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As opposed to capitalism, which as we all know works flawlessly. The free hand of the market keeps everything running smoothly. There’s always competition for t

by latexr 9mo ago

As opposed to capitalism, which as we all know works flawlessly. The free hand of the market keeps everything running smoothly. There’s always competition for the benefit of the customer, never collusion. There aren’t just a few bit players controlling everything, everyone has equal opportunity. And of course who can forget trickle down economics, where giving more money to the richest people made every one of us richer. Capitalism’s most outstanding feature is that no matter how hard it tears one’s asshole, it keeps people begging for more with the false promise that they too one day will have their turn as the selfish oppressors doing the pounding, and that’s a good thing for everyone actually, for some reason. Is there any ideology applied societally at the scale of those two which hasn’t failed to deliver?

kortilla 9mo ago
Capitalism doesn’t preach to be a solution for monopolistic behavior of actors that accumulate too much power. It’s a known downside of capitalism that has to be actively managed by the state. Capitalism has still delivered with massive success in China, the US, India, Europe, etc etc. It hasn’t “failed to deliver” in any of those places.
- dudefeliciano 9mo ago
  > downside of capitalism that has to be actively managed by the state. And all governments in the world seem to be doing a great job at this! /s
- latexr 9mo ago
  > Capitalism has still delivered with massive success in China, the US, India, Europe, etc etc. Ah yes, the “massive success” where people can’t afford a place to live, struggle to cover basic necessities, are increasingly lonely, radicalised, unhappy, depressed… But hey, at least you can look at cat videos all day while enriching a small number of individuals who don’t even allow you the dignity of not having to piss in bottles as you’re making them more money they will ever be able to spend. This was precisely my point. No matter how much mistreatment there is, we can always count on someone coming out to ask for more.
  - logicchains 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - latexr 9mo ago
      > Nobody is struggling to find enough to eat in Europe or America Respectfully, you need to get out more. I recommend you go volunteer at your local food bank. Or at the very least go into Wikipedia and search “poverty”. There are pages for individual countries. And yes, they very much include the US and Europe. > If you like communism so much I’m not defending communism, I’m arguing capitalism isn’t a panacea. The world isn’t black and white.
      - mlrtime 9mo ago
        You just moved the goal posts, OP didn't say there weren't people struggling with homelessness, I think he was saying that famine or dying of lack of food is basically 0% in Europe or America. "Enough to eat" is poorly phrased, as we eat too much already.
        latexr 9mo ago
        I haven’t even hinted at homelessness, so what the hell are you even talking about? Do you think they serve homes at food banks? Do you think every poor person is homeless? Do you think anyone with a roof over their head isn’t poor? Do you think you need to be literally dying of hunger to be struggling to eat? An abundance of food in a country does in no way mean there aren’t people in that country going hungry, and to believe otherwise is to be both deeply uninformed and privileged.
        mlrtime 9mo ago
        [flagged]
      - wtcactus 9mo ago
        I used to volunteer, for many years, at a local food bank until 2 years ago. And no, nobody is struggling to find enough to eat in Europe. These people go there because they chose to not participate in contributing to society the basic minimum. They do not work, they still receive money from the state, they have shelter (if they want, which many times they don't because they need to follow rules they prefer not to follow), they have food - that's exactly what your example provides them: food - they have medical care, they even have drugs freely provided by the state (methadone). All of this is done by capitalism. All of this abundance, that even allows to provide immense benefits to those that choose not to contribute to society, comes from the extreme productivity enabled to capitalism. To the point where the state is these countries, can take 82% of what every worker earns [1] (this is the real example of France, BTW) to give to those that don't work and to invest in public projects that at best are severely mismanaged, and at worst not needed at all. All this ridiculously high productivity and forced profit sharing, is made available by the free market. [1] https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-france.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-france.pdf
- xg15 9mo ago
  So in other words, communism pretends to solve the problem of power accumulation but doesn't, while capitalism doesn't even claim to do so (and only occasionally even sees it as a problem at all)

by latexr 9mo ago

kortilla 9mo ago

Capitalism doesn’t preach to be a solution for monopolistic behavior of actors that accumulate too much power. It’s a known downside of capitalism that has to be actively managed by the state. Capitalism has still delivered with massive success in China, the US, India, Europe, etc etc. It hasn’t “failed to deliver” in any of those places.

dudefeliciano 9mo ago
> downside of capitalism that has to be actively managed by the state. And all governments in the world seem to be doing a great job at this! /s
latexr 9mo ago
> Capitalism has still delivered with massive success in China, the US, India, Europe, etc etc. Ah yes, the “massive success” where people can’t afford a place to live, struggle to cover basic necessities, are increasingly lonely, radicalised, unhappy, depressed… But hey, at least you can look at cat videos all day while enriching a small number of individuals who don’t even allow you the dignity of not having to piss in bottles as you’re making them more money they will ever be able to spend. This was precisely my point. No matter how much mistreatment there is, we can always count on someone coming out to ask for more.
- logicchains 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - latexr 9mo ago
    > Nobody is struggling to find enough to eat in Europe or America Respectfully, you need to get out more. I recommend you go volunteer at your local food bank. Or at the very least go into Wikipedia and search “poverty”. There are pages for individual countries. And yes, they very much include the US and Europe. > If you like communism so much I’m not defending communism, I’m arguing capitalism isn’t a panacea. The world isn’t black and white.
    - mlrtime 9mo ago
      You just moved the goal posts, OP didn't say there weren't people struggling with homelessness, I think he was saying that famine or dying of lack of food is basically 0% in Europe or America. "Enough to eat" is poorly phrased, as we eat too much already.
      - latexr 9mo ago
        I haven’t even hinted at homelessness, so what the hell are you even talking about? Do you think they serve homes at food banks? Do you think every poor person is homeless? Do you think anyone with a roof over their head isn’t poor? Do you think you need to be literally dying of hunger to be struggling to eat? An abundance of food in a country does in no way mean there aren’t people in that country going hungry, and to believe otherwise is to be both deeply uninformed and privileged.
        mlrtime 9mo ago
        [flagged]
    - wtcactus 9mo ago
      I used to volunteer, for many years, at a local food bank until 2 years ago. And no, nobody is struggling to find enough to eat in Europe. These people go there because they chose to not participate in contributing to society the basic minimum. They do not work, they still receive money from the state, they have shelter (if they want, which many times they don't because they need to follow rules they prefer not to follow), they have food - that's exactly what your example provides them: food - they have medical care, they even have drugs freely provided by the state (methadone). All of this is done by capitalism. All of this abundance, that even allows to provide immense benefits to those that choose not to contribute to society, comes from the extreme productivity enabled to capitalism. To the point where the state is these countries, can take 82% of what every worker earns [1] (this is the real example of France, BTW) to give to those that don't work and to invest in public projects that at best are severely mismanaged, and at worst not needed at all. All this ridiculously high productivity and forced profit sharing, is made available by the free market. [1] https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-france.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-france.pdf
xg15 9mo ago
So in other words, communism pretends to solve the problem of power accumulation but doesn't, while capitalism doesn't even claim to do so (and only occasionally even sees it as a problem at all)