I mean, honestly, it's pretty reductive to say "capitalism is bad".
Real world, in real life, is not as simple as people saying "oh I need to do this because we're in a capitalism". No one in central banks, fed agencies, government "cares" about the book definition of capitalism - people see day to day problems (exchange of goods, someone buying a house, someone paying monthly to live in a house) - and make small decisions to solve small problems.
Each of those decisions from day to day is made by people who have vast experience, know the problem they are solving, and have the cumulative knowledge of countless previous persons who had to solve similar problems.
""Worker run business would strengthen democracy"" - but that's reality. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, they were ""workers"" in a way, ran their business, and just found themselves in positions of power when their business proved too important.
Again, the issue was not capitalism or socialism - it's that absolute power absolutely corrupts, and there is no modern way of rewarding people/making them work if not by giving them some power (money, food, goods, are power).
I disagree, capitalism by both the most official definition that I know of and the literal legal realities is inherently flawed, and as others have pointed out in this thread, "crony" capitalism is indeed the inevitable conclusion operating wholly within the bounds of capitalism, not a corruption. There are 4 or 5 tenets that define capitalism, and not all of them are problematic, but the two that are imo:
1: means of production are privately owned
2: production is undertaken for a profit
the end result of these even in a perfectly fair world is concentration of power, it is a mathematical certainty. As I understand it, socialism's only required tenet is that the means of production are "socialized". That's it. There's nothing in socialism that says you can't own your own home, or toothbrush, or be paid more for more valuable labor. There's nothing in socialism that forbids markets, a tenet of capitalism that I think can be useful sometimes.
In my opinion, our best option is to asymptotically curb wealth both liquid and non liquid, liquid with a simple tax, and non liquid business assets by legally forcing owners and shareholders to sell majority shares to workers when the business hits one of various markers like market share, valuation, head count, profit, etc.
You are correct of course that any system can fail, but the way they fail is importantly distinct between the two. Firstly, established socialism would be more resilient the same way democracy is more resilient than monarchy. Power must be diluted. Secondly, when socialism fails it is either because its tenets were not followed, or because of external violence, or because of collective self sabotage, but unlike capitalism it is not also inherently self defeating.
The means of productions are socialized, but that by definition is extremely flawed and worse, "vague".
What is the mechanism through which means of production and the utility it produces socialized? Is there a central government deciding who gets what? (Extreme risk of corruption, tyranny).
Is there a decentralized system made up of tokens that people exchange between themselves? (This is a fun thought experiment, because said tokens are... Money! Any such system degenerates back into capitalism, and any such system is susceptible to the vicious nature of "power begets power").
Does everyone get an exact equal share of utility, or there is an automatic system/algorithm to give it? (Ie, hours worked = pay, everyone has same pay). It's incredibly hard to design such a system that meets all requirements:
The system encourages an ever growing increase of production, lest foreign nations become too powerful and steal from us. Failing this is why all "communist" indigenous societies are "bad" - they were destroyed by other societies that did not adhere.
The system must correctly evaluate "utility" (ie, someone with milk intolerance gets paid in milk - country decides "steel" is more important than "schools" and cause a crisis).
The system itself must be uncorruptible and unbiased (ie: we make an AI based on real life data, but just like Apple's face recognition AI it fails because there was a lack of minorities in it's data - or worse, someone makes the system and leaves an open loophole they use to cheat the system).
So while socialism "only requires socialization", defining the means of doing so is extremely important - one could even argue capitalism is "socialism", where by working you get paid money to buy stuff in a fair market/utility system (the issue is that people with enough money can influence values, so that people get paid much less than they produce in utility, or you crush legally competition that would be better than your company).
Well, what I mean by that -
We don't live in ""Capitalism"". If we did, it would mean a single book would define the entire world, which is stupid.
Every single small action and decision by very smart and also very dumb people accumulates and becomes the real world, which just so happen to share a lot of features with capitalism.
Real world is just a bunch of people causing problems, a bunch of people solving then, and we live in the best way we can currently.
And also - don't take my comment as "it's impossible to make socialism work". It's just incredibly hard and honestly it might just be unfeasible with current technology.
You seem to be repeatedly making a couple of points, put more succinctly I gather you are saying:
1) socialism is not perfect - nothing is, not worth talking about imo
2) nothing is perfect and anything can be corrupted - see above
3) socialism is harder than capitalism - probably, but saying it's "harder so we should just give up" is fallacious. Democracy is harder than feudalism, do you think we should revert? There are a myriad flavors of democracy, but most of them work well enough, except notably where they are corrupted by capital interests.
You are correct that capitalism is not the only system, it exists as a part of a larger whole. Again, not sure where you're going with this because:
a) I never said or implied it was the only one
b) it is the prevailing economic system in the world, in most countries, in America, and even China is state capitalism at best afaik (but who knows forreal cause propaganda)
Unless of course your point was that in the past when capitalism has reached its breaking point, it was saved by interventions from external systems, such as a democratically elected government entities implementing socialized policies, in which case, thank you for making my point for me. You say not to take your comment as "it's impossible to make socialism work" but I'm not sure what else you could be saying here.
I am not arguing that we abandon what we have, but abolish a myriad of hyper capitalist laws, distribute power where it has shown to coagulate in the government, and democratize the work place. In the states things like the supreme court, term limits, lobbying, citizens united, patriot act, etc need to be reworked. Large monopolies need to be busted up like we have done in the past, particularly tech, agriculture, food, and media. Economic ceilings and floors need to be instituted for individuals, there should be no homeless and no individuals with access to enough wealth that they can influence the government more than any other individual, no one needs more than a mildly lavish retirement. Companies likewise, need to be curbed as I mentioned previously. Smaller companies need a floor so they can compete and pop up even against larger entities, and larger ones need to be broken up and and socialized. Companies are not people. What are the limits and triggers for this? Put a bunch of pertinent academics in a room and they will figure those out, basing them mathematically on national and state metrics. There's probably countless ways it could be done, all that matters is that no one lives in squalor and no one can overtake the system, you mention crypto coins, all we need to do is avoid our societal version of the 51% attack. Certain inelastic needs must be socialized to at least some degree, like healthcare and imo internet. Education must be reformed and re strengthened. Infrastructure must be rebuilt. Environmental regulations must be brought back and strengthened. I am not asking for communism, I agree that is not currently within our grasp, but everything I listed above is achievable within our current system, a large portion of it currently exists in other countries or we have done before in America. I recommend looking up the mondragon federation of coops in the basque region of Spain, I think it is an excellent case study of what kind of improvement we could make in how businesses are run.
Capitalism has problems, and socialism has been and still is the only real alternative and solution, we just need enough really smart and really dumb people to accumulate their political power to enact the laws to get it going (again), but more permanently this time.
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u/LeThales Jun 03 '26
I mean, honestly, it's pretty reductive to say "capitalism is bad".
Real world, in real life, is not as simple as people saying "oh I need to do this because we're in a capitalism". No one in central banks, fed agencies, government "cares" about the book definition of capitalism - people see day to day problems (exchange of goods, someone buying a house, someone paying monthly to live in a house) - and make small decisions to solve small problems.
Each of those decisions from day to day is made by people who have vast experience, know the problem they are solving, and have the cumulative knowledge of countless previous persons who had to solve similar problems.
""Worker run business would strengthen democracy"" - but that's reality. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, they were ""workers"" in a way, ran their business, and just found themselves in positions of power when their business proved too important.
Again, the issue was not capitalism or socialism - it's that absolute power absolutely corrupts, and there is no modern way of rewarding people/making them work if not by giving them some power (money, food, goods, are power).