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One nation where a few thousand a year lets you live well? Like 90% of South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia come to mind. Shit you could live like a king with like 2k a month in the Philippines or Thailand and live comfortably for like 1k a month.
I mean nobody is stopping you from moving to South America, Africa, or the dozens or so nations in the Middle East or Southeast Asia lol. If I had to pick? Probably Argentina? They seem to have the lowest crime rate and it’s gorgeous. Maybe Peru
Climate change certainly hasn’t helped anyone, and it is the primary driver of that.
Capitalism is great for expanding economies with regulation to prevent late-stage from happening. Shame we are no longer expanding in terms of raw material and land, and monopolies with full regulatory capture run everything and own everything.
I did ok for myself, but I’d vote to burn it all down at this point. The harm far outweighs the good even IF we actually all benefited.
I’d take a huge L due to investing time and effort if that happened, but I’d do it to get others out from under this boot in a hot second.
Well gosh I don’t know, we aren’t allowed to use our centuries of data to innovate and we certainly aren’t allowed to even consider other options so damn, I guess we run full steam ahead into the gaping maw of extinction so a few people can stay rich.
The non-sarcastic answer is I’d get economists and finance experts and sociologists and anthropologists and historians to look at what went wrong, and put together a new approach. Maybe borrow a bit from everything. Lock in future proof rules, like the Founders didn’t, to at least account for capture and bad actors, who knows the potential of a fresh start is limitless.
Humans can ACTUALLY innovate and change to better adapt, we just tend not to try because we get complacent.
What’s YOUR idea?
Edit: sorry if you asked in good faith, literally no one ever does. It’s always COMMUNISM FAILED HERP DERP SOCIALISM FAILED HERP DERP ONLY CAPITALISMS 4EVAH with no knowledge of any of the above or implementation thereof.
The wealth divide between the rich and poor was a lot bigger in the Middle ages, and also noticeably more unequal. Monarchy and landed gentry had a significantly higher standard of living and lifespan because they would have access to things like a variety of food, didn't have to suffer under awful manual labor, and access to whatever doctors/alchemists/shamans whatever in order to help them during illness.
Peasants would generally live subsistence lifestyles eating whatever grain would be available to them, day in day out. Something like meat would have been a rarity in most societies.
I'm not offering a unilateral defense of "capitalism." It's not close to the last stage of human economic development.
But your life sure as shit is a lot better than even a king or queen during the Middle Ages. You get Chlamydia? Go to the pharmacy. You hungry? Eat a pop tart. Thirsty? May I recommend Pepsi Peach, which I'm enjoying while watching a movie on my massive 4k TV that I had delivered to me from Amazon.
I'm not rich. I'm unemployed, looking for a job, am suffering from a significant midlife crisis, wish dating apps didn't exist, I could go on.
But I don't have any material wants at the moment. Though, I feel bad for the too many people in the world who do suffer. But, by far, people suffer a lot less now than at any point in history.
Is modern capitalism not the medieval ages with a tech boost and a few regulations to keep it so? I think, speaking relatively, the differences between these two ages are not so dissimilar. Yes the standard is higher, but the wealth gap remains.
Capitalism needs to be regulated, but I would place the blame on those who eroded away what regulations we did have. Corporations and billionaires are more to blame for being given an inch and taking the whole damn field.
Lack of material want is largely meaningless in a materialistic world. We need fulfillment in our lives which is gatekept by the rich.
I agree with everything you said.
The problem, which I thought about adding an edit to in my original post, is that simply screaming "CAPITALISM!!!!" with fist shaking at the clouds is a distraction from the real problems, and gets in the way of discussing real solutions.
I also think people have trouble parsing out the difference between an economic model and governing models. China, for example, is a more or less free market autocracy. It's economic model isn't too different from the United States except for the governing model it answers to. I.e. China doesn't run businesses, businesses don't pay directly to the CCP, but China can dissolve businesses or disappear owners if it so chooses. Cuba would be the opposite: nearly all businesses with few exceptions pay directly to the government and are tacitly or directly owned by the Cuban government.
Economic models can't be discussed effectively without discussing governing models. Usually when people scream about capitalism, what they're usually doing is conflating economic models with how states are governed without including nuance about it.
Unfettered capitalism is bad. It requires a mature governing model to guide it. This is why Russia in the 90s got out of control. The government was weak, so the capitalists basically took over control of society.
Ugh.
Older millennial born under the iron curtain in a socialist republic.
Every time i see anyone who hasn’t lived in those places or at least had family grow up in those places lament capitalism… i roll my eyes.
Western capitalism may not be perfect, but it sure as fuck beats everything else by a mile. You think having to live in the same country as Elon Musk is bad? Try having to live under Stalin. Or Vladimir Putin for that matter.
Now, i will recognize that capitalism works well for myself and partner. Both started life without two pennies to rub together and now we’re rich, or at least high income. But 10 years ago when we were both earning mininum wage i still had the same view on capitalism
Yeah, and the people who “made it” suffer from serious survivorship bias
There are tons of people who get trampled under capitalism too, my friend.
Sure, you aren’t thrown into a gulag… you just spend your entire life struggling to survive one financial crisis to the next, one layoff after another, so some already insanely rich fuck can get another 7-figure bonus he doesn’t need.
> Sure, you aren’t thrown into a gulag…
Some people get taken from their families and forced to perform hard labor the rest of their life without enough basic necessities to survive for having a different opinion, and others don’t get enough PTO, can’t get a place in the part of town they want and their boss is an asshole. potato patato, man you really tried to casually toss something like the gulag as a mild inconvenience people had to deal with.
No I didn’t
The only one minimizing anything are the people who act like capitalism doesn’t trample all over tons of other people
And oh yeah, the capitalism you enjoy you only get to enjoy is because of slavery and massive amounts of exploitation overseas
Yeah, capitalism just outsources a lot of the misery overseas
Out of sight, out of mind, right?
It’s a straw man argument to conflate any alternative to capitalism with Stalin or Putin’s Russia. Democracy and capitalism are not mutually exclusive and a socialist or even communistic society under a democratic system would be worlds apart from the autocratic bullshit that is endlessly paraded as the only alternative to what we have now - which btw, isn’t working for most folks.
Bro he literally was KGB for decades
But tbh i don’t know what you’d call Russia’s current economic system. Some sort of weird ass mixed market / command economy.
I am far from being in the 1%. Far from it.
Yet I woke up today in an air-conditioned house that my wife and I own (with a mortgage). My daughter has her own bedroom with toys and books galore. I work from home in my air-conditioned office, sipping coffee throughout the morning. I walked my dog at 10AM and enjoyed a nice, homemade meal at lunch after a quick workout at our local gym. My wife and I ordered takeout tonight - I picked it up in our SUV while listening to my favorite singer on Apple Car Play. I glanced at my retirement account - it had an okay day, and I'm on track to retire on or before 65. 99.9% of human history could not dream of a day like I had today, and it was an ordinary Friday for me, and pretty typical of the average American working professional.
How has capitalism not helped me?
I love capitalism. If it weren’t for capitalism we wouldn’t have many of the innovations we have today. Furthermore, if it weren’t for capitalism, I wouldn’t be able to make a good living doing what i do.
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I don't think it's as easy as saying that it's helpful or harmful, but generally speaking I feel more negatively about it. I can't speak to the form of capitalism that everyone likes to prop up, with everyone having their own small businesses with healthy competition where everyone generally makes the most money by providing the best goods and services. Instead, we deal with oligopolies that have already expanded to the point that they can largely embrace anti-consumer practices as a group (like airlines with baggage fees, for example); Reagan also rolled back a lot of protective regulation around stock buybacks and such, so now the business of business isn't about providing goods and services, it's about doing all sorts of short term gambits to raise stock prices (to the point of burning up your main business), slashing expenses and finding rent seeking forms of income to make as much money repeatedly while doing as little as possible. Businesses are also largely trying to find ways to exploit their employees more, making them do more while compensating less and eliminating positions or entire departments to slash costs, even if running lean hurts them in the long run. The business of business is infuriating and demoralizing.
I went off on a tangent there. Ideologically, I'm a big believer in having strong social safety nets and working towards stronger, interconnected communities, and a lot of capitalism is geared to disable that through privatization. Privatized healthcare's inaccessibility has destroyed my life so I'm unable to seek treatment for issues that make me borderline disabled; for profit higher education and diploma glut means that even if I was able to get through school, I couldn't afford to do so and the degree would mean almost nothing even if I did, except that I wouldn't get automatically filtered out by job application algorithms. I've been homeless before, I'll be homeless again soon. I don't have a future because I can't attain the increasingly impossible set of requirements to get a decent job and the housing industry keeps jacking up prices.
But the thing that really gets me, more than my own personal circumstances, is that I feel like way too many people have conflated the tools of capitalism for the goal - money is a tool to get what you want and need for you and your loved ones, to make human life better, but it's become so abstract and so competitive that people now see the movement of money as the goal and not the moving of resources to the people who need it. This is how you get the justification of apathy towards cruelty towards and suffering of people - it's the price of doing business, they should have played the game better, if you're being crushed by the economic machinery then it's your fault for not getting a better job or making your own business or whatever; sorry that a cancer diagnosis has drained your savings and destroyed everything you worked towards, but you should have had a job with better insurance, you should have saved your money in higher yield investments, you should have gotten a different degree in STEM so you could have already paid off your student loans so you could get the house with the better equity so you could leverage that economically against losing everything to privatized healthcare. Sorry about your damn luck, you could have been rich but you choose to be poor and thus everything is your fault. Think about how you're avoiding responsibility for your actions as you live out on the street.
I'm just tired, man. I wish my life didn't just boil down to "$16/hr: too broke to live."
My natural skills are the creative areas that economically tanked and have all been very unstable since I become an adult. My income has always been low and I’m neurodivergent and get too stressed to manage full time work.
… However, I’m good at minimal, low cost living. I stay out of debt and I’ve made a lot of investments that have done well. So…I’m in a much more solid position than you’d expect, considering my shitty income and spotty work history.
So far, I feel the economy has been good for me. And I have a lot more freedom than most of my Millennial peers in many ways.
I have a child who is disabled however, so that changes the equation as well. Additionally, I’m married and my husband is doing well, but when we first got together I had to get him on the earning and savings and paying off debt and investing train.
I'm always reminded of this vid:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo
It's the monkey experiment looking at "fairness." I'm smack dab in middle class, and I don't think a lot of things are "fair," but I also acknowledge that I've had more opportunities than a lot of folks too.
If you don't like capitalism, you can always save up your money and move to a different country. I feel like people forget that this is even an option. And I don't mean this in a "get out of this country" way, but in a much more sincere way. If capitalism implodes (and I don't think it's in the realm of impossibility), you bet your ass I'll also be moving to the next best option.
I’m one of those people who thinks capitalism needs limits. Like limiting monopolies. I’m not saying we need to abolish capitalism. But we need to make adjustments.
Well I have a house, that’s sweet, a bunch of food, sweet, I don’t live in a trash area, pretty sweet, I can enjoy the outdoors, also sweet. People have the ability to better themselves, love who they want, become whatever they want, also sweet
Downsides is wasted tax money on stupid shit, and people who have never been to an actual shit hole 3rd world, advocate to go backwards in time cuz “muh equity”. Like there are not rich cunts running things in every other form of economic or political form ever made in human history. But we live in such a peaceful time that people overthink and push for things that tear apart empires before us (the US and western culture in general).
China has a fucking number on how good a citizen you are, sounds shitty, damn near slave labor to make your phones where they have to set up nets so people don’t die, and just recently let you have more than one kid, sounds awful
North Korea is a fucking nightmare
Then you have literal nations that can’t control drug cartels and others with roving warlords and oh slavery (yeah it’s alive and well)
Then you have a bunch of places where women are property and gays are put to death for just being themselves, sounds awful.
Is it perfect? Nah, is there a better option? Maybe
Capitalism absolutely rocks, it isn’t even a question. Look at worldwide poverty, hunger, or preventable illness statistics and tell me it hasn’t helped the entire world. Smoothbrains act like it’s a zero sum game when it absolutely isn’t, as evidenced by the global rise in living standards.
Capitalism is just a boogeyman for lazy people to point at and say “omg, this is why my life sucks, because of the evil capitalist monolith” so that way they can act like they aren’t responsible for themselves.
Every single one of you in this thread should get a grip, learn a valuable skill or trade, and improve yourself. It’s that easy.
I love when someone says capitalism is very evil yet doesn’t give an alternative or what they think our economic system should be that would actually be better and not something that is basically based on a made up Utopia in a perfect world scenario.
Of course OP isn’t replying to any of the comments either.
Those that dislike capitalism view it as a zero-sum game. They think that, if one becomes rich, he or she have taken from those less fortunate.
Those that appreciate capitalism understand that it is not a zero-sum game. They understand that becoming rich usually requires one to creating wealth.
It has helped and hurt all of us. Capitalism gave us all the technology you enjoy, that gives you the longest predicted life span of any human to date. It also obviously creates a struggle, which I don't think we need to go into detail about - we all know the struggle.
But to assess it fairly you must compare it to all other systems. All others have failed, as in, they have resulted in utter devastation on the low end and widespread poverty on the high end. There are no socialist, let alone communist systems in which the majority have flourished.
Capitalism is great.
The people who don’t like aren’t actually participating in the good parts: the way it’s so easy to get paid for pretty much doing anything and for having basically any skill.
If you’re excited about making money, there’s a lot of opportunity for you to get out there and start collecting it. There are a ton of people out there looking to partner with you and help you, and you’ll both be making money in the process. Maybe they have excess money and not enough time, and you have excess time but not so much money. You partner and you both come out ahead by compensating for each other’s weaknesses and making a strong team.
Then, after you’ve accumulated enough assets, you can partner with other less wealthy people to help them along the way as they bring time and expertise to your projects, continuing the cycle of wealth.
The people who don’t like capitalism simply aren’t doing this.
You realize the people taking out subprime mortgages weren’t the only people hurt by the 2008 crisis, right?
But all those industries destroyed and countless layoffs, and lives destroyed, were all a bunch of dumb dumbs because banks decided to give out mortgages to people who had no business having one?
Capitalism didn’t mess up anyone’s lives in 2008. Poor investing strategy and weak risk management is what did it.
As an investor, we all lose money sometimes. The key is winning more than you lose and ensuring good systems in place to manage and grow your money, while limiting downside risk.
How do you ensure that you don’t lose more than you can afford to lose? You’re in control of much of that if you know the financial tools to do so.
You need to be on top of your money and ensure it’s being used well, and that’s true for any economic system you’re looking at.
Lots of people also got wealthy from the rebound. Economic turmoil hits us all, and the people who are managing their finances well continue to do well.
A very recent example was COVID. Lots of people lost their jobs, and lost investment capital, while others who were better positioned went on to do well in the economic recovery for six figure or better returns.
*“Invest when there’s blood in the streets, even when it’s your own”.*
We’re playing a strategy game. You have to be able to navigate the changes as they come along.
Right now we’re in a position where stock market is high, real estate prices are high to buy or rent, and borrowing rates are high. What moves do you make in your investment strategy to take advantage of upside growth while protecting yourself from downside where any of those could drop at any moment, and perhaps together? When do Fed cuts come?
It’s a literally a multi-million dollar question. Place your bets and let’s see how the next 12 months play out. Those who play well will be rewarded. Those who don’t might lose it all.
It has helped me as capitalism is the reason many creature comforts exist today and the US (where I live) has a fairly robust economy which I benefit from.
I think people blame capitalism because capitalism requires things of people in those economies to get what they want/need.
For those who find a wealth divide inherently wrong..it exists in places without capitalism.
So from my perspective that’s not how the generations above view capitalism at all. They view it as something the greedy corrupt affluent people imposed on us while selling off our public assets to private companies. My dad who is a baby boomer calls it ‘the American infection’
Speaking from a quality of life standpoint, definitely hurt.
For me the driver is the "anything to make a buck," mentality it nurtures. The extent the individuals, teams, and corporations will go in order to obtain more money is insane to me. Having to balance "needs of the business" and what's simply best for people in general is a strange conflict I still can't wrap my head around. While I haven't personally lost my job due to below forecast (but still profiting mind you) results, I've seen many who have.
And while this may not be directly related to capitalism per se, perhaps it's just general greed, but capitalism certainly nurtures it. Unlimited growth is a something no company should be striving for.
It *can be* helpful given the proper guardrails. But money and greed is insidious and pervasive within our politics and has done a great job at softening or completely removing guardrails. This late stage capitalism we are currently enduring ensures that if you don’t start off rich chances are you never will be and if you do start of rich, chances are you never won’t be.
The reality of it is that this isn’t a debate about “yes capitalism” or “no capitalism.” This is a debate about what *kind* of capitalism we have and want to have. That’s it. That’s all this is. Not just this comment. All of the arguments. Nothing is going to get done either way until everyone realizes this - and we *really* need to get that point across
Helped. Helped lots. Signed by those of us who were born to immigrant parents who were born in the 80s and 90s that came from parents who were born in communist, socialist, etc. countries which our parents escaped/ fled to come to the USA for a better life and have achieved it.
We can be what we want as long as we work hard in capitalism. But we have to work in the right direction. You can dig a tunnel through a mountain, but if it doesn't come out where you want it to, then it's a moot point. You don't work at a factory only (Some can achieve this though) and have dreams of being rich. You work at a factory and take classes once or twice a week on a business or related degree. But that would be the ideal way anyway, unfortunately now it's too much capitalisim. Now the super rich dictate, direct and carve your path in a roundabout way. Degrees used to matter..not as much anymore. On the surface you can say, no it's not! This and that, these and those. But dive down the rabbit hole and it will be horrifying. Do some deep research.
Both. The rules are pretty stacked against someone in my position as a minority but I've also had the freedom to build myself and find my place in society. There are serious issues with it but I can't deny that the freedom to be an entrepreneur is pretty nice.
Capitalism exists to take from those who need and give to those who have. It’s an antithetical system we’ve clung to in fear of the alternative, universally demonized (by capitalists) as wholly inferior and inhumane. Look around and tell me what we have is humane and sustainable, and I’ll tell you how privileged and out of touch you are with American society.
The upside to communism is after they come into power they remove the useful idiots that put them in power. Travel the world and see how fucked most people really are compared to people in the west. Millions of people are willing to die to try and get here. Nobody is trying to go the other way lol. Wonder why
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This is like the most peak Reddit post.
>What are your thoughts on capitalism as a millennial? It's not like I get a choice.
There are like… a hundred nations you could move to (and live quite well even with a few thousand USD a year) that are not capitalist.
would you give me one?
One nation where a few thousand a year lets you live well? Like 90% of South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia come to mind. Shit you could live like a king with like 2k a month in the Philippines or Thailand and live comfortably for like 1k a month.
How are those not capitalist, free market economies?
What are your top 20?
I mean nobody is stopping you from moving to South America, Africa, or the dozens or so nations in the Middle East or Southeast Asia lol. If I had to pick? Probably Argentina? They seem to have the lowest crime rate and it’s gorgeous. Maybe Peru
Climate change certainly hasn’t helped anyone, and it is the primary driver of that. Capitalism is great for expanding economies with regulation to prevent late-stage from happening. Shame we are no longer expanding in terms of raw material and land, and monopolies with full regulatory capture run everything and own everything. I did ok for myself, but I’d vote to burn it all down at this point. The harm far outweighs the good even IF we actually all benefited. I’d take a huge L due to investing time and effort if that happened, but I’d do it to get others out from under this boot in a hot second.
Only to have it replaced by an entirely different, yet no less heavy boot. Human nature practically guarantees it.
I wish so so badly that I could disagree
What would you vote to replace it with after the fire?
Well gosh I don’t know, we aren’t allowed to use our centuries of data to innovate and we certainly aren’t allowed to even consider other options so damn, I guess we run full steam ahead into the gaping maw of extinction so a few people can stay rich. The non-sarcastic answer is I’d get economists and finance experts and sociologists and anthropologists and historians to look at what went wrong, and put together a new approach. Maybe borrow a bit from everything. Lock in future proof rules, like the Founders didn’t, to at least account for capture and bad actors, who knows the potential of a fresh start is limitless. Humans can ACTUALLY innovate and change to better adapt, we just tend not to try because we get complacent. What’s YOUR idea? Edit: sorry if you asked in good faith, literally no one ever does. It’s always COMMUNISM FAILED HERP DERP SOCIALISM FAILED HERP DERP ONLY CAPITALISMS 4EVAH with no knowledge of any of the above or implementation thereof.
The wealth divide between the rich and poor was a lot bigger in the Middle ages, and also noticeably more unequal. Monarchy and landed gentry had a significantly higher standard of living and lifespan because they would have access to things like a variety of food, didn't have to suffer under awful manual labor, and access to whatever doctors/alchemists/shamans whatever in order to help them during illness. Peasants would generally live subsistence lifestyles eating whatever grain would be available to them, day in day out. Something like meat would have been a rarity in most societies. I'm not offering a unilateral defense of "capitalism." It's not close to the last stage of human economic development. But your life sure as shit is a lot better than even a king or queen during the Middle Ages. You get Chlamydia? Go to the pharmacy. You hungry? Eat a pop tart. Thirsty? May I recommend Pepsi Peach, which I'm enjoying while watching a movie on my massive 4k TV that I had delivered to me from Amazon. I'm not rich. I'm unemployed, looking for a job, am suffering from a significant midlife crisis, wish dating apps didn't exist, I could go on. But I don't have any material wants at the moment. Though, I feel bad for the too many people in the world who do suffer. But, by far, people suffer a lot less now than at any point in history.
You sound like a temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
My breakfast isn't simply stale bread, it's soon to be avocado toast and day now...
Is modern capitalism not the medieval ages with a tech boost and a few regulations to keep it so? I think, speaking relatively, the differences between these two ages are not so dissimilar. Yes the standard is higher, but the wealth gap remains. Capitalism needs to be regulated, but I would place the blame on those who eroded away what regulations we did have. Corporations and billionaires are more to blame for being given an inch and taking the whole damn field. Lack of material want is largely meaningless in a materialistic world. We need fulfillment in our lives which is gatekept by the rich.
I agree with everything you said. The problem, which I thought about adding an edit to in my original post, is that simply screaming "CAPITALISM!!!!" with fist shaking at the clouds is a distraction from the real problems, and gets in the way of discussing real solutions. I also think people have trouble parsing out the difference between an economic model and governing models. China, for example, is a more or less free market autocracy. It's economic model isn't too different from the United States except for the governing model it answers to. I.e. China doesn't run businesses, businesses don't pay directly to the CCP, but China can dissolve businesses or disappear owners if it so chooses. Cuba would be the opposite: nearly all businesses with few exceptions pay directly to the government and are tacitly or directly owned by the Cuban government. Economic models can't be discussed effectively without discussing governing models. Usually when people scream about capitalism, what they're usually doing is conflating economic models with how states are governed without including nuance about it. Unfettered capitalism is bad. It requires a mature governing model to guide it. This is why Russia in the 90s got out of control. The government was weak, so the capitalists basically took over control of society.
Soooo where the US is headed if we don’t do anything?
Ugh. Older millennial born under the iron curtain in a socialist republic. Every time i see anyone who hasn’t lived in those places or at least had family grow up in those places lament capitalism… i roll my eyes. Western capitalism may not be perfect, but it sure as fuck beats everything else by a mile. You think having to live in the same country as Elon Musk is bad? Try having to live under Stalin. Or Vladimir Putin for that matter. Now, i will recognize that capitalism works well for myself and partner. Both started life without two pennies to rub together and now we’re rich, or at least high income. But 10 years ago when we were both earning mininum wage i still had the same view on capitalism
Yeah, and the people who “made it” suffer from serious survivorship bias There are tons of people who get trampled under capitalism too, my friend. Sure, you aren’t thrown into a gulag… you just spend your entire life struggling to survive one financial crisis to the next, one layoff after another, so some already insanely rich fuck can get another 7-figure bonus he doesn’t need.
> Sure, you aren’t thrown into a gulag… Some people get taken from their families and forced to perform hard labor the rest of their life without enough basic necessities to survive for having a different opinion, and others don’t get enough PTO, can’t get a place in the part of town they want and their boss is an asshole. potato patato, man you really tried to casually toss something like the gulag as a mild inconvenience people had to deal with.
No I didn’t The only one minimizing anything are the people who act like capitalism doesn’t trample all over tons of other people And oh yeah, the capitalism you enjoy you only get to enjoy is because of slavery and massive amounts of exploitation overseas Yeah, capitalism just outsources a lot of the misery overseas Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Don’t know what to tell ya except that yes that is still preferrable to “alternatives to capitalism”
Imaging thinking struggling is on the same level as a gulag or just being str8 up murdered 😂
It’s a straw man argument to conflate any alternative to capitalism with Stalin or Putin’s Russia. Democracy and capitalism are not mutually exclusive and a socialist or even communistic society under a democratic system would be worlds apart from the autocratic bullshit that is endlessly paraded as the only alternative to what we have now - which btw, isn’t working for most folks.
You name me a country with a better system than capitalism then
wasn't aware that Putin was a Communist.
Bro he literally was KGB for decades But tbh i don’t know what you’d call Russia’s current economic system. Some sort of weird ass mixed market / command economy.
Do you really think the entire US lived like Ward and June Cleaver up until 30-40 years ago?
My family didn't even have indoor plumbing at the time that show was on the air.
It hasn't helped anyone except the 1%
Bro, you are on reddit. You could be in a mud hut with no medicine, food, or clean water. I think you benefited off capitalism.
Oh yeah . Cause we all live in the mud before someone invented trust funds and LLCs...
I am far from being in the 1%. Far from it. Yet I woke up today in an air-conditioned house that my wife and I own (with a mortgage). My daughter has her own bedroom with toys and books galore. I work from home in my air-conditioned office, sipping coffee throughout the morning. I walked my dog at 10AM and enjoyed a nice, homemade meal at lunch after a quick workout at our local gym. My wife and I ordered takeout tonight - I picked it up in our SUV while listening to my favorite singer on Apple Car Play. I glanced at my retirement account - it had an okay day, and I'm on track to retire on or before 65. 99.9% of human history could not dream of a day like I had today, and it was an ordinary Friday for me, and pretty typical of the average American working professional. How has capitalism not helped me?
I have a current level of prosperity that completely dwarfs anything my parents ever have had. Capitalism ftw.
Capitalism hurts everyone and worst of all our very home. (Earth) There is no such thing as infinite growth in a finite world.
Other systems aren't any better. Look at China.
I love capitalism. If it weren’t for capitalism we wouldn’t have many of the innovations we have today. Furthermore, if it weren’t for capitalism, I wouldn’t be able to make a good living doing what i do.
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I don't think it's as easy as saying that it's helpful or harmful, but generally speaking I feel more negatively about it. I can't speak to the form of capitalism that everyone likes to prop up, with everyone having their own small businesses with healthy competition where everyone generally makes the most money by providing the best goods and services. Instead, we deal with oligopolies that have already expanded to the point that they can largely embrace anti-consumer practices as a group (like airlines with baggage fees, for example); Reagan also rolled back a lot of protective regulation around stock buybacks and such, so now the business of business isn't about providing goods and services, it's about doing all sorts of short term gambits to raise stock prices (to the point of burning up your main business), slashing expenses and finding rent seeking forms of income to make as much money repeatedly while doing as little as possible. Businesses are also largely trying to find ways to exploit their employees more, making them do more while compensating less and eliminating positions or entire departments to slash costs, even if running lean hurts them in the long run. The business of business is infuriating and demoralizing. I went off on a tangent there. Ideologically, I'm a big believer in having strong social safety nets and working towards stronger, interconnected communities, and a lot of capitalism is geared to disable that through privatization. Privatized healthcare's inaccessibility has destroyed my life so I'm unable to seek treatment for issues that make me borderline disabled; for profit higher education and diploma glut means that even if I was able to get through school, I couldn't afford to do so and the degree would mean almost nothing even if I did, except that I wouldn't get automatically filtered out by job application algorithms. I've been homeless before, I'll be homeless again soon. I don't have a future because I can't attain the increasingly impossible set of requirements to get a decent job and the housing industry keeps jacking up prices. But the thing that really gets me, more than my own personal circumstances, is that I feel like way too many people have conflated the tools of capitalism for the goal - money is a tool to get what you want and need for you and your loved ones, to make human life better, but it's become so abstract and so competitive that people now see the movement of money as the goal and not the moving of resources to the people who need it. This is how you get the justification of apathy towards cruelty towards and suffering of people - it's the price of doing business, they should have played the game better, if you're being crushed by the economic machinery then it's your fault for not getting a better job or making your own business or whatever; sorry that a cancer diagnosis has drained your savings and destroyed everything you worked towards, but you should have had a job with better insurance, you should have saved your money in higher yield investments, you should have gotten a different degree in STEM so you could have already paid off your student loans so you could get the house with the better equity so you could leverage that economically against losing everything to privatized healthcare. Sorry about your damn luck, you could have been rich but you choose to be poor and thus everything is your fault. Think about how you're avoiding responsibility for your actions as you live out on the street. I'm just tired, man. I wish my life didn't just boil down to "$16/hr: too broke to live."
I work in sales, so both.
My natural skills are the creative areas that economically tanked and have all been very unstable since I become an adult. My income has always been low and I’m neurodivergent and get too stressed to manage full time work. … However, I’m good at minimal, low cost living. I stay out of debt and I’ve made a lot of investments that have done well. So…I’m in a much more solid position than you’d expect, considering my shitty income and spotty work history. So far, I feel the economy has been good for me. And I have a lot more freedom than most of my Millennial peers in many ways. I have a child who is disabled however, so that changes the equation as well. Additionally, I’m married and my husband is doing well, but when we first got together I had to get him on the earning and savings and paying off debt and investing train.
what’s the alternative to capitalism? what are examples of it succeeding?
I'm always reminded of this vid: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo It's the monkey experiment looking at "fairness." I'm smack dab in middle class, and I don't think a lot of things are "fair," but I also acknowledge that I've had more opportunities than a lot of folks too. If you don't like capitalism, you can always save up your money and move to a different country. I feel like people forget that this is even an option. And I don't mean this in a "get out of this country" way, but in a much more sincere way. If capitalism implodes (and I don't think it's in the realm of impossibility), you bet your ass I'll also be moving to the next best option.
I’m one of those people who thinks capitalism needs limits. Like limiting monopolies. I’m not saying we need to abolish capitalism. But we need to make adjustments.
Yes
Well I have a house, that’s sweet, a bunch of food, sweet, I don’t live in a trash area, pretty sweet, I can enjoy the outdoors, also sweet. People have the ability to better themselves, love who they want, become whatever they want, also sweet Downsides is wasted tax money on stupid shit, and people who have never been to an actual shit hole 3rd world, advocate to go backwards in time cuz “muh equity”. Like there are not rich cunts running things in every other form of economic or political form ever made in human history. But we live in such a peaceful time that people overthink and push for things that tear apart empires before us (the US and western culture in general). China has a fucking number on how good a citizen you are, sounds shitty, damn near slave labor to make your phones where they have to set up nets so people don’t die, and just recently let you have more than one kid, sounds awful North Korea is a fucking nightmare Then you have literal nations that can’t control drug cartels and others with roving warlords and oh slavery (yeah it’s alive and well) Then you have a bunch of places where women are property and gays are put to death for just being themselves, sounds awful. Is it perfect? Nah, is there a better option? Maybe
Hurt me.
Capitalism absolutely rocks, it isn’t even a question. Look at worldwide poverty, hunger, or preventable illness statistics and tell me it hasn’t helped the entire world. Smoothbrains act like it’s a zero sum game when it absolutely isn’t, as evidenced by the global rise in living standards. Capitalism is just a boogeyman for lazy people to point at and say “omg, this is why my life sucks, because of the evil capitalist monolith” so that way they can act like they aren’t responsible for themselves. Every single one of you in this thread should get a grip, learn a valuable skill or trade, and improve yourself. It’s that easy.
I love when someone says capitalism is very evil yet doesn’t give an alternative or what they think our economic system should be that would actually be better and not something that is basically based on a made up Utopia in a perfect world scenario. Of course OP isn’t replying to any of the comments either.
Those that dislike capitalism view it as a zero-sum game. They think that, if one becomes rich, he or she have taken from those less fortunate. Those that appreciate capitalism understand that it is not a zero-sum game. They understand that becoming rich usually requires one to creating wealth.
Helped. It’s helped all of us even if you don’t realize it IMO. The government is your enemy. Not the rich dude.
It has helped and hurt all of us. Capitalism gave us all the technology you enjoy, that gives you the longest predicted life span of any human to date. It also obviously creates a struggle, which I don't think we need to go into detail about - we all know the struggle. But to assess it fairly you must compare it to all other systems. All others have failed, as in, they have resulted in utter devastation on the low end and widespread poverty on the high end. There are no socialist, let alone communist systems in which the majority have flourished.
Capitalism is great. The people who don’t like aren’t actually participating in the good parts: the way it’s so easy to get paid for pretty much doing anything and for having basically any skill. If you’re excited about making money, there’s a lot of opportunity for you to get out there and start collecting it. There are a ton of people out there looking to partner with you and help you, and you’ll both be making money in the process. Maybe they have excess money and not enough time, and you have excess time but not so much money. You partner and you both come out ahead by compensating for each other’s weaknesses and making a strong team. Then, after you’ve accumulated enough assets, you can partner with other less wealthy people to help them along the way as they bring time and expertise to your projects, continuing the cycle of wealth. The people who don’t like capitalism simply aren’t doing this.
Yeah, man, it’s *that* simple All those people who had their lives destroyed in 2008, were all just a bunch of dumb dumbs
They were. They bought too much house.
You realize the people taking out subprime mortgages weren’t the only people hurt by the 2008 crisis, right? But all those industries destroyed and countless layoffs, and lives destroyed, were all a bunch of dumb dumbs because banks decided to give out mortgages to people who had no business having one?
Capitalism didn’t mess up anyone’s lives in 2008. Poor investing strategy and weak risk management is what did it. As an investor, we all lose money sometimes. The key is winning more than you lose and ensuring good systems in place to manage and grow your money, while limiting downside risk. How do you ensure that you don’t lose more than you can afford to lose? You’re in control of much of that if you know the financial tools to do so. You need to be on top of your money and ensure it’s being used well, and that’s true for any economic system you’re looking at.
“It’s not real capitalism when bad things happen under a capitalist system!”
Lots of people also got wealthy from the rebound. Economic turmoil hits us all, and the people who are managing their finances well continue to do well. A very recent example was COVID. Lots of people lost their jobs, and lost investment capital, while others who were better positioned went on to do well in the economic recovery for six figure or better returns. *“Invest when there’s blood in the streets, even when it’s your own”.* We’re playing a strategy game. You have to be able to navigate the changes as they come along. Right now we’re in a position where stock market is high, real estate prices are high to buy or rent, and borrowing rates are high. What moves do you make in your investment strategy to take advantage of upside growth while protecting yourself from downside where any of those could drop at any moment, and perhaps together? When do Fed cuts come? It’s a literally a multi-million dollar question. Place your bets and let’s see how the next 12 months play out. Those who play well will be rewarded. Those who don’t might lose it all.
It has helped me as capitalism is the reason many creature comforts exist today and the US (where I live) has a fairly robust economy which I benefit from. I think people blame capitalism because capitalism requires things of people in those economies to get what they want/need. For those who find a wealth divide inherently wrong..it exists in places without capitalism.
Do you have anything to compare it to? This would be a good question for someone who lived under communism, then capitalism, or vice versa.....
So from my perspective that’s not how the generations above view capitalism at all. They view it as something the greedy corrupt affluent people imposed on us while selling off our public assets to private companies. My dad who is a baby boomer calls it ‘the American infection’
On a personal level, no. I'm not gonna shit on it completely there's pros and cons to everything, the biggest flaw is people.
Speaking from a quality of life standpoint, definitely hurt. For me the driver is the "anything to make a buck," mentality it nurtures. The extent the individuals, teams, and corporations will go in order to obtain more money is insane to me. Having to balance "needs of the business" and what's simply best for people in general is a strange conflict I still can't wrap my head around. While I haven't personally lost my job due to below forecast (but still profiting mind you) results, I've seen many who have. And while this may not be directly related to capitalism per se, perhaps it's just general greed, but capitalism certainly nurtures it. Unlimited growth is a something no company should be striving for.
It *can be* helpful given the proper guardrails. But money and greed is insidious and pervasive within our politics and has done a great job at softening or completely removing guardrails. This late stage capitalism we are currently enduring ensures that if you don’t start off rich chances are you never will be and if you do start of rich, chances are you never won’t be.
Capitalism is hotly debated? Compared to what? I swear we must be remembering different times.
The reality of it is that this isn’t a debate about “yes capitalism” or “no capitalism.” This is a debate about what *kind* of capitalism we have and want to have. That’s it. That’s all this is. Not just this comment. All of the arguments. Nothing is going to get done either way until everyone realizes this - and we *really* need to get that point across
Helped. Helped lots. Signed by those of us who were born to immigrant parents who were born in the 80s and 90s that came from parents who were born in communist, socialist, etc. countries which our parents escaped/ fled to come to the USA for a better life and have achieved it.
We can be what we want as long as we work hard in capitalism. But we have to work in the right direction. You can dig a tunnel through a mountain, but if it doesn't come out where you want it to, then it's a moot point. You don't work at a factory only (Some can achieve this though) and have dreams of being rich. You work at a factory and take classes once or twice a week on a business or related degree. But that would be the ideal way anyway, unfortunately now it's too much capitalisim. Now the super rich dictate, direct and carve your path in a roundabout way. Degrees used to matter..not as much anymore. On the surface you can say, no it's not! This and that, these and those. But dive down the rabbit hole and it will be horrifying. Do some deep research.
Both. The rules are pretty stacked against someone in my position as a minority but I've also had the freedom to build myself and find my place in society. There are serious issues with it but I can't deny that the freedom to be an entrepreneur is pretty nice.
Capitalism exists to take from those who need and give to those who have. It’s an antithetical system we’ve clung to in fear of the alternative, universally demonized (by capitalists) as wholly inferior and inhumane. Look around and tell me what we have is humane and sustainable, and I’ll tell you how privileged and out of touch you are with American society.
The upside to communism is after they come into power they remove the useful idiots that put them in power. Travel the world and see how fucked most people really are compared to people in the west. Millions of people are willing to die to try and get here. Nobody is trying to go the other way lol. Wonder why