this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
1056 points (98.9% liked)

Late Stage Capitalism

1932 readers
419 users here now

A place for for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited.

A zero-tolerance policy for bigotry of any kind. Failure to respect this will result in a ban.

RULES:

1 Understand the left starts at anti-capitalism.

2 No Trolling

3 No capitalist apologia, anti-socialism, or liberalism, liberalism is in direct conflict with the left. Support for capitalism or for the parties or ideologies that uphold it are not welcome or tolerated.

4 No imperialism, conservatism, reactionism or Zionism, lessor evil rhetoric. Dismissing 3rd party votes or 'wasted votes on 3rd party' is lessor evil rhetoric.

5 No bigotry, no racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, or any type of prejudice.

6 Be civil in comments and no accusations of being a bot, 'paid by Putin,' Tankie, etc.

founded 9 months ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 80 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Trickle down economics ... give more money to the ultra rich and eventually some money goes down to the people at the bottom of the economic system

The problem they've discovered after 50 years of this system is that there just isn't enough money in the universe to send to the top and allow enough of it to flow down to the bottom.

A billion dollars only allows a dollar to get to a person living on the street ... so we have to send billions, trillions, gajillions of dollars to the super-ultra-giga rich to get enough money to average people.

This is the problem of trickle down economics .... we just haven't given enough money to the top yet

We have to give the rich more! ... in order to save the poor ... do it for the poor!

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 13 points 4 days ago (2 children)

This is just patently false. I mean,

The problem they've discovered after 50 years of this system is that there just isn't enough money in the universe to send to the top and allow enough of it to flow down to the bottom.

That couldn't be less true. No one "discovered" anything. Economists knew this was true 50 years ago. They knew when trickle-down was being developed. It's actually really obvious, especially if you have any relevant data whatsoever. The ones with scruples pointed it out many times, the ones without hopped on the gravy train.

[–] pelicans_plight@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

I agree with you, but they knew this more then 50 years ago.

Horse and Sparrow Economics

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 days ago

They have to pour a steady stream of gold coins to the top of a billionaires penthouse to try to fill it enough so that a few coins can fall out and land on the street below

/s /sarcasm /imbeingsarcastic

[–] DJDarren@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 days ago

This reminds me of a government scheme some ten years ago or so. Workfair it was called, or something.

In short, someone claiming job seekers allowance would be required to work something like 10 hours a week for a company such as Tesco, or Poundland in order to be eligible for their welfare payments. On the face of it, fair enough. The person gets some work experience and the possibility of being hired.

Except all it really did was provide free labour to companies whose profits were in the billions. And that labour was paid by the tax payer.

And no one in the government at the time either saw how bad that might look, or more likely, cared.

I still think about that.

[–] Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz 17 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

I verified the number because it doesn't sound quite right. Walmart makes profit of roughly $20B yearly, per day that is $55M, the family owns around half.

So they make like $25M per day.

That is still insane amount of money, and probably also they do some tricks to lower the profit and hide the money through some loopholes, like all the millionaires/billionaires.

Nobody needs that kind of money, so they should be taxed like hell, but not in this world

[–] xavier_berthiaume@jlai.lu 7 points 3 days ago

but not in this world

That is until people take measures into their own hands

[–] Snowies@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago

Most people on earth will never see $100,000 a year, and almost all Americans will never see $200,000 a year.

Even making $1,000,000 a year is fucking incredible and life-changing and lets you go anywhere and do almost anything you want.

Anything over that is just dick measuring money.

They are making $25,000,000 PER DAY.

A million dollars is chump change to them.

More money than we’ll ever see in our lives is chump change to them.

Currency is just quantified social power.

If someone has essentially infinite social power compared to everyone around them, there is no world in which their interests don’t directly and explicitly involve (at the very least) keeping that power.

[–] Hothorchata@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

They unironically live in NWA and refuse to acknowledge the humor. They’re not human.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 12 points 4 days ago

No, energy sources end poverty. There was plenty of capitalism before even coal, but lots of poverty.

[–] LadyMeow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Wait do people actually claim that?

Like I guess it does, for the rich assholes. But it sure seems to make a lot more for the other people

[–] Transform2942@lemmy.ml 21 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Libertarians and neoliberals unironically believe that "a rising tide lifts all boats"

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 39 points 4 days ago (6 children)

A rising tide does lift all boats. Giving all your money to a couple uber rich people is not a rising tide, though.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Libertarians don't, and it's one of the few things Neoliberals are actually right about.

"A rising tide lifts all boats" refers to the fact that giving money to the people on the bottom of the financial pyramid who needs it the most will benefit everybody. Unlike just shoveling it at the already rich, which is what capitalism is designed for.

Infuriatingly, almost none of the Dem leadership actually follow through on this mantra with actual policy, beholden to the rich capitalists as they are.

[–] Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The problem is that more and more people can't afford a boat anymore.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] brendansimms@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I heard that recently and thought to myself 'yea I don't have a fucking boat' and realized that is the true meaning of this phrase. People who own boats already are gonna do great. People who don't will drown.

[–] Transform2942@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

I think that's a reasonable and accurate response to people using this thought terminating cliche

[–] lobut@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

My coworkers do. Somehow the reason things suck is because of immigrants. Despite being immigrants. It's the lazy people who don't work as hard as them. Mathematically removed if you look at how things work. Not to mention that all these systems are artificial ... why shouldn't we build a system that benefits everyone instead of the few?

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 9 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I know lemmy.ml censors, lemmy.ca as well?

Mathematically “ignorant” I’m guessing

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Valthorn@feddit.nu 9 points 4 days ago

So for one minute of profit they could pay 350 people $25/h for a full day. 21000 people with a full hours profit!

[–] ThatsTheSpirit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Capitalism can end poverty for sure and was definitely a step up from feudalism.. it just happens to also birth a whole slew of contradictions within the social fabric.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Capitalism can end poverty for sure

much in the same way that hand-grenades cure cancer, yes

[–] wolfyvegan@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago

Hey, curing cancer and surviving cancer are two different things.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago (7 children)

It could

If it were done right. Just as Communism really really would end poverty and save the world and bring equality for all if juuuust done right.

I gettit, capitalism as done now (especially in the US) is a joke where the rich leech the poor and destroy the world

Tax the shit out of them. Leave capitalism be, but put up taxes in brackets that hits 100% after 10M net worth. This way, you still have the raw resource making power of captialism, but the richest anyone can get is 10 million networth.

Similarly for companies, once they get bigger, taxes go up untill it hits, say, a billion in net worth.

No company shall be too big to fail, too big to not steal, lie, and cheat, too big to be a net positive for humanity

This way governments end up with huge tax incomes. Use that tax for free healthcare for all, same with education, housing, public transportation, all free, even universal income

I think that'll work a whole lot better than "let's try communism" which simply won't happen and it would destroy us all.

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 days ago

You're confusing capitalism and commerce.

[–] wpb@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

For all their warts, the socialist nations did actually improve the economic standing of their workers compared to before socialism was introduced. Does the reduced homelessness, better education, and free health care warrant the authoritarian measures needed to deal with attacks from America (cf the cold war, the Pinochet coup, the wholesale economic blockade of Cuba, the bombing (20% of the population, dead) and economic blockade of North Korea, and so on)? I don't know. But the idea that you have to get socialism juuuust right to enjoy its benefits is a false one. Cuba manages to achieve an average lifespan similar to (some years even higher than) America's despite the blockade.

[–] vivalapivo@lemmy.today 5 points 3 days ago

Communism really really would end poverty

Name communism that didn't significantly reduced poverty

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›