A good first step is to end *"corporations are people"* so businesses and execs can stop hiding behind imaginary legal meat shields that provide them with advantages normally reserved for the living.

Either that or make them *fully* people. Corporations are halflings. They have the rights of people but none of the responsibility. If a person murders someone, if they are proven guilty, they can’t just pay pennies on the dollar, go on their merry way, and then fire up the kilns again a few months later.

And that's why they can't be considered fully people. You need an individual to hold accountable, and they spread the liability everywhere so that you literally can't treat them like people. You can not throw Boeing in jail, etc. The only answer is for corporations to NOT be considered people in any way, shape, or form. It makes zero sense when you think about it for five seconds.

I mean you technically could. The CEO is considered the "head" of the organization and makes bank doing so. Maybe throw a few in jail (like Iceland did during the 2008 recession) and see if things change. At least may stop the passing the buck. You get big rewards but also assume a lot of risk...

I think it would be more effective to hold shareholders accountable. Otherwise they'll just replce the CEO and continue business as usual.

Oh yeah Dave down the street that has $500 of Boeing stock on his Tradidng212 account should be held responsible 🙄 You do know that not every shareholder is some mega corp right ?

Imagine how fast boeing stock would lose value if every Dave decided to give up their share due to not wanting to be held liable for the acts of murderers? Companies would need to stop murdering people if they wanted their stock to keep it's value.

That’s the legal system you want? Holding Dave responsible for a murder he did not know about and did not do?

Most countries already have laws against funding terrorist organizations, for example. Even if you don't plan a terrorist attack, or even know about it, you would still support the actors by funding them. The same should hold true for corporations.

Are you even funding them? You buy the stock from its previous owner in most cases, right? I don’t know how finance works

Maybe the board of directors instead of

Sure, anything to give corporations more accountability.

What?!? That makes less than 0 sense for a number of reasons. 1. Shareholders don't get to vet employees. 2. Shareholders hold nearly 0 power to do anything to a company in most situations. 3. Many brokerages will vote your shares for you and give you no choice, specially if you are investing in foreign markets (which opens a whole bunch of other questions that you can't answer). 4. What about holding companies? Literally a company that invests in companies. How do you hold the other company responsible if you won't even hold the original company responsible?? 5. Shareholders have 0 insight on most day-to-day operations and therefore can't prevent anything. I could go on, but this feels like enough to quash this train of thought.

1- Sounds like shareholders oughta keep their businesses on a tighter leash. 2- Shareholders are the ones for whom a corporation earns money. If a corp can't be trusted to not commit human rights violations, they don't get investors, EZPZ 3- Sounds like shareholders oughta be careful who they entrusts their money to. 4- Sounds like shareholders oughta be careful who they get to invest on their behalf. 5- Sounds like shareholders oughta keep their businesses on a tighter leash. The whole point of this idea is to get shareholders to police the operations of the corporations in which they invest. At the moment, CEOs are just sacrificial anodes to be swapped out whenever corruption is discovered. Holding shareholders accountable would make it impossible to get investors if your company has a track record of human rights violations.

0 practicality, untenable, and you'll need to restructure the entire world financial markets as well as the laws that govern them. Let me know when society collapses and your uber reformed, responsible, and engaged shareholders show up.

"Can't wait for society to collapse so MY ideology can rise fromthe ashes!" :P Creating responsible shareholders in this case is litterally the goal, and not a prerequisite. One of the major drivers of *gestures broadly at everything* is the disconnect between those who profit from investing, and its consequences. Creating a system in which investors need to be aware of how the money they invest is being used would help put an end to the "Woops, soowwwy, I pwomise it won't happen agaaain" bullshit that takes place each time a corporation is caught doing something illegal. I get that implementing such a system would be tough, but it I don't think the idea of holding investors accountable for the actions of the corporations they own, is so radical.

The problem with your idea is how unrealistic it is when contrasted against much more viable methods, such as holding all major decision makers in a company liable for damages. If my parking brake on my car fails and it rolls over a child and kills them, I can be charged with manslaughter. But a pharmaceutical company that knowingly buries negative test results to push a drug just gets a slap on the wrist and some fines, none of which even have to be paid personally by any of the individuals involved. Seems like we should invest our effort more wisely than what you are proposing. Also... group punishment is a war crime under the Geneva conventions. If we can't hold all soldiers in a platoon responsible for the actions of their officer, why can we hold shareholders responible for the decisions of the CEO who they are even more distanced from than a soldier and their officer. We get what you are saying, but it's like climbing up a retaining wall because you don't feel like taking the stairs 5 feet to your left. Just a whole lot of wasted energy.

You just solved all of Fantasyland 's problems

1. Shareholders might demand a right to vet employees (the executives) if the shareholders were held accountable for their actions. Or they might think twice about owning stocks in companies that would not make this possible. Executives can be shareholders too. 2. Again, shareholders would have to consider carefully if they want to own shares in something they hold no power over. There are many forms of companies where shareholders have direct power, ig. cooperatives. Companies would be incentivised to have more transparency in their actions and include processes like shareholder voting in their decisionmaking. 3. You might not want to give your money to brokerages that would act in this way. This would ultimately lead to less trading - less gambling on day trading, less speculative trading, which would be a positive thing. 4. The shareholders of the holding company would be proportionally responsible for the actions of the company the holding company owns stocks of. A company would not be a legal entity, that's the whole premise. The people would be held responsible. 5. Companies would either increase transparency or risk losing investors. Please go on, I'm not convinced.

1. Is completely impractical and would not work. For example, what if I have a portfolio manager. How.do I manage shares in an ETF, index, 401k. People don't even bother to read voting information and you expect them to vet executives and be held accountable?? Not going to happen this century. 2. You have to abolish 401k's, managed funds, ETF's ect. to even begin to have this conversation. 3. If you live in the EU for example, then in your example, many wouldn't have access to our markets. Billions of dollars leaving the markets is a really bad thing for the economy. 4. Again, why not hold the original company to a higher standard than someone or some company investing? How far does that responsibility go. What if I work at the holding company and I disagree with an investment being made by my boss? Do I have to quit my job because my boss made a bad decision? People fuck up, but you want to hold other people responsible because they thought the CEO was a good.person? Nonsensical and not enforceable. 5. Transparency can be a great thing, but if your competitors can see every single thing you do, you also have the potential of losing some competitive advantages you may have had. Your solution would need decades of litigation, rolling back markets, reshaping the entire financial structure of the world and likely end in crashed economies and widespread unemployment imo.

Don’t spend too much time trying to explain common sense to these idiots…

They will think twice about holding stock at all. Only debt financing will survive, and innovation will grind to a halt. Only giant risk averse corporations will be able to operate. Limited liability companies is the single most important financial innovation we have, that and diversification and insurance.

Not only this, but something I never see brought up, is that people have finite lives. Corporations can perpetuate far beyond a normal lifetime and that alone is an advantage over “people”. You can accumulate wealth far beyond people and so it’s inevitable the power will end up with corporations given a long enough timeline.

If the CEO can make over 500 times what the average worker at their company makes they can take responsibility.

We "could" also go the other way and hold everyone accountable, like that one episode of MHA where anyone inside a yakusa hideout was arrested regardless of job, like even the janitors/groupies, get rekt. The argument could be made anyone who was involved and didn't report it is equally at fault and could be prosecuted, encouraging everyone to stop injustice wherever they saw it, because they could be liable.

You can actually make corporations fully people by doing to them essentially the same as a prison sentence, which is to take away their right to exist or to allow temporary existence until proven better behavior or termination, whichever is required. Two examples of these are Arthur Anderson, a consulting firm that lost its right to exist around the millennium. In addition, some financial firms were/are subject to DOJ ‘deferred prosecution agreements’ which is essentially a form of probation where the probation officers get offices on-site.

So then we’ll be delusional together then? Ok. I don’t expect prison time for board members, but what might be possible? Revoking the ability to ever work in that particular industry again. Wish they would do this with a lot of industries. If you take people’s money, don’t deliver something, and claim bankruptcy, then you should never be able to with in that industry again.

The difference is the corporate level vs the employee level. An individual (say a CEO or board member) can absolutely be prosecuted, and so it makes sense that they have the same rights as anyone else. The corporation itself can not be held accountable in the same way. Therefore, that entity should not have the rights of a person or be viewed as a person under the law. Edit: Also I'm not attacking you, I'm just always struck by the absurdity of the whole thing.

Agree it is absurd.

But then they cant influence political campaigns as much!

Fucking good.

When Monsanto was able to patent a biological living organism. Well, corporations aren’t going to be held accountable for their actions. They learned from the Nazis. Just shuffle the leaders around and be held either way no accountability.

There’s all sorts of mid-level people who have to legally sign off for stuff that kills people. In CH they call them a “Qualified Person” They are legally responsible when they sign off. Let’s start with that

Yeah but you can basically execute a corporation

You can liquidate the company, you can nationalise it without paying for it and so on.

They also get to roll again if they roll a Nat 1.

This would actually have a big effect. Making directors and c suit managers criminally liable for things that their organisation might have done would change incentives a lot. If bankers had gone to prison after 2008 what would be the financial industry be like now?

Transparent, free-flowing, fines would be profits earned from breaking rules + the fines to actually discourage the behavior instead of making it a cost of doing business.

And also to stop maligning “socialism” as some kind of corrupt menace. Because what’s really happening in like Europe for example is that states are patching societal holes with socialism pretty damn well and it’s still possible for capitalism and socialism to coexist. Unfortunately that’s not as fun for some people as the idea of all or nothing fantasizing about the apocalypse.

I think people here are dangerously over simplifying... "A good first step is to end "corporations are people"" Most people generally dont mean end the rights of the corporation to act as people....stuff like corporations being able to be a party to a contract, instead they mean a much narrower interpretation, get corporations out of politics... Then they talk about socialism, as if it means the government providing social services....  not the literal translation that the people should own all businesses...(The means of production)... Most people are not advocating the end of all business... just a better balance of power, and mote social services....not true socialism...

You really need to look up what a juridical person is. You don't want to end that (there's a reason it's persisted since at least human writing and recordkeeping has been around - it's a very old concept). To put it shortly, the concept of juridical personhood is what allows an organized entity (like a business, advocacy group, charity, etc...) to enter into contracts, sue, be sued, be subject to a whole lot of laws, etc... etc... Nix that and the entity itself can no longer be held accountable. Want to return an item to the store? Better hope the employee that was at the register still works there because your sales contract is with them, not the store (store wouldn't be able to contract with you). What you actually likely want to end is a subset/expansion of that which was granted via the 14th amendment (some bill of rights protections in addition to the normal juridical personhood concepts) and even then I doubt you actually want a **full** removal of things like 1A protections, which would mean government could arbitrarily censor virtually all media. Imagine Trump and Republicans with that power, holy shit.

>To put it shortly, the concept of juridical personhood is what allows an organized entity (like a business, advocacy group, charity, etc...) to enter into contracts, sue, be sued, be subject to a whole lot of laws, etc... etc... Why does a organisation need personhood to be held accountable when we could just easily recognise the organisation as a registered organisation? Seems more like someone was just trying to justify the existence of their position by using logic to apply existing laws to a "new" concept instead of just making the same laws apply to organisations.

>we could just easily recognise the organisation as a registered organisation Short version - assuming you meant "recognize an organized entity for legal purposes" that's what a juridical person is. Long version - By default legal systems can only act on real, tangible people. "Organized entity" is not an entity that tangibly exists. It can't, therefore, be taken to court, enter contracts, etc... etc.. since it doesn't exist. That is "natural people" are the only ones that actually exist (again, by default - in the absence of a concept that states otherwise) If you create a concept to recognize groups even though they don't tangibly exist, for legal purposes, that's literally what juridical personhood is. This concept goes back *at least* to the dawn of writing, and probably before that. Your example is just juridical personhood without calling it juridical personhood (other names are "legal person", "corporate personhood", etc... etc...).

Good to see someone out here fighting the gold fight.  The funny thing to me is that there is, of course, an actual debate you can have about the extent of personhood for entities in a given system (i.e., does a corporation in the US get the first amendment's protections as though it's a person) but people get so hung up on the wording it never gets there.

Yeah, most people don't actually want an end to organized legal entities (especially when they find out labor unions can't exist without juridical personhood). I've run across a few who have, but they haven't put any thought into the economic ramifications of forcing only sole-proprietorships in an economy.

Corporations being a seperate legal entity (corporate personhood) is an extremely important concept for consumer protection. If walmart has a habitual pattern of making employees work off the clock should each employee have to individually sue their direct manager personally? If Ford rereleases the pinto and it starts exploding if you look at it wrong again, should you have to dig through the chain of individual parties involved to figure out who bears what personal liability and file suit against each of them? Corporate personhood is mandatory for collections of individuals to organize as a single business entity in any economic system. Generally when people complain about corporate personhood it's based on citizens united grounds, typically from people who've never read anything about the case. Let's say hypothetically you wanted to advertise a documentary about donald trump within 6 months of an election, should you be legally allowed to do that? Lets say a company wanted to advertise a documentary about donald trump within 6 months of an election. Should a company be allowed to do that?

Ending limited liability would be a absolute disaster for the people and not for them. Large corporations thrive under one thing and that’s hellacious regulations put in place from well big corps and business end those and the competition would force some of these people to play instead is sitting and collecting checks

Yeah, what are these people smoking? It baffles me. It's the age-old trope of people being good at identifying problems, but horrible at coming up with solutions haha!

The most important example: corporations invested money so climate denialism would start existing. That's not free speech, that's organized disinformation. That's not uncle Eric being dumb - which he has the right to be.

>That's not free speech, that's organized disinformation. Right. I have no interest in you or someone from the government getting to be the arbiter of what is "truth" and what is "disinformation."

And central private banks being in control of national currencies for some fucking reason

Structural change to reflect the will of the people and end special interests: Amendment XXVIII: One Person, One Vote Section 1: Campaign Finance Reform The rights protected under the First Amendment, including freedom of speech, shall not be construed to allow the unrestricted spending of money to influence the outcome of elections. The decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is hereby overturned. Congress shall have the power to regulate and limit campaign contributions and expenditures to ensure fairness and integrity in the electoral process. Section 2: Prohibition of Stock Trading by Members of Congress No member of Congress, their spouses, or immediate family members shall engage in the trading of stocks, bonds, or other securities during their term of office. Violation of this provision shall result in immediate removal from office and shall be punishable under federal law. Section 3: Public Funding of Elections and Ban on Political Advertisements Federal, state, and local elections shall be publicly funded. Congress shall establish a system for the allocation of public funds to candidates, ensuring equal opportunity for all eligible candidates to compete. The use of private funds for campaign-related expenditures is hereby prohibited. Political advertisements in any form, including television, radio, internet, and print media, are hereby outlawed. Section 4: Abolition of the Electoral College and the Senate The Electoral College is hereby abolished. The President and Vice President of the United States shall be elected by a direct popular vote of the citizens of the United States. The candidate receiving the highest number of votes shall be declared the winner. The Senate is hereby abolished. Legislative power shall be vested solely in the House of Representatives. Section 5: Expansion of the House of Representatives The House of Representatives shall be expanded to ensure proportional representation for all citizens. There shall be one Representative for every 150,000 citizens. District lines shall be drawn by a non-partisan commission to prevent gerrymandering and ensure fair representation. The number of Representatives shall be adjusted every ten years, based on the most recent national census. Section 6: Implementation and Enforcement Congress shall have the power to enforce and implement this Amendment through appropriate legislation. This Amendment shall take effect two years after the date of its ratification, to allow for necessary preparations and transitions in accordance with its provisions.

How do you prevent a few high population states from dominating? How does Rhode Island ever get equal treatment?

I'll believe "corporations are people" when Texas executes one. Most of the Scandinavian countries are doing a better job defeating "Late Stage Capitalism." They have strong unions - yes, even for white collar employees - High wages, insanely generous paid time off, dual parent newborn leave, your unused PTO can be rolled over year after year (up to a reasonable cap) *or* you can chose to have the company pay you for remaining unused PTO, firing is *not* arbitrary, it involves a lengthy review requiring for-cause proof in most cases, and the best part - your health insurance is provided by the state, *not* the company, so they have no stranglehold on their employees as companies do in the US. Unemployment benefits can stretch out for a couple *years* and in some countries pay up to 90% of your salary. Many EU companies use short, medium or long-term employment contracts. Your salary and benefits are the same as fully hired-in employees, but you may only be on a 6, 12, 24 month contract. This may actually benefit your career if you enjoy variety in your work and like to move around, especially when you're younger and not yet tied down by children or home ownership - and, this allows you to negotiate small, incremental pay increases for each contract, often quicker than you'd accumulate salary raises for non-contract work. Contract workers who perform well and get along well with their non-contract peers are often offered the opportunity to transition to permanent employee status. Can "Late Stage Capitalism" be crushed? Yes. The question is, does the US have the will to do what it takes? To put *people* a little higher in the equation, over "constant growth at all costs?" # ..Unlikely.

This is a great response. In Australia we also have many of the benefits you’ve listed, but our previously strong union culture is being rapidly eroded and our democracy is being influenced by US-style populism and short-termism. Without the US taking the lead on this stuff, destructive capitalism will continue to thrive.

I'll add that the populist trend in politics is largely driven by ubiquitous access to news, the (perceived) need for news services to fill it, and the consequent redefining of what is thought of as 'news', usually for the worse.

Not so fast. Rupert Murdoch came from your country not ours.

Haha it’s true. I can only offer our most sincere apologies

The only problem with all of this is that it's fair. It doesn't allow shareholders and already wealthy individuals to skim and scrape up as much profit as they can, off of both their customers AND their employees. Not that I disagree with any of it, only that the above is why it won't work in a country that unfairly defends the already wealthy, and the corporations before it considers the people who, you know, actually NEED the money generated as profit. There's almost no limit on just how much the top of the top are allowed to consume of a country's economic generation. It's not fair, it's just business.

The real problem is, it’s not just rich people who will reject this. Households making 130k-400k depending on the area will also reject this because they don’t gain and will possibly lose from this system. These systems mostly benefit lower middle class and lower class people. Rightfully so. Let me repeat, this system is probably better. I would be down for it but it’s not just “rich” people who would be against it.

Households in the salary range you mention are not wealthy - they are just doing very well for themselves. The real issue are American corporations sitting on enormous cash hoards posting historical revenue and profit numbers as their employees are paid wages that have been - inflation adjusted - flat since the 1970s

We do not have a term for what comes next. Historically, terminology has almost always come after the fact, not before. No one invented the terms "feudalism" or "mercantilism" or "capitalism" until quite a while after those structures actually emerged. The only exception has *possibly* been communism, but even that is largely modeled on smaller-scale existing structures and the only "predicted" thing was a larger-scale application. Further, it's unlikely that there will be only a *single* new structure. Just as there is not a single uniform capitalism throughout the whole world. If you compare, say, America, Germany, Brazil, Libya, Russia, China, and India, you'll find seven very different overall systems, even if they have *some* commonalities in "capitalist" elements.

I think this always holds true. Communism was predicted but it didn’t happen, modern communist party states aren’t communist, but trying to make communism did create a new thing: socialist market economies, democratic centralist states, etc. Yeah it’s easier to label things in the past not the future.

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Agree, but that said there needs to be a ceiling. We used to tax wealthy and corporations upwards of 90% or more a long time ago. CEOs made 30x the average employee rather than 300%-3000% like today. They didnt suffer from a lack of incentive or ambition, and got by just fine. Our infrastructure was unmatched for a long time too. We need to start capping the top just like we do the bottom.

You do know that 30x is exactly the same as 3000%, don't you?

Which is why the thing that will replace capitalism will likely be some new modified form of capitalism. There's a lot of great conversation around traditional capitalism vs regulatory capitalism out there. But even the happiest Scandinavian countries in the world are still just capitalist.

This exactly 

And also keeps the most rapacious/psychopathic among us from literally killing people and destroying lives for profit and power. Don't forget that part.

What utopia are you talking about. Marx said that individual appropriation of socialized production was the inherent contradiction of capitalism. Looking at this comment section everyone is pointing in some way or another at controlling the individual appropriation. Marx or rather communism never said anything utopian. They just pointed out that socialized production was important and is going to build things that were amazing. Getting rid of individual appropriation is the hardest thing humanity will do as it is literally destroying the planet. Thinking that this contradiction can continue without breaking something is utopian.

It didn't happen... yet. History isn't over. And it's not like the international working class is super stoked about how great the world is organized. We're gearing up for a third world war. The first world war created the conditions for the first socialist experiment which failed due to a beauracratic counterrevoltuion in 1924 for historic reasons unrelated to the validity and obvious superiority of socialism. Barring nuclear holocaust, the third world war might just give rise to those same impulses in human consciousness. Socialism or barbarism is what is next, there's no third option.

God, I wish so hard that the USA didn’t bomb, coup, and/or sanction pretty much every socialist state ever. AND I wish Stalin didn’t do stupid fucking shit like ethnic deportations.

The third way is called fascism which seems far more likely based on current trends 

I don’t think OP was asking what it would be called, rather, how it will work.

There is insufficient data available to predict future socio-political ideologies with any certainty. Namely, because 100,000 years of human history never accounted for the Internet. Kings could never foretell a time without kings.

I mean I’m going to start my Bene Gesserit training soon. So give me 10,000 generations and we should have a benevolent ruler for 4,000 years.

As it was written.

Surely nothing could go wrong there.

Fish people, get Kultofennui. They have much to learn about my benevolence.

Do you want a half-worm despot? This is how you get half-worm despots

Lisan Al-Giab!

One big improvement for the common good would be to recognise a right to land, especially for shelter. This quote by Thomas Jefferson lays out some of the thinking. I have more quotes, like by Thomas Paine and Rousseau, here: https://whig.miraheze.org/wiki/Property. > Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, & to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour & live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed. It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who can not find employment but who can find uncultivated land, shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state. —Thomas Jefferson (a letter to James Madison, 1785)

And yet Jefferson replaced Locke’s Pursuit of Property line with the Pursuit of Happiness. 

He had stock in Air BnB and was part of a real estate firm. Of course he replaced it.

I don't believe this quote has the meaning you believe it does towards a right to land or shelter. It is much more emphasized as a right to labor, which I believe Jefferson has an understandable bias due to this being a highly agrarian time period. He still wants minority ownership of land. He just doesn't want the industrialization of such means of work to deprive the labor of those that do not own this private property, presumably either in the form of land or machine. I believe he is mistaken in understanding towards the means of labor as this is taken away from those that don't own property no matter what. Again this is reasonable as in his time the means of industrialization were at their infancy and as an agrarian society the labor one has towards such ends has tremendous immediate value. We now know that labor diminishes in value relative to ownership of the autonomous or industrial productive consequences of it that has an exponential influence on such efforts. This is why today we have perhaps 1% of the world work as farmers whereas in his time it was closer to 90%. You may want to be a farmer today but it's not only a problem of access to such land but also the value of your labor will be relatively worthless due to modern technology unless you also have rights to this use. This capital leverage and compounding effect for those that enjoy the benefits of ownership of it is always pushed onto the general market against those that do not invest or have ownership of its consequences.

>It is much more emphasized as a right to labor... In the letter the quote is from, Jefferson was criticising French aristocrats hogging up land and not using it to grow food, while the poor suffer from a lack of land. The quote talks a lot about farming, but the underlying principle is that the Earth is common stock for humans to use for their natural needs. Here's the same concept in other wording: *"... a right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means with which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other sensible beings; that no one has a right to obstruct another, exercising his faculties innocently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature..."* —Thomas Jefferson (a letter to Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, 1816) >I don't believe this quote has the meaning you believe it does towards a right to land or shelter. It does, here's where: *"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, & to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.... The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour & live on... It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who can not find employment but who can find uncultivated land, shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land."* He's saying that the United States isn't ready to let every poor person claim enough private farmland to sustain themselves, but that the country can implement a basic property tax exemption to help poor people hold at least little portion of land. In almost all cases, the most important use of this land would be for shelter.

I mostly agree I just think the emphasis was on labor in the original quote. Jefferson definitely had a vision of democracy for his own time of agrarianism and part of that was more widespread land ownership among the population for that purpose. He definitely acted on that vision most through the Louisiana Purchase. I don't put too much value in words or expressed values relative to policy and what people do. There's just too much hypocrisy out there, especially when it comes to politics. When it comes to natural rights of men or other flowery political language it doesn't mean much to me unless there's policy to make it reality. It's interesting as the actualization of these values primarily happened in an indirect way as a result of the Louisiana Purchase largely influencing America later down the line towards arguments pertaining to these new states regarding slavery leading to the Civil War. At least eventually some of this flowery language towards respecting the labor of humans was respected but it took a Civil War to begin not being basically hypocritical nonsense despite always being highly influential foundational logic. A right to shelter has made even less ground. Hell, the mere suggestion of progressive taxation for that purpose as the one quote you highlighted would be controversial today.

>... would be controversial today. Yeah, people today have a simplistic and absolutist mindset towards land rights. The mindset I've found in classical republican texts is a lot more nuanced and reasonable to me. Here are some more examples: * *"Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it..."* —Thomas Paine (Agrarian Justice) * *"As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce."* —Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations, book 1 chapter 6) * *"The earth was designed to feed its inhabitants; and he who is in want of every thing is not obliged to starve because all property is vested in others."* —Emer de Vattel (Law of Nations, book 2 chapter 9 section 120) * *"The law which prohibited people's having two inheritances was extremely well adapted for a democracy. It derived its origin from the equal distribution of lands and portions made to each citizen. The law would not permit a single man to possess more than a single portion..."* —Charles Montesquieu (The Spirit of Laws, book 5)

At the same time, I do rather like the idea of personhood and citizenship inherently carrying some entitlement to a parcel of land. It seems inherently impossible to achieve, but I rather enjoyed the thought experiment of a society in which citizenship included a parcel of arable land sufficient for a small dwelling, barn, and farm.

Yeah, that's too ambitious for now, but we can reform property tax. Taxation is supposed to fund and promote the common good, but shelter is a common good, so it doesn't make sense to ruthlessly tax people until they don't have shelter anymore. That's like putting a tax on healthy foods, or on having a life-saving surgery.

-strong antitrust laws with teeth -strong workers rights/ unions -strong safety nets -universal health care, child care, education, etc -UBI - as more jobs are automated away, we are going to need this -strong public education -fairness doctrine/strong anti-misinformation laws -public funding for elections. No more buying politicians and in turn undoing all of the above. Instead you gather x number of signatures to qualify for an election. That plus ranked choice voting/getting rid of electoral college (in the US), no more gerrymandering -ban stock buybacks -for degrowth we're really going to have to change the way corporatism works. Currently if a company goes public they're forced to continually show growth quarter after quarter inevitably leading to wildly unsustainable/climate ruining business practices, hiring slave labor around the world, etc. This needs to be regulated against- someone more educated on this than me would have to figure out a roadmap on how that could possibly work, but it is key

This. It's not a miracle solution that will come after capitalism, it's a collection of small steps that give people the means to live, not survive while a tiny portion thrives.

Fun to dream, no matter how unrealistic it is… we can still dream

>-fairness doctrine/strong anti-misinformation laws Be careful with this one, as the USSR also felt pretty strongly about this topic and it didn't work out very well for the people.

A stronger government that removes money from the positions of responsibility. Capitalism is great when It remains in balance with worker and consumer rights. Left unchecked, corporate power absorbs all. We seem to be at one of the lowest points of corporate regulation in modern times.

>We seem to be at one of the lowest points of corporate regulation in modern times. I agree with the first part, but there's actually way more "regulation" than there was 100 years ago. The problem is corporations lobby for "regulation" that benefits them and makes it harder for others to compete, giving them defacto govt sponsored monopolies. I'm all for "regulation" up to a certain point but also that's the weapon that has given them the power they have in the first place.

Ah ha! Excellent clarification, and I agree. The *only regulations that the government should pursue are ones that promote open standards and interoperability. I think of the highway system as a good example. The US creates the standards, but leaves it to the states to maintain those standards. I advocate for Data Privacy. Data portability and interoperability for Digital Markets.

100% true. I love hearing someone else acknowledge this.

I can’t think of a scenario where capitalism doesn’t progress into corporatism, and apparently neither has anyone else afaik

Exactly. Also why Monopoly - the game - exists. 😂 Capitalism ends up with extreme concentrations of wealth and power - and everyone else is completely fucked.

Don't worry bro, we are going to get anti trust laws with teeth... Any day now 🤣

But that’s not entirely true, though. Late 19th century giant corpos of the time were broken up via anti-trust laws. It’s a lot more difficult to accomplish today, however, because we live in a fully globalized economy. (Example) Meaning that we could break up a company like Google into smaller pieces, but that doesn’t mean that the Chinese Google equivalent would get broken up. A broken up Google, then in turn, would be outcompeted by the non-broken-up Chinese Google. At a certain point, scale does matter. When giant American companies were broken up in the early 20th century, they never really had to compete outside of the U.S.

That’s why I’d don’t think “breaking” them up is the right answer anymore. Data portability and interoperability is a key framework. So is data privacy. There are laws that can be created to enhance competition. Not only does competition benefit consumers and workers, it also benefits capitalism. If the US hadn’t taken on Microsoft when it did, we never would have gotten Google. Now, the US needs to take on Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Uber and all the Data Brokers that are preventing healthy free market dynamics.

Capitalism would be significantly more egalitarian if you just closed all the loopholes and maintained a progressive tax system.

Paying taxes and using the money for education and infrastructure is the solution.

Call it "well regulated capitalism".

Sounds like social democracy to me.

No, they're describing social services provided seperately from a free market funded by collective taxation. E.g. the NHS or any other public option (socialized medicine) found in most countries. All contries have mixed economies, obvious examples in the US of government ran businesses being the USPS, the military, firefighters, police, national park stuff.

power concedes nothing without a demand. That's why every revolution has been violent, and cannot be anything but violent. It will be socialism, or barbarism - or, as Zizek used to say, "see you in hell, or in communism".

A violent revolution would destroy most of the value in the economy. People love to bitch about their circumstances and larp as revolutionaries, but fat poor people don't tend to take up arms.

It wasn’t the rich who revolted in France 

Actually it kind of was. The first stage of the revolution was the bourgeoisie implementing a constitutional monarchy. The Jacobins were mostly middle and upper class. But the king didn’t want to play ball and half assed it at every opportunity. The Sans Coulottes were a constant threat but were eventually neutralized. The poor rioted and applied pressure but it was the wealthy and educated who took revolutionary action for the most part. French Revolution is fucking wild.

A race to the extreme left where Georges Danton was not even deemed revolutionary enough. French Revolution is the perfect example of revolution eating itself.

You are supporting my point. There was widespread famine in the countryside in 1789 and bread riots in Paris leading up to the revolution. There are food insecure/malnourished people in the US, but they aren't on the brink of starvation and they are few and far between, which makes them unlikely to organize or be supported by the military (a key ingredient in most successful revolutions).

Yea, people don't realize that it takes a large amount of people practically dying to cause a revolt. 

I think prescribing the future system as “the thing I want, as I see it, or hell/barbarism” is pretty reductive. The march of progress will be led by each generation to their own ends, and via imperfect means, to unpredictable, imperfect, and likely interesting outcomes. And as another commenter said, we will label it after the fact.

Most of the comments here assume we just carry on as is down the drain, but what if there is an actual climate crisis in the next few years. Capitalism could either collapse into chaos or maybe become the Saviour of mankind because it could actually respond to it.

capitalism can't respond to the climate crisis. The reason is something you saw during the pandemic: the systematic focus on decentralisation, delegating as much as possible to markets, composed of mindless sheeple chasing lines that go up, and having people in power who are pre-bought and put there to literally stop anything being done (contrary to popular opinion, governments still do have some powers) has left pretty much the entirety of the West in a situation where they cannot organize and mobilize towards a long-term project. There is no discipline, and no greater good. Only the whinings of consumers who need to get their next little dose of "service" at a restaurant so they can feel like their pitiful Karen life has meaning, because the only way they've been taught to express themselves is through consumption. Because this is Reddit, and I'm sure I'll be misunderstood, it's not even that I'm saying we need to be "authoritarian like China"; the problem is that there is no sense of civic duty, only individual whims and "muh rights", again expressed solely through consumption, never truly political or communitarian acts.

Wow, you fucking nailed it

> capitalism can't respond to the climate crisis. Actually capitalism is great at responding. It's *anticipating* that it's terrible at.

what has capitalism ever been “great at responding” to

Lmao these people, capitalism LOVES crisis, and it’s not because it can help people, it’s because it exploits those circumstances

Naomi Klein has entered the chat

Haha well she’s not wrong on that element

When a natural disaster hits, costs for anything in that area skyrocket, making opportunists from miles around flock to the area with resources they need (at very high prices) If the cost of rebuilding an area exceeds the value, it'll be abandoned. See? Response-only. No capacity to anticipate.

ah gotcha, i misunderstood originally, i thought you meant “capitalism has great responses”

You can't steer capitalism as easily, but once a society places a monetary value on something and the race begins, capitalism iterates and progresses on things faster than any other system to date. It doesn't just do it fast, but it does it to the best of our general awareness of the world. Great examples are the modern infrastructure and technology that arose from the race against the USSR. American technology was simply better in nearly every regard. More innovative, more capable, more efficient, etc.

War. Ww2 specifically.

except that WW2 was funded by command economies and government projects and when the war ended, military manufacturing refused to go back, and invented products and subsidies we don't actually need, so they wouldn't have to change the factories

I mean you say this but during Covid we also deployed medical research basically unmatched in history in terms of its rapidity on international government dollars. We then effectively distributed a free vaccine again at a record pace. And this was for something that, let’s face it, was a relatively minor pandemic. Ultimately socialist arguments are always doomerist cherry picking. The international governments are certainly powerful enough to manage climate change. They have just been unmotivated to do so due to the comparative advantage the last person to act on it would have, still being able to harness the power of oil while others have to depend on less productive power sources. However since Ukraine Europe has seen the error of their ways since so much of their oil comes from a foreign enemy. China has vast resources in silicon so it too sees a massive economic benefit for ramping up on renewables, as well as a desire to fix their smog which is like the US when we created the EPA. India sees how bad climate change is for them and will need to do something about it just for self gain. Anyway the numbers since Ukraine are quite promising and we see when people are properly motivated how quickly they move. When something immediately has impact on national security we see time and time again who’s really in charge of capital, it’s the government.

Are you seriously suggesting the system that has caused the mass exploitation of the earth is going to save the climate?

my brother in christ, capitalism is what got us here in the first place, go read Rosa Luxemburg “Reform or Revolution” and learn what she has to say on the contradictions of capitalism

Well communism failed even with the violent revolutions. Too incompatible with basic human nature

when you manage to define and quantify "basic human nature" without resorting to vague nonsense and empty platitudes, i'll give you the time of day.

In this instance human civilization ends up with inequality always. Limited empathy. We're also very greedy. Things that remain constant throughout history at scale

Basically, what's next is government starts picking up the check for the populace the way it has for Wall St, corporations and the wealthy. It's unavoidable. People call it late stage capitalism, because it only gets worse until the above takes place.

Capitalism works best , IF the government does not protect bad actors. The issue with current capitalism is that the governments protect monopolies and create limits for honest competition. Basically fix the government corruption and you solve capitalism 

IMHO, not just government corruption, but human corruption in general. Doesn't matter which ‘ism you are advocating for, it won't work as intended as long as there is corruption

There will always be corruption, greed, and every other byproduct of hierarchy and class. The paradox of capitalism is that it also works because of those same motivations. This experiment we're a part of in the New World is over, but we have experienced a very concerted effort to derail progress in favor of plundering it's unbelievably wild success. Now we just need to deal with it on a political level.

That doesn't do anything to resolve the assumption of infinite growth potential

With "Infinite tax potential" comes a cap to their desire to grow. ie: 100% tax after a billion dollars (or whatever). I think the theory would be that those big places would have less employees, and less reason to acquisition. But there would generally be more businesses and more competition. Before someone comes in with "that would never work because..." I'm not an economist, I am a redditor and I pulled this out of my ass.

I wonder why that happened. Almost like trillion dollar companies will spend money to protect their interests by lobbying and producing propaganda through news channels and think tanks. No one could have seen that coming. 

Fix government corruption and you solve communism. With a benevolent competent non-corrupt government almost any economic model would work.

There are soooo many problems with capitalism that extend beyond "government corruption", and it's naive to assume that is the only issue at play.

The government is going to protect the bad actors because they own the government because with constant growth they are going to own everything.

Nah, government corruption is capitalism baby. And even without corruption, capitalism will still lead us to emissions hell with increasing rapidity. The economic system is not capable of grappling with the externality of emissions because accepting and addressing the balance of GHGs already emitted would eliminate most of the accumulated wealth. But I'm good with eliminating wealth, especially when it was based on a false pretense the whole time.

I just recently had the thought democracy won't ever be able to steer the course. People are too stupid to form coherent parties and hold them over 2 generations. Need some kind of massive anarcho tech asgard/maya cult. Or pray benevolent ai tskes over. Or scheduled revolutions every 25th year.

I think it's worth looking at how economic systems have evolved over time to get a sense of what might come next. These changes don’t happen overnight, they’re gradual and complex, shaped by a variety of factors. And side note: I take this on with a western view on the subject. Your mileage may vary. (Also wall of text incoming!) **F**or example Feudalism wasn’t just about kings and lords, but it was an entire way of life that lasted for about a thousand years. It was deeply rooted in the social, economic, and political structures of medieval Europe. The shift to mercantilism in the western world was gradual, influenced by several key factors like the black death decimating the population, the Arabian world blocking trade to Europe and political shifts diminishing the power of feudal lords. After that the transition from mercantilism to capitalism happened and was also a gradual process, marked by the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries which is a prime example of a technological shift (the invention of machines like the steam engine drastically increased production capacity). This also came with more urbanization (factories weren't in rural areas but in or near cities). And more capital became available through trade and colonization. So, taking this into account, what might come next? Today, we're in a techno-capitalist world. The West has evolved from a manufacturing economy to a services-based economy with more office work instead of production lines. And even after that, since COVID-19, we’ve shifted from working in offices to a hybrid model with more work being done from home than any time before in history. Now, with the increasing use of AI, we need to think about how this will impact us next. As AI and automation continue to develop, many jobs, especially those involving routine tasks, might be replaced. This could lead to increased efficiency and lower costs but also raises concerns about job displacement. To address this, we might see more emphasis on roles that require human creativity, emotional intelligence, and complex problem-solving. As job requirements change, there will be a greater need for continuous education and retraining programs. AI and other technologies can play a big role in providing personalized learning experiences and skill development. Also, with the potential reduction in traditional jobs, UBI (Universal Basic Income) and/or UBS (Universal Basic Services) could become significant topics of discussion. These concepts aim to ensure that everyone has a basic level of financial security and access to essential services. UBI provides a guaranteed income, helping to stabilize the economy by maintaining consumer spending. Meanwhile, UBS ensures a minimum level of service entitlement, such as healthcare, education, and housing, contributing to overall well-being and economic stability. Then as environmental concerns grow, a circular economy model that emphasizes sustainability, recycling, and reducing waste could become more prominent. This would not only help the environment but could also create new industries and jobs. The shift towards hybrid work, accelerated by the pandemic, might become a permanent fixture. This could lead to changes in how we design cities, with less emphasis on large office spaces and more on adaptable living-working environments. The integration of AI into our economy will likely lead to a more flexible, adaptive, and resilient economic structure. It might shift the focus from traditional 9-to-5 office jobs to more diverse and dynamic forms of employment. While there will be challenges, particularly in terms of job displacement and income inequality, there are also opportunities for creating a more sustainable, equitable, and innovative economy. And I think it will be a bumpy ride. But as history has shown: Every transition is bumpy and some people will manage to latch on, while others will fall off.

Corporations have way too much power is my understanding of this concept. They warned us back in the 80's with the Zaibatsus!

People, particularly on this sub, loves to do fearmongery and sadojerkinsm The reality is more lie a flowchart. If there is another option, we have not devised it yet. * You have society or not If you choose no, then you are limited by your own individual efforts. We would probably still be hunter gatherers, or never have developed wits at all if we went hard enough in this one. So ok, you cna still choose not to partake in it (Sorry for bad english) but lets say you stilll want society, as you should; Is there something that isnt a yes or not on society? I dont think so. This probably applies to every other one of the "nodes" * Your society either has a govt or not. If you dont, you are limited to individual whims and team efforts. Is is doable? yes, but is not as efficiency, there is such thing as an "economy of numbers" (Forgot the actual term), which is not always applied to economics per se. So, by not having a govt you loose some efficiency... of course, you do that because humans are flawed, and that is the same reason why govts are, so this is trickier and why some people fall foranarchist movements like ancaps and commies, which already have showed that in both cases the results are... suboptimal. So, by the weight of statistics alone, as big or small the numbers are, id say we do need a govt. * Either it is democratic and representative, or not The more autocratic a govt is, usually the more efficient because they dont have to rely on the choices of third parties, they can just say "might is right" and be done for (until someone righter comes, no pun intended). So this is an easier one for most people and even for those id suspect that by thinking they would ge to the same conclusions, and that is that on a reasonably developed society like we have now, it does not make sense to delegate SO much power. But of course, this also comes in contact with the last one, and that is that when we are developed we dont need THAT much power either, so it is a balance on which we delegate power osetensibly but conditionally (ish... in practice you are always under the yoke of some undue influence and you cannt have a govt and make everyone happy because they are human too). * Either you make just a ceiling , nothing (like in very very liberal capitalisms), both (like in socialism, at least one done correctly, but that averages down, no up) or just a floor. Generally ceilings are a bad idea, as I mentiond ,they average down by recession alone. And yes, trickle down economics are a joke, but the market isnt. And the market is not an evildoer conspiracy thingy (although they exist, absolute power absolutely corrupts). On the other hand a floor absolutely is beneficial. The cost might push it down depending on how much and on which cotnext you rely on it but it definitely does. **Tl;Dr:** The less developed a nation is, the more it gets benefitted from a concentration of power and individualism, tbecaus ethey amass wealth and power the fastest, adn bring change with them, for good and bad, but at that point you are too poor to notice the difference anywya; The more advance a society is, the more it makes sense to have a welfare state, one which are not only rights guaranteed but you also have the right to certain guarantees (not if the "pun" works. again, english) Because of all that,I think the solution is pretty obvious... a good social netting to catch the fallen and act as a stepping stone, and regulations that stop outliers that could follow a certain yellow path in look for a heart That said, that does not mean no corporations, that just means they are kept in check. To stop corporations it would mean either a really low ceiling, or excessive control because otherwise there are always ways to dodge it through proxies and tax evasion and technicalities or lobby etc

Most people that rant about things like ‘late stage capitalism’ don’t know what they are talking about, quite frankly. Talking broadly about concepts like ‘capitalism’ and ‘the system’ is reductive to the point of meaninglessness. Certainly, aspects of our systems can be criticized, but the complexity of our economic, legal, and political frameworks defies easy categorization and simplification of that nature. People who are specific about what they are criticizing can usually identify realistic ways to improve it. People who engage only with vague concepts and ideology are populists who give us figures like Trump in positions of power.

Just a little note: you’ve been starting too many sentences with ‘like’

Late stage capitalism is more of a pseudoreligious ideal than a serious socioeconomic theory. Like belief in Armageddon, it's based upon faith rather than hard evidence. An imminent total collapse of capitalism has been predicted for well over a century now. It's not going to happen, but you'll probably still see its adherents claiming that it's just around the corner for centuries to come.

Indeed. The only people I see using it are the psuedo-educated. Those who know next to nothing about economics and history. It is no different than various apocalyptic Evangelical movements in terms of what it's selling.

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> An imminent total collapse of capitalism has been predicted for well over a century now. The only reason it hasn't collapsed is because of the world wars, social policies, and technology advancements. As long as we have a finite amount of resources, capitalism is built upon an inherently self-destructive mechanism (maximizing profit). And the moment resources are not finite, then capitalism stops being an efficient mechanism to allocate resources. Like - You maximize profit by minimizing expenses (labor+input costs), maximizing profit (quantity*profit per unit), and reducing competition. So you inherently have a system that wants to employ the fewest people at the lowest cost, then sell the most of a product that you are charging as much as possible for, and make sure your consumers have no other options. So you wind up with a workforce that is underpaid in a world that is as expensive as possible in a situation that you can do nothing about. And even worse, capitalism motivates companies to externalize as many costs as possible. And when everyone is doing that, we get problems like climate change, plastic pollution, water scarcity, global health issues, ecosystem collapse, etc. etc. etc. In the past, world wars forced countries to re-allocate resources and tax the wealthy. The missing labor increased wages, and government investment drove education and infrastructure that the market would not provide. In the past unchecked capitalism drove us into a horrible state of monopolies and dangerous factory work in repressive company towns. We got out of it by breaking up the companies by force and instituting taxes and social policies to support workers. In the past capitalism drove farmers to maximize the yield of their land, which led to the dustbowl. We fixed it by regulating farmland and paying farms to do things that are individually sub-optimal. Saying that Capitalism won't collapse because things periodically get so bad that we implement social policies to fix the issues with capitalism is really silly... We have upcoming challenges that will require collective intervention, and we have a few species-wide existential crises that we will need to face soon enough. Every year the list of challenges grows and becomes more serious, so just putting on blinders saying "capitalism hasn't failed in the past 300 years" is more than silly, it's dangerous.

The collapse of capitalism will not happen, but the civilization that ascribes to it will. Honestly the economic system doesn't matter, because the reality is we are in serious ecological overshoot and accelerating global warming is going to make the effects of that even worse.

Climate change might be able to push it over the edge. When you have crop failures, water shortages, 1 billion asylum seekers, and natural disasters causing billions in damage every week, no system can remain stable. I’m glad I got sterilized with no kids at 20 lol. Best $40 I ever spent 

It will maybe not be a stable system, but there is a very high chance, that it will have private ownership over the means of production, a marketplace to exchange goods and money as well as people persuing a profit motive. So it will most likely be some kind of capitalist system, as have been most of the economic systems in history, more or less capitalist

I dont need to be a better cook to tell that the soup has spoiled.

I think OP was looking for answers, not complaints lol. It's like complaining about beet soup when the only available ingredients are beets and water. We'd love to hear about the other dishes you could make though.

Ai assisted Utopian-ism. Highly effective allocation of resources. Increased potentiation/quality of life for all global citizens (and animals/plants). Education, transportation and agriculture resources run on clean energy/renewable resources. Highly efficient recycling tech/practices assisted by AI's would help too.

Except why would the people who own the AIs want this? Right now our current generation of LLMs are corporate assets. The code and models are proprietary and require huge amounts of privately owned hardware to operate. As advances occur in AI or robotics, there's no reason to think these things would stop being corporate assets. If we hit some hypothetical state where AI and robotics are so advanced that productivity moons, the cost of labor drops to near zero, and there is limited need for human labor... why would these people who have "won" capitalism suddenly change and cooperate with each other to make a utopia for the poors?

Nationalize AI

And by doing this, you will essentially bring the creation of an AI police state closer. If you want to avoid this, it is impossible for the AI ​​to be monopolized by someone

Yes, exactly this. In other words, [Fully Automated Luxury Communism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_Automated_Luxury_Communism). For a great example of such a post-scarcity society in fiction, look at [The Culture series of books by Iain M. Banks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture).

This cannot happen under capitalism. The necessity of ever-increasing profits & the requirement of GDP increases wont let this happen.

There is no "late stage capitalism." What we're suffering from is a capitalist oligarchy. Any system, capitalist or socialist, that concentrates power in the hands of a minority will become corrupt and eventually unstable as more are excluded from the levers of power. The reason the wealthy pushed to grant rights to corporations through rulings like Citizens United is solely to obscure who the actual ruling class is. They coopted the media to change the conversation. They've taken over the branches of government via bribery and extortion. What has to come next is people taking back power by purging dark money from government and preventing the hoarding of wealth. There is no safe policy that allows for the existence of billionaires.

Worst case: Ai powered neo-feudalism, with police and military fully automated, helpless AGIs under control of a few. A new AI-ristocracy Best case: under benevolent rule of AGI minds, with everyone getting access to a post-scarcity paradise. Think the Culture Weirdest case: full unbridled Singularity, with thought forms, social structures and tech we cannot fathom. Think Charles Stross

I say if companies are people too, let's treat them like people. For too long they've had all the rights and few of the responsibilities. A crime gets committed, the CEO or the board goes to prison. A crime that generally gets the death penalty is committed? Hey, companies are people right? Right? Don't pay your due in taxes? Guess what? Whole board goes to prison. Maybe this is a lesson we can learn from Vietnam. I think when their skin really starts being in the game, that will fix late stage capitalism.

Capitalism is win/lose battle over market share & messaging. Economics is mathematics based so there is no ethics/morality limiting outcomes. Mathematics in the market, whether it be algorithms or AI driven trading where sequencing and timing are controlled by industry leaders will devolve into winner takes all end game. Personally I think we are there already. Math (with AI self improvement) is like water, it will find a way to follow a path of least resistance. Unless we introduce a counter to it, we are pretty much doomed to a new age of vast inequality.

I am still at the "How do you define 'late stage capitalism', and how do we know this is it?" stage

Only now, after reading the comments in this thread, I realized what’s wrong with r/Futurology. This is just an echo chamber of left-wing doomers

Fight large enterprises. Force trust busting and breakup of large companies. Workers rights. Raising the minimum wage. Passing laws against automation

Like, I dunno, like, what could, it like be? maybe like capitalism will like survive because like it is like the best that we like have come up with.

Ethics. Getting capitalism out of politics and government you don’t have a system that protects malicious companies and greed while depriving citizens of their rights

Largely why I consider it transhumanism vs primitivism as the debate that should be had next. I don't believe humans have it in them to make things work in an actual egalitarian setup within industrialization. I know people all over the political spectrum and at the end of the day most people are just talking when it comes to ACTUALLY having the morals they speak. Communism failed because humans just aren't going to give up the power required to reach the withering of the state (the end goal of communism). Capitalism fails because eventually consolidatation destroys competition and requires infinite growth to ward off instability. Either you minimize the harm of human nature with primitivism or you seek to cure the cruelty of man with technology.

Civilization will probably go under before we see the horizon of a post capitalist society, I hope not.

Collapse is built into the capitalist economic model by default as it's impossible to have continuous growth. That and the various deviations from and exploits within the system mean the same thing that always happens will happen. Some countries will have "economic collapse" and then sign up for unrepayable loans of imaginary money from the "bankers". It's been working fine for a long time, but obviously with economies of scale and the complexity involved in actual economies, the model doesn't really hold up unless it is continually propped up. It will continue to be a functioning system that does not work as advertised, just as it is now. That is all that's needed.

Capitalism does not require continuous grow that is a common myth. It works just fine in a country with no growth and there are plenty of example in the current world.

The way things are currently headed, in the United States it could easily be fascism. The early signs are there.

fascism is a government system, not an economic system.

There is none. Unfortunately, consumerism has been ingrained deep into society. Combined with an ever growing population, there is nice realistic way to subvert climate change and the insane amounts of waste we create. It's wild. We make so many products that go unused and unwanted, as well as throwing away tons of still edible food and punishing those who want it. Sadly, it'll be a slow painful grind till death.

One leading proposed solution is to tax the wealthy and forgive student loans. This sounds like a cop out, but think of it like the filtering system of a fish tank. At first, all of the nutrients (money) you sprinkle in float around evenly for the fish. Over time though, imagine all the nutrients in the fish tank sink and accumulate at the bottom (the wealthy) because of gravity (economics of capitalism). Late stage capitalism is kind of like this, it’s been going on long enough that the imbalance grows to a point where the fish at the top of the tank are having a hard time living. So if we install a way for nutrients from the bottom to get pumped up to the fishes at the top who could use it to live and be productive (tax hyper wealthy and give to students with loans) then it would help close a loop in the system, and prevent imbalance from building up too quickly. IMHO many of the symptoms people cynically refer to with the label of late stage capitalism arise from this fundamental imbalance.

A universal UBI paired with taxing what we don't want is the cleanest way IMO. None of this is perfect but I like that it's universal and is really hard for wealthy people to dodge. The cool thing with this setup is that poor/working class would get way more in UBI then the additional taxes would inflict while the rich who are typically the ones who are hoarding land/housing, fucking up our environment by flying/subsidising sprawl, and buying yachts would get taxed significantly more than they would receive in UBI. At the same time there are no weird rules or punishment for trying to get ahead, or starting a business that serves you local community, or deciding to "become a landlord" and build some dense housing for you and your homies. Abundance is a good thing and modified capitalism is pretty good at abundance. Things we don't want: - People hoarding land and not doing anything productive with it: A land value tax would help to solve this. Housing costs are currently the greatest source of inflation and one of the biggest hardships for Late Stage Capitalism. If you want to hoard land near a metro area (where there are jobs and it's easier to live in a climate friendly way) then fine but you have to pay for it. - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqQhoZgFZgk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqQhoZgFZgk) - People fucking up our shared environment: A carbon tax can help put a price on this. More here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqQhoZgFZgk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqQhoZgFZgk) - People buying so much crap: A VAT/Consumption tax would help with this. Get rid of the income tax while we are at it. Generationally wealthy folk pay proportionally much less tax since their income is low but they sure do spend a lot. [https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-a-vat-could-tax-the-rich-and-pay-for-universal-basic-income/](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-a-vat-could-tax-the-rich-and-pay-for-universal-basic-income/)

Late Stage Capitalism is a nonsense term. If you want to break up monopolies, then you break up monopolies. If you want to tax billionaires, then you tax billionaires. If billionaires have too much influence over politicians, the problem isn't capitalism, but the political system.

"capitalism is the worst system... Except for all the others" Here is the "hard to swallow" truth of all this. Humans are not evolved for this society. Our species spent hundreds of thousands of years roaming the plains in small tribes or developing agriculture in small tribes. We spent a couple of thousand years developing society and exploding to the size we are now. Trying to expect human beings to exhibit the same traits of empathy and communal investment that they do in a tribe in a society with so many people that they feel anonymous, is not understanding how humans evolved or human nature in general. The future is we need to modify people. We need to actually genetically engineer humans to fit in this society, and, until we do, we're just going to have a lot more mental illnesses and selfish behavior causing social issues. Capitalism is just a functional system managing the lack of compatibility of human nature with dense societies. We have currency because an equivalence of need at this scale is completely impossible.

The economic system in 50 years will very likely be capitalism. The idea that we are in late stage capitalism is a joke, people have been saying that for 150 years and predicting the collapse is right around the corner. There is really no indication capitalism is even close to anything late stage indicates. Now if capitalism ever does collapse what would replace it? Nobody really knows because nobody cares that much. Capitalism is working well and very few respectable people are looking to replace it.

If there is a collapse, there will be a period of turmoil where a lot of people will die, resources will be wasted, our World be even more depleted and polluted and at the end of it all, we will go back to capitalism because humans are greedy and shortsighted by nature.

Late Stage Capitalism is an absurd meme. If people want to indulge in wishful thinking that capitalism is on its last legs that's their prerogative, but the idea that we see signs of happening any time soon are pure fantasy. What we've seen in our lifetimes is capitalism spreading over the globe. When and if capitalism is finished, that's the time we'll be able to define what stages it went through before it died.

Late stage capitalism is a made up term to try and scare people into thinking communism is the future.

Edit due to brevity censorship: "It will be replaced with collapse. Then, not much if anything. The prognosis is terminal and palliative care is prescribed." Replacements depends on the timeline we are talking about. At some point in civilizational descent, various regions will try all of these things. As we exceed our planetary boundaries and adopt positions based on maximizing short term benefits (profit) at the expense of a viable complex system. The people best suited to master this short term shortsightedness are the ones to accrue power and are simultaneously the lest capable of understanding, let alone having the will to stop civilization's collapse. No 'ism is going to halt what is coming. We will see totalitarianism, for a while. They aren't capable of solving the problem either, so it will be transitional to lower and lower levels of organization until there isn't much left. Then *poof. We done. When you exceed earths planetary boundaries as we are with climate change and biodiversity loss, habitat destruction and pollution, you fundamentally change the world to something that won't support us. Collapse becomes inevitable. The preferable path is degrowth which is challenging in every way to everyone. In many ways it can be considered a collapse of its own, but it differs from collapse in that it is managed. Population decline is inevitable, by collapse it means by death from scarcity or conflict over scarcity. By degrowth it means no having that baby in the first place.

In truth a violent revolution in which 1/3 of the population will die or be severely injured historically speaking is the most probabilistic outcome. Following that, whoever wins will be the next system, more than likely a socialistic strong government or mega corporations take over governance fully.

Mixed market economies, like most of the world has.

that’s capitalism

Stop allowing government officials to accept donations from corporate entities they are suppose to be protecting the consumer from would be a start.

Capitalism is the best system for wealth creation we have. Prices send information, markets let producers and consumers interact and complete transactions, etc.. The fundamental problem is that in the USA we relaxed anti-trust enforcement starting with Reagan. Corporations merged and rolled up sectors into rackets that drove up prices, limited choice, undermined supply chains and hurt consumers. THIS is what most mainstream folks are furious about. We have a generation of judges who defer to corporations and have allowed them to steamroll regular folks. Read Matt Stoller's excellent book "Goliath." That's why I'm a total fanboy for Lina Khan's FTC. Cheerlead communism and socialism all you want but what a pointless exercise. Empirically they are total piles of garbage, both economically and politically. I've seen it first-hand. Ask anyone who has lived in Eastern Europe, Venezuela, Cuba, and so on. Someone who wants to live under that kind of rule needs to have their head examined. (And no, countries like Denmark and Sweden are [capitalist, not socialist, economies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_U99C71yus). Social democratic policies are just tinkering around the edges of a capitalist wealth creation machine.) We are not going communist, anarchist, or anything else, no matter how much privileged university radicals with trust funds hyperventilate.

money out of politics. you can't have the people who end up with all the wealth making the rules - it will deteriorate and kill itself because there is no end to short term greed.

The solution is twofold: 1. Start sending people to prison for white collar crime. 2. Don’t just hope corporations will do what’s in the public’s best interest, *force* them to with laws. If they fuck around, see point 1.