Current Events > The biggest problem with capitalism is not caring about your legacy.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Tbh all issues stem from this.
Essentially every company will one day sell out no matter how quality the product was, no matter how much goodwill they had for their employees and the rest of the world.
This is why companies like google start out as looking like amazing companies then become giant scumbags.

Infact, there is even a whole school of thought that you buy out a company that has quality products, reduce the quality, gut it and make as much short term profits as you can then sell it before it implodes or other various scumbag tactics.

And then there are people who care about their company, their legacy and their employees. But eventually theu get older and a scumbag comes to them with millions of dollars to buy out their company. They want to retire and the money is too good for them to care anymore.

Rinse and repeat.

Imagine a company you really like that you think cares about you, the world, their employees and the quality of their business and products. One day they won't anymore. How will that make you feel?

And ofc this is not limited to companies. It happens to people too. Artists will taint their legacy for easy money.
Politicians will as well. Even religious leaders who were supposedly full of integrity.
Even admins of a dying message board.

fiat capitalism was a mistake

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In general, capitalism asks that you ditch your integrity and morals for $$$

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RchHomieQuanChi posted...

In general, capitalism asks that you ditch your integrity and morals for $$$

Exactly

It's just the eternal innovation/stagnation/extinction cycle.

Questionmarktarius posted...

It's just the eternal innovation/stagnation/extinction cycle.

It is not.
A company can make stable profits, have stable interest in the product with 0 innovation.
What happens is there is predators looking for companies like this because they know they can gut such companies and pocket tons of short term profits while the company dies.

Then there is two reasons:
1. Existence and legality of these sharks in our society
2. Naievity or loss of integrity of previous owners

Essentially, there is no reason for this to happen. It was not inevitable. But our society allows it and greed fuels it.

WingsOfGood posted...

A company can make stable profits, have stable interest in the product with 0 innovation.

a company with stable profits and no innovation is soon undercut by hungrier competitors

it must innovate, scale up, partake in anticompetitive practices, or shrink/fail

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TheMikh posted...

a company with stable profits and no innovation is soon undercut by hungrier competitors

it must innovate, scale up, partake in anticompetitive practices, or shrink/fail

Let me give an example which is recent.
Wizards of the coast.

They had always been a money printing machine, and then a bigger company bought them out.

Recently Hasbro said they had to have 5x more profits by the end of the year.
So you now see all sorts of new money making avenues and changes to the way the game is designed and administrated.

Did these changes need to happen to stay competitve as a tcg company? No, not at all.

Do why did they happen? Shareholders wantes more profits.
Next year they won't be satisfied either, they will demand even more even if the 5x profit is achieved.
Already the product quality has declined and that is not opinion but observable through metrics.

That's just the Atari trajectory, and look how that ended up.

I dunno I think the biggest problem with capitalism is the violent imperialism that sustains it

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What made Google amazing at the beginning but scumbags now? The goal of a company from the start is to make a profit, which they do by providing a consumer surplus. It's a mutually beneficial transaction.

scar the 1 posted...

I dunno I think the biggest problem with capitalism is the violent imperialism that sustains it

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Ok cool

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scar the 1 posted...

I dunno I think the biggest problem with capitalism is the violent imperialism that sustains it

In the end, capitalism is still voluntary.
The market can tolerate a lot of abhorrent behavior, but when your product is no longer worthwhile to your customers, your business either corrects its course or dies quickly.

Questionmarktarius posted...

In the end, capitalism is still voluntary.
The market can tolerate a lot of abhorrent behavior, but when your product is no longer worthwhile to your customers, your business either corrects its course or dies quickly.

Capitalism is voluntary? Tell that to Morales, or Salvador Allende, or to Thomas Sankara, or to workers in H&M's factories in Bangladesh, or in cobolt mines in Kongo. Not really sure how you even arrive at the notion that capitalism is voluntary when it literally rests on so much military spending that you can bomb whatever country you want and take their stuff and no one will stop you

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scar the 1 posted...

Ok cool

yeah sorry your point is totally false

scar the 1 posted...

Capitalism is voluntary? Tell that to Morales, or Salvador Allende, or to Thomas Sankara, or to workers in H&M's factories in Bangladesh, or in cobolt mines in Kongo. Not really sure how you even arrive at the notion that capitalism is voluntary when it literally rests on so much military spending that you can bomb whatever country you want and take their stuff and no one will stop you

Capitalism: You can freely choose either to work, or starve.
Communism: You get to do both, whether you want to or not.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Capitalism: You can freely choose either to work, or starve.
Communism: You get to do both, whether you want to or not.

This topic isn't about communism, and I don't think the children in the Middle-East are choosing to get bombed

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scar the 1 posted...

This topic isn't about communism, and I don't think the children in the Middle-East are choosing to get bombed

Topic isn't about bombings in the middle-east either but here we are.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Topic isn't about bombings in the middle-east either but here we are.

Let's go beat on WotC some more.
https://www.salon.com/2001/03/23/wizards/

Wizards was actively imploding when Hasbro scooped it up. Same as Atari when Warner scooped it up, and we see this all over the place when monoliths buy up that thing you like.
A company gets rich super-fast, starts fucking up, then gets merged into a lumbering behemoth and slowly dismantled.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Topic isn't about bombings in the middle-east either but here we are.

They're a product of capitalism

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scar the 1 posted...

They're a product of capitalism

They are not, as proven by the existence of conflict without capitalism.

Legacies are mostly dead these days and capitalism isn't to blame.
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Broseph_Stalin posted...

They are not, as proven by the existence of conflict without capitalism.

That is some very poor logic my friend

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scar the 1 posted...

That is some very poor logic my friend

"everything I hate is capitalism" is indeed very poor logic.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

"everything I hate is capitalism" is indeed very poor logic.

That wouldn't be logic, it would be an opinion. You're really struggling with the words aren't you

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I feel its been more of a cultural problem of valuing the wrong stakeholders over the others rather than trying to balance them.

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scar the 1 posted...

You're really struggling with the words aren't you

This entire argument started because you don't know what capitalism means.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

This entire argument started because you don't know what capitalism means.

I disagree. It started because you can't keep yourself from stirring shit up whenever someone speaks ill of capitalism on here

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scar the 1 posted...

It started because you can't keep yourself from stirring shit up whenever someone speaks ill of capitalism on here

You aren't making any arguments against capitalism though you're just bringing up completely unrelated things you'd like to complain about.

And I should correct myself, this argument started because you made a false claim and could only respond with "ok cool" when called out on it.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

You aren't making any arguments against capitalism though you're just bringing up completely unrelated things you'd like to complain about.

I'm not trying to make any arguments against capitalism. The topic is about "the biggest problem with capitalism" and I offered my opinion as to what the biggest problem with capitalism is

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scar the 1 posted...

and I offered my opinion as to what the biggest problem with capitalism is

Something that is demonstratively false is not an opinion.

scar the 1 posted...

I'm not trying to make any arguments against capitalism. The topic is about "the biggest problem with capitalism" and I offered my opinion as to what the biggest problem with capitalism is

The biggest problem with capitalism is the "runaway" effect that turns into some sort of mercantile-feudalism. Even invisible-hand evangelists know this.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Something that is demonstratively false is not an opinion.

I agree!

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One of the biggest problems with capitalism is that it's an inherently competitive system where the people at the top have both the incentive and the means to rig the game to where the people at the bottom cannot adequately compete.

It's a game where wealth is equivalent to power and the people without wealth are reliant on those WITH wealth to even survive, let alone thrive.

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RchHomieQuanChi posted...

One of the biggest problems with capitalism is that it's an inherently competitive system where the people at the top have both the incentive and the means to rig the game to where the people at the bottom cannot adequately compete.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

One of the biggest problems with capitalism is that it's an inherently competitive system where the people at the top have both the incentive and the means to rig the game to where the people at the bottom cannot adequately compete

This is honestly the issue, but if we're being honest almost every single system humanity has ever come up with plays out the same. Capitalism just offers more non murdery options for clawing your way up the proverbial food chain.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Yeah its not like centuries of raging colonialism had any lasting effects or anything.

https://youtu.be/Q6WdUkaFyGw

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Why are people on CE so eager to let everyone else know they get their opinions from shitty YouTube grifters peddling propaganda? It's not something to brag about.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Why are people on CE so eager to let everyone else know they get their opinions from shitty YouTube grifters peddling propaganda? It's not something to brag about.

It really isn't!

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

Why are people on CE so eager to let everyone else know they get their opinions from shitty YouTube grifters peddling propaganda? It's not something to brag about.

Too bad!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26QxO49Ycx0

Its just a guy listing off facts and statistics. I didnt care to waste my own time responding to the grifting propaganda picture that you posted.

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EzeDoesIt posted...

Its just a guy listing off facts and statistics. I didnt care to waste my own time responding to the grifting propaganda picture that you posted.

The picture is sourced information while the video is just random unsourced claims lmao zero self-awareness.

Although I do love how a minute into the video he casually mentions that there's a massive amount of data showing global poverty declining but you have to ignore all of it because it's fake news lol

Can't believe people take that garbage seriously.

Like I said, colonialism has lasting effects. Some goofy ass graph that completely ignores that isnt worth anything.

Like, if I arbitrarily move the definition of extreme poverty from living on $5/day to $1/day, no ones situation has actually improved but I get to make a colorful propaganda graph that makes neoliberals feel all fuzzy-wuzzy inside about capitalism.

Similarly, nations that once colonized areas of the world often still have complete economic dominion over them even if theyre not technically considered colonies anymore.

Sounds like a fucking grift to me, mate.

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EzeDoesIt posted...

Like, if I arbitrarily move the definition of extreme poverty from living on $5/day to $1/day, no ones situation has actually improved but I get to make a colorful propaganda graph that makes neoliberals feel all fuzzy-wuzzy inside about capitalism.

I'm glad you can just casually dismiss actual data showing tangible increases in the living standards of people who need it the most while at the same time mindlessly agreeing with any kind of unsourced claim that confirms your bias.

It's not about helping people, you just have an aesthetic you want to maintain.

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourslef become the villain.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

I'm glad you can just casually dismiss actual data showing tangible increases in the living standards of people who need it the most while at the same time mindlessly agreeing with any kind of unsourced claim that confirms your bias.

It's not about helping people, you just have an aesthetic you want to maintain.

Even if I want to take your data at face value, theres nothing to suggest capitalism had anything to do with getting people out from under fascist regimes or anything else that is stated on the graph.

Wealth inequality is far higher than it was in the 1970s in the U.S. but you believe were on the right track because more people have refrigerators than they did back then.

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EzeDoesIt posted...

Even if I want to take your data at face value, theres nothing to suggest capitalism had anything to do with getting people out from under fascist regimes or anything else that is stated on the graph.

Economic freedom is necessary for political freedom to be achieved. It's not a coincidence that both gain or lose influence at the same time, or that all democratic states have market-oriented economic systems. You're ignoring reality here.

EzeDoesIt posted...

Wealth inequality is far higher than it was in the 1970s in the U.S. but you believe were on the right track because more people have refrigerators than they did back then.

The entire reason wealth inequality gets so much attention is because people don't want to talk about the total increase in wealth among everyone, not just the rich. "Yeah you're better off, but others are even richer!" is not a good argument against markets, especially considering what the alternative is. I have zero desire to be poorer just so others can also be poorer.