I see you like things that work. We’ve decided that we’ll break it, and sell you the solution. We call it service.
Them: this is pretty good right? And affordable too!
Me: yeah it’s decent, don’t touch anything
Them: we’ve put in ads
Me: what? I don’t want ads, wtf
Them: bro, totally have you covered. No ads for $12.99 a month
Me: arr matey, don’t worry yerself 🦜🏴☠️
This is why I felt like the best thing we all could do is reject every ounce of advertising we could. Marker up all the billboards. If you’re watching a video and x3 3 minutes ads play, Leave comments about how the product gave you a bad rash. Make it so all these companies remove themselves from spaces we enjoy. It would also help get rid of the fucking content creators trying to be a copy of the latest and greatest channel but instead waters down the internet with the 10000000 clone of the latest and greatest
I agree. I also think ads do influence us way more than almost anyone would believe or admit. Why else would companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on ads without batting an eye. Many products cost as much or less than their ad campaign cost to make.
So I try to avoid ads as much as possible. I haven’t seen or heard an ad in a long time aside from billboards and posters which are basically impossible to avoid.
Hmm, sorry my associate was meaning “temporary solution”, about every year you will need a new one. And we are so generous that if you buy two years in advance we will give you a 10% rebate and a big ole sticker with our brand in bold colors on it so you can give us free publicity.
We beat scarcity. We’re up to our eyeballs in labor-saving technology. We just left people in charge who cannot imagine using it to save labor.
Exactly, automation shouldn’t kick some people out of jobs and leave others just as overworked as before, it should automate things that don’t absolutely need humans and just decrease the workload of (currently) irreplaceable people so that more people can work as much as one did before and still get the same salary.
Hell, unemployment as a whole should not exist in the modern era. If there’s “too few jobs”, decrease working hours and increase wages accordingly so the total monthly/yearly/whatever pay is the same. And if there just physically aren’t enough resources to accomodate so many people having decent salaries (which is absolutely not the case right now), then we should start talking about overpopulation.
The problem is as long there is no national wide law that forces companies to do so one would have much higher costs employing 2 people half time for the same job as 1 full time (with unpaid overtime of course as a bonus). And a Business that can’t compete won’t exist long. Or rather nobody even tries it because only greedy people are getting in high power positions for some reason.
And if there just physically aren’t enough resources to accomodate so many people having decent salaries (which is absolutely not the case right now), then we should start talking about overpopulation.
Don’t blame overpopulation, blame the C-levels who think they need to take home 500k+ a year salaries.
It’s about control. They don’t want to lose that control. They don’t deserve that control. We need to take control back.
You don’t deserve control either.
This is public interest ad made by myself- use your fu*king brain consumer brainnnn
But have you considered the following:
Capitalism good because freedom and innovation.
Bet you feel dumb now.
No because freedom and innovation have nothing to do with capitalism? If anything the opposite?
It’s sarcasm friend, I know capitalism is basically the opposite of that.
What! You mean I can’t make new things or grow because of financial predators?
Mhh yes freedom through capitalism. I love the freedom Apple gives me over their device that I bought but don’t own. Or when Samsung locks devices in mexico because they can and people in mexico dare to buy used phones.
You don’t understand, that’s for your protection so you can feel safer and even more freedomery
Darn, what was I thinking /s
I bet OP posted this using an iphone, I am very ismart vuvusela
/s
The thing about capitalism is that it DOES promote freedom and innovation. The problem is that continuous innovation is rarely profitable so companies generally won’t bother innovating after a certain point and the text on the reverse side of the freedom coin is “free from consequences”
Capitalism is like… a good start to a much better economic system we haven’t figured out yet.
“I’ve made a machine that does the labor of 10 men!”
“You’re going to still pay the other nine, right?”
…
You’re still going to pay the other nine, right?
So the ten men can all do a tenth of the labor now right?
Oh you’re going to fire nine, cut the tenth’s pay, and make him work even longer hours, and keep the vast majority of the profits for yourself, got it. That’s fine too I guess…
“I’ve
madebought a machine that does the labor of 10 men!”“You’re going to still pay the other nine, right?”
“Why? I bought it to get more of the money to myself. Why would I pay for something and get nothing in return? Why would I just lose money for no reason?”
Seriously though, the dynamics are pretty clear, there’s no investment without the expectation for extra profit (even for a state. Invest in a new railroad with the expectation of higher economic activity and therefore more taxes). Otherwise it’s just charity
What if the teen men are the ones who own the machine?
That’s called a cooperative, they exist. You share both the profits and the risks of the enterprise. Not all enterprises succeed. Also, some of the men need to be the managers, accountants, sales etc. It’s not just about the factory workers.
Otherwise, more indirectly, they could be the shareholders of the company. Some companies even use shares as payment for their managers and top employees in order to encourage them to improve the profits of the company.
Otherwise they could just be both the owners and the only people working at a company. If the machine ends up generating lots of profits, they could all ten decide to retire and live off those profits while hiring an eleventh person to operate the machine, or they could reinvest in the company, buy even more machines, hire more people and bring in even more profits, like a complex game of cookie clicker.
Choose the one you prefer and try making it a reality if you want that.
I hope for your sake that when the factory workers can’t afford to feed their kids and they drag you from your home and try to beat you to death in front of your family they find that argument compelling.
I’m one of the ten men, I’m just a worker like anyone else here, I can just use the little grey matter I have to try and understand the world and look at it with more objective eyes, instead of killing anyone who disagrees with me.
Fucking fascist pos. If you want to kill families go to Russia or Israel and look at how fun it is.
For more info on how automation works under capitalism, read chapters 15-16 of capital
Chapter 15: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm
If you still pay the other 9,why would you even look for a machine though?
Maybe the machine also does it with less waste and more consistently, the same reason woodworkers make jigs for complex cuts or identical parts.
Still investing and taking recurring upkeep costs for something that may or may not yield more income.
I created a new email service that prevents spam and organized your email. If it works out and I become successful, I can imagine Google trying to buy it, and if I say no, all of a sudden Gmail starts having issues receiving mail from my service. Gmail and Exchange together share about 70% of the business email market, so they can destroy smaller competitors if they aren’t willing to sell. Yay capitalism!
Oh I haven’t seen that one yet. Beatie’s talks are always great.
US healthcare system in a nutshell. Said nut cost $120 in hospital bill.
Pssst, you dropped a pair of 0s, here you go: $12,000 please.
Unregulated capitalism that made worse by the lack of QOL improvements by the govt is what made these new shitty electronics and tools profitable.
It’s* getting old.
Words is hard
It’s ok, you can edit titles on lemmy :)
Cubicle went from utopia to dystopia in not even a week.
The sight of Theresa May dance-walking to ABBA was an insult to the United Kingdom and Sweden :(
It was also an insult to walking and dancing
and sight and insults
Is that what’s going on here? Is it as terrible and hilarious as Trump’s “double handjobs” move to Village People?
Ahha this works nice, now lets break it
I will never get tired of seeing these pictures
How do you expect it to be free?
deleted by creator
Inventor: invents something Capitalism: rewards him
Inventor: invents something communism: *cricket noises"
Inventor: invents something Capitalism: rewards him
Inventor invents something: capitalism has them pay to be an inventor as they are probably a grad student and then sells the patent for a pittance to a corporation they are friendly with
Inventor invents something or fails and has to try again: communism gives them free Healthcare, education, housing and food.
Not to mention that they overlooked the fact that for some people - a sizable number too - the reward can be in helping others. Not everyone is a pariah looking to churn profits while pretending to care about other people’s needs.
Unfortunately the barrier to do this in capitalism is high, because like you mention, if you’re devoting your time to something that is not immediately producing profit then you may lose access to those basic needs. Companies can weather those losses, but will then want to make up the costs by - usually - using shady practices.
That’s not to say communism is the answer. But it surely isn’t capitalism as we have it today.
I mean to get rid of profits ya gotta get rid of the bourgeoisie, and then you’re in a classless society.
capitalism has them pay to be an inventor
I live in a capitalist country with free education. Healthcare is free if you cant afford it and is always a percentage of your income otherwise. Housing and food is also free if you cant afford it.
I have trouble seeing why capitalism is supposedly so bad
Social democracy isn’t sustainable though, it requires the threat of a revolution to force the capitalists into a compromise and will be rolled back when that threat passes in the name of profit.
Philo Farnsworth invented the television, as well as making significant contributions to microscopy, medical procedures and nuclear fusion. He had to fight legal battles throughout his career because of patent fuckery, and never saw the fruits of his labor. His research was constantly underfunded and he died of alcoholism in relative obscurity.
As we sit in a capitalist society surrounded by incredible technology zero people could afford ten years ago.
Yeah capitalism. Always ruining everything 🙄
In case you want the good faith counterargument (I know, I know, socialist wall of text):
I’d be willing to bet you have a different definition of “capitalism” compared to socialists. For most people, capitalism is just trade, markets, commerce, etc. None of that is incompatible with socialism (broadly speaking). When socialists talk about capitalism, they’re referring, specifically, to private ownership of capital. It’s not the buying and selling, it’s that ownership of companies is separate from labor.
We don’t owe technological development to capitalists, we owe it to engineers, scientists, and researchers. We owe art to artists, performance to performers. Socialists want those people to be the primary beneficiaries of their own work, not someone who may or may not even work at a company, but whose wealth means they can profit off of other people’s labor by virtue of owning the property those people need to do their jobs.
And you’ve probably been bothered by enshittification in one form or another. Some product or service you like has probably gotten worse over time. That’s not a decision made by the people who take pride in their creation, or the laborers who want long-term security. It comes from the capitalist class that doesn’t really give a shit about any of that, they just want quarterly profits, long-term survival be damned. That’s capitalism, as the meme was getting at.
The thing is, that separation of capital owner and worker that you’re referring to is the arrangement people come to when given the freedom to choose their arrangements.
To me capitalism is defined by free markets. A free market is one in which the economic relationships are consensual.
Turns out, many people would rather have a steady job than be in business for themselves. I’ve done both, and I see the merits of both. Right now, I choose to work for a huge corporation. As long as I show up I get paid. That’s working well for me.
What you’re referring to as the laborers getting the benefit of their labor is something that’s already permissible in a free market, and it happens a lot. I was a freelance software developer for many years. I also had a business building and selling easels. And cookies. And smoothies, on a subscription model. You read that right: smoothie subscriptions.
So while it may seem that my definition based on free markets, and your definition based on the separation of ownership and labor, are different definitions, I see them as the same thing.
Or maybe, to be precise, free markets lead to capital accumulation and when capital accumulates beyond an individual’s ability to work it themselves and they hire someone else to work it, capitalism begins. So maybe free markets lead to capitalism by your definition, as a state of wealth distribution and a set of working relationships.
The real key point is that this set of relationships you call capitalism, is the natural result of people being free to do as they see fit.
To me capitalism is defined by free markets. A free market is one in which the economic relationships are consensual.
If you think a system where the means of production are owned by a class of people and another class of people must sell their labor power in order to survive (the definition of capitalism according to Marx) is full of consensual economic relationships I worry about your definition of consent.
The means of production are not entirely owned by a seperate class nor is the barrier to entry for many industries so high that it is entirely impossible for the average joe to enter.
Sure some industries are nigh impossible to get into, like pharmaceuticals for example, there are much bigger industries that have lower barriers like machine shops (which are really medium entry but you can scale them), and manufacturing via 3d print hubs.
Not to mention aoftware development which is a fucking wonder when it comes to potential money vs barrier to entry.
Certain construction contractors and engineering consulting firms can be opened up with fairly low barrier to entry.
I’m sleepy so my replies may not seem very coherent so tell me if you don’t understand what im saying
Look up how much debt the average US citizen is in and tell me what low barrier to entry industries they can break into
You can take this further, and discuss how many empty homes are owned by corporations that are sitting empty, along with how many homeless people there are in the richest country in the world. Or how much food is thrown away while people remain hungry. Both of these things are happening because housing homeless people and feeding hungry people just aren’t profitable.
That’s my main problem with American capitalism. Along with capital owning our politicians and passing anti-competitive laws designed to allow the ones at the top to stay at the top unchallenged. That’s probably a different discussion though. The “Free Market” is a myth.
Absolutely. While I can be convinced on markets for some things (with regulation to protect consumers and prevent monopolies), it completely falls apart in others. Necessities absolutely should not rely on free markets because capital holders hold an extortionate amount of power, most people have little to none, and if it’s more profitable to let some people die, then the profit motive will let those people die.
Necessities must rely on free markets because free markets are the only mechanisms productive enough to cover those necessities.
Health care, education, and housing are three markets that we have attempted to control on the basis that they’re necessary so we shouldn’t take any chances.
As a result, health care, education, and housing are ultra expensive and scarce, and major sources of stress and worth for people.
But far more fundamental than any of those, and hence capable of producing far greater suffering when lacking, is food. Food is a much more free market than health care, education, and housing, and as a result food is abundant and cheap.
The constantly-driven message that capitalism cuts people off from things is deep within our brains. And it makes sense: you imagine someone wanting to eat and not having money and they don’t eat and that’s a horrible thought. But it’s not what happens. We buy and sell food all the time, and we also give enormous amounts of food to people for free. Heck we just had an annual ritual last night based on giving people food. I flew a sign once that said “food only please” and I ate very well. Like, people saw that sign and went to buy me a $50 steak then came back to give it to me.
All I’m saying is: please just try and differentiate between the things that are mostly handled by free market, and the things that are centrally controlled, and then ask yourself what is abundant and what is scarce.
I think you’ll find that capitalism gives more away as an afterthought than other economic systems even produce in total.
In 2018, 11.1% of American households were food insecure. While this is better than many developing and historically colonized countries, this statistic is still worse than for many other developed nations.
Health care in the US is so expensive because there is currently a capitalistic private ownership of insurance because historic efforts for socialized medicine were crushed by the ruling class. Additionally, efforts to implement socialized programs have been systematically handicapped by private insurance company stakeholders.
In Finland, a country with socialized education, tertiary education is free to citizens. In the US, the average cost of attendance to a public university, the cheapest category of 4-year tertiary institution, is $26,000.
Housing prices are skyrocketing because private equity groups and hedge funds are rapidly buying property to drive up prices for profit.
You are pointing out problems that capitalism and free markets have given us, and pointing the finger at socialism, when efforts to socialize each of these necessities have been systematically squashed. You are contributing to misinformation by writing this post. Please do some research and back up your claims with reliable sources before spouting nonsense you don’t understand on the internet.
Good things exist, pay no attention to the bad things!
