🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@aeleoglyphic@mastodon.social

Even if you don’t include america.

Agreed, I am not including america here specifically. I am speaking of capitalism as a whole (which would include the whole of the EU, the UK and the overwhelming majority of countries world-wide).

Capitalism in every conception creates inequality.

It doesnt create inequality, it fairly rewards people for the amount of utility they give to society. Since people give utility to society unequally, this means people are fairly rewarded and those rewards are unequal.

Capitalism (when healthy) provides equity (fairness) not equality (everyone event) which is exactly how it should be!

Not just in the context of incom [sic] But in the context of access to resources.

Agreed, and this is a good thing. People who provide more utility to society should have access to more resources since they have proven to be more effective in converting resources to utility.

Again equity over equality. The bigger issue is if people have the same access to opportunity. In other words, if you can demonstrate you provide utility to society will you have the equity of having access to the resources you have demonstrated you earned. A healthy capitalism does just that.

Even in some of the european countries non-citizens are forced to pay out of pocket for healthcare.

If you can afford healthcare you should be paying for it out of pocket. If you cant society should help you with welfare programs. A capitalism does not preclude social welfare.

No human should be denied treatment.

Agreed, and when a capitalist government provides healthcare to those who cant afford it, they are still a capitalist country. Capitalism is not mutually exclusive with social welfare.

The market decides your worth, which is arbitrary and non-sensical.

No it doesnt. It defines your access to resources, and it isnt arbitrary, it is based on the utility you provide to society (in a healthy capitalism).

The fact that you think a persons worth as an individual is synonymous with the resources they have access to is a very concerning POV.

@Radical_EgoCom @Vincarsi

@Radical_EgoCom

concentrates wealth and resources into the hands of a few rich individuals

Yes, though, it distributes fairly based on their contribution to society when operating in a healthy way. Societies dont have an equal distribution of people contributing equal utility, ergo you should see unequal distribution of wealth in a healthy government with a typical population.

which is what leads to the kind of conditions that the OP is talking about

Fully disagree. Uneven distributions of wealth does not, in and of itself, lead to lower quality of life or less charitable works. In fact, it has been objectively shown that rich people give significantly higher percentages of their income to charity than middle class or poor.

where wealthy people hoard resources for themselves and refuse to give any to others

That does not line up with reality IMO. Very few rich “hoard wealth” which would look like a mountain of resources sitting in a vault collecting dust (such as useful minerals, or other materials useful to society). In fact they dont even tend to hoard money itself. Almost all rich people have all of their money actively in the community and used for social utility. For example in investment in businesses. No person who hoarded wealth would be rich because wealth looses value with time. You only become rich by not hoarding wealth (putting your money out into the community, at a risk of loosing it or getting a return).

@Vincarsi

@Radical_EgoCom

> Concentrating wealth in the hands of a few individuals inherently creates systemic inequalities and power imbalances

While the word "systematic" is a bit nebulous here, and not too important, overall I'd say yes, this is true, it creates power imbalance, and that is a GOOD thing.

There should not be equal power, there should be power imbalance. People who have demonstrated they have produced the most utility for society **should** have more power than those who dont. This ensures those with a demonstrated track record of providing utility for society continue to maximize societies utility.

Now the important part, of course, is having the proper checks on those powers. A president has more power than a citizen, this is fine because we have checks on that presidents power, checks that (ideally) ensure that if that power is abused they loose that power.

> investments by the wealthy do not address the root causes of poverty

Agreed. I am not claiming that investments by the wealthy alone address the root cause of poverty. While having wealthy people in a society is a good thing I am in no way proposing it solves all of life's ills. I am also in no way claiming we should be without social programs. All countries in europe are capitalistic for example, most of which also include social welfare as part of their capitalist governance, and that is an important aspect of a healthy capitalist government, but must be done carefully to do right as well.

> exploitation perpetuated by the #capitalist system.

Capitalism doesnt exploit people. People exploit people. And if markets allow exploitation then they arent free markets, and therefore are not capitalist in nature.

@Vincarsi

@Radical_EgoCom

Concentrating wealth in the hands of a few individuals creates a power imbalances that favor the wealthy elite at the expense of the majority,

Thats a circular argument. Concerntrating wealth creates wealthy people, absolutely, thats the point. It doesnt favor the wealthy, it creates them, exactly as we should want it to (assuming this is concentration is a factor of utility, which in a healthy capitalism it is).

checks and balances within a capitalist system are sufficient to prevent abuse of power that these power imbalances spawn.

Whether they are sufficient or not dependent entierly on the government. Some government lack sufficient checks and balances on power, others do not. There is nothing inherent about capitalism that garuntees these checks and balances are absent.

Capitalism itself inherently exploits workers through the extraction of surplus value from their labor.

Wrong, capitalism provides the necessary utility to workers to allow their labor to have surplus value, surplus value that their labor would not have on its own.

It’s not correct to only attribute exploitation to individual actions…

Agreed, it would be incorrect to attribute exploitation only to individual actions. Which is why i didnt do that, I expressed both the effects of individual actions and collectively (checks and balances are a collective actions).

and ignore the effects of #capitalism

Its not the effects of capitalism, so those arent ignored.

@Vincarsi

@freemo In the early 90s when I was introduced to ham radio, my Elmer had a laminated copy of The Amateurs Code. He said it’s the first thing every prospective ham must learn. Not knowing any different, learn and try to live by it I did. It wasn’t until I had been licensed for almost 20 years I started to wonder what happened. Seems many hams don’t even know of its existence. Very apparently. Now just shy of 30 years in, I’m an elmer, and I start with what my Elmer told me.

@freemo It is not a big deal if one is not into exercise. A very general rule of thumb is that diet is for weight loss while exercise is for health. It takes a great amount of exercise to cause weight loss and dieting is sufficient if one’s only goal is to lose weight. My “2 lbs/week” was very much an average. Some weeks I’d lose more and other weeks less (those .8 lbs weeks are killers!) but that’s more or less what my average loss worked out to.

@freemo 16 lbs in 2 months seems to me to be right where you want to be. = more or less 2lbs per week which I understand maximizes weight loss while avoiding loose skin. As far as I know you can always work to lose weight through diet but loose skin can only be lost through surgery. I’ve had years (decades) of weight loss (and always subsequent re-gain)experience and when dieting have lost on average 100-125 lbs over a year per each effort and never experienced loose skin.

@freemo it is more they discovered autism treatments help some almost normal people too