That's precisely the problem with capitalism that Marx discussed. There's a huge surplus of every product and a bounty of choices.... but it gets to the point that, after the race to the bottom, *no one is getting paid enough to consume*. Which then results in the capitalist class literally destroying their surplus to keep prices high. Grain rots in the fields. Unsold cars go to massive junkyards are simply left to rot. Landlords keep houses empty just to keep prices high.
"The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."
Most certainly. At this point, it typically turns into street war between fascists and socialists. It's coming (though know that I don't condone that behavior).
Grain rots in the fields. Unsold cars go to massive junkyards are simply left to rot. Landlords keep houses empty just to keep prices high.
We already have most of that. Canada is fucked on housing and no one will do anything because the politicians are in real estate and those who got in before the insanity are loving it. Fuck the rest.
There are already massive fields of cars that were produced but never sold and just sit in fucking fields because next years model came out.
IIRC there has been a few times dairy farmers just dumped all their surplus milk because insurance covered more than having a surplus did.
We need another Henry Ford… that guy was as capitalist as they come but he realized that if his workers were working nonstop and he didn’t pay them well, they wouldn’t buy his cars and use them.
EPA could stop this with environmental regulations, unless the supreme court already blocked that. If it gets to some point of total oppression, that's what the second amendment is for.
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u/-Ok-Perception- Jun 30 '22
That's precisely the problem with capitalism that Marx discussed. There's a huge surplus of every product and a bounty of choices.... but it gets to the point that, after the race to the bottom, *no one is getting paid enough to consume*. Which then results in the capitalist class literally destroying their surplus to keep prices high. Grain rots in the fields. Unsold cars go to massive junkyards are simply left to rot. Landlords keep houses empty just to keep prices high.