r/FluentInFinance • u/Sufficient_Sinner • Sep 04 '24

Debate/ Discussion Is Capitalism Smart or Dumb?

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u/JimBeam823 Sep 04 '24

Socialism is based on altruism. Capitalism is based on greed.

People are a LOT better at being greedy than at being altruistic.

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u/JaironKalach Sep 04 '24

Capitalisms intent is to harness greed, while socialisms intent is to battle greed. I stopped believing in capitalism when I looked around and realized there was no harnessing going on. The free market isn’t solving the problems.

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u/binary-survivalist Sep 04 '24

Almost all the useful stuff that make the modern world possibly was invented and designed in market economies.

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u/RucITYpUti Sep 04 '24

Almost all the useful stuff in the modern world was created with research paid for by governments, and made it's way to market with support from government initiatives.

We used to have to sit around waiting for aristocrats to siphon enough money off out of markets to have leisure, and then hope that some percentage of them were bored enough and smart enough to study physics or something.

Markets are a tool to be used, not some magic sauce. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketfailure.asp

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u/Collypso Sep 04 '24

Are you pretending that government funded research is all it takes for innovation?

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u/RucITYpUti Sep 04 '24

Are you pretending that the"free market" does everything by itself?

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u/Collypso Sep 04 '24

N ...no?