Social democracy isn’t really an alternative to capitalism, it’s more of a progressive modification of capitalism. Under social democracy, the factory would still be owned by a capitalist and operated for their profit, but the government would use its authority to regulate the factory, tax the owner’s profits (to help fund public services), protect workers, etc.
I think we need to be clear about what capitalism actually is:
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit.
So, a person with access to sufficient capital buys a factory and hires people to work in the factory, and pays them a wage. The workers make a product that gets sold on the open market. Those proceeds are the source of the company’s revenue. Once expenses, including the wages paid to the workers, are subtracted from the revenue, if there is a surplus, that is profit that goes back to the owner. That’s capitalism in a nutshell. The point, the objective is to generate a profit for the owner, as a return on their initial capital investment.
Ok, so, what’s the alternative? Well, socialism:
Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee.
So, a government, a group of workers, or a community acquires a factory. If it’s a government or a community that acquires the factory, they hire people to work in the factory and pay those workers a wage. If it’s acquired by workers then it’s worker owned. In either case, the workers make a product. That product can either be sold on an open market or distributed by other means. If it is sold, those proceeds are the source of revenue. Once expenses are subtracted from the revenue, if there is a surplus, that surplus either gets reinvested into the factory (to buy new machines or hire more workers), or, in the case of the worker owned company, that surplus might be distributed among the workers as profit, since they are also the owners.
People act like socialism is just some hypothetical that only exists in theory, but that’s not true. The fact is, socialism exists and works right now, today. All over the world, products and services are produced and made available to people by organizations that are government, community, or worker owned, either for a profit or non profit.
They’ll charge whatever they think people will pay, and I’m pretty confident that many millions of people will fork over the $80 - $90 at launch. Prices come down when people stop buying.
It’s actually kind of tragic. Tesla would have been, no, should have been a key domestic EV maker. They should have been our global offering in a strategically important industry. But instead, they’re rapidly becoming a pariah. And it’s all because of one man. One terrible, terrible man.
This is a very, very important lesson that America MUST learn: just because someone is rich, that does not mean they are smart, or good, or trustworthy. Personality matters, a lot. I am certain that if Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning could go back, they would tell Mr. Musk “no thank you, we’re not interested in your investment,” even though they really needed the money. It wasn’t worth it, it came with strings attached. Within just a few years of taking Musk’s money, both men were forced out of the company, and Musk was well on his way to convincing millions of Americans that we was a super genius who singlehandedly invented the electric car.
In this country, we have not only tolerated megalomaniacal narcissists like Musk, we’ve celebrated them. That has to stop. Look at where it has gotten us. One of them is president now! If we don’t learn from this, and start to see men like Trump and Musk as the disease that they are, we are doomed. If we don’t get these men under control, they will control us.
Well, that sounds great, then. I still think you’re being naive, and that you’re putting too much faith in the invisible hand of the free market, but, as I’ve said several times now, I’m not opposed to upzoning. Not at all. By all means, go for it.
Upzoning and removing red tape increases the supply of land where you can build a multi-family unit, so investors are willing to accept lower-margin returns.
Are they? You seem pretty convinced, but I’m not so sure. Upzoning initiatives have been happening in various states and metro areas in the country in recent years, is there evidence that lower margin developments have increased in those areas?
That being said, I don’t necessarily oppose any of the measures you’re proposing, but, while they might work in theory, I’m not convinced they will achieve the results you believe they will achieve, in practice. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying this strategy, though. By all means, let’s try it, even if only as a trial somewhere.
This isn’t a failure of the market to build affordable housing
It absolutely is.
I’m all for zoning reform. We should reduce or eliminate single family only zoning, and other unnecessary building requirements, in urban areas. But the idea that developers are champing at the bit to go build a lot of very low margin, quality, affordable multi family housing, and that the only thing holding them back is government regulations, is naive at best.
I can only speak for myself, but the reason I don’t eat at McDonald’s is because their food is just very low quality. Their coffee is good, but everything else is just crap.
Owning a detached, single family home is always going to be out of reach for many, because they’re just inherently more expensive. It’s lower density housing that requires more land and infrastructure, per person. It’s less efficient use of space, it should be more expensive. The problem in the US is that higher density housing isn’t much less expensive, and that’s because there isn’t enough of it, and there isn’t enough of it because developers and investors aren’t interested in building low margin, affordable, quality apartments and condos. They’d rather build higher margin “luxury” housing. It’s “luxury” in quotes because it’s not actually high end. It’s priced as high end housing, but it’s actually quite cheaply built, with some high end veneer slapped on top. And thus, the high margins. Works great for developers and investors, but it’s a very bad deal for renters and buyers.
If I have to sign into a rockstar account through a launcher to play it, I ain’t interested.
The fear of destitution makes workers obedient and compliant.
If a game requires that you install what basically amounts to a rootkit in order to play it, I don’t think I want to play that game.
Tbh the people are not educated properly, too enslaved to debt service and bills, and so brain conditioned to individual greed that forming a cohesive army to restore democracy is a laugh.
That’s very true. Our problems don’t only exist at the top. We have fundamental, critical problems at every strata: top, bottom, and middle.
This country is so fucked.
Ideologically speaking, dozens of studies and surveys have shown that Americans are actually not very ideologically separate
Maybe Americans are generally ideologically homogeneous, but there’s enough variability within that shared ideology for there to be significant disagreements between the various ideological subgroups. Even if Americans broadly agree on the matter of individual rights, liberties, and freedoms, they may not necessarily agree on which rights should be prioritized or for whom.
But maybe the problem is in the shared ideology itself. A country that is adamant that people should have the right to be ignorant and misinformed, shouldn’t be surprised when large numbers of people are ignorant and misinformed.
Political tribalism is so crazy in this country. It’s like Republicans and Democrats live in two different countries. I suppose in some ways they do.
Tesla cannot be saved until and unless Musk sells his share of the company and completely divorces himself from it. Even that may not be enough, as the brand is so closely associated with Musk that his stain may not wash off, but it’s their only chance.
If you’re still on Earth…
Firefighters, EMTs, and police are all first responders, and so it’s necessary for them all to have at least emergency medical training. Yet, they are distinct agencies, because each job requires unique skills and training. I think police, and for that matter all first responders, should have mental health emergency training, just as they have medical emergency training, but I also think it would be useful for there to be a distinct agency that specializes in mental health emergency response, just as there are agencies that specialize in fire emergency and medical emergency response. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the police to fill this role, just as I think it would be unreasonable to expect the police to fight fires or provide all of the services of an EMT.
It really depends on how you define “successful.” If your measure of success is based on how closely these societies resemble Western, liberal, capitalist societies, then, yeah, you’re probably not going to see a whole lot of “success,” but that’s not what these revolutionary movements were trying to achieve. I would say that first and foremost what essentially every communist movement was striving for was just autonomy and independence, and many have been successful in that regard. Vietnam is an independent nation, instead of a French colony. China, similarly, is no longer under the thumb of the British. You may not like what these nations do with their autonomy, but that is what they were striving for and they have achieved it.