Ask Lemmy

27063 readers

3181 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

Can I say the majority of Lemmy users are anti-capitalist or big corp? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 1 year ago by kanzalibrary to c/asklemmy

45 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I mean like this: "Realized that most of these programs are not meant to help anyone, merely to control people and make them dependent. I was forced to reconsider everything I'd once believed. I developed a profound distrust of government regardless of the philosophy of the people in power. I remained a liberal on civil-rights issues, became a conservative on defense, and a semi-libertarian on all other matters." - Dean Koontz. Am I wrong?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] kanzalibrary 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, the question is for you.

I’m anticorporate but not anticapitalist.

That's why I'm asking can you tell me the difference? I forgot to quote that words.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

So, in a capitalist system, capital is considered a valid input to the production process worthy of a share of the revenue. I can give someone who wants to make geegaws $500 to start their geegaw business and the revenue from selling those geegaws will be split among paying for raw materials and workspace, labor to make and sell the geegaws, and those like me that invested capital. Under some other systems, only labor is rewarded (raw goods being the result of labor, of course).

Under a corporate system, people can band together to form a company that becomes its own entity. The corporate entity owns the raw goods, the tools, the workspace, assumes the liability, collects the revenue. The revenue is split among paying for raw goods and labor, the continuation of the corporation, and profit. Profit can be disposed of in multiple ways; in a capitalist system it's usually split among those that contributed capital. That's not something I have a problem with.

One problem is these meta-entities, which are not aligned with human interests, self-perpetuating and even expanding with the non-cost share of the revenue. They are all too often parasitic, and mankind's primary predator.

My other problem is the liability issue. If a corporation is responsible for an atrocity, it may be at most bankrupted and dissolved. But the humans who actually made the decisions leading to those atrocities are shielded from legal repurcussions by the artificial entity they created.