In my experience, the people who work retail and food service are more likely to favor socialism and collective action. But not all of them, of course.
The people who justify capitalism tend to work in higher paid office or managerial jobs. Not all of them, of course, as I am an example, and as are the ton of lower paid office workers that hate their jobs.
Turns out, the people for whom capitalism worked out, tend to like it. Those being crushed by the weight of unsustainable consumption tend to hate it. Go figure.
I see it as an incentive structure problem. Capitalism in itself isn’t inherently evil, but what we’ve created is a system of perverse incentives, where the closer to the top you get, the more incentive there is to fuck everyone below you, and the more capable you are of doing it. People will mostly go for what benefits them most, or at least is perceived to benefit them most. If there was a much larger cost to fucking front line workers, for those in charge, things would change tomorrow. The other part of the problem is the people at the top now have so much influence they can stop changes to the incentive structure.
Capitalism’s only job is to be a paper clip factory. All they will ever care about is making paper clips. If left unchecked, they will run amok and fill the universe with paper clips.
It’s government’s job to provide the walls and the rules and the guidelines that protect its people and prevent that from happening.
But the paper clip factory managers started running for office. And duped people into voting for them. And now the halls of congress and governor mansions and parliments and white houses etc. are filled with paper clips and now nobody can get anything done.
Most reasonable people are in favor of better wages and working conditions, but they’re also in favor of capitalism because it works. Socialism is a failed ideology time and time again. It will never work and never has. There’s a reason why every single Marxist attempt failed. They all either collapsed or adopted a form of capitalism.
I think you’re confusing socialism with communism.
Most western nations use some hybrid of capitalism and socialism. Pure capitalism doesn’t work. Pure socialism doesn’t work. But together they check and balance each other.
The only debate is around “how capitalist” or “how socialist”.
For example, the industry that provides internet access is an example of where capitalism has failed. We gave them an unfettered free market and they wrote their government contracts to give themselves fiefdoms and consolidated to the point that there is no competition. This is the endpoint of pure capitalism - feudalism.
The “pure capitalist” approach would be to throw up your hands and give up. The free market has spoken.
Hybrid approach #1 could be to use government regulations to break up the fiefdoms and somehow force competition. This is still a hybrid approach, but closer to the capitalist side of the spectrum.
Hybrid approach #2 would be to acknowledge that a competitive landscape may never develop over such a required piece of infrastructure and instead turn the industry into a public utility. This is much closer to the “socialism” side of the fence as they may still allow private companies to run the utility, but the government controls many parts of their business practices.
The pure socialist approach would be to have the government take over internet infrastructure and provide it as a public good paid by tax dollars. Which has its own pros and cons I suppose. The government running internet infrastructure is a bit of a black box - we don’t really know how it’d go - but its hard to imagine the pace of innovation and support being worse than it is today.
Regardless, this only applies to an industry that currently lacks innovation. There are plenty of industries where a free market does work in the public’s favor. But not all of them. And that’s something the hybrid model acknowledges.
In my experience, the people who work retail and food service are more likely to favor socialism and collective action. But not all of them, of course.
The people who justify capitalism tend to work in higher paid office or managerial jobs. Not all of them, of course, as I am an example, and as are the ton of lower paid office workers that hate their jobs.
Turns out, the people for whom capitalism worked out, tend to like it. Those being crushed by the weight of unsustainable consumption tend to hate it. Go figure.
I see it as an incentive structure problem. Capitalism in itself isn’t inherently evil, but what we’ve created is a system of perverse incentives, where the closer to the top you get, the more incentive there is to fuck everyone below you, and the more capable you are of doing it. People will mostly go for what benefits them most, or at least is perceived to benefit them most. If there was a much larger cost to fucking front line workers, for those in charge, things would change tomorrow. The other part of the problem is the people at the top now have so much influence they can stop changes to the incentive structure.
The word you’re looking for is “regulation”.
Capitalism’s only job is to be a paper clip factory. All they will ever care about is making paper clips. If left unchecked, they will run amok and fill the universe with paper clips.
It’s government’s job to provide the walls and the rules and the guidelines that protect its people and prevent that from happening.
But the paper clip factory managers started running for office. And duped people into voting for them. And now the halls of congress and governor mansions and parliments and white houses etc. are filled with paper clips and now nobody can get anything done.
Most reasonable people are in favor of better wages and working conditions, but they’re also in favor of capitalism because it works. Socialism is a failed ideology time and time again. It will never work and never has. There’s a reason why every single Marxist attempt failed. They all either collapsed or adopted a form of capitalism.
I think you’re confusing socialism with communism.
Most western nations use some hybrid of capitalism and socialism. Pure capitalism doesn’t work. Pure socialism doesn’t work. But together they check and balance each other.
The only debate is around “how capitalist” or “how socialist”.
For example, the industry that provides internet access is an example of where capitalism has failed. We gave them an unfettered free market and they wrote their government contracts to give themselves fiefdoms and consolidated to the point that there is no competition. This is the endpoint of pure capitalism - feudalism.
The “pure capitalist” approach would be to throw up your hands and give up. The free market has spoken.
Hybrid approach #1 could be to use government regulations to break up the fiefdoms and somehow force competition. This is still a hybrid approach, but closer to the capitalist side of the spectrum.
Hybrid approach #2 would be to acknowledge that a competitive landscape may never develop over such a required piece of infrastructure and instead turn the industry into a public utility. This is much closer to the “socialism” side of the fence as they may still allow private companies to run the utility, but the government controls many parts of their business practices.
The pure socialist approach would be to have the government take over internet infrastructure and provide it as a public good paid by tax dollars. Which has its own pros and cons I suppose. The government running internet infrastructure is a bit of a black box - we don’t really know how it’d go - but its hard to imagine the pace of innovation and support being worse than it is today.
Regardless, this only applies to an industry that currently lacks innovation. There are plenty of industries where a free market does work in the public’s favor. But not all of them. And that’s something the hybrid model acknowledges.