My issue with capitalism

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upant said:
do you need those $1200.00 sneakers made for a few bucks in china?
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How about questioning why sneakers made for a few bucks in China are being sold for $1200? before you tell me this is to do with regulating people who take advantage of the system and not the system itself, the system promotes such behaviour since the goal of capitalising inevitably leads to actions like this.

It’s like laying out a bunch of free stuff on a table and telling people to just take what they need and leave some for others. With the free stuff right there in front of them, I’m sure a lot of people are going to take as much as possible. If the free stuff wasn’t there, then they couldn’t take it.
dochawk said:
That she can get paid silly amounts is the consequence of having a “free market”, which typically (but not always) accompanies capitalism.
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Please give me an example of free markets not accompanying capitalism.
 
Polak said:
Please give me an example of free markets not accompanying capitalism.
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That actually depends on your definition of capitalism. Modern right wingers and libertarians usually identify capitalism with free markets, the older definition meant an economic system of private ownership of capital goods. That would technically permit capitalist countries with a restricted market.
 
dochawk said:
Capitalism is nothing more, nor less, than the owners of capital receiving the payment and proceeds of its use.
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This goes without saying, Doc. The concern being broached seems to be about the downsides and unintended consequences of what our society is loosely referring to as capitalism. Rest assured, nobody is trying to define it by these ramifications, so those eyeballs can come back down now. 😉
 
Polak said:
How about questioning why sneakers made for a few bucks in China are being sold for $1200?
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Because people are dumb enough to pay it. Value is subjective, what people are willing to pay for a thing is what the thing is worth.
 
If you can get $1200 for sneakers, don’t you think it would be fair to pay those who put them together more than $2? And yet that rarely occurs.
 
Polak said:
pay those who put them together more than $2?
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Absolutely. Which is why I don’t feed the beast and buy $1200 shoes. That’s why I’m a fan of Trump putting tariffs on companies who are ostensibly “American” but make all their product overseas with virtually slave labor and then sell it here for a huge profit instead of making the product in the US and paying Americans a decent wage.
 
Polak said:
How about questioning why sneakers made for a few bucks in China are being sold for $1200? before you tell me this is to do with regulating people who take advantage of the system and not the system itself, the system promotes such behaviour since the goal of capitalising inevitably leads to actions like this.
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The system doesn’t promote anything. The people, both parties, use the system for their advantage. They could use the system to benefit everyone just as easy. Greed and envy are the issues not the system
 
Polak said:
If you can get $1200 for sneakers, don’t you think it would be fair to pay those who put them together more than $2? And yet that rarely occurs.
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Did the person who put them together take any risk?
 
Polak said:
How about questioning why sneakers made for a few bucks in China are being sold for $1200? before you tell me this is to do with regulating people who take advantage of the system and not the system itself, the system promotes such behaviour since the goal of capitalising inevitably leads to actions like this.
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How about learning some economics before taking an extreme example of how abuse in a communist system is a weakness of capitalism?

The sneakers were produced in a communist run system.

Idiots willing to pay over a grand for tennis shoes are the problem here (if it even is a problem), not the ability to be paid for capital, nor free markets.

Now, if you want to say that celebrity worship is a problem, than sure. I have no qualms with rounding up the kardashabimbos, “influencers”, and other mouths and segregating them somewhere we don’t have to listen to their idiocy. Give them an enclave with electricity but no phones or internet. After all, we might need them for protein in an apocalypse 😱
Polak said:
Please give me an example of free markets not accompanying capitalism.
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Yugoslavia had free markets and socialist production.

Fascism was capitalist without free markets.
blackforest said:
The concern being broached seems to be about the downsides and unintended consequences of what our society is loosely referring to as capitalism.
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In this case, though, he’s confusing celebrity induced consumerism and conspicuous consumption with capitalism. All capitalism and free markets has to do with this is that they have made the working class wealthy enough to engage in such behavior, which was historically only possible for the most elite of the elite.
 
The question of why shoes cost a hundred dollars and people are paid so little for making them has to do with government protection of corporate monopolies. Despite the posts in this thread telling you to learn economics, I think you’re on the right track already.

Beware of what Kevin Carson calls ‘vulgar libertarianism.’

Vulgar libertarian apologists for capitalism use the term “free market” in an equivocal sense: they seem to have trouble remembering, from one moment to the next, whether they’re defending actually existing capitalism or free market principles. So we get the standard boilerplate article arguing that the rich can’t get rich at the expense of the poor, because “that’s not how the free market works”–implicitly assuming that this is a free market. When prodded, they’ll grudgingly admit that the present system is not a free market, and that it includes a lot of state intervention on behalf of the rich. But as soon as they think they can get away with it, they go right back to defending the wealth of existing corporations on the basis of “free market principles.”
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dochawk said:
All capitalism and free markets has to do with this is that they have made the working class wealthy enough to engage in such behavior, which was historically only possible for the most elite of the elite.
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Which free markets were those?
 
StudentMI said:
The question of why shoes cost a hundred dollars and people are paid so little for making them has to do with government protection of corporate monopolies.
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Yep. I was going to say, because people asked me about risk, that it’s funny how a lot of these big corporations and big businessmen often seem to receive help when in trouble. It’s always the people lower down working for them, who end up with nothing, yet the people at the top seem to be able to go bankrupt over and over and yet still somehow end up multimillionaires. They must just be super smart businessmen riiiight?
 
StudentMI said:
Are you making an ad hominem argument? You answer my question, I’ll answer yours.
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No. An ad hominem argument would go something like this, “Are you still a dumb student?”

I didn’t see a question that you posed? Happy to answer.
 
I was a student in college when I made this account. I am no longer in college. Now, why do you ask?
 
StudentMI said:
I was a student in college when I made this account. I am no longer in college. Now, why do you ask?
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Just curious. You seem to know a great deal about “corporate monopolies” and I was wondering what your direct experience was.
 
Polak said:
Yep. I was going to say, because people asked me about risk, that it’s funny how a lot of these big corporations and big businessmen often seem to receive help when in trouble.
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Why do you think big businesses would receive help when in trouble?
 
TULIPed said:
Just curious. You seem to know a great deal about “corporate monopolies” and I was wondering what your direct experience was.
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So one needs ‘direct experience’ to know how patents and copyrights work? How would one acquire such experience?
 
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