Why do people honestly hate capitalism so much now?

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In my opinion, people hate capitalism because they either cannot or will not take the risks and exploit the system as capitalists do, yet they expect to receive their “fair share” of the capitalist’s wealth without ever having earned any of it.

Sucks to be them, I guess.

But that's just it, Trump isn't the only one taking advantage of this chaos in the US government. He has many acolytes now like DeSatan and The Greene Monster, plus don't forget we Americans still have enemies overseas in countries like Russia and China who would jump on the chance to take us out if they could.

A little off-topic, perhaps . . . ?

It's my topic

True.  Just sayin'.

All of the world's best-functioning economies are neither purely capitalist nor purely socialist, but mixed economies. Neither pure capitalism nor (attempts at) pure socialism have worked well.

So the only question is, what is the best mixture?

The best mixture would almost certainly include much higher taxes on the wealthy than we have now, including much higher inheritance taxes.
We had very high taxes on the rich back in the 1950's and 1960's, which were the most prosperous era the U.S.A. has ever known.

As has been touched on before, it comes down to several factors. Stagnation of wages even while worker productivity and corporate profits have increased, the decline of unions, the Race to the Bottom, outsourcing of "unskilled" labor overseas, the overt entanglement of corporations and the government, etc. The housing and financial crises did grave damage to public perception of the moderate capitalist establishment. Corporate bailouts pleased few people outside the political center: the left wanted the corporations to crash and burn for screwing over the average Joe, and the right wanted them to crash and burn because that was what the market was dictating should happen.

All that, and the fact that anti-socialist rhetoric died down after the fall of the USSR and public attention was diverted to fears of terrorism. Hearing people talk nowadays about how "socialism has never worked" just sounds naive when it is regurgitating the propaganda of the same capitalist governments they claim to hate.

Both Sides (tm) of the aisle have become more skeptical of capitalism or at least establishment capitalism since the Obama administration, though the seeds of this were sewn long beforehand.

On the left, more and more liberals struggled to reconcile their belief in equality with the glaring inequality created by capitalism. Laissez faire capitalism, or even regulated capitalism, still results in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. How could social equality exist when the economic status quo considers economic inequality to be a good thing?

The right has obviously stayed more pro-capitalist overall, but there is more skepticism of capitalism on the right than I have ever seen before in my lifetime (1990-present). Most of these skeptics consider themselves capitalists, but they feel the present capitalist economy has been twisted by government interference in the economy, foreign powers "cheating" the system, and collusion between government and big business. Conservatives also became more open to government interference in the market once incorporations, especially social media, started openly disavowing conservative views on history, race, gender, religion, etc. This becomes a catch 22 for conservatives: either they elect people who will increase government in the market to mitigate the spread of "wokeism", socialism, queer acceptance, DEI, climate change acceptance, etc.; or let the market continue on its current trajectory, where conservative stances are being gradually marginalized in the media, the workplace, and polite society.

Both sides have their reasons nowadays to be fed up with capitalism. I would argue this goes for many centrists as well.

most people don't understand what capitalism actually is (or socialism) so argue about both based on an incorrect understanding

capitalism can create a society of haves and have nots, and people feel uncomfortable with that. Especially in this modern world where via the internet we have much more of an insight into sectors of society that have obscene amounts of wealth and sectors that have very little

While not untrue, you're skipping over the fact that present day we have the greatest wealth divide that capitalism has ever created - possibly any economic system on Earth has ever created.

That's why people are calling this "late stage capitalism," because they figure the rules of this particular game have about run their course and it isn't sustainable. Something's gotta give. Maybe in the form of revolution, maybe something else - but this as it is can't go on forever.

I hate it for many reasons, including:
1. Boom and bust. All those people, every bit as willing and able to do something useful, suddenly out of work through no fault of their own. All those small businesses going to the wall. Broken dreams. Meanwhile lucky speculators somehow profit from it.
2. The insult of having to see massively wealthy people while so many of us are worried about how we're going to pay the basic bills. Somehow I can't believe that's always quite fair.
3. Almost every time a company changes hands, the staff's pay and conditions take a hit. What did they do to deserve that?
4. Unelected business leaders having more power than elected government. Government tries to make everybody wear face masks, there's an outcry. Employer does the same thing, nobody bats an eyelid.
5. Advertising.

Mind you I don't hate it more now than I used to do. I wasn't aware that anybody was drifting to the left these days. All I ever noticed was the opposite, gradually, and in the UK, between the 1960s and the last time I looked, which was probably some time in the 1990s. To me it'll be a refreshing change if socialism gets more popular again.

I don't know what's going on politically in the USA. I can't imagine there's any kind of real threat to capitalism going on though. There's a bit of talk where I am in Arkansas that Biden is a communist, but I don't believe it. Everything they don't like round here is seen as a communist plot to destroy the American way of life. Covid, global warming, concern for the poor, the Democrat party, atheism. I've even heard Mark Zuckerberg called a socialist. Something to do with Facebook I think. Centibillionaire socialist? Oh, and my neighbour was an as*hole and he got called a Democrat, presumably because practically all the locals think "Democrats are as*holes, your neighbour is an as*hole, therefore your neighbour is a Democrat." Maybe things are different further North, in the cities. I certainly hope so.

This is an old article, but this really opened my eyes to how corrupt the people at the top are. Boots still exists amazingly, but it went through a rough phase purely because it was bought as . I don't know how bad things are now. The amount of British shops that have just disappeared from the high street makes me wonder how precarious Boots position is.

How Boots went rogue

Last edited by hurtloam on 12 Jan 2023, 5:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Quite an alarming story, but yes they're still trading as if it never happened. I dislike Boots, for local reasons, though in my book the owners are ultimately to blame for what happens at the customer interface.

Boots opticians - A technician bungled my eye measurements but refused to admit it, which led to the conclusion that my eyes had changed shape massively over a few months, and that I must have this disease, which rather scared me:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-con ... c-20351352
Went to the eye hospital, turned out I didn't have it.
Back to Boots, they were suddenly very generous with free contact lens solutions but still wouldn't admit they'd blundered.
After further problems getting a decent service from them I took my business elsewhere. A couple of years later Boots bought that optician. So much for competition driving up standards. No local alternative left.

They're forever trying to get me to buy stuff I don't need instead of just doing the tests and renewing my simple cost-effective gas permeable contact lenses. They've been insisting since I was 50 that I'm getting too old to wear contact lenses all day and need to buy more expensive but inferior disposables or glasses. And yet here I am 20 years later, no lens problems at all. My sister asked her own optician at what age she'd have to cut back on wearing her lenses, and he said "as old as you like if they're feeling comfortable and you can see well." Most of their shop space is taken up with fancy spectacle frames. Pressure to get bifocals and prescription sunglasses. At the age of 60 they sent me unsolicited ads for "party contact lenses" that make your eyes look like a cat's.

So I don't trust them much. I wish I could say they were an aberration in an otherwise trustworthy free-market world, but most private service providers do similar things. The only traders I trust are a few remaining old-school ones, which are dying rapidly. Every time I find a good shop it goes out of business, while the bad shops survive. The system doesn't support businesses that play it straight. Sellers don't provide according to natural demand, they just get us trained to buy what they can sell at the best profit. All legal.

Honestly a bit weird to blame landlord wealth when landlord wealth never enters the financial reserves of the richest and most exploitative people in the world.

Landlord are very low down on the list. The worst by far are the ones who own mega corps who employ minimum, or near minim wage workers for most of their leg work or even worse, large corporations making use of sweatshops in poor nations.

Ironically it's the hipsters and trendies who complain about capitalism while enjoying the fruits of sweatshops.

That being said, skilled work needs to be rewarded by paying low skilled workers less. Lower skilled workers will always struggle to get buy when everyone else is paid more.

Do they? Freeloaders are just making a lot of noise, but they're a vocal minority.

Even in my worst times when I was a recluse I never held beliefs that I should ever get anything I didn't work for.

[EDIT]

I just scrolled through the thread and was shocked to see people openly advocating redistribution of wealth.
Though I suppose I should have expected that...

---

Yawn, Don't Hate (MiSSinG THE MarK)
The Sinner of Capitalism; For Me At Least

Hehe Yet Verily i Don't Respect The Ignorance it Brings.

Yawn, Science Shows Money And Material Goods Don't

Bring Naked Enough Whole Complete iN PLaY; God Yes,

Free Play BRings ReaL Peace iN LoVE iN Peace Within For Us

To Generate in Flow

With No Clothes
And Tools At All

Instead of Becoming

A Stick We Create in the Mud;

God Yes, ViBRaNT Wild FLoWeRS GRoWinG

More Colorful With Deeper Roots From Drought...

Yawn Again, i Work-Out With New Elite Military Warriors

Being Trained in a Military Gym; At Least That's What The Sign Says

On The Door When You Leave; Yet Meanwhile in The Gym The Young

'Elite Warriors'

Sit Still Behind

6 Inch Screens

Only Pushing the
Weight of the Bars

Without Even Any Plates

As i Gently Gracefully Dance
The Weight of mY Finger Tips in Balance

Adding 32 Forty-Five Pound Plates With
A Hundred Pound Sled That Makes 1540 Pounds
Leg Pressing With my Arms RAiSinG to the Heaven's
12 Reps Effortless iN Ease So Very Slowly And GentlY iNDeeD

As It is More An Exercise of Balancing the Weight of Finger Tips

Than Pressing
The Weight
of A Small
Car Yep
Three Quarters
of A Ton 699 Kilograms

With 111 Kilograms of
62 Year-Old Me Yet You See

This Is Mastering the Tool; Not Being

Mastered By The God Holy and Sacred

Dollar Bill Thingie of the American Nightmare;

Making Money/Things More Important Than Naked
Enough Whole Complete iN PLaY MaSTeRinG the Tools

We Create Instead

of Being Mastered

Under the Weight
of Paper Bills and
Screens Alone Lighting

Up Quick Hits of Dopamine Distractions
in Terms of Tik Tok and Twitter

Size Breaths of Human Potential

Gone the Way of Elite Warriors Lifting

Empty Bars Behind 6 Inch Screens With No Iron Plates...

Capitalism is Not Evil Yet Only A Human Self Inflicted Wound...
That May Be Measured By 60 Percent of College Age Students

With Life Limiting Anxiety and Depression the Same at rates of 40 Percent...

(Additionally, The United States Uses 40 Percent of Global Human Resources
With 4 Percent of the Worldly Population; YucK, It Would Take 5 Earths to Raise
The Rest of the Human World Up to United States Levels of Greedy Taking, Hoarding,

Callous Harming Killing Off So Much Of Nature's Free Wild Breath As We Go)

(Even At the' Elite'
'Harvard' Level True)

Empty Vessels

Replacing

Nature Flowing

With Substances

And Other Behavioral

Addictions For Real

That Only Elevate

The Numbness

Within That Is Yet

to Wild Flower Weeds
Out Of Concrete Slabs of Living Dead...

i Understand the Nature of the Beast of

"A Matter With Things" Yet of Course For
More Science Minded Than Art SPiRiTinG HeARTinG SoULFuL

Folks; Yes, Iain McGilchrist, Does a Great Job Explaining

The Problem with the Condition of the American and
Overall Spreading Western Civilization, "Matter With Things." In A Book that

Is Over 1500 Pages Long and Over 600,000 Words Deep in Breath

(He's Relating it Free in Summary, Commercial Free, in YouTube
Video Volumes, About An Hour Each, Up to Volume 18 Now)

That Took Him 10 Years; What i Easily Knock Out in 6 Months

And 112 Months the Same for 11.2 MiLLioN Words BRinGinG

iN Free Verse Poetry For

What i Understand

Deep Within With
Spices of Reason

Now And Then With
Dry Science Abstracts
Lacking Soul of Nature's HeART
Beats ALiVE iN SPiRiT SoULFuLLY to Actually Sense
And Feel in Flow Naked Enough Whole Complete iN Play For Real...

Let's Put it THiS Way THeRe IS A Choice; The American Nightmare

Or Free Play

A

Place
With
Out
Pay;

Of course...

Helps to Be
Financially Independent...

to Kill the Root of the Problem First...

Humans Are Not Evolved Well For Instant Gratification,

Including Cheap HDTV and Smaller Screens Made in Sweat Shops

Farmed
Out
With
Capitalism Nightmare
Dreams For Real; Yes

Life is Struggle For Real;
And Human Potential
in Terms of Nature Real;

Mastering The Tools We

Make When Not Held Underneath

The Weight of a 6 Inch Screen Alone...

Even Worth More Than A 6 MiLLioN Dollar Man in Terms
of the Inflation of the American Nightmare Come Trump True for Real

We've come to
A Place of

Misery Loves
Company Not

Even Understanding

What Moves Us Within;

Namely Naked Enough Whole
Complete Feelings And Senses iN PLaY...

A Free Dance And Song Spiraling As the
Milky Way Does Free Above Within Requires

Not even
A God
Damned
Abraham Penny

Or A Pocket to Put
A Millstone in Sunk

to the Bottom of the
Ocean; Statues Waiting to CoMe BREaTHE NoW Free Again...

Yawn, Capitalism Makes A Great Dark Poetry Muse...

TRuE DarK
MaKeS LiGHT

This is ReaLiTY;

It's Not Fair Yet

We Get to Do Parts
of the Karma of Actions
And Consequences too

Motivating In Synergy
of Feelings And Senses
As Emotions Do From
Head to Toe; God Yes Real;


A Greatest Poverty Now Is
Not Feeling and Sensing New

Who the Hell We Even 'AM;'

Namely Beyond All Names New Now; God Yes

Naked Nature Enough Whole Complete iN PLaY Free

For Now At Least the Mouse Is Toying With the Blind Cat...

'Eve' Pass the 'Popcorn' We've Got More Free Sunflower Seeds
to Distribute to the Small Winged and Furry Creatures in Eden Free....

Only Problem is
When 'They'

Forget

How to
Play on THeiR 'Own'....

A Greatest Poverty is Wanting More...

A Greatest Wealth is Creating Play
Free Naked Enough Whole Complete...

Always Improving Human Potentials

Effortless in FLoW Ease WHere Now is

Always the Best Now Ever New Now...

"Wu Wei Tao Prana Satori Samadhi Chi No Longer FRoZen Zen Free"

God Yes Kingdom of Heaven Within True A Secret to Peace iN LoVE iS FRiEndS With
Gravity Real BeCoME The Weight Of Finger Tips in Flow of Dance And Song Free...

It's NoT ALWaYS Easy; It Took me 17,707 MiLes of Public Dance Without a Penny

in my
Pockets
And Even
No Pockets
For Real
to Achieve
in 112 Months too

Yet i Got Stuck at the
Weight of A Gym Towel

in the Military Gym For Many Miles Dancing FRiEnDS With Gravity

Before i Set my Naked Enough Whole Complete Wings Even Freer

As THere is No Limit to Balance Far Below the Weight of Finger Tips True Too...

Life, Liberty, And the Pursuit of Individual Flavors of Happiness; It's a PLAtitude

That May

Come True
In A Country

That Does Still
Provide This Opportunity

For Those Who Gain Greater
Wealth Within Than 'the Outside' Will Ever Be or See...

Everyone Has Some Flavor of Religion; Capitalism is
Not the Flavor i Choose Financially Independent Now;
Just Like Most Any 'Normal' Person, Slave Before For Real For 33 Years...

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Not weird here. It's all the rage to rage at landlords these days.. seeing as property owners have bid up the prices of homes by ~3.5x over a decade, and in turn rents have gone up ~3.5x or so while wages haven't really moved.

Gone are the days when my dad bought his first house for $89k at the end of 1983. That same house is up somewhere around $1.7M now, so the amount of wealth that landlords control, especially if they own many homes.. is quite a sizeable chunk of change today.