Nice to -for once- see someone else who recognizes that capitalism in itself isn’t a problem as long as it is very well regulated and doesn’t immediately go “Communism is the answer!”
I always look at people who jump to “Communism is the answer” just have issues with properly articulating what they feel and just jump to a reactionary catch all comment.
I myself don’t like a lot of flaws with the core tenants of capitalism, so I often find myself saying reactionary shit like “capitalism bad” sometimes too.
I think this goes for a lot of discussion on economic models. There’s a lot of nuisance to it, and I think so many folks range somewhere between knowing nothing and knowing enough to be dangerous, but lack the energy, time, patience, or skill to really get it across online.
Often we see people posting about stuff so frequently because of a frustration with the current system, so unless it’s like a bad faith argument I mostly just tune it out, or go “hell yeah” in my little monkey brain depending on if it’s something I agree with slightly.
It’s not reactionary to say that capitalism is bad. Capitalism is literally terrible. Not commerce, capitalism. Buying and selling things isn’t wrong, but extracting and consolidating surplus labor from the working class is.
No, you’re right. I’m saying it’s reactionary to write only “Capitalism is bad”, and nothing else. Mostly because in terms of a discussion it makes it hard to keep talking about why capitalism is bad with such a broad statement. This is just the opinion of one dude on the internet who thinks of comments in a very specific way, and I get that others agree probably fine with broad comments of that style.
What worries me about it is that since for various reasons a lot of people just don’t have it in them to spare any thought on the question of how the economy works, they buy into rhetoric about economics being a fake conspiracy where supply and demand isn’t real and actually all economic problems are trivial and only require putting the bad guys in their place. The frustration is justified but stuff like rent control just doesn’t work and you can see why it doesn’t work if you’re willing to honestly think about it.
You say “Rent Control” doesn’t work, but having seen locations with rent control, and living in a place without it I fundamentally disagree with that statement.
In any economic model, housing is a basic need for humans. While rent control isn’t a solution, I don’t think it’s ever intended to be one. It is a stop gap, or a step implemented in a larger plan. It’s basically regulations for combating price fixing.
If you live in a place fraught with renoviction, the act of using a renovation as an excuse to evict people and charge more for the same thing, then the person who has been forced back into the market does not have to become homeless.
To another point, I don’t think rent control would prevent development of new housing either, as landlords aren’t the only folks who buy properties, even though it’s almost financially impossible to buy a house in certain inflated markets these days no matter who you are.
While rent control isn’t a solution, I don’t think it’s ever intended to be one
The rhetoric I see around it paints it as a solution, and there are people who say with full sincerity that supply and demand is capitalist propaganda.
renoviction, the act of using a renovation as an excuse to evict people and charge more for the same thing
This whole dynamic is only surface level. The excuse doesn’t matter; if the whole market can get those prices, it’s because of the number/means of people seeking housing vs the supply. It will happen with or without an excuse to smooth things over. There are plenty of very run-down places in high demand low supply areas that cost huge amounts without any such aesthetic justification.
I don’t think rent control would prevent development of new housing either, as landlords aren’t the only folks who buy properties, even though it’s almost financially impossible to buy a house in certain inflated markets these days no matter who you are.
It demonstrably has prevented and does prevent the development of new housing, among other market distortions, and afaik this is one of the few things economists broadly agree on. To your point, maybe it would be possible that over time, eventually, all rental apartments would be converted into condos etc. as a market response to rent control. But given the demand specifically for rentals (for which there is then artificially reduced incentive to meet), and the difficulty you mention for most people actually buying a home outright, it’s easy to see why in practice there will be an extended, possibly indefinite, period where housing supply will be suppressed by the policy. One reason it could end up indefinite is that homeowners as a voting class have an incentive to protect the value of their properties, and that often means passing regulations that in practice constrain housing supply. When most voters are renters, this is less of a problem.
The way I see it, looking at housing markets as being “inflated”, as if the prices were the result of some trick of greedly landlords, is completely wrong and missing the bigger picture. Real estate is a wealth asset, a store of wealth, and all of those are skyrocketing in dollar terms beyond official measures of inflation, as part of a process of wealth being transferred away from the majority of the population and the value/negotiating power of labor declining. If people only look at their personal situations and false ideas of what prices “should” be and what is subjectively “fair”, they miss this bigger picture and overlook solutions that could actually work.
The key is “very well regulated”, starting with the ban of corporate lobbyists and abolition and criminalization of PAC donations.
COMMERCE in itself isnt bad. Leveraging money and power to extract resources and value without actually creation anything of value-i.e. Capitalism- is very, very bad.
Make a product and sell it? …good. Perform a service for money?..good. Buy wholesale, sell retail?..fine. Steal natural resources, fund political coups for resources, start wars for resourcces, force destruction of oroduct or allow corporations to hoard resources to corner a market?..BAD
I’m sorry but your definition of capitalism is incorrect.
Leveraging money and power to extract resources and value without actually creation anything of value-i.e. Capitalism- is very, very bad.
Yeah, it’s something that capitalism as currently is (mostly in the US) allows, but that isn’t the basis of what capitalism is.
I fully agree with you that capitalism needs very strick limits to not be abusive, but it’s still a hundred times better than communism, something that too many people here propose as the final great solution
Actually I think the problem is capitalists entering into forums and insisting that any regulation of capitalism is communism by default. It’s not a case of one or the other, but there is absolutely no way to reform the system from within its current structure. We would have to first abolish any and all corporate lobbying and criminalize the submission of donor checks to legislators, and then repeal any and all tax breaks and pro corporate laws and regulations passed since 1980.
Also: the stock market and hedge fund architecture is an absolute sham and should be criminalized. Virtually none of it is about entrepreneur startup money; all if it is about creating value out of thin air with nothing to support it. It collapses and destroys our economy on a regular, nearly predictable basis and results in greater wealth disparagement as the whales grab up all the collapsed wealth
Capitalism in itself is very much the problem. There is no positive aspect to the extraction of surplus value (“profit”), hoarding the vast majority of it into the hands of the wealthiest “private” property owners.
Marxists are opposed to free markets, at least as a long term goal (in achieving a stateless, moneyless, classless society - i.e. communism). But some leftist ideologies aren’t necessarily opposed to free markets (though are still of course anti-capitalist). This includes democratic socialism and market anarchism.
I use DDG as my primary search engine, but I find myself repeating searches with Google so often, I wrote a userscript to add a “Search with Google” link to the top of the DDG search results.
I’ve seen a lot of chat recently about Google search quality tanking and it’s made me realise that I haven’t re-searched a DDG query in Google for a really, really long time. when I first started using DDG as my main a few years back, I would repeat searches in Google probably 25% of the time? but I honestly can’t remember the last time I had to now. Been at least 6 months!
unfortunately, I do that often. Even when using meta search engine which sources to google, Google UX and results are simply better but sometime feeling is just not rationale
regarding duckduckgo, it is simply too long to type and people rarely configure their browser, especially on mobile.
so yeah, in a sense, Weinberg is right. At the very least, a choice should be provided on first run but you can’t force people to be curious.
I agree. At least in my experience Google does a better job when it comes to search engine. I use DDG as well but when it comes to searching specific things Google beats it unfortunately.
Sure, but I think there’s still benefit to what the other person did. Search DDG by default, and then if you don’t see good results, it’s one extra click for the google search… vs mousing, clicking, 2 keystrokes…
I’ve been using freeadblocker browser after stumbling on it (with DDG as a search engine). Does it have anything to do with Google/chrome? I’m confused, because I’ve been using it for so long and it blocks all ads so I guess I don’t know why no one is using it unless it’s some Google stepchild I don’t know about and I’m still googled without knowing it.
Hmmm, that isn’t open source, I don’t know if one can trust it. Why does a browser need in-app purchases? Try Mull or Cromite.
Edit: from the description, it uses Brave Search (to answer you question), so it doesn’t send to Google your queries. But I’d be careful with an app with a bunch of SEO keywords in its description.
that’s DuckDuckGo and “Names Database” CEO*, folks. PLEASE do not look to this man as a beacon for anything privacy-related, even when he says something true.
Okay, sure. I agree that this is an unfair advantage. But like, I’ve been using DuckDuckGo for a while and the best thing about it is the ability to easily search other search engines. Their own actual search engine isn’t exactly great.
Mostly using it makes me realize how much time Google saves me by already having my location and search history. I still don’t trust them and it isn’t what it was a few years ago, but it’s the actual quality of their search that’s keeping them on top.
Also like, why does clicking a thumbnail in video search not take me to the video? Dumb.
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