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by Draiken
801 days ago
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You're right that corruption is not exclusive to capitalism. All systems will have that in one way or another. That was something the person I was replying to brought up. I don't think it matters for capitalism specifically. Any system worth considering should accept that corruption is unavoidable. As for a solution... I don't know. I truly wish I had a ready answer to something as big as this, but I don't. The best I can come up with are multiple systems with checks, and we have some governments that attempt this, but inevitably someone ends up with unchecked power. Today the power that goes unchecked is capital. It can corrupt other systems that don't account for it. Lobbying, donations, media time, etc. It's all affected by it, as systems like democracy were not designed to deal with external influence that is then used to consolidate itself. That's why it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. |
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Right, and if you'd done any research into alternative economic systems at all, you'd realize that free market systems are the only feasible economic system because it best addresses corruption. Socialism, communism, fascism, and other systems are more vulnerable to corruption than free market systems.
> I truly wish I had a ready answer to something as big as this, but I don't
If you don't, then don't suggest that people experiment with other economic systems when the cumulative toll of those experiment to date weighs in at over a hundred million lives.
> The best I can come up with are multiple systems with checks
That is what we have right now. In America, Canada, the EU, and many, many other "capitalist" systems. Why are you proposing it, when we have it right now?
> Today the power that goes unchecked is capital
This is objectively false. Laughably so. "Capital", whatever that means (as anti-capitalists regularly shift their use of it to avoid being caught in logical fallacies), is not an unchecked power in any of the top dozen current world powers - especially not the US, where there are literally dozens[1] of government agencies tasked with monitoring and controlling money and business in the country.
> Lobbying, donations, media time, etc. It's all affected by it
Everything is also affected by the pride of human beings - yet that has no bearing on the equivalent claim that "the power that goes unchecked is ego" - both that statement and yours are equally false.
> systems like democracy were not designed to deal with external influence that is then used to consolidate itself
"Democracy" is meaningless. You have to pick out a specific implementation of it - like the US, whose political system is designed to deal with external influences. The fact that it fails is because of corruption of individuals elected in office by the people - not because "democracy" somehow can't handle existing in a free-market system.
[1] The Congressional Budget Office, Government Accountability Office, various agencies in the Department of Agriculture, basically everything in the Department of Commerce, the Secret Service, large swaths of the Department of Justice (especially the antitrust division) and the Department of Labor, the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs in the Department of State, parts of the Department of Transportation and the Department of Treasury, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communication Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and many, many more. The claim that "the power that goes unchecked is capital" is objectively. Wrong.