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But, but...muh free market capitalism always leads to the best products supply for the demand...or so we've been told.
by Rinzler89 3y ago
But, but...muh free market capitalism always leads to the best products supply for the demand...or so we've been told.
- ElevenLathe 3y agoTurns out late hegemonic capitalism has a similar failure mode to late Soviet central planning.
- vundercind 3y agoRelaxing various rules on investment and m&a, and allowing unprecedented levels of market power concentration (it’s a lot worse in many major industries than what promoted our first big wave of “trust busting”) turns out to be less than awesome.
- readyman 3y agoCapitalism works perfectly if you just ignore all the inevitable disasterous consequences and outright failures.
- ars 3y agoAnd your better alternative is........... ?
- margalabargala 3y agoCapitalism with much stronger consumer-protection regulations?
- kelipso 3y agoChina is doing pretty well. In before a wall of text about how China is doomed or whatever.
- realusername 3y agoChina is doing well is a funny take post covid. The argument worked much better 10 years ago when they still had large growth. "Doomed" I don't know but they seem quite stuck now between a lot of internal problems.
- ausbah 3y agoonly once they switched to free market principles under deng. iirc as their growth has been slowing it has been due to increasing state clampdown on the economy
- giovannibonetti 3y agoI assume you aren't aware of China's housing market bubble [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_property_sector_crisis_(2020%E2%80%93present) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_property_sector_cris...
- mistermann 3y agoCapitalism moderated by various systems emerging from a genuine, sophisticated democratic system would be my advice. We have a lot of work to get from here to there though, and much of it is the undoing of mass psychological condition.
- readyman 3y agoCapital will simply undermine the democracy again. It's literally that simple. Capitalism and democracy are fundamentally at odds.
- mistermann 3y agoThis part is important: > from a genuine, sophisticated democratic system Do you think something more powerful than capitalism is impossible?
- truckerbill 3y agoSocial democracy
- atq2119 3y agoMarket socialism. Or some in-between that recognizes that wealth and corporate power has a genuine responsibility to society as a whole. Myopic focus on profit as the only metric is the biggest problem, after all.
- mistermann 3y agoIt is the job of government to regulate and reign in capitalism. We are also told that democracy is the best form of government, and we are also told that our democracy is genuine, and that it must be protected. For some reason, people are unable to wonder if these various stories are true...perhaps because that skill is not innate, and is not taught in school?
- tomoyoirl 3y agoNo. It’s only efficient when property rights are enforced, barriers to entry are low, and transaction costs are minimal. Wheelchairs are regulated (barriers to entry), pollution is the nonexistence of property rights, and your take-it-or-leave-it noncompete agreement is a consequence of high transaction costs (job search, legal negotiations).
- Terr_ 3y ago> ... or so we've been told. To expand on this inconsistency, it comes from different people cheer-leading "the free market" with different and conflicting sets of assumptions about what the phrase means. For example, one economist makes an assumption of "perfect information on prices and transactions", and declares that it's the most efficient thing ever. But another one assumes actors are free to make secret deals and private transactions, and concludes that the free-market doesn't have a cartel problem, because individual members will secretly defect and undercut so that it falls apart. Those two assumptions are in direct contradiction, yet somehow the overlap phrase "the free market" still gets touted as having both of the incompatible features.