[American biased post, because that’s what I know and where I am]
Been screaming that capitalism is not the problem you are experiencing. Monopolies, or more to the point, cartels, have exploded in scope over the past 40-years. Think of a company you hate, a company that’s fucking you over, a company that’s fucking us ALL over. Bet they fit the bill.
Hate your job at Lowe’s? Go to Home Depot! wait… There’s a great family-owned, local hardware store, but I can’t afford to shop there.
Walgreens piss you off? Just go to CVS! well damn… New local pharmacy chain is really nice! They can’t take my insurance.
If you’re under 40, or maybe even under 50, I cannot relate how alien this all is, the words fail me. If you’re in your 20s or 30s, it’s easy to think it was always like this. Oh hell no it was not.
Along with allowing corporations unlimited political “speech”, i.e. campaign contributions, the proliferation of cartels will go down in history as America’s failing point. (Basically the same thing?)
News like the current entertainment mergers didn’t fucking happen. And here on lemmy we’re talking, with a straight face, about the ups and downs of the Netflix/Warner Bros./HBO merger. And if you’ll remember, Warner Bros./Time Warner/AOL was the largest merger in US history!
Except that is true with any social or economic system. You unregulate your president, good luck getting that back under control. You unregulate your communist party/planning committee, hello Stallin my old friend.
Humans who accumulate power in any system can corrupt said system. And every system has opportunities to accumulate power.
At least in capitalism it’s slower, giving people more time to react. Even now, the state of US capitalism seems easier to reverse than e.g. the dictatorship of Chinese communist party.
Exactly, actually, I’d say I agree. As much as we’re clearly in a bad state, I’d say for how late we are into this cycle, we’re still better off than in a dictatorship or the ways other systems unravel. I don’t think any political system can be incorruptible, so long as humans are involved (as they absolutely should be), and this isn’t the worst state imaginable.
As a friend often says, “democracy isn’t perfect, but it’s the best thing we’ve got so far”, and I think the same goes for regulated capitalism, with working anti-trust and taxation.
Exactly. I agree. The most important thing is public participation, putting pressure on their leaders to keep the corruption low and well hidden. There are ways for people to hold their leaders accountable. The tragedy is when people are apathetic and don’t do so. When bribes can be received in the open and people just tolerate them calling them lobbying, then there is no hope keeping the system working for the people. The leaders will not stop from the goodness of their hearts.
Yeah, I’m starting to think this is the heart of the cycle. When things are good, people stop worrying about the details and trust their governments to keep things as is, it’s only when things stop working that the average person starts paying attention and advocating for themselves, and history is forgotten until it repeats itself.