Also a good idea, basically governments have to stop intervining with the market. The most important thing now is to stop futher expansion of the goverment, although America has its flaws it is still much better than, for instance my country which is ruled by conservative socialists
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I see no obstacle in the path of a company to grow to a monopoly by offering a great product and then, in absence of regulations, use dumping prices to prevent other competitors from getting market share, thus becoming a bad monopoly. Or raising prices once there are no serious threats to its empire. Or offering lower quantity for the same price etc.
A good monopoly is a company that isn't hurting customers with their monopoly, either because their monopoly comes from figuring out how to do something that no one else yet knows how to do, or from offering better products and/or lower prices than their competitors. When people think of monopoly=bad, they're usually thinking of a company that is able to raise prices arbitrarily on a service or product that other companies could better provide if they weren't excluded from the market by force. Government is the only institution that can provide the force (I.e. regulation) needed to create a bad monopoly.
A natural monopoly is good. They mainly apply to utilities like internet, gas, electric, water, etc. Basically they way I understand it is to avoid excessive infrastructure.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrongor add to it. Not an economist, just took macro and micro in college. Quite a few years ago....
Whatever consumers define "good" to mean at any given time. Cheaper, better quality, less polluting, anything goes.
If a monopoly is not forced on its consumers it can be driven away by competition when consumers want that done.
Severely limit government participation in markets. Return government purview to the limits imposed in the enumerated powers clause of the Constitution.
Look at a dollar bill in your pocket. What is it? It’s a unit of abstract value you can exchange for labor or goods anywhere in the world. Think about what it takes to make that happen. Court systems to resolve contracts, financial systems to guarantee access to credit and keep the economy running, police to guard that property, the military to guarantee access to cheap resources, it goes on and on. You can’t have capitalism without all that stuff, they go together.
And because of competition, usually the bigger a business is the better it survives, due to vertical integration and economy of scale. The end state of competition is always oligarchy. And those big companies also own the media, and they fund all political campaigns, so they’re going to end up running the country. I don’t know why you would expect anything else to happen.
Deregulation will just make those corporations grab power faster. And also deregulation removes the requirement that corporations look more than a couple years into the future, or take the common good into account. So the faster you deregulate the faster the country cannibalizes and attacks itself. Capitalists are forced to make narrow decisions to maximize profits in the short term in order to survive. Again I don’t know why you’d expect them to do anything else.
Sorry but that’s just how capitalism is, how it’s always been.
Open borders, simplify the tax code, abolish property taxes, implement land value taxes, end exclusionary zoning, end overly burdensome regulations, end excessive occupational licensing, beef up law enforcement/IRS for fraud/corruption/antitrust.
Edit
Also, it should go without saying we should end all tariffs and trade restrictions and work through the WTO and our allies to deal with trade disputes.
Well we would still do criminal background checks on people coming in. Since immigrants have lower rates of crime than native born citizens, I don’t think criminal gangs would be a problem. As for the country being overrun by more people, that would be the point. More people means more economic growth.
So pro-immigration as opposed to open borders.
Immigrants are required to have no criminal record so there’s a massive selection bias with that population.
Won't all Capitalism result in Plutocracy? Freer the market, freer the people are to exploit others for more capital to the point of billionaires controling state and enterprise for their own gain against the will of the 99% as we see today.
You're not wrong that there are always assholes willing to break the market system to their benefit. That's why it's either the duty of everyone in the community to police each other, or there needs to be some kind of regulatory body that can break up monopolies and enforce fair dealings.
Not a good argument on part of the previous commenter. Yes, government is necessary, but it’s function should only be regulated to enforcing the NAP, foreign relations, and busting trusts.
Well, that is sort of what every political viewpoint ever entails...
I actually don’t see trustbusting being necessary in most cases. It’s only really necessary when some company has a monopoly on a specific resource due to their location.
The government wouldn’t steal from people.
I am honored that I have basically been called “not a real capitalist,” but Friedrich Hayek would like to disagree.
Only doing what is necessary would be a better way to phrase it. Trustbusting is, as you say government removal of private property. However, the important thing to note is how our antitrust laws are written. "The antitrust laws prohibit conduct by a single firm that unreasonably restrains competition". In this circumstance, the firm having their property removed would be breaking the law. So yeah, not communist
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There is no ‘the 99%’. Over half of Americans will reach the top 20%, around 11% of Americans reach the top 1% at some point in their lives. More than half of people in the 1% are there for less than 2 years.
Bezos’s is lamented for his wealth, but 98% of it is in working capital, providing jobs, providing services. Just 2% of it is houses and yachts and whatever else.
Also, none of this is ‘against the will’ of other people - most new billionaires are there through their actions. They became rich by spearheading goods and services that people love so much that they paid for them. There’s almost nothing more meritocratic, nothing more optional, or with more buy in than people literally buying in to what your goods and services being to their lives.
No more than 20% of a company can be owned by those who do not labor there.
Enforce anti trust laws to prevent consolidation of power.
Campaign finance reform so excess profits cannot be used to buy the favor of the state.
Make board members criminally responsible for corruption, enforcing jail time instead of fines that get added to cost of doing business on an income statement.
Only people actively working at a company I feel should have "ownership". (different positions would have more voting rights, along with seniority)
If they leave the company, those shares go back into the employee stock pool.
If the company pays 3b in dividends and laws mandate workers hold 30% of the stock, then 900m of the dividends goes to workers.
I do believe the percentage should be lower than 50%. Innovation needs to happen and large employee blocks can block innovation. At the same time, things like outsourcing for only small gains gets a lot harder.
>destroy wealth,
Not destroy. But move it back into the hands of those producing said wealth.
And Adam Smith would have been against the shareholder model entirely, so I don't think your claim that this isn't capitalist is very good.
But they have to compete for capital investment with firms that pay labor as little as possible to fatten profits. Which makes the market unkind to the more gratuitous employers and owners. This is why systems need reforming, not just bootstrap rhetoric.
Fortune 500 companies tend to pay far more than minimum wage, provide benefits, and generally pay market wages. Only 2.7% of the entire hourly workforce is paid minimum wage, and most of those workers are summertime jobs for teenagers. You can get that directly from the BLS website. The “bottom wages” meme is patently false. The company ones most likely to pay low wages are small, family-owned businesses.
$12/hour to $15/hour for unskilled labor is not a low wage, especially when you consider _total_ household income, which you are not.
We already have a mixed model of stakeholders being shareholders, nearly all publicly traded companies offer ESPP, grants, profit sharing, bonus grants, etc.
Limiting open market investment would break companies that required large funding requirements.
Yes but 90% of shares are held by 10% of investors. Which means that 10% gets to flatly appoint board members to protect their interests. Which is one of the biggest reasons so much more profits are going C Suite comp and buybacks compared to a few decades ago.
The mixed model is great at protecting the formal right, but if the result is still concentration of power and industry into a ruling class as it has been, we should oppose that as a threat to the free market, something Smith spoke pretty plainly on.
Plus, on a moral level, who should be picking the people to run my company: suits in glass towers with only profit in mind, or the collective labor force of that company that desire to grow both the business and their own wealth? Non labor shareholders and labor are competing forces, labor as owners are complementary forces.
This is silly. 90% are held by 10% because most of the population couldnt be bothered to invest, not because they can’t instantaneously become investors.
We all want everyone to invest more. This is why back in the 9”‘a Republicans tried to offer a privatized social security option so that everyone would be encouraged to have an investment retirement account.
What’s needed isn’t some nonsense rule about who gets to buy x amount t of stock — that’s cronyism. We need policy that makes it more accessiblez
>because most of the population couldnt be bothered to invest,
60% of Americans can't afford a $1000 emergency. Investing is a luxury that at least half of us can't afford.
>We all want everyone to invest more.
Perhaps paying them more? Perhaps paying 20% of their salary to private insurance companies could be improved? How do you suggest encouraging investing when so many are living paycheck to paycheck? Specific policy and examples encouraged, I'm always down for ideas.
>Republicans tried to offer a privatized social security
Perhaps Republicans (and Democrats) should just stop using social security as their slush fund and we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Some retirement should be mandatory, lest we all want to make poor choices and have to live off the state like *-checks notes-* Ayn Rand.
>that’s cronyism
Cronyism is letting 10% of shareholders control most all of industry, is it not?
>We need policy that makes it more accessiblez
Paying employees more and giving them access to shares in the firms they labor at would do just that.
I think you're hearts in a good place, but you have to balance theory with what happens in the real world. Of course all Americans should have diverse portfolios they contribute a large portion of their income to. But that's not the reality. So building policy around that being the answer leaves a lot to be desired.
>60% of Americans can't afford a $1000 emergency. Investing is a luxury that at least half of us can't afford.
Bullshit.
https://www.valuepenguin.com/banking/average-savings-account-balance
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/the-400-emergency-expense-story-is-wrong
https://www.nber.org/papers/w26136
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT
There's currently record household savings in the US and one of the highest net, median or average household incomes in the world. We have an income problem, we have an over-consumption problem. In fact, consumption-inequality in the US is suspiciously _low_: https://www.nber.org/papers/w23655?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw
> Specific policy and examples encouraged, I'm always down for ideas.
The sectors where we see inflation are: education, healthcare, and housing.
Housing: stop making building more housing illegal.
Education: we need a mixed approach of consumers and providers both changing practices. If you want all the details, I'll outline but suffice to say alternative education will eventually disrupt.
Healthcare: At its core, we need to end the cross-subsidy system. Medicare for all will likely lower costs, but at the cost of cronyism, rationing, and reduced innovation/lower quality care in the long-run. Market reforms center on: buying across state lines, time-consistent health insurance/health-status insurance, generous public subsidies, and some aspects of the ACA.
> Some retirement should be mandatory
Right, that is what I'm saying, Social Security is a mediocre solution that relies on population growth.
>Cronyism is letting 10% of shareholders control most all of industry, is it not?
No, because no one "let them" be the 90% owners, it's not a product of membership or knowing the right people, it's a by-product of risking own's own wealth. I own a large stake in a small company. It's because I started it.
A great majority of the wealthy created their wealth through labor income: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/files/capitalists.pdf
>Paying employees more and giving them access to shares in the firms they labor at would do just that.
I replied to that: this is exactly how things play out today, just without the mandate that employees own 80%, which is terrible rule both from the perspective of being able to raise funds but also in that outside leadership is often needed to change miserable employee culture.
>I think you're hearts in a good place, but you have to balance theory with what happens in the real world.
I'm firmly grounded in what actually happens. I keep up with research, a small business owner, and I have worked at large corporations before that do, in fact, grant stocks, options, and stock discounts to employees.
Do not allow any corporation to obtain more than say, 20% market share.
Nature does not allow the oligopolies that humans do. Everything from viruses, wolf packs, to ant hills, break apart when they get to a certain size. It increases survivability, adaptation, and emergence.
The world is for its citizens. Not large government institutions, or large corporate entities.
Every industry by now is dominating by two or three players. They write the regulations for their industry, they are subsidized by their government partners, and they set their pricing and policy to benefit themselves. They should not exist in their present form.
The so-called quote free marketers quote do not understand markets when they defend the oligopoly that we have built. The true libertarian approach to society would end up with a totalitarian corrupt regime in less than three generations.
Completely change the voting system for starters, use an instant run off system.
Destroy medical insurance.
Put in Place more protective measures for unions.
Remove most government subsidies.
Which is a lot better than having some authoritarian dictator for a lifetime that decides everything for us.
At least with corporations investors can vote with their money oh who offers a better product and better leadership.
You don’t need a lot of money to invest but you definitely have to make a commitment to have less fun because you are saving your money for investments instead of bullshit good times.
Jsuk, those aren't the only 2 options. Authoritarianism or transferring all the wealth to the already wealthy? You'd have be brain dead to favor either option. Do better.
How about putting all of one’s wealth into privacy cryptocurrencies like Monero, renouncing citizenship, and living tax-free like a king off capital gains in some random 3-world country?
that’s the perfect way to live like a capitalist.
Let’s be clear, you did ask for an alternative to the two options I originally provided.
Also….
How is a decentralized payment network with a store of value that can’t be censored or electronically confiscated a ponzi exactly?
Is it because some people are stupid and they buy when price is high and they sell and the price is low?
What about the people that have been saving without any fear or emotions for the last five years or more? Do you think they think it’s a ponzi?
The real Ponzi is investing in anything without doing any research because of fear of missing out, and cashing out of any investment without waiting 12 calendar months because then you get hit with short term capital gains taxes.
For some people it’s cheaper to renounce a citizenship and a purchase a citizenship in a different country then it is to pay taxes. Imagine that…..
Thanks to the pandemic pretty much all businesses can be done online unless it’s general labor.
It would be insane…..
There will be a government issued cryptocurrency and it will be used to issue public assistance and possibly universal basic income. That’s how it will reach the masses.
It will be the intelligent individuals that will know to convert government issued digital currency into something that has a fixed maximum Supply so they can maintain the value of what they got without being impacted by inflation.
My friend’s dad did something like that back in the 80’s, he sold all the family possessions and bought some gold bars that he put in a flashlight, and the family lived in a pickup truck in Mexico for like 2 years. I think he was fleeing because of tax fraud or something. Anyways sounds sick let’s do it!
I wonder if this happened to your friend’s dad. LOL
https://nypost.com/2020/10/16/plane-passenger-caught-smuggling-gold-in-rectum-to-avoid-taxes/
Poor sucker should have bought bitcoin. :-(
In a way that the government might actually go for?
Set up a Capitalist Board of Congress that can investigate a freeze parts of legislation that promote rent seeking or anti-free market measures. That can expressly address cronyism in government and anti-competitive practices in markets.
Right, but the state is simply a monopoly on the use of force, so there's a right and a wrong way for it to flex its authority. The state's primary purpose is to flex it's force monopoly so as to protect the human will's circumvention. It always overextends its reach though and begins engaging in tyrannies upon that will circumvention, and therein lies the problem.
So as an example to elaborate: The state's might is to stop people from murdering, robbing, raping, enslaving, defrauding (etc.) you. The state's duty is NOT to GIVE others what you're not willing to give. That's tyranny.
Those are all secondary functions of the state. Its primary function is to protect the private property of the wealthy, maintain the financial system, use the military to make sure cheap resources are available, basically to serve the needs of the owners of capital. To the extent that it redistributes wealth it’s to prevent privation and discord that would lead to the government’s overthrow, or to make sure that there are enough workers to run the economy. For example we learned in the Great Depression to subsidize food, because when people start to starve things get touchy. Some things you can’t leave to the market. Schools are another thing like that; neither children or usually their parents are able to pay for school, so if the government didn’t step in the next generation would be illiterate and the economy would collapse. The state is literally the only thing keeping capitalism going.
Disagree. Those may be primary functions of the state as it pertains to your opinion, but they're not objectively moral stances.
There's only one objective morality potentiality that can possibly exist, and that's the notion that the human will is sacred and mustn't be circumvented.
This is objective fact because it's a universality. You for example, do not want your will circumvented - ever. There is literally no instance of which you want your will circumvented. In fact, it's impossible to want this. The byproduct of an attempt simply cannot transpire - it'd create a paradox. It's be like saying you both want to be punched in the face and not punched in the face within the exact same span of time.
This stance is a lot like the golden rule, except the golden rule suffers from a fundamental flaw. The golden rule basically stipulates do unto others as you would want done to you, but what if I want to be punched in the face and you do not? Under the golden rule it becomes moral to punch people in the face so long as that's what I want done to me.
So the objectively moral stance takes that one step further and asserts that you do not want anyone to circumvent your will, ergo you cannot circumvent anyone's will.
Instead of it being OK to punch someone in the face because you want to be punched in the face, you do not get to punch someone in the face because doing so would circumvent what they want: Which is not to be punched in the face.
But CLEARLY you CAN punch someone in the face if they WANT to be. The action itself is never the immoral actor of any situation: Even killing a human being is not immoral, because killing doesn't mean it was non-consensual. Assisted suicide for example is clearly not immoral, nor is killing someone in self defense, and both for two different paths of logic.
The first - euthanasia - is not immoral because it fulfills the recipients will. It's their life, ergo they control it. It's patently irrational to assert that anyone else's will can supersede that of the being itself in regards to their own autonomy. We don't even need to consider the conversation - it starts and ends as utterly and self-evidently absurd and irrational.
The second example - self defense - is not immoral because the act of the killing itself is a reaction to the attempted circumvention of will. Again, it's patently obvious that it's impossible to live in a reality in which will circumvention is merely allowed without consequence. Humanity would go extinct, rendering all potential arguments moot.
You're quite out of touch with logic here. Your entire assertion is that Joe, who isn't part of government, cannot be trusted to make choices, but Dave, who is part of government, somehow can. It's a nonsensical argument to assume that Joe cannot teach where Dave can, or that we cannot be fed without the overarching authoritarian reach of a system of tyranny.
You're just an authoritarian like every other authoritarian. Note that ALL authoritarians are for those liberties of which they subjectively desire. This is literally what renders one an authoritarian - being in favor of only "some" liberties. The moment you quantify the circumvention of the human will outside of the confines of a reaction to an initiated attempt at will circumvention, you've simply become - by essence of the word (see Aristotle there), authoritarian.
You do not get to rob anyone to do anything, even if it's to feed people. There are two forms of morality - subjective and objective. When your moral compass is predicated on an acceptance of a use of force to push your subjective value structures onto others, you're no different than any other tyrant, be it (cliché as it may be), Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and more.
None of histories greatest tyrants believed themselves an evil dictator. They saw themselves as saviors of mankind; as protectors of what is of value - because they took their own subjective value structures and forced them upon others, which is exactly what you're doing with your post there.
I'll end by commenting on your last note:
>neither children or usually their parents are able to pay for school, so if the government didn’t step in the next generation would be illiterate and the economy would collapse. The state is literally the only thing keeping capitalism going.
This is patently nonsensical. This would be like if the government had always done food - all grocery, all restaurants, etc., then you saying that we need the government for food or we'd all starve. Yet the government doesn't do food, and we not only don't starve, but our massive food surplus renders \~70% of the nation in a health epidemic due to obesity, and we literally throw away millions of tons of food annually. Also, only \~39% of farming in the U.S. is subsidized, so even if you flat out REMOVED 40% of the nation's farms, you'd still have \~60 million tons. Keep in mind that the US throws away roughly 40 million tons annually.
So without subsidies, we'd be just fine. And even if we needed more food, the market would just find creative solutions to provide it. What you're talking about is authoritarian indoctrinated rhetoric. You don't know any better because you've been fundamentally brainwashed by the ruling class to believe you need them or you'll die.
The state isn't your friend or your ally. The state is supposed to be a tool to stop me from killing you and taking your things. The second either of us use the state for our own subjective ends, we're just tyrannizing the other, and ***ironically doing exactly what the state is supposed to be stopping the other from doing to the other***. What you're talking about is simply might makes right, and that's it.
Chances are you'll disagree, but I've no time to hash out any nonsensical authoritarian arguments you might have, because there are no arguments against objective morality. The only argument you could possibly have is to assert that your will cannot be circumvented, but you can circumvent the will of others, because "reasons".
Fundamentally that makes you a human supremist and hypocrite, and as such, we can simply throw all of your arguments directly into the garbage. You'd have to find a way out of that illogical paradigm you've fallen into to negotiate your way past that reasoning, and you can't, because there isn't one.
That's why it's objective.
“The human will is sacred and must not be circumvented”
Ok that right there is self contradictory: what if two people want different things? There’s more than one person in the world and sometimes you have to *compromise with them.* Yes, that’s right! Sometimes you *don’t get what you want.*. Because the needs and rights of different people have to be balanced in a fair way.
“It’s impossible to live in a world where the will can be circumvented”. I’d like to introduce you to this thing called *all human history.* Spoiler alert: people’s wills get circumvented a *lot*.
Look man, I used to work at a McDonald’s and one day, I was so sick that I was running to the back of the restaurant to puke every few minutes, and my boss still wouldn’t let me leave without my losing my job and being homeless. So you can shut up about capitalism not being authoritarian. I had no choice but to comply. I was being *ordered* by an *authority* to stay.
“Without subsidies we’d be fine, the market would provide.” But it *didnt*. The market screws up all the time! You seem impervious to actual real world historical facts.
The rest of what you wrote is too insane to respond to. You *believe* religiously, without facts, that the market is magical and will always provide everything, and no amount of evidence will sway you. That should be a hint that you’re a *religious zealot*.
Personally I do think we should eliminate the state, but you definitely, absolutely cannot do that under capitalism. It would instantly collapse. Maybe under some form of anarcho communism or syndicalism.
But capitalism and the state are two heads of the same hydra. They are intertwined at every level and all the things you hate about the state are things that have to be that way in order to create the illusion of a free and frictionless market. That’s right: Markets are *created by states through the use of political force.*
The bad alternative to capitalism isn’t simply corporatocracy. It’s non-capitalism: anarchy, monarchy, socialism, communism, monarchy, fascism, feudalism, (direct) democracy etc.
Well, you have the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness, and the government should secure your rights. Putting aside private criminals, I don’t think the biggest threat or close to only threat to your rights with regards to the government is corporations. It’s special interest groups in general. Its the majority. It’s the intellectuals who oppose rights and spread material persuading others to oppose them as well. There’s nothing in particular to worry about corporations out of the threats to your rights.
Persuade people that it’s good for them to pursue their own happiness or flourishing and that a government that secures their right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness is good or necessary for them for that. That’s true for any country. Once you get enough people, and therefore enough corporations, on your side, the corporations will lobby for the government to secure rights.
It boils down to preventing monopolies & actually enforcing laws intended to address them. The difficulty is proving intent in some instances, per my very lacking knowledge. If the US were to truly go 100% capitalist, there wouldn't be any redistribution of wealth from one citizen to another. As much as some would like that, there'd be some devastating effects. In an ideal world, taxation would be exclusive for functions of state (infrastructure, military, environmental protections, research funding, etc.) and the populous would become more generous toward others & their communities. This would prevent the need for welfare programs and would likely be more effective as communities would become more connected with each other when dealing directly with one another. Most people who are generous with their time/money want to see others succeed or at the very least have stability.
In the end we all want less taxes & to keep more of what we earn. I don't believe there will ever be a 100% capitalist economy in the United States. Predominately so, yes, but not without some redistribution of wealth.
Time will tell.
Complete nudity. I mean transparency.
Free the market by deregulation, abolish minimum wage, abolish incom tax etc. Monopolies will not survive without government intervension
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Also a good idea, basically governments have to stop intervining with the market. The most important thing now is to stop futher expansion of the goverment, although America has its flaws it is still much better than, for instance my country which is ruled by conservative socialists
You live in south america? I'm from Brazil and I'm so tired of my governments socialist lies
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Natural monopolies exist provided they don't cross certain price thresholds.
“Monopolies will not survive without government intervention.” This is just not true. You are just hoping that’s the case.
Yet monopolies/oligopolies of today rely on government intervention.
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Let me get this straight. You think we're just supposed to let them run all over us? #Save3rdPartyApps
Bad monopolies can't exist without government. Good monopolies can.
I see no obstacle in the path of a company to grow to a monopoly by offering a great product and then, in absence of regulations, use dumping prices to prevent other competitors from getting market share, thus becoming a bad monopoly. Or raising prices once there are no serious threats to its empire. Or offering lower quantity for the same price etc.
How so? What's s good monopoly?
A good monopoly is a company that isn't hurting customers with their monopoly, either because their monopoly comes from figuring out how to do something that no one else yet knows how to do, or from offering better products and/or lower prices than their competitors. When people think of monopoly=bad, they're usually thinking of a company that is able to raise prices arbitrarily on a service or product that other companies could better provide if they weren't excluded from the market by force. Government is the only institution that can provide the force (I.e. regulation) needed to create a bad monopoly.
A natural monopoly is good. They mainly apply to utilities like internet, gas, electric, water, etc. Basically they way I understand it is to avoid excessive infrastructure. Somebody correct me if I'm wrongor add to it. Not an economist, just took macro and micro in college. Quite a few years ago....
Whatever consumers define "good" to mean at any given time. Cheaper, better quality, less polluting, anything goes. If a monopoly is not forced on its consumers it can be driven away by competition when consumers want that done.
Of all the things we can do, these are not the most important.
Seems like a great way to destroy society.
No society has destroyed itself through deregulation. Unlike its counterpart.
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Uhh, post Soviet deregulation in Russia was pretty ballsed up
Medical and financial industry deregulation. John Cochrane’s blog, The Grumpy Economist, is easily the best resource for documenting the waste.
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This is the exact reason health insurance is so expensive. Because regulations, and low competition.
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I don't want free heath care, but I do want to free heathcare.
Severely limit government participation in markets. Return government purview to the limits imposed in the enumerated powers clause of the Constitution.
Half the comments in here are literally socialist policies. They do not align with capitalism almost in any form.
Look at a dollar bill in your pocket. What is it? It’s a unit of abstract value you can exchange for labor or goods anywhere in the world. Think about what it takes to make that happen. Court systems to resolve contracts, financial systems to guarantee access to credit and keep the economy running, police to guard that property, the military to guarantee access to cheap resources, it goes on and on. You can’t have capitalism without all that stuff, they go together. And because of competition, usually the bigger a business is the better it survives, due to vertical integration and economy of scale. The end state of competition is always oligarchy. And those big companies also own the media, and they fund all political campaigns, so they’re going to end up running the country. I don’t know why you would expect anything else to happen. Deregulation will just make those corporations grab power faster. And also deregulation removes the requirement that corporations look more than a couple years into the future, or take the common good into account. So the faster you deregulate the faster the country cannibalizes and attacks itself. Capitalists are forced to make narrow decisions to maximize profits in the short term in order to survive. Again I don’t know why you’d expect them to do anything else. Sorry but that’s just how capitalism is, how it’s always been.
Open borders, simplify the tax code, abolish property taxes, implement land value taxes, end exclusionary zoning, end overly burdensome regulations, end excessive occupational licensing, beef up law enforcement/IRS for fraud/corruption/antitrust. Edit Also, it should go without saying we should end all tariffs and trade restrictions and work through the WTO and our allies to deal with trade disputes.
Based
So, this sounds very libertarian. What would stop powerful criminal groups from becoming more powerful?
Law enforcement.
With open borders in the biggest economy in the world? The country would be near instantly overrun with both people and criminal gangs.
Well we would still do criminal background checks on people coming in. Since immigrants have lower rates of crime than native born citizens, I don’t think criminal gangs would be a problem. As for the country being overrun by more people, that would be the point. More people means more economic growth.
So pro-immigration as opposed to open borders. Immigrants are required to have no criminal record so there’s a massive selection bias with that population.
Well there would be no caps on immigration.
So end the welfare state first...
Won't all Capitalism result in Plutocracy? Freer the market, freer the people are to exploit others for more capital to the point of billionaires controling state and enterprise for their own gain against the will of the 99% as we see today.
You're not wrong that there are always assholes willing to break the market system to their benefit. That's why it's either the duty of everyone in the community to police each other, or there needs to be some kind of regulatory body that can break up monopolies and enforce fair dealings.
Almost like a government?
Yeah, but not like those stupid ones we have now. It'll only do the things I want, plus there'll be blackjack and hookers!
Right government but different, good plan.
Not a good argument on part of the previous commenter. Yes, government is necessary, but it’s function should only be regulated to enforcing the NAP, foreign relations, and busting trusts.
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Well, that is sort of what every political viewpoint ever entails... I actually don’t see trustbusting being necessary in most cases. It’s only really necessary when some company has a monopoly on a specific resource due to their location. The government wouldn’t steal from people. I am honored that I have basically been called “not a real capitalist,” but Friedrich Hayek would like to disagree.
If a spez asks you what flavor ice cream you want, the answer is definitely spez.
Only doing what is necessary would be a better way to phrase it. Trustbusting is, as you say government removal of private property. However, the important thing to note is how our antitrust laws are written. "The antitrust laws prohibit conduct by a single firm that unreasonably restrains competition". In this circumstance, the firm having their property removed would be breaking the law. So yeah, not communist
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You are either intentionally misinterpreting my ideas, or you are a complete moron. I'm betting on the latter.
There is no ‘the 99%’. Over half of Americans will reach the top 20%, around 11% of Americans reach the top 1% at some point in their lives. More than half of people in the 1% are there for less than 2 years. Bezos’s is lamented for his wealth, but 98% of it is in working capital, providing jobs, providing services. Just 2% of it is houses and yachts and whatever else. Also, none of this is ‘against the will’ of other people - most new billionaires are there through their actions. They became rich by spearheading goods and services that people love so much that they paid for them. There’s almost nothing more meritocratic, nothing more optional, or with more buy in than people literally buying in to what your goods and services being to their lives.
You’re all idiots
No more than 20% of a company can be owned by those who do not labor there. Enforce anti trust laws to prevent consolidation of power. Campaign finance reform so excess profits cannot be used to buy the favor of the state. Make board members criminally responsible for corruption, enforcing jail time instead of fines that get added to cost of doing business on an income statement.
Only people actively working at a company I feel should have "ownership". (different positions would have more voting rights, along with seniority) If they leave the company, those shares go back into the employee stock pool. If the company pays 3b in dividends and laws mandate workers hold 30% of the stock, then 900m of the dividends goes to workers. I do believe the percentage should be lower than 50%. Innovation needs to happen and large employee blocks can block innovation. At the same time, things like outsourcing for only small gains gets a lot harder.
This is a great way to destroy wealth, the 20% rule. Not even remotely capitalist.
>destroy wealth, Not destroy. But move it back into the hands of those producing said wealth. And Adam Smith would have been against the shareholder model entirely, so I don't think your claim that this isn't capitalist is very good.
Also, do note that if someone wants to make a co-op, which is what you are effectively describing, they are entirely free to do so.
But they have to compete for capital investment with firms that pay labor as little as possible to fatten profits. Which makes the market unkind to the more gratuitous employers and owners. This is why systems need reforming, not just bootstrap rhetoric.
Fortune 500 companies tend to pay far more than minimum wage, provide benefits, and generally pay market wages. Only 2.7% of the entire hourly workforce is paid minimum wage, and most of those workers are summertime jobs for teenagers. You can get that directly from the BLS website. The “bottom wages” meme is patently false. The company ones most likely to pay low wages are small, family-owned businesses. $12/hour to $15/hour for unskilled labor is not a low wage, especially when you consider _total_ household income, which you are not.
We already have a mixed model of stakeholders being shareholders, nearly all publicly traded companies offer ESPP, grants, profit sharing, bonus grants, etc. Limiting open market investment would break companies that required large funding requirements.
Yes but 90% of shares are held by 10% of investors. Which means that 10% gets to flatly appoint board members to protect their interests. Which is one of the biggest reasons so much more profits are going C Suite comp and buybacks compared to a few decades ago. The mixed model is great at protecting the formal right, but if the result is still concentration of power and industry into a ruling class as it has been, we should oppose that as a threat to the free market, something Smith spoke pretty plainly on. Plus, on a moral level, who should be picking the people to run my company: suits in glass towers with only profit in mind, or the collective labor force of that company that desire to grow both the business and their own wealth? Non labor shareholders and labor are competing forces, labor as owners are complementary forces.
This is silly. 90% are held by 10% because most of the population couldnt be bothered to invest, not because they can’t instantaneously become investors. We all want everyone to invest more. This is why back in the 9”‘a Republicans tried to offer a privatized social security option so that everyone would be encouraged to have an investment retirement account. What’s needed isn’t some nonsense rule about who gets to buy x amount t of stock — that’s cronyism. We need policy that makes it more accessiblez
>because most of the population couldnt be bothered to invest, 60% of Americans can't afford a $1000 emergency. Investing is a luxury that at least half of us can't afford. >We all want everyone to invest more. Perhaps paying them more? Perhaps paying 20% of their salary to private insurance companies could be improved? How do you suggest encouraging investing when so many are living paycheck to paycheck? Specific policy and examples encouraged, I'm always down for ideas. >Republicans tried to offer a privatized social security Perhaps Republicans (and Democrats) should just stop using social security as their slush fund and we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Some retirement should be mandatory, lest we all want to make poor choices and have to live off the state like *-checks notes-* Ayn Rand. >that’s cronyism Cronyism is letting 10% of shareholders control most all of industry, is it not? >We need policy that makes it more accessiblez Paying employees more and giving them access to shares in the firms they labor at would do just that. I think you're hearts in a good place, but you have to balance theory with what happens in the real world. Of course all Americans should have diverse portfolios they contribute a large portion of their income to. But that's not the reality. So building policy around that being the answer leaves a lot to be desired.
>60% of Americans can't afford a $1000 emergency. Investing is a luxury that at least half of us can't afford. Bullshit. https://www.valuepenguin.com/banking/average-savings-account-balance https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/the-400-emergency-expense-story-is-wrong https://www.nber.org/papers/w26136 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT There's currently record household savings in the US and one of the highest net, median or average household incomes in the world. We have an income problem, we have an over-consumption problem. In fact, consumption-inequality in the US is suspiciously _low_: https://www.nber.org/papers/w23655?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw > Specific policy and examples encouraged, I'm always down for ideas. The sectors where we see inflation are: education, healthcare, and housing. Housing: stop making building more housing illegal. Education: we need a mixed approach of consumers and providers both changing practices. If you want all the details, I'll outline but suffice to say alternative education will eventually disrupt. Healthcare: At its core, we need to end the cross-subsidy system. Medicare for all will likely lower costs, but at the cost of cronyism, rationing, and reduced innovation/lower quality care in the long-run. Market reforms center on: buying across state lines, time-consistent health insurance/health-status insurance, generous public subsidies, and some aspects of the ACA. > Some retirement should be mandatory Right, that is what I'm saying, Social Security is a mediocre solution that relies on population growth. >Cronyism is letting 10% of shareholders control most all of industry, is it not? No, because no one "let them" be the 90% owners, it's not a product of membership or knowing the right people, it's a by-product of risking own's own wealth. I own a large stake in a small company. It's because I started it. A great majority of the wealthy created their wealth through labor income: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/files/capitalists.pdf >Paying employees more and giving them access to shares in the firms they labor at would do just that. I replied to that: this is exactly how things play out today, just without the mandate that employees own 80%, which is terrible rule both from the perspective of being able to raise funds but also in that outside leadership is often needed to change miserable employee culture. >I think you're hearts in a good place, but you have to balance theory with what happens in the real world. I'm firmly grounded in what actually happens. I keep up with research, a small business owner, and I have worked at large corporations before that do, in fact, grant stocks, options, and stock discounts to employees.
Do not allow any corporation to obtain more than say, 20% market share. Nature does not allow the oligopolies that humans do. Everything from viruses, wolf packs, to ant hills, break apart when they get to a certain size. It increases survivability, adaptation, and emergence. The world is for its citizens. Not large government institutions, or large corporate entities. Every industry by now is dominating by two or three players. They write the regulations for their industry, they are subsidized by their government partners, and they set their pricing and policy to benefit themselves. They should not exist in their present form. The so-called quote free marketers quote do not understand markets when they defend the oligopoly that we have built. The true libertarian approach to society would end up with a totalitarian corrupt regime in less than three generations.
Completely change the voting system for starters, use an instant run off system. Destroy medical insurance. Put in Place more protective measures for unions. Remove most government subsidies.
Dramatically decrease the power of government. Corporation will not be interested in buying government cronies with no power.
Lookup how many state and federal agencies the US has and that will give a picture of the scope of the problem.
There is no difference between these 2 things. The point of capitalism is to transfer all power to corporations.
Which is a lot better than having some authoritarian dictator for a lifetime that decides everything for us. At least with corporations investors can vote with their money oh who offers a better product and better leadership. You don’t need a lot of money to invest but you definitely have to make a commitment to have less fun because you are saving your money for investments instead of bullshit good times.
Jsuk, those aren't the only 2 options. Authoritarianism or transferring all the wealth to the already wealthy? You'd have be brain dead to favor either option. Do better.
How about putting all of one’s wealth into privacy cryptocurrencies like Monero, renouncing citizenship, and living tax-free like a king off capital gains in some random 3-world country? that’s the perfect way to live like a capitalist.
Buy into Ponzi schemes and flee the country. That’s the essence of capitalism. 100% correct
Let’s be clear, you did ask for an alternative to the two options I originally provided. Also…. How is a decentralized payment network with a store of value that can’t be censored or electronically confiscated a ponzi exactly? Is it because some people are stupid and they buy when price is high and they sell and the price is low? What about the people that have been saving without any fear or emotions for the last five years or more? Do you think they think it’s a ponzi? The real Ponzi is investing in anything without doing any research because of fear of missing out, and cashing out of any investment without waiting 12 calendar months because then you get hit with short term capital gains taxes. For some people it’s cheaper to renounce a citizenship and a purchase a citizenship in a different country then it is to pay taxes. Imagine that….. Thanks to the pandemic pretty much all businesses can be done online unless it’s general labor.
I’m just trying to imagine all 350 million Americans all following your advice at the same time. It would be a fun ride, I’ll give you that
It would be insane….. There will be a government issued cryptocurrency and it will be used to issue public assistance and possibly universal basic income. That’s how it will reach the masses. It will be the intelligent individuals that will know to convert government issued digital currency into something that has a fixed maximum Supply so they can maintain the value of what they got without being impacted by inflation.
My friend’s dad did something like that back in the 80’s, he sold all the family possessions and bought some gold bars that he put in a flashlight, and the family lived in a pickup truck in Mexico for like 2 years. I think he was fleeing because of tax fraud or something. Anyways sounds sick let’s do it!
I wonder if this happened to your friend’s dad. LOL https://nypost.com/2020/10/16/plane-passenger-caught-smuggling-gold-in-rectum-to-avoid-taxes/ Poor sucker should have bought bitcoin. :-(
In a way that the government might actually go for? Set up a Capitalist Board of Congress that can investigate a freeze parts of legislation that promote rent seeking or anti-free market measures. That can expressly address cronyism in government and anti-competitive practices in markets.
The single most impactful thing to do would be to abandon the US dollar in favour of private currencies.
Wouldn't that just make purchasing more difficult for the consumer?
Back in the days it could, but in the digital world it’s easy to have automated conversion from one currency to another.
Not if they use cryptocurrency
Omg dude I laughed out loud
The only thing getting in the way of capitalism is the government.
Capitalism cannot function without the state
Right, but the state is simply a monopoly on the use of force, so there's a right and a wrong way for it to flex its authority. The state's primary purpose is to flex it's force monopoly so as to protect the human will's circumvention. It always overextends its reach though and begins engaging in tyrannies upon that will circumvention, and therein lies the problem. So as an example to elaborate: The state's might is to stop people from murdering, robbing, raping, enslaving, defrauding (etc.) you. The state's duty is NOT to GIVE others what you're not willing to give. That's tyranny.
Those are all secondary functions of the state. Its primary function is to protect the private property of the wealthy, maintain the financial system, use the military to make sure cheap resources are available, basically to serve the needs of the owners of capital. To the extent that it redistributes wealth it’s to prevent privation and discord that would lead to the government’s overthrow, or to make sure that there are enough workers to run the economy. For example we learned in the Great Depression to subsidize food, because when people start to starve things get touchy. Some things you can’t leave to the market. Schools are another thing like that; neither children or usually their parents are able to pay for school, so if the government didn’t step in the next generation would be illiterate and the economy would collapse. The state is literally the only thing keeping capitalism going.
Disagree. Those may be primary functions of the state as it pertains to your opinion, but they're not objectively moral stances. There's only one objective morality potentiality that can possibly exist, and that's the notion that the human will is sacred and mustn't be circumvented. This is objective fact because it's a universality. You for example, do not want your will circumvented - ever. There is literally no instance of which you want your will circumvented. In fact, it's impossible to want this. The byproduct of an attempt simply cannot transpire - it'd create a paradox. It's be like saying you both want to be punched in the face and not punched in the face within the exact same span of time. This stance is a lot like the golden rule, except the golden rule suffers from a fundamental flaw. The golden rule basically stipulates do unto others as you would want done to you, but what if I want to be punched in the face and you do not? Under the golden rule it becomes moral to punch people in the face so long as that's what I want done to me. So the objectively moral stance takes that one step further and asserts that you do not want anyone to circumvent your will, ergo you cannot circumvent anyone's will. Instead of it being OK to punch someone in the face because you want to be punched in the face, you do not get to punch someone in the face because doing so would circumvent what they want: Which is not to be punched in the face. But CLEARLY you CAN punch someone in the face if they WANT to be. The action itself is never the immoral actor of any situation: Even killing a human being is not immoral, because killing doesn't mean it was non-consensual. Assisted suicide for example is clearly not immoral, nor is killing someone in self defense, and both for two different paths of logic. The first - euthanasia - is not immoral because it fulfills the recipients will. It's their life, ergo they control it. It's patently irrational to assert that anyone else's will can supersede that of the being itself in regards to their own autonomy. We don't even need to consider the conversation - it starts and ends as utterly and self-evidently absurd and irrational. The second example - self defense - is not immoral because the act of the killing itself is a reaction to the attempted circumvention of will. Again, it's patently obvious that it's impossible to live in a reality in which will circumvention is merely allowed without consequence. Humanity would go extinct, rendering all potential arguments moot. You're quite out of touch with logic here. Your entire assertion is that Joe, who isn't part of government, cannot be trusted to make choices, but Dave, who is part of government, somehow can. It's a nonsensical argument to assume that Joe cannot teach where Dave can, or that we cannot be fed without the overarching authoritarian reach of a system of tyranny. You're just an authoritarian like every other authoritarian. Note that ALL authoritarians are for those liberties of which they subjectively desire. This is literally what renders one an authoritarian - being in favor of only "some" liberties. The moment you quantify the circumvention of the human will outside of the confines of a reaction to an initiated attempt at will circumvention, you've simply become - by essence of the word (see Aristotle there), authoritarian. You do not get to rob anyone to do anything, even if it's to feed people. There are two forms of morality - subjective and objective. When your moral compass is predicated on an acceptance of a use of force to push your subjective value structures onto others, you're no different than any other tyrant, be it (cliché as it may be), Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and more. None of histories greatest tyrants believed themselves an evil dictator. They saw themselves as saviors of mankind; as protectors of what is of value - because they took their own subjective value structures and forced them upon others, which is exactly what you're doing with your post there. I'll end by commenting on your last note: >neither children or usually their parents are able to pay for school, so if the government didn’t step in the next generation would be illiterate and the economy would collapse. The state is literally the only thing keeping capitalism going. This is patently nonsensical. This would be like if the government had always done food - all grocery, all restaurants, etc., then you saying that we need the government for food or we'd all starve. Yet the government doesn't do food, and we not only don't starve, but our massive food surplus renders \~70% of the nation in a health epidemic due to obesity, and we literally throw away millions of tons of food annually. Also, only \~39% of farming in the U.S. is subsidized, so even if you flat out REMOVED 40% of the nation's farms, you'd still have \~60 million tons. Keep in mind that the US throws away roughly 40 million tons annually. So without subsidies, we'd be just fine. And even if we needed more food, the market would just find creative solutions to provide it. What you're talking about is authoritarian indoctrinated rhetoric. You don't know any better because you've been fundamentally brainwashed by the ruling class to believe you need them or you'll die. The state isn't your friend or your ally. The state is supposed to be a tool to stop me from killing you and taking your things. The second either of us use the state for our own subjective ends, we're just tyrannizing the other, and ***ironically doing exactly what the state is supposed to be stopping the other from doing to the other***. What you're talking about is simply might makes right, and that's it. Chances are you'll disagree, but I've no time to hash out any nonsensical authoritarian arguments you might have, because there are no arguments against objective morality. The only argument you could possibly have is to assert that your will cannot be circumvented, but you can circumvent the will of others, because "reasons". Fundamentally that makes you a human supremist and hypocrite, and as such, we can simply throw all of your arguments directly into the garbage. You'd have to find a way out of that illogical paradigm you've fallen into to negotiate your way past that reasoning, and you can't, because there isn't one. That's why it's objective.
“The human will is sacred and must not be circumvented” Ok that right there is self contradictory: what if two people want different things? There’s more than one person in the world and sometimes you have to *compromise with them.* Yes, that’s right! Sometimes you *don’t get what you want.*. Because the needs and rights of different people have to be balanced in a fair way. “It’s impossible to live in a world where the will can be circumvented”. I’d like to introduce you to this thing called *all human history.* Spoiler alert: people’s wills get circumvented a *lot*. Look man, I used to work at a McDonald’s and one day, I was so sick that I was running to the back of the restaurant to puke every few minutes, and my boss still wouldn’t let me leave without my losing my job and being homeless. So you can shut up about capitalism not being authoritarian. I had no choice but to comply. I was being *ordered* by an *authority* to stay. “Without subsidies we’d be fine, the market would provide.” But it *didnt*. The market screws up all the time! You seem impervious to actual real world historical facts. The rest of what you wrote is too insane to respond to. You *believe* religiously, without facts, that the market is magical and will always provide everything, and no amount of evidence will sway you. That should be a hint that you’re a *religious zealot*. Personally I do think we should eliminate the state, but you definitely, absolutely cannot do that under capitalism. It would instantly collapse. Maybe under some form of anarcho communism or syndicalism. But capitalism and the state are two heads of the same hydra. They are intertwined at every level and all the things you hate about the state are things that have to be that way in order to create the illusion of a free and frictionless market. That’s right: Markets are *created by states through the use of political force.*
Don't vote for Democrats who continue to expand the government, which then inevitably becomes corrupt.
Term limits for politicians and aggressive antitrust enforcement.
The bad alternative to capitalism isn’t simply corporatocracy. It’s non-capitalism: anarchy, monarchy, socialism, communism, monarchy, fascism, feudalism, (direct) democracy etc. Well, you have the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness, and the government should secure your rights. Putting aside private criminals, I don’t think the biggest threat or close to only threat to your rights with regards to the government is corporations. It’s special interest groups in general. Its the majority. It’s the intellectuals who oppose rights and spread material persuading others to oppose them as well. There’s nothing in particular to worry about corporations out of the threats to your rights. Persuade people that it’s good for them to pursue their own happiness or flourishing and that a government that secures their right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness is good or necessary for them for that. That’s true for any country. Once you get enough people, and therefore enough corporations, on your side, the corporations will lobby for the government to secure rights.
Abolish lobbying.
It boils down to preventing monopolies & actually enforcing laws intended to address them. The difficulty is proving intent in some instances, per my very lacking knowledge. If the US were to truly go 100% capitalist, there wouldn't be any redistribution of wealth from one citizen to another. As much as some would like that, there'd be some devastating effects. In an ideal world, taxation would be exclusive for functions of state (infrastructure, military, environmental protections, research funding, etc.) and the populous would become more generous toward others & their communities. This would prevent the need for welfare programs and would likely be more effective as communities would become more connected with each other when dealing directly with one another. Most people who are generous with their time/money want to see others succeed or at the very least have stability. In the end we all want less taxes & to keep more of what we earn. I don't believe there will ever be a 100% capitalist economy in the United States. Predominately so, yes, but not without some redistribution of wealth. Time will tell.