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Critics of capitalism, what concrete economic policies do you support?

Capitalism is criticized a lot on here (especially by American users, it seems to me). Most of that seems well-founded, but I also have the feeling that most of these complaints are simply venting and not the first step to improvement.

So I would like to know what specific changes you (especially Americans) want to see from lawmakers.

bartolomeo ,
@bartolomeo@suppo.fi avatar

The price of a good is a percentage of your wealth. For example, bread costs 0.01% of your wealth.

Just like how a fixed-fine legal penalty is a law for the poor, fixed-price goods (especially essentials) are much more burdensome for the poor.

KrasMazov ,
@KrasMazov@lemmygrad.ml avatar

I’m not from the US but I’ll answer anyway.

Like a comrade already commented, I think there’s a problem with the way you’re thinking of capitalism. It would be useful to know at least a few of these complaints you saw that feel like it’s only venting.

Answering your question, I would like to see a planned economy where humans needs are put above profits. We can make a better world for everyone, instead of only for a extremely small part of the world that holds all the power.

That being said, lawmakers cannot enact meaningful changes under capitalism like you suggest. This is not an opinion, it is how the system works. Allende in Chile is the perfect example of this, he tried to reform the system, suffered a coup and was assassinated.

In capitalism the ruling class are the bourgeoisie, that is to say, the ultra-rich, and they as a class have interests that are the direct opposite of everyone else, the working class, the proletariat. This is a crucial part of capitalism, the system that Marx dedicated his whole life studying and describing.

Because of this, every time workers rights are secured or better living conditions are achieved through the system, like free housing for the poor or public healthcare, the ruling class lose some of their power which they will get back eventually. Besides that, it is difficult enough to even get to that point because they will do everything to stop such rights and safety nets from being approved in the first place, as the ruling class can just lobby and buy politicians. It’s not a coincidence that public healthcare is not a thing in the US and that so many people are living in the streets, that medication is so expensive all over the world and that the US is so averse to unions still to this day.

Capitalism will literally cook us alive, reform is not the way forward.

Anamnesis ,

Incentives for worker ownership of companies to move more major economic decisions into the hands of workers. Mandatory worker representation on boards of directors. Significant wealth and inheritance tax. A nationalized healthcare service. Public ownership of all utilities, including internet service. Bring back programs like the WPA and CCC to rebuild infrastructure. Entirely publicly funded elections. Overturn Taft-Hartley, overturn all “right to work” laws natonwide. I think all these things would help us transition to a more just, inclusive economy. That’s what democratic socialism is to me, and it’s not just social democracy.

indepndnt ,

I guess one specific, concrete example would be reversing Citizens United. As I understand it, that could be done either by legislative action or through the judicial, though the former would probably be better.

Dagwood222 ,

Return to pre-Reagan tax codes and laws. Bring back the 90% tax rate.

Yeller_king ,

That makes you less a critic of capitalism and more of a critic of a particular set of policies within capitalism, right?

Dagwood222 ,

Everyone from Karl Marx to President Obama has said the same thing, we aren’t going to change the system overnight. The funniest thing in the world is watching the local “revolutionaries” who have been screaming for overnight change for decades. Look at what happened in Russia after they kicked out the old Soviet system. A few guys like Putin snatched up everything at fire sale prices and the regular folks got less than nothing.

shrugal , (edited )

I think capitalism can work fine if we limit the amount of stuff any one person can own. Having a few million $ seems fine to me, but everything above that leads to problems. I know this sounds like a very simple measure, but it would have huge implications.

laxu ,

Infinite growth and the shittification of services and products while exploiting labor to make that happen are the real problems.

Billionaires should not exist and companies should be doing what is best for the company, its employees and customers, not what pleases their stockholders.

NAXLAB ,

I haven’t a lot useful to say among the comments that are already here but I will say most broadly:

Democracy in the work place. Corporations and industries are too big and affect too many people to be governed by individuals that are just there to own it, and make a profit for themselves. Things need to be run for the common good by actually representing all stakeholders fairly.

pingveno ,

I work in IT for a large university and there usually is some level of that. Projects are expected to pull in stakeholders so that interests from around campus have their voices heard. It takes talented facilitators to ensure that people feel comfortable speaking up. Surprisingly, coming to an agreement is rarely hard once everyone has talked it out.

Drewfro66 ,
@Drewfro66@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Others have answered your question, but I think you’re coming at the problem from the wrong angle.

I used to think about politics and economics how you are now: that there are different systems, and different people disagree on which is the best system, either because of their internal values (liberty, security, equality, prosperity, etc.) or because they believe that one system inherently performs better than another (efficiency, robustness, fairness, etc.).

Becoming a Marxist is realizing that while we, the working people, are sitting around bickering over whether command or market economies are more efficient, whether parliamentary or Presidential systems are better, whether our voting system should be Ranked Choice or Proportional or FPTP, the wealthy - the owning classes, the Capitalists, the ruling class - are stealing from us, are extracting our labor.

Politics is not about different people having different ideas about how to best organize society. Politics is about different groups acting in their material interests. The rich support policies which give them more power in society, while the poor, by all rights, should be doing the same.

I support a system where working people hold all power in society. I don’t care how that society is organized aside from that - I have some ideas, but there are smarter people than me for organizing logistics. Power and material interests are the only things that matter; and no system is incorruptible. Society needs to be lead by explicitly and wholly ideological organizations who will resist any attempt to undermine the power and supremacy of the working class, even if it is “legal” or “fair”, and they are justified in using whatever means necessary to do so.

jeremyparker ,

All of this. The reason why the “trans debate” is so problematic is because of the “debate” part. I don’t give a shit about whether gender is a performance or a genetic thing - i care that trans people are murdered at an alarming rate, and that their rights to health care are significantly under threat - or gone already. My concern is that trans and gay people still have to worry about their safety when they come out of the closet.

I care about providing safety and normal human treatment for people who aren’t getting it.

The “debates” can happen after these people stop being murdered and abused. You can tell me all about your religious doctrines and how god made Adam and Eve or whatever after we agree that humans need to be treated like humans.

ImplyingImplications ,

The youtube channel, Economics Explained, has a lot of great videos on macroeconomic concepts. They recently featured a video on Norway pointing out how it handles its economy near perfectly.

The video explains Norway got pretty lucky, and it’s not like every country could straight up copy them and succeed, but the major points are:

  1. Their massive natural resource reserves are majority owned by the government. The government puts the profits from this into stable long term investments to benfit the citizens of the country. In many other countries, natural resources have been sold to private companies for a one time payment and private shareholders now benefit from the long term investment.
  2. Their government has one of the highest tax rates in the world, even though they earn so much profit from natural resources they could literally have a 0% tax rate. Despite this massive tax rate, Norway has some of the lowest emigration of people and companies. Nobody has fled the country due to high taxes like many fear would happen elsewhere.
  3. Their government spends heavily on social welfare and ensuring a high quality of life for all of its citizens, and their companies provide short work weeks and long vacations, which are huge reasons why nobody has left.

I think when people say they hate capitalism, what they mean is they hate working 50 hour weeks at a job they hate for a boss who treats them like dirt for a salary that doesn’t even pay their rent while the CEO has more wealth than small nations and spends it on eating endangered animals on their mega yatch with politicians and judges who then pass laws making it legal to hire children and dump garbage into the ocean. They don’t really care about private companies and investments, they care about how sociopathic greed has become so normal that it’s actively defended.

Mahlzeit OP ,

Thanks, I’m lining this up for listening.

kzhe ,

In the way you explain norway, it seems this will not be possible without lots of natural resources that are worth a significant amount.

averyminya ,

Not quite. Everywhere has a resource of something - it may not be a natural resource like minerals or valuable liquids, it everywhere has something.

The difference is how these have been used to invest. Norway invests in itself by keeping those resources internal. As the user said, the people and its government could choose not to pay taxes, but they still do. That has a huge gain on the longevity of resources because now the investment from them is actually being compounded upon from its people and its resources.

Other countries simply do not put investments in themselves. As the user said, they sell off these assets or let the claim go to a corporation which then maximizes its profit potential instead of sustaining it. (in some cases, the country had little to no choice so it’s not entirely a fault of that government but a poor handling of circumstances). We sell our resources, our people pay taxes, there is no compounding happening. The resources are now gone, the money has dried up, and the people are being pumped for the rest.

shinigamiookamiryuu ,

Keep the present system but add way more rules.

Veraxus ,
@Veraxus@kbin.social avatar

First off, wealth and power are the same thing and must be dealt with at the same time. So for a start…

  1. Aggressive progressive taxation, up to 100% (billionaires - even 9-figure multimillionaires- must never be allowed to exist).
  2. Abolish stock markets.
  3. All companies must be employee-owned. Employees share equitable ownership of the companies they work within. Profits are shared only among employees.
  4. Criminalize political spending, lobbying (aka bribery), etc. Candidates all draw from a public fund and platforms and that is all they may use.
  5. Aggressive market regulation to protect competition and prevent consolidation. Our failure to protect the market from excess consolidation and integration is the primary reason we’ve reached the late-stage capitalism hellscape we currently exist within.

Again, this is a start… the tip of the iceberg.

There is a massive amount of leftist documentation on economics. We’re not all communists, but we recognize that any system devoid of regulation/oversight/accountability will always quickly travel rightward and become authoritarian. So the question is what systems and policies can be put in place to ensure not only equity for all, but equity that remains stable indefinitely (or as close as is possible).

Nimux ,

A planned economy ideally, even if that would hardly be immediately doable for most first world countries, as they lack any actual industrial capacity. If all useless jobs were to disappear overnight, most of the population would end up unemployed. In addition a lot of the “economy” of first world countries comes from abusive monetary relationships with third world countries, wish should obviously be ended as soon as possible.

Therefore a transitionary period would be needed, during which we would reindustrialize and develop some level of self-sufficiency. That last part might be less important for the US, as they’re unlikely to get sanctioned by themselves.

Eventually a planned economy allows for production for use instead of for sale, providing to each according to their needs, and requiring work according to their abilities.

HubertManne ,

there is such a variation from what I see. Some anti capitalist are just anti corporatist while others would throw out the whole idea of buying/selling.

AngrilyEatingMuffins ,

Are you unaware of the vast corpus of leftist texts about just this? Do you think leftists are just teenagers on TikTok?

tastysnacks ,

I support any policy that increases competition or against policies that remove competition. Public companies need great justification to merge. The vast majority of the food we buy is run by like 4 companies.

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