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I think it’s hard to look at what capitalism has become today and say much positive about it. I say this as someone who works in investment finance where we se
by kodemager 5y ago
I think it’s hard to look at what capitalism has become today and say much positive about it.
I say this as someone who works in investment finance where we sell semi-rich semi-professional investors the opportunity to become richer by building solar and wind power plants, and selling them when they are fully operational. Which is about as positive as it gets in capitalism in my experience, considering we’re actually helping the world move in the right direction as far as climate change goes.
It is, however, still contributing to the inequality in the world. I had a lot of experience from the Danish public sector digitalisation before joining my current company, and I have a second job as an external examiner for CS students, so it is fair to say that I’m likely in the top 10% of paid developers in my region. If you invest with us, you can make 10 million Danish kroner into 20 million Danish kroner in 5-10 years, and while you do so by fighting climate change, I make around 1 million Danish kroner in savings over 10 years, as one of the better paid non top-level managers in my country.
As you’ve probably guessed I’m Danish, and we’re probably famous for our take on society in that all our political parties are basically a different colour of social democrats, and we have been like this since what is essentially the dawn of modern Denmark, so equality is a big part of our society, as in, if a private company builds an apartment complex in the most attractive part of our city, they are required by law to make at least 10% of those apartment available for rent to the “common people” at the cities disposal. That’s how much we care about equality, and the best example of capitalism we have is making rich people much richer by basically doing nothing.
Another thing we are famous for is community ownerships. The best example is that we have two major supermarket chains, one is owned by investors the other is owned by the people who shop there. Guess which one has been driving positive change forward, repeatedly been reinvesting in its own business and it’s employees and under covid sent 100% of its profits on things like clothes on to small clothing stores that were closed due to lockdown?
Now I’ve ranted for a while, and it may sound like I’m getting somewhere, but I’m actually not. Because the issue with co-operative ownership is that it makes it very hard to start something new. The big co-operative ownership organisations we have typically came to be by a lot of smaller organisations joining together after they were established. The solar farms we build are a good example of this in play. We’re going to build a couple of thousand of them over the next five years and while non-profits movements have certainly helped made it a profitable area, no one outside of private investors are going to build even close to this amount. So how do you change the world without capitalism?
The answer is probably in taxing the rich, but good luck with that.
- azalemeth 5y agoI'm a foreigner with a Danish job and I very much like the country. It's refreshingly different. Money is still very important but I think infinitely less so compared to the states; it isn't what motivates people. It's also interesting to note that Denmark has negative interest rates and anyone with more than 100k DKK is really quite punished for keeping it in the bank. I'm glad that your company provides a vehicle for the upper middle classes to use their wealth well. What's it called? And what's the name of the two supermarkets you mentioned (is one of them Føtex?)
- kodemager 5y agoI’m not going to name my employer, but I agree that it’s an excellent vessel for the upper middle class to invest their money. I wish more entrepreneurs saw the value in semi-professional and maybe even small time investors and green energy investment. Exactly because it gives people more opportunities when they rank up the 100k Danish kroner to reach the negative interest, and green energy is still in a place where everyone can have an impact and see nice returns.
- spyke112 5y ago- Could be https://www.obton.com/ https://www.obton.com/ he’s working for. - Coop, they have Fakta, Kvikly, Super Brugsen and a couple of others.
- mostertoaster 5y ago> I say this as someone who works in investment finance where we sell semi-rich semi-professional investors the opportunity to become richer by building solar and wind power plants, and selling them when they are fully operational. Which is about as positive as it gets in capitalism in my experience, considering we’re actually helping the world move in the right direction as far as climate change goes. Isn’t this also exactly what causes crony capitalism. How many of these semi-rich investors, have friends in politics making regulations that will benefit these. The fact that this is a thing ensures that a percentage of our politicians pimping climate change are not doing so because they care about the environment but because they’re pimps exploiting those below them for their own profit. Otherwise we’d welcome and fund even fossil fuel nuclear, and gas, technologies alongside the green technologies. The modern car IC engine, is proof that there are even gains to be made while still not being fully green. But they need to make it super scary, so they can profit more. One day I hope we can see all the money they made in roundabout ways from these green companies (and big pharmaceutical with covid by the way)