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We have anti-monopoly laws and anti-trust laws already. They were hijacked by monopolies and trusts. Kinda makes one suspect that centralization or government expansion aren't the solution.

Yeah, this is just my opinion.
But I believe both communism and capitalism fails to supply the needs of people for the same reason; unequal distribution of power. The application of state owned means of production under communism and the corporate owned ditto under capitalism is decided by a small elite in both cases, and in both cases tend to use resources and produce goods and services that does not serve the needs of people. Under both systems the individual is seen as a means of production.
Under socialism and liberal capitalism the market is regulated to prevent harm but both systems still retains the characteristics of their parent systems.
Hope that makes sense to you.

Capitalism is voluntary exchange of labor and time. That is it, nothing else. As soon as anything becomes compulsory or otherwise infringes on liberty, that is free agreements and association, then it stops being capitalism.
Voluntary exchange, that's it. Stop trying to complicate it.

Systems of power are complicated.

When certain people accuse you of "making things more complicated than they are" what they mean is "don't spoil my oversimplification of complex matters in order to come along with populist one-liners to brush off a meaningful discussion"

When certain people accuse you of being certain people.

Shoe fits, apparently.

I'm still waiting for someone to contribute to the conversation.

What you're not understanding is that capitalism isn't a system.
It is simply what you get when people want to exchange goods or services without coercion or force. That's it.

Is it really without coercion though? Work for very little or don't work at all and starve to death doesn't seem like much freedom of choice to me. This oversimplification of "capitalism is just people making free, mutually beneficial transactions and exchanging goods", while historically accurate, just doesn't take into account like 90% of stuff that's currently going on, like coercion, like bribes, like corrupt regulations, oligopolies, underselling to remove competition, I could go on and on. And I'm not even going to get into how monetary value can be created seemingly randomly from nothing, even from speculation and lies (*cough* Wall Street *cough*), how it is not tied to labor anymore. This oversimplification doesn't take into account human nature (which ironically is what is often said about communism – and fully rightly so, but the irony is still present).
How did that quote go? Under communism, man exploits man. Under capitalism it's vice versa. Something like that.

What I'm trying to get at is, neither system is inherently evil. But both have plenty space for exploitation. If people were perfect, we wouldn't need any system, everyone would treat each other fairly. But obviously people aren't perfect and many will try to screw each other over first chance they get. Ideally, the government and the law should prevent people from getting screwed over. But we all know how that's going lol. Especially when the government and the capitalists doing the screwing-over are in cahoots.

Yeah, no. Communism is inherently evil. There is no equivalence.
Investment is not "nothing". If anything it's gaming the system, much like having a farm instead of scavenging and hunting just to barely subsist some of the time.
90 percent of the stuff that's going on is coercion and bribery implemented by the government for the purpose of restricting or reigning in capitalism. Hence, "not capitalism".
And "If you don't work you starve" isn't a restriction on choice or liberty. It's just logic. You cannot get something, such as food or other valuable resources, for nothing.
I'll say again, capitalism isn't a system. It is exchange of labor and resources on a voluntary basis without coercion or force. It does not take, or steal, or seize, or "redistribute", it is simply voluntary exchange.
The problems always come from someone, especially a government, interfering in the process.

So is it morally okay to "game the system" if it means you're directly contributing to suffering of other people? Should a good system be "gameable"?

What? Every system is a game.
Hurting people isn't okay without cause. I never said otherwise.
Do you mean investment? The agreement is money for stock, and stock for money. Agreed upon by both parties involved. Don't want to lose out when a company hits hard times? Don't invest in them.
Don't want investors to pull out when things go sour? Don't offer stock.

I didn't imply you did, but value can't be created out of nothing. If you're "gaming the system", ie. getting a lot of money for (relatively) little labor, there comes a point where *someone* down the production chain is getting screwed. With a few exceptions (one that comes to mind is programmers who can sell a lot of copies of a good software because the copies make themselves and there's only their own labor involved), it's always at someone's expense.

And sure, maybe I'm wrong about this being a *principle* per se. There are plenty of companies who manage to profit even when they pay their employees well and use ethical sources for their materials. But they aren't and never will be the most successful ones. The most successful ones are the ones using unethical labor, cutting corners and using misleading advertising. Just look at where and how most of our stuff is made. So it's pretty clear to me what the incentives are.

If you're making money from investing, that just means that you helped a group perform even better, well enough to raise the value of your stock, which is good for the company and, if they want to keep the good times going, good for the workers and clients.
That is to say, if you're making money from investing you're doing the opposite of screwing people down the chain.

Yeah, I need to withdraw my allegation of oversimplification, as that would be a deliberate act. This is just clueless. As if Forrest Gump discovered Ayn Rand.

The adults are talking, failure. Go away if you don't have a contribution.

I have no problem with investing, as long as the person doesn't also attempt market manipulation.
I have an ancap friend who talks about capitalism the way you do, "voluntary transactions of rational actors" etc. The way he describes it, it sounds great! But it's just so detached from reality. Humans aren't rational actors, in fact they're very easy to fool by false advertisement. Transactions aren't always voluntary as everyone is restrained by their circumstances (which I'd even argue becomes inefficient in the end, as talented individuals can't utilize their full potential because one idiot ancestor many generations back put the family into poverty). Capitalism doesn't exist in a bubble where the better entrepreneur prevails and then we restart the simulation. It keeps going, and the better entrepreneur may eventually make a monopoly and even take control of the government through bribes. Capitalism without any checks would become a disaster.

Conceptually speaking, capitalism deepens differences while communism flattens them. And I believe both are necessary for a functioning society. On an individual level, you should be entitled to the fruits of your labor. If you founded a successful business, you deserve it! And if someone was lazy and didn't work hard, too bad for them. The logic of meritocracy works here. Simple cause and effect, right? But if it then means that that person's child won't be able to get an education or hell, even proper healthcare, that's when I have an issue with it. I think we should provide anyone with enough opportunities on an individual level (and yes, unfortunately it seems at this point we have to do it through the government), not have rich families have many times more opportunities than poor. Because then it's not about individual responsibility anymore but about being lucky enough to be born into a family with successful and wealthy ancestors.

Your solution to people using the state to take from others and destroy the nature of free trade and voluntary exchange... is to empower the state that has been hijacked so they can take from others of destroy the nature of free trade of voluntary exchange.
Do you even hear yourself?
You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
Everyone is born at random. Rich, poor. Sick, healthy. Whatever. You can only play the cards you're dealt.
You will never be able to create prosperity by killing it's creators. You free nobody by taking slaves.
All of the problems you're talking about were created or made worse by people like you, who ignore the leaps and bounds made in disposable income and quality of life because you think the government that created the problems could fix them if they just had more control.
What is your practical solution? To steal from the rich the fruits of their labor? While forcing all people to shoulder the burden of other's mistakes?
Success and failure go hand in hand

Ah, so we're at *that* part of the conversation already, the part where my opinions have created all of the problems I'm talking about solving. Ya got me, I'm actually three Stalins in a trench coat.
As for someone stealing the fruit of someone else's labor, I believe Karl Marx had something to say about that, lol.
As a parting note, here's a study that you may be interested in reading, about the US being effectively an oligarchy rather than a meritocracy. doi. org/ 10.1017/ S1537592714001595

"Ya got me, I'm actually three Stalins in a trench coat" - I wish I could give this the number of thumbs up it deserves.

Haha thanks, I have my moments. Let's redistribute the thumbs, comrade!

Well, whenever it's something political the both of us will always end up with that little red triangle. This is a strict young republican area.

What a coincidence, if we lived 85 years ago in Germany we also would be branded with a red triangle, lol.
Don't worry though, there are plenty of reasonable people on this website, they just don't tend to gank people with downvotes.

I notice my question went unanswered. The bit where I asked about your practical solution.

Not spending trillions on useless wars and investing that money into taxpayer funded education and healthcare would probably be enough for the start. Wouldn't even be necessary to raise taxes. Look at how we're doing it over here in Europe. Even right wing politicians here wouldn't ever suggest getting rid of education and healthcare just to fuel that money into bombing Afghani villages and killing brown kids. It's common sense, really.
Alternatively, you could raise FDR from the dead and let him have a go at dealing with the exploitative megacorps. So both options are about equally likely to happen.

What's that? Communism, communism, communism, communism, communism, communism, communism, communism, communism, communism, communism, communism... How DARE you? Given he already perfectly answered his own question before, with the usual straw man.

Communism is when you steal the fruits of an entrepreneur's labor (who, in turn, totally didn't steal them from his workers, nuh uh). The more you steal, the communister it is. - Karl Marx

Better idea, lower the tax burden to make all services cheaper and prevent fewer Americans from being to make their own decisions. Certainly better than entrusting the same liars and theives that have always been in charge with even more power and authority to abuse.
Unfortunately the US probably isn't going to take spending tips from Europe, since unlike Europe we're not willing to entrust our resources to adversaries like Iran or Russia, nor do we have foreign armies that dwarf the rest and are actually trying to make the world a better place for everyone. Unless you don't like safe oceans, that is.
Thankfully we don't need to, as we've never defunded education or Healthcare for the military in the first place. If anything, we've defunded the military for them, nevermind the gains they get from the military just existing.
And leave that fascist fuck FDR dead and buried. He singlehandedly embodies over half of what is wrong with American politics and money.

So it's bad to entrust power to the government because it's full of liars and thieves but it's fine to give corporations (which are chock full of liars and thieves) practically free rein, especially when their motivations are unabashedly selfish, which itself stems from capitalist ideology? Do you really not see how this could (and y'know, has and does) turn sour?

Better thieves who don't have legal authority over you. And they don't have free reign, but only as much reign as people are willing to give them.
Again, capitalism isn't an ideology. It's the result of people wanting to do business without using force. People are selfish, regardless of whether you call them capitalist, communist, or whatever. Better that selfishness be channeled to greater prosperity, than endlessly war against human nature.
I absolutely see how it could go sour. I'm just a guy who prefers the wild west over gulags and dictators.

But that's what I'm trying to tell you here, you leave unregulated capitalism run for long enough and it will become gulags and dictators, because there will be no checks on corporate power! I absolutely support your preference, I want freedom too. But leaving capitalism unregulated would result in less freedom because corporations would become practically dictatorships over time. Look at Amazon for Christ's sake! You think Bezos wouldn't become a dictator if he had no laws to bind him? He bends and twists laws even now, doing everything he can just so he doesn't have to treat his employees like people because he'd lose a bit of profit. As for people giving corporations only as much free rein as they are willing – under capitalism, you effectively vote with your wallet. What happens when a company becomes a monopoly and there are goods you can't get anywhere else? Sounds like it'd be pretty close to a dictatorship.

Not to mention all the knowledge that'd be lost because schools would become nothing but training centres for jobs.
I'm not a fan of the government, obviously. But how else do we keep unregulated capitalism from devolving into practically feudalism?

You think Bezos wouldn't be shot like a dog?
I don't know about whatever shithole you hail from, but in my little garbage pile of a country we already have a good blueprint. It outlined what which government could do, and what no government could do. It established a means for civil disagreements to be mediated, rights for those accused of civil or criminal transgressions. It even built in ways to peacefully change itself. Including measures for the people to tear it down if need be.
Despite his best efforts, even FDR couldn't kill it.
For the record I was never arguing against government. Just your idea of it.

Idk man I feel like having a system where the rise of such assholes is prevented would be more reliable than expecting some citizen to shoot him in the head, should the need arise.
As to the shithole I'm from, in terms of potentially overthrowing the government, we have what's in my opinion pretty good gun laws, not too restrictive but you have to pass some tests to show that you're not a lunatic and know how to handle a gun, as well as a multiparty system. Which has its pros and cons, on the one hand you have more choices than huge douche or turd sandwich, on the other hand the coalitions can get pretty funky. But overall it's less restrictive than a two party system (yes yes I know you also have third parties but y'know, I'm talking what's their effective power in the government), in the sense that anyone can just create a party and it can in a few cycles become powerful if not the leading party, provided it has popular support.

As for my view of the government, I honestly just want people to have a more fair chance at succeeding by making stuff like education and healthcare less of a financial burden on the individual, and for the government to make sure law is upheld. Ideally, the government, private interests and citizens should work as checks on each other. But otherwise I'm not pro huge government and I'm generally more in favor of decentralization. For instance in terms of security and privacy, the government has no right to get its nose into anyone's business. And neither do companies, and speaking of things like digital privacy, lately I've been a lot more distrustful towards the latter. Idk if you've been following this topic at all and I don't want to go on a rant so all I'm gonna say is, I keep social media contact minimal and don't use anything made by Facebook, or anything that Chinese companies have larger shares in (like Discord).

Yeah, the US effectively has a two-party system. But it ain't monolithic. They're tents, themselves coalitions.
Governments fail at stopping people from acting a fool, and the last century across the world has shown us that they will always be and always have been the primary source of misery and destruction.
Fairness cannot be legislated. Especially not at any federal level. They can only take, only act as unfeeling lords that want to steal trillions from your grandchildren in the name of "infrastructure" and then turn around and line their own pockets with that stolen wealth. Or maybe even leave billions in weapons for terrorists to claim while blaming the man who's plan you scrapped and never bothered to replace.
You know what decentralization means? The opposite of what you're describing. You know what huge government is? Exactly what you're describing.
Even your qualms with digital privacy are the making of those you would put in power.

You're thinking in very binary terms. Just because I said I want people to have affordable healthcare doesn't mean I want a surveillance state, and I wouldn't vote for someone who'd establish it. Those are separate issues. I know that within US politics it's hard not to think in binaries, considering your political system. But over here in our multiparty system I have options that agree with me on both terms. These two issues don't necessarily have to be linked, unless you only have two parties to choose from and accepting one means having to accept the other.
Decentralization just means more freedom for administrative units, so I don't see how what I said contradicts my support of it. You can have a government funded but state administrated healthcare, for instance.
Similarly, saying the government should intervene in certain things, like anti-monopoly protection or worker rights, doesn't mean wanting a big government overall, ie. I don't want it to intervene in other things.

I'm not thinking binary, I'm speaking from the history of things leading into other things.
And no, that's not what decentralization means. It means stripping away powers and authorities from the central government and reserving them for people and states. In the US you cannot have state functions funded by the feds without disenfranchising the citizens of at least 49 states. State run ought to be state funded. Can't get state support to even implement it? Too bad, it ain't happening. Nothing is stopping states from introducing their own things through their own legislation, but that isn't the issue with Healthcare or Education. The issue is people wanting to force states that want nothing to do with it into paying in and being restricted by a federal program.
And you know what happens since the government interfered with anti-monopoly and workers rights? Well, now we have government protected monopolies and mandatory membership and payment into political action groups just to work.

How does healthcare lead into surveillance? Historically or realistically?
Um, yeah, more freedom for administrative units to administrate/legislate themselves. Pretty much what I said.
I don't get this dichotomy between "states" and "government". States are still part of government, just smaller administrative units of it. I guess it's an American thing.
Yeah, as I said in a previous comment. When the government who's meant to protect you from a monopoly is in cahoots with the monopoly, it's time to kick the fuckers out. But unlike the leadership of a company which you as a citizen have no control over, you can elect different people to the government, ones that aren't bought by the corporation.

It's not healthcare that leads to surveillance, so much as the idea that people simply can't be trusted to look after themselves. So they must be guided and steered in the right direction. Of course you need to make sure they're not abusing the privilege.
The states are sovereign unto themselves. They are not the feds, and have duties and powers that the feds have no business getting in. The only restriction is that they can't ignore the constitution and still be a part of the union. If you don't "get" American things, it would behoove you not to comment on them.
And again, it is leagues easier to deal with a rogue business than a rogue government.

I just have to add in that government healthcare is something I would never advocate for. It's nice in theory but currently in Canada healthcare is abhorrently inefficient and the federal government has destroyed the careers of many doctors and nurses due to increasing regulation. Specialists on average take a year to see, x-ray and other scans have a wait time of a six month average and bleeding in the ER is not seen to usually until you stop bleeding. @Famousone is correct in his assertion that healthcare tangentially leads to surveillance. When a civilization can't be trusted to administer medicine without government approval inevitably the government will be involved to a greater degree. It's proven by the Canadian goverment in its current state.

@famousone I disagree with the assertion that having healthcare means the state not trusting people to look after themselves; A large part of one's health is the individual's responsibility; But there are many things that one can't influence; Genetic disorders, accidents, rare diseases etc; And having to shill out tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars because you happen to be unlucky enough to catch a disease or be in an accident doesn't seem logical to me; A stroke of bad luck can send you into bankruptcy; Also, your healthcare is ridiculously expensive; Big pharma's ripping you off and you'd rather defend it than involve the state even a little bit; Seriously, look at the price comparisons with the rest of the world;
As for the "don't comment on American things if you don't understand them" - I only said what I said because making a distinction between "government" and "states", an administrative unit of government, is illogical; I hoped you'd explain tbh, but alright

PS sorry for the semicolons. The website kept insisting there's a link in the comment and wouldn't let me post it otherwise.

@adam44 It's not "proven" by Canada. Canada is one example out of many. Over here in Europe, things work a lot better than you describe. In my country we have a health insurance system that is paid for either by your employer or by the state if you're a kid/student/unemployed. And the insurance companies are set up so that they don't try to scam you every time, they have to pay unless it's an elective procedure like plastic surgery. Waiting times exist, but the longest I've ever waited was three months for a totally non threatening thing, and it was only this long because the office had to temporarily close because of covid (for the record I went to an allergologist checkup to find out if I'm allergic to pets). For usual checkups or procedures it's like two weeks tops. And in an emergency, zero waiting time. In such systems, healthcare is distributed on the basis of need. In the US, it's distributed based on the size of your wallet. The former makes a lot more sense to me.

@adam44 Oh also, for the long waiting times argument, over here if you need a prescription drug and can't make it to the doctor's office because your schedules don't line up or you're in quarantine or whichever reason, you can just call the office and if the nurse/doctor knows you take that drug and aren't bullshitting, they'll send you a digital prescription with a QR code by text message. So that's pretty neat.

@ewqua That's a neat system. Here, Sweden, there's an online service to contact your doctor and get a renewed prescription. Then the pharmacy can send it by mail och courier depending on how urgent it is.

Healthcare is fucked up BECAUSE the government got involved.
And I did explain, State is not Federal.

And it should be pretty clear to you that Adam doesn't care how it works for you. He knows how it works for his country. And I know that we don't want it in my country, or even state.

Oh hey the website stopped reminding me about new replies. So that's great.
Anyway what I wanted to suggest to Adam is that the system can work if implemented well. If it doesn't work in Canada but works in all these European countries, maybe there's something Canada is doing wrong and not necessarily the fault of the system itself.
But hey if you don't want that, that's your choice.

Yes, Canada did do something wrong. They tried to adopt the system in the first place.

I don't know foreign governments well but I disagree wholeheartedly with government oversight on almost anything. Health is one of the most important ones. If you need a transplant then waiting on government insurance and government employees is a terrifying prospect.

Yeah, better leave it to profit-oriented corporations instead. Not terrifying at all.

You only gain profits by having results. If it costs $500 to fix a broken arm and know it's done well or you can pay an unknown amount in taxes and hope there's a doctor available which option is better? Due to further regulations doctors and nurses in mass numbers have retired and there was already a shortage of doctors and nurses. I wouldn't mind paying someone for a quality service.

Oh, so the 50$ aspirine works better cause there's a corporation making an insane profit on it? The more you know... bet you can also explain why the US life expectancy as well as the Healthy Life Expectancy is somewhere between Turkey and Ecuador whereas all those "socialist" systems range way higher? Granted: if I was insanely rich, I'd prefer the american system for it's level of skills and possibilities, but I guess neither of us is. .

50 dollar aspirin? Ew, I'm not paying that. I guess I could force my neighbors to foot that bill against their will? Or wait! I can just buy the same thing for 40 dollars from another company! Oh! The first company just lowered the price to 30! Oh wait, the second company used their profits to engineer an even better drug! It's still 20 bucks, but it also treats stuffed sinuses and helps with coughing? Nice! But wait, I only needed to get rid of a head ache, good thing aspirin only costs a few bucks, now.

Also, let me explain US life expectancy for you: We have time and money and overpartake in luxuries like recreational vehicles, third and fourth cars, fatty delicious foods, whiskey and cigars, and sometimes we just decide to skydive, or race cars, or go on benders.
We like our way of life, we like being able to choose things that are bad for us. We don't like nanny-states, or having to burden others for our mistakes, or even worse to be burdened by other's mistakes.

American life expectancy by the CDC during Covid is 77-78 years. If that's what Turkey and Ecuador are getting isn't that a good thing for Turkey and Ecuador?
Aspirin in CVS is $10.49-$22.49.
Shoppers in Canada is $8.29-$15.99. Basically the same price after adjusting for the fact the American dollar is worth more.