Trust me bro, Capitalism is necessary for innovation, just trust me bro
this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Yeah you're right let's follow the great innovations of the USSR, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba
Those aren't the only alternatives, lmao. Do you think humans stop innovating if they share tools and democratize production, rather than having a bunch of unaccountable mini-dictators?
Do you think the Capitalists are the ones who innovate, or is it the Engineers and Scientists that do?
Show the alternatives then.
And yeah the capitalists are the ones that drive the innovation since they're the ones that allocate the capital where it would generate the most return, which sometimes means innovation.
You're literally on one of the alternatives. FOSS is a rejection of the profit motive, and individual ownership of Capital. It is, quite literally, an anticapitalist statement. Are you under the impression you're on Reddit?
Money doesn't need to come from Capitalists, and again, Capitalists aren't doing the innovating. That's like saying the bread baker that fed the Engineer is doing the innovating, because without the bread baker, the Engineer couldn't innovate. Of course humanity is interlinked, no one man is an island, but that doesn't mean labor performed by one person is actually labor performed by another.
I'll make it simple for you, and give you 2 choices.
Factory 1: Capitalist owner, non-owner workers. The only voice workers have is to either get a new job, or unionize.
Factory 2: Workers are the owners, and thus production is democratized. One of the workers is elected as a manager, and may be stripped of power by the rest of the workers at any time.
Which one is better?
To circle back: what you listed is a very, very narrow vision of what Socialism can mean. Socialism is Worker Ownership of the Means of Production, and can be just as varied as Capitalist organization. Are you going to say that Sweden is the same as Pinochet's Chile, just because both were/are Capitalist? Absurd.
FOSS is not necessarily a rejection of the profit motive, it just says that there shouldn't be restrictions to redistribute work to the masses. Just look at Linux itself. The project is maintained largely by contributions from (big tech)[https://lwn.net/Articles/915435/] even though it's under the most restrictive copyleft license.
Also, I'd rather the factory that has the incentive to reduce prices to compete with others instead of the one that has all the incentive to increase costs (wages).
Besides, you can absolutely create any co-op you want in a capitalists system. If you think it's just as innovative then just go and start one instead of screeching at people that capitalism bad.
Are you really that dumb? The point of open source software is that anyone can contribute and use. So of course some tech companies are going to contribute to the Linux kernel, why? Because it’s more innovative than the alternatives. The best innovation happens when you let go of the profit motive and just let engineers tinker.
Buddy look around. We are in a capitalist paradise and what is happening? Oh right, costs are rising! Why are you pretending that capitalism means that companies keep the costs low, when it literally incentivizes monopolies to form, and thus drives UP costs??
Capitalism is the reason for institutional racism (in the US), for the degregation of the environment, for poverty in first world countries, for so many wars and violent coups, for literal slavery. If you think that billionaires controlling society will create innovation, it might, but for the a cost of exploitation and destruction that 100% isn’t worth it.
It’s crazy to me that people like you genuinly believe that a worker led society is somehow bad. You do know that you are a worker right?
I swear that most commenters are young people because back in the 90s-2000s, taxis and hotels were hot fucking garbage.
Taxis would go on joy rides to up the cost or refuse you if you were black.
Hotels would tell you to go suck a dick because their price listed outside is not for you, and if you want a place, they have a room with roaches near the heater.
Uber/Airbnb were gamechangers that broke that monopoly.
Unfortunately, they have gotten to shit. But you know what? Taxis and hotels have cleaned up their act. Because the moment they go to shit again, Uber/Airbnb will come in and eat their lunch.
Where I lived and traveled, hotels never had a monopoly. Small B&Bs and hostels have always existed, it was never a choice between big hotel and staying in a tent. There was no need to wreak havoc on the housing market.
The problem with the gig economy is that these platforms are not content with being what they're advertising themselves as. "Be your own boss". "Make some money in your own time". Guess what, if you drive for Uber, Uber is your boss. You're an employee in anything but name. They penalise you if you reject too many jobs. They penalise you if you go on break too long. They penalise you for all kinds of other things. Here in Australia most rideshare vehicles have at least two badges, because the drivers can't make ends meet driving for just one. And then they've gone and fucked up the delivery market as well. It's an economy of rent-seekers and middlemen.
Uber and Airbnb DID break that monopoly but they got their competative advantage by simply breaking the laws that existing taxis and hotels were required to adhear too. Still do break those laws but weight of cash > law.
Laws that the taxi and hotel companies lobbied for to stop competition.
Almost as if it’s not the commodities that are the problem, but the economy they operate. 🧐
Taxis in my country would routinely ask for extra (usually 25-30% of the total fare) or have you pay them a fixed amount that's way higher than if only the meter was used (about 2-3x the normal fare) . There are also taxis that have meters that are way too fast. Uber was a godsend when it first came out here.
When you call a cab it was often a game of 'will the can actually show up?"
Ah yes, I too remember the good old days of stumbling home drunk in the dark because my cab never came.
Calling AirBnB "a hotel chain" is an insult to hotels.
Hotels don't require you to clean somebody else's house while you are on vacation like a maid, and then charging you a cleaning fee for missing a spot. There isn't even much of a price difference nowadays, so staying at a hotel wins every time.
I have two younger kids. We can very close to renting a hotel on our last in-state vacation. It would have actually been somewhat cheaper. The reason we still went for the AirBnB was because our kids are asleep by like 7:30 and we didn't want to be 'trapped' in the hotel room and didn't want to rent a second. AirBnB made it significantly easier to find a house to rent.
That said, the number of AirBnBs in that area of the state has really grown. I can't imagine that's doing the people who live there any favors.
What is "illegal cab company" supposed to represent?
You see Uber and Lyft aren't technically legal taxi services in many places because they don't employ any drivers or own any vehicles. They have "Contracted Individuals."
You forgot "cable television, but over the internet and no one has all the channels."
So, Internet cable TV
"...and it all still has ads."
🏴☠️
Personally I'm a fan of fake certificate that says you paid money for one of the plagiarism machine's works
You mean the Amazon rain forest destroyer machine?