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Capitalism isn't bad, but there must be constant pressure from market competition for it to work for the benefit of the society at large. What we see now with c

Capitalism isn't bad, but there must be constant pressure from market competition for it to work for the benefit of the society at large. What we see now with companies like Apple (wrt app store) and Facebook is that the US government protects their monopolistic status and doesn't let people compete with them. You can't build a Facebook app that's better than the official one because Facebook would sue you, and there unfortunately are laws that would protect them. In a saner legal system, Facebook would've been laughed out of the court building with this case. 99% of my friends consider the current Russian government completely dysfunctional and in dire need of replacement. And we would totally accept the Western values. USSR was a mistake and there needs to be a clean break from that ideology, no continuity.

zwkrt 5y ago
This is a nice tech bubble way of framing it but the oil, plastic, logging, chemical, and agricultural industries will be the ones that get us in the end, and heavy market competition would only make it happen faster.
sandworm101 5y ago
90+% of americans think thier government is disfunctional. Russia is no great outlier there. The better question is what will those people put in its place the day after the revolution. Few have a reasonable answer beyond some other person they think is somehow above reproach.
- grishka 5y ago
  Russians' patience is maddening really. Soviet generations would accept anything the government throws at them and say thanks. They view the government like the weather: you have to just accept it but don't you dare try to change or even understand anything about it. Many Soviet people have no idea who runs their city district for example. They don't know that they can have the government serve them and be accountable to them, so it naturally evolves away from serving them, instead serving its own interests. Like territorial expansion for its own sake. Americans, from what I see, are quite different. There's actually fierce competition both on elections and when controversial bills are discussed. There are representatives that do legit represent people's interests (but also some that do not). US government has its own share of problems ("lobbying" aka legalized bribery being one), but it's still better than the dictatorship we have.

zwkrt 5y ago

This is a nice tech bubble way of framing it but the oil, plastic, logging, chemical, and agricultural industries will be the ones that get us in the end, and heavy market competition would only make it happen faster.

sandworm101 5y ago

90+% of americans think thier government is disfunctional. Russia is no great outlier there. The better question is what will those people put in its place the day after the revolution. Few have a reasonable answer beyond some other person they think is somehow above reproach.

grishka 5y ago
Russians' patience is maddening really. Soviet generations would accept anything the government throws at them and say thanks. They view the government like the weather: you have to just accept it but don't you dare try to change or even understand anything about it. Many Soviet people have no idea who runs their city district for example. They don't know that they can have the government serve them and be accountable to them, so it naturally evolves away from serving them, instead serving its own interests. Like territorial expansion for its own sake. Americans, from what I see, are quite different. There's actually fierce competition both on elections and when controversial bills are discussed. There are representatives that do legit represent people's interests (but also some that do not). US government has its own share of problems ("lobbying" aka legalized bribery being one), but it's still better than the dictatorship we have.