• NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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    6 hours ago

    Capitalism today looks nothing like capitalism in the 1950s. Back then, a family could easily survive on the income of one person. With money left over to pay for college education, a car and a house.

    That is not the situation today, where most Americans have NO retirement savings. Unless you’re redefining what capitalism IS, then that’s a problem caused by the people in charge (oligarchs).

    • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      2 hours ago

      That is not the situation today, where most Americans have NO retirement savings. Unless you’re redefining what capitalism IS, then that’s a problem caused by the people in charge (oligarchs).

      Bananas were cheap too… because Western [capitalist!!!] imperialism supported fascist death squads in Latin America who sold out their country to United Fruit [a capitalist corporation]. It’s a whole system of oppression, not just the WASPs you see on Mad Men reruns.

      You are the one who is deeply confused.

      Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. Thinking there was no oligarchy when C. Wright Mills was writing The Power Elite shows that you are not only confused about economic theory, but misinformed about the history of the US as well.

    • You literally do not know what capitalism is. Capitalism is not commerce or economy, capitalism is a social relation system that is defined by private ownership of the means of production and prioritizes commodity production for profit by way of wage labor and class antagonism. Maybe you should read more before you state your factually incorrect statements.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      6 hours ago

      The erosion of safety nets is a product of ever-further monopolization and the dissolution of the USSR, as well as the liberation of many colonies. I am not redefining Capitalism, the Capitalism we have today is the natural following point of earlier Capitalism.

      Same underlying system, different levels and scale.

    • m532@lemmygrad.ml
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      6 hours ago

      So back then capitalism had working colonialism and now many colonies freed themselves, and now we are the ones getting exploited