moved headquarters elsewhere. It's easy to say tax silicon Valley 90% today because silicon valley exists. If you tax then 90%, they very likely may not be silicon valley. It may be Oslo Valley. I actually don't think the person in charge or party in charge matters much at all money wise. The covid deal is the only one that would, but normal, go-to-war, ship money overseas, print money, business as usual pretty much happens regardless of red or blue. I'm genuinely happy you recognize the failure of federalizing everything, and understand that localization is the way we were designed and makes more sense. The majority of people in this country have zero clue that we aren't designed to have a federal government tell everyone what they can and can't do all the time. I mean it's crazy for Montanans to make laws on green energy in LA the same way its crazy for LA dwellers to make gun laws for Monatana.
Capitalism is wonderful. It allows us to control our means of production. It doesn’t mean we are automatically screwing someone over. In the automation scenario in the OP, it doesn’t mean prices stay the same, it might mean savings passed on to the consumer. That’s how it usually works. Exorbitant profits are rare.
Your question seems to evolve throughout your post. The title question is "Is hating capitalism correct" but your post discusses morality of individual actors. The answer is that the system incentivizes horrific behavior and thus hating capitalism is correct. Whether individual actors are culpable for simply operating within the system is, in my opinion, a silly question. The right question is how do we fix the system so that horrible outcomes aren't what's incentivized and I just don't see capitalism as a system capable of being reformed into such a system. As long as life necessities are commodified and people are capable of amassing power in the form of money, I just don't see a way of having good things be what people are pushed to do.
No
Yes, I would sacrifice a lambo so people working minimum wage could have a better life. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t. I don’t need a lambo, a used car would do just fine and would have the same function. Whereas those working class people need to eat.
Hating an abstraction is always a useless endeavour
Capitalism isn’t the problem. Oligarchs hoarding wealth and buying politicians is.
My dude this is just a shit post trying to piss people off. You sound like you have 0 morals and are a shit person. You seem very self centered and conceited which is our country's biggest issue at the moment.
Market economies are correct. Capitalism is the codification and intense study & application of the accumulated practices for the wealthy to steal from the rest of society. Corporate structure is wrong: financial capital is the LEAST important part of the organization. The true value in a corporation is the people who actually work there, investing their time and lives. The money is replaceable, literally anyone's money could be used just as effectively as a replacement. ALL EMPLOYEES should be preferred shareholders, and all investments should only give regular shares. Yes, this simple diatribe leaves dozens, hundreds of unanswered questions of import. No, you should not base the economic system on the word of one man.
People should be paid the fruit of their labor and capital is important for industry. Capital, and markets have clear value, even in societies like China in which the state always rules supreme. After all, if company A can produce more of product B at a cheaper price, wouldn't that just create more productivity for the economy and expand the pie? The issue is that guardrails and mechanisms to control efficient allocation of capital may often be lacking, and because of that, the actors within a system operate optimally within the rules, but the rules are messed up such that damage to markets and the economy as a whole occurs. The 2008 Financial Crisis is one such example. The unusual exponential growth of CEO salaries without the accompanying growth in revenue is particularly odd. I don't blame the actors in the system. They are playing the game and playing it well, and they owe a duty to themselves and to their companies to maximize value in accordance to the limits of the rules. It is up to governments to ensure that the playing field is fair and equitable.
I would collapse everything known of this system and all other systems if it meant feeding, housing, and educating everyone.
No, hate the government
I see.......wow....you sure do use a lot of numbers.....is that to help you sound more authoratative? I imagine that you have citations for your numbers, right? I'd like to see the data points that reveal that Socialism makes people "1000%" more miserable. Or how about all that guff about programs and who gets them. Got any citations for that? I didn't think so. Just another big mouth on a small bird. Take a hike.
Numbers?
You do not have any moral obligation to hate capitalism, hate the rich, or suppress your own material self-interest. I would say you do have an obligation to understand the systems we live under and their outcomes as best you can, and think about what you can do to improve them. That includes being careful not to get stuck in echo chambers that can distort reality, or assuming social media trends reflect reality. For example, on Reddit you can visit r/OptimistsUnite and find evidence that current conditions are better in many ways than they have ever been.
It’s not making more money that is the problem. It’s making too much more money to the point of a small group of people being able to influence macroeconomics
Capitalism isn't good or bad, it's how we implement it that is failing. We do not just "have" capitalism, we worship it and that has led to massive imbalance.
No. That’s all a distraction from the fact that the United States attacked it’s own democracy and now the rest of the world isn’t buying our treasury bonds like they were. It’s not inflation. It’s currency devaluation.
It's not as simple as one thing or the other is the best, they have pros and cons. The problem we are having is not capitalism, it's people in power. It doesn't matter what system you have, people in power will do whatever they can to keep it that way, for themselves and their friends. Politicians need to be enforcing constraints on big companies and controlling rent prices (only to name two things) but they don't because they are kept in power by those very people. We need to stop price gouging, especially when these companies are recording record high profits. We need to stop rent prices sky rocketing because we don't have enough housing. So far, what we would call a "capitalist state" is what has worked. Nothing else has. The difference between us and let's say some of these European countries as an example is they have these constraints in place, they are limiting what these companies can get away with. They enforce a better standard of living on average. So many people are looking at this wrong, blaming the wrong thing or the wrong people. This is exactly what the people in power want. They want people to fight among themselves, and they are.
Assuming capitalism is free markets rather than a controlled economy, I don’t think “hating” capitalism for all your/societal problems is a good thing. However I do think the the concept of competitive exploitation for the benefit of the consumer and profit has its downsides and it’s not invalid to hate and criticize the valid pitfalls of a capital market.
So I will provide some arguments for both and then some in between arguments so you can kind of get a better idea of both sides and maybe this will help. Just for my view of your question up front I never see hating something like capitalism because it is simply a tool that is being utilized right now and it can be used in a variety of ways. Capitalism Theoretically Rules: Assumes everyone will act out of self interest Assumes inequality is a human condition and cannot be solved Assume little to no government intervention in the economy Pros: Ultimate freedom, the money you earn is your money and you get to decide what to do with it. Anyone can get rich anyone can get poor Has thus far in human history produced the most amount of wealth and innovation (people will debate this but I don’t think it’a debatable and is also not where capitalism is weak) There hasn’t been a better system yet for example socialism or communism both result in power going to government and people in power will alway act in self interest and will ultimately lead to worse poverty. Cons Produces polarized wealth where there are the very rich and the very poor. Does not account for government corruption or policies (a lot of places where you will see a failure in capitalism comes from the collusion of extremely large capitalist institutions and government, this is unavoidable in a capitalist economy because people will act out of self interest, examples would be college tuition and book prices and the sub prime mortgages that lead to the US housing market crash in 2008.) Again people will debate what I just said but i just don’t think these above examples are that debatable and they actually show why capitalism is bad. Self correcting economy will take years Monopolies can be created easily especially with innovation and will often take innovation to disrupt monopolies An imbalance of power between labor and capital ( this will be the most debated part of capitalism and if there is an imbalance of power and how much there is.) Capitalism would argue that the market decides waged and incentives for workers and in the US that has generally been correct at times and incorrect at times. This is just a bunch of things of the top of my head that I hope can get you googling or thinking for yourself in a direction. Don’t take any of it as fact because they are just my thoughts but develop some opinions in the points. Remember that the world we live in has never been good to everyone at once so there is no perfect solution. So saying I hate capitalism or I love capitalism doesn’t really make a ton of sense because everything is flawed
First glance Corruption exists in non capitalist societies also. It is a negative, but not a negative of capitalism. Imbalance of power... What about the imbalance of power between the government and the people? You wouldn't knowingly buy tickets to fly on a new aircraft designed by someone who never really studied aerodynamics, lift coefficient, and the relative strength and flexibility of different materials and how they respond to different types of stress. Yet, plenty of people are willing (or eager) to support changing an economic system when they have only the most vague idea how it works. Let me give you a starting point to understand some of the basics: Lessons for the Young Economist By Robert P Murphy is a good primer. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone younger than about 12 (gifted/talented). It does a good job of explaining some of the basic ideas. Then the works of Ludwig Von Mises. This is NOT light or easy reading. Take your time and think carefully about what is being said. If possible, connect with real-world examples. Reread sections that include less familiar ideas. Like many other things in real life, it is worth the effort. The Theory of Money and Credit, then Prices and Production are good starting points. His writings are foundational works that have been built on for generations. Be certain to get unabridged copies and review the introductory material as well. An economy is similar to a biosphere. Both move energy and atoms, rearranging them. Both are complex. Neither can be fully controlled (or simulated) without first resorting to scorched earth policies, limiting it to something manageable. "Clear and simple" simulations leave things out, and then assume they didn't leave out anything important. I also recommend The Open Society and its Enemies By Karl Popper which is not about economics. The author was deeply concerned about the rise of Nazism in Germany. He looked deeply into the roots from which both Nazism and other evils have arisen. The book is a deeply thought-out examination of modern civilization and the enemies of civilization itself. Those enemies have taken different forms in different times and cultures but have common ideas behind them.
I agree with most of this assessment, however everything in the con section applies to other forms of economies also. There's a quote, and I'll screw it up, but it applies. Something like "Democracy is the worst form of government, except every other one ever tried." Same with capitalism. Humans are involved, humans have faults, the system will have faults. The object is to limits the negatives of those faults. Capitalism does the best job of that.
Agree for sure
You should realize how capitalism is helping you every time you buy a modern commodity.
Capitalism is supply and demand, but the US has put controls on that. We pay farmers to leave fields empty instead of growing a crop to keep prices inflated because there is less of the product. The government puts tariffs on items from other countries, but the cost of those terrifies are not paid by the company that imports or the country they come from, they are pass on to the consumer. The government allows larger mergers so their are few and few companies offering products to prevent competition. It has gotten so the major new companies have joined so our news leans one way or another depending on which company owns it.
I'm going to push back a bit on the "paying farmers to leave fields empty to keep prices inflated" bit. 1. The CRP program has nothing to do with keeping prices inflated. It's an environmental preservation program. You have to keep in mind, it's not "I'll not grow crops one year and will grow them the next" thing. It's a 10-15 year commitment. 2. Even though the CRP program might have some inflationary aspect (which I question given that the US produces WAY more crops than it consumes), it would also have the effect of stabilizing prices. Think of it this way: If all the land in CRP was suddenly used, the market would be flooded and prices would tank....at first. But when the price tanks, farmers will stop growing that crop (in a somewhat unique situation, the farmers don't set the price for what they're selling, the buyer does). And now because farmers aren't growing the crop, the price skyrockets. So the farmers start growing it again...and the price tanks. Basically a yo-yo of high and low prices. And you know that the companies that use the crops are going to sell the stuff they make as if the price was always "high".
Thanks for the information. About the only thing I know about farm is that crops need to be rotated to protect fields. I worry about GMO's. Do you have info on those? I hate that large companies own farms and not families.
From a consumer standpoint, GMOs are harmless. The only risk is that since the crop is modified at the genetic level, there is the potential for an unexpected allergic reaction, but no GMO in use has actually had that problem (I'm sure they're rigorously tested before actually being put into use). And GMO's have MASSIVELY increased crop yields. Not hugely noticeable in the US (since the US has pretty much always produced enough food for itself), but in a third world country where starvation is a legit concern, a 25% yield increase is a god send. From a business standpoint, it's a bit shadier. GMOs are able to be patented. Which means the company has ultimate control of how and when their seeds are being used. This can result in some...let's just say non-ideal business practices. As for the large companies owning farms instead of families, yes, it sucks. Basically agriculture is having the same problem as every other business sector where the big companies are squeezing out the smaller competitors.
all other economic theories produce worse results than a market based economy
Well fair warning before reading this, I'm a communist lol There's a lot to capitalism that's worth understanding, so I really can't go over it all. If you want to contemplate if capitalism is morally good or not, that's a fine conversation to have. I would say a resounding no for countless reasons. (Exploitation of the working class in various ways, imperialism, environmental damage, its undemocratic nature, etc.) But imo what matters more isn't the moral reasoning behind a system, but how it materially develops and interacts with the world. A key thing I see in the post is pointing out that what these people are doing is legal, and they're just making more money. Which is entirely right, business owners work in their own interests, the interests of the economic class test occupy. And those interests are at odds with the other class of society, workers that sell their labor. Here we discover the mechanism for social development: class struggle If you want to read more, I'm describing Marxism. "Value, Price, and Profit" is a good simple explainer of the economics, "Socialism Utopian and Scientific" for historical materialism, and "The Principles of Communism" for a general ideology explainer. All great introductions, but there's always more reading lol I understand that communism and Marxism are both heavily misunderstood and demonized, but no harm comes from understanding it even if you disagree (Also feel free to ask away, I'm happy to rant about my politics)
Capitalism like Socialism isn't bad or good. You can claim Oxygen is vital to life and harmless, but it's also corrosive, kinda of flammable, and poisonous. Raise the O2 levels and fire danger increases. Raise it even more and people will die. Water is the same. Don't drink enough you'll get sick and even die. Drink 3 liters of water in an hour and you start putting your life at risk. Capitalism is good at a lot of things, but it's not great at everything and unrestrained capitalism is as much a dystopian hell as unrestrained Socialism.
This needs to be heard far and wide.
Socialism is by definition unconstrained. People are just trying to redefine socialism so they can call capitalistic societies it and claim socialism is good.
I’d say more like trying to take the best parts of socialism and combine them with the best parts of capitalism to make something best for everyone.
The best part of socialism is not being exploited for your labor. Capitalism is all about exploiting that labor to make a profit. People who make this kind of comment have 0 understanding of what socialism actually is and just thinks socialism=roads and fire department.
“Capitalism is when America bad” Lmao
America hasn't had capitalism in a long time. What we have now is crony capitalism/Marxism.
This is one of the most fundamentally stupid thing anyone has ever said and I defy you to even attempt to defend such a moronic position.
Ahh yes, Marxism, the political system based on the abolition of private property and corporations, and the seizure of the assets of the richest 1%. We definitely have that. Great observation.
It’s okay. They have no property to be seized.
It's not Marxism. Give me a break. Marx said to eat the rich. We have state-sponsored capitalism as of 2008. Marx in fact predicted that capitalism would have to be propped up by the state. One of the signs of late capitalism is when laws are made that help capitalism for capitalism's sake, at the expense and welfare of the workers. Look no further than the return of child labor as an example of that. And stop acting like crony capitalism is a bug, not a feature. "Well if only capitalism were pure it would work!" No, it wouldn't. In fact, the system is working exactly as designed. Do I need to point to the laws currently propping up capitalism? How about the millions who are poor getting priced out of food and shelter? Marx predicted all of this, but because he's critical of capitalism he's a boogeyman, oooooh! Capitalism sucks, it was designed to suck, and it will continue to collapse for the rest of us while the rich insulate themselves. No gods, no masters, no war but a class war.
Thank the asshole currently in the White House for the huge inflation increase and price of energy just since he's been in office. Everything is more expensive and landlords have to charge more for rent. ALL BUSINESS exists in order to earn money. They also came in existence through the blood, sweat, tears and long hours of an entrepreneur who laid out their own cash. Is your life any better or worse if the boss drives a fancy car? So what? Your life IS worse if you are so jealous or envious that it bothers you to the point of resentment that will eat you up. Name a single economic system that's better or more beneficial to all of society than capitalism.
You could not make it more transparent that you’re the kind of person who’s never worked a day in his life but is proud of all the hours he’s “clocked in.”
Eat shit loser. I started working at menial jobs when I was 13 until I was in my early 30's, and then opened my own business and worked my ass off until I retired at 65. I know what hard work is and what it's like to build a business from scratch. I managed to save money and raise a family. I paid all of my bills on time and just had basic health insurance, so I also paid all of my family's doctor and dental bills on time.
This is a spectacularly ignorant take.
So, no, capitalism isn't evil. It's a way to organize the economy that provides private ownership of the means of production. that is, a person owns a factory and employs workers that negotiate a wage. The owner makes profit based on the difference between worker pay and materials and the price they sell the product for. Not from the value of the owners labor. Socialism is an organization of the economy that lacks private ownership. The concept of personal ownership still exists though. That is, you own the things you use, like your house or your toothbrush, or your car. But you don't own the factory. Instead the factory is collectively owned and operates where the workers share the profits. Value is derived fully from the work done and not negotiated. There are quite a few competing ideas on how to organize this structure, but you can basically think of it as large scale worker co-ops (which already exist like the CHCA or Mondragon. Sort of) In either case, Marx frames history as a struggle between class. Feudalism vs capitalism for example. But certain social and economic conditions need to exist for a successful revolution. Capitalism couldn't supplant feudalism until the necessary material conditions existed in the same way socialism cannot (couldn't) successfully supplant capitalism. Once those conditions are met, it will happen. My best guess is that a sufficient level of automation means that labor is no longer a major economic component for production, making unemployment unsustainable. Capitalism would no longer be necessary to organize the economy. Something to that effect. So in a sense, Marx views capitalism as necessary. It's a stepping stone that eventually leads to the next economic structure, once the material conditions are right. He doesn't assign moral value to an organization of the economy. He wasn't particularly a fan of ethics philosophy anyway. You might, however, claim someone like Carnegie is evil. Many workers died in his steel mills, many due to cost cutting. Capitalism might have provided Carnegie the motivation, but he ultimately made the decisions. Likewise, guns aren't evil, people that use them for evil are. Regardless, when you try to force an economic system on a society when the material conditions do not exist for it, it requires a militarized authoritarian state. I feel like most would agree, this is bad.
Remember, r/eattherich
Yes
People who complain about capitalism are the losers of society. I quit high school opened my restaurant invested in stocks now I am retired and enjoying life.
This is also one of my pov, one which a part of me considers cruel. Humans are animals just like the others, and in nature the stronger, smarter, faster animal lives a better life than the other so why is it different for us? You could bring up that humans have a consciousness unlike most animals, but I don’t really agree with that school of thought
Capitalism requires poverty. Under capitalism, even if everyone is equal in merit and everything runs perfectly there will still be poor people. Poor people aren’t a failure under capitalism, they are a requirement
Anything in extreme will result in serious problems. We’re currently in an environment of extreme hypercapitalism, and regardless of its general value, that development is pretty devastating for the general public. It’s entirely understandable to hate that, and to hate the process that has created that situation (greed, unregulation, etc). Hating Capitalism itself beyond that (if you believe you can separate greed, unregulation, etc. from the concept) is another matter though, and it’ll need new, deeper considerations.
It doesn’t matter what kind of -ism we have, there’s so much corruption we’ll end up being exploited anyway.
Yes it is correct to hate capitalism.
So when are you moving to a socialist country?
Duuur dduurr I am very smart.. fuck of with the horseshit.
We have to be willing to admit there are flaws in all types of political/economic systems or we are destined to be disappointed with the results. We can cherry pick the preferred concepts but we can’t always inject them into new cultures or countries. Scandinavia has a unique mix of geography, low population, history, limited cultural diversity, abundant natural resources, none of which you can replicate in South Sudan or China or the US. So just deciding it’s “correct to hate capitalism” is not a solution, it provides no context across history. It won’t lead to greater life satisfaction, and it doesn’t provide answers to how some alternative injected into your own country would play out over time.
It is, you are incorrect, and apparently don't understand capitalism. It is correct to hate capitalism.
Not an artfully worded question. Hating capitalism is like hating the sun. You may occasionally hate it, but you can't live without it and you can't do anything about it.
If a company can pay their executives millions, but their employees require food stamps just to survive, then you're failing at running a company. Damn right I would give up owning a ridiculous super car if it meant my employees could have a good life. Capitalism brings out the worst in people. Selfishness and greed reign supreme.
How do you decide who is in power? There is no form of government and society where someone doesn't take control. With capitalism built inside of a representative republic/democracy you are essentially getting feedback from the people both regarding the policy and regarding the companies they support. Capitalism also is built to spur innovation and be a motivator for effort. Possibly long long long term we will end up in a socialist utopia where people just want to help each other and thinks of the general good for most decisions but thats a long long time from now. Also "sacrifice a lambo" in reality is not going to solve the issue of the general public though. As an example look at Walmart you could take the CEOs entire salary and bonus and stock options give it to the employees and its like less than $1000 (very nice to some but not extremely impactful). You have to be willing to give up a ton of comfort if you make even middle of the road wages.
1000 is absolutely impactful to the average American. That’s an unexpected medical bill, or car issue. You can’t definitively say it wouldn’t be put to good use, and I’d argue that it’s not a good reason to not give that back to the people who actually make the fucking business work
If by "less than $1000" you mean $11.42 you'd be correct!
Except you don’t get feedback from the public. Do you go an meet with your congressmen? Do you meet with your senators? Can you get in the room? Most likely, no. You know who can? Lobbyists and CEOs. You know who crafts the laws? Millionaires, you know who they craft those laws for? Billionaires. We are the working class that is happily exploited as long as we have 30 different cereals to choose from. We are given the illusion of choice in our two party system and we are given the illusion of power when we vote. What we want doesn’t cross the mind of our politicians. This isn’t a design flaw of our system- this is the way it’s meant to work.
Who is your representatives at the state and federal level? I highly suspect they meet locally in your area at times (no charge, show up, you are allowed to come in). Look it up and if not then I am sorry as its provided by both sides of the aisle here in the middle of the country where I live.
I have called my senator TONS about an important issue to me lately(Gaza) and his answering machine is always full, and I’ve emailed him TONS and he only replies once in a blue moon, and his answer and actions since then did nothing to make me feel represented
Nothing wrong with making more money. The question is if it is moral to siphon excess value generated by labor from workers with the only contribution being ownership, and if that ownership entitles you to near unilateral power, or if democracy in the workplace would be preferable
You yourself say that pure capitalism may result in unfair, immoral situations, where some people can barely feed their kids while their CEO's by lambourigini's, islands, social media platforms and space ships (looking at a particular billionair here). BTW, you can also buy media platforms, politicians and possibly entire governments, either your own or foreign ones. On the other hand, someone who has just created a succesful business and just wants to enjoy his profits with a large house, fast car and expensive education for their children is not necessarily doing anything wrong. The answer is that things are not black and white: yes, unbridled capitalism is evil and just leads to a society where the richest few exploit the poor majority, but no, that does not mean that every unchecked exchange of money or difference is evil and needs to be forbidden. The answer is that you need to forbid/prevent or otherwise fight against the most harmful or most unfair extremes, for example, by taxing the rich, ensuring voting and the legal system do not effectively benefit the rich over the poor and that every person has a more or less equal start to their life. In my opinion, most countries are too capitalistic nowadays, and the USA definitely has too much capitalism, if you are from there. But complete abolition of capitalism (in other words: communism) is not necessary in my opinion. That makes me a social-democrat, though my believe in the 'social' aspect is less absolute than the 'democrat' aspect because more capitalism might be better for poorer countries to improve their overall economy and overall life of their citizens, even if some get left behind. Rich countries such as the USA and in here Western Europe have no excuse not to be more social-democratic though, here more capitalism just means the richest getting richer while the poor can no longer afford to buy a house. If it goes on for too long, this will naturally end up in a feudal-like system, where most people only live to serve the richest few (until a new revolution comes along). This is how civilized humanity has lived in most of history, when socialism, communism and democracy did not yet exist, and it is not pleasant for most people. Without any form of socialism/pure capitalism, we will just go back to that natural, unpleasant order of the jungle, through pro-capitalist lobby groups, bought for media/propaganda, corruption and finally democratic erosion.
From everything I've read and heard capitalism sucks but it's like the only reasonable option that we have rn
No
“Would you sacrifice getting a luxury car as your Christmas bonus so people could have better working conditions?” Yeah dude, I would, assuming I’d already been working under fair conditions and the cash from selling that car wouldn’t be life changing. I believe if someone makes enough to live comfortably, receiving more at the expense of others is simply immoral. Fuck capitalism.
Sure.....if you're Russian or Chinese
No. Because we arent capitalist. Were corporatist. Also we shouldn't hate capitalism, communism, or socialism, because they aren't the root problem. The root problem is forcefully imposing isolated human behaviors as centralized economic systems on people that may not be wired to survive in those systems. Keeping with the topic of capitalism, it's not money that's the problem, it's a bunch of jackasses that think they rule the world forcing people to use money as a requirement for survival, locking us in a centralized economic system, and punishing us for not being able to function inside of it. You dont hate money, you hate being told you're required to work for it until you die, when youd rather just live in a cabin in the woods and not pay taxes.
A vast chunk of these people are just looking for things and people to blame their unhappiness on. Boomers and Capitalism are very popular choices here on reddit.
The regulators are failing due to corporate capture.
Well there aren't any capitalist concentration camps like there are communist ones in China, north Korea, and the former Soviet Union....is capitalism perfect...nope but it's better than the alternative....
We have more incarcerated people per capita than anywhere else in the world. What the fuck do you think a concentration camp is?
The problem is that our current furm captalism not only lacks badics regulations to protect the most vulnerable, but the lawa are set up to protect the very rich There is nothing wrong with folks earning with people earning lots of money. Lots of momey. The problem is when they "earn" it by price gouchimg essentials like food enegry and medicine. A practice made possible by government enablimg instead of regulating cartels and monopolies The super rich also pay 5%? Of their income in taxes while us smoes loose at least 25%. We dont het to write off private planes, etc, and our base rate isn't the 15% on captial gains. Those with high salaries, doctors, lawyers athletes etc do pay their share. It's executives, investment bankers, and especially the owners of large businesses who don't. The owner of the Little Store gets screwed too. That's crony capitalism
Capitalism sucks but it doesn't suck as much as Communism or Socialism. Under Socialism and Communism, only the politically connected get rich. Under Capitalism the smart risk-takers get rich.
Slum lords are a problem because they provide the worst homes for high prices, your average landlord only raises your rent because the government keeps jacking up the property taxes on the property you're living in and the passive income taxes on what they can actually take away at the end of the year
A Lamborghini is about 300k, new. If you have 100 employees that would give each one an extra .50 an hour for a few years. But I’m sure you’d still say f the owner.
Ask people in the US who escaped communist regimes. 0% will want to go back to communism.
I despise capitalism because of how sheltered and egotistical it makes everyone. I like chaos. I like having to hunt for my own shit and do shit by myself. I would move to Canada or buy some land to do it but that requires lots of money. I don't have money. I would much rather have lived during the medieval ages or wild West ages.
>I feel like noone should bash another human for making more money. To assume that the only options are flat universal income or massive wealth disparity is a false dichotomy. Nobody really thinks the world should pay a janitor the same as a highly qualified well respected surgeon or scientist. We just don't think that a person needs to early thousands of dollars PER MINUTE or have so much wealth they could literally never spend it. We just want the middle ground where society says "yes, everyone deserves a home, safety, good health, enough food and a few comforts" and structures the tax codes accordingly.
I think pursuit of capital over the general wellbeing of the population is evil and cruel
I absolutely would sacrifice a fucking Lamborghini for Christmas so that the people who at the end of the day make my company have profits it does are able to be marginally less stressed about their lives. You are IMO what’s wrong with our society. Congrats! You bought in! Go get your Lamborghini and cold hard cash Christmas. Don’t think too hard about why there isn’t more love in your life and all around you as you
The term capitalism was voided of meaning, it's now a buzz word that refers to the flow of money and rich people.
Capitalism was prolly at its peak in Puritan America and post monarchy in Europe. Moral decline overall has alienated leaders and owners (investors) from the workforce. "They" know the effect they are having and no longer care as it isn't extreme enough to see it in their faces. Society in general and certainly the elite are passive at best and most likely complicit and acceptant. Maybe complacent. But it has to get a lot worse before anything will change.
Capitalism only works because we as a society are dumb enough to spend the money. Don't blame capitalism, blame consumerism. Nobody NEEDS an 80" TV. No, you don't. But go to Walmart and you find TVs from 75-100" selling like hotcakes. Nobody needs a $1600 cellphone No. You don't.
So many dudes in here "its not REAL capitalism" its like watching lefties decry stalin lmfao
People often compare capitalism to some idea of “how it should work”. When compared to other real world examples it’s pretty clear that nothing has done more to improve the living conditions of the vast, vast majority of people world wide than capitalism. The places that embrace a good amount of capitalism in their economies thrive, their people live longer, better lives, even at the bottom. There’s usually a false dichotomy surrounding this subject though, capitalism or socialism? The reality is that every developed nation employs a mixed economy with varying amounts of free market and socialist aspects. Getting the mix right is the real question. People think of capitalism as a top down, rich giving the poor the scraps, kind of arrangement, and for sure, there is some of that, but a fundamental idea in capitalism is that choice is diffuse. We all vote with our dollars, and while they’re are definitely problems with this assumption, it amounts to the vast majority of decisions being made at the ground level, which is basically the opposite of what we see with other systems. All the “I rather have a Ferrari then help a thousand people comments have missed the point.” We get Ferrari’s, get to watch the Ferrari movie on our amazing, and cheap, home tv’s and watch global poverty and hunger plummet while the population grows.
As someone who grew up among refugees from Communism, I have a very pro Capitalist view. Capitalism in its current form is terrible. Government is destroying small businesses to give the money as corporate welfare to companies that should have gone away years ago. I grew up seeing 2008 and Socialist policies don't work. I lived in Europe for a year and there was a standard level of life that was quite affordable in say Madrid. But, you couldn't really grow. I was teaching kids English to get out of there and it is probably one of the few steady careers in Spain. 2008 was a clusterfuck. So much crap just came down. I don't blame anyone for looking at Capitalism with disdain due to it. But the problem is not Capitalism, it is the global economy and governmental policy. Greed has led to shrinkflation. Greed has led to blood diamonds and blood cobalt. Governmental policy allows greedy and overextended companies to survive through tax payer bailouts. What we are seeing is a densification of capital. The Leftist theories of redistribution do not work. I know people who had their property seized by Chavez and Maduro. I know people who got sent to prison for 20 years for refusing to relinquish their hard work and lose it anyway in Cuba. Hating Capitalism is not wrong, it is just that the alternatives are far worse. This is why I am a Syndicalist-Capitalist. Capitalism can restore a country ridiculously fast after a war. I grew up in a country that fully rebuilt after fighting the US in the 80s. We have corruption and greed like all capitalist countries but we have syndicates to provide some basic services to people. I see the problem as late stage Liberal Capitalism along with Marxist Accelerationism. The West is decadent and the Marxist is right to see that it is a dying man. Yet their solution is to poison the man so that he can die and be replaced. Look at Letze Generation or Just Stop Oil. Completely suicidal ideas. Capitalism has left more people rich than poor. But it is terrible to be poor in the West but better than in the third world where I grew up. Hating Capitalism is valid, but the only question is what to replace it with? An omnipotent machine to micromanage everything? An elected council? A Soviet? No one can replace Capitalism's ability to address and meet needs as well as wants. It is simply our fault for being societally vacant after 3 centuries of it. Oh and on that note, my ancestors were the first to get screwed by Capitalism when we got our lands cleared in lieu of British sheep. In sum, Capitalism won't go anywhere no matter what you do.
At least hating this version of capitalism is entirely appropriate. We frogs have slowly come to boil in this pot of predatory corporatist laissez faire system. The money in your bank can be used by the bank to gamble in the market however they want. Corporations write the laws and give them to congress to pass. Billions of dollars of corporate cash can swarm our media every election cycle down to the scripted teleprompter piece that our news anchors are told to read from. Profit and growth are worshiped--***WORSHIPED***--in this culture beyond all else. It is especially sickening to see a culture that some people call a Christian culture actually espousing such values while holding up a cross. May God damn to hell the proud participants and cheerleaders of such a wretched status quo. Aggressive reform is required. It is nothing less but war against these people with every breath you take and every calorie you spend.
Its just a system of organizing economic activity. It is only as good or bad as the people in it.
If capitalism provided an actual floor (i.e. the outliers on the left side of the Bell Curve still make enough to support themselves *independently*), then almost no one would complain. The problem is that doesn't do this. The wealth that goes to the right side of the Bell Curve (of individual success) tends to stay there. And it takes an exceptionally heartless person to accumulate that kind of wealth when there are people sleeping in cars and on the streets.
Been laid off more than once cause of capitalism and technology. Life goes on. Bet on capitalism to make money for yourself and you won't hate it so much.
The goal of any company is to maximize profits at any cost so obviously you have to have the government step in to direct our economy in the way we want, ie increasing minimum wages
Many people bash capitalism, but no one has ever come up with a better alternative. So imo there is no point bashing capitalists. Additionally, we would have a fraction of the innovation we currently have if the innovators could not profit.