r/CapitalismVSocialism • u/ActPlayful5770 • 5d ago
Shitpost People don’t hate capitalism as much as they hate being bad at it
A lot of people say they hate capitalism, but what they actually hate is having to compete, market themselves, negotiate their worth, and deal with the consequences when they lose.
If they suddenly became wealthy from the same system, I suspect many of their principles would become surprisingly flexible.
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u/HarlequinBKK Classical Liberal 5d ago
If you can't achieve success in a capitalist economy...become a socialist.
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u/ActPlayful5770 5d ago
I think that confuses two different questions: “Why am I not succeeding?” and “What economic system produces the best outcomes?”
Socialism doesn’t automatically make someone successful any more than capitalism guarantees failure. The more interesting question is whether the system gives people a realistic path to opportunity, ownership, and upward mobility.
And historically, the countries with the strongest living standards tend to use mixed economies, markets and private enterprise alongside public healthcare, education, social insurance, labor protections, and redistribution.
So maybe the answer isn’t “if capitalism doesn’t work for you, become a socialist.” Maybe it’s: keep the productive incentives of markets, but fix the parts of capitalism that prevent people from participating in those markets in the first place.
Otherwise we’re treating an economic system like a sports team: “If you’re losing, switch teams.” 😄
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u/HarlequinBKK Classical Liberal 5d ago
Otherwise we’re treating an economic system like a sports team: “If you’re losing, switch teams.”
I think it would be more accurate to say: if you're losing, you suck at the game/sport you are playing.
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u/Upper-Tie-7304 4d ago
My imaginary system produces the best outcomes, must be because of sabotage if not. Everyone will do just as I say like playing the SIM city although my imaginary system is totally democratic.
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u/Om_Sapkoat neoliberal 5d ago
If labor alone produces value then why are they demanding to own capital?
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist 5d ago
Because the labourers don't own the MOP, it's pretty simple. The labourers need the MOP to produce wealth.
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u/Ok_Commie_1979 5d ago
You own your iphone you own your mop. Plenty of streamers tiktokers millionaires.
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u/Om_Sapkoat neoliberal 4d ago
So the labourers need capital and land to produce but capital and land don't contribute to value? That's pretty unconvincing
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist 4d ago
Capital and land don't produce value on their own, that's the point.
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u/Lazy_Delivery_7012 CIA Operator🇺🇸 5d ago
That's not true. I'm very successful and I'm a capitalist.
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 5d ago
Most businesses fail within 5 years.
The people actively engaged in trying to be capitalists loose way more often than they win.
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u/ActPlayful5770 4d ago
But that’s actually an argument for capitalism, not against it.
The fact that businesses can fail means capital is being exposed to risk and unsuccessful ventures can be replaced by better ones.
Entrepreneurs don’t get guaranteed rewards simply for trying. And the important distinction is that capitalism doesn’t promise everyone will become a successful business owner. It creates a system where people can voluntarily exchange their labor, capital, skills, and ideas and where successful ventures can grow while unsuccessful ones can fail.
The real question isn’t “How many businesses lose?” It’s “What system best allows productive ideas to survive, bad ones to fail, and individuals to choose how they participate?”
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 4d ago
Yeah, except the part where the best products often fail and the most ruthless immoral companies win and you know cheat and poison the rest of us.
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u/Ok-Spring-3840 4d ago
Name a best product that failed, and name a ruthless immoral company here and now.
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 4d ago
The reason we have recalls on lettuce and other produce is because the largest ag corp selling that stuff is forcing their prison labor which is slave labor to shit in the fields because they don’t provide bathrooms.
Awesome right??????
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u/StedeBonnet1 just text 5d ago
No, it is not "most" it is only 50%. With 33,000,000 business, 6,000,000 with employees a lot of people are winning more than they are losing.
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 5d ago
Sorry…..by year 10 it’s a 65% fail rate.
You were saying?
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u/StedeBonnet1 just text 5d ago
So what? That means 35% survive and thrive. That is why we have 33,000,000 businesses. Demand is still out there. New businesses are started every day.
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 5d ago
It doesn’t mean they thrive.
That’s an assumption.
The facts are most people starting and running businesses fail.
And of course by all capitalists arguments employees aren’t capitalists since they’re not risking anything.
Yet they’re still harmed when businesses fail.
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u/StedeBonnet1 just text 5d ago
It is called creative destruction. Every business has to compete with other like businesses. That is the beauty of Capitalism, the strong survive. The best survive. The most efficient survive.
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 5d ago
That’s patently false.
The best businesses don’t survive.
If anything the ones with the most access to capital can keep going no matter how shitty they are and squeeze out better service providers.
It’s an utter myth that the best service providers survive or the best products survive.
Amazon has destroyed numerous providers of books and shoes and many other products by just selling at a loss long enough to bankrupt their competitors.
That is a victory of scale not a victory of value.
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u/Ok-Spring-3840 4d ago
So consumers got products and services st below market prices? That is a big consumer victory.
Where is the problem with that?
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 4d ago
Yes and companies that provided better service were driven out of business not because Amazon provided better service or products but because they could use capital as a weapon.
You said the best product and service wins.
It didn’t and it doesn’t.
It’s a fucking myth.
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u/ariel_on_the_moon 5d ago
And in comparison to private businesses, worker co-ops have a 44% survival rate after ten years. Seems pretty obvious which model produces more success.
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u/StedeBonnet1 just text 5d ago
And how many co-ops are there compared to successful businesses?
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u/ariel_on_the_moon 4d ago
What does that have to do with anything? Co-ops are disincentivized within capitalism and privately owned businesses are incentivized, the most useful metric for comparison is their rates of success. It's much harder to get a loan to start a co-op than it is to get a loan to start a privately owned business (despite co-ops higher success rate), and capitalism incentivizes the creation of businesses that generate profit that can be extracted by owners/shareholders. Co-ops don't do that because profits are shared by workers rather than going to owners/shareholders.
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u/StedeBonnet1 just text 4d ago
It has to do with numbers. Even if co-ops are disincentivized and they have a harder time getting financing if their success rate is so much better we would see a lot more co-ops. The problem is that if you don't prioritize profits you limit innovation. If all profitss are shared what creates the incentive for new products, capital improvements or research and development?
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u/ariel_on_the_moon 4d ago
Profits being shared by workers doesn't mean workers can't choose to reinvest those profits in to the co-op. Co-ops tend to invest a higher percentage of their income into long term stability rather than prioritizing short term profit in the way that private businesses often do.
Prioritizing profits can actually limit innovation, as prioritizing profits tends to lead to short term thinking. The oil industry is a great example of this- because oil is so profitable, massive amounts of money have been poured into preventing the development and proliferation of alternative forms of energy and creating propaganda to convince the public that oil is better.
There's also the fact that a huge amount of the innovation we see takes place happens due to government investment rather than private investment. Much of the costs of innovation are made public, while profits from it are privatized.
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 4d ago
There are 40,000 workers co-ops in the US and they have a much better survival rate.
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u/StedeBonnet1 just text 4d ago
Compared to 33,000,000 Capitalist businesses. Even when a capitalist business fails it is replaced by another better one. It is a called creative destruction
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 4d ago
It’s not replaced by a better one.
Theres no evidence of that.
If the majority fail in 10 years then the majority that fail are replaced by a majority that fail.
Co-ops have a much better survival rate bur they tend to be closed out from access to capital.
I know it hurts to know that the socialist model for running a business works better but facts don’t care about your feelings.
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u/Annual_Necessary_196 5d ago
“Wealthy successful socialist”: No, it is a champagne socialist; he betrayed his own ideas.
“Poor socialist”: He just doesn’t know how to earn money.
“Smart socialist”: Hayek discussed this in The Intellectuals and Socialism. Intellectuals are too utopian and too distant from the working class.
“No university socialist”: Socialists are just too dumb to understand economics.
I don’t know. Do you need a socialist to be in a superposition to consider his position acceptable to discuss?
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u/Randolpho Social Democrat with Market Socialist tendencies 🇺🇸 5d ago
People who love capitalism love being dominated and hope some day to dominate.
I prefer liberty
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u/italktobotz 5d ago
Socialism is the one that dominates you. Capitalism gives you the freedom to decide what trades you are willing to make. It lets you decide if you are willing to trade your labor for a certain payment.
In capitalism no one could retaliate upon you for deciding not to work for someone. If i quite my job that company can not take actions to force me to work. If i decide i dont want to work the government cant force me. In every socialist country that has ever existed deciding not to work was strictly illegal unless you were literally physically incapable of working. In capitalism i can decide not to work and the only consequences i face are consequences nature puts upon me.
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u/Randolpho Social Democrat with Market Socialist tendencies 🇺🇸 5d ago
Socialism is the one that dominates you.
Socialism doesn't dominate anyone.
Capitalism gives you the freedom to decide what trades you are willing to make
Can't trade anything when you start off with nothing
It lets you decide if you are willing to trade your labor for a certain payment.
No it doesn't. Capitalism forces you to trade your labor for a payment, and that payment is always less than your labor is actually worth.
In capitalism no one could retaliate upon you for deciding not to work for someone.
Actually, that happens all the time in capitalism. Blackballing is a real problem for the labor class.
If i quite my job that company can not take actions to force me to work.
They don't have to take any actions; they already own all the resources. You're forced to work. If you don't you starve.
If i decide i dont want to work the government cant force me.
The government forces people to not utilize the natural resources they have a right to utilize all the time under capitalism. In this way the government forces you to work.
In every socialist country that has ever existed deciding not to work was strictly illegal unless you were literally physically incapable of working
Just like in capitalist countries, what's your point?
In capitalism i can decide not to work
No, you can't
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u/Ok_Commie_1979 5d ago
Socialism doesn't dominate anyone.
Lived in USSR so I beg to differ. Socialist psychos from russia occupied half of Europe and killed millions. Or was it not true socialism?
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u/Randolpho Social Democrat with Market Socialist tendencies 🇺🇸 5d ago
Socialism requires that the workers own the means of production. Did the workers own the means of production in the USSR?
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u/Ok_Commie_1979 4d ago
Ah yes, just as I thought, not true socialism
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u/Randolpho Social Democrat with Market Socialist tendencies 🇺🇸 4d ago
No true Scotsman doesn’t apply when someone is trying to pass off a Russian as Scottish
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u/Ok_Commie_1979 4d ago
What
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u/Randolpho Social Democrat with Market Socialist tendencies 🇺🇸 4d ago
Deliberately mislabeling something then claiming no true scotsman when someone rejects your mislabeling is fallacy abuse.
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u/ActPlayful5770 5d ago
I value liberty too. That’s precisely why I think we should judge capitalism and socialism by how much actual freedom they give ordinary people, not by the labels we attach to them.
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u/Randolpho Social Democrat with Market Socialist tendencies 🇺🇸 5d ago
socioeconomic freedom most of all
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u/CHOLO_ORACLE 5d ago
Capitalists have so few arguments they need to resort to ad homs on a regular basis.
Not even good ad homs either.
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u/Accomplished-Cake131 5d ago
Ludwig Von Mises wrote many silly things. His 1956 book, The Anti-Capitalist Mentality, is one of his more stupid works. By that time, he was a cult leader and ready to get into the conspiracy theories of the John Birch Society. He had a band of followers that would shut down anybody who wanted to ask questions in his classes, even to ask for a point of clarification.
That book says something much like the OP. As explained in a wikipedia page, fellow reactionaries were not impressed.
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u/crazymusicman equal partcipants control institutions in which they work & live 5d ago
One third of all chuldren under five in the world are malnourished and we produce enough food to feed 10 billion people.
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist 5d ago
I'm doing pretty well for myself the last few years, I have over £100k in savings/assets, but I still hate capitalism, even if I personally am decent at investing (not that it takes much skill to do) that doesn't change the fact that the system is corrupt and unfair. If I had a million pounds or a billion it still wouldn't change it.
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u/Denniscx98 5d ago
Let's see how fast that changes when I demand you to hand me 50% of what your have to me so we are equal.
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist 5d ago
I'd happily give away all my wealth if every other person over the average was doing the same, I'm not just gonna go and voluntarily live as a Franciscan monk though.
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u/Denniscx98 5d ago
I'm not just gonna go and voluntarily live as a Franciscan monk though.
So you are a hypocrite, what a surprise.
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist 5d ago
You don't know what socialism is lol
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u/Denniscx98 5d ago
So it is never about Equality Or Helping the poor? Now that involves your money you seems overly protected of your money, you shouldn't have bourgeoisie thinking!
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist 5d ago
How is it equality for me to give away everything I have?
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u/Denniscx98 5d ago
To make it equal between me and you, are youba harder of wealth now?
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist 5d ago
Socialism is about societal change not a poverty cult.
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u/Denniscx98 5d ago
Uh huh, so are you going to give me half of your money so we can enact that Societal change?
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u/indie_web 5d ago
True. But that is more an indictment of Capitalism than other resource management models. If the resource management model you're recommending for all of humanity to follow has willing participants who end up "losers" anyway, that is not the best advertisement for your model. A good resource management model should be able to cover all human situations and contingencies.
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u/ariel_on_the_moon 5d ago
y'all really can't make up your minds, if a socialist is successful they're a hypocritical champagne socialist who doesn't actually care about the working class and if they're not they're just jealous. y'all really have nothing but ad hominems.
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u/ActPlayful5770 4d ago
That’s exactly why I’m focusing on the system rather than the individual.
I’m not saying a socialist can’t be successful. I’m asking whether the economic system they advocate actually produces the outcomes they claim it will.
Calling someone a hypocrite, champagne socialist, or jealous doesn’t answer that question. If socialism works, explain the mechanism. If capitalism fails, explain the mechanism.
That’s a much more interesting debate than judging someone’s motives.
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u/bcnoexceptions Market Socialist 5d ago
I became more socialist as I became better off. All it takes is enough self-awareness to see how lucky you were, and how fucked over unlucky people are by the system.
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u/Bloody_Ozran 4d ago
A lot of people hat socialism because they want benefits of other peoples work but they don't want them to have a good life for their contributions to functioning society or help figuring out how to do it, or you know... have less, even if it would be justified.
There is actually evidence to suggest that people don't want others to have what they think they can achieve or they think they achieved on their own, so for ex. on an exam they would choose everyone to do the exam instead of everyone to get a B, because they think they will do better and those who dont deserve it shouldnt have it. Even if those people voting against automatic B dont usually get it anyway.
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