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Riversntallbuildings t1_j2rv83w wrote

I love thé standards and regulations that the EU has been passing.

I advocate whenever possible for the US to do the same. Especially when it comes to Antitrust, IP and digital marketplace regulations.

The economic disparity will not decrease without strong corporate regulations.

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ianitic t1_j2s0q5o wrote

What's wild is I got into an argument recently with someone who said collusion was fine as long as the company makes a profit. They couldn't understand why I would be against that and called me an anticapitalist as some big insult for being against collusion.

I can't understand why people would be so against antitrust regulations.

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Riversntallbuildings t1_j2s1e3h wrote

Yeah. Free markets are not free when bias and special treatment is allowed.

I am still mourning the loss of net neutrality for consumers in the U.S.

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agwaragh t1_j2ubkzg wrote

> is allowed

This is the irony. "Free" markets don't work without sufficient regulation.

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Riversntallbuildings t1_j2uc4bj wrote

Correct. Private enterprises will always look for, and find, ways to establish protected markets.

One of the specific cases I point to is when Hollywood clawed back the fair use rights that consumers won during the VHS era.

Content is content, and yet somehow, the courts allowed digital content (and digital markets) to be treated differently.

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mmerijn t1_j2ufape wrote

Free "markets" do, but what we have is a little bigger than a market nowadays. Social relations and reputation tended to follow you around back in the day, nowadays you can defraud millions of people before you get a reputation that might catch up to you for some people.

So yeah, we need regulation. but mostly because the concept of a market doesn't scale up perfectly from tens of millions of people to billions of people (due to the market now being more global than ever).

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agwaragh t1_j2uif4l wrote

You appear to be ignorant of history.

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mmerijn t1_j2wcf52 wrote

That was exactly what I was referring to though?

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agwaragh t1_j2y2uuu wrote

The fact that monopolists and unfair trade practices have always required regulation? That certainly doesn't sound like what you said. I mean this was from a time when the whole developed world was only a few tens of millions. But if you want to go back even further, check out Leviticus or Hammurabi's Code. There's a remarkable amount of ancient writing about trade disputes and the laws to deal with them. The very advent of writing was motivated by a need to better control commerce. The utopian ideal of a free market has never existed at any time in history. Belief in it is a religious faith and nothing more.

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Krasmaniandevil t1_j2sqast wrote

When capitalism had to "compete" against communism as an economic system, there was more pressure to emphasize why capitalism works and is better than the alternative. Without a competing economic system, people assume that capitalism is inherently good without considering which criteria are relevant for such an assessment (other than "capitalism allows me to become rich).

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Risk_E_Biscuits t1_j2sto9z wrote

Capitalism is no longer the appropriate term for what we have in the US. People need to stop blaming an economic system and look to the root of the problem, poor legislation and regulations. As an economic system capitalism is not inherently bad; it is our abuse of the legislative process for the financial gain of the few that is to blame for our disparities.

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tifumostdays t1_j2t2h1i wrote

Many here think any capitalist economy will have it's legislation compromised by capital. Europe is only doing better than the US by contrast, I'm sure they still have their problems.

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Risk_E_Biscuits t1_j2v8org wrote

Most economies will be compromised since they are not properly insulated from market forces. I fully agree with your observation regarding Europe in contrast. They have many of the same problems, just different magnitudes.

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Meritania t1_j2tm66h wrote

Poor legislation & regulation is the outcome of neoliberal economic planning which sees the state have devolved interests in industry, which have become monopolies and duopolies with regulatory capture.

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ImmoralityPet t1_j2tljxe wrote

This is like saying that death by organ failure caused by cancer is not death by cancer. Regulatory capture is a feature of capitalism, not a bug.

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Risk_E_Biscuits t1_j2tvclc wrote

Nope, it's a feature of republican democracy. And it is not at all like saying anything about death by organ failure blah blah blah. Quit it with the fallacies.

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Zrakoplovvliegtuig t1_j2wce7f wrote

How is it not a feature of capitalism? Republican democracy itself is compromised by capital...

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Aceticon t1_j2w8vko wrote

Look mate, a system that says "greed is good" and yet expects that Lawmakers and Law-enforcers will work only for the good of the system (i.e. not be greedy) is about as utopian as bloody Communism.

The so called Crony Capitalism is the natural end state of Capitalism as those entrusted with the powers of the State just subvert it to get de facto immunity whilst they pillage it because, guess what, they're as greedy as everybody else and power attracts mainly those who don't feel the burden of responsability towards others when holding it.

The "solution" of less State (i.e Neoliberalism) is even worse as it makes Money the only Power in the land - reducing the power that citizens in democracies indirectly have through their vote - and that way lies either Anarchy or Feudalism (the latter if we're "lucky").

Personally I do believe we need some Capitalism, though heavilly overseen by something else so as to block it from subverting Democracy or destroying our societies through its main actors' natural tendency to cause Tragedy Of The Commons situations at pretty much all levels.

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flightless_mouse t1_j2ua66t wrote

>I can't understand why people would be so against antitrust regulations.

Because they think government regulation of any kind stifles innovation and is bad for markets, even government regulation that is specifically designed to encourage innovation and promote healthy markets.

It is a warped vision unless you like getting screwed by monopolies.

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iamjuste t1_j2u8vf3 wrote

Capitalist propaganda over the last 50-60 years.

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5GCovidInjection t1_j2tcv6b wrote

It is possible in the US. We have all kinds of environmental legislation drafted in the 70s and 80s based on politicians listening to scientists.

Politicians make the decision on who to listen to. People also make similar decisions. We’ve been listening to the wrong people since the 90s.

We don’t have much time left as a country to act in the interests of consumer safety, fairness, and ethics.

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Oerthling t1_j2w8eua wrote

The US legalized political bribery (through a number of braindead SC decisions like Citizens United). As a result Congress has been bought. Legally. The bribe just has to be called a campaign contribution and a lobbyist delivers pre-written laws - how convenient.

What Americans want, if you go by polls (e.g. universal healthcare) and what they get from their politicians (laws that favor the biggest corporations) has been disconnected for many years.

Glass-Stegal Act gets cancelled - hello 2008 crash. Now there's more Too-Big-To-Fail banks playing casino games than ever.

Anti-trust laws are almost defunct, because there's hardly any enforcement. MS was found guilty of criminal anti-competitive activities - the verdict got watered down into irrelevance.

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Kriss3d t1_j2ss2rj wrote

Absolutely.

I've in several decades gotten like less than 10 scam calls. And no robot calls or spam.

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