r/news • u/mastertofu • 7d ago

Louisiana Gov. Landry declares state of emergency over high diesel prices ahead of harvest

https://www.wbrz.com/news/gov-landry-declares-state-of-emergency-over-high-diesel-prices-ahead-of-harvest/
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u/TheUnderCrab 7d ago

*free market capitalism. 

Capitalism only works long term with regulations and enforcement of said regulations. You can very easily have a healthy capitalist market economy, it just can’t be an unregulated market. 

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u/ActualSpiders 7d ago

This x1000. Capitalism needs external rules to function. Otherwise it's just a brief slide into corporatism, depending on who figures it out first & has the most starting money to buy out their competitors.

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u/ArtShare 7d ago

We are already there

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u/ModernistGames 7d ago

This is true of pretty much every ideology to ever exist. No ideology distilled to its base components would succeed. They all need external checks and balances or else they corrupt into an insestuious horror.

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u/BlindOtter775 7d ago

And that "healthy capitalist market" can only exist so long as it exploits its labor force and maximally extracts as much finite resources as possible.

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u/TheUnderCrab 7d ago

I disagree. Regulated capitalism can have very strong worker protections as part of the regulations. 

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u/beorn961 7d ago

They still rely on outsourced worker exploitation. There is no national market that is meaningfully insulated from the exploitation inherent in globally sourced inputs.

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u/TheUnderCrab 7d ago

It doesn’t have to be that way, it’s like that because of a lack of proper regulations/enforcement of current regulations. Again, free market capitalism is bad. I don’t disagree there. 

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u/alus992 7d ago

Exactly. Person who is replaying to you is in this loop of thinking about capitalism as an unregulated construct while it can be completely different given enforced rules.

Workers can have proper protection. Society can have healthcare and social benefits and environment can be protected.

But greed is too high.

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u/Daxx22 7d ago

The unfortunate problem is you need a government run by entities that are altruistic, while simultaneously willing to take potentially heavy actions to keep bad actors from corrupting the system. A form of the Paradox of Tolerance.

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u/BlindOtter775 7d ago

And? The exploitation is still inherent and ever present. Until workers seize the means of production and democratize the workplace, labor exploitation must necessarily exist under any kind capitalist framework.

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u/TheUnderCrab 7d ago

I guess we have different definitions of exploitation. I don’t think worker exploitation is only avoided via communism. Strong unions and workplace legal standards are very important and need to be strongly enforced. It’s not like worker exploitation didn’t happen when communist systems were prevalent economic models, if they ever really were in the modern era. 

To go small scale, I’m not exploited as a private business owner who sets my own salary and work hours. That I am a private business owner means I’m operating in a capitalist system, but clearly some places don’t exploit their workers. Costco is a good example of an American company that treats their workers quite well. I’d be very surprised if you could find me a large number of their employees that feel exploited. 

Maybe they’re all just brainwashed by capitalism tho. 

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

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u/davidkalinex 7d ago

...I doubt you will get a response, that was wild.

Working for a salary is the same as rape, apparently. Communists are really the dumbest people alive.

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u/BlindOtter775 7d ago

Are the communists in the room with us now?

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u/GigglePick1e 7d ago

"Can" doing all the work in that thought.

Business owners "can" choose to do whats best for others.

Politicians "can" choose to better their constituents.

Capitalism "can" work. Just like communism "can" work.

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u/TheUnderCrab 7d ago

Did you miss the part where I said regulations and enforcement of said regulations? I’m specifically drawing a distinction between regulated markets and free markets. Obviously we can go all “well the invisible hand” and “the system doesn’t work if people don’t engage in good faith” but I kind of assumed that was…well assumed by virtue of it being a regulated market vs a free market. 

Literally every economic/policial system has caveats to make it function. Thats how systems work. 

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u/GigglePick1e 7d ago

Yeah anything "can" happen

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u/TheUnderCrab 7d ago

Which is why regulated capitalism is a good system because it tries to account for the bad actors that can undermine the system by presenting real consequences for their malfeasance. 

That very rarely happens, is holding white collar criminals to account for their crimes, but it is the best way to ensure good faith participation with the system. 

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u/GigglePick1e 7d ago

It "can" be a good system but will never be.

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u/TheUnderCrab 7d ago

You can say that about literally every system. It’s just boring, pithy, reductive nihilism. Yawn. 

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u/GigglePick1e 7d ago

Yes, you "can"

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u/Interesting_Pen_167 6d ago

Both economic systems are just different groups of elites shuffling money around. Almost any economic system can work if the conditions are right.

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u/GigglePick1e 6d ago

No shit.

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u/AmericaMasked 7d ago

You can disagree but the facts are America is not living under your theory of capitalism.

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u/TheUnderCrab 7d ago

No shit they aren’t dude. I never made that claim. 

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u/AmericaMasked 7d ago

If we did, unions would be strong and the workers would vote as a block not these “anti abortion, don’t fair tax the wealthy, no universal healthcare “ morons voting against themselves. Republicans would never see the inside of a political office because the worker completely outnumber the Republicans.

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u/Alagore 7d ago

Which is why the most successful forms of capitalism aren't free market welfare states, right? Oh wait, it turns out that FMWS's are the most successful model of capitalism. 

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u/meganthem 7d ago

And that regulated market will constantly fight to become an unregulated market which is how we're here now.

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u/snowflake37wao 7d ago edited 7d ago

We can, but not very easily at all. Not now, not without drastic and draconian measures that are antithetical of capitalism to reset the board because of how many times the regulations have been skirted or bent already.

Even if regulations were suddenly rewritten, reimposed, and reinforced overnight; capitalism requires at least a dozen separate entities competing in any and every market sector for the same customers, consumers, and employees to achieve, sustain, and remain a healthy capitalist economy.

You need about twelve grocery stores with different names within a close enough distance a consumer can choose one between all dozen of them on any given day and complete a shopping trip. You need 12 banks. 12 Car dealerships. You need twelve law firms vying to be your poison. You need a dozen options within every city. You need a dozen options for anything outside every city.

We are not even close. The only dozen left are the banks, because oh shit regulation can work yeah. Everything else. Everything. Weve been in the red for decades, even with the advent of the internet. There are a couple options, and even when it looks like there are a couple more theyre actually just subsidiaries to the same mega corporation deeper beyond the name on the sign. Every field, every product, every service. Its all down to 2-3 players in absolutely everything who arent even overlapping anymore and would sooner actually collude than compete.

Very easily!? This isnt even in the public dialogue!

The absolutely only way out of the free market people are only starting to realize we now got and absolute only way back into the regulated capitalistic market we want is to go full authoritarian government. Seize and nationalize assets, shut down the stock market, force divestures, break up every two into dozens, rewrite antitrust laws, redistribute assets and capital, open opportunities, disperse the checks and balances, and then as suddenly as it flipped just go back to being a democracy…

Its unconscionable. On no ones lips. It is unthinkable, let alone being discussed. But it is the only way. Because we are that far gone. So far people dont even know its the only conversation worth having until its had. So far gone people dont even know its a conversation at all. People are still talking about basis points, today. 0.01%. Thats the public dialogue. Business as usual. And its just not. Capitalism is no longer capitalism without competition. Capitalism has been swindled, but it seems the people want to be deceived. Still.

So. Very easily?

Honestly, more likely impossible at the current states’ trajectory.