[WolfeReader]

Capitalism as it is taught: lots of companies competing with each other, resulting in better goods at affordable prices! The customer wins!

Capitalism in practice: a relative handful of rich people cooperating with each other to extract as much money as possible from the middle and lower classes.

You can see which version of capitalism this document supports.

The "fiscally conservative" aspect of the Republican party (and the Democratic party to a lesser degree) don't want people to think of capitalism-in-practice; they want happy consumers who think that competition is still a thing. Since this document clearly goes against that narrative, it must be suppressed.

[janalsncm]

Corporations are a funny kind of alien intelligence. Producing a better product or a lower price is just one way to ensure their survival. Another is to manipulate the rules of the market itself, including the rule enforcers.

[OgsyedIE]

It's the product of an evolutionary process. You could scrap capitalism entirely and still get cartel formation, since you have agents with varied traits competing to gain the resources to be selected to reproduce [their continued existence, into the future].

A couple other ways of looking at it come from Bataille, Odum, Prigogine or Schmitt.

[venturecruelty]

You can also just pay your workers in scrip and then hire Pinkertons to kill them if they get uppity about it. It's hard not to become cynical when people seem almost willfully ignorant of the despicable history of capital in this country...

[mistrial9]

> a relative handful of rich people

no, not clear at all.. it is a system that filters. "rich people" go broke all the time, Britain too.. There are serious structural problems certainly but that does not describe them

[SpicyLemonZest]

I guess I'm not sure where you read a claim that rich people can never go broke into the original comment. They absolutely can. That's why they often - as they seem to have done here - cut side deals to protect their revenue streams at the expense of competition. There's a VP at Walmart who stands to lose a lot of money if people start buying their Pepsi elsewhere, and a VP at Pepsi who stands to lose a lot of money if their products are less visible in the nation's Walmarts, so they've agreed to cooperate and mutually reduce the risk that their orgs perform poorly.

[autoexec]

billionaires only tend to "go broke" when they commit massive amounts of crime, mostly against other rich people.

[lanfeust6]

Dynastic wealth also tends to dissipate significantly in a generation or two, as heirs fail to generate the same level of wealth and just spend it (plus it's divided).

[venturecruelty]

Thanks, I'll pay my rent with this information when I get laid off.

[lanfeust6]

Not sure what you're trying to say with that non-sequitur.

[zdragnar]

Ah yes, only capitalism suffers from corruption.

[WolfeReader]

Good job calling me out for saying that "only capitalism suffers from corruption". If only I had actually said that.

[zdragnar]

It's an obvious implication by specifically calling out capitalism when discussing the difference between theory and practice.

[lanfeust6]

"Capitalism is when Walmart offers a discount on Pepsi, at razor-thin margins, and somehow this is maximally extracting from the middle and lower classes"

Pepsi is exchanging profit for market-share. Be serious. Everyone else is just charging the standard price.

Market failures ought to be accounted for with regulation (they often are, that's what Liberalism is for), but this is not one.

The unessential garbage fuelling our obesity crisis has no place in the conversation about the affordability crisis whilst policy-makers and armchair experts are mulling a sugar tax, which would just raise the price. Notwithstanding, profit margins at grocery stores are not large in the first place. The reason profits are breaking records is that population is also breaking records, and customers are spending more on boutique animal alternative or organic boxed products. Margins on produce are as thin as ever. Canned black beans and soup are not making their billions.

[DangitBobby]

Did you forget about the "creative" methods that Pepsi used to (illegally) ensure other retailers could not offer low margins on Pepsi?

[lanfeust6]

I didn't. I didn't contend whether the actions were kosher, I contended the ridiculous idea that they "raised prices everywhere".

[DangitBobby]

That's exactly what happened?