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this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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Capitalism is primarily defined by the need to push for constant growth. There's nothing wrong with buying and selling things, but making growth a matter of primacy automatically means the quality of the product and user experience isn't. Neither is the well-being and livelihood of the workers.
In a system where companies are incentivized to compete on that level, we can't have nice things. Not for long anyway.
It's definitely capitalism, rather than just commerce, that's the problem. It's a social cancer.
Increasing wealth inequality is a feature, not a bug, of capitalism.
That's an American definition, though. Oxford Languages says "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit" and that's how it's defined elsewhere, as far as I can tell.
There's the dictionary definition and the "how it plays out in the real world" definition. It isn't defined as a system pushing for constant growth, but due to its competitive winner-take-all nature it becomes a matter of grow or die.
I'd be happy if you can cite the source of your "how it plays out in the real world" definition, if you want to argue that it's a commonly agreed definition.
Source: *gestures broadly at everything*
What other explanation would you have for the endless pursuit of growth if not capitalism? What other explanation would you have for larger companies pushing smaller ones out if not capitalism. I'm talking both the "why" but also the "how"? Consider the mechanisms of how a company such as Wal-mart can go into a small town and drive everyone else out of business. And then consider why they do it.
Please check what a definition means.
You seem to think if it's not explicitly in a dictionary, then it doesn't define a word. That's not how the real world works.
Yes, this is what I was trying to explain. It isn't printed right there in the dictionary because it isn't the formal definition. It's just how it ends up actually working.
There's countless other examples too, where the formal definition and what it means in the real world don't fully line up.
Run your own business. It'll change your view. You seem to be narrowly talking about public companies in the stock market who have pressure to increase their stock price. That's not your local restaurant or auto repair shop.
I'm sure the people running businesses when Wal-mart came into their town and pushed them out have a better understanding than I do.
Those small local businesses may not be growth-driven, but they still have to compete against companies that are. And the odds are very often stacked against those small businesses, though some of them are able to successfully carve out a niche.
Yes, and take that a few steps further: does that need for profit ever end? Where does the idea of "constant growth" eventually inevitably lead?
You guys, please check what the word definition means. I'm absolutely not saying whatever that's against your ideas.
You seem confused as to what defines a term. The thing written in a dictionary comes from observing the real world. The real thing isn't constrained by some written words on a website, it's literally the other way around.
I know that.
This is akin to the classic argument that no one has gotten communism right, and in theory it's a good model. The reality is that humans are going to human, and some things do not work at scale because humans will inevitably do the human thing and some systems just aren't designed well for human behavior. The insistence that people just aren't following the definition that you've chosen disregards how words come to be - people create them to describe something new which was not previously defined, and they are generally created on the fly by people, not by people sitting down and writing out a specific definition before publishing and/or using it. Definitions also change, over time, to reflect how the words are being used or how the world itself has changed.
With all that being said, you did ask for sources on how capitalism plays out in the real world in response to people abundantly telling you that capitalism is harmful, so here's a few sources you might find interesting that approach the harms or outcomes of capitalism as it has played out in the world in various countries.
1. The Impact of Advanced Capitalism on Well-being: an Evidence-Informed Model
2. Capitalism, socialism, and the physical quality of life
3. Testing hypotheses about the harm that capitalism causes to the mind and brain: a theoretical framework for neuroscience research
No, I asked for the citation for the definition. This is why I'm spamming "please learn to read".
Yes I understand, hence the preface about why caring about what definition one chooses for a word is a pointless argument. I guess I misunderstood what you were asking for with your comment about "how it plays out in the real world" and thought you were inviting the question about what damages a system ruled by money causes to the world, regardless of whether you call it capitalism or commercialism.