Comment on The System does not work.

• SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The entire fundamental goal of capitalism is to commodify any potential source of profit. That means something like a “well regulated government” which is a guaranteed negative profit engine will always be amongst the first things to be commodified.

  The only way that “works” is if the government treats corporations and billionaires with a equal or greater level of contempt than they treat the government. At which point it is, by any reasonable definition, no longer capitalism.

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  • CannonFodder@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Well, the idea is to use people’s greed to drive growth and progress. If the government can shape profit forces to drive life quality improvements of the population, then it can work. This basically boils down to taxing bad shit, or making certain practices illegal. People will always try to game the system and find holes, and the government needs to constantly watch for this and plug the. Then competition within those rules can lead to positive outcomes.
    The government doesn’t need to treat corporations or billionaires with contempt, it just needs to ignore their wants and prioritize on the people.

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    • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I understand the idea, I’m saying the idea is inherently contradictory and stupid.

      The government doesn’t need to treat corporations or billionaires with contempt, it just needs to ignore their wants

      A corporation only exists as a legal fiction. A corporation can not exist if a state “ignores their wants” because the state is the one granting the desire for the corporation to exist in the first place! Billionaires function similarly via the concept of private property but that one is a bit more roundabout.

      They exist because the state intrinsically cares deeply because “billionaires” have every incentive to ensure the state does so. The state “ignoring their wants” does not come close to matching the incentives of the “billionaires” and as such the Nash equilibrium will ALWAYS favor the “billionaires” without equal, or greater, incentives for the state.

      You set up a system based inherently on ‘winner takes all’ style conflict and are surprised when the most ruthless and least moral people end up winning?

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  • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I think this is just a larger cycle of history that has nothing specifically to do with capitalism.

    In every society, there are levers of power. In ever society, access to the levels of power grants you more power. Eventually, every society is ruled by a few people who can trivially put their own interests ahead of the interests of everyone else. Eventually, doing so for long enough makes everyone (but the powerful worse off) and the society collapses, at which point the guillotines come out and society resets (best case scenario) or it enters a stable state of serfdom.

    This has all happened before. This will all happen again.

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    • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I think this is just a larger cycle of history

      Yes.

      that has nothing specifically to do with capitalism.

      No. Capitalism is because we have learned some lessons from that long history of power struggles but we are currently stuck in a rut and have a good 50-100 years of knowing better but refusing to do anything about it, which itself is another larger cycle of history that we know better but refuse to do anything about.

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      • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Can you explain how capitalism is in someway consciously well-intentioned, as you seem to be implying?

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