this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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Capitalism is a game where only a few people get to win.

We have also seen time and time again that it is a game that is able to manipulate and change whatever ideology or behaviour you have to work towards its own benefit.

So the only way to actually "win" is to not play the game.

Right now that seems impossible because it is a massive collective action problem, however this whole platform is a testament to show that it's possible to overcome that kind of problem.

Reddit is a dominant platform that is starting to destroy itself. People are in turn finding alternatives such as Lemmy to satisfy the need that Reddit once did.

I view capitalism in the same way. It will never truly completely cease to exist (the same way Digg never truly died), but it can become irrelevant over time if we collectively decide to just use another system to satisfy the same needs that capitalism is satisfying today.

The one example that I can think of that tries to tackle this problem is the idea of free stores that are based on a gift economy. If more people decided to use this system instead of capitalism then capitalism will have less sway over people's lives.

And in the end it doesn't have to be specifically a free store that needs to be adopted by wider society but whatever it is does need to satisfy the same basic need that capitalism does in our current society.

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[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If you want to start a non capitalist company that's a great idea and I'd urge you to go for it.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Last time I tried starting a non-capitalist company... they told me I didn't yet have a big enough company to start a tax evasion one.

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You wouldn't need to worry about company tax rates if all the profit when to the employees as salary.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yeah... somehow the people I spoke to didn't figure that out. Then I had some first-hand experience at an employee-owned company, and... OMG, some people can be so smart and so stupid¹ at the same time, it's baffling. It made me kind of reconsider.

(¹: as in "I want more than that guy over there... but no, none of us want anything to do with governance, let's make CEO the first one who asks for it... [some years later] what do you mean they embezzled ALL the money? 🙀" 🤦)