this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
445 points (75.8% liked)

Asklemmy

43971 readers
1681 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hi all,

I'm seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I'm wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I'm pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.

If this isn't the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I'm happy to take this somewhere else.

Cheers!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] IuseArchbtw@feddit.de 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm just gonna tell you what happens when pure capitalism would exist in a country.

There would be no taxes. That sounds alright, but listen: Everything is on a market. Healthcare, education, everything. There is competition for everything. That means companies will have to do stuff to win you as a customer. One big company in every industry sector will win and buy all the other companies that have gone bankrupt. Then, we have monopolies and the big companies can raise their prices however they want and control us in every way they want.

[โ€“] prole@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

To take it further, no taxes also means privately owned roads and other forms of public infrastructure.

[โ€“] Zyansheep@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I don't think pure capitalism as you describe it exists, or if it does its definitely not common.

[โ€“] HonestMistake_@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We may not be quite there yet, be we're firmly going in that direction. An ever smaller number of gigantic corps owning ever more of... everything.

[โ€“] Zyansheep@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago

The mechanistic reasoning might be plausible, but is there any actual examples of a modern capitalist society regressing back to some form of feudalism to any significant degree?

The point where I'd be worried is when a single company is the majority of a country's GDP or has complete control over the government. The only examples I can think of that even get close to these possibilities are South Korea's Chaebols or Hong Kong's corporate voting block.

[โ€“] IuseArchbtw@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, that pure capitalism does not exist, that is correct. But that is what pure capitalism would look like and the question was why people don't like capitalism

[โ€“] Zyansheep@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago

Hmmm, I guess I don't like the reasoning "extreme version of complicated idea is bad, therefore the idea is bad in general". Like its fine to dislike an idea's extremes, but it would be disingenuous to also dismiss its more moderate forms.

[โ€“] bricklove@midwest.social 0 points 1 year ago

It's usually called feudalism at that point