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We've also known about the rampant pitfalls of Capitalism since before Adam Smith, and yet we seem absolutely chuffed to dive headfirst into those, time and tim

We've also known about the rampant pitfalls of Capitalism since before Adam Smith, and yet we seem absolutely chuffed to dive headfirst into those, time and time again. Stable governments seem to be a pretty rare fluke, regardless of model of governance.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
Because no matter how bad the pitfalls are, in relative comparison they are still not as bad as the other tested option.
mcv 3y ago
Because the people making the decisions are the people benefitting from those pitfalls
worrycue 3y ago
What’s the alternative? According to Cambridge dictionary, Capitalism is, “an economic and political system in which property, business, and industry are controlled by private owners rather than by the state, with the purpose of making a profit” So the alternative is state control and history tells us that only works with certain endeavours - e.g. military - and can be catastrophic when applied to things like agriculture (see collectivization).
- brazzy 3y ago
  That's honestly a pretty bad and misleading definition. The key element of capitalism is not so much private vs. state ownership, it's ownership (and thus profit extraction) based on capital. And the effect of is allowing control to be arbitrarily skewed towards wealthy individuals who don't need to work, while leaving others with no control at all, even over the work they do, while still needing to work to sustain themselves. Additionally, this skew tends to increase over time as capital accumulates profits exponentially. The alternative is basing control on something other than capital. But that actually leaves a lot of different options, not just state ownership. What if the only legal form of corporation were the cooperative, with companies being collectively owned by, and profits distributed to, their employees, equally?

MichaelZuo 3y ago

Because no matter how bad the pitfalls are, in relative comparison they are still not as bad as the other tested option.

mcv 3y ago

Because the people making the decisions are the people benefitting from those pitfalls

worrycue 3y ago

What’s the alternative? According to Cambridge dictionary, Capitalism is, “an economic and political system in which property, business, and industry are controlled by private owners rather than by the state, with the purpose of making a profit” So the alternative is state control and history tells us that only works with certain endeavours - e.g. military - and can be catastrophic when applied to things like agriculture (see collectivization).

brazzy 3y ago
That's honestly a pretty bad and misleading definition. The key element of capitalism is not so much private vs. state ownership, it's ownership (and thus profit extraction) based on capital. And the effect of is allowing control to be arbitrarily skewed towards wealthy individuals who don't need to work, while leaving others with no control at all, even over the work they do, while still needing to work to sustain themselves. Additionally, this skew tends to increase over time as capital accumulates profits exponentially. The alternative is basing control on something other than capital. But that actually leaves a lot of different options, not just state ownership. What if the only legal form of corporation were the cooperative, with companies being collectively owned by, and profits distributed to, their employees, equally?