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I hate capitalism, am I alone?

• proc0 5y ago
  Do you really hate it though? What other alternatives have you even experienced to be able to say that? Also, you are posting in a tech forum, which is perhaps the epitome of capitalism. I don't like businesses focusing on profit so much either. I'm not sure if it's sustainable to focus on something else instead. Maybe when business ignore profit they crash and burn. I'm not sure because I don't like to think about profit, I'm a technician/specialist first, and find finances very boring. I would think small business could accomplish this, by staying small and focusing on the product and not growth. However the past year has definitely favored large corporations that could handle the lockdowns.
  • Layke1123 5y ago
    I really do. It doesn't fix anything, only makes problems worse. Who cares that I can get a burrito delivered with a button press when people are starving and inequality is only rising? Why does it not fix these problems and instead propagate them?
    • proc0 5y ago
      Well, in theory the people starving are not under proper capitalism. Usually they're under some corrupt government that doesn't let small businesses thrive. You can't open businesses in those poor countries like you can in the US. Think about all the immigrants that are fighting to come to the US, and many of them end up having their own small business (many of which unfortunately had to close during last year, but that's a different matter). I don't disagree about the rampant inequality at the global scale, but the solution is not clear and definitely not simple, especially when factoring different nations, different peoples and cultures and styles of living. Ultimately capitalism is solving some problems, and I'm not sure that the problems it is not solving, are the ones it is creating. In other words, maybe these problems exist despite capitalism, and we need systems on top of it, not a replacement.
      • Layke1123 5y ago
        "In theory"... Yet the whole world is suffering under capitalism.
        • proc0 5y ago
          Is it ALL under capitalism? The 20th century was an on-going battle to see what political system would take over, and capitalism took the lead, but it's NOT because it took over, but rather that the other systems collapsed under their own incompetence. Long story short, capitalism is the only known system that has at least produced some wealth, granted in the process also produced greater inequality, but again, I'm not convinced those problems are entirely due to capitalism, and it could well be the case that more wealth will always produce inequality until we find a new complementary system that doesn't attempt to undo capitalism and instead works alongside it.
          • Layke1123 5y ago
            But nothing has come along. Nothing is getting fixed. We can't even pass infrastructure bills in this country because half of it is fuckimg idiotic.
  • sp332 5y ago
    There are non-capitalist business models. Employee-owned ones, like many "bootstrapped" ones featured on this website.
    • db48x 5y ago
      Those are also capitalist.
      • sp332 5y ago
        There are no capitalists, so how is it capitalist? Workers "owning the means of production" is famously compatible with non-capitalist business models.
        • db48x 5y ago
          Anyone who puts their own capital into some enterprise is a capitalist. It doesn’t require a particular job title or upbringing. Whether it’s two people working out of a garage and feeding themselves from their own savings in order to build a new business, or employees of a business who buy the business from its former owner, it’s all capitalism. Socialism and Communism were all about turning over all forms of ownership over to the government, and then allowing the government to decide who gets what and who is allowed to work where. In the end that puts all of the wealth and decision–making power into the hands of a single autocratic leader, no matter what the propaganda might claim.
          • deleted 5y ago
            [deleted]
          • sp332 5y ago
            This is incorrect. A capitalist is someone who puts money into the business and expects profit out of it without doing the work. Profit is the difference between the net value generated by the workers and the amount paid out to the workers.
            • 5y ago
• shams93 5y ago
  I think you're correct. Look at Bill Gates total inability to function as a human. Even the so called winners are destroyed by this process of capital.
  • CodeGlitch 5y ago
    How has he not functioned as a human? He's been successful, given tremendous amount of money and support to the 3rd world, and VS Code wouldn't have existed without Microsoft :)
• thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
  It could be worse: https://www.thepoke.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/funny-economy-explained-cows-capitalism.jpg https://www.thepoke.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/funny-e...
  • Layke1123 5y ago
    It looks pretty bad from where we are all at. I dont think dying would be worse at this point.
    • AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      You don't think dying would be worse than living in a capitalist society? Take a few deep breaths and try to get some perspective, because your current position is really disconnected from reality. In reality, capitalism has produced more stuff for people to use and enjoy than any other system, ever. (I will admit that it may not do as well as we like at spreading that stuff around. But focus on fixing that, not on breaking the system that produces the stuff that so many of us live on.)
      • Layke1123 5y ago
        But thats just it. It's working for you. Not others. And increasingly so.
    • thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
      Please get help. Harming yourself won't solve any problems. Whatever problems you are facing are temporary. Things will get better.
      • Layke1123 5y ago
        Oh sorry I understand that sounds dark. I'm not suicidal to be sure. There are other ways of go out before that. It's just really how people my age feel looking at the world. We wanted things to be better and they aren't. War in Israel, pandemics where half the population can't even agree we are in one, political instability, the constant pressure to afford the life our parents had even though they had it easier. It's just a lot for our generation to deal with.
• rvz 5y ago
  > This seriously can't be the best system for everyone involved. Well its because the general idea of going to university, leaving with debt, getting a job to pay off those debts whilst borrowing more for that car, home and healthcare, etc is now seen today as the great scam highlighted by the pandemic. It would require having multiple sources of revenue like having 3 jobs + going into youtube / twitch ad monetization, investing in stocks or crypto and your own business to increase your income. Even if you have huge profits from this, you will still be taxed to death anyway (By being on the highest tax group).
• sp332 5y ago
  Yup, all of life has been reduced to a number. And that number is how much money you can put in some investor's pocket. Derek Sivers says he talked to a taxi driver who preferred the mob to the beancounters. The mob didn't care what you did as long as they got their cut. But the beancounters would relentlessly optimize the amount of money they could squeeze out of the businesses.
• awb 5y ago
  It’s not the best system for everyone, but it’s the best system we have. When other systems prove practical at smaller scales, there will be pressure to change. But of all the economic experiments we’ve run in history, capitalism is the only one that produces decent amounts of freedom and economic growth.
  • Layke1123 5y ago
    That's absolutely not true.
  • bingbong70 5y ago
    "It’s not the best system for everyone" but it's the best system for people that accumulated vast sums of wealth pre-capitalism and what they say usually goes.
    • alentist 5y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27295778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27295778
• battles 5y ago
  What’s wrong with having an OnlyFans?
  • Layke1123 5y ago
    The fact that it's general advice to everyone trying to by a home. Or do you seriously think everyone SHOULD have an OnlyFans in order to own a home?
    • lax4ever 5y ago
      This is not standard advice for anyone looking to buy a home. Any loan officer or broker advising this is doing their job incredibly poorly.
• aurizon 5y ago
  When Star Trek became a reality in 2066 they initially had a problem with hoarders and misers overusing the replicators. The hoarders would fill their place with TVs and microwaves until there was not an inch to enter. The misers would make their houses collapse - floors can not take solid gold stacked 9 feet high. It was only the U235 and Pu239 cutouts that interdicted fissile production. All was solved with the dereplicator - which replaced the need for toiletss as well - yeah, no toilets in Star Trek in case you never noticed....
  • Layke1123 5y ago
    This was be far the worst reply that did absolutely nothing to provide insight to the situation.
• pedalpete 5y ago
  Where are you based, and what are you watching? I'll agree that there is too much emphasis on profit at many companies at the moment. Food delivery companies aren't making the world a better place, they're making it worse with the increase in single use packaging. They're taking an outsized amount of money, forcing the restaurants to give up some of their profit, and as a result, the some restaurants just can't continue. But there are also companies that are doing great things, and there are non-profits also doing great things. Walk around your local grocery store, and realize that much of what is there exists because of capitalism. Do you have a favorite product or service? It probably exists because of capitalism. Does that mean that everything needs to be done to maximize profit? No, that's just pure greed, and a major issue in society today. But though capitalism can feed into greed, it doesn't have to be that way. Perhaps it's an opportunity for you to find a tribe with the same beliefs as you and find a better way to have an impact.
  • Layke1123 5y ago
    I've tried. I've failed to find those tribes in America. They don't exist.
• WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
  At the base of all economic systems is the answer to the question, "How do you get people to work together for the betterment of all?" For most of Time calories have been very expensive so we are conditioned to do the least amount of work possible for the most calories. Most economic systems involve some kind of force to get humans to work and work together. Capitalism seems to be the best we have developed. We like to think that we are happy to work for the betterment of humanity but the reality is that that only goes so far. Eventually work becomes a chore and we want to give up. Capitalism works because it hacks people's self interest to work for everyone. Capitalism has problems but it's the best we have. The best we can do, for now, is to fix the problems that crop up and continue.
• db48x 5y ago
  Perhaps you should take a look at things from a different perspective. Here is a personal account of life inside the Soviet Union that you might get something out of: https://archive.org/details/ViktorSuvorovTheLiberatorsMyLifeInThebOk.xyz/page/n6/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/ViktorSuvorovTheLiberatorsMyLife... It’s a little on the long side, but I’ll quote from near the end of the introduction: Towards evening, we finished the job. Everyone took delivery of his final load of [fertilizer], but this time no one carried it off to the river, but instead to his own kolkhoz. It was then relayed to Moscow that everything was going well and that this year's harvest would be a record, thanks to the Regional Committee's First Secretary. Moscow promptly replied with a congratulatory telegram to the First Secretary and to all workers of the Region. And that was that. Late that night, I delivered one and a half tons of the fertilizer to the kolkhoz and reported to the Chairman that I had fulfilled the task ahead of time. He thanked me but did not go into detail. Everything had been clear to him from the very beginning. He had long been accustomed to the fact that, whenever the Communist Party issues instructions, these invariably end in a way no one wishes to remember. 'Where shall I put this one and a half tons?' I asked. 'Keep them yourself! If necessary, I could produce record harvests without fertilizers. But what's the point?' And that was that. I poured the liquid over my own tiny private plot. It proved an unpardonable mistake. Apparently, there was too much fertilizer for my tiny area of ground and I applied it at the wrong time. In May, when all the neighbouring kitchen gardens were producing strong shoots mine was barren. I was horrified. What would I eat during the winter? I was not going to become a soldier until the following spring: so how was I to live until then? The money I would receive for my work at the kolkhoz would be hardly enough for two months of very frugal existence. The peasant's only hope is his private plot which is not much bigger than the palm of his hand. And if nothing grows on that - what then? I had to make some urgent decisions. But what? I could not run away from the kolkhoz: under socialism a peasant has no right to a passport, although everybody else has an internal passport. As a result of this simple restriction, a peasant cannot live in a town, cannot marry a town girl or stay in a hotel. Travelling on a plane is also forbidden. Who will let you board an aircraft without a passport? Maybe you are a criminal? Don't think it is just a Soviet communist caprice, either. It is a vital necessity. If you are trying to establish material equality among the inhabitants of any country, you must introduce similar measures against the peasants. If you make all people equal, there will be mass migration of peasants into towns, where the working day is limited, where one need not work on rest days and holidays, and where one can have a holiday in summer. But, if all the peasants go to live in towns, your state of universal equality will perish from hunger. And, in order to prevent that state of affairs, you will be obliged to revert to the free market system, that is to capitalism, or else keep the peasants in their villages by force, by barbed wire, guard-dogs, threats and the introduction of special anti-peasant legislation. I was a convinced supporter of the material equality of all mankind and therefore was prepared to spend all my life without an internal passport, which means never flying in an aircraft, never staying at an hotel and never marrying a town girl. But, in compensation, we would have equality. There would be no exploitation of man by man and we would have no rich and no poor! That bloody fertilizer which ruined my harvest also ruined all my plans and forced me to look for some new way of life. The choice was not great: I could land up in jail, where the food is free, or I could become an officer, where the food is also free. Taking into consideration the fact that it is not difficult to land in jail, I decided to exploit this possibility only if I did not succeed in becoming an officer. And that didn't turn out to be particularly simple! In order to become an officer, I had to become a citizen of my country, in other words somehow or other obtain a passport. They say that, in the USSR, the acquisition of a passport for going abroad is so difficult that it sometimes takes a man's whole life to achieve. But, for anyone not entitled to receive one, to obtain an internal passport is an altogether more difficult task. If you have an internal passport and are trying to obtain one allowing you to go abroad, theoretically the law is on your side. You can protest, go on hunger-strike or write letters to Brezhnev. In the end, if you persist, you may well be successful. But how to obtain an internal passport if you are not entitled to one by law? If you are just a Soviet peasant and if the law is against you and if you live in a country but are not considered a citizen of that country but only its peasant? If you have no right to any form of defense? If you are born simply to work, simply as an integral part of the agricultural work force, then what do you do? What can one do if one does not represent a legal entity, just like for instance, a horse or a pig, which also has no right to an internal passport (let alone one for going abroad) and which is similarly forbidden to stay in hotels or to travel by air? To all intents I, like any other Soviet peasant, was an outlaw. And yet, in spite of everything, I managed to get a passport. It is a very long story indeed which I take no pleasure in recalling. I had to blackmail the kolkhoz Chairman, deceive the Chairman of the village Soviet, bribe a village Soviet Secretary as well as an employee of the Military Commissariat: there was no other way. And, after all that, my passport was still not quite legal. At any moment, it could have been proved that, even though I had been born in the USSR of Soviet parents, whose ancestors down several hundred years had never crossed any frontier or had any contact whatsoever with foreigners, I had illegally appropriated the name of a USSR citizen. So, as a matter of urgency, I had to change my half-legal passport for another officially-issued document in my name. And, to achieve that, I entered the Kharkov Guards Tank Command School. They took my passport and I was given a new red 'military Card' in its place. Now nobody on earth could send me back to the kolkhoz. There is no way back from the Soviet Army. You may not appreciate being graded on how much profit you can make, but Suvorov makes the point that there are jobs that people do not do voluntarily. Maybe there are enough people who enjoy farming enough to raise enough food to feed everyone in the world, but even they would lose their appetite for the work if you took away all the rewards of the job. Later in the book he has a similar conversation with someone about modern sewers replacing latrines. Even once sewer systems are built everywhere, somebody will still have to maintain them. Even if they aren’t emptying out latrines with shovels and wheelbarrows, it will still not be a desirable job. The benefit of capitalism is that it rewards people who get things done, whether that is hard work or clever work. There are, of course, alternatives that don’t get brought up much these days. I believe that it is still possible to sell your belongings and join a monastery. By doing this you could free yourself from material concerns, and devote yourself to a lifetime of study, contemplation, and spiritual growth. Of course, monks must eat, so someone must peel the vegetables and clear the drains. Monks must bathe, so someone must clean the bathrooms. But at least you will be doing it for yourself, and for people you know and trust, rather than for a salary. And yet, most people don’t bother to go to that extreme. There is far more “material equality” in America than there ever was in the Soviet Union. Farmers here do not lack televisions, telephones, or the freedom to fly in an airplane any time they choose. The civil engineers who maintain our sewer systems are rewarded well enough that they voluntarily enter that profession. Maybe in the future we’ll have something better, but whatever it is it will definitely still reward people for their labor.