Asklemmy

I started off as capitalist. I believed the fairy tales from silicon valley: If I work hard enough, I might be able to rise to the top, not only able to leave my hometown or my country, but also I might even able to buy a cheaper sports car. Used, but it might be fun to refurbish, or even customize. I even had a paranoid fear of communism, due to fear mongering from the right.

Then reality hit hard. First, I had to learn that the people I idolized didn't just make some mistakes, but were outright evil, while the competition isn't much better. Then I had struggle with trying to find a job, especially due to my inability of making up a story of long time employment history and achievements. And then I had to drop out from college, because I couldn't do my mandatory internship time.

When I said we should at least do some regulations to not let these things to run amok, the answer was that it would be "communism", and instead we should left it up to the free market. And if the market doesn't have problem with it, then I'm in the wrong.

Then I found Libertarian Socialist Rants on YouTube, the forerunner of what we know as "lefttube". The rest is history.

Lemmy.ml was started by tankies so that would be why there is little love for market capitalism on this server. Oddly enough, many seem perfectly fine with state capitalism like China has.

Under capitalism, big companies can get together and raise prices arbitrarily simply to raise profits. In theory, customers would switch to less greedy companies but in reality big companies hold larger market advantages. Fuck greedy capitalism.

Capitalism is a system that will always result in long-term oppression of the workers and consumers, corruption of governing bodies, and environmental destruction.

This is because the base idea is wrong. Adam Smith and the Capitalist theorists that came after him claimed that the invisible hand of the market would trend towards better outcomes for the workers and consumers. This would be true if the best way to be profitable was to do good, but that isn't the case.

More often than not, it is more profitable to do harm than good. Firms that seek to always increase profits, which is the fundamental goal of a Capitalist system, will always be incentivized to get as many people as possible to pay as much as possible for as little as possible.

This has been demonstrated over and over again. Think about software platforms for the most recent example. Netflix has only gotten more expensive with worse content and harsher usage rules. Same with YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, etc. This is called "enshitification." Companies always want to make more money, that can only happen by charging more, giving less, or creating some kind of production efficiency. And what's the quickest way to make production more economically efficient? Fire workers and make the remaining/replacement ones work harder for longer with the same or worse pay.

Those are some of the practical reasons Capitalism is bad. The theoretical reasons have to do with the way Capitalism tries to justify private ownership and the employee/employer relationship.

How is it ethical that a man who has never set foot on a factory floor, never operated a machine, never worked a double shift because he needed to feed his family, to reap a majority of the produced value of that factory simply because he owns it?

How is it ethical that a man simply because of his privilege of upbringing, can "earn" 100-200-300X more than his average workers? Does he produce 300X more value? Does he work 300X as hard? Is his position 300X more difficult to perform? No, it's because Capitalism justifies such grievous disparities and in fact, rewards them.

Answer this: The person who is told, "you are free to either be abused, or to die." Is that person free in any significant sense?

I used to be a Capitalist, hardcore one actually. But slowly I came to realize that it can only result in one thing long term, collapse and dystopia. I'd be happy to discuss this stuff further with you, just DM me, maybe we can chat more on Discord or something.

Have you not played Bioshock?

Anyway, any extreme "ism" is inherently unstable without the other side balancing itself. That's cos humans are greedy, selfish fucks. The free market doesn't work because humans are greedy, selfish fucks. Pure capitalism will eventually eat itself. On the flip side, pure socialism doesn't work cos humans are greedy, selfish fucks. Pure socialism will eventually reify itself into complete inertia. Capitalism needs the inherent brakes that socialism provides; while socialism needs to incentives capitalism provides. Pure capitalism causes massive boom/bust cycles. Before the Great Depression, there were the Panics that happened about ever 20-30 years, where, similarly to the Great Recession, banks would overleverage themselves, and go bust. What ended up stopping those kind of panics were the socialistic programs of FDR and the New Deal.

Free markets only work when they're actually free, that means no monopolies. We're in an extreme stage of capitalism right now with monopolizes all over the place. There is no free market. Ppl like to say "late stage capitalism" but it's more more similar to the laissez faire capitalism of the robber-barons of the late 19th century. Monopolies everywhere, wealth concentrated in the <1%, etc. Profits at any cost, including human life. Extreme capitalism is also tied into conservativism. This results in "rules for thee, not for me" circumstances. In other words, capitalists and conservatives believe laws should protect them but not bind them; while poor ppl, minorities and women should have laws binding them, but not protect them. This, of course, leads to massive social inequities and social unrest.

For more context, read the the Wikipedia articles on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, child labor in the Appalachian mines and how many children died from it, the Pinochet regime, etc. And, more recently, the actions at Amazon by not letting their employees evacuate or shelter from the horrific tornadoes that ripped through IL and collapsed a warehouse where 6 employees were killed (Amazon is being sued for it). The maquilladores in northern Mexico (thanks NAFTA!), child slavery in South and SE Asia (don't buy Nike), and the general destruction of the environment. Hope you're enjoying your heatwave!

I think people often mix up capitalism with market-based economies. The former describes social relations while the former describes how commodities are distributed.

I'm personally not a fan of either. A planned economy geared toward people's need, with the withering away of socio-ecomic classes (no more worker and capitalist distriction) just makes better sense to me.