It’s not really capitalism anymore when the government keeps bailing out businesses that are supposed to fail.
This happens when capital owners get enough wealth and influence to capture government regulatory agencies. This is what any attempt at capitalism will build to.
At least the no true communism people use the actual definition of the system in their argument. What you’re describing is literally capitalist organizations acting on the incentives inherent to the system.
You’re being ridiculous. Greed is the “inherent incentive” that leads to regulatory rapture under capitalism and authoritarianism under communism (which one could argue to be the same thing in essence).
The solution is a government of the people, for the people, a.k.a. democracy. Which can choose whichever economic system it damn well pleases, as long as it keeps greed in check through taxation, public services, strong welfare, social discourse, etc. Like social-democratic countries in Europe have been doing for decades. Or try a version of that for communism, I don’t care.
Even so, those countries in Europe are still capitalist. They’ve just tempered it with government policies that restrain it to adequate levels.
In that sense I suppose “this is the least worst system” isn’t technically true. Unbridled capitalism from the industrial revolution is incredibly different from restrained European capitalism after all.
And then when capitalists turn news into an entertainment business you’ll vote for their victory while thinking you’re a populist.
Your solution requires a fair playing field, especially with information and people with wealth and power will work to limit that info. Fox News and it’s ever expanding right wing influence sphere show how much money there is in convincing the average voter to vote to further empower the capital class.
You equate the two but I don’t think you actually understand the fundamental core of these ideas. In capitalism, gathering wealth is the basic core foundation of the system. The hierarchy is spelled out and requires a vast underclass who prop up the lifestyles of those on top with their labor. In communism, the fundamental idea is that hierarchy should be dismantled. The system that was initially labeled communism was described as stateless, classless, and moneyless.
Corrupt individuals can turn literally any government into authoritarianism if given the chance, that’s not inherent to communist ideology. Especially when you consider all the dictators the US has cozied up to for natural resources and such. When billionaires say “we coup who we want” you can’t single communism out for creating authoritarian institutions. It shows a lack of perspective.
Lol dude, this is what happens to virtually every major system. It’s just corruption, plain and simple.
Yeah it’s called corruption. I think no matter how perfect your ideals are in your head, any idea can be ruined with a little corruption.
Which is why every authoritarian system of government leads to disaster. The fewer people are at the top, the easier it is for that corruption to take hold.
i definitely agree, easy accumulation of power in any system will lead to authoritarianism.
without strong protections, capitalism will inevitably lead to a small number of people holding most of the money (and therefore, the power).
those trying to grow massive amounts of capital do not want competition, they do not want a “fair market”. they want monopoly and control and they have the money to bribe and pay their way into more of it.
they will leverage their money to their benefit and to the detriment of everyone else. this wouldn’t be as bad if wealth disparity wasn’t insane, but some people literally have the money to move mountains. they will buy competition just to kill it, they will lobby the government to reduce regulations on pollution and labor to lower their costs, they will pay politicians to change voting districts to make it ever harder to change the status quo, they will do whatever it takes to protect and grow their power. and in a system where money is power, their existing hoard of money all but guarantees their success.
this is also authoritarianism, just hidden by the veil of “the free market”.
Libya was doing pretty well under Gaddafi… it’s much worse in every way now that there is more than one dude at the top lmao
it is when the richest people have already paid off the government to bail them out, when the time comes, with our tax dollars.
Capitalism isn’t the “best system we’ve got”, though… it isn’t even the system we are all using right now.
We’ve never operated in anything like a “purely” capitalist economy, and the socialist policies most western countries have put in place are wildly popular and few people would want to live without them.
Countries that intelligently choose when and where and what things should be operated on a capitalist basis, have better outcomes.
Healthcare? Not something anyone should make money off of. Basic housing, food, water, power… these should be immune to market forces.
At the same time, capitalism drives fantastic technological and social innovation within its swimlane. We just have to pre-define what things people should be able to make money doing.
Capitalism =/= markets.
Socialism =/= public services.
Markets are much older than capitalism, and socialism is a very simple economic idea, being the collective ownership of the means of production by the workers.
Capitalism guides innovation towards increasing profits for capitalist, hardly “innovative”. The USSR was the first to the Moon, after being a feudalistic society, thanks to socialism.
Imean, the USSR wasn’t even good socialism. They still used money for quite a large set of things, businesses were very much NOT worker owned in many places, people could be killed by the whims of authorities and a dictator… Yep, not even good socialism got to space first.
I mean, not having money is a communism thing, not socialism.
But most businesses in the USSR were co-ops or state-owned.
I’m not in the “the dictatorship of the proletariat is identical to collective ownership” camp, but I mean, that is in the end a difference of ideology regarding what socialism really is.
And…. What dictator? I mean, all that “there’s no freedom in the USSR, if Stalin thinks you’re ugly you go to the gulag” is 100% propaganda, right? I mean the CIA admitted in their secret reports that not even Stalin was really a dictator, but that disclosing that wouldn’t be politically favourable to the US.
And like… I don’t think the USSR killed anymore people than the US or Europe lmao
I wonder if those accomplishments were meant to happen if they hadn’t had an ideological enemy in the ‘capitalist west’.
Your point isn’t completely invalid, but it’s a circular argument. Whatever the external force was, the system had the ability to complete the objective.
One could actually argue that sending a person to the moon didn’t directly achieve anything for the people, so that wouldn’t necessarily have been a goal by itself anyway and was a waste of resources.
The Soviet Unions industrial development was ironically funded by American capitalists during the 1920s through the 1940s. Without that massive influx of knowledge, technical expertise and capital, the Soviet Union would never have industrialized at the rate that it did. It might not even have succeeded. However, I am not an expert in Soviet history either.
Albert Khan was a American industrial architect who was responsible for designing and building American car, tractor and other factories for heavy industrial equipment in the United States. Starting in the 1920s, he traveled to the Soviet Union and designed and lead co instruction of ~500 massive state-run industrial plants using American equipment and machines. This is also similar to how Japan industrialized following the end of the Tokugawa shogunate during the Japanese civil War.
“When “the architect of Ford,” Albert Kahn, designed the River Rouge complex outside Detroit in 1917, Calder was one of the field engineers, but he had never worked on a project on the Soviet scale before. Everything from steel to skylights was coming from the U.S. by boat, special-built train, trucks, and, yes, camels. In barely a year’s time the factory would begin pumping out 50,000 tractors per year, operated by workers who lived across a strip of lawn in government apartment blocks that Calder was also building. Close to 400 U.S. workers were supervising the job, mostly from Detroit. Though their families shivered through the Russian winter in underheated homes, Calder and the rest of Kahn’s experts thrilled at the challenge. And there were 500 more factories to go.”
“Though the collaboration has been all but forgotten, evidence suggests that more than 1,200 U.S.-based architects, engineers, designers, and foremen seeded the Soviet industrial revolution. In just three years, they built upwards of 500 factories, trained more than 3,000 Soviet staff, and brought lessons back home that have yet to be fully understood.”
https://lsa.umich.edu/lsa/news-events/all-news/search-news/built-in-the-u-s-s-r---by-detroit-.html
No, you see, the only way to improve things is to wank endlessly about some grand revolution that will bring about a perfect utopia that we can’t even define much less implement. Using the tools we have available right now to make the world better just means that you’re a status-quo centri-fascist!
Totally agree. Capitalism is an amazing tool that allows corporations and nation states to leverage capital to tackle major projects, like infrastructure and technology development.
The capitalism at its end state is a rent-seeking endeavor that destroys and consumes its own market creations.
Therefore, it seems the best of both worlds is to allow capitalism to operate in a sandbox, while providing socialism in the form of universal health care, education and infrastructure to everyone else. Let the rich get rich, but tax the wealth at a certain point to prevent them from getting too rich and then redistribute that to bring the bottom 50% up to middle class standards.
The world has basically settled on mixed economies being the best possible system. The debate is now really about what the mix should be.
We’ve collectively decided healthcare should be public-owned, the US is just the one dissenting voice that hasn’t yet fully switched over yet. We’ve also decided that food production, distribution and sales should be largely capitalist, but with socialist supports for the production because food production is too essential to be allowed to fail completely. We’ve decided that research into medicine and drugs should have both private and public components, but that the government must investigate and regulate any new things, so we don’t get tricksters selling snake oil.
No society is seriously considering a fully socialist or fully capitalist system because it’s clear how badly they fail. But, disputes over just how much socialism is too much or too little will go on for a long time.
So you are saying I can’t build a house as I like it and then sell it? Nor can I invent some type of food, prepare it and sell it? Becuase only the government is allowed to do that?
Child repeating what their parents and society has told them.
Vs.
Adult who has started to live the reality.
In theory, how would a different system really help?
Currently the people in power manipulate and circumvent the system, do they magically disappear?
The move from absolute monarchies ruled by kings and aristocrats to democracies made the power distribution more equal across classes.
What is needed in a new system is another step in this direction.
The biggest problem and driver of inequality in the current system is that while we have democratic control of government, the control of business is still largely autocratic.
Work and business is a huge part of our lives and making sure that the companies work for workers and consumers and not owners and investors is the next major systemic change that should be sought out.
I’m saying that should be the norm.
I’m calling for systemic change. Individual people making choices to have democratic processes in their businesses is not enough.
You’re like a serf going “Go move to a republic 🥶.”
There is this belief by so many that somehow, if you create the perfect system, it will somehow overcome human nature or that humans will somehow starting acting collectively altruistic with the right political model.
In most cases, they also imagine themselves in a position of power in this new government, either up in an upper “leadership” class or somehow silently leading “but I’m not a leader”, as if somehow the idea itself is so potent that people will just, you know, execute it flawlessly without intervention.
In most cases, they also imagine themselves in a position of power in this new government
Where are you even pulling this from
If you had a point it got lost in this fantasy claim you’ve made up here
This is a dumb argument. There are clearly better and worse ways to organize a society. There’s no reason to believe capitalism is the best and plenty of reasons to believe it’s not.
I haven’t heard of a better method than (properly regulated) capitalism. I’m open to one though.
Communism and anarchism demonstrably don’t work, so don’t go there with me.
Socialism I would consider a form of Capitalism (imo the best one).
The biggest way it helps is to just make it easier for the government to implement policies that help people. Under the current system something as simple as rent control is difficult to implement since you are infringing on the rights of the property owner.
And shifting away from capitalism would allow a government to focus on well being of the population without having to worry about the impacts on the stock market. Right now the stock market is so important and shifts down punishes so many people. But in reality it’s such a terrible metric just like GDP. Sometimes a higher GDP just punishes the population of the country for no good reason because inflated prices bump the GDP up even if the citizens can’t afford it.
A different system would help but humanity doesn’t know what that system would be.
We’ve known for roughly 175 years. Some no-name economist and his buddy published their ideas in some kind of manifest
Can you give one example of a long-term, large scale, non-hierarchical system in human society?
Ya. Why won’t these fools realize that if something’s never been done before on a large scale to perfection, it’s because it’s clearly impossible. Get on your knees like the rest of us, change is never any good
This is the first time I’ve seen someone directly admit to being in the grip of magical thinking.
Magical thinking, i.e. they don’t agree with our current flawed system and can see the potential of a better way?
Well if that’s your first time, I feel sorry for you. You must hang out with some truly shitty people.
Capitalism is great for handling things that are relatively unimportant. So you don’t want it for medical, education, infrastructure (including utilities), etc. Its fine for things like fashion or the various things might have around the house. Even then it must be highly regulated.
Agreed, although I’d reframe it; capitalism is a solid default, and does a good job of innovating … but it tends to operate like gravity, the more capital you have the more you get.
So, you need a mechanism to redistribute that capital, and you need to make sure that the things everyone is supposed to have enough of, don’t get distributed that way in the first place.
Yeah the way I look at it, capitalism is like oxygen – completely pure, it will react almost anything and destroy it. But dilute/regulate it down, and it’s remarkably useful. Even then though, you need safeguards/antioxidants to help keep it in check.
So the problem isn’t that we breathe oxygen – it’s that we’re breathing 100% pure oxygen instead of normal air (which is like 22% oxygen).
people mistake cronyism for capitalism all the time. the free market can’t be said to have failed if it was never free in the first place. it’s like saying a tree has failed after it’s been cut down and turned into an unstable table.
Taxing rich people to pay for good paying jobs in healthcare, education, and utility/infrastructure maintenance would help everyone.
Economies need to be a cycle. If the rich just hoard and don’t spend then we can’t spend either.
So if they won’t pay a liveable wage, tax them heavily and start paying liveable wages with the money.
