this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
450 points (76.1% liked)
Asklemmy
43513 readers
1453 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Lots of good answers in here already.
Some stuff that's colloquially seen as capitalism is okay. Me paying someone to clean my house because I hate that chore is fine with me.
It quickly becomes Not Fine when you add in all the "if they don't clean up my shit, they risk starving", "they work for a boss who takes most of the money I pay", and "none of us pay for externalized costs like using toxic chemicals for cleaning" parts. Other things too I can't think of right now n
Left alone, nothing stops capitalism from selling you bread made with sawdust. People might say "well the market would reject an inferior product" but that's not necessarily true. Monopolies and cartels form. People might not know a product is harmful until it's too late.
Blah blah blah. Fittingly, I have to go back to work now.
Yeah, anyone who tries to tell you that "the free market will sort it out" when you ask about companies selling dangerous medications, equipment, chemicals, structures, etc. in unregulated markets, is either ignorant of reality or an actual monster.
And that's not even considering inelastic goods that put corporations in a position where they could continue to profit from human misery without the "free market" ever correcting it. And that's not even considering rent seeking.
Anyone who considers human lives as acceptable collateral in people's' obsession with compulsively gaining and hoarding wealth, has no place in modern society.
Sometimes I do wonder how many "pro-capitalist" individuals actually think we're railing against exchanging money for goods and services.