anti capitalism for everyone
I want to talk about anti-capitalism, but without calling on a specific ideal, or relying on a specific way to view the world.
As impossible as this is, I’m hoping this is an argument literally everyone can agree with — conservatives and libertarians and everyone up and down, and I’m specifically curious how people will disagree.
So let’s say Tim wins the lottery and buys… a house in the middle of town that he rents out (along with some land he intends to resell), and a business where he takes some of the profit.
In each case, Tim is very hands-off. For the plot of land, he just plans to sell it once it’s gained in price. For the house, he hires a property manager, and for the business he hires an operations manager and takes a bit off the top.
And a question I have (which is not a trick question, mind you, it has a genuine answer) is: What good is Tim actually doing? Like how is he contributing to his community? Why is it a good thing to have Tim exist?
Like, we pay a doctor a lot because they cure the sick. A carpenter because they build things. Why do we, as a society, think Tim is someone deserving of the money he’s receiving? (Again, not a trick question)
So in my opinion, the reason he’s receiving payment, his “job”, in a sense, is being a steward of the money he won, and managing its risk.
If the town with the house in it becomes a ghost town, a lot of people have to move, but Tim’s out a huge amount of money. If the business fails, same deal.
Tim’s job is to figure out the best use for that money — investing it in the most promising businesses, improving the most valuable real estate. That money, if used well, will both benefit the community massively, and will reward Tim for his intelligent decisions by bringing him a return on his investment.
So this job of “ownership” does do something for the world… but can we at least agree that it’s a bit of a “weird” job? For a few reasons:
- It’s a “job” you can get just by having a lot of money. Just inheriting it, or winning the lottery, are equally valid ways of getting into the job of ownership as working hard and earning your money.
- It’s not a particularly difficult job. Turning a huge profit quickly requires shrewd business skills, but just throwing money into an established business doesn’t, and that’ll still net you a ton of money.
- At the time of writing, spending about $4 million dollars on Walmart stock gets you $56,000 a year — the median American income.
“Capitalism” gets thrown around a lot, with people meaning anything from “corporations being assholes”, to “the very idea of people buying and selling things”, to “having to work to survive”.
And I think it’s important to cut down to the core, dictionary definition: Capitalism is a system of ownership, where some people own factories and land and housing, and get to extract money off of that.
I hate capitalism for a lot of reasons, but sticking to just the less controversial things: I hate capitalism because it’s a horribly inefficient way for America’s money to be thrown around.
Every public company can’t serve the public because it has to appeal to shortsighted shareholders, sending money to owners (who often never took part in the actual building of the company) instead of reinvesting it into the company — Walmart pays 43.8% of its earnings to shareholders.
Similarly, monumentally stupid decisions are made, huge swaths of money pissed away, by people who just inherited an emerald mine or got a small loan of a million dollars.
If you’ve agreed, even a little, with the ideas above, then you’re an anti-capitalist. People don’t like that word, because it’s often equated with communism and its siblings, but it doesn’t have to be.
This note isn’t advocating for a specific solution. Instead, it’s just raising the idea that things don’t have to be this way. We don’t have to live in a world where Tim can live off the money of the local factory, we can just choose another.
Here are some potential other worlds. They all have drawbacks, they might be pipe dreams, but I want to bring them up just to spark thought:
- What if ownership (I put work into building this company) was treated and taxed differently than ownership (I bought this company with nebulously obtained money)
- What if ownership (I manage, and actively work on this company) was treated and taxed differently than ownership (I take money from this company, but don’t really think about it too often)
- What if a parent could work hard to give their child a good life, but inheritance stopped there: egregious amounts of wealth couldn’t be inherited.
- What if everyone was given a bit of money to invest in their communities, local businesses etc. People who were successful in their ventures would be given more.
- What if investment was treated as a loan given to a company, but not a way to become an owner. Ownership would belong to the founders, and if they wanted to sell it (or passed away), it would automatically be sold to the employees, who then elected a board and managers through democratic votes.
