this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
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In my lurking time here, I have seen many comments on Lemmy that criticize capitalism, but I think it's not as bad as it is made out to be on here. I earn money by working, can spend my money on what I want, and can start a business if I wanted to. The best businesses are rewarded with more money while poor businesses fail. I don't see anything wrong with that. Admittedly, it is possible that I am wrong because I have never studied economy other than the short lessons from required college classes my first two years. Do you have any objective sources where I can start to learn? I tend to be liberal/Democrat, btw.
But do you earn enough? Does the working class earn enough? The general consensus for most people is no. The vast majority of wealth that the working class produces every year does not make it into the hands of the people who produced it, but rather the oligarchs who already possess most of the wealth already.
These are not exclusive to only capitalism. People were trading money for goods and starting businesses for thousands of years before capitalism was around.
This is how it's supposed to work in a merit driven free market economy, but that's not how late stage capitalism plays out.
Many corporations are run by imbeciles and hemorrhage money, pursue short term profits at the expense of long term sustainability, treat their workers horribly, and rely on their monopolistic position in the market to survive rather than merit, competence, ethics, or quality. When they finally make an error that would normally bankrupt a company out of existence, they simply cry to the government for bailout money, and they get it every time because our politicians are bought and owned by billionaires and their lobbyists. This is the core principle of an oligarchy, which we are, and which capitalism always evolves into given enough time.
The rich get bailouts, the workers do not. This is a direct product of wealth inequality and regulatory capture that capitalism inherently generates.
The main argument against capitalism is that it leads to only a privileged few getting all the wealth, opportunities and freedom while the rest become wage slaves and debt slaves. It is the ultimate capitulation to artificial scarcity as if that's somehow the best we can do as a species.
All the homelessness, overpriced healthcare and education, unaffordable housing, etc exists because of capitalism and it's supporters look at this and say "good. fuck the poor." or "this is the best we can do."
I stopped being a libertarian because I was tired of the cynical capitulation.
The funniest thing is that the final stage of unbound capitalism means no estate and then, when they need help there will be nobody to save them.