Solarpunk BreadTube

We really don’t have competitive capitalism right now, everything is owned by a few huge corporations that use their size to squeeze every person in this country to pump higher stock prices.

The issue with the concept of competitive capitalism is that history has shown us that, across all cultures and governments, it does not appear feasible to reign in capitalism permanently. In a society where profit motive and power hierarchies exist, I would put forward that it is inevitable that society will become corrupted in the interests of those at the top of the hierarchies.

This is why I previously said FDR style reforms would only be kicking the can down the road. It may indeed make like more bearable compared to what was happening before, but it does not solve the root cause of why things keep slipping back into corporate oligarchies.

The US was on the verge of a revolution in the late 20's/early 30's due to how much power corporations and the wealthy had been able to obtain over all of society, the exploitation of normal people had reached a point of being unbearable. FDR's reforms was ultimately a way to placate the working class by easing the corporate boot from everyone's necks a bit without eliminating the power hierarchies that were previously in place. Shareholders, the rich, corporations, were all able to continue to profit and build wealth, just a little bit slower since they couldn't murder union members quite so easily then (and believe me, even that slight reduction pissed them off enough to plan a coup).

But because the hierarchy was not removed, because their wealth accumulation and labor exploitation was able to continue, they were able to slowly but surely corrupt almost every public office and get laws changed in their favor to the detriment of us all. That is the fundamental flaw of capitalist democracies, there is virtually no way to permanently prevent that corruption from taking place, as the structure of that society fundamentally encourages the corruption and concentration of power to progress.

Even with a huge reset with the types of reforms you're talking about; it would certainly be an improvement, but it will only be a matter of time before it backslides. And if we bring in climate, the issue remains that capitalism, no matter how regulated, requires infinite growth to continue, and infinite growth, even temporarily regulated, simply isn't compatible with a habitable biosphere.

If we're thinking big like banning fossil fuels, breaking up all corporations into tiny ones, and boosting union support, then I have to ask; Why stop there?

1936 Spain showed us that a totally egalitarian non-hierarchical society is quite possible, and to all but the rich and powerful, massively preferable.

We can have all basic human needs like healthcare, housing, food, and transportation provided to everyone for free. We can abolish corporations and shareholders entirely, and instead have all businesses be worker owned cooperatives. We could even abolish money and instead distribute limited resources like some food banks now do, perhaps combined with a federated computer system taking inspiration from Chile's Cybercyn to assist.

If we structured society that way instead, none of us would have any bosses, none of us would have to spend most of our lives working for the benefit of a few, most of our material worries would be completely eliminated. With all of the automation available with today's technology, we could easily arrange society to where everyone voluntarily contributes maybe 3 months out of the year helping to keep those basic human needs available to everyone, with the rest of the year off to do with as you please; spend time with family, perform research, have fun with friends, write a book, create art, invent things, repair things, explore on a sailboat, etc.

I believe we need to aim far higher than just reforming capitalism again like we did 100 years ago. We have to dismantle the hierarchies that enable our exploitation and societal corruption, and to prevent the destruction of the planet, as capitalism simply does not allow for economic degrowth, nor for humans and the planet to prosper.