A lot of socialists like to blame this on "capitalism" and "the free market" where, in fact, it is actually crony capitalism. Monopolies are not allowed to flourish in a free market, they can only get this big with help from the big G.
I obviously have some libertarian leaning views but this is my favorite to defend.
"What about the roads?!"
"Oh the ones full of potholes, riddled with traffic, and the shoulder covered in litter? The free ones that you already pay car sales tax, insurance tax, license tax, registration tax, DOT tax for the road maintenance, and the breaking road rules tax? Those roads?"
Even though TRUE capitalism has failed, it has resulted in the highest average income across the world. AND it hasn't lead to mass exterminations and starvation like other failed systems such as Socialism, communism, and soon to be Marxism...
To some, capitalism is a monster because big business has monopolized markets, but - to my limited understanding of economics - monopolies shouldn't have been allowed to be formed. Monopolies are what killed true capitalism, AND "bail-out funding from governments to save large scale businesses" are also a huge factor in the death of the free market.
Studied a lot of economics in my years. Let me give you what I believe is the truth:
Monopolies in a capitalist system function differently than the monopolies we know. Take a couple obvious ones: Auto, Airline, Telecom, Utility, Healthcare, Tech, Rail.
They all have some sort of government involvement, whether it be: regulatory, direct funding, heavy taxation, favorable legislation, the list goes on.
They create artificially high barriers to entry, so if you or I wanted to create our own car company, it wouldn't be feasible.
THAT is why monopolies (in the traditional sense) are allowed to exist (and are even promoted) in a capitalist-lite economy.
In a true capitalist system, a monopoly would only be allowed to exist if it continued to provide a value to its consumers. And even that isn't enough to stop something bigger and better from coming along. Cheers.
Actually, the U.S. flourished post Civil War to around 1913 (when Federal Reserve & IRS were launched) under capitalism, which helped create the Industrial Revolution, the likes which hadn't been seen prior in history (Germany later had similar success prior to WWII).
Americans haven't a clue how much the economy/ life will flourish when we end the Fed & IRS, along with other taxations without representation. Boston Tea Party II is gonna be a biggie, then... Worldwide... Biblical.
Forgot to add the the U.S. dollar has lost 96% of its value since 1913. This fact is indisputable, likely even worse now as this stat has been around for a few yrs?
Any student of history who has actually done their homework and really read on the topic should be able to tell you that the "Robber Baron" era was made possible by a lot of things we'd now find quite objectionable today. The railroads were built with cheap imported labor (Chinese, Irish, etc). Their pay wasn't high. Their working conditions were abysmal and industrial accidents resulting in death or serious injury were common. This is before unions existed so workers had next to no rights. If they tried to bargain for them, they'd be crushed by hired mercenaries or bought-off police. And of course, we didn't do much of anything about industrial waste. Just dump it in the river. This was 60 years before the famous Lake Eire fire where the lake was so filled with trash and oil-based pollution that the surface of the lake literally caught fire.
JD Rockefeller was an absolute mercenary, and an arrogant, egotistical ass who claimed that God had inspired him and had granted him the right to run his competition out of business and maintain a 98% control over the world's kerosene and petroleum trade while he accumulated more wealth than more than half of the countries on Earth for himself.
Andrew Carnegie was no gem either as his safety record at his steel mills showed... and JP Morgan, the king of all the robber barons, said forget the hard work of actually producing a product of value. He took over the banking industry and bought himself his own President. So, no Zuckerberg wasn't the first to own a President. JP Morgan bought McKinley (#25).
There were a lot of abuses of the so-called golden era of capitalism because fundamentally when too much wealth and power are concentrated in any man or group of men, it will inevitably lead to corruption and abuse of that power. There are no angels. Goverment's role is to act as a referee specifically to check this kind of power. It has taken us ~150 years to learn some of these lessons, and with Big Tech and Big Pharma, we're still learning we don't have the adequate checks and balances in place yet.
I'd settle for "real" anything at this point. Communism, socialism, fascism, juche and communism in the Korean style, dictatorship, feudalism under a lord, a shogunate.... If they did even half of what they claim they do "for the people", they'd be fine. Can you imagine, if the head general / secretary / whatever actually lived like "the people" and practiced what they preach? It's the same with absolute monarchy or even anarchy. Any system will work wonderfully for everyone, if literally everyone was altruistic.
But since not everyone is altruistic, capitalism works the best. Given that some humans are selfish, capitalism works best to give everyone a chance at a slice of the pie. It's not "their slice" you have to earn "a slice". Or earn it for your children and grandchildren. Nothing is guaranteed, you have to work at it. Kinda like freedom... Funny how that works.
When or if the whole planet achieves a post-scarcity economy, there might be other systems that work better. Until then, capitalism is the best we mere mortals have figured out.
The problem is we are post-scarcity right now. All "scarcity" its artificially created (by the big or little G).
Communism/Socialism have noble goals, I will say that much. But it will never work for a multitude of reasons. Capitalism within a Libertarian system of government is the best way to protect yourself from both the evils of government and big corporations.
Only the ground-level idiots think "communism" is good. The ones in power that bring it about? They KNOW what needs to be done to force the ones who don't want it to either agree, or be eliminated.
Its not "Noble" to be willing to burn the country to the ground to rule over its ashes.
Actually, in a truly free market this could happen. The problem is that it's not a free market. The government picks and chooses what is and isn't allowed to be a monopoly or oligopoly.
We have laws to stop monopolization because collectively people agreed that monopolization stifles the economy and innovative growth of technologies, and narrowly points those growths towards a more narrow funnel than what it would in a free market with protections.
It may, or may not. Without laws to prevent monopolization, for example, in a truly free market, would that have stopped insanely large companies from buying up smaller ones?
Amazon, for example. While they exploited laws in their favor and benefitted immensely, where they got now was an eventuality with their profits anyway.
Problem isn't capitalism though, as we are meant to manage capitalism in such a way to prevent companies from consuming all other companies working on the same types of products -- as was said, it's truly cronyism.
The so-called "free market" being at the whims of the government directly and exclusively is insane. Microsoft buying up game companies like mad, Disney buying out entire swaths of the media industry, all while the government that was instilled with the authority by the people to stop this instead aids this. Because they're in on it.
Important note:
A lot of socialists like to blame this on "capitalism" and "the free market" where, in fact, it is actually crony capitalism. Monopolies are not allowed to flourish in a free market, they can only get this big with help from the big G.
but but but muhh roaddddsssss
I obviously have some libertarian leaning views but this is my favorite to defend.
"What about the roads?!"
"Oh the ones full of potholes, riddled with traffic, and the shoulder covered in litter? The free ones that you already pay car sales tax, insurance tax, license tax, registration tax, DOT tax for the road maintenance, and the breaking road rules tax? Those roads?"
All those road related taxes, but they never seem to have the funding to fix a road... Interesting.
Even though TRUE capitalism has failed, it has resulted in the highest average income across the world. AND it hasn't lead to mass exterminations and starvation like other failed systems such as Socialism, communism, and soon to be Marxism...
To some, capitalism is a monster because big business has monopolized markets, but - to my limited understanding of economics - monopolies shouldn't have been allowed to be formed. Monopolies are what killed true capitalism, AND "bail-out funding from governments to save large scale businesses" are also a huge factor in the death of the free market.
Studied a lot of economics in my years. Let me give you what I believe is the truth:
Monopolies in a capitalist system function differently than the monopolies we know. Take a couple obvious ones: Auto, Airline, Telecom, Utility, Healthcare, Tech, Rail.
They all have some sort of government involvement, whether it be: regulatory, direct funding, heavy taxation, favorable legislation, the list goes on.
They create artificially high barriers to entry, so if you or I wanted to create our own car company, it wouldn't be feasible.
THAT is why monopolies (in the traditional sense) are allowed to exist (and are even promoted) in a capitalist-lite economy.
In a true capitalist system, a monopoly would only be allowed to exist if it continued to provide a value to its consumers. And even that isn't enough to stop something bigger and better from coming along. Cheers.
That makes sense alot of sense! Thank you, fren!
"No one has tried REAL capitalism yet"
Actually, the U.S. flourished post Civil War to around 1913 (when Federal Reserve & IRS were launched) under capitalism, which helped create the Industrial Revolution, the likes which hadn't been seen prior in history (Germany later had similar success prior to WWII).
Americans haven't a clue how much the economy/ life will flourish when we end the Fed & IRS, along with other taxations without representation. Boston Tea Party II is gonna be a biggie, then... Worldwide... Biblical.
Welcome to the Great Awakening
Forgot to add the the U.S. dollar has lost 96% of its value since 1913. This fact is indisputable, likely even worse now as this stat has been around for a few yrs?
Also add to that every recession/depression has been caused by the fed since 1929
Any student of history who has actually done their homework and really read on the topic should be able to tell you that the "Robber Baron" era was made possible by a lot of things we'd now find quite objectionable today. The railroads were built with cheap imported labor (Chinese, Irish, etc). Their pay wasn't high. Their working conditions were abysmal and industrial accidents resulting in death or serious injury were common. This is before unions existed so workers had next to no rights. If they tried to bargain for them, they'd be crushed by hired mercenaries or bought-off police. And of course, we didn't do much of anything about industrial waste. Just dump it in the river. This was 60 years before the famous Lake Eire fire where the lake was so filled with trash and oil-based pollution that the surface of the lake literally caught fire.
JD Rockefeller was an absolute mercenary, and an arrogant, egotistical ass who claimed that God had inspired him and had granted him the right to run his competition out of business and maintain a 98% control over the world's kerosene and petroleum trade while he accumulated more wealth than more than half of the countries on Earth for himself.
Andrew Carnegie was no gem either as his safety record at his steel mills showed... and JP Morgan, the king of all the robber barons, said forget the hard work of actually producing a product of value. He took over the banking industry and bought himself his own President. So, no Zuckerberg wasn't the first to own a President. JP Morgan bought McKinley (#25).
There were a lot of abuses of the so-called golden era of capitalism because fundamentally when too much wealth and power are concentrated in any man or group of men, it will inevitably lead to corruption and abuse of that power. There are no angels. Goverment's role is to act as a referee specifically to check this kind of power. It has taken us ~150 years to learn some of these lessons, and with Big Tech and Big Pharma, we're still learning we don't have the adequate checks and balances in place yet.
I'd settle for "real" anything at this point. Communism, socialism, fascism, juche and communism in the Korean style, dictatorship, feudalism under a lord, a shogunate.... If they did even half of what they claim they do "for the people", they'd be fine. Can you imagine, if the head general / secretary / whatever actually lived like "the people" and practiced what they preach? It's the same with absolute monarchy or even anarchy. Any system will work wonderfully for everyone, if literally everyone was altruistic.
But since not everyone is altruistic, capitalism works the best. Given that some humans are selfish, capitalism works best to give everyone a chance at a slice of the pie. It's not "their slice" you have to earn "a slice". Or earn it for your children and grandchildren. Nothing is guaranteed, you have to work at it. Kinda like freedom... Funny how that works.
When or if the whole planet achieves a post-scarcity economy, there might be other systems that work better. Until then, capitalism is the best we mere mortals have figured out.
The problem is we are post-scarcity right now. All "scarcity" its artificially created (by the big or little G).
Communism/Socialism have noble goals, I will say that much. But it will never work for a multitude of reasons. Capitalism within a Libertarian system of government is the best way to protect yourself from both the evils of government and big corporations.
Only the ground-level idiots think "communism" is good. The ones in power that bring it about? They KNOW what needs to be done to force the ones who don't want it to either agree, or be eliminated.
Its not "Noble" to be willing to burn the country to the ground to rule over its ashes.
Actually, in a truly free market this could happen. The problem is that it's not a free market. The government picks and chooses what is and isn't allowed to be a monopoly or oligopoly.
We have laws to stop monopolization because collectively people agreed that monopolization stifles the economy and innovative growth of technologies, and narrowly points those growths towards a more narrow funnel than what it would in a free market with protections.
It could happen, sure. But I don't think it would last long.
It may, or may not. Without laws to prevent monopolization, for example, in a truly free market, would that have stopped insanely large companies from buying up smaller ones?
Amazon, for example. While they exploited laws in their favor and benefitted immensely, where they got now was an eventuality with their profits anyway.
Problem isn't capitalism though, as we are meant to manage capitalism in such a way to prevent companies from consuming all other companies working on the same types of products -- as was said, it's truly cronyism.
The so-called "free market" being at the whims of the government directly and exclusively is insane. Microsoft buying up game companies like mad, Disney buying out entire swaths of the media industry, all while the government that was instilled with the authority by the people to stop this instead aids this. Because they're in on it.
Operated by liberals and rinos