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It sucks that while there are enumerable benefits to free market capitalism, there's also serious drawbacks. You tend to see the formation of mega corporations

It sucks that while there are enumerable benefits to free market capitalism, there's also serious drawbacks. You tend to see the formation of mega corporations that can use economy of scale to secure and hold huge economic advantage. Short of some breakup, or government intervention, what can be done? The system is designed to reward those who find the best market fit. The problem is, there's no brake pedal on their growth. They can absorb entire industries.

rsuelzer 5y ago
This, in my opinion, is the largest role of government in a capitalist society. Capitalism is not sustainable without guard rails. By design, a company will always pass costs onto society if it can. The government has an obligation to ensure negative economic costs are paid by the producers and consumers of goods and services. An example of this would be Walmart for years relying almost exclusively on Medicaid benefits for their employees healthcare. Walmart is hardly the worst company in terms of passing economic costs on to others or future generations. But, the point is, that unless the government forces a company to pay the true costs of doing business it's always going to result in market distortions. It's a design flaw of capitalism, which is actually easy to correct within an equitable political system. However, this is much more rare than it ought be.
bencollier49 5y ago
This is interesting. Normally people say "innumerable" in a sentence like this, meaning "too many to count", but in this case there's a malapropism which literally reverses the meaning whilst keeping the sense of the original almost intact.
- rubicon33 5y ago
  Hah, that is interesting. I think I make that mistake because I'm a software developer an enums are a thing so my brain mixes up innumerable with enumerable.
  - bencollier49 5y ago
    I guess it's perfectly cromulent in the sentence as well.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

rsuelzer 5y ago

This, in my opinion, is the largest role of government in a capitalist society. Capitalism is not sustainable without guard rails. By design, a company will always pass costs onto society if it can. The government has an obligation to ensure negative economic costs are paid by the producers and consumers of goods and services. An example of this would be Walmart for years relying almost exclusively on Medicaid benefits for their employees healthcare. Walmart is hardly the worst company in terms of passing economic costs on to others or future generations. But, the point is, that unless the government forces a company to pay the true costs of doing business it's always going to result in market distortions. It's a design flaw of capitalism, which is actually easy to correct within an equitable political system. However, this is much more rare than it ought be.

bencollier49 5y ago

This is interesting. Normally people say "innumerable" in a sentence like this, meaning "too many to count", but in this case there's a malapropism which literally reverses the meaning whilst keeping the sense of the original almost intact.

rubicon33 5y ago
Hah, that is interesting. I think I make that mistake because I'm a software developer an enums are a thing so my brain mixes up innumerable with enumerable.
- bencollier49 5y ago
  I guess it's perfectly cromulent in the sentence as well.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]