this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2025
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Trade isn't capitalism, though. Capitalism is a mode of production characterized by private ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. Capitalists essentially cast money out into the system, siphon the fruits of labor, and then repeat this process endlessly. Everyone does not enjoy the benefits of it, especially not those in the global south that are crushed by imperialism and unequal exchange.
Capitalism is a form of trading. It is providing a service / lending resources, for a fee. It's part of the notion that we use money to buy and sell anything and the economy works because everyone tries to make a buck and implicitly drive efficiency for society. It certainly has got out of whack now and needs some serious regulatory fixes. But for most people, they work to get money to buy what they need and as a result, they provide services, products, etc for others to buy what they need. It goes in a circle, and we end up helping each other. Yes, the rich siphon money off the top, but they don't really affect the use or need of resources significantly. Their billions are just a number on a computer in a bank somewhere.
No, you're confusing trade itself for capitalism, and severely downplaying the immense siphoning of material wealth that goes on, especially at an international scale. Capitalists steal the value created by workers, workers are not on an even playing field with capitalists. They sell the only commodity they can, their labor power, while capitalists leverage their ownership of capital to fix labor prices around subsistence wages.
Regulation can't fix capitalism or save it from the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. We need to move onto socialism, where public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy and production and distribution are oriented towards satisfying needs rather than profits.
The siphoning of material wealth occurs everywhere, including China, former Soviet union, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, etc. It's not a capitalism thing, it's a human thing.
Not necessarily. Capitalism functions by the following circuit:
M-C...P...C'-M'
Money is used to buy commodities, such as machinery, raw materials, and labor power, then production happens, then higher value commodities are the result of said production and sold for greater sums of money. M' is fed back into this system, and M'' is output at the end, over and over. The increase in value comes from unpaid labor, ie wages that don't actually cover all of the value created, because capitalists cannot profit otherwise.
Socialist systems don't have equal pay for everyone (that isn't the goal to begin with), but also don't have this system of capital ownership as the principle aspect of their economies and as such private ownership is phased out over time in these countries.
Yes but that model ignores that there are a given amount of tangible value (food, shelter, products) items created and pretty much the same amount of such items are consumed. So the pool of workers (almost the entire population) is effectively working to support itself. On paper, there's money and ownership being siphoned off more and more to a small group. But that group doesn't use up much more proportionally of the tangible products when looked at as a percentage of the system. So the rich get richer, but that's just a number. The reason that people don't have enough to eat and the sir quality of life is dropping as because the system is failing to be productive enough. And that's because the goal of making money by the billionaires is being gamed as opposed to actually promoting tangible growth. And that's why we need further regulation - to plug the holes in the system that encourage practices that are bad for workers. Capitalism can only work if the government is still generally for the people - and that's where we've run off the rails.
No, this is entirely wrong. We produce well above what's necessary for everyone to live decent lives, the distribution of what we produce is extremely uneven. Domestically, capitalists have incredible sums of wealth that they use for luxury goods, entire companies, etc. The money capitalists have comes from sale of commodities. Capital appreciation still comes from that original sale and circulation of commodities. There are some genuinely non-productive industries, such as landlording, but by and large we overproduce, which is what leads to economic crisis every decade or so.
Internationally, we have imperialism. Capitalists from the imperialist countries like the US export capital to the global south, and set up comprador regimes so as to keep wages low and prevent these countries from advancing industry. This lets the global north keep a monopoly on high tech production and allows the global north to consistently charge monopoly prices when trading with the global south, leading to unequal exchange and a continuous siphoning of wealth. It's why the Congo keeps staying poor despite being rich in resources.
Capitalism cannot be fixed, period. It's an unsustainable system, and cannot be regulated to fix its issues. The Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall is consistent, and the production of goods for the sake of profit rather than use leads to constant overproduction and even destruction of goods to keep prices higher. The state in capitalist systems is subservient to the capitalist class, not the people.
We overproduce, but because of how lopsided distribution is, a tiny handful gets the overwhelming share of what we produce to the point that the majority go without. This is even more extreme at a global level. Productivity has steadily gone up year over year, but as the tendency for the rate of profit to fall persists, so too has capitalism's decline accelerated.
Luxury spending is less than 1% of spending in the U.S.
To understand how it's mostly a zero sum game, you've got to ignore numerical money metrics and look at real resources used by, and provided by people.
That's misleading, first of all. "Luxuries," as in Gucci, Prada, etc, aren't the only way capitalists spend their money. They also consume greater quantities of other commoditied, and higher quality versions not deemed "luxuries." More than that, thry buy land, companies, factories, etc in a large feedback loop of greater and greater money, pay off politicians, and more.
Secondly, your entire argument that the reason we can't provide for everyone is because we don't produce enough is thwarted by the simple fact that vast amounts of commodities go unsold or are even destroyed. I'm aware that there's a finite amount that is produced, I'm also aware that we have more empty homes than homeless people and more.
That larger feedback loop is bad yes, but it's mostly independent of the resources and services that people need and provide as part of normal life. Yes rich people also use more non-luxury items, but the working class also buy some luxury items, which I suspect more than offsets that since there are so many more of the working class.
I'm not sure what commodities you are talking about that get destroyed. I know some agriculture gets wasted and I understand that to be mostly a shipping issue and because of huge mostly automated farming systems, or artificial government investment for the sake of job creation. I'd be curious to know what percent of the overall economy this destruction that you mention is. Empty homes is a big problem resulting from people gaming the system for monitory profit instead of real productivity - and that's where we need more government regulation - which is actually happening now in a number of North American cities.
Look, I'm not saying capitalism is so great. But just that the billionaires raking in more and more isn't inherently a problem - unless they also controll the government so that there can't be meaningful regulations. Of course, that's about where we are now in the U.S., and as soon as we are no longer effectively a democracy and the government no longer adjusts rules to ensure the working class gets enough benefits of the productivity, then it will all fall apart and those billionaires and politicians will end up with their heads on pikes, and rightly so.
It's well-documented that unsold product gets destroyed. Capitalism works on a cyclical process, the boom-bust cycle. Economic booms gradually accelerate with increased production and consumption, until too much is produced to possibly be consumed, causing mass layoffs and destruction of unsold commodities sitting on shelves, taking up space in warehouses. This is made even worse by the tendency for the rate of profit to fall.
The US Empire has never been a democracy, truly. Democracy means rule by the majority, but as a matter of fact the US Empire has, since its inception, been controlled by the capitalist class and landlords, slavers, etc. Candidates are pre-approved, or otherwise torn down. The government cannot be run in the interests of the working class, what needs to happen is the destruction of the capitalist state and replacement with a socialist state.
But those billionaires only can eat so much food. They may pay $300 a plate for caviar, but it's just a bit of food. They have super fancy cars and houses, but there aren't enough of them to 'use up' significant resources for those things. The money/capital they own isn't very relevant to the zero sum system of production and consumption. Sure it's super unfair and more so when international politics allows even more abuse. The problem with somewhere like Congo is that the government is dysfunctional and corrupt - they should be taxing the fuck out of all
You're severely underselling the extensive wealth billionaires have, the lavish luxuries and pet projects they have. They build schools specifically for training their children, they hunt endangered species, they create survival bunkers and consume huge amounts of luxury commodities. Houses sit vacant, food is thrown away, and billions of people go without. The capital and money they own is significant, as money is used as a gatekeeper for consumption of goods and services. Taxing cannot fix this, nor can it stop the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. I don't know if you realize just how big a problem for capitalism falling profit rates are.
Secondly, with respect to the Congo, you're confusing the symptom for the cause. Imperialist interference in the Congo is what sets up compradors in power. They don't need taxation, they need nationalization and protectionism, as well as to do more south-south trade such as with China. Kicking out the US and Europe would do wonders for their domestic development, but this is kept difficult by direct interference from imperialist countries. It's why the US Empire has hundreds of millitary bases around the world. The Congo needs socialism.
We overproduce goods and services, and let them rot on shelves and destroy them when they aren't sold. We do not underproduce, and anyone that is familiar with industrialization and manufacturing can tell that we can satisfy the needs of everyone on Earth already with a socialist economy.
I think you will see plenty of private ownership in any country. Unless you accept the paper only "public property" with a ruling class of "I am the state" philosophy.
Every country has billionaires, in capitalist countries they buy politicians and in authoritarian countries they are the politicians, but inequality is there nonetheless.
Publicly run industry doesn't normally function with the same circuit of turning money into a larger sum of money that I described, nor are administrators a "ruling class." Inequality in distribution exists, but isn't necessarily the problem, equalitarians that seek equal distribution for everyone are exceedingly rare. There's a qualitative difference in outcomes for the working classes in socialist countries where public ownership is the principle aspect that manifests in dramatic uplifting of their material conditions, whereas the point of the capitalist system is said inequality. The sheer scale of inequality in capitalist systems far surpasses socialist countries.
In the USSR, for example, the gap between the wealthiest, ie professors and scientists at the top and the average factory worker towards the bottom, was about ten times. In capitalist countries, that number skyrockets to billions. In the PRC, which has a socialist market economy, the number of billionaires is going down while the GDP and GDP per capita of the PRC is growing dramatically year over year, alongside real wages.
Yes, Stalin was not ruling class. Not at all. Benevolent caretaker. Same as Maduro, the Kims and Xi.
PS: lol at professors being the wealthiest in the USSR. Big lol.
Correct, none of them were part of a "ruling class," administration is not a distinct class. The proletariat is in control in socialist countries.
Lol
Amazing.
Indeed
You‘re not even trying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
Says 'you're not even trying' then just copies from Wikipedia.
Maybe try thinking for yourself?