cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21418712
It's capitalism. The problem is capitalism.
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
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Neoliberal
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You understand it just fine. Some people are greedy and built a system that lets them be as greedy as they can. It's no simpler than that. Selfish people are willing to hurt others to empower themselves and so they do.
Some people are greedy and built a system that lets them be as greedy as they can.
My economics teacher told us the one and only goal of a business is to make as much money as it possibly can. I asked him about the precise situation described in this post:
"what if my business is doing very well, but my employee struggles to finish the month? Surely I should bump their pay?"
"Well that's sad but irrelevant, they should find another job if this one doesn't suit their needs."
Good teacher. No bullshit. Describe the companies as the soulless jackal structures they are.
And zero return to anything but yourself makes a stable society, community, civilization itself, impossible.
yeah, fuck that professor inside out. that's one school of economics. they didn't like it when i talked communism at the econ school, but i did anyways. how there's multiple goals of an economic system and capitalism optimizes the wrong one. communism, socialism elevate equity over efficiency and that lifting the people at the bottom of society instead of the top caused the economy to grow faster because (this was a long argument we all drew charts and graphs that we all knew were complete bullshit to make our points. we were undergrads and so about at the intellectual level of the Austrian school of Economics) but i have what felt like damn good evidence when it happened:
in high school, all my besties (only friends who've stuck with me through thick and thin) and i would toss our lunches in the middle of the table and share. when we'd do that, no one went hungry. not even when someone forgot their meal or lunch money. and we'd always have a little left over. when we all ate our own lunches, there'd be nothing left and we'd all still be a little hungry. The additional variety let each of us get all 5/6/7 flavors (it's a can of worms just roll with it) and when you get all the flavors you're satiated easier. I didn't know anything about flavor theory back then, but it totally makes sense to me now that i learned how to cook. but like, because of that we became the best of friends. no one was forced to do it, it was purely voluntary to join the lunch pile, but damn it was the best lunch experience i've had with someone who wasn't my wife. one of our besties always refused to join in for some reason and that's fine, but if he forgot his lunch he got to eat from the pile. he was still one of us.
anyways, that's my "communism is better than capitalism" example.
WAGES ARE TOO LOW. The minimum wage in 1938 was $0.25/hr. HOWEVER gold was also $35/oz, and currency was pegged to gold still. So some math ($35/.25=140, current gold price of ~$4525/oz /140=~$32) shows that all other things being equal the minimum wage should be $32/hr. To be the same as 1938, which is practically preindustrial times, when labor was less efficient. They're fucking us. Wake up sheeple.
Let's not forget that 1938 was at the end of a world financial crisis. I think it was so bad they even gave it a name. THAT'S when minimum wage was 1/140 of an ounce of gold. If minimum wage is a tenner (I'm not from the US, I'm not sure) then we can either call these years the Colossal Depression or move the bad actors from power (pretty much everyone at this point).
I've heard that one of the ex governors of California has a tank...
workers need to organize across industries
Corporatocracy
It's called "inelastic demand".
With discretionary goods, high prices reduce demand, which puts downward pressure on price. Prices settle at a reasonable equilibrium.
With things you basically need no matter what, high prices do not reduce demand, and price just kinda drifts upward to the absolute maximum "affordable" level.