this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Losses are socialized only for very big companies though. If you are a minor capitalist with a small restaurant chain or something in that size no one will watch out for you.
That is certainly true. Smaller capitalists definitely do not enjoy the protection of socialized losses in the same way that large capitalists do. This fact is exemplary of the inherent unfairness of capitalism: the people who need the socialization of losses more don't get it, while the ones who need it least, or not at all, receive it.
It's a scramble to the top of the wealth pile, and the ones who are higher get there and stay there by kicking the faces of the ones who are lower.
A proprietor of a restaurant is not a capitalist, heβs a shopkeeper. An owner of a restaurant chain that is expanding constantly, a Macdonalds, a Starbucks, a corporation that has to demonstrate perpetual growth to satisfy its investors, that is a capitalist.
I get what you're saying, but I also think there's a spectrum. It's easier, and more likely, for your shopkeeper to be fairer in their compensation of employees, even to the point of being "ideally fair." But it's also possible for that shopkeeper to be grossly unfair and exploitative, entirely within the law.
Sure. And to the extent that the sole proprietor has to compete with corporate chains their business almost has to be as shitty to their employees.
That shopkeeper looks just a bit more capitalist now. It's systemic.