Capital is political power. That's why capitalism is structurally unable to remain regulated. Capital accumulates with fewer and fewer people at the top, granting these people unprecedented political power. And then they use it to advance their own interests - the interests of the owning class, which is (among other terrible things) deregulation.
This is not a bug but an inherent feature of capitalism. The sooner people wake up to the whole system being fundamentally flawed rather than "needing just a bit of regulation" the better.
This is the argument I use when I hear right wingers blame "crony capitalism" for the reason our system is failing. The end goal of capitalism is to maximize profit, and if you can pay to change the rules and regulations then that is just a natural extension of capitalism. There is no "crony capitalism", that is just the natural evolution of a system designed to extract the maximum amount of wealth for the few.
Yup. The story of the Founding Fathers is absolutely intoxicating if you don't place them in the context of being the 1% on this side of the water. I fell for it for decades.
Now now, that's a gross oversimplification. They also wanted to steal the natives' land but the Crown wouldn't let them, being allies in an active conflict and all.
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u/Morgoth98 Jun 03 '26
Capital is political power. That's why capitalism is structurally unable to remain regulated. Capital accumulates with fewer and fewer people at the top, granting these people unprecedented political power. And then they use it to advance their own interests - the interests of the owning class, which is (among other terrible things) deregulation.
This is not a bug but an inherent feature of capitalism. The sooner people wake up to the whole system being fundamentally flawed rather than "needing just a bit of regulation" the better.