Capitalism, minus a strong guiding hand as described by Adam Smith, invariably leads to monopolies, or near enough. When that happens, either through a single strong monopoly or a small group of companies, the market doesn’t work and price gouging rises. You don’t have to look further back than the past couple years at inflation. Every study I have seen blames inflation almost completely on price gouging and market failing to work for consumers. Think record prices (and corresponding record profits) of companies across the board. If you want specific examples, check out the long history of Walmart and the negative effects its stores have on local competition and local earnings. Or the profit taking of gas companies. Or super market chains. Or…
People who love Capitalism always seem to have missed high school history/econ and have this ignorant belief that laissez-faire is the best. Even though proven to be shitty. This belief in trickle down bullshit has resulted in 50 trillion dollars going from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. If that’s not capitalism destroying itself, I’m not sure what else to say.
Or as Leonard Cohen sang so succinctly,“The poor stay poor, the rich get rich / that’s how it goes / everybody knows.”
Is that capitalism destroying itself tho? I mean in a purist way, what you describe is capitalism changing so it does do something but what it ends up in is called late stage capitalism so did it really destroy itself or merely “evolved”? Yes in that stage it is worse for 99.99% of people compared to before but maybe that’s somewhat intended? And most importantly is that stage (more) stable or not.
Granted, the concept applies specifically to platforms, but the idea is basically what capitalism is:
Be good to everyone
Be good to suppliers (supply-side economics)
Be good to shareholders and, subsequently, alienate both users and suppliers of content. The platform collapses.
Late-stage capitalism is when shareholder wealth is maximized at the expense everyone else. So you have 3 billionaires with 50% of the wealth of all humanity or something, the middle class squeezed into oblivion, and a roiling undercurrent of pure fucking rage ready to sever heads like watermelons from a vine.
Is there actually any record of this destroying the capitalist system though? To my knowledge, every time this happens, its just replaced with more extreme and violent capitalism.
That’s not how it works. Nor it is useful, since a more extreme and more violent capitalism causes more, worse victims until it, in your terms, “collapses” - that is, is replaced by an even worse capitalism.
I think you can say that’s immoral. I’m not sure you can say it will destroy the whole system or that this is an inevitability of any capitalist system.
What are some examples of capitalism destroying itself?
Capitalism, minus a strong guiding hand as described by Adam Smith, invariably leads to monopolies, or near enough. When that happens, either through a single strong monopoly or a small group of companies, the market doesn’t work and price gouging rises. You don’t have to look further back than the past couple years at inflation. Every study I have seen blames inflation almost completely on price gouging and market failing to work for consumers. Think record prices (and corresponding record profits) of companies across the board. If you want specific examples, check out the long history of Walmart and the negative effects its stores have on local competition and local earnings. Or the profit taking of gas companies. Or super market chains. Or…
People who love Capitalism always seem to have missed high school history/econ and have this ignorant belief that laissez-faire is the best. Even though proven to be shitty. This belief in trickle down bullshit has resulted in 50 trillion dollars going from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. If that’s not capitalism destroying itself, I’m not sure what else to say.
Or as Leonard Cohen sang so succinctly,“The poor stay poor, the rich get rich / that’s how it goes / everybody knows.”
Is that capitalism destroying itself tho? I mean in a purist way, what you describe is capitalism changing so it does do something but what it ends up in is called late stage capitalism so did it really destroy itself or merely “evolved”? Yes in that stage it is worse for 99.99% of people compared to before but maybe that’s somewhat intended? And most importantly is that stage (more) stable or not.
The vacuum can only suck up crumbs for so long until it runs out of crumbs.
In other words, the greedy aren’t letting capitalism be the cycle system it needs to be, it’s a funnel.
Either the crumbs will run out and the system will collapse, or people won’t take kindly to giving up their final crumbs and overpower the vacuum.
Any one sane person is only a few missed meals away from acting insane. Any sane society is only a few missed meals from falling apart.
Yes but you really didn’t answer my question. It’s also debatable if we’re anywhere near that point at this stage
If a structure is stealing bolts from its lower structure to further amass a larger structure on top it is going to collapse.
A closed system designed to be a cycle that doesn’t return anything to the bottom will eventually collapse.
If rain never comes to replenish the earth the clouds are only stuck with each other to canibalize.
I mostly agree with this. But I can imagine saying basically any system minus x core feature will go to shit.
Regulation is not a core feature of capitalism. It’s just a really good idea
The concept of enshittification.
Granted, the concept applies specifically to platforms, but the idea is basically what capitalism is:
Late-stage capitalism is when shareholder wealth is maximized at the expense everyone else. So you have 3 billionaires with 50% of the wealth of all humanity or something, the middle class squeezed into oblivion, and a roiling undercurrent of pure fucking rage ready to sever heads like watermelons from a vine.
Is there actually any record of this destroying the capitalist system though? To my knowledge, every time this happens, its just replaced with more extreme and violent capitalism.
…the more extreme and violent capitalism is the evidence. It can only do this so many times…
That’s not how it works. Nor it is useful, since a more extreme and more violent capitalism causes more, worse victims until it, in your terms, “collapses” - that is, is replaced by an even worse capitalism.
Applying the concept from the micro (enshittification of the platforms) to the macro (enshittification of the economic system) is brilliant.
What’s true of the lesser must be true of the greater
So why isn’t my glass of Campari drifting randomly across the table, under Brownian movement??? [/shitty drunkard joke]
Serious now. On economic matters I think that you’re right.
I think you can say that’s immoral. I’m not sure you can say it will destroy the whole system or that this is an inevitability of any capitalist system.