If they could somehow monetize breathing, they would
If air were a limited resource, rather than one available in great abundance, it probably would be.
The air has already been made in to a limited resource, killing millions annually:
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Air pollution is one of the greatest environmental risk to health. By reducing air pollution levels, countries can reduce the burden of disease from stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma.
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In 2019, 99% of the world’s population was living in places where the WHO air quality guidelines levels were not met.
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The combined effects of ambient air pollution and household air pollution are associated with 6.7 million premature deaths annually.
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Ambient (outdoor) air pollution is estimated to have caused 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide in 2019.
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Some 89% of those premature deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries, and the greatest number in the WHO South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions.
Source - WHO
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If air were an economic resource, we’d probably need some kind of economic system for distributing it.
Private healthcare has got this covered
Ouch my sides. From laughter though, I don’t want to increase my premiums.
Well, there’s a principle of nature…
That you gotta go get food if you want to eat?
They already have monetised breathing: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2021/mar/01/take-a-deep-breath-how-cornish-air-sells-for-60-a-bottle-even-if-its-from-devon
It might seem like just a schtick to con rich people, and it currently is, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are scammers out there literally “collecting” air in jars (I saw a segment on them a while ago on tv, they even got a “collection net” out thinking it made them look less like scammers. It didn’t) and selling it to Chinese people (who’s own air is so bad because their production is trying to keep up with wester demand) for profit.
And it isn’t just out of touch rich people who need to do this though, they’re just the only ones who can afford to waste their money on this useless “solution” to their problem, but the problem, which was created by capitalism, isn’t going anywhere until capitalism has sold us a “solution” for it. Just like they’re trying to do with this sun blocking and carbon capturing bullshit now.
Well-regulated capitalism on the other hand has resulted in an explosion of technological advancement like no other era in human history.
The key is regulation. Not too little, but not too much either. Some things, like minimum wage, are clearly under regulated. Other things, like mandating USB-C, are honestly better left to the free market (and I fucking love USB-C.)
the systems is still inherently flawed and based on exploiting nature and people. Trying to make a system that is based on “infinite growth” adhere to the reality of our finite world is like telling a warrior society that they should start being peaceful
Yes. Regulation helps to work around the problem but doesn’t fix anything
All systems dealing with human nature will inherently be flawed and require workarounds and bandaids.
There is no perfect system, but throughout human history, capitalism seems to have consistently resulted in technological growth and improved outcomes in terms of health, lifespan, creature-comforts, etc.
We tried communism - over 30 countries did - and the only ones left are China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos. Interestingly, current and previous communist states got a lot closer to “regulating breathing” than anything we have today. It’s not a good look as far as stable and free systems go.
Any system dealing with human nature will always be inherently flawed. The fact is, in over 250,000 years of our species existing, our technological prowess only really exploded once the concepts of money and trade were invented. Regulate these properly, and you have an incredibly powerful industrial machine that will improve everyone’s lives.
Capitalism is no more based on “infinite growth” than human psychology is based on “infinite pleasure”.
Capitalism, like humans in general, is perfectly capable of surviving through extended periods in which the future will be worse than the past.
For example, the Japanese economy has been stagnant for a couple of decades, but Japan is still capitalist.
Tw: rape
You realize that, capitalism, if left EVER unrelated, will use power to endlessly underregulate itself and just gain more power?
This is like saying “firing a gun in my mouth doesn’t kill me as long as I live”. Sure, it’s true I guess, but it’s also so, so inherently wrong.
I’ve been trying to do what you’re doing now for so long. But in reality, you have to take a look at what capitalism really is: it’s a form of power designation that designates that power with the powerful, or pedantically, with capital, but it’s the same thing, for all intents and purposes. And THAT is an unbalanced system from the get-go, right off the bat.
It’s also like saying “slave systems are SUPER productive!”. Like, sure, they are. But they’re also incredibly destructive and prevent a lot of other things from happening.
It’s also like saying “a lot of sex happens when you rape somebody”. Sure, yes, I guess that’s technically a true statement. But… It’s an unwanted power imbalance that hasn’t accounted for what would have happened to the victim OR the rapist had they not raped somebody. The rapist could have developed into a normal human being and even fell in love or had a lot of consensual casual sex, and the victim could have stayed not raped and been perfectly happy progressing through their life not raped.
It’s just such a half baked, biscuit brained thought and statement. You literally cannot compare our tech right now to the past because technology typically progresses exponentially ANYWAY. You cannot know what would have happened or what would happen if not capitalism, because we’ve had nothing BUT it for basically all of human history. Every time we even want to try something else, capitalism LITERALLY attacks it with everything it’s got and refuses to ever let up until there’s nothing but ashes, and a lot of those places are capitalist. Native Americans? IMPERIALISM BECAUSE OF CAPITALISM.
Greed kills selflessness every time in every experiment as long as it exists and is given the smallest chance.
Capitalism is cancer; it just mindless destroys everything in it’s path, along with itself, only existing and leeching as long as its host stays alive.
You gotta read some more books and history.
Capitalism, well-regulated, has worked - it’s not some dangerous idea that will result in our self-destruction (at least, there is no historical basis for this.) On the other hand, history shows we are much more likely to see communism self-destruct (into authoritarianism/totalitarianism.)
I agree that the generational wealth aspect is the worst aspect of capitalism and I wish that could be reformed.
A note - technology does not progress exponentially. In fact, it rarely has. We have had dark ages lasting between hundreds and tens of thousands of years between incremental advancements. The progress of technology is in no way guaranteed, your society needs to encourage continued R&D into technology, which regulated competition/profit motive does especially well.
I anticipate that at some point in the future we can abandon capitalism entirely, as we will have technologically advanced to the point where we don’t need it anymore.
In a way that’s already happening, people with astma. Same with being able to see, glasses.
As someone who has to wear glasses (have since I was a toddler), I fucking hate that there is a paywall for vision.
This is why I prefer socialism over capitalism.
In socialism, I’d be poor and have no choice of what I buy or eat but I can live and afford having children.
In capitalism, where you have freedom, the same rules applies to poor and rich citizens. The difference is that the rich can afford lawyers and are able to lobby to change/break the law on their favor. You don’t.
This is how the cost of living would go 100% up and you wage increase by 1.34% each year.
you do know that under a socialist system worker-owned companies would compete in the market right? you’d still have lots of choice lol
I’m interested to know more.
Some people only think of bad vibes of the Soviet Union when anyone talk bad about capitalism.
In my country, we have free healthcare, free education, livable wages, free market.
We’re not capitalist tho. A mix of socialism and capitalism.
100% communism is bad, 100% capitalism is bad, 100% socialism is bad.
socialism isn’t just “government owns/provides everything.
There are different flavours. One of which entails workers owning the companies they work for, rather than the state owning everything.
That is the point capitalists cannot comprehend.
Twitter have resources to crush small social media apps. Monopoly is a serious issue in capitalism.
If people own a company similar how lemmy is open source then they would have resources to fight back big corporations.
I am a worker under capitalism. The owner tells me how to work. I sell my time for money. I produce value for the owner. The owner keeps the difference between the value I produce and the money for which I sold my time. The excess value after paying for my time is kept by the owner. I have money to buy products.
I am a worker under socialism. I decide how to work with other workers. I produce value. I provide my value to those in need.
I prefer to own my time and value. I do not want to pay a state to give money to owners. I do not want to empower a state to use violence if I do not comply.
I am not sure how communism, socialism and capitalism are being used here. I am an anarchist. I would say states are bad, owners are bad, heirarchy is bad.
Totally agree.
What I mean is the state should define rules and enforce them. And for critical industries the state can support / supplement the companies.
This way big corps cannot have monopoly.
My main issue with capitalism/ USA system is lobbying and allowing corps to do what ever they want in the fine print.
I think what you are reffering to as “not capitalist” is called social market economy, at least that’s what it’s called in german.
Some economists also reffer to it as Rhein Capitalism, because it’s mostly used in europe and was important to prevent west german citizens from wanting communism.
Exactly!
I just know it did exist.
One good example is Germany. If the government didn’t phase out nuclear power as the citizens wanted they would have been in better place now.
Sometimes voting and democracy isn’t ideal as it’s easy to influence people if you have enough resources.
I disagree, voting is always right, but there’s only an ideal outcome if the population is educated about the topic.
If people would have realised, that the true worst power source is fosile fules, we’d have cheaper electricity and better co2 rates now.
Same problem with power in austria btw, if some missinformed teens wouldn’t have tried to be important back then we’d be maybe fully selfsufficient regaeding power now.
The issue is that educating people is not easy as it sounds. Also, if you’re rich, you can influence the people who vote.
Take Alex Jones as an example, he managed to convince someone to commit a crime. Look up Sandy Hook incident.
Also, Trump and Jan 6th.
You can see a pattern here. More resources means more influence thus manipulating people easily.
Could a worker-owned company sell itself to a single person, and become a company owned by one person?
That’s called freelancing. That’s already a thing and isn’t an issue because the worker is getting the fruits of their labor - there’s no capitalist making money off another person’s labor.
Only if the workers agreed to, collectively.
Democracy would decide
Okay, and what if that single owner then hired some wage laborers who got no ownership stake?
You’d just have socialism that could drift into capitalism?
Also I’ll remind you that in a free market system, a single owner who doesn’t share ownership with his workers, has arrived at that situation through a combination of customer and worker choice. Workers choose to work for non-socialized companies all the time. And there’s nothing stopping people from starting worker collectives in our present system.
So if in the socialist system the workers are free to go capitalist, and in the capitalist system the workers are free to go socialist, then really they’re just two instances of the same landscape of choice. And it would appear the workers have chosen capitalism.
After running my own business for a while, now that I’m working a full time job for someone else I really appreciate how I don’t have to think about ownership and I can just go home.
My company even offers a worker ownership plan in the sense that I can purchase stock in the company at a reduced rate.
But I’m digressing. My point is this free choice boundary between capitalist cooperatives and socialist cooperatives, where in each system people can choose to enact the other. And the result of all that is that people have chosen capitalism. Not just governments, but companies and individuals. They’ve just decided it’s an easier life working for wages, than trying to start or join a worker’s coop.
All systems fall to corruption. All. I believe an A or B choice is cheating humanity out of new solutions.
Agreed about corruption.
But some systems are better than others.
In USA, as a billionaire, you can screw people and lobby aka “bribe” to get what you want.
And at the end, you pay 0 taxes.
In socialism … I can live …
Not according to history.
Under capitalism people die of heart attacks and diabetes. Under socialism they die of starvation.
This argument is invalid. You don’t die of heart attack… you get shot by the cops my friend. /s
In capitalism, if you don’t work, some capitalist pig will throw your family out on the streets, whereas in communism, if you don’t work, some communist pig will throw your family in jail.
And that’s why extremes will never work. Look every complex problem need a complex solucion.
We would need hybrids of all past rulling systems in order to actually improve.
Even my country is “mixed” economy and still does not work well but i think its better than 100%capitalism or communism. Imo its still not that good because its not roperly configured
Enthanu bro modayano. Jai shree ram bolo bsdk Jai modiji
Poda patti
How else manage resources? You want everybody to be equally poor, like under communism? Maybe except the ruling party. You have no alternative.
We already are equally poor except the ruling class lmao. The middle class is 1000 times closer to the poor and the homeless than to the billionaires, to the point it’s almost an insignificant distinction. Just look at the numbers
I mean they already monitize water in poor countries in Africa, so yeah.
How horrible! A profit motive attached to the extraction, purification, and provision of water!
Some people make money they otherwise wouldn’t have and others drink clean water they otherwise wouldn’t have. Hell on earth!
Ahh yes Nestlé, a small helpful company that is only looking for a little extra cash at the expense of large groups of people losing their native water rights in perpetuity.
We also monetize water here. That’s why there are water bills.
Old comment, but at least we get to use the water our municipalities take, or our local governments get to have and use the profits for that water.
Instead, Nestlé ships it off and holds the profits, essentially robbing resources permanently from people that are just trying to survive. There’s an argument I’m infantalizing people, but still.
