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government bailouts are not capitalism
by thinkmassive 7y ago
government bailouts are not capitalism
- LarryDarrell 7y agoTrue, but now you are in the No True Scotsman weeds. Government bailouts have been happening regularly for most of our lifetimes. We are incessantly told the US is a Capitalist country. So in the minds of the average citizen, either bailouts are part of the capitalist system, or the US has never been capitalist. We're going to see "Modern Capitalism" and "Late Stage Capitalism" thrown around with a lot more frequency as corporations exert their power and we struggle to define what we are seeing. If we had more consciousness and weren't so confused by 50 years of Cold War brain rot we would just call our age Late Stage Plutocracy or something.
- cultus 7y agoThe thing is that this is inevitable with capitalism. Money will always end up influencing government power, leading to a plutocracy who make their money through anti-competitive rent-seeking behavior instead of innovation. That's precisely what's happened the world over, if you haven't noticed. The pure Platonic ideal of capitalism or even anything approximating it is impossible in practice. It has never happened, and it will never happen. It is just as utopian and pie-in-the-sky as "from each according to their ability, and to each according to their need."