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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Honestly, I think capitalism wouldn't be so bad if it was limited to what it's good at. Fashion, tech, entertainment, snacks, ect.
But essential food, housing, water, healthcare, even electricity and internet access, the idea that these things that will always have infinite demand is haphazardly controlled through profit motive is disgusting.
Infrastructures should be government controlled and free. Essential resources should have some sort of universal basic "food stamps" system. Then actual money just becomes the luxury "fun bucks" that you don't lose out on if you don't have a lot. For example pet owners would be given a credits for pet food and free vet care, but a silly pet costume would use money.
Disclaimer: This is just a personal idea I've been mulling over, I'm sure there's a million holes in it.
The thing is that capitalism isn't "good" at anything; all value is produced by workers. Fast fashion is an environmental nightmare, development of tech is in the interest of capital (automation shouldn't be a threat to workers), most entertainment is constrained by the diktats of massive corporations, the vast majority of snacks are either unhealthy or extremely overpriced, and workers (particularly in the Global South) are being abused in all four cases
Capitalism is definitely good at some things. Specifically generating wealth. If you're a developing country you want to use capitalism because it will grow your economy as fast as possible. I think once a county has built enough wealth, they should switch to a blended system.
The only reason a developing country would want capitalism to generate wealth is because the established capitalist order will blockade or otherwise decimate any country which tries to step out of line. We've seen it time and again throughout modern history. Planned economies work for developing countries. They work so well that capitalist countries will band together in order to isolate those economies from the world out of fear of contagion. This was, for example, a key reason capitalist countries tried to contain and isolate the USSR and China, before both started embracing liberalization policies.