Why nobody likes Capitalism (including libertarians)
I'm a libertarian, pro-capitalism, but make no mistake, as a student of the Austrian school I reject the other forms of capitalism as both immoral and exploitative. Keynesians are the arch enemy of Market Liberalism, of which in my opinion deserve the full force of hatred from both the left and the right.
The same kind of people who are obsessed with GDP, a fundamentally flawed measure of an economies health. They solely care about seeing numbers go up and up, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is often used as shorthand for economic health, but it’s deeply misleading. They take the numbers in the local governments currency for instance, but the tricky thing here, is that when the value of the currency falls, it makes the GDP appear larger, simply because the value of the now cost inflated items has gone up. Inflation is good for GDP, but not for general population. This is why they love government spending, and especially war. The Military Industrial Complex, has evolved since its inception, and though Eisenhower warned about it in his farewell address, it is entirely plausible to say that Keynes is in part responsible for world war two, for inspiring Hitler's economic policy.
Even after the cold war, when the threat of nuclear annihilation faded, and government spenders needed to find something else to do in order to keep the line going upwards, simply decided instead of intervening in conflicts all across the world (wars for oil), they would enforce a safety net for companies 'too big to fail'.
Markets rise and fall—that’s natural. Like ecosystems, they adapt and correct. Intervening only delays the inevitable, often making things worse. Think of evolution and nature, when an animal population grows, food declines until its population declines back to normal. during that time, other species may suffer or thrive. When the government decides to intervene to prevent a company from collapsing, they are taking food (your money, through taxes) and giving it to companies (bail outs).
I'm not saying the economy is ZERO SUM like socialists and Georgists, but I am saying that the government prefers to take money from the poor, or food from the hungry, to expand a bloated market/corporation/class. In 2008 when the housing market crashed, the government stepped in and undid the correction. Housing prices didn't fall and stay corrected, they rose back up, and haven't fallen since. How can you afford to buy a home when your purchasing power is outpaced? Now, people can’t afford homes, and they act surprised. COVID only made it worse. Rent moratoriums forced small landlords to sell to corporate giants, who then jacked up prices the moment protections lifted. Even if you think less landlords is a good thing, understand that power concentrated is never a good thing.
We were supposed to learn from Standard Oil. Clearly, we didn’t.
Its not just homes either of course, we're starting to see the effect of government intervention on Colleges with the student debt crisis, which was incentivized after years of loaning money to students, only so colleges could increase the rates as people could afford to pay, except the people had to pay it back. Groceries skyrocketed if they were even available when people were forced to stay home and given stimulus checks. Giving money for free, increases the money supply. when the supply of money expanded but the supply of groceries did not, scarcity drove prices to rise, and they haven't gone down across the board as easily, because if you don't have the money, its still in the supply, just in the hands of the wealthy and asset holding.
This country needs to kill its "too big to fail" addiction. Let the weak fall. Let the reckless collapse. Only then can real competition thrive.
Corporations no longer care about dividends and instead chase endless growth, because they’ve turned the market into an asset extraction machine. Investors take loans against stocks they’ll never sell, because the risks are meaningless. If it all crashes? No worries. The bank either seizes assets or calls on Uncle Sam to save the day.
No wonder the average American feels stuck. There are fewer opportunities. College doesn’t open the doors it promised. Student debt is astronomical—again, inflated by government “aid” that only fed tuition hikes.
We don’t have a wage problem. We have an inflation problem. If wages were the sole cause of inflation, that would be an issue only for those with savings accounts. Its not that raising wages on their own would hurt, It would absolutely help. Simply increasing regulations, kills competition, reducing the incentive to raise wages. Unemployment is desirable for them because that allows them to pay less, if not in your hourly, they can cut labor and give you work for two people instead, while you have to be thankful to even have a job.
I can empathize with the socialists who genuinely do have dreams of being free from the corporate yoke, yet it pains me to see people then advocate for an alteration to the environment, that poisons their own prospects.
I can empathize with the conservative investors who've dreamt and lived the American dream, but have been asleep so long, they think that selling their house makes them rich, when all it means is their savings can buy them less and they might not actually be able to afford retirement or pass anything onto their children.
I can empathize with people, the producers and the consumers, because everyone exists at both sides. Yet both sides are entirely unwilling to understand what is going on or how we got here, or at least even consider potential consequences of their actions, let alone a response.
I’m so fucking glad that, for once, they’re willing to admit the economy is in trouble. As stupid as the new tariffs are, at least they are willing to admit it. I can only hope, that the left and right are willing to look at it for once. The left because they can savor the failure of 'capitalism' and the right so they can even ignorantly, cast of their obsession with gdp, under the idea 'made in America better' because well at least those idiots are willing to spend the extra money, and someone gets paid. If both sides can abandon glorification of GDP as a metric, a metric even the soviet union attempted to compete in and we see the People's Republic of China (warlord state I refuse to recognize), then maybe at least my country can have a slight chance at improving the quality of life instead of decreasing.
Until Keynesianism is rejected, we’ll remain trapped in the worst form of capitalism: one where corporations privatize the gain and socialize the loss.
Cut the red tape, break the chains, whatever. Just Don't tread on me.
germansingergirl
turnnoffyourmind
yousharknotpass
dededos
jacobvanloon
baratheonpilled
areudirty
