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It's not Capitalism that is failing. It's Democracy and Government. We can't effectively identify problems and pass laws that fix them. Our society is like a r

It's not Capitalism that is failing. It's Democracy and Government. We can't effectively identify problems and pass laws that fix them. Our society is like a runaway train and we can try and apply the brakes here and there, but everyday people don't have the power to say, "This is wrong, lets do something different." If it was just a case of rich getting richer and poor getting poorer then, yes perhaps the problem is Capitalism, but there are a lot of other problems in society that we seem unable to fix. Police brutality, Medical Insurance, College Loans. Guns. The worlds on fire and we are not moving quick enough to reduce CO2 emissions. update: To clarify, what I was trying to say is that, if we had a functioning Democracy, we would identify that there is a problem where some people are very rich, and some very poor, and we would be able to make new laws that solve the problem. (Like taxing rich people for example.)

disparate_dan 6y ago
You had me at 100% agreement until you said “mussel” :). But you hit the nail on the head when you said “runaway train”, and no one is in control. These problems definitely exist in other western counties, but there is something about US society that seems to amplify the process massively, where European counties for example seem to apply a dampening effect on the worst extremes.
- jay_kyburz 6y ago
  haha, sorry. I deleted that line. Now it sounds like there was some seafood angle in my first draft.
briefcomment 6y ago
I would say the rich getting richer allows the people who the politicians want to suck up to escape from most of the problems in the country, and therefore allows them to haggle with politics and policies instead of really focus on pressing issues. Easy fix would be to limit how much wealth you can amass. Who really needs more than $50million?
- jay_kyburz 6y ago
  Who needs more than full belly and a roof over their heads? It's weird to want to cap somebodies worth. We need to limit how people and companies can use their wealth to exert power or make more money. How about a rule where you can't charge more rent that what it costs to maintain the property. How about a rule where you can't sell drugs after you have recouped the cost to develop them. How about a rule where you can't donate money to a politician or political party. How about a rule where employees of a company automatically paid dividends before shareholders are.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    I mean, that's the abolition of capitalism, though. You are literally describing market socialism. The only thing left is to automatically make workers the main shareholders, and making shareholders nothing more than financiers that must be repaid their interest.
  - briefcomment 6y ago
    That's a lot of rules though, and rules bog a society down. It definitely sounds weird, but seriously, why would you need more than $50 million to live a good life? At that point, you're probably imposing on other people rather than focusing on yourself. What do you do with wealth after $50mil? You probably exercise your influence on people who would be much better off being helped by people who are closer to the problem. Those people don't have enough money? Well I bet with capped wealth, we'd see a lot more competition, and there would be an explosion of opportunities to create modest wealth. A (somewhat) natural way of spreading wealth.
    - jay_kyburz 6y ago
      but, who cares how much somebody else has. The problem is not how much somebody else has. The problem is that a person can work 40 hours a week for 40 years and not have anything to show for it. And the reason they don't have anything to show is because they find themselves surrounded by vampires sucking them dry from paycheck to paycheck. "Inequality" is not a problem that needs solving, its a symptom of a society that doesn't reward people for work, it instead rewards those that already own everything. I don't care if Mr. Fancy Pants flies everywhere in his private plane and eats off a gold plate. I only care if he uses his wealth to take my money from me. And in that case I would like the government to protect me. The same way they protect me from being mugged on the street, with laws.
sudosysgen 6y ago
I don't think this is not mainly an issue of capitalism. The thing is that it is essentially impossible to solve democracy without also solving capitalism. Capitalism's issues are not just the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The main issue of capitalism is distribution of power. The only ways of fixing medical insurance, college loans, gun violence is to directly oppose the power structures created by capitalism. Capitalism is not to be understood as a purely economic system, it is also a political system, as it decides how power and decisions are used and taken. Politics is not just "what the government does" or "what parties do", the shareholders of your company deciding you should be fired is also politics. In this optic, it is more easily understood why capitalism will and does frustrate any attempt of creating true democracy. Capitalism is directly opposed to true democracy, as capitalism relies on private ownership and thus private decision, which is opposed to democratic decision. This is why when trying to establish public healthcare or regulating medical insurance, you will be opposed by the system that is capitalism, either by crashing of the stock market, adverse action by drug companies, massive lobbying, peddling of lies via mass media, and so on. Same for college loans - in order to fix the root cause issue behind college loans you will need to reduce the cost of tuition massively through either socialization of education or direct opposition to the ability of the private owner to do as they fit with their investment in order to maximize their interests (capitalism). Gun violence is really caused by underlying sociological issues which are caused by ideology (in the sociological sense of the word), and distribution of resources. Both of those are the way they are either largely or completely because of capitalism. Police brutality is in no small part because the role of police is diametrically opposed to the interests of most. Indeed, police almost only enforces laws that maintain wealth concentration towards the rich and have very low efficacy when dealing with theft from the common man (wage theft is by far the majority of all theft in the US, and it's not even close, yet try to call the cops on your boss short-changing you), even cases of murder show incredibly high class bias. This leads to police and justice interactions being overwhelmingly negative towards people they are biased against, such as racial minorities and poor people in general. As for global warming, this is an obvious issue of capitalism. And, most of all, Democracy has always been biased for the owner class and against the worker class. Read the original US constitution, for an obvious proof.

disparate_dan 6y ago

You had me at 100% agreement until you said “mussel” :). But you hit the nail on the head when you said “runaway train”, and no one is in control. These problems definitely exist in other western counties, but there is something about US society that seems to amplify the process massively, where European counties for example seem to apply a dampening effect on the worst extremes.

jay_kyburz 6y ago
haha, sorry. I deleted that line. Now it sounds like there was some seafood angle in my first draft.

briefcomment 6y ago

I would say the rich getting richer allows the people who the politicians want to suck up to escape from most of the problems in the country, and therefore allows them to haggle with politics and policies instead of really focus on pressing issues. Easy fix would be to limit how much wealth you can amass. Who really needs more than $50million?

jay_kyburz 6y ago
Who needs more than full belly and a roof over their heads? It's weird to want to cap somebodies worth. We need to limit how people and companies can use their wealth to exert power or make more money. How about a rule where you can't charge more rent that what it costs to maintain the property. How about a rule where you can't sell drugs after you have recouped the cost to develop them. How about a rule where you can't donate money to a politician or political party. How about a rule where employees of a company automatically paid dividends before shareholders are.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  I mean, that's the abolition of capitalism, though. You are literally describing market socialism. The only thing left is to automatically make workers the main shareholders, and making shareholders nothing more than financiers that must be repaid their interest.
- briefcomment 6y ago
  That's a lot of rules though, and rules bog a society down. It definitely sounds weird, but seriously, why would you need more than $50 million to live a good life? At that point, you're probably imposing on other people rather than focusing on yourself. What do you do with wealth after $50mil? You probably exercise your influence on people who would be much better off being helped by people who are closer to the problem. Those people don't have enough money? Well I bet with capped wealth, we'd see a lot more competition, and there would be an explosion of opportunities to create modest wealth. A (somewhat) natural way of spreading wealth.
  - jay_kyburz 6y ago
    but, who cares how much somebody else has. The problem is not how much somebody else has. The problem is that a person can work 40 hours a week for 40 years and not have anything to show for it. And the reason they don't have anything to show is because they find themselves surrounded by vampires sucking them dry from paycheck to paycheck. "Inequality" is not a problem that needs solving, its a symptom of a society that doesn't reward people for work, it instead rewards those that already own everything. I don't care if Mr. Fancy Pants flies everywhere in his private plane and eats off a gold plate. I only care if he uses his wealth to take my money from me. And in that case I would like the government to protect me. The same way they protect me from being mugged on the street, with laws.

sudosysgen 6y ago

I don't think this is not mainly an issue of capitalism. The thing is that it is essentially impossible to solve democracy without also solving capitalism. Capitalism's issues are not just the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The main issue of capitalism is distribution of power. The only ways of fixing medical insurance, college loans, gun violence is to directly oppose the power structures created by capitalism. Capitalism is not to be understood as a purely economic system, it is also a political system, as it decides how power and decisions are used and taken. Politics is not just "what the government does" or "what parties do", the shareholders of your company deciding you should be fired is also politics. In this optic, it is more easily understood why capitalism will and does frustrate any attempt of creating true democracy. Capitalism is directly opposed to true democracy, as capitalism relies on private ownership and thus private decision, which is opposed to democratic decision. This is why when trying to establish public healthcare or regulating medical insurance, you will be opposed by the system that is capitalism, either by crashing of the stock market, adverse action by drug companies, massive lobbying, peddling of lies via mass media, and so on. Same for college loans - in order to fix the root cause issue behind college loans you will need to reduce the cost of tuition massively through either socialization of education or direct opposition to the ability of the private owner to do as they fit with their investment in order to maximize their interests (capitalism). Gun violence is really caused by underlying sociological issues which are caused by ideology (in the sociological sense of the word), and distribution of resources. Both of those are the way they are either largely or completely because of capitalism. Police brutality is in no small part because the role of police is diametrically opposed to the interests of most. Indeed, police almost only enforces laws that maintain wealth concentration towards the rich and have very low efficacy when dealing with theft from the common man (wage theft is by far the majority of all theft in the US, and it's not even close, yet try to call the cops on your boss short-changing you), even cases of murder show incredibly high class bias. This leads to police and justice interactions being overwhelmingly negative towards people they are biased against, such as racial minorities and poor people in general. As for global warming, this is an obvious issue of capitalism. And, most of all, Democracy has always been biased for the owner class and against the worker class. Read the original US constitution, for an obvious proof.