HOW is this Possible! ALL we did is Tell kids that Healthcare is Socialism, Housing is Socialism, Education is Socialism, Good jobs are Socialism and Freedom is Socialism!
-EVERY Politician in America!
I'm fine with well-regulated, yea sufficiently-regulated, capitalism. But I really don't care what you call it.
There should be some profit motive or I think it falls apart. But first and foremost, it has to be fair. We shouldn't have billionaires. I don't care if we have millionaires. But not one fucking stupidly-fucking-rich person until the social safety nets take care of every last one of us.
And the oligarchs built their wealth on the backs of the rest of us, and on the public services that WE fucking pay for. They need to pay their FAIR share, which is a fuck ton more than they are.
So beyond that? Details that people smarter than me can work out.
Am I anti-capitalism? Meh. I care less for what we call it than what it does and how it treats people.
Well regulated capitalism is socialism. The more you think about it and dig at it, the more you realize that what you want actually just is straight up socialism and explicitly not capitalism.
The capital in capitalism is the power to the money, a positive feedback loop. And that socialism is all the stuff that people actually like. It gets into ownership and copyright and what is ownable, but all of that is very important to consider when making or thinking about worldviews.
Somebody more awake than me can put out names and concepts. The world is a weird place and it can change in an instant. I wish I could live forever and see where it goes and ride that ride.
But line must go up. At all costs.
But that's the thing that's most frstrating of all: Line still go up with fuckign social safety nets. (cussing at the fascists and oligarchs, not you). heh
One flaw in capitalism that I often think about is its inevitable that the ones who hold the most valuable resource writes the rules of capitalism. Even when well regulated, even if we get rid of lobbying, even if we get reverse Citizens United, whoever holds the most desirable thing holds influence, and influence is destined to become corrupted in a system that divides people into winners and losers via competition.
I think economies at a bare minimum should be optional to engage with for luxuries only and that we as a species should learn to value more meaningful things other than pretty metals and hollow social praise from strangers.
Honestly I think capitalism was born of the mental immaturity of our species. It sounds great if you don't know much about the world, but the more you do the less capitalism makes sense.
Sure, but I think that's a little bit like saying that democracy is the worst form of government - except all the others.
Rip out capitalism completely, and what do you get? You start over with everyone substinance farming. How do you get people interested in making things if not the promise of profit?
Also, I don't believe anything is destined, personally. It's all choice, and sure, natural human nature, but we can work against those things.
People WANT to make things and profit has nothing to do with that desire. In our grind culture we often can't help but think how we could turn a profit from our hobbies but that's a perversion driven by capitalism. People make art, clothes, food, games, movies, music, we innovate with ways to save time or make something easier or more accessible, we solve problems in creative ways, and we do it all without a profit motive. Making things isn't a problem capitalism solves - it extracts value, it drives greed, it demands growth.
So clearly I take issue with the question of how to get people to make things. I don't have an easy answer for how we motivate people to do garbage collection or brain surgery without money but I also think we could figure it out if we had any amount of time where we weren't consumed by trying to make more of it.
Why wouldn't we at least want democracy in the workplace?
I'm partial to a Cooperative Economy, a form of stateless market socialism, in conjunction with something like the Economy for the Common Good as an alternative to GDP, a measure for economic growth, and can be used for the purpose of determining tax brackets and providing subsidies for example. Implementing the right incentives to make the transition could begin to provide a significant break from capitalism.
Also can we just get rid of publicly traded stocks as well. That shit makes Capitalism explicitly worse and I'm like 90 percent sure it actively would corrupt any system it's present in at this point.
If you want to sell stocks for mining expeditions for example then fine, but the company should be dissolved afterwards or otherwise take the total financial damages for failure.
Kind of feels like I'm beating off a dead horse when I talk about cooperatives, but multi stakeholder models can solve a lot of the issues with publicly traded stocks. Namely the perverse incentive to appease shareholders over workers or consumers. At least give workers majority stake, so they can install their own board of directors instead of all the voting power unfairly given to the sociopaths with the most money.
I'm all for getting rid of it completely though.
You can still have privately traded stocks just not publicly traded. I believe WinCo does that.
The problem with the unregulated capitalism we're seeing globally, is intergenerational wealth. In very short, it's inheritance.
If everyone were to build themselves up from nothing, we'd have a pretty strong merit based system.
But when rich fucks can hand millions upon millions to their off spring, so no matter their ability to understand the world will live comfortably. Then everything breaks apart.
Ultimately will unregulated capitalism always see wealth/profits drift towards the already wealthy families. Where as resetting wealth every generation, would make dynasties way less likely to exist.
Why would we want a "strong merit based" system? Congrats, you won the genetic lottery and are healthy with attentive parents! Your life has more value than others!
I don't disagree, but it's the building of massive wealth that I find problematic in addition. But I agree that inherited wealth is a massive problem as well.
Right, but capitalism is exploitative by its very nature. Profit is evidence of underpaying labor. There is a massive difference between something like a small business where the owner is working to provide the products/services themselves vs somebody buying a factory/plant/farm/whatever and paying others to do the work for them while they collect millions merely for owning the means of production. Is it possible for a small, single owner/worker/operator business to profit? Yes. The business profits by paying the owner less than their labor was worth, but it's ultimately identical to paying the full value and then them choosing to invest their money back into the business. But you'd be braindead to do that because of how taxes on businesses work compared to income tax.
To be clear, it's not that it's called capitalism that's what is pissing people off. It's that people are going deep into debt to get degrees that they were promised were tickets to making enough money to live comfortably in a house that they could own, and instead everybody is so broke that simple purchases now require financing while working 2-3 jobs. Everything is getting worse and more expensive and it's because of the economic expectation of infinite growth in a real world with finite resources. Speculative value is falsely inflating the value of an increasingly fundamental cornerstone of the US economy, and therefore a significant chunk of the global economy. AI as a tool can be useful in targeted usecases, but its parading as a solution for everything is a ruinous fucking bubble that's spreading and consuming at a civilization-ending rate; it's collapse if it pops, and it's dystopian hell if it doesn't.
You are now antifa. Capitalists are willing to throw you in jail until you die. The profit motive of prisons you demand to exist be sufficiently regulated have deemed you a terrorist. Accept your fate for the prosperity you assume will occur afterwards.
Or consider that capitalism has fundamental issues and a profit motive is probably one of them. The wish to rule the world is the end goal of capitalism, no? If the maximum to capitalism isn't ruling the world, what's your proposal for the ceiling of capital? Why cant that ceiling have any more profit? Why is the profit motive limited at a certain point if fundamentally a profit motive is necessary? Unless you are willing to admit that there is a maximum amount an individual can have to be satisfied with life and exceeding it is pure gluttony? If you say that, you are an anti capitalist.
the end goal of capitalism,
f you say that, you are an anti capitalist.
eh. I get the logic of your conclusions, but I disagree.
That is, for example, the end goal of unfettered capitalism, but I support heavily regulated capitalism.
And I support capitalism that still allows people to reach some level of wealth - just not to the degree of wealth inequality we have allowed now.
Mainly I support capitalism because I have not seen another system that has worked to a tenth of the degree.
I'd love some Star Trek bullshit where money doesn't exist and everything gets done, but I don't buy it.
So from a pragmatic point of view, I've ended up in support of heavily regulated capitalism, which allows governance by democratic socialism, for instance.
Gen Z + Millennial eligible voters total more than 100 million, Boomer voters total maybe 60 million and only 50% of that group voted for Trump.
If Gen Z & Millennials started voting en mass they'd completely overwhelm MAGA and conservative voters and their priorities would become national priorities. Hopefully they're sick enough of the Trump Show to actually head to the polls in great numbers come November.
Remember the Yuppies?
Every generation after WWII has had a net negative view of capitalism under 30.
Then they get kids and property and the ones with a voice and power suddenly decide capitalism is OK after all.
That said, each generation since WWII it has taken longer for the next generation to inherit the capital. So Gen Z might be in their 50s or 60s before the majority decides capitalism is OK.
That could prove… interesting.
I own property. I wouldn't mind seeing its value halved if it meant everybody could afford a house.
Not to mention we shouldn't be valuing property in terms of monetary value, but rather the utility you get for that value.
Property is worth a shit ton right now, and I get that people like counting the high value of their property as an asset. But say you go to sell that property...you still have to live somewhere afterwards. Any new place you'd be buying or renting would be just as overinflated in terms of cost.
If the housing market were to crash again, you can't sell your house for as much, but also you wouldn't need to pay as much to move in somewhere else either. A house losing half its value doesn't delete half the house, it just makes it more accessible to buyers who don't already have a house to sell.
There's a difference now. People can't afford property or kids and they're pissed.
That’s been the case every generation since Gen X. As I pointed out, the difference is that the age when those become obtainable keeps on getting pushed later each generation. So Gen Z will be able to afford a mortgage just before they retire.
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News