Its not a capitalism thing its a.people under pressure from above thing. Look at the example of the Concord and the Tupolev TU144. The Concord was a great plane the Tupolev was a Soviet knockoff and deathtrap.
But capitalism is structured as a system where people above put lots of pressure on people below. There are other systems that are not so top heavy that may alleviate the people-under-pressure problem. Soviets were very top heavy too.
There have been no comparisons made, so it is not clear what you are trying to say. The idea that capitalism is compulsory is equally unclear.
Capitalism allows private ownership of capital, just as (to introduce a comparison) you are allowed to have a birthday party, but you in no way have to participate. You can choose to forgo capital ownership entirely, you can hold public ownership with other people who wish to share in the ownership (e.g. co-ops), you can do just about anything you want. Even within the USA, you can find people doing all of those things.
What you probably cannot avoid is trade. I expect that this is what you really have in mind – it is oft confused with capitalism for some reason. Indeed, a human surviving in complete isolation from other humans without being able to share is an incredibly challenging feat, and, frankly, isn't realistic for anything more than a short period of time. Trade is not a feature of capitalism, though. Trade is something else, and is much more fundamental.
I think you are focused too much on theory and hypotheticals and not reality, that’s where I’m at.
In reality, we all participate in capitalism. We all have to deal with this system, you can’t avoid it. It imposes its hierarchy on you from the day you are born, and getting out from under it is a lifelong endeavor. Nothing theoretical about the constant pressure coming from the top down. Maybe it’s not prescriptive of capitalism but you can’t deny it’s an emergent feature of the system, as if it’s an intended consequence. Cant really convince me at this point it’s not, sorry.
No I didn’t have trade in mind, listen to my words.
It is an emergent feature of trade. Realistically, there is always going to be someone who has something you want more than what they want from you, creating an imbalance. Trade and capitalism are not synonymous, though.
Consider the most primitive type of trade humans engage in: Sex. There is little question that the most sexually attractive "at the top" have way more power than those "at the bottom". People will fall over themselves for a chance to please the "hot girl" all while the "homely guy" doesn't even get the time of day. This is the same type of hierarchy that is featured in the larger discussion taking place here...
...Yet is not capitalism. If you do think that kind of sexual hierarchy is capitalism or a product of capitalism, you are not using a definition that aligns with any common usage. Sex appeal is not traditionally considered capital. Capitalism wasn't even invented when these human sexual dynamics came into existence.
> No I didn’t have trade in mind, listen to my words.
Your words are poorly chosen. I do my best to infer, but there is only so much to work with.
Yup, in theory, capitalism shouldn't even have hierarchies, but in practice people hate managing capital so hierarchies emerge anyway. We're reminded of that in another discussion that came up on HN[1]. Life is much, much, much easier and more enjoyable when capital is someone else's problem – when all you have to do is show up and give some time.
You'll notice that the capitalism detractors never advocate for greater capital management abilities. It is always to take away such ability so that they can feel less guilty about their choice in not wanting to manage capital. Can't really blame them. Managing capital truly does suck. But it is interesting nevertheless.
“Do better” with no extra object specified means the implied subject should improve with respect to itself. Grammar only requires an extra subject in instances such as “Do better than …”.
As a further example, someone talking to me might say “spend less time arguing with randoms on the Internet and performing other pointless pontification” and an listener/reader literate in the language being used would know not to need nor expect an extra subject to be specified.
You’re claiming that capitalism is “bad” because there’s a hypothetical you imagined where there could be better outcomes?
Everything is “bad” by that standard.
Eg, “Airplanes are bad because they don’t operate based on anti-gravity warp drives! If airplanes want to shake that reputation, they need to do better!”
…do you have any reason to believe better outcomes are actually possible?
Can you show the court, on the dolly, where dspillett said it was absolutely bad?
IIRC the closest I came to that was suggesting it had a reputation for doing some bad things.
Saying something can improve is not the same as saying it is absolutely bad in all imaginable ways, unless you live in a fantasy world where there is no “meh” only perfection and anti-perfection.
> do you have any reason to believe better outcomes are actually possible?
Not much, beyond a small and rapidly diminishing supply of hope!
