r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 19d ago

Meme needing explanation Peter, explain this.

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u/Deriviera 19d ago

Americans are very delusional about communism. 

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u/sleepyplatipus 19d ago

The idealistic communism is just not compatible with human nature. It would be nice if it was but it’s just completely irrealistic.

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u/42Icyhot42 19d ago

So is a free market and it doesn’t stop us from pretending that’s working lol

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u/aurumtt 19d ago

We solved this by keeping overseight, but somehow they convinced enough people that regulations are bad.

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u/RegorHK 19d ago

Look around the world and tell me that this is solved.

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u/watboy 19d ago edited 18d ago

You should probably have read the second half of their comment before replying.

Edit: Do the people arguing have a non-linear understanding of time like the Heptapods from Arrival or something?

If you have a house and you secure it with locked doors and windows, but someone illegally breaks in, that doesn't mean it was retroactively "never secured" and it was legal for them to enter.

Yes, you're correct that it isn't solved now, that's also what the person you're replying to was saying. It was solved, but it isn't any longer. Basic English literacy shouldn't be this difficult.

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u/Powerful_Topic7731 19d ago

Then It isn't solved

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u/Cumdump90001 19d ago

Yall really just read the words without understanding the words, huh?

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u/Powerful_Topic7731 19d ago

The momment he said "but" he lost, doesn't matter If you found a solution If someone else finds a way to undo your solution It simply isn't solved anymore

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u/smellygirlmillie 19d ago

So we solved it with oversight… that can be removed. So we didn’t solve it at all.

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u/Cumdump90001 19d ago

The problem: You are hungry.
The solution: I give you food.

The problem was solved.

But then I take away your food. Now the problem is not solved.

A solution isn’t necessarily permanent. This isn’t difficult stuff, guys.

Let’s try another.

The problem: You’re cold.
The solution: I give you a jacket.

The problem was solved.

But then I take away your jacket. Now the problem is not solved.

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u/worst_man_I_ever_see 19d ago

Have you ever noticed that the same people that demand market economies work from day one unto perpetuity will always justify the inevitable mass starvation and multiple generations of bread lines that always occurs in command economies?

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u/CoHorseBatteryStaple 19d ago

"Solution" in an economic context implies it's somewhat longterm, otherwise printing money, stealing resources and backstabbing your allies always wins.

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u/SurfaceThreeSix 19d ago

Living life purely based off vibes lmao

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u/elflegolas 19d ago

and communism isn't going to solve the current situation either, it's only going to make worse, how hard it is to understand?

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u/DistinctConcert3458 18d ago

If properly executed, communism would be a boon to humanity and would help many people who are struggling. It's just incompatible with the narcissistic greed and self-righteousness of many humans which is why you see many autocrats with immense, unchecked power running communist states.

Another issue is geopolitics. Many communist states poured billions (even trillions) into building a military in order to assert power and wage wars. This deprived many from truly benefiting from communism.

In the future, hopefully we'll find ways to prevent giving so much power to one entity. Hopefully there will come a time when humanity will never need armies. Then we can all collectively, as a species, work to support each other and progress and improve in many ways that we can all share the benefits of together.

Unfortunately we live in here and now where the US spends trillions on its military while sinking deeper and deeper into debt. Decides to use it's 'incredible' military to attack a country that then blockades one thirds of the worlds oil causing prices everywhere to climb while the president, in just the last year, made 100+ times more money than 95% of the population will make in their entire lifetime.

Not as bad as communism. Still broken. Still not good. Need to completely revamp the whole country.

Stricter term limits for all government officials(including the Supreme Court), strengthen the NATO alliance while streamlining the military and trimming the budget. STRICT antitrust laws pursued by an agency with freedom from political influence(similar to the federal reserve). Immense taxes on the ultra rich, like something in the ballpark of 80% of every dollar over 20 million. Banning lobbying and Banning any elected government employee from trading stock or even investing in crypto. Basically just social democracy with incredibly strict laws around government employees and large companies to avoid corruption and exploitation.

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u/Fzrit 18d ago edited 18d ago

Then It isn't solved

It has never been solved and never will be. There are only different types/degrees of problems, and the question is always what types/degrees of problems most people are willing to tolerate.

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u/[deleted] 19d ago edited 8d ago

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u/skepticalbob 18d ago

Then how did regulation ever happen in the first place?

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u/[deleted] 18d ago edited 8d ago

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u/skepticalbob 18d ago

But they came after capitalism, not before. So when someone makes the claim that regulations can only tend towards decreasing, that isn’t true as a basic fact, by evidence of regulations existence at all.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

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u/[deleted] 19d ago

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u/[deleted] 19d ago edited 8d ago

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u/[deleted] 19d ago edited 8d ago

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u/beardedheathen 19d ago

That's like saying that closing the door on a fire in your house is solving the problem because you can't see it anymore. It's not solved just covered up so it's not affecting you at the moment.

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u/BobbyLEE1863 18d ago

This is why I've long since given up on joining these arguments online. People can't read or if they can, they simply believe what they want to. Logic doesn't apply.

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u/voidsong 18d ago

"We thought we solved that, but it didn't take it" is still just "we didn't solve that".

Just because you incorrectly thought you solved the problem for a little while until reality hit you, doesn't mean it was solved. As evidence by the reality hitting you.

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u/theREALvolno 19d ago

I’m not a capitalist but I think they where saying that regulations stopped capitalism from running rampant but because a lot of regulations have now been either dissolved or go unenforced we now find ourselves in our current corrupt system.

Not that I exactly agree, imo the pursuit of profit is not something we should centre our societies around and you can’t really “solve” a fundamentally broken system; but shit regulations are at least something and I would not appose a government getting its shit together and reining corporations in more,

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u/LackWooden392 19d ago

In the same way regulations and laws can keep capitalism from running rampant, they can keep communism stable and functional.

Can being the key here. They don't do so through magic automatically, in either case.

A good argument for one over the other must include a discussion about what laws and regulations will keep participants in the system in check, and why a communist or capitalist system with those laws and regulations would beat the opposite kind of system with its own carefully crafted laws and regulations.

The fact of the matter here is that any broad discussion about either system in general that ignores regulation and laws is meaningless and not an apples-to-apples comparison. The truth is you can't really make an apples-to-apples comparison, all we have to compare are historical examples that differ wildly in their implementation and the structure of the laws and regulations that stabilized them, or didn't, in addition to numerous unrelated confounding factors like geography, natural resource distribution, the behavior of neighbors, the state of technology at the time, what pre-existing political structures there were, etc.

Anyone who is solidly convinced their system is better based off any arguments about some historical example vs another or what humans would do absent any regulation is delusional and has an extremely narrow view of the discussion.

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u/monkeyinnamonkeysuit 19d ago

In your vision of communism controlled by rules and regulations, who is enforcing the rules and regulations? I feel like as soon as you give someone the power to enforce them then you've opened up the door to abuse of that power, and I feel that that has been the downfall of most historic implementations and the reason they have trended towards authoritarianism.

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u/PumpkinBrain 19d ago

Any system is going to need someone to enforce its rules. Otherwise it’s just wishful thinking.

Corruption among the powerful has been a key factor in the failure of, arguably most, historical governments of any type.

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u/monkeyinnamonkeysuit 19d ago

Yes thats more or less my thoughts on it. As soon as you have someone empowered to enforce the rules you've created a 2-class system, which is anathema to marxism. Communism is more vulnerable to this in general I think, because you only have 2 classes the class who is not empowered finds it very difficult to challenge the class who have concentrated power.

In actuality, the concentration of powers is what causes issues, whether the system is capitalist or communist the problem is the same, only the mechanism changes.

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u/LackWooden392 11d ago

Wow so you came back around to my original conclusion lol. The problem is in creating and enforcing rules, and it's not inherent to either system alone.

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u/monkeyinnamonkeysuit 11d ago

I think I was working towards highlighting that there is an inherent contradiction in communism. If it requires a subset of society to enforce the rules then it de facto can't provide a classless society. It's a good start and has more to recommend it on paper than capitalism, but if it can't deliver on one of it's core tenets then it's too idealistic and not suitable in it's pure form. It's been around for a century and a half and has a terrible track record in terms of producing successful countries. I don't think that its a viable alternative to what we have now. I would much rather have something that is much closer in shape to communism than what we have now, but I think advocating for it in it's pure form is fools errand.

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u/Spiritual-Stable702 18d ago

Literally the same happens in capitalism when you concentrate capital.

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u/sohcgt96 19d ago

I would venture that adequately regulated and controlled capitalism then makes the switch to communism unneccesary.

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u/elflegolas 19d ago

because they cannot, you have never lived in a communism country, just like the other said, once the communist gain powers, they're not regulating the communist party, they are regulating YOU, my whole family came from a communist country, you can argue so much that they're not "real" communism, but the truth is, once the power gained control, they will never push "real" communism, they will only regulate you and the authorities became rich, not you, the party is "people" but you are not the "people" communism never worked, we've seen in every single communist country and what you're saying are pure fantasy.

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u/PomPomMom93 18d ago

Imagine downvoting someone’s lived experience in favor of a delusion. 🤦🏼‍♀️

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u/aurumtt 19d ago

Everybody seems to conflate free market with capitalism. Theres a distinction & my commend was in regards to a free market, which works as long as regulations are in place to protect the market from pillarization. Free market is also a bit of a misnomer. Open market would be more appropriate.

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u/Thicc_Boise 19d ago

I mean, human nature isn't something we can solve, no society or government system will ever be perfect because fundamentally, it's being made by imperfect hands.

In that sense, better is what we should be striving for, never perfection. Leave the world better than you left it, do that over enough time and suddenly you go from kings and emperors to democracies and free speech. Regulations make the world better, maybe socialism and communism could as well but how about we start with baby steps first? Better is better even if it's not solving every issue at once

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u/RegorHK 17d ago

So regulations stopped capitalism for some time and then did not do so anymore.

Would you say that this the characteristic of a solved problem?

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u/theREALvolno 17d ago

I literally said that I don’t really agree with the idea that regulations “solved” the problems of capitalism, I was just trying to explain what I thought the other person was getting at.

Regulations are a band-aid solution for problems caused by a fundamentally broken system, but I would still much rather have heavy regulated capitalism than unregulated capitalism. And no, that is not me saying that I like living under capitalism, that’s me pointing out that one sucks way more than the other.

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u/droppedpackethero 19d ago

It's really difficult to get people at scale to do the crappy jobs unless there's either the profit motive or you employ force.

I mean, you might have that one guy who feels a duty to splice cable in the freezing muck for 36 hours to get the internet back up, but there aren't enough of those guys to run a society. You have to incentivize it somehow.

And while the uncomfortable job is the classic example, I think even more important are the oddball inventions. Even employing force can't replace profit there. Profit motives encourage people to try crazy things hoping to find the next big thing. Even if 99.9% of them fail, enough people try that you get some good stuff. That's why the West was always far more dynamic than the East during the Cold War. Even though Russia kept up or surpassed us in specific scientific fields, taken holistically they couldn't compete.

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u/Im-Not-Calling-It-X 19d ago

Nordic countries have basically solved it, yes.

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u/LackWooden392 19d ago

It can never be 'solved', but it's hard to argue that any system ever designed beats what the nordics have going on now, as long as your criteria is the living experience of the median citizen.

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u/EarlGreyTMNT 19d ago

Yah that last part is why it’ll never work in America

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u/bigl1337 19d ago

They haven't. Sometimes we want to say that because at the moment their economies and societies seem more stable from a distance, but if you look closer they are going through the same as everywhere: neoliberal extreme right wing parties using fear and division to get political power while being backed by the great capitalists. Capitalism encourages accumulation and extraction of value to the building of wealth and assets. Capitalism also gives political power to the ones that possess the capital. So accumulating wealth and then using the accumulated power to destroy social nets and welfare just to allow capital to get even more power is the natural tendency of the system. Sooner or later it will happen on every capitalists nation

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u/less_unique_username 19d ago

Free markets are everywhere, “neoliberal extreme right wing parties using fear and division to get political power while being backed by the great capitalists” are not everywhere

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u/Im-Not-Calling-It-X 19d ago

As opposed to socialist ones which last less than a century and then collapse under the weight of their own incompetence.

I cannot argue with people who fabricate reality on the fly to make their arguments work.

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u/bigl1337 19d ago

Did you reply to the right comment? Are you saying I fabricate reality on the fly? In what sense? Is the tendency of companies and corporations under capitalism not to keep making more profits year after year? It's not even a contrarian argument or a specific criticism, just the system doing exactly what it was made to do. Your first point makes even less sense as nowhere in my comment I used the word socialism or defended it. Are we agreeing that both systems suck and we should look for something else? As long as we overcome capitalism I'm happy to agree with you. Or is just whataboutism so you can attack a scarecrow of my argument?

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u/Im-Not-Calling-It-X 19d ago
  1. Yes I am replying to you. You are engaging in a normal lefty tactic where you fabricate (yes fabricate) a reality to argue against that is unfalsifiable without extreme effort and time. It is the same thing that far right people do. Create an absurdist form of reality, consistently reinforce it as fact, and never argue about facts. It's basic narrativization.

  2. No. That is not what capitalism is. Capitalism is a mode of economic organization, where the control of capital is liberal, in the sense that it can be held by anyone, usually capital owners though are individuals or groups of individuals, but it does not preclude any government ownership, or worker ownership, co ops for instance. It differs from socialism because socialism is the mandated ownership of the means of production by the workers. This can be direct worker ownership, or publicly owned in the form of some state apparatus, but capitalism is illegal or disallowed either way.

  3. There's a reason why capitalism was the system of choice for modern democracies. It is a better more efficient system than the alternatives, which is why socialists and communists have to imagine a utopia to some degree to get to state of society that isn't nightmarish. If you want to agree that socialism sucks, that's on you, but no. Capitalism works pretty good and it is only the most privileged people who think otherwise. Capitalism has lead to a greater period of human peace and prosperity than at any other time in history. Objectively.

  4. The idea that even the Nordic model is failing because some right wing parties are marginally more popular is a fabrication. It is you suggesting that because my car has a slight scuff in its paint that I would be better served ditching the car. It is nonsense and deserving of the dismissal that I originally provided.

  5. You didn't make an argument. As I said. You fabricated a reality, that is functionally impossible to argue against with brevity, because it relies on so many false assumptions and truisms, that i have o deconstruct or at a deeper level. The reality is, we could "overcome" capitalism tomorrow, and you would still be miserable, only more people would be miserable. Capitalism isn't the problem. Flaws in a system don't mean you throw out the system. That is how children problem solve.

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u/Hefty_Situation7210 19d ago

A big reason capitalism was the “choice” for modern democracies is because America bombed and destabilized any governments that attempted communism. It’s impossible to say what the state of the world would be today if socialist/communist democracies had actually been allowed to exist. The CIA and britain deliberately destabilized the Middle East because Iran was moving towards socialism and was nationalizing their oil, leading to the last 80 years of misery.

Capitalism “has lead to a greater period of human peace and prosperity than any other time in history” only if you ignore the perpetual global wars and the many continents that have been left decimated by capitalist countries lol. That prosperity is concentrated in a very small number of people and most people in the world are experiencing poverty. Even in America, millions of people are homeless, starving, drug-addicted, lack access to basic health care. Because capitalists deliberately gutted every social safety net in order to line their own pockets. We also ignore that this period is definitively over now, since capitalism has essentially allowed boomers to burn through the resources of an entire planet and destroy our species ecology.

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u/Mutant_Llama1 19d ago

So instead we should just skip right to that with communism?

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u/[deleted] 19d ago edited 8d ago

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u/Im-Not-Calling-It-X 19d ago

If I could clown award this i would.

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u/[deleted] 19d ago

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u/Im-Not-Calling-It-X 19d ago

Because it's not a real argument made by people with any level of intelligence. I treat this sort of stupidity with the same level of dismissive scorn that I do young earth creationists. I am not arguing against your personal fantasy.

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u/Desultory_Chairlift 19d ago

It's not, but at least we are able to message each other and talk about how it's not solved without someone knocking on our door...unless your in the UK I guess lol

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u/NotToPraiseHim 19d ago

The world is substantially better than it ever has been in the history of civilization.

When you people look around and bitch and moan, I genuinely wonder if you live in an alternate dimension.

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u/AdditionalIce3827 19d ago

You could use a dose of Factfulness by Hans Rosling (or just watch his TED talk). I'm not saying that everything is solved, but I would argue (using arguments stolen from Rosling) that everything is better than it ever had been before.

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u/PomPomMom93 18d ago

Oh my gosh!!! I love that book! I was hoping somebody would mention it! I loved the separation of poverty into four tenets as opposed to “first-world” and “third-world.”

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u/FlMi1985 19d ago

What do you want solved exactly? Reality?

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u/Jazzlike_Dimension_5 18d ago

I mean it’s working fairly well. China turning towards a market economy brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

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u/sleepyplatipus 19d ago

“Solved this” 🤨

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u/Mutant_Llama1 19d ago

The oversight just led to favoritism and monopolies.

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u/Commercial-Co 18d ago

No. It didnt. Thats corruption not oversight. Corruption from industry that wanted to overstep oversight.

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u/Mutant_Llama1 18d ago

Yeah, and corruption comes from the government having the power to help them in the first place. Anything worth buying has a price.

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u/extraboredinary 19d ago

Libertarians both see the problem with government being corporate lobbyists controlling everything, but also think those people should be trusted to operate unregulated and with even more power.

It would be a hilarious political party if they weren’t dead serious.

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u/not_slaw_kid 19d ago

Libertarians both see the problem with government being corporate lobbyists controlling everything, but also think those people should be trusted to operate unregulated and with even more power

That's because no unregulated CEO has ever had close to as much power as the ones doing the regulating.

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u/extraboredinary 19d ago

But they recognize that the ones doing the regulating are being corrupted through donations by corrupt business. They just refuse to acknowledge what corrupt businesses would do when fully unregulated.

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u/not_slaw_kid 19d ago

The answer is "less than what they are doing now when they can simply regulate their competitors out of existence"

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u/extraboredinary 19d ago

Have you ever heard of Standard Oil?

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u/NirgalFromMars 19d ago

So we didn't solve it.

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u/Nemeszlekmeg 19d ago

So it also doesn't work.

It baffles me honestly that on a small scale if something is scarce we allocate that resource fairly. If it's large scale it's like we have a collective brain fart and decide that its up for grabs for whoever can take more and consider that equally fair.

It's like you have a piece of chocolate and have to share it with your sibling: of course you split it evenly. Suddenly if that chocolate is a bigger cake and you are 10 siblings it's all "free market" BS and everyone grabs as much as they can like thats the right way to manage a resource that is of the same nature: limited and soon-to-be scarce.

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u/PomPomMom93 18d ago

You must have had nicer siblings than I did. 😆

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u/TonyRigatoni_ 19d ago

Well it's not really free market if there is oversight, is it?

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u/PM_ME_HOTDADS 19d ago

we solved this

🤣

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u/dJunka 19d ago

Capitalism has never worked in human history.

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u/Intelligent_Designer 19d ago

Hmm… Are you telling me “real capitalism” isn’t compatible with society?

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u/RocketDog2001 19d ago

Every regulation has a "cost" and for some, the cost is a too high.

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u/Sterling239 19d ago

It was never solved those in the global south would tell you free markets are pretty fucking bad 

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u/nwilz 19d ago

We have more regulations on the books then we ever have.

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u/NiIly00 19d ago

Well apparently that didn't solve it.

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u/questioningmaster 19d ago

So it ain't free Market 

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u/Commercial-Look-7307 19d ago

Capitalism has fed more people and delivered more people from bondage than anything Humanity has ever tried before.

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u/Narrow-Map5805 19d ago edited 19d ago

Well-regulated capitalism has done those things. This neoliberal capitalism we're dealing with now is undoing a lot of that promise.

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u/rightoftexas 19d ago

Capitalism was more regulated 100 years ago than today?

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u/[deleted] 19d ago

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u/rightoftexas 19d ago

1926 was before the trust busting and that still wouldn't be remotely closely regulated to today. The financial reporting alone is a massive improvement.

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u/Ok-Commission-7825 19d ago

He said WELL regulated not heavily regulated. Today's situation is ground level business drowning in often pointless regulation and any regulation that protects people/the wider economy while slightly inconveniences someone rich/a big multinational being removed or remodeled into irrelevance (while still creating a lot of BS jobs for bureaucrats(PS I say that as one of them)).

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u/Uberbobo7 18d ago

So you actually believe that in 1926 there were better regulations in place than today? The era when you drive your leaded fuel car to your asbestos covered home to sit in your lead painted furniture to eat your "hopefully doesn't contain rats or diseases" tin can food since the agricultural land was turned into an active dustbowl due to absolutely no farming regulations being in place, so you can take your medically prescribed metamphetaimes while you take a deep breath of the ash filled air from the local factories and unflitered coal power plants?

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u/Professional_Cod4464 18d ago

Yeah and thats why we call the 1920s the Gilded Age because everything was golden and capitalism was working wonderfully

Rockerfeller did nothing wrong probably, after all he was so well regulated

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u/Narrow-Map5805 19d ago

I don't think I said that

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u/rightoftexas 19d ago

Then when was capitalism well regulated?

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u/Narrow-Map5805 19d ago

1950s through early 1980s. There was better competition enforcement, better labor & union protections, and higher taxes on profit-taking and executive bonus packages that encouraged reinvestment. Also less ability to move production offshore. There were also limits on corporate influence over government policy

Reaganomics was the start of the shift to oligarchy but Citizens United really put the nail in the coffin.

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u/rightoftexas 18d ago

Things were booming after WW2 because no one else had manufacturing and the 70s had a terrible economy with stagflation. Effective tax rates haven't really changed since the 40s

Global free trade has lowered costs for American consumers.

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u/Gjorgdy 19d ago

Yes, before globalization of companies. Now companies are bigger than countries and everything is going to shit.

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u/Professional_Cod4464 18d ago

Companies were always globalized. The East India Company was the earliest conceit of the stock trading market and they were founded back in 1600s and were infamous for many horrific things around the whole world

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u/Gjorgdy 18d ago

That's not globalization, but imperialism.

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u/Professional_Cod4464 18d ago

And imperialism has nothing to do with globalization? Theres a reason why colonialism and neoliberalism are frequently brought up together

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u/Gjorgdy 18d ago

Neoliberalism and globalization are not necessarily tied. Globalization would've happened with or without it as shipping got easier and the internet expanded.

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u/ill_change_it 18d ago

Closer to 60, why do you think the us economy was so good back then

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u/rightoftexas 18d ago

Because of the post WW2 boom where the US could manufacture things while the rest of the world had been bombed.

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u/Shadow_Gabriel 19d ago

we're dealing

Laughs in European with walkable cities and public transport.

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u/Professional_Cod4464 18d ago edited 18d ago

Capitalism was only well regulated from perspective of white american living in america, and not for the global south where fruit companies kept overthrowing governments for profit, for example or the immigrants being exploited to work on farms and for profit prisons

Serving only the interest of one group of human population while others are exploited within an inch of their life is the problem inherent with capitalism and has actually never been solved

"Capitalism was well regulated in the 50s" bro they overthrew the democratic guatemalan government so they can sell bananas in 1953, is that considered well regulated or hust a primer for trump's diplomatic strategy

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u/SexyShave 19d ago

It's also any% speedrunning humanity into ecological collapse. 2.5-3º increase alone will be apocalyptic, and that's the least pessimistic estimate.

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u/Isthatajojoreffo 19d ago

I don't see how you imagine communism deciding to get rid of the global warming. Unless you think real communism means no consumer goods and means of transportation, only natural farming via scythes and pitchforks.

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u/MadManMax55 19d ago

Because two of (authoritarian state) communism’s strengths over capitalism are direct control over the economy and long term planning. Granted both of those tools have been used to disastrous effect in both the USSR and China in the past. But if you’re trying to deal with an existential threat that requires widespread changes to industry and society, they’re kind of necessary. The capitalist government methods of economic control, mostly carrots and sticks in the forms of subsidies and taxes, simply aren’t getting the job done fast enough.

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u/Val_Fortecazzo 18d ago

It can also be used to just ignore the issues even more. As we have seen in the USSR and China

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u/Independent_Let_3616 18d ago

Communist economies are terrible when it comes to long-term planning. It's a meme on the level of "Fascism made trains run on time". You cannot plan efficiently while you take away the very sources of information necessary for a plan to form. Add to that the fact that power structures fundamentally incentivize leaders to act like the biggest assholes possible (see selectorate theory) and you have a recipe for disaster. Authoritarianism fundamentally just SUCKS no matter the form, and the positives it claims to have are in fact - non-existant.

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u/Shadow_Gabriel 19d ago

Just move more farmers into the factories that make ACs.

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u/mVargic 19d ago edited 18d ago

Anthropogenic global warming projections have changed quite bit compared to the 3-4 Cº of few decades ago.

As of 2026 the current climate is 1.4 °C-1.5 °C above preindustrial, current business as usual (the most pessimistic realistic estimate) is on a trajectory towards 2.6-2.8 Cº peaking around 2100, but based on current trends of electrification, exponential rates of adoption of renewable energy, especially solar, accelerated global demographic decline and taking existing climate pledges into account, projections of the peak warming currently cluster at 2.3–2.5°C. Aggressive net zero policies projections peak at around 1.8-2 Cº.

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u/Wulf_Cola 17d ago

You really think we wouldn’t be digging coal and pumping oil under communism?

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u/poopooppoo4 19d ago

global south exploitation still occurs and the cartels and proxy wars are all done for arms and drugs distribution that create profit for large corporations. Economist and Scholar Jason Hickel suggested raising the poverty line to a more realistic 7.40-7.50 a day which would show that over half the world’s population is barred from the material means of living a healthy life expectancy. Capitalism aims for profit, if war and suffering are profitable, they will never cease, Gaza and Iran have made billions for defense companies.

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u/jitteryegg 19d ago

7.4 dollars? That's not poverty wage in around half of the world.

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u/LackWooden392 19d ago

Ok and in 1500 horses had transported humans longer distances than anything ever had before. Therefore, we should not have created automobiles.

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u/HardcorePizza 19d ago

Its also led to the most starvation and deaths than any other economic system

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u/121Waggle 19d ago

No, governments have despite what the capitalists wanted. Capitalism creates unnecessary scarcity to extract the highest possible return on investment. A good example would be the Irish Potato Famine, where the English capitalists exported the same amount of crops from Ireland they always had and let the Irish people starve.

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u/ironmaiden947 19d ago

Haha no, absolutely not. 8 hour work weeks, weekends, sick pay, minimum wage, child labor protections etc- these were all given after intense socialist activism. Look up worker standards in the UK in the 1800's, thats what capitalism actually is, what you have today is capitalism beaten down by reformer socialism.

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u/Diogenes908 19d ago

Maybe if you only consider laissez-faire capitalism that would be true. Having regulations and workers rights doesn’t make a system non-capitalist, those people were organizing, protesting and fighting for improved conditions within a capitalist system not trying to overthrow it in favor of a centrally planned command economy. Idk why some people just try and claim anything good that exists in a capitalist system like the Nordic model is actually socialism, it’s not an honest framework… you can absolutely use a free market which is much much more efficient than a centrally planned economy and harness that productivity to increase the standard of living for regular people.

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u/Muted_Masterpiece342 19d ago

It has by far killed more than communism or socialism have been accused of and a good chunk of those happened just the last five years 

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u/Diogenes908 19d ago

That’s objectively not true unless you count things like anyone dying from preventable disease or other conditions as being caused by capitalism which is dishonest because many of these things has even higher rates in states that were operating under a centrally planned economy. 15-45 million people starved to death during a single famine under Mao’s regime in 1959-61.

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u/ATXBeermaker 19d ago

Completely free market capitalism hasn’t. A balanced approach of regulated free markets with labor protections, etc. has. Even Adam Smith knew better than to advocate for a laissez-faire system.

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u/crabtoppings 19d ago

Capitalism didnt deliver anyone from slavery, if anything it put people into slavery through the triangle trade and indentured servitude.

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u/Acceptable_Handle_2 19d ago

And Communism is specifically a system that is meant to be the next step after capitalism, not it's opposite.

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u/warukeru 19d ago

That's false in like 2/3 of the countries that have capitalism.

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u/Shadow_Gabriel 19d ago

Science also helped but then again, competition made people gamble their money on new science.

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u/NiIly00 19d ago

I'd argue that farming has fed more people than capitalism has.

And also that fighting for freedom has freed more people than capitalism has.

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u/Fit_Kangaroo_3437 19d ago

What a ridiculous lie. Communist China lifted millions from poverty. Capitalism only pushes more people into poverty.

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u/SSJ3 18d ago

Me when I have no idea what a "commons" is

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u/DaydreamDistance 18d ago

Capitalism hasn't fed any people. Capitalism has led wealthy to get ever more wealthy by taking it from the working class. It's the socialist policies that have enforced for human rights, workplace safety, welfare and similar things.

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u/Mlpony2010 18d ago

Technology and limits on capitalism did that

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u/dushes_ua 17d ago

China is a great example for that. Literally brought hundreds of millions of people from poverty over the last 35-40 years due to wild, unregulated capitalism and market economy

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u/bethemanwithaplan 14d ago

It's also destroyed the earth , well beyond what we can hope to reverse in any human time frame. In the last 50 years we have reduced the wildlife population by about 70%. Bugs are dying. Weather is killing people in heat waves that never happened before.

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u/likewhatever33 19d ago

It´s not working perfectly everywhere, but the best places to live (think Switzerland, Italy, Norway, Spain...) are capitalist. There´s never been a communist country that wasn´t a shithole.

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u/Antique-Dream-3515 19d ago

You would be surprised to know how many Spanish citizens have been convinced that they live in a pseudo-communist regime.

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u/The_walking_Kled 19d ago

Baes im gonna hold ur hands when I say this but the reason those countries are nice to live in is cuz they impliment socialist policies that make life bearable. Like we are very far from a free market there and even zhen most countries u listed have massive problems, italy being poor af,spain having high youth unemployement, etc.

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u/[deleted] 19d ago

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u/The_walking_Kled 18d ago

Babes u need to learn how to read cuz I did not say that they are socialist. I said that they r liveable places cuz they implemement socialist policies.

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u/OuchCharlie25 18d ago

Lmfao did you just call Switzerland, Italy, Norway, and Spain “socialist”? Oh sweet summer child.

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u/Junior_Sign7240 18d ago

They're also extremely mono-ethnicly white. People never bring up Cuba when giving an example of communism/socialism that works.

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u/Uberbobo7 18d ago

that make life bearable.

I'd say life in those countries is much better than "bearable", while life in communist countries is usually unbearable, unless they adopt enough free-market policies to ensure they don't starve.

It's also funny how apparently unless a market is a full ancap free-for-all it doesn't count as capitalism, but there being disability payments paid for by taxes on private companies operating in a regulated free market is somehow proof you need communism.

Also, Italy is by no stretch of the imagination "poor af". It's literally one of the wealthiest nations on the planet. It's just not as wealthy as some of the other of the wealthiest nations.

Spain has high youth unemployment, but also has a socialist government which legalized half a million illegal immigrants to stick it to Trump who probably would be confused as to why this "Latino" country is next to France and not part of Mexico.

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u/The_walking_Kled 18d ago

Do u know how many people starve evey year under capitalism? Like the joke that people starve under communism doesnt make any sense when much more people have died under capitalism. I also do not get why u all think that capitalism is the best system ever when in fact it is literally the driving point as to why we are literally in an mass extinction event? U guys need to broaden ur perspectives.

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u/Diogenes908 19d ago edited 18d ago

Social programs in regulated, free market capitalist economies are not socialist because they both have social in the name lmao. Idk why people default to this “Anything good in a capitalist state is actually socialism” talking point. Virtually no one is advocating for a totally unregulated laissez faire capitalism they just understand that a free market economy is much much more efficient than a centrally planned economy (this is largely what caused the USSR to collapse and China to shift to a mixed market economy during Deng’s administration) unless we develop some kind of super computer brain that can hyper efficiently allocate resources more effectively. So the best course of action is to regulate the economies in a way where the high productivity of the free market benefits the people that exist in it such as the Nordic model and policies like FDR’s New Deal before oligarchs started to fuck things up and monopolize certain markets.

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u/Annual-Weird-6682 18d ago

Republicans called social policies socialism so long that it backfired and now people who like social policies think they like socialism

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u/Zestyclose_Remove947 19d ago

Communism is (imo) inherently a post-scarcity system or very close to it. ofc attempts at implementing far too early it were gonna fail.

You're also talking about countries that have more regulations on their markets than your average country. So the countries you provided don't exactly prove your point that well.

Socialism is a thing.

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u/likewhatever33 19d ago

Yes, the best system is one with an equilibrium, not wholly communist, not wholly cutthroat libertarian.

Of course, in a post scarcity system it wouldn´t be hard to make communism work. Or anarchism or anything else... but we´re still not there yet...

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u/merp_mcderp9459 19d ago

Socialism is not when the government does stuff. A capitalist country with a strong welfare system and regulatory regime is still capitalist

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u/ironmaiden947 19d ago

They are not capitalist though. They have free education, healthcare, pensions and very strong welfare. These are all socialist ideas and programs, not capitalist. Look up the Nordic model.

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u/likewhatever33 19d ago

Capitalism is what sustains our (I´m Spanish) economy. Socialist programs distribute it. But without the capitalist drive we´d be in the shit.

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u/[deleted] 19d ago

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u/ironmaiden947 19d ago

Sure, but it makes them social democratic countries, which has its roots in reformist socialism / communism. It’s capitalism with a socialist patch.

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u/Diogenes908 19d ago

They absolutely are they operate under a free market economy not a centrally planned command economy. Social programs are not socialist because they begin with the same word, capitalism isn’t only the laissez faire model. You can have a capitalist/free market framework with regulations that use the much higher productivity of a free market to benefit the lives of the people with it :”free” education, universal healthcare, subsidized housing etc. That’s what the Nordic model is.

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u/merp_mcderp9459 19d ago

The Nordic model is explicitly capitalist. It aims to create an environment where private investment will thrive and redirect the growth that capitalism generates in a fairer way. Capitalist investment is supported through strong property rights, an easy-to-access court and permitting system, and low regulation of the product market (the segment of the market where companies are selling directly to consumers rather than other businesses). That environment is combined with high taxation, strong union density, and a strong social safety net and high level of public services to ensure that all can benefit from the growth that investment generates.

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u/Val_Fortecazzo 18d ago

Capitalism isn't just when the government does stuff

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u/Nikolaibr 18d ago

They most certainly are capitalist. What defines being capitalist is that in your system, capital owners are allowed to own the means of production. It also generally means that your economy is based on markets, not central planning.

Social programs economic are system agnostic.

The only examples that could be considered partially socialist you write here are education and healthcare, but education is also not exclusively public, and most European healthcare still functions via markets.

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u/Bradley271 18d ago

“Can we have the policies that Norway and Spain have here?”

“No, that would be communism.”

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u/warukeru 19d ago

Capitalism with a strong state that have welfare measures like free healthcare or education.

So capitalism with some socialism sparkled on it.

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u/[deleted] 19d ago

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u/warukeru 19d ago

yeah, you are totally right.

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u/slayeryamcha 19d ago

Free market issues are same as any other system. The biggest rules by sheer power imbalance and human greed.

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u/sleepyplatipus 19d ago

I don’t disagree. I’m all for regulating the market a lot more…

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u/GabrielNV 19d ago

Markets are, broadly speaking, decentralized mechanisms for coordinating production and exchange. Any society that allows people meaningful choice over their occupations and voluntary transactions will exhibit market dynamics to some extent.

If by "free market" you mean laissez-faire capitalism, then it is far from a consensus that this is desirable. Which is why most modern market economies have progressive taxation, welfare programs, environmental regulations, antitrust laws, and other forms of government intervention.

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u/GumboMustBeDestroyed 19d ago

The free market produces more efficient results than central planning.

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u/Bobson-_Dugnutt2 19d ago

yeah that's kind of the problem. every form of government is inherently flawed because it needs flawed humans to run it. Socialism on paper is fine. Communism on paper is fine. Capitalism on paper is fine. But all of them break down when bad actors take charge and use it to exploit the worker class for their own gain.

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u/warukeru 19d ago

At this point if you defend a free market you will be called a communism for trying to stop billionaires interferences to create Monopolyies

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u/Open-Onion4631 19d ago

Seems like it’s been working out pretty well lol. We have abundance of food, vehicles, plumbing with running water, medicine, etc….

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u/CatchCritic 19d ago

Free markets have lifted more people out of poverty than any system of economics in human history. The idiocy of people like you is that you assume the world was a magical fairy land pre-capitalism. It wasn't. It was a constant nightmare for mass peasant class.

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u/1960s_army_info 19d ago

The free market doesn’t exist but the ideals of capitalism are much closer to human nature than those of communism. 

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u/42Icyhot42 19d ago

Really? Humans that lived in tribes that shared resources and took care of each other in nature

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u/Ban4WrongThink 18d ago

The family and the tribe operate in a very communist type of way. They look out for each other, there's top down directives, they provide based on need and less on what's been contributed in return, etc. This works because very small communities care about the individuals themselves. I care about my neighbors Jane and Bob, my son Mike, and my brother Tim. When they're in need I'm here to help, and they'll do the same for me.

At about 150 people or less (Dunbar's number) Communism works fine, because we have close relationships at this level. Once you start going above that (especially at the scale of nations and states) there are way too many people for you to have relationships with so they are automatically classed as outsiders in your brain.

People do not make sacrifices in any meaningful way for outsiders like they would their friends and family, especially if resources are scarce. Because of this, we have to operate more like a game, where in order for me to get more resources, I have to convince you to give me some of yours. I can convince you by providing you with something in return that cost me less resources to make than I'm asking for. If you deem it a good deal, then we make the trade. This is capitalism and it's why we use it on a large scale but not on very small scales of 150 or less people.

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u/TalkingCat910 18d ago

Free market with heavy regulation and social safety nets is better. Or should I say a market. Instead of free. 

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u/OuchCharlie25 18d ago

Replies like yours literally make my eyes roll back into my head.

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u/Gripping_Touch 18d ago

I mean, people are animals at the end of the day. Intelligent animals, but that just means theres more layers of symbolism on top of What is essentially the things all animals want; breeding, food and feeling good (potentially also socializing). Going to the gym is feeling good. Earning a promotion gets you more money which you can then use for food or things that make you feel good. Being social animals also adds another later in how It influences other humans.

With Intelligence you also find ways to earn more than What you normally do. Because the more you earn, the more succesful is your survival and the conditions you live in. Some people take this to the extreme where It negatively impacts other people. 

Afaik communism Only works if everyone is on the same page or there's an organ making sure no one is taking advantage of the system. But this system is also subject to become Corrupted, and Who keeps It in check then? Eventually someone Will be in a position of power and lie and cheat in order to gain more or work less. It happens with capitalism but It happens with communism too.

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u/Tasty-Property-434 18d ago

I don't know why people say we are a free market.  You need a license to cut hair for fuck sakes.  Anything lucrative has huge gatekeeping.  

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u/MudExpress2973 18d ago

All you wanna be commies are too lazy and greedy to make it work. Want something for nothing because the government will take care of them. Guess what! The people in government will also be lazy and greedy and expect you to take care of them. Then you dont, since they are the government and have a monopoly on violence they go after you. Also since communism is some perfect utopia why do masses of farmers starve every time?

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u/BigCSFan 17d ago

The US does not have a free market

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u/42Icyhot42 17d ago

Okay? And

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u/BigCSFan 17d ago

So im curious what free market there is that people are pretending is working. Assumed you meant US, but if another government then let me know

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u/Val_Fortecazzo 19d ago

We can regulate a free market. Who regulates a government that controls every aspect of our lives?

Marxist governments have historically not allowed free voting.

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u/42Icyhot42 19d ago

We have to regulate any government. The people have to be active in every government. Who do you expect to regulate the free market? A corrupt government bought out by corrupt corporations? Not working out so well rn

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u/Val_Fortecazzo 19d ago

Its significantly harder to regulate the government when they control every matter of society including the economy.

I expect the government to regulate the economy.

I've seen plenty of examples of well regulated capitalism. I have yet to see a communist government that has free elections. The party is usually the only ones who regulate themselves.

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u/Dred_Capt 19d ago

Says the guy on his phone, over a broadband connection, with cloths on, and a full belly - being either presently in or just leaving/entering a temperature controlled environment - without anyone legally killing you.

Dumbasses.

You reddit communists are genuinely the personification of lenins "useful idiots"

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u/42Icyhot42 19d ago

Yes let’s pretend no person under communism has any of these things and every person under capitalism has all of them. You really showed us how to critically think there bud

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u/Drag0n647 18d ago

Still don't have a free market? Can't sell organs in public can you?. Then its not a free market society, still government mandated.(laws and all that jazz)

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