To think that capitalism is a load of old shite?

[malificent7]

Most of us are not in the top 1% . We work for those that are and work damn hard. In turn we spend most of our lives slaving away to line the pockets of fat cats.
Yes, the money we earn can buy us a better standard of living in some ways but in the past a lot of my money has gone on shit i don't really need in order to make myself feel better as advertising told me it would make me more beautiful, successful, glamorous or a better mum.
Also, it is run on fossil fuels which cause so much pollution, war etc.
And the modern workplace is mental...so stressful,competitive and target driven, so focussed on producing more shite for us to consume causing anxiety, depression, heart disease and repetitive strain injury. Even the " caring" professions are about making a profit nowadays. An increasing reliance on AI has added to our workload rather than giving us more leisure.
I'm not saying communism is the answer but capitalism is shite. Just having a rant really as feeling very trapoed by it all.

@Tealightsandd

Balance doesn't have to mean equal amounts of wealth.

The most important priority is that everybody has enough - particularly the essentials.

Shelter, food, energy. Because there needs to be some treats and some respite from the grind in life.

That sort of balance is very achievable even in a system that retains inequality of wealth.

I missed out... The essentials plus some extra because there needs to be some treats and some respite from the grind in life.

YANBU. I find the idea of billionaires obscene. It's gross for one person to hoarde so much money when some can barely keep the lights on /their children fed.

As others have said though - what's the alternative? I've conjured up some alternatives in my head but all come with massive trade offs that wouldn't necessarily be worth it.

I do agree with you though - it's shite!

Not unreasonable IMO. I wish a middle ground could be found.

@MongoOnlyPawnInGameOfLife

Unless I missed it, you haven't shared any ideas. You've linked to a couple of books.

Still more than you’ve contributed. I’d even take a link to a book if you have one.

I’m sure you can find the Amazon page for the ones I mentioned, or reviews elsewhere, which would give you a fair idea where they are coming from. I suspect you don’t want to entertain the idea that there are alternatives worth looking at though, because you seem quite comfortable with this system. Seeing as the wealth gap is growing ever wider and more and more people find themselves below the poverty line, especially in the USA, the home of capitalism, I’m still wondering why you’re so unwilling to contemplate change.

That's quite a lot of projecting of how I seem from my one post pointing out that you haven't shared any ideas. But anyway.

I could try to find summaries of those books, I suppose, but seeing as you're on here, why can't you provide the ideas contained in them? Since you've read the books, and you've read this thread, that seems like the best way to get the information.

Fgs
It's either a:
Planned economy.
Market economy.
Mixed economy.

Capitalism is a misnomer.

Someone once paraphrased Winston Churchill by saying that 'capitalism is the worst way of managing an economy except for all the others'.

Capitalism only works for the rich because they can skim off their wealth & bypass the taxation by being able to afford to have financial advisors to tell them where to invest their money so that they get to keep more of it. Often that means being paid by shell companies that operate abroad or keeping their reserves in gold bullion & stocks & shares. Money breeds money. A socialist system makes things fairer for all, a £1k council tax bill when you only earn £20k means you are paying 5% of your income but a £5k council tax bill when you are worth millions is a drop in the ocean.

Cos Communism is cracking.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin#:~:text=In%202003%2C%20British%20historian%20Simon,at%20least%2020%20million%20people.

Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the archival revelations, some historians estimated that the numbers killed by Stalin's regime were 20 million or higher. After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives was declassified and researchers were allowed to study it. This contained official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953), around 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag, some 390,000 deaths during the dekulakization forced resettlement, and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported during the 1940s, with a total of about 3.3 million officially recorded victims in these categories. According to historian Stephen Wheatcroft, approximately 1 million of these deaths were "purposive" while the rest happened through neglect and irresponsibility. The deaths of at least 5.5 to 6.5 million persons in the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 are sometimes, though not always, included with the victims of the Stalin^

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#:~:text=The%20Cultural%20Revolution%20was%20characterized,in%20China%20by%20death%20toll.
The Cultural Revolution was characterized by violence and chaos. Death toll estimates vary widely, with roughly 250,000 to 20 million people perishing during the Revolution, a number comparable to various disasters in China by death toll. Beginning with the Red August of Beijing, massacres took place nationwide, including the Guangxi Massacre, in which massive cannibalism also occurred;[3][4] the Inner Mongolia incident; the Guangdong Massacre; the Yunnan Massacres; and the Hunan Massacres. Red Guards destroyed historical relics and artifacts, as well as ransacking cultural and religious sites. The 1975 Banqiao Dam failure, one of the world's greatest technological catastrophes, also occurred during the Cultural Revolution. Meanwhile, tens of millions of people were persecuted: senior officials, most notably Chinese president Liu Shaoqi, along with Deng Xiaoping, Peng Dehuai, and He Long, were purged or exiled; millions were accused of being members of the Five Black Categories, suffering public humiliation, imprisonment, torture, hard labor, seizure of property, and sometimes execution or harassment into suicide; intellectuals were considered the "Stinking Old Ninth" and were widely persecuted—notable scholars and scientists such as Lao She, Fu Lei, Yao Tongbin, and Zhao Jiuzhang were killed or committed suicide.

@malificent7, you always start these financial threads and never engage. that's annoying.
life is a big pyramid scheme and yes there are more at the bottom scraping by, than those at the top.
but somewhere in the middle is a sweet spot, a place where you can settle in with some peace and comfort. part of that though is adjusting your expectations.

@ButtockUp

Having parents who lived in a communist country and who has spent time in a communist country, I can assure you that you really, REALLY, don't want to live in a communist regime. You will work harder, for longer for minimum wage and you'll have to queue just for essentials , every single day. And no lovely cottage in the country either... your land will be requisitioned to produce food, by you, 'for the greater good.' And you will only be able to read books/any literature deemed 'safe.'

Yes, as Claude Greengrass said: [a communist is] someone who hasn't got much and wants everyone to have the same"

I suppose it works on the premise that if you have an entrepreneurial spirit you can work hard and " better yourself". Fine...but the owners of the old factories etc did so relying on the labour of others. What is wrong with socialism as opposed to communism?

As is always the case, people in capitalist societies sit on their computers, bashing the keyboard against capitalism, while those living in alternative systems are literally dying to cross borders to live in capitalist societies. But I’m sure the irony is lost on the former.

So very very true

I agree OP. Also, hearing things like the richest got richer in the pandemic and the poor got poorer. How's that fair? And don't get me started on those that can't afford their energy bills but Shell can make 20bn profit.

@MongoOnlyPawnInGameOfLife

Waiting for your genius ideas. Sorry if we missed them in your post.

Yours is presumably to do nothing then? Happy with the way things are going I presume?

Happy with the bits that are down to capitalism, yes. Not so keen on the bits which are down to state control though.

As is always the case, people in capitalist societies sit on their computers, bashing the keyboard against capitalism, while those living in alternative systems are literally dying to cross borders to live in capitalist societies. But I’m sure the irony is lost on the former

And there isn’t a middle ground ?

Should the people who can’t afford to heat there homes next winter or the older people who have frozen to death because they couldn’t be happy they at least on paper had the chance to get rich ?

Also, now that I am 43 I am wise to advertising and no longer buy as much crap i don't need but it is unwise to assume that we are not manipulated by the mefia. The young are a prime target...what teen hasn't felt bad about their bare skin and buys a cosmetic product to sort it, or depends £££ on branded trainers to be cool . We buy a lifestyle not just a product.

Media*

At the root of this thread and all the rest of the discontent is the fact that life has got harder for working people. We are having to work far harder, with higher demands and expectations, and get nothing to show for it in an age of buy-to-let.

Someone mentioned the ‘sweet spot’ of being middle class: but that is unobtainable now for those of us who had grandparents living in council houses, who cannot provide inheritances, and parents who did not consider the future when considering whether to have kids or not. The more you work, the less you get.

It is possible to do better than this, to share the wealth that we create through work; other European countries manage it and Britain in the past managed it.

It is simply not good enough to tell us to put up and shut up with being gradually turned into slaves ‘because communism’.

Plato said ''philosopher kings'' were the best form of government - so enlightened dictators.

@veevee04

Communism doesn't work either I think a mix between the two.

Socialism then. The system that gave us, workers rights, the NHS, a fair and free education system, the welfare state, social housing, fuel and water we could afford, fair and proportionate taxation. Vote Labour next time.

Someone mentioned the ‘sweet spot’ of being middle class: but that is unobtainable now for those of us who had grandparents living in council houses, who cannot provide inheritances, and parents who did not consider the future when considering whether to have kids or not. The more you work, the less you get.

Yes so much of a child's future today depends on whether their parents own a home & can help them rather than their job. It's ridiculous.

I agree with the principle that it is unfair that some people have billions and others homeless.

But I say that as someone who earns probsbly less than average or spot on average.

But we ignore the problem that we as human beings are all essentially selfish and self serving.

It's very easy for someone on the internet to say that another person should give up their billions for the greater good. But I bet if that person had a brilliant business idea, worked hard, and made millions, they wouldn't hand over all their cash either to the (un)deserving poor. It's such hypocrisy. Equally, if I inherited £££££ my mindset would be that it was my family who made the money, not yours, so why should I hand it over.

I believe in a market economy but also believe that the NHS, all utilities, public transport etc should be fully nationalised and that public services should be well funded. But I am a civil servant and am well aware of how badly the Government operates things so it might be best left in private hands? I honestly don't know if there is a perfect solution.

If my husband fucks up his job, over 2000 people directly lose their livelihoods.

This is why some get paid more than others

I think the onus should be on stamping out cronyism and corruption in the government.

This is far more damaging and leads to far more inequality than salary differentials which are generally set by market forces .

^ and there are entire swathes of this country where there is no hope. Where people can barely afford to eat, let alone travel to the next town, let alone get out of the region. I am not particularly prey to consumerism myself, but the fact is youngsters are deliberately sold this crap as the only thing that matters to maintain social status in these areas, rather than being given affordable and real routes out through training and work. All to enable the rich to get richer. The only option females are sold is being fashion dolls and whores: the only real option for the boys is fighting and drugs.

It’s no good just saying vote labour either. It was New Labour that impoverished working people last time and in their time that intergenerational inequality was started. We need the super rich to give the wealth back, to stop pretending all the costs of this country need to be balanced only by those who do the work and ignoring those parasites creaming off at the top: and Keir’s new new labour will only betray us again.

I agree OP although I don't think we're living on a purely capitalist society - if we were things would be better. We've morphed into a corporatist society. The big money is made by private companies delivering services - such as vaccines- paid for by the state, I e tax payers. Giant monopolies rule with the support of governments who they've bought. We need properly nationalised industries which don't hand out massive contracts to the private sector. The NHS for example would save huge amounts running services in house. At present the profits go to the giant corporations and the losses are picked up by the state. Ordinary businesses are increasingly squeezed out. The shitest of all systems is what we have at present.