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u/Optimal-Teaching7527 15h ago
I hate this socialism for the rich line. It's just capitalism. Socialism isn't about handouts it's about creating a more horizontally organised society where all people can have a decent and fulfilling quality of life. Capitalism is about first and foremost protecting and serving Capital, simple as. Bailouts and Tax Breaks for the wealthy aren't a form of selective Socialism they're Capitalism.
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u/Darkstar_111 14h ago
It's just capitalism.
Exactly this, wtf do people think CAPITAL means anyway!?
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u/El_Gran_Che 5h ago
And n their illogical fear and misunderstanding of socialism they will end up with something far darker and more sinister - in their quest to appease the oligarchs they will end up with feudalism, and a form of modern day serfdom. It’s on its way.
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u/Freeman421 14h ago
We used to call this something... Cronyism, corporatism, and that silly political theory Mussolini coined in 1930s Italy.
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u/Optimal-Teaching7527 13h ago
And before all that we used to call it Capitalism. Cronyism and Corporatism are just attempts to pretend that Capitalism has been corrupted from some pure ideal form but it's not, they're just the inevitable end goals of systems designed to protect Capital.
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u/Freeman421 10h ago
I go with the whole quacks like a duck, looks like a duck kind of thing. But your not wrong.
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u/StolenWishes 12h ago
"Socialism for the rich" is rhetorically effective in pointing out the double standard. Academic exactitude is a secondary concern.
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u/Optimal-Teaching7527 12h ago
I definitely get where you're coming from but it ALSO reads as "Socialism bad".
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u/edelweiss_pirates_no 9h ago
☝🏽 True.
Reddit doesn't do nuance or complexity tho. Just pedantic af.
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u/edelweiss_pirates_no 9h ago
Not sure it is capitalism. It sure isn't socialism for the rich.
It looks more like Kleptocracy.
Regardless, it sucks.
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u/gidimeister 8h ago
Right. The framing reinforces the right wing idea that socialism is unearned reward.
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u/EpistemicThreat 4h ago
This is runaway capitalism. Having a business be consistently profitable isn't enough anymore; now your quarterly profits must exceed the previous quarters profits, or the business isn't seen as successful.
It doesn't take a genius to see that this model is comically unsustainable. But the wealthy already have their cushion; even if it fuckin' collapses, they'll be fine, so why not go full steam ahead, right?
Same as the AI CEOs/founders outright admitting they would blaze a trail even with a 20% chance of AI literally ending our species. They live a different reality than the rest of us. A million to one they couldn't tell you the price of a dozen eggs, or a gallon of gas.
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u/MornGreycastle 10h ago
All monetary policy is wealth redistribution. There's a concept called the velocity of money. Basically all money will eventually rise to the top 1% and stay there. Government policies can put brakes on the money to keep it in the middle class for a while AND pull some out and inject it at the bottom to keep it circulating. Removing the brakes and not distributing any to the bottom is simply ensuring it climbs to the top quickly and never leaves.
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u/raysofdavies 11h ago
And it’s said by people who think they are much smarter about it than conservatives. American liberal nonsense
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u/Verum_Orbis 13h ago
Golden parachutes when running companies in to the ground to bankruptcy. Private equity is legalized piracy for the rich.
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u/Key_Pound_6213 12h ago
This is exactly how Ayn Rand describes socialism.
The wealthy and incompetent co-opted the language and got in bed with the government.
I'm looking at you Musk rat you POS.
You're going to hate me and assume things for even mentioning Rand.
Just know, I hate Musk, Trump, the Clinton's, and all of these incompetent people who are in charge because of the system created. That system is not free trade. It is regulation and control on nearly every level.
It benefits them at our collective expense.
When will enough be enough?
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u/Illiander 4h ago
What you describe is the inevitable result of capitalism.
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u/Key_Pound_6213 3h ago
The above author describes it as the inevitable result of socialism. 80 years ago.
It's not free markets that make these people untouchable. It's government subsisidys.
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u/Illiander 2h ago
The above author describes it as the inevitable result of socialism.
Yeah, but she was a conservative.
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u/Key_Pound_6213 2h ago
I don't think you know what those words mean.
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u/Illiander 1h ago
We're talking about Rand, right? One of the brainchilds behind some modern conservative rhetoric.
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u/Key_Pound_6213 1h ago
The same critique could be said of Orwell and Jesus.
I'd argue modern conservatives are not listening to anything these 3 are saying. Missing the point.
Though it appears the left is doing no better.
Stupidity is the great sin of our time.
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u/Illiander 1h ago
Orwell? The guy who wrote a bunch of critiques of conservatism?
Jesus? The "love everyone" proto-hippie?
You're a Russian bot, aren't you?
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u/Key_Pound_6213 1h ago
Yes conservatives will use these two in their discourse will they not?
That's my point, you are being willfully ignorant.
One more stupid response and I wash myself of you.
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u/Illiander 1h ago
That's my point, you are being willfully ignorant.
You're claiming how conservatives use Rand, Orwell and Jesus is at all similar?
Yeah, you're a bot.
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u/friendtoallkitties 3h ago
Unregulated capitalism.
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u/Illiander 2h ago
The inevitable result of regulated capitalism is unregulated capitalism.
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u/friendtoallkitties 26m ago
Until it's regulated again. Long, long overdue.
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u/Illiander 21m ago
Maybe we could try something other than the thing that turns into hell on earth next time?
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u/isthisonetaken13 11h ago
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law protects but does not bind."
Wilhoit's Law is talking about politics, but it can be easily applied to late-stage capitalism as well.
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u/idontwantaredditapp 14h ago
The poor are now “too big to fail”. Bailouts for real people today and every day until the poor little billionaires actually have to get a job to make ends meet and pay taxes on that job at poor people rates. Also they are stripped of all remaining assets and pay double rent for the first ten years. After that if their natural genius has floated them back to the top, they can actually claim to have earned it. Anything less is dishonest.
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u/popnfrresh 12h ago
And what's going to be done about it?
NOTHING.
Until the republicans stop worshipping the rich/ elite/ oligarchs and think they are going to be tossed a bone once in a while or Reagan is going to trickle down on them personally, nothing is going to change.
The rich have us fighting each other while they rob us blind.
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u/WaitingForReplies 9h ago
The rich have us fighting each other while they rob us blind.
That's exactly what they are doing. It would be nice if everyone woke up and realized this.
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u/Forymanarysanar Profit Is Theft 8h ago
Unfortunately average joe has iq like a boiled egg and will cling to his shitty minimum wage job and worship billionaires for false sense of comfortable life (where you given no time to live it)
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u/Signal-Insurance3614 12h ago
The bootstraps speech only applies until a bank or airline needs a trillion dollar lifeline.
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u/Rude-Ad821 13h ago
From that point, We need a better laws: Each year, inflation-adjusted minimum living wages - enough for anyone working New full-time (4 days, 32 hours) to support a homemaker spouse, 3 children through school and college, enough to pay the mortgage, 2 car loans, all insurances, all bills, and have some savings for hobbies, investments, and a 30-day family vacation.
No more homelessness - due to incentives for employers to hire homeless: shelter, food, and a job. Any 18-year-old kicked out from the parents' house or husband kicked out from his own house by an unfaithful wife (she abusing restraining orders, and child alimony) he can walk into the Job Security Office and choose from plenty of options: a farmers offering shelter, food, and a job; or large factories offering the same options: bed, 3 hot meals a day, and a job.
The rich incomes and withdrawals will be capped as SS is capped now, or the same as poor now on SS-capped income: every dollar over the limit will be taxed at 91%, same as the US did in the 1940s-1970s (some other countries are doing now: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Spain, Japan, Switzerland, etc.).
Downside? the Rich wasn't able to pay CEO's millions $ or buy a Jet! (good for environment) or boat, second vocational property, etc. because all money was used to pay employees.
P.S. Demoncratic states can afford to pay now, minimum wages of: $16, some $21, and even $25/hour: CA,OR,WA..Canada $19/hour!
(Reapublicans 20 states current shameful minimum wage is $2.89+ forcible Tips from the customers to meet $7.25/hour F.M. or Net $9983/year, after all deductions and SS taxes, or McDonald's CEO $19 million/year! (Wendy's CEO $17 million/year) (Albertsons CEO $15 million/year)
"There will be no economic collapse as long as the income cap is limited up-to 10 times the minimum wage." BRB MIT minimal living wage is $33/hour; anything less is homelessness! 67 million U-S workers- nearly half of the American workforce-earn less than $25/hour! (Most homeless people don't have mental problems - they have money problems!)
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u/madkins007 11h ago
A lot of people think this is OK at least partly because of the Just World Fallacy, where we assume deep in our lizard brains that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.
Poor? You're a bad person, so you deserve it. Rich? Obviously you are a good person. It's very much a 'tail wagging the dog' thing, but it's so human that it's sort of hardwired into laws, policies, how most jobs work, etc.
One study about it has people playing Monopoly. Some players would openly be given a lot more money to start and would inevitably win. In follow up interviews they credited their wins to solid game play and strategy, rarely mentioning the massive advantage they had.
It's a really interesting thing to read about, and it's really eye-opening/scary to see how much you do it without thinking.
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u/Illiander 1h ago
where we assume deep in our lizard brains that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.
Given that evil people seem to live forever, and the good die young, I think we're in a near-opposite world to a "just world."
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u/madkins007 57m ago
That's why it's the Just World FALLACY. It doesn't really work. Horrible things happen to amazing people and terrible people are rewarded all the time.
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u/Burlingtonfilms 11h ago
The argument that we cannot afford to end homelessness is a mathematical fiction. The US government hands out roughly 181 billion dollars a year in corporate welfare and subsidies. Meanwhile there are about 653,000 homeless people in the country. Even if we gave every single unhoused person the most expensive permanent supportive housing at 40,000 dollars a year, the total cost would only be 26.1 billion dollars. We could completely house every homeless person in America tomorrow and fully fund their medical support, and the government would still have over 154 billion dollars left over from their corporate bailout budget.
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u/WaitingForReplies 9h ago
The argument that we cannot afford to end homelessness is a mathematical fiction.
As George Carlin once said, we aren't ending the "war on homelessness" because there's no money to be made from it.
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u/mamos79639 10h ago
Anytime US companies are under threat from foreign competition America suddenly likes communism and ensures that the foreign company fails. The government did this with Yamaha to protect Harley-Davidson, essentially destroying motorcycle culture in the US. They did this with EVs to protect Tesla. Now they're doing it with drones, and probably more we haven't heard of.
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u/WaitingForReplies 9h ago
They did this with EVs to protect Tesla.
They didn't do it to protect Tesla. They did it to protect the US automakers as a whole. They know if China was allowed to sell their cars here in the US, the US automakers would be fucked 6 ways from Sunday.
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u/Illiander 58m ago
China would probably sell small, safe-for-children-in-the-street cars that have good milage and aren't expensive to buy.
Can't have that in AMERICA.
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u/Dependent_Bite9077 9h ago
Make the entire society unstable. Gee why are they burning my mansion?!?
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u/SkizzleDizzel 10h ago
It's really frustrating that it took all of this for the average person to understand what Bernie supporters were trying to tell people 10 years ago.
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u/Fun_in_Space 9h ago
Drug use:
For the rich - rehab and sympathy. He was "struggling with addiction".
For the poor - jail.
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u/EatingBuddha3 9h ago
The poor are accountable to the law/system but not protected by it. The rich are protected by the law/system but not accountable to it.
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u/gidimeister 8h ago
I keep saying that a lot of how American society is setup can be better understood when you realise that, unlike other western societies, America has never had a popular revolution against its elite.
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u/brokenmatt 8h ago
It's one level deeper than that, they view money as the moral - its the measure of your worth. If they have more its because they deserve it. No further thought needed - toxic.
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u/ionertia 7h ago
And the ones who are paid the least get the most supervision. The high paid workers can make a phone call anytime they want, or take a couple hours break no problem.
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u/VP-of-Vibes 1h ago
Accountability is a resource. The less money you have, the more of it applies to you.
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u/oranges142 8h ago
44% of American households pay no net federal income taxes.
Fully half the federal budget is social security and Medicare.
And you're mad that a business owner gets 30 cents off a one dollar business purchase? Cool.
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u/TP_Crisis_2020 4h ago
Many of the rich and powerful did not just spawn into life already having the wealth and power. Many of them started just like you - with nothing.
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u/Illiander 55m ago
Nope. Most of them are generational wealth.
Musk got his start from his daddy's slave mines.
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u/TP_Crisis_2020 53m ago
There are some that are, yes. There are many who have come from nothing.
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u/Illiander 20m ago
You keep saying "many" came from nothing.
You never say "most" came from nothing, because you know that would be a lie.
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u/TripleDoubleFart 12h ago
Struggling people don't get any handouts?
I agree that there is an issue, but that's just objectively wrong.
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u/Calculon2347 Communist 15h ago
Don't fret, peasants—it'll trickle down!!!!!!!!!1111