[American biased post, because that’s what I know and where I am]
Been screaming that capitalism is not the problem you are experiencing. Monopolies, or more to the point, cartels, have exploded in scope over the past 40-years. Think of a company you hate, a company that’s fucking you over, a company that’s fucking us ALL over. Bet they fit the bill.
Hate your job at Lowe’s? Go to Home Depot! wait… There’s a great family-owned, local hardware store, but I can’t afford to shop there.
Walgreens piss you off? Just go to CVS! well damn… New local pharmacy chain is really nice! They can’t take my insurance.
If you’re under 40, or maybe even under 50, I cannot relate how alien this all is, the words fail me. If you’re in your 20s or 30s, it’s easy to think it was always like this. Oh hell no it was not.
Along with allowing corporations unlimited political “speech”, i.e. campaign contributions, the proliferation of cartels will go down in history as America’s failing point. (Basically the same thing?)
News like the current entertainment mergers didn’t fucking happen. And here on lemmy we’re talking, with a straight face, about the ups and downs of the Netflix/Warner Bros./HBO merger. And if you’ll remember, Warner Bros./Time Warner/AOL was the largest merger in US history!
Thanks Chicago School of Economics you neoliberal bastards, “monopolies are efficient” my ass.
Maybe we are focusing on the wrong places. Maybe we should be burning down schools of economics. Burn down every building that teaches it. Maybe that would help.
They’re efficient at a couple things. None of the things are good things unfortunately.
Chicago School generally isn’t in favor of monopolies, and they opposed the to big to fail concept that is a big reason we are in this mess.
I am opposed to the inevitable outcome of my policies!
Nonsense, if companies took the loss from 2008 many banks and PE wouldn’t exist right now. A key part of capitalism is companies failing from bad investments, entropy, or other factors. You need the bust to create the boom.
The Chicago school opposes monopolies and bailouts, but they support the conditions that inevitably lead to monopolies and too-big-to-fail companies.
The conditions get created by government distortion of a market. Chicago School discourages government intervention.
That lack of intervention is what created the conditions
Capitalism naturally moves towards monopoly. Government regulation prevents monopolies. Capitalism accumulates power. Capitalists use that power to influence the government into letting them accumulate more power, until they have enough power to remove the regulations that prevent monopolies, then the capitalists form monopolies, then we get the very situation that we’re describing.Government regulation also creates and sustains monopolies. Most cable companies have competition prohibited by law. Bail outs allow companies that should fail and be replaced by many smaller companies to instead be more monopolistic.
You’re just describing capitalist inevitabilities
You’re complaining about accumulation of power/wealth and how it ends up being abused by the powerful/wealthy. That’s one of the main features of unregulated capitalism
Name an economic system that doesn’t eventually funnel money to the top. Not one person has answered that on lemmy, but it sounds like you can!
So they all funnel money to the top.
Are you suggesting that capitalism funnels money to the top slower than other systems? Or that when capitalism does it, it’s somehow less problematic?
Because what else is your point here?
Name an economic system that doesn’t eventually funnel money to the top. Not one person has answered that on lemmy, but it sounds like you can!
Other lemmings already did, but you’re hellbent on saying “Nuh-uh! That doesn’t count!” which, judging from your other comments, comes from not wanting to accept that an economic system isn’t a magical, isolated thing that is simple to understand and always works the same everywhere, without any relation to the groups and communities within it.
The key word is unregulated. Why does it have to be unregulated?
It was regulated. They captured the regulators. That’s the whole point. It could never have gone any other way. Capitalism breeds greed. In everyone. And when a greedy person sees another person doing something highly immoral and abusive to their customers, they don’t think, “my God! We have to stop it!”
They think, “that’s a good idea. How can I get MINE?”
Because capitalists don’t like regulations? When you let corporations become the sole driver of the economy, some of them get really big, so big they can easily buy out the people who are supposed to regulate the market.
Why do you think all companies are bending the knee and ass kissing trump? Because you get what you want when you bribe him enough.
Also isn’t lobbying legal in the US? It’s almost like the country was made by capitalists assholes to make it easy to subvert regulations.
I hear ya, just seems like one of those throwing the baby away with the bathwater things.
The likelyhood of implementing market regulations is plausible vs implementing full communism, which will never happen.
We can make progressive steps towards fixing our system and I don’t want to give up.
The US was founded by the rich for the rich. Anything else is just convenient propaganda to convince the masses otherwise.
The guy in the video is literally discussing the removal of regulations though? Are you arguegreeing right now?
Nah, just replying to OP’s senseless rant
The real problems is problems.
Neoliberals didn’t do this solo.
Its a failure of government and a failure of culture not a result of the economic system.
these things are linked you know? the failure of one shows the failure of the others
No. The same government in any other economic system would produce similarly worse outcomes. We can see its not related to the economic system by looking around the world at all the capitalist economies without these issues.
America has these monopolies because they intentional chose to ignore the law and not break them up. The culture of the people in government was and still is rotten.
Its a failure of government and a failure of culture not a result of the economic system.
if the system does not account for its government, or its culture, then the system is wrong, and will fail.
you can not expect success from a system that fails when up against human nature, its literal purpose is to interface with humans.
that being said, no system lasts forever and should be considered only as useful as the how effective freedoms are and the length of time it can be maintained
Destinction without difference. Government and economic culture is part of the economic system.
Any system, in which the denizens of that system exhibit greed and selfishness, is likely going to produce similar problems. I really don’t think people are accurate about the feeling that “Obtaining and hoarding valuable things” is an act borne out of the laws of our current society.
I really don’t think it’s just “economic culture” as you’ve described.
I really don’t think it’s just “economic culture” as you’ve described.
I didn’t say it is just economic culture that is the issue here…
I really don’t think people are accurate about the feeling that “Obtaining and hoarding valuable things” is an act borne out of the laws of our current society.
Also true, but what is? Is your point that it is human nature? I would disagree there, humans have the capacity of acting against greed and selfishness. Question is why they are so often acting greedy and selfish then?
My answer would be two options with both apply to some degree, and there might be more:
- Resources are scarce and distributed non equally. So hoarding gives power over others
- The system incentivizes greedy behavior, by it’s structure and rules. Either by actively, by giving greedy people direct rewards, or passively by not punishing greedy behavior.
Other ideas?
The point being, it’s pretty specifically American culture. Disregard politics, and only obsess over it when enraged about an issue. Hate on anything that might benefit people you don’t know.
There are millions of humans on this planet to which those behaviors are bafflingly mad. Many of those places essentially operate under capitalist structure, with rules and safeguards in place to ensure government stays responsible for basic safety and competition remains fair. The battle to keep that structure stable is constant, but gets easier when people at all levels care about it.
Basically, I couldn’t claim capitalism is perfect, but whether replacing the system or not, you need to address the greedy human culture beneath it.
Basically, I couldn’t claim capitalism is perfect, but whether replacing the system or not, you need to address the greedy human culture beneath it.
Chicken, egg.
System changes leads to cultural change leads to system change.
You cannot just change the culture, but you can change the system.
system incentivizes greedy behavior
Got one that doesn’t? And I don’t mean communism in small tribes. I need something to rule 10’s of millions.
No. There are no perfect systems. Every system will require constant vigilance and adaption to work. The point is that the goal of disincentivizing greedy behavior is actually clearly stated and done.
Is that Cory Doctorow?
He lost me at vitamin.
Vit-uh-men
The fundamental argument here is that it’s not the system which incentivizes abusers that is the problem but rather the abusers who exploit the system. Sure, we can have another working class revolution, keep capitalism around and build institutions that keep exploitation in check but given enough time those with capital and the power that it represents will chip away at those institutions, continuing the cycle and harming people in the process.
This would happen under any system since power-hungry narcissists are everywhere, so sooner or later every society would run into these issues. My statement is not meant to defend capitalism but to rather state the question on how to prevent or diminish these kind of influences from power-hungry people, independent of the underlying economic system.
Capitalism encourages narcissism. It strives on it. Corporations themselves are narcissistic entities. A system not built on individualism and greed would help.
Simply create a system where it is impossible for a single person or faction to have enough power to do this kind of harm, and be constantly vigilant against any erosion of the safeguards.
It’s extremely simple when said in this way, but it’s also nearly impossible in practice.
a system that does not account for abuse will fail. but let’s not be so defeatist. society may go in cycles of rise and decline. we just have to stretch the rise and force the reset early enough to mitigate the harm. and while what comes after the next revolution may fail eventually, the good times should be fought for none the less. and be ever vigilant to remind those whom we entrust power that the leviathan sleeps as long as it’s cared for.
Seeing the real harm it causes, maybe instead we should be strictly regulating economic degrees as strictly as ABET regulates engineering degrees
Ummm…except that this IS capitalism. It’s just completely unregulated capitalism…which is capitalism in its truest form. If “the free market” was given complete autonomy to regulate itself…monopolies are always the inevitable outcome.
“Capitalism isn’t the problem, THIS is”
* points to the main thing capitalism does *
Look, non-sterile surgical procedures are perfectly safe. But wow, those rampant and definitely unrelated fatal infections sure are a bummer, huh?
I want to say while the printer ink stuff has been true for the longest time, there are printers out there which allow you to refill liquids directly. Manufacturers are Brother, Canon, Epson and HP. I have one set of these bottles and I sawed the back off so I use them as a funnel to make the liquid go into the printer.
Capitalism is still the problem. This is a aymptom of that problem
Not just a symptom, basically the goal everyone is trying to reach, it’s like the thing to do, the only metric.
Wrong community.
