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This week’s Weekly discussion thread will be focused on Capitalism / Economic Systems. Here is the definition we will be using so everyone can use the same terminology. If your argument does not use that definition, we ask that you reframe so that it does so that everyone can work within the same framework.

Here are some questions that should help kickstart things:

  • Is capitalism effective? Is it good, or as evil as some Lemmy instances will have you believe?
  • Are there better alternatives, and why are they better?
  • How could we realistically move toward those alternatives?
  • Is there anything you do not understand or would like to discuss about Capitalism / Economic Systems?
  • Ace T'KenOPMEnglish
    32·
    9 months ago

    I don’t believe that Capitalism is inherently evil, which I feel puts me at odds with much of the Lemmy userbase. They tend to rail against it, from what I’ve seen.

    To my mind, however, capitalism is not the problem - human greed and power-mongering is the problem. Just like in systems that we have seen with communism (or what passes for it in real-world terms), greed corrupts every system that it is allowed to be a part of. Every single economic system from anarchy to feudalism can be massively corrupted by those in positions of power if there are not explicit and extremely punitive regulations in place to stop them from doing so. Those organizations that watch and manage those regulations should not be subject to lobbying, gifts, or industry work at any point after their term is complete.

    We need income caps on the highest and minimums on the lowest in society. We need to remove external corporate shareholders. We need to penalize mon- du- and tri-opolies by allowing patent access to competitors in the same country.

    I feel that we should absolutely reward those who excel, however excelling at corrupting or breaking systems and the public trust should be punished more harshly than nearly any other crime. If the power to corrupt grows, then the punishment for doing so should as well.

    Any new system must be implemented with not simply laws laid out, but checks and balances built in to stop those that would seek to subvert things. And not simply “the letter of the law” like we have now, but also “the spirit of the law” to know if someone is just trying to work a loophole. This involves describing what the law is intended to do in plain wording that can be interpreted by laymen (because there’s no reason you should need a degree to know if you’re breaking a law).

    To sum things up, capitalism isn’t evil. It can work just like any system if you have the proper framework around it. I don’t believe the form we have now in North America is the best system, however. Not by a long shot.

    Simply swapping in a new system doesn’t fix simple human greed.

    • J Lou@mastodon.social
      1·
      9 months ago

      Capitalism is a problem even if some social problems could in principle be addressed with reforms. Even in an idealized capitalism, there would still be one major human rights violation at the heart of it, the employer-employee contract. The mismatch between legal and factual responsibility inherent in this contract necessitates abolishing it, which would be an abolition of capitalism.

      A maximum income would disincentivize investment from the wealthiest. Minimum wage is good

      • Ace T'KenOPMEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        Hrm. I don’t know if I agree. I am the C.E.O. (and an Economist) of a medium-sized I.T. firm in Canada and designed the company to be as ethical as it could possibly be from the ground up.

        1. All employees have equal votes after their initial 3 months is up in any part of the company that they are engaged in. I can (and have) been outvoted.
        2. After employees are here long enough (3 years), they can purchase shares if they like.
        3. I am the lowest paid full-time employee at the company by design. I do not take dividends.
        4. We operate on a Matrix org chart meaning that the “boss” on every project changes based on who is best suited to lead it and who has experience in that area.
        5. We have it in our charter that there are never any outside shareholders allowed. If you leave the company, your shares are purchased by the company for current market value. This includes myself.
        6. We have acquired other companies. We have never had to pay for one. Our procedures and ticket counts are astronomically low compared with other I.T. companies (which are called MSPs) because we’re exceptionally thorough that they literally give themselves to us.
        7. We are as environmentally conscious as we can be. We redo and donate old systems to nonprofits and schools where we can. The only waste we put out is literally dead hardware - no forced upgrade cycle. Electricity bills also drop dramatically at clients we take over due to more efficient machine use.
        8. During COVID, we gave away over $500k in free support. I figured it was more important that our nonprofit clients stay open than we stay open.
        9. We have a full FOSS stack that we can deploy if a company is open to it (and would like to save a bit of cash to boot).
        10. In nearly ten years, we’ve never had an employee leave, and never had a client leave (well, we had one restaurant client close during COVID, but I don’t count that).
        11. We have full benefits.
        12. We have zero interest in “infinite growth” as it’s not a functional model. We have turned down clients because they don’t “get” us and would be a headache for our staff.

        All that being said, I’m not bragging, I’m genuinely asking… what if other companies were run the way I run my company? What’s the ethical issue? And no, this isn’t theoretical, this is how we actually operate. There’s no hidden evil.

        I understand that not every business owner is “good.” With proper regulation, however, we can make them at least behave way, way the fuck better. It’s a form of Social Capitalism and it’s exceedingly functional from my experience.

        • J Lou@mastodon.social
          2·
          9 months ago

          Our major difference is terminological.
          What I mean by abolishing the employer-employee relationship is the legal system protecting workers’ inalienable rights and mandating worker coops. In a worker coop, all workers are jointly self-employed. Your firm sounds more ethical than the norm under capitalism.

          If I were starting a firm, all workers would have equal voting shares. These shares would be inalienable. Non-voting preferred stock would be treated as tradable property @actual_discussion

          • Ace T'KenOPMEnglish
            1·
            9 months ago

            Which I understand. It’s why I called the company a “firm” as I feel it’s a more accurate descriptor. The main difference is that we don’t let employees just starting their trial period vote or lead a team yet until they get a feel for how we operate. We’re quite a large swing from what normal companies do and it takes time to adjust and understand, not to mention that our processes are a complete rethink of how it is anywhere else.

            The shares can be sold to other shareholders, but not to anyone outside the company. Unlike most corporations, we don’t want solely financially invested shareholders as they’re in business to extract value. They are parasites.

            I’ve built this model out in hopes it will catch on. I feel that if most companies operated under Social Capitalism that we’d be substantially better off. Certain aspects of it are so important and such a step up from the norm that I don’t understand how they weren’t obvious to other owners. But… greed I guess. Greed hurts every system it’s in.