You can take this further, and discuss how many empty homes are owned by corporations that are sitting empty, along with how many homeless people there are in the richest country in the world. Or how much food is thrown away while people remain hungry. Both of these things are happening because housing homeless people and feeding hungry people just aren’t profitable.

That’s my main problem with American capitalism. Along with capital owning our politicians and passing anti-competitive laws designed to allow the ones at the top to stay at the top unchallenged. That’s probably a different discussion though. The “Free Market” is a myth.

[–] Lianodel@ttrpg.network 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Absolutely. While I can be convinced on markets for some things (with regulation to protect consumers and prevent monopolies), it completely falls apart in others. Necessities absolutely should not rely on free markets because capital holders hold an extortionate amount of power, most people have little to none, and if it's more profitable to let some people die, then the profit motive will let those people die.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Necessities must rely on free markets because free markets are the only mechanisms productive enough to cover those necessities.

Health care, education, and housing are three markets that we have attempted to control on the basis that they’re necessary so we shouldn’t take any chances.

As a result, health care, education, and housing are ultra expensive and scarce, and major sources of stress and worth for people.

But far more fundamental than any of those, and hence capable of producing far greater suffering when lacking, is food. Food is a much more free market than health care, education, and housing, and as a result food is abundant and cheap.

The constantly-driven message that capitalism cuts people off from things is deep within our brains. And it makes sense: you imagine someone wanting to eat and not having money and they don’t eat and that’s a horrible thought. But it’s not what happens. We buy and sell food all the time, and we also give enormous amounts of food to people for free. Heck we just had an annual ritual last night based on giving people food. I flew a sign once that said “food only please” and I ate very well. Like, people saw that sign and went to buy me a $50 steak then came back to give it to me.

All I’m saying is: please just try and differentiate between the things that are mostly handled by free market, and the things that are centrally controlled, and then ask yourself what is abundant and what is scarce.

I think you’ll find that capitalism gives more away as an afterthought than other economic systems even produce in total.

[–] GhotiPhin@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In 2018, 11.1% of American households were food insecure. While this is better than many developing and historically colonized countries, this statistic is still worse than for many other developed nations.

Health care in the US is so expensive because there is currently a capitalistic private ownership of insurance because historic efforts for socialized medicine were crushed by the ruling class. Additionally, efforts to implement socialized programs have been systematically handicapped by private insurance company stakeholders.

In Finland, a country with socialized education, tertiary education is free to citizens. In the US, the average cost of attendance to a public university, the cheapest category of 4-year tertiary institution, is $26,000.

Housing prices are skyrocketing because private equity groups and hedge funds are rapidly buying property to drive up prices for profit.

You are pointing out problems that capitalism and free markets have given us, and pointing the finger at socialism, when efforts to socialize each of these necessities have been systematically squashed. You are contributing to misinformation by writing this post. Please do some research and back up your claims with reliable sources before spouting nonsense you don't understand on the internet.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee -2 points 1 year ago

Both of these things are happening because housing homeless people and feeding hungry people just aren’t profitable.

Actually, under our free market system, people eat like kings even when they have no money to buy food.

I’ve been homeless and I’ve been on food assistance. In both cases I ate plenty of food provided voluntarily by people who … just like the idea of feeding people.

No centralized system is necessary to achieve that. Capitalism is so productive that we have food coming out of our ears. I find it kind of interesting that as a capitalist nation where supposedly there’s a price tag on everything, there are copious resources freely available.

It’s not because free stuff is the central ethos of capitalism. It’s because capitalism produces so much wealth that the tiny sliver we are willing to part with for free is still beyond the total production of the non-consensual economic systems.