• quackers@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    11 months ago

    Yes, and when the cost of a product becomes too high for it’s true value, alternatives are created, which is why you’re probably on lemmy right now. Right now, made to break profits are marketed to be cheaper, and while they are not, people believe it which is why they are still in high demand. There is an abundance of supply with many options, this is very different from low supply.

    Capitalism is not inherently the problem. It’s the corruption of governments that allow artificial scarcity to exist.

    • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      when the cost of a product becomes too high for it’s true value, alternatives are created

      Now we discover your true understanding of “basic economics”, the magical thinking that the man on the television screen and the man behind the lectern told you was the final truth and the deepest wisdom, and that you believed because believing is what you wanted to do.

      which is why you’re probably on lemmy right now.

      Capitalism made the iPhone. I’m smart.

      Capitalism made Lemmy. I’m really smart.

      • quackers@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        11 months ago

        I’m not saying or thinking any of that. I’m not talking here because i have the ultimate answer, im collecting different perspectives.

        • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          You are not meaningfully collecting different perspectives, though, if you are dismissing others as not falling inside of your own construct of “basic economics”.

          I assume you are aware that economies have occurred historically not based on supply and demand.

          • quackers@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            11 months ago

            Yes, they tend to fall under some sort of authoritarian system and usually still have free trade outside of the system. When supply and demand is discarded by government, people tend to die. So it seems to me that we can central power since the free market, while not ideal, is still better than the likely risk of corrupt power with all of the power.

            • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              People are dying because the entire economy, the entirety of processes of production and distribution, is under massively centralized control, and driven by the profit motive, which is inimical to human survival and flourishing, in a word, corrupt.

              I have been browsing comments for the post quite aggressively, and have even read most of them now several times. I have found none advocating for supply and demand being “discarded by government”, nor any for expansion of authority.

              • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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                11 months ago

                waves hand

                I am actually advocating for supply and demand being “discarded by government” :)

                Sorry, I realized after clicking “reply” that you’re already someone I’m having a (slightly heated, sorry!) discussion with. I promise I’m not following you.

                But nonetheless, even Adam Smith (the founder of capitalism) had some problems with unrelated markets wrt necessities. We don’t have to go off the deep end to say “supply and demand economics should be discarded for food and healthcare if it’s the only way to stop poor people from dying inches away from trashbins full of food”

                • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  The phrasing is intrinsically nebulous and rhetorically charged, useful more as a tactic for constructing a straw man than for advocating meaningful social change.

                  • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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                    11 months ago

                    The phrasing is intrinsically nebulous and rhetorically charged

                    Really? I’ll be less nebulous. I think the government should step in and provide food to all Americans, setting a purchase price based upon actual cost to produce.

                    useful more as a tactic for constructing a straw man than for advocating meaningful social change.

                    I think you might be confusing me. Because it sounds like you’re saying I should lie and pretend I don’t want to undermine supply and demand because it would be easy for a dishonest interlocutor to make me look scary. I don’t like my side lying about our positions.