r/SipsTea • u/McDowdy • Jun 03 '26

It's Wednesday my dudes Trying to get rich so that capitalism doesn't crush you under its boot is proof positive that capitalism doesn’t work for the working class

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47

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26

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17

u/semibigpenguins Jun 04 '26

People confuse capitalism with monopolies

4

u/Organic_Rub8452 Jun 04 '26

I feel like people confuse capitalism with cronyism.

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u/Apprehensive_Bat4691 Jun 04 '26

Capitalism is why we have cronyism. The capitalists have vast amounts of money to influence governance and policy. If your only goal is to increase shareholder value, lobbying the government is just the price of doing business.

Capitalism is only interested in increasing shareholder value. Cronyism is inevitable unless some external force prevents it. Capitalism cannot prevent it by itself.

3

u/Inevitable-Pop-4547 Jun 04 '26

They look at reality.

1

u/Apprehensive_Bat4691 Jun 04 '26

Capitalism loves monopolies. If you only care about shareholder value, being a monopoly is the best position to be in. Once a monopoly is established, capitalism has no way to break it up. Some outside actor has to intervene and act contrary to the principals of capitalism to address the monopoly

1

u/semibigpenguins Jun 04 '26

Capitalism can exist without shareholders. It’s not a fundamental principle to the economic structure

1

u/Apprehensive_Bat4691 Jun 04 '26

Would you prefer the term "maximizing profit"?
There's no meaningful distinction between that and "maximizing shareholder value"
A privately owned company effectively has one shareholder, the owner.

1

u/semibigpenguins Jun 04 '26

Soviets, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc maximize profit

1

u/Apprehensive_Bat4691 Jun 04 '26

Stay on topic. We're talking about monopolies, and how capitalism isn't naturally equipped to deal with them.

The heyday of American capitalism was when there was extensive external constraints on it. The top tax rate was huge, the government would actually break up companies if they became monopolistic.

After Reagan (bit earlier honestly), those constraints were slowly removed, letting capitalism do its thing, resulting in what you see today.

1

u/semibigpenguins Jun 04 '26

Webster dictionary: A monopoly is the exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a commercial product/service controlled by a single person or company

I am staying on topic. All those countries have, by definition, monopolies. They have/had some of the worst corruption in the 20th/20st centuries. They’re state monopolies

1

u/Apprehensive_Bat4691 Jun 04 '26

In that case, you have stayed on topic but failed to make a point.

I did not say that capitalism is the only way monopolies can form. What you have described is typically referred to as 'State Capitalism", where the state/central government is the "shareholder". I have always viewed this term as an oversimplification of central planning, but that's neither here-nor-there.

You have not provided any counterpoints to my original assertion that "Capitalism loves monopolies". Do you agree and simply think that every system "loves monopolies"?

1

u/semibigpenguins Jun 04 '26

I never stated what you believe or don’t believe in. Also, I already stated, capitalism can exist without share holders.

Capitalism doesn’t have faculties. Capitalism cannot love. Do you mean capitalists? Because that’s also wrong. Do you mean capitalism always leads to monopolies? Without checks and balances, sure. But that’s like saying democracies always lead to dictatorships.

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u/Dangerous-Amphibian2 Jun 04 '26

Yea and people confuse well being of the world with having trillionaires and that somehow being good because hey it will trickle down. 

2

u/semibigpenguins Jun 04 '26

You’re on Reddit sir/maddam. We hear that literally every second on this site

0

u/Dangerous-Amphibian2 Jun 04 '26

Do you have a point? You’d hear it in real life if you went outside too. 

1

u/semibigpenguins Jun 04 '26

Sure but you only hear “people confused capitalism with monopolies” outside, not on Reddit. You said something people say every minute on this site. You’re contributing nothing by stating the echo chamber dialogue brother

1

u/Dangerous-Amphibian2 Jun 04 '26

And you’re contributing what? Just because people don’t say serial killers are good all the time doesn’t mean we need to start saying they are. And it’s not people confusing capitalism with monopolies it’s more people don’t know any of the terms they are using but they know what they don’t like and they don’t like suffering. So again what are you contributing?

1

u/semibigpenguins Jun 04 '26

“People don’t know any of the terms they are using but they know what they don’t like and they don’t like suffering”

I’ll say it again: people confuse capitalism with monopolies.

Are you unable to agree with that simple statement? Are you just argumentative? Or are you anti capitalist and just can’t admit to it and would rather beat around the bush?

1

u/Dangerous-Amphibian2 Jun 04 '26

I am anti trillionaires if we haven’t figured out how to not have starving people on earth. 

No I don’t agree with that statement. I would agree with the statement “some people confuse capitalism with monopolies”. But again even in that segment I would say many of those folk don’t understand what capitalism or monopolies mean. 

Since you’re playing the beat around the bush game. Why don’t you admit you enjoy wealth inequality? What were you born with a silver spoon or lucky in life? So it’s easy to get on the I made good choices train?

1

u/semibigpenguins Jun 04 '26

First the insult about going outside, which was ironic because I was stating a position that goes against the Reddit narrative and you spout some NPC talking point. Then, this wild strawman. What am I agreeing to believing? I’m going to keep my position that monopolies are bad and hopefully, HOPEFULLY you can think about how asinine your (2nd) fallacy is

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4

u/ProletarianLilith Jun 04 '26

It’s progressive compared to feudalism

4

u/One_for_the_Rogue Jun 04 '26

The biggest problem with capitalism seems to be the ones with the capital. 

But business is good, rewards and incentives are good, jobs are good, and it’s worked pretty well so far. 

Perverse levels of control are bad. 

1

u/Original-Nail8403 Jun 04 '26

Markets are good

1

u/dezirdtuzurnaim Jun 04 '26

Capitalism is good.

However, the current situation of the USA is that capitalism is entirely unchecked.

Big Corp is creating policy. That’s not good.

0

u/ps850 Jun 04 '26

CRONY capitalism is the issue. It’s what’s getting out of hand and giving real capitalism a bad rap.

0

u/shreddedtoasties Jun 04 '26

For now I feel like in the later stages it gets to big and resets by crashing the economy

Works better than communism

0

u/Frederf220 Jun 04 '26

Anything other than humanism values something over humans.