Capitalism in and of itself is a turbo charger for the economy, but like a real turbo charger it need regulations to not destroy itself and the engine.
that’s a pretty good metaphor but assumes regulatory capture isn’t baked into the cake and pulling up the ladder after consolidating all the wealth isn’t the entire point.
You’re correct that everything is being held up by capitalism right now so if you remove it then everything collapses.
We need to build alternative structures to hold things up before making any attempt on the current system, which should be as simple as using the alternatives instead but power was never given up without a fight.
I think market systems in general lead to exploitation and democracy is just the tyranny of the majority. We can do better and we should do better.
Democracy doesn’t have to be a tyranny of the majority. In its purest form it is. And that is why constitutional republics ensure citizen’s rights in their constitutions. We need a similar system for economy.
A sketch of that would a be a system where you’d have constitutional republic with independent legislature, judiciary and executive branches. Separated from the economic players as well as possible. They would provide the the outer bounds of a level playing field.
Economy would a market economy, where ownership of companies would be distributed among the stakeholders of the system workers, customers and the executive. Similar to how governments ideally function. Workers would have “legislative” power in the company. They would be responsible for company policy. Executives would implement those policies. Customers would decide how well the company performs by either buying their products or withholding their patronage. This would need a lot of guard rails in place. But this would prevent centralization of power in the hands of an “owner”-class.
Transitioning to this type of system would not be that difficult. As most of what it has is already there. In western democracies. At least on paper. There would be a lot of resistance to this from the “owner”-class. I have no doubt of that.
Unregulated capitalism*
Capitalism in and of itself is a turbo charger for the economy, but like a real turbo charger it need regulations to not destroy itself and the engine.
that’s a pretty good metaphor but assumes regulatory capture isn’t baked into the cake and pulling up the ladder after consolidating all the wealth isn’t the entire point.
You are absolutely right, my comment assumed regulation and acting in good faith.
I am mainly just so tired of everyone just going “capitalism bad”, when that is not the single answer.
Eradicating capitalism would be terrible and idiotic.
I am a firm believer in a social democratic system with a well regulated free market.
You’re correct that everything is being held up by capitalism right now so if you remove it then everything collapses. We need to build alternative structures to hold things up before making any attempt on the current system, which should be as simple as using the alternatives instead but power was never given up without a fight.
I think market systems in general lead to exploitation and democracy is just the tyranny of the majority. We can do better and we should do better.
Democracy doesn’t have to be a tyranny of the majority. In its purest form it is. And that is why constitutional republics ensure citizen’s rights in their constitutions. We need a similar system for economy.
A sketch of that would a be a system where you’d have constitutional republic with independent legislature, judiciary and executive branches. Separated from the economic players as well as possible. They would provide the the outer bounds of a level playing field. Economy would a market economy, where ownership of companies would be distributed among the stakeholders of the system workers, customers and the executive. Similar to how governments ideally function. Workers would have “legislative” power in the company. They would be responsible for company policy. Executives would implement those policies. Customers would decide how well the company performs by either buying their products or withholding their patronage. This would need a lot of guard rails in place. But this would prevent centralization of power in the hands of an “owner”-class.
Transitioning to this type of system would not be that difficult. As most of what it has is already there. In western democracies. At least on paper. There would be a lot of resistance to this from the “owner”-class. I have no doubt of that.
as always any system is only as good as the people perpetuating it.