Ultimately any economical and Political system will struggle with this. Capitalism can work if you have a taxation and redistribution of the wealth. Otherwise all wealth eventually congregates like mass in a black hole. Simultaneously you can have a system that might have fairer basic ideals but ends up just as corrupt. See the various attempts at communism.
The tricky part is the vigilance. Imagine a Musk raising his arm for a hearty ‘sieg heil’ in 1945-80. Now he got away with it. Generations forget. Safeguards get erroded away over time as the greedy goblins hammer away at them like woodpeckers.
The loaded gun is always there. The dangerous men always try to get to it. We gotta guard it 24/7. Not an easy task.
Capitalism that you mention that could work was the capitalism we had until the 70s and it’s what lead us to the late stage capitalism we have today
Even if you reset you will end up at this stage because accumulation of wealth and thus power will always occur and then the capitalist class has both the means and incentive to change the rules of the system and then they get more wealth and power etc etc
You can’t guard it unless you have power and under capitalism you don’t.
You gave the loaded gun to the capitalist class and then try to force them to do the “right” thing and not use the gun for bad stuff, except they have the gun… they’re not going to listen to you
But isn’t the problem rather that people can be easily convinced to vote against their self-interest? It seems the people at large are not selfish enough, and the rich are too selfish?
In other words, the problem is that those that don’t have, don’t want to have strongly enough, and those that already have, want to have too much. As an overarching group, not individually, of course.
Ultimately any economical and Political system will struggle with this. Capitalism can work if you have a taxation and redistribution of the wealth. Otherwise all wealth eventually congregates like mass in a black hole. Simultaneously you can have a system that might have fairer basic ideals but ends up just as corrupt. See the various attempts at communism.
The tricky part is the vigilance. Imagine a Musk raising his arm for a hearty ‘sieg heil’ in 1945-80. Now he got away with it. Generations forget. Safeguards get erroded away over time as the greedy goblins hammer away at them like woodpeckers.
The loaded gun is always there. The dangerous men always try to get to it. We gotta guard it 24/7. Not an easy task.
Capitalism that you mention that could work was the capitalism we had until the 70s and it’s what lead us to the late stage capitalism we have today
Even if you reset you will end up at this stage because accumulation of wealth and thus power will always occur and then the capitalist class has both the means and incentive to change the rules of the system and then they get more wealth and power etc etc
You can’t guard it unless you have power and under capitalism you don’t.
You gave the loaded gun to the capitalist class and then try to force them to do the “right” thing and not use the gun for bad stuff, except they have the gun… they’re not going to listen to you
Communism could also work if… human nature wasn’t as it is People are simply too asshole-y for capitalism to work as intended.
But isn’t the problem rather that people can be easily convinced to vote against their self-interest? It seems the people at large are not selfish enough, and the rich are too selfish?
In other words, the problem is that those that don’t have, don’t want to have strongly enough, and those that already have, want to have too much. As an overarching group, not individually, of course.
It’s that those who don’t have can be easily convinced to (attempt to) have at the expense of their fellow have-nots than to unite against the haves.
Thou speaketh the truth. I wonder if there is some way to convince people not to listen to the siren song of “maybe billionaire one day”
Convince people an alternative than the shameful ladder of capitalism can work, and you’ll have a chance.