Comment on The longer I'm alive, the more I feel that people make things complicated to feel important.
Abundance114@lemmy.world 5 days agoThe entire concept of capitalism rests on selling something for more than it’s worth
To an extent yes, but mostly no.
In a free market prices are naturally driven down to the cost of production, to where you’re barely able to keep the doors open. The only way capitalism reaches the state that you’re describing is with government regulation and overreach.
EightBitBlood@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Not true at all. In a free market competition drives the creation of better and more profitable products. Companies that can’t improve fail.
The way we reach the end state of capitalism we’re now in is exclusively and only through the removal of fair and equal trade. Deregulation is how Capitalism got this bad. What youre saying is nothing but provenly false propaganda.
It’s only without regulations can the formation of monopolies and oligopolies even happen where there is no competition and both price and quality are captured and frozen. Companies in these positions then artificially leech from the societies they’re in through corruption to survive instead of collapsing to dust naturally.
That’s 100% where the US is now. In an unregulated monopolistic billionaire playground where the best performing companies in the stock market haven’t made anything of value in over a decade, and have done nothing but raise prices on worsening products and leech value from the society theyre in in place of giving anything of value back.
Abundance114@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Yeah… And then through competition they’re all driven down to a price that’s near production
You don’t seem to understand the difference between laws that prevent the creation of anti-competitive practice and regulation that increases the cost of product and decreases competitiveness.
The first is good. The other two are what’s resulting in your “late stage capitalism”.
EightBitBlood@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The creation of “better” products means improved production methods as well. There’s an incentive to improve processes to be more efficient if it means you can earn more profit than someone else and stay in business longer. That’s how we’ve gone from hand copying books to printing presses to free digital libraries. Better doesn’t just mean making better books, it also means better methods in making books.
You don’t seem to understand that both of those things are essentially the same. Regulations are just interpretations of existing laws. Without laws, there are no regulations. That’s why breaking them has legal consequences, and 3rd party agencies that enforce them.
Also, you don’t seem to understand how regulations clearly protect the cost of production at a sustainable price above exploitation within that market. I find it fascinating that on one hand you say competition drives prices to near production levels, but on the other complain that regulations increase the cost of product. Do you not see the very obvious mechanism that regulations have in making sure competition is sustainable by keeping market costs fair and safe above exploitative practices? You literally described both cause and effect as problems then complained as if they don’t clearly relate.
Abundance114@lemmy.world 3 days ago
No, they’re not… one is law about how you make your product, the other is law about not harming your competitors. While they may share a name, “regulation”, it’s night and day difference. You seem to be looking at a chocolate cake and a cinnamon roll and then are saying “They’re both deserts, they’re essentially the same thing”.
It sounds like you’re trying to describe price floors or something, but doing it in a confusing way that attempts to lead to some kind of gotcha? But I’ve already said I’m okay with regulation against anti-competitive practices, so I don’t really know where you’re going.