this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2026
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Late Stage Capitalism
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We are all operating under the system of capitalism. Call it commerce, whatever, its commerce in a capitalist system.
Dont get me wrong, Im not going to work everyday to be a capitalist but there is no doubt in my mind Im doing capitalism.
That's the exact mindset OP is trying to expose. You are a participant in capitalism, but you are most likely not a capitalist. And that is true for 99.9% of people probably
And I agree with them.
The are two definitions of capitalist, one is a person that supports capitalism regardless of their class. It's possible for a person to recognize that they're a worker and consumer, and unlikely to ever have any capitol outside of their house and retirement accounts, and maybe not even that, and still think capitalism is the best system for workers to live under. Dumb, but possible, and seemingly widespread.
Supporting it doesn't make them a part of it. If you want to own a home but dont, you are not a homeowner
Homeowner does not have a second definition of supporting homeownership regardless of whether or not you own a home. You can absolutely support homeownership if you don't own one.
The word for a person that supports capitalism regardless of class and amount of capital, is capitalist.
And being "a part of it" is something else altogether, separate from whether or not you support it, or have any capital. If you live under it, like it or not, you are part of it, even if you don't own shit.
There's been a word for someone who supports capitalism for 200 years, its liberal.
Liberalism encompasses more than just capitalism. The word for someone that supports capitalism is capitalist.
Have you read any serious work by any of the major liberal philosophers or analysis of their works, or are you going off vibes?
The core of liberalism, when faced with its various contradictions, has always been the freedom of the capitalist class to exploit the working class.
"The core of liberalism", so there is more to it than just capitalism? The word for someone who supports capitalism is capitalist.
I have made no statements about liberal philosophy or capitalism, neither of which am I a fan of. This is about the multiple definitions of capitalist; one of which is a person who supports capitalism, with no requirement that they actually have, or have any hope of having, capital.
What's your goal here? Do you think you can convince me to listen to some random jerk-off with an axe to grind over a dictionary?
And, even if I'm not an owner of capital, I think it's a better system than most of the systems that have come before it.
Capitalism is the result of well-intentioned people looking at feudalism / manorialism and saying "that system is really fucked, let's see if we can improve it". And, they did. All out capitalism is horrible, but mix in some socialism and it seems to work fairly well. All out socialism has been tried and inevitably fails.
But, if we're going to do capitalism, we should really do it the way that the people who originally proposed it intended. They knew that the main benefit of capitalism was that there was competition. Without competition, it inevitably becomes winner-take-all, which just basically reverts to feudalism. For competition to work the government has to actively break up big, powerful companies, and the government has to be significantly more influential / powerful than all the businesses or people that it regulates (otherwise they'll just corrupt or ignore the regulations).
A proper capitalist system wouldn't have billionaires, because billionaires are evidence that competition has failed.
Im not willing to just say capitalism is the best just because it had some good results. I think we can be more imaginative.
I'm not saying it's the best either. But, it may be the best that we've tried so far among systems that have actually worked in a scale bigger than a few hundred individuals, or in a time span lasting at least a decade.
We should definitely keep experimenting and trying to find a better system. In fact, we've already found a better system, and that's a mixed economy with capitalism for some things, and socialism for others. I think only a crazy person would want a capitalist fire department, capitalist food safety inspectors, purely capitalist education of children, etc. And, it's only the US that thinks that a capitalist health care system is possible. Virtually every other country thinks that's just crazy.
We should also strive to have the best possible capitalist system, if it's what we're stuck with for now. Just because there may be a better system out there doesn't mean we should give up on trying to regulate privately owned companies and put all our efforts into just coming up with a new system, or overthrowing the system. Monopolies should be smashed, billionaires should be taxed out of existence, and the central government should be reinforced so that it is bigger, stronger and smarter than all the companies out there that it's regulating. Only then can we have the best possible version of capitalism (or at least the part of the mixed system that is capitalist).
Rarely do i find a gem of a person like you. Its been a pleasure. You give me hope.
... at least this time around =P
I agree. I get the point she's making but I think she's wrong about the details. Your skills and experience are your capital, and you sell the products of them to employers. Everybody who has a job is also running a business. I don't think most people give themselves credit for that.