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One flaw in capitalism that I often think about is its inevitable that the ones who hold the most valuable resource writes the rules of capitalism. Even when well regulated, even if we get rid of lobbying, even if we get reverse Citizens United, whoever holds the most desirable thing holds influence, and influence is destined to become corrupted in a system that divides people into winners and losers via competition.
I think economies at a bare minimum should be optional to engage with for luxuries only and that we as a species should learn to value more meaningful things other than pretty metals and hollow social praise from strangers.
Honestly I think capitalism was born of the mental immaturity of our species. It sounds great if you don't know much about the world, but the more you do the less capitalism makes sense.
Nobody invented capitalism, it just developed from people buying and selling stuff. Specialization meant people didn't produce all of the things they needed themselves. So people had to trade. From there systems developed.
And it's generally a good thing that people can choose for themselves what they value and buy the things they want. What's important to you, won't be important to me. There won't be a world where we all want the same things unless you make it so everyone in the world thought exactly the same way. And that doesn't sound like a better world to me.
You are reading this on an electronic device. Do you need that device, or is it a luxury? In the Soviet Union they decided only party leaders needed telephones, so only the party leaders had them. Seems convenient logic whenever those with power need things everyone else doesn't, but you can understand the logic. Why would someone working in a factory need to own a telephone?
It's better to have people have the choice about what they want to buy and have a system that's simply producing the things people want to buy. But that means some people will buy luxury items. But how do you even determine what is a luxury item? Is a telephone a luxury item? If people can buy what they want and items people want to buy are being produced and the price of those items is determined by the value of the resources used to make those products, no one needs to worry about what is a luxury and what isn't.
Yes that means some people will get wealthy. How about just taxing the wealthy people?
Ultimately every system ends up with inequality. Somehow it needs to be determined what people need and what are luxuries they don't need. People in power will always decide they need to have more than everyone else. Best you can do is have an educated population that has the ability to remove people from power when they abuse it. But even then, people will be stupid and get scammed. But that will happen in any system.
Sure, but I think that's a little bit like saying that democracy is the worst form of government - except all the others.
Rip out capitalism completely, and what do you get? You start over with everyone substinance farming. How do you get people interested in making things if not the promise of profit?
Also, I don't believe anything is destined, personally. It's all choice, and sure, natural human nature, but we can work against those things.
People WANT to make things and profit has nothing to do with that desire. In our grind culture we often can't help but think how we could turn a profit from our hobbies but that's a perversion driven by capitalism. People make art, clothes, food, games, movies, music, we innovate with ways to save time or make something easier or more accessible, we solve problems in creative ways, and we do it all without a profit motive. Making things isn't a problem capitalism solves - it extracts value, it drives greed, it demands growth.
So clearly I take issue with the question of how to get people to make things. I don't have an easy answer for how we motivate people to do garbage collection or brain surgery without money but I also think we could figure it out if we had any amount of time where we weren't consumed by trying to make more of it.
I think part of the solution is to give people free stuff - but make those items generic. People like having identity. So we give everyone access to a basic toothpaste, but they can choose to buy a luxury paste that is orange-flavored toothpaste. Same goes for clothing - a basic clothing set that can be obtained for free, but things like print patterns, graphics, and so forth, have to be bought.
In effect, people spend money to make their life more interesting. Generic food, universal services, and so forth are all boring, functional, and free.
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My concepts are a bit more involved than what I described here, as there are multiple angles that can be applied towards preventing fiscal obesity and political corruption. For example, an absolutely fixed income for jobs might initially sound limiting for the rank and file, but capitalism uses "circumstance" to judge the worth of workers - which gives leaders an excuse to cut wages to the bone, or to fire people they dislike, or to give the executive class fancy compensation packages. We can create floors and ceilings to what a worker can have.
More approaches, such as requiring workers to periodically elect the leadership of their companies, would also help.