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0 pointssothatsit8mo ago0 comments

Most people aren't looking to eliminate capitalism. They just want constraints to be put on it. Higher taxes on wealth, stricter antitrust enforcement, investing in social infrastructure, or passing laws that protect consumers don't prevent capitalism from working.

Australia has social healthcare and massive mining companies. They coexist just fine. There really is a lot of wiggle room between fully embracing socialism and going full anarcho-capitalist, and maybe the tradeoffs of shifting towards the socialism side of things are worth considering.

Although, George seems to just want to flip the table out of the belief that real reform that would impact most people positively will never get passed in a democracy. It would require too much change.

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xoralkindi8mo ago

> Most people aren't looking to eliminate capitalism. They want sensible constraints to be put on it. Things like higher taxes on wealth, stricter antitrust enforcement, or investing in social infrastructure don't prevent capitalism from working.

In capitalism the capitalists end up being the government. They can choose who gets elected, the laws, they even start political parties.

sothatsitOP8mo ago

That's an oversimplification. Yes, wealthy individuals inevitably have more influence. But there are numerous countries whose governments regularly act against corporate interests. For example, as much as I dislike GDPR, it is a strong example of governments implementing a policy that is explicitly against corporate interests. Another example is the OECD global minimum corporate tax.

So, there are governments that oversee capitalist countries that are willing to implement policies that hurt corporate interests with the goal of helping consumers. I'd say the problem is that often these policies made with good intentions, like GDPR, end up being poorly implemented and therefore harming consumers as well as hurting corporations... but that's an entirely different problem.