4 ms·

Capitalism doesn’t work without choice of consumption. If you have a bad or misleading product, eventually people won’t use it. I’m less worried about typical

Capitalism doesn’t work without choice of consumption. If you have a bad or misleading product, eventually people won’t use it. I’m less worried about typical profit-mongering than I am about the corporate owned media however - media has a powerful ability to skew and censor truthful news.

Forbo 7y ago
> ...eventually people won't use it. But until then, the bad and misleading products are quite profitable for those engaging in the bad practices, thereby ensuring the behavior will continue to happen. Once they're "found out", they'll just re-brand or move to some other garbage to manufacture.
firethief 7y ago
That works well for bad products, which is why bad products are the least of our problems. But consumer choice is utterly ineffective at internalizing externalities, because consumers don't have the time to research the supply chains behind different options and don't feel like they have the money to make choices that don't lead to disaster in the long run.
zouhair 7y ago
That's a myth of Capitalism, a lot of crappy products are used every day because of marketing, market flooding, patenting, copyright, corruption and so on and so forth.
- shijie 7y ago
  Not a myth at all; what you just described is generally a result of crony capitalism, in bed with the government. When a true free market is allowed to operate (which happens all the time in many aspects of our economy), it is the most democratic meritocratic and fair way to exchange goods and services, and accumulate wealth. Pure capitalism has brought more people out of poverty than any other system or system of government in the history of mankind.
  - tsimionescu 7y ago
    How is a completely free market insulated from the influence of marketing/advertising? They are very effective techniques for convincing buyers to choose non-optimal products, and work exceedingly well in that regard. I also think you would find it very hard to point at an example of a working free market that has not devolved into an oligopoly, with no govrnment support at all; nevermind one that has produced large-scale wealth.
  - zouhair 7y ago
    There is no such thing as a Capitalism that us not a crony one, it's a pleonasm. Capitalism is by definition a crony one. It has to go in bed with the government, because it's the government that sets the rules. True free market means one company owning everything.

Forbo 7y ago

> ...eventually people won't use it. But until then, the bad and misleading products are quite profitable for those engaging in the bad practices, thereby ensuring the behavior will continue to happen. Once they're "found out", they'll just re-brand or move to some other garbage to manufacture.

firethief 7y ago

That works well for bad products, which is why bad products are the least of our problems. But consumer choice is utterly ineffective at internalizing externalities, because consumers don't have the time to research the supply chains behind different options and don't feel like they have the money to make choices that don't lead to disaster in the long run.

zouhair 7y ago

That's a myth of Capitalism, a lot of crappy products are used every day because of marketing, market flooding, patenting, copyright, corruption and so on and so forth.

shijie 7y ago
Not a myth at all; what you just described is generally a result of crony capitalism, in bed with the government. When a true free market is allowed to operate (which happens all the time in many aspects of our economy), it is the most democratic meritocratic and fair way to exchange goods and services, and accumulate wealth. Pure capitalism has brought more people out of poverty than any other system or system of government in the history of mankind.
- tsimionescu 7y ago
  How is a completely free market insulated from the influence of marketing/advertising? They are very effective techniques for convincing buyers to choose non-optimal products, and work exceedingly well in that regard. I also think you would find it very hard to point at an example of a working free market that has not devolved into an oligopoly, with no govrnment support at all; nevermind one that has produced large-scale wealth.
- zouhair 7y ago
  There is no such thing as a Capitalism that us not a crony one, it's a pleonasm. Capitalism is by definition a crony one. It has to go in bed with the government, because it's the government that sets the rules. True free market means one company owning everything.