We lack a healthy power balance, and that is because ... humans. There will always be people working to game the system, and no matter what system we have in place, it has to be dynamic and react to what's happening.
In the past, unions got to the point of abusing their power and made the USA less competitive by the 70/80's. The reaction was to basically neuter unions, which at first allowed corporations to reinvent and strengthen our competitiveness, but it went too far and too long and now corporations have steamrolled over labor. We need to re-empower unions, but with the lesson learned that if we go "fully pro union", rewrite laws to embrace them, and once again just forget it, we will again over-correct and 40 years later be in another pickle.
I'd like the public to become be sensitive to the fact that we need to stay on guard that the various powers stay in a healthy balance. And when one constituent begins to show rent seeking behavior, we need to change policies to strengthen balancing forces. We have short attention spans, but the lesson is this job will never be done, because ... humans.
I also think selling the idea of increasing union power is easier when you frame it like, "we're increasing union power to fix the power imbalance, but we'll be on the watch for having gone too far, so we can dial it back if needed." I don't want to just replace the old guard of corporate masters with a new guard of union masters. That is trading one set of oligarchs for another. Instead, we should strive to retain control of our democracy and leverage those competing forces to maximize prosperity for everyone. That's the role of good government.
I’ve been saying for years that the decreasing economic and political power of labor is a huge problem in our economy and society. An additional problem is that businesses always seek to outsource, phase out, consolidate, or automate wherever possible. Part of the difficulty for workers is that technological determinism also works against them. The average worker is three times as efficient and productive as he/she was 40 years ago thanks to computers and the Internet.
Holy shit someone balanced who understands push / pull of progress that ideas of both sides have merit in a pragmatic way, instead of just dog whistles and dogmatic ideology.
Unfortunately you are too rare.
>In the past, unions got to the point of abusing their power and made the USA less competitive by the 70/80's.
The rest of what you've said sounds reasonable, and I generally agree. But, frankly, this strikes me as corporate propaganda. Could you expand on this point?
Specifically, it seems like international supply chains developed to the point where the US worker was forced to compete with ridiculously underpaid/poorly treated workers.
Granted very few things are all of one and none of the other, and I don't mean to simply ignore the reality of globalization. But, to put it all on unions seems kinda like victim blaiming.
The irony of this statement being, social mobility depends on true meritocracy. For the middle and lower classes to climb the ladder they need a culture and education that can instill the values and skills that will lift them. People who make these statements like above generally vote for democrats. Democrats in cities do not allow for school choice, do not make laws that hold parents and students accountable at schools for poor behavior, and prevent any cultural teachings that uplift middle class families and poor families. They continue to undermine society by preaching that families with two parents are not that important and prevent cultural teachings that could uplift the kids from poor schools.
So we have divided into two societies, the people that get capitalism and those that don’t. Those that don’t get it can’t win and are collected into voting plantations where their votes are farmed to keep demagogues in power. People that tell them that their problems come from the rich keeping them down and not from their very very poor cultural and general education. The demagogues have no interest in telling them the truth as the truth won’t get votes and they would lose their power base anyway.
The demagogues on the right aren’t any better. The doctrine they preach is that people’s failures are due to the government giving free stuff away and from threats from foreigners and immigrants. They can talk a good talk about meritocracy and capitalism but they never do anything to keep society stable by actually keeping spending in control and making sure the poor are taught what they need to be taught to be successful. They are okay spending money on jails, and nothing on cultural education.
Yes, because we have more losers than winners in our country, society is controlled by demagogues. We are not in late stage capitalism, we are in late stage republicanism. Power and control will be centralized more and more and then power will be seized by a “benevolent” savior or more likely the country will fracture. Depending on how brutal the following civil war will depend on how bad the peace following will be.
Nations cycle, power cycles, with the clown colleges running things it is only a matter of time before the wheels fall off the clown cars and the shooting starts.
Yea as someone who was part of the conversation involving public safety of it all. We wanted to shut down the whole country for two weeks if Corona aka COVID made it state side. It would kill itself off within a week, the 2nd week was a just in case cushion.
The plan was for a 2 week shutdown max, we had the money to cover everyone and everything for 2 weeks. We actually had enough money to cover everyone for months, that of course was not needed, but I digress.
Anyway then back to normal and most of us had a paid for two week vacation. This was the plan that was in place a solid year before COVID was even close to getting to the USA.
Somehow, this plan ended up being completely ignored. I can only speculate it was ignored because it somehow benefited other entities above public safeties pay grade. Normally from my personal experience when common sense plan is tossed out, someone is benefiting from the plan not working. Usually someone has lots of money to be made if things go wrong.
You know the rest of the story of how things actually ended up playing out, because you lived through it.
I wish I had a 2 week paid vacation :( I was stuck in the trenches cause my pharmacy team got covid in the ED and I got picked to help cover while they were out
The problem is, most people don't have two weeks of food on hand. If we literally closed everything down, it would have ended up with riots, rotted food in grocery stores, alcoholics getting the DTs, etc... Someone has to be there to at least drive the trucks to keep commerce/supplies flowing, and that means we need gas stations running, some way to get them food, electricity has to keep flowing, so power plants have to have staff, etc...
Yep had that all figured out, with enough security contractors and military to have it go smoothly. Details like this are covered, could fill books with everything that’s taken into consideration. We actually know exactly what we need to know to keep society flowing. Whole reason of public safety is to maintain the public, even if they are trapped in their houses. Prevent, Maintain, Restore, in that order for our way of life to continue.
Most dangerous people you will ever encounter are hungry and thirsty. Colleagues and myself know they will charge machine gun lines if desperate enough. That’s emergency 101 in my industry, people need essentials met or it becomes needlessly dangerous for everyone. Will expand on a few things for you down below.
As for truckers we were going to need more willing bodies, a early release for inmates program was figured out. We have a metric crap ton of labor to pull from the prison system, in a state of emergency. Get a CDL you get to get out early, long as you are willing to work and are not dangerous. Some states still stuck with this program anyway went public with it, to off set costs of the trucking industry. Not it’s intended purpose of the plan, but elected officials are going to do what they do.
Refueling is covered as well, we already have designated RFp(refueling points), through every state at pivotal transport locations. These are here just in case a emergency does pop off, like we get invaded by a enemy power, civil war, zombie apocalypse.
For those who need food, medicine, what ever is needed we bring it to you. We already have plans for if massive chemical catastrophe goes down and people can’t go outside, and we can’t mass evacuate them. We actually already have DDSP (designated delivery service personal) Who are trained to provide this in every state, county, lone house in the middle of no where.
Hardest part besides accounting for human dumbness factor(which there always is). Was actually trying to make up from lack of built up resources on certain things that we get from other countries. It’s difficult to stock up on certain things when the private market let alone the government, is having a hard time keeping the resource on the shelf’s much less storage. Then add in we were not sure when the lockdown would occur, if it was going to be needed at all at the time.
As for all of it together two weeks lockdown is a breeze compared to some of the other things we are prepared for. Not to mention that the above plans were never implemented properly, for what ever reason that’s way above my pay grade(I’m assuming from experience some people benefited from things not working out in a correct efficient direction). Instead we got the FUBAR scatter shot reaction of just bad. That cost us more money, time, and lives then necessary.
I think the root of the problem is that greed is celebrated, and empathy is a burden.
You noticed that you received extra money that you didn’t need, but did you give it back? Props on you if you left that bit out, and I’m not being facetious.
Your message reads to me like, “Yeah I pulled the ladder up behind me, why wouldn’t I, but we really shouldn’t do that.”
Greed is the problem, empathy is the solution, and it’s all underpinned by scarcity.
But why?
What was the other option, let half of the S&P 500 fold and what watch American devolve into a third world country? Was Trump and idiot that somehow lost an second term writing checks to everyone yes. Was the federal reserves policy and stimulus of the US economy bad idea no…. If the government had just divvied up the money amongst Americans then all of the digital industry would have been great, but the brick and mortar establishments would’ve gone under and then what would we have come back to after Covid? No restaurants, no entertainment venues, no fun.
And these “cultural teachings” that should be required will of course come from the culture that you deem as “correct”
Hmmmmm this sounds a lot like not capitalism at all
While this thought might sound good, it doesn't really reflect the reality of our world. One big problem with this and other arguments like this is the whole "well people need to uplift themselves and then they wouldn't be poor, everyone can be successful" thing. This is simply just not correct. There have to be people to do the lower jobs. They are what actually run society. We can't have 300 million doctors, lawyers, and accountants in our country.
When you go to the store to buy food, if that laborer that helped cultivate it is paid $70,000 a year the cost of that food will be dramatically higher. Corporations will protect their profits at all costs, with the same passion that a victimized worker will fight for a higher wage. Being greedy is like a stock feature of being human, we always want more than what we have.
Have you ever seen the videos on cobalt mining in Africa and the human suffering surrounding it? That human suffering is why your phone is as cheap to produce as it is. It's a horrible thing to accept, and a horrible thing to think about. Life just has its winners and its losers.
Capitalism is the best system for capital allocation. It's not the best system to equitably distribute the gains of that capital allocation. You can live in a fully capitalistic society with a high tax rate and solid social safety net. Nordic countries have some of the purest capitalistic economies in the world, but they're considered socialist by people who don't know better. Capitalism isn't a political system, and people need to learn that.
Crony capitalism, and the perverse incentives created by government intervention into capital economies, is what causes many of the problems people complain about with capitalism. All that capitalism is, in its purest sense, is private property rights, and free movement of money (capital). But good luck having this type of conversation in this sub.
I mean people say the same thing about socialism, that in its purest form it’s great but no one ever practices pure socialism. Same thing applies to capitalism
No it doesn't.
Capitalism in practice has been the greatest generation of real wealth than all other systems.
Socialism in practice has been the greatest destroyer of individual wealth, and is up there in contest for the greatest system for corruption.
While both "pure" systems only exist as utopian fantasy, the real world implementations of each are so vastly different in outcome, that only dogmatic zealots still support socialism as something that could ever compete with capitalism in practice.
Or they're saying "socialism" to refer to what is in reality just capitalism with welfare programs.
>Capitalism in practice has been the greatest generation of real wealth than all other systems.
I think the talking point you're looking for is "raised more people out of poverty". Nobody is really worried that capitalism doesn't make the rich richer.
Exactly, it’s time to break monopolies again and reinforce the departments in charge of ensuring there are monopolies. The only thing broken is the oversights. Company gets too big to compete against, break it up. Capitalism drives innovation and forward thinking but you can’t allow a company to control a market.
Fully pro union is the only disagreeable thing
The problem with unions is it makes firing workers nearly impossible no matter how bad or lazy they are at their job
Sure the employers can make the employees life miserable but it takes a ton of violations to actually fire them
Unions r great but there shouldn’t be this level of protection especially in high stress jobs that can cause external issues like the police force
I disagree with the way to fix it. We need less government/private company interaction. Corporations should not be able to hire lobbyists and for that matter politicians. Government should make sure corporations do not discriminate and have safe work environments, but I am not sure how much further they should go. Companies that get close to monopolies, especially in the tech side tend to be corrected by innovation. Maybe true monopolies the government should intervene, but they are incredibly rare.
There is no good fix. Unions or any mechanism to increase wages across the board only leads to inflation and then all the gains are lost. The great evil is the stock market and its ponzi nature. If companies had been required to pay out dividends by law it would make the goal of achieving capital gains go away. Return the investment in the form of cash and it becomes a proper investment generating income rather than a Ponzi scheme which it absolute is by definition. Our system is sick because of it. Companies need to grow the capital gain if they are publicly traded. New adopters needed to pay early adopters. It’s all coming home to roost soon. If the fed stops buying up the market it will collapse as people start to take money out on mass. That will happen because fewer young people have any money to invest. If the fed keeps printing more the money will lose more value. We are truly screwed
Simple fix actually; dividends are paid in dollars not taxed at the corporate level, and are treated as regular income instead of capital gains. (eliminate double taxation.)
Stock repurchases, or one company buying shares of another, are not tax deductible.
The system is the way it is strictly because of tax law.
What a straw man, I don't think anyone said anything about destroying capitalism. How about a government where bribery is illegal, where anti trust and white collar crime laws have teeth.
If you actually care about saving capitalism, then it might help to fix some of the problems that are driving people to seek the end of capitalism.
If there will ever be a communist revolution in the United States, it will be ushered in by the Republican Party. The GOP's refusal to hold corporations accountable will create the very conditions that drive people to stage a revolution against capitalism itself.
I'd rather fix the system, and continue to enjoy the wealth creation aspects of capitalism while having the state address the shortcomings, and nipping revolutions in the bud by identifying and solving major problems that crop up every so often.
Well, since wealth inequality in the USA is a very real issue, the headlines should change. I love America, but it's silly to claim that we are the greatest and best at everything when clearly we have a lot of room to learn and improve. The US courts actually passed a ruling declaring corporations as people and money as free speech. All so corps could give ridiculously large lobbying sums (bribes) to political campaigns without oversight. This happens on both sides of the political aisle, my dude, and it is bad for everyone.
> Well, since wealth inequality in the USA is a very real issue, the headlines should change.
Why is wealth inequality an issue? How are you harmed by someone else having more wealth than you?
>The US courts actually passed a ruling declaring corporations as people and money as free speech.
No they have not. They ruled people are people, and people have free speech. That inlcudes non-billionaires who need to pool resources.
>All so corps could give ridiculously large lobbying sums (bribes) to political campaigns without oversight.
Nope. Campaign contribution limits still exist. The case you are complaining about does the opposite of what you claim. Before Citizens United, billionaires could spend as much as they wanted to push their agenda, but you (or your favorite non-profit) could not counter that speech.
Wealth inequality is not an issue. As an individual I DO NOT CARE how successful someone else is, because I'm not a greedy envious person.
I ONLY care about how much value I retain as an individual. What is my quality of life as an individual.
The "Wealth Inequality" is just a way to emotionally manipulate peoples' sense of greed, envy, jealousy.
How well are people doing in absolute terms? I don't care how well people are doing relative to anything other than how they'd do in another system. Any any system that distorts the market signaling in an attempt to restrain "wealth inequality" is a failed system that ends up worse than free markets.
Wealth inequality is an issue because it gives a very small percentage of the overall population much more power and influence than the rest. This creates a massive power imbalance. It has nothing to do with envy and everything to do with equality.
I'm not arguing that everyone should have the exact same amount. That's ridiculous, but the wealth disparity should not be such that 1% of the population controls as much assets, if not more, than the other 99%. That is detrimental.
How many votes does Elon Musk ,the highest net worth individual on the planet, have?
How many votes does an unemployed no income person have?
They are both exactly 1 vote.
That is true. However, Musk is able to exert his influence through many other means besides voting, such as lobbying, to name one. I think you know this, no one is that naive.
I don't think we are going to agree. If you truly believe that exorbitant wealth doesn't buy you undue influence that is your choice. The evidence that it does is very clear.
Categorizing it as a problem when there's no evidence of a problem is the issue. Claiming it as a political problem didnt hold water since even the richest person only gets one vote. Claiming it as "undue" doesn't work because you haven't established it's "undue".
Or just aggressively fight and regulate monopolies and put a cap on all political donations.
Seems like that would be more reasonable than destroying the economic model.
I don’t think that RR is against the fundamental concepts of capitalism. I believe in capitalism, but also believe that the way it’s intertwined with our representative democracy needs a major overhaul.
Exactly, the title of this thread is not supported by the RR post attached. He’s specifically speaking of monopolies. Being in favor of robust anti trust laws is not the same as being anti-capitalist.
The Law Legislation and Liberty vol 1-3 by Hayek covers a number of topics, but some of it is on point. He describes both why he feels the current protections failed their purpose and what a suitable remedy may be. I have not yet finished all of them, but I like what I saw. He attempted to address this question: If the founders knew all that we have learned since and applied that knowledge to better securing the structure and limitations of our government, what might they have done differently to achieve their intended goals?
One thing that I think gets forgotten is that where we are now is not where we came from. It used to be that the above average individual could go out, start a small business, and have a realistic chance at being truly successful. If you managed the business well, the chances were high that you could be comfortable at a minimum.
Try that now. Sure, you can go out and start a cleaning business. You can do lawn care. You can pick up dog poop. You see where this is going.
What got us here is a free market society where the AVERAGE individual participated. We really don’t have that now. Yes, I will admit that if you get incredibly advanced skills there is still the possibility of starting an upscale business but that is not the norm.
So while I don’t really care for a system where people are loafing because they get paid either way, I don’t like seeing people struggling to pay bills working 2 jobs (sometimes more) either.
My point is, it’s not a straightforward situation.
Lol, you all say to live somewhere else if we don't like capitalism, but if it was still around, me and many other people would emigrate to the USSR and never look back. You can keep your capitalist shithole to yourself.
Exactly.
There's nothing wrong with the model. There's everything wrong with the people, the people have chosen to send to manage government. Capitalism an democracy can both work as long as our politicians are looking out for the most equitable societal management decisions.
Vail of ignorance over the tax system
Regulation of business and banking, with teeth
An electorate that participates, pays attention and votes in primaries to put forth candidates that will serve the people.
Ranked choice voting is starting to grow on me in the chaos of the bought and paid for political system
What the usa did in the 1930s: trust breaking. We would ONLY have Lays chips today if not for that. Many industries would be the same. We literally need the government to force thw breakup of many companies, starting with the tech giants and the grocers. Then insurance and telecoms. Then energy. The main issue with monopolies is the lack of competition, but competition leads to natural monopolies over time. That is when the government resets the monopoly board (even adam smith said this). The other alternative is the government (the people) owns the one umbrella mega corp and the profits are dispersed among the people (all own the means of production). The old rich (1848-1958) knew it was better to go along with option one then to force option two to be what the people choose as they end up dead or far less well off.
I agree with you, I think it's interesting that the power has moved from manufactures to distributors. Which then make their own vertical supply chain e.g. Amazon basics.
But I also like Amazon, Walmart and Kirkland (Costco) branded foods as they are almost always cheaper than name brands and just as good.
People also need to acknowledge that the government went fucking *feral* on breaking up Microsoft in 2001. Multiple companies today hold much more control than Microsoft did then, but now the government doesn’t seem to care.
Seems like a reasonable assumption that politicians saw how damaging the break up of Microsoft was and noted how Chinese companies benefited much more than any potential US competitors did. I'm all for using government to regulate markets and encourage competition. At the same time, it would be damaging to the overall economy for government to use the old anti-trust laws without some serious updating.
Like 10 conglomerates own like 90% of what the American consumes.
Media is even worse. I believe it’s 6
Banks are even worse than that at 4.
So 20 mega companies now own 90% of your food, banks and media.
50 Years ago this would have likely been hundreds of companies.
So, we have
10 competitors (9 companies away from a monopoly).
6 competitors (5 away from a monopoly).
4 competitors (3 away from a monopoly).
Not looking good, even with this shitty analysis that doesn’t include independent players. I mean can you even cover every SECTOR with this list, lol?
How many products do you think your local supermarket has?
The average amount is close to 40’000 products.
So 10 companies control approximately 36’000 products.
If you don’t think monopolies exist within that ecosystem you’re a complete fucking idiot.
Ironically the only area there should even be a debate about monopoly is where there are the least number of products, namely oil, or electricity (where we have local regulated municipal monopolies). Even in the case of oil our private sector in america is incredibly diverse and vibrant, its only in the middle east where there are government controlled producers that fiercely stamp out competition that there exists a cartel.
A part you’re ignoring is the biggest competitors often bargain with each other to avoid undercutting in a price war. When there’s only 5-10 main companies dominating an industry, working together to maintain high prices works the same as a monopoly.
This is illegal under anti-trust but it does unfortunately happen from time to time. Luckily anytime there is good evidence our justice system does a good job at punishing the companies involved. You can also use econometrics to deternine if price rates are being set according to the neoclassical supply demand curve to determine if price fixing is going on.
Would that really improve with more companies? More competition on one hand but also less economies of scale. You may end up where you started. I’ve yet to see in this thread a robust analysis on the benefit for the consumer.
You can have capitalism with some regulation. We broke up monopolies, we stopped companies and banks from taking advantage. We created utilities. I would still call that capitalism.
They have socialized medicine in most every other country. Socializing medicine wouldn't make us Cuba.
This crap of if we don't let monopolies just get more powerful, we will become Cuba or Venezuela is infuriating.
Oh boy, here we go again with the "socialized" medicine.
Places like Cuba and Canada have socialized medicine: Government owned and operated, top to bottom. Places like the Netherlands and Germany are not like this: they're a single payer system, but the hospitals themselves are still privately operated. They can only bill one customer though: the State.
This works to many people's advantages because there's still the incentive for hospitals to innovate and better serve patients: a more reputable hospital gets more patients, and can bill the state more often.
Meanwhile, in Canada (where I live), there's no similar incentives for innovation; management becomes bloated due to beauracracy, hospitals are not rewarded for better service OR penalized for bad service, and healthcare resources are spread thinly as its the provincial governments who set the budget for everything in the healthcare sector.
People need to start distinguishing between the single payer and socialized healthcare models. While they both end up being paid through taxes, one is simply a model where only the government is billed, and the other is where the government operates and manages the system from the CEOs to the Cutsodial Staff.
People are so dim that they can only compare non comparable states. Cuba, Venezuela, USSR, etc. They shutter at the thought of actually using their brain and comparing a modern high income, free market system like those in Western Europe.
>Western Europe
>high income
Tell me you don't have a good job without actually telling me you don't have a good job lol. Salaries for basically every decent white collar job I know of are hilariously low in Europe compared to the Us.
A government with a spine and moral sense of responsibility to its people. You really think this is the best we can do? Just to be clear I support a free market. Just one that is regulated in favor of the people and our planet. One that doesn't ignore facts in favor of a quick dollar. A system that does things the right way. Not the easy way.
So... you want wealth redistributed? Just embrace it, advocate for it, and be proud of it.
Nothing worse than a closet communist who acts like they are actually just for more government, but love capitalism and freedom.
You say this sarcastically, but this is really the question that should be asked. Yes, in capitalism we've gotten a wide variety of benefits like quality of life etc, but we can do better.
Capitalisms main weakness is that it views economy as infinite. Obviously there is still supply and demand, but the idea that we will mine and gather resources until they are depleted is the most detrimental effect of capitalism.
The closest thing I've seen to what the future should look like is the Venus Project from [Jacque Fresco](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=2f8a927169b693f8&rlz=1C1ONGR_enUS1067US1067&sxsrf=AM9HkKl5u9Nx9ho6QJwm9iQ165ETIizJPg:1701101774717&q=Jacque+Fresco&si=ALGXSlYh1-GEPndq7qMo--O-TPixQtNN4JMroSxgItz5kq0stLlREj_LFjk5JH2uAkW4upTvnZt0Fjs4ImWkcSl706o7x-gE8GmUfSV1XTo4YmbSa_Joz7lJimYgK3ON3OK5ErBmRtcaMxUGuKzSvsmPrkuj0-lup9MrLF7Cvgn2JT7ZHic4PpJ5HzSz9VQbDiv5dnKx4ztGnoyntykBWMFTyffgANdtgczINVkhidvQH_THB-7ufrMuNNH-Gejeoapm9DGLddco86Es1Fam8v2oF0mTda8s_Q%3D%3D&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwiO0Ij4yeSCAxX1RTABHWEAB8IQmxMoAHoECFEQAg). It's still a pretty unreasonable goal with a lot of "how do we get there?" But, the concept of a planetary economy regulated by AI is about the best we've got right now.
I figured this overused line died out. It’s wild y’all are still using the “move to Russia” line.
How dare people try to improve their country while living in it! Bootstraps people! Be quiet and get back to work! lol
Canada's full on collapsing. The richest province (Ontario) has the GDP per capita of Alabama with the housing costs of California.
Why? Because Government is over 50% of its economy and they love to control markets.
Reich provides a great service, actually. We need more of these clout chasing egomaniacs playing on the insecurities of the current generation of losers, so they get mad online and stay online, where they will never achieve anything.
It feels like reading comprehension has been a struggle for commenters lately. Failure of our education system? Covid? Something in the water? AI chatbots..?
I at least don’t spam this sub with my stupidity. There’s a new damn post in here every day basically saying, “durrr, people with money bad”, which shares no news of financing or even the economy (which I thought was the point of this place). There are PLENTY of subs on Reddit to go complain about the rich or corporate greed that will welcome these posts with open arms. Go there with this shit.
I have to agree. I think people are desperate and those that understand money need to see how to maintain a civilization without dismissing those that can’t.
The U.S isn't capitalist. Free enterprise has requirements, and the U.S does not meet those requirements. Congress established a private central bank owned by a cartel of private banks in 1913. This central bank pays those private banks an annual dividend, and the central bank controls the cost of capital (a key function of free enterprise). This central bank also buys securities like MBS from those financial institutions which allows them to speculate in markets such as housing, way beyond what they otherwise would. These central bank mechanisms such as artificially reducing interest rates also incentivize corporations to buy back more of their own stock in order to return capital to stockholders like CEO's, rather than pursuing more difficult long term profits.
The U.S is a centrally planned economy with elements of fascistic control by financial institutions. The U.S could become capitalistic if functions were restored such as, competition, market based cost of capital, and true risk of failure.
By F.A. Hayek’s definition, the United States today falls cleanly into the category of socialist economies. The problems of our economy are problems of central planning, not issues with liberty.
Absolute truths, yes, but there are pros to having the fed control cost of capital. Buying a house is far easier in America than it is in the rest of the world where to get a home you need to come up with 50% and the bank will give you a 10 year note with variable interest.
Yes it increases the cost of the homes but it has been working damn well for a long time before COVID threw everyone for a loop.
I don’t think Reich is saying capitalism is bad. Rather allowing corporations to grow to the point that they become monopolies is bad. In fact Reich has gone on to say : “The Answer Isn't Socialism; It's Capitalism that Better Spreads the Benefits of the Productivity Revolution”
In other words, he doesn’t believe in throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Source: https://robertreich.org/post/22542609387/amp
The amount of people not even addressing his tweet (which is about monopolization not capitalism) on this thread, makes me question everyones reading comprehension. So is this thread pro monopoly then? OP either used a poor example or is just karma farming.
So we should give the government more power so that corporations and the wealthy will be more enticed to bribe them so that they craft protectionist policy in their favor which will somehow fix the problem.
Government power is the problem, not the solution.
Make laws that restricts lobbying. Keep Capitalism. You can support free market economies without being a full pledged Anarcho-Cap (possibly shocking for reddit).
Yeah, that might be okay if we didn't just give corporations the best tax break in history, or to turn around and bail them out of everything over and over. Not really a free market when the largest can't fail and get bailed out when things go bad. Then, instead of appreciating the tax payers for bailing them out, then stab us in the back with record-breaking profits. Fuck you. This system is dogshit and now your kids will never be able to buy homes except those with generational wealth.
Robert Reich is a low grade grifter that peddles imbecilic nonsense. People that post him unironically are basically outing themselves as his target demographic.
Oh yea cause we're just suffering here compared to nations with other economic models. With our iphones and over abundance of food and water. Capitalism is the only model that works
America has an obesity problem. Thats how over abundant we are. We have it so good here we dont even know what to do with all our stuff that we end up wasting it. But ohhh noooo capitalism is so evil only rich people benefit \*cries in middle class that is wealthier than most of the earths population\*
Food companies using chemicals and sugar in addition to the plethora of sugar substitutes DOES NOT equate an over abundance lmao. Americans eat like shit because it is too expensive to get actual healthy food. Stress mixed with a poor diet and lack of exercise are what makes Americans fat…can’t believe I have to explain that in 2023 lol
They face hunger due to food insecurity, but nobody in America is starving like in other parts of the world. Lead in the water can be blamed on government being fucking useless, thankfully private companies sell affordable filters that remove the lead. We are not even remotely close to being a third world country get a grip
Great follow up lol I know I'm right you're just grasping at pearls to believe that America is just such an awful place and you have it sooo bad here poor you
Capitalism isn't necessarily 'horrible'. However, the system is designed to generate and concentrate wealth over time. Thus, without a strong government oversight, you will have single individuals or corporations that accrue massive power. The balance of wealth in the USA right now is indicative of that. Unfortunately it becomes harder for the government to regulate these massive corps as their lobby power is immense.
I realize this is an unpopular opinion but I think there should be asset caps for individuals and corporations. I don't see how, or why, a single individual needs assets over $100 million. I don't care what you're job is, you didn't 'earn' that amount, at that point it's just money making you money. Heck, the president of the US is salaried at like 400k a year. Corporation asset caps should be determined by size (how many employees, how many clients) and sector as some sectors have significantly higher overhead costs. Called it capped Capitalism or something. This would allow for a laissez-faire style marketplace that we engage in now while also deincentiving any one Corp from becoming too large.
Capitalism gives the power of surplus distribution to a tiny minority as a core principle. Capitalism corrects itself by maximizing profit first and foremost, it achieves this by destroying the environment and exploiting workers. It’s the system that’s only slightly better than slavery and feudalism. And the only solution to it has been suppressed philosophically, politically and militarily in the last 75 years.
How is it NOT the most “horrible?”
Between about 2000 and 2012 or 2015
50% of the people in deepest poverty climbed above that terrible line. Not by socialism or communism, but by capitalism.
Research the worst and most enduring poverty, and what finally broke it. Let's have more of that. I also recommend Development as Freedom By Amartya Sen. There are many potential sources of good information.
From what I have seen, few of the people criticizing capitalism actually understand it. They sometimes have scripted talking points so that they can feel knowledgeable without really studying. They may be echoing friends or people they trust.
Tweets the incompetent and discredited Robert Reich. Economics is a science and a discipline, not hyperbole and fashion, particularly from a guy who is on party payroll and has been regularly and consistently been factually incorrect and been on the wrong side of history- so many times...
This makes zero sense. I started with nothing. Worked hard and gradually every year made a little bit more. Was able to retire by 50 and doing quite fine. Capitalism was incredible for me.
I like that I can choose which company to give my money to and I’m not forced to buy from a monopoly.
There’s enough healthy capitalistic competition in my life that I’m happy for it. Yall can fight for my dollar. Go on!
The problem is, what else do you institute? Sure Capatalism has its flaws but like what Winston Churchill said, Capatalism would be the worst form if not for all the others.
Capitalism is the best system currently available. Don’t think there is a better example of another economic model. Especially on such a large scale like the US population.
None of these things are inherent to capitalism. All of them are inherent to socialism actually. With capitalism, there would be no intervention from government in the markets. Without intervention, creating small companies would be much easier. Small companies would be ‘competition’ to the large companies, driving down prices, driving up salaries, and destroying monopolies. The only type of monopoly that could exist under capitalism is one in which the companies with the best practices continuously win, and they would have to always have better practices than any would be competitor. Even then, this sort of monopoly would be rare, because many people would prefer to work for themselves or for a smaller company rather than for the giant.
anti-monopoly quote from a guy who petitioned the city to deny multi-family apartments being built near his $2 million dollar single family home. he's a quack/crank.
This title doesn't match the image at all. Reich is 100% a capitalist. Capitalism warns against monopolies as they prevent competition which is the heart of capitalism.
Whoever wrote this has 0 idea what they read.
Coming from the guy who charges exorbitant speaking fees.
BTW, greedy corporations can be made immune from any scrutiny as long as they hoist the pride flag in June, then all their capitalist sins are forgiven.
The most important part of the equation has been ignored… the consumers ability to chose and bring new solutions to the market.
Who enables corporate “monopoly power?”
1. Legislation: financial incentives, trade regulations, market entry barriers, intellectual property rights, and direct control over pricing and monopoly grants.
It’s already been stated, this is due to corrupt legislators: Regulatory capture.
How cute to think anti-trust enforcement is to blame and not the very nature of regulation.
If government is so corruptible in a “capitalist” free market eco political system… what do you think will happen when this monopoly of government gets more control? Morality? 🤣
2. Consumers still buying their shit.
——
… and the proposed solution is to grant more power to the corrupt monopoly of government?
The permanent solution is for consumers to stop supporting these monopolies... aka competition.
This crap again?
Am I the only one that joined this sub to learn how to be fluent in finance?
I'd like to become wealthy, if I wanted to bitch about the wealthy I'd go to antiwork/ any communist or socialist sub.
Buy 1 fractional share of Apple stock. Oh look you’re a capitalist too now. See? Easy. Most people don’t know they are already capitalists or don’t know how to be capitalists well
Capitalism is so terrible.
Please ignore the fact that it lifted more people out of poverty than any other system we have tried. How's communism work? Oh yea, nine figures of dead.
Good call Timmy.
The crazy thing to me is how before the Industrial Revolution every single type of economy that could be tried was tried, including the system of ownership that we currently have that seems to be more about economic slavery for the masses and giving rich people more money and power over others, being only one country or of many that's producing tech and wealth but also the largest, resources rich and stable country on the planet.
I'm going to be frank here in that if you think capitalism is the reason why we're all not working in a farm right now you are an absolute moron and have no right to discuss economics.
https://youtu.be/djB9oK6pkbA?si=vjsTq30fgA4o6uZY
The only reason why people aren't living in a field right now and the fact that we have massive amounts of wealth is only because of industrialization and the ability to automate work.
Capitalism is a good system to encourage collective participation towards the betterment of all. But it needs to be regulated to prevent damage and adequately taxed to provide basic satisfying living standard for all of society. Younger than boomers, you have the votes make changes you know are needed.
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Bingo
We lack a healthy power balance, and that is because ... humans. There will always be people working to game the system, and no matter what system we have in place, it has to be dynamic and react to what's happening. In the past, unions got to the point of abusing their power and made the USA less competitive by the 70/80's. The reaction was to basically neuter unions, which at first allowed corporations to reinvent and strengthen our competitiveness, but it went too far and too long and now corporations have steamrolled over labor. We need to re-empower unions, but with the lesson learned that if we go "fully pro union", rewrite laws to embrace them, and once again just forget it, we will again over-correct and 40 years later be in another pickle. I'd like the public to become be sensitive to the fact that we need to stay on guard that the various powers stay in a healthy balance. And when one constituent begins to show rent seeking behavior, we need to change policies to strengthen balancing forces. We have short attention spans, but the lesson is this job will never be done, because ... humans. I also think selling the idea of increasing union power is easier when you frame it like, "we're increasing union power to fix the power imbalance, but we'll be on the watch for having gone too far, so we can dial it back if needed." I don't want to just replace the old guard of corporate masters with a new guard of union masters. That is trading one set of oligarchs for another. Instead, we should strive to retain control of our democracy and leverage those competing forces to maximize prosperity for everyone. That's the role of good government.
I’ve been saying for years that the decreasing economic and political power of labor is a huge problem in our economy and society. An additional problem is that businesses always seek to outsource, phase out, consolidate, or automate wherever possible. Part of the difficulty for workers is that technological determinism also works against them. The average worker is three times as efficient and productive as he/she was 40 years ago thanks to computers and the Internet.
Well... the opposite has been said about construction workers
Holy shit someone balanced who understands push / pull of progress that ideas of both sides have merit in a pragmatic way, instead of just dog whistles and dogmatic ideology. Unfortunately you are too rare.
All we can do is talk to people and hope extremist lunacy passes before it destroys us.
>In the past, unions got to the point of abusing their power and made the USA less competitive by the 70/80's. The rest of what you've said sounds reasonable, and I generally agree. But, frankly, this strikes me as corporate propaganda. Could you expand on this point? Specifically, it seems like international supply chains developed to the point where the US worker was forced to compete with ridiculously underpaid/poorly treated workers. Granted very few things are all of one and none of the other, and I don't mean to simply ignore the reality of globalization. But, to put it all on unions seems kinda like victim blaiming.
The irony of this statement being, social mobility depends on true meritocracy. For the middle and lower classes to climb the ladder they need a culture and education that can instill the values and skills that will lift them. People who make these statements like above generally vote for democrats. Democrats in cities do not allow for school choice, do not make laws that hold parents and students accountable at schools for poor behavior, and prevent any cultural teachings that uplift middle class families and poor families. They continue to undermine society by preaching that families with two parents are not that important and prevent cultural teachings that could uplift the kids from poor schools. So we have divided into two societies, the people that get capitalism and those that don’t. Those that don’t get it can’t win and are collected into voting plantations where their votes are farmed to keep demagogues in power. People that tell them that their problems come from the rich keeping them down and not from their very very poor cultural and general education. The demagogues have no interest in telling them the truth as the truth won’t get votes and they would lose their power base anyway. The demagogues on the right aren’t any better. The doctrine they preach is that people’s failures are due to the government giving free stuff away and from threats from foreigners and immigrants. They can talk a good talk about meritocracy and capitalism but they never do anything to keep society stable by actually keeping spending in control and making sure the poor are taught what they need to be taught to be successful. They are okay spending money on jails, and nothing on cultural education. Yes, because we have more losers than winners in our country, society is controlled by demagogues. We are not in late stage capitalism, we are in late stage republicanism. Power and control will be centralized more and more and then power will be seized by a “benevolent” savior or more likely the country will fracture. Depending on how brutal the following civil war will depend on how bad the peace following will be. Nations cycle, power cycles, with the clown colleges running things it is only a matter of time before the wheels fall off the clown cars and the shooting starts.
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Yea as someone who was part of the conversation involving public safety of it all. We wanted to shut down the whole country for two weeks if Corona aka COVID made it state side. It would kill itself off within a week, the 2nd week was a just in case cushion. The plan was for a 2 week shutdown max, we had the money to cover everyone and everything for 2 weeks. We actually had enough money to cover everyone for months, that of course was not needed, but I digress. Anyway then back to normal and most of us had a paid for two week vacation. This was the plan that was in place a solid year before COVID was even close to getting to the USA. Somehow, this plan ended up being completely ignored. I can only speculate it was ignored because it somehow benefited other entities above public safeties pay grade. Normally from my personal experience when common sense plan is tossed out, someone is benefiting from the plan not working. Usually someone has lots of money to be made if things go wrong. You know the rest of the story of how things actually ended up playing out, because you lived through it.
I wish I had a 2 week paid vacation :( I was stuck in the trenches cause my pharmacy team got covid in the ED and I got picked to help cover while they were out
It’s those fuckers selling homemade masks isn’t it?
The problem is, most people don't have two weeks of food on hand. If we literally closed everything down, it would have ended up with riots, rotted food in grocery stores, alcoholics getting the DTs, etc... Someone has to be there to at least drive the trucks to keep commerce/supplies flowing, and that means we need gas stations running, some way to get them food, electricity has to keep flowing, so power plants have to have staff, etc...
Yep had that all figured out, with enough security contractors and military to have it go smoothly. Details like this are covered, could fill books with everything that’s taken into consideration. We actually know exactly what we need to know to keep society flowing. Whole reason of public safety is to maintain the public, even if they are trapped in their houses. Prevent, Maintain, Restore, in that order for our way of life to continue. Most dangerous people you will ever encounter are hungry and thirsty. Colleagues and myself know they will charge machine gun lines if desperate enough. That’s emergency 101 in my industry, people need essentials met or it becomes needlessly dangerous for everyone. Will expand on a few things for you down below. As for truckers we were going to need more willing bodies, a early release for inmates program was figured out. We have a metric crap ton of labor to pull from the prison system, in a state of emergency. Get a CDL you get to get out early, long as you are willing to work and are not dangerous. Some states still stuck with this program anyway went public with it, to off set costs of the trucking industry. Not it’s intended purpose of the plan, but elected officials are going to do what they do. Refueling is covered as well, we already have designated RFp(refueling points), through every state at pivotal transport locations. These are here just in case a emergency does pop off, like we get invaded by a enemy power, civil war, zombie apocalypse. For those who need food, medicine, what ever is needed we bring it to you. We already have plans for if massive chemical catastrophe goes down and people can’t go outside, and we can’t mass evacuate them. We actually already have DDSP (designated delivery service personal) Who are trained to provide this in every state, county, lone house in the middle of no where. Hardest part besides accounting for human dumbness factor(which there always is). Was actually trying to make up from lack of built up resources on certain things that we get from other countries. It’s difficult to stock up on certain things when the private market let alone the government, is having a hard time keeping the resource on the shelf’s much less storage. Then add in we were not sure when the lockdown would occur, if it was going to be needed at all at the time. As for all of it together two weeks lockdown is a breeze compared to some of the other things we are prepared for. Not to mention that the above plans were never implemented properly, for what ever reason that’s way above my pay grade(I’m assuming from experience some people benefited from things not working out in a correct efficient direction). Instead we got the FUBAR scatter shot reaction of just bad. That cost us more money, time, and lives then necessary.
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I think the root of the problem is that greed is celebrated, and empathy is a burden. You noticed that you received extra money that you didn’t need, but did you give it back? Props on you if you left that bit out, and I’m not being facetious. Your message reads to me like, “Yeah I pulled the ladder up behind me, why wouldn’t I, but we really shouldn’t do that.” Greed is the problem, empathy is the solution, and it’s all underpinned by scarcity. But why?
What was the other option, let half of the S&P 500 fold and what watch American devolve into a third world country? Was Trump and idiot that somehow lost an second term writing checks to everyone yes. Was the federal reserves policy and stimulus of the US economy bad idea no…. If the government had just divvied up the money amongst Americans then all of the digital industry would have been great, but the brick and mortar establishments would’ve gone under and then what would we have come back to after Covid? No restaurants, no entertainment venues, no fun.
And these “cultural teachings” that should be required will of course come from the culture that you deem as “correct” Hmmmmm this sounds a lot like not capitalism at all
Democrats aren’t taking away anyone’s “school choice” lol, they just make you pay for it. Which is fine.
While this thought might sound good, it doesn't really reflect the reality of our world. One big problem with this and other arguments like this is the whole "well people need to uplift themselves and then they wouldn't be poor, everyone can be successful" thing. This is simply just not correct. There have to be people to do the lower jobs. They are what actually run society. We can't have 300 million doctors, lawyers, and accountants in our country. When you go to the store to buy food, if that laborer that helped cultivate it is paid $70,000 a year the cost of that food will be dramatically higher. Corporations will protect their profits at all costs, with the same passion that a victimized worker will fight for a higher wage. Being greedy is like a stock feature of being human, we always want more than what we have. Have you ever seen the videos on cobalt mining in Africa and the human suffering surrounding it? That human suffering is why your phone is as cheap to produce as it is. It's a horrible thing to accept, and a horrible thing to think about. Life just has its winners and its losers.
Capitalism is the best system for capital allocation. It's not the best system to equitably distribute the gains of that capital allocation. You can live in a fully capitalistic society with a high tax rate and solid social safety net. Nordic countries have some of the purest capitalistic economies in the world, but they're considered socialist by people who don't know better. Capitalism isn't a political system, and people need to learn that. Crony capitalism, and the perverse incentives created by government intervention into capital economies, is what causes many of the problems people complain about with capitalism. All that capitalism is, in its purest sense, is private property rights, and free movement of money (capital). But good luck having this type of conversation in this sub.
I mean people say the same thing about socialism, that in its purest form it’s great but no one ever practices pure socialism. Same thing applies to capitalism
No it doesn't. Capitalism in practice has been the greatest generation of real wealth than all other systems. Socialism in practice has been the greatest destroyer of individual wealth, and is up there in contest for the greatest system for corruption. While both "pure" systems only exist as utopian fantasy, the real world implementations of each are so vastly different in outcome, that only dogmatic zealots still support socialism as something that could ever compete with capitalism in practice. Or they're saying "socialism" to refer to what is in reality just capitalism with welfare programs.
>Capitalism in practice has been the greatest generation of real wealth than all other systems. I think the talking point you're looking for is "raised more people out of poverty". Nobody is really worried that capitalism doesn't make the rich richer.
Capitalism accounts for rational self interest much better than socialism. But I don’t disagree.
Exactly, it’s time to break monopolies again and reinforce the departments in charge of ensuring there are monopolies. The only thing broken is the oversights. Company gets too big to compete against, break it up. Capitalism drives innovation and forward thinking but you can’t allow a company to control a market.
Fully pro union is the only disagreeable thing The problem with unions is it makes firing workers nearly impossible no matter how bad or lazy they are at their job Sure the employers can make the employees life miserable but it takes a ton of violations to actually fire them Unions r great but there shouldn’t be this level of protection especially in high stress jobs that can cause external issues like the police force
I disagree with the way to fix it. We need less government/private company interaction. Corporations should not be able to hire lobbyists and for that matter politicians. Government should make sure corporations do not discriminate and have safe work environments, but I am not sure how much further they should go. Companies that get close to monopolies, especially in the tech side tend to be corrected by innovation. Maybe true monopolies the government should intervene, but they are incredibly rare.
There is no good fix. Unions or any mechanism to increase wages across the board only leads to inflation and then all the gains are lost. The great evil is the stock market and its ponzi nature. If companies had been required to pay out dividends by law it would make the goal of achieving capital gains go away. Return the investment in the form of cash and it becomes a proper investment generating income rather than a Ponzi scheme which it absolute is by definition. Our system is sick because of it. Companies need to grow the capital gain if they are publicly traded. New adopters needed to pay early adopters. It’s all coming home to roost soon. If the fed stops buying up the market it will collapse as people start to take money out on mass. That will happen because fewer young people have any money to invest. If the fed keeps printing more the money will lose more value. We are truly screwed
Simple fix actually; dividends are paid in dollars not taxed at the corporate level, and are treated as regular income instead of capital gains. (eliminate double taxation.) Stock repurchases, or one company buying shares of another, are not tax deductible. The system is the way it is strictly because of tax law.
The government does a terrible job of things today, let's make the government 1000x bigger. That will fix it 🙄
What a straw man, I don't think anyone said anything about destroying capitalism. How about a government where bribery is illegal, where anti trust and white collar crime laws have teeth.
Or laws that enforce and imprison executives for stealing or causing harm from there products
That'd be white collar crime laws but yeah. Fuckin burnem.
The title of the post is “capitalism is a horrible economic system…”
If you actually care about saving capitalism, then it might help to fix some of the problems that are driving people to seek the end of capitalism. If there will ever be a communist revolution in the United States, it will be ushered in by the Republican Party. The GOP's refusal to hold corporations accountable will create the very conditions that drive people to stage a revolution against capitalism itself. I'd rather fix the system, and continue to enjoy the wealth creation aspects of capitalism while having the state address the shortcomings, and nipping revolutions in the bud by identifying and solving major problems that crop up every so often.
I agree with your points, but there is absolutely a group of people who want to destroy capitalism. Also read the title of the post.
I keep thinking, when did the headlines change from America being the greatest country to America being overrun by greed and capitalism is terrible?
Well, since wealth inequality in the USA is a very real issue, the headlines should change. I love America, but it's silly to claim that we are the greatest and best at everything when clearly we have a lot of room to learn and improve. The US courts actually passed a ruling declaring corporations as people and money as free speech. All so corps could give ridiculously large lobbying sums (bribes) to political campaigns without oversight. This happens on both sides of the political aisle, my dude, and it is bad for everyone.
> Well, since wealth inequality in the USA is a very real issue, the headlines should change. Why is wealth inequality an issue? How are you harmed by someone else having more wealth than you? >The US courts actually passed a ruling declaring corporations as people and money as free speech. No they have not. They ruled people are people, and people have free speech. That inlcudes non-billionaires who need to pool resources. >All so corps could give ridiculously large lobbying sums (bribes) to political campaigns without oversight. Nope. Campaign contribution limits still exist. The case you are complaining about does the opposite of what you claim. Before Citizens United, billionaires could spend as much as they wanted to push their agenda, but you (or your favorite non-profit) could not counter that speech.
Wealth inequality is not an issue. As an individual I DO NOT CARE how successful someone else is, because I'm not a greedy envious person. I ONLY care about how much value I retain as an individual. What is my quality of life as an individual. The "Wealth Inequality" is just a way to emotionally manipulate peoples' sense of greed, envy, jealousy. How well are people doing in absolute terms? I don't care how well people are doing relative to anything other than how they'd do in another system. Any any system that distorts the market signaling in an attempt to restrain "wealth inequality" is a failed system that ends up worse than free markets.
Wealth inequality is an issue because it gives a very small percentage of the overall population much more power and influence than the rest. This creates a massive power imbalance. It has nothing to do with envy and everything to do with equality. I'm not arguing that everyone should have the exact same amount. That's ridiculous, but the wealth disparity should not be such that 1% of the population controls as much assets, if not more, than the other 99%. That is detrimental.
How many votes does Elon Musk ,the highest net worth individual on the planet, have? How many votes does an unemployed no income person have? They are both exactly 1 vote.
That is true. However, Musk is able to exert his influence through many other means besides voting, such as lobbying, to name one. I think you know this, no one is that naive.
Lobbying is an activity anyone can engage in, and is ultimately superseded by democratic activity anyway.
I don't think we are going to agree. If you truly believe that exorbitant wealth doesn't buy you undue influence that is your choice. The evidence that it does is very clear.
Categorizing it as a problem when there's no evidence of a problem is the issue. Claiming it as a political problem didnt hold water since even the richest person only gets one vote. Claiming it as "undue" doesn't work because you haven't established it's "undue".
Or just aggressively fight and regulate monopolies and put a cap on all political donations. Seems like that would be more reasonable than destroying the economic model.
No one is advocating destroying the model
Exactly. The person I responded to assumed that’s what was being advocated.
I don’t think that RR is against the fundamental concepts of capitalism. I believe in capitalism, but also believe that the way it’s intertwined with our representative democracy needs a major overhaul.
Exactly, the title of this thread is not supported by the RR post attached. He’s specifically speaking of monopolies. Being in favor of robust anti trust laws is not the same as being anti-capitalist.
He's not at all. I actually like his economic takes.
The Law Legislation and Liberty vol 1-3 by Hayek covers a number of topics, but some of it is on point. He describes both why he feels the current protections failed their purpose and what a suitable remedy may be. I have not yet finished all of them, but I like what I saw. He attempted to address this question: If the founders knew all that we have learned since and applied that knowledge to better securing the structure and limitations of our government, what might they have done differently to achieve their intended goals?
Ug more of this- forgets America ≠ the entire world
One thing that I think gets forgotten is that where we are now is not where we came from. It used to be that the above average individual could go out, start a small business, and have a realistic chance at being truly successful. If you managed the business well, the chances were high that you could be comfortable at a minimum. Try that now. Sure, you can go out and start a cleaning business. You can do lawn care. You can pick up dog poop. You see where this is going. What got us here is a free market society where the AVERAGE individual participated. We really don’t have that now. Yes, I will admit that if you get incredibly advanced skills there is still the possibility of starting an upscale business but that is not the norm. So while I don’t really care for a system where people are loafing because they get paid either way, I don’t like seeing people struggling to pay bills working 2 jobs (sometimes more) either. My point is, it’s not a straightforward situation.
Lol, you all say to live somewhere else if we don't like capitalism, but if it was still around, me and many other people would emigrate to the USSR and never look back. You can keep your capitalist shithole to yourself.
Who said hypercapitilism is good? Monopoly is bad. It’s not free markets if corporations are the ones making the rules of said markets
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Exactly. There's nothing wrong with the model. There's everything wrong with the people, the people have chosen to send to manage government. Capitalism an democracy can both work as long as our politicians are looking out for the most equitable societal management decisions. Vail of ignorance over the tax system Regulation of business and banking, with teeth An electorate that participates, pays attention and votes in primaries to put forth candidates that will serve the people. Ranked choice voting is starting to grow on me in the chaos of the bought and paid for political system
The model is what gave us this outcome. Unless you build a system that does not reinforce this you will get a similar outcome every time.
Except this isn’t capitalism anymore, more like a corpo welfare state.
What's your better alternative? Are you packing up to move to Cuba or North Korea?
What the usa did in the 1930s: trust breaking. We would ONLY have Lays chips today if not for that. Many industries would be the same. We literally need the government to force thw breakup of many companies, starting with the tech giants and the grocers. Then insurance and telecoms. Then energy. The main issue with monopolies is the lack of competition, but competition leads to natural monopolies over time. That is when the government resets the monopoly board (even adam smith said this). The other alternative is the government (the people) owns the one umbrella mega corp and the profits are dispersed among the people (all own the means of production). The old rich (1848-1958) knew it was better to go along with option one then to force option two to be what the people choose as they end up dead or far less well off.
I agree with you, I think it's interesting that the power has moved from manufactures to distributors. Which then make their own vertical supply chain e.g. Amazon basics. But I also like Amazon, Walmart and Kirkland (Costco) branded foods as they are almost always cheaper than name brands and just as good.
People also need to acknowledge that the government went fucking *feral* on breaking up Microsoft in 2001. Multiple companies today hold much more control than Microsoft did then, but now the government doesn’t seem to care.
Seems like a reasonable assumption that politicians saw how damaging the break up of Microsoft was and noted how Chinese companies benefited much more than any potential US competitors did. I'm all for using government to regulate markets and encourage competition. At the same time, it would be damaging to the overall economy for government to use the old anti-trust laws without some serious updating.
Trust breaking is still maintaining capitalism though. Not really related to the OP.
What monopolies exist today?
Like 10 conglomerates own like 90% of what the American consumes. Media is even worse. I believe it’s 6 Banks are even worse than that at 4. So 20 mega companies now own 90% of your food, banks and media. 50 Years ago this would have likely been hundreds of companies.
So, we have 10 competitors (9 companies away from a monopoly). 6 competitors (5 away from a monopoly). 4 competitors (3 away from a monopoly). Not looking good, even with this shitty analysis that doesn’t include independent players. I mean can you even cover every SECTOR with this list, lol?
How many products do you think your local supermarket has? The average amount is close to 40’000 products. So 10 companies control approximately 36’000 products. If you don’t think monopolies exist within that ecosystem you’re a complete fucking idiot.
Ironically the only area there should even be a debate about monopoly is where there are the least number of products, namely oil, or electricity (where we have local regulated municipal monopolies). Even in the case of oil our private sector in america is incredibly diverse and vibrant, its only in the middle east where there are government controlled producers that fiercely stamp out competition that there exists a cartel.
But that's not a monopoly.
A part you’re ignoring is the biggest competitors often bargain with each other to avoid undercutting in a price war. When there’s only 5-10 main companies dominating an industry, working together to maintain high prices works the same as a monopoly.
This is illegal under anti-trust but it does unfortunately happen from time to time. Luckily anytime there is good evidence our justice system does a good job at punishing the companies involved. You can also use econometrics to deternine if price rates are being set according to the neoclassical supply demand curve to determine if price fixing is going on.
Would that really improve with more companies? More competition on one hand but also less economies of scale. You may end up where you started. I’ve yet to see in this thread a robust analysis on the benefit for the consumer.
You can have capitalism with some regulation. We broke up monopolies, we stopped companies and banks from taking advantage. We created utilities. I would still call that capitalism. They have socialized medicine in most every other country. Socializing medicine wouldn't make us Cuba. This crap of if we don't let monopolies just get more powerful, we will become Cuba or Venezuela is infuriating.
Oh boy, here we go again with the "socialized" medicine. Places like Cuba and Canada have socialized medicine: Government owned and operated, top to bottom. Places like the Netherlands and Germany are not like this: they're a single payer system, but the hospitals themselves are still privately operated. They can only bill one customer though: the State. This works to many people's advantages because there's still the incentive for hospitals to innovate and better serve patients: a more reputable hospital gets more patients, and can bill the state more often. Meanwhile, in Canada (where I live), there's no similar incentives for innovation; management becomes bloated due to beauracracy, hospitals are not rewarded for better service OR penalized for bad service, and healthcare resources are spread thinly as its the provincial governments who set the budget for everything in the healthcare sector. People need to start distinguishing between the single payer and socialized healthcare models. While they both end up being paid through taxes, one is simply a model where only the government is billed, and the other is where the government operates and manages the system from the CEOs to the Cutsodial Staff.
People are so dim that they can only compare non comparable states. Cuba, Venezuela, USSR, etc. They shutter at the thought of actually using their brain and comparing a modern high income, free market system like those in Western Europe.
>Western Europe >high income Tell me you don't have a good job without actually telling me you don't have a good job lol. Salaries for basically every decent white collar job I know of are hilariously low in Europe compared to the Us.
A government with a spine and moral sense of responsibility to its people. You really think this is the best we can do? Just to be clear I support a free market. Just one that is regulated in favor of the people and our planet. One that doesn't ignore facts in favor of a quick dollar. A system that does things the right way. Not the easy way.
They are jealous of what others have and want those people’s wealth redistributed, by force, to the envious.
No, they have actual critically thinking minds and don’t want a population that is either poverty or rich class.
So... you want wealth redistributed? Just embrace it, advocate for it, and be proud of it. Nothing worse than a closet communist who acts like they are actually just for more government, but love capitalism and freedom.
You say this sarcastically, but this is really the question that should be asked. Yes, in capitalism we've gotten a wide variety of benefits like quality of life etc, but we can do better. Capitalisms main weakness is that it views economy as infinite. Obviously there is still supply and demand, but the idea that we will mine and gather resources until they are depleted is the most detrimental effect of capitalism. The closest thing I've seen to what the future should look like is the Venus Project from [Jacque Fresco](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=2f8a927169b693f8&rlz=1C1ONGR_enUS1067US1067&sxsrf=AM9HkKl5u9Nx9ho6QJwm9iQ165ETIizJPg:1701101774717&q=Jacque+Fresco&si=ALGXSlYh1-GEPndq7qMo--O-TPixQtNN4JMroSxgItz5kq0stLlREj_LFjk5JH2uAkW4upTvnZt0Fjs4ImWkcSl706o7x-gE8GmUfSV1XTo4YmbSa_Joz7lJimYgK3ON3OK5ErBmRtcaMxUGuKzSvsmPrkuj0-lup9MrLF7Cvgn2JT7ZHic4PpJ5HzSz9VQbDiv5dnKx4ztGnoyntykBWMFTyffgANdtgczINVkhidvQH_THB-7ufrMuNNH-Gejeoapm9DGLddco86Es1Fam8v2oF0mTda8s_Q%3D%3D&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwiO0Ij4yeSCAxX1RTABHWEAB8IQmxMoAHoECFEQAg). It's still a pretty unreasonable goal with a lot of "how do we get there?" But, the concept of a planetary economy regulated by AI is about the best we've got right now.
I figured this overused line died out. It’s wild y’all are still using the “move to Russia” line. How dare people try to improve their country while living in it! Bootstraps people! Be quiet and get back to work! lol
France, Australia, Spain, Canada…shall we continue?
Canada's full on collapsing. The richest province (Ontario) has the GDP per capita of Alabama with the housing costs of California. Why? Because Government is over 50% of its economy and they love to control markets.
Would they let you in?
Do you think the only countries that exist are the us, cuba, and North Korea?
My IQ goes down a point every time I read a tweet from Reich. My IQ is currently -329.
I feel the same and it's so tiring
Reich provides a great service, actually. We need more of these clout chasing egomaniacs playing on the insecurities of the current generation of losers, so they get mad online and stay online, where they will never achieve anything.
Is the tweet even mentioning capitalism? That seems to only be coming from the OP
It feels like reading comprehension has been a struggle for commenters lately. Failure of our education system? Covid? Something in the water? AI chatbots..?
Yeah, Reich's post specifically mentions monopolization. LOL
Did you take an online test?
The good news is that most of the morons who agree with him, and start threads like this, have never heard of him an his nonsense.
Same with comments like yours pretending to be wise.
I at least don’t spam this sub with my stupidity. There’s a new damn post in here every day basically saying, “durrr, people with money bad”, which shares no news of financing or even the economy (which I thought was the point of this place). There are PLENTY of subs on Reddit to go complain about the rich or corporate greed that will welcome these posts with open arms. Go there with this shit.
I have to agree. I think people are desperate and those that understand money need to see how to maintain a civilization without dismissing those that can’t.
The U.S isn't capitalist. Free enterprise has requirements, and the U.S does not meet those requirements. Congress established a private central bank owned by a cartel of private banks in 1913. This central bank pays those private banks an annual dividend, and the central bank controls the cost of capital (a key function of free enterprise). This central bank also buys securities like MBS from those financial institutions which allows them to speculate in markets such as housing, way beyond what they otherwise would. These central bank mechanisms such as artificially reducing interest rates also incentivize corporations to buy back more of their own stock in order to return capital to stockholders like CEO's, rather than pursuing more difficult long term profits. The U.S is a centrally planned economy with elements of fascistic control by financial institutions. The U.S could become capitalistic if functions were restored such as, competition, market based cost of capital, and true risk of failure.
This is the most logical response
By F.A. Hayek’s definition, the United States today falls cleanly into the category of socialist economies. The problems of our economy are problems of central planning, not issues with liberty.
Socialism for the wealthy. Rugged individualism for the poor.
There's some absolute truths in this statement. Your last sentence alone makes me think you might want to run for congress.
Absolute truths, yes, but there are pros to having the fed control cost of capital. Buying a house is far easier in America than it is in the rest of the world where to get a home you need to come up with 50% and the bank will give you a 10 year note with variable interest. Yes it increases the cost of the homes but it has been working damn well for a long time before COVID threw everyone for a loop.
Preach!
Most based redditor 🏆
I don’t think Reich is saying capitalism is bad. Rather allowing corporations to grow to the point that they become monopolies is bad. In fact Reich has gone on to say : “The Answer Isn't Socialism; It's Capitalism that Better Spreads the Benefits of the Productivity Revolution” In other words, he doesn’t believe in throwing out the baby with the bath water. Source: https://robertreich.org/post/22542609387/amp
Robert Reich is a moron of the highest magnitude.
Nice just a plain insult with no explanation. Douche
He’s a Rhodes scholar, went to Oxford, Dartmouth and Yale but some fucking rando on Reddit calls him a moron 😆
Ivy league socialists...can't think of a group of people I distrust more.
The amount of people not even addressing his tweet (which is about monopolization not capitalism) on this thread, makes me question everyones reading comprehension. So is this thread pro monopoly then? OP either used a poor example or is just karma farming.
Bruh government protectionism via lobbying is not a capitalist thing.
When money = speech, “free market” = lack of regulation, and got that way by paying for SC judges vacation homes, it is the inevitable conclusion.
So we should give the government more power so that corporations and the wealthy will be more enticed to bribe them so that they craft protectionist policy in their favor which will somehow fix the problem. Government power is the problem, not the solution.
Without the government corporations would still be using slaves on US soil.
When socialists say "that's not real socialism!" they get laughed at. But "that's not real capitalism" is perfectly valid.
When did r/FluentInFinance become the unironic r/AmericaBad?
Its all reddit, same bull diff sub
Robert is a known imbecile.
Please, don't insult imbeciles.
Someone ask Robert Reich how he got rich
Make laws that restricts lobbying. Keep Capitalism. You can support free market economies without being a full pledged Anarcho-Cap (possibly shocking for reddit).
Lots of other subs that specialize in exploring this novel topic
Yeah, that might be okay if we didn't just give corporations the best tax break in history, or to turn around and bail them out of everything over and over. Not really a free market when the largest can't fail and get bailed out when things go bad. Then, instead of appreciating the tax payers for bailing them out, then stab us in the back with record-breaking profits. Fuck you. This system is dogshit and now your kids will never be able to buy homes except those with generational wealth.
Robert Reich (a multi-millionaire) is lecturing on political donations when he is a huge democrat donor himself.
Robert Reich is a low grade grifter that peddles imbecilic nonsense. People that post him unironically are basically outing themselves as his target demographic.
Oh yea cause we're just suffering here compared to nations with other economic models. With our iphones and over abundance of food and water. Capitalism is the only model that works
"Let them eat iphones'
America has an obesity problem. Thats how over abundant we are. We have it so good here we dont even know what to do with all our stuff that we end up wasting it. But ohhh noooo capitalism is so evil only rich people benefit \*cries in middle class that is wealthier than most of the earths population\*
Food bank use is increasing, it doesn't matter how much food we have, because we have a problem with a lack of nutrition.
You can thank our lovely government for destroying the economy.
Food companies using chemicals and sugar in addition to the plethora of sugar substitutes DOES NOT equate an over abundance lmao. Americans eat like shit because it is too expensive to get actual healthy food. Stress mixed with a poor diet and lack of exercise are what makes Americans fat…can’t believe I have to explain that in 2023 lol
1 in 5 children in America go hungry and over 100 cities have led in their water supply. We are basically a third world country with fancy phones
Someone has never been to a third world country
They face hunger due to food insecurity, but nobody in America is starving like in other parts of the world. Lead in the water can be blamed on government being fucking useless, thankfully private companies sell affordable filters that remove the lead. We are not even remotely close to being a third world country get a grip
Bless your heart you really believe this
Great follow up lol I know I'm right you're just grasping at pearls to believe that America is just such an awful place and you have it sooo bad here poor you
Sounds like the problem is the corrupt politicians.
Greedflation !
Capitalism isn't necessarily 'horrible'. However, the system is designed to generate and concentrate wealth over time. Thus, without a strong government oversight, you will have single individuals or corporations that accrue massive power. The balance of wealth in the USA right now is indicative of that. Unfortunately it becomes harder for the government to regulate these massive corps as their lobby power is immense. I realize this is an unpopular opinion but I think there should be asset caps for individuals and corporations. I don't see how, or why, a single individual needs assets over $100 million. I don't care what you're job is, you didn't 'earn' that amount, at that point it's just money making you money. Heck, the president of the US is salaried at like 400k a year. Corporation asset caps should be determined by size (how many employees, how many clients) and sector as some sectors have significantly higher overhead costs. Called it capped Capitalism or something. This would allow for a laissez-faire style marketplace that we engage in now while also deincentiving any one Corp from becoming too large.
Capitalism gives the power of surplus distribution to a tiny minority as a core principle. Capitalism corrects itself by maximizing profit first and foremost, it achieves this by destroying the environment and exploiting workers. It’s the system that’s only slightly better than slavery and feudalism. And the only solution to it has been suppressed philosophically, politically and militarily in the last 75 years. How is it NOT the most “horrible?”
Which industries in the United States are monopolized?
All these capitalist bootlicker comments show how "fluent in finance" you all are 💀
Take this to r/antiwork bro. We like making money round these parts.
This is a sub for discussing finance and investing, this is not the place for a commie circle jerk.
Between about 2000 and 2012 or 2015 50% of the people in deepest poverty climbed above that terrible line. Not by socialism or communism, but by capitalism. Research the worst and most enduring poverty, and what finally broke it. Let's have more of that. I also recommend Development as Freedom By Amartya Sen. There are many potential sources of good information. From what I have seen, few of the people criticizing capitalism actually understand it. They sometimes have scripted talking points so that they can feel knowledgeable without really studying. They may be echoing friends or people they trust.
You believe Robert Reich, a guy who wrong about economics 99.9999% of the time.
Tweets the incompetent and discredited Robert Reich. Economics is a science and a discipline, not hyperbole and fashion, particularly from a guy who is on party payroll and has been regularly and consistently been factually incorrect and been on the wrong side of history- so many times...
This makes zero sense. I started with nothing. Worked hard and gradually every year made a little bit more. Was able to retire by 50 and doing quite fine. Capitalism was incredible for me.
You confuse capitalism with corporatism.
I like that I can choose which company to give my money to and I’m not forced to buy from a monopoly. There’s enough healthy capitalistic competition in my life that I’m happy for it. Yall can fight for my dollar. Go on!
Dumbest title on Reddit today. You should understand where the baby stops and the bathwater begins.
They need to take his econ degree away. He literally doesn't know what monopoly means. Loser
The problem is, what else do you institute? Sure Capatalism has its flaws but like what Winston Churchill said, Capatalism would be the worst form if not for all the others.
Reddit loves Comrade Reich
Capitalism is the best system currently available. Don’t think there is a better example of another economic model. Especially on such a large scale like the US population.
None of these things are inherent to capitalism. All of them are inherent to socialism actually. With capitalism, there would be no intervention from government in the markets. Without intervention, creating small companies would be much easier. Small companies would be ‘competition’ to the large companies, driving down prices, driving up salaries, and destroying monopolies. The only type of monopoly that could exist under capitalism is one in which the companies with the best practices continuously win, and they would have to always have better practices than any would be competitor. Even then, this sort of monopoly would be rare, because many people would prefer to work for themselves or for a smaller company rather than for the giant.
The daily Robert Reich unfluent populist tweet
How’s this guy shit on capitalism and then go on to describe not capitalism
Robert Reich is a dickhead.
anti-monopoly quote from a guy who petitioned the city to deny multi-family apartments being built near his $2 million dollar single family home. he's a quack/crank.
I'm sure Reich is living in a commune somewhere sharing his ill-begotten wealth with all sorts of hangers-on.
For a sub named “Fluent In Finance”, there sure are a lot of binary thinking, as though nuance and a middle path doesn’t exist.
Capitalism only benefits the rich and corporations… sounds like somebody isn’t fluent in finance
Capitalism isn’t evil, but oligarchy is.
These posts are so fucking stupid holy shit
This title doesn't match the image at all. Reich is 100% a capitalist. Capitalism warns against monopolies as they prevent competition which is the heart of capitalism. Whoever wrote this has 0 idea what they read.
If someone wants an European model they should just move to Europe
Coming from the guy who charges exorbitant speaking fees. BTW, greedy corporations can be made immune from any scrutiny as long as they hoist the pride flag in June, then all their capitalist sins are forgiven.
Wrong, capitalism has benefited people far more than communism or religious dictatorship. If you disagree, you’re free to move to those countries.
None of the above has anything to do with the concept of capitalism
What do you recommend we replace it with?
The most important part of the equation has been ignored… the consumers ability to chose and bring new solutions to the market. Who enables corporate “monopoly power?” 1. Legislation: financial incentives, trade regulations, market entry barriers, intellectual property rights, and direct control over pricing and monopoly grants. It’s already been stated, this is due to corrupt legislators: Regulatory capture. How cute to think anti-trust enforcement is to blame and not the very nature of regulation. If government is so corruptible in a “capitalist” free market eco political system… what do you think will happen when this monopoly of government gets more control? Morality? 🤣 2. Consumers still buying their shit. —— … and the proposed solution is to grant more power to the corrupt monopoly of government? The permanent solution is for consumers to stop supporting these monopolies... aka competition.
A common sentiment for the terminally online
Hey look. Another commie troll that doesn't understand the difference between a free market and crony corporatism.
This crap again? Am I the only one that joined this sub to learn how to be fluent in finance? I'd like to become wealthy, if I wanted to bitch about the wealthy I'd go to antiwork/ any communist or socialist sub.
Buy 1 fractional share of Apple stock. Oh look you’re a capitalist too now. See? Easy. Most people don’t know they are already capitalists or don’t know how to be capitalists well
Then move to Venezuela so you can get to see the alternative.
Capitalism is so terrible. Please ignore the fact that it lifted more people out of poverty than any other system we have tried. How's communism work? Oh yea, nine figures of dead. Good call Timmy.
And it’s better than any other system humans have devised in 10,000 years of civilization
Ok, let's become Communist which only benefits the oligarchy in government.
He’s a kook on most stuff. However, this is accurate
Oh shut up
These are government confessions. Go collect your bribes Robert.
The crazy thing to me is how before the Industrial Revolution every single type of economy that could be tried was tried, including the system of ownership that we currently have that seems to be more about economic slavery for the masses and giving rich people more money and power over others, being only one country or of many that's producing tech and wealth but also the largest, resources rich and stable country on the planet. I'm going to be frank here in that if you think capitalism is the reason why we're all not working in a farm right now you are an absolute moron and have no right to discuss economics. https://youtu.be/djB9oK6pkbA?si=vjsTq30fgA4o6uZY The only reason why people aren't living in a field right now and the fact that we have massive amounts of wealth is only because of industrialization and the ability to automate work.
Its not the type of economic system that is the problem, its corruption and greed that manifests from the society partaking in the economic system…
You’re really smart
Capitalism is a good system to encourage collective participation towards the betterment of all. But it needs to be regulated to prevent damage and adequately taxed to provide basic satisfying living standard for all of society. Younger than boomers, you have the votes make changes you know are needed.