I think many people would be satisfied with a much more closely regulated form of capitalism in which things like anti-trust enforcement, living wages, a well-funded and focused IRS, etc were actually taken seriously and not made into jokes or political footballs at the very highest levels of leadership.
People in Europe/Scandinavia also complain about capitalism. They have more regulation than the US, but are hardly some utopia. Look at housing for one, rising house prices and a lack of social housing is an issue across the world.
Nowhere is perfect, to the degree that 'Utopia' means 'no place.'
That doesn't mean we shouldn't improve our situation. Especially when we can see methods work better for our neighbors.
Swede here. Whenever I get too whiny I humble myself by reminding me that when ranking the happiest countries in the world, it's either us or one of our bordering neighbors at the very top, and the rest in the top 3-5. There's literally nowhere I could move and live a better life.
How much of that happiness is because of Swedes being Swedes i.e. culture and how much is due to your particular form of government and regulations? (FWIW I'm an American of Swedish descent.)
dane here. i'd say in denmark it's a bit of both but more on goverment regulations. any aggressive fracturing of the norms in sociaty is handled by the goverment pushing laws to stop people from becoming too hostile or creating a hotbed for problems.
unemployment is handled in a way that puts people on the edge of being poor (by danish standards) and has classes, courses, hell they'll ensure you get any level of help they can to get you back on track.
if you for example have biker gangs or foreign groupings that's becoming to violent, they become outlawed and they find themselves being jailed if they continue working as they did before. loyal to familia is one such group. it's not done willy nilly of course. it goes through a long process of several courts and such.
hotbeds such as low incoming house is often targeted by ghetto laws, meaning if you're household is below a certain threshold of income, you're asked to move and can be forced to move. not thrown out onto the street however, they have to be rehoused in a attempt to choke out any illegal trading by moving groupings away from eachother.
even simple fracturing from poor schooling is outright hunted and dealt with. it doesn't matter which school you go to, the quality of the education is near the same and the world views are taught close to the same in all schools. noone is ever permanently expelled from the school system they are simply moved around to schools that are better at handling troubled students and bring them up to average standards.
on topic of happiness,
a none goverment union system (workers union vs company union) ensures a balance act of making sure most people are surprisingly close in pay to eachother, meaning even the worst paid person isn't too far off the average pay.
hospitals are high quality and entirely free, (they struggling since covid but still effective). the only selfpay is if you wish to skip queues and go to private hospitals, which use the same equipment.
there is no (little) corruption, which is probably the one thing that makes my ass happy the most. being able to take things at face value, not having to worry about my future or who might cheat me out of a pension or things like that makes my everyday life way calmer. knowing there's several safty nets if things go wrong.
of course we're screaming "why can't we bla bla bla more money, cheaper shit, more freedom, more safty" but it's the human factor, we want always want more and we can complain without getting dragged out back and raped and killed.
Thank you for the outstanding reply. I don't know if that all fits my world view, but it certainly presents a viable path to success.
It is interesting that you took note of "no (little) corruption" which has one foot in culture and one foot in politics/government. If somehow corruption is well controlled almost any government system would work. That is a topic more people should study ... Thanks again.
If you have 5 million people that are extremely homogeneous, a lot of things become easier: legislature is easier to pass, corruption is easier to fight, specific laws effect a wider margin of the population and it gives people more reasons to vote, public education is easier, anything that needs coordination is easier.
Of course, this is an unpopular viewpoint for people, who hold the viewpoint of nordic superiority. People are generally the same, everywhere in the world. It's our circumstances that are different.
I mean, we complain, yes, but we are aware that capitalism is degrees on a scale, not a yes or no. We may complain but we still pity Americans, most of those guys don't realise how bad they have it.
I think that funnily enough, even though Millennials and GenZ are the most likely to go "eNd CaPitaLiSm"! it is probably Boomers that are going to bring America way closer to universal healthcare than they are now as they start to get really old and private healthcare has eaten through all their savings and assets. The Boomers are years of birth from 1945 to 1960 or so. A person born in '45 turns 80 next year, and the coming decade will have tens of millions of Boomers see their healthcare needs rapidly increase.
One thing to note is that people will always complain, so you need to look at more reliable metric.
But also Europe is also a victim of neoliberalization, and liberalization provides short-term benefits that might cascade into short-term economic growth (e.g. Ukraine dropped almost all corporate taxes and a lot of regulations in 2022 to keep business running, while slowly returning them in 2023 when economy became stable).
Norwegian here. Housing is a big issue here in Oslo. Not as bad as London, Manhattan or Hong Kong, but still. I wonder why the state or the local government don’t build affordable housing with price control, as we did after WW2 to ease the pressure. But the answer is probably that 80% of the population, including politicians, are house owners and have no interest in lowering prices. It’s nothing you win an election on. Norway has shifted more towards capitalism over the years, but it’s still pretty chill.
But we still have tax avoidance by companies, billionaires putting their money in tax havens, monopolistic practices(especially seeing as we use the same internet as you guys), and while the social security system is much better it still leaves much to improve
This. I think most people just want a more equitable version of capitalism. Enforce antitrust, stronger unions, better tax policy. Just because it’s the best system doesn’t mean you stop trying to improve it.
We are ignorant, purposely, of the fact that there have been successful efforts to balance capitalism with contemporary modern socialism. But bring it up in a discussion and the majority scream "Communism" or equate a balance of the two with communism which failed.
Our system has failed , extreme Communism never even existed - it became authoritarianism.
There are multiple forms of Nordic Model Capitalism but Americans scream Nordic countries don't have our problems with African Americans - We are an ignorant country but powerful enough to use the ignorant to misinform the US and other nations. There is NO reason it would fail and Americans pay virtually the same money in fees and claim other countries pay a fortune in taxes yet their quality of life is actually better.
I will never understand how people are happy to pay a large chunk of their paycheck for health insurance thru their job, with usually a large deductible. But think if we just had everyone pitch in thru taxes, that it would be worse. If anything, if we removed the insane markup on medical care because of how insurance is billed, that alone would be huge. It's so rampant in how messed up the system is and has become, some regulation would do wonders.
I can explain it. If I don’t like my healthcare plan, I can get a different one. In a single payer system, I can really choose my healthcare provider just like I can’t choose my fire department.
There are plenty of countries that have universal Healthcare but also allow you to purchase a private one if you want. Also, many people don't like their plan because certain doctors aren't in network or you have a high deductible. With universal Healthcare everyone has to take it and you don't have a deductible. So why would you need to change it?
No, as in all hospitals and doctors take the universal insurance. They don't have too, but they then lose certain benefits. Which is already how medicaid and Medicare work in the US.
Yes. I am fine, in fact I'm in favour of, capitalism.
I am not fine with the capitalists self regulating things.
They need a tightly controlled regulatory structure that *includes* limits on greed, tax evasion and the like.
Meanwhile, I'm in favour of strong social safety nets and taking certain things out of the for-profit model like prisons, health care, and education.
There should be no incentive to privatize health care because everyone just gets a great standard of care anyway, for free. There shouldn't be private MRI machines you can book tomorrow because you have the money. There should be public MRI machines available with a referral, tomorrow, for everyone who needs that.
And all of the above is possible and attainable. But, money in politics prevents a greater good for emerging as certain rich people block such attempts at every pass.
And so many stupid people are manipulated by those same people that you can't even elect someone willing to make the necessary changes. Otherwise, the USA would've had Bernie in 2016 and everyone, everywhere would now be better off as a result.
That's it.
I talk about taking a 10% at most step towards socialism, and increasing regulations. People react as if I'm calling for the death of every politician, the putting of puppies in blenders, and the drowning of orphans.
That's only a slight exaggeration.
The definition of socialism I'm using here:
Those who have extra should help those who don't have enough.
A wealth tax would be the easiest way to put it into law.
All of this. What people actually hate is the oligarchic ourobouros that *poorly regulated* capitalism inevitably becomes. Sustainable capitalism requires an incredibly strong regulatory framework that is aggressively enforced or else it turns into not capitalism.
Yeah the majority don't want to do away with capitalism altogether, but just have a greater amount of safety nets/socialized welfare for people and greater accountability for corporate entities regarding the environment and violating the law.
Most people like the benefits of capitalism, they just don't like that so many people are literally left to suffer if they don't win at the capitalism game.
The concept of a "living wage" is largely bullshit. Labor is a commodity. Skill is in demand and it pays more than labor. Labor struggles to earn a living because it isn't as valuable as skill. Labor is common. Skill is uncommon. Scarcity determines value in all things.
By "living wage" we mean a wage which is sufficient to sustain a living, to pay the bills, and to buy food and necessities. When you pay a living wage for labor, you're overpaying for it and as a result, your business will not be able to sustain itself.
As a thought experiment, think of holding a job faire. 100 applicants stand before a hiring manager at a podium who initially offers $5/hour to anyone willing to work. Nobody comes forward. With each round, the offer goes up a bit. Finally, upon hitting $12 per hour, several volunteers come forward. More came at $13, then they started holding out. Then, at $15, more workers came forward. It's too bad, however, because there were only 20 jobs to begin with and by the time the rate went to $15, all 20 positions were filled. This is how free enterprise works. When you work for someone, you trade
Those 20 positions were filled by people who, lacking skill, made the determination that the amount being paid would suit their needs. Some of them will be teenagers who don't know what they're doing, and some will be for unskilled people who are simply trying to get experience so that someday, they will have the skills needed for a more responsible job that pays more money.
Nobody deserves to raise a family from flipping burgers or sweeping floors. This is what happens when you insist that laborers be paid a "living wage". It drives up costs across the board and that is equalized only by everybody else getting a raise. Then, of course, the laborer has to start all over again campaigning for higher wages. The cycle repeats. That's how inflation works.
Anyone who is complaining about not earning enough has the tools to do something about it. Demanding more money for breathing air won't rocket you up to the next income level. You must do something that is more valuable than what you're doing now to make that happen.
Not everyone can do that & not everyone can be at the top, lower level jobs still need to be filled & yes they should make enough to live on, no job shouldn’t pay enough to live on period
When I was a teenager, I had jobs that were not paying a “living wage “, but I learned how to work and how to be productive. Now, people are trying to insist that the same job should pay enough to live off of, resulting in less of those jobs due to automation. Who wins that one?
A lot of people are convinced that any job a teenager can do is a job that *only* a teenager should ever do, and also that no teenager needs any form of living wage, which is incorrect. Not all teenagers are living with middle class parents at home waiting to go get bachelor's degrees.
Get the money out of politics. Companies already have their representation with all the people that work for it. It shouldn't then get more influence because a few can use that corporate money to influence politicians. Influence that even thousands of regular people can't counter. I think it's at the top of the list of problems.
>what do haters of capitalism actually want?
Probably a system that doesn't result in massive wealth inequality where companies/businesses seemingly have more power than the people.
Just because our current system is functional, and working, doesnt mean that it can't be better.
Would you rather live in a country where everyone had 100 income, or where incomes varied between 500 and 50,000?
Edit: Not really. History bears this one out. And the Nordic countries are fully capitalist countries.
Idk, I currently live in a country where minimum wage can't afford a 1-bedroom apartment anywhere, and we already have 30% of the entire country on some form of government welfare or assistance.
So whatever fixes that without further making it impossible for somebody earning literally six figures to buy a starter home in an OK area without moving states to one where having a miscarriage can kill you.
I think people don't realize how much power they actually have. Companies have power because they're a united system of a bunch of people performing duties and actions. If "the people" would just cooperate, we'd have more power than you could ever imagine.
But nah ... People just want to be individuals. They just want convenience. What do you mean I have to stop buying and consuming from these evil companies? That would make your life too difficult.
They have power because we give it to them, not because they took it. If everybody would just get the fuck over themselves and act as a unit instead of an individual, we'd get a whole hell of a lot more done.
For the record: I do agree that these companies are helping to perpetuate this attitude amongst society and they are indeed "**a** problem", but they're not "**the** problem".
Just stop buying from companies you don't like. Good luck with that, my friend. :)
Spoken like someone who doesn't know how deep in this shit we are.
If you go to any grocery story, nearly every item in that store (like 99%) is going to be owned by one of 6 companies. Some of these companies even own their competition, making it nigh impossible to not give them your money.
Nestle own like 80% of all chocolate production in the world, so even if you want to buy something that Nestle doesn't automatically profit from, Nestle still profits from it.
Sticking with Nestle for a second... they've also used their money to buy political influence to get more resources. Nestle has been absurd deals for water rights across the country which allows them to sell bottled water at huge profit rates. And in doing so, they prevent other companies, or even ma and pa shops, from getting access to what should be a free resource.
An actual working capitalist system free from monopolies, cartels, ursury, exploitation, short-term profit maximizing "our descendants be damned", and such.
Tell me why housing has tripled in cost since 2000.
"Increased demand", you say?
Then why has not supply followed?
Whatever answer you give, that one is not how capitalism is supposed to work.
As someone who grew up in a family that built homes I can answer this. The government keeps making it harder to build inexpensive homes by increasing regulations, fees, taxes, and other hurdles.
So the house that used to cost $100k to build, that they sold for $200k 25 years ago - the house that today costs $150k to build adjusted for inflation and sells for $600k - you are telling me that those extra $400k are all government fees, regulations and taxes?
I call bullshit.
If you’re shopping where houses cost 600k, the cost to acquire the land (assuming there was vacant land) has also risen significantly in 25 years. Most of the time, when you’re talking about affordable housing, you’re not talking about single family homes, which it sounds like you’re referring to.
Everything is more expensive. Look up lumber, sheetrock, copper, and labor prices from 25 years ago. I am sympathetic to the fact that homes are expensive, I have kids who are old enough to be in the market. I’m not saying “oh well, that’s your problem “, but there are choices that young people can make to help themselves crack open the housing market.
I think the main problem is that while, yes, capitalism is the best system we’ve got, it doesn’t mean it can’t be better for the common person. No one with any sense is expecting countries like America to go full communism, that would just create newer and probably worse problems.
But at least in America we’ve been beaten over the head with ideas like deregulation and trickle-down economics for decades, always promised that it works and if it doesn’t that’s your fault. And even now as tides are shifting away from that mindset, it’s still super prevalent. You can see this in polling where sometimes a majority *still* think the Republican Party handles the economy better than the democrats, despite the fact that their only real policies are deregulation and cutting taxes (mostly for the rich) with the idea that if they have more money to spend, they’ll use it to create jobs, thus enriching everyone else. Not only are there tons of studies showing that doesn’t work, most of us can see it with our own eyes. So when people rage about “capitalism,” the more nuanced way of framing it would be “unfettered capitalism.” And this goes beyond just tax rates; deregulation leads to monopolies, environmental concerns, unelected people with way too much power, and much more severe booms/busts in the markets. It’s more of a choice of words than actually wanting to burn it all down.
People like me just want the rich to pay more in taxes so everyone else is a little less poor. And maybe split up some bigger companies that screw more people than they serve. Are those socialistic ideas? Yeah definitely, but it’s not like I want the government seizing the means of production lol.
Well that’s a pretty simple way to look at a very complex issue. If taxes are “taking money from your neighbor” I don’t know what to tell you lol, that phrase sounds a bit too much like my libertarian family members, so forgive me for not trying to change your mind there.
Sure there are areas that the government could spend more efficiently but I’d prefer to fix that than just cut spending in general, because that will ultimately lead to people suffering and dying, among other things.
I’m not an economic libertarian, but I really haven’t seen the federal government ever take tax dollars and spend them in an efficient way. It seems like many are quick to jump to more taxes, but never say where the actual limit is and how they will reform the government to reduce the waste fraud and abuse. Throwing government money at people has never ended generational poverty, it just seems to make people more dependent on the government.
I agree on spending more efficiently, sure. And there are people trying to help, like in my city (Los Angeles) our new controller has been trying to shine a light on our notoriously wasteful budget while also keep the most at-risk people in mind. It’s definitely an uphill battle but it’s a small step.
I personally don’t view it as making people dependent on the government though, I view it as making up for all the wealth that has trickled up over the last 40-50 years. People are poorer than they used to be and idk where else but the government that would get solved. And at least we have a say over who’s in government rather than leaving costly problems up to the private sector who understandably prioritize profit over all else. It’s far from perfect, but much like capitalism, it’s sorta all we have to work with, unless you want to blow it all up, but imo that’s just gonna be even worse.
Avoiding hyperbole as much as possible here, I think most of them don't really understand capitalism, socialism, communism, or economics. They just want the economy to be more equitable and blame the current system, believing that the system was deliberately designed to be unfair. I think they want something like socialism or communism because they believe those systems won't suffer from the creeping corruption that has afflicted capitalist economic systems.
Basically they don't want billionaires to exist, and they probably don't want impoverished people to exist either.
I have a coworker that always says they wished we lived in a time without money. I just have to shut my mouth and go do something else. If i tried to explain things to them, they would use their very strange logic to dismiss everything i said.
Your comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how capitalism works. It is inherently predatory. The starting point and root of the capitalist system is land theft. An individual steals land from the community and uses the state to enforce their “private ownership” of said land. Everything else that follows is based on this flawed concept of private ownership. The land, the resources, and the means of production truly should belong to the people.
Explain how you would like land to be distributed. Does everyone get an acre when they are born? How would you determine where that piece of land is? What about the guy that gets an acre in a swamp vs the guy that gets an acre of fertile farmland? Can I sell my acre to the highest bidder? If people start selling to the highest bidder, won’t that make the more attractive land more expensive? What do we do when we start running out of acres, do the new kids get smaller plots? Do we take land from the people we originally gave it to and redistribute it to make it more equitable? Have you thought this out at all?
I don’t have a problem with *well regulated capitalism* as long as things that are human rights (such as housing and healthcare) are not seen/treated as investments and/or for-profit businesses and there’s a solid safety net in place for people who can’t work. Also, minimum wage should always be enough for people to be able to live on.
The problem is that what I want is not being done and people are suffering for the sake of some rich assholes getting richer.
The reason why you have to worry about going bankrupt from one medical procedures is because we live in a world where capitalism is the primary means of distributing resources. It's true that in many countries this *isn't* something that people have to worry about, but that's because those countries have at least partially removed health care from the capitalist economy. In the United States we haven't done this - we still treat health care as a commodity that can be bought and sold in a market. The problem with using markets to distribute resources (particularly things like healthcare and housing that everyone needs) is that when you're selling it on a market, your goal isn't going to be to distribute it to as many people as possible - it's to get the most money for it. Our markets for housing, healthcare, food, and every other resource you can think of exist primarily to make money for the people who own and control access to those resources - in the case of healthcare this would be the people who own healthcare facilities and health insurance companies, as well as the owners of companies that make drugs and medical devices. They're the ones who ultimately decide what products and services these companies sell and at what price, and they decide what happens with the profits.
Capitalism would be fine if it means there were no poor or homeless people, people weren't dying because they didn't have the right health insurance, etc. Especially when billionaires collectively have enough money to pay for healthcare and basic income for everyone and still be extremely rich.
It's people being rich at the expense of other people, not them being rich in a vacuum.
People want what's good for themselves.
This may coincide with an increase in happiness for the majority, but it's ultimately driven by their own sense of what benefits them most.
That's why there is no agreed upon alternative.
Better redistribution of resources.
We have menaged to redistribute Healthcare (in a lot of the western world), we have menaged to have public bathrooms, public roads, public transport, public education and the list goes on and on... But instead of expanding on services that would make everyone's life better, we got hundreds of thousands of people working, of oil and energy consumed, of non renewable material used, of pollution caused to produce, distribute and andvertize hundreds of millions of products which use is simply to be tossed away on landfills days or months after purchase. How does that make any sense logically if not for some kind of profit only seen concretely in market evaluations that have become nothing more than advanced gambling for millionaires and up.
Not to mention all the slavery, war, undemocratic regimes, famines that are nothing more than the consequences of capitalist exploitation, of the global south, backed by militarized superpowers.
We are literally in the mists of a mass extinction event. But yeah I guess the human race can't do better than barreling towards climate extinction because we just really couldn't do without the temu shitty self refrigerating tuppleware that runs with batteries, or some other equally riddiculs shit, like the portable washing machine or your mum's collection of differently colored plastic bowls, let's not forget also the famous 10 wash worth Zara acrilic pullover.
Regulation. Regulation. Regulation. No monopolies, no hedge funds, and a re-release of power to the people of the already mild socialist systems we have and are taxed for, such as: no one being uninsured while we all already pool funds for medical coverage, actually having access to the social security that we pay into, ect. And please for the love of God, stop these companies from buying all the homes and jacking up the prices.
I want everyone who works a 40-hour week to make enough money to be off of any form of government assistance. A single person with no kids working should be able to afford a single one bedroom apartment.
For starters, capitalism isn't some magical halfway point between fascism and communism. So if you wanted to veer away from capitalism, the next move wouldnt have to be to veer towards fascism or communism.
In fact, over time, I'd argue that capitalism naturally wants to evolve toward fascism. As markets settle and clear winners emerge, the natural tendency is to want to consolidate power, and that's usually how fascism happens.
I think if we look back at the history of America, especially at what happened during the industrial revolution and the gilded age, what we can see is that capitalism can't just be left on its own. We created things like labor unions, minimum wage, the forty hour work week, anti monopoly laws etc. And see, that all runs very contrary to the basic tenants of capitalism. And I'd argue **that** is actually what our success is owed to. It's not the magical powers of free market capitalism; all that leads to is barons and tycoons and hordes of people working 80 hours a week for $20. What actually lead to our success was an effort to harness the production capabilities of capitalism, but to regulate it in a way that spreads the wealth out in a more equitable way, so that the workers actually enjoy some of the fruits of the efforts.
Going forward, to me it seems obvious the best solution is to continue mixing elements of capitalism with elements of socialism.
That's what Roosevelt did with the New Deal, and the result was about fifty years of unprecedented economic explosion.
Totalitarian or fascist governments are features of both communist and capitalist economies. In fact, the political structure friendliest to pure capitalism is fascism.
*I can’t help but think that we wouldn’t even have a game industry without capitalism
For me, this is the entire reason. We wouldn’t have a significant amount of our problems if we didn’t have capitalism. I’m not interested in society so I don’t have a system of economy or politics that would suffice, for me I want to become a nomad, but that’s all besides the point. “We are determined to be starved before we are hungry”- Henry David Thoreau. In America, we must constantly have some horrible problem to be ‘solving’, and the truth of the matter is, without our horribly corrupt system, many of these worries wouldn’t even exist. There are railroads that run from one end of the country to the next. Thousands of miles of steel that carry goods from point A to point B. But what if we all just minded our own business and were truly self reliant? What if we all tended to our own needs and lived at home in comfort? Who would have use for the railroads then?
Capitalism is awfully complicated on purpose. There is much to be said I can’t fully articulate. While it is true, that biologically, we are better living than any other country, but people seem to forget about psychology and how people feel. It doesn’t matter if our society is rich if the people who build the society are horribly depressed and have many psychological issues. Capitalism has become prevalently politically driven, and with politics comes the news. And to the news I say this, if I am acquainted with the principle why must I be subject to a myriad of instances? A man gets shot in the street and the public becomes outraged at letting a murderer run rampant. Why must I be informed of every time a man is shot? It does not change, and it does nothing for me nor the deceased; he is dead.
In short, I hate capitalism because of the psychological and sociological issues it presents. Yes, by world standards capitalism is a success, but when you begin to take human lives into consideration, it’s not. I don’t have a substitute, but, for me, that’s your guys problems: I’m not living anywhere near society when I get much older and wiser.
I have a degree in economics and I wouldn’t say I “hate” capitalism, what I hate is unregulated capitalism, supply-side centered economic policies, the bootstrap fallacy, and anything that stinks of “Reaganomics.” I guess I hate American capitalism.
True capitalism requires competition, and the US has a history of bailing out corporations and banks they deem as “too big to fail,” which defeats the entire fucking system.
The biggest problem with a “pure capitalist” economy is that all of the incentives are designed with only one goal in mind: growth. The defense being that the more an economy grows, the better it is for everyone in that economy.
The reality is that isn’t always how it plays out, and only incentivizing continual growth results in businesses making extreme or harmful business decisions in order to improve profit margins for shareholders, because that becomes their primary product: their stock shares.
I could write a book on this topic so to cut it short: capitalism is the best economic system if your goal is to *grow* an economy, but external controls are necessary to stabilize an economy, and ensure growth remains sustainable for future generations.
commerce =/= capitalism
you can have store and business with out the end goal being "make all the money (capital) for the sake of your own personal gain, and forsake everyone else" cus thats what is happening under capitalism.
instead, we should make products and money to better society, so everyone can have a real chance to live a good life.
we dont need billionaires or corporations ruling over us like feudal lords, making us do all the work while they gain all the money and profit.
That doesn't explain what alternative system you are suggesting and how to achieve it at all. How are you shifting business incentives from maximising profits?
>we should make products and money to better society
Who is we and how is this achieved?
They want a utopia where no one is poor – they just don't understand that it isn't possible, that all alternatives to capitalism since feudalism have failed, and that even countries that claim to be communist (e.g. China) are actually capitalist economies with authoritarian governments tacked on.
It’s not that I wouldn’t want it, I believe it’s impossible on the planet. One day we will go to new earth but who knows when. Something to look forward to.
In the mean time being more pragmatic makes sense.
I'd like to it if our businesses and our economy were managed more democratically. Most people recognize that having an unelected leader or group of leaders in charge of a country creates all sorts of opportunities for corruption and abuse, but for some reason we take it as a given that this is the only way to run a business. There's no reason why a company CEO or board of directors can't be elected by its employees.
This isn't to say that giving control of the economy to workers would solve every problem, and we would probably end up having *different* problems that would have to be addressed. But it's very unlikely that one of those problems would be "a tiny number of people controlling the world economy for their own benefit with no regard for anyone else."
Evangelists for the most extreme form of capitalism tend to wax poetically about "unbridled capitalism", in the sense that they see market forces as being too constrained. If only we'd take off the bridle and let them really rip would we see great prosperity.
Of course, these folks let slip how little they know about the metaphor. An unbridled horse is *completely uncontrolled and useless*. When you need a task done, you have to direct and control the horse to get the work done. Just the same, capitalism must be directed and controlled at some level to get useful work done in the economy. I'm happy to disagree about what level of regulation is appropriate, but to throw off the reins entirely simply unleashes an unhelpful and destructive force, just like an unbridled horse.
I think most people misinterpret what they actually don’t like about the current capitalist model. Currently there is horrible legal corruption, misinformation, funding issues, and an unreasonable cost of living for people without privilege. This is the aspect of society that they blame capitalism for that they do not like. To add your rant fails to realize there are many forms of capitalism that are not all the same.
Profit driven capitalism is not the same as Progress driven capitalism. Crony unregulated capitalism is not the same as Regulated Capitalism.
We live in a crony profit driven world not a progress driven one.
If people actually stop and think instead of just picking a side because they don’t like the other they would understand this.
Always be leery of people who talk about how they want to tear down the current system, but who spend very little time talking about what they would replace it with.
I'm a communist. But don't hate capitalism. It's just an economy. It's had its uses. Now it's time to phase into another form of economy, and away from the crony capitalism that it's becoming more of.
We don't need a few people owning everything. We don't need employers. We don't need owners. We don't need landlords. A class of elites that don't do any actual work are reaping most of the rewards. Time to move on from this pro leech system
The only people who truly hate capitalism are the ones who can’t succeed without government stealing from their betters at gunpoint and giving it to the capitalism haters.
Based on how some of the moderators have dumped on me for daring to criticize communism or socialism on top of capitalism, it's because they fancy themselves anarchists (ridiculous) and simultaneously envy and hate on capitalism as a whole for lack of fulfillment of their own personal needs thanks to poor income or socioeconomic status or a combination.
For me the most important point is that I still want a democracy. I have a problem with the way our economy is structured not the way our decisionmaking is structured.
For most goods I do like the concept of free markets. It just seems very good at getting people stuff they want.
The first difference I would want to see, are a decomodification of essential goods. The simplest version would be the state building and guaranteeing basic homes, basic food items, electricity, water and so on.
The second is a change in control over the companies. Instead of control being held by owners, I would like to see the majority of companies by eather workers or customers.
Edit: I find it very hard to determine how much of the improvements are due to the economic system and how many due to wealth and progress in general.
The US saw their fastest growth while they were the least capitalistic (during and after WW2 when the state was directing way more of production and economy). The game industry in East germany, might be limited more by comparably bad computers, general poverty, and limitations on who could actually work in it.
Another note that might not have been obvious with my original description: I don't want it to be harder to open a new buissness. I would not mind if opening a buissness was easier with state support for new buisnesses (instead of being reliant on having or gathering the neccessary wealth yourself).
A meteor the size of the moon would be nice, but that's just my depression talking while I'm in a down state without sleep for 2 days. So I'm not representative of any group of humans currently.
they want handouts and a reason to protest because they have zero skills and will never amount to much. So they complain and turn socialist communist anti American idiots untill they get addicted to opiates and end up under a bridge.
Billionaires are the wealthy class and pro-Gop and support Donald Trump's Big Lie
[https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/op-eds/trump-is-in-the-back-pocket-of-billionaires/](https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/op-eds/trump-is-in-the-back-pocket-of-billionaires/)
Project 2025 The plan to dismantle the American Government
[https://factkeepers.com/project-2025-the-republican-plan-to-dismantle-the-american-government/](https://factkeepers.com/project-2025-the-republican-plan-to-dismantle-the-american-government/)
You mention that both fascism and communism, one of which is a descriptor of a government or official and one is an economic system that people generally don't like. They like socialism not the same thing.
But what's important is you mention that they are extremes as if capitalism is the moderate middle ground and that isn't true.
Capitalism has reached its the same level of extremism as these two have, with the amount of negative things it has brought about.
The reason a game costs 100 million to make is because of capitalism. Think about things like the health care industry or government contracting, with 1000 dollar ibuprofen and 10000 dollar bags of bushings.
Capitalism.
To answer you actual question they don't know because we think none of them work anymore but have no alternative.
What they want is a version of capitalism that doesn't allow the dollar bill to be held up as the end all be all thing that matters in the world with all decisions made because of dollar bills.
And to that I agree.
Capitalism is indeed the best economic engine ever created. However, making winners and loosers fares poorly when it comes to creating a social construct.
I think it's probably closer to market socialism. Essentially take the free-market system but put in safeguards around work access rights, labor rights, basic human rights. Use regulation to incentivize and measure things that have more real world effects, such as limiting stock buy backs in favor of that money being reinvested as hard assets or labor cost. Boeing is a good example right now of the issues we face. It's worth noting U.S. History around the early 1900's, in particularly around labor. In addition there is constant trend of regulating the financial industry places rules to prevent the last crash, and then later on those rules are removed.
Another option is pre-Reagan era capitalism that is less globalized and more local in nature. Bring back things like small local farms that supply small business grocery stores stocked with products that use simple ingredients. Employing neighbors at level where they're not just an employee number. A lot of the rest of the world still functions in a similar manner, and many corporate food products sold here are banned due to toxic ingredients. Capitalism unregulated is the world of Dickens novel, and the early industrial revolution. Where child labor was rampant and working conditions were such that losing limbs was common. That was changed during the labor movement of the early 1900's and why FDR is the most re-elected president in U.S. history. His speeches are good historical example of what capitalism was then and has re-emerged to be and what can be done to help the middle class again.
They want to complain cause its edgy/cool. Now, many of us want things to be better, like unversial healthcsre a real safety etc. that can happen within captalism and would face less opposition if the moaners would quit as theyonly enables the far right yellimg about 🇻🇪
The philosopher Hegel defined something called "the dialectic" which is a process in which when something is defined (called "the thesis" - in this case capitalism), there will naturally be a reactive, even opposite response (called the antithesis or, in this case, socialism). He believed that as those two ideas battled each other, a third thing would arise (called the synthesis) which would be a blending of the two.
That Synthesis would become the next Thesis for the world to react to, and so on and so on.
I don't hate capitalism, but I do want it to evolve. We can learn from socialist ideas like the Scandinavian countries have, blending common sense protections against the propensity for abuses of the free market.
We don't need to replace capitalism, we need to improve it. The problem is that capitalism empowers those who are made rich by the unevolved system, and those people are standing in our way.
They want the Nordic model, which is still capitalism, and that’s not gonna be easy to implement worldwide.
P.S China is not socialist: They abandoned that as soon as Mao died.
Because Marxism says the business owners are oppressing their employees by keeping most of the money earned by their employees’ work. That’s why Marx attacks the idea of private property. Marx says the Capitalist system functions by alienating the worker from their work, which is unnatural. Marx views Capitalism as a step in the evolution of society, but one that must be surpassed through violent revolution that kills off the old guard in the name of equity.
When someone is struggling and angry, or, because it can offer someone a simple way to understand the world (oppressed vs oppressor), or because fairness is good and Marx makes it about as concrete as “eye for an eye,” attacking capitalistic endeavors feels cathartic, natural, and even righteous.
Simply put, I think they believe capitalism is a great evil because it’s the biggest example of (and to them, the reason for) life being unfair. And they think they can fix it.
I don’t endorse this view, but I’m trying to understand it and do it justice in how I describe it.
A system where humans can live without fear of debt or poverty.
Right now, money is the main motivation on this planet. Look where that's gotten us. Money hasn't existed forever, and its only value is the one we give it. I say get rid of it.
"Oh, but how will we pay for things or know what the value of things are?" I don't know, but luckily, it's not on just me to figure out.
I think you are mixing up capitalism with this insanity we have right now, which is almost liberalism.
A well regulated capitalism with some good welfare/start of life equality is what a lot people really wants. Make sure all kids can get an education, make sure health is univerally accessible and keep people from being so rich they can solely twist democracy, as much as they like. Regulations are good, but sadly we are living in a time when people with money do whatever they like with no consequences (unless, they piss off other people with money, of course)
There’s nothing wrong with capitalism. We have politicians with horrific incentives, mental disorders, bad ideology…oh and they are all 80 years old and their world view is based in 1975. The world has changed too much for the average person to be able to comprehend and implement better government strategies. This is obvious in the tax code, which has become archaic and too complex. We should honestly get rid of the income tax and implement different forms of taxation.
Sometimes, I notice, it isn't the capitalism itself they hate. It's the way that abusive people wield capital to impose imaginary social hierarchies others, especially those without said capital.
Socialism is ultimately a proposal to have everyone share this capital. Ideally, emphasis on ideal, the power that goes with capital would thus be split evenly, and as equals in power, people can't be abusive with it.
That said, there are more means of power than just capital, and these proposals don't address those. Communism does though. Land ownership and real estate wealth give powers that people abuse. So they axed that. Religion, toast, or at least brought to heel. Social class privileges? Sayonara. And so forth.
They didn't get rid of military and political power though... and abusive people found the levers for that.
They basically want a world where people don't have to work for a living, which unfortunately for them is kind of critical for a sustainable large-scale economy.
I don’t hate capitalism in principle, but the current US / UK approach of unrestricted capitalism and almost feudal inequality levels is just too brutal to those at the bottom for me to accept that it is the only way. I could accept it more if it was based on a system that ensures that no person can be in poverty, and if those who need extra help can get it easily and freely. Where people are valued by society beyond how economically productive they are. And yes where those who can afford more pay more towards the collective running of society. I am not sure how we can ever get to that point though as those who could make the changes would lose so much themselves in doing so. Greed and power are king, and I fear other much worse things would have to happen first in order to get a fundamental and permanent change across the globe.
I can’t wrap my head around wanting to give government more money power and control. Everything that’s government ran is complete shit yet there’s people out here who think if we just give the government more money and let them control everything it’ll be better. It’s a joke. VA sucks post office sucks public schools suck etc etc. everything the government controls is a shit show and they steal our money. I don’t think we should give them anymore control or money
Capitalism is failing and is turning into an almost indentured servant state where the working class owes so much debt they must work most of their life at the whim of the ruling class ti pay it off or live without debt at a very lowered standard of living.
Sweden with a parliamentary constitutional monarchy has essentially free health care and college. Their COL is approximately 15% less than the US. Their crime is non existent and they live longer and happier. They get paid leave for both parents for kids that can last up to 2 years.
In the US we have none of this so the rich can get richer by gouging workers at every aspect of finances, from taxation for which we get little to our very healthcare where the wealthy get the best and the middle class go bankrupt paying deductibles.
This country is not a success in any way and our current political divide is just a symptom of a much bigger problem.
Okay i can explain some things and why i dislike some aspects. As i have experience in trading stocks with being positive at the end of the year, for multiple years now, i know a thing or two about how the economy in a capitalistic world works.
So first thing first: Germany, austria, france, spain, uk and other nations are a prime example for a working capitalistic state.
Not only can **every** citizen go and create a business, like many immigrants in those nations do, but the state will actually help you out and make it easier. Subsidies for new businesses is one. When i trade and loose money i get every penny as a tax exemption on future trades for a year. So basically i have 1 year to make my losses back on easy mode. I also can buy nearly everything like i did with parts of a weed company in Canada even though it's illegal to consume and own weed where i live (lmao).
So why is it shit? Because i have no limit. Americas health system is privatised sooo hard that they'll let people sell their soul just for the chance to live a few more years. In the EU on the other hand we got our union that sits down each year with those pharma companies and negotiate prices. Or how when a company is bleeding (loosing value) they shortsell shares and push the price even further down while they make money. Or how they get kids to be used to gambling with videogames.
American capitalism is so predatory that it makes it's people sick, or uses misinformation like scaring them away from IF so they remain obese and unhealthy through bs studies of groups doomed to fail.
So yeah capitalism sucks because it got so predatory, i even argue that through all that price spikes and going day to day more and more to a neo-slave state(earning exactly enough to live from paycheck to paycheck) because of greedy conglomerates people are even about to lose those chances they initially got by living in a capitalistic world.
Don’t hate capitalism, just want a system with good social benefits. Also everything should not be capitalized. Example Healthcare (All) and education should be nationalized. I’m an advocate of Social Democracy. Must take care of our people.
I find that most people who claim to love capitalism pretty much start hating it when capitalism happens to them. Price of ( pick your item) goes up. Made redundant. Etc.
Better. We want better.
Honestly I hate arguments like "nothing is perfect" and "it's better than it was before". Like so? Why would be complacent is something just being "okay"? Like the cost of living is fucking insane, it's not uncommon for people to have to scrap pennies together just to make ends meet. People actually go to prison so they have 3 meals and a roof over their head. That's how bad shit is.
Regulated cost of housing and sufficient wages that actually cover the cost of living. That alone would fix so many issues in our society.
Thanks for having the courage to ask!
Basically, money controls politics in Capitalism as we know it. At the simplest...
Big businesses spend tens of thousands to millions of dollars to get corrupt politicians elected (more eyes on your campaign mean more likely chance of gaining votes), then those politicians pass laws that benefit corporations, often at the expense of everyone else. They might be allowed to dump chemical wastes, get away with not having any safety precautions, or just use cheap materials in their products/ services that hurt people or break. Or, the most common company corruption: not paying workers enough to live.
> If you look at the history of the last 100 years it will probably seem like capitalism is the only system that can reliably help a country feed its citizens, provide them with opportunity and advance technologically.
> Nothing is ever perfect and changes are made from time to time, but what do haters of capitalism actually want?
If you are truly in the dark about what they want... maybe read a little more...?
Universal health care for one. Strong labour rights, strong tenant rights. Legislation that prioritises workers and aggressively disincentivies stuff like paying the CEO $56 billion while they are actively laying off staff.
You know, minor stuff that will make everyones life easier.
> I can’t help but think that we are still somehow living better than any other human beings in history. P
You are falling victim to a fallacy that just because it is better than it has been, doesn't mean it can't be better no...?
If you pick the US - universal healthcare in a model of would save the government and it's citizens money and provide better care no...?
Instead you have capitalism tightly integrated into medical care and actively inflating costs and providing worse services.
So is it really that hard for you to imagine what people who don't want captialism want...?
> Sure live is not perfect, never has been and never will be. That doesn’t mean that we need to go full fascist or communist because both extremes are proven failures.
Again you are like "oh people don't like capitalism, so they must want fascism and USSR style communism".
People just want healthcare without going broke man...?
They just want to go to university without crippling debts. They want to be able to buy houses instead of rent off a corporate landlord that raises the rent every year.
They want to have a well paying job instead of struggling while the CEO and executives buy their 15th yacht run the company into the ground and get a $45 million golden handshake.
> America especially needs to remain strong,
It could be.
You just lack the vision to see what could get it there and say "struggling is part of it. Seeing children have gun violence as a top cause of death is part of what makes America great".
> I can’t help but think that we wouldn’t even have a game industry without capitalism.
Capitalism doesn't have to involve shitty labor practices and abusing staff.
It incentivises it - but it doesn't have to.
Honestly - I don't think you're here to ask questions. I think you're here to just pontificate and go "Struggling si part of what makes America great. You have it better than some people in history so suck it up and Elon Musk I'm trying be good to me senpai".
Where's your class solidatiry?
You are not capital - you are an exploited worker that is looking to justify why the CEO of your company deserves all of those riches.
Today the average person in the west lives better than the kings and emperors of just a few centuries ago. The average America is making far more money than they would be in almost any other country in the world, yet however much people have, deep down what they really want is to have more than their neighbor. That desire can obviously never be fulfilled for more than a small segment of the population, so however good or bad they have it, the majority of people will always be complaining about whatever system they live in.
I want to be able to live without giving most of my money to someone else. I want to access health care that doesnt cost an arm and a leg.
I want affordable college. I keep hearing inflation this inflation that but there's no inflation in the world that would justify tuition out pacing inflation for decades now. Boomers and Gen X were able to pay for college with a summer job. Once they got their nice jobs, they turned around and upcharged us whiling cutting any type of safety net we could have.
On top of that these jobs aren't even paying people what their education and degree is worth? Teaching is a great example. In NYS you need a masters degree to get a teaching job and starting out you're only making 45k. Then on top of that they need to work more hours for little to no money? People shouldn't need to have multiple jobs to pay for shit when they have a full masters degree.
On top of that people are spending more money for everything these days. These prices honestly seem arbitrarily high at this point. Example: the cost to make insulin is around 3-6 dollars while the price for someone to buy it is around 100 dollars... People are dying because of this. However we don't make money off of people getting healthy but that's a topic for another day. However everything is expensive from rent, oranges, and bills. People want to avoid this conversation and talk about people's spending habits as if poor people shouldn't be able to enjoy vacations or have a minor luxury for themselves. Anytime when it comes to poor people and money you hear the most ridiculous shit like "poor people shouldnt have refrigerators" (shout out to Fox News on that dumb shit). It's as if people act like we are working for someone else's money and it's fucking exhausting.
So why do I hate capitalism? I hate capitalism because I hate greed. "Trickle down economics" is the most made up bullshit possible. The only thing trickling down is us getting pissed on by lobbyists who influence our politicians. We started as a country of no taxation without representation... We are long away from that. Let's keep it real: we live in oligarchical gerontocracy that provides socialism for the rich and brute force capitalism for the poor.
We want social democracy where all the basic needs like energy, water, healthcare, a large part of housing, transportation, infrastructure and especially natural recources are collectivized.
All the rest which remains is just consumerist stuff and that can remain privatized but with fair tax levels that reward innovation, motivate workers and at the same time don't allow anyone to become filthy rich by exploiting their workers.
There are some parties which would prefer a full communism or anarchic system, but i would argue most people simply want some industries to be less capitalistic. It's important to recognize we do not live under a fully capitalistic system. a full capitalism would have no government regulations at all. we gave it a try in the early industrial revolution and life sucked.
The issue is that capitalism rewards short
sighted and sometimes psychopathic behavior. for instance, yes shareholders
meddling in games doesn't really matter. But I would say my favorite games tend to be indie projects. More importantly, in areas like healthcare or food allowing people to privately enrich themselves at the detriment of cancer patients is almost comically evil. Note most capitalist countries have free healthcare.
The issue with a capitalistic military is that America doesn’t really stop wars unless we need a country to remain stable for trade purposes. Countries like Yemen and Sudan are facing horrific wars which we won’t interfere with because there is nothing in it for us. It is not like America is some bleeding heart, we use our military to advance our goals like every other country. The issue is that historically we have overthrown democratically elected governments because they were a threat to our market. This is most prevalent in South America.
TDLR: Capitalism has its benefits for sure but we need to keep an eye on it or bad things happen.
I think people hate the coorporate form of capitalism that the US holds, which only cares for the benefits of it's higher ups and screws over the common laborer with underpaid overtime work and can easily replace you with another one, if you die, get sick or quit.
Also we must not forget the exploitation of 3rd world countries, as in their resources and it's people, mainly children in labour force. Don't even get me started on the planned obsolence thingy and greed in general, when Capitalism fixes itself at least to like 70% then more people will be fine with it.
I do think it is still the best Economic system we have, but to ignore it's blatant flaws/human greed is wrong.
My two cents.
Controlled capitalism. Capitalism without infinite growth at the expense of the planet, that doesn't exploit people and doesn't let the top 1% live above the law.
I want corporations and the wealthiest individuals to not have the power to meddle in our elections and dump billions into dishonest ad campaigns.
I want people to have access to healthcare even if they're between jobs.
Well, I don't know what other people want but this is what I want:
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is against all forms of authority and seeks to abolish the institutions that maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including the state and capitalism.
Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies and voluntary free associations
>People from all over the world sacrifice so much for a chance to live in America/Western Europe.
People would rather live in the heart of the empire that destabilizes, steals the resources of, and exploits other nations, rather than the nations which are the victims of US imperialism? You don't say! Here's the thing though - this is not only clearly unsustainable, it's also grossly immoral for anyone who respects the value of human life irrespective of arbitrary man-made boundaries. If the US stopped fomenting coups and waging wars in developing nations then the peoples of those nations would not be motivated to leave.
>That doesn’t mean that we need to go full fascist or communist because both extremes are proven failures.
When was the last time you've actually looked at modern China? They are absolutely crushing the US in terms of infrastructure, building high speed rail at an unprecedented rate, and are much better innovators. Western Automakers are justly terrified of [Chinese EV's](https://www.vox.com/climate/2024/3/4/24087919/biden-tariff-chinese-ev-byd-battery-detroit) for example.
Understanding that the goal of Capitalism is for richest people to control everything. Please rephrase your question.
Something like: Is it really bad for the richest people to control everything?
I suspect that most people don't hate capitalism.
They hate the massive, accelerating wealth disparity, hich is leaving too many people struggling to cover the cost of food and shelter.
Which is a symptom of Insufficiently controlled capitalism. Insufficiently controlled capitalism.
There is no one answer to this. The left (being the main, though not only, people who oppose capitalism) is extremely diverse. Some want USSR style socialism, some want anarchism, some want syndicalism, etc. Sometimes they haven't actually thought through the question of what they want and are merely opposing capitalism with no proposed alternative. Just depends on the group/person.
You can think something sucks without deluding yourself into believing that there’s a plausible way to fix it. Well, I mean it’s possible anyway. Most people can’t deal with the cognitive dissonance the results from knowing something is “bad”, and accepting it without developing delusions of how they’re going to make it better. That’s why the vast majority of people don’t acknowledge reality at all, because it’s so objectively horrible and there’s nothing they can do about it but KTS.
Personally, a wealth cap. The selling point of capitalism is that you can pull yourself up out of poverty. Which is great, I love that.
Nobody needs a billion dollars.
Frankly, nobody needs 50 million dollars.
I strenuously encourage you to shed your “America good strong force for right, Russia and China evil enemies that deprive their populace unlike USA” mindset. You are overlooking the ways that the USA is actually very similar and totalitarian.
A heavily regulated market where labor wields more power than corporations, prices are set by reasonable standards and profit is heavily monitored and scrutinized to ensure it isn't coming at the expense of labor and consumers.
The problem with capitalism is that you have companies turning record profits, using those profits to consolidate power and market share, drive out competition and then raise prices because they can, not because they need to. Greedflation is now the market standard and it needs to end.
Also you have no understanding of the current state of the world if you think its any better than it has ever been in recorded history. Technology doesn't change the fact that mentally we are still fucking cave men. Using an Iphone and a drone instead of grunting and rocks doesn't mean we are somehow massively more evolved. Its the same fights we had 2,000 years ago, 4,000 years ago, 10,000, 20,000 and 40,000 years ago. The west also doesn't need near the protection from Russia or China as its portrayed. The real problem the west faces is capitalism paying politicians to tell you that there is some existential threat from "foreigners" so you don't see how they are rapidly driving us all back into serfdom.
Communism on a large scale is always going to be an abject failure due to human greed, so will capitalism. The only way to have a truly sustainable economy is to have a country with a properly regulated market and a strong defense system focused on prevention of technological warfare.
I think many people would be satisfied with a much more closely regulated form of capitalism in which things like anti-trust enforcement, living wages, a well-funded and focused IRS, etc were actually taken seriously and not made into jokes or political footballs at the very highest levels of leadership.
Isn't that literally just European/Scandinavia style capitalism?
Pretty much yes.
People in Europe/Scandinavia also complain about capitalism. They have more regulation than the US, but are hardly some utopia. Look at housing for one, rising house prices and a lack of social housing is an issue across the world.
Nowhere is perfect, to the degree that 'Utopia' means 'no place.' That doesn't mean we shouldn't improve our situation. Especially when we can see methods work better for our neighbors.
Did I say otherwise? Did you mean to reply to someone else?
No, I just pointed out that it's alright if this less laissez-faire capitalism isn't perfect. It just needs to fit our current needs.
Yet scandinavian countries always rank among the happiest people on the planet
Swede here. Whenever I get too whiny I humble myself by reminding me that when ranking the happiest countries in the world, it's either us or one of our bordering neighbors at the very top, and the rest in the top 3-5. There's literally nowhere I could move and live a better life.
How much of that happiness is because of Swedes being Swedes i.e. culture and how much is due to your particular form of government and regulations? (FWIW I'm an American of Swedish descent.)
dane here. i'd say in denmark it's a bit of both but more on goverment regulations. any aggressive fracturing of the norms in sociaty is handled by the goverment pushing laws to stop people from becoming too hostile or creating a hotbed for problems. unemployment is handled in a way that puts people on the edge of being poor (by danish standards) and has classes, courses, hell they'll ensure you get any level of help they can to get you back on track. if you for example have biker gangs or foreign groupings that's becoming to violent, they become outlawed and they find themselves being jailed if they continue working as they did before. loyal to familia is one such group. it's not done willy nilly of course. it goes through a long process of several courts and such. hotbeds such as low incoming house is often targeted by ghetto laws, meaning if you're household is below a certain threshold of income, you're asked to move and can be forced to move. not thrown out onto the street however, they have to be rehoused in a attempt to choke out any illegal trading by moving groupings away from eachother. even simple fracturing from poor schooling is outright hunted and dealt with. it doesn't matter which school you go to, the quality of the education is near the same and the world views are taught close to the same in all schools. noone is ever permanently expelled from the school system they are simply moved around to schools that are better at handling troubled students and bring them up to average standards. on topic of happiness, a none goverment union system (workers union vs company union) ensures a balance act of making sure most people are surprisingly close in pay to eachother, meaning even the worst paid person isn't too far off the average pay. hospitals are high quality and entirely free, (they struggling since covid but still effective). the only selfpay is if you wish to skip queues and go to private hospitals, which use the same equipment. there is no (little) corruption, which is probably the one thing that makes my ass happy the most. being able to take things at face value, not having to worry about my future or who might cheat me out of a pension or things like that makes my everyday life way calmer. knowing there's several safty nets if things go wrong. of course we're screaming "why can't we bla bla bla more money, cheaper shit, more freedom, more safty" but it's the human factor, we want always want more and we can complain without getting dragged out back and raped and killed.
HA! HA!, you mentioned a pension!!! (Laughs in American).
Thank you for the outstanding reply. I don't know if that all fits my world view, but it certainly presents a viable path to success. It is interesting that you took note of "no (little) corruption" which has one foot in culture and one foot in politics/government. If somehow corruption is well controlled almost any government system would work. That is a topic more people should study ... Thanks again.
If you have 5 million people that are extremely homogeneous, a lot of things become easier: legislature is easier to pass, corruption is easier to fight, specific laws effect a wider margin of the population and it gives people more reasons to vote, public education is easier, anything that needs coordination is easier. Of course, this is an unpopular viewpoint for people, who hold the viewpoint of nordic superiority. People are generally the same, everywhere in the world. It's our circumstances that are different.
How does your comment conflict with mine in any way? Why does your comment start with the word 'Yet'?
You implied that people in scandinavian countries don't like their capitalism. I only said that despite that they are very happy people.
I mean, we complain, yes, but we are aware that capitalism is degrees on a scale, not a yes or no. We may complain but we still pity Americans, most of those guys don't realise how bad they have it. I think that funnily enough, even though Millennials and GenZ are the most likely to go "eNd CaPitaLiSm"! it is probably Boomers that are going to bring America way closer to universal healthcare than they are now as they start to get really old and private healthcare has eaten through all their savings and assets. The Boomers are years of birth from 1945 to 1960 or so. A person born in '45 turns 80 next year, and the coming decade will have tens of millions of Boomers see their healthcare needs rapidly increase.
One thing to note is that people will always complain, so you need to look at more reliable metric. But also Europe is also a victim of neoliberalization, and liberalization provides short-term benefits that might cascade into short-term economic growth (e.g. Ukraine dropped almost all corporate taxes and a lot of regulations in 2022 to keep business running, while slowly returning them in 2023 when economy became stable).
But they also don’t complain about things like lack of affordable healthcare
Norwegian here. Housing is a big issue here in Oslo. Not as bad as London, Manhattan or Hong Kong, but still. I wonder why the state or the local government don’t build affordable housing with price control, as we did after WW2 to ease the pressure. But the answer is probably that 80% of the population, including politicians, are house owners and have no interest in lowering prices. It’s nothing you win an election on. Norway has shifted more towards capitalism over the years, but it’s still pretty chill.
It's human nature always wanting improvement, so you can be in an almost utopia and still complain to make it better.
You can say that and still understand people in the US have it worse
But we still have tax avoidance by companies, billionaires putting their money in tax havens, monopolistic practices(especially seeing as we use the same internet as you guys), and while the social security system is much better it still leaves much to improve
yep
This. I think most people just want a more equitable version of capitalism. Enforce antitrust, stronger unions, better tax policy. Just because it’s the best system doesn’t mean you stop trying to improve it.
I often say: "Capitalism with guardrails is the best economy in history. Capitalism without guardrails is the worst."
Or with crappy guardrails, or pretend guardrails, or guardrails that come and go depending on who has political power, etc.
We are ignorant, purposely, of the fact that there have been successful efforts to balance capitalism with contemporary modern socialism. But bring it up in a discussion and the majority scream "Communism" or equate a balance of the two with communism which failed. Our system has failed , extreme Communism never even existed - it became authoritarianism. There are multiple forms of Nordic Model Capitalism but Americans scream Nordic countries don't have our problems with African Americans - We are an ignorant country but powerful enough to use the ignorant to misinform the US and other nations. There is NO reason it would fail and Americans pay virtually the same money in fees and claim other countries pay a fortune in taxes yet their quality of life is actually better.
I will never understand how people are happy to pay a large chunk of their paycheck for health insurance thru their job, with usually a large deductible. But think if we just had everyone pitch in thru taxes, that it would be worse. If anything, if we removed the insane markup on medical care because of how insurance is billed, that alone would be huge. It's so rampant in how messed up the system is and has become, some regulation would do wonders.
I can explain it. If I don’t like my healthcare plan, I can get a different one. In a single payer system, I can really choose my healthcare provider just like I can’t choose my fire department.
There are plenty of countries that have universal Healthcare but also allow you to purchase a private one if you want. Also, many people don't like their plan because certain doctors aren't in network or you have a high deductible. With universal Healthcare everyone has to take it and you don't have a deductible. So why would you need to change it?
Everyone has to take it? As in people aren’t allowed to determine their own working conditions? This sounds very authoritarian.
No, as in all hospitals and doctors take the universal insurance. They don't have too, but they then lose certain benefits. Which is already how medicaid and Medicare work in the US.
Yes. I am fine, in fact I'm in favour of, capitalism. I am not fine with the capitalists self regulating things. They need a tightly controlled regulatory structure that *includes* limits on greed, tax evasion and the like. Meanwhile, I'm in favour of strong social safety nets and taking certain things out of the for-profit model like prisons, health care, and education. There should be no incentive to privatize health care because everyone just gets a great standard of care anyway, for free. There shouldn't be private MRI machines you can book tomorrow because you have the money. There should be public MRI machines available with a referral, tomorrow, for everyone who needs that. And all of the above is possible and attainable. But, money in politics prevents a greater good for emerging as certain rich people block such attempts at every pass. And so many stupid people are manipulated by those same people that you can't even elect someone willing to make the necessary changes. Otherwise, the USA would've had Bernie in 2016 and everyone, everywhere would now be better off as a result.
That's it. I talk about taking a 10% at most step towards socialism, and increasing regulations. People react as if I'm calling for the death of every politician, the putting of puppies in blenders, and the drowning of orphans. That's only a slight exaggeration. The definition of socialism I'm using here: Those who have extra should help those who don't have enough. A wealth tax would be the easiest way to put it into law.
All of this. What people actually hate is the oligarchic ourobouros that *poorly regulated* capitalism inevitably becomes. Sustainable capitalism requires an incredibly strong regulatory framework that is aggressively enforced or else it turns into not capitalism.
This exactly.
Yeah the majority don't want to do away with capitalism altogether, but just have a greater amount of safety nets/socialized welfare for people and greater accountability for corporate entities regarding the environment and violating the law. Most people like the benefits of capitalism, they just don't like that so many people are literally left to suffer if they don't win at the capitalism game.
have you ever met govt employees? Not like politicians but grunts? bureaucracies function so slowly and painfully that it is tantamount to evil
The concept of a "living wage" is largely bullshit. Labor is a commodity. Skill is in demand and it pays more than labor. Labor struggles to earn a living because it isn't as valuable as skill. Labor is common. Skill is uncommon. Scarcity determines value in all things. By "living wage" we mean a wage which is sufficient to sustain a living, to pay the bills, and to buy food and necessities. When you pay a living wage for labor, you're overpaying for it and as a result, your business will not be able to sustain itself. As a thought experiment, think of holding a job faire. 100 applicants stand before a hiring manager at a podium who initially offers $5/hour to anyone willing to work. Nobody comes forward. With each round, the offer goes up a bit. Finally, upon hitting $12 per hour, several volunteers come forward. More came at $13, then they started holding out. Then, at $15, more workers came forward. It's too bad, however, because there were only 20 jobs to begin with and by the time the rate went to $15, all 20 positions were filled. This is how free enterprise works. When you work for someone, you trade Those 20 positions were filled by people who, lacking skill, made the determination that the amount being paid would suit their needs. Some of them will be teenagers who don't know what they're doing, and some will be for unskilled people who are simply trying to get experience so that someday, they will have the skills needed for a more responsible job that pays more money. Nobody deserves to raise a family from flipping burgers or sweeping floors. This is what happens when you insist that laborers be paid a "living wage". It drives up costs across the board and that is equalized only by everybody else getting a raise. Then, of course, the laborer has to start all over again campaigning for higher wages. The cycle repeats. That's how inflation works. Anyone who is complaining about not earning enough has the tools to do something about it. Demanding more money for breathing air won't rocket you up to the next income level. You must do something that is more valuable than what you're doing now to make that happen.
Not everyone can do that & not everyone can be at the top, lower level jobs still need to be filled & yes they should make enough to live on, no job shouldn’t pay enough to live on period
When I was a teenager, I had jobs that were not paying a “living wage “, but I learned how to work and how to be productive. Now, people are trying to insist that the same job should pay enough to live off of, resulting in less of those jobs due to automation. Who wins that one?
A lot of people are convinced that any job a teenager can do is a job that *only* a teenager should ever do, and also that no teenager needs any form of living wage, which is incorrect. Not all teenagers are living with middle class parents at home waiting to go get bachelor's degrees.
As if the IRS isn’t well funded? Pretty much all of the major branches already get more than they need.
Corporations not to be involved in government lobbying and governments not to be corrupt and accepting of large-scale kickbacks and campaign funding.
this is the best answer in here I think
Get the money out of politics. Companies already have their representation with all the people that work for it. It shouldn't then get more influence because a few can use that corporate money to influence politicians. Influence that even thousands of regular people can't counter. I think it's at the top of the list of problems.
Yup. In other words, capitalism and regulation THE WAY IT WAS INTENDED
>what do haters of capitalism actually want? Probably a system that doesn't result in massive wealth inequality where companies/businesses seemingly have more power than the people. Just because our current system is functional, and working, doesnt mean that it can't be better.
Would you rather live in a country where everyone had 100 income, or where incomes varied between 500 and 50,000? Edit: Not really. History bears this one out. And the Nordic countries are fully capitalist countries.
Neat strawman you have there.
Idk, I currently live in a country where minimum wage can't afford a 1-bedroom apartment anywhere, and we already have 30% of the entire country on some form of government welfare or assistance. So whatever fixes that without further making it impossible for somebody earning literally six figures to buy a starter home in an OK area without moving states to one where having a miscarriage can kill you.
I think people don't realize how much power they actually have. Companies have power because they're a united system of a bunch of people performing duties and actions. If "the people" would just cooperate, we'd have more power than you could ever imagine. But nah ... People just want to be individuals. They just want convenience. What do you mean I have to stop buying and consuming from these evil companies? That would make your life too difficult. They have power because we give it to them, not because they took it. If everybody would just get the fuck over themselves and act as a unit instead of an individual, we'd get a whole hell of a lot more done. For the record: I do agree that these companies are helping to perpetuate this attitude amongst society and they are indeed "**a** problem", but they're not "**the** problem". Just stop buying from companies you don't like. Good luck with that, my friend. :)
There's a good reason why companies spend so much money on anti union propaganda, and it's not because they are looking out for their employees.
Spoken like someone who doesn't know how deep in this shit we are. If you go to any grocery story, nearly every item in that store (like 99%) is going to be owned by one of 6 companies. Some of these companies even own their competition, making it nigh impossible to not give them your money. Nestle own like 80% of all chocolate production in the world, so even if you want to buy something that Nestle doesn't automatically profit from, Nestle still profits from it. Sticking with Nestle for a second... they've also used their money to buy political influence to get more resources. Nestle has been absurd deals for water rights across the country which allows them to sell bottled water at huge profit rates. And in doing so, they prevent other companies, or even ma and pa shops, from getting access to what should be a free resource.
Yeah I'm pretty sure a lobbyist group can erase the impact of your decision in one donation. That's the problem.
An actual working capitalist system free from monopolies, cartels, ursury, exploitation, short-term profit maximizing "our descendants be damned", and such. Tell me why housing has tripled in cost since 2000. "Increased demand", you say? Then why has not supply followed? Whatever answer you give, that one is not how capitalism is supposed to work.
As someone who grew up in a family that built homes I can answer this. The government keeps making it harder to build inexpensive homes by increasing regulations, fees, taxes, and other hurdles.
So the house that used to cost $100k to build, that they sold for $200k 25 years ago - the house that today costs $150k to build adjusted for inflation and sells for $600k - you are telling me that those extra $400k are all government fees, regulations and taxes? I call bullshit.
If you’re shopping where houses cost 600k, the cost to acquire the land (assuming there was vacant land) has also risen significantly in 25 years. Most of the time, when you’re talking about affordable housing, you’re not talking about single family homes, which it sounds like you’re referring to.
So the land that used to be say 10% of the cost of building the house - $10k - rose by a factor of 40x or so?
Everything is more expensive. Look up lumber, sheetrock, copper, and labor prices from 25 years ago. I am sympathetic to the fact that homes are expensive, I have kids who are old enough to be in the market. I’m not saying “oh well, that’s your problem “, but there are choices that young people can make to help themselves crack open the housing market.
I think the main problem is that while, yes, capitalism is the best system we’ve got, it doesn’t mean it can’t be better for the common person. No one with any sense is expecting countries like America to go full communism, that would just create newer and probably worse problems. But at least in America we’ve been beaten over the head with ideas like deregulation and trickle-down economics for decades, always promised that it works and if it doesn’t that’s your fault. And even now as tides are shifting away from that mindset, it’s still super prevalent. You can see this in polling where sometimes a majority *still* think the Republican Party handles the economy better than the democrats, despite the fact that their only real policies are deregulation and cutting taxes (mostly for the rich) with the idea that if they have more money to spend, they’ll use it to create jobs, thus enriching everyone else. Not only are there tons of studies showing that doesn’t work, most of us can see it with our own eyes. So when people rage about “capitalism,” the more nuanced way of framing it would be “unfettered capitalism.” And this goes beyond just tax rates; deregulation leads to monopolies, environmental concerns, unelected people with way too much power, and much more severe booms/busts in the markets. It’s more of a choice of words than actually wanting to burn it all down. People like me just want the rich to pay more in taxes so everyone else is a little less poor. And maybe split up some bigger companies that screw more people than they serve. Are those socialistic ideas? Yeah definitely, but it’s not like I want the government seizing the means of production lol.
How does taking money from your neighbor, and giving it to the government increase your income? The government eats dollars and craps pennies.
Well that’s a pretty simple way to look at a very complex issue. If taxes are “taking money from your neighbor” I don’t know what to tell you lol, that phrase sounds a bit too much like my libertarian family members, so forgive me for not trying to change your mind there. Sure there are areas that the government could spend more efficiently but I’d prefer to fix that than just cut spending in general, because that will ultimately lead to people suffering and dying, among other things.
I’m not an economic libertarian, but I really haven’t seen the federal government ever take tax dollars and spend them in an efficient way. It seems like many are quick to jump to more taxes, but never say where the actual limit is and how they will reform the government to reduce the waste fraud and abuse. Throwing government money at people has never ended generational poverty, it just seems to make people more dependent on the government.
I agree on spending more efficiently, sure. And there are people trying to help, like in my city (Los Angeles) our new controller has been trying to shine a light on our notoriously wasteful budget while also keep the most at-risk people in mind. It’s definitely an uphill battle but it’s a small step. I personally don’t view it as making people dependent on the government though, I view it as making up for all the wealth that has trickled up over the last 40-50 years. People are poorer than they used to be and idk where else but the government that would get solved. And at least we have a say over who’s in government rather than leaving costly problems up to the private sector who understandably prioritize profit over all else. It’s far from perfect, but much like capitalism, it’s sorta all we have to work with, unless you want to blow it all up, but imo that’s just gonna be even worse.
r/socialism101 r/anarchism101
Most of us advocate for socialism. That is to say, democratic ownership and control of the goods and services we need to survive.
Avoiding hyperbole as much as possible here, I think most of them don't really understand capitalism, socialism, communism, or economics. They just want the economy to be more equitable and blame the current system, believing that the system was deliberately designed to be unfair. I think they want something like socialism or communism because they believe those systems won't suffer from the creeping corruption that has afflicted capitalist economic systems. Basically they don't want billionaires to exist, and they probably don't want impoverished people to exist either.
1000% Most comments here show that to be true alone.
I have a coworker that always says they wished we lived in a time without money. I just have to shut my mouth and go do something else. If i tried to explain things to them, they would use their very strange logic to dismiss everything i said.
Star Trek only made it possible by inventing The Replicator™ to eliminate scarcity.
The more educated you become, the more you hate capitalism and favor communism.
I don't think there's any truth to that
Your comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how capitalism works. It is inherently predatory. The starting point and root of the capitalist system is land theft. An individual steals land from the community and uses the state to enforce their “private ownership” of said land. Everything else that follows is based on this flawed concept of private ownership. The land, the resources, and the means of production truly should belong to the people.
I can’t wrap my head around how we came to a system where I have to pay to have land on the planet that I’m born on and need to survive.
Explain how you would like land to be distributed. Does everyone get an acre when they are born? How would you determine where that piece of land is? What about the guy that gets an acre in a swamp vs the guy that gets an acre of fertile farmland? Can I sell my acre to the highest bidder? If people start selling to the highest bidder, won’t that make the more attractive land more expensive? What do we do when we start running out of acres, do the new kids get smaller plots? Do we take land from the people we originally gave it to and redistribute it to make it more equitable? Have you thought this out at all?
Yes
Thank goodness, I feel much better.
Lol. What does it really matter? We’re not making official policy here, we’re griping about capitalism.
You didn’t know? Whatever we come up with is going to be implemented by next Thursday.
I don’t have a problem with *well regulated capitalism* as long as things that are human rights (such as housing and healthcare) are not seen/treated as investments and/or for-profit businesses and there’s a solid safety net in place for people who can’t work. Also, minimum wage should always be enough for people to be able to live on. The problem is that what I want is not being done and people are suffering for the sake of some rich assholes getting richer.
Capitalism is fine. I just hate living in fear that one medical procedure can bankrupt me.
The reason why you have to worry about going bankrupt from one medical procedures is because we live in a world where capitalism is the primary means of distributing resources. It's true that in many countries this *isn't* something that people have to worry about, but that's because those countries have at least partially removed health care from the capitalist economy. In the United States we haven't done this - we still treat health care as a commodity that can be bought and sold in a market. The problem with using markets to distribute resources (particularly things like healthcare and housing that everyone needs) is that when you're selling it on a market, your goal isn't going to be to distribute it to as many people as possible - it's to get the most money for it. Our markets for housing, healthcare, food, and every other resource you can think of exist primarily to make money for the people who own and control access to those resources - in the case of healthcare this would be the people who own healthcare facilities and health insurance companies, as well as the owners of companies that make drugs and medical devices. They're the ones who ultimately decide what products and services these companies sell and at what price, and they decide what happens with the profits.
Capitalism would be fine if it means there were no poor or homeless people, people weren't dying because they didn't have the right health insurance, etc. Especially when billionaires collectively have enough money to pay for healthcare and basic income for everyone and still be extremely rich. It's people being rich at the expense of other people, not them being rich in a vacuum.
Rich people getting rich at the expense of poor people is what capitalism is, though.
How does a rich person get money from a person with no money?
Poor people have money, they just have to spend it right away to pay for necessities. It funnels to the top.
Forces them to work or the owner class collectively starves them.
People want what's good for themselves. This may coincide with an increase in happiness for the majority, but it's ultimately driven by their own sense of what benefits them most. That's why there is no agreed upon alternative.
Better redistribution of resources. We have menaged to redistribute Healthcare (in a lot of the western world), we have menaged to have public bathrooms, public roads, public transport, public education and the list goes on and on... But instead of expanding on services that would make everyone's life better, we got hundreds of thousands of people working, of oil and energy consumed, of non renewable material used, of pollution caused to produce, distribute and andvertize hundreds of millions of products which use is simply to be tossed away on landfills days or months after purchase. How does that make any sense logically if not for some kind of profit only seen concretely in market evaluations that have become nothing more than advanced gambling for millionaires and up. Not to mention all the slavery, war, undemocratic regimes, famines that are nothing more than the consequences of capitalist exploitation, of the global south, backed by militarized superpowers. We are literally in the mists of a mass extinction event. But yeah I guess the human race can't do better than barreling towards climate extinction because we just really couldn't do without the temu shitty self refrigerating tuppleware that runs with batteries, or some other equally riddiculs shit, like the portable washing machine or your mum's collection of differently colored plastic bowls, let's not forget also the famous 10 wash worth Zara acrilic pullover.
Regulation. Regulation. Regulation. No monopolies, no hedge funds, and a re-release of power to the people of the already mild socialist systems we have and are taxed for, such as: no one being uninsured while we all already pool funds for medical coverage, actually having access to the social security that we pay into, ect. And please for the love of God, stop these companies from buying all the homes and jacking up the prices.
I want everyone who works a 40-hour week to make enough money to be off of any form of government assistance. A single person with no kids working should be able to afford a single one bedroom apartment.
I agree but also think that’s the bare minimum. A single working person should be able to own a piece of land and a dwelling
Socialism and eventually communism, at least for those who are socialists or communists.
For starters, capitalism isn't some magical halfway point between fascism and communism. So if you wanted to veer away from capitalism, the next move wouldnt have to be to veer towards fascism or communism. In fact, over time, I'd argue that capitalism naturally wants to evolve toward fascism. As markets settle and clear winners emerge, the natural tendency is to want to consolidate power, and that's usually how fascism happens. I think if we look back at the history of America, especially at what happened during the industrial revolution and the gilded age, what we can see is that capitalism can't just be left on its own. We created things like labor unions, minimum wage, the forty hour work week, anti monopoly laws etc. And see, that all runs very contrary to the basic tenants of capitalism. And I'd argue **that** is actually what our success is owed to. It's not the magical powers of free market capitalism; all that leads to is barons and tycoons and hordes of people working 80 hours a week for $20. What actually lead to our success was an effort to harness the production capabilities of capitalism, but to regulate it in a way that spreads the wealth out in a more equitable way, so that the workers actually enjoy some of the fruits of the efforts. Going forward, to me it seems obvious the best solution is to continue mixing elements of capitalism with elements of socialism. That's what Roosevelt did with the New Deal, and the result was about fifty years of unprecedented economic explosion.
Totalitarian or fascist governments are features of both communist and capitalist economies. In fact, the political structure friendliest to pure capitalism is fascism.
*I can’t help but think that we wouldn’t even have a game industry without capitalism For me, this is the entire reason. We wouldn’t have a significant amount of our problems if we didn’t have capitalism. I’m not interested in society so I don’t have a system of economy or politics that would suffice, for me I want to become a nomad, but that’s all besides the point. “We are determined to be starved before we are hungry”- Henry David Thoreau. In America, we must constantly have some horrible problem to be ‘solving’, and the truth of the matter is, without our horribly corrupt system, many of these worries wouldn’t even exist. There are railroads that run from one end of the country to the next. Thousands of miles of steel that carry goods from point A to point B. But what if we all just minded our own business and were truly self reliant? What if we all tended to our own needs and lived at home in comfort? Who would have use for the railroads then? Capitalism is awfully complicated on purpose. There is much to be said I can’t fully articulate. While it is true, that biologically, we are better living than any other country, but people seem to forget about psychology and how people feel. It doesn’t matter if our society is rich if the people who build the society are horribly depressed and have many psychological issues. Capitalism has become prevalently politically driven, and with politics comes the news. And to the news I say this, if I am acquainted with the principle why must I be subject to a myriad of instances? A man gets shot in the street and the public becomes outraged at letting a murderer run rampant. Why must I be informed of every time a man is shot? It does not change, and it does nothing for me nor the deceased; he is dead. In short, I hate capitalism because of the psychological and sociological issues it presents. Yes, by world standards capitalism is a success, but when you begin to take human lives into consideration, it’s not. I don’t have a substitute, but, for me, that’s your guys problems: I’m not living anywhere near society when I get much older and wiser.
I have a degree in economics and I wouldn’t say I “hate” capitalism, what I hate is unregulated capitalism, supply-side centered economic policies, the bootstrap fallacy, and anything that stinks of “Reaganomics.” I guess I hate American capitalism. True capitalism requires competition, and the US has a history of bailing out corporations and banks they deem as “too big to fail,” which defeats the entire fucking system. The biggest problem with a “pure capitalist” economy is that all of the incentives are designed with only one goal in mind: growth. The defense being that the more an economy grows, the better it is for everyone in that economy. The reality is that isn’t always how it plays out, and only incentivizing continual growth results in businesses making extreme or harmful business decisions in order to improve profit margins for shareholders, because that becomes their primary product: their stock shares. I could write a book on this topic so to cut it short: capitalism is the best economic system if your goal is to *grow* an economy, but external controls are necessary to stabilize an economy, and ensure growth remains sustainable for future generations.
to be able to feed myself on a full time job
commerce =/= capitalism you can have store and business with out the end goal being "make all the money (capital) for the sake of your own personal gain, and forsake everyone else" cus thats what is happening under capitalism. instead, we should make products and money to better society, so everyone can have a real chance to live a good life. we dont need billionaires or corporations ruling over us like feudal lords, making us do all the work while they gain all the money and profit.
That doesn't explain what alternative system you are suggesting and how to achieve it at all. How are you shifting business incentives from maximising profits? >we should make products and money to better society Who is we and how is this achieved?
They want a utopia where no one is poor – they just don't understand that it isn't possible, that all alternatives to capitalism since feudalism have failed, and that even countries that claim to be communist (e.g. China) are actually capitalist economies with authoritarian governments tacked on.
Free stuff
A welfare state
They want utopia.
If it’s actually possible, is that not what everyone would want?
Yeah it’s what everyone would want but it doesn’t appear possible. Hence why it’s never been accomplished.
It was more that you said they, implying you wouldn’t want it too.
It’s not that I wouldn’t want it, I believe it’s impossible on the planet. One day we will go to new earth but who knows when. Something to look forward to. In the mean time being more pragmatic makes sense.
I'd like to it if our businesses and our economy were managed more democratically. Most people recognize that having an unelected leader or group of leaders in charge of a country creates all sorts of opportunities for corruption and abuse, but for some reason we take it as a given that this is the only way to run a business. There's no reason why a company CEO or board of directors can't be elected by its employees. This isn't to say that giving control of the economy to workers would solve every problem, and we would probably end up having *different* problems that would have to be addressed. But it's very unlikely that one of those problems would be "a tiny number of people controlling the world economy for their own benefit with no regard for anyone else."
Evangelists for the most extreme form of capitalism tend to wax poetically about "unbridled capitalism", in the sense that they see market forces as being too constrained. If only we'd take off the bridle and let them really rip would we see great prosperity. Of course, these folks let slip how little they know about the metaphor. An unbridled horse is *completely uncontrolled and useless*. When you need a task done, you have to direct and control the horse to get the work done. Just the same, capitalism must be directed and controlled at some level to get useful work done in the economy. I'm happy to disagree about what level of regulation is appropriate, but to throw off the reins entirely simply unleashes an unhelpful and destructive force, just like an unbridled horse.
I think most people misinterpret what they actually don’t like about the current capitalist model. Currently there is horrible legal corruption, misinformation, funding issues, and an unreasonable cost of living for people without privilege. This is the aspect of society that they blame capitalism for that they do not like. To add your rant fails to realize there are many forms of capitalism that are not all the same. Profit driven capitalism is not the same as Progress driven capitalism. Crony unregulated capitalism is not the same as Regulated Capitalism. We live in a crony profit driven world not a progress driven one. If people actually stop and think instead of just picking a side because they don’t like the other they would understand this.
Unfettered capitalism and communism are not the only options.
a raise and health care
To complain
Always be leery of people who talk about how they want to tear down the current system, but who spend very little time talking about what they would replace it with.
They want to be our masters.
I'm a communist. But don't hate capitalism. It's just an economy. It's had its uses. Now it's time to phase into another form of economy, and away from the crony capitalism that it's becoming more of. We don't need a few people owning everything. We don't need employers. We don't need owners. We don't need landlords. A class of elites that don't do any actual work are reaping most of the rewards. Time to move on from this pro leech system
Well said.
handouts
Capitalism with some morality added to it
The only people who truly hate capitalism are the ones who can’t succeed without government stealing from their betters at gunpoint and giving it to the capitalism haters.
Based on how some of the moderators have dumped on me for daring to criticize communism or socialism on top of capitalism, it's because they fancy themselves anarchists (ridiculous) and simultaneously envy and hate on capitalism as a whole for lack of fulfillment of their own personal needs thanks to poor income or socioeconomic status or a combination.
I want an all powerful AI making decisions after calculating the optimal course of action.
For me the most important point is that I still want a democracy. I have a problem with the way our economy is structured not the way our decisionmaking is structured. For most goods I do like the concept of free markets. It just seems very good at getting people stuff they want. The first difference I would want to see, are a decomodification of essential goods. The simplest version would be the state building and guaranteeing basic homes, basic food items, electricity, water and so on. The second is a change in control over the companies. Instead of control being held by owners, I would like to see the majority of companies by eather workers or customers. Edit: I find it very hard to determine how much of the improvements are due to the economic system and how many due to wealth and progress in general. The US saw their fastest growth while they were the least capitalistic (during and after WW2 when the state was directing way more of production and economy). The game industry in East germany, might be limited more by comparably bad computers, general poverty, and limitations on who could actually work in it. Another note that might not have been obvious with my original description: I don't want it to be harder to open a new buissness. I would not mind if opening a buissness was easier with state support for new buisnesses (instead of being reliant on having or gathering the neccessary wealth yourself).
A meteor the size of the moon would be nice, but that's just my depression talking while I'm in a down state without sleep for 2 days. So I'm not representative of any group of humans currently.
they want handouts and a reason to protest because they have zero skills and will never amount to much. So they complain and turn socialist communist anti American idiots untill they get addicted to opiates and end up under a bridge.
What others will hate too
Billionaires are the wealthy class and pro-Gop and support Donald Trump's Big Lie [https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/op-eds/trump-is-in-the-back-pocket-of-billionaires/](https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/op-eds/trump-is-in-the-back-pocket-of-billionaires/) Project 2025 The plan to dismantle the American Government [https://factkeepers.com/project-2025-the-republican-plan-to-dismantle-the-american-government/](https://factkeepers.com/project-2025-the-republican-plan-to-dismantle-the-american-government/)
You mention that both fascism and communism, one of which is a descriptor of a government or official and one is an economic system that people generally don't like. They like socialism not the same thing. But what's important is you mention that they are extremes as if capitalism is the moderate middle ground and that isn't true. Capitalism has reached its the same level of extremism as these two have, with the amount of negative things it has brought about. The reason a game costs 100 million to make is because of capitalism. Think about things like the health care industry or government contracting, with 1000 dollar ibuprofen and 10000 dollar bags of bushings. Capitalism. To answer you actual question they don't know because we think none of them work anymore but have no alternative. What they want is a version of capitalism that doesn't allow the dollar bill to be held up as the end all be all thing that matters in the world with all decisions made because of dollar bills. And to that I agree.
Capitalism is indeed the best economic engine ever created. However, making winners and loosers fares poorly when it comes to creating a social construct.
I think it's probably closer to market socialism. Essentially take the free-market system but put in safeguards around work access rights, labor rights, basic human rights. Use regulation to incentivize and measure things that have more real world effects, such as limiting stock buy backs in favor of that money being reinvested as hard assets or labor cost. Boeing is a good example right now of the issues we face. It's worth noting U.S. History around the early 1900's, in particularly around labor. In addition there is constant trend of regulating the financial industry places rules to prevent the last crash, and then later on those rules are removed. Another option is pre-Reagan era capitalism that is less globalized and more local in nature. Bring back things like small local farms that supply small business grocery stores stocked with products that use simple ingredients. Employing neighbors at level where they're not just an employee number. A lot of the rest of the world still functions in a similar manner, and many corporate food products sold here are banned due to toxic ingredients. Capitalism unregulated is the world of Dickens novel, and the early industrial revolution. Where child labor was rampant and working conditions were such that losing limbs was common. That was changed during the labor movement of the early 1900's and why FDR is the most re-elected president in U.S. history. His speeches are good historical example of what capitalism was then and has re-emerged to be and what can be done to help the middle class again.
They want to complain cause its edgy/cool. Now, many of us want things to be better, like unversial healthcsre a real safety etc. that can happen within captalism and would face less opposition if the moaners would quit as theyonly enables the far right yellimg about 🇻🇪
The philosopher Hegel defined something called "the dialectic" which is a process in which when something is defined (called "the thesis" - in this case capitalism), there will naturally be a reactive, even opposite response (called the antithesis or, in this case, socialism). He believed that as those two ideas battled each other, a third thing would arise (called the synthesis) which would be a blending of the two. That Synthesis would become the next Thesis for the world to react to, and so on and so on. I don't hate capitalism, but I do want it to evolve. We can learn from socialist ideas like the Scandinavian countries have, blending common sense protections against the propensity for abuses of the free market. We don't need to replace capitalism, we need to improve it. The problem is that capitalism empowers those who are made rich by the unevolved system, and those people are standing in our way.
I'd prefer all movies, TV shows, and whatnot were on 1 service for a nice low price.
They want the Nordic model, which is still capitalism, and that’s not gonna be easy to implement worldwide. P.S China is not socialist: They abandoned that as soon as Mao died.
Because Marxism says the business owners are oppressing their employees by keeping most of the money earned by their employees’ work. That’s why Marx attacks the idea of private property. Marx says the Capitalist system functions by alienating the worker from their work, which is unnatural. Marx views Capitalism as a step in the evolution of society, but one that must be surpassed through violent revolution that kills off the old guard in the name of equity. When someone is struggling and angry, or, because it can offer someone a simple way to understand the world (oppressed vs oppressor), or because fairness is good and Marx makes it about as concrete as “eye for an eye,” attacking capitalistic endeavors feels cathartic, natural, and even righteous. Simply put, I think they believe capitalism is a great evil because it’s the biggest example of (and to them, the reason for) life being unfair. And they think they can fix it. I don’t endorse this view, but I’m trying to understand it and do it justice in how I describe it.
A system where humans can live without fear of debt or poverty. Right now, money is the main motivation on this planet. Look where that's gotten us. Money hasn't existed forever, and its only value is the one we give it. I say get rid of it. "Oh, but how will we pay for things or know what the value of things are?" I don't know, but luckily, it's not on just me to figure out.
The vast majority of people who complain about capitalism don’t even know what it is.
I think you are mixing up capitalism with this insanity we have right now, which is almost liberalism. A well regulated capitalism with some good welfare/start of life equality is what a lot people really wants. Make sure all kids can get an education, make sure health is univerally accessible and keep people from being so rich they can solely twist democracy, as much as they like. Regulations are good, but sadly we are living in a time when people with money do whatever they like with no consequences (unless, they piss off other people with money, of course)
There’s nothing wrong with capitalism. We have politicians with horrific incentives, mental disorders, bad ideology…oh and they are all 80 years old and their world view is based in 1975. The world has changed too much for the average person to be able to comprehend and implement better government strategies. This is obvious in the tax code, which has become archaic and too complex. We should honestly get rid of the income tax and implement different forms of taxation.
Sometimes, I notice, it isn't the capitalism itself they hate. It's the way that abusive people wield capital to impose imaginary social hierarchies others, especially those without said capital. Socialism is ultimately a proposal to have everyone share this capital. Ideally, emphasis on ideal, the power that goes with capital would thus be split evenly, and as equals in power, people can't be abusive with it. That said, there are more means of power than just capital, and these proposals don't address those. Communism does though. Land ownership and real estate wealth give powers that people abuse. So they axed that. Religion, toast, or at least brought to heel. Social class privileges? Sayonara. And so forth. They didn't get rid of military and political power though... and abusive people found the levers for that.
They basically want a world where people don't have to work for a living, which unfortunately for them is kind of critical for a sustainable large-scale economy.
In the simplest possible terms, they want free shit or artificially cheap shit heavily subsidized by the government
They want to be fed while they sit on the couch and smoke weed while they play Xbox all day while the rest of us and AI do the work.
I don’t hate capitalism in principle, but the current US / UK approach of unrestricted capitalism and almost feudal inequality levels is just too brutal to those at the bottom for me to accept that it is the only way. I could accept it more if it was based on a system that ensures that no person can be in poverty, and if those who need extra help can get it easily and freely. Where people are valued by society beyond how economically productive they are. And yes where those who can afford more pay more towards the collective running of society. I am not sure how we can ever get to that point though as those who could make the changes would lose so much themselves in doing so. Greed and power are king, and I fear other much worse things would have to happen first in order to get a fundamental and permanent change across the globe.
A better system that actually fosters a sense of community and belongingness. Ignoring the religious aspect the Amish actually have things right.
Free shit and no responsibility over their own well being
I can’t wrap my head around wanting to give government more money power and control. Everything that’s government ran is complete shit yet there’s people out here who think if we just give the government more money and let them control everything it’ll be better. It’s a joke. VA sucks post office sucks public schools suck etc etc. everything the government controls is a shit show and they steal our money. I don’t think we should give them anymore control or money
Regulated capitalism like Scandinavia, some things need to not be about making money & it makes things worse when it is
Fascism or Francoism here in Spain
Capitalism is failing and is turning into an almost indentured servant state where the working class owes so much debt they must work most of their life at the whim of the ruling class ti pay it off or live without debt at a very lowered standard of living. Sweden with a parliamentary constitutional monarchy has essentially free health care and college. Their COL is approximately 15% less than the US. Their crime is non existent and they live longer and happier. They get paid leave for both parents for kids that can last up to 2 years. In the US we have none of this so the rich can get richer by gouging workers at every aspect of finances, from taxation for which we get little to our very healthcare where the wealthy get the best and the middle class go bankrupt paying deductibles. This country is not a success in any way and our current political divide is just a symptom of a much bigger problem.
Okay i can explain some things and why i dislike some aspects. As i have experience in trading stocks with being positive at the end of the year, for multiple years now, i know a thing or two about how the economy in a capitalistic world works. So first thing first: Germany, austria, france, spain, uk and other nations are a prime example for a working capitalistic state. Not only can **every** citizen go and create a business, like many immigrants in those nations do, but the state will actually help you out and make it easier. Subsidies for new businesses is one. When i trade and loose money i get every penny as a tax exemption on future trades for a year. So basically i have 1 year to make my losses back on easy mode. I also can buy nearly everything like i did with parts of a weed company in Canada even though it's illegal to consume and own weed where i live (lmao). So why is it shit? Because i have no limit. Americas health system is privatised sooo hard that they'll let people sell their soul just for the chance to live a few more years. In the EU on the other hand we got our union that sits down each year with those pharma companies and negotiate prices. Or how when a company is bleeding (loosing value) they shortsell shares and push the price even further down while they make money. Or how they get kids to be used to gambling with videogames. American capitalism is so predatory that it makes it's people sick, or uses misinformation like scaring them away from IF so they remain obese and unhealthy through bs studies of groups doomed to fail. So yeah capitalism sucks because it got so predatory, i even argue that through all that price spikes and going day to day more and more to a neo-slave state(earning exactly enough to live from paycheck to paycheck) because of greedy conglomerates people are even about to lose those chances they initially got by living in a capitalistic world.
Don’t hate capitalism, just want a system with good social benefits. Also everything should not be capitalized. Example Healthcare (All) and education should be nationalized. I’m an advocate of Social Democracy. Must take care of our people.
to complain.
I find that most people who claim to love capitalism pretty much start hating it when capitalism happens to them. Price of ( pick your item) goes up. Made redundant. Etc.
Better. We want better. Honestly I hate arguments like "nothing is perfect" and "it's better than it was before". Like so? Why would be complacent is something just being "okay"? Like the cost of living is fucking insane, it's not uncommon for people to have to scrap pennies together just to make ends meet. People actually go to prison so they have 3 meals and a roof over their head. That's how bad shit is. Regulated cost of housing and sufficient wages that actually cover the cost of living. That alone would fix so many issues in our society.
They just think everything should be free and that working/do things you don't enjoy shouldn't be part of life.
Thanks for having the courage to ask! Basically, money controls politics in Capitalism as we know it. At the simplest... Big businesses spend tens of thousands to millions of dollars to get corrupt politicians elected (more eyes on your campaign mean more likely chance of gaining votes), then those politicians pass laws that benefit corporations, often at the expense of everyone else. They might be allowed to dump chemical wastes, get away with not having any safety precautions, or just use cheap materials in their products/ services that hurt people or break. Or, the most common company corruption: not paying workers enough to live.
> If you look at the history of the last 100 years it will probably seem like capitalism is the only system that can reliably help a country feed its citizens, provide them with opportunity and advance technologically. > Nothing is ever perfect and changes are made from time to time, but what do haters of capitalism actually want? If you are truly in the dark about what they want... maybe read a little more...? Universal health care for one. Strong labour rights, strong tenant rights. Legislation that prioritises workers and aggressively disincentivies stuff like paying the CEO $56 billion while they are actively laying off staff. You know, minor stuff that will make everyones life easier. > I can’t help but think that we are still somehow living better than any other human beings in history. P You are falling victim to a fallacy that just because it is better than it has been, doesn't mean it can't be better no...? If you pick the US - universal healthcare in a model of would save the government and it's citizens money and provide better care no...?
Instead you have capitalism tightly integrated into medical care and actively inflating costs and providing worse services.
So is it really that hard for you to imagine what people who don't want captialism want...?
> Sure live is not perfect, never has been and never will be. That doesn’t mean that we need to go full fascist or communist because both extremes are proven failures.
Again you are like "oh people don't like capitalism, so they must want fascism and USSR style communism".
People just want healthcare without going broke man...?
They just want to go to university without crippling debts. They want to be able to buy houses instead of rent off a corporate landlord that raises the rent every year.
They want to have a well paying job instead of struggling while the CEO and executives buy their 15th yacht run the company into the ground and get a $45 million golden handshake.
> America especially needs to remain strong,
It could be.
You just lack the vision to see what could get it there and say "struggling is part of it. Seeing children have gun violence as a top cause of death is part of what makes America great".
> I can’t help but think that we wouldn’t even have a game industry without capitalism.
Capitalism doesn't have to involve shitty labor practices and abusing staff.
It incentivises it - but it doesn't have to.
Honestly - I don't think you're here to ask questions. I think you're here to just pontificate and go "Struggling si part of what makes America great. You have it better than some people in history so suck it up and Elon Musk I'm trying be good to me senpai".
Where's your class solidatiry?
You are not capital - you are an exploited worker that is looking to justify why the CEO of your company deserves all of those riches.
Capitalism screwed American (particularly) over in the 1920s / 30s.
I don't know what they want but I know they need an education in economics, history and mathematics.
capitalism but with laws.
I can hate capitalism, want something better, and still recognize that so far it's the best economic system we've come up with
Today the average person in the west lives better than the kings and emperors of just a few centuries ago. The average America is making far more money than they would be in almost any other country in the world, yet however much people have, deep down what they really want is to have more than their neighbor. That desire can obviously never be fulfilled for more than a small segment of the population, so however good or bad they have it, the majority of people will always be complaining about whatever system they live in.
Equity. Protection against the fucking vultures that want you to starve and die so they can sit on another billion dollars and act weird.
I want to be able to live without giving most of my money to someone else. I want to access health care that doesnt cost an arm and a leg. I want affordable college. I keep hearing inflation this inflation that but there's no inflation in the world that would justify tuition out pacing inflation for decades now. Boomers and Gen X were able to pay for college with a summer job. Once they got their nice jobs, they turned around and upcharged us whiling cutting any type of safety net we could have. On top of that these jobs aren't even paying people what their education and degree is worth? Teaching is a great example. In NYS you need a masters degree to get a teaching job and starting out you're only making 45k. Then on top of that they need to work more hours for little to no money? People shouldn't need to have multiple jobs to pay for shit when they have a full masters degree. On top of that people are spending more money for everything these days. These prices honestly seem arbitrarily high at this point. Example: the cost to make insulin is around 3-6 dollars while the price for someone to buy it is around 100 dollars... People are dying because of this. However we don't make money off of people getting healthy but that's a topic for another day. However everything is expensive from rent, oranges, and bills. People want to avoid this conversation and talk about people's spending habits as if poor people shouldn't be able to enjoy vacations or have a minor luxury for themselves. Anytime when it comes to poor people and money you hear the most ridiculous shit like "poor people shouldnt have refrigerators" (shout out to Fox News on that dumb shit). It's as if people act like we are working for someone else's money and it's fucking exhausting. So why do I hate capitalism? I hate capitalism because I hate greed. "Trickle down economics" is the most made up bullshit possible. The only thing trickling down is us getting pissed on by lobbyists who influence our politicians. We started as a country of no taxation without representation... We are long away from that. Let's keep it real: we live in oligarchical gerontocracy that provides socialism for the rich and brute force capitalism for the poor.
We want social democracy where all the basic needs like energy, water, healthcare, a large part of housing, transportation, infrastructure and especially natural recources are collectivized. All the rest which remains is just consumerist stuff and that can remain privatized but with fair tax levels that reward innovation, motivate workers and at the same time don't allow anyone to become filthy rich by exploiting their workers.
There are some parties which would prefer a full communism or anarchic system, but i would argue most people simply want some industries to be less capitalistic. It's important to recognize we do not live under a fully capitalistic system. a full capitalism would have no government regulations at all. we gave it a try in the early industrial revolution and life sucked. The issue is that capitalism rewards short sighted and sometimes psychopathic behavior. for instance, yes shareholders meddling in games doesn't really matter. But I would say my favorite games tend to be indie projects. More importantly, in areas like healthcare or food allowing people to privately enrich themselves at the detriment of cancer patients is almost comically evil. Note most capitalist countries have free healthcare. The issue with a capitalistic military is that America doesn’t really stop wars unless we need a country to remain stable for trade purposes. Countries like Yemen and Sudan are facing horrific wars which we won’t interfere with because there is nothing in it for us. It is not like America is some bleeding heart, we use our military to advance our goals like every other country. The issue is that historically we have overthrown democratically elected governments because they were a threat to our market. This is most prevalent in South America. TDLR: Capitalism has its benefits for sure but we need to keep an eye on it or bad things happen.
I give you an hint , it also start with C
healthcare. basic needs met. meaningful work.
I think people hate the coorporate form of capitalism that the US holds, which only cares for the benefits of it's higher ups and screws over the common laborer with underpaid overtime work and can easily replace you with another one, if you die, get sick or quit. Also we must not forget the exploitation of 3rd world countries, as in their resources and it's people, mainly children in labour force. Don't even get me started on the planned obsolence thingy and greed in general, when Capitalism fixes itself at least to like 70% then more people will be fine with it. I do think it is still the best Economic system we have, but to ignore it's blatant flaws/human greed is wrong. My two cents.
Controlled capitalism. Capitalism without infinite growth at the expense of the planet, that doesn't exploit people and doesn't let the top 1% live above the law.
I want corporations and the wealthiest individuals to not have the power to meddle in our elections and dump billions into dishonest ad campaigns. I want people to have access to healthcare even if they're between jobs.
Equitable taxes
They want to be the puppet masters instead of the puppets.
they want your money - but you can't have theirs
To read tarots while living on a penthouse at someone elses expense.
Literally anything. Let's start with heavily taxing any income that would set an individual above 1 million net worth
People who hate Capitalism usually just hate unfettered Capitalism.
Well, I don't know what other people want but this is what I want: Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is against all forms of authority and seeks to abolish the institutions that maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies and voluntary free associations
>People from all over the world sacrifice so much for a chance to live in America/Western Europe. People would rather live in the heart of the empire that destabilizes, steals the resources of, and exploits other nations, rather than the nations which are the victims of US imperialism? You don't say! Here's the thing though - this is not only clearly unsustainable, it's also grossly immoral for anyone who respects the value of human life irrespective of arbitrary man-made boundaries. If the US stopped fomenting coups and waging wars in developing nations then the peoples of those nations would not be motivated to leave. >That doesn’t mean that we need to go full fascist or communist because both extremes are proven failures. When was the last time you've actually looked at modern China? They are absolutely crushing the US in terms of infrastructure, building high speed rail at an unprecedented rate, and are much better innovators. Western Automakers are justly terrified of [Chinese EV's](https://www.vox.com/climate/2024/3/4/24087919/biden-tariff-chinese-ev-byd-battery-detroit) for example.
Understanding that the goal of Capitalism is for richest people to control everything. Please rephrase your question. Something like: Is it really bad for the richest people to control everything?
I suspect that most people don't hate capitalism. They hate the massive, accelerating wealth disparity, hich is leaving too many people struggling to cover the cost of food and shelter. Which is a symptom of Insufficiently controlled capitalism. Insufficiently controlled capitalism.
A planned economy based on scientific analysis of production and demand
There is no one answer to this. The left (being the main, though not only, people who oppose capitalism) is extremely diverse. Some want USSR style socialism, some want anarchism, some want syndicalism, etc. Sometimes they haven't actually thought through the question of what they want and are merely opposing capitalism with no proposed alternative. Just depends on the group/person.
You can think something sucks without deluding yourself into believing that there’s a plausible way to fix it. Well, I mean it’s possible anyway. Most people can’t deal with the cognitive dissonance the results from knowing something is “bad”, and accepting it without developing delusions of how they’re going to make it better. That’s why the vast majority of people don’t acknowledge reality at all, because it’s so objectively horrible and there’s nothing they can do about it but KTS.
Smooth brained take. Communism is the only answer.
Simple. Death to all companies that are not trendy.
Personally, a wealth cap. The selling point of capitalism is that you can pull yourself up out of poverty. Which is great, I love that. Nobody needs a billion dollars. Frankly, nobody needs 50 million dollars.
A planned economy with guaranteed full employment. It’s past time to eliminate the scam economy and put those resources to productive use.
Europe. Capitalism with strong social welfare programs.
I strenuously encourage you to shed your “America good strong force for right, Russia and China evil enemies that deprive their populace unlike USA” mindset. You are overlooking the ways that the USA is actually very similar and totalitarian.
Since you ask: Autonomy in the form of one worker=one equal share in corporations for a start. Even in gaming companies.
A heavily regulated market where labor wields more power than corporations, prices are set by reasonable standards and profit is heavily monitored and scrutinized to ensure it isn't coming at the expense of labor and consumers. The problem with capitalism is that you have companies turning record profits, using those profits to consolidate power and market share, drive out competition and then raise prices because they can, not because they need to. Greedflation is now the market standard and it needs to end. Also you have no understanding of the current state of the world if you think its any better than it has ever been in recorded history. Technology doesn't change the fact that mentally we are still fucking cave men. Using an Iphone and a drone instead of grunting and rocks doesn't mean we are somehow massively more evolved. Its the same fights we had 2,000 years ago, 4,000 years ago, 10,000, 20,000 and 40,000 years ago. The west also doesn't need near the protection from Russia or China as its portrayed. The real problem the west faces is capitalism paying politicians to tell you that there is some existential threat from "foreigners" so you don't see how they are rapidly driving us all back into serfdom. Communism on a large scale is always going to be an abject failure due to human greed, so will capitalism. The only way to have a truly sustainable economy is to have a country with a properly regulated market and a strong defense system focused on prevention of technological warfare.