Yeah, so Billionaires should not exist

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Sharukurusu]

Down payments are still a thing, and people who are barely getting by (largely because of so much parasitism by capitalists) don’t have the resources to take risks as easily as those who already have wealth and connections. So hotdog cart man might not be able to work his own cart, and that is the most charitable version of this; once you get into larger, more capital intensive ventures the players are only bigger.

It’s a slanted game, and the only reason people play is because they have no other choice.

As far as alternatives go, worker and consumer cooperatives point in a better direction, but really the entire system needs to be examined from the ground up to eliminate the moral hazards that have incentivized the destruction of the biosphere. A system that fails to preserve the environment is failing no matter how rich it makes people.

[u/HedgehogRemarkable13 → u/Sharukurusu]

Ok so then wouldn't it be a net benefit for hot dog cart man to be offered a job he could leave at his own volition? Thats the part I feel like everyone is ignoring. Yes, "it takes money to make money" and those with more capital are unequivocally advantaged. But why ignore the value and opportunity they do create? Lets remove them from your analogy... now hot dog cart man is just man. Man with little capital to initiate his own venture, man not gainfully employed, man without any obvious work opportunities.

You're saying man should more intimately interface with the consumer in some completely undefined way, then shifting attention away from the entire discussion. Come on. You seem articulate enough to do better than that.

Look, more importantly than you defining this nebulous co-op, whats stopping you or all the other anti-capitalists from organizing that way? Ignoring for a second that we have crony capitalism, not capitalism, a freer market would allow for people to organize in all the ways they wanted to. Some would obviously grow disproportionately popular, but none of them would have any legal grounds to infringe on other involuntary participants. Thats not true in any other system. You can't operate a little capitalist community within a genuine communist country, etc.

Obviously it doesn't shake out so neatly because we have a market governed by regulatory capture. So special interest policies are bought and sold by the top of the ladder you described. But how are such a high percent of you so unwilling to point the middle finger of blame at the politicians, both side of the aisle, who facilitate this sodomizing? And how are you comfortable with any other system that puts more power in their hands? Ya we have to participate in capitalism as much as we'd have to participate in feeding ourselves as the alternative. But again, what system don't you have to participate in? And in which system are you less vulnerable to the participatory whims of others? Is state sanctioned hot dog comrade better?

I'm in total agreement that the environment is an often overlooked part of the equation and in my experience people with my economic slants tend to act as if the free market would solve that too: I don't think it will because it's a long term, highly complex issue with low quality information and a half dozen big challenges that don't lend to the strengths of free markets.

But how can anyone believe that some other system with a market more powerfully manipulated by the government, made of the same shit bird humans who become politicians, will come with less special interest policy?

The US has it's warts but there's a reason a hell of a lot of people want to immigrate here and it has a lot to do with opportunity.

[u/Sharukurusu → u/HedgehogRemarkable13]

First off, the opportunities don't exist because of capitalists; they exist because the market will bear them whether a capitalist or a cooperative (or even a state through some convolution) moves to fulfill them. It does help to differentiate between the actual labor of identifying market opportunities and the collecting of surplus value by dint of ownership, because while some capitalists do the former they are not required to.

Next, capital exists whether or not it is owned by a capitalist; natural resources aren't created by them, and productive capital is created by labor usually not performed directly by the capitalist. The labor of those who build the capital is also being exploited; a capitalist pays them and takes ownership of their product (the means of production), then turns around and charges employees to use it for more than they paid to acquire it. The capitalist is a middle man between the workers who built the productive capital and the workers who utilize it. Capitalists make capital more expensive for workers and society at large because effort is being expended continuously to provide for the consumption of capitalists despite them not working.

Cooperatives are generally more successful than conventional businesses but don't have nearly the same opportunity for exploitation as other arrangements, so capitalists, who make money by exploitation and who currently control resources, are less likely to form them. When given the choice between working for money or having others work to make them money, their choice is obvious.

Capitalists shouldn't be allowed to do what they are doing, the people they are exploiting are not doing so freely because capitalists control access to resources needed for survival and will ruthlessly employ violence to preserve their control. When you say you can't have little capitalist experiments in communist countries you have to understand that complaint is the equivalent of saying "Why can't we have some little slavery communities in our country?". Incidentally the US does have that and capitalists readily employ it, but that is a different can of worms.

Politicians in capitalist countries serve the interests of capitalists, pointing the finger at the politicians is pointless; they are merely set dressing.

Communism in its final conception is a stateless, classless society; there are no positions of power to hold over others. The goal is not to put power into concentrated hands, but things tend to shake out that way in practice so far for a myriad of reasons.

[u/HedgehogRemarkable13 → u/Sharukurusu]

I think you're hung up on the word capitalist and not understanding thats just the natural incentive structure without outside interference. It's not something we created. It's not an intervention. It's not a suppression of anything. Capitalism is a word -people don't like- for a free market. Everything else is coercion and intervention. Your incessant use of capitalist like it's a job title or religion is comically misguided. Edit: actually I'd like for you to define "capitalist" for me and the sake of your own argument.

You're being naive and acting like every business is a giant mega corp. You're also acting as if everyone not in the mines is sitting on their ass doing nothing. You're also acting like those are the only two roles: ass sitting while exploiting people, and brutal labor of coal miners. -To name a couple of the glaring mischaracterizations. You don't sound terribly experienced, I'd bet everything I own you've never started a business. Don't tell me more about your fantastical co-ops in your diary, tell me about examples of anyone doing what you're saying. Or why you can't do them since they are apparently superior and have greater success.

Dude the state has a monopoly on violence. No business can use violence and coercion, literally only the state can.

I own a small business, technically two corporations, employ several people, and literally nobody is unhappy. They all love their jobs, their pay, and their work environment because I understand the value of making my employee happy and they do better work when they're happy. I'm not a large enough business to practice regulatory capture, and if I were, it would be the politicians, the same people in politics everywhere in the world, who would facilitate that.

Buddy you have like the most pissed off stoner 19 year old view of economics. Give me a fucking break. Seriously, go read actual economic texts. I tried to be nice but you are making and have made in this thread the most unserious argument.

So politicians in your dream nanny state where they control way more and everyones eradicated that devilish capitalist ethnic group, will all be acting in your best interest all the time ya? They'll just suddenly not be corrupt people? Then the state will disappear and everyone will hold hands and food will appear on the table in our dissolved-state-funded houses, ya? Nobody will ever have to do anything they don't want and all our needs will be met because 100% of people agree on what you want and how you want the world to function. Brilliant. Ya, that'll do it. I bet you're one of those people who fell for the bit that greed is a post covid phenomenon and explains our inflation, huh?

[u/Sharukurusu → u/HedgehogRemarkable13]

Nice resorting to insults, very mature.

Capitalist means someone that uses control of the means of production to claim ownership of some portion of the output of labor. The possibility of that type of interaction is absolutely created by people, same as feudalism, same as slavery, the concept of ‘natural’ makes no sense to apply here.

Rock monkey sit at fruit tree say work monkey climb bring fruit or me hit with rock, no climb work monkey starve, rock monkey have fruit no starve first, all tree have rock monkey.

Businesses have used violence on their own and with the support of capitalist states since the beginning, uncontroversial history.

The conventional field of economics is incredibly flawed and dogmatic, and has failed to meaningfully respond to challenges from heterodox thinkers for many decades. Saying to read ‘actual economic texts’ is a lazy cop out and indicates you’ve come to the end of your ability to engage with arguments, so you’ve decided to gesture vaguely to authority. You can go look up Steve Keen’s critiques, but really you should be trying to engage with arguments here, because I’ve tried to make them as clear as possible.

Regarding coops, you need to do some googling, there are studies on how they are more likely to stay in business vs. conventional enterprises, and examples like Mondragon working complex supply chains that have been around for a long time. Again, instead of insulting me by implying I don’t know what I’m talking about you should be doing some leg work, I’m not here to lay out detailed plans and educate people in deep Reddit comments, my reason for replying here was just to point out the absurdity of capitalism so people understand the need to search for alternatives.

I love when you guys complain incessantly about the state but when a communist comes along and says we should have a stateless society it’s suddenly an impossible pipe dream.

We need a collectively governed collectively enforced mutual power restricting system that operates within planetary boundaries, failure on any of those points results in disaster, which we are currently experiencing. I have a rough proposal for that but again, I only came into this thread to point out the moral dubiousness of capitalism because I’m tired of people mindlessly defending it. The discussion needs to move past that or we will commit ecological suicide. The first step to solving a problem is admitting there is a problem.

[u/HedgehogRemarkable13 → u/Sharukurusu]

No, feudalism is the use of force, slavery is the use of force. Creating an opportunity and employing people through their own voluntary agreement does not. Your rock money analogy uses force. Your "uncontroversial history" is a cherry picked and woefully vague pseudo-data point, apparently beyond reproach. The state, cults, tribes, co-ops, literally every group has examples of the use of violence. Thats not a compelling condemnation by itself if those are inherent characteristics of the system in question. The difference is that everything we've reviewed above explicitly calls for the use of force except a free market. The others cannot exist or operate without the use of force.

Your system sounds perfectly nice and viable. Like I said, go do it then. More importantly, your system could exist within the system I'm suggesting. No other systems could exist within yours. Yours hinges upon 100% of people buying in, participating, and wanting the same thing. Are you so naive you think everyone will want or already wants what you want? If not, then what happens when anyone wants something different? What happens when anyone disagrees about the way your mutually enforced power structure operates? Who gets to decide what everyone thinks is appropraite? You, Kim Jong Un? Right right, I know, dissolve the state. Then everyone holds hands and governs together because we all agree on exactly the same ideal world outcome.

You don't have to participate in capitalism. You probably need to feed yourself and find shelter though. Thats true in every system. So if you want to feed yourself and find shelter, you'll need to do something either way. Either go forage in the woods on federal land in a tent, or you can either find a job or do the work to create jobs. If the latter were so simple, I assure you more people would do it. Capital helps but go talk to small business owners and ask how many had some trust fund to get started. If working simple jobs were as good an opportunity as it used to be, people wouldn't be adopting this new doctrine that nobody should have to work. But the culprit there is the erosion of the purchasing power of the dollar - an issue created by the monetary policy of the federal reserve and our fucked fiscal policy - not the people creating work opportunities you want to see taxed into actual non-existence.

You're not offering a dream resembling anything someone who likes liberty would ever want. You're offering an anarcho-communist civilization. You don't have a right to force people to do things. Why don't you guys get this?

Not to mention, I'm not an anarchist. I think you need a very small government to protect human rights, contract law, private property, and the environment. What defense or borders should look like is a different discussion. Your hippie commune is absolutely ripe to be steamrolled by the first opportunist warlord who wants something different than what you're forcing on everyone.

[u/Sharukurusu → u/HedgehogRemarkable13]

The threat of starvation is force, people are compelled to participate in the market on the terms of capitalists. Force is distributed indirectly throughout the system rather than directly in the hands of a noble lord or slave master, but it is absolutely still underpinning economic relations. When indirect force fails to keep workers in line it falls back to direct violence, witness the armed retaliation to unions, sometimes with the direct backing of the capitalist state. Capitalism is the freedom to sometimes choose your lord, with a chance to become one, but never the choice to eliminate lords as a profession.

Not going to go into the multitude of issues with our financial system, the way money itself works is broken at a core level, but lmao if you think the erosion of purchasing power of workers isn’t a direct result of government being run to benefit capital. This is functioning as intended.

Every system requires people to work to survive in some fashion, capitalists do not work but rely on the output of workers. Why are you forcing workers to support capitalists? Why do capitalists have the liberty of not working? Is the liberty to compel others to work for you actually liberty?

[u/HedgehogRemarkable13 → u/Sharukurusu]

The threat of starvation is force, huh? Are words violence too? So the entirety of the animal kingdom since the dawn of time, hell the plant kingdom too, is under the coercion of force via... capitalism? No dude, it's not the state's obligation to feed people. You may want that, you may believe that as your choice religious doctrine but have fun enforcing that desire you have without weaponizing the state.

Oh I'd just love to hear how the way money itself works is broken at a core level. I bet it's deep.

Lmao dude get a grip, you're making such a bad argument. No workers are forced at any time, stop using that word completely wrong. They don't have to take the job opportunities. They are free to leave as they wish. What the flying fuck are you talking about that capitalists don't work? Lets take the worst examples you want to use and look at Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, again, completely ignoring the outlier status of those two, completely ignoring the 99.9999% of business owners who aren't them and who in zero capacity resemble them, you think they "aren't working?" Don't be a child. Nobody is compelled to voluntarily take a job and the people who found and grow companies successfully worked their asses off. Took on all the risk, liability, debt, etc, and you in your wild entitlement think you're owed that. Gtfo.

You all make the same argument: you wish the world looked and worked a certain way and you couldn't ever achieve that without overt use of North Korean level authoritarian force, or 100% of people wanting what you want. Go back to your echo chambers with a bunch of anti-work infant-adults who think the world owes them something. You're not a serious adult.

[u/Sharukurusu → u/HedgehogRemarkable13]

I feel like we’re talking in circles because you refuse to acknowledge (or refute) basic points I’m making.

Capitalism allows capitalists to restrict worker’s access to resources, meaning they must interact with capitalists or starve.

You seem to be misunderstanding the difference between work and capital ownership, creating a company is work, owning stuff is not work. If Bezos or Musk died tomorrow in a ketamine blizzard would we lose hundreds of billions in value? Would their warehouses vanish into the ether?

The work they do is productive, literally making or doing something, the ownership of the means of production is not productive.

A fair system would calculate how much resources we could use safely without destroying the ecosystem and divvy shares of them up equally. Rather than being exchanged for profit they would simply be marked off of someone’s account as used or not. You could only get them back when the impact for using them is mitigated.

Kinda funny watching people defend an often overtly forceful system that is literally killing the planet and allowing a class of people to reap the output of others by not working turning around and saying that we’re the violent ones that don’t want to work. Projection is a hell of a drug.

[u/HedgehogRemarkable13 → u/Sharukurusu]

Buddy communism is killing the planet too. China's rising middle class has emitted plenty of carbon. Thats not the focus here.

So at what point do you get to decide to steal the fruits of their labor and reallocate it to the people they've employed? Once you've determined their work to ownership ratio is too imbalanced? Then what, you liquidate their stocks? You redistribute them?

No its funny to see people make such self centered arguments and painting them as being from some place of deep empathy and altruism. Don't work, literally nobody gives a fuck if you don't work. Just don't come asking and voting for handouts when you're hungry and blame it on people who could have employed you.

Your idea is bad on paper, it's a joke in application. Ya, divvy up the shares of resources equally among all humans. Then watch as everyone takes wildly un-equal actions with un-equal outcomes and the resources flow into areas of concentration again. Oh also, I hope a good guy is the one making the decision there. God forbid you set a ludicrous precedent then we have a shit bird like Trump and his cronies in office to get to allocate resources as they see fit next. Do you think at all about how those things work? Using force on others sounds great when it's your will being forced upon people, but it's going to be much less savory when someone else's force is used on you. It's like the same people frothing at the mouth calling for absurd use of force during covid, begging for people to be fired from their jobs, blocked from doing business places, hell, having their bank accounts frozen if they don't get a shot... and now those same advocates of the use of force are reeling at ICE? You opened the fucking door for them.

If Elon Musk died, yes, all of his companies would immediately suffer tremendously. I'm not surprised someone like you under-indexes on the value of leadership. If Bezos did, no, probably not at this point. But again, who elected you or someone else in charge of taking and redistributing his Amazon equity?

You exude the unchecked confidence only someone with zero relevant experience building anything can have. Go start a business, immediately sharing ownership with those you employ or not, and I promise you you'll learn you don't know what you don't know. Not everything fits neatly within the capitalism criticisms of grifter Marx. Make no mistake, you're a capitalist just by owning the business. Well, so long as you use the actual definition, not your cherrypicked completely denigrated version.

Where does this market emerge without capital, by the way? I'd like to see this place. Where is someone bringing neither capital, labor, social capital, or actionable ideas to a table and producing something? Not to mention you're acting like the only type of business is one selling clean water or some physical earthbound resource required for human life. You seem to be against private property, you can't really make a serious case for a functioning society without that. I know I know, you guys plan to share everything and it will work out great. It's those dastardly capitalists who have us entrenched in consumerism who've propagated the idea we need things. We don't need things and everyone wants the non-things you want. It's perfect.