• writeorelse@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Uh, liberals tend to want to shift capitalism towards something more equitable - you know, something that doesn’t leave so many people jobless or homeless.

        • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          liberals tend to want to shift capitalism towards something more equitable

          No, they don’t - they try to reform capitalism to head off revolt against the capitalist status quo. That is why liberal reforms to capitalism (at best) only makes life better for a certain part of the working class - see how Roosevelt’s GI Bill left black vets and their communities out in the cold for an example. When this fails to protect the capitalist order, liberal-types will happily co-operate with fascists to violently repress the working class - see Weimar Germany for an example of that.

          If you are the reading type, I’d suggest Clara Mattei’s The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism - I haven’t encountered anyone who explains the history as well as she does.

          Liberals are not your friends - Malcolm X was perfectly accurate when he described them as “smiling foxes.”

      • philboydstudge@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        So if your question is in good faith let’s break it down a little.

        Capitalism is a economic system. It may have some liberal or conservative slant inherently, but in theory there isn’t anything implicit.

        A liberal or conservative economic policy would be how you manage that economic system. Liberal economic policy should tend to favor rules and regulations to account for the flaws of unchecked capitalism. Conservative policy tends towards less regulation, relying on the market system to set prices for goods and services.

        Personally, I’m liberal because the ultimate goal for any capitalist is a monopoly. Often in that situation, you get an unequal power dynamic that allows a company to stay ahead of competition or bully them out of the market, preventing the market from setting prices. Additionally liberal policy tries to regulate negative externalities, such as companies dumping chemicals in a river (such as when the Ohio river caught on fire leading to the creation of the EPA). Frankly, these are real problems inherent in capitalism that conservative policy doesn’t address because it makes the rich richer. It’s pretty disingenuous to argue that liberal policy is there to benefit the rich.

        Anyway, that’s a super basic breakdown. None of that is say there isn’t corruption from the rich and greedy in politics. Frankly, money equating to political influence is crazy and has allowed the weathly to completely shape world policy. If you want change, look to rank choice voting systems or other ways to move more choice and power back to voters.

        • Void_Reader@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I appreciate you trying to answer a question in good faith, but you’re conflating ‘liberal’ with ‘vaguely left-leaning’, and none of what you’ve said makes any sense outside of current US political ‘discourse’ where ‘Liberal’ means ‘slightly left-wing’.

          What you describe as liberal economics is closer to Keynsianism or Social Democracy.

          In economics, the ‘Liberal’ school of thought is generally against regulation and interference in the market, seeing it as being ‘self-regulating’. In economic terms, Reagan and Thatcher were Liberals - hence them being associated with ‘Neoliberalism’.

          The whole thing you said about Capitalism tending towards monopoly is actually a very Marxist/Socialist idea - Liberal economic theory tends to argue that monopolies form because of government and that they wouldn’t occur in a truly free market (although its more nuanced than that, there’s major disagreements over ‘Natural Monopolies’ etc. within the Liberal school). Source: look up any Liberal economist/thinker and their view on monopolies. E.g Friedman, J.S Mill.

          Capitalism being an economic system doesn’t make it apolitical. ‘In theory’ Liberalism and Capitalism are very very closely intertwined, it’s not implicit, it’s absolutely explicit if you read any Liberal political or economic theory.

          Economics is inherently political.

          https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/#Libe Sections 3 and 4 of this are a decent starting point.

          Also the idea of slightly changing our voting systems as the way to drive change is quite hilarious. Sure, moving away from FPTP would probably help a bit, but it’s not like countries with other systems are doing fine. These issues are more fundamental. And historically, fundamental change has never occured through small technical adjustments to political systems.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    “liberal economics” ? Seriously? This flowchart describes every POS robber baron capitalist for the last several centuries.

    • DudePluto@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Economic liberalism is the economic theory of both American parties. Idk how it came to be applied to only the democratic party but that’s incorrect. OP is presumably critiquing economic liberalism from a leftist perspective, of which the Democrats are not

    • sharpiemarker@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Right?! This is gaslighting pure and simple. Trump gave tax breaks to his corporate cronies on the backs of the poor and middle class. Was Trump a liberal? How about Bush? Clinton (who was a Democrat) made substantial strides toward fixing the economy. But I guess he was a conservative? Idiots don’t know the meanings of words. Next you’ll tell us that socialism and communism are both the same thing and what liberals want for the country.

  • skelpie@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    There’s 0 real economists who hold anything close to these views. What a stupid take. Before you downvote, I ask that you find a single source that contradicts my claim. Since all liberal economics is like that, it should be easy, right?

    • Just_A_Human@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Were you not alive during the 2008 global financial meltdown? Where the entire world had to subsidize the 1% because the banks they own sold garbage mortgages?

      What about more recently with the bank runs that we had a month or so ago? The fed implented a new “insurance warranty” to make banks whole again “without using tax payer funds” but we both know that’s a load of bullshit…

      Now we have this never ending inflation, interest rates only going up for who knows how long… Literally siphoning your money from whatever savings you have left and if you’re already broke, they are taking away any buying power you had and taking it down to nothing…

      So yea, fuck whatever bullshit economic theory or whatever academic bullshit you are talking about, regardless of whatever “politics” it’s tagged under… Its the 1% snatching away any and all power that the people accumulated over this covid recovery (strong labour market, practically 0 interest during peak covid, work from home, etc)

      Thanks for listening to my Ted talk…

      *a word

    • Yozul@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Economists may not be like that, but politicians are, and they’re the ones that run the economy.

    • Void_Reader@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Sure, real economists don’t explicitly hold those views. But the kinds of metrics and models liberal economists are fond of using basically lead to that flowchart.

  • алсааас [she/they]@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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    1 year ago

    that’s billions of tax payers money with the tax burden being disproportionately heavy for the 90% while the 10% pay less and less taxes the richer they are

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          It’s imperialism to be precise, the highest stage of capitalism which see the merging of monopolies and state power, resulting in things like widespread corruption (lobbying), state waging wars in the interest of big capital, policies being subordinate to the stonks line and of course bailing out corpos which are “too big to fail”.

          In a nutshell, it’s just natural development of capitalism.

          I guess you could say it’s “corporate welfare” but the word “socialism” is not correct and shouldn’t be used here.

    • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      You can kind of see it that way… the rich get corporate, state-engineered socialism while the non-rich gets brutal “free market” capitalism.

    • алсааас [she/they]@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      1 year ago

      sir, this is a Wendies meme. In the end it boils down to the capitalist goverments bayling out those who don’t need it (billionaires and millionaires) and giving credit for virtually nothing. Ofc it’s a simplification since this is a meme, not a chart for econ class

      • very smart Idiot@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        But that’s how capitalism works. You invest your money into something instead of using it on yourself.

        And in exchange for the risk taking, because each investment is a huge risk, you become (in case of stocks) a shareholder. And a as a shareholder and risk taker, you get compensated for your risk taking with dividends.

        Why invest your own cash into something and take a risk without getting something in exchange? That would be considered stupid.

        I invested into Wirecard back then and guess where the money went… Investments are bound to risk. And taking a risk must be rewarded.

        • алсааас [she/they]@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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          1 year ago

          and I’m just supposed to give a fuck?

          you have to do zero real work to get profits that way. The profits you are getting are just a share of the wealth the workers of the company produce. There is no such thing as passive income, the money is always taken from working people. The really rich people take 0 risk. The instant they start making serious losses banks and goverments step in and give them taxpayers money.

          Also: to get relevant income that way you already need to have a lot of money, which you either get by inheritance or exploiting others. Either way you had to do zero real work yourself. (and no, just shoving capital around is not real work)

          • very smart Idiot@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Well, most of what you state here is wrong.

            People like you never analysed a company. Looked into the paperwork.

            I am working 8 hours a day and 2 more hours, I take my time to look into companies to invest my hard earned money.

            I am by far not rich. It I can tell you, that the more money you have to manage, the harder it gets.

            No human on this earth, except trust fund babies, who just throw away their inheritance without investing, are living off their money without personal time investment and hard work.

            It just doesn’t work the way you imagine it.

            The moment the government intervened with Tax payer money, they usually ask for dividends as well, or another kind of favour. Nothing comes for free.

              • very smart Idiot@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                But your investment can fund this creation of value. And that’s how economy works.

                The research and identification of where value can be expected with proper funding is simply a part of finding what will work best.

                And it is only reasonable to find the things that will work out best at first.

                One step after another. That’s how progress works.

        • _HR_@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Investments are bound to risk. And taking a risk must be rewarded.

          Err, no. Risk taking could be rewarding, but it inherently should not be guaranteed to be.

          • very smart Idiot@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            And it is not. Sometimes your investment looses a lot of worth if the companies value falls.

            Bought Amazon stocks at the wrong time and lost 40% of value 3 months later. Climbed back to 15% loss.

            It definitely is not risk free. Not even the biggest, most stable companies are safe from risk.

        • 30isthenew29@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I believe that’s how it works, but I just don’t understand how that makes any sense. They’re just playing with numbers in the air, making a line diagraph go up and down… I just don’t get it.

          • skelpie@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            The “line diagraph” represents real physical things that you can eat or sleep in or wear.

            • 30isthenew29@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              So they make the worth of that different? People give money so the worth of those things change? Who decides what worth is? What am I missing?

              • very smart Idiot@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                Well. It’s not that difficult.

                You can either invest into materials (oil, Gold, Uranium, Silver,… literally any thing)

                Or stocks. Shares of a company.

                And of course there are derivates like etf (the only reasonable Derivate). And there is the rest which is basically gambling.

                The easiest to understand is Material investments. Let’s take a look into Uranium: Uranium is mined in Uranium Mines. And specialised companies are processing it and storing it. They are basically the vendor to power plants.

                Now these vendors allow you to invest in Uranium as well. You can literally buy Uranium and the company selling it to you will store it for you. You receive a certificate of ownership.

                Now if you predict, that more and more nuclear plants will be build in the future, this means that there will be higher demand. If you start buying uranium and you refuse to sell it, then supply decreases while demand increases. This means power plant companies will need to offer more money for Uranium. They will need to eventually rise their offer to your price. This means the graph climbs up. Unfortunately there were already many people much earlier having the idea to invest into uranium. So investing now might be too late.

                It is basically the same what happened with graphics cards.

                Stocks work very similar. But I cannot explain you everything. Eventually you will have to do research yourself. Thanks to the internet, us normal people are empowered to invest in the same way as expert economists would. Just do your research, you will have to read a lot about it. Nothing comes for free. A good start is always YouTube videos. There are some rly good explanations out there. Eventually you will need to start reading further into the subject. Thankfully the internet has tons of stuff about it as well.

                Nothing should stop you at this point. Simply start investing 2 hours each week into learning about the stock market and what all the terms mean.

                This is of course no financial advice. I just advice you to get some knowledge about the workings of the stock market.

    • Raphael@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Now I must ask, who are you implying is giving money for free to investors? Because that’s not how economy works.

      https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/448336-did-the-rich-get-all-of-trumps-tax-cuts/

      Whether the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) disproportionately helped the rich may be 2020’s biggest political issue. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin claims that it benefited most Americans. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) calls it a massive giveaway to the rich.

      • very smart Idiot@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        First off, there was no money given. You are speaking about tax cuts.

        And in the same article you linked, it is not clarified if the rich actually profited more from it/ made better use of the tax cuts. The article claims that the analysts are wrong. And that’s it.

  • vd1n@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I’m a firm believer that all sides rob cheat and steal. Some more than others though…

  • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
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    1 year ago

    I don’t get it. Billionaires do billionaires things, but this meme being made the same week as a liberal policy requiring fair taxes for the rich to cover social security for the next 75 years makes this poster 100% out of touch.

    • SMTRodent@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Liberal in economics and Liberal in US politics mean two very distinct and different things. It’s like the way a ‘runner’ in a race is different to a ‘runner’ in a restaurant. They’re not the same things at all.

      Economic liberalism means free trade and deregulation. If it makes money, it’s good. Neoliberalism is also referred to as ‘hypercapitalism’.

      ‘Liberal’ in US politics means ‘left of the GOP’ and is its own unique thing. It bears no relation to economic liberalism at all. The two may coincide but they’re independent of one another.

    • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      OP’s account is full of this type of half thought out, zero context, communist propaganda memes. I don’t even disagree with the premise of most of them in general, but it’s just turning this place into an auth-left Facebook.

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Oh no! Not the “auth-left.” They may make corporations exist for the good of the people instead of profit.

    • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Which policy is that? Does it have a built in way to prevent accumlation of wealth? Maybe a death tax? Maybe some nationalizing of industry’s? No? Then it sounds like you are the one out of touch.