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Unfathomably based
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2025
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It's still called capitalism, but in reality it's drifted way off course. What we've got now looks more like a corporate oligarchy. The free market only applies to small players, big banks and mega-corps get bailouts, write policy through lobbyists, and face no real consequences for failure. It's capitalism in name, but the rules are rigged. Real capitalism doesn't have a reset button for the rich and a bootstraps lecture for everyone else.
This is real capitalism. Real capitalism does not work
This is arguably one of the core components of capitalism that many capitalists choose to forget. Simping for the rich and powerful is not, itself, capitalism - capitalism is an innovation only enabled by massive government intervention in economic matters. Capitalism was not born with the first exchange of goods between people, capitalism was born with the rise of complex legal and financial instruments in European states in the 16th-17th century limiting the use of feudal and financial power.
The issue is that capitalist elites, like all prior elites, are not actually ideologues, whatever their claims. Capitalist elites are elites first, and capitalists second, if at all - the goal of elites is to preserve and enhance their own power, even at the expense of the system that enables them.
Capitalism is a touch worse at preventing elite accumulation of power than other systems (socialism), and a touch better than others (actual feudalism), but ultimately any examination which forgets that, no matter how ideologically 'pure' the analysis is, will always miss the fucking trapdoor to a more despotic and unfair system right beneath our feet.
Never trust the powerful. Any cooperation should always be conditional.
Nah thats capitalism buddy, at its core. The point is the rigging, in order to profit as much as possible. Corporate Oligarcy is the ineveitable outcome of capitalism, because capitalism creates its own destruction after a certain point of wealth consolidation, after which point the system can no longer function as is after all the cannabalizing of its own sectors.
In capitalism the goal is to use the money you have now to help you get more money in the future. If you can spend a few million dollars training your workforce or spend a few million buying corrupt politicians, and the latter nets you 10x the return in 1/10 the time, the system will reward those who make the immoral choice. And if you are working for a publicly traded company, your shareholders and board of directors will probably fire you for not using all technically-legal tools at your disposal.
I was recently thinking that the proponents of unregulated capitalism make it sound like natural selection for corporations. And it kind of does sound like that, until you think about it a little bit. It would be like an animal that grows more mouths as it finds more food, and if it eats even more food it can do magic shit like edit its own DNA and warp the laws of physics. Oh and of course it would be immortal, able to die from injury or starvation but never old age. (and if it did die from injury or starvation, it's probably so that its owner can sell its kidneys)
No, what we have is capitalism. There has been no veering off course. You don't know what capitalism is.
Actually, I do. It has a definition, one that all of you seem eager to twist and reshape into whatever suits your narrative.
In reality, you’re the one who doesn’t understand it. You’re so far removed from the mechanics that you can’t even see what’s actually happening. Instead, you just blame “the system” and an amorphous blob of people you call “the rich.”
It’s the worst kind of idealism, screaming at windmills while pretending to have some enlightened grasp of “what’s really going on.”
You’re no different in rhetoric or philosophy from a MAGA supporter—just flipped to the opposite pole.
Oligarchy and capitalism are in no way incompatible.
One is a form of governance, one is an economic system.
That you would pose the notion of “we don’t have capitalism, we have oligarchy” shows that you don’t seem to know the definitions.
MAGA has a lot more to do with hate for others and retribution for perceived slights than any coherent take on policy.
Out of all the idealistic head in the clouds idiots under my original comment you by far take the cake you are alone on a pedestal of stupid.
You claim that I don't know the definitions of capitalism and oligarchy when you can't even use the words correctly.
If anything you have no clue what those words mean nor have you understood a single word that I said.
Capitalism and oligarchy are of course compatible which is why I called our current system of economics a corporate oligarchy.
Please don't respond there is no way you can save yourself.
Your arrogance knows no bounds. Pathetic little person.
Wow you really are lost.
Care to share it with the rest of the class?
Also, do you have any examples of this 'real capitalism'? Or at least a plan to keep capitalism 'real'?
Ownership of the means of production.
The history of the model T from ford.
Right
Yes, capitalism greatly expanded the scale and speed at which things could be produced. But how do you keep capitalism 'real' and prevent the issues you described in your first comment?
I don't want to keep capitalism real I was simply using a expletive to emphasize the difference between what we think capitalism is or what was at some point to what it is now which is more like a corporate oligarchy.
I offer no real solutions because they're impossible at the moment; to rid ourselves of capitalism we first have to get rid of scarcity to get rid of scarcity we need to resolve our energy issues and to do that we need to figure out a way for all the governments to cooperate with each other and to do that... so on and so on.
My analysis of our current capitalistic system was in detriment to it. A corporate oligarchy is inherently an evil system.
I do not support nor want capitalism to be our financial system as we are clearly moving backwards.
The fundamental problem with capitalism is that in most sectors, free competition is wasteful, and a monopoly or cartel is more efficient. So, in the absence of strong anti-monopoly laws - something anathema to capitalism - these sectors will end up dominated by one or a few players. And then they will vertically integrate, further shutting out any competitors.
Take carmaking. If we did not have tariffs, import regulations, subsidies for local manufacturing, etc. (all government interventions), BYD would have 90% of the world car market in a decade. They have the best batteries and the most efficient supply chain - the only constraint would be how quickly they can scale up manufacturing!
So either we accept some government regulations to protect capitalism from itself, or we nationalise the largest and most mature companies and run them for public welfare rather than profit. Social democracy, or socialism. These are the only 'good' ways out. The alternative is whatever horrors England had during the Industrial Revolution, and the collapse of our environment due to overexploitation.
Your critical analysis of capitalism is spot on. Monopoly is definitely more efficient than competition.
But your solution is incorrect. Socialism is not the answer. For one thing it still uses a monetary faith based currency system. And more importantly it's literally never worked.
I'll ask you what I ask everyone I encounter that attempts to support socialism: which socialist country past or present would you like to live in?
If this is true, then the only solution is to have strict anti-monopoly laws that give newcomers a level playing field, and powerful and impartial regulators to enforce these.
But I'm not even sure that socialism has never worked. The USSR moved more people out of poverty than any other country from around 1920 to 1950, and since then that position has gone to China. The USSR also industrialised a backwards country despite two world wars, and sent the first satellite, man and woman to space. China now leads the world in reforestation, the production of solar panels, batteries and high-speed rail (well, any manufacturing in fact), and quantity of scientific research. So there are facets where 'socialism', however mangled and compromised, can excel. If socialist policies (not full-scale revolutionary communism) can be done by a democratic government, there is no reason to think that the benefits would be even greater.
We now live in the age of techno feudalism. The mega corps aren’t producing and selling actual things they are just rent seeking and extracting wealth from their fiefdoms.
The only way that capitalism could ever work would be to remove any generational wealth and make it only about personal achievement. When you die it all goes back to the state(assets and money).
Removing all inheritance was one of the items Marx suggested in The Communist Manifesto.
I've always toyed with the idea of a wealth cap. 1 billion dollars is the max amount of money any one person or entity can make. Anything after that is either reinvested, split amoung the workers (not the board of directors) or payed a taxes to the government.
One thing is for sure. We don't need billionaires.
Even then, rich parents can pay for better education and tend to have better connections. Doing it that way would mostly just fuel nepotism in companies and encourage people to find loopholes to pass on most of their wealth before they die.
Sure at first, but then it(connections/nepotism) would get diluted and ineffective over time due to the power shift in not retaining the wealth. People aren't your friends when you are that wealthy.
So your saying give ppl who gucked up this system more power? That's crazy man
Is it a real meritocracy like they say? Then prove it, take away all forms of generational wealth. You can only make it on your own merits. This would be fair capitalism. This will never happen because capitalism is a facade, a lie if you will. It is a system designed to keep most of us down through the use of generational wealth. Sure there are exceptions and we celebrate them like sycophants, but they are not the rule.
The only thing crazy is the fact that you support such a system through your inaction or inability to educate yourself on the subject matter.
It's capitalism in the same way the Soviet Union was communism. No matter the theory, this is how these systems play out when real humans are in charge. That said, humans can clearly do better than the US system. Western Europe is full of counterexamples of semi-capitalism done better.
I think capitalism could have played out differently if it were started from a different point. We started with aristocrats and never got rid of them.
Communism in the Soviet Union started through revolution which is often co-opted by strong men authoritarians. It ended up in a dictatorship. If communism were attempted in a different manner, then it would end differently.
There is no other goal in capitalism other than the concentration of power and wealth. It is the default setting and needs many rules not to get there(reformism).
At least with socialism society is fully democratic by having democracy in the workplace; the last bastion of the Elite.
One system favors the few while the other the many.
Unfortunately like every system we have tried to do at scale, capitalism favors concentration of power over time and being gamed by some folks or others. Humans love to surrender power to the powerful up until some breaking point.
So corporate oligarchy is an expected long term result of capitalism. Unfortunately some other type of oligarchy is the outcome from alternatives once the "wrong" players figure out the rules of the game and how they can break them as needed to get an advantage over those following the spirit of the rules
Free market capitalism has always been an ideological myth. The definition of capitalism has more to do with ownership of the means of production than anything about free markets.
You're the first person to correctly use and define the word capitalism in this entire discussion.
Your analysis and critique is absolutely correct.
Capitalism hates free markets and will always strive to monopolise them.
Hey, just FYI, you're arguing on Lemmy. Most people here get their political opinions from memes and Twitter screenshots. One third are tankies, one third are people that agree with tankies minus China/Russia support, and the one third are actually people that read the news, understand history, and at least somewhat educated or more.
"everyone is an idiot except me and people who agree with me."
Someone asked me to provide them with the definition of capitalism which I did. Their responce was "that could mean anything! You could use that to define communism"
I responded by providing them with the definition of the word "definition"
There are idiots here...