The Democracy of the founding fathers was Greek Democracy, predicated upon a slave society, and restricted to only the elite. This is the society we live in today, even with our reforms towards direct representation. The system is inherently biased towards the election of elites and against the representation of the masses. Hamilton called it “faction” when the working class got together and demanded better conditions, and mechanisms were built in (which still exist to this day) that serve to ensure the continued dominance of the elite over the masses. The suffering of the many is intentional. The opulence of the wealthy is also. This is the intended outcome.
Power always accumulates within capitalism. Large corporations don’t usually start that way, Walmart and Target started as single stores that got lucky. Capitalism is reliant on the state. We have a name for the system where capitalism existed without reliance on the state; it’s called feudalism. A competition will always end with one winner and several losers, so free market competition results in a monopoly and several failed businesses. To prevent this, governments make rules to prevent the competition from ending, which results in more wealth and capital to influence government even more and break down those rules. In capitalist society, it is the ultimate goal to become the international megacorporation that manipulates markets and suppresses worker rights to maximize profit. So, I’ll ask you, what’s the difference between corporate capitalism and this ‘true’ capitalism?
You misunderstood what I meant. What I’m saying is that corporations have taken over the governments that are supposed to be regulating them and now write the rules that benefit themselves, a.k.a. regulatory capture. This is bad. Thus why I wrote what I wrote.
Capitalism isn’t inherently bad. Unchecked capitalism will eventually become corrupted, this is known. I’m not advocating for true capitalism, I was merely making a remark about the current situation. If you read my last sentence, I’m a proponent for well regulated capitalism that’s run by a system of social democracy.
Regulatory capture was predicted well over 100 years ago. It is in inevitable outcome of the liberal Democratic capitalist model.
So while you might say, that many of our problems would be solved if we just stopped this damn regulatory capture, to do so, would reflect a lack of understanding of the inevitability of actors gaining enough capital to influence and even overpower the state. You cannot fix it through capitalism. Even soft social changes like syndicalism would only result in syndicates capturing regulatory processes , rather than corporations.
It was predicted over a 100 years ago? Lol, a 100 years ago we were trying to climb out of the Robber Baron Era, the definitive era that showed how rotten unbridled capitalism could become… until some key events, politicians, and laws helped put a stop to their total control (and then of course the Great Depression came crashing in). This is in the context of the US, anyway.
Anyway, I’m done arguing with you. Keep dreaming of the impossible, I agree it is a nice dream but I promise you it will never happen at scale until humans evolve and/or modern societies have been reduced to ash.
1867 to be exact.
Indeed, and that is around the time that the Labor Revolution started to mobilize in the US. By then, there were already the beginnings of major monopolies that would continue to snowball to their peak by the end of the 1800s/early 1900s.
I will leave off with this: I don’t entirely disagree with you. Certain industries should absolutely have no profit motive: Healthcare, basic utilities, basic infrastructure, etc. should 100% be publicly owned, funded, and operated. In the US, we’ve seen firsthand what has resulted from privatizing these goods and services (i.e. it’s been very bad).
However, in my opinion, humans are still fairly primitive animals and motive is heavily driven by immediate/short term reward. I think it would be amazing if we could abandon that short sighted thinking/ambitions and strive for a harmonious utopia of pure socialism. But I just don’t see how it’s possible when you’re dealing with billions of animals, much of whom have generational trauma that drives much of our destructive behavior. You’d need to address that trauma, cease all violence, and provide basic needs to everyone so that people can live comfortably and without fear for generations. Good luck getting the vast majority of folks on board with that goal.
socdem is a perfectly good intermediary to a socialist society, so I won’t bad talk it. However, none of the problems we currently face as a civilization can be solved through capitalism.