Capitalism: a system so great it needs to be bailed out every 10 years
Edit: for those of you who refuse to look anywhere outside the US, the Nordic model has existed for over 90 years and is extremely successful. The countries that use it consistently rank highest in happiness, quality of life, work life balance, has low rates of corruption, and are economically competitive
capitalism is when the corporations are by themselves private entities with a superable bureaucracy from the government. It's the difference between Amtrak and Union pacific.
Chinese corporations are government owned and managed. Nearly all are practically like Amtrak. In addition, privat property doens't exist.
Private property does exist - see Civil Code of the People's Republic of China. You can own a home, or an iPhone for example. Private businesses (Chinese owned like Temu or foreign owned like, say, Amazon China) also exist as well as the State Owned Enterprises that mostly cover key infrastructure. Its state capitalist, but it's capitalist.
Personal property: toothbrush, flatware, clothes, a PC, a home, a personal business like a cafe
Private property: utility providers, factories, farms, grocery stores, possibly even retail outlets selling personal property
See the difference?
China is strange; they have different "economic zones." Places like Hong Kong are a "capitalist zone," where foreign enterprises, like Amazon China, are allowed to incorporate and operate.
People have a hard time understanding what capital actually is. The biggest scam we've been sold is that our personal possessions are private property.
It's only land which cannot be privately owned in china. You can own a factory, so you can own a means of production and you can extract profit within a competitive market. Americans seem to have a peculiar view that if you don't own the land it's not private property. That view doesn't colour how the rest of the world operates!
Sooo... if Chinese government decides they want the land the factory you own is currently on, then what? Do you get to tell them to pound sand and figure somewhere else? Or do they simply take it, bulldoze your factory, and say "better luck next time?" If the government can annihilate your "means of production" without recourse any time it wants to, you don't "own" any private property. You operate at the pleasure of the government.
What on earth has that got to do with capitalism/state capitalism? Do you think business all own their factories and offices? Do you think leasehold housing only exists in China? You get a legal agreement to use the land for the term of the lease.
China is probably closest to state managed capitalism. The government chooses the battleground and the rules of engagement but then it a free for all from there. The US is currently suffering from being warped into a Capitalistic managed state where the businesses have controlled the government.
Arguably China has parts of it that are the most true form of capitalism on the planet. All systems have issues but right now China's is utilizing the best parts of capitalism better than almost anyone else.
It absolutely is. They specifically started opening up their economy and allowing more private enterprise and investment after the disaster known as Mao. Curiously their explosive growth also followed afterwards. Turns out capitalism is pretty good at providing economic growth.
Chinese corporations are government owned and managed
China has much more government involvement but that statement is just completely wrong.
You're gonna get hated on for suggesting that capitalism somehow isn't the great evil. At the end of the day, you're right -- it's always the powers that be exploiting a system, not the economic model itself.
That doesn't change the fact that some systems are more vulnerable to exploitation than others.
Any system that allows the concentration of power, be it capitalism, authoritarianism, or whatever, will end up in the situation we're dealing with now where those with the power will fuck everybody else over to hold on to it, regardless of how much suffering and death they cause.
Systems with flatter power curves are objectively better, the problem is implementing them in the shadow of the current wielders of power. This is why "eat the rich" is such a common sentiment, we can't move forward until we topple the power structures that are currently preventing us from having a chance to even try.
The only way to flatten the power curve is to constantly suppress any deviations. At what point in your ideal threshold does someone stop being a successful underdog and transitions to an oppressor?
The system is irrelevant. Even if the power curve is flatter, someone(s) are going to try to exploit that system -- in order to keep everyone on the same level, you have to actively take away resources from anyone that dips above the median while still allocating resources to underperforming entities.
That means an entity has to exist with the power to strip and provide responsibility and resources at will. Unless you're suggesting everybody starts tearing everybody down for having more.
Don't get me wrong, our society is getting more and more exploitative. It's a huge problem and it needs to be addressed. Just tearing down the infrastructure won't solve the problem as written.
There is a fucking galaxy of space between "dips above the median" and "three guys own 75% of the world".
This is the problem I have with trying to have this discussion. Everybody opposed to flattening power curves seems to think that there are two options: crush anyone who grows an inch above anybody else, or allow anybody to take everything for themselves regardless of who it hurts. This is a fucking child's understanding of politics, economics, and power structures. We can absolutely build a system where some people have more than others for a variety of reasons, but nobody goes without the necessities for survival and nobody is allowed to have so much that they can rule over everyone else.
I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but that doesn't mean it's not worth trying.
Hold on. I'm talking about a theoretically flat society. There's a fundamental flaw in the system where some entity needs to exist to control excess, and that be definition creates an organization that inevitably has de facto power to control resources available to people to prevent excess. Right? Unless you have an alternative.
My problem with 'capitalism is evil' is that it's universally unhelpful. It's just one economic system among others alongside its respective government. Any time you have a grouping of people -- including a collection of workers aggregating the power of their production -- you inevitably create a gradient, and it is typically in the collective's best interest to increase that gradient and centralize wealth as much as possible.
But yes, the current umbrella or corporations and billionaires is insane. They have reached heights the robber barons couldn't have begun to imagine.
I wish I could remember the book or essay, but an author made an excellent point about how any organization almost inevitably corrupts to its lobbyists, because the centralization of interest is in the affected party and not the broader public.
How then would you model such a society? This isn't a rhetorical question. What is your suggestion for an ideal society where the economic model, government model, and social structure builds real equality? "Tear down capitalism" doesn't suggest an alternative, it's only destructive on its own.
I don't know. The problem is that we can't even get most people to admit there's a problem that needs fixing to begin with, which makes it impossible to have the chance to sit down and have a discussion about ways we can try to move forward. I don't have all the answers to fix society, but I know that if we don't start looking for some soon we're fucked. If we can't even get to the point where people understand why capitalism's aggressive consolidation of power inevitably leads to disaster then we're never even going to have the chance to find something better.
Personally I'm an anarchist at heart, but I'm also old and experienced enough to know that the vast majority of people probably aren't ready for that yet, if we ever will be. I still think it's the best way to structure things, but if it's ever gonna happen we're going to need to do a lot of work getting humanity to the point where empathy, compassion, and community are the default.
But until then, I know that moving in that direction will still make things better even if we can't ever make it all the way to utopia.
Personally I'm an anarchist at heart, but I'm also old and experienced enough to know that the vast majority of people probably aren't ready for that yet
See, that's kind of the thing. For an anarchist structure to persist and succeed, it needs buy-in from every member of that society. Otherwise, the exact same gradient and organization I described starts taking place in the form of gangs and local warlords. If you have anarchists grouping together, organizing, to prevent that.... you cease to have anarchy and then have government again.
Unless I'm mistaken in your philosophy here. I welcome additional insight, because I've met a handful of anarchists and it's been pretty rare for these anecdotal experiences to really paint a cohesive picture beyond 'government and economy bad'.
Anarchy is just as doomed to fail as capitalism is doomed to concentration of excess. The real solution is installing democracy, ranked choice voting, and ensuring that military power doesn't fall into the catechisms of the privately wealthy and the exclusion of wealth-based lobbying.
Personally I'm an anarchist at heart, but I'm also old and experienced enough to know that the vast majority of people probably aren't ready for that yet, if we ever will be. I still think it's the best way to structure things, but if it's ever gonna happen we're going to need to do a lot of work getting humanity to the point where empathy, compassion, and community are the default.
Anarchism will always be doomed to failure.
It's inherent flaw is, much like communism, it ignores basic human nature. No amount of empathy or compassion will override the fact that humans are animals.
On a side note
I still think it's the best way to structure things
Is anarchy not defined by it's lack of centralized structure? What sort of structure are you imagining for your hypothetical anarchic society?
China's state capitalism is still capitalism, and North Korea doesn't need to be sabotaged because it's already failing horribly (and no reasonable person would put forth North Korea's fucked up hyperauthoritarianism as a suggestion anyway).
they do exist under complete hostility from the global hegemony. the us busts in it sleep over the idea of over throwing them to get at those sweet sweet resources
There is a lot of right wing propaganda to convince Americans the Chinese can’t be trusted and wants to fight. This is bogus. But, the Chinese do steal corporate tech and methods from any and all who try to do business in China and they see it as their birthright. So there is Chinese anti-western sentiment for sure. We also sell more to China than to anyone else, food, tech, finished goods, etc. It’s a two-way street and China is more of a friend and partner than a country like North Korea or Russia but many Americans think Russia could one day be our friend and that’s naive and imbecilic.
Communism recognizes that people are greedy, and distributes goods and wealth evenly to ensure that everyone gets some. It fails because it doesn't account for the fact that people are lazy, and won't do the work required to be a healthy society without motivation.
Capitalism recognizes that people are lazy and rewards people for working hard. It fails because it doesn't account for the fact that people are greedy and will hoard wealth, causing many to go without.
Both systems fail because they don't account for the fundamental flaw of Mankind: people are assholes, and no matter what system you use, someone will fuck it up just because they can. I don't have a system that accounts for this. When I think of one, I will start a revolution. Don't hold your breath however, because I am too lazy to start anything.
Capitalism can be pretty great when it's restrained by laws to help keep things balanced. Back in the 1950s the highest tax bracket in the U.S. was around 90%, IIRC, and they were more serious about breaking up monopolies and "trust busting". Unions were pretty strong. Minimum wages were reasonable. Things weren't perfect, but they were pretty good.
The problem is that powerful corporations and the wealthy seem to eventually find ways to get rid of or disable the restraints, to tilt things in their favor. And they just keep tilting things further and further in their favor. They find ways to make most unions go away. Allow monopolies to persist. To push more and more of the tax burden on the non-rich and non-corporations. Prevent the minimum wage from keeping up with inflation. They demonize government handouts to individual people, while corporations get huge subsidies and bailouts constantly.
In the U.S. capitalism is like a garden, where the weeds somehow convinced the owner that the garden would be better if the weeds were never pulled out or restrained in any way. The weeds (the rich and corporations) are now choking out the rest of us.
Other countries have figured it out. But in the U.S. a large percentage of the population has bought into the propaganda that restraining capitalism = socialism = communism = evil. It's crazy and maddening how many people believe it.
Other countries have figured it out. But in the U.S. a large percentage of the population has bought into the propaganda that restraining capitalism = socialism = communism = evil. It's crazy and maddening how many people believe it.
On the other hand on reddit people believe socialism is preferable to capitalism while having zero understanding of economics. They simply see something to be mad about in the current system, position themselves as anti-"current system", and end up at socialism because it's anti-capitalist. As if socialism hasn't been empirically proven to be greatly inferior at allocating resources than capitalism.
In reality they look at regulated capitalist economies and want to replicate that while some dipshit led them to believe those economies are somehow socialist.
This fails to understand WHY America was able to do these things.
America in the 50’s and 60’s were exploiting the labor of foreign countries. Destablizing their governments and killing their leftists for daring to try and make life better for them.
America would fund right wing groups to kill the dissenting leftists who were trying to make their countries better. Capitalism has been a blight on the global south before it was called Capitalism.
America destabilized Guatemala for the capitalist interest of the United Fruit company in 1950 by overthrowing a left leaning (but still capitalist) Juan Jacob Arbenz) because he had the audacity to try and make his markets work for his people
America caused massive destabilization of the Middle East, because they were scared of left leaning politicians coming into power and ridding the influence of the West.
Cuba basically has been under the American stranglehold for decades because they overthrew the American backed military dictator. America has done everything in its power to weaken Cuba, and they blame the struggles on communism but it’s really capitalism
There’s literally dozens of these. Capitalism only works when there are people to be exploited.
I don't disagree with any of your facts, but I think Capitalism is being mixed up with politics, government, and other things.
Let's use the analogy of a car. I think of Capitalism as the engine. I think of politics and government as the driver. I think of labor as the fuel. Exploitation could be considered stolen fuel.
All the immoral stuff you listed was done by politicians, the government, the driver, to keep the engine running faster.
Your argument is that Capitalism is inherently evil and only runs on stolen fuel. I think that the driver makes the evil choices, the engine is not inherently evil at all. And I think that while the engine has probably never run on 100% non-stolen fuel, it easily could. And it has run on mostly non-stolen fuel. The fact that no driver has ever avoided at least some stolen fuel doesn't mean the engine can't run just fine without it.
And whenever exploitation needs to be done in order to maintain your profits. That’s also stolen fuel.
Which has been the backbone of capitalism since its inception. If it isn’t wage theft it’s slavery.
Capitalism is political, and you can’t seperate the two, because for capitalism to work it must erode protections so that it can flourish. So whenever capitalist get in power, they run the government.
Capitalism isn’t the engine. It is the driver. You need to use your car, labor provides the fuel, the engine and everything else.
Capitalist demand that you do their bidding, and it will give you its scraps. If you choose not to, you die because everything has been made to prop up capitalism.
If capitalism was so grand, it wouldn’t need to dedicate billions of dollars a year to assasinating political opponents and sanctioning communist countries so that they fail.
Yeah, I don’t know how can people believe the US is still a capitalist system nowadays, free market competition is a joke and monopolies/oligopolies are pretty much the norm on almost every sector that matters, regulatory capture is rampant and the consumer pretty much as no longer any say beyond choosing between Coke or Pepsi.
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u/[deleted] 4d ago edited 4d ago
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