Quote:
Originally Posted by UNKNOWN_370
Too many people define themselves by what they have vs being who they are. Capitalism as a system is great. But the ideology attached to it is toxic. Not making a political discussion. This is where my depth ends. Just a general statement and it's not intended to say any other system is better or worse. Just relative to the car price situation. I'm saying this.
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for all its flaws, capitalism on its worst day, is still better than socialism/communism.
But, like most things in life, moderation and common (uncommon?) sense is key. Too much unbridled under regulated capitalism is very destructive in that it naturally leads to monopolies in most industries (big tech is a geat contemporary example) and massive wealth inequality with a few super rich and everyone else poor/working poor.
Capitalists, aka business owners have no loyalty to any country, only to make $$ and please their shareholders if publicly traded company. When America was the worlds undisputed #1 economy, this worked for our population well, but as China is superseding us, it is only natural in this economic system for our companies to cater to them since they have the bigger growing middle class and wealthy class.
Starting in the 1960’s, as labor costs began to creep much higher and the opportunity to offshore labor/manufacturing began to make $$ sense, our American companies did just that and our govt looked the other way. Now from a shareholder/investor perspective this has been fantastic, but the real world result is a shrinking middle class/working class and a growing service sector which most of those jobs don’t pay as well as skilled manufacturing jobs, and now with the automation/ai revolution those jobs if they did come back, would be filled by robots.
The answer, if there is one, is a capitalistic system with a strong ethical compass, which is whats missing today. This is where common sense govt regulation should play a role, to enforce, for lack of a better word, economic patriotism which would provide “fairness” for our workers
Conversely, labor unions need to wake up and realize, a dude working the line at a gm plant doesn’t and shouldn’t be making $80k per year (yes, that’s accurate for a lot of the folks with around 20 years). Of corse gm wants to close as many plants as possible in that environment. That should be around a $40k per year job with benefits once you get some seniority.
Like I said balance and moderation on both sides are key.