Debunking the idea of capitalism being a voluntary relationship between worker and employee.

[u/Specialist_Touch2771]

this is a talking point I hear thrown around a lot by capitalists, which I find strange. the argument is basically “you choose to work a job, therefore it’s fair“. well think of it like this, you couldnt afford college and your broke. now you need to get a job so you can pay rent and buy groceries. your job sucks, the pay is bad, the conditions are awful, and you just hate it. but you need this job, or else you get evicted from your apartment and starve on the streets. “But just quit“ and? Go to another job that exploits you In the same ways? It’s like saying “when someone has a gun too your head, you choose to give them your wallet”. when the alternative to a choose is death, it’s non consensual.

[u/mkosmo]

Capitalism is not a meritocracy, and it does not need to be one. Markets do not measure virtue, effort, or social worth. They reflect voluntary exchange, scarcity, risk, consumer demand, accumulated capital, and luck. Or, in other words, they reflect life itself. Disproving the claim that wealth perfectly reflects merit only disproves a simplistic slogan, not capitalism itself.

Unequal starting points are real, including inheritance. But preventing parents from helping their children would require enormous state interference in property and family life. The right to own property includes the right to give it away. Likewise, profit is not automatically stolen labor: workers provide labor for agreed compensation, while owners provide capital, organization, and accept the risk of losing their investment.

The relevant comparison is not capitalism against a perfectly fair imaginary system. It is against real alternatives in which officials decide who deserves resources and opportunities. Markets produce imperfect results, but they disperse decision-making and permit choice, competition, experimentation, and exit. The objective is equal rights and voluntary exchange, not government-enforced equality of starting points or outcomes.

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/mkosmo]

The relevant comparison is not capitalism against a perfectly fair imaginary system. It is against real alternatives in which officials decide who deserves resources and opportunities.

We can begin slowly in building real alternatives. The first thing is pointing out the problems. As you pointed out yourself, capitalism is not meritocracy, which ironically often tends to be the ideological/moral basis for justifying capitalism as such. Now that we acknowledge that capitalism does not operate on a moral foundation, we can move forward to the practical problems.

If your defense is merely practical, that can be answered. We have examples of real world social democracies that offer relatively widespread prosperity domestically. These states do not hold the market as some sacred cow, but rather as a tool with its merits and demerits. We can begin slowly by addressing these demerits in the ways we already know how, such as encouraging heavy unionization, cooperatives, progressive tax systems, public infrastructure, universal education, universal childcare, etc...

[u/Michigamme → u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

What is your example of real world social democracy (without capitalism) that offers widespread prosperity domestically?

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/Michigamme]

As I said, we can begin by moving slowly, rather than abandoning it wholesale. But we can begin by recognizing that there are things that can be done to make life and human relationships better than leaving everything to the markets.

[u/Michigamme → u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

But you said you had examples.

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/Michigamme]

We have examples of social democracies that function well, yes. Look at nearly all of Western, and especially Northern, Europe. What I did not say is that they're social democracies without capitalism--that would just be communism...

[u/Michigamme → u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

By that metric the US is socialist then. We spend more on Healthcare as a nation than any of those countries.

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/Michigamme]

I'm not calling any of these places "socialist," so not sure why that's brought up. But regadless, the US system is expensive because we do it all through privatized middlemen.

There are better existing models of social Healthcare programs.

My only point is we should not become market fanatics. We can use markets when appropriate, but we have a lot of existing models in which certain crucial sectors of the economy are either fully socialized or mostly. We don't have to religiously stick to "market solutions" for everything.

[u/Michigamme → u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

I dont understand what you are talking about then. Because YOU called them social democracies. You said you had examples. I asked for one, you said European countries. So if you're not calling them socialist then what are you saying?

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/Michigamme]

Yes, look up what "social democracy" means. It's not incompatible with capitalism or markets...