RavenheartApr 6
The fact that #Capitalism depends so heavily on supplementation and regulation in order even somewhat to function is a powerful indicator of its ineptitude as an economic system. It's not a good dog that must be muzzled. We can do so much better.
Show threadAKingsburyApr 6

@Ravenheart257

"Supplementation" meaning what?

Show threadRavenheartApr 6
@AlexanderKingsbury State welfare programs. Independent charities. Nonprofit organizations. All trying to compensate for Capitalism's shortcomings. Without them, the poor would be left utterly destitute, even more so than they already are. Capitalism fails to meet people's needs, and so for those people to survive, they depend on institutions that function (at least partially) outside of the capitalist rat race.
Show threadAKingsburyApr 6

@Ravenheart257

Your very first example, state welfare, is in direct and obvious contradiction to the free markets capitalism prescribes.

Show threadRavenheartApr 6
@AlexanderKingsbury That's my point. It exists outside of the Capitalist framework to compensate for capitalism's shortcomings. It's supplementation. If we relied exclusively on capitalism to meet our needs, millions of people would die, because capitalism only cares about profits and the concentration of wealth. The extent to which it may meet people's needs is purely incidental, it's an afterthought to shareholder profits.
Show threadAKingsburyApr 6

@Ravenheart257

"If we relied exclusively on capitalism to meet our needs, millions of people would die, because capitalism only cares about profits and the concentration of wealth"

Incorrect. Capitalism doesn't care about anything at all. Only a mind, an entity, can have preferences or priorities. Capitalism is a prescription, a set of ideas, nothing more. To claim that capitalists care only about profit or concentration of wealth is demonstrably false.

Show threadRavenheart
@AlexanderKingsbury On the contrary, Capitalism is a system with structure and mechanisms crafted to accumulate wealth into the hands of a few at the expense of the many. *That* is demonstrably true, just look at our obscene global wealth inequality. The mechanism of competition and the private ownership of the means of production naturally result in such inequality, oppression and mass privation.
Apr 6 at 2:04amMastodon for Android
Show threadAKingsburyApr 6

@Ravenheart257

" *That* is demonstrably true,"

Of course it's not. For one thing, it's laughable to point at our current system and claim it's capitalist. Capitalism prescribes free markets, and there are thousand s upon thousands of government interferences in the market.