Here’s why capitalism SUCKS! — and why it needs to end! part 1
Author: NonCompete Publisher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aHvA0KHXqM Publish Date: 2018-4-7 Review Date: Status:☁️
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2:20
Over time, capitalist processes lead to increasing economic instability, inequality and societal destruction. To understand why, let’s take a look at how capitalism functions.
2:30
Under capitalism, all of the old classes of lords and peasants and craftsmen and merchants have been swept away. Now there are basically just two major classes: the capitalists, who own the means of production, the factories and farms and other businesses of the world and the workers, who perform the labor that keeps the wheels of the economy turning.
2:47
Capitalists not only own the means of production, but they also get to keep a significant cut of whatever the worker earns or produces in the form of profit. Basically, capitalist bosses steeal labor value from workers and transfer that wealth to themselves.
2:59
In order for capitalist institutions to survive, they have to turn a profit for the capitalists who own them, otherwise they’ll be forced out of business by more ruthless competitors. Capitalist institutions literally can’t concern themselves with anything but profits or basically they’ll die.
3:13
Nearly all of the efforts of human civilization are now yoked to the will of capitalists who own the factories, the financial institutions, the mass media, the social networks, the tech companies, the medical and pharmaceutical companies… They own everything, so they get to set the agenda for our society.
3:23
And what kind of agenda do capitalists have? Well, it’s actually really simple. Capitalism steers humanity toward one end and one end only: ever-increasing profits for capitalists. See, capitalists don’t really care about the welfare of workers or protecting the environment. They can’t, because those things aren’t profitable. Capitalism doesn’t allow for businesses to be driven by ethics or morals or scruples. Only building profits will allow a company to survive. Anything that reduces profitability is inherently harmful to a capitalist entity.
3:58
Sure, sometimes profitability does line up with good causes. Sometimes it’s cheaper to be more environmentally sustainable, for instance, or maybe donating to a charity will net a big tax break for the capitalists or maybe it’s just good marketing to support a worthy cause. But this is all just incidental. Don’t be fooled for a moment into believing that capitals and cares about the welfare of society. It’s all about the profit.
4:20
Keep in mind that there are only two ways to increase profits: a company can either increase prices for consumers or reduce costs.
4:27
Competition tends to put a hard limit on what a business can charge, so as businesses become more powerful, they will always seek to eliminate competition and create monopolies so that they can charge consumers as much as possible to maximize company profits.
4:39
When it comes to driving down costs, the primary cost for almost every business is human labor. As such, capitalist businesses are always seeking to pay workers as little as possible or just eliminate them through things like automation, to drive down wages as much as they can get away with.
4:54
Naturally, this leads to tremendous accumulation of wealth to the capitalist class and ever-increasing wealth inequality between workers and capitalists. By definition, capitalism will always lead to the rich getting richer and the poor getting way more poor.