6 ms·

Big business and capitalism are becoming less and less popular with Americans

49 points by DocFeind 1y ago

f1yght 1y ago
I'd be curious to see a breakdown by age. I can imagine a lot of people under 35 whose experience with capitalism was the great financial crises, the housing crises, and the continued eroding of "safe" jobs. Not to mention the meaninglessness that comes with wage labor. It's no wonder that people increasingly have a less favorable view of capitalism and a more favorable view of an alternate system.
deepsquirrelnet 1y ago
> That could help explain why Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist state assemblyman, won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor earlier this summer with the support of young people. My fear is that we are continuing to accelerate the younger generation toward that by doubling, tripling down on a system that isn’t working for people and punting on fixing it. We are continuing to deregulate, allow companies to union bust and remove any balance of power between businesses and workers. In the minds of many, it seems like we need a revolution and not a reformation. And to the people charged with decision making, we need nothing at all. I would prefer we fix the system we have, but I’m increasingly worried that is becoming infeasible.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- TehCorwiz 1y ago
  The President is currently demanding bribes and fealty from corporations in the open while sending the us military against its citizens. If reformation fails then we are headed towards a dark place anyway.
- alchemical_piss 1y ago
  Yeah, against the ugly smug face of Cuomo I’d choose anyone else too.
- slater 1y ago
  > punting on fixing it we could also make the same argument re: old folks in politics hanging on to their seats long, long after the point where they should be spending their days pushing a little white ball around the local golf course
mindslight 1y ago
The problem isn't the general philosophy of capitalism per se, but rather the utter lack of failing to control or mitigate the problems of how it's currently implemented, including the now-entrenched legal indulgences that concentrated capital has bought for itself. That such criticism is often shouted down by straw manning it as "socialism" (previously "communism") is itself part of the problem. Even this article/study reeks of this fake duality. Its better stat to focus on is that people hate big business. And of course people hate big business. On a spectrum of individual liberty, big business is right next to authoritarian government. The main separation is how much it's possible to avoid a given one, which is increasingly less and less. In the name of "capitalism", our government has allowed big business to grow ever larger, become ever more inescapable, and often even delegates/cedes governmental power to big business. So really if anyone is reading this, getting angry at the rise of "socialism", and wanting to save capitalism - it's really incumbent upon you to be loudly criticizing both the foundational and emergent problems of capitalism as currently conceived. Because otherwise this frustration is just going to continue building, and we are going to lose what we do have, for good.
- throwawayqqq11 1y ago
  Ignorance. It mass induced, well condtioned ignorance, almost pathological. If you ask me what the common factor across MAGAs, flat earther, crypto bros or esotheric nut cases is, my answer would be that.
- scrubs 1y ago
  Right in absolute terms capitalism is fine. What's not fine? Corporate control without commensurate accountability at a corporate and personal level MDs and above; the fact that since Ragean corporate control has been in the ascendancy with top 5% more or less seeing all increases in net value or income. Add on musk's trillion dollar payout proposal, no criminal prosecutions for 2008 housing crisis, cities paying for stadiums, corps ducking us taxes, offshore funds or corps for tax dodgers, and a general sense it's one set of rules for the top 5% and real reality for everyone else. Also add on us Healthcare, housing, and higher education is too expensive for the bottom 70% ... and you've got problems.
idiomat9000 1y ago
[dead]
trod1234 1y ago
Capitalism requires a free market with price discovery. Its ironic that they promote the titled narrative when we have neither a free market, nor effective price discovery (due to dark pools and other actors). The lack of those things in fact point to the dominant economic model being closer to Socialism than Capitalism. I never understood how people can think that the answer to the failures of socialism is more socialism.
- ako 1y ago
  A perfect free market and 100% price discovery is not possible. So you cannot have perfect capitalism. I don't think socialism is failing that much, not much more than capitalism in the US.
- vannevar 1y ago
  "Free market" is an oxymoron. Without regulation, there is no market. Market rules were among the earliest types of law. The chief problem with our current system is that capital is largely unregulated. In capitalism, wealth flows uphill, and will naturally become more and more concentrated, eventually distorting both the markets and the political system. There has to be some active mechanism to oppose this uphill flow. The positive effect of capital regulation like progressive taxation isn't necessarily due to wealth redistribution to the poor (though there may be very valid moral reasons to do it), but rather wealth-decentralization to the less-wealthy. From a systems point of view, it's better to shift opportunity from someone whose chief qualification for it is their wealth, to several others who have less of a wealth advantage and so are more likely to be qualified on merit.
  - trod1234 1y ago
    We largely agree, except are you sure its capitalism that wealth flows uphill and not actually the money-printing fiat and their banker friends who are doing the debasement/stealing from everyone that holds dollars? Non-reserve Money-printing creates runaway dynamics that inevitably allow state-apparatus to outcompete legitimate business in effect collapsing market over time.
jokethrowaway 1y ago
I know I'm a minority but how can you even think we live in a capitalistic society when we're taxed and regulated on everything? This crony capitalism with a big government colluding with big business is socialism with a wig on. The fact that people who define themselves anti establishment yearn for socialism because "capitalism failed" is dangerous and will mark the end of the USA minarchist experiment: even if you leave a minimal government, you just need 250 years (of productivity, courtesy of capitalism) to become the largest government in the world - and eventually collapse.
- thunderfork 1y ago
  [dead]
homeonthemtn 1y ago
Thank god no one in this thread has any semblance of power.
alchemical_piss 1y ago
The capitalists are no longer capitalists. Somehow we went from capitalism is the best system because it most efficiently distributes scarce resources to “give us all the money and power in the world because our large language model is going to usher in Star Trek!!!” The grifters have one. Though you could equally assign the blame to the idiots who fall for it.
- krapp 1y ago
  Efficient distribution of resources is the purpose of governments, not capitalism. No one goes into business with the goal of more efficiently distributing resources, but to increase their wealth as much as possible. That's the one and only goal of capitalism - to make capitalists rich. The capitalism your comment bemoans the death of, like pure free markets and homo economicus, has only ever existed in economics textbooks. In the real world it has always been grifters and parasites all the way down.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
sharts 1y ago
That’s because they see and realize that all the criticisms levied against alternative ways of organizing societies seem just as true about the capitalist path. The boat is shrinking and the empire collapsing on itself. A finite world providing rise to infinite growth as ownership accelerates increasingly in the hands of the few.

49 points by DocFeind 1y ago

I'd be curious to see a breakdown by age. I can imagine a lot of people under 35 whose experience with capitalism was the great financial crises, the housing crises, and the continued eroding of "safe" jobs. Not to mention the meaninglessness that comes with wage labor. It's no wonder that people increasingly have a less favorable view of capitalism and a more favorable view of an alternate system.

deepsquirrelnet 1y ago

> That could help explain why Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist state assemblyman, won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor earlier this summer with the support of young people. My fear is that we are continuing to accelerate the younger generation toward that by doubling, tripling down on a system that isn’t working for people and punting on fixing it. We are continuing to deregulate, allow companies to union bust and remove any balance of power between businesses and workers. In the minds of many, it seems like we need a revolution and not a reformation. And to the people charged with decision making, we need nothing at all. I would prefer we fix the system we have, but I’m increasingly worried that is becoming infeasible.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
TehCorwiz 1y ago
The President is currently demanding bribes and fealty from corporations in the open while sending the us military against its citizens. If reformation fails then we are headed towards a dark place anyway.
alchemical_piss 1y ago
Yeah, against the ugly smug face of Cuomo I’d choose anyone else too.
slater 1y ago
> punting on fixing it we could also make the same argument re: old folks in politics hanging on to their seats long, long after the point where they should be spending their days pushing a little white ball around the local golf course

mindslight 1y ago

The problem isn't the general philosophy of capitalism per se, but rather the utter lack of failing to control or mitigate the problems of how it's currently implemented, including the now-entrenched legal indulgences that concentrated capital has bought for itself. That such criticism is often shouted down by straw manning it as "socialism" (previously "communism") is itself part of the problem. Even this article/study reeks of this fake duality. Its better stat to focus on is that people hate big business. And of course people hate big business. On a spectrum of individual liberty, big business is right next to authoritarian government. The main separation is how much it's possible to avoid a given one, which is increasingly less and less. In the name of "capitalism", our government has allowed big business to grow ever larger, become ever more inescapable, and often even delegates/cedes governmental power to big business. So really if anyone is reading this, getting angry at the rise of "socialism", and wanting to save capitalism - it's really incumbent upon you to be loudly criticizing both the foundational and emergent problems of capitalism as currently conceived. Because otherwise this frustration is just going to continue building, and we are going to lose what we do have, for good.

throwawayqqq11 1y ago
Ignorance. It mass induced, well condtioned ignorance, almost pathological. If you ask me what the common factor across MAGAs, flat earther, crypto bros or esotheric nut cases is, my answer would be that.
scrubs 1y ago
Right in absolute terms capitalism is fine. What's not fine? Corporate control without commensurate accountability at a corporate and personal level MDs and above; the fact that since Ragean corporate control has been in the ascendancy with top 5% more or less seeing all increases in net value or income. Add on musk's trillion dollar payout proposal, no criminal prosecutions for 2008 housing crisis, cities paying for stadiums, corps ducking us taxes, offshore funds or corps for tax dodgers, and a general sense it's one set of rules for the top 5% and real reality for everyone else. Also add on us Healthcare, housing, and higher education is too expensive for the bottom 70% ... and you've got problems.

idiomat9000 1y ago

[dead]

trod1234 1y ago

Capitalism requires a free market with price discovery. Its ironic that they promote the titled narrative when we have neither a free market, nor effective price discovery (due to dark pools and other actors). The lack of those things in fact point to the dominant economic model being closer to Socialism than Capitalism. I never understood how people can think that the answer to the failures of socialism is more socialism.

ako 1y ago
A perfect free market and 100% price discovery is not possible. So you cannot have perfect capitalism. I don't think socialism is failing that much, not much more than capitalism in the US.
vannevar 1y ago
"Free market" is an oxymoron. Without regulation, there is no market. Market rules were among the earliest types of law. The chief problem with our current system is that capital is largely unregulated. In capitalism, wealth flows uphill, and will naturally become more and more concentrated, eventually distorting both the markets and the political system. There has to be some active mechanism to oppose this uphill flow. The positive effect of capital regulation like progressive taxation isn't necessarily due to wealth redistribution to the poor (though there may be very valid moral reasons to do it), but rather wealth-decentralization to the less-wealthy. From a systems point of view, it's better to shift opportunity from someone whose chief qualification for it is their wealth, to several others who have less of a wealth advantage and so are more likely to be qualified on merit.
- trod1234 1y ago
  We largely agree, except are you sure its capitalism that wealth flows uphill and not actually the money-printing fiat and their banker friends who are doing the debasement/stealing from everyone that holds dollars? Non-reserve Money-printing creates runaway dynamics that inevitably allow state-apparatus to outcompete legitimate business in effect collapsing market over time.

jokethrowaway 1y ago

I know I'm a minority but how can you even think we live in a capitalistic society when we're taxed and regulated on everything? This crony capitalism with a big government colluding with big business is socialism with a wig on. The fact that people who define themselves anti establishment yearn for socialism because "capitalism failed" is dangerous and will mark the end of the USA minarchist experiment: even if you leave a minimal government, you just need 250 years (of productivity, courtesy of capitalism) to become the largest government in the world - and eventually collapse.

thunderfork 1y ago
[dead]

homeonthemtn 1y ago

Thank god no one in this thread has any semblance of power.

alchemical_piss 1y ago

The capitalists are no longer capitalists. Somehow we went from capitalism is the best system because it most efficiently distributes scarce resources to “give us all the money and power in the world because our large language model is going to usher in Star Trek!!!” The grifters have one. Though you could equally assign the blame to the idiots who fall for it.

krapp 1y ago
Efficient distribution of resources is the purpose of governments, not capitalism. No one goes into business with the goal of more efficiently distributing resources, but to increase their wealth as much as possible. That's the one and only goal of capitalism - to make capitalists rich. The capitalism your comment bemoans the death of, like pure free markets and homo economicus, has only ever existed in economics textbooks. In the real world it has always been grifters and parasites all the way down.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

sharts 1y ago

That’s because they see and realize that all the criticisms levied against alternative ways of organizing societies seem just as true about the capitalist path. The boat is shrinking and the empire collapsing on itself. A finite world providing rise to infinite growth as ownership accelerates increasingly in the hands of the few.