Ugh, Capitalism
I agree that there&#x27;s too much status signalling and overly-broad comments like &quot;capitalism was a mistake&quot;, and not enough nuance, even on HN. Capitalism is a great system, and I don&#x27;t think we should abolish it.<p>But capitalism <i>needs</i> regulation, and our current iteration of capitalism needs <i>more</i> regulation. When people refer to &quot;late-stage capitalism&quot;, most of them agree that capitalism itself isn&#x27;t the issue, they&#x27;re only referring to our current iteration. And I agree with them, capitalism today is broken.<p>What do I mean by &quot;broken&quot;? There are companies who seemingly everyone hates, have terribly inefficient production, make terrible products, and yet they are still successful (see: Amazon). At a certain size, a company can make terrible decisions, completely destroy their quality and efficiency, and they will still make more and more money. The practices which make companies more money are the <i>opposite</i> of those which help consumers, so that companies which try to be well-liked and genuine are at a disadvantage. And thus <i>most</i> big companies are not liked. This shouldn&#x27;t be the case.<p>Also, getting out of homelessness is very difficult even if you have a work ethic (despite the fact most non-homeless people really don&#x27;t). There are people who work 60-hour weeks and can&#x27;t afford a living wage. The people who work the hardest in the most important jobs get literally 10x less money than people who barely work at all. This shouldn&#x27;t be the case.<p>How can &quot;late-stage capitalism&quot; be fixed? It&#x27;s next-to-impossible for a new startup to compete with the giant companies, and as a result, the giant companies more or less cooperate with each other and have become a monopoly. This is what needs to be changed to fix problem #1. Government regulation and public cooperation to help small businesses. Government regulation to make it so they don&#x27;t have to go through trouble like production and distributor negotiations which big companies don&#x27;t (because they own the production and distribution systems). Possible examples: governments forcing the distributors to sell popular small-business products, governments and new businesses creating their own factories and stores, governments and consumers heavily subsidizing small businesses. Maybe these aren&#x27;t good solutions. But we need <i>something</i>, so that a business which makes good product efficiently with what it has access to makes money.<p>And, making it so that poor people don&#x27;t suffer unless maybe they genuinely deserve it (and ideally, nobody should suffer at all). This is what needs to be changed to fix problem #2. People who work 60-hours should make enough money to sustain themselves <i>and generate savings</i>, whether by the company or by government subsidies, or by being able to quit their under-paying job and work 60 hours in a better one. People should be able to quit under-paying and toxic jobs, and buy more-expensive products from more ethical companies, without going broke. People should have ways to advance their careers and start their own companies. Via government regulation, better companies, or consistent and strong public support. Possible solutions: Universal Basic Income (which can coexist with capitalism); more, better government work programs and grants; large-scale community organization for a &quot;social safety net&quot;; fixing problem #1 causing companies to raise their wages and reduce toxicity naturally. Maybe these aren&#x27;t good solutions. But we need <i>something</i>, so that a person who contributes what they can to society isn&#x27;t poor.