Hazzard@lemmy.zip 19 hours ago
Generally agreed. Unregulated Capitalism is the real issue here, we used to have, like… within the lifetime of people we know, very regulated capitalism and a market that really worked for us, the average person was rapidly getting richer and we had real quality of life.
That said, a part of me admittedly thinks this may be inevitable though, because once capitalism is unregulated briefly, all hell breaks loose. Once any company has a monopoly and true market dominance, the only way to continue making line go up is to change the rules of the game by lobbying, and once money enters your government and corrupts its ability to regulate, the train never stops.
I suspect it keeps getting worse until things go violently wrong and the system resets. But even then, I think we as a society forget, and “try” deregulating capitalism again in a few hundred years, kicking off another cycle that ends in revolution.
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Except that is true with any social or economic system. You unregulate your president, good luck getting that back under control. You unregulate your communist party/planning committee, hello Stallin my old friend.
Humans who accumulate power in any system can corrupt said system. And every system has opportunities to accumulate power.
At least in capitalism it’s slower, giving people more time to react. Even now, the state of US capitalism seems easier to reverse than e.g. the dictatorship of Chinese communist party.
Hazzard@lemmy.zip 16 hours ago
Exactly, actually, I’d say I agree. As much as we’re clearly in a bad state, I’d say for how late we are into this cycle, we’re still better off than in a dictatorship or the ways other systems unravel. I don’t think any political system can be incorruptible, so long as humans are involved (as they absolutely should be), and this isn’t the worst state imaginable.
As a friend often says, “democracy isn’t perfect, but it’s the best thing we’ve got so far”, and I think the same goes for regulated capitalism, with working anti-trust and taxation.
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Exactly. I agree. The most important thing is public participation, putting pressure on their leaders to keep the corruption low and well hidden. There are ways for people to hold their leaders accountable. The tragedy is when people are apathetic and don’t do so. When bribes can be received in the open and people just tolerate them calling them lobbying, then there is no hope keeping the system working for the people. The leaders will not stop from the goodness of their hearts.
Hazzard@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
Yeah, I’m starting to think this is the heart of the cycle. When things are good, people stop worrying about the details and trust their governments to keep things as is, it’s only when things stop working that the average person starts paying attention and advocating for themselves, and history is forgotten until it repeats itself.