It's not capitalism, it's the monetary system that's the problem. It's not a level playing field. Capitalism requires a fair monetary system as a precondition. Though I can agree that communism would be better than whatever perverse system we have now.
I think you're both right. Capitalism is an important part of a liberal society. But when we let private institutions become all-powerful then they can erode our freedom too. The problem isn't government or enterprise, it's the idea that only one of these things should be paramount. We need government to do unprofitable but necessary things and we need enterprise to pursue risky things. And we need government to regulate enterprise and enterprise to hold government accountable.
You can name a lot of symptoms of the problem but at its heart there's a lack of accountability in any of our power structures whether they be corporate or government.
I disagree with the idea that regulations work. Just consider forever chemicals like phthalates... Known endocrine disruptors. They're everywhere disrupting our hormones and health. Carcinogens are everywhere. How is regulation really working?
What works is the threat of punishment and full liability as opposed to limited liability. Regulations just raise entry barriers and stifle competition which makes the system less fair. It's like trying to prevent a crime before it happens; makes no sense. If liability is limited it means that somebody is not being held accountable for some portion of the damage that they're doing. Limited liability just externalizes the surplus liability to society...
I think capitalism can work if operating on a level monetary playing field within simple guardrails but without regulations. We could have wealth tax above a certain high amount to prevent political power imbalance.
It would be all massively worst without regulations. In fact, regulation provably works. When you remove it, situation with pollution and health gets worst. If you add it, it gets better.
> What works is the threat of punishment
That is what regulations provide.
> full liability
Without regulation and just a court system, this is complete failure. This just ensure that you can harm people who cant afford expensive lawsuits. Which is why big companies who want to pollute preferer this over regulations.
And the most harmed companies are small ones. They do not know in advance what is allowed and what is not.
You're mad about loopholes and lack of enforcement. Not the regulations theselves. If you can't enforce it, it's not a good regulation.
And yes, some things do need higher bars to entry than others. That's a feature. You don't want just anyone handling the food you eat or the money you store.
One of biggest obstacles we will have to overcome is for people stop thinking that communism is the only alternative and cling to capitalism.
Capitalism was tried by 120 countries in past 120 years. Not a single country can report harmonious society free of corruption and unnecessary suffering. Every country employ 50% of workforce on pointless jobs only because capitalism requires artificial scarcity.
>Not a single country can report harmonious society free of corruption and unnecessary suffering.
By hat metric, capitalism has failed as well. Any successes came from breaking the pure principle and either breaking apart competition (antitrust), regulating competition to comply, or employing non-capistialistic services to support it (social security being one of the big ones).
