Hi all,
I’m seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I’m wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I’m pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.
If this isn’t the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I’m happy to take this somewhere else.
Cheers!
I’m really not trying to be a dick, but uhh… Look around? The world is literally on fire and efforts to put it out or even to stop pouring more gas on it are put down at every turn by capitalists in the never ending pursuit of more money for it’s own sake.
Let’s start here: are you a capitalist? Do you own any actual capital? I don’t mean your own house or car, that is personal property not private property or anything resembling the means of production.
I ask because many people consider themselves capitalist when really they are just workers who happen to own a bit of personal property, and they make themselves essentially useful pawns for actual capitalists.
And, if you’re not an actual capitalist, why are you so pro capitalism?
It’s not illogical to be pro-Capitalism while not owning any “means of production” if it means you still have better outcomes.
There are no true Capitalist countries and no true Socialist countries. It’s not even a spectrum; it’s a giant mixed bag of policies. You can be for some basic capitalist principles (market economy, privately held capital) and for some socialist policies (safety nets, healthcare) and not be in contradiction with yourself. There’s more to capitalism than the United States.
I think OP was seeing a lot of “burn the system down” talk. Revolutions aren’t bloodless, instantaneous, or well directed. Innocent people will die and generations will suffer. It’s stuff only the naive, the malicious, or the truly desperate will support. And if you’re here posting it on the daily, I don’t believe you’re that desperate.
Global warming is upon us. If something doesn’t drastically change, now, our entire species is going to die.
And some people will be hoarding money until the last, bitter second.
Hmmm, its those kinds of extreme statements that make me a bit suspicious. Is global warming really an extinction level event? I can imagine terrible civil wars over resources and increasing displacement from natural disasters, but total eradication of the human race is afaik not a possible result of global warming.
It’s kinda like when they called it world war 1 and 2 - it didn’t actually include the entire world, but it did include so many countries that people considered it to be the world. The amount of people that could die or be affected by global warming could kill billions. Billions.
Hmmm… words used in not-satiric circumstances where the true meaning isn’t the intended meaning is a bit confusing…
I think this conflates capitalism with lack of coordination. We could fix global warming today via regulation. Even if our government was socialist, it would probably still not be curbing emissions due to trying to achieve some other non-capital goal.
Second, there isn’t any need to falsely imply our species is going to die because of climate change. No model points at that. Billions of people having crappier lives and dying sooner should be enough motivation.
We’re ~ 5 degrees from mass crop failure and famine, and that’s pretty well documented.
“Billions of people having crappier lives” is a weird way of describing starvation.
Because the models don’t support your statement.
Billions WILL have worse lives due to this. A very small subset of that will be because they are on the verge of starving.
Yup, that is the goal. Juuuuust short of desperate. That is where we are aiming for most of our population to live.
That’s way too simplistic. It’s not just big corporations that block each and every measure to mitigate climate change.
Ask a small home owner, or car owner, why they are against climate change measures. They will point out that their life would need to change, and that’s why.
Climate is fucked primarily because people are unwilling to look around the next corner. That corporations are the same is more a property of them being comprised of people rather than capitalism per se.
Capitalism would work with wind and solar parks just as well as with coal.
And yet, the giant oil corporations lied about climate change and subverted efforts to develop renewable energy back in the 80s when it could have actually helped. They did that to line their pockets, fucked over the entire world, and have had no repercussions for it. Don’t act like it’s the people’s fault. A large large portion of the damage to the climate was done so executives could save an extra .1% of profit for themselves.
No, a large portion of the damage done was so regular people could keep driving their oversized cars, eat out of season food, and cheaply heat their homes. Socialism does not require good environmental policy. Capitalism does not prohibit it. Climate change is a human problem.
Ask a small home owner, or car owner, why they are against climate change measures. They will point out that their life would need to change, and that’s why.
It’s perhaps a little tangential to the “merits of capitalism” topic, but it’s worth noting that the circumstances that caused such a large percentage of the U.S. population to own single-family houses or cars – the Suburban Experiment – is substantially the result of deliberate policy choices by the Federal government starting around the 1930s:
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Euclid v. Ambler established the legality of single-use zoning, which enabled the advent of single-family house subdivisions that outlawed having things like front yard businesses, destroying walkability.
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The Federal Housing Administration was created, which not only published development guidelines that embodied the modernist1 city planning ideas popular at the time (they literally had e.g. diagrams showing side-by-side plan views of traditional main-street-style shops and shopping centers with parking lots, with the former labeled “bad” and the latter labeled “good”), but also enforced them by making compliance with those guidelines part2 of the underwriting criteria for government-backed loans.
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The Federal government passed massive subsidies for building highways, while comparatively neglecting the railroads and metro transit systems.
Of course, that isn’t to say that there wasn’t corporate influence shaping those policies! From the General Motors streetcar conspiracy to the General Motors Futurama exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, it’s obvious that the automotive industry had a huge impact. It’s less obvious – or perhaps I should say, less “provable” – that said influence was corrupt (in terms of, say, bribing politicians to implement policies the public didn’t otherwise actually want) rather than merely reflective of the prevailing public sentiment of the times, but I don’t disbelieve it either.
TL;DR: I’m not necessarily taking a position on whether it was proverbial “big government” or “big business” to blame for America’s car dependency, but I am saying that it’s definitely incorrect to characterize it as merely the emergent result of individual choices by members of the public. Those individual choices were made subject to circumstances that both government and business had huge amounts of power over, and that fact cannot be ignored.
1 For more info on “modernist city planning” read up on stuff like the Garden City movement started by Ebenezer Howard, Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City. In fact, I remember reading somewhere that Wright himself helped write those FHA guidelines, but I can’t find the reference anymore. : (
2 It would be irresponsible not to point out that redlining and racial segregation were massively important factors in all this, too. However, this comment is intended to focus on the change in urban form itself, so hopefully folks won’t get too upset that I’m limiting it to this footnote.
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I would reply asking if the people that are making these claims are actually the labor. Are service workers actually the ones producing anything? Western labor is compensated quite well relative to the rest of society which is why these ideas never go anywhere in the West. If you are not an actual laborer, why are you so pro-labor power?
Labor != Physical labor or producing physical things
Sure but in terms of a general strike, you will know the labor that really matters and what doesn’t. Critical labor in the West is compensated accordingly by the market, even by Western standards.
I’m really not trying to be a dick, but uhh… Look around? The world is literally on fire and efforts to put it out or even to stop pouring more gas on it are put down at every turn by capitalists in the never ending pursuit of more money for it’s own sake.
Well I mean it’s unclear to me that we’re much worse than previous points in history. I’d rather have the climate crisis over the nuclear one, or either of the world wars, or live under a feudal system where I’m owned by the local lord in his castle.
I sympathize (and agree) with the belief that the current system isn’t serving everyone, much less serving everyone equally. But the world is a complicated thing and we’ve got >7 billion people to feed! I think we should be very careful before deciding “yeah it’s time to tear down the existing systems and hope that there are better systems out there”. It’s easier to make things worse than to make things better.
Let’s start here: are you a capitalist? Do you own any actual capital? I don’t mean your own house or car, that is personal property not private property or anything resembling the means of production.
I guess? I’ve wanted to start my own business a couple of times. I’m a programmer, so I’ve toyed with the idea and done some research into creating a few apps which I believe people would find useful, and might pay my bills. I don’t own a house or a car-- I live in an apartment in a mid-size US city.
I ask because many people consider themselves capitalist when really they are just workers who happen to own a bit of personal property, and they make themselves essentially useful pawns for actual capitalists. And, if you’re not an actual capitalist, why are you so pro capitalism?
I’m guessing you’d consider me a pawn, but I don’t. I fit your description of owning a bit of personal property, and being a worker. I’ve worked for some large companies in the past which are supposedly the “actual capitalists”. But I promise they don’t give two shits about social good (or social bad). They are just desperately trying to make products that people want to buy. In my view, it’s a pretty good system which constrains huge organizations like Apple to making devices, when the alternative is that they could be setting up their own governments.
Well I mean it’s unclear to me that we’re much worse than previous points in history. I’d rather have the climate crisis over the nuclear one, or either of the world wars, or live under a feudal system where I’m owned by the local lord in his castle.
You’d rather have the climate crisis as it currently stands. I think you’ll change your tune on that in coming decades but by then it’ll be far too late to actually do anything about it. You’re also more insulated to it’s effects than many millions of people around the world who are already losing their lives, homes, livelihoods, etc and this is only a sniff of what’s to come. Also, peasants in feudal times on average had more time off, made more money comparatively, and were able to travel more (yes, even serfs) than your average American currently. The chains just look a little different, they aren’t gone.
I sympathize (and agree) with the belief that the current system isn’t serving everyone, much less serving everyone equally. But the world is a complicated thing and we’ve got >7 billion people to feed! I think we should be very careful before deciding “yeah it’s time to tear down the existing systems and hope that there are better systems out there”. It’s easier to make things worse than to make things better.
We’ve got 8 billion people to feed and are doing a terrible job of it. Take under half of Elon’s wealth alone and you could feed the entire world, yet instead we laud these modern day dragons for their “success,” instead of slaying them for the good of the people. It’s easier to make things worse for you, than better for you. Billions of people currently suffering terribly for the profit of others would vehemently disagree. Also, just because the unknown is uncertain doesn’t mean it should be feared. We know capitalism isn’t working for the planet itself, yet people would rather stick to it because it’s enriched a small fragment of humanity. You happen to be in the side of the boat that isn’t currently underwater, but make no mistake that the water is pouring in.
I guess? I’ve wanted to start my own business a couple of times. I’m a programmer, so I’ve toyed with the idea and done some research into creating a few apps which I believe people would find useful, and might pay my bills. I don’t own a house or a car-- I live in an apartment in a mid-size US city.
You are not a capitalist.
I’m guessing you’d consider me a pawn, but I don’t. I fit your description of owning a bit of personal property, and being a worker.
You are a worker, so why look out for the interests of an entirely different class that doesn’t do the same for you?
I’ve worked for some large companies in the past which are supposedly the “actual capitalists”. But I promise they don’t give two shits about social good (or social bad). They are just desperately trying to make products that people want to buy.
Therein lies the exact problem: profit is the only motive. And to get profit, capitalists have shown they are willing to do everything, damn the consequences to others, to society, to the planet. Climate change isn’t a whoopsie, starving, desperate people aren’t a whoopsie, train derailments aren’t a whoopsie, even most wars (every American involved war since WW2) are not a whoopsie. They are all the predictable results of capitalists choosing to rake in more profits at the expense of you and I.
In my view, it’s a pretty good system which constrains huge organizations like Apple to making devices, when the alternative is that they could be setting up their own governments.
Why would they need to set up their own governments when they control ours? How exactly are they constrained? Google is arguably more powerful than most nations’ governments. Sure, most of that is soft power, but if trends continue it won’t stay soft for much longer.
Well I mean it’s unclear to me that we’re much worse than previous points in history.
That’s interesting, because to me it’s very clear. After all, small isolated pockets of people ruining their economy and the environment they depend on is quite a bit different from all of humanity everywhere doing this.
That’s an interesting perspective! Care to share some data?
Personally, I think the fact that the median person in capitalist nations has enough food to eat is a pretty big plus! I don’t think that’s been the case throughout most of history.
That’s an interesting perspective! Care to share some data?
Well, of course the data on what our actions (much of which are due to and based upon capitalism) are doing to are environment and climate, and inevitably must lead to given the implicit but incorrect assumption of infinite resources of that system, is everywhere and basically impossible to ignore these days, isn’t it? And, almost as easy to find is the data on other cultures killing themselves off (in the, at the time, limited scope of their part of the planet) due to their actions, such as Easter Island.
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Not banking but transfer proxy space.
Yeah, and if they serve the needs of customers better, then they’ll be given encouragement (money). If they don’t, they’ll be given discouragement (they lose their investments). Seems like a good system, no?
Of course, corruption and regulatory capture subvert this system and are bad for everyone, but those are subversions of capitalism.
Are they really subversions? A pure capitalist society is determined purely by incentives and the rules of economy (supply and demand and such). If it’s in a business’s best interest to do something unethical, they will do it. They will band together to price fix, they’ll collaborate to pay workers the bare minimum, they’ll create monopolys and duopolies to get the most money possible, because in a capitalist society, money is the #1 incentive. Government regulations are anti-capitalist policies to prevent these things from happening - although maybe not as effectively as they should be, given how things are.
Capitalism is defined as a set of rules/regulations that allows people to own the capital that they produce. Regulatory capture is when an organization gains control of the regulations to subvert other people’s ability to own their capital. This is why I say that the more regulatory capture that happens, the less capitalist the system.
And yes! Capitalist systems heavily incentivize caring about money and nothing else. But the system also makes it so that when people act purely selfishly for money, that it results in good outcomes for everyone. That’s why I think it’s a good system.
For example, if organizations price-fix, it heavily encourages a third party to undercut them. If they try to prevent the third party by legal means, then that’s not capitalism.
But the system also makes it so that when people act purely selfishly for money, that it results in good outcomes for everyone.
Nobody should take you seriously.
Boy, if their statement were true, we’d be living in paradise!
Isn’t the prisoner’s dilemma the exact opposite of this claim
Just chiming in to say that if organizations price fix, it’s pretty rare a 3rd party can sustainably undercut them. The price fixers can agree to drop prices way lower, sell at a loss until the 3rd party is forced to price fix too or go out of business, and then resume the fixed price
So the outcome from a customer’s perspective is that the price fixers have dropped their prices way lower? That’s good, no?
And then once the 3rd party goes out of business and they resume their high price… they’re encouraging a new 3rd party to try again. So the prices lower again.
Meaning there’s pressure on prices to be lower, which is what we want. Therefore, good system.
Of course, I’m not saying it’s ideal. But is there a better system?
No, that is not the definition of capitalism. Where did you even hear that? So, in your vision of capitalism, the board of directors gets no money ever, because they produce nothing. The capital they have is produced by laborers.
You probably won’t see this, but I hope you will amend your definition of capitalism:
Capitalism is defined as a set of rules/regulations that allows people to own
thecapitalthat they produce.You know this, right? We all know a trust fund baby is perfectly capable of using the wealth they were born into to buy a factory, mine, apartment complex, or shares in all of the above. (Hence profiting off of value they did NOT produce.) We all know capitalism does not distinguish in any way whatsoever between this form of capital ownership and the self-made variety.
“Capital they produce” and “capital they acquire / inherit / use stolen money to purchase” can both be wielded the exact same way. That’s the point of capitalism.
And this is only half of why, “that they produce” doesn’t work in this definition. The other half is that it contradicts the definition of “capital.”
Capital is literally “any form of property that can be used to collect the value of other people’s labor.” That is the opposite of “ownership over the things you produce.”
The exact opposite.
To “own the capital you produce” one must personally build the means of production. Otherwise, the owner is owning the capital someone else produced.
And you’ll find the vast, vast, vast majority of almost every form of capital (patents, copyrights, factories, burger machines, server computers, office buildings, mines, mine equipment, oil rigs, oil tankers, power plants, land, the list goes on) does not belong to the people who turned the screws, drew up the plans, welded the seams, mined the materials, performed the research, wrote the movie script, poured the cement, or otherwise PRODUCED the capital.
It belongs instead to the people who funded it. The people who, under capitalism, own it.
Anti-capitalists are not against people owning what they produce. In fact, in America, there is a distinctly anti-capitalist business model that thrives in numerous cities called a “cooperative” (co-op for short) that is owned by either (a) customers, or (b) workers. And a worker co-op is literally workers “owning what they produce”, but is considered market socialism by anyone who cares about using words correctly.
I would love if co-ops replaced corporations. Any anti-capitalist would. Even Maoists would tell you, “a society full of co-ops would be wonderful. The only reason I don’t find that sufficient is because capitalists would use violence to crush co-ops just as they have used violence to crush governments that didn’t favor US corporations.”
All anti-capitalists want people to be able to own what they produce. The system that robs people of their control over what they produce is exactly what anti-capitalists have been struggling to overthrow.
(Aside: many anti-capitalists support a “corporate death sentence” where any company that commits a crime causing more damage than it can afford to repair can have its assets seized and turned into a cooperative and given to its workers. This allows a company deemed “too big to fail, because too many workers would lose their jobs” to be kept running and keep its workers employed while also punishing the people whose decisions caused the damage. The investors would lose their shares, and the CEO elected by the investors would lose their job and their shares. Everyone else would be fine.)
Main point: I think before asking,
why do so many people dislike capitalism?
You need to first ask,
how do people define capitalism, and is it possible for the thing I like (people owning what they produce) to be protected in an anti-capitalist organization or system?
You’re forgetting economies of scale. Let’s take phone plans. A few giant companies have infrastructure (cell towers) built across the country. Coverage is extremely important - a phone plan with coverage in a small area isn’t anything anyone will want. How is a third party supposed to compete? They’d need enough money to set up nation-wide infrastructure, contracts with phone manufacturers to make sure phones are compatable, and they need to do all that before they even sell anything. Even if you try to compete, how do you make your prices competitive after spending that huge amount of money?
But the system also makes it so that when people act purely selfishly for money, that it results in good outcomes for everyone.
Why do you think this??
Look at all the constant environmental disasters and harmful products that happen because corporations did the math and determined that paying a few million to lawsuits every once in a while is cheaper than being more careful. “Voting with your wallet” does not work because the big corporations undercut the competition and bombard us with advertising to ensure they will win no matter what.
Hell, most of us are on here because Reddit started doing scummy things in the name of money, and we’re a tiny fraction of their userbase; Reddit is still unfortunately doing pretty much fine. Is that the best outcome for everyone?
And don’t forget that there are a lot of regulations passed in the last hundred years that were necessary because corporations were doing stuff like dumping so many chemicals into our waterways that rivers would constantly catch fire. This is what happens with unfettered capitalism.
Good outcomes for everyone by acting selfishly? Oh boy! Let me tell you about the distant past of 2008 when selfish/greedy actions could have crippled the entire world economy but instead governments bailed out the selfish/greedy corporations and left all non-corporation people affected to flap in the wind.
And that’s skipping over the COVID-19 capitalism fuckery, dot com bubble, healthcare, housing in 2020’s etc.
Capitalism is a cancer and it is literally killing people for the sake of money. But here’s a $1 so just forget about all those useless bad things.
For example, if organizations price-fix, it heavily encourages a third party to undercut them. If they try to prevent the third party by legal means, then that’s not capitalism.
If the goal is profit, then using any means available to increase profit is the promoted method. This includes creating barriers to enter into competition. This could be things like temporarily selling at a loss until your competition runs out of money. It could also be using your money to influence politics to get laws in place that make it harder for others to compete with you. It could also be many other methods.
It also means increasing profits through other means, such as cooperating with other companies to not compete (this is called a trust, and it’s supposed to be illegal, but we all know it isn’t always, for example the oil industry). If they all agree to not lower prices to compete with each other then they all make more money at the expense of the consumer. Obviously this is bad, which is why most capitalist countries are supposed to prevent this by law (so, obviously capitalism isn’t that great alone), with limited results.
Capitalism also assumes perfectly rational actors in order to have good outcomes. Anyone who’s interacted with another person knows this isn’t possible. Without perfectly rational actors, the “best” outcomes are not guaranteed. There are far too many ways to obfuscate information and manipulate people. For example, in the case of a trust forming the consumer likely has no way to recognize that in order to work for their own interest over the interest of the companies trying to screw them over.
Basically, capitalism leading to ideal outcomes is a fairytale told by capitalists to ensure they aren’t questioned. They tell you that it’d your fault if you don’t get the best outcomes, but this isn’t true. They know it isn’t true, but it’s in their favor. They use their influence to make sure the fairytale stays intact though. Capitalism is the newest large religion. It asks for faith, takes your money, and provides you with nothing.
You don’t own your own home and you feel this way? Yeesh. Have fun paying your landlord’s mortgage for the rest of your life as buying a house becomes more and more difficult.
I’d rather have the climate crisis over the nuclear one
Why? Either way, everybody dies.
or either of the world wars
Instead of dying from mustard gas, we’re all going to die from heat and starvation. Yay.
or live under a feudal system where I’m owned by the local lord in his castle.
Today, you get to choose which lord owns you, and change lords on occasion, but other than that it’s pretty much the same thing.
I’d rather have the climate crisis over the nuclear one, or either of the world wars, or live under a feudal system where I’m owned by the local lord in his castle.
Give it a couple of years, because the world is going to get a lot, lot worse than it currently is (which is already pretty bad, for folks around the world). The World Wars will be nothing in comparison, and at least a nuclear war would be a relatively fast end.
If you have to work in order to pay your bills you are not a successful capitalist. And it doesn’t matter whether you freelance or not.
Why is capitalism so anti-folks?
Folks aren’t themselves capital (anymore (mostly)) and just end up costing capital to keep them alive.
A true capitalist recognises this and despises folk for it.
Beautiful 👏
Capitalism is just a continuation of the feudal system. Great for owners / gentry, bad for serfs /workers. Labor creates all value, and should be rewarded as such.
Because it’s objectively unsustainable? I don’t really get what it even means to be “pro capitalist” at this point. We know, for a fact, that capitalism will lead to disaster if we keep doing what we’re doing. Do you disagree with that? Or do you not care?
What is your general plan for what we should do when we can see that something we currently do and rely on will have to stop in the near future? Not that we will have to choose to stop it, but that it will stop because of something being depleted or no longer possible.
If you imagine that we’re trying to find the best long-term system for humanity, and that the possible solutions exist on a curve on an X/Y plane, and we want to find the lowest point on the function, capitalism is very clearly a local minima. It’s not the lowest point, but it feels like one to the dumbass apes who came up with it. So much so that we’re resistant to doing the work to find the actual minima before this local one kills literally everyone :)
Capitalism itself isn’t really the problem though, a free market economy should work. The issue is that the owners, be they corporate or private, don’t view their workforces the same way.
The greed of those at the top is crippling the very people that are driving the economy.
Free market capitalism is inherently about generating wealth for primary stakeholders but externalizing the social and environmental costs. It’s basically how the entire system works.
You are misusing terms, a stakeholder is anyone affected by a company’s actions while a shareholder is anyone with ownership in a company. All shareholders are stakeholders, not all stakeholders are shareholders.
I was using the term in it’s original sense, i.e. investors, employees, and suppliers.
I didn’t want to say “shareholders” because not all businesses offer shares.
The problems you listed are a feature of capitalism. The rich owners have more power in the owner-worker relationship. Which means they get richer, which means they get more power, which means they get richer, which means they get more power, etc.
The only thing resembling some balance was unions, and they were gutted so that guess what, the rich child get richer. Which meant they got more powerful, and we’re back to the cycle.
Oh FFS, the capitalist system shreds ‘free’ markets with abandon. Monopolies eliminate competition. Regulatory capture eliminates anti-monopoly regulations. Capitalism is the perpetual accumulation of more money by investing in the production of more commodities. It collapses when it cannot evolve to expand demand, as it did in the 1930’s. As it is doing again now., although rather slowly, as it has learned how to use governments to mitigate financial collapse. It does indeed use ‘markets’ for exchanges, but it only cares about ‘free’ markets as an ideology. It’s motivating force is accumulation. The ‘greed at the top’ is the system itself, not some bad apples.
Free market works only to create monopolies because in the real world companies compete and then one gets gobbled up and these mega corps can gobble, out compete or lobby for barriers to market if there arent any already inherently. Imagine a new telecomp trying to start but its small then it need a huge investment to cover only a small area, how will that compete with a giant already established telecom? That happens in all businesses and sectora
No, it absolutely should not work. I can’t even imagine what you are imagining when you say that. HOW could it possibly work long term? Are you familiar with any game theory?
I mean… it has, hasn’t it? It’s worked pretty well for the last ~200 years. Even in China, the successful parts are the capitalist parts.
Yes, it’s costing us in terms of environmental sustainability. This is an externality which can be (but hasn’t been) addressed. A failure of government, not a failure of capitalism.
You should know that most Marxists believe capitalism is an economic engine unlike anything that came before it. That doesn’t mean we can’t build a more rational system. If we wanted to approach the problem scientifically we would study capitalism, understand how it works and came to be, form hypotheses for how to build something better, and then experiment.
I’d also add that the formation of the modern government, ie liberal democratic states, and the development of capitalism are one and the same. Our totalizing market economy can not exist without governments ensuring conditions are right for market exchange to operate smoothly. As such, I don’t think it’s possible to say a failure of governments are not a failure of capitalism. It’s a package deal so to speak.
Because it’s objectively unsustainable?
I don’t think we know that. Indeed, what we’re currently doing as a species to the environment is unsustainable. But it’s not clear to me how it’s the capitalism that’s the unsustainable part. My understanding is that capitalism is a system which allows us, as a society, to produce things very efficiently, and to distribute resources. It hasn’t failed in that role, has it?
I don’t really get what it even means to be “pro capitalist” at this point.
I believe that, for example, if I wanted to open a bookshop, I should be able to. Or that if I wanted to rent a couple of 3D printers and sell widgets, that I should be able to. Or if I wanted to hire some dude on fiverr to write some music to my screenplay, I should be able to. This is capitalism. Do you disagree? This is what confuses me, and why I asked the question-- on my side of the fence, I don’t really understand what it means to be anti-capitalist. Hence why I asked.
We know, for a fact, that capitalism will lead to disaster if we keep doing what we’re doing. Do you disagree with that? Or do you not care?
Well no need to be rude! Of course I care! And yes, we’re headed towards disaster in terms of the environment. But I don’t understand, like I said above, how capitalism is causing it and how not-capitalism would solve it. We have 7 billion people on the planet and they all need to be fed. Capitalism is the most efficient system we know of to create and allocate resources. Should we… move to a less efficient system? Wouldn’t that be worse for the environment? How does that solve anything? This is my confusion.
What is your general plan for what we should do when we can see that something we currently do and rely on will have to stop in the near future? Not that we will have to choose to stop it, but that it will stop because of something being depleted or no longer possible.
This is an interesting question! I’m parsing it to mean “how can the current problems be solved within a capitalist system?”. It’s a good question, and I don’t have a 100% guaranteed answer. But I don’t see that any capitalism alternative has a good answer either, so still I don’t see how capitalism is the “bad guy”.
In any case, my answer is this: A side effect of all of capitalist driven efficient production is that the environment is harmed. Here, I think the governing bodies have failed in their roles: their role is to define what “capital” means and rules of ownership. They haven’t done that for environmental concerns, which is why capitalism isn’t taking it into account properly. My desired solution is that the government could define a “total amount of carbon emissions” that would be allowed by the country as a whole, and then distribute transferrable carbon credits on the open market. This turns “rights to emit carbon” into a form of capital, and capitalism will do what it do and optimize for it.
In essence, I believe that governments have done a bad job of using the tool of capitalism to solve the problem of pollution.
If you imagine that we’re trying to find the best long-term system for humanity, and that the possible solutions exist on a curve on an X/Y plane, and we want to find the lowest point on the function, capitalism is very clearly a local minima
Great analogy! But… have we seen a lower minimum? What’s the rationale behind that system? That’s my question
The issue is profit motive is inherent in capitalism. Businesses and government work on the same resources (money in this case). Businesses do everything they can to maximize profits, then they use the profits to buy government and ensure they keep business as usual. Power corrupts. So they don’t offer living wage, they cut costs, they pollute and they collude. And in law, these businesses are legal entities too. They are afforded the legal status yet if an actual person did what a business does, he would be put away for a long time. Businesses act as psychoes yet people glorify being a successful business owner. Being successful in this system means that you exploited the most and you are the most psycho. Congrats then I guess.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society” - Jiddu Krishnamurti
I believe that, for example, if I wanted to open a bookshop, I should be able to. Or that if I wanted to rent a couple of 3D printers and sell widgets, that I should be able to.
I’m not sure why you think this is inherently only possible in a capitalist economy. In a more socialist or even communist economy, you could still do all of that. The only difference would be that all the workers there (if there is more than just you working at said business) would be paid equal to the amount of labor they put in, as opposed to now where the majority of workers are paid less than what their labor is worth.
produce things very efficiently,
Read about externalities.
And the radium girls.
Yes! I’m aware of externalities, and agree that these are a side-effect of capitalism. My belief is that externalities are failures of the governing bodies to correctly define the “rules of ownership”. Once that’s done, the externality is resolved. This is an ongoing effort that’s necessary to properly use capitalism.
In my opinion, saying “capitalism is bad because of externalities” is like saying “I used an electric saw without installing the safties and it had bad side effects”.
Quoting my response (link: https://programming.dev/comment/1167093) for how I believe that environmental concerns are an externality that can be addressed here:
What is your general plan for what we should do when we can see that something we currently do and rely on will have to stop in the near future? Not that we will have to choose to stop it, but that it will stop because of something being depleted or no longer possible.
This is an interesting question! I’m parsing it to mean “how can the current problems be solved within a capitalist system?”. It’s a good question, and I don’t have a 100% guaranteed answer. But I don’t see that any capitalism alternative has a good answer either, so still I don’t see how capitalism is the “bad guy”.
In any case, my answer is this: A side effect of all of capitalist driven efficient production is that the environment is harmed. Here, I think the governing bodies have failed in their roles: their role is to define what “capital” means and rules of ownership. They haven’t done that for environmental concerns, which is why capitalism isn’t taking it into account properly. My desired solution is that the government could define a “total amount of carbon emissions” that would be allowed by the country as a whole, and then distribute transferrable carbon credits on the open market. This turns “rights to emit carbon” into a form of capital, and capitalism will do what it do and optimize for it.
In essence, I believe that governments have done a bad job of using the tool of capitalism to solve the problem of pollution.
It’s not a side effect, it’s an effect. It’s a feature. If companies could, they would externalize everything they could. Including paying workers as little as they can (or not at all, see slavery), or externalizing the health problems with the work (see radium girls), etc, etc,
What you place as failure of the governing body is actually a success of the lobbying industry. You know, capitalism.
By the way capitalism wants no governing body. You are putting in a factor (govt) which unfettered capitalism does not want to have and (effectively) actively tries to get rid of. And the fun part is you ascribe the failures of capitalism to the government. Funny how that works, huh.
How would giving complete economic power to the government eliminate special interests? Sure, it lowers their economic power in dollar terms but it does not lower their influence or incentives.
It’s funny that people think it needs to be 100% one way government has “complete economic power”, or 100% the other way unfettered capitalism, absolutely no rules, no regulation, free for all.
The short answer is: we need regulation. Businesses can run, but they shouldn’t decide the rules.
Regulation is still capitalism. People in the western left and right seem to have forgotten this. The means of production are owned by private individuals. That’s just laws. It’s an equal playing field. Government programs are where it starts to get muddied.
It’s not a side effect, it’s an effect. It’s a feature. If companies could, they would externalize everything they could. Including paying workers as little as they can (or not at all, see slavery), or externalizing the health problems with the work (see radium girls), etc, etc,
Right, but they can’t! That’s the whole point of capitalism! Slavery is the pinnacle of anti-capitalism, because slaves don’t own their own capital! It’s explicitly not capitalist.
Holy mental gymnastics, Batman
Please explain-- what gymnastics?
Wikipedia definition of capitalism:
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.
If slaves don’t have private ownership… then they’re not living under a capitalist system. Right? What am I missing?
I think I see the problem: You think you have capitalism in the US. You do not have capitalism in the US (or Canada, or Europe). You have regulated capitalism.
The more capitalism you have, the fewer rules and regulation.
Capitalism in its true, unfettered form with no rules will give you everything I said: Externalize everything, low/no pay, unsafe conditions, poison your workers, etc, etc,
But we have regulated some bad parts. This regulation is not the result of capitalism. It expressly goes against capitalism.
Right, but they can’t! That’s the whole point of capitalism!
They can’t because we (unions/govt) said hey we need rules on this capitalism, because look at the effects of capitalism.
So we’re back to the funny part. Now you ascribe the success of unions/government to be the success of capitalism. Funny how that works huh. You’re full package:All the problems of capitalism, you ascribe to government. And all the success of unions/government, you ascribe to capitalism. You have now turned around everything to fit your narrative.
Slavery is the pinnacle of anti-capitalism
Slavery, child labor, killing your workers (I don’t think you’ve read about the radium girls) is literally the pinnacle of capitalism. It’s literally what capitalism resulted in, it’s all over history.
they can’t
Ah yes of course, that must be why no one ever finds people under working conditions analogous to slavery under capitalist states. Ever. Never happened.
I’m trying to take this thread seriously, but my man you sound so naive it hursts. I live in a global south country and the ammount of damage done to my society due to both capitalism and imperialism (which benefit from each other, you can’t fully separate them) is revolting. You need to read more and travel more.
The slaves don’t own capital because they are the capital!
Nowhere in the definition of capitalism does it require that everyone owns capital; in fact it’s much more the opposite.
I believe that, for example, if I wanted to open a bookshop, I should be able to. Or that if I wanted to rent a couple of 3D printers and sell widgets, that I should be able to. Or if I wanted to hire some dude on fiverr to write some music to my screenplay, I should be able to. This is capitalism. Do you disagree?
This isn’t really capitalism, this is production/commerce. This is what capitalists (people who own capital) tell you capitalism is. Capitalism isn’t you buying a tool and using it. It’s buying the 3D printer, paying people to design and build widgets, paying people to sell the widgets, then taking most of the money for yourself. You might say you make and sell widgets for a living, but you don’t. You own a 3D printer for a living, and exploit the people who make widgets for a living.
You can hate capitalism and still make stuff. Anticapitalists usually aren’t interested in taking away your 3D printer. State Communism isn’t the only alternative, and most leftists hate that idea just as much. Some alternatives include worker coops and mutual aid.
I hate that I can work (with others) to build a company from the ground up and have nothing to show for it, because the owner is using us to fund his lifestyle. I hate that landlords can buy up all the homes, driving up the cost to the point no one can afford one, then rent them out and sit on their ass while I pay their mortgage. That’s capitalism. People profiting off of ownership. It inevitably ends with some people owning almost everything, and the majority owning nothing.
Capitalism isn’t you buying a tool and using it. It’s buying the 3D printer, paying people to design and build widgets, paying people to sell the widgets, then taking most of the money for yourself.
Yes, I agree that this should be possible. Of course, if I’m taking too much money, the capitalist system will encourage my competitors to defeat me. Meaning that there a dis-incentive in place for doing bad/selfish things. Sounds like a pretty good system!
I hate that I can work (with others) to build a company from the ground up and have nothing to show for it, because the owner is using us to fund his lifestyle. I hate that landlords can buy up all the homes, driving up the cost to the point no one can afford one, then rent them out and sit on their ass while I pay their mortgage. That’s capitalism. People profiting off of ownership. It inevitably ends with some people owning almost everything, and the majority owning nothing.
Yes I agree! I hate these things too. But capitalism doesn’t prohibit every bad thing. Bad things can still happen under capitalism. I’m just saying that such things are harder to do under capitalism than any other system. For example, you mention landlords have to buy up every home before they can take advantage of you through their monopoly. That’s way harder than other systems, where the government already owns all the homes, and can simply drive up the cost whenever they want :/
That’s way harder than other systems, where the government already owns all the homes, and can simply drive up the cost whenever they want :/
When was the last time you voted for your landlord?
That would be the last time I moved, so about a year ago.
Also, I happen to very much like my landlord. This is because they’re heavily incentivized to address my concerns because otherwise I’d leave a bad review which they care about. Examples are: they fixed a couple of times the laundry facilities were broken, they fixed broken windows a couple of times, etc. etc.
EDIT: Actually, you’re making a very good point which I didn’t address properly! You’re saying that voting gives society more power than prices do. This is a good point, but I disagree. I think prices control production more than any government can, because it allows a much more granular decision-making. For example, every single individual can “vote” that their apartment is too expensive by leaving and finding cheaper places, driving prices down.
I’m glad you have enough financial stability where you can pick and choose your landlord. It’s unfortunate that there are plenty of people who can’t “vote with their wallet” on account of not having all that much cash in there. And plenty of landlords who don’t fear bad reviews because there’s no place they can even be reviewed at, and even if they were to receive such a review housing is an inelastic good and in too short of supply for people to be picky about it.
Additionally, the government has no incentive to charge you more that what it costs to run public housing, whereas the landlord has a profit motive. Even if the government charges you more than how much it costs to build and maintain buildings, this money isn’t send to a pit - it is used to build roads, railroads, sidewalks, provide healthcare, and to build so much more infrastructure and provide various different essential services. If you give it to a landlord, it’s used to fund martinis and vacations on Ibiza. What’s the better deal?
Respectfully I think a point that is often missed with your mindset is how your capital is giving you your voting power. Market Socialist policy aims to even out that exact voting power and more labor focused socialism does the same without market forces. The issue is the hoard and the power that hoard is giving individuals (and firms) over us.
I’m in a similar position to you and I can see many of these policies would hurt me directly, but can also see the historical patterns and current material conditions. We need to build a future for everyone, everyone who agrees with that is a socialist if you argue with them long enough
The TLDR:
They hate capitalism because they’re losers and they think that under a different system they wouldn’t be such a loser. But they would be.
First, no alternative is required for something to be unacceptable to continue. This is a very common line of reasoning that keeps us stuck in the local minima. Leaving a local minima necessarily requires some backsliding.
Capitalism is unsustainable because every single aspect of it relies on the idea that resources can be owned.
If you were born onto a planet where one single person owned literally everything, would you think that is acceptable? That it makes sense that the choices of people who are long dead and the agreements between them roll forward in time entitling certain people to certain things, despite a finite amount of those things being accessible to us? What if it was just two people, and one claimed to own all land? Would you say that clearly the resources of the planet should be divided up more fairly between those two people? If so, what about three people? Four? Five? Where do you stop and say “actually, people should be able to hoard far more resources than it is possible for anyone to have if things were fair, and we will use an arbitrary system that involves positive feedback loops for acquiring and locking up resources to determine who is allowed to do this and who isn’t”.
Every single thing that is used in the creation of wealth is a shared resource. There is no such thing as a non-shared resource. There is no such thing as doing something “alone” when you’re working off the foundation built by 90+ billion humans who came before you. Capitalism lets the actual costs of things get spread around to everyone on the planet, environmental harm, depletion of resources that can never be regained, actions that are a net negative but are still taken because they make money for a specific individual. If the TRUE COST of the actions taken in the pursuit of wealth were actually paid by the people making the wealth, it would be very clear how much the fantasy of letting people pursue personal wealth relies on distributing the true costs through time and space. It requires literally stealing from the future. And sometimes the past. Often, resources invested into the public good in the past can be exploited asymmetrically by people making money through the magic of capitalism. Your business causes more money in damage to public resources than it even makes? Who cares, you only pay 30% in taxes!
There is no way forward long term that preserves these fantasies and doesn’t inevitably turn into extinction or a single individual owning everything. No one wants to give up this fantasy, and they’re willing to let humanity go extinct to prevent having to.
First, no alternative is required for something to be unacceptable to continue
Yes there is! This system is at least feeding most people in most countries. I refuse to say that “because this system is not ideal, we must destroy the system which is feeding billions of people without an alternative in mind”. Are you arguing that it should be okay for people to die?!?
It has to be okay for people to die, because ALL PATHS FORWARD INVOLVE PEOPLE DYING. Any choice you make involves some hidden choice about who gets to suffer and die and who doesn’t.
But no, that’s not what I was saying. Also, are you aware that extinction also involves lots of deaths? Have you thought about what does and doesn’t count as “death” to you? What about responsibility for that death? How indirect does it have to be before you’re free from responsibility? Is it better to have fewer sentient beings living better lives, or more beings living worse lives? Does it matter how much worse? Is there a line where their life becomes a net positive in terms of its contribution to the overall “goodness” of the state of the universe? Once we can ensure a net positive life for people should the goal to be for as many to exist as possible? Should new people only be brought into the world if we can guarantee them a net positive life?
But hey, thanks for the very concrete example of how being in a decent local minima is very hard to break out of.
My understanding is that capitalism is a system which allows us, as a society, to produce things very efficiently, and to distribute resources. It hasn’t failed in that role, has it?
When you look at the growing wealth inequality over the past 70 years, it’s pretty easy to argue that it is failing at that role currently. I see where you’re coming from though, as overall, capitalism / free markets are a powerful decentralized system for resource allocation, but they have a lot of problems that aren’t being addressed and there are some fundamental issues with how they apply to the information age.
Externalities like environmental damage aren’t accounted for, anti-competitive behaviour (like Apple’s walled garden) prevent fair competition and resources being allocated to the right spot, same thing goes for advertising and marketing which are by and large exercises in using money to psychologically manipulate people instead of making a better product. When wealth concentration is not reinvested in the product / business for societal betterment but is instead hoarded for personal gain (as we see at the investor / c-suite level) it causes resources to be spent on frivolous rich bullshit (yachts instead of food), and possibly one of the biggest issues is that capitalism has no inherent mechanism for caring for the less useful and those unable to work.
Yes it sounds great when you frame it in the context of a business making a better product getting more money, but it sounds a lot more soulless when you’re talking about someone being born a little slow having to live a shit life just because of how their dice were rolled.
Even if you correct for all of these, capitalism falls apart in an information economy. At a very fundamental level, capitalism and trading is based on the idea of things being finite and increasing in scarcity when used up. Mass and material / energy does this. If you possess an object, I cannot possess it, so the more of it that is used up, the more valuable the remaining pieces become, to copy it takes a lot of energy or duplicate resources as the original. But information doesn’t work the same way as matter / energy. Information can be duplicated and replicated instantly, across impossible distances, and our technology to do this has gotten so advanced and global that we can now duplicate basically any information an infinite numbers of times anywhere around the globe nearly instantly. In this context, capitalism falls apart, because as soon as information is created, there’s no reason for it to be scarce, meaning it has zero value.
In this light we created copyright and patent systems to assign ownership of information, but what these systems really do is create artificial scarcity where there is no need for scarcity, just so that they can fit into a capitalist model. Do you know what would be better for overall useful economic growth? If all companies open sourced all their software. You know what won’t happen because capitalism is the only system we have for assigning resources? That.
But I don’t understand, like I said above, how capitalism is causing it and how not-capitalism would solve it.
But I don’t see that any capitalism alternative has a good answer either, so still I don’t see how capitalism is the “bad guy”.
A couple notes on this. Firstly, just as an argument perspective, this is a burden of proof fallacy. Just because “not-capitalism” may not have a good answer, doesn’t mean capitalism has a good one or even just a better one. I could be mischaracterising your argument, if so my bad, this is just how it reads to me. Secondly, I personally believe that socialism offers a better answer and a good one at that, which all revolves around incentives. A collective-ownership structure has more incentive for social well being, such as avoiding climate disaster, than a purely capitalist structure does.
As a side-note, I also think you’re mischaracterising capitalism by including governing bodies, but you’re doing it in a manner that’s only one logical step away from socialism. By a government placing restrictions on a market or producer, say by defining a carbon emission cap, the market is no longer operating at true efficiency. While not fully capitalist anymore, that’s still okay though as it’s serving a social purpose. Zoom out a little and you can see other markets in which the government should set limits in. Now the whole economy isn’t operating as a true free market. In this case, the government is defining what the social good is, and (at least in democratic nations), the government defines that based on the voice of the people. The problem with this is that it’s reactive. I can pass as many laws as I want saying you can’t emit carbon above a certain level, but I can only enforce it after you’ve gone over that cap at which point the damage is done, and some may make the economic calculation that it’s worth it if you get more profits (fines are in essence “legal for a price” after all). If the government owns the industry, this can be prevented before happening.
Also free markets can exist without capitalism. I think another person somewhere on this thread mentioned worker co-ops, which are not a capitalist institution.
As a parting thought, I would also point out that one of if not the most efficient energy companies in the United States (in terms of energy produced per dollar input) is the TVA, a state-owned enterprise.
How is it efficient to throw away 40% of food produced rather than let it go for cheaper or free? How is it efficient for Nike and nearly all other clothing companies to massively overproduce their products and then cut them up and trash them at the end of the fashion season? How is it more efficient to create massive animal agriculture torture chambers that require massive monoculture farms to feed than to grow food crops and eat them directly?
You’d like Marxism. The whole point is that Capitalism is our dominant ideology because it was more efficient than feudalism, but now e have the tools to build a system more efficient than capitalism and we should build that instead. Capitalism is the most efficient system we’ve built so far, but it’s very obviously not the most efficient system we can build.
I don’t see how that’s obvious. Can you give me the rationale for this other system?
The rationale for capitalism is, essentially, the information problem. Basically, no one person has enough information to decide where a society’s resources should be distributed. An analogy I’ve heard is: how should society decide whether they should build a bridge or a tunnel (one takes more wood, the other takes more steel)? The answer is extremely complicated, depending on society’s capacity for producing wood and steel, people’s desire for either a bridge or tunnel, and future expectations of the need for wood or steel. The answer is given by prices, which encode this information and incentivize making the right choice.
If wood is cheaper, it means there’s more wood available and no one expects a huge need of wood to pop up soon. The same for steel, labor, land, and all the other resources that go into building a tunnel or bridge. Society is incentivized to build it for the lowest cost, which also happens to be the most efficient way to do it.
Is there a system which can do better? Would love to hear about it.
And also, I’m very scared when people suggest “down with capitalism!” because it’s a pretty decent system and I worry about tearing society down unless we have very good reasons to believe it’ll be better for it.
Capitalism sold us a fairy-tale.
Companies compete for customers, they improve products so it breeds innovation and they also compete for workers, so it gets better for everyone! Except it doesn’t.
The reality is quite the opposite. Here’s what happens. They want to maximize profits so that the owners of the company get more money. How do you maximize profits?
- You can advertise, and attract more customers. Alright, but eventually everyone has a widget. Maybe you can poach some customers from a competitor, but ultimately the market is saturated. Things get replaced as they break there’s a natural equilibrium. How do you increase profits?
- You can charge more. Raise the price. That only works so far before you lose customers to your cheaper competition, again you reach an equilibrium. How do you increase profits?
- You can innovate! Oh yes, that’s what capitalism is all about, improve your production, instead of 5 parts that need to be screwed together, now it’s just one part that falls out of a machine. You spend less time making each widget so you make more profit. But eventually there just isn’t any room to innovate any more. How do you increase profits?
- You can use cheaper materials. But here again, you bump against an equilibrium, the cheaper materials often break more easily - sometimes that is wanted (planned obsolescence) but your customers will notice the drop in quality and eventually they’re not willing to pay as much for your widget any more. How do you increase profits?
- Well, the last big item on your list: payroll. Do more work with less staff, or in other words pay staff less.
So what you end up with is low quality products, it’s a race to the bottom of who can make the crappiest product that the customers are still willing to pay for.
And for the workers? Well, they don’t earn much, we outsourced their work to overseas or replaced them with machines and computers. All the money went into the pockets of the owners and now the workers are poor. They’re desperate to even find work, any work as long as it allows them afford rent and barely not starve. If one of them has concerns about the working conditions, fire them, somebody else is more desperate and willing to accept the conditions.
So capitalism is destined to make us all poorer. It needs poverty as a “threat” to make you shut up and do your work “you wouldn’t want to be homeless, would you?”
The problem is not money itself, it’s not stores or being able to buy stuff. That’s an economy you can have an economy without capitalism. The problem is that the capitalists own the means of production and all the profits flow up into the pockets of the owners. And often the owners are shareholders, the stock markets, they don’t care if a company is healthy, or doing well by their employees, all the stock markets care about is “line go up”, and it’s sucking the working class dry.
Regulation can avoid some of the worst negative effects of capitalism. Lawmakers can set a minimum wage, rules for working hours, paid time off, health and safety, environmental protection etc. Those rules are often written in blood. Literally, because if not forced by law, capitalism has no reason to care about your (worker or customer) life, only profits.
Oppose that with some ideas of socialism. aka. “The workers own the means of production” This is something some companies practice, Worker cooperatives are great. The workers are the owners, if the company does well, all the workers get to enjoy the profits. The workers actually have a stake in their company doing well. (Technically if you’re self-employed you’re doing a socialism) Well, that’s utopia and probably won’t happen, maybe there’s a middle ground.
Unions are a good idea. Unions represent many workers and can negotiate working conditions and pay with much more weight than any individual worker can for themself.
Works councils are also a good idea, those are elected representatives of the employees of a company. They’re smaller than trade unions, but can still negotiate on behalf of the employees of the company. Sometimes they even get a seat on the board of directors so they have a say in how the company is run.
That’s how you can have capitalism but also avoid the worst effects of treating workers and customers badly. Anyway, unchecked capitalism is not a great idea. The USA would be an example of such unchecked capitalism.
Especially when you know that money equals power and the wealthy can buy their politicians through the means of “campaign donations” and now the owners of companies control the lawmakers who write the laws these companies have to abide by … From Europe we look at the USA and are mortified, but let’s not make this even more political.
This perfectly encapsulates my feelings about capitalism.
You are an absolute scholar! Thankyou!
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great stuff, saving this for later
Pretty simple really: capitalism requires infinite growth. We have finite resources. The world is literally melting around us due to unsustainability.
The pet peeve of many people is the greed (of billionaires, politicians, global companies, etc) for wealth (paper, essentially) yet not giving a flying fuck about the anyone else or the rest of the planet.
I think the infinite growth part is a big part of the problem: “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell”
Profit over everything else. That doesn’t support or sustain the human race.
What about capitalism requires infinite growth? And what does it require infinite growth in? What happens when growth stagnates in a capitalist system? Does it suddenly not become capitalist anymore?
What about capitalism requires infinite growth?
Nothing. It’s just one of the slogans pinkos love to spam because they think it makes them sound intelligent
Billionaires and their companies could at least pay their fair share in taxes.
The income gap between executive and median salary employees is around 32,000%. I guess the question is, what planet do you live on where a system that allows for this kind of inequity is okay?
This any many other issues with capitalism could be solved with better legislation and regulations.
The problem is getting and keeping people in power who actually want to reign in capitalism.
But now in almost every country, the capitalists are the ones making regulations. They’re not going to do it to themselves.
Which is controlled by those with capital.
There are countries with way better CEO to work pay ratios. But in the USA we act like it’s totally normal to have these huge wealth gaps, when in reality they are recent phenonemon and the only other era they were repeated was the gilded age which resulted in a decades long depression that was only ended by a world war.
Why should I give a fuck about inequity?
Man this debate is so US centric - as if there is only two choices: Unhinged, raging, exploitative, robber-baron capitalism OR Bolshevik Communism.
Typing this from one of the richest, strongest market economies in the world, which provides free health care, free education and generous e employment protections in the world. Everyone is happy, everyone is healthy, broadly, and capitalism exists next to a system of government that regulates to ensure the well-being of their citizens.
Social democracy people, it’s for real!!
I had to stop trying to engage in any political discussion online because it’s so dominated by Americans and trying to talk some sense into them is like taking to an antagonistic, raging, gun-toting brick wall. I just got frustrated and it never goes anywhere, they’re incapable of seeing past their blue Vs red and biased viewpoints.
Lmao yes blue vs red because either of those are communism or socialism
Maybe this is the trauma from the unhinged, raging, exploitative robber barons talking, but…
I can’t in good conscience support any economic system that ties political power to economic power. One extreme will always do their best to accrue and centralize that power, and will be effective by virtue of the fact that the power creates more opportunities and ways to accrue more power. The other extreme will always be ineffectual because they shun that power, seeing the necessary rejection of certain values as inherently corrupt. The middle will struggle against both to maintain a status quo that always has a stronger pull toward the former group, effectively recreating the political ratchet.
I can’t in good conscience support a system that allows people to effectively own others, regardless of how well they treat the people they own, regardless of how many owners one of the owned has to choose from. The dynamic has a strong tendency in favor of the owners and requires a lot more effort from the owned to fight that.
I can’t in good conscience support a system that allows people to own pstches of the earth, especially beyond those which they occupy or personally use. Yes, I want everyone to have somewhere to live, and have that place be free from unwanted interference by others. No, i won’t support a system that in theory has no hard limits against someone powerful enough buying up all the land and then renting it out to everyone else for a profit.
I can’t in good conscience support a system that allows people to own ideas, and even necessitates them doing so to “earn their keep” (worth as a citizen/right to survive). I feel like I’m in bizzaro world when i think about how there are people oddly comfortable with the fact that people have put patents on living things, or that there are people who can tell you when, where and how you’re allowed to express certain ideas/arts/mechanisms/songs/images/sounds/formulae under threat of being stripped of power you managed to accrue (whether or not it came from aforementioned ideas), imprisonment, and in some cases slavery.
I won’t support any political system that doesn’t give me at least as much power as everyone else. I have enough emapthy to realize that pure democracy is a better compromise than authoritarianism, especially considering most other people either feel the same or just want a system where their needs get met.
But mainly, it’s just plain illogical ti support any given political system as an ends when 1. The world is a constantly changing place, and any rigidly defined system will inevitably fail regardless of how well it fits to the context in which it was created. And 2. I am aware of better alternatives—to paraphrase what some stranger once said to me: idealism is what we aim for, reality is the compromise we make; in other words: if politics is a negotiation, why lead with a compromise?
Hopefully this isn’t too Murrica-brained. When I see news of proto-fascist movements on the rise in the UK, Brazil, Italy and Australia, or extreme class disparity in Singapore, China, and Japan, or ethnic “cleansing” in China, Turkey, Rwanda, and Liberia, or just something as simple as how common scams and fraud are from places like India and Nigeria—indicating a need to resort to intercontinental theft to survive—I feel like my experience of politics and economics isn’t as limited to my geographic region as I’d like to believe.
I see a fellow social democrat and I upvote.
People here think that if you agree with private property and private incentive then you suck billionaires d*cks.
Man, there is a whole spectrum that is much more realistic than pure communism or socialism.
Every Social Democracy is built upon imperialism and exploiting goods and labor from the third world. Social democracies are the epitome of well it works for me and people who look like me but fuck everyone else. Plus social democracies almost always are very restrictive of who gets to participate in said social democracy since the state can only provide these services to so many people before things collapse because it fundamentally does nothing to break from the destructive capitalist systems. They also tend to be really really racist too.
Well, show me a single system (currently implemented, not ideal or imaginary) that isn’t exploiting goods and labor from the third world.
Yeah that’s kind of the point of systemic critiques buddy.
And that’s why I’m saying social democracy is a realistic solution. The way the world works right now makes breaking this dependency something idealistic. So you can either fantasize with ideals all day long or you can get closer to your objective.
Being in favor of private property and private incentive does not even necessarily mean that you are pro-capitalism. Capitalism as the term is used has three defining features:
- Markets
- Private property
- Employer-employee relationship
One could have a non-capitalist economy that replaced the last one with democratic membership in the firm and still kept the other two features such as a market economy consisting of worker coops
Did anyone actually say they wanted specifically Bolshevik communism? Personally I just want to be free of all hierarchy which is almost like the absence of dogmatism in my opinion. Coercion still exists in social democracies by the way but I agree it’s much better than the US.
Politicians in America have people on both sides hypnotized to equate socialism with bolshevik communism. That’s a major reason why we can’t move any meaningful distance left as a country, but we can move right at the blink of an eye. Socialism is a dirty word here, for no other reason than the fact that big corporations pay politicians to demonize it.
Where do u live?
he doesn’t even have the gut to post his own country name cause he knows people will tear away the farcade of bullshit of his successful social democrat country.
Wow, edgy. I was typing it from Denmark, where I don’t live (I live in the U.K.). There aren’t many metrics where Denmark isn’t out in front, and it manages it inside of a social democratic welfare state that’s also one of the easiest places in the world to do business.
“Free market” Capitalism is self-destructive. As the wealthy build and consolidate power, more and more resources get funneled to the top while the people at the bottom actually creating those resources go with less and less, and it’s unsustainable.
Being a billionaire is a moral failing. To have the ability to do something about all the suffering and death in the world, and to choose to do nothing borders on sociopathy. The systems designed to allow for billionaires to exist ensure that they don’t pay a fair share of their taxes, and they contribute nothing to society. They are leeches, feeding off the working class and giving nothing in return, when they have so much more to give than anyone else.
I agree with your point of view, and I think the solution is more governmental regulation. Billionaires and companies keep leeching for infinite growth, and I believe our system can work (and has proven it can work), if we allow a free market within reason.
Since the current system allows the people who make the rules to be bought, I think we’d have to start over entirely from scratch for it to work at all.
I think realistically the only way to fix that flaw would be starting over. Unrealistically, a constitutional amendment could solve a lot of those issues.
Regulations are indeed an important part of managing our system as it is, but they’re fundamentally a bandaid to the problems of capitalism.
You gotta catch the corporations doing a bad thing and then tell them not to do it, meanwhile they’re buying politicians to fight against you on it. And it still doesn’t stop them from committing actions that are horribly unethical and extremely damaging to our society and to the environment, they just tone it down a bit at best, or occasionally they’ll have to put a small fraction of their money into a lawsuit without actually changing their behavior.
Yeah, the relationship betweens corporations and our government absolutely has to change. I totally agree that the system is not at all working in that regard. It especially pisses me off when corporations break the law and the fines amount to nothing except the cost of doing business.
Yup. If we’re talking regulations then regulations on how much corporations can donate to politicians should be top of the list (and ideally that amount should be zero), but obviously both the politicians and the corporations like that donations are totally allowed, making it difficult to pass such things…
All forms of power are self destructive. Greedy humans will want more of <insert means of power> and will exploit others to get it.
Capitalism isn’t immune to that, but does provide a bit of a wildcard that other forms of government don’t have. Mark Zuckerberg controls, frankly, more of the world than anyone should be comfortable with, and the reason it’s him and not someone else is mostly dumb luck. If he plays his cards right, he can build a Zuckerberg dynasty, and his descendants will have power by birth, but him being in power is capitalism. Some random person can obtain mass power.
All other feasible economic systems centralize power by design, and centralized power is, historically, rife with corruption and dynasties. Hell, the US presidency alone is usually a race between two people that the majority isn’t happy with. Our election system is one of the fairest (far from perfect) and we still have crap options. You can pick your favorite color, so long as it’s black or white.
I’m all for exposing and discussing the issues with capitalism, but it’s still better than most other systems. The general check to capitalism is government regulations, which works on paper, but not in reality. Our current government system is pay to play, so if you have enough money, the regulations don’t effect you, they affect your competition, its the worst form of free market. Get money out of politics and maybe regulations will work. Until then, they mostly make it worse.
If we wanted to explore other options, like socialism, it still boils down to corruption in the government. If its not money, it’s something else. At the end of the day, leaders need support to get elected, and they will pimp themselves out for that support. If we look at an extreme example of “All jobs pay the same”, within a decade, all desirable jobs, such as hiring managers, will be held by children of politicians and allies. Corruption won’t go away just because money does, but money gives an ordinary person a chance at obtaining power.
At least in the US, there hasn’t been much of a history of successful dynasties. Fortunes do get passed down, but not for long. Take the Vanderbilt family. There are few famous Vanderbilts in modern day US life. The one I find most recognizable is Anderson Cooper, and he got his millions from working, not inheriting. Of course, there’s a constant attempt from the Republican Party to repeal the estate tax, so that might change.
Capitalism rewards exploitation.
You’ve probably heard “There is no ethical consumption under capitalism” - and historically speaking, and in my experience, this holds to be true. I couldn’t be typing this on my glass god rectangle if there weren’t some children in a cobalt mine somewhere - at some rung on the ladder, people are dying, because where’s the incentive to lift others out of poverty? Why would any capitalist elevate their source of cheap labour and materials out of the blood and sand?
There’s also the interaction we have between the capitalist and socialist aspects of our society - for instance nationalised healthcare cannot be administered by capitalists because there is no incentive for the system to function for the good of the patients, but eventually the system will be optimised out of existence (by which I mean, broken into smaller units for budgetary reasons, small units degraded continually until they are canned, and the whole system is sunset because of “sound economic decisions”).
Capitalism is the antithesis of what I think any reasonable person wants in society save for those with an amount of blood on their hands. Capitalism is a Mad Max dystopia where a handful of people live as deities whilst the rest of us kill each other in the streets for scraps.
Capitalism might have seemed viable when everyone was suffering from lead poisoning, but it’s killing us today, and I support any means to remove this cancer and push for a more equitable life for everyone.
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.
The top 10% of Americans own 70% of the country’s wealth.
Have you ever stopped to consider the logical conclusions of that? If they lived at the same standard as the average American, we would only need to use 30% of the resources we’re currently burning through. It’s grossly inefficient. We waste more than 2/3rds of our resources so that rich assholes can live in $100 million mansions and fly around on private jets.
Say you’re an American working a 9 to 5 job. Once you hit 1 pm on Tuesday, you’ve done enough work for the week to meet all the actual needs for society. The rest of Tuesday, all of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are all just to pay for rich assholes to take a “hunting” trip to Africa and needlessly slaughter native wildlife. Or to buy the 400th car in their special collections that they’ve nearly forgotten about. Etc. Etc.
70% of the irreplaceble oil being drilled? Flushed down the drain just so that rich assholes can horde wealth. 70% of the pollution in the air? Put there so that billionaires can have parties on a private island. So that they can fly their private jets to private retreats and pretend to be outdoorspeople for a weekend. 70% of the new extreme weather being caused by anthropogenic climate change? All so that rich assholes can do things like jet around the world so they can say they’ve played a round of golf on 7 different continents in 7 days. Etc. Etc.
It’s nowhere near sustainable.
But someday maybe I might become a billionaire and it wouldn’t be fair if we took away all the benefits before I make my first billion!
/s (obviously I’ll never be a billionaire)
Its important to remember that rich assholes buying expensive things is not a reason to hate them: that’s envy. Rich assholes spending their money on expensive luxuries fund the luxury economy, which finds its way to the regular economy. That’s how economies work, the money moves. The spending isn’t the issue. It’s the hoarding. You can’t spend a trillion dollars. You can’t spend a billion dollars. But you can keep it out of the economy. That’s what keeps everyone else down.
It’s like if the top 70% of the ocean was just fucking cement.
When their expensive luxuries are actively harming the planet, I think their indulgences offer us plenty of justification to hate. Private jets emit the same amount of CO2 in two hours that an average car does in a year. This frivolous waste poisons our air and warms our fragile seas. I’m not envious of private jets or yachts; it would be unethical for me to use them no matter how much wealth I had.
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The lie isn’t even that capitalism benefits everyone, it’s that capitalism benefits anyone. They can have all the billions and trillions they want, won’t do them any good when the consequences come knocking and the world burns around us all.
Capitalism is flawed and has outlived it’s usefulness just as every preceding economic system has. One of the more poignant Marx quotes puts it well
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
Capitalism is based on the accumulation of resources known as the “means of production”. As time goes on, those with capital are able to leverage it to further subjugate the working class as they amass a disproportionate amount of wealth and capital. The average worker is worth far more than they are paid, while the capitalist who they work under continues to pocket the majority of that profit.
For a working class person to begin to earn their fare share they have a few ethical options, be self employed, unionize to collectively bargain for a larger piece of the pie, join or form a co-op (effectively a small scale form of socialism).
The last point I’d bring up that is more central to my own politics is the inherent link between capitalism and imperialism. Even in a capitalist country where you may be able to comfortably live as a member of the working class, the global third world is often footing the bill in order to lower the cost of goods. Examples would be clothing, chocolate, coffee, etc where most of these are made in desolate conditions and sometimes with slave labor.
That being said, there are many reasons to be against capitalism and it is hard to express in a single comment. I highly recommend Lenin’s State and Revolution to anyone interested.
For us young people: Because the system feels broken, and that there’s little future to grow towards.
I grew up privileged, I attended private school until 5th grade before moving to one of the best public schools in a US state known for having good education. I’ve had a safety net my entire life, and that has allowed me to take risks, and end up homeless, that otherwise could have permanently screwed me over.
I, only a few years later, finally feel somewhat stable with the path I’ve pursued. For me stable means ~2 months emergency savings, probably not getting evicted by my batshit landlord anytime soon, and only having to work 2 jobs.
If that is what it takes to feel stable, then I can only feel like the system is screwed. I will never have the money to buy a house anywhere near where I work, near being defined as within an hour. I spend my days working for people who can drop more than what I make in a year on vacations. People who live in neighborhoods where the ‘cheap’ houses start at $10 million. And I work with some amazing down to earth people. If I’m one of the lucky ones, and I definitely am for where I live, how can the system not be broken?
Our climate is fucked, my only hope of every owning property is a massive market crash, I will likely have to keep working till I’m close to dead, vacations are a distant dream, allwhile I make my landlord richer, the corporations take all my money, because I can’t afford good, organic or local food, and the people at the top get even richer.
Our system has incentived turned all the workers into profit. At work we’re measured by the value we add to the company, never officially, but punished for missing work or being sick, and at home we’re measured by the value we add to corporations through our purchases. Even our attention has become a product. How long can companies get us to stare at their product, mindlessly consuming and being served ads.
Even in our own homes we are a product. We are an unwilling cog in a machine that makes us poorer and those with the power richer. The government should be here to protect the common man and woman. For every example of the gov. doing the right thing to protect us from monopolies and predatory practices, there are 10 or 100 examples of the opposite.
No change will come about under our current socio economic system, and you need to remember. I’m one of the lucky ones.
OP, read this person’s post and realize they are a few months away from being totally fucked and yet are the lucky one.
They work two jobs, and they are the lucky one.
In countries with actual social safety nets people can afford to work one job, they take vacations, they don’t have to struggle to afford medical care, it is covered because it is a human right.
Those countries aren’t suffering because they are completely capitalistic, companies in these countries are prospering and yet they help their population prosper as well.
Amazing response, and on point.
Look around you – capitalism is literally burning our ecosystem to transfer wealth into the hands of the rich. If you are “pro-capitalism” you are either ignorant of physical reality or you are selfish and think you can “make it” and be one of the tiny minority that actually benefits from the system, to the detriment of almost every other living being on the planet.
lol, you’re blaming capitalism for wildfires? delusional
It’s not delusional at all. A vast majority of carbon emissions are due to mega corporations. Climate change causes increases in wildfire activity. It’s elementary, really.
I hope you consider the amount of downvotes you received to communicate you should consider this idea and not dismiss it out of hand.
ah, but everyone that clicks on the down arrow (despite the fact that votes mean nothing on this instance) is made aware of the subject matter - it’s like a memetic hazard - a mind virus, if you will.
you’ll remember this comment far longer that you’d like to, I can guarantee it.
I will I haven’t heard about memetic hazards before thanks. Either way it’s pretty silly to think there’s no correlation between capitalism and global warming.
