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aidrocsid  ·  3190 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Anyone here a socialist as well?

I'd have to say I disagree with capitalism not being mostly autonomous. As long as you're remedying situations where excessive power protects certain businesses from market forces, such as locally monopolized internet service providers, while instituting measures to ensure that individuals who fall through the cracks are provided for, I'd say capitalism doors an excellent job of allocating resources. It's not perfect, but it ensures that businesses that can't compete fail.

  
You have to make sure that businesses are capable of failure. You don't want government mandated factory production with poor oversight churning out products that are worth less than the cost to make them.

  
That said, I'm all for government participation in capitalism. I think it'd provide a good incentive to accommodate consumers. Businesses as they exist now, unless they're nonprofits, are focused on maximizing profits. Any technological or social innovation they provide us with is secondary to their own profitability. If this weren't the case they'd be doing their investors a disservice. So business in that regard gives us an approximation of what we want with an eye toward profit.

What happens if we let the government start competing, though? Well, their primary motive doesn't have to be profit. They can incentivize creating the best product for the best price and outcompete those who stray from product quality and reasonable price in favor of physically cheap products or exorbitant prices. This puts pressure on businesses to somehow make themselves more appealing to consumers while preventing government from propping up a failed business to provide a necessary service.

Capitalism is definitely a tool, but I'd argue it's one that mostly does it's job itself. Occasionally it may need a nudge and you're left with some issues that you have to solve elsewhere, but it mostly does the job fantastically.

As far as setting goals, I'd say consumers mostly do that.