• ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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    10 months ago

    That’s a simplification

    Mercantilism had private ownership of production

    Capitalism is pay based on hours worked (only way to get rich is to work more hours than someone else)

    • KISSmyOS@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      (only way to get rich is to work more hours than someone else)

      In our current system, this is not how you get rich, AT ALL.
      Billionaires aren’t people who worked 3 jobs and lived with roommates until they made it. They’re not even in the same class as these people.

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        Yeah, capitalism was drawn up to prevent that

        Turns out that people with money/power will influence laws to their own benefit

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I don’t understand your point. The most important feature of capitalism is the private ownership of capital. Capitalism isn’t “hustle, fuck bitches get money” or whatever. Money and wage labor goes back to the founding of civilization. It isn’t a new invention.

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        So did private ownership

        That wasn’t what Capitalism was about

        In the wealth of nations Smith talks great lengths about the labourer being king of the market not the landowners and that with advancement in technology costs should go down except land owners prevent that

        The whole system is supposed to favour the labourer compared to Mercantilism where the rich got richer because they owned the production

        It also praised the American colonies for open immigration saying they could double their population faster than anyone in Europe and that would double their economy

        • Haagel@lemmings.world
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          10 months ago

          I think one of the main problems with Smith’s conception of capitalism is that he didn’t account for how huge and pervasive and intrusive advertising would become. He naively assumed that the best product would dominate the market when actually people will buy whatever is thrust in front of the their eyes a thousand times a day.

          And of course corporate lobbying wasn’t such an issue in his time.

          • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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            10 months ago

            We have term limits for governments but not for corporations

            Their ability to last indefinitely allows them more control than anyone thought possible

            And no matter what system you choose; they will act in self interest that will allow them to expand/erode the system to benefit themselves

            • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              And we know now that his analysis on the outcome of capitalism is incorrect. Capitalism exists for the private property holders to extract as much wealth and power as possible from their privileged position. That unrelenting pursuit of profit has led to even worse inequality, and is collapsing entire ecosystems. It’s a disaster of an economic system full of contradictions. Those contradictions are now causing capitalism to collapse in on itself.

              • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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                10 months ago

                So you realize that the problems with capitalism are what it set out to prevent

                That doesn’t make the core of capitalism the opposite

                That means it’s not true capitalism

                The problem is greed that will exist in any system because people with power will degrade/morph any system to be self serving