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!
“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.
It doesn’t border on anything, they are straight up psychopaths. You can’t do what they do if you have a conscience.
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.
Some example where it works? Because where I live (EU), stuff is regulated and no one of my generation can buy shit. I pay so much for rent that I can’t save money to buy something of my own. While the owner of the company has luxury cars. We’re all wage slaves. Sadly, everything else is doomed to fail as well, so even the fabled communism of Soviet bootlickers won’t save us.
You say that people at the bottom go with less and less, but that doesn’t seem to match what’s actually happening in the world.
People used to be able to afford homes, so yes, it definitely is happening.
It does match exactly what’s happening though. Others have mentioned housing cost which is a clear example, but you can also look at income inequality. Here’s an article which cites data from the congressional budget office https://inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/
It shows up to 500% growth since 1979 in the earnings of the .01% while the 99% of earners are only making about 50% more than in 1979. That data makes it clear that wealth is being concentrated, and that people at the bottom are going with less. Especially considering inflation since 1979 has been 320% (source)
Not to mention that people in America and Europe aren’t necessarily at “the bottom”. A lot of today’s wealth is built on the backs of poorer countries that make even less than we do, or nothing at all, or by exploiting them by coming in and privatizing something as basic as water.
@Crankpork
Debt and giving weapons to extremist factions, like druglords, are the big ways that the extraction/pillage/theft happens.
BTW corporatism (aka #neoliberalism) is not capitalism. Capital (including money) is supposed to deplete when bad decisions are made in capitalism. Also capitalism was defined to have protections and a publicSector to counteract so-called ‘externalities’ (ie. bad stuff) a corporation might produce as a by-product.
Both are clowned w neoliberalism
@local_taxi_fix
The people at the bottom of the world are doing better and better.
Being removed from reality is a form of insanity itself.
A lot of people die from hunger daily in my country and different parts of the world. If you’re speaking about growing wealth in developing countries, you should go look at the people holding these wealth, most times, it’s an even smaller group of elites than in the USA.
Capitalism is wielded in a much worse manner in underdeveloped and developing countries, the elite and people in power don’t care about the citizens, they want to hoard as much wealth as they can and they would do so in any way they can. What’s worse, they take these wealth to already wealthy countries to further develop them while intentionally destroying theirs. Your should follow the flow of wealth from the global south to the north the west in particular.
Yes, in these countries there’s a growing middle class, but what can they buy or do with the little wealth they hold? They’re stuck in an endless struggle against totalitarian governments who are themselves stooges to global neocolonialist and imperialistic countries powers like the USA and European countries.
Inequality is a measure of the difference between top and bottom. It is not a measure of how much the bottom has.
Demonstrating that the bottom 99% has had wages increase 50% since 1979 while inflation has decreased the value of the same currency by 320% is damning. There’s no good defense for capitalism here.
There’s more overall for everyone, but the people at the bottom are getting a smaller and smaller share, and a lot of important things, like housing, not to mention with things like streaming, and online stores, we don’t really “own” most of the media we consume anymore, we just pay forever to rent it. Fast fashion and planned obscelescence means that our clothing is worse than what people used to have, and our machines don’t last as long, so we have to keep replacing both of those.
What we do have is designed not to last, and more meaningful, life-long purchases are out of reach. Meanwhile the people at the top of the pile who do literally nothing but “have wealth” sit around on their yachts blissfully ignoring the people starving to death on the streets.