[mghackerlady]

free market capitalism will always end like this though. the end goal of capitalism is the consolidation of all things into a megacorporation or oligarchy that controls everything, creates nothing, and earns infinite money

[tavavex]

Why is this downvoted? To me, it seems like a self-evident conclusion. Even the supporters of the current system would probably agree with it. When you have a system that encourages endless growth at absolutely all costs, while placing no limits at the amount of power a single entity can hold, what other outcome can there be but the biggest players absorbing everything into themselves and using their influence over people and governments to guarantee their dominance?

[WarmWash]

These mega-strong players always kill themselves and collapse. We can see this on the global geopolitical scale (which fundamentally acts as a true free market), where all the empires have always fallen.

The stressing part is when they are at their peak, so people would like to use regulation to short-cut right to the collapse part.

The only example we have a true free market victor that hasn't collapsed is humans, who have totally and completely dominated all other life on Earth, but man, it's certainly not looking good for us right now.

[tavavex]

But does that collapse happen because of some universal axiom about controlling humans, or were those empires merely limited by what was possible in their era? This is the first time in history we have so much military power, ways to exert influence that's truly world-spanning, the most sophisticated technology and the most thorough surveillance ever - all at the same time. Whatever barrier there might be, who's to say that today's megacorporations won't be able to push past it?

[WarmWash]

I'd say the axiom is that as your system becomes larger, more complex, the number of stable states it can exist in shrink. Which is something that is just generally true about systems.

We can envision a future with an ASI controlled super corporation that owns everything with omnipresent micromanagement, but then why would the ASI even bother with humans. That event right there would be our "got to powerful for our(humans) own good" moment.

[forshaper]

We haven't had a free market in the United States in awhile. It's public-private partnered market fixing. Which is good for the consumer, many times, though not all the time.

[tavavex]

Is there a difference in terms of outcomes? In the final form of a complete 'free market' without a government, the biggest entity would simply replicate the same levers of power that a government has through private militias, issuing scrip, having their own private courts and so on. But, since the US has a powerful government, it's much cheaper, simpler and more stable for them to just buy out as much of it as possible and use the same power through a proxy. Admittedly, the US government is not completely controlled by them, so it could still get much worse.

[forshaper]

I had the pleasure of growing up around gray markets (relatively free, bribes were predictable & reasonable enough for an average noodle seller) in Southeast Asia in the 90s. It's quite different from large corporations getting Federal agencies and municipalities to lock out any potential competition. The enforcement of the US govt is far stronger than the enforcement of a handful of corrupt cops, as each precinct is essentially its own feudal regime, and within the department you have individuals mostly loyal to their families. A corrupt cop in a corrupt system driven by loose associations of extended families & fictive kin groups, one of five in a neighborhood say, can be pressured by a group of aunties and uncles serving street food or pirated goods through a web of personal relationships. This was much easier for them than hiring a lobbyist here would be.

I'm not saying it's better, rule of law has many benefits, but it is an example of where there were markets which were more free, that did not have cyberpunk outcomes, and they were quite different.

[tavavex]

I'll say that I don't know anything about 90s SEA, but I know a bit about gray markets. One thing that stands out to me in your description is that all the corruption is incredibly localized and small-scale. Everything happens at the scale of individuals. And I don't deny that living under these conditions won't be that bad (a single corrupt official's power can only go so far), but what's stopping it from eventually becoming more organized? With us encouraging endless growth of wealth and influence, corrupt individuals are bound to form groups, then rings, then whole organizations. To me, what you're describing seems like a transitory state caused by societal factors, instability and simply not having had enough time. What the thread is all about is end states. We're already in a place where removing government regulation would turn our biggest players into those same cops, except with trillions of dollars, offices in every country and an ability to get their hands onto anything that money can buy.

[forshaper]

I'm saying that those biggest players and our governments already work hand in hand to do that. Which is to say, the government is used as the enforcement arm for corporate interests. This is less "free" market, and more market commanded by interests.

[beej71]

Without debating your point, I don't think it contradicts the GP's.

[canyp]

I don't dispute OP, but Adam Smith's premise was that the free market and "invisible hand" were meant to benefit society as a whole, and the minimal government intervention was there to enforce that. Therefore one could argue that the kind of capitalism we have today is not Smiths's original vision, but rather, a failure to implement that vision.

To be clear, I am not defending the position, and maybe that vision just cannot be implemented in practice, or the premise is wrong, etc. Just trying to answer the question as to why OP might be downvoted. We cannot generally conflate defenders of free-market capitalism with defenders of the existing capitalism. I've heard such arguments before, maybe somebody can elaborate in more detail.

[mghackerlady]

(I agree, but generally commenting about downvotes isn't something we do here from what I've seen)

[tavavex]

I didn't comment just to complain about them, though, but to tell people who leave them to elaborate on why.