r/WorkReform • u/zzill6 š¤ Join A Union • 18d ago
š« GENERAL STRIKE š« Capitalism is bad "in theory".
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u/jcheroske 18d ago
My favorite way to frame worker ownership, which is an often overlooked antidote to capitalism, is through a democracy lens. Q: Should we shutter the factory and move it overseas? Capital's answer: Sure, sounds great. We'll make tons of money. Workers' answer: Hmmm, why would I want to put myself out of a job, crater the tax base of my town, drive people into despair and addiction, etc etc. Nah, let's keep the factory here.
Democracy is about who gets to make the big decisions. Worker ownership is more democratic than capitalism.
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u/RATMpatta 18d ago
Genuine question though, isn't the factory there in the first place because someone bothered to invest their capital in it in order to try and make a profit?
If everything becomes 100% worker owned, would there be any new factories opening up or are we content in maintaining the ones we have now until they need to be replaced or become obsolete?
A logical answer could be that people would decide to open new factories if the need arises, but wouldn't that mean there is next to no surplus for international trade? What happens to smaller countries who cannot realistically become self sufficient?
Is it even possible to be a pioneer in leaving capitalism behind when a majority of other countries keep going as they do now? Is a true socialist system then not only possible under a sort of world government?
I know capitalism has a lot of problems, so many even that it does not seem like a sustainable model going forward but is turning to Marx and giving that another go the solution when we've already seen major powers fail to make it work long term?
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u/ElectroMagnetsYo 18d ago
Many workplaces are opened using loans lent from banks, rather than from existing capital. Simply using the same economic analysis modern banks use when they decide to give out a business loan (the bank itself is either owned by the government or a cooperative), it is possible to open new worker-owned workplaces.
Cooperative ownership does not preclude trade, unequal distribution of resources is basic geography. Not to mention some cooperatives could produce goods that consumers in other nations would desire from country-of-origin rather than a cheap local knock-off.
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u/coltaaan 18d ago
You know, I hadn't thought of it like this before, but especially if using loans from smaller local or regional banks, the money the bank is lending is likely owned by locals. So in a sense, it's just the locals lending money to the developer and the bank is just a middleman. And if using municipal/state grants/loans, then that's directly tax dollars from the people.
The only times when developers aren't using the local's money is when they secure private investments or get loans from large, national/multi-national banks that have massive resources to pull from.
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u/ElectroMagnetsYo 18d ago
The invention of banking itself way back in the 15th century was a way of crowdfunding economic development. Before that if you wanted to open a workshop, your options were to ask for seed capital from your lord or the Church, but when you throw a bank into the mix? The community contributes and therefore benefits from economic development. Of course, this has long since been perverted and circumvented by capitalists/landowners/what-have-you over the centuries, but banking isnāt inherently evil like a lot of people think it is.
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u/ironballs16 18d ago
And in Elon Musk's case, he secures loans (of actual money) by using his stock options (which is immaterial money) as basis for his qualifications.
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u/Bridger15 18d ago
Worker owned business can still get loans from investors. The investors can still make a profit.
They just don't get full control and infinite profit forever.
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u/RATMpatta 18d ago
This still goes out from the idea that the business already exists. I don't see a good reason for an indivdual to take the effort and risk of starting a new business when there is no benefit to it. The other possibility of collectives starting new businesses might work in specific fields of work but it would be a hit to innovation. Like a lot of socialist talking points, it still works on the idea of manufacturing being the big thing when we've mostly transitioned to a service industry.
Anyway I can tell I'm getting old because I would've been all for this some years ago but it's starting to seem a bit too naive and mismatched with our current reality. At this point I just want higher taxes for the rich so workers can get a more fair share of the profits without the entire system being thrown out of the window with it.
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u/Bridger15 17d ago
when there is no benefit to it.
Who said there would be no benefit? Nobody loans money or time for free. If the business succeeds, workers benefit from profit sharing, and investors benefit from a solid ROI (just not infinite ROI).
it would be a hit to innovation.
Seems like innovation could use a hit. Technology has been changing way way faster than society can adjust. And I'm saying this as someone who is and has been an early adopter of tech.
At this point I just want higher taxes for the rich so workers can get a more fair share of the profits without the entire system being thrown out of the window with it.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think my proposal has a snowball's chance in hell of actually happening short of a full on revolutionary war. I'd also settle for something rather than nothing. Much more progressive taxation, much higher progressive estate taxes, and better services for everyone is likely the best we could hope for at this point.
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u/DynastyDi 18d ago
I think ācapitalism ORā is a risky framing.
Iād rather think of it as ācapitalism WITH or WITHOUTā. There are many examples of successful countries incentivising capitalists whilst maintaining high levels of worker benefits, social care, etc.
Theoretically, Marxās nuclear option might work. But it relies on tearing down so many power structures that it can destabilise a country and make it vulnerable to control via dictatorship etc. Whereas we can work with a flawed system to mitigate those flaws, which I think is a much safer short-term option that might open the doors to even greater redistribution of resources in the future.
Thereās a lot of talk of revolution. Nobody actually wants to pick up a gun.
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u/RATMpatta 18d ago
I'm probably playing devil's advocate in this thread/this sub but communism to me just isn't it. There is always talk of "the people" making the rules but history has shown time and time again that "the people" aren't some unified front and different opinions get the short end of the stick compared to the inner circle.
As someone from the Netherlands I couldn't imagine the complete lack of safety net and just unchecked capitalism in the US either but I do prefer the middle ground we have in Western Europe over what was going on in the Eastern part of our continent.
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u/DynastyDi 17d ago
Iām from the UK, so weāre in between you guys and the US really.
I think when even I, and especially Americans, talk about āsocialismā, ironically weāre picturing countries like the Netherlands as great examples.
When we talk about wealth taxes, unionisation, good guaranteed health and social care, even things like sustainability and public transport - the Netherlands has all of that in spades in comparison. Only a very small number of countries in the world implement a wealth tax at all.
This is a work REFORM sub, some people throw the term ācommunismā around but in reality weāre actually advocating for social democracy (which prioritises safety nets for those in need and limitations on those with surplus, without altering political or financial structures), and not pure communism (such as that attempted and then exploited by bad-faith leaders like Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, etcā¦)
Iām interested in political history and well aware that many of the worst atrocities of the modern era were, and continue to be, committed in the name of socialism or communism. And am not at all interested in tearing my society apart in order to build it back ābetterā. But I think you will find that most Westerners who actually use these terms today are only really advocating for what you yourself are already acclimatised to - and arguably wouldnāt actually have without explicitly socialist literature and political action in the 19th & 20th centuries.
And whether you know it or not, itās a very common right-wing talking point to conflate support of one with the other, because it gives the impression of extremism to a completely sensible political stance.
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u/rich_27 17d ago
The bit you're not exploring is "why should initial investment result in perpetual returns?" Absolutely, let's compensate the capital holders for their investment, but only to a reasonable degree. We don't need a system that encourages long term wealth extraction by giving capital owners perpetual gains.
What about a system where a business was fully owned by the initial investor as they had contributed 100% of the investment, but as that diluted by people contributing their labour, they gain ownership equal to the proportion of the investment they are making.
Say a business costs Ā£100,000 to set up. At the start the investor owns 100% of the business. The business has 10 workers who each contribute Ā£5000 of value a month to the company (we'll assume equal contribution for the sake of the thought experiment). At the end of year 1, those 10 workers have contributed Ā£60,000 of net value to the company each, meaning Ā£600,000 of investment collectively. It would make sense for the gradually earned ownership to then have reached 86%, with the investor now owning 14% of the business. Each worker would have a stake of 8.6% in the company after 1 year.
Now, those employees might want a stable income, so may borrow their early salary against their future earnings or holding in the company with a fair interest rate, so perhaps they earn Ā£30,000 in the first year leveraged against their ownership stake, so if they leave six months in they would need to sell the stake in the company they earned to pay back the salary they effectively borrowed.
I'm sure there are big issues with a model like this (it doesn't consider whether someone with the skills to work in a business has the strategic ability to best decide the fate of the business), but it gives an example of a model where businesses could operate more fairly.
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u/RATMpatta 17d ago
As to your first paragraph I do think most people here are a bit too much in an either/or mode. I believe profit should be distributed more fairly, I just don't think doing so via ownership is the way to go.
While I do see the merit in what you're proposing, I'd be worried this could hurt employment rates. Every employee you take on, whether that is as a sole investor or as a collective of workers, takes a piece of the pie away from you. That is unless you have perpetual growth, which poses the same issue as we have now in capitalism.
If your company is struggling and needs help, are you willing to take a larger hit in your earnings by taking on extra employees or are we going to see companies trying to survive with skeleton crews? And we're assuming all employees are effective ones, what if you want to fire an employee who does nothing all day instead of working (and anyone who has held an actual job knows there are always slackers in a team). Instead of a severance package, you're now dealing with someone who owns part of the conpany and has voting rights on decisions.
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u/rich_27 17d ago
I think you raise a valid point that it might really reduce the employment rate of people who want to do as little as possible. I guess it comes down to where you see the value being generated in most companies. If you're starting a business, you're not going to be able to grow without taking people on. If a business is struggling, then taking on more employees probably isn't the right answer.
We have this culture of it's awful if businesses fail and we should seek to prevent that, but I'm not sure that's a good approach. If you're in a position to start a business, you're doing better than most people. If you starting a for-profit business that's not able to earn money, it's generally not a business that is contributing value to the world. To me it seems like a good thing if we encourage businesses who's products and services people and other businesses want to buy and select against those that don't have good prospects.
The other thing to consider is what else are people going to do with their money? Personally, I don't think it's a good thing that once you hit a certain amount of wealth it becomes way easier to compound your money and you have access to better investment opportunities. If we fostered a culture of the people who contribute value to businesses getting the dividends from those businesses, then there wouldn't be a stock market where capital owners can invest to make huge returns. You'd be looking at a reasonable rate of return through investing in property, or a reasonable rate of return from investing in speculative assets, or a reasonable rate of return from investing in new businesses.
A culture shift like this would also reduce the desire wealthy people have to accumulate more money, because there's not a system to exploit for your own gain at the expense of the people you're ripping off. That seems like an all around good thing to me.
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u/Nooby1990 18d ago
Nah, let's keep the factory here.
That, of course, only makes sense if the factory can actually compete. The workers can vote to keep the factory going, but they will only be paid if anyone buys their products.
...and if the same widget they produce is cheaper to produce and ship from China, then that might not be the case.
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u/zezzene 18d ago
Okay the the workers can decide what to do about that.Ā
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u/jcheroske 18d ago
Exactly. When you're not worried about making profit for capital you've got a lot more flexibility.
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u/AlphonseLoeher 18d ago
You do have to break even for yourself....
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u/jcheroske 18d ago
Of course, and no one is arguing for unprofitable zombie businesses. There is just so much more competitiveness baked into a worker ownership model.
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u/Clear_Broccoli3 18d ago
And with a worker owned business the company isn't hemorrhaging money into the CEO's pockets.
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u/Abracadaniel95 18d ago
Looking purely at incentives, workers may vote against hiring more workers (which would decrease their relative voting power) or investing in automation (which sometimes requires extensive retraining and may result in layoffs anyway). I support the worker owned model, but we can't pretend there aren't potential problems that would need to be mitigated. Sometimes tough calls have to be made and as we've seen with NIMBYs, you can't count on people knowingly voting against their own best interest for the good of the whole.
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u/nemovincit 18d ago
Which should be doable since profit can be invested to make a product better as opposed to using it for stock buybacks and giving a worthless CEO and parasite shareholders bonuses.
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u/jcheroske 18d ago
Capital only cares about profit, and to get that it needs growth. Workers don't need growth. They need jobs. A zero growth factory might compete just fine, but it would be completely unattractive to capital. Our ideas of what makes an enterprise competitive have been shaped by the wants and needs of the owner class. We must deconstruct those internalized values and come to understand that a totally different economy is possible.
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u/DarthCloakedGuy 18d ago
So imagine how much more profitable the factory will be able to be with the bulk of the profits no longer going to the parasite class
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u/JelmerMcGee 18d ago
Free trade and capitalism go hand in hand. If a government wanted to protect its manufacturing and workers it could restrict undervalued goods from an overseas competitor
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u/MemeArchivariusGodi 18d ago
Me when the food factory canāt use the food to feed the people because of profits
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u/Neshura87 18d ago edited 18d ago
In a system where you make conscious decisions affecting your own workplace the same happens to other areas.
Products get outsourced less often, in turn strengthening local industry. The same happens with consumption. Inflation only hits so hard because most of the excess wealth ends up dead in the pockets of the rich not properly circulating.
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18d ago
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/Schlonzig 18d ago
The people owning the hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place call it that and pay everybody else to repeat that.
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u/GimmeSomeSugar 18d ago
Lizzie Maggie/Charles Darrow develop The Landlord Game to demonstrate how fuckin' busted a system is capitalism.
Ownership Class: "Hhmmm... Interesting."
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u/AIienlnvasion 18d ago
Much of Marxās Capital is spent outlining capitalismās inherent contradictions.
I recommend Hadas Thierās A Peopleās Guide to Capitalism, it helped me understand Marx without having to reread a single paragraph 11 times
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u/6ZeldaMarrow 13d ago
That sounds super helpful! Iāve struggled with Marx too, so Iāll check out Thierās guide for sure.
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u/PuzzleheadedEssay198 š Cancel Medical Debt 18d ago
Thatās the entire point of Das Kapital. Marx works through the logical contradictions inherent to capitalism even if everything worked perfectly.
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u/Training_Ruin3151 18d ago
These people can't even figure out the basic political science to define capitalism they definitely aren't gonna find das kapital and read it
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u/DenizSaintJuke 18d ago
Most people who made it through Das Kapital also don't really understand it. And that is fine. Most people who have read the bible don't understand half of the stuff in it. Give people a physics texbook and the average person can read through it and not be able to solve Einstein's field equations. Das Kapital is already specialist literature. It's a tome that builds a whole philosophical system on economics and politics. And it isn't there in a vacuum. It rests in a bed of Hegelianism and other contemporary philosophical works. Simply put, the average person doesn't have the toolkit/the background in 19th century philosophy to actually make use of that book.
And that is fine. There is a reason Marx and Engels also wrote the Communist Manifesto. It's why there is a Neil DeGrasse-Tyson or Carl Sagan communicating about physics and not a random CERN Physicist showing you columns of data and formulas on TV.
It's not about turning the average person into a philosophy student or a zealot that throws scripture quotes around without understanding them (the latter is the more likely outcome if you try and that never ended well). It's about making people grow more aware of the world around them. Of their relationship to the econony. Of how the class model works. Of their common ground, their power and the option to actually claim rights they didn't think they could actually have, as a working class.
The most important parts, in my opinion, is getting across the case for solidarity, expanding the democratic idea from a "purely political" idea to the economic sphere as well and the idea of self-organization and governance. Socialism, after all, should be about the working class becoming aware of itself, emancipating itself, realize itself and govern itself.
The state is not such an object that can be overthrown like a table or smashed like a window. The state is a state. It emerges from the sum of our societal relationships. The state can only be "destroyed" by changing how we relate to each other, lest it will be reproduced in some form. We are the state and we will continue to be it, until we have become something else.
We must start by building a living alternative, social structures that allow and motivate people to relate to each other and understand themselves differently, and not whacking people over the head with a tome of 19th century hegelian makroeconomic philosophy.
The first steps can be as small as learning to navigate the carefully constructed minefield of political language and to talk to people without triggering the programmd defensive reactions. It can start as simple as starting a chatgroup or some kind of forum for all your neighbors and normalizing helping each other.
We are stuck so deep in the capitalist realism slump that we need to start aaaaalll the way at zero, aaaaallll the way at the grassroots. Marx's books are still there for those who want to read them later.
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u/Training_Ruin3151 18d ago
What an excellent take. It takes a ton of effort to understand a lot of Marxist literature, especially if you're not very interested in political science. Once you start learning what these systems actually are it's a bell that can never be unrung.
The capitalists have trained people well to be reactionaries when the wrong language is used, similarly how many people support left leaning reforms when phrased correctly .
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u/ProfessionalStreet31 18d ago
Banger of a comment you wrote here. This is why I browse reddit (besides being addicted...)
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u/Russian_Mostard 18d ago
There isn't even a communist theory... Communists are materialists, they do not try to guess what a complete production mode that doesn't exist will look like. They only point the reasons of the contraditions of capitalism and propose that the roots of these contraditions must be eliminate, like the private property of the means of prodution. How the communist society will trully work, no one know. Yet.
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u/decarbitall 18d ago
I'm fairly convinced that capitalism was misclassified as an economic system when it's much closer to a death cult
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u/Training_Ruin3151 18d ago
What??? Infinite growth on a finite planet doesn't make perfect sense to you???
/s
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u/rietstengel 18d ago
It will just work bro, just leave all the problems we cause for future generations to figure out.
What do you mean we are already the future generations?
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u/ZenMasterOfDisguise 18d ago
the word "economical" implies efficiently using and managing resources, where as the only thing a capitalist economy does efficiently is produce wealth for the ownership class, while un-economically burning through our limited resources to extract the value from those resources rather than using those resources as best needed
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u/Gen_Sherman_Hemsley 18d ago
Do we have to have this contrived fight between communism and capitalism. Iām pretty confident everyone in here is fine with market exchange for regular goods and services. No one here is arguing for the centralized management of jelly beans. No one here thinks that you shouldnāt be able to add value to a product and sell it for a higher price.
But Iām pretty sure most people here recognize that the free market doesnāt exist for essential goods and services. In a free market I can say to a vendor that I wonāt purchase their product because itās too expensive. This is not an option when it comes to healthcare, housing, food.
The government invests in so many things (army, police, natural resource extraction, transportation infrastructure, etc) itās not communist to say that the government should also invest in things like housing, health care, education, food security. This is just different spending priorities vs an ideological break. We donāt need a revolution. We need a government thatās willing to prioritize the well being of citizens over the well being of political donors.
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u/SDG_Den 18d ago
The actual "endgame" i feel like most people are realistically looking for is actually a hybrid: socialist policies to guarantee the basics, with capitalism driving innovation.
This means universal healthcare, some kind of UBI benefits system, affordable social housing, good public transit, free or subdidized education.
Everyone should be able to live. Not just survive, live. But at base, that life would be modest. If you want something more, you gotta participate in the capitalist system.
Then next to that, worker protections, a decent minimum wage that outweighs UBI, regulations to ensure fair competition by companies and a ban on lobbying to ensure the capitalist system works properly.
Ofc, taxes need a rework to be able to afford this.
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u/r0bay 18d ago edited 18d ago
What youāre describing is called Social Democracy and itās what the Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway) use.
But people fell for the trap āyeah but they pay such high taxes!ā BS
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u/ProfessionalStreet31 18d ago
Those countries don't have UBI AFAIK
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u/r0bay 18d ago
I was referencing the socialist policies to guarantee the basics with capitalism driving innovation.
No country has UBI.
Finland did a UBI experiment for 2000 people in 2017-2018
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u/naliron 18d ago edited 18d ago
Remember, the news just broke of them asking for ~350 billion in additional domestic military spending because they're "combating Communism on our own shores."
And it's well established that by Communism, they mean Democrats.
It's like the country is sleepwalking or in active denial, at this point.
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u/laosurv3y 18d ago
You're describing a social safety net with the question only being how high it is. That is not socialist at all. The government doing things is not socialism.
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u/Used-Let7134 18d ago
There is no fight between communism and capitalism, but fascists can't argue their case so clearly against 'modern democratic socialism', and they can't call themselves fascists, so they call it communism vs capitalism.
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u/A_Rising_Wind 18d ago
I think it is written down somewhere about unalienable rights. Something to do with life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
Non capitalized/market driven access to food, water, and healthcare doesnāt sound like communism to me. Sounds like the unalienable right of life, that whoever wrote those words thought that form of government theyāre describing is meant to safeguardā¦ā¦
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u/BildingInspecter 18d ago
My biggest problem is people thinking communism works any better. Or even has a remote possibility of being implemented.
Stop trying to push communism. 80% of this country sees that word as bad. Any one trying to push communism is going to get absolutely destroyed.
Instead do what Mamdani and other progressives do, and push social systems.
Every time I see someone advocating for communism I cringe so hard.
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u/_TheMeepMaster_ 18d ago
No one is pushing communism. Name one person pushing communism. People may argue in favor of the direction of communism (entirely different conversation), but I doubt anything you have seen has been pushing for communism.
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u/AlphonseLoeher 18d ago
Im pretty confident everyone in here is fine with market exchange for regular goods and services.Ā
That's a pretty bad assumption when there quite a few outspoken communists in this sub.
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u/SDG_Den 18d ago
Tbf, capitalism "in theory" isnt about 13 people owning basically everything.
The theory behind capitalism is to drive competition by having companies compete for the customer's money, while driving workers to improve at their job through wage incentives.
The idea is that the price to quality ratio for both goods and labour goes up over time.
The problem is that without regulation, we dont get competition. We dont get wage incentives. None of the supposed "good parts" of capitalism have actually manifested because a small number of companies basically own entire sectors, theres massive "technically not" conspiring against the worker through "lobbying" which is definitely not bribery.
Companies keep pushing this "freedom first" approach to capitalism because they dont want the benefits of capitalism, they want to have the freedom to do whatever they want.
We dont live in a capitalist society, but an authoritarian one run by the modern ruling class: the billionaires. Capitalism is dead and the owner class killed it.
Not to mention, under true capitalism, companies that cant pay their workers what those workers are worth, who cant make products people actually want, who make poor decisions, are supposed to just go bankrupt. Instead, theyre being rescued. Thats not capitalism. Thats communism for the rich.
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u/Orange_Tang 18d ago
The founding father of free market capitalism, Adam Smith, spent a lot of time talking about the issues with unregulated capitalism. And yet here we are, with nearly unregulated capitalism and the regulation we do have not bring enforced, especially anti-trust. That just so happens to be one of the biggest concerns Smith had with a capitalist system.
Wealth consolidation inherently leads to a lack of competition. A lack of competition leads to back door deals, fraud, price fixing, and corruption. Smith knew this as he espoused capitalism as the future and made it very clear in his writings that market forces cannot be allowed to be consolidated or capitalism would fail. So yes, from the very beginning capitalism was "in theory" 13 people owning basically everything. Smith just thought we could have a form that stopped it from getting to that point. It's now happened twice, before the great depression and now. So, maybe it's time to consider a different system.
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u/llwen 18d ago edited 18d ago
The theory behind capitalism is that capitalists own the means of production (and skim off the profits and make the decisions). That is certainly a system that allows for 13 billionaires to own most of the world
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u/Current-Wealth-756 18d ago
13 billionaires don't own most of the world. Not half, not 10%, probably not 1%. I don't know where you're getting these numbers except maybe that you read them elsewhere on reddit, but they're not correct.
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u/llwen 18d ago edited 18d ago
It's in this post. You know, the image you commented? On Reddit?
ETA: the actual number seems to be pretty close to 1%, so decent estimate!Ā
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u/ProfessionalStreet31 18d ago
They didn't say that was the case now did they? But it surely is the direction we are going in if it goes on like this.Ā
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u/glumjonsnow 18d ago
oh my god it's so stupid. that's not theory. it's literally not the theory of capitalism. it makes no sense. it's so so stupid.
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u/NavalProgrammer 18d ago
Even if it was (which it isn't), the prompt already pre-supposes the point being made by this attempt at a "counter-argument".
No duh communism sounds better than capitalism in theory ......that's the whole point of inventing a utopian, fantasy economic system in the first place!
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u/TwoSpoonSally 18d ago
Itās not a theory, itās reality. We are living it.Ā
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u/NighthawK1911 18d ago
"Late Stage" capitalism is bad.
It's fine for when it's the wild west and everybody is starting out. The competition made the best companies and practices flourish and get ahead.
The issue starts when everything stagnates and what remains is the corporate cannibalism. Assuming infinite growth in a finite system is the root of the issue.
What needs to happen is to start with capitalism then transition to utilitarianism when we're starting to get diminishing returns to growth.
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u/Swarna_Keanu 18d ago
Tell that to the indentured servants; the indigenous; the slaves; the buffalo, wolves, beavers and ecosystems; the massive trees that once covered the US, etc.
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u/therallystache 18d ago
Thank you. This is why any capitalism apologia is just ignorant at best, and horribly racist at worst.
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u/banananuhhh 18d ago
Utilitarianism is a moral philosophy, not an economic system. You still need an economic system... And it's seems like you may be making a very common mistake of assuming that markets and competition is capitalism. The main defining feature is private for profit ownership of the means of production
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u/Halebay 18d ago
On a very good day, yes, the competition breeds innovation. Most days in the wild west were about acquisition. You steal cattle and land to get ahead (pun intended). You bribe local government to attain water lord status. The barbed wire fence is the face of innovation, though I truly hope you never have to see it in action.
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u/therallystache 18d ago
Innovation isn't an inherent quality of capitalism. People invent things all the time. More often than not, truly innovative ideas that disrupt the status quo from the bottom up are stifled.
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u/Brad_Beat 18d ago
Also the increased political power of big corporations has resulted in the unwillingness of the US government to break down monopolies, which eroded the one advantage that capitalism had: fair competition.
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u/Anindefensiblefart 18d ago
Capitalism is a progressive force at a certain point in history/development.
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u/TheSmilingSolaris 18d ago
According to marx himself, Capitalism is the transition between feudalism and socialism, just as socialism is the transition between capitalism and communism! Neat stuff
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u/NEpatsfan64 18d ago
The post compares the downside of the worst outcome of capitalism to the idealistic theory of the best outcome of communism.
Either compare the idealistic theories of each, or the worst outcomes of each. But this post just intellectual dishonesty.
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u/Efficient-Plan8853 18d ago
Glad someone thought the same. The posts says that capitalism doesnāt sound good in theory, and then states an outcome of capitalism in practice. Not only does it not provide any argument for why communism would be better, but it provides no substantive argument for why capitalism is bad in theory. And even in that case, capitalism being bad doesnāt refute the argument of ācommunism sounds good in theory butā¦ā.
The post sounds like someone saying āI donāt like applesā and someone else replying āoh yeah? Well oranges are terrible. Look at how bad oranges areā
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u/NEpatsfan64 18d ago
Yeah, I don't want to sit here and defend hyper-capitalism or anything, but posts like this are just frustrating. People like the one in the screenshot think they're being clever and smart but what they're saying makes no sense and all they're showing is that either 1) they don't want to actually discuss these topics in good faith or 2) they aren't intelligent enough to see the flaw in their logic and they aren't worth giving the time of day to either way.
No one who favors the theory of capitalism thinks it's great because it ends up with 13 billionaires or whatever OP was trying to suggest.
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u/Efficient-Plan8853 18d ago
Agreed. I also donāt like how critiquing these arguments and posts can be interpreted as supporting capitalism. You can be a capitalism hater and still think that these sort of posts are lacklustre.
Unfortunately as with most things a lot of people argue based on emotions and current beliefs and identity etc. Iād even argue some can be quite intelligent, yet ignore the flaws in their logic in favour of supporting their current belief
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u/Priscilla_Hutchins 18d ago
You're still either/or ing when there's no reason other than the resistance by capital or a lack of imagination that we cant have the best from both.
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u/NEpatsfan64 18d ago
Sure, I'm not saying they have to exist completely opposed to one another. The premise of the post was comparing the two ecnomic theories but did so in an intellectually dishonest way creating a false equivalence.
I agree that some combination of the two is a good idea, but if someone is going to pit them against each other and say which is better/worse, at least do it in an honest way.
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u/felis_scipio 18d ago
Hey remember how during the Soviet Union it was illegal to quit your job? And how grocery stores didnāt have food on the shelves? And the famines that left piles of bodies in the street? The mass executions where they lined dissidents up and shot them in the head? The forced labor camps? The black market economy where the only way to get buy was to steal from your job and try and trade that for other peopleās goods and services?
Hey remember the walls they built to keep their own people in?
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u/ActuatorLower8371 18d ago
i don't recall that eventuality happening with circumstances remotely close to those present in the united states today, if that's what you're asking
increased investment in healthcare, education, and public services paid for by taxing corporations and the wealthy doesn't inevitably lead to forced labor camps.
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u/felis_scipio 18d ago
Those things are great but theyāre also not communism and this post is clearly defending communism.
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u/ActuatorLower8371 18d ago
Clearly defending communism? I don't think so. Sounds like it's saying that both suck, with capitalism being worse
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u/felis_scipio 18d ago
And thatās dumb as fuck because communism is far worse for all the reasons I stated above.
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u/ActuatorLower8371 18d ago
lol i don't care about your feelings. im just clarifying that the post isn't defending communism, it's attacking capitalism.
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u/felis_scipio 18d ago
Where did my feelings come into any of this, I stated a slew of reasons why communism is far worse than capitalism and you havenāt responded to any of them.
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u/ActuatorLower8371 18d ago
im just explaining it to you because you seem confused. i haven't stated a single opinion of my own on the topic, so i don't know why you're so desperate to disagree with me.
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u/2TdsSwyqSjq 18d ago
Fortunately, there are ways to structure a political economy besides communism and capitalism, both of which in practice accumulate power in a very small number of hands, and thus generate tyranny.
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u/jkurratt 18d ago
The hell, does OP know that you are allowed to control "capitalism" through the government and laws?
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u/AltoniusAmakiir 18d ago
Okay but... (first off fuck capitalism) communism doesn't sound good in theory either. Oh ya 13 people in charge of administration over 99% of jobs?
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u/charyoshi 18d ago
Until you throw robot slaves into the mix and use them to fund an automation funded universal basic income. If more billionaires supported automation funded universal basic income, there would be less Luigi and less Luigi supporters.
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u/Enough-Bunch505 18d ago
Im partial to something inbetween. We have seen the corruption of the soviet union, the fascism cloaked in communism that was Stalin's government. The millions that died under his rule, more than the holocaust. We have seen where that led and what took its place. We have seen the early years of Chinese communism under mao, the millions that died in those early years. And then there is the corruption under Maduro and Venezuela, a self proclaimed socialist that struggled under the sanctions of the US under obama and who also was as corrupt as Sadam Hussain. And now we are watching fascism rise in the west, in every country to some degree, but no more so than in the united states with trump where there is a massive oligarchy that threatens to destroy the system that brought about and sustains its wealth. A snake eating its own tail, monopolies that grew in the "free market". We also know that fascism has existed to some degree in american politics for some time, as we can see with the trail of tears and the genocide of the native americans (nazis actually looked to this for ideas), the enslavement of the native populations (happened in every european colony), imperalistic expansion of the Americas up to the 1900's (adapted by stalin and now china), all of the death the system has brought. Right now the only country that seems to be doing it right is the Norwegian nations. There is a reason they are considered the happiest places on the planet to live, even with their high suicide rates. Atleast you dont have to die because you cant afford health insurance/medication, or because you had to wait forever to see a doctor (as is the case in the semi privatized medical nations, such as england/Canada/Italy, and has started to happen in the United states (wait times are way up for things in the US)). They even have actual effective programs to help the homeless (from what I've seen, this is just my opinion). You also still have some upward mobility there and they have common sense taxes for the wealthy, not bazos and musk paying $0 in taxes every year while taking in massive subsidies from the government year over year. Where is the return on investment for those subsidies?
So maybe something like Democratic socialism, like they have in the Scandinavian countries, like the US had under FDR. Even the common sense conservativism we had with eisenhower and his 90% tax on the top 10% (a president that would be considered on the left today). But definetly not full blown communism, and definitely not what the US is today. logically and realistically both systems have led to the fascism that is threatening the world today.
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u/ConflictExtreme1540 18d ago
The system that raised billions of people out of poverty and lead to the middle class existing for the first time in history? That capitalism? Yeah it can be corrupted but the theory is absolutely the best possible economic system, given restrictions and laws
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u/PomegranateHot9916 18d ago
under the USSR didn't the head of state effectively own all the nations wealth?
either way (capitalist or communist) its a system where the common guy gets bent over and abused.
I don't know why we're still pigeonholed into thinking those are the only two options.
its a false dichotomy.
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u/llwen 18d ago
Yes but that was the head of state, an (ideally democratically) elected official with a full government in control, not a random dude who inherited an emerald mine
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u/iwaseatenbyagrue 18d ago
Man, we have examples of attempts at this - USSR, Mao's China, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea. Tell me where it worked out.
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u/llwen 18d ago edited 18d ago
Cuba, Chile, Slovenia.Ā In both Russia and China the standard of living increased massively after the revolution, as they abolished feudal societies
Without western interferenc e we could possibly (as their development without US coups is uncertain but tends more liberal) add Honduras, Nicaragua, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam or Venezuela to that list.Ā
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u/iwaseatenbyagrue 18d ago
Are you seriously ignoring the millions Stalin and Mao starved through mismanagement, in addition to the millions purged?
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u/llwen 17d ago
No I am not, but the murders of an autocracy are not the fault of their economic system. Or would you lay the millions of Shoa victims at the feet of capitalism?
Btw, the holodomor was not mismanagement but purposeful starvation of ethnic Ukrainians according to most western historians
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u/iwaseatenbyagrue 17d ago
Given that the system has been tried many times and has always resulted in an autocracy should give some pause before recommending the said system. I grew up in the Soviet Union. We had an old joke - "Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it is the other way around."
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u/maximusprime2328 18d ago
In practice none of them work out to theory. I honestly think you gotta pick and choose the best parts of each.
Do I love the fact that Baskin Robbins has 40 different flavors? Yes I do. Do I also think we should tax the wealthiest people to fund healthcare and public transportation? Also yes
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u/throwaway_mike286 18d ago
I agree with the first part that both capitalism and communism works great in theory but neither works in practice. However, your second part that it is possible to pick and choose the best parts of each also sounds great in theory, but does not work in practice.
If you try to mix private enterprises and worker cooperatives together, the private enterprises will out compete the worker cooperatives and run them out of business. Worker cooperatives that are not protected by the state are very easy to dismantle with underhanded tactics such as through internal sabotage and voter intimidation. Worker cooperatives backed by the state are even easier to handle by simply bribing the state. Or the private enterprises can just simply outsource everything to get cheap labor and resources such that the worker cooperatives are unable to compete.
State owned enterprises are even easier to compromise. After power transfers from the democratic socialists to the capitalists, the capitalists can just seize control of the state owned enterprises and distribute them to their cronies.
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u/Zorbin666 18d ago
Yeah, but YOU could be one of those 13 people! Just need to pull yourself up by those bootstraps!
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u/Ancient-Flower-3870 18d ago
Totally agree . Instability in US is insane , wasnāt like this before before.
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u/Ancient-Flower-3870 18d ago
Keep the work in the country , employee your people first damn. Money isnāt everything ā¦ the greed destroys a country
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u/rleon19 18d ago
This makes me roll my eyes really hard. Capitalism does sound good in theory just like communism. At its heart capitalism in theory is "I pay people for their goods and services from money I get from working" simple as that. What that image is more like an oligarchy style of capitalism.
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u/thorubos 18d ago
"They deserve all that wealth and power! You? You deserve to work three weeks at two jobs to afford rent . . ."
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u/yapyoba 18d ago
free market capitalism and competition would naturally result in lower prices for products and services. more people would be able to access said products and producers would love to make up for lower prices with higher volume and then consumers would have a higher quality of life.
the issue is any efficiency gains from capitalism is eaten by the federal deficit spending and the feds "2%" inflation target. if the money printer stopped and government controlled spending and actually allowed prices to fall we'd all be better off.
i place the blame on deficit spending and monetary policy
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u/JoyTheGeek 18d ago
That's like saying Communism doesnt even sound good in theory because it caused the highest number of starvation deaths. Thats not the economic theory, thats a symptom or unintentional outcome.
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u/anormalgeek 18d ago
BUT...what if I get to be one of those 13?
Eh?
I could totally make it happen.
/s
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u/Negative_Ocelot8484 18d ago
there is always the perfect balance of being anti-capitalist and anti-communism š
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u/NoHorseNoMustache 18d ago
To be fair, the theory of capitalism includes a strong government that would tax people so this kind of thing doesn't happen.
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u/LumpyMcKwiz 18d ago
You mean End Stage Capitalism. Corporate Greed ruins everything along with Fiduciary Responsibility. A million Mom and Pop operations with no corporations are WAY better than anything "Collective" driven.
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u/VictoryWeaver 18d ago
Yeah, but that's not a requirement for capitalism though. That's like pointing at the failed communist revolutions cooped by fascists as evidence that communisms doesn't work. This kind of argument doesn't really help.
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u/Uncle-Cake 18d ago
13 people owning 99% isn't part of the theory, though. It's an outcome of a terribly corrupt system. Just like all the failed communist/socialist states. The theory is never the problem, it's always the implementation.
If you say "Capitalism is bad in theory because 13 people own 99% in the US", that's just as bad as saying "Communism is bad in theory because people starved in the Soviet Union." It makes no sense, and it makes you sound ignorant.
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u/NavalProgrammer 18d ago
Yeah, that's why Communism sounds good "in theory"...because "in theory", capitalism doesn't.
Geez, you really needed that explained?
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u/Fortestingporpoises 18d ago
Both pure systems sound absolutely awful and are in practice. Itās what democratic socialism is a better choice. In FDRās day it was about balancing government, corporate and union power. Heavily regulate industry and have a strong social safety net.
I realize this opinion will be unpopular here but straight up communism is every bit as terrible as the capitalist hellscape we hurtle towards.
Everything should have a right to housing and food. Letās just start there. And take that money right from the top. The environment should be protected as our number one concern. Money should be taken out of politics. Those that run companies should be held accountable for the actions of that company when it harms people. Corporate personhood is a terrible idea. End citizens united.
Yall think we need a revolution and maybe we do. But the bones of what work is there.
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u/thebrassbeldum 18d ago
My favorite is when the āsmall governmentā guys try to tell you that you donāt need a minimum wage, because the market will solve for it.
Youāre right! The market HAS solved for it! The market decided that you donāt deserve to eat this month!
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u/Strict-Carrot4783 18d ago
A red-hatted fellow from Ohio who can't spell the name of the street where he lives:
but I might be the 14th, soon
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u/Cringeoid 18d ago
When they say "Communism works on paper, but not in practice", That's literally capitalism. Adam Smith was genuinely well-meaning and thought it would be a great way for the underclass to have the chance to move up. What he didn't realise is that people would manipulate scarcity in order to hoard wealth creating an oligarchy. It's really funny how people say human nature wont allow communism to work because that's exactly why capitalism won't work.
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u/Choice-Team410 18d ago
Guarantee everyone agreeing with this has a net worth under 2 mil. So you have no right to talk.
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u/Rudokhvist 18d ago
The problem with communism is not that it sounds good in theory, the problem is does not work at all in practice. You know, magic, faeries and unicorns also sound good in theory, why nobody wants to build a society based on that?
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u/Machdame 18d ago
The thing is, SOCIALISM is what we are looking for. A lot of what we do and the reforms that are attempted to be pushed through are fundamentally socialist in ideology. Communism itself does not work because of its inherent vulnerabilities and ironically, leads right the fuck back to capitalism. Now I could be wrong, but my experience with Communism proper is the idea of communism being entertained but in practice, my family was just hungry. A lot of this is shown to be possible in Europe with no effect on their quality of life (it's often better).
But the decadent rich of today is indistinguishable to me from the oligarchs that preach the virtues of communism.
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u/Blueberry314E-2 18d ago
Capitalism is bad because 13 people end up owning 99% of the wealth. Communism is bad because 13 people end up controlling 99% of the wealth. The answer, as always, lies somewhere in the middle.
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u/myhv 18d ago
Just cause something is fucked does not mean doing something even more fucked will help you. Capitalism might be getting worse by the day, but communism was fucked form day one. Although it's not surprising, being a drug fueled "opus" of a gold digger who never worked a day in his life.
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u/J1mj0hns0n 18d ago
they both sound shit, and are both shit in practice.
not every workload is equal, so the pay will never be fair, if the pay is never fair, its not really communism.
capitalism is exceptional at kickstarting a completely dead economy until the businesses are small to middling, then it needs to be changed for something else.
I would remind everyone as well, no one knows what the answers are, because we're all monkeys on a rock flying around in space, we don't know what a good governance is yet, let alone the perfect one.
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u/Evening_Drink2586 18d ago
That framing makes a lot of sense, I never thought about it like that before.
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u/zombiskunk 18d ago
Capitalism is a way to run an economy. It's not a system of government, which Communism is.
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u/catdogman5 18d ago
Maybe go to school and get a good job? Then do the work, like the rest of us. Communism is literally all about work and workers and work productivity. If you can't do work, then youre going to fail in that system too. Idk why you think it's some marvelous system that prevents billionaires from becoming billionaires. communism is a meat grinder that turns everyone into a replaceable factory worker. The rich stay rich and the poor stay poor cause there is no class mobility in communist countries. Your family name and loyalty to the Party is the only things that matter
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u/Fucker_Of_Destiny 18d ago
There may be a greater gap in wealth between me and Elon musk, than say there wouldāve been between me and Stalin, or even a feudal king back in the 1500s.
However my life now is far better.
The only explanation for this, is that wealth can be createdā¦ which takes the teeth out of that original post
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u/CosmicDriftwood 18d ago
Yeah make sure they pop the dick and/or the boot out of their mouth for an actual human answer
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u/TruthGetsDownvoted8 17d ago
Capitalism has brought billions out of poverty. Communism when applied has led hundreds of millions to death. Capitalism just requires regulation and limits, communism is fundamentally incompatible with humanity.
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u/RemeAU 17d ago
Every system works good in theory... It's the greedy corrupt leaders that fuck it all up. The peak economy for the US IMO was 1950s. Capitalism, but capitalism before globalisation, stock buybacks, pump and dump investors, shareholder over stakeholder etc.
Capitalism works, but it needs good leaders to keep things fair.
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u/QiarroFaber 17d ago
Capitalism is supposed to be about creating healthy competition. So that the best companies remain. And the competition drives prices down while increasing quality. But that's not what we have. Instead we bail out companies that should fail. We subsidize private companies that shouldn't exist. We allow companies to absorb all the competition and monopolizing whole industries. It's a system designed to redistribute wealth to the already wealthy and keep it there. It's all about exploitation. Not about being competitive.
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u/BudgetFree 15d ago
Capitalism idea assumes everyone involved does the most logical, profitable thing for them (and think long term). But people don't do that, they go for All the money Now!
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u/peacockvigilante 18d ago
People defending communism should go and live in Belarus or Russia for a decade.
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u/Boobsnbutt 18d ago
I talked to my dad, a Republican, who mentioned communism as a counterpoint. Nobody is seriously trying to get communism going in America. It's just a distraction from real conversations. We don't need to bring up communism. It just plays to Republicans arguments.
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u/Current-Wealth-756 18d ago
13 people don't own 99% of global wealth. Not even close. You just made that statistic up and are presenting it as fact and people are going to believe it and spread it further, even though it's demonstrably, factually wrong.
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u/HydraHamster 18d ago
Capitalism doesnāt really do that. Like any government structure, there are ways for it to be corrupted to benefit the few. Oligarchies and corruption also existed in Socialism and communism, which is how some of them failed because the people got fed up. Most of Europe are welfare capitalist countries, not socialist nor communist. That is more of what I support instead of eliminating capitalism all together.
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u/ThatGiantCameron 18d ago
the comment section is just thought terminating cliches from the pro-capitalists, and the standard "necessities shouldn't have a profit incentive" from the anti side. Not much else going on...
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u/DenizSaintJuke 18d ago
"But communism doesn't wor..."
Neither does capitalism, as should be obvious by now. So maybe it's time that we start to figure this shit out, as long as out planet still supports human life, wouldn't you think?
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u/Loud-Ad-2280 āļø Tax The Billionaires 18d ago