• shalafi@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Well, yeah? Capitalism is an economic system, i.e., it’s concerned with making money. The social good should come from the government taxing that money. Problem being, the rich have now bought the government and our social/communication systems.

    • just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      Taxing incomes only put the burden back on the working people. Rich will always find loopholes to avoid tax. Whether through subsidies or off shore companies.

      If we have to stay within the system, we should be implementing wealth tax instead of incomen tax. But it still leaves the option of foreign citizenship and they just owning stuff in a country without wealth tax

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      3 days ago

      it’s concerned with making money

      Nope, the question an economic system attempts to answer is “who should control the wealth created by the working class’s surplus labor;” it’s concerned not with making money, but with allocating it where it should be allocated. Capitalism’s answer to that question is “rich private citizens,” so it ends up concerned primarily with making money, but that’s an emergent property of capitalism rather than the fundamental nature of an economic system.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        The decade of unprecedented prosperity in America? When capitalism was going full blast, with the workers in unions to keep the owners in check? When the rich were heavily taxed? Sounds just fucking great to me.

          • shalafi@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            We dropped the unions and taxation of the rich. No reason that could not have continued. No reason we can’t do it again.

            • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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              3 days ago

              That only works for so long, because the system isn’t stable that way. Capitalism requires some sort of exploitation. If that exploitation is hindered for too long, capitalism will become in crisis.

              This chapter explains why that deal didn’t continue in Europe

              Also: if you tax the rich too much, they will conduct a capital strike, where they stdpinvesting in the country, or move their business somewhere else. That bit isn’t just a bogeyman from conservatives. It has some merit. Social democracy just isn’t a stable system.