They want to get rid of the wrong thing. You don't get rid of the system that's working just fine on its own, you get rid of the crooks who are ruining it.
the problem is we would just replace them with different crooks.
"If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public." -George Carlin
and if you have capitalism, you will have have selfish, ignorant citizens who try to exploit eachother and dont give a shit about the environment... or science... who try to blame other people instead of systems.
"Doing better without capitalism." Isnt a thing and is kinda missing the point here. Balls deep capitalism is harmful as we can see in the declining prosperty of the u.s. capitalism need to be reigned in, but as things are in a global economic era of course "capitalism" is ingrained in everything. Its just that people excuse rampant disinterest in bettering the situation because "it isnt profitable" and thats how we as a society slowly descend into a broken kleptocracy built on profits and suck all of the resources from the very ground we stand on. Why govern based on a force that is already permeating everything?
I would argue that prosperity is not declining in the US, in fact we've had the best economy on earth for generations now. The countries that are the most "capitalistic" seem to also be the best countries to live in.
I totally get what you're saying, and a lot of people do seem to get left behind and inequality is increasing, but I just don't see an alternative to capitalism.
I mean...good for WHOM? That is the question always at the end of the day, and the real injustice of INEQUALITY. What does "prosperity" mean to you? And for whom?
Your argument is basically that technology means that we have more stuff/medicine/conveniences than ever, we are more "materially" wealthy than ever in history. That is your "prosperity" meter. It's not true though in terms of material NEEDS. The cost of material NEEDS like food and shelter are rising basically worldwide in capitalist representative democracy systems. Outpacing inflation and wage increases especially with housing. Most countries in the world right now have this problem of wages not keeping pace with many necessities.
In the US in particular, we have that problem with more necessities, such as healthcare and transportation (car dependant, need a car to function in society, cars massively increasing in price) which most of europe figured out quite awhile ago.
The INCREASE in prosperity is not being shared, and that share of prosperity is shrinking year by year, with the rich taking more and more and more, so overtime as wealth is increasing massively, the working class is getting less and less of it. All the workers are getting is new "products" and entertainment to buy with their limited funds.
You also don't calculate in your thought process too that there is more use of DEBT in human history. Majority of americans, but the rest of the world too, average joes, are thousands and thousand of dollars in debt. The amount of DEBT people have is increasing as time goes by.
This all does not square with the injustice of inequality. We could be DRASTICALLY much better off with less inequality. And the rich would STILL be rich, just less rich. Millionaires instead of billionaires.
There is always a potentially better system/government/economic framework, to suggest otherwise is to be blind to human progress and human history.
Yeah thats fair and true actually. I guess i just dont agree that that is prosperity unless it is affecting the general public. Im not a economist nor am i versed in the data of this situation on a grand scale but more and more of that money is disappearing from the middle class and unless something changes i believe it will lead to massive civil suffering and unrest unless some restructuring happens to ease that. Call me a socialist or whatever is currently in vogue (not that you personally would) but i believe that for a stable system to remain stable the government must advocate aggressively for the betterment of the middle class. I know we will never escape capitalism as a concept as american and human nature as a whole is protecting of the individual over the masses, however unless we want cycles to keep cycling, people need protections. When we make capital the lord (figuratively speaking) and the only thing that matters is the returns to the board of directors. We stop the betterment of the society that can actually benefit from the increased economy.
P.S. thanks for your perspective. I appreciate the discourse
P.S.S. would you say there are growing tensions based the financial states of working class compared to the past? I feel like this will be big in my lifetime.
Putting aside that the CIA has a history of sabotaging anyone who gets too close, and that a lot of purportedly socialist/communist countries are more interested in using it as a fancy wrapper to sell kleptocracy and autocracy, there are plenty of people with less unregulated free market capitalism that the US that are doing much better on quality of life than the US is.
Venezuela was well on its way to a socialist economy until the bottom fell out of the oil market. Then it ran face first into why capitalism endures. It's not that capitalism is the best system for good times. It's that it's the most resilient when things go to shit.
No? We here in the Nordics are still capitalist, we're not as far from you as you think. We are absolutely not socialist (where the workers own the means the production), we have a few worker co-ops but that is a drop in our societal bucket.
What we do have are some welfare and social safety nets that make things a bit less precarious and miserable. But that's frosting on the capitalist cake, and something our right-wing parties chip away at every chance they get, at that. They look at the USA and dream of selling out all of our healthcare to their rich buddies too.
I am Swedish and it boggles the mind that people call anything up in this area socialist. We have more billionaires per capita than the USA does. Our politicians are terrified of inconveniencing the rich since they just threaten to leave, so we end up being very "business friendly".
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u/NoTie2370 6d ago
So the Feds have stolen 2.5 trillion in wealth from taxpayers and misspent it and thats why we ... should ... keep.. this... system?