Is the capitalist world in decline now due to lack of competition since the end of the Cold War?

Is the capitalist world in decline now due to lack of competition since the end of the Cold War?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Which way, white man?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It's just the death of god beginning to fully manifest. It's only going to get worse.

      China is a hollowed out hellhole, the entire country is a Potemkin village, there's no hope in the east.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Parasitic financial class creating more and more ways to siphon and suck wealth from the actual producing parts of the country

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      *Parasitic political class
      fixed

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Same thing. It’s a revolving door between politics and finance

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      What's wrong with lending people money?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Nothing but it should never ever become a main function of the economy because that’s how you get things like 2008

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        What's a CDO and how does it relate to giving a small business owner a loan?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Anon from this post:

      I want to add to these posts because they're not wrong, but they're too brief:

      *Parasitic political class
      fixed

      Same thing. It’s a revolving door between politics and finance

      One of the currently most lucrative, innovative, and growing markets at the moment is that of "Digital Media". Not since the dot.com era has the internet been such a power house of new and exciting ways to make money by generating product that doesn't *actually exist* but is instead a means to transfer the money away from people, who actually do generate physical currency, to those who don't.
      The most lucrative and straightforward instance of this business model would be the news media, youtubers, streamers, individuals who specialize in the commodification of information and people's attention. Social media platforms and large media companies essentially make 'things' for people to consume such as videos & articles, and then either generate revenue via donation or subscription models, or through ad viewership. This has been.. I wanna say bad for the entertainment industry and complete dogshit for news: entertainment has found out the greatest asset to capitalize on is people's loneliness, and news media has built an industry on *social distress, conflict, and political dramas*. People tune into streamers and youtube content for companionship, and people now tune into the news, not for news, but to be told a story from a "trusted authority" or to otherwise have their biases confirmed.

      The other one I'll mention is the "digital asset" market such as bit coin and nfts. I'll only briefly mention them because they're essentially just a speculative commidty/asset thingy (I'm also not a big gold/stocks guys): they're an advanced form of beanie babies or tulips. Their only inherent value is through rug-pulls, pump-and-dumps, and profiting off of the things people would normally very much like to do with stock, but can't because it's illegal.
      I do know, off hand, that the practice raises the price of energy and computer parts.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I agree with you about the political class transferring money to themselves but disagree with media and the internet being the method of doing it.

        I think the principle way is the military-industrial complex. Citizens get taxed, taxes go to military, military use money to pay for weapons from lockheed-martin, raytheon, boeing, northrop grumman, etcetera. Politicians own shares in these, these companies also use their wealth to support foreign wars, especially in the media, currently it's Ukraine, before that it was Afghanistan.

        Internet stuff is interesting but I don't think it can generate the same amount of money as the MI complex, because there's no direct taking of the money from citizens and giving it to these companies.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It's due to a lack of international regulations. Capitalism is self-destructive if left unchecked.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Why is people trading with each other self-destructive?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Because they’re willing to sell out their own people in a race to the bottom for the cheapest labor source possible

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Capitalism isn't the same as the free market.
        Corporations don't just trade with each other. They lobby governments, fund organizations who're aiming to influence people to dismantle regulations, and so on.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      https://i.imgur.com/cvyzWdY.jpg

      Is the capitalist world in decline now due to lack of competition since the end of the Cold War?

      Difficult question to answer, but I'm, personally, gonna go with when Fiscal-Conservatives converted their entire economics model to "Tax-Cuts". So, maybe sometime in the late 70's or early 80's with Reagonomics and the like.

      Why I say that is because Tax-Cuts objectively don't stimulate the economy in any meaningful way. I know this sounds like a commie talking point, but please consider the following:
      -Fundamentally, all Tax-Cuts are deficit spending. Whenever you cut the tax rate you're essentially committing to also either cutting the funding for services (which, granted, sometimes governments do at the expense to those who need them) or you don't (because you can't) and in that case you're spending money you don't have and accruing debt.

      -Tax-Cuts ?weirdly? discourage the wealthy from spending their money. I'm going to butcher this explanation, but when taxes are quite high: higher earners will find ways to spend that money on charity or investment in-order to avoid taxes AND build their wealth through equity. When taxes are low on high earners they almost always hide it through various means that usually involve not spending it- lest it get taxed . I know that isn't a perfect explanation on the how's and why's, but that's what they always seem to do in practice.

      -Tax-Cuts also don't meaningfully benefit the lower or middle-classes and if anything deprive them of resource. I understand why people don't like to think of it this way, but unless you make over 65-90k (depending on what state you live in); you're infinitely better served by your taxes paying into some kind of social service or welfare than a tax-break. Always. That can be obvious things like health insurance, food stamps, (business or student) loan forgiveness, but things like the police, libraries, public schools, gymnasiums, etc..
      I've heard the two greatest "returns on investment" on public spending are giving free food to children and small business loan forgiveness.

      Just go back to leftypol troony.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    The banks willingly bundled those bad mortgages with others into “stable” securities which they then sold to none-the-wiser pensioners, knowing they would implode. They knew what they were doing was unstable and did it anyway for greed.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Hello, I have an actual answer that isn't moronic:

    >decline now due to lack of competition since the end of the Cold War?

    Not due to international competition: the foreign market has been quite healthy, and countries all over the world have generally become wealthier, educated, technologically advanced, and more competitive. The problem is the United States lack of internal competition and the domestic market becoming infinitely more homogeneus- more so than perhaps it's been in a very long time. The main issue at the moment is Capitalism absolutely has winners and losers, the system fundamentally self-corrects because of it, but we're at a point where the winners have won so hard they've become top heavy. The winners are simply buying the competition and if/when they begin to lose they're so large, and have such a tight grip on the economy, that they can pressure the government to provide them with welfare and other controlled-economy-socialist policies.
    Which large businesses effectively *in charge* of the economy, influencing government policy, this has created two interesting effects: popularity and brand awareness is now more important than brand quality. You don't need to make something that's good, or high quality, or anything like that: you control all aspects of a certain market, can flood out competitors, make it too expensive or too cheap, etc.. Innovation has become stifled and in some cases even just flat out penalized. Making "new" or god forbid "better" products will take away from already well established products and franchises; it's simply better to market very small incremental changes in your existing product OR, better yet, find some way to establish some kind of subscription service.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      When, in your opinion, was there still competition within capitalism?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Difficult question to answer, but I'm, personally, gonna go with when Fiscal-Conservatives converted their entire economics model to "Tax-Cuts". So, maybe sometime in the late 70's or early 80's with Reagonomics and the like.

        Why I say that is because Tax-Cuts objectively don't stimulate the economy in any meaningful way. I know this sounds like a commie talking point, but please consider the following:
        -Fundamentally, all Tax-Cuts are deficit spending. Whenever you cut the tax rate you're essentially committing to also either cutting the funding for services (which, granted, sometimes governments do at the expense to those who need them) or you don't (because you can't) and in that case you're spending money you don't have and accruing debt.

        -Tax-Cuts ?weirdly? discourage the wealthy from spending their money. I'm going to butcher this explanation, but when taxes are quite high: higher earners will find ways to spend that money on charity or investment in-order to avoid taxes AND build their wealth through equity. When taxes are low on high earners they almost always hide it through various means that usually involve not spending it- lest it get taxed . I know that isn't a perfect explanation on the how's and why's, but that's what they always seem to do in practice.

        -Tax-Cuts also don't meaningfully benefit the lower or middle-classes and if anything deprive them of resource. I understand why people don't like to think of it this way, but unless you make over 65-90k (depending on what state you live in); you're infinitely better served by your taxes paying into some kind of social service or welfare than a tax-break. Always. That can be obvious things like health insurance, food stamps, (business or student) loan forgiveness, but things like the police, libraries, public schools, gymnasiums, etc..
        I've heard the two greatest "returns on investment" on public spending are giving free food to children and small business loan forgiveness.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Should a massive anti-trust campaign be enacted to mitigate such condition? I'm not from the US, but obviously things that happen in your country affect the global economy as a whole.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Should a massive anti-trust campaign be enacted to mitigate such condition?

        I'd consider an anti-trust campaign desperately appropriate at the moment for most social media platforms, and news associations, pharmaceutical, and food processing companies. If only because I consider them the most monopolized and their monopolization to be the most dangerous to the American public.

        I agree with you about the political class transferring money to themselves but disagree with media and the internet being the method of doing it.

        I think the principle way is the military-industrial complex. Citizens get taxed, taxes go to military, military use money to pay for weapons from lockheed-martin, raytheon, boeing, northrop grumman, etcetera. Politicians own shares in these, these companies also use their wealth to support foreign wars, especially in the media, currently it's Ukraine, before that it was Afghanistan.

        Internet stuff is interesting but I don't think it can generate the same amount of money as the MI complex, because there's no direct taking of the money from citizens and giving it to these companies.

        >I agree with you about the political class transferring money to themselves but disagree with media and the internet being the method of doing it.

        Sorry, sorry, we're getting our scales mixed up. I see what you mean now. I brought up those social media examples because I consider them particularly parasitic on a very personal and grass-roots level, but we can absolutely talk a little about this on a "bigger picture" national and foreign scale.
        I don't disagree that the military-industrial complex isn't profitable or influential, I'd add to that that in today's "new age world" most governing agents and financial organizations are looking for ways diversify their portfolios and find new ways of influencing and controlling people and markets. I wanna say the staples that seem to upscale the best and directly into the hands of political bodies are maybe Energy Companies, Military and Security Contracts, and Pharmaceuticals. I think in the past it used to be things more like production & industry and agriculture played a bigger part, but in some niche cases (like Taiwan) I think those days are maybe a little behind us.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          I don't consider anything more parasitic than the M-I complex. At least with social media people have agency. You don't HAVE to buy gamer bathwater. You don't HAVE to buy onlyfans, but if you refuse to pay taxes to be shipped off to whichever money-laundering warzone is in this decade you'll be put in jail.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    OP here

    Meant competition as in lack of a competent, relevant and equal rival economic system.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Commie block wasn't a fricking competition; those inbred morons weren't the slightest challenge to any economy.
    The West is in the decline because of political convergence - it itself becomes more commie-moronic with each day (like fricking "diversity" instead of meritocracy and widespread gaberment "regulations" instead of free market competition)
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/2009873

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If you're asking about the international order, then the answer is unequivocally yes. The post WWII order was devised to be based on economic competition as a means of circumventing explicit warfare. Now we see a contraction from globalism and an increase of protectionism from both power poles, US and China. This comes entangled with the gradual loss of the ideological consensus primarily emanating from Western powers, and an increase in militarism across the globe as a way of coping with a multi-polar world.

    On the other hand, capitalism has been weakened within state borders as well due to many excesses, bloated financial sectors, and most of all, a rapidly changing social fabric. While the wealth of the world is not zero-sum, the size of the pie does not increase proportionally to those who want in on the middle class life, and one of the consequences in the West is a gradual decline in the standard of living. This gradual decline comes with breakdown of the last social unit of cohesion in the West, the family, and inflation lowering the likelihood of new generations purchasing homes and forming families. The breakdown of the family itself is a multivariate phenomenon, with economic dimensions influencing it in different ways. Men and women are generally economically independent in the West, but the gender dimorphism that drove family formation is being both unwittingly and deliberately eroded. Besides this, capitalism is a generally unstable system and its mantra of transactionism has permeated every facet of, at least, American society, where consumption is the only concerted action of civic life.

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