A couple of slices:
Extreme wealth disparity is not due to a lack of taxes, but rather a lack of competition. In a competitive market, profit margins are quite low. If any one company tries to set its prices much higher than the cost of production, rivals quickly undercut it. Unfortunately, large parts of our economy are blocked off from competition by laws and regulations. This allows monopolistic corporations to charge exorbitant prices.
…
Therefore, it is important to understand how billionaires create and maintain these monopolies that allow them to amass such unfathomable riches.
And:
A lack of competition allows billionaires and their corporations to not make, but take wealth from everyone else. It is not enough to merely tax them on their ill-gotten gains. We need reforms to ensure that they can’t exploit and fleece everyone in the first place.
Do read the whole thing.
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Extreme wealth disparity is not due to a lack of taxes, but rather a lack of competition.
No.
No no no.
This isn’t personal (assuming you wrote this, you mention your site, so I’m assuming) but I’m just so sick and fucking tired of people thinking they’ve seriously analysed the state of affairs of the world, but not only refuse to even name capitalism, let alone point to it as the core problem, but worse, insist on the nonsensical idea that we can and should fix things from within it and under its rules (and in your example, using one of its most toxic and destructive elements), instead of realising the only way to free ourselves is to abolish it entirely, as if capitalism is some sort of natural order we simply can’t exist outside of.
I don’t know if you meant it to, but your analysis gives "an"cp vibes in how close it gets to getting it, and then how fast and how far it eventually veers off course.
Whatever the case. I think you’re close enough to benefit from exploring further if you think you can set your biases aside and sit with the discomfort of unlearning the constructs you’ve been made to believe are natural and unavoidable, otherwise you’re just going to keep skirting the issue but never hitting the point.
insist on the nonsensical idea that we can and should fix things from within it and under its rules (and in your example, using one of its most toxic and destructive elements)
I don’t think I am saying that at all. Could you point out the specific passages which come across that way?
The whole entire thing.
Competition is unnecessary.
Humans are not in a battle for survival, there is enough for everyone.
It is artificial bullshit created and enforced by capitalists to make them as much money and power as possible.
Competition, by definition creates and breeds and encourages inequality and oppression of others.
There is no good reason to cling on to it, never mind try to base a plan for a better society on it
Rather than breaking up monopolies that will only ever reform themselves eventually, it makes more sense to fold them into the Public Sector, whereby their existing planning infrastructure can be better put to use in a more efficient manner. We need to move the clock forwards, not keep setting it back.
fold them into the Public Sector
The only thing worse than a private monopoly is a government monopoly. Especially when that government will soon be under Donald Trump.
Why do you believe it’s worse to have public ownership? Moreover, why didn’t you respond to the reasoning I laid out for why perpetually trying to move the clock back and stagnate instead of progressing onwards is false thinking?
Why do you believe it’s worse to have public ownership?
Do you want the government to run crucial services such as search engines (Google), e-commerce websites (Amazon) and so on?
You imagine an ideal government which has the best intentions, rather than people acting in their self-interest.
Would you like Trump to control these things? What about law enforcement getting all the data with no constraints of getting warrants?
why didn’t you respond to the reasoning I laid out for why perpetually trying to move the clock back and stagnate instead of progressing onwards is false thinking?
Government ownership is not progress. It has been tried, and shown to work poorly in many countries repeatedly.
I’m a Communist, I advocate gradually working towards full Public Ownership and Central Planning. I believe history has proven the inefficiency of the profit motive and the gross excesses of Private Property. Trump controlling the government wouldn’t give him dictatorial control over all aspects of the economy, that’s akin to saying we should abolish the Post Office because Trump is president. This is a silly logical train to follow.
Moreover, I am very confused about what you are vaguely gesturing towards when you say “it has shown to work poorly repeatedly.” If anything, Public Ownership and Central Planning has largely proven to be quite effective, but more effective when applied to developed areas of industry where Markets have already done the best they can to centralize beforehand. In underdeveloped areas, markets are still a useful tool, but eventually outlive themselves.
Government ownership is not progress. It has been tried, and shown to work poorly in many countries repeatedly.
This is neoliberal claptrap.
.
The reason government services don’t work well in the US is because the capitalist class (which runs the country, and always has) doesn’t want them to work well. They intentionally sabotage government services, because they want those services to be privatized, so they can own them and profit off of them.The reason socialism has failed several times is because imperialism does everything in its power to destroy it.
And yet:- Americans Can Now Expect to Live Three Years Less than Cubans
- Helping 800 Million People Escape Poverty Was Greatest Such Effort in History, Says [UN] Secretary-General, on Seventieth Anniversary of China’s Founding
- China’s Energy Use Per Person Surpasses Europe’s for First Time
- At 54, China’s average retirement age is too low
- China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data
Private monopolies will charge as much as as their captured market can bear, whereas governments don’t even need to break even.
Lol this is absolute lassez faire propaganda.
