Asklemmy

I think people often mix up capitalism with market-based economies. The former describes social relations while the former describes how commodities are distributed.

I'm personally not a fan of either. A planned economy geared toward people's need, with the withering away of socio-ecomic classes (no more worker and capitalist distriction) just makes better sense to me.

Unchecked capitalism allows for the snowballing consolidation of wealth and power, and is therefore inherently authoritarian/exploitative of others. It is possible to have markets that encourage and reward creativity, novelty, and competition without allowing any person or entity to become too powerful (mind you, wealth and power are always the same thing - or more specifically - two sides of a single coin).

This is also why you will see leftists attacking liberals - because liberalism is simply an extension of capitalism: the allowance and encouragement of inequitable consolidation of wealth and power. An egalitarian ends must actively oppose, prevent, and even correct such consolidation. Capitalism and liberalism are the enemies of freedom, liberty, and justice.

I think that I hear the argument against capitalism the most from people who reference unskilled labor. Sure, the person working in a warehouse is getting screwed wage-wise because the company is greedy and they doesn't have a unique skill set. But the guy in the office that is maintaining a proprietary piece of software has the leverage to demand a higher wage. I think when it comes down to it, capitalism is just another version of the economic "game". I prefer this game to socialism (or really any other economic philosophy) as I know how to work the current system better. Don't want to get screwed in your career? Specialize! I understand a lot of people don't want to hear this as it puts the impetus on us instead of the rich,, but that's how the system works (for now). I will always be on-board with people wanting to better themselves and their situation (especially at the expense of the rich) but getting something for nothing just isn't realistic without massive mobilization of the lowest wage earners. Not to mention the hurdles in our government.

When you have a system that values profits over everything, it tends to (either by accident or design) exploit workers and destroy the middle class.

With capitalism, you’ll pay the absolute minimum needed to get workers, regardless of the value they create for the business and regardless of how much profit your business is making. You’ll collude with other businesses to keep wages down, because again that’s a way to increase profit. You WONT support any worker rights laws like weekends, PTO, benefits, minimum wage, etc.

You can argue that the free market takes care of itself, but we’ve seen that isn’t true. Companies constantly exploit customers and workers. They will raise prices and lower wages in ways that a pure “free market” theoretically wouldn’t allow.

Now this isn’t to say capitalism is all bad. I do think smart people and hard working people should be rewarded. But any sufficiently large system is going to have some corruption. I’d like to have a reasonable minimum standard of living for everyone before we run off and let capitalism give us multi-billionaires. If everyone was guaranteed enough for a decent standard of living, I’d be fine with the rest being as capitalistic as anyone wants. But we dont have that. Minimum wage is $7. Healthcare is shit and tied to employment. Etc. etc.

It's easy to blame capitalism when you're an American who has never traveled to a country with strong social safety nets and checked capitalism. I also assume most people who call themselves communists aren't actually communists though, they just want stronger systems in America to help the poor (Healthcare, education, etc)

Nothing substantial to contribute ... just wanted to say that I came in here expecting a shit show (maybe I've been on mastodon too much :) ) and am genuinely impressed to see a bunch of polite and good discussion, not least from the OP!!

Getting fucked by capitalism will do that.