[dimal]

We have a culture where we’ve been told for decades that market forces and the profit motive are sufficient for running a society. That the market will find a way to give everyone what they need efficiently without problems.

We’ve dispensed with ethics as a basis for human interaction, and the results are exactly what one would expect: a dystopia.

And the people making the most money off this system insist that it’s all for the best and that we should double down on this strategy. Any mention of putting limits on greed and exploitation is met with responses like, “what are you, a socialist?” as if the only two choices for structuring a society are either a rapacious hyper-exploitative capitalism and an oppressive Soviet state, and there’s no other option.

Capitalism needs constraints. Capitalism in the service of society can be a great thing. Capitalism without constraints is a cancer that will destroy everything in the pursuit of profit.

[lossolo]

It's hyper individualism that is fueling this type of capitalism, the notion that you owe nothing to anyone and other people in society are not your concern, society itself is not your concern, it’s only about what you want etc. It's like a pond, if you follow hyper individualism, you will extract as many fish from the pond as you can, without caring what happens next or others using the pond, and the fish will not be able to reproduce for future generations, others will not be able to get as many fish as they need etc. It needs to be balanced. As you say, there is something in between that can work, we do not need to choose only between extremes.

[api]

If humans were much more rational this would work better.

The human brain is loaded with exploits, and capitalism being an excellent optimizer quickly finds and uses these exploits. Because they work, and more importantly they are way way easier than creating actual value.

A casino is more profitable than a hospital. Quack medicine sold with sensationalism is more profitable than real medicine. Porn is more profitable than good film or literature. Rage inducing click bait is more profitable than actual news or thoughtful editorial. It’s kind of just thermodynamics. These things require less energy input, and they don’t have to “work” because they exploit security vulnerabilities in the dopamine system instead.

We are hacking each other to death.

[parasubvert]

> We have a culture where we’ve been told for decades that market forces and the profit motive are sufficient for running a society. That the market will find a way to give everyone what they need efficiently without problems.

I don't really think that culture has existed lately, it kind of died out with the 2008 financial crisis. Now it's about naked use of power, whether political or economic.

The problem with constraints on individual freedom (which is essentially what happens when you constrain capitalism) is that no one agrees on what they should be, and therefore a segment of society will not be happy with them, and claim them as tyrannical oppression. Sometimes this is hysterical nonsense, sometimes it has a point.

Ultimately the antidote to unfettered capitalism is sensible policy crafted through political compromise. But largely Western politics itself has skewed towards extremes lately, few have the patience or understanding for this process, they want a quick fix.

[stronglikedan]

> Capitalism needs constraints.

I'd just be happy with one constraint and that is to forbid the crony capitalism that is rampant today.

[swed420]

> I'd just be happy with one constraint and that is to forbid the crony capitalism that is rampant today.

But "regulated" capitalism inevitably leads to crony capitalism.

What we've arrived at can barely even be called capitalism, and old school capitalism paved the way:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220331174542/https://nymag.com...

[watwut]

The crony capitalism was brought to you literally by companies and millionaires scared of regulation and heavily pushing for deregulation. They supported Trump and republicans by large margin, especially financially.

[swed420]

If you think only one of the two parties of capital are to blame for this timeline, I have a bridge to sell you.

Democrats manufactured consent for Trump's rise in a 1000 ways over decades. Neoliberalism delivered us Trump, who is merely a symptom of this broken system.

Dems/Repubs play good cop/bad cop; always in service to capital interests. We have a uniparty, but people are fooled by reasonable election turnout and close elections. Democracy is an illusion in the US.

[watwut]

Yeah, you know what, the culpability of republicans is so much higher at this point, that yeah, they are the primary responsible for current state.

This both sides game is just how they were enabled again and again by people who like to frame themselves as reasonable above the politics center, but are in fact just their supporters.

[swed420]

Trump was elevated from meme tier gameshow host to serious candidate thanks to the Dem pied piper "strategy."

Dems put more effort into defeating Bernie than they did Trump.

[soperj]

I don't think any actual socialist would ever argue for an oppressive Soviet state either. They'd want stuff like public firefighters, health care, sewage, roads, etc.

What is capitalism in service of society?

[parasubvert]

Social sector (non profits) have an important place in capitalist society as there are plenty of non-market / non-profit missions that are important.

Unfortunately nuance is kind of lost in today's politics.

[Libidinalecon]

We need to stop painting with the wide brush of "capitalism" like this.

This is not capitalism vs socialism. You are describing neoliberalism.

A good place to start is the Wendy Brown book Undoing the Demos. The subtitle is "Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution"

There is no way to change and fight back against something when we are so confused what we are even fighting against.

No one is really against market prices. They are against these insane, distorted, neoliberal ideas that apply the efficient market hypothesis, "the market is always right" to non-markets. Or using the efficient market hypothesis as a pseudoscientific moral justification for bad behavior.

Most importantly is that there are a ton of people that actually believe this bullshit.

If a process causes number to go up then the process must be morally good because "the market is always right". Obviously, if the process was morally bad number go down because "the market is always right". This is the 21st century American religion.

Railing against "capitalism" just causes those hypnotized by neoliberalism to completely tune out before you even get to the ism in "capitalism".