Do you like shovels? What an inane question. Capitalism is a tool. It works for some things and not for others. If you want to achieve the things it doesn’t work for, you don’t use it and use a better suited tool instead.
It’s our fault for “using capitalism” guys
I keep reading one or another form of “regulated capitalism is the goal” or “in small countries work” or “the problem is people”. Regulated capitalism sounds great, but it is like saying “sanitised street pond”. You can try and sanitise it all you want but in the end it is by its very design gonna be an undrinkable mess.
There is no great moment of the US. Even when you had wealth, it was on the backs of the rest of america, both the country’s second class citizens, and the rest of the continent. You’re obsessed with empires, meddling in other countries’ governments, controlling resources in other countries, glorified violence, dominance, and individualist hero idealism. Even compared to other powers like China, count how many military bases you have vs the rest of the world. You’ve been historically bullies, obsessed with hustle, profit over life, status and personal achievement. Every time you have an increase of wealth is at the cost of someone else. The problem is you have lived so long in this bubble of entitlement that you have no idea how it impacts everything around you. Somewhere there’s a totalitarian regime where they’ll murder people with guillotines, and people will rush to buy stocks in companies selling sharp blades. There is no ethic in capitalism, capitalism does not care about people.
as an american anti capitalist, i agree with so much of what you just said and still want to punch you in the mouth.
we became obsessed with glorified violence after SAVING EUROPE FROM THE FUCKING NAZIS. we began to worship our individual heroes after PRODUCING SO MANY OF THEM WHILE FIGHTING THE FUCKING NAZIS. we got into meddling in the affairs of other countries because of our paranoia over preventing A GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR APOCALYPSE, a consequence of FIGHTING THE GODDAMNED NAZIS.
europe produced the problem and we solved it. the spoils of that war just happened to be the entire fucking world. sorry for winning. maybe we should all focus on KICKING NAZI ASS AGAIN.
A slight issue with your comment about meddling in affairs of others, that started long before the Cold war. Lookup what we did in Guatemala in the early 20th century and the Philippines. And Hawaii. Check out the book Overthrow A Century of Regime Change. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_(book)
you’re right. we’ve always had fat cat capitalists manipulating the system, but remember that FDR did a lot to curb that AND help win WWII. you can’t just paint all of american history as a bunch of villains.
my entire point is that sometimes it takes a hero, and you can’t win wars by being a pacifist.
Please be satire
it’s the fucking truth. capitalism may have hijacked it all, but rugged individualism produced a form of military organization that allowed the US to be extremely effective and is now copied by the rest of the world.
if people hadn’t gotten on boats to escape a rotting europe, there wouldn’t have been an america with boundless resources to produce the military hardware to save your asses.
our history is very tainted, but you guys were the model for colonial expansionism. we were just better at it.
get off your fucking high horse and recognize that being the dominant brute can be the only thing that saves everyone from the other dominant brute. it’s not about the power, it’s what you do with it. let’s combine our powers and kick some nazi ass again instead of endlessly bitching on the internet about how it’s all somebody else’s fault.
You keep saying you, as If I am European.
Get off your fucking high horse and recognize that the US didn’t just valiantly roll in with a superior military force and win WW2. Russia was a much larger contributor to the collapse of the Nazis. The US’s primary front wasn’t even the one the Nazis were on. The US got fucking lucky that it was geographically extremely difficult for otherwise occupied forces to attack, and therefore didn’t get bombed into rubble, and due to that had all it’s industrial infrastructure intact at the end of the war so it could immediately turn it around to rebuilding all these places, and thus having a massive influx of economic activity by virtue of placement on the globe. The military we built was based on the French, however the thing our culture did inform was the Nazis, we were a wonderful case study on how to execute an ethnostate, and genocide.
Jesus fucking christ it is like you took the movie Team America: World Police as a historical reality.
The US got fucking lucky that it was geographically extremely difficult for otherwise occupied forces to attack, and therefore didn’t get bombed into rubble, and due to that had all it’s industrial infrastructure intact at the end of the war so it could immediately turn it around to rebuilding all these places, and thus having a massive influx of economic activity by virtue of placement on the globe.
which wouldn’t have been possible without a certain kind of ‘rugged individualism’.
but you’re right. russia fought and bled far more to defeat the nazis. credit where credit is due. both the US and russia are bullies. there will always be a bully. BE THE BULLY AND YOU GET TO DECIDE THE FATE OF THE WORLD. be a pacifist and somebody else will tell you how it’s going to be. wake up.
The reason we got here wasn’t “rugged individualism”. It was part of a large, long effort, to find a better path to india. We weren’t even the first Europeans that made it here. The reason we kept coming here is because aristocrats demanded people go there, and colonize to expand their empires. The reason the US and Canada aren’t in a state more like Israel, is that the people we colonized had little defense to the diseases we brought. In fact, Desoto’s campaigns to find more precious metals in the Appalachians, where he killed, raped, and enslaved his was through the region, in the name of Spain, happened long before the first solid colonies developed here, and this triggered an apocalyptic event to the people living their from the disease that the Spanish spread.
This bully theory is horseshit, and reducing reality down to a binary of you are either a bully or a pacifist is fucking stupid. Bullying is how to garner thin, short-term, control. People get tired of the bully, and turn on them, and the bully finds out it is now all alone when everyone is turning on them. That or everyone else grows and progresses their lives, while the bully stays as they are, and just fades into irrelevance.
Capitalism requires consistent growth and most non-economists think it should be left unregulated. However I distinctly recall one person recently who pushed to add government controls and even said they didn’t care about the stock markets and what companies felt was best, and instead were doing what they felt best benefitted Americans.
So why is no one asking Trump the same question when he’s clearly going against (American) capitalism?
This Adam’s guy is handing out stone cold stunners?
You can practically hear the phonk.
Those cow bells echo and resonate with me
I hear it brother
This appears to be the Mamdani interview by Erin Bernett on CNN, during which the word capitalism or capitalist was mentioned exactly zero times.
Her questions were actually pretty good because they set Mamdani up to give amazing answers, instead of the stupid tribalistic bullshit in your fanfiction.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/vik8HbWnZ68
She asked him “Do you like capitalism?” word for word.
Goddamn that man is well spoken.
Yeah, absolutely. And to her follow-up question about whether the American Dream and capitalism aren’t intertwined:
No, actually not. In fact, the American Dream and capitalism are actually two very opposing concepts.
In free-market capitalism (and anything that gets close to it), having capital increases your chances to gain more capital. It’s an inherently unstable system that favours people having money over people not having money.
The American Dream on the other hand says “if you work hard enough, you will become rich”. That’s literally opposing the core capitalist concept, because it means “Even if you don’t start out with money and connections, just working hard will make you successful”.
Capitalism is a system where hard work alone (and it really doesn’t matter how hard the work is) will not let you break out of your social caste, because you are up against people who work just as hard but have money, education and connections, and you can’t compete against that, even if you work 24h a day.
The American Dream is not capitalistic, because it doesn’t include the concept of capital at all.
What kind of system guarantees becoming rich from hard work? I don’t know of any.
None, that is true. But the american dream is nothing but a lie to keep the drones in line.
But many systems (e.g. the New Deal) can make it very likely that hard work gets you at least decently well off. Neoliberalism and other more extreme forms of capitalism don’t do even that.
Not to mention being “Breaking News” on the ticker immediately after with his answer in the back half of the interview.
So it’s also written on the screen multiple times.
That’s not true, at 8 minutes he literally gets asked that exact question and responds no. Watch between 8 mins and 8:06 of the link you posted…
Ah, you’re right, mb. I watched the first 6 minutes at 1.75x speed and then gave up and read a transcript of another interview which was apparently from 3 days ago.
A US presidential candidate that doesn’t deepthroat coporation everytime he opens his mouth? Guard him well, these types tend to end up comitting suicide via a bullet to the back of the head.
we call that “The Clinton.”
How uninformed do you have to be to think he’s a presidential candidate?
We would be so lucky.
AOC could run, but she has the big handicap of missing a penis.
Kind of a rude way to correct a person
Lemmy has been nothing but news about this guy for the last week. 80% of the posts are about him in my feed, in “All”, in any sort option.
In a typical lemmy fashion, everyone needs to have a strong opinion about everything, even when not having the slightest idea what is going on.
In a typical lemmy fashion, everyone needs to have a strong opinion about everything
Much like you, apparently
Zohran is not running for president, that’s not my opinion.
Nobody claimed that he is. Or was Rooty’s comment edited?
If you’re going to “average redditor” every social forum, I think you’re going to have a very one-note time in life.
Nah, lemmy users are notably worse informed and more opinionated that redditors. At least on reddit there was r/ConfidentlyIncorrect to make fun of. No need for that on lemmy.
Let me help you with that: https://lemmy.world/post/32234525
Sorry, hoping you get a laugh from this. I figured it was the easiest way to link the sub
I’m famous now! All it took was a misquote!
Lemmy has been nothing but news about this guy for the last week.
The nice thing about Lemmy is that that depends on what you subscribe to.
Memes is full of this guy. News is full of this guy. Shit posting is full of this guy. The rest is moths.
Who is the arbiter of knowing what’s going on?
That doesn’t even make sense.
To you. Others understood it just fine. Which means you might need to get that checked, or figure out why you can’t parse it.
“Do you gargle salted marbles at the gym?”
God please please please please
He is not born in the US, he can’t even run.
The good timeline
Trump removes restrictions regarding eligibility to become president to prepare for a third term
Zohran wins
Outlaws GOP
Nah, he just needs a couple billion to run in that case.
Whoops, you’re right. Corrected.
You’re a much nice person than the one you replied to. Nice job on taking the high road.
… He said, while fully benefiting from it
“You say you hate capitalism, but then you still exist in a world where it is utterly unavoidable, what a fucking hypocrite!”
Fuck off.
Curious…
ShartDickPrime here, live from the glue factory! I’ve been bagging hard so I can hit you with the hottest and freshest shit takes in the Fediverse!
Keep on huffing, you crazy diamond.
Huh, what an ignorant peasant. Thou proclaimeth that thou doeth not like toiling away all thine day in the fields under the scorching sun and giving most of the produce as tributes to thine lord. But, thou use the protection of the lord. Hypocrisy, I tells thou
Poe’s Law strikes again. It’s such an astonishingly stupid argument that I can never tell when someone’s joking when they say it.
The guy you’re replying to also thinks musk is a smart guy…
No ethical consumption under capitalism.
What a chad
This guy fucks…
The Bourgeoisie
And also his wife and apparently that also became news somehow
How can that become news?
Anything is news when the guy is a Muslim socialist. Duh
He’s like what they were afraid / what we wished Obama was
DOWN WITH THE CAPITALIST CANCER
We need a word that describes “questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes/no asked with the explicit intent to make a sound bite for stupid people.” Germans do this kind of thing all the time. Some compound word like “stupid dummy-faced shitheel question.” Studu-fashtion.
In this case though, isn’t “no” honest, fully correct, and merely politically unpopular? It’s like if they asked a Republican about gay marriage and he said “no”.
It’s called a false dichotomy, actually. Basically pretending there are only two sides to an argument (capitalism good, capitalism bad) when there is more nuance. Capitalism good, but… capitalism bad, but… this isn’t capitalism… etc.
It’s called a loaded question, but that doesn’t really have the weight of how destructive this has been to society
I’m enjoying how easy it is to use ratfuck to describe using proceduralism to try to manipulate democracy, maybe something along those lines?
ratfuck to describe using proceduralism to try to manipulate democracy
Haha, I never thought to define that term, it just comes to me instinctively whenever Democrats or Republicans are mentioned (particularly this second Trump administration): Democrats ratfucked their constituents in 2024, Republicans ratfucked the country in 2025.
Right? It just doesn’t even require explanation. People know what you’re talking about immediately
It’s a concept we all know missing a word, and people just get it instantly. I’ve had to repeat it slowly, but everyone gets it
It’s still called capitalism, but in reality it’s drifted way off course. What we’ve got now looks more like a corporate oligarchy. The free market only applies to small players, big banks and mega-corps get bailouts, write policy through lobbyists, and face no real consequences for failure. It’s capitalism in name, but the rules are rigged. Real capitalism doesn’t have a reset button for the rich and a bootstraps lecture for everyone else.
Free market capitalism has always been an ideological myth. The definition of capitalism has more to do with ownership of the means of production than anything about free markets.
Capitalism hates free markets and will always strive to monopolise them.
You’re the first person to correctly use and define the word capitalism in this entire discussion.
Your analysis and critique is absolutely correct.
Hey, just FYI, you’re arguing on Lemmy. Most people here get their political opinions from memes and Twitter screenshots. One third are tankies, one third are people that agree with tankies minus China/Russia support, and the one third are actually people that read the news, understand history, and at least somewhat educated or more.
☹️ ya man… I know… I’m beating a dead horse.
Sometimes I just respond so anyone that does read it will see someone fighting against the idiocy.
“everyone is an idiot except me and people who agree with me.”
Someone asked me to provide them with the definition of capitalism which I did. Their responce was “that could mean anything! You could use that to define communism”
I responded by providing them with the definition of the word “definition”
There are idiots here…
I’ve seen and been involved with many discussions where people on Lemmy don’t know what a primary is. And that’s just one example, so yeah. Many idiots.
The only way that capitalism could ever work would be to remove any generational wealth and make it only about personal achievement. When you die it all goes back to the state(assets and money).
Even then, rich parents can pay for better education and tend to have better connections. Doing it that way would mostly just fuel nepotism in companies and encourage people to find loopholes to pass on most of their wealth before they die.
I’ve always toyed with the idea of a wealth cap. 1 billion dollars is the max amount of money any one person or entity can make. Anything after that is either reinvested, split amoung the workers (not the board of directors) or payed a taxes to the government.
One thing is for sure. We don’t need billionaires.
Removing all inheritance was one of the items Marx suggested in The Communist Manifesto.
So your saying give ppl who gucked up this system more power? That’s crazy man
No, what we have is capitalism. There has been no veering off course. You don’t know what capitalism is.
Actually, I do. It has a definition, one that all of you seem eager to twist and reshape into whatever suits your narrative.
In reality, you’re the one who doesn’t understand it. You’re so far removed from the mechanics that you can’t even see what’s actually happening. Instead, you just blame “the system” and an amorphous blob of people you call “the rich.”
It’s the worst kind of idealism, screaming at windmills while pretending to have some enlightened grasp of “what’s really going on.”
You’re no different in rhetoric or philosophy from a MAGA supporter—just flipped to the opposite pole.
Oligarchy and capitalism are in no way incompatible.
One is a form of governance, one is an economic system.
That you would pose the notion of “we don’t have capitalism, we have oligarchy” shows that you don’t seem to know the definitions.
You’re no different in rhetoric or philosophy from a MAGA supporter—just flipped to the opposite pole.
MAGA has a lot more to do with hate for others and retribution for perceived slights than any coherent take on policy.
Out of all the idealistic head in the clouds idiots under my original comment you by far take the cake you are alone on a pedestal of stupid.
You claim that I don’t know the definitions of capitalism and oligarchy when you can’t even use the words correctly.
If anything you have no clue what those words mean nor have you understood a single word that I said.
Capitalism and oligarchy are of course compatible which is why I called our current system of economics a corporate oligarchy.
Please don’t respond there is no way you can save yourself.
Out of all the idealistic head in the clouds idiots under my original comment you by far take the cake you are alone on a pedestal of stupid.
What about my comment made me seem idealistic? Or is this another word you don’t understand?
You claim that I don’t know the definitions of capitalism and oligarchy when you can’t even use the words correctly.
In what way did I use them incorrectly?
If anything you have no clue what those words mean nor have you understood a single word that I said.
Of course I haven’t understood what you said, you defined capitalism as
Ownership of the means of production.
Do you actually think this is a sensible response to that question?
It doesn’t even say who owns it. Those exact words can be used to define communism, if you change who the “owners” are.
Please don’t respond there is no way you can save yourself.
Save myself from what? The stakes of this internet debate seem to be much higher for you than they are for me.
What was my last statement to you on my comment?
What was my last statement to you on my comment?
You said you weren’t going to reply to me, and that mine was a gish galosh comment, and then you deleted it.
Classic projection, I can see why you wanted to hide it.
It has a definition
Care to share it with the rest of the class?
Also, do you have any examples of this ‘real capitalism’? Or at least a plan to keep capitalism ‘real’?
Ownership of the means of production.
The history of the model T from ford.
Ownership of the means of production.
Right
The history of the model T from ford.
Yes, capitalism greatly expanded the scale and speed at which things could be produced. But how do you keep capitalism ‘real’ and prevent the issues you described in your first comment?
Monopolizing of certain productions, rabid financialization of the economy and extreme wealth agglomeration at the top, combined with rampant poverty at the bottom have been the go to in the US capitalism. There was only a relatively brief period in between, when the scare of communism forced the oligarchy to give some concessions before people get too angry.
Fully agree.
We now live in the age of techno feudalism. The mega corps aren’t producing and selling actual things they are just rent seeking and extracting wealth from their fiefdoms.
Unfortunately like every system we have tried to do at scale, capitalism favors concentration of power over time and being gamed by some folks or others. Humans love to surrender power to the powerful up until some breaking point.
So corporate oligarchy is an expected long term result of capitalism. Unfortunately some other type of oligarchy is the outcome from alternatives once the “wrong” players figure out the rules of the game and how they can break them as needed to get an advantage over those following the spirit of the rules
It’s capitalism in the same way the Soviet Union was communism. No matter the theory, this is how these systems play out when real humans are in charge. That said, humans can clearly do better than the US system. Western Europe is full of counterexamples of semi-capitalism done better.
I think capitalism could have played out differently if it were started from a different point. We started with aristocrats and never got rid of them.
Communism in the Soviet Union started through revolution which is often co-opted by strong men authoritarians. It ended up in a dictatorship. If communism were attempted in a different manner, then it would end differently.
There is no other goal in capitalism other than the concentration of power and wealth. It is the default setting and needs many rules not to get there(reformism).
At least with socialism society is fully democratic by having democracy in the workplace; the last bastion of the Elite.
One system favors the few while the other the many.
What we’ve got now looks more like a corporate oligarchy. The free market only applies to small players
Tell me, how free was India to develop in free competition against England in the 19th century? How free was Congo to compete against Belgium? Oh, wait, you’re only talking for a white minority, I see. When exactly was capitalism better, when English children lost their fingers trapped in machinery in coal-powered factories in England in the 1850s and died at 30-ish years of age? Maybe it was better in 1917, when the ambitions of capitalism and imperialism triggered WW1 and ground tens of millions of lives? Or was it good in the 1950s/60s when the US murdered millions in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Korea through the most horrific bombing campaigns just because they didn’t want to be capitalist? What good capitalism are you exactly talking about?
I’m sorry what? I didn’t say anything about “good capitalism” or any kind of warfare or committed atrocious or any kind of racial issues.
In fact I am denouncing capitalism in my comment.
It’s like you just picked a random line to quote then went off on some idealistic rant about literally nothing.
Jkf was assassinated, there’s micro plastics in our food, I took a painful shit last night = therefore capitalism is bad!
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Strawman Fallacy Oh, wait, you’re only talking for a white minority, I see.
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False Dilemma What good capitalism are you exactly talking about
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Appeal to Emotion English children lost their fingers… died at 30-ish
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Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc Capitalism and imperialism triggered WWI.
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Guilt by Association US murdered millions… because they didn’t want to be capitalist.
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Red Herring The entire comment diverts from discussing actual merits or failures of capitalism as an economic system by listing atrocities as if they are direct and exclusive outcomes of capitalism, avoiding systemic analysis.
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Loaded Question When exactly was capitalism better…
Your entire comment is nothing more than idealistic mental masturbation, what a waste.
Coming from somebody who doesn’t understand the basics of capitalism.
Ownership of the means of production.
It’s not fucking hard.
You messed that up too - whose ownership? ‘Ownership of the means of production’ could just as easily fit the definition of communism.
No it can’t because the word communism doesn’t define as the ownership of the means of production that’s the definition for capitalism.
But here’s one that you might need some help with:
Definition
- a statement of the exact meaning of a word, especially in a dictionary.
“a dictionary definition of the verb”
- the degree of distinctness in outline of an object, image, or sound, especially of an image in a photograph or on a screen.
“the clarity and definition of pictures can be aided by using computer graphics”
Guess I have to spell it out.
Communism: ownership of the means of production by the people.
Capitalism: ownership of the means of production by private entities.
Your definition was vague enough to fit both, which was funny because you gave it while patronizingly stating how easy it was to define. Doubling down by patronizingly reciting what the word ‘definition’ means is one way to go I guess.
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In capitalism the goal is to use the money you have now to help you get more money in the future. If you can spend a few million dollars training your workforce or spend a few million buying corrupt politicians, and the latter nets you 10x the return in 1/10 the time, the system will reward those who make the immoral choice. And if you are working for a publicly traded company, your shareholders and board of directors will probably fire you for not using all technically-legal tools at your disposal.
I was recently thinking that the proponents of unregulated capitalism make it sound like natural selection for corporations. And it kind of does sound like that, until you think about it a little bit. It would be like an animal that grows more mouths as it finds more food, and if it eats even more food it can do magic shit like edit its own DNA and warp the laws of physics. Oh and of course it would be immortal, able to die from injury or starvation but never old age. (and if it did die from injury or starvation, it’s probably so that its owner can sell its kidneys)
This is real capitalism. Real capitalism does not work
I mean it does. At least as far as it can. I live in America. And aside from the shit we’re going through right now and the myriad of issues that we have as a country and society our standard if living is very hight. Not the highest of course but very high never the less. That standard is made possible in large by capitalism.
I believe Rand called it reasonable self interest, not every billionaire is an oligarch, not every rich person wants to rent out a god dammed city for their wedding like some cartoonish villian.
Penn Jillette said that he believes most people are good and I believe that applies to the rich as well.
Corporate oligarchy can be argued as a natural out come if capitalism run rampant I agree. But to equate the two as the same… They’re just not.
If you ignore the ever growing body of evidence against fair and sustainable capitalism… yeah.
High? Sure. But not sustainable. Far from sustainable. Capitalism is great for short term. But we can’t live with just short term.
not every billionaire is an oligarch,
You don’t become a billionaire by not being one
This is a literal insane take. America only has the standard of living it does because of the rampant exploitation of the third world, and so i guess in that sense capitalism does work at the only thing its meant for, funneling resources away from the exploited masses and into the hands of a privileged few. Pointing at america as an example of the success of capitalism is peak brainrot.
This is such a black-and-white take it practically erases reality. Yes, America exploited the Third World-but pretending the exploited had zero agency is just historical revisionism. It’s like blaming the Atlantic slave trade solely on Europeans while ignoring the African slavers who sold their own people. Exploitation requires both a buyer and a seller. If you’re going to condemn capitalism, do it honestly-recognize that local elites, corrupt governments, and internal power structures played a role too. The world isn’t split into pure villains and innocent victims.
I will agree fully, however that to reach a level of success in capitalism someone at the bottom has to suffer. I’m not supporting the system I’m just saying that it is successful within it’s framework.
Yo I’m from Honduras and your corporations literally invaded my country when workers started complaining about the dismal work conditions. There was a straight up coup enacted by an American business owner, specifically to get someone who aligned with American corporate values. Now the only way things have shifted is you no longer send a fleet filled with armed people to get rid of protests, you simply shut down entire factories with single digit day notice if people start even speaking about unionizing. The empire still intervenes when they don’t like a political candidate, even now. I’m here to assure you that your take is just wrong. This is capitalism, and it evidently does not work.
Yes. American corporations do this this is an absolute fact.
I condemn such actions and hope for a better system at some point in the future or even now if it’s impossible.
At no time have I defended capitalism.
The issue is most of the time people on this platform don’t even know what their protesting against.
Just under this comment alone there are people who don’t even know the definition capitalism.
Capitalism absolutely does work. It is a completely functional system of finance and in some minor ways even governance. It’s not good it’s inherently evil but it does function I don’t know why people can’t just accept that objectively.
Nah thats capitalism buddy, at its core. The point is the rigging, in order to profit as much as possible. Corporate Oligarcy is the ineveitable outcome of capitalism, because capitalism creates its own destruction after a certain point of wealth consolidation, after which point the system can no longer function as is after all the cannabalizing of its own sectors.
This is arguably one of the core components of capitalism that many capitalists choose to forget. Simping for the rich and powerful is not, itself, capitalism - capitalism is an innovation only enabled by massive government intervention in economic matters. Capitalism was not born with the first exchange of goods between people, capitalism was born with the rise of complex legal and financial instruments in European states in the 16th-17th century limiting the use of feudal and financial power.
The issue is that capitalist elites, like all prior elites, are not actually ideologues, whatever their claims. Capitalist elites are elites first, and capitalists second, if at all - the goal of elites is to preserve and enhance their own power, even at the expense of the system that enables them.
Capitalism is a touch worse at preventing elite accumulation of power than other systems (socialism), and a touch better than others (actual feudalism), but ultimately any examination which forgets that, no matter how ideologically ‘pure’ the analysis is, will always miss the fucking trapdoor to a more despotic and unfair system right beneath our feet.
Never trust the powerful. Any cooperation should always be conditional.
This take “capitalism is an innovation only enabled by massive government intervention” misses the mark. It doesn’t define capitalism; it just assumes we all agree on some vague historical version of it.
Capitalism, at its core, is private ownership, voluntary exchange, and profit driven markets. Government intervention isn’t part of the definition it’s something that’s been layered on top as capitalism evolved. Yeah, modern capitalism what we see post 16th century definitely grew with state backing: contract enforcement, corporate law, banking systems, even colonial muscle. But to say capitalism only exists because of government intervention is just historically lazy.
What really happened is the state and capital developed hand in hand. One didn’t invent the other. They just learned to exploit each other really well.
This take “capitalism is an innovation only enabled by massive government intervention” misses the mark. It doesn’t define capitalism; it just assumes we all agree on some vague historical version of it.
Capitalism, at its core, is private ownership, voluntary exchange, and profit driven markets.
Oh, so instead of a ‘vague historical version’ of capitalism that is widely accepted by applying a set of unique organizational characteristics that arose and spread from a single epicenter in Renaissance Europe, instead we have the vague historical notion that capitalism predates the written word. Great.
Government intervention isn’t part of the definition it’s something that’s been layered on top as capitalism evolved.
Fucking what.
You… you do realize that markets only exist because of government enforcement, right?
But to say capitalism only exists because of government intervention is just historically lazy.
No, not only does capitalism only exist because of government intervention, as capitalism is defined by transferable private investor ownership of the means of production, but markets themselves, which predate capitalism, also only exist because of government intervention, and claiming otherwise is ignorant of the basic underpinnings of pre-modern economics, instead projecting a very modern view of economic systems on the distant past wherein the very structures that enable every piece of the economic puzzle are, very often, fucking lacking entirely.
What really happened is the state and capital developed hand in hand. One didn’t invent the other. They just learned to exploit each other really well.
Would you care to tell me what property is?
Sir or madam. You’re doing a gish gallop even Kent hovind would be proud of and I don’t have the energy or desire to fully respond to any of that. I’ve written enough dissertations in my life.
Capitalism doesn’t require need or desire government intervention to work or exist. I suggest you brush up on your economics or ask chatgpt to explain it to you.
Omg, did you just darken his beard again? Somebody call Fox with this breaking story.
Is this sarcasm, I truly don’t understand what this comment is trying to communicate
Yes, it’s sarcasm lol I’m referencing a recent story where Fox News artificially darkened his beard to make him seem more Muslim and therefore more threatening.
Children think of capitalism as a system. Economists think of capitalism as a tool.
So it’s just going to be children arguing against children with no one even trying to learn anything?
Jesus fuckin’ christ, you always have the most undercooked, read-the-first-half, dumb as fuck middle schooler interpretation takes on everything. You need to stop hammering nails halfway in and actually do some understanding of concepts.
Back at ya.
Oof, fuckin’ got me, good one.
Capitalism, by definition, is a system not a tool. “Free market” may be a tool. “Private ownership of capital” may be a tool. “Free contracts of employment between individual economical agents” may be a tool. But the conjunction of those things is what defines the system of capitalism.
Like I say, children think of capitalism as a system. The right wing believes this too. Children arguing with children.
Capitalism can co-exist with socialism in the same economic system. Happens in many countries. Just Americans can’t make that work.
It by definition cannot and does not anywhere.
you’re thinking of “social democracy” which is capitalist and not at all socialist.
What does it mean for socialism and capitalism to co-exist in one system?
You can have a universal healthcare system run in a socialist manner because both supply and demand are really warped when there’s patents and people’s lives on the line. But within the same country you could still have private businesses. And you can mix and match, having sectors partially solcialist and partially capitalist (subsidized industries, government procurement from private industry, regulations, etc.).
Capitalism like any tool needs maintenance (so does socialism) but there’s precedent for trust-busting and Keynesian economic policy.
The problem is everyone wants some silver bullet solution so they can vote once and all problems are solved forever. That’s an immature understanding of economics. It’s a whole field of study, economics is a complex area of study, and both the MAGAs and the leftists refuse to to even try to understand it. It’s like watching children argue over CPU architecture just screaming things at each other over something they have no understanding of while the wealthy laugh at both groups.
But if the majority of the productive forces are primarily privately owned it is a capitalist system. Capitalist and socialist as adjectives are separate from ‘Capitalism’ as an economic system. What you are describing is a capitalist system with socialist elements and sounds like what most developed nations have today.
I don’t know any serious leftist who would assume once we have a socialist system we are just done, any society will require work and civic diligence until we could build the technology to be in as some call it ‘Fully-automated luxury gay space communism’ or FALGSC.
I don’t know any serious leftist who would assume once we have a socialist system we are just done
It’s what Marxism is about isn’t it? Leftism is heavily influenced by Marxism, you hear leftists often say “late stage capitalism” without thinking how stupid the implications of that phrase are. Constant references to Star Trek abound, without realizing that show is actually agnostic on economics, they use an ideal system, but the writers don’t know what that would be. “Post-scarcity economy” is another phrase that’s used often.
Overall this indicates leftists don’t actually know anything about economics, they’re just unhappy with how things are going and have no idea how to fix it. Not significantly different than the MAGA movement, just putting faith into narratives that feel right to them.
Like I say, children think of capitalism as a system. The right wing believes this too. Children arguing with children.
“I am not going to actually explain what I think people are getting wrong. I’m just going to pretend I know more than everyone else to give myself a false sense of superiority.”
Economics is a whole field of study. You expect me to teach a University class in a web forum thread?
You’re choosing narratives over listening to experts. I’m not an expert on economics, but I’ve learned enough to know that best case leftists are grifters, and worst case they are true believers that might actually try to implement economic policy without consulting with experts.
I guess we’ll need to wait and see on Mamdani.
Are those the same experts that we call to avoid the 2007 crisis?
I’m expecting for you to say something by way of explanation. “Some Rando Lemming said so” is not going to convince anybody.
“If you cannot explain it simply, then you do not understand it.”
If you had specific questions on how things worked, then you might be able to learn something. You’re not going to learn anything by through snark.
Capitalism can co-exist with socialism in the same economic system
Lemme guess: “socialism is when the government does stuff. And the more stuff it does, the more socialist it is. And when the government does a real lotta stuff, that’s communism”
Communism is when authoritarians impose socialism for weirdo ideological reasons. Libertarianism is when people want capitalism control every sector of the economy, also for ideological reasons.
Both are stupid.
“Weirdo ideological reasons” such as belief in equality of opportunities, belief in universal free education, healthcare and pensions, belief in worker rights or belief in the right to housing and of employment. Those weird to you?
Belief in at dictatorship of the proletariat and “the state will wither away” and all of the nonsense around how capitalism and imperialism corrupted science, etc.
The biggest famines in history weren’t caused by natural disasters, they were caused by weirdo ideology.
Ergo Trump is a communist. Case and point
‘Case in point’ ffs
metastatic Cancer can coexist with healthy tissues,
look at all the terminal cancer patients that are still alive
