this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
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So did private ownership
That wasn’t what Capitalism was about
In the wealth of nations Smith talks great lengths about the labourer being king of the market not the landowners and that with advancement in technology costs should go down except land owners prevent that
The whole system is supposed to favour the labourer compared to Mercantilism where the rich got richer because they owned the production
It also praised the American colonies for open immigration saying they could double their population faster than anyone in Europe and that would double their economy
I think one of the main problems with Smith's conception of capitalism is that he didn't account for how huge and pervasive and intrusive advertising would become. He naively assumed that the best product would dominate the market when actually people will buy whatever is thrust in front of the their eyes a thousand times a day.
And of course corporate lobbying wasn't such an issue in his time.
We have term limits for governments but not for corporations
Their ability to last indefinitely allows them more control than anyone thought possible
And no matter what system you choose; they will act in self interest that will allow them to expand/erode the system to benefit themselves
No, the problem with Smith's capitalism is that he's constantly misrepresented
He was descriptive, not prescriptive. He was not an advocate of capitalism, he was explaining it - and if you read the wealth of nations and your takeaway was "Lassie Faire capitalism is a good idea", reread it
I appreciate your critique but I've got to be honest and say that I'm not going to spend any more time in my life trying to justify late stage capitalism. It will eventually be replaced and pass into history like every other economic system, if it doesn't kill us first. 💣
My point is that Adam Smith wasn't really an advocate of capitalism, he explained it and made a strong case for the necessity of regulation
Smith can talk all he wants, that doesn't make his analysis correct.
He wrote the book on capitalism
The system literally came from that book
And we know now that his analysis on the outcome of capitalism is incorrect. Capitalism exists for the private property holders to extract as much wealth and power as possible from their privileged position. That unrelenting pursuit of profit has led to even worse inequality, and is collapsing entire ecosystems. It's a disaster of an economic system full of contradictions. Those contradictions are now causing capitalism to collapse in on itself.
So you realize that the problems with capitalism are what it set out to prevent
That doesn’t make the core of capitalism the opposite
That means it’s not true capitalism
The problem is greed that will exist in any system because people with power will degrade/morph any system to be self serving
capitalism prioritizes greed what are you talking about?
What system doesn’t?
the ones that don't rely on private property?
So pick one
library economies.
Who checks if people are contributing/who divides the resources up?
Can I not bribe them to get more?
money isn't necessary in a library economy, because there's nothing to purchase. You go to the library for all non-consumable items. The library is incentivized to produce highly repairable and durable goods to reduce waste and minimize demand on the supply line. Consumable goods are gotten at locations similar to a food bank, all members of the community are responsible for producing food for the community.
You don’t need money to bribe
I understand the theory of it, you aren’t listing any devices to prevent abuse
What’s your military/police?