Do you have a job? Does it pay more than a $1k a year. Then you have benefitted from some form of capitalism.
Yes. Most people. 800 million people just this century were lifted out of poverty in China alone due exclusively to capitalism. The fact that youre blind to that is either staggering incuriosity about the world or willful ignorance or straight up ideological evil.
Also, billionaires cannot exist without a wide consumer base with large enough disposable income to support their companies' revenue streams. Billionaires exist BECAUSE of widespread material prosperity and not in spite of it. If you want to get rid of billionaires, take money away from everyone. That's the only way.
No other economic system has ever produced anything close to the level of widespread material prosperity humanity is currently enjoying, and it doesnt seem likely that a new one is coming any time soon. In fact, capitalism, aka property rights and the exchange of goods and services, is endemic to human nature. Hence why non capitalist societies have to default to authoritarianism, because you have to overwrite human nature. There has never been a truly non-capitalist society that was also democratic. Mixed systems, sure. But never ones without large free markets and private sectors.
What the f are you talking about. Do you think jobs only exist under capitalism? You are so heavily propagandized you cannot even image any other system than capitalism. It is propaganda that makes you believe "under capitalism you can have everything but any other system means you own nothing". Look around man. Every product and service getting more and more shitty and more expensive at the same time. Everything is a subscription. We already live in a world where you own nothing. No car, no home, no music - you own absolutely nothing and have no agency over anything you do, use, consume, whatever under capitalism.
There are better systems. Look at Mamdani in NYC. He balanced the budget in 5 months.
Lmao! Mamdani is a capitalist in practice. If that's your argument, you can get fucked.
In fact, NYC is the epicenter of global capitalism. It's no wonder such a prosperous and capitalist city has the tax base to balance their budget.
Let me guess. You see "capitalism" as republican and centrist democratic policy and social democrats as non-capitalism? Thats about how dumb redditors are.
Or do you really believe that mamdani has disappeared capitalism? He hasn't even implemented any of his more brain dead takes like extra rent control or free busses.
The policies he has implemented are ironically free market and objectively capitalist.
He has cut social spending by way of pensions.
He has streamline permitting to allow additional supply of housing. Increased supply lowers housing costs.
These are more capitalist reforms than any nyc mayor has done in a long time.
Im happy to see you are actually a capitalist after all.
>The classical model is straightforward. When an industry earns excess profits, the high returns attract new entrants. The entrants compete, prices fall, profits revert to the cost of capital.
Yeah but that's the problem. If the incentive structure is maximizing profits, and competition drives down profits, then the name of the game is decreasing competition. They're simply doing what they have to do to keep profits up. There are two reason why it's gotten worse in relatively recent years. For one, the 70s is about when we started killing unions and degrading the barrier between corporations and government by rolling back our anti-corruption laws. But also, because capitalism has gotten global. No longer is industry tied to a single geographic location. Capital can move wherever it wants now, so it didn't have to be subjected to laws it doesn't really want to follow. And because corporations now are so huge that their failure means a collapse of the global economy, they have our governments by the balls.
Also, the biggest reason why Pepsi and Coke don't sell in the same store is because the restaurant that sell Pepsi products are mainly Yum brands and they actually exist solely to sell Pepsi products.
Like say what you want about some of their solutions, but Marx and capitalist critics of that era(including Adam Smith) understood and explained in detail, with pretty incredible accuracy, why the classical models fall apart in practice.
Cause the real world doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Those profits can then be used to buy up or squeeze out your competitors, vertically integrate, horizontally integrate, lobby the government, buy politicians to advance your interests, rent seek, make barriers to new entry too high, consolidate and cartelize, create market bubbles, etc. And in many cases, especially as there ceases to be easy paths for capital to expand into, these become a way to best maximize capital returns and keep out threats and profit instability.
And wealth concentration from this process, which is inevitable without controls and redistribution, over time stagnates risk taking and entrepreneurship from both directions.
And it is also at the time that wealth concentration gets most acute that pressure to put more controls and redistribute becomes louder and louder, and by extension that tends to coincide with the owners of capital having enormous power within the state to use their wealth to veto or prevent that.
This IS capitalism, just it's actual form as opposed to the one that only exists in theory when assuming all conditions and incentives are perfect.
Okay, but a system where reforms and safeguards are put in place to protect against those abuses of power is STILL capitalism, completely and utterly. Youre not saying anything
Oligopoly is not contrary to capitalism, it is the inevitable end-state of capitalism. If capital controls the results of production, it will inevitably concentrate, destroy competition, and undermine and remove regulation.
The word for what America has now is indeed capitalism.
Literally no. Reddit is so fucking stupid I can't.
Regulations lead to monopolies and oligopolies because they increase barriers to entry for new firms. Walmart can pay their workers minimum wage no matter how high you hike it. Meanwhile, you just put every mom and pop shop out of business. Then, Walmart lobbies for tax breaks for big lot stores, and politicians acquiesce because theyre the only game left. And voila, monopoly.
Dutch_Calhoun | 18 hours ago
"It's not <inevitably fatal disease>, it's actually <end-stage symptoms of inevitably fatal disease>"
idredd | 13 hours ago
I love this response. Like the article isn't wrong but it seems to intentionally miss the point of the core argument against capitalism in the west.
salomo926 | 4 hours ago
The article is capitalist propaganda. It's everywhere, all the time. A shitty system needs constant pressure for people to not repel it.
Dangerous_Tax_2667 | 3 hours ago
Good luck on that. How exactly do you imagine society will move on from something that most people benefit from?
salomo926 | 3 hours ago
Most people? Billionaires are the smallest minority there is.
Dangerous_Tax_2667 | 3 hours ago
Do you have a job? Does it pay more than a $1k a year. Then you have benefitted from some form of capitalism.
Yes. Most people. 800 million people just this century were lifted out of poverty in China alone due exclusively to capitalism. The fact that youre blind to that is either staggering incuriosity about the world or willful ignorance or straight up ideological evil.
Also, billionaires cannot exist without a wide consumer base with large enough disposable income to support their companies' revenue streams. Billionaires exist BECAUSE of widespread material prosperity and not in spite of it. If you want to get rid of billionaires, take money away from everyone. That's the only way.
No other economic system has ever produced anything close to the level of widespread material prosperity humanity is currently enjoying, and it doesnt seem likely that a new one is coming any time soon. In fact, capitalism, aka property rights and the exchange of goods and services, is endemic to human nature. Hence why non capitalist societies have to default to authoritarianism, because you have to overwrite human nature. There has never been a truly non-capitalist society that was also democratic. Mixed systems, sure. But never ones without large free markets and private sectors.
salomo926 | 3 hours ago
What the f are you talking about. Do you think jobs only exist under capitalism? You are so heavily propagandized you cannot even image any other system than capitalism. It is propaganda that makes you believe "under capitalism you can have everything but any other system means you own nothing". Look around man. Every product and service getting more and more shitty and more expensive at the same time. Everything is a subscription. We already live in a world where you own nothing. No car, no home, no music - you own absolutely nothing and have no agency over anything you do, use, consume, whatever under capitalism.
There are better systems. Look at Mamdani in NYC. He balanced the budget in 5 months.
Dangerous_Tax_2667 | 2 hours ago
Lmao! Mamdani is a capitalist in practice. If that's your argument, you can get fucked.
In fact, NYC is the epicenter of global capitalism. It's no wonder such a prosperous and capitalist city has the tax base to balance their budget.
Let me guess. You see "capitalism" as republican and centrist democratic policy and social democrats as non-capitalism? Thats about how dumb redditors are.
Or do you really believe that mamdani has disappeared capitalism? He hasn't even implemented any of his more brain dead takes like extra rent control or free busses.
The policies he has implemented are ironically free market and objectively capitalist.
He has cut social spending by way of pensions.
He has streamline permitting to allow additional supply of housing. Increased supply lowers housing costs.
These are more capitalist reforms than any nyc mayor has done in a long time.
Im happy to see you are actually a capitalist after all.
Dangerous_Tax_2667 | 3 hours ago
Inevitably fatal? What other economic system has ever produced widespread prosperity?
CartographerKey4618 | 20 hours ago
>The classical model is straightforward. When an industry earns excess profits, the high returns attract new entrants. The entrants compete, prices fall, profits revert to the cost of capital.
Yeah but that's the problem. If the incentive structure is maximizing profits, and competition drives down profits, then the name of the game is decreasing competition. They're simply doing what they have to do to keep profits up. There are two reason why it's gotten worse in relatively recent years. For one, the 70s is about when we started killing unions and degrading the barrier between corporations and government by rolling back our anti-corruption laws. But also, because capitalism has gotten global. No longer is industry tied to a single geographic location. Capital can move wherever it wants now, so it didn't have to be subjected to laws it doesn't really want to follow. And because corporations now are so huge that their failure means a collapse of the global economy, they have our governments by the balls.
Also, the biggest reason why Pepsi and Coke don't sell in the same store is because the restaurant that sell Pepsi products are mainly Yum brands and they actually exist solely to sell Pepsi products.
NOLA-Bronco | 14 hours ago
Exactly
The classical model is wrong
Like say what you want about some of their solutions, but Marx and capitalist critics of that era(including Adam Smith) understood and explained in detail, with pretty incredible accuracy, why the classical models fall apart in practice.
Cause the real world doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Those profits can then be used to buy up or squeeze out your competitors, vertically integrate, horizontally integrate, lobby the government, buy politicians to advance your interests, rent seek, make barriers to new entry too high, consolidate and cartelize, create market bubbles, etc. And in many cases, especially as there ceases to be easy paths for capital to expand into, these become a way to best maximize capital returns and keep out threats and profit instability.
And wealth concentration from this process, which is inevitable without controls and redistribution, over time stagnates risk taking and entrepreneurship from both directions.
And it is also at the time that wealth concentration gets most acute that pressure to put more controls and redistribute becomes louder and louder, and by extension that tends to coincide with the owners of capital having enormous power within the state to use their wealth to veto or prevent that.
This IS capitalism, just it's actual form as opposed to the one that only exists in theory when assuming all conditions and incentives are perfect.
Dangerous_Tax_2667 | 3 hours ago
Okay, but a system where reforms and safeguards are put in place to protect against those abuses of power is STILL capitalism, completely and utterly. Youre not saying anything
kadjar | 16 hours ago
Oligopoly is not contrary to capitalism, it is the inevitable end-state of capitalism. If capital controls the results of production, it will inevitably concentrate, destroy competition, and undermine and remove regulation.
The word for what America has now is indeed capitalism.
Dangerous_Tax_2667 | 3 hours ago
Literally no. Reddit is so fucking stupid I can't.
Regulations lead to monopolies and oligopolies because they increase barriers to entry for new firms. Walmart can pay their workers minimum wage no matter how high you hike it. Meanwhile, you just put every mom and pop shop out of business. Then, Walmart lobbies for tax breaks for big lot stores, and politicians acquiesce because theyre the only game left. And voila, monopoly.
Like, maybe pick up an economics book idk
doooompatrol | 15 hours ago
Fascism?