this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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Agreed, although I'd reframe it; capitalism is a solid default, and does a good job of innovating ... but it tends to operate like gravity, the more capital you have the more you get.
So, you need a mechanism to redistribute that capital, and you need to make sure that the things everyone is supposed to have enough of, don't get distributed that way in the first place.
Yeah the way I look at it, capitalism is like oxygen -- completely pure, it will react almost anything and destroy it. But dilute/regulate it down, and it's remarkably useful. Even then though, you need safeguards/antioxidants to help keep it in check.
So the problem isn't that we breathe oxygen -- it's that we're breathing 100% pure oxygen instead of normal air (which is like 22% oxygen).
I disagree... an entirely free market ends up looking a lot like feudalism. I'm not saying propping up companies that are too big to fail isn't a problem, I'm saying failing to do so is hardly a panacea.
people mistake cronyism for capitalism all the time. the free market can't be said to have failed if it was never free in the first place. it's like saying a tree has failed after it's been cut down and turned into an unstable table.
Let me clear this up, speaking as a capitalist. I make oodles of money and then I pay off people and help my cronies, my cronies help me make more money. That is how a free market and capitalism works and it is working great for me. Frankly I'm offended and aghast at the idea that you don't want it to be that way, what are you suggesting? Some sort of regulations to stop me from paying whoever I want to do whatever I want? You sound like a fucking communist!
Cronyism and capitalism are hardly mutually exclusive... the idea of an entirely free market is a non sequitur, as without limitations on the market, individuals within it can take control over it, rendering it non free.
There is no such thing as “cronyism” it’s literally just capitalism.
You’ve realised it’s flaws and try to pass off that problem as something different, it’s not.
Cronyism can happen under any system. you just see what it's done to capitalism and say "See? this is capitalism"
Anyone who thinks communism has never been tried is making the exact same argument.
You’re really not making the same argument, because even China and the USSR didn’t call themselves communist.