like I went to taco bell and they didn’t even have napkins out. they had the other stuff just no napkins, I assume because some fucking ghoul noticed people liked taking them for their cars so now we just don’t get napkins! so they can save $100 per quarter rather than provide the barest minimum quality of life features.
That’s the end result of a capitalist system once corporations have superseded governments in power. It will only get worse.
Yeah, we may be at checkmate. Unlike the end of the age of the robber barons, when we reformed capitalism in the late 1800s / early 1900s in the US… this time the capitalists have purchased enough politicians to stop reform completely and forever.
What’s funny is that this is entirely unsustainable. If they were in any way a real “capitalist” they would realize that the creeping authoritarianism they’re pushing destroys economies long-term. They’re laughing all the way to the bank right now because they’re not concerned with the future.
However, they should be, because this House of Cards can easily collapse with the right push. They literally can’t see past the profits at the end of the next quarter.
They literally can’t imagine that all of them choosing to undermine capitalist principles at the same time will result in capitalism failing completely. The only reason it even functioned as well as it did for so long was 1. regulation and 2. raping the third world for resources.
I mean, I’m a fucking leftist, and it makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills that things are so far gone that I’m actually arguing “if we’re going to do capitalism, we may as well do it in a way that it actually functions properly” as if that is a fucking fringe idea here.
The wheels are about to fly off this fuckin turkey.
Unfortunately their house of cards is built on a foundation of wealth…and not just fuck you money, but literal centuries of fuck you money.
The fortune 50 I worked for could literally stop doing all business and maintain their current spend for a century and still be solvent.
This isn’t unstable at all…it’s built to last for 100s of years…the current leaders to their grandkids will be safe.
To further that…the 1% have private armies and well stocked bunkers to ride out any social uprising. That’s the really scary stuff.
We are all fucked though. Enjoy the hunger games.
I mean, hypothetically. That is the end result of the neoliberal, or late capitalism economic philosophy if applied on a model. But economic systems in practice are never the philosophy, and are only there in the first place to support the governance of a nation state. I spend half my time in Italy, for example, where the laws protect both the big international brands and the mom and pop shops.
My point is that we are the citizens that make up the government that designs the governance rules for our nation-state. Capitalism is not a government, or people, or the entire story when it comes to commerce and trade systems. We can shape it and use it, like any other framework.
Likewise, regardless of your economic system, greedy people will try to accumulate power, bend the rules to benefit themselves, and extend those benefits across borders if they can. Powerful egos will warp people and rules around them like gravity. All governance systems that strive to be just, collaborative and promote the quality of life of all its citizens have to both put strong rules in place to check the power-hungry, and constantly monitor and adapt to keep them in check.
“…we are the citizens that make up the government that designs the governance rules for our nation-state.”
No we’re not. We only have the illusion of control where we are allowed to vote on how to tinker with the outer edges of a system that is in reality controlled by 0.1% of the population.
because somehow our economic system says that a company is only successful if it’s growing, not if it’s regularly turning a profit every quarter. at least, that’s my understanding of it. so, they have to do something to generate something that looks like growth somehow
It’s pretty simple. Because we are all so spoiled and entitled that we won’t even consider NOT buying their shit anymore. It’s the same reason the video game market has grown rampant with micro transactions. They keep pushing the boundaries, and we keep giving them our money regardless of what they do. I’m actually curious to see how far they can push this insanity. They already slap a new year on sports titles every year and somehow sell the same game to the same people annually.
PUT YOUR WALLET DOWN.
The amount of people on Reddit who shill for companies like EA and Activision is shocking.
Once wrote a comment on the lines of ‘sadly, British gamers mostly have terrible taste in video games, 90% of us don’t give a shit about anything unless it’s GTA, FIFA or Call of Duty. We literally reward companies for shitty consumer practices.’
Most of the replies I got were calling me an asshole and were acting like I’m trying to police what people can like/dislike.
But still, Electronic Arts make record-breaking profits because… EA Sports: It’s In The Game (you bought last year)
Any platform you find corporate asshole lickers. They are the worst.
We also all (in the US especially) collectively choose Chinese made products over domestic options as if the only consequence is that we pay less money and are thus a savvy customer … helping destroy a huge portion of the middle class that worked in manufacturing.
Maybe the robots would’ve gotten things where they are now eventually, but nowhere near as fast.
Best one of the newest releases is Street Fighter 6. Not just a full price game with a yearly season pass, which is fair for a service game and additional content, but also more frequent battle passes and the cherry on top, not only you pay for additional costumes as before, but each character has only 2 colors available. How much for a simply different RGB value you might wonder, a whopping over $100 for all colors. Didn’t buy this well executed game, because I refuse to partake in this.
This set the precedent for Mortal Kombat 1 DLC which is also filled with high cost and still charges outrageous money for new Fatalities.
At this point thought can we really victim blame? Like were all just advanced moneys and it turns out almost every monkey in this environment will get addicted and capitilists are happy to use that maliciously.
It issue is systematic at the least, and I can almost gaurentee won’t be solved in the next century by a couple people voting with just their wallets
It’s both. We are both simultaneously capable of free will, yet are also products of the universe that created us. So my answer to your question, in my humble opinion, is yes. Yes, we can victim blame while simultaneously lamenting the corporate landscape.
Let’s make this simpler. This corporate greed is a problem, yes? What actions have you taken to remove this problem?
Total and unquestionable revolution.
Just take a peek at history and the times things changed ‘peacefully’
(ghandi didn’t go on a hunger strike to look skinnier that’s for sure)
Agreed. This is why I download mp3s and buy CDs still. Radio and Spotify streaming is good, but honestly, a better idea or service would be free group book reading events and coffee, help those budding writers etc to share ideas and increase the entropy and size of our universe lol
in dodge v ford the supreme court ruled that publicly traded companies must put profits first above their workers and the the build quality of their products.
That’s a bad take. The case actually affirmed business judgement rule: the idea that the guy running the company knows how to run it better than the shareholders. It’s part of why post-war America is considered the golden age of American manufacturing: Publicly traded companies invested in their employees and wages exploded across the board. A 100 year old court decision isn’t the primary driver on a problem that’s really only developed in the last forty or fifty years.
Jack Welch of GE really set the current tone of “all that matters is stock price”. The 80s saw greed transform into a virtue
There’s a great behind the bastards podcast episode about this guy!
I think it’s come about due to the state of universities and the stringent belief that a pursuit of knowledge above all else would somehow land you a good job. You’ve got to want to do the job or genuinely enjoy the work first.
Just consider that the same people in the Middle East who are matchmakers and run big data collection corps also run the whole breakups shake up.
Interesting…
Workers rights is against capitalism to just give you everything needed to decide if this system is good or bad.
My satellite TV (Sky TV … UK) subscription ended recently and they would not give me any sort of deal to sign a new contract, Come black Friday they a spamming me by email and every type of advert for great deals for NEW Customers only!
I called SKY to cancel and they offered me a better deal but we’re going to charge me an admin fee to sign a new contract, they wanted me to pay them to sign a contract with them!
I told them that it was not acceptable and cancel my service, having been put through to “my manager” they eventually waived the admin fee…
How has it come to this, I’m an easy customer, I am happy with the product, I’ll sign a contract if it’s a good deal, but they went out of their way to lose me
Because for every person like you that jumps through hops to get a new deal there are lots of people who just passivelly let the renewal happen under inferior conditions that they could have got if they tried.
That’s also why they put stupid hindrances in your way: such things cause many people to give up and just go along with a suboptimal renewal, ergo they make more money from acting thus than they lose from clients who say “enough is enough” and drop them (notice how you did not drop them - they lost nothing from giving you the run around and could’ve gained if you had given up and renewed with the shit conditions: it’s pretty much a can’t-loose situation for them)
I lived in then UK for over a decade and one thing that stood out when I moved from the The Netherlands to the UK (already more than 15 years ago) and from the UK to Portugal is how much more the larger consumer-facing companies in the UK did the most that they could to take advantage of people’s mistakes or laziness than in those other countries - I remember a particularly sleazy gym membership contract from Virgin were per-contract (I always read those things) the only way to cancel it before the yearly auto-renewal was to contact them during a specific week before renewal (2 weeks before end of contract if I remember it correctly), not before nor after.
Over the whole time I was there, a handful of the most outrageous abuses when it came to consumer contracts were plugged (the one I remember the best was the creation of a rental deposit insurance to stop tenants from losing their deposits at the end of the rental agreement, as before that landlords would often just keep it all for no reason and then the only option the tenant had was take it to Court) but the whole posture of taking advantage of costumer laziness and normal mistakes (auch as, forgetting a date for canceling and auto-renewal) was widespread in the UK compared to other countries I lived in.
As it so happens, people themselves were also to blame: I remember how amazed the rental agency guy was that I actually read the Rental Agreement and even demanded corrections before I signed anything - “Nobody reads these”, he said - when even at the massive daily rate I was paid back then for my work it was still worth it to spend the 1 or 2 hours reading a contract were I was assuming a commiment of at least £15k (at the time a “reasonable” London rent for a year).
Me in your position would’ve just said “fuck this”, cancelled SKY and gone without (and I have done it for some things were I felt the other side had abused my trust, such as closing my account with my first bank in the UK the one and only time I was charged an overdraft fee), mainly because my early adult years happenned mostly in The Netherlands so I have their style of demanding consumer rather than the more passive and willing to overlook these things style common it the UK.
Absolutely terrible news bro I feel for you.
Because you won’t do anything to hurt their bottom line, basically.
Stop eating at Taco Bell and make your own damn tacos at home. Better yet, go buy some from a family-owned taco truck instead.
Yeah, I don’t eat at Taco Bell when I’m in the mood for tacos from a street truck. It’s like two entirely different types of food.
There is Mexican food, there’s Tex Mex, then there is Taco Bell. They’re not really all comparable 1:1:1. I love me an al pastor taco from a truck, but some days I’m not in the mood for a real taco but rather the ersatz tacos they have at Taco Bell.
See my stoned Canadian ass doesnt have any taco trucks nearby, but the bell is always there
(but I gotta agree its far from authentic, its like a good smoked burger vs bigmac)
That’s a shame. I live in an area where I have access to authentic food of so many different ethnicities, and it is wonderful.
I can’t imagine how boring life would be without multiculturalism.
Extra points for ersatz
I have taco tortillas. What do I put inside? Any good recipes?
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Taco trucks are so good right now. They’re not wasting money on unused dining room space so lots of meat!
This individualist approach simply does not work in practice as has been demonstrated time and again. The problem is a systemic one created by the mechanics and incentives of the capitalist economy. The solution is to work towards an economic system that doesn’t create perverse incentives inherent in capitalism.
Because your rights have been eroded by decades of deregulation and lobbying. And because publicly traded companies are legally required to maximize profits at all costs.
We’re in a modern gilded age. There are no consequences for modern day robber barons.
To add to this – Cory Doctorow, the very guy who coined the term “enshittification,” has written about this. (Been meaning to read some of his books to see his explanations on how to fight it but I’m still getting through another book right now so I’ve only seen vids and read a sample.)
It’s the enshittification of the entire country.
See enshittification.
Huggies went up in price, but their cost of manufacturing actually went down.
It’s got nothing to do with profit margins, it’s just pure greed. Also, the law requires that publicly traded companies be greedy.
nothing to do with profit margins, it’s just pure greed
???
Maybe I should have said “it’s nothing to do with maintaining profit margins” against rising costs.
Gotcha, that makes sense.
Because the corporations write the rules. Literally; laws are written by corps and presented to lawmakers along with “gifts” and “campaign donations” - and implicit quid pro quo. They then present them to be voted upon, sometimes without even bothering to read them.
Exactly that. We are run by corporations more so than our elected officials. A lot of people fail to fully understand this fact. Corporations and capitalism is the answer to why everything sucks.
And no matter how well documented it is, people just go “nuh uh” and call you a socialist if you bring it up.
You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don’t you call me 'cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store
Much as I love that song, it doesn’t really apply to the OP question, which is more about companies exploiting their customers rather than their workers.
Workers are consumers.
And it seems that “our corporate masters” don’t understand that underpaid or laid off people don’t have the purchasing power to buy more stuff.
In their relentless pursuit of profits, they are killing off the ability of people to be customers.
Just give em a subscription then!
16 napkins
the song was about company towns where the laborers were paid in store credit instead of wages. you’d work, but never pay off debts, since it all went back to the companies who set the prices for everything you buy, and so they were able to keep you on a tight leash.
That’s how it feels like things are going now. a few companies own everything, pay our wages, and set our prices. we cannot get ahead.
I’m with you, OP: for some reason, it’s the little things I notice.
I’m in grocery stores a lot. It used to be, there was a nice little seating area there to sit, drink my coffee and work. But now, because homeless people dared to duck inside a public-facing area to briefly escape the elements, they removed many of the tables and chairs and they’re now a big, empty space. Heaven forbid they add more seating, actually staff enough people to enforce a time-limit, etc; no, instead we all are worse off for it. But corporate profits have never been higher, so worth it, right!?
Take a trip to PA, all the grocery and convenience stores have added seating areas so that they can legally sell beer and wine lmao.
They piloted this in Nashville at Kroger and something changed for them to turn around and remove them.
Did you ask if they had some napkins? Yes we are living in a post capitalist nightmare but honestly, seems more likely the wage slave in charge of putting out the napkins either hadn’t had a chance to do so or forgot.
If there’s an empty napkin dispenser, that would be my assumption. But it’s been happening more often and at more places that no, they don’t even have dispensers, you need to ask for napkins.
Capitalism is the answer. Greed, unchecked profits.
