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This week’s Weekly discussion thread will be focused on Capitalism / Economic Systems. Here is the definition we will be using so everyone can use the same terminology. If your argument does not use that definition, we ask that you reframe so that it does so that everyone can work within the same framework.
Here are some questions that should help kickstart things:
- Is capitalism effective? Is it good, or as evil as some Lemmy instances will have you believe?
- Are there better alternatives, and why are they better?
- How could we realistically move toward those alternatives?
- Is there anything you do not understand or would like to discuss about Capitalism / Economic Systems?
Capitalism can be effective at driving an economy up to a certain point. After a certain threshold, wealth immediately becomes concentrated among smaller and smaller groups of people until the entire system is controlled or manipulated by a small number of individuals. The system itself is not evil. The motivations and the way the system is built to have no upper limit basically encourages and rewards human greed. The majority of people are content with what they have but there is a small segment of pathological individuals who have an insatiable need to want to own and control everything and everyone. If we saw a person collecting an unbelievable amount of anything ... cars, paper clips, cats, leaves or rocks ... we would immediately assume they have a mental disorder. If they collect unfathomable amounts of money, wealth and finances that could never be used or appreciated in one human life time, somehow that is considered acceptable and we even look up to that person as a genius or someone with above average intelligence or ability.
The alternative is complicated which is how it should be. There will never be a simple answer to solving human wants and needs balanced with human greed. If we believe there is some magical solution that could solve all this then we are only fooling ourselves. The answer lies in educating, informing and giving control and knowledge to everyone equally and creating a system where everyone acts as a control or balance to everyone else. A possible solution is in creating a world and system where we constantly debate, discuss and negotiate on an ongoing basis to keep all of us in check and ensure that no one person or no one group gains total control over everyone else.
We will never achieve that level of equality in this current system. The only way to equalize the lives and influence of every individual person is to instill and enact a system of controlling and preventing run away wealth. In the system I envision, everyone would still have an opportunity to become as wealthy as they want to be but they would be stopped at an upper limit. Individuals for example would still have the opportunity to gain a combined fortune of $10 million. After that they would forced to retire from any businesses, corporations, groups or institutions they are connected to - they can still contribute to them if they wish but only on a voluntary level. Their forced removal would allow the next individuals to come in to have a chance at gaining wealth while at the same time continuing the management and work of the company or business.
After this, everyone would have more of an opportunity and ability to discuss all the issues affecting society, work places, employment, safety, environment and anything else. Human greed would be managed and controlled and instead of having a small group of individuals amassing unbelievable amounts of wealth from everyone below them, the people at the bottom would slowly grow some wealth for themselves and have more of an ability to speak, debate, argue and negotiate for the things they believe in or advocate for.
How do you solve for money laundering though?
The system I propose wouldn't solve things immediately. Things would more or less stay the same for a while with the same problems and situations we currently deal with.
The change would come over time as more and more people would gain wealth. As they gain wealth, they would become comfortable and as they become comfortable, they would be able to speak up and advocate for change.
Right now most people are worried about just getting by, having enough to eat and making payments ... so they never have time to think about how to deal with the world's problems. They are too busy surviving. If people are given more wealth, they would be less worried about their lives and would have time to think about how to deal with social problems like money laundering. And over time enough informed, motivated and creative people would be able to organize themselves to create groups or elect leaders that would actively do something about problems like money laundering ..... as well as a host of other social problems.