[American biased post, because that’s what I know and where I am]
Been screaming that capitalism is not the problem you are experiencing. Monopolies, or more to the point, cartels, have exploded in scope over the past 40-years. Think of a company you hate, a company that’s fucking you over, a company that’s fucking us ALL over. Bet they fit the bill.
Hate your job at Lowe’s? Go to Home Depot! wait… There’s a great family-owned, local hardware store, but I can’t afford to shop there.
Walgreens piss you off? Just go to CVS! well damn… New local pharmacy chain is really nice! They can’t take my insurance.
If you’re under 40, or maybe even under 50, I cannot relate how alien this all is, the words fail me. If you’re in your 20s or 30s, it’s easy to think it was always like this. Oh hell no it was not.
Along with allowing corporations unlimited political “speech”, i.e. campaign contributions, the proliferation of cartels will go down in history as America’s failing point. (Basically the same thing?)
News like the current entertainment mergers didn’t fucking happen. And here on lemmy we’re talking, with a straight face, about the ups and downs of the Netflix/Warner Bros./HBO merger. And if you’ll remember, Warner Bros./Time Warner/AOL was the largest merger in US history!
The fundamental argument here is that it’s not the system which incentivizes abusers that is the problem but rather the abusers who exploit the system. Sure, we can have another working class revolution, keep capitalism around and build institutions that keep exploitation in check but given enough time those with capital and the power that it represents will chip away at those institutions, continuing the cycle and harming people in the process.
This would happen under any system since power-hungry narcissists are everywhere, so sooner or later every society would run into these issues. My statement is not meant to defend capitalism but to rather state the question on how to prevent or diminish these kind of influences from power-hungry people, independent of the underlying economic system.
Capitalism encourages narcissism. It strives on it. Corporations themselves are narcissistic entities. A system not built on individualism and greed would help.
Simply create a system where it is impossible for a single person or faction to have enough power to do this kind of harm, and be constantly vigilant against any erosion of the safeguards.
It’s extremely simple when said in this way, but it’s also nearly impossible in practice.
a system that does not account for abuse will fail. but let’s not be so defeatist. society may go in cycles of rise and decline. we just have to stretch the rise and force the reset early enough to mitigate the harm. and while what comes after the next revolution may fail eventually, the good times should be fought for none the less. and be ever vigilant to remind those whom we entrust power that the leviathan sleeps as long as it’s cared for.