Ahahah it's always funny to see my old employer on this website. What's more crazy is that they appeared twice, and they are really not that important lol
The US Empire has reached the limit of its capitalistic mode of production. Now is time for Americans to consider the next step of any industrialised capitalist society; scientific socialism. It did wonder for China, Vietnam, and many more, and it can do wonders for the American people too.
capitalisn is a strawman. America is a classital liberal society. Much of capitalism follows from that, but the message of freedom is where it starts. Marix didn't dare argue against freedom ever though that was his goal so he invented capitalism as a strawman he can knock down.
Oh no is a real thing! Capitalism is a mode of production; that is a way to organise the productive forces of a society around specific social relations. It is so real it has been observed well before Marx himself. Ricardo and Smith studied its developments. It even had a beginning, back then with Italian city-states, and hopefully it will have an end, just like slavery and feudalism before. I recommend "Why socialism" by Albert Einstein as a good introduction :)
Except that America is not, and never has been, capitalist. Much like socialism or communism, capitalism has never been achieved. The closest I know any society to have come is the USA between the late 1860s and 1913. Yet, that still wasn’t a capitalist society. Half of the country was under military occupation, people were forced to segregate by law, and the USA was conquering people militarily and committing genocide in the Philippines. For capitalism to exist, people would be sacrificing in the present for investment in the future in a free market. There are no free markets, and the world operates under financialism where the future is sacrificed for the present via debt based currency and debt based capital markets. The most free market of the last 70 years has been information technology, and that is slowly changing. As it becomes regulated, the monopolies become entrenched, innovation slows, homogenization is enforced, and products undergo a diminution in quality as monopolies needn’t compete.
To this day, capitalist leaning societies outcompete socialist leaning societies. Just don’t go saying that either has ever truly existed. Socialism and capitalism are utopian fantasies. People are messy and our systems are too.
Good? Things like crypto and the current usa administration should have thought us that completely free markets are ripe for corruption and insider trading. None of that produces anything, and merely concentrates and ties together power and capital.
> As it becomes regulated, the monopolies become entrenched, innovation slows, homogenization is enforced, and products undergo a diminution in quality as monopolies needn’t compete
All of that happens because we let the monopolies do the regulation, and limit and block any antitrust action.
When people talk about a "free" market, they mean "free as in fair".
When billionaires talk about "free" market they actually mean "free as in deregulated".
I don’t think you have contradicted his point here. Purely “free markets” are just as much of an illusion as “capitalism.” At the same time, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t valuable ideas.
“Freer” markets (for some definition of free) are certainly possible. Deng liberalized China’s markets, and despite persistent and heavy state influence, it has much freer markets today than under Mao. This has been great for the Chinese economy and raised a billion people out of poverty. One could argue that this wouldn’t have happened without state direction, but you can’t ignore the effect of liberalization.
In the US, we have been gradually restricting the freedom of the productive parts of the economy, often by subsidizing scams that put legitimate competitors out of business, or allowing monopolies or private equity to destroy them despite rules intended to protect fair competition. At the same time, we have let scam industries off the leash, and they are free to basically commit open fraud with no controls. It’s a kind of freedom, I guess.
> When people talk about a "free" market, they mean "free as in fair".
> When billionaires talk about "free" market they actually mean "free as in deregulated".
> You don't get "fair" without regulation.
Correct in theory, but you have another definitional problem here.
When people talk about “regulation”, they mean protecting people and businesses against predatory behavior through fair legislation.
When modern politicians talk about “regulation” they mean handouts to friends, government guaranteed monopolies through regulatory moats, and rules designed to harm perceived opponents.
We have a real problem here and it’s going to take some serious effort to fix it before it becomes an issue of “who and whom.”
As a Spaniards, I'd say that it depends on the service. Public healthcare it's golden, private healthcare for minor stuff it's oka-ish but for hearth strokes, you are just a number, run away. Public healthcare will cover that and far more.
OTOH, the state monopoly on telecomms since elder times (Telefónica) had scam level prices for most calls and long distance calls were a ripoff; and OFC no flat rates for internet in late 90's. Then the market opened for tons of telecos/ISP's and the prices plummetted down.
I appreciate the sentiment of the author. However, when it comes to politicians in the West, it's always better to assume malice over ignorance. These people know what they are doing. They simply goals and interests completely opposed to the common man. At the end, it's all about class. Hence why open letters to politicians are of very little use or effect.
Hezbollah, Iran and extremely difficult economic situation in Lebanon, meaning there are no social lifts apart from taking Iran’s money and “being part of resistance” facing pretty certain death, plus nasty antisemitic culture and propaganda. These are the reasons Hezbollah attacked Israel and Israel issued evacuation instructions to the civilian population.
BTW the extremely difficult situation is also caused by Hezbollah, Iran and PLO before that.
reply