Kapitalism
-
Copyright and inheritance can’t exist in a capitalist society
Under true capitalism, everyone starts at 0 regardless of their birth and the only way to make more money than someone else is to work more hours regardless of profession. Over saturation of a given market is fixed by the invisible hand where people just move onto something that gives more hours
the only way to make more money than someone else is to work more hours regardless of profession
Workers aren't capitalists. The whole point of Capitalism is to ensure the ruling class never has to do the actual work. Capitalists make their money by exploiting workers, not working themselves.
Capitalists are people who own the means of production. Working in a capitalist system you will never earn enough to buy the factory. Inheritance is one of the main ways to become a capitalist. Sure some people get lucky but with few exceptions if you are rich the way you got rich was by exploiting other people .
Copyright was a halfway decent idea when it first came out. Give a chance for an artist or inventor to profit from their work for a few years and then it becomes public property. Thanks to corporations like Disney, that has all been twisted, and now it's used as a cudgel to keep others from competing and it takes almost 100 years for something to go out of copyright now (thanks congress).
A system where you do the work and get paid for your value is closer to Socialism than capitalism.
-
The ideals of capitalism were to punish the rich land owners/nobles who were wealthy without ever working and empower the workers who were poor despite working for their whole lives
It’s a good lesson to teach that the wealthy would rather rebrand their image than give up wealth
The ideals of capitalism were to punish the rich land owners/nobles who were wealthy without ever working and empower the workers who were poor despite working for their whole lives
Where are you getting this from?
-
I think their point was that in a way, patents are supposed to be more equitable because it allows the inventor to meet their basic needs by being the one to invent the patent.
There's also the argument that while innovation skyrockets after a parent opens up, there would be less incentive to invent new things if Walmart could just copy it for cheaper the day after you show how you make it.
Or people would be super secretive with instructions for how to make their products that innovations could die with their creators since they have no incentive to release it.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I think we need to differentiate between the potential of something versus the reality of something. We see people being super secretive of innovations right now and because they're patented they cannot even be reverse engineered. Innovations do die all of the time because the thing that is patented is a black box and even people who would reverse engineered it would get copyright trolled to hell.
My favourite example is spare parts for trains. Because the parts themselves are encumbered, it is illegal to repair trains yourself, thank you Siemens and Bombardier. Because if you get caught manufacturing spare parts, which are the intellectual property of someone else, you'll get into big trouble. How exactly does this behaviour help with innovation?
Another example are video codecs. AV1 was specifically engineered to avoid any sort of patent trolling. How much better would AV1 be if all of that engineering time could have been spent on innovation instead of trying to avoid encumbrance?
Also in your example, if there was a small invention and Walmart would just copy it, would the small inventor really have the resources to pursue Walmart in court for years on end? Best example is Amazon. They steal innovations all of the time and because they're doing it with small inventors, they face zero consequences because they do not have the resources to compete with a megacorporation.
But the biggest problem I have with patents is that it's not even internally consistent with capitalism. Example being, capitalism says competition is an objective good, while a monopoly is an objective bad. So why grant an unlimited monopoly for something if competition is good? Because if people were competing, then everyone would try to make the best version of something.
I mean, the theory may be pretty neat from some perspective, but the reality is we get the worst of both worlds. Innovations get killed off because everything is super proprietary and reverse engineering is prohibited and megacorporations can do whatever they want because, well, it's a free country. If you don't like it, just sue the megacorporation for years on end and just maybe get recourse for their transgression.
Corporations will do whatever is most profitable for them. If the strategy to patent something and then copyright troll the world to hell and back is the most efficient thing, that will be done. If the strategy to make the best product possible and get the most customers possible is the most efficient thing, that will be done instead. This would be internally consistent with the ideology of capitalism. " Why should the big government intervene with the free innovation of the free market? Let the invisible hand guide the innovation and may the best innovation win."
Edit: Also about trains. Train companies with the resources repair them all of the time, luckily. Because try to piss off someone who holds the power to just annihilate hundreds of millions worth in contracts overnight if they wanted.
-
And it went pretty well, until they bought enough politicians to change it.
wrote last edited by [email protected]So taxing the rich is an unstable temporary solution, and more fundamental changes are required.
-
I'm down. I think every year, we ought to take the richest person in the country and redistribute 50% of their assets.
And their body parts as well
-
The ideals of capitalism were to punish the rich land owners/nobles who were wealthy without ever working and empower the workers who were poor despite working for their whole lives
Where are you getting this from?
wrote last edited by [email protected]The Wealth of Nations/Adam Smith
-
Oh boy here we go. What is a corporation? What does it mean for corporations to not exist? How exactly does that even work in practice?
Yes creative scientist invent things spontaneously without expectation of reward. But no scientist will contribute as much as a well funded and motivated team with a clear goal. And I'm sure all the scientists love it when you tell them they won't be credited for their work and literally anyone will be able to take their idea and do whatever they want with it, that'll do so much to help foster humanity's innate desire to learn and be creative.
And it's about coercing people who won't act in good faith with the system into doing so. Most people would keep a secret to make money especially if their livelihood depended on it. Why force creatives to choose between sharing their works and profiting from them?
Private companies don't need intellectual property. A corporation will steal your creation and outcompete you in profiting from it if given the opportunity. Intellectual property laws are what stop them from doing so. Again, the system has been eroded and misused by companies but at its core it protects workers and their labour.
I'm sure all the scientists love it when you tell them they won't be credited for their work and literally anyone will be able to take their idea and do whatever they want with it, that'll do so much to help foster humanity's innate desire to learn and be creative
Literally yes. Why do you think every fucking scientist loves sci-hub and is against Elsevier, and even submits their papers to arxiv for anyone to read for free? You clearly have no experience in the field and are talking out of your arse
What does it mean for corporations to not exist?
Through the existence of exclusively public institutions, whether cooperative or government-owned, which don't work in direct competition but either in cooperation or in emulated competition (I.e. a contest instead of a struggle to drive each other off business).
And it's about coercing people who won't act in good faith with the system into doing so
This literally doesn't happen in public research.
Most people would keep a secret to make money especially if their livelihood depended on it
In public research it works backwards. The more you publish (i.e. make available to the public), the more you earn. You really don't seem to understand the concept of public research.
A corporation will steal your creation and outcompete you in profiting from it if given the opportunity.
Great, so make knowledge accessible to everyone and abolish private corporations.
-
Maybe i should rethink my stance.
Don't bother, you tankies are incapable of logical thinking.
I'm sorry that you have to insult me like that. There are many ways to train healthy discussion habits.
-
Surely people going to jail for the wrong reason is something exclusive to the Soviet Union and not to all countries with a legal system?
It isn't common for people to be sent to slave camps as a punishment for years without knowing why they were charged. That’sthe kind of evil unique to totalitarian shitholes like the USSR.
Your boss may have spent his teens in a gulag, but the fact that he lived to tell you that is because the Soviets managed to miraculously defeat the Nazis and prevent them from genociding the Slavic peoples they categorised as “Untermenschen” according to the infamous “Generalplan Ost”, which implied genocide of almost all people between Germany and the Urals. If it wasn’t for the Soviets, your former boss would have been murdered in a concentration camp by the nazis.
The same nation you are praising put him IN a concentration camp for no fucking reason other than potentially because of his race.
Like, damn, I feel sorry for your boss, but in dire circumstances such as those of the late 30s / early 40s in the USSR, excesses and abuses were sadly made because of the overwhelming conditions.
No, you don’t. You wouldn’t be supporting their evil actions in this case if you had any empathy.
You are making a lot of apologies for overt racism, why are you doing this and why do you think the USSR’s racism should be praised?
It isn't common for people to be sent to slave camps as a punishment for years without knowing why they were charged
Ever heard of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo?
That’sthe kind of evil unique to totalitarian shitholes like the USSR.
The Gulag episode lasted less than two decades, by the mid-50s it was a thing of the past and never resurfaced in the country. Almost as if it was a mass hysteria response to Nazi infiltration, and not born out of a desire to oppress people inherently. Again, at the peak of the Gulag system, the prison population was similar to that of modern USA. Much more authoritarian if you ask me
The same nation you are praising
Yes, I'm praising this nation because even if it did mistakes, by industrialising eastern Europe and by eliminating Nazis it saved hundreds of millions of lives.
You wouldn’t be supporting their evil actions in this case if you had any empathy
I'm not supporting the excesses of the Gulag repression, it's something that we can and should criticise. I'm supporting the rest of things of the country, which led to the saving of hundreds of millions of people from hunger, disease and Nazi genocide. The Gulag repression seems horrible until you realize the Nazis murdered 27 million Soviets at that time. It was an extreme measure carried out in extreme times.
You are making a lot of apologies for overt racism
I'm not. If he was jailed for his race that's wrong. You're just making too much criticism of the country thst saved Europe from fascism and which saved hundreds of millions of lives in the process.
-
You could literally open up a book someday
That's what you should start with.
check your info, gulag inmates were paid.
Check, you i.. Tankie. Or just check another response to your moronic post.
cliche of "forced labor to the cold Siberia
Listen, you moron: millions of people died in Siberia, murdered by your beloved Stalin. Denying this is like denying holocaust. Go and fuck yourself you genocide denier.
You haven't read my comment because it's too long for your peanut brain, or refuse to address 90% of it because it goes against your propagandised beliefs. Have a good day, ignorant.
-
The Wealth of Nations/Adam Smith
Just like the Bible, no one actually reads it
-
This post did not contain any content.
Capitalists say the free market is king then they go and make laws to stifle and restrict it so they can make monopolies and gouge everyone out of their hard-earned income.
-
The Game Boy alone proves this whole capitalist rhetoric wrong. It was the most successful hand held game system for two reasons, it was cheaper than the rest and it went through batteries slower, otherwise it was objectively the worst handheld game system on the market at the time. Look at the food you are able to eat, the clothes you are able to wear, and the place you are able to live and try to tell me the driving force on those decisions was quality. Capitalism is not concerned with improving anything, that is not the goal of the system.
The goal is to get the highest score.
-
the only way to make more money than someone else is to work more hours regardless of profession
Workers aren't capitalists. The whole point of Capitalism is to ensure the ruling class never has to do the actual work. Capitalists make their money by exploiting workers, not working themselves.
Capitalists are people who own the means of production. Working in a capitalist system you will never earn enough to buy the factory. Inheritance is one of the main ways to become a capitalist. Sure some people get lucky but with few exceptions if you are rich the way you got rich was by exploiting other people .
Copyright was a halfway decent idea when it first came out. Give a chance for an artist or inventor to profit from their work for a few years and then it becomes public property. Thanks to corporations like Disney, that has all been twisted, and now it's used as a cudgel to keep others from competing and it takes almost 100 years for something to go out of copyright now (thanks congress).
A system where you do the work and get paid for your value is closer to Socialism than capitalism.
Now compare democracy with both systems.
-
The Wealth of Nations/Adam Smith
Well it's blatant propaganda. Think about it, when people got rid of kings and 'nobles', they didn't take the wealth from them. Those people stayed rich and invested that money into business. The ruling class never changed, they just changed job titles.
There has also never been a system (under capitalism) where peoples wealth is taken from them when they die.
The whole idea that under Capitalism everyone "Starts from 0" is just laughable.
Capitalism was never a punishment for nobles who didn't work, it was a way for them to continue to stay in power, and still not have to work.
The vast majority of wealthy people were born wealthy. The vast majority of people who start from 0 will die with basically 0.
Adam Smith himself was born wealthy.
Very occasionally, someone like a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs will come along and be successful, but they are the exceptions to the rule. And most of their wealth came from exploiting people.
A few professions could be a path for poor people to succeed, like for example Lawyers, but you have to have the money for Law School in the first place, so most of them came from well off parents.
Capitalism wouldn't exist if it were a fair system.
-
This post did not contain any content.
Is no one going to talk about how a rune pickaxe is WAAY more expensive than a bronze pick?
-
This one is appealing in that they refund the fee even if it's from some other bank. So you can go to the ATM at the corner shop that charges $3 to withdraw, and get that refunded at the end of the quarter. Most banks don't have fees at their own ATM, but this is no fees anywhere. For rich people.
There's a few credit unions that will do that even. (With a refund limit per month ofc)
-
Copyright and inheritance can’t exist in a capitalist society
Under true capitalism, everyone starts at 0 regardless of their birth and the only way to make more money than someone else is to work more hours regardless of profession. Over saturation of a given market is fixed by the invisible hand where people just move onto something that gives more hours
Copyright used to have a hard limit in years. Inheritance used to pack a substantial tax.
-
In a classic example you have a village with 2 bakeries, one of the bakers came up with a machine to kneed the bread, so he can make more bread and sell it cheaper. This is sort of the story people tell to show how great capitalism is.
But we have reached a point where that one bakery now owns a chain of bakers, adds ingredients to the bread to make it more addictive, skips on actual ingredients needed for bread and replaces them with sawdust, made donations to the current political party so any competition has to jump through hoops to get a bakery license, etc.
Capitalism only works if it's regulated. Unregulated capitalism just becomes feudalism again. In your example, the owner of the bakery chain no longer has to innovate or compete. They simply own something and wait for money to be delivered to them.
Of course, for the government to be able to regulate things, it needs to be bigger and more powerful than the businesses it's regulating. You can't have Amazon being worth 2.3 trillion because it can easily make itself immune from competition and immune from regulators.
A mixed capitalist / socialist economy is the best solution we've come up with so far that actually seems to work in the real world. Only the most insane would want things like fire services to be fully privatized, or for every road to be a privately owned toll road. But, a fully state owned economy didn't really work either. Trying that caused the USSR to collapse, and it caused China to switch to a different version of a capitalist / communist / socialist setup. The real issue is where to draw the boundaries. Most countries have decided that healthcare is something that the government should either fully control, or at least have a very strong control over. Meanwhile, the US pays more and receives less with its for-profit system. In England, they privatized water, and it seems to have been a disaster, meanwhile the socialist utopia of USA mostly has cities providing water services.
Where do you draw the line? Personally, I think Northern Europe seems to have the best results. Strong labour protections, a lot of essential things owned by / provided by the government, but with space for for-profit private enterprise too.
-
Is no one going to talk about how a rune pickaxe is WAAY more expensive than a bronze pick?
Not if you're using duplicate item cheats
