Asklemmy

But the system also makes it so that when people act purely selfishly for money, that it results in good outcomes for everyone.

Nobody should take you seriously.

Just chiming in to say that if organizations price fix, it's pretty rare a 3rd party can sustainably undercut them. The price fixers can agree to drop prices way lower, sell at a loss until the 3rd party is forced to price fix too or go out of business, and then resume the fixed price

Good outcomes for everyone by acting selfishly? Oh boy! Let me tell you about the distant past of 2008 when selfish/greedy actions could have crippled the entire world economy but instead governments bailed out the selfish/greedy corporations and left all non-corporation people affected to flap in the wind.

And that's skipping over the COVID-19 capitalism fuckery, dot com bubble, healthcare, housing in 2020's etc.

Capitalism is a cancer and it is literally killing people for the sake of money. But here's a $1 so just forget about all those useless bad things.

But the system also makes it so that when people act purely selfishly for money, that it results in good outcomes for everyone.

Why do you think this??

Look at all the constant environmental disasters and harmful products that happen because corporations did the math and determined that paying a few million to lawsuits every once in a while is cheaper than being more careful. "Voting with your wallet" does not work because the big corporations undercut the competition and bombard us with advertising to ensure they will win no matter what.

Hell, most of us are on here because Reddit started doing scummy things in the name of money, and we're a tiny fraction of their userbase; Reddit is still unfortunately doing pretty much fine. Is that the best outcome for everyone?

And don't forget that there are a lot of regulations passed in the last hundred years that were necessary because corporations were doing stuff like dumping so many chemicals into our waterways that rivers would constantly catch fire. This is what happens with unfettered capitalism.

No, that is not the definition of capitalism. Where did you even hear that? So, in your vision of capitalism, the board of directors gets no money ever, because they produce nothing. The capital they have is produced by laborers.

You're forgetting economies of scale. Let's take phone plans. A few giant companies have infrastructure (cell towers) built across the country. Coverage is extremely important - a phone plan with coverage in a small area isn't anything anyone will want. How is a third party supposed to compete? They'd need enough money to set up nation-wide infrastructure, contracts with phone manufacturers to make sure phones are compatable, and they need to do all that before they even sell anything. Even if you try to compete, how do you make your prices competitive after spending that huge amount of money?

Either you're a dedicated troll or an absolute rube.

You probably won't see this, but I hope you will amend your definition of capitalism:

Capitalism is defined as a set of rules/regulations that allows people to own ~~the~~ capital ~~that they produce.~~

You know this, right? We all know a trust fund baby is perfectly capable of using the wealth they were born into to buy a factory, mine, apartment complex, or shares in all of the above. (Hence profiting off of value they did NOT produce.) We all know capitalism does not distinguish in any way whatsoever between this form of capital ownership and the self-made variety.

"Capital they produce" and "capital they acquire / inherit / use stolen money to purchase" can both be wielded the exact same way. That's the point of capitalism.

And this is only half of why, "that they produce" doesn't work in this definition. The other half is that it contradicts the definition of "capital."

Capital is literally "any form of property that can be used to collect the value of other people's labor." That is the opposite of "ownership over the things you produce."

The exact opposite.

To "own the capital you produce" one must personally build the means of production. Otherwise, the owner is owning the capital someone else produced.

And you'll find the vast, vast, vast majority of almost every form of capital (patents, copyrights, factories, burger machines, server computers, office buildings, mines, mine equipment, oil rigs, oil tankers, power plants, land, the list goes on) does not belong to the people who turned the screws, drew up the plans, welded the seams, mined the materials, performed the research, wrote the movie script, poured the cement, or otherwise PRODUCED the capital.

It belongs instead to the people who funded it. The people who, under capitalism, own it.

Anti-capitalists are not against people owning what they produce. In fact, in America, there is a distinctly anti-capitalist business model that thrives in numerous cities called a "cooperative" (co-op for short) that is owned by either (a) customers, or (b) workers. And a worker co-op is literally workers "owning what they produce", but is considered market socialism by anyone who cares about using words correctly.

I would love if co-ops replaced corporations. Any anti-capitalist would. Even Maoists would tell you, "a society full of co-ops would be wonderful. The only reason I don't find that sufficient is because capitalists would use violence to crush co-ops just as they have used violence to crush governments that didn't favor US corporations."

All anti-capitalists want people to be able to own what they produce. The system that robs people of their control over what they produce is exactly what anti-capitalists have been struggling to overthrow.

(Aside: many anti-capitalists support a "corporate death sentence" where any company that commits a crime causing more damage than it can afford to repair can have its assets seized and turned into a cooperative and given to its workers. This allows a company deemed "too big to fail, because too many workers would lose their jobs" to be kept running and keep its workers employed while also punishing the people whose decisions caused the damage. The investors would lose their shares, and the CEO elected by the investors would lose their job and their shares. Everyone else would be fine.)

Main point: I think before asking,

why do so many people dislike capitalism?

You need to first ask,

how do people define capitalism, and is it possible for the thing I like (people owning what they produce) to be protected in an anti-capitalist organization or system?

For example, if organizations price-fix, it heavily encourages a third party to undercut them. If they try to prevent the third party by legal means, then that's not capitalism.

If the goal is profit, then using any means available to increase profit is the promoted method. This includes creating barriers to enter into competition. This could be things like temporarily selling at a loss until your competition runs out of money. It could also be using your money to influence politics to get laws in place that make it harder for others to compete with you. It could also be many other methods.

It also means increasing profits through other means, such as cooperating with other companies to not compete (this is called a trust, and it's supposed to be illegal, but we all know it isn't always, for example the oil industry). If they all agree to not lower prices to compete with each other then they all make more money at the expense of the consumer. Obviously this is bad, which is why most capitalist countries are supposed to prevent this by law (so, obviously capitalism isn't that great alone), with limited results.

Capitalism also assumes perfectly rational actors in order to have good outcomes. Anyone who's interacted with another person knows this isn't possible. Without perfectly rational actors, the "best" outcomes are not guaranteed. There are far too many ways to obfuscate information and manipulate people. For example, in the case of a trust forming the consumer likely has no way to recognize that in order to work for their own interest over the interest of the companies trying to screw them over.

Basically, capitalism leading to ideal outcomes is a fairytale told by capitalists to ensure they aren't questioned. They tell you that it'd your fault if you don't get the best outcomes, but this isn't true. They know it isn't true, but it's in their favor. They use their influence to make sure the fairytale stays intact though. Capitalism is the newest large religion. It asks for faith, takes your money, and provides you with nothing.

Capitalism is defined as a set of rules/regulations that allows people to own the capital that they produce.

That sure sounds like...shiver...socialism to me.