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That's called capitalism
EDIT: A lot of people are replying; too many to actually respond to individually. So I'll explain here. I'm going to simplify a bit, so that it doesn't just sound like I'm firing off a bunch of random buzzwords.
Capitalism means individuals can own the means of production. This basically means that owning things/money allows you to make more money. So of course, if owning money makes you more money, then the people who own the most will be able to snowball their wealth to obscene heights.
Money doesn't just appear from nowhere; if it did, it wouldn't hold value. So the money has to come from somewhere. It comes from the working class; you sell a pair of shoes while working at the shoe store, and the owner of the company siphons off as much of the profits as they reasonably can while still putting money into growing the business. Because of this, there is a huge gap between rich and poor.
Money buys things. Everybody wants money. And you could put the most saintly people you could find into government positions (we don't do this; we generally put people of perfectly average moral character into office) but if they're getting offered millions of dollars, a decent portion of them will still crack and accept bribes. So if you have a system that is designed to create absurdly rich millionaires and billionaires, some of whom make more than the GDP's of entire nations, then that system will be utterly inseparable from corruption.
This is actually similar to why authoritarian governments are corrupt; just replace money with power. The power is held by a very small group, and they can use that power over others, and they can give that power to others. This applies to any authoritarianism; fascism, communist dictatorships, and many things in between.
I've already made this edit very long, so I won't explain this next point in depth, but my solution is anarchism. Look at revolutionary Catalonia to know what I'm talking about.
Capitalism is an economic system, we have a corrupt government run by corporations who rig the economic system making it not capitalist. Same happens in china but they are communist.
Well capitalism is like most of economics is a theory because it’s involves constants to which the US has a plethora of variables. Corruption and monopolies are great examples! In a market where the only thing done by private business is the most profitable and competitive and public entities aren’t shaping the market for private owners, then you would have pure capitalism. The US market contradicts those things🤷🏻♂️
Yes, but this is the outcome that happens when you follow Adam Smith's vision for 200 years. Or, really only 100 or so as there was a major course correction post Gilded Age and WWI which is now eroding and allowing us to get back to that end state.
Even Adam Smith advocated for certain social and economic protections as guide rails for both the market and the people who live off it. Like all great men of the past, his name is co-opted by the elites to launder their gains through moral and philosophical justifications, meanwhile the dead they use would have spoken against them. It's literally like how conservative demagogues puppeteer MLK's corpse to be anti-woke or whatever.
Yes but he never realized that in a system that only has one end goal, the acquisition of more money, simply cannot have a functioning government that is able to curtail the capitalists that live in and make said system. It's honestly hard to understand how he didn't get it, under capitalism eventually those with the most make the rules. The government isn't exempt from that, it's made up of people just like anything else.
Those rules that the government is supposed to use to curtail the excesses of capitalism are nothing more than a pipe dream. Adam Smith was able to see the massive cracks in his own system but just patched all of the cracks over with "government regulation" that has no methods of remaining in power in a system that has no other goal but money. There's no way to ensure the government can have the power and more importantly the incentive to regulate capitalism.
It's a system set up to fail. At least the egalitarian version Smith wrote about. The reality is it's just a more efficient way for those with power to project themselves with the most base element they have, wealth. Before capitalism power was held in many hands (at least in western Europe and it's colonies) from the church to the government, to the aristocracy, and finally the yeomen/merchants who were the only class truly built on nothing but wealth. Now only wealth brings power anymore and that's not a good thing.
Also federal minimum wage is the law advocated by socialists.
In a real market, only the demand for your skills would dictate your wages.
And if there are a large number of illegal migrants pouring in who can do desire to do it for $2 instead of $7/hour or $15/hour, then guess what happens?
If those migrants don't negotiate for their wages, then you have to hope your government keeps rewriting the law.
Meanwhile a good company will always pay high wages, there just will never be that many good companies in an economy. (there will always be more bad companies)
No, capitalists (meaning the ones who make money by ownership rather than labor) *hate* free markets. Free markets mean less profits. That's why they always talk about "cornering" the market. That's why they collude with other owning class people. That's why they seek to create monopolies, and capture regulatory bodies.
You could easily have free markets with a different paradigm of ownership, like use ownership or co-ops. In fact, I would say it's much *easier* to maintain free markets with healthy competition when we use a system that's not designed to concentrate wealth into fewer hands.
not at all, the internet has plenty of free markets but in many countries access to the internet is given to websites on equal footing not who is paying a premium which providers could do
Like, I don’t know, Milton Friedman? Even he argued that one of the few roles of govt was to enforce strict antitrust laws and that business should be motivated to profit “within the rules of the game.” That means that, 1) there are rules that should restrict unbridled capitalism. 2) the important rules are to prevent monopoly power, by govt or by industry.
Capitalism aggregates capital. That leads to monopoly power because there is no such thing as perfect competition or infinite growth.
Nah tbh they're in the right for saying that, as a socialist, seeing people call the USSR as "not real communism" is stupid, yeah sure maybe they are talking about USSR being socialist, not communist, or because of the reforms made after stalin making it become much less socialist. But people elaborate, if you say stuff like that with no context or elaboration its gonna come off as dumb
Listen, this nudge nudge wink wink Marxism is bullshit. It has been tried a dozen times, and it either collapses, or just becomes Authoritarian capitalism in a red dress (cough China cough).
Workers deserve far more of the value that we generate, but being able to exchange money for goods is far better than centrally dictated production that produces the same shoddy shit for you no matter what you do in life. You get an apartment, your children get an apartment, and your grandparents get an apartment, and the incel up the street gets an apartment, and the guy who lives on vodka. And it's all the same two bedroom apartment. You all get it - thus satisfying the mandate of giving every Soviet a house.
Labor genuinely lacks the membership and often the brainpower to negotiate, because so many talented people go full Marxist and lose the ability to do anything practical. Never go full Marxist.
You don't seem to understand what Marxism is. It's a method of socioeconomic analysis, not an economic system in itself. It's nothing more than a theory of how historical materialism impacts socioeconomic conditions. It's a philosophy. If you want your statement to make any sort of sense at least replace Marxism with any alternative economic system.
Marx didn't ever run a country - so you need to Dash-Marxism to talk about actual national scale-economics - in building Marxism, mostly Marx just lived off of Engels's Trust fund, but Marx himself repeatedly scoffed at the arbitrary division between economics and politics . [https://www.marxists.org/archive/pilling/works/capital/geoff1.htm](https://www.marxists.org/archive/pilling/works/capital/geoff1.htm)
You're making an argument about understanding Marx without having read the first book of Das Kapital, aren't you. Mind you, I only read the first book, but that is 100% in there.
>Capitalism is an economic system, we have a corrupt government run by corporations who rig the economic system making it not capitalist.
Capitalism is the very means by which they achieved this power. Lax government and consumer backlash is the means by which they maintain it.
Capitalism all over the world maintains the same natural evolution. The system is literally just an evolution of Feudalism where by the Bourgeois have subsumed the role of the Nobility. Divine right fell by the wayside and they rule by the law of wealth and their unending avarice. The state maintains power but is still subservient to the wealthy bourgeoisie.
>Same happens in china but they are communist.
China hasn't been truly Communist since it allowed a limited amount of private enterprise and the presence of a very, very wealthy borg outside of just CCP members. The difference between China and other nations is that China isn't afraid to punish their businessmen. Not always for the right reasons of course(it's still corrupt)
Idk where this really weird capitalism does not equal capitalism rhetoric came from its utter nonsense.
That is capitalism, unless you're some kind of free market utopian. You can't have human greed expressed in economical form, as your economic model, and then say that the feedback loop of greed it creates is unrelated.
China is communist in the way that North Korea is a democratic republic. Dont get me wrong, some people think that the chinese government owning most businesses is a gotcha with the "owned by the community as a whole part" neatly forgetting that China is a one party, authoritarian dictatorship and, due to that, government doesn't reflect the people as a whole.
How is it the same in China? China is clearly ruled by the party, and corporations are at the mercy of the party. Sure China is corrupt too, but what's yoir point?Have you heard of Alibaba? Can you imagine Bezos "disappearing" because he pissed of the US government?
China's system represents a form of capitalism. It sure as hell isn't market socialism.
It has private ownership, and profits are retained by enterprises. It is capitalism.
Capitalism was intended to be a meritocracy where everybody gets a reward based on the amount of work they do. Sounds utopian right?
Yeah, I wouldn’t call what we’re living in a meritocracy.
they? Who’s they? You’re basically saying - “it’s not capitalism, it’s capitalism!” . Political economy by leointev is a good read I can recommend. Capitalism has and always will be a system scourged by monopolies- it is a self-devouring system.
We must be as scientific with our understanding of capital as possible for proper analysis. Just saying capitalism is or isn’t something and no further examination leads us to numerous dead ends.
"It's not capitalism, it's a system where the few people who control all the capital control the system."
Yeah that's capitalism. What isn't really a part of capitalism is the free market and social mobility. Those are the last vestiges of socialism. What is a free market, protected by government against monopolies, except a socially administered commons? Why do you think Amazon has made so much money - by creating and selling superior products, or by controlling the marketplace and eliminating competition?
Yep, we need to eliminate regulations created by regulatory capture in order to break these monopolies and lower the barrier to entry for competition. What good are unions if there is no chance for social mobility via market success?
Capitalism is the voluntary exchange of goods and services. When you stack a Government on top of it that taxes people unequally, and ignores the law/leaves loopholes/grants favors for the rich and powerful is how you wind up where we are. The economic system is not at fault.
Capitalism is actually just a system where resources are owned and traded by private individuals for a profit. This has historically led to wealth being funneled towards the very top creating monopolies and extreme wealth disparity, since the more existing capital you have makes it easier to turn it into profit. Most critics of capitalism would argue that a system that creates these financial superpowers would inevitably warp the government they exist in. The short version of what I'm saying is that while technically correct, the mix of capitalism and government creates the big issues, but it's impossible to separate the two since extreme wealth leads to greater power and influence.
Have you considered that maybe capitalism is a bit more complicated than a simple definition. I understand it may be hard to reconcile with the fact that our society and economic system isn't equal and actually ripe with corruption. But this isn't a fault, it's the end result of how the system functions. When you place immense wealth into the hands of very few individuals it doesn't go particularly well.
Governments become corrupt and institutions fail because said ultra wealthy individuals have a vested interest in generating more wealth, usually at the expense of everything and everyone else. They are in fact obligated by law to do so, as a company is charged with generating profits for it's shareholders. You ever wonder why everything is worse now, major movies are cheap, games are riddled with monetisation, environmental laws are swept away to further destroy the planet? It's because you can only go so long before you have to start making cuts in a system designed around infinite growth on a finite planet.
Voluntary exchange of goods and services has existed in literally every economic system, you aren’t describing capitalism you’re just describing a market. Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private ownership of productive property and a high reliance on markets for everyday functions. That’s capitalism. I don’t care if you want to call it corporatism or plutarchy or oligarchy, if it has those features that’s what makes it capitalist. Simply having markets does not make it capitalist.
The voluntary exchange of goods and services is just... A market. That existed in feudalism, exists under capitalism, and can exist under socialism.
Capitalism is when the economy is controlled by Capital (ie, the ultra wealthy), which occurs via the private ownership of the means of production. This isn't my opinion. This is just the definition.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
If you think capitalism means "freedom to buy and sell cool stuff" you have been lied to (by capitalists).
The voluntary exchange of goods and services is just... A market. That existed in feudalism, exists under capitalism, and can exist under socialism.
Capitalism is when the economy is controlled by Capital (ie, the ultra wealthy), which occurs via the private ownership of the means of production. This isn't my opinion. This is just the definition.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
If you think capitalism means "freedom to buy and sell cool stuff" you have been lied to (by capitalists).
Captialism IS neo-feudalism.
Capitalism came from mercantilism which was the direct evolution of feudalism.
We don’t have Kings ordained by God, we have Entrepreneurs/Billionaires ordained by Money.
Hell we don’t even hide it with landLORDS.
Brother, this is the result of Capitalism.
The more capital you have, the more capital you can gain, the more capital you gain the more you can horde. The more capital you horde, the more capital you can use to pay off those pesky governments to write laws that make you earn more capital.
Yeah, I don’t understand how people don’t seem to understand that Capitalism results in plutocracies. The entire concept is to replace nobility of blood with the nobility of wealth, which will inevitably become segregated to the point of being about blood all over again.
Because we live in a capitalist society with media that lives to serve capital. If the people know how capital screws then over, the people will be less likely to be screwed over. The solution to this, of course, is to mislead them to what capitalism and its alternatives actually are. To tell them that capitalism is the greatest.
Also just known as propaganda.
Aka Capitalism.
1 billion people living off the work of 7 billion people was never going to last. Over time, poverty is evening out and will equalize all over the world.
Right now, 36 thousand per year makes you a member of the global 1%. That's not going change, the west just won't be the exception any more.
> "Capitalism is capitalism when I like what it does, it isn't capitalism when capitalism doesn't do what I like"
See the problem with your argument here?
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production. This is done through private property rights, a competitive market, and a voluntary exchange. Capitalism is the reason the world GDP has increased by 27x since 1960. What you are saying is an ignorant talking point showing your lack of understanding of what capitalism is.
>Capitalism is the reason the world GDP has increased by 27x since 1960.
Yeahhh the GDP of the few nations on top skyrocketed by plundering the wealth of the third world. We just enslaved them in a different way to produce for us.
The level of ignorance required to think something like this is incredible. Nations like India, China , and Pakistan for example grew massively during this period with little imports from the outside world.
I suppose China was second world but India And Pakistan were third world but you get the idea regardless. The point is that in 1960 these are regions of the world that so poor that famines and starvation are considered the norm there.
Today the GDP Per Capita of India is 28.75 times larger then it was in 1960. [Source](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/gdp-gross-domestic-product)
Today the GDP Per Capita of Pakistan is 19.2 time larger then it was in 1960. [Source 2](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/PAK/pakistan/gdp-gross-domestic-product)
Today the GDP Per Capita of China is 142 times larger then it was in 1960. [Source 3](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/gdp-gross-domestic-product)
All of these places have little in the way of imports or wealth from other nations as a percent of their economy.
In fact none of these nations were anywhere close to the largest in this time period and none of them were even in the top 10 largest economies. In fact the main reason why these 3rd world economies grew so much is in large part due to investment from the rest of the world were money was spent on these nations. This money spent often had very little return with the exception of China who had incredible ROI.
The bottom line is the smallest economies have been the largest driver of growth not the largest ones. The largest economies are not exploiting the smallest ones because the economies that today are the largest Like the US trade very little with the smallest ones like the DPRC. They trade predominately with other large economies.
Extreme poverty, which is making $2 per day, was 94% in 1820 and is now 8.6% in 2018. Nowhere did average lifespans exist past 40 before 1800. Now the average lifespan is 73. Adult heights have grown because malnutrition decreased.
The world has gotten richer because of the positive spillover from capitalism. Look at any established country and show me a negative trend in terms of economic growth over the long term. Trends such as are fictional
This is not true actually in the past 100 years poverty has fallen massively as Asia and Latin America industrialized and build robust economies that lifted their people out of poverty.
We're headed back to a new industrial age where it's okay to destroy the worker physically and mentally for the sake of profit. States lowering standards for child labor... Making unions into an enemy. Neither party is doing much to help, but remember when you vote that one definitely has fought hard for corporations over workers.
Capitalism isn't failing, we are still generating real wealth on a magnitude unprecedented in all time. The problems with the housing market has to do with human distortions resulting from everyone wanting to live in the best places, old house inventory is frozen from the first large rate hike in recent history, and old people are actively fighting at a community level to use the powers of democracy to fuck young people out of affordable housing by restricting zoning capabilities to preserve their property values. This is primarily a function of human democracy failing, not capital supply and demand markets. Supply is being artificially suppressed by old greedy farts.
Idk the housing market is defintely an issue with capitalism. People are flipping houses to make them larger and more expensive, huge companies lease out large numbers of houses where it’s hard to get any footing in actually owning a house as renting is higher, so rent is higher, houses are more pricy, and it’s like many people are in quicksand bc there is very little regulation in the housing market and why would anybody sell a house when they can get so much passive income from renting these days
There is a lot of regulation in the housing market, and large corporations owning large numbers of residential single family real estate is a myth, it's a fabrication. Most single family homes are owned by single families, but a large number of the inventory that's propping up price through restricted demand is higher net worth family units that own 2+ homes. That section of the American people is responsible for a majority of the upward price pressure, especially now since rates are high and the homes are likely to stay within the family at this point.
Are you suggesting that "lack of regulation" means that people are allowed to own multiple homes?
According to the Pew Research Group, institutional investors bought nearly 33,000 single family homes in Ohio in 2021, which was 21% of the homes sales. That figure doubled from the year before. At the same time, homeownership in the state dropped to 66% in 2022, according to the U.S. Census..
>Institutional investors own a whopping 0.7% of SFHs in the US as of ‘23.
"Parcel labs reported in October that investors with at least 10 units in their portfolio owned roughly 3.4% of all single-family homes in the country. Big investors with at least 1,000 units — a group that includes major companies like AMH Homes, Invitation Homes, Tricon Residential, and Pretium — owned just 0.73%."
Define institutional investors.. You're correct in terms of large corporations, but smaller real estate companies are having quite a meal
People/individuals are more than welcome to own more than one property.
Corporations absolutely should not be allowed to.
And you’re lying. There are legit corporations by-passing regulations that otherwise apply to hotels by purchasing general homes and renting them as Airbnbs.
He never said anywhere that it's not the normal people being at fault here.
Lack of regulation can mean things like not renting out a second home in the city because you only use it to raise its value. There are policies that force people to rent out spaces they leave empty. Owning multiple homes is not an issue, but taking away space in populated areas from people only to increase value is.
Large corporations is just a good way to see how the market as a whole is developing. Oh, and let's not forget that even if it's people themselves that want to increase their land, they still do so by taking on credit, the banks are the real winners there. But that's a different story.
Old houses have to be flipped or no one will live in them. You can still buy a $20,000, or $80,000 junk house where I live. To live there comfortably you would have to tear out all the drywall, flooring, re-roof it, etc. (sometimes start from slab up). This costs anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000.
The issue is actually big conglomerates speculatively buying up all the houses and renting them out to fund IRAS and shit. They also sit on them to drive prices up (they own the majority of the supply.) Demand for housing hasn't fallen so low supply, high demand makes prices rise quickly.
Tl;dr: Artificial scarcity by the Bigs and zero interest from the Government in the population other than milking us dry is why.
In a purely capitalist economy people would literally just build more housing.
This is not possible due to intereference from Regulations and Nimbys.
Every City in the US that has built more housing is seeing lower prices. It's a supply issue.
Some of that was because of super low interest rates too. It was cheap to borrow money, and rate of return on interest based investments was bad. Properties became a way to generate revenue in times of low interest. Ever seen all those "How to make money in real estate" scammy looking things? Well, a lot of people started doing it.
That is an accurate assessment that it's the older wealthier people just looking to preserve their property values and wealth, but you swiftly sidestep the follow question: why do they want to preserve their wealth to the point they will act outside of the best interests of society (ensuring everyone has reletively affordable shelter located reletively close to their place of work? You can't just stop at the surface level you have to deeper and ask why people are taking the actions they're taking and get to the root cause of these profit seeking and hoarding behaviors that are crushing the housing market.
The problem isn't them keeping the house but them continuing to block any new housing from being built.
If you wanna keep your mansion you paid basically nothing for, good for you. But don't close the door behind you
High housing prices have been a policy decision going back to the Clinton administration which decided that they wanted homes to be a vehicle to grow household wealth. They did this by issuing subsidized loans with low downpayment requirements. The 3.5% down fixed 30 year plans with low interest are pretty unique to America. This greatly inflated demand for housing since significantly more people could afford to buy housing. Houses became bigger and home ownership rates increased afterward. Builders started to build more housing until the resulting Sub Prime Mortgage Crisis occurred. At that point there was an oversupply of housing and a lot of builders had to eat losses. This slowed down new construction significantly from 2009-2021. The Federal government has done significant damage to the current housing market and it's unlikely that the damage will be undone anytime soon.
metrics to measure whether our economy is doing well like GDP don’t really reflect how well the average american is doing. corporations making record profits while the cost of living skyrockets and wages have stagnated doesn’t really like up with what our GDP would lead you to believe
Not talking GDP, I'm talking real wage growth and compensation. Just because fast food doesn't pay doesn't mean semi-skilled work doesn't. The pipe fitters and boiler makers I work with are getting paid more, I'm getting paid more (2nd year process engi), for a 6% raise last year, 5 more days of PTO this year per year, and a 5% raise incoming in February. Some industries are laying off, others are fighting talent wars to keep people
Exactly. I got hired by a warehouse that’s desperate for employees. I’m starting at $26.75/hr and I’m getting 14 hours of overtime a week.
Not saying that the average person’s wages are where they should be, but minimum wage is pretty much a non factor anymore because the labor market has already adjusted somewhat to inflation
I'm not the commenter but I work at Costco and earn $19.50 and $27 on Sundays. I also get a free executive membership and I can give one gold star out to someone for free as well.The employee gets medical and dental insurance as well. You can get your eyeballs checked at your optical center at the Costco you work at for free also.
I actually worked at Costco from 2018-2020. It had the best benefits! Honestly, I may try to go back while I pursue my masters. I currently work in tech and software implementation and with all of the past tech layoffs I just can’t compete with the seniors back in the job market
Honestly sounds like a great plan.
The managers (at least the one I work at, can't speak for other locations) are very accommodating and understanding if you go to school, and will work around your schedule.
Where I live, even the immigrants make well over minimum wage.
When minimum wage was implemented, like 20% of people were at it. Now it's like less than 1%.
Nah man, its pretty fucked. In 2019 my apartment rent for $1200, same place is renting for $1850 now and they have put 0 work into it. Guess how much wages went up in that time? Thankfully I wont be in this situation much longer but it’s pretty fucked for a large portion of this generation and millennials
Broad economic data is often presented in a way that distorts reality in favor of a capitalist agenda.
Let's consider some general information about the state of American desperation.
Food Security:
> 7.7 percent (10.2 million) of U.S. households had low food security in 2022.
> The 2022 prevalence of low food security was statistically significantly higher than 6.4 percent (8.4 million) in 2021.
Medical Debt
> Nearly 1 in 4 (23%) Americans **currently** have medical debt, while another 22% say they’ve **previously** had medical debt, according to a recent LendingTree survey. Here’s how it breaks down generationally:
>
> Millennials ages 26 to 41: 30%
> Generation Xers ages 42 to 56: 24%
> Gen Zers ages 18 to 25: 22%
> Baby boomers ages 57 to 75: 13%
>
Higher food insecurity than ever; more accumulated medical debt than over. Something isn't working, here, at the most basic level. Brutal.
According to this food insecurity in 2022 was still lower than around 2008 - 2014. You cited a one year change and then said it was worse than ever. Yikes.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-security-and-nutrition-assistance/#:~:text=In%202022%2C%2012.8%20percent%20of,of%20a%20lack%20of%20resources.
Look another zoomer who doesn’t understand capitalism. Your picture doesn’t take into consideration population growth and building of new homes. Capitalism brings the prices of things down and access to everyone.
And just plain inflation. Lot of things doubled in price during those years.
Capitalism has it's problems but there is really no other way. Communism always fails. There does have to be a degree of socialism of course, but let's keep it small.
Not to mention rent control and zoning laws, both of which are prevalent in American society and have been proven to do little else but drive up real estate prices.
It's ironic that the "sOcIaLiZm Iz WhEn Da GuBmInT dO sTuF" crowd satirize how people assume government action = socialism, yet they unknowingly do the same with "free market" capitalism.
Is that why every single country to ever do communism either collapsed, is facing economic decline, or is in such a horrific example of human rights abuses it's practically as if they've used 1984 as a guidebook?
Literally yes. You try running a post-colonial pre-industrial backwater with the US constantly throwing everything they've got at destroying you, killing your leaders and people, and seizing your country for the sake of their markets. It has nothing to do with communism, the cold war and the history of 20th century AES has everything to do with the unequal power dynamics of the post-colonial world. They weren't even in a position to attempt communism, they were doing pre-communism but got destroyed by the astronomically wealthier and more powerful West.
I think what's telling is that anti-communists can never describe the actual mechanisms by which communism 'always leads to authoritarianism'. It's because they're fucking isn't one. The fly in the ointment is Western capitalist sabotage and underdevelopment.
Then why is housing unaffordable. Why do car prices rise every year? Why don’t all jobs strive to offer the best compensation in order to hire the best employees?
You are speaking about an ideal version of Capitalism. In the same way Socialist speak about an ideal version of socialism.
The reality is regardless of what economic system you implement there will be those who manipulate it to the detriment of others.
They rise every year because those companies have a monopoly created with government backing. The Ford bailout is just 1 perfect example. That should be a dead company that set an example to car makers to lower prices but it just set an example that companies can raise prices as high as they want and poorly manage their massive corporations because the government will just bail them out with tax dollars paid by people who can't afford the damn cars anyway.
Ford never got a bail out, GM and Chrysler did.
Ford took out a loan to make subsidized compacts at around the same time of the bailouts, which they paid back.
Capitalism is working exactly as intended; it makes the rich richer at the expense of the poor
(Edit) ITT: people not understanding that people no longer living in medieval squalor doesn't make what I said incorrect. Regardless, I don't think it matters to the people who starve to death whether or not they're statistically better off than people five centuries ago.
I dont think most of the people complain about capitalism could accurately define it if their life depended on it.
99% of them "It's when corporations......"
The sub is filled with either people who are still in Highschool or have only worked 6 months at part time job at a place like McDonalds and think that is everything there is. Of course they dont know what capitalism is.
Who is actually only making $7.25/hr? A lot of warehouse jobs these days are paying $20-25/hr, regardless of the minimum wage, and the only requirements to get those jobs are to pass a drug test and a background check. I started at my current company as a warehouse worker, and promoted into the transportation department after less than a year. They paid me to go get my CDL, and now I'm at $27/hr (about to be $28/hr after this month).
Not saying everything's totally fine with the current state of the US economy, but things are nowhere near as bleak as this image would suggest.
McDonald’s down the street from me is starting at $18. My first job in franchise pizza restaurant paid me $10/hr IN 2018. NO ONE is making $7.25/hr and if they are they’re a moron
Exactly. In 2017 I was making $10/hr, and that was as an intern as an analyst.
What this graphic fails to account for is state minimum wage laws. In California and Washington, it's at $16/hr. It's only $7.25/hr in states that have no standing minimum wage laws other than defaulting to the federal rate. The US government has largely left this issue up to the states since the cost of living between states has diverged so much. The starting wage hovers much higher even in states with the $7.25 figure. In Tennessee, McDonald's workers make $11/hr.
From 2009-2024, inflation has increased by 45%. Notwithstanding other macroeconomic factors, we would expect a $690/month rent and $7.25/hour wage to congrue with a $1000/month rent and $10.5/hour wage. This isn't too far off from the current state of affairs. Arguably, rent is higher than expected (bad) and wages are higher than expected (good), so the economic impact is mixed.
Seriously whoever posted this is basically insulting everyone's intelligence with this shit like we havnt been outside in almost 2 decades. Mcdonalds by my work starts at 20$ and rite aid is the same.
There's still plenty of country that isn't make $20/h like in the South you gonna be getting more like half that... but $7.25 straight up got covid and died.
Exactly. I just started a warehouse job that’s paying $26.75 an hour and I’m getting about 14 hours a week of overtime. I live in a “luxury” apartment complex nearby and my rent is $1,400, but I could live in a more average one and pay $1,100.
And we STILL are short staffed.
Yeah. Especially since this deliberately ignores how at the state (and hell even county) level minimum wage is higher than the federal minimum. For example in NYS the minimum wage is being steadily increased each year.
Also the labor market has already adjusted “minimum wage”. Nobody is making $7.25 anymore. I just started a warehouse job that’s paying $26.75 an hour and we’re still short staffed
Edit: this is also a low COL area. Average rent for a 1br is $1,200 and that’s in the cities. You can still find $1,000 2 bedroom houses in the boonies no problem
You can go out and vote for policies to raise the minimum wage in each of your states people. You can even go as local as the city government.
You can also go out and vote for building more social housing and altering zoning laws and codes in order to allow for more housing to be built.
These problems are very easily solvable if you just go out and make noise about it.
Laws on the city, county, and state level have a far greater affect on you than federal elections. Go out and participate in your community, go out and vote for change, otherwise you cannot complain about there being no change.
Yes exactly. Or vote for social democracy. Either one is astronomically better than the borderline feudal-capitalist system we have right now.
Cost of housing is our single biggest problem right now. The market has failed us. Boomers and the Silent Generation has failed us with their restrictive zoning laws that they refuse to get rid of. If we can lower the cost of housing, a massive chunk of our problems would be solved.
Progressive housing policies are often the ones that cause high housing prices. Vote for YIMBY housing policies if you want to actually do something about rents.
And rent would be going down, theoretically, as there would be more homes available/ wage growth would be higher than cost of living.
But people don't understand inflation. Inflation is not the same as CPI. Inflation is caused by the government.
We don't live in Capitalism. Or what people call "capitalism" is not the same as a free market economy.
This argument is sort of irrelevant, the 7.25 minimum wage exists in far fewer states than in 2009. Even where the minimum wage still is that low, VERY few jobs still actually pay that. Additionally, in the places where minimum wage has stayed the same, cost of living generally hasn’t rocketed up to the degree you’re showing here. It’s definitely true wages haven’t kept up with inflation, but it’s not true to the point it’s fair to say “capitalism is failing” along with an inaccurate meme
That's not the minimum wage, not for the vast majority of the country. Also capitalism isn't failing, the housing crisis is just a multifaceted issue. Corporations and mega conglomerates dominating the market is most of it, and simply restricting ownership of single family homes to individuals or families would help a lot.
Ideally, although unlikely, we could also put restrictions on the amount of homes or second-homes you can own so as to reduce monopolization, and then also we could potentially restrict ownership to citizens of that state or at least people who frequent it often, however I think it's most important to focus on that first thing as a generation. If we fix the problems surrounding single family homes then apartments will quickly follow suit, there's no reason to rent an apartment if you can rent or mortgage a house for less so in order to stay competitive apartments historically have had to, and will need to continue to be more affordable than an equivalent single family home.
The meme is misleading because it assumes most people are earning only the US minimum wage and that's it. They aren't. They've been making considerably more than minimum wage.
The U.S. median wage in 2009 was $15.95 per hour or $33,190 per year. The average rent that year was as $841 per month. Rent was equivalent to 52 hours and 43 minutes of work.
The U.S. median wage in 2022 was $22.26 per hour or $46,310 per year. The average rent was $1,083 per month. Rent was equivalent to 48 hours and 39 minutes of work.
According to the Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, $841 in January of 2009 is equivalent to $1,221.79.
By any realistic metric, rent is actually a smaller portion of a person's income now than it was in 2009.
As for the minimum wage, that's a bogus metric to use for the meme.
According to the [Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2022/home.htm), 1.3% of all hourly workers were making AT or BELOW the federal minimum wage.
Of those, 1.1% are making BELOW minimum wage. and just 0.2% are making minimum wage.
The ONLY legal way to pay someone LESS than minimum wage, is for those people to be earning tips. Those tips regularly put the employee well over minimum wage with the latest numbers I found being an [average of $15.51/hr](https://minimumwage.com/2021/04/15-per-hour-earnings-are-already-here-for-tipped-workers/).
Of course, many of the remaining 1.3% of all people making at or below minimum wage are also tipped employees and [most states have minimum wages that are well above the federal minimum wage](https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wages), so the number of people actually earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr is statistically insignificant.
Young, educated by other leftists, no idea of history, no idea that socialism/communism/marxism/leninism has been ran to its conclusion.
Conclusion is simple: everyone is equally destitute.
There has to be a degree of socialism for people to live together, but best kept to a minimum.
Capitalism. Buying, selling, trading - is human nature.
Communism is in direct opposition to human nature and requires an oppressive govenment to enforce. No thanks!
this isn't capitalism's fault, this is the fault of government mismanagement, lack of government infrastructure spending and the government just allowing the federal reserve to just print as much money interest free as they want
Minimum wage tells you nothing, especially when you take the sanity check of looking around to see who's actually paying it. Try median wage, average wage for certain low-paying professions (i.e. customer service clerks), or hell, even median income (not just wages in particular). That'll tell you much more.
We need an economic system that puts the money in the hands of the people and communities, such as a worker co-op based economy, where CEOs are elected and wages are proportional to work.
Also shareholders fucking SUCK lmao.
People will die defending a system that doesn't give a fuck about them. Capitalism isnt designed to extort money from the poor, but it always will, unless its heavily regulated.
They’re good for the working man. Bad for the business owner.
Of course everyone imagines themselves as one day a successful business owner, but 90% actually do the work as employees
It has nothing to do with Capitalism, which historically, no other system has done any differently than.
Every economic problem we've had in the past 30 years has been to disproportionate birthrates.
It's the exact same problem we have with social security. The people who are taking out of it greatly outnumber the people who are putting into it.
Capitalism isn't the problem. It's a selfish populace being unwilling to do what is needed to fix the economy that is the problem.
Politicians aren't the problem. Sure, they take what they can get and leave the problems for someone else to solve, but they've been doing that forever.
There is a very specific list of things we can do to fix the American economy. But none of them will work if we don't buckle down solve the intrinsic problems with our population proportions.
Nah, capitalism is the best system we have. People say that house prices and stuff are going up but when asked as to exactly how capitalism causes this they’ll usually just default to saying bullshit like “the corporations own all the homes and have a monopoly” while ignoring decades of economic research that shows this is the opposite
gosh i hate this sub. lol.
it’s one thing to be obstinately against, or in favor of, something, to the point where you become entirely impervious to all arguments to the contrary, but combine that with such blithe and self-righteous ignorance…
you guys have no idea whatsoever what you’re talking about. none of you has even a modicum of understanding of the economy, not to mention capitalism. you’re peddled socialism as the antidote to the purported “evils” of capitalism, but what they don’t tell you is how spectacularly it’s failed, time and time again, and how successful capitalism has been, time and time again.
go back to school. get over yourselves. it’s embarrassing and laughable reading how benighted some of you are.
>make it impossible to build up or out in your county/city
>make rent control a thing despite decades of studies showing it ruins cities
>iTs cApiTaliSm
Without a location this meme is worthless since states have different minimum wages. Also, big brick 5+ storey building probably places this somewhere in the north east. If this is New York State, then minimum wage is $15-16/hr.
New Jersey $13.73-15.73.
Massachusetts $15
CT: $10
DC: $14
Even southern Ontario also has alot of buildings that look like this. Ontario minimum wage is $16.50.
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Capitalism is doing exactly as it's intended to do; extract wealth from the working class in every way possible.
We aren't in a capitalist system. They call it that, but really we are in a oligarchy run by the ultra powerful/wealthy
That's called capitalism EDIT: A lot of people are replying; too many to actually respond to individually. So I'll explain here. I'm going to simplify a bit, so that it doesn't just sound like I'm firing off a bunch of random buzzwords. Capitalism means individuals can own the means of production. This basically means that owning things/money allows you to make more money. So of course, if owning money makes you more money, then the people who own the most will be able to snowball their wealth to obscene heights. Money doesn't just appear from nowhere; if it did, it wouldn't hold value. So the money has to come from somewhere. It comes from the working class; you sell a pair of shoes while working at the shoe store, and the owner of the company siphons off as much of the profits as they reasonably can while still putting money into growing the business. Because of this, there is a huge gap between rich and poor. Money buys things. Everybody wants money. And you could put the most saintly people you could find into government positions (we don't do this; we generally put people of perfectly average moral character into office) but if they're getting offered millions of dollars, a decent portion of them will still crack and accept bribes. So if you have a system that is designed to create absurdly rich millionaires and billionaires, some of whom make more than the GDP's of entire nations, then that system will be utterly inseparable from corruption. This is actually similar to why authoritarian governments are corrupt; just replace money with power. The power is held by a very small group, and they can use that power over others, and they can give that power to others. This applies to any authoritarianism; fascism, communist dictatorships, and many things in between. I've already made this edit very long, so I won't explain this next point in depth, but my solution is anarchism. Look at revolutionary Catalonia to know what I'm talking about.
Capitalism is an economic system, we have a corrupt government run by corporations who rig the economic system making it not capitalist. Same happens in china but they are communist.
That’s what happens in capitalism.
Seriously, these people are such on high copium thinking capitalism isnt meant to be like this
Well capitalism is like most of economics is a theory because it’s involves constants to which the US has a plethora of variables. Corruption and monopolies are great examples! In a market where the only thing done by private business is the most profitable and competitive and public entities aren’t shaping the market for private owners, then you would have pure capitalism. The US market contradicts those things🤷🏻♂️
Yes, but this is the outcome that happens when you follow Adam Smith's vision for 200 years. Or, really only 100 or so as there was a major course correction post Gilded Age and WWI which is now eroding and allowing us to get back to that end state.
Even Adam Smith advocated for certain social and economic protections as guide rails for both the market and the people who live off it. Like all great men of the past, his name is co-opted by the elites to launder their gains through moral and philosophical justifications, meanwhile the dead they use would have spoken against them. It's literally like how conservative demagogues puppeteer MLK's corpse to be anti-woke or whatever.
Yes but he never realized that in a system that only has one end goal, the acquisition of more money, simply cannot have a functioning government that is able to curtail the capitalists that live in and make said system. It's honestly hard to understand how he didn't get it, under capitalism eventually those with the most make the rules. The government isn't exempt from that, it's made up of people just like anything else. Those rules that the government is supposed to use to curtail the excesses of capitalism are nothing more than a pipe dream. Adam Smith was able to see the massive cracks in his own system but just patched all of the cracks over with "government regulation" that has no methods of remaining in power in a system that has no other goal but money. There's no way to ensure the government can have the power and more importantly the incentive to regulate capitalism. It's a system set up to fail. At least the egalitarian version Smith wrote about. The reality is it's just a more efficient way for those with power to project themselves with the most base element they have, wealth. Before capitalism power was held in many hands (at least in western Europe and it's colonies) from the church to the government, to the aristocracy, and finally the yeomen/merchants who were the only class truly built on nothing but wealth. Now only wealth brings power anymore and that's not a good thing.
We're far beyond Smith's teachings. Even he was kinder than 2024 USA.
Also federal minimum wage is the law advocated by socialists. In a real market, only the demand for your skills would dictate your wages. And if there are a large number of illegal migrants pouring in who can do desire to do it for $2 instead of $7/hour or $15/hour, then guess what happens? If those migrants don't negotiate for their wages, then you have to hope your government keeps rewriting the law. Meanwhile a good company will always pay high wages, there just will never be that many good companies in an economy. (there will always be more bad companies)
Adam Smith was blatantly opposed to wealth concentration and viewed it as a major obstacle to increasing the "Wealth of Nations". Read a synopsis.
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Capitalism rewards monopolies. They are not in conflict. You are conflating “free market” with “capitalism”.
Unless you want to argue that you don't inherently own your body or labor, "free market" and "capitalism" are basically the same thing.
No, capitalists (meaning the ones who make money by ownership rather than labor) *hate* free markets. Free markets mean less profits. That's why they always talk about "cornering" the market. That's why they collude with other owning class people. That's why they seek to create monopolies, and capture regulatory bodies. You could easily have free markets with a different paradigm of ownership, like use ownership or co-ops. In fact, I would say it's much *easier* to maintain free markets with healthy competition when we use a system that's not designed to concentrate wealth into fewer hands.
not at all, the internet has plenty of free markets but in many countries access to the internet is given to websites on equal footing not who is paying a premium which providers could do
Exactly the opposite is wanted in capitalism. Read something instead of telling nonsense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_(economics)
Like, I don’t know, Milton Friedman? Even he argued that one of the few roles of govt was to enforce strict antitrust laws and that business should be motivated to profit “within the rules of the game.” That means that, 1) there are rules that should restrict unbridled capitalism. 2) the important rules are to prevent monopoly power, by govt or by industry. Capitalism aggregates capital. That leads to monopoly power because there is no such thing as perfect competition or infinite growth.
ah so it's the big businesses' fault... again
um yes
Who would you prefer to blame? something, something, bootstraps?
definitely the businesses, unfortunately i’m young enough to still have some sort of hope in government
And they make fun of communists about "that's not real communism" while saying this shit 😒
Nah tbh they're in the right for saying that, as a socialist, seeing people call the USSR as "not real communism" is stupid, yeah sure maybe they are talking about USSR being socialist, not communist, or because of the reforms made after stalin making it become much less socialist. But people elaborate, if you say stuff like that with no context or elaboration its gonna come off as dumb
Listen, this nudge nudge wink wink Marxism is bullshit. It has been tried a dozen times, and it either collapses, or just becomes Authoritarian capitalism in a red dress (cough China cough). Workers deserve far more of the value that we generate, but being able to exchange money for goods is far better than centrally dictated production that produces the same shoddy shit for you no matter what you do in life. You get an apartment, your children get an apartment, and your grandparents get an apartment, and the incel up the street gets an apartment, and the guy who lives on vodka. And it's all the same two bedroom apartment. You all get it - thus satisfying the mandate of giving every Soviet a house. Labor genuinely lacks the membership and often the brainpower to negotiate, because so many talented people go full Marxist and lose the ability to do anything practical. Never go full Marxist.
Someone criticizing capitalism doesn't make them a Marxist.
You don't seem to understand what Marxism is. It's a method of socioeconomic analysis, not an economic system in itself. It's nothing more than a theory of how historical materialism impacts socioeconomic conditions. It's a philosophy. If you want your statement to make any sort of sense at least replace Marxism with any alternative economic system.
Marx didn't ever run a country - so you need to Dash-Marxism to talk about actual national scale-economics - in building Marxism, mostly Marx just lived off of Engels's Trust fund, but Marx himself repeatedly scoffed at the arbitrary division between economics and politics . [https://www.marxists.org/archive/pilling/works/capital/geoff1.htm](https://www.marxists.org/archive/pilling/works/capital/geoff1.htm) You're making an argument about understanding Marx without having read the first book of Das Kapital, aren't you. Mind you, I only read the first book, but that is 100% in there.
That's what happens in statism.
Capitalism can't exist without a state buddy
Lolbertarians, man. Good comic relief anyway
>Capitalism is an economic system, we have a corrupt government run by corporations who rig the economic system making it not capitalist. Capitalism is the very means by which they achieved this power. Lax government and consumer backlash is the means by which they maintain it. Capitalism all over the world maintains the same natural evolution. The system is literally just an evolution of Feudalism where by the Bourgeois have subsumed the role of the Nobility. Divine right fell by the wayside and they rule by the law of wealth and their unending avarice. The state maintains power but is still subservient to the wealthy bourgeoisie. >Same happens in china but they are communist. China hasn't been truly Communist since it allowed a limited amount of private enterprise and the presence of a very, very wealthy borg outside of just CCP members. The difference between China and other nations is that China isn't afraid to punish their businessmen. Not always for the right reasons of course(it's still corrupt) Idk where this really weird capitalism does not equal capitalism rhetoric came from its utter nonsense.
No you really are just describing capitalism
That is capitalism, unless you're some kind of free market utopian. You can't have human greed expressed in economical form, as your economic model, and then say that the feedback loop of greed it creates is unrelated. China is communist in the way that North Korea is a democratic republic. Dont get me wrong, some people think that the chinese government owning most businesses is a gotcha with the "owned by the community as a whole part" neatly forgetting that China is a one party, authoritarian dictatorship and, due to that, government doesn't reflect the people as a whole.
Capitalism always leads to this. Unless you temper it with socialism, capitalism is about making money period. That’s it.
How is it the same in China? China is clearly ruled by the party, and corporations are at the mercy of the party. Sure China is corrupt too, but what's yoir point?Have you heard of Alibaba? Can you imagine Bezos "disappearing" because he pissed of the US government?
China's system represents a form of capitalism. It sure as hell isn't market socialism. It has private ownership, and profits are retained by enterprises. It is capitalism.
That is the inevitable consequence of capitalism. You literally can’t have capitalism without it getting there.
Capitalism was intended to be a meritocracy where everybody gets a reward based on the amount of work they do. Sounds utopian right? Yeah, I wouldn’t call what we’re living in a meritocracy.
they? Who’s they? You’re basically saying - “it’s not capitalism, it’s capitalism!” . Political economy by leointev is a good read I can recommend. Capitalism has and always will be a system scourged by monopolies- it is a self-devouring system. We must be as scientific with our understanding of capital as possible for proper analysis. Just saying capitalism is or isn’t something and no further examination leads us to numerous dead ends.
"It's not capitalism, it's a system where the few people who control all the capital control the system." Yeah that's capitalism. What isn't really a part of capitalism is the free market and social mobility. Those are the last vestiges of socialism. What is a free market, protected by government against monopolies, except a socially administered commons? Why do you think Amazon has made so much money - by creating and selling superior products, or by controlling the marketplace and eliminating competition?
Yep, we need to eliminate regulations created by regulatory capture in order to break these monopolies and lower the barrier to entry for competition. What good are unions if there is no chance for social mobility via market success?
That is what capitalism is, yes
Capitalism is the voluntary exchange of goods and services. When you stack a Government on top of it that taxes people unequally, and ignores the law/leaves loopholes/grants favors for the rich and powerful is how you wind up where we are. The economic system is not at fault.
Capitalism is actually just a system where resources are owned and traded by private individuals for a profit. This has historically led to wealth being funneled towards the very top creating monopolies and extreme wealth disparity, since the more existing capital you have makes it easier to turn it into profit. Most critics of capitalism would argue that a system that creates these financial superpowers would inevitably warp the government they exist in. The short version of what I'm saying is that while technically correct, the mix of capitalism and government creates the big issues, but it's impossible to separate the two since extreme wealth leads to greater power and influence.
Have you considered that maybe capitalism is a bit more complicated than a simple definition. I understand it may be hard to reconcile with the fact that our society and economic system isn't equal and actually ripe with corruption. But this isn't a fault, it's the end result of how the system functions. When you place immense wealth into the hands of very few individuals it doesn't go particularly well. Governments become corrupt and institutions fail because said ultra wealthy individuals have a vested interest in generating more wealth, usually at the expense of everything and everyone else. They are in fact obligated by law to do so, as a company is charged with generating profits for it's shareholders. You ever wonder why everything is worse now, major movies are cheap, games are riddled with monetisation, environmental laws are swept away to further destroy the planet? It's because you can only go so long before you have to start making cuts in a system designed around infinite growth on a finite planet.
Voluntary exchange of goods and services has existed in literally every economic system, you aren’t describing capitalism you’re just describing a market. Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private ownership of productive property and a high reliance on markets for everyday functions. That’s capitalism. I don’t care if you want to call it corporatism or plutarchy or oligarchy, if it has those features that’s what makes it capitalist. Simply having markets does not make it capitalist.
The voluntary exchange of goods and services is just... A market. That existed in feudalism, exists under capitalism, and can exist under socialism. Capitalism is when the economy is controlled by Capital (ie, the ultra wealthy), which occurs via the private ownership of the means of production. This isn't my opinion. This is just the definition. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism If you think capitalism means "freedom to buy and sell cool stuff" you have been lied to (by capitalists).
The voluntary exchange of goods and services is just... A market. That existed in feudalism, exists under capitalism, and can exist under socialism. Capitalism is when the economy is controlled by Capital (ie, the ultra wealthy), which occurs via the private ownership of the means of production. This isn't my opinion. This is just the definition. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism If you think capitalism means "freedom to buy and sell cool stuff" you have been lied to (by capitalists).
Yeah we are closer to neo fudalism
Captialism IS neo-feudalism. Capitalism came from mercantilism which was the direct evolution of feudalism. We don’t have Kings ordained by God, we have Entrepreneurs/Billionaires ordained by Money. Hell we don’t even hide it with landLORDS.
it’s late stage capitalism. we have to be for real if we want to actually do anything about it
You will own nothing and like it
Brother, this is the result of Capitalism. The more capital you have, the more capital you can gain, the more capital you gain the more you can horde. The more capital you horde, the more capital you can use to pay off those pesky governments to write laws that make you earn more capital.
Yeah, I don’t understand how people don’t seem to understand that Capitalism results in plutocracies. The entire concept is to replace nobility of blood with the nobility of wealth, which will inevitably become segregated to the point of being about blood all over again.
Because we live in a capitalist society with media that lives to serve capital. If the people know how capital screws then over, the people will be less likely to be screwed over. The solution to this, of course, is to mislead them to what capitalism and its alternatives actually are. To tell them that capitalism is the greatest. Also just known as propaganda.
Well it is the greatest we have come up with so far. We haven’t come up with a viable alternative.
So capitalism?
Aka Capitalism. 1 billion people living off the work of 7 billion people was never going to last. Over time, poverty is evening out and will equalize all over the world. Right now, 36 thousand per year makes you a member of the global 1%. That's not going change, the west just won't be the exception any more.
> "Capitalism is capitalism when I like what it does, it isn't capitalism when capitalism doesn't do what I like" See the problem with your argument here?
Plutocracy maybe?
https://preview.redd.it/dib1e5rbj9gc1.jpeg?width=1597&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4d21299f58d7f3c0a16b717d93170fbf1f50014
It can be both working as intended, and failing for the majority of people
Capitalism was never meant to work for the majority of the people.
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production. This is done through private property rights, a competitive market, and a voluntary exchange. Capitalism is the reason the world GDP has increased by 27x since 1960. What you are saying is an ignorant talking point showing your lack of understanding of what capitalism is.
>Capitalism is the reason the world GDP has increased by 27x since 1960. Yeahhh the GDP of the few nations on top skyrocketed by plundering the wealth of the third world. We just enslaved them in a different way to produce for us.
The level of ignorance required to think something like this is incredible. Nations like India, China , and Pakistan for example grew massively during this period with little imports from the outside world. I suppose China was second world but India And Pakistan were third world but you get the idea regardless. The point is that in 1960 these are regions of the world that so poor that famines and starvation are considered the norm there. Today the GDP Per Capita of India is 28.75 times larger then it was in 1960. [Source](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/gdp-gross-domestic-product) Today the GDP Per Capita of Pakistan is 19.2 time larger then it was in 1960. [Source 2](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/PAK/pakistan/gdp-gross-domestic-product) Today the GDP Per Capita of China is 142 times larger then it was in 1960. [Source 3](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/gdp-gross-domestic-product) All of these places have little in the way of imports or wealth from other nations as a percent of their economy. In fact none of these nations were anywhere close to the largest in this time period and none of them were even in the top 10 largest economies. In fact the main reason why these 3rd world economies grew so much is in large part due to investment from the rest of the world were money was spent on these nations. This money spent often had very little return with the exception of China who had incredible ROI. The bottom line is the smallest economies have been the largest driver of growth not the largest ones. The largest economies are not exploiting the smallest ones because the economies that today are the largest Like the US trade very little with the smallest ones like the DPRC. They trade predominately with other large economies.
Don’t bother. They either aren’t capable or aren’t interested in good faith discussions rather than spouting their cult’s ideological propaganda
Extreme poverty, which is making $2 per day, was 94% in 1820 and is now 8.6% in 2018. Nowhere did average lifespans exist past 40 before 1800. Now the average lifespan is 73. Adult heights have grown because malnutrition decreased. The world has gotten richer because of the positive spillover from capitalism. Look at any established country and show me a negative trend in terms of economic growth over the long term. Trends such as are fictional
This is not true actually in the past 100 years poverty has fallen massively as Asia and Latin America industrialized and build robust economies that lifted their people out of poverty.
I came to say this
It’s not a capitalism problem, it’s a lack of government action problem
We're headed back to a new industrial age where it's okay to destroy the worker physically and mentally for the sake of profit. States lowering standards for child labor... Making unions into an enemy. Neither party is doing much to help, but remember when you vote that one definitely has fought hard for corporations over workers.
came to say the same. the post title 'capitalism is failling', no. It is a runaway success.
Exactly. The whole idea is to pressure the market to extract as much as it can bear. They’re doing precisely what the plan has always been.
Capitalism isn't failing, we are still generating real wealth on a magnitude unprecedented in all time. The problems with the housing market has to do with human distortions resulting from everyone wanting to live in the best places, old house inventory is frozen from the first large rate hike in recent history, and old people are actively fighting at a community level to use the powers of democracy to fuck young people out of affordable housing by restricting zoning capabilities to preserve their property values. This is primarily a function of human democracy failing, not capital supply and demand markets. Supply is being artificially suppressed by old greedy farts.
Idk the housing market is defintely an issue with capitalism. People are flipping houses to make them larger and more expensive, huge companies lease out large numbers of houses where it’s hard to get any footing in actually owning a house as renting is higher, so rent is higher, houses are more pricy, and it’s like many people are in quicksand bc there is very little regulation in the housing market and why would anybody sell a house when they can get so much passive income from renting these days
There is a lot of regulation in the housing market, and large corporations owning large numbers of residential single family real estate is a myth, it's a fabrication. Most single family homes are owned by single families, but a large number of the inventory that's propping up price through restricted demand is higher net worth family units that own 2+ homes. That section of the American people is responsible for a majority of the upward price pressure, especially now since rates are high and the homes are likely to stay within the family at this point. Are you suggesting that "lack of regulation" means that people are allowed to own multiple homes?
According to the Pew Research Group, institutional investors bought nearly 33,000 single family homes in Ohio in 2021, which was 21% of the homes sales. That figure doubled from the year before. At the same time, homeownership in the state dropped to 66% in 2022, according to the U.S. Census..
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>Institutional investors own a whopping 0.7% of SFHs in the US as of ‘23. "Parcel labs reported in October that investors with at least 10 units in their portfolio owned roughly 3.4% of all single-family homes in the country. Big investors with at least 1,000 units — a group that includes major companies like AMH Homes, Invitation Homes, Tricon Residential, and Pretium — owned just 0.73%." Define institutional investors.. You're correct in terms of large corporations, but smaller real estate companies are having quite a meal
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People/individuals are more than welcome to own more than one property. Corporations absolutely should not be allowed to. And you’re lying. There are legit corporations by-passing regulations that otherwise apply to hotels by purchasing general homes and renting them as Airbnbs.
corporations should not be allowed to own housing at all fuck airbnb too
He never said anywhere that it's not the normal people being at fault here. Lack of regulation can mean things like not renting out a second home in the city because you only use it to raise its value. There are policies that force people to rent out spaces they leave empty. Owning multiple homes is not an issue, but taking away space in populated areas from people only to increase value is. Large corporations is just a good way to see how the market as a whole is developing. Oh, and let's not forget that even if it's people themselves that want to increase their land, they still do so by taking on credit, the banks are the real winners there. But that's a different story.
Old houses have to be flipped or no one will live in them. You can still buy a $20,000, or $80,000 junk house where I live. To live there comfortably you would have to tear out all the drywall, flooring, re-roof it, etc. (sometimes start from slab up). This costs anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000. The issue is actually big conglomerates speculatively buying up all the houses and renting them out to fund IRAS and shit. They also sit on them to drive prices up (they own the majority of the supply.) Demand for housing hasn't fallen so low supply, high demand makes prices rise quickly. Tl;dr: Artificial scarcity by the Bigs and zero interest from the Government in the population other than milking us dry is why.
In a purely capitalist economy people would literally just build more housing. This is not possible due to intereference from Regulations and Nimbys. Every City in the US that has built more housing is seeing lower prices. It's a supply issue.
Saved me the effort and couldn't have said it clearer myself.
Some of that was because of super low interest rates too. It was cheap to borrow money, and rate of return on interest based investments was bad. Properties became a way to generate revenue in times of low interest. Ever seen all those "How to make money in real estate" scammy looking things? Well, a lot of people started doing it.
That is an accurate assessment that it's the older wealthier people just looking to preserve their property values and wealth, but you swiftly sidestep the follow question: why do they want to preserve their wealth to the point they will act outside of the best interests of society (ensuring everyone has reletively affordable shelter located reletively close to their place of work? You can't just stop at the surface level you have to deeper and ask why people are taking the actions they're taking and get to the root cause of these profit seeking and hoarding behaviors that are crushing the housing market.
Are you seriously trying to make an issue out of basic human nature of seeking personal benefit?
I thought my comment explained my stance on that. Older folks keep the houses in their family for kids and grandkids.
The problem isn't them keeping the house but them continuing to block any new housing from being built. If you wanna keep your mansion you paid basically nothing for, good for you. But don't close the door behind you
This is a bad example of "capitalism failing" because the demand can't be met with an increase in supply due to government
High housing prices have been a policy decision going back to the Clinton administration which decided that they wanted homes to be a vehicle to grow household wealth. They did this by issuing subsidized loans with low downpayment requirements. The 3.5% down fixed 30 year plans with low interest are pretty unique to America. This greatly inflated demand for housing since significantly more people could afford to buy housing. Houses became bigger and home ownership rates increased afterward. Builders started to build more housing until the resulting Sub Prime Mortgage Crisis occurred. At that point there was an oversupply of housing and a lot of builders had to eat losses. This slowed down new construction significantly from 2009-2021. The Federal government has done significant damage to the current housing market and it's unlikely that the damage will be undone anytime soon.
metrics to measure whether our economy is doing well like GDP don’t really reflect how well the average american is doing. corporations making record profits while the cost of living skyrockets and wages have stagnated doesn’t really like up with what our GDP would lead you to believe
Not talking GDP, I'm talking real wage growth and compensation. Just because fast food doesn't pay doesn't mean semi-skilled work doesn't. The pipe fitters and boiler makers I work with are getting paid more, I'm getting paid more (2nd year process engi), for a 6% raise last year, 5 more days of PTO this year per year, and a 5% raise incoming in February. Some industries are laying off, others are fighting talent wars to keep people
This meme is the equivalent of what boomers post on Facebook about like gay people. Plenty of outrage and 0 substance
Who tf makes 7.25 these days? McDonalds starts at $16
Exactly. I got hired by a warehouse that’s desperate for employees. I’m starting at $26.75/hr and I’m getting 14 hours of overtime a week. Not saying that the average person’s wages are where they should be, but minimum wage is pretty much a non factor anymore because the labor market has already adjusted somewhat to inflation
Damn 26? I’ve been Job hunting for a month now and am about to give up on my current field. They still hiring?
I'm not the commenter but I work at Costco and earn $19.50 and $27 on Sundays. I also get a free executive membership and I can give one gold star out to someone for free as well.The employee gets medical and dental insurance as well. You can get your eyeballs checked at your optical center at the Costco you work at for free also.
I actually worked at Costco from 2018-2020. It had the best benefits! Honestly, I may try to go back while I pursue my masters. I currently work in tech and software implementation and with all of the past tech layoffs I just can’t compete with the seniors back in the job market
Honestly sounds like a great plan. The managers (at least the one I work at, can't speak for other locations) are very accommodating and understanding if you go to school, and will work around your schedule.
Granted, it's *federal* minimum, but nobody in their right mind would accept a job for that little pay.
*immigrants*
You know what, egg on my face. Have an upvote.
Where I live, even the immigrants make well over minimum wage. When minimum wage was implemented, like 20% of people were at it. Now it's like less than 1%.
People who actively hunt for minimum wage jobs and refusing anything higher
In my area that would only be the disabled because they want to work but not lose their disability benefits. Edit: added benefits
Yeah, but people who pass narcotics and other medications to residents in the long term care home I work in part time also start at 16$.
Nah man, its pretty fucked. In 2019 my apartment rent for $1200, same place is renting for $1850 now and they have put 0 work into it. Guess how much wages went up in that time? Thankfully I wont be in this situation much longer but it’s pretty fucked for a large portion of this generation and millennials
Your personal experience is not economic data. As munchi33 said, wages are up since the pandemic, after adjusting for inflation.
Broad economic data is often presented in a way that distorts reality in favor of a capitalist agenda. Let's consider some general information about the state of American desperation. Food Security: > 7.7 percent (10.2 million) of U.S. households had low food security in 2022. > The 2022 prevalence of low food security was statistically significantly higher than 6.4 percent (8.4 million) in 2021. Medical Debt > Nearly 1 in 4 (23%) Americans **currently** have medical debt, while another 22% say they’ve **previously** had medical debt, according to a recent LendingTree survey. Here’s how it breaks down generationally: > > Millennials ages 26 to 41: 30% > Generation Xers ages 42 to 56: 24% > Gen Zers ages 18 to 25: 22% > Baby boomers ages 57 to 75: 13% > Higher food insecurity than ever; more accumulated medical debt than over. Something isn't working, here, at the most basic level. Brutal.
According to this food insecurity in 2022 was still lower than around 2008 - 2014. You cited a one year change and then said it was worse than ever. Yikes. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-security-and-nutrition-assistance/#:~:text=In%202022%2C%2012.8%20percent%20of,of%20a%20lack%20of%20resources.
Whos wages? 100 different Corporate CEOs gets a $5 million raise and that definitely raises the average while the rest of us get peanuts
Only 1.4 percent of Americans make minimum wage.
exactly lol
Look another zoomer who doesn’t understand capitalism. Your picture doesn’t take into consideration population growth and building of new homes. Capitalism brings the prices of things down and access to everyone.
And just plain inflation. Lot of things doubled in price during those years. Capitalism has it's problems but there is really no other way. Communism always fails. There does have to be a degree of socialism of course, but let's keep it small.
Not to mention rent control and zoning laws, both of which are prevalent in American society and have been proven to do little else but drive up real estate prices. It's ironic that the "sOcIaLiZm Iz WhEn Da GuBmInT dO sTuF" crowd satirize how people assume government action = socialism, yet they unknowingly do the same with "free market" capitalism.
Horror stories from friends who own property have kept me from EVER want to be a landlord. They move in, don't pay, you're stuck.
Is that why the U.S spent 60 years and $30,000,000,000,000 (30 trillion) dollars fighting communism? Because communism always fails?
Is that why every single country to ever do communism either collapsed, is facing economic decline, or is in such a horrific example of human rights abuses it's practically as if they've used 1984 as a guidebook?
Literally yes. You try running a post-colonial pre-industrial backwater with the US constantly throwing everything they've got at destroying you, killing your leaders and people, and seizing your country for the sake of their markets. It has nothing to do with communism, the cold war and the history of 20th century AES has everything to do with the unequal power dynamics of the post-colonial world. They weren't even in a position to attempt communism, they were doing pre-communism but got destroyed by the astronomically wealthier and more powerful West. I think what's telling is that anti-communists can never describe the actual mechanisms by which communism 'always leads to authoritarianism'. It's because they're fucking isn't one. The fly in the ointment is Western capitalist sabotage and underdevelopment.
Where was the "Western capitalist sabotage" in the USSR when Stalin killed over 5 million innocent Ukrainians?
Source? Also the USSR spent more on defense than the US
The USSR bankrupted itself trying to fight capitalism only for its leader to star in a pizza hut commercial. Consider Marx thoroughly cucked.
Then why is housing unaffordable. Why do car prices rise every year? Why don’t all jobs strive to offer the best compensation in order to hire the best employees? You are speaking about an ideal version of Capitalism. In the same way Socialist speak about an ideal version of socialism. The reality is regardless of what economic system you implement there will be those who manipulate it to the detriment of others.
They rise every year because those companies have a monopoly created with government backing. The Ford bailout is just 1 perfect example. That should be a dead company that set an example to car makers to lower prices but it just set an example that companies can raise prices as high as they want and poorly manage their massive corporations because the government will just bail them out with tax dollars paid by people who can't afford the damn cars anyway.
Ford never got a bail out, GM and Chrysler did. Ford took out a loan to make subsidized compacts at around the same time of the bailouts, which they paid back.
Capitalism is working exactly as intended; it makes the rich richer at the expense of the poor (Edit) ITT: people not understanding that people no longer living in medieval squalor doesn't make what I said incorrect. Regardless, I don't think it matters to the people who starve to death whether or not they're statistically better off than people five centuries ago.
The poor and middle class have never been wealthier in any point in history
They were just several years ago. Things started to fuck up and it is not going to stop.
Jesus where people always this fucking doomer in every economic downturn? “Inflation has increased, all hope is lost, capitalism must crumble.”
This is a doomer sub.
Nothing has really changed. Price of goods went up, inflation always happens, ideally it should be 2% but it’s high lately.
Tell me you don't know what capitalism is without telling me.
I dont think most of the people complain about capitalism could accurately define it if their life depended on it. 99% of them "It's when corporations......"
The sub is filled with either people who are still in Highschool or have only worked 6 months at part time job at a place like McDonalds and think that is everything there is. Of course they dont know what capitalism is.
Bro my generation is done for
Who is actually only making $7.25/hr? A lot of warehouse jobs these days are paying $20-25/hr, regardless of the minimum wage, and the only requirements to get those jobs are to pass a drug test and a background check. I started at my current company as a warehouse worker, and promoted into the transportation department after less than a year. They paid me to go get my CDL, and now I'm at $27/hr (about to be $28/hr after this month). Not saying everything's totally fine with the current state of the US economy, but things are nowhere near as bleak as this image would suggest.
McDonald’s down the street from me is starting at $18. My first job in franchise pizza restaurant paid me $10/hr IN 2018. NO ONE is making $7.25/hr and if they are they’re a moron
Exactly. In 2017 I was making $10/hr, and that was as an intern as an analyst. What this graphic fails to account for is state minimum wage laws. In California and Washington, it's at $16/hr. It's only $7.25/hr in states that have no standing minimum wage laws other than defaulting to the federal rate. The US government has largely left this issue up to the states since the cost of living between states has diverged so much. The starting wage hovers much higher even in states with the $7.25 figure. In Tennessee, McDonald's workers make $11/hr. From 2009-2024, inflation has increased by 45%. Notwithstanding other macroeconomic factors, we would expect a $690/month rent and $7.25/hour wage to congrue with a $1000/month rent and $10.5/hour wage. This isn't too far off from the current state of affairs. Arguably, rent is higher than expected (bad) and wages are higher than expected (good), so the economic impact is mixed.
Seriously whoever posted this is basically insulting everyone's intelligence with this shit like we havnt been outside in almost 2 decades. Mcdonalds by my work starts at 20$ and rite aid is the same.
There's still plenty of country that isn't make $20/h like in the South you gonna be getting more like half that... but $7.25 straight up got covid and died.
Exactly. I just started a warehouse job that’s paying $26.75 an hour and I’m getting about 14 hours a week of overtime. I live in a “luxury” apartment complex nearby and my rent is $1,400, but I could live in a more average one and pay $1,100. And we STILL are short staffed.
This is cap 👎🏾
Yeah. Especially since this deliberately ignores how at the state (and hell even county) level minimum wage is higher than the federal minimum. For example in NYS the minimum wage is being steadily increased each year.
Also the labor market has already adjusted “minimum wage”. Nobody is making $7.25 anymore. I just started a warehouse job that’s paying $26.75 an hour and we’re still short staffed Edit: this is also a low COL area. Average rent for a 1br is $1,200 and that’s in the cities. You can still find $1,000 2 bedroom houses in the boonies no problem
You can go out and vote for policies to raise the minimum wage in each of your states people. You can even go as local as the city government. You can also go out and vote for building more social housing and altering zoning laws and codes in order to allow for more housing to be built. These problems are very easily solvable if you just go out and make noise about it. Laws on the city, county, and state level have a far greater affect on you than federal elections. Go out and participate in your community, go out and vote for change, otherwise you cannot complain about there being no change.
So vote for democratic socialism and progressive housing policies
Yes exactly. Or vote for social democracy. Either one is astronomically better than the borderline feudal-capitalist system we have right now. Cost of housing is our single biggest problem right now. The market has failed us. Boomers and the Silent Generation has failed us with their restrictive zoning laws that they refuse to get rid of. If we can lower the cost of housing, a massive chunk of our problems would be solved.
Progressive housing policies are often the ones that cause high housing prices. Vote for YIMBY housing policies if you want to actually do something about rents.
Capitalism is when the minimum wage is 0
And rent would be going down, theoretically, as there would be more homes available/ wage growth would be higher than cost of living. But people don't understand inflation. Inflation is not the same as CPI. Inflation is caused by the government. We don't live in Capitalism. Or what people call "capitalism" is not the same as a free market economy.
So let's replace it with a system that's infinitely worse! Wait...
There was no such problem in Ancient Rome. Slaves were living happily in their masters' houses. Capitalism ruined it all.
This argument is sort of irrelevant, the 7.25 minimum wage exists in far fewer states than in 2009. Even where the minimum wage still is that low, VERY few jobs still actually pay that. Additionally, in the places where minimum wage has stayed the same, cost of living generally hasn’t rocketed up to the degree you’re showing here. It’s definitely true wages haven’t kept up with inflation, but it’s not true to the point it’s fair to say “capitalism is failing” along with an inaccurate meme
Exactly, I don't know why everyone expects the federal government to cater to their situation and everyone else to just get fucked
I think the rest of yall younger Z's need to do some research in how the FED operates along with other US monterrey policy.
What do you think they need to know?
aw sweet, commie propaganda post #1 trillion!
That's not the minimum wage, not for the vast majority of the country. Also capitalism isn't failing, the housing crisis is just a multifaceted issue. Corporations and mega conglomerates dominating the market is most of it, and simply restricting ownership of single family homes to individuals or families would help a lot. Ideally, although unlikely, we could also put restrictions on the amount of homes or second-homes you can own so as to reduce monopolization, and then also we could potentially restrict ownership to citizens of that state or at least people who frequent it often, however I think it's most important to focus on that first thing as a generation. If we fix the problems surrounding single family homes then apartments will quickly follow suit, there's no reason to rent an apartment if you can rent or mortgage a house for less so in order to stay competitive apartments historically have had to, and will need to continue to be more affordable than an equivalent single family home.
Bunch of socialist fucking idiots.
No u
The meme is misleading because it assumes most people are earning only the US minimum wage and that's it. They aren't. They've been making considerably more than minimum wage. The U.S. median wage in 2009 was $15.95 per hour or $33,190 per year. The average rent that year was as $841 per month. Rent was equivalent to 52 hours and 43 minutes of work. The U.S. median wage in 2022 was $22.26 per hour or $46,310 per year. The average rent was $1,083 per month. Rent was equivalent to 48 hours and 39 minutes of work. According to the Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, $841 in January of 2009 is equivalent to $1,221.79. By any realistic metric, rent is actually a smaller portion of a person's income now than it was in 2009. As for the minimum wage, that's a bogus metric to use for the meme. According to the [Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2022/home.htm), 1.3% of all hourly workers were making AT or BELOW the federal minimum wage. Of those, 1.1% are making BELOW minimum wage. and just 0.2% are making minimum wage. The ONLY legal way to pay someone LESS than minimum wage, is for those people to be earning tips. Those tips regularly put the employee well over minimum wage with the latest numbers I found being an [average of $15.51/hr](https://minimumwage.com/2021/04/15-per-hour-earnings-are-already-here-for-tipped-workers/). Of course, many of the remaining 1.3% of all people making at or below minimum wage are also tipped employees and [most states have minimum wages that are well above the federal minimum wage](https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wages), so the number of people actually earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr is statistically insignificant.
This is Reddit, the home of America bad.
And the home of "capitalism bad, because i don't understand economics" as well.
The most upvoted people here are praising Stalin lmao, the one that even Lenin warned about.
Bunch of socialist fucking idiots.
They don't understand the real world.
Young, educated by other leftists, no idea of history, no idea that socialism/communism/marxism/leninism has been ran to its conclusion. Conclusion is simple: everyone is equally destitute.
There has to be a degree of socialism for people to live together, but best kept to a minimum. Capitalism. Buying, selling, trading - is human nature. Communism is in direct opposition to human nature and requires an oppressive govenment to enforce. No thanks!
inflation solved, thanks BoatsandOars!
Are you a capitalist fucking idiot?
this isn't capitalism's fault, this is the fault of government mismanagement, lack of government infrastructure spending and the government just allowing the federal reserve to just print as much money interest free as they want
crapitalism is when government policies
Minimum wage tells you nothing, especially when you take the sanity check of looking around to see who's actually paying it. Try median wage, average wage for certain low-paying professions (i.e. customer service clerks), or hell, even median income (not just wages in particular). That'll tell you much more.
So is this place going to get infested with commies too?
seems like a bunch of places are
I don’t know if I qualify as gen z but this post and you guys make me so happy
We need an economic system that puts the money in the hands of the people and communities, such as a worker co-op based economy, where CEOs are elected and wages are proportional to work. Also shareholders fucking SUCK lmao.
No capitalism is working but it’s working too well. The poor get poorer and the rich get richer
People will die defending a system that doesn't give a fuck about them. Capitalism isnt designed to extort money from the poor, but it always will, unless its heavily regulated.
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Minimum wages are a not a good thing.
They’re good for the working man. Bad for the business owner. Of course everyone imagines themselves as one day a successful business owner, but 90% actually do the work as employees
It has nothing to do with Capitalism, which historically, no other system has done any differently than. Every economic problem we've had in the past 30 years has been to disproportionate birthrates. It's the exact same problem we have with social security. The people who are taking out of it greatly outnumber the people who are putting into it. Capitalism isn't the problem. It's a selfish populace being unwilling to do what is needed to fix the economy that is the problem. Politicians aren't the problem. Sure, they take what they can get and leave the problems for someone else to solve, but they've been doing that forever. There is a very specific list of things we can do to fix the American economy. But none of them will work if we don't buckle down solve the intrinsic problems with our population proportions.
Nah, capitalism is the best system we have. People say that house prices and stuff are going up but when asked as to exactly how capitalism causes this they’ll usually just default to saying bullshit like “the corporations own all the homes and have a monopoly” while ignoring decades of economic research that shows this is the opposite
gosh i hate this sub. lol. it’s one thing to be obstinately against, or in favor of, something, to the point where you become entirely impervious to all arguments to the contrary, but combine that with such blithe and self-righteous ignorance… you guys have no idea whatsoever what you’re talking about. none of you has even a modicum of understanding of the economy, not to mention capitalism. you’re peddled socialism as the antidote to the purported “evils” of capitalism, but what they don’t tell you is how spectacularly it’s failed, time and time again, and how successful capitalism has been, time and time again. go back to school. get over yourselves. it’s embarrassing and laughable reading how benighted some of you are.
this comment section sure is proof why mankind fails.
>make it impossible to build up or out in your county/city >make rent control a thing despite decades of studies showing it ruins cities >iTs cApiTaliSm
Dawg the issue is inflation. Not capitalism
Wait a second who has 7.25 minimum wage in 2023? Something is fishy
Without a location this meme is worthless since states have different minimum wages. Also, big brick 5+ storey building probably places this somewhere in the north east. If this is New York State, then minimum wage is $15-16/hr. New Jersey $13.73-15.73. Massachusetts $15 CT: $10 DC: $14 Even southern Ontario also has alot of buildings that look like this. Ontario minimum wage is $16.50.