EDIT: LOL, downvoted faster than the post could have been read, with zero rebuttals. Achievement unlocked: KICK HORNET'S NEST.
(America-centric post because that's where I've spent my 54-years and know the most about.)
Capitalism ain't the problem. Capitalism for the economy and democracy for the government is the best we humans have figured out. Problem being, money has been funneled to the top. The top took our vote via lack of education, media control, and union breaking, and their power has been snowballing for the last 20-40 years. Now we're too ignorant and misled to vote in our own best interests, no unions to back us. We're seeing the end game, the end game of any unregulated system.
Said many times, almost every evil of capitalism gets nullified when the government disallows and breaks monopolies and megacorps. Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, argued vehemently against monopolies. Couldn't find a succinct quote because he explained the evils in depth. Sorry, no sound bite for this one.
Having grown up in the 70s and 80s, I am stunned by what is allowed. A handful of corporations own and control our health, food, entertainment, news, banking, everything. Education is the one thing that's not wholly corporate, and the oligarchs have had that sector in their sights for decades.
And they're not after education merely to skim more money. Education in history, math, critical thinking, current affairs, is how they can be beaten. FFS, we're repeating the mistakes of exactly a century ago, people can't figure when back-of-the-napkin math doesn't make sense and can't tell when they're being conned. I see the latter items on lemmy, daily.
Stumping for socialism? Well, the Soviet Union failed mighty fucking hard. "But that wasn't true socialism!" And capitalism isn't what you are experiencing now. In neither case does the name fit the theory. North Korea's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Oh, and they're "socialist". Want to model their system?
"But socialism gives workers the power!" As the great socialist Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Coal miners aren't organizing to stop fossil fuels, and neither are roustabouts. Were those the workers you imagined handing power? How about insurance company employees who would be out of a job with universal health care?
We can't let workers vote for bread and circuses. Capitalists compete amongst themselves. That competition works for everyone, as long as unions are the brake pads on that train. We took the brakes off and blamed the train conductor wanting to go fast. Well, that's his job in this poor metaphor, hope it comes across.
Blaming capitalism is as naive as saying, "Trump did this!" We can acheive nothing but backlash from ignorant supporters. Instead say, "The GOP did this!" (politically) and "The billionaires did this!" (economically). Words matter if you want to win hearts and minds.
I feel our core problem today is concentration of wealth and power. I think many layman calls this concentration and abuse capitalism in the same way that many people call any kind of social service communism.
Now, I personally believe that this is the end result of capitalism due to regulatory capture, and that capitalism is inherently unstable without a resilient regulatory framework to keep the system working. Still, I’m not sure that the term capitalism is perfectly fit for our situation today. I like the concept of a free market, but we don’t have a free market. We have a market where the rules are set by the big players to their maximum advantage.
Extreme and rapidly accelerating wealth inequality will be the death of us if climate change doesn’t kill us first.
Well, someone gets it. :)
I'd only nitpick that Americans call any sort of social service "socialism". "Communism" is a word that's still verboten. I'd also argue that social services are a political function, nothing to do with the economic system, except that the economics pays for the political, same as it ever was.
Adam Smith rolling in his grave like a turbine on hearing people call what we have capitalism. We have an oligarchy, maybe plutocracy is a better word. And neither is the natural result of capitalism. Again, Smith loathed the idea of monopolies and cartels, said those were break points in the system.
The rich seem to have figured out the inequality thing. As long as we have food, and most of us are fat, and as long as we have toys to distract us, we will never truly revolt. Lemmy fantasies aside, there will be no guillotines, not until we can't get literal bread.
Monopolies & oligarchy are the natural result of unregulated capitalism, and regulation being treated as just as dirty a word as "socialism".
The rich really don't want anyone making rules for their game, so actual, non-captured regulation is also heavily propagandized as "killing jobs", "bad for wages", etc...
We absolutely have a plutocracy, not a democracy. We live in a system of government where money is the same as speech, votes, and power. Not human beings. The money votes and the money always wins. Money is represented above all else.
Capitalism easily leads to this exact situation. Some people believe that it's the inevitable result that capital erodes regulation, but I don't think it's necessarily so. It depends on whether the political system remains strong enough to represent the public interest instead of the concentrated interests of wealth. When democratic institutions are healthy, regulation can evolve alongside capital to preserve fairness and competition. It's our responsibility as voters to preserve it. But, when they weaken or become captured, capitalism naturally tilts toward monopolies and self-reinforcing power, which is the situations that we have today. It's very difficult to come back from that, so there's a massive and scary temptation to throw out the idea entirely and give communism a try.
I'm a pessimist. I think voters are too stupid and lazy to fix this problem until they are literally starving. I'm also a believe in that words should have meaning. Is capitalism the reason America is sick? Not exactly. It's a vulnerable system that like everything else has rotted to the core when you don't take care of your country.