Capitalism is good. Let me explain.

[@SabineHossenfelder]

A lot of people here confuse capitalism with deregulation. I did not anticipate this point to be so widely misunderstood. If I had, I would have stressed it more. I am sorry in case I caused confusion.

[@canonicaltom]

You're confusing capitalism and markets, which are not related in any way.

[@jahnotreal]

I think the negative feedback is a little deeper than that, but that’s a story for another time… (L + Ratio 💀)

[@TWaveform]

What I find surprising is that you use the same argument that many communists do: "it was just never applied right!", when there's no need for such an argument, since capitalism is not an ideology, but a system that emerged and was later described by economists.

[@bladdnun3016]

You still don't seem to get the criticism. People are telling you that you are the one who doesn't fully grasp what capitalism is. 'Free markets + rules' is a gross oversimplification and the way you portray money as an alternative to barter has been thoroughly debunked. You attempt to vindicate capitalism, but you do so by just handwaving away all of its problems (which are not only caused by deregulation). You're out of your depth here and you should admit it.

[@Vera22101]

You can't do this in 16min. 16 one-hour lectures would perhaps make for a decent introduction. Confusion, or rather irritation, is caused by this fairy tale-version of capitalism, for it being utterly superficial & uncritical to the point of negligence.

[@Edmonddantes123]

As an economist myself, I have to say, I really like your physics videos. Maybe keep making those

[@vebdaklu]

Excellent point, mate! But I guess being a grifter pays bettee than doing research. Funny, I heard capitalism encourages innovation. 😂

[@VeteranVandal]

It's interesting that she engaged in an ideologic defense of capitalism, being a physicist, you'd expect a more materialist analysis.

[@phiscz]

@@VeteranVandal well, noone's immune to propoganda. especially as someone currently enrolled in a computer science program, most of the stemlords i've personally met are most bought into the same

[@princeofexcess]

Maybe you should find a better way to criticize videos. What exactly are you doing here but saying look at me I got a degree and i disagree.That is not useful to anyone.

[@TheLetsRead]

@@princeofexcessmaybe you should read what people who want to waste their time arguing wrote rather than the dude with better things to do (sadly that’s not me, i should be sleeping rn). also not an invitation to debate, just calling you silly, silly billy ❤

[@TuckerHolt]

Basically just “ capitalism is good.. except for all the bad things, but that’s a different story”

[@jaeldi]

I think more precisely she is meaning "Capitalism CAN be good (with functional regulation)." which I think is a more accurate statement. Both Capitalism and Communism require a lot of regulation by the state to keep them from destroying themselves. Capitalism without regulation drifts towards a monopoly or dominating trusts. Power & money drifts towards oligarchs who then corrupt government to control the free market and laws that affect society to their advantage; A group of people who collect an unfair amount of power over the system. When the market is no longer free, it is no longer Capitalism. A very similar thing happens to Communism. As power collects to the people placed in charge of managing the state and it's systems of organization, it corrupts in a similar manner also creating a group of people who collect an unfair amount of power over the system. This has happened in both Russia and China where an elite level of people dominate. When communism is no longer the state making sure there are NO hierarchies, it is no longer Communism. I believe it is the same part of human nature that does this in both systems. It's the part of human nature where we usually say "power corrupts." I find it fascinating that in both systems, without regulation and without an active cultural belief in society that those regulations are necessary for the greater good, both system trend toward Oligarchy and then fail.

[@phealtalk]

Welcome to maturity, where you finally realize that nothing is truly good or truly evil. We are all happy you've grown up.

[@Scholaf_Olz]

​​​@@phealtalk Why so passive aggressive?

[@TuckerHolt]

@@phealtalk I’m a big kid now!!

[@skyisreallyhigh3333]

@@phealtalk That doesn't sound like what maturity is at all.

[@m.e.345]

I remember my economics professor saying that most people think that the job of economists is to advise governments, when instead it is more common for governments to hire economists to justify their policies.

[@rcmrcm3370]

Usually it's the oligarchy who trained and insert economists into think tanks and universities to help sell legislation they paid for.

[@DrDeuteron]

That works for scientists now, too.

[@georgH]

Same here

[@Ryanowning]

@@rcmrcm3370 Russia's economy isn't really capitalist in the Western sense of the word; due to the fact that capitalism has been proven to be more of a technology than a choice the ex-Communist states decided to develop their own forms of capitalism. Otherwise it's not easy to know what you're talking about since most countries don't have oligarchs. Unless you're talking about that false assessment that the US is an oligarchy? We're closer than not which is scary enough, but we're not an oligarchy. The likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg hate each other enough to not conspire.

[@ecoista1373]

@@rcmrcm3370 accurate

[@m4rt_]

"This is why we have laws against that" ... and the people avoiding those laws are either paying the people enforcing the laws, or optimizing how close to the sun they can fly before they fall, some can do it, some fall, and some get away with flying too close.

[@polvoazul]

Yes. Thats what humans do. Welcome to an imperfect world.

[@johnjohannesjuan]

...and most of them hurt other people and the environment in the process.

[@Marco_My_Words]

Ah, yes, the big bad corporations-clearly no match for the utopia of socialist regimes, where government corruption is a finely tuned art, perfected across every layer. State-run businesses operate with the utmost inefficiency, "collectively managed" industries thrive under total mismanagement to pump all money into the politicians pockets, and centralized bureaucracies ensure that nothing ever gets done without layers of red tape. Black markets flourish right under the government's watchful eye, and nepotism isn't just present-it’s the cornerstone of every government position, ensuring that incompetence is carefully passed down through generations. Ah, how easy it must be to be so ignorant.

[@DragScopeDevin]

Explain how this would not happen in a planned economy. I'll wait

[@tonykaze]

This video was a shock. I watch every video Sabine releases. This is the first time I've seen her do many things... such as: 1) abandon topics she actually knows about 2) make a video without doing any relevant research 3) blindly spew an almost religious level of dogmatic propaganda 4) just be so blatantly wrong on virtually every asserted fact, both historical and present-day. Feels a lot more like a PragerU disinformation course than a Sabine video. Is it April fools or something?

[@TheVefIt]

right? is like some billionare put a gun on her head "either die or make a video defending capitalism TODAY, no, there is not time for you to research, if you do I'll finance the rest of your research career".

[@BatLunette]

this is far from the first time for her. Many people noticed the same things about the videos she made about other social groups. Basically, if you don't belong to those groups, you could accidentally not notice her doing same things before.

[@tonykaze]

@@BatLunette - fair, I can't say I've seen them all, nor am I necessarily knowledgeable enough on every subject to notice it. - but on this one I am and ... ugh. just ugh.

[@gelinrefira]

Yea, the way she explains capitalism is like hearing a homeopathic practitioner explains medicine. It is like explaining why things float in water by saying that thing is lighter than water, so therefore wood floats and steel sinks. She is right on some very narrow aspects of capitalism that makes it a good economic, while ignoring (deliberately or by ignorance) everything else about capitalism that makes it a terribly cruel economic system. As a chemist, it reminds me of hearing people denouncing something as bad because it has chemicals with long names in it. Who pays you Sabine, to make this stupid video? The US government's disinformation warfare unit? Koch foundation? Milton Friedman's ghost?

[@ellebarron7112]

Im gonna be real, probably paid off to make this video. I wouldn't be shocked if some of her other videoes were too, but she is at least informed on those topics and interested in exploring it genuinely. But this one feels like shes just a mouthpiece for investors

[@MagicAndReason]

One of the often unstated problems of free markets is that every agent in that free market is trying to make it as un-free as possible for the other agents.

[@freesk8]

And the solution is to deny the power to politicians to grant un-free advantages to the big corporations who want to bribe them to gain those un-free advantages.

[@videos5923]

This is just wrong. It is much more effective to cooperate than to make everybody body else your enemy. And most companies know that.

[@crabby7668]

Government is usually the worst example

[@dannyarcher6370]

And that should be one of government's very FEW responsibilities. Making sure that agents get beaten down to size when they get too big for their britches.

[@skaruts]

This makes no sense. Unless you're talking about the way many big companies lobby for favorable regulations and cronyism. Because only the gov can make a market less free, like that. She didn't explain well what a free market is. A free market is one devoid of gov intervention. That doesn't mean the gov isn't there to prevent harm and theft, it means it's not interfering with the flow of the market (through regulations, tariffs, tax-breaks, subsidies, antitrust, bailouts, etc, etc), and it's letting people trade freely. This isn't something any "agent" in the market can control on their own, so that's why I'm saying your comment makes no sense. And there are no free-markets today, btw. They're a thing of the past.

[@santicruz4012]

I remember when Dr Sabine scolded and other scientists for stepping out of their expertise and talked nonsense.

[@maiconfaria]

good times.

[@dschwalm7]

She's actually pretty spot on, from an economic perspective.

[@eqfan592]

​@dschwalm7 no, she's not. Like, not even at all

[@xGaLoSx]

this isn't really controversial or up for debate. Capitalism has done wonders for humanity.

[@clorox1676]

@@xGaLoSx Let me fix that comment for you: "capitalism has done wonders for some"

[@andre-vm]

Here's a list of all the parts in which she says "but that's another story": 2:35 - Fiat money / cryptocurrencies 7:23 - Marx 8:01 - Different ways of governing a capitalist state 9:37 - Microeconomics shortcomings 11:46 - Water pollution (here she used “different” story, rather than “another" story) 13:50 - Social cost of carbon

[@victoitor]

@@first-last-null It's actually only really good for the top 0.01%. The other part of that 5% would still have it better if people could kick out the capitalist class from government permanently.

[@AriesCorinthier]

Can't be spouting opinions on topics you don't understand. That would be disingenuous​@@first-last-null

[@5Gazto]

Yeah, I thought they were only two. This video is really low-brow.

[@appleturnover519]

Are you thinking of savage capitalism? Regulated capitalism as that in effect in the Scandinavian countries seems to work pretty well.@@5Gazto

[@safe4883]

Scandinavian countries use a mixed-market economy combining elements of both socialism and capitalism. I believe that the capitalist part is (mainly) their free market. They also have a generous welfare system (the socialist part). Calling them capitalist would be innacurate, as a mixed-market economy is an economic system in itslef.@@appleturnover519

[@franciscobarrosvito9580]

One of the great examples of survivorship bias is: We praise companies performing investigations, but we never know what investigations are never published because of inconvenient results. Like Coca Cola and nutrition papers.

[@MichaelSmith-ij2ut]

Like ExxonMobil and its 1977 global warming study

[@KlausKlauskinski]

@@MichaelSmith-ij2ut i would recommend listening to an episode of the "skeptoid" podcast about this topic. you may find it by searching for the terms you used. it is rather interesting. i just give the short version. the studies were not cleaar on saying what we know now. the exxon leaders could not be sure about what we know now.

[@btdtpro]

Yeah, capitalism has only been great because it spread out the power more than feudalism, but capitalism as it's fully grown has reconsolidated the power, and disconnected it from geographic location, a king must care about his kingdom, if he loses it he loses everything, a guy with 200+ billion in multinational assets, can extract all the value out of a country and leave it dead, while only increase his power, not losing it like a king draining his own kingdom. In the end it wasn't capitalism but the deconsolidating power that has benefited the people. Note that many places she listed as places you don't want to go, don't have democracy. It's also worth noting that many places listen as capitalist, say America, don't truly have a free market, thus aren't real capitalism. Real socialism, and real capitalism are seldom found anywhere, and instead some combination of the two are present, and capitalists like to pick all the best economies and call them capitalist, while also themselves complaining that they aren't capitalist enough.

[@PeterDmvs]

Rapists investigating why they rape us 🤯

[@mikegamerguy4776]

Unfortunately we do find out decades later. They poisoned the fucking world. Not coke. Just corps. They poisoned the water. The poisoned the air. They poisoned the ground. You have fucking teflon in your blood right now.

[@vylbird8014]

Your example is penicillin? I think you might be a bit off on your history there: The mass-production research was done by two groups. One in the UK, one in the US. Neither of which was done using investor money in expectation of a return. It was 1940-1943 when this happened, and a drug that would stop soldiers dying in field hospitals was of obvious application - both groups were government funded, in the belief that the research would be of value to the military.

[@nothingissimplewithlloyd]

Everything in this video is a joke. Sabinne should be smarter than this.

[@SJDPS]

I agree with you, and your argument remind me of Technics and Civilization by Lewis Mumford. If I recall correctly, one of the main ideas in Technics and Civilization is analyzing across different ages the relation between technology (or technique) and the development of human civilization: Power: to acquire and control more resources through warfare. Warfare seeks for improvement in weapons, communications, infrastructure through Technique (Technology) New technology is discovered by scientific discoveries And technology shapes power structures within societies.

[@yuuyahiguchi7235]

Isn't it also capitalism? The government funded the research believing it will bring value to the military.The way you described it sounds to me it's capitalism.

[@vylbird8014]

@@yuuyahiguchi7235 Only if you stretch the definition to the point it loses any meaning.

[@yuuyahiguchi7235]

@@vylbird8014 I see, but who gets to decide its limitations of definition? Also what is it then if it is not capitalism? Looks to me there were people that were willing to trade their labour for monetary gains here.

[@celeritas5k]

What kind of externality is it when companies pay government representatives not to pass laws against negative externalities?

[@marceleza79]

Or when the government use tax payers money to "rescue" bankrupting corporations? Free market? Invisible hand?

[@amihart9269]

Liberals are inherently idealists, they reject the notion that there is a material origin for political power and see political power as just something arbitrary that sways back and forth depending on the ideas of the time, hence why they always stress that all that really matters is "the free marketplace of ideas." It's also why they don't get why capitalism is flawed, because they don't see a connection between giving control over production to a small handful of people, and those small handful of people then controlling the political system. Most either just deny this happens, saying it's a conspiracy theory or something, or they say it's "corporatism" and that tRuE cApItALiSm hAs nEvEr bEeN tRiEd and we can get it right this time as long as we can win in the free marketplace of ideas and get others on our side with logic and reason. lol

[@KorhalKk]

Damage control, PR, fake philantropy and lobby. I believe corps already have that considered on their balances.

[@VolkerHett]

As somebody who studied economics (micro and macro) and business administration, I should now make a video about loop quantum gravity.

[@munkeepawify]

LOL. Good point

[@djgroopz4952]

That's probably not how it works. A person who studies Quantum physics is more likely to understand economics than the other way round.

[@filippocernuschi6715]

@@djgroopz4952maybe that is the case…she definitely isn’t a good example though

[@Loots1]

LMAO

[@Loots1]

@@djgroopz4952 prove that

[@ghahate18]

I like how in her view capitalism is trusted and cant be corrupted because its illegal

[@michimatsch5862]

I mean, that's why nobody at all is getting murdered in lots of countries anymore. Cuz it's illegal.

[@ishredder4006]

I heard they were roasting her in the comments and I came here to laugh. So worth it.😂

[@crimson4066]

Sabine should be ashamed. Yet again, she proves she has no freaking clue what she's talking about. I'm so sick of scientists - like Sabine H. - using their platform and degree to discuss things they have ZERO knowledge about. They take away credibility from every other legitimate scientist and researcher.

[@dylanburnett7928]

@@crimson4066 You typed 3 sentences and said absolutely nothing. You should be proud, most people have to try to be as useless as you.

[@nerdwisdomyo9563]

Ok well that wasn’t exactly the point shes making, in the same way every other law works you investigate change and punish law breakers, literally no one is saying that if it becomes illegal companies wont do it Im not here to defend capitalism its just that she mentioned punishments enforce laws, so I don’t think this is the strongest point Maybe criticize her for saying capitalism can help get people medicine by sick people being a market, she didn’t mention how in areas heavily affected by disease tend to be poor and people might not be able to afford medicine or get exploited paying, and the historical element

[@flotsamMM]

I can identify a couple sections where a modicum of additional nuance could have led to very different conclusions, but that's another story

[@nooneinparticular3370]

I'd like to hear what you have to say!

[@DeadJack1999]

​@@nooneinparticular3370but thats another story tho.

[@tomwhone9804]

@@nooneinparticular3370 Me too.

[@NutjobChuck]

@@nooneinparticular3370Wealth is accumulative: the more capital you have the more capital you are able to gain and at a faster rate. Money is required for basic necessities like food, shelter, and water. Food, shelter, and water are controlled by capital and can be leveraged by capitalists to charge maximums. As capitalism develops, a middle class develops. The middle class then splits into an upper and lower class: the upper class experiences an upward trend of wealth increase, a better ability to buy goods, the lower class experiences a trend of wealth decrease, losing buying power. The same happens with rich and poor demographics. Inflation, caused primarily due to wealth accumulation, leads to a constant increase in the price of basic goods and services. Do you understand what this indicates?

[@kimathihalley]

like?

[@NaderNabilart]

I think you also misunderstood that capitalism IS deregulation. Commodifying publicly owned wealth, resources and labor for the benefit of private entities is a form of deregulation. That's why we don't run the workplace as a democracy, because we're alienated from our labor, we don't own the resources, we don't own the outcomes, we don't participate in the philosophy and politics behind our places of work. And if you think workplaces are apolotical, Maybe think again.

[@fondueeundof3351]

Why run a company as a democracy? The purpose of a company is to make money, not to implement social experiments. You're free to build your own company and rule as you wish if you don't like following the rules your company's bosses have set up.

[@NaderNabilart]

@@fondueeundof3351 The same reason you want to join a union for your job. Also look up cooperatives, they're mostly run by a workers union and workers can actually own a percentage of the business relative to their contributions. There are way more options than the arbitrary rules that are enforced upon us. "Company's only responsibility is to make money for shareholders" mentality is the reason why climate change is accelerating, one of many disasters caused by this line of thinking.

[@fondueeundof3351]

@@NaderNabilart The purpose of a union is not to make a profit, but to protect and enforce the employee's rights. Completely different purpose compared to a production company. Cooperatives are typically small enterprises that are nowhere as efficient as the "normal" companies. If the world was running on cooperatives, we'd probably still be hunter-gatherers. At any rate, employees are free to buy shares of their companies and take part in the democratic decision taking process during general assembly. That's how employees can "own a percentage of the business" already now. But it makes no sense to implement democracy on all levels of the hierarchy, it would hamper business, the company would become non-competitive and ultimately non-profitable, entailing a probable lay-off of a large part of the staff. You could try to get an official product label "Democratic company", akin to the bio labels that we already know, and since the products would be more expensive than a "normal" company's, I wonder how many consumers would be willing to pay more for democracy-labelled products. Would you?

[@NaderNabilart]

@@fondueeundof3351 Hunter-gatherers? That escalated quickly. If you aren't familliar with cooperatives, a third of Spain's economy is basically cooperatives of high-value businesses, same with Italy and France. New-Zealand's whole agri business is one huge co-op. Even in the US you would be surprised how much essential goods & services are based on the cooperative model. Also they are actually pretty effecient money-wise, no huge executive bonuses, no bribes for politicians, no tax evading schemes and off-shore accounts in tax havens. There's a lot of bullshit expenses in the great capitalist story about financial viability. There's a lot of market crashes, a lot of austerity, bailouts for the rich, indebtedness for all others and unnecessary suffering. Correlation doesn't mean causation if you think capitalism was the only possible way to organise a modern civilization. There's a lot of conscious effort in shaping the public perception & markets for capitalism to even be considered mildly functional. It is not the best we can do collectively. Don't buy into that story especially if the capitalists themselves are being self-critical right now.

[@cookeecutkk]

@@fondueeundof3351 Not sure where you're located but your view on co-operatives is, pardon my wording, elementary at best. I live in Europe, in a country with several agricultural co-operatives, vertically integrated and on par with large companies, in said country. Admittedly, I don't see semiconductor co-operatives anywhere but don't be so quick to dismiss what already works.

[@Paulo-ut1li]

You can compare this video with Albert Einstein's article "Why Socialism?" and understand that physicists also can have a profound view of economy and politics, if they are Albert Einstein.

[@criticalrevel]

1. socialism, communism and politics alike aren't something that u can exhert nor talk about in a vacuum. because it's a WORLD view. not an asolated form of government. 2. the only thing CLOSE to communism was URSS during a small period of time and cuba which ... are US blocated until today btw... 3. it *sounds* (correct me if im wrong), that since he's einstein he cant be wrong bout a matter of things... sure he's an expert in his field of study and is an intelegent person, on the other hand he's also known for being abusive to women. and those kind of ppl cant empathize nor care bout common people well being...

[@paavoilves5416]

@@criticalrevel Just because the USSR wasn't successful, it doesn't mean it wasn't communist.

[@appleturnover519]

@@criticalrevel "known for being abusive to women" ...So you use hearsay as some sort of argument of discourse?!!

[@sudjen]

Einstein was also a terrible person, but you socialists seem to completely disregard that

[@BusinessGamesAI]

This is the best diss I read in a long time, THANK YOU 🙏

[@ad1108am]

Important part that is missing from this point of view is the corporate lobbying of governments. We cannot talk about setting rules that will benefit majority, if a minority can just buy access to politicians. Without that we can single out kids in headlines for not ‘getting it’ but we can do as little as them about the issue.

[@chronoshin8597]

Lobbying of government exist regardless of any system. We need to agree on the first part first.

[@-Devy-]

@@chronoshin8597 No one said it was a problem exclusive to capitalism so no idea why you're trying to make that point.

[@我主也]

"Kids" shes TWENTY YEARS OLD 😂😂😂😂 pls think before appealing to emotions

[@synchronium24]

@@chronoshin8597 Sure, but the effects of that lobbying are very disparate. Scandanavia has managed to temper the influence of corporate lobbying in a way that America, for example, does not even attempt to do.

[@chronoshin8597]

@@-Devy- Yes, is not exclusive to capitalism so the OP comment is irrelevant to the topic of this video.

[@moskus7000]

Yes, and what happens if capitalists capture the organizations that are supposed to regulate them?

[@philippfrogel9355]

Then it is not capitalism anymore

[@Sputnikcosmonot]

@@philippfrogel9355 In that case there has never been capitalism according to you.

[@letmedoit8095]

Capitalist economies are just as susceptible to corruption as socialist economies. That's just human nature. Your responsibility as a voter and a citizen to ensure that it doesn't happen.

[@JD96893]

I'd also just like to add that this could only happen in a capitalist society...

[@romank.6813]

You'd be surprised, but they initiated and installed these organizations to produce an impression they are under some control. In fact, they are not.

[@meierandre1313]

One major problem is the huge political influence (directly and via media) of very rich people and companies. This leads to laws that benefit the rich but not the people.

[@pontiuspilates]

People in power always dictate the rules. Be it capitalists in capitalism, nomenclature in communism, aristocracy in feudalism... it's up to each individual to become better and care for others, no matter the system

[@tripd4949]

We need Trump back

[@asdfboochica]

If you look at index’s for the least corrupt countries in human history (Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Singapore, etc) they are all firmly capitalist countries.

[@jorgemartinez42069]

​@@tripd4949Hahahahahahahaha hahahahahaha. Good one dude!

[@johnnonamegibbon3580]

@@pontiuspilates Yeah, but maybe abolish corporations too? Because it's extremely tyrannical.

[@puelocesar]

Kind of unfair with Cuba, the country had to survive a naval blockade and total economic boycott led by the most powerful nation in the world. But curiously enough, they still have a better health care then said powerful nation...

[@CesarMendoza-tn3of]

First off, there is no naval blockade, I'll tell you why. Canadian tourists and investors work in the island investing and whatnot, Chinese businesses are also investing in Cuba, and that goes without saying Venezuelan state businesses, the Russians, Nicaragua, sells millions of dollars in food to Cuba, so your naval blockade narrative has a very glaring hole, there are hundreds of Spanish hotel companies, whose sole job is to make money with the island's natural beauty and then they give it all away to the government for the so called redistribution of wealth, which curiously, the average cuban only makes at the very least 30 dollars a month, not even enough to buy toilet paper, which is a product that is highly regulated by the government. Secondly, although people may not be technically starving in cuba, they get enough because of the United States, allow me to explain, and as another point they have no obese people, so yes that makes their so called markedly better than the United States, since in the U.S. there are far more obese people because they have more options, people don't have to go to a designated location just for a chicken leg, which is what most Cubans eat, which by the way come, now going back to my original point comes directly from the United States, specifically Florida, which again, makes your whole story of the so called naval blockade a fallacy. Now, if you had diabetes in Cuba, you will not survive, the medication, for it is very expensive, but again this reasoning applies to all medication, you cannot even find a simple cold medication, or even acetaminophen, because they ration it, so if you are sick for a very long time, they only give you what is necessary for the typical course of the infection and that's it, you do not have the option to buy said medication if you need to or to keep in reserve for yourself or for your family, because there are no private pharmacies and much less, you cannot expect for a guy in a bike to come the front porch of your house and deliver the medication you requested from the pharmacy, in terms of health care, their doctors are forced to leave the country to other banana republics to offer their so called services, but it is because the government forces them to and they are also forced to give their money to the government, which means there too few doctors looking out for the patients in Cuba, I am sure a lot of people died in Cuba, because of censorship, a tool like KZbin in Cuba is unthinkable, so take care when you spread misinformation and lies, because people might believe you.

[@cyrussayah3416]

Systems can and should be judged on their consequences, that's like saying "Well not building a wall around our village was a fine idea, it was the invaders that made it not work."

[@ericcricket4877]

​​@@cyrussayah3416He said that regardless of the attempts of the invaders to slaughter the population and them deciding to not have a wall to allow the population to move freely, they have still been able to run a better armor manufacturing operation to negate the effects of the invaders than those invaders themselves, while the invaders have superior resources and no threat of invasion. (Edit: while the invaders have spent significant resources on building a wall and provide no armor for the regular Joe)

[@ericcricket4877]

​@@cyrussayah3416Systems should absolutely be judged on those merits. You just didn't happen to understand written language, that's all.

[@cyrussayah3416]

@@ericcricket4877 Sure, what didn't I understand

[@nara4420]

What does it cost to buy the rules ? What does it cost to break the rules ? What does it cost to hire someone who do it for you ? ... these rules are not like the rules of physics - they can be broken, and they are - that's part of the game !

[@johnnonamegibbon3580]

No, markets are my religion! My professor said free markets are real and good and I believe him!

[@greenaum]

Right. That's sortof the "Oh shit!" in a system that relies on governments to stop businesses from completely fucking us. When everything has it's price. You can exploit the law with lawyers and accountants, simple bribery, or simple bribery (but you call it "lobbying"). Everything's for sale and that includes people and power. And that's why you may have seen evidence that businesses are completely fucking us.

[@0MinusTouch0]

Rules of engagement, not rule of outcome

[@VeteranVandal]

I don't think Sabine ever thought about the short end of the capitalism stick. Must be nice.

[@christophermusgrave2970]

"Wage Labor" not said once in a video about capitalism. Just pathetic, really.@@VeteranVandal

[@TimothyWhiteheadzm]

Two very crucial things you didn't really cover: 1. Markets are almost never free. Governments and other entities get involved to skew markets one way or another. 2. Monopolies and patents. As a company grows in size the best strategy to make money changes from 'compete with others to make the best product at the best price' to 'get rid of the competition by any means necessary' this includes buying out the competition, using patent law and other laws to prevent competition or influencing government to prevent competition. Many large companies spend more effort and resources on lawyers etc than on their 'core product'.

[@godseed7984]

Yeah monopolies especially ones maintained by government force is called FASCISM!

[@albertakesson3164]

​@@godseed7984​​ I would say it depends on what sort of government and what sort of commodity we're talking about. People can actually make democratic elections if they want to maintain some government "monopoly". In this case you may call it _socialism_ instead. Because it's the will of the people and not some authoritarian leader. - Also, the term _monopoly_ wouldn't necessarily apply in this case, because collective ownership really isn't like having just one company dictating all the conditions. It's democratic, you see. Not fascist. Then there's the case for what sort of commodity we're talking about. - It's shown that private enterprise really aren't that good at handling basic stuff that need to be ubiquitous to everyone on fair terms. Like railways, energy grids, some types of medicine and telephony. - In Sweden for example, this last principle also apply for alcohol (yeah, it's kind of funny how alcohol plays into this category for swedes).

[@NAIVADA]

The society and culture we're living in are driven by the worst of values to achieve anything that'd get us any closer to one where truth, equality and morality could prevail. The existence of poverty and deprivation in a world that can create an abundance to meet everyone’s needs is nothing more than structural oppression coming from a failed and elitist social system. We now need to think beyond the whole current anti-economy. Anyone with only half a brain understands that we have now arrived at a time when the methods of science and technology can provide abundance for all. It is no longer necessary to consciously withhold efficiency through planned obsolescence or to utilize an old and obsolete monetary system.

[@christopherellis2663]

​@@godseed7984 The Corporate State is one where all private industry exists to serve the State. The State does not need to own anything, just control the owners. This was Fascism in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

[@SomeoneExchangeable]

She did mention monopolies ("we have rules against that"). Also she explicitly mentioned markets+rules. Which explicitly makes them not free. Because in a "free", aka, unconstrained market, the only constraint is the price, right? So to function on Earth without destroying the environment overtime, you have to put a price tag on everything, including rivers, oceans, and the air, otherwise the "invisible hand" has no power to optimize its use. In other words, for the market to work without additional rules, unpriced externalities can't be alowed to exist. If you want to take the government out of pricing the commons, *there can be no commons* -- every river, stone, ocean, and gas molecule or absence thereof in air has to be outright owned by somebody who can set the price. At which point the only thing left on the planet that is in any way "free" is the market.

[@TheExalltus]

love how she says “things went wrong during the industrial revolution” and chooses to ignore the incentives which led to conditions becoming so rapacious and cruel

[@AlexM-oq5el]

I dont think she ignored it, she said there was a grain of truth in Marx's criticisms and was very correct in her assessment of state socialist/planned economies.

[@TylerHallHiveTech]

She also didn't say "things went wrong in other political /market systems at the same that killed magnitude more" People like to frame roses views of history. Sure. I don't think the was malignant in her assessment. Just brief. It's a speed run in a 16 min video.

[@anakides]

Yeah, we should go to socialism since it’s worked out so well for so many places.

[@mattpierce5009]

@@anakidesNobody said that, and it isn't "either-or" between capitalism and socialism.

[@i.shuuya3231]

She almost had it lmfao

[@andreiionescu4420]

So fun when all problems are answered with "but that's another story"

[@user-cc2it7ix5q]

Also nothing about capitalism itself can be understood by audience. Why capitalists tend to create monopolies in their respective markets? What differs capitalism from feudalism or socialism? Socialist countries mentioned by Sabina have markets, too and they are regulated, too. Socialist countries also had debt and credit. The theme of ownership of the means of production is essential to capitalism, as well as the theme of capital and profit.

[@paavoilves5416]

@@user-cc2it7ix5q It's very easy to Google definitions of terms, people just don't tend to do that. By their broadest definitions, capitalism is private (individuals/businesses) ownership of means of production, socialism is public (state) ownership of means of production. Of course these terms have subdivisions like under capitalism there's laizzes faire, keynesianism etc and under socialism there's communism, nazism etc.

[@Someone.....................]

​@@paavoilves5416NAZISM A FORM OF SOCIALISM?!?! SUDDENDLY THE RIGHT IS LEFT?!? Wow, just wow.

[@paavoilves5416]

@@Someone..................... Maybe you should check out what the National Socialists (nazis) advocated for and how similar their economic system was to the USSR and Marx's ideas. They called themselves socialists for a reason.

[@minhnguyenphanhoang4193]

@@Someone.....................You know that economics and society policies are 2 different issues, right ?

[@BrennanYoung]

Big corporations *love* regulation when it works in their favour. (e.g. extending copyrights on IP)

[@RogerRocks]

Exactly what should and should not be private property is very important to the success of an economic system. Right now big business has too much power and influences governments to make decisions that are bad for the majority of us.

[@nkristianschmidt]

Regulation does not work when the big players of industry write the regulation and capture the regulatory bodies of government. And that seems to be widespread resulting in the opposite of what was intended with regulation in the first place: To eliminate the negative effects of power asymmetry between companies and consumers.

[@karigrandii]

And who does the regulation? It’s the friends of people who own the companies or future friends of theirs. It’s not indigenous people or the common people. It’s usually the rich and powerful.

[@karigrandii]

There is no magical objective ”government” it’s rich people voted by the middle class (because they think they can too become rich).

[@akapilka]

No matter who or which "invented" something, the IP of a product should never be beyond 50 years. Coca-Cola, Mickey Mouse or any other kind of product that has more than 50 years making money, should be already in the public domain.

[@chrisfedde4032]

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair

[@undeadpresident]

Very good quote!

[@acea9252]

Let's understand why Sabine is wrong here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pmXUfJ2fn7Vsb8U

[@Penname25]

That applies to socialists too

[@sophisitcatedpsyco]

@@Penname25explain.

[@FakenameStevens]

Economic education teaches about economic systems, which decide what products are made, how they are made and who they are sent to. I know how my country works at least vaguely

[@seangraham184]

"That's why we have laws against that" is doing a Herculean amount of work here lol

[@LuisRomeroLopez]

Isn't that still free market?

[@asdf30111]

@@LuisRomeroLopez Now what do you do when people start paying for laws they want or at least to alter laws in their favor, or outright buy the ability to make the laws?

[@andiralosh2173]

Yeah let's jus make slavery illegal. Problem solved. Do we need to support people or change systems? Nope, we wrote words down on paper, yay us!

[@asdf30111]

@@andiralosh2173 I don't know; slavery seems very profitable. In fact, it is so profitable that maybe I should take a risk and bribe some people and see if we can make it legal again. Then I can let the apple farmer sell his son for an apple juicer. After which, I make the son work on the apple orchard I got when my folks died, and as I force the son to pick the apples for free, I can charge less for my own apple products, which will in time put the father out of business and force him to sell his orchard to me and maybe even have him throw in the juicer too. After which, since the father won't have the orchard, he won't be able to make money as quickly. So he also won't be able to fully repay his loan. In a way, he will also become my slave, as from then on he will have to work just to pay off the interest on his loan.

[@gogudelagaze1585]

@@asdf30111 That's illegal in all normal countries, I don't see your point? OLAF does some amazing work. Would be great if western EU countries also had anti-corruption orgs, and not just rely on OLAF, but even so it's mostly fine.

[@chriseastopher]

Spoiler: she hardly addresses capitalism and doesn’t defend it basically at all. Indeed, what she does do is points out a bunch of the excesses of capitalism and argues that we need government to reign in capitalism. If anything this is a video about how capitalism is problematic. The primary innovations of capitalism that uniquely define it are free enterprises whose existence is determined by their struggle for the aggregate of surplus value, wage labor and middle managers. Free enterprises and capital investments, which she does discuss, existed in mercantilism. At least, that’s my understanding and would be happy to be corrected. But, at any rate, wage labor, the aggregate of surplus value and middle managers weren’t discussed. Even her comments on the value of competition generated under capitalism is ultimately a criticism about how capitalists won’t compete fairly if left to their own devices. It’s almost as if she thinks government regulation is a part of capitalism. 😂 then there’s the penicillin example, which basically demonstrates how capitalism is parasitic and unnecessary because all the capitalist did was exploit publicly funded research and then made a profit exploiting sick people who needed that medicine-I guess I’m not smart enough to understand why we need a capitalist for that and the government couldn’t have just distributed it to those who needed it at cost. 🤷‍♂️

[@HominidPetro]

This is a self-fulfilling argument. Of course capitalism is good for "progress" when "progress" is defined by the constraints of capitalism.

[@vitulus_]

Could you elaborate?

[@HominidPetro]

​@vitulus_ Just look at how capitalism relates to water, for example. Capitalism encourages the production of bottled water. Then we say that bottled water is a godsend because there are places that rely on bottled water as their only safe source of drinking water. While in reality it was the economic forces that led to the creation of bottled water that also led to this dependency because of the pollution or depletion of natural water sources. This is not a lack of regulation. The exploitation of natural resources for the means of production is an inherent aspect of capitalism. Imagine a world where water has implicit value or rights. We would not be able to produce any of the common goods that we now rely on to operate on a daily basis. This is largely because of the way capitalism relies on scaling of value i.e., hierarchy.

[@vitulus_]

​@@HominidPetro Wouldn't the depletion of natural water reserves be because of the demand of water -- something that is always the case? The problems with capitalism is normally the resources wasted that weren't harvested. E.g., a water plant burns coal which contributes to climate change. Nonetheless, I mean to ask you to elaborate on how "progress" is defined by the constraints of capitalism? I should've been more clear, sorry.

[@valentinrafael9201]

@@vitulus_ What does capitalism actualy do? You get born, and it is imposed upon you ( unless you want to go and hunt ofc ). This makes it the GOAL of life now. You have to succeed in this system that is being imposed on you since birth, or else you die. So, in order to succeed in "life" you have to succeed in capitalism. All of a sudden, capitalism is like a force of nature. If you look at socialism on the other hand, it IS STILL being imposed upon you, but it OFFERS safety nets in case you can't adapt to it as well as other people. Capitalism is TRANSGRESSING over your human rights, by not offering an alternative. Socialism is PROMOTING life by giving you a safety net, because some people are more gifted than others or even if they aren't, some people get motivated more easily, and can become better faster and so on. Capitalism is LITERALLY unethical and immoral, because of its transgressions over human life. Eusocial species are the most successful ones in nature, and we have the advantage of being intelligent beings, so we can make it even better than that.

[@HominidPetro]

@vitulus_ in the bottled water example, the invention and distribution of a product whose reliance on is necessitated by the power that created it is defined as "progress." This is a self-fulfilling argument.

[@frogstarian]

I remember my Econ professor saying that economic models are "oversimplified and based on bad assumptions". And he was absolutely right.

[@coonhound_pharaoh]

Neither of those statements is true. Your professor was a bad teacher.

[@frogstarian]

@@coonhound_pharaoh how about the assumption that consumers have perfect knowledge? Is that really a reasonable assumption?

[@coonhound_pharaoh]

​@@frogstarianModern economics does not assume consumers have perfect knowledge, as this assumption is not necessary to perform economics. It is only necessary to transform economic logic into a mathematical formula. Economics assumes all people have imperfect knowledge, because economics assumes people are the way they really are. There are mathematicians who pretend to do economics, and who assume customers have perfect knowledge because this assumption is required for their maths to work. But these people are not economists. They are mathematicians masquerading as economists. Acting as though an instrumental assumption is true is the exact problem with mathematical economics.

[@coonhound_pharaoh]

@utoobeizkaka2737 Of course. The one who actually understands the science is a "bad student." Unlike anthropologists who make claims about a science that particular science has never made. I'll go with "you have ideological bias" because it's clear you have that in spades, but haven't actually read a book in your life. Liking your own posts is such a childish thing to do.

[@shikyokira3065]

Which is exactly the reason why centralized controlled economy will never work. They will always oversimplified a complex problem when trying to implement solution as a policy in their economy.

[@SuperMrMuh]

Just some two cents from a physicist turned economist. You did a fairly solid summary of the textbook version of capitalism, but "the devil is in the detail". The (understandable) backlash in the comments section stems from the fact that most people don't believe this simple picture to be close to reality (and of course, as you explained, market failures are a part of it). And I have to agree with them. While the simple microeconomic description works for goods with little specialization required, like apples, bread and Döner, the model quickly breaks down for most of the products relevant in modern economies. Economists often fail to validate the assumptions on which their models build, and thus apply this simple model in all kinds of ways which are not valid. Thus they implicitly assume that markets always tend towards a (unique) equilibrium. Real markets can get stuck in suboptimal equilibria, or equilibria might be unstable (hint: financial markets). Real markets overwhelmingly tend to converge to oligopolies or monopolies (e.g. the whole tech sector), so the static picture of many competing companies is the exception than the rule. Capital allocation does not favor the common good, but is driven by highest profit opportunities (no, they are not equal, even though assumed in the models). Planned obsolescence, advertising, etc... One might argue that the problems can be fixed just by the right regulations. And arguably, some of them can be. But some are side-effects of the system's dynamics themselves, i.e. they will always show up one way or another, and even regulation frenzies won't stop these underlying dynamics from showing up again. The matter is of course not helped by the ideological debate. Especially the economics profession tends to deflect criticism on the realism of their models and thus closes itself off to innovation in their own science. Which of course heats up the debate even more.

[@TeaParty1776]

> markets always tend towards a (unique) equilibrium You are close to the truth but dont know it. Equilibrium is a constantly changing potential that ever actualizes. >Real markets overwhelmingly tend to converge to oligopolies or monopolies You evade the effect of convergence: divergence. Increased profits make possible increased competition. Capitalism is constant competition, actual or potential. Market leaders always face potential competition, thus they must constantly be more productive. These facts of capitalism were condemned in the 19th century both by Marx and religious conservatives, both of whom wanted a culture without independent thought. Your pseudo-economics is a rationalization for your terror of independent thought. Mans life requires the risk of knowledge. God and communism do not change this.

[@coonhound_pharaoh]

@@TeaParty1776 In reality, free markets do not tend toward monopoly or oligopoly. It has never happened in history that a company undercut its competition and then hiked prices to obtain monopoly income. All monopolies in history are the result of the establishment of the monopoly by the government. The same is true of cartels. Cartels tend to disintegrate because the individual members have more and more motivation to break the cartel agreement as time passes.

[@marinareis3606]

​@@TeaParty1776 It's that what you're seeing when you look around? More competition and efficiency? Wow I wonder how crazy people will find current society in as little as 100 years.

[@SuperMrMuh]

@@TeaParty1776 did I mention in my first sentence that I'm speaking from a position of knowledge. There is of course a strict mathematical definition of equilibrium, which is referred to. And it has been proven that markets don't necessarily end up in an optimal equilibrium. Look up the Sonnenschein Mantel Debreu Theorem. Regarding competition, the keywords are brands, mergers and acquisitions. Brands form monopolistic competition. Competition is good for the overall market, but not the Individual firms. Therefore it is eliminated through M&A. I'm not sure what God and communists have to do with all this...

[@SuperMrMuh]

@@BigEMU1 no need to stick with physics, I'm an economist by training. Weird, nowhere did I refer to distributive aspects (if you mean by Pareto distribution the distribution of wealth). I was commenting on the efficiency of markets in theory and practice.

[@denj96]

"Capitalism is good, except for when it isn't, but that's another story." Phenomenal.

[@gundabalf]

on the other hand, communism isn't good for anything

[@jordias6436]

The amount of "that's another story"'s in this video is notable. I don't care enough to count them but still noticed she uses the expression quite often.

[@buolindo8795]

That's not what she's saying. She's saying capitalism is good except when abused and therefore needs laws to prevent abuse. An analogy is that cooking knives are good, except when used to stab people, which is why we have laws saying we can't stab people.

[@Rob-uc2jh]

@@buolindo8795 That analogy would hold if the knives were also the ones making the laws and loved stabbing people. 0/10 take, guy.

[@buolindo8795]

@@Rob-uc2jh Sure, but that is why we need a government that opposes stabbing

[@rsfaeges5298]

Marx very much did NOT say that Capitalism was just grabbing the means of production. In Communist Manifesto he absolutely swoons over the revolutionary growth of productivity that capitalism created/unleashed.

[@vollmagnet]

it's very clear no one in the writng room ever actually read any Marx (or the 100 years of critical theory that came since him), they know the critics and critiques of capitalism only through memes and the Economist.

[@I_Lemaire]

​@@vollmagnetSabine is from Frankfurt. She probably has read Das Kapital in the original German

[@Fluxquark]

@@I_Lemaire If she had then she wouldn't have made this dumb video

[@NRWTx]

​@@I_LemaireNop she hasnt, I can tell you from this video.

[@matthiaslastname9019]

@@I_Lemaire Lolno. That's like saying someone from Ireland who describes Joyce as just this dude who couldn't finish a sentence must have read Finnegan's Wake.

[@PapyrusEngineer]

I would love to hear "the other stories of Capitalism" that you mentioned in this video.

[@mossydog2385]

Like stories of Dickensian penury....

[@mopfling9280]

Stealing lunch money from children is good. Let me explain. After stealing the lunch money you got more money thats good. Now there is a crying child that doesnt have money for its lunch but thats another story.

[@NaderNabilart]

Who would sponsor these stories? She needs fiat money to give it to the banana farmer then give the banana to the shoelace maker to make her a lasso and steal monsieur Candie's horse.

[@agrajyadav2951]

​@@mopfling9280this video in a nutshell

[@KarlSnarks]

@@mopfling9280 philanthropists be like: How odd, after I stole the lunch money from children, there are so many hungry children, how could that have happened? Lets solve this by giving all hungry children 0.1% of what I stole from them, that will solve the underlying issue surely!!

[@petecurry4881]

Your description of capitalism perfectly illustrates a fundamental imbalance inherent to the system. Everybody wants to be the one with wealth turning wealth into more wealth, not the guy who needs to borrow to turn apples into cider. That's why it starts off as a simple distributive system but ultimately tends towards stratification of wealth and power.

[@VeteranVandal]

I bet Sabine never visited a slum in Somalia. I want to see her preaching the good of capitalism there, in the exploited south. It's easier to think something is good when you have mostly benefited from it.

[@ross4]

It's actually crazy she managed to talk for 16 minutes about capitalism without mentioning the inherent power imbalance of labor and capital.

[@Johnhart1944]

She did say it's important to have good regulations to control the negative externalities of the system. Some countries have figured this out better than others. Minimum wages, rules against monopolies and deceptive marketing practices, taxing accumulations of wealth and using the money to help those at the bottom of the heap, etc. Go look up the GINI indexes for the countries of the world to see how different regulatory schemes change the balance. A bigger problem now may be how to rein in wasteful practices in things like deceptive advertising, planned product obsolescence, and the mindset that pushes people to buy things they don't need which creates more waste and pollution.

[@DanJuega]

@@Johnhart1944My capitalism just needs one more fix, bro. I promise it will be good this time.

@@VeteranVandal And you've never visited Venezuela. Or Cuba, or Nicaragua.

[@erikanderson1402]

Didnt you make a video about how your dreams in academia died because schools have become money-making institutions?! Do you not see the connection here?

[@SuleimanAbdulkareem-y8j]

She is obviously hiding the truth . For more sponsor from the capitalist. Why will a physicist discuss an economic issue

[@KogiSyl]

Money is the symbol of need. You only pay for things that you need, you don't pay for things that you don't need (or do you? ;) ) This regulates the scientific institutions to produce only that science that someone actually needs. That's the theory at least. Sadly the money given to scientific institutions is from politicians, and thus it is often the case that scientists are allowed to just spend this money on whatever they want. This results in millions of papers that no one cares about, including other scientists.

[@mandi4820]

She did, but that doesn't make her a hypocrite, she simply isn't morally bankrupt enough to call for the state to fund her research with coercively extracted money

[@erikanderson1402]

@@mandi4820 governments create money. Passive income is the only kind of income that is coercively extracted.

[@fortu4en2ti0]

In that same video she pulls the ladder up behind herself because she claims that the very same diversity program that gave her the opportunity to even get near physics at the time, to her, create hostility against the recipient because of a perceived lack of merit. Completely ignoring that the fault lied in her sexist mentors and colleagues that were harrasing her. This was after explaining that being in one of those programs, and not directly under one of those asshole who really had it in for her, actually protected her from being fired from said position. Which helped in being able to continue her career. Always the worst take.

[@sethkamens6085]

Sabine, why do you mention Cuba as a negative example of what happens when you don't embrace Capitalism when it has been cut off from most of the world and thus has literally not been able to participate in global Capitalism yet has produced some absolutely incredible medical breakthroughs (just a few examples being the first to develop a meningitis B vaccine, first to prevent the transmission of HIV from a mother to child, and the development of a lung cancer vaccine? How do you explain this? Just one of many critiques I could make, but at least this is one that I don't see being raised by others.

[@BluesManPeich]

I was going to raise exactly this. She's attributing stuff to "capitalism" or lack thereof quite arbitrarily, disregarding or misrepresenting international relations and geopolitics, class relations, economic structure, Marx's critique... and her own incentives to talk authoritatively about topics where she clearly is it of her element (also capitalism). We'll always have her videos about dark matter I guess.

[@danschneider7531]

Reminds me of the Capitalism got the Covid vaccines nonsense when in fact it was large gov't funding, not private capital, that succeeded in that regard.

[@gparizoto]

Nice to see that someone else noticed it!

[@renatopereira2315]

That would actually require understanding history beyond: "Under socialism there is no innovation"

[@ai_serf]

the internet came from public research, darpa, not private corporations. corporations just pillage the hard work of the public.

[@AlexDrums482]

"Capitalism is good! Now here's everything that's wrong with it. But that's another story!" Indeed, an honest critique of capitalism is a very different story than the one you just told.

[@AL_THOMAS_777]

🙌 👏 🙏 🤝 👍 you b e t it is . . .

[@numbersix8919]

💥👌👍♥️

[@luwen77777]

It was pretty incomplete indeed, but well, that's the average KZbin title to gather attention. She just talked about the evolution of society with it and the ambiental problems.

[@jamesvonhendriksen6314]

This video has been useful. The amount of rebuttal videos to it have been quite illuminating.

[@PC42190]

Cockshott’s video is specially good I would say

[@neologicalgamer3437]

LMAO this was a fuckin' hilarious comment. Underrated

[@thealmightyaku-4153]

All that shows is that there are a shockingly high number of pseudo-intellectual morons with overly-high opinions of their own intelligence who, for some reason, still buy into a long-outdated 150-year-old theory that was never correct as if it was farted out by God himself.

[@Thomas-gk42]

@@PC42190 this video is problematically on different levels. What jamesvonhendrikson said, is exactly what SH claimed later on twitter (seriously). But what those 'reaction-vids' always do, is trying to benefit from a more successful channel, without doing really own work. Isn't that exactly the ugly face of capitalism? I don't do this kind of "own research", better use my own brain for thinking.

[@PC42190]

@@Thomas-gk42 I already answered that. Have a good day.

[@robertocabral9907]

How to defend capitalism in 16 minutes: say all the good things about it; and about the bad things, just say: "That is another story."

[@Simson616]

Anybody remember the Nestlé leader board member arguing for why drinking water shouldn't be free?

[@1GTX1]

Water is free in your country? I get a bill every month here in Balkans and water is polluted by bad maintenance. My sister and her family only buys water from shop, 2$ for 6 litres.

[@VeteranVandal]

​@@1GTX1in my country, depending on the place, we can pick water for free. You have to go there and transport the water, but it's possible to do it.

[@MrOzzification]

He argued that water actually shouldn't be a human right. If it were, then Nestle wouldn't be able to privately own water reserves in dozens of countries around the world.

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

@@1GTX1usually the fee is a distribution, treatment and waste management fee, not a price on the water. Like, I'm not the defending the way it works or anything, and in practice it does put a price on the access to water, just saying, the theory is usually that this is not a price put on the water itself. Of course this is a lot harder to defend when the distribution system is made private and for profit.

[@gpsboladao8874]

Privatization has jeopardized distribution in many places in my country because the distribution just isnt profitable. Yay capitalism🎉

[@DavidJohnson-ib1dh]

If economists claimed that capitalists shit golden bricks I think Sabine might have said "shitting golden bricks can cause constipation.... but that's another story". Maybe next time read the critics of capitalism, not just their fanboys.

[@leroysimon5692]

👍🏾

[@JoshNpublicgplus]

She clearly didn't even read the fanboys. The video comes across like a summary of Smith's and Mises' Simple Wiki pages, with a little bit of Prager U sprinkled in there for good measure.

[@vitulus_]

Its an intro to capitalism in a short video. This isn't just their "fanboys," it's talking about the history and motivations behind capitalism. She also educated people about the importance of the government in regulating the economy, something a lot of conservatives don't understand. That's a good thing in my opinion.

[@DavidJohnson-ib1dh]

@@vitulus_ The history was fake. Anthropologists know that the story of barter being inefficient so currency was invented is BS. That's just not what happened. The "history" was invented by economists and is a myth. Honestly a lot of economics is bunk. It's not a scientific field. She should have read the critics of capitalism and not just the fanboys.

[@KogiSyl]

Why don't you read about how all the ideas of capitalism haters turned out? How many people have to die in order for you to understand? Socialism is nothing else but casting spells on reality. "Why don't we just write a rule that everyone works for everyone else and that will solve all the world's problems". And when they finally get rid of all the people that became wealthy out of their own hard work, only the thieves and cheaters remain, and as the only people with any wealth left in the whole country, they slowly take it over, easily buying off people pushed by socialism to the brink of poverty.

[@MegaLuros]

I didn't expect it to be one of the most middle of the run neo-liberal defense of capitalism.

[@lobodip]

Yeah, this is dog-brained. Sabine needs to stay in her lane...cuz this is an embarassing proto-ECON101 analysis.

[@hollowman9410]

It’s 2023 and people still confuse capitalism with basic economics.

[@Allenrythe]

​@@hollowman9410It's crazy that she brings up Marx, but then goes on to bring up arguments that he directly debunked in the first chapter of Capital. Capitalism as an economic concept was literally created and defined by him as everyone before just called it "Political Economy". It's irritating because she could have easily related the concepts of surplus value, use value, and labor value to the same concepts that she knows from physics. Marx's whole ststems approach to political economy through dialectic materialism is just conservation of energy. He even uses the concept of power/energy as an analogy for labor power and productivity. One of the few economists in history to approach the economy from first principles instead of defining it in its own present reality which is the cornerstone of theoretical physics. There's a reason so many of the early physics relativists were communist, they saw the arguments made in Capital as directly related to the systems defined by general relativity.

[@clara-raxxa]

​@@Allenrythetrue af

[@Tom-it6gi]

I did, more or less.

[@FKProds]

It's this simple: Capitalism requires surplus production to generate profit. It incentivizes over-consumption. No carbon capture methods can keep up with our production and consumption economically. It is not sustainable to expect endless profit going to the few. We much share our limited resources more fairly and responsibly.

[@rheiagreenland4714]

Ah, an excellent hypothesis. I wonder how an esteemed scientist failed to consider such a simple concept.

[@wdyrm]

​@@rheiagreenland4714 Maybe because being a scientist does not inherently mean that you are infallible when it comes to speaking about subjects you have no expertise in? Honestly this is a level of critical thinking I would expect from a child.

[@rheiagreenland4714]

@@wdyrmExactly? I'm implying that maybe people shouldn't use their supposedly scientific platform to spout ideas they have demonstrated such a brazen lack of applying scientific rigor to. The encouragement of perpetual growth, and thus the requirement of a nonexistent infinite reservoir of resources, thus resulting in over-exploitation and collapse, follow from the basic principles of capitalistic ideology, which would be painfully obvious to anyone who applied genuine scientific rigor to it. This video amounts to nothing more than the either ignorant or dishonest exploitation of one's platform to spout undeserved propaganda. So you're kind of just insulting your own English comprehension.

[@kunibald128]

Ok but first (minute 05:17) we are told that capitalism is a system that works "without anyone needing to have an overview" and this is why it is "pure genius", then we are offered multiple demonstrations that extensive overview and supervision by governments, including drastic economic intervention (such as imposing a price on carbon), is absolutely required to make it work. Is this not a contradiction? Perhaps we would better accept from the start that invisible hands are not to be trusted for the achievement and maintenance of the common good.

[@mehmeteking]

Capitalism is basically giving control of economy (effectively everything) to private individuals expecting public good to come out of it. Absurd beyond belief, but then again some do believe it.

[@madshorn5826]

Worse than that is that Sabina is overlooking the fundamental problem we face: Eternal growth is unphysical and therefore a fairytale. Having surplus and using this surplus for helping new businesses is all very well, but expecting _a return on investments_ leads to growth, unless your return is tuned to just recuperate losses in other investments. We may not need a very fine grained regulation, but at the very least compound interests will have to go. This is not a political statement, this is acknowledging planetary boundaries. 'Infinitely-big-globers' (i.e. economists) are as delusional as flatearthers.

[@regencyrow1867]

@@madshorn5826 There's also the fact that banks make risky loans and engage in questionable practices which leads them to demanding politicians, and the public coffer, to bail them out when it all goes wrong. This is saying nothing about CEO's who drive their corporations/banks into the ground and, not only get a golden parachute, are actually allowed to move on to another company to begin the toxic practices again. Capitalism in theory has nothing to do with Capitalism in practice, in reality Capitalists privatise profits and socialise losses; they are all welfare queens who depend on the heavily taxed working classes to rescue them. They also interfere with the political process via lobbying and bribing politicians.

[@danunpronounceable8559]

​@@madshorn5826you make the assumption that growth is uniform across the planet, but this isn't the reality we see, it's staggered, where growth is rapid, slow, stagnant or decreasing in different geographical locations. In addition, it seems to me that human populations naturally plateau with increased wealth, which means more growth is unlikely to be necessary, as wealth may begin to concentrate within a plateau'd or shrinking population. In addition, we are talking of hypothetical situations that may take hundreds or thousands of years to compete - in those time scales, humanity will likely create the means to export its growth off-world, thereby enabling eternal growth

[@kailykins]

And that is exactly regulation, which is the opposite of free markets and a lot of the capitalism woes... Capitalism fosters easy return investments not humanitarian efforts for example. That I don't think it is efficient resources allocation... it's greed.

[@95_Nepentheses]

Isn't it ironic that this is the video coming right after one titled "Do your own research, but do it right"?

[@matteogirelli1023]

No. She and her team did, and they made a good job out of it.

[@lynth]

​@@matteogirelli1023 She didn't put in even minimal effort. She literally recited a bunch of capitalist propaganda talking points and easily debunked myths (e.g. the "barter to money" myth) while insulting victims of capitalism like North Korea with her ahistorical takes that are ignorant of the responsibility of the US for the destruction of Korea... and at no point has she even defined capitalism and its most fundamental aspects (e.g. private property) nor in any way looked at the overwhelming criticism against capitalism. This entire video is badly researched, unscientific, ahistorical nonsense and severely discredits her.

[@matteogirelli1023]

@@lynth what's that rant about Korea man... And she's not defending the US. I disagree entirely.

[@lynth]

​@@matteogirelli1023 She is promoting US propaganda and denigrating the DPRK (a victim of US imperialism). What exactly do you disagree with? Your unscientific and pointless comment is as good as Sabine's video.

[@matteogirelli1023]

@@lynth with everything you just said and for that matter everything you're going to say ever ahah. Bye spam

[@ddd-cm1yk]

USA big companies using cheap labor here in my country in the PH. And the wages are not liveable. How is that good?

[@notyouraveragecomment1328]

Exactly

[@Eleku]

How much did the wages increase in the last 10 and 20 years because of these companies?

[@jadbiz]

@@Eleku I rather take my chances unemployed than work for shit salary.

[@Gogolade]

​@@jadbizmay I ask in which country you live? How would you fund your life if you were unemployed? What would be your advice to a worker in Vietnam? Just stop working. Be unemployed, because you can't have a high salary? The world would descend into mass poverty and starvation.

[@vasconcelossentimento]

@@Gogolade The world has already descended into mass poverty and starvation, it all depends on your threshold. Informal work is much more common in the third world for the reason that decent paying jobs are scarce and heavily competed and poor paying jobs are sometimes not even worth it and ppl would rather have a bunch of side gigs. The advice is the same, do whats best for you. Multinational companies don't go to the third world offering sick benefits and good salaries, thats why they go there because they know they can get away with offering so little.

[@KaiHenningsen]

There are a few too many "that's another story"s in this one for my taste. Those are real problems that need more than a throwaway formula - at the very least, a short description of the topic and how it relates to the current one. Because there are a number of dragons hidden behind those throwaways.

[@gsdgsdgdhsadds]

Sabine's channel is on such a weird arc. These non-physics videos are so much less objective, yet she acts as authority. I hate when experts in one area act like a know-it-all in topics they only have surface knowledge of.

[@sprayoregon822]

actually that's exactly what capitalism does: she is launching a new product line because the profits from the old one just don't cut it no mo.

[@hoochygucci9432]

Exactly. She needs to read Chomsky. You don't want to live in Cuba? FFS. Does she know about the blockade?

[@Audio_noodle]

@@hoochygucci9432 isn't chomsky fairly tankie lol

[@jesan733]

@@hoochygucci9432 nobody needs to read Chomsky and his extreme anti-US anti-capitalist bias, especially not now when Russian propaganda is everywhere anyways.

[@weneedcriticalthinking]

She is a tool for the dollar war economy and acts like she is expert on the subjects she talks about many times when she is not many times.

[@davidoliveira7184]

For someone who's brought clarity to complex physics topics, this video jumps the shark. It feels like a slow-motion crash (course) into the Dunning-Kruger effect. With simplistic, naive interpretations and moralistic undertones, it propagates myths and misconceptions that many experts have spent years trying to debunk from the public space - some of them Nobel laureates, and, multiple times requiring the use of the expression "Zombie Ideas" in the book’s title.

[@0MinusTouch0]

Zero specific dispute of a single point she substantiated in the video. Your paragraph displays the performative of those who disagree with a topic, and yet holds no specific grievances with the foundations the topic is said to stand on. What myth or myths. Youre washed

[@AL_THOMAS_777]

🙌 👏 🙏 🤝 👍 made my day mate ! ! !

[@pseudofool]

Absolutely well said. This video exposes the pretentiousness and shallow nature of her mindset.

[@notanemoprog]

Nothing "pseudo" about you, fool @@pseudofool

[@davidgjam7600]

The trans rants were red flag #1, and now this just makes me realize that I should take everything she says with a heaping spoonful of salt

[@ubaldoarias5653]

You are a physicist and I enjoy your videos from time to time, stay on your field please. You are making a disservice to your channel.

[@Thomas-gk42]

"you are making a disservice to your channel" -- in this case, you are right. Normally her non-physics topics are well researched

[@1873Winchester]

How does Sabine explain that while polio was developed in a capitalist country (by Salk, who refused to profit from it btw) it was the efforts of the Soviet Union that resulted in it's mass distribution in 3rd world countries and subsequent global eradication? This was not seen as profitable by the western capitalist countries, but the SU argued for it and mass produced vaccines and argued for it in the UN and WHO until it finally happened.

[@christophermusgrave2970]

Most of the good outcomes of capitalism for most people (even in the imperial core) came about by pressure from people advocating alternative systems. See Robert Owen and how the 8 hour day came about. When capitalism murdered it's way into being the only show in town again we're seeing those gains evaporate.

[@jasondashney]

Credit where credit is due.

[@jeff__w]

It was, of course, Victor Zhdanov, Deputy Minister of Health of the USSR and a delegate to the Eleventh World Health Assembly in 1958, who urged the systematic eradication of smallpox (not polio) via WHO-led worldwide campaigns to quarantine, isolate and vaccinate people around the world. Dr Zhadanov’s argument was so convincing that the World Health assembly voted unanimously in favor of the global campaign. That certainly provided an impetus to a campaign to eradicate polio worldwide starting in 1988, an effort which continues. The number of new polio cases for the week ending 13 September 2023 was 18, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

[@stevealexander8010]

Well - was it profitable ? That's the answer.

[@Admiral-General_Aladeen]

Lol yeah good things can come from any ecomnomic system but if you actually argue that the soviet economic system was better... well then you are probably an idiot Also thats more a choice of politics not just economics

[@cuoreazzuro]

I love when scientists put the flaws of capitalism inside of "but that's another story". is about the flaws of capitalism... how can that be other story?

[@ahumandoing6813]

The flaw of capitalism is that, like communism, it doesn't exist in the real world. The rich and powerful will always cheat the system and use it to their own advantage.

[@Marqan]

Notable points where she used that phrase were when the details were purely a question of laws and regulations, and those are very different in different countries. For example you'd have a hard time convincing a danish citizen how capitalism hurts them, because they have a mostly well-regulated market with a decent government. You can much easily convince US citizens (and people who think the US is the pinnacle of capitalism) about how eeeevil capitalism is. She also used that phrase where corruption was the main factor. She used that phrase when she talked about monopolies. Some people mistakenly think that capitalists like monopolies, or that monopolies can only exist under capitalism, or that monpolies are more likely to exist under capitalism. Depending on your knowledge, the topic of monopolies can be quite lengthy itself. Another one was regarding CO2 and pricing of natural resources. The negatives regarding those were either unforseeable consequences, or problems that were not a consequences of the economic system, but a consequence of human expansion and advancement. I guess I see how people would argue this point, however I don't see a non-capitalist country that did any better int his regard, so that would be a tough point to argue.

[@leroysimon5692]

👍🏾

[@denglish5275]

Einstein really should have called in on this video and said some words.

[@AL_THOMAS_777]

Yeah mate ! Einstein did promote SILVIO GESELL ! Go and look for that guy . . .

[@VeteranVandal]

A socialist. And for good reason.

[@numbersix8919]

💕👌👍🌎🇨🇳

[@PedroDiMaggio-dk4lb]

Can't she just stick to physics? Every other topic she delves into reveals her complete ignorance or is completely boring.

[@0olong]

Fortunately his classic 1949 essay "Why Socialism?" Is freely available and easy to google!

[@darrishawks6033]

I watched this video immediately before watching your video on doing your own research. I think you're obviously very intelligent and you must generally do a lot more research than other commentators. With the utmost respect, I also think this video is an excellent example of poorly done research. It may surprise you to know that Karl Marx agreed with much of what you said until you mentioned him. His Das Kapital is an analysis of capitalism and how and why it works, explicitly including how it's very good at producing commodities, like your penicillin example. Capitalism is obviously progressive as compared to what came before it. Marxists agree with that conclusion. The idea that Marx was just some dude with a bullhorn shouting about how bad capitalism is is a false one, no doubt pushed by people who would rather you trust what they have to say about Marx and Marxism ever looking into it yourself. You can also see this ignorance about what Marxism actually does by the fact that you listed Laos, Cuba, and North Korea, while not mentioning China at all. I assume you did not mention China because you attribute China's success to capitalism. But here's the thing: So do Marxists, and China is also Marxist. If you look into the history of the communist movement in China, you will quickly learn that there was a lot of infighting among Marxists about whether and to what degree to allow the capitalist mode of production in China for exactly that reason. In fact, two of the five stars on the Chinese flag represent capitalists (the urban bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie). Mao even said that, due to China's economic backwardness, the capitalist mode of production was necessary to develop China's productive capacity. The controversy surrounding Deng Xiaoping's "Reform and Opening Up" was not primarily due to deviation from Marxist principles, it was due to that approach causing a lot of negative effects for the people. Deng responded to that criticism with "When you open the window, flies will come in." Thus, one major difference between China and the other countries you mentioned amounts not to "not Marxism," but to a disagreement in policy. Vietnam is much the same. In fact, there has not been a country where a Marxist party controlled the state which was in a material position that Marx considered a precondition to socialism: Fully developed capitalism. That's why Soviet Russia had the New Economic Policy. That's why Maoist China had the Unit System. That's why North Korea made the Tae-an Work System. These countries know that the capitalist mode of production is necessary to truly transition to socialism, but they're unwilling to just open up to full liberalization for a multitude of reasons, not least of which is that they have seen what happened to other countries that did that. Now let's address that other elephant in the room: Sanctions and blockades on the Marxist countries you did mention. North Korea is the most sanctioned country in history, Laos is the most bombed country in history, and Cuba is blockaded by the world's superpower, which is only 90 miles away from it. It is very bad form to condemn a country for its poverty while refusing to let that country trade with anyone else. I know I'm prattling on, so I just want to say two more things: 1. You said we should listen to economists more. I agree. But why limit yourself to non-Marxian economists? Some of the best economists in the world are Marxian economists. Marx wasn't some idiot, his approach to analyzing economies isn't useless. He also wasn't some prophet, and he was wrong about some things. 2. You are intelligent and well-read enough to not have an excuse to trash on Marxism without having read Das Kapital. It is dense, but it is not nonsense, and it doesn't have any preachy ideology. As I said, Marx wasn't some dude with a bullhorn, he was a philosopher. It's logical writing with logical conclusions. And since you're German, I assume it will be easier to read in the original German as well (but maybe not because English texts from the 1860s are pretty weird to read sometimes for me, too lol). It feels like most anti-Marxism is just people who looked at the Communist Manifesto and some anti-Marxism commentators rather than just looking at Marx himself. I can see this video has almost 25,000 comments, so I assume you won't read this, but I hope you do.

[@toethong]

this is an outstanding comment, you touched on a lot of things i was thinking and then some. commenting to boost. i hope to see sabine make an earnest attempt at a follow-up video addressing these criticisms.

[@darrishawks6033]

@@toethong Thank you, I really appreciate it

[@LL-xg1xo]

The first point is just blatantly incorrect, why lie? There are extremely few marixst economists let alone good marxist economists. Your devotion to Marx and his immeasurable intelligence is not proving anything. You have made not a single coherent point here.

[@darrishawks6033]

@@LL-xg1xo There are many Marxian economists. It is not a lie. How are you measuring their goodness that you have come to this conclusion? You are clearly more upset by my position than by my ability to back it up. You are clearly just upset that I am a Marxist. You know very well that I am coherent here. You are calling me incoherent because you don't like what I am saying. Me: "Marx... also wasn't some prophet, and he was wrong about some things. " You: "Your devotion to Marx and his immeasurable intelligence is not proving anything" Did you even read?

[@LL-xg1xo]

@@darrishawks6033 There are as many marxian economist as flat earther physicists... Your argument is equivalent of "Why limit listening to physicists who believe in sphere shaped earth as opposed to flat earthers", there is absolutely no significant presence of Marxian economists in the academia and I'm very curious of a contrary claim being demonstrated by anyone. I made a comment about your obvious religious defense mechanism towards Marx, because you deflected multiple times to Marx being a "philosopher", this is pretty common thought process of Marxists - appeal to density and not on the content itself critically. Most of your initial comment against Sabrine's video is she apparently undermined Marx's intelligent , not an actual remark about the concepts itself, which is what leads me to believe that you, as many other marxists, are entirely consumed by ideological dogma.

[@HuckelberryFriend]

All I am going to say is that watching this video after having watched the one where ms. Hossenfelder gives advice on how to do our own research on a topic we are not experts about makes me think she didn't follow her own advice in this subject.

[@mikean7074]

I think she did do a little research, it's kind of like how creationists wouldn't be able to lie about what science says without first having read some of it.

[@HuckelberryFriend]

@@mikean7074 No doubt she did research, but I feel she didn't follow her own advice. She has a good video giving advice about how to do research on subjects we are not experts on. What I feel after watching the two is that there's something off.

[@ElementalAer]

Exactly, like, she and her team did the research, but only looked at only one author, and when she came for one of the best to analyze capitalism (Marx) she just brushed him over. I feel that this video came pretty crude, if she made a whole series on how capitalism works, the pro and cons, and how it sustained until now, and how it'll be in the future, a profound analysis, it'll be nice. Sadly this video is just a crude opinion coming from her and team

[@zuz-ve4ro]

​@@ElementalAerlike she doesn't address the whole anti-capitalist academia lmao. almost every discipline of social science has a massive section dead set on critique of capitalism and she never addresses that. for anthropology guys like graeber, for sociology literally any post structuralist, for economics, well you don't get funding here without helping donors

[@Arvy565]

she's also on KZbin. a product which probably wouldn't have existed without Capitalism so the fact she could make this source of income in exchange for free information for people like you makes me think it doesn't need much expertise to realize Capitalism is not a monster! but a blessing we must be thankful for. you on the other hand don't practice what you preach. you hate Capitalism and you're here using what Capitalism provided you! why don't you use the amazing products North Korea has made instead?

[@pablob.m.7746]

"we make laws against it" except when capital overrides government like in many of capitalism's biggest exponents like the US, their sphere of influence, Russia, middle east, etc..

[@PunishedRalph]

I mean, this wouldn't and hasn't changed in other systems. It's not a functional of capitalism, it's a function of powerful people lobbying for their interests - that isn't something we can ever prevent entirely.

[@rainbowkrampus]

@@PunishedRalph "Powerful people" Well, you know, I think you just pointed out the main problem right there. Why are there people with so much power that they can influence entire governments? Seems like eliminating the system that ensures that this sort of thing is going to happen, capitalism requires capitalists after all, would be a good thing. Maybe replace it with a system that flattens the hierarchy and distributes power to everyone more equitably? Such that no individual ever attains that much power in the first place?

[@ajr993]

Or when a communist presitator arbitrarily makes whatever laws they want to suit them or the party at the moment.

[@notesscrotes4360]

Capitalism is simply an economy owned and controlled by owners of capital. "Corporatism", "Corruption", etc. are not aberrations, they're the point. You can't have a democratic government ~and~ an entirely parallel authoritarian system of private ownership and expect them to not clash with each other.

[@pablob.m.7746]

Guys you're talking government systems, I pointed to a fault in the economic system the video is about. Not that they are independent, but don't stray

[@costrat]

I believe I counted 5 times you saying "but that's a different story."

[@costrat]

6.

[@cynicalefy]

@@costrat probably because 5 of the 6 times were in reference to things that veer off track from what the video is meant to do, which is to explain what capitalism is and why it works the one single part she dismissed actually concerning the topic of the video, being marx's criticisms of capitalism, was dismissed because the criticism sucked. it was a blanket statement criticizing a phenomenon that occurs in a fraction of cases, that of which not actually being a criticism without juxtaposing it to his system of governing of which makes no sense and doesnt work, and a phenomenon of which not always being caused as a result of capitalism. its less of an actual criticism and more of just an emotionally driven virtue signal for propagandizing. his actual solution to the """problem""" of capitalism is blithering nonsense which is barely even worth the time it takes explaining why it makes zero sense

[@draem01]

@@cynicalefy that's a whole lot of nothing

[@cynicalefy]

@@draem01 k

[@kristoffer3000]

@@cynicalefy She didn't explain a damn thing, all she did was get on a soapbox and proudly vomit propaganda all over

[@seanmcmurphy4744]

Sabine, you missed the main problem. “If someone doesn’t use resources as efficiently as possible, some competitor can do it better and beat them off the market.” You’re right thus far. Due to the “invisible hand”, in a free market products are efficiently produced and prices are generally low. Here’s the problem you missed: _All the economics you describe also applies to the job market_ . All of us who don’t own a business make a living by selling a product: our labor. And we are in competition with everyone else who has the same skills we have. Businesses have to pay the lowest wages they can; otherwise a more ruthless competitor will “beat them off the market”. The worker who will work for lower wages will get the job. Unless they are in a strong union (only 11.2% of US labor is unionized), workers have no power, they have to accept the wage employers offer. As a result, in a free market, the same “invisible hand” that allocates resources will also in the long run reduce wages to the minimum. To the government minimum wage, if there is one. In a true free market, there is no minimum wage laws, and wages fall to subsistence level, as they do in developing countries. Of course businesses don’t usually reduce employees’ wages. What they do is fail to raise them to keep up with inflation. The result is a slow erosion of real wages. During the last 40 years in America, since Reagan conservatives have tried to run the economy on free market principles ("trickle down" economics), productivity of workers has risen 61% while wages have risen only 17% (NBC) - and the lowest paid have actually fallen. This has resulted in a transfer of _$50 trillion_ from the paychecks of American workers to the top 1%. This is where our huge socioeconomic inequality comes from. So the "free market" capitalism you and huge corporations champion, eventually impoverishes the majority of workers. For the common good, there needs to be limits on "free markets"

[@kilgoreT010]

👍

[@danbylee6129]

the idea that trade started with only bartering is a myth

[@erlinacobrado7947]

This is absolutely right. Anthropology and History mostly concur by now. You'd expect more from her. Sad.

[@lambd01d]

There are some excellent YT vids by Michael Hudson and David Graeber about the history of money. The barter economy never existed and was an assumption by 18th century economists.

[@erlinacobrado7947]

@@lambd01d I vaguely remember anthropology and history journals as well.

[@danbylee6129]

the channel andrewism also has an fantastic video on bartering specifically

[@furiousgreencloud]

@@danbylee6129 ==How The Barter Myth Harms Us== kzbin.info/www/bejne/jV7KlXuofrOsg7cv

[@glassbakeware]

“Capitalists only want a small return on their investment” is such a naive thing to say after mocking a teenager.

[@karigrandii]

Yeah where does the return come from? At what cost? Does it stay the same or does it grow or shrink? How can that keep on going forever? What about going forever if profits need to grow forever? So many questions just left open

[@johnnonamegibbon3580]

Capitalism doesn't create anything. It isn't tech focused, it's profit focused. Tech comes from the government. Corporations then repackage it and sell it to you at an upcharge.

[@mikolajtrzeciecki1188]

@@karigrandiiThe profits will grow only until it gets _profitable_ for a competitor to emerge and step into the given market.

[@Aaackermann]

A sentence said often by people who don't understand compund interest. And I am confused that an acclaimed scientist like mrs Hossfelder falls for this notion.

[@greenaum]

Right. The entire point of everything else she said, is that the capitalist would want the maximum possible return on their investment. Or else be out-competed by someone else who did.

[@FabianLopez_lomba]

From a science communicator I would have expected facts and data, not a lot of opinions in the form of an essay

[@DynamicUnreal]

Do you need facts and data to see that leaves on a tree move when the wind blows? Or that a rock falling into water causes ripples on the surface? Do you even know what society actually looked like before capitalism? I’ll give you data. Between the year 0 and the year 1800 the world economy grew an anemic 40%. Since 1800 until 2023 it has grown 6500%. That means, that there’s been roughly 130 times the economic progress in the 200 years since capitalism was created than there was in the previous *one thousand and eight hundred years* before that. It is so clearly obvious that it doesn’t even need an explanation.

[@GlitzPixie]

This video is truly embarrassing

[@Dylan-zm3ht]

This is any scientist when not talking about their field.

[@Saktoth]

​@@Dylan-zm3htHer physics is bad too unfortunately. Half the stuff she says on here is her own speculations.

[@Gkuljian]

Wait, you mean Cuba and North Korea have economic issues for reasons other than socialism? Like maybe US hegemony?

[@eddue12345]

I admire you as a scientist, Sabine. And this is an excellent HALF essay. But it's missing the second half of the story. This video could be taken down and amended, added the 16 more minutes to explain the problems with Rogue, extreme, capitalism in practice, devoid of regulations, in the same great way that you explained the benefits of capitalism, In Theory. This new amended video would be 32 minutes long (and some change). Alternatively, there could be a desperately needed Part 2 of this video. It could be named: "Capitalism Part 2 - Capitalism is BAD. Let me explain."

[@Thomas-gk42]

Well, there is a kinda part two, it´s titeled "the techno optimist´s manifesto". The complainers in this comment section should watch it too.

[@rlsxs4ever]

if capitalism was so good on distribution, there wouldn't be people dying of famine in the same countries that house millionares and even billionares. it can be efficient in meeting demand with offer, but only inasmuch as that meeting results in profit. if not, then, well, no effort (or only a minimum effort) will be made in that direction. a very good question to be asked in that (pretty common) tale of "getting money from a richer person (the capitalist)" is: how come that person got so much money when so many people are lacking? but i suppose that's another story oh, and i remembered another issue: even marx recognized capitalism's potential to stimulate progress, but, decades after marx died, capitalism also developed an unhealthy way of fomenting progress in the form of programmed obsolescence. since, under capitalism, innovation is pursued only as far as it generates profit, then further progress can only be justified by making the products in a way that people are forced to keep buying newer versions of them (which also makes the ecological impact of capitalism all the more catastrophic). innovation (either scientific, philosophical or artistic) could be pursued in a much more sustainable way if not conditioned to the capacity of generating profit

[@blist14ant]

This is intellectually dishonest comment

[@Xenomnipotent]

@@blist14antmy favourite part of your reply was the part where you provided an argument of how the comment is intellectually dishonest.

[@PhillipStewartYYZ]

Famines are only caused by governments in the last 100 years. We have the ability to move food quickly if allowed.

[@JeffNeelzebub]

And communism has definitely proved to be better at preventing famine 🤡

[@rlsxs4ever]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bV62i6Okd9yjr8U&pp=ygUOc29tZSBtb3JlIG5ld3M%3D

[@carjaune6793]

This video is great but the title should be "The Dunning-Kruger effect"

[@copsuicide]

how about "kindly white lady calmly explains why africa and the 3rd world must continue being raped and desolated and why that's good, actually."

[@vitulus_]

No it shouldn't. Although the comments probably should be labelled that.

[@eqfan592]

​@vitulus_ you really need to educate yourself on this topic of you honestly believe that. Like, desperately so

[@vitulus_]

​@@eqfan592 Eh. Here is a comment: _"We literally produce enough food to feed billions of people, and that just for a surplus of food companies produce. The only reason we still have hunger in the world is because it isn't profitable to feed everyone."_ Reduces a nuanced issue to being the result of capitalism.

[@technofsfsfsfs]

@@vitulus_ Ahuh. The remote outpost without roads and logistics problems, right? So why are there so many hungry people in industrialized nations, inside of massive cities? Why does it make sense for corporations to throw away perfectly edible unsold food? Hint: $$$ and product value going down if it's handed out to the hungry and poor. Why do you think supermarkets throw away billions of pounds of food each year?

[@Babaj997]

It’s crazy to gloss over the most holistic and relevant critique of capitalism as “a story for another time.” Marx’s critiques were also not purely on moral grounds, there are many works including his own which investigate the unstable nature of capitalist economies and how the “rules” which stabilize them enforce vast wealth inequity and imperialist violence. The book “One-Dimensional Man” discusses how the technological rationality of industrial societies (including but not limited to Western capitalist societies) results in analysis of this sort, in which capitalism is discussed within the framework of capitalism and is self-fulfilling in nature. It is a mistake to see technological progress under capitalism as only possible under capitalism; and in this age it’s a mistake to even unequivocally attribute moral goodness to technological “progress.” edit: to add some critique more specific to this video - even if you want to defend capitalism, you don’t do a great job defining it or addressing the myriad problems people have with it. If your point is “capitalism isn’t incompatible with environmentalism,” you may have a reasonable start to a video here, but you’d still be ignoring how globalization and colonialism has led to environmental devastation in the global south or how governments are poorly equipped to regulate rapid technological advancement.

[@takanara7]

Yeah, it's ridiculous. People justify capitalism using this simplistic nonsense "framework" about farmers (who just happen to have farms, who knows how they got them) trading with eachother as individuals as if no prior systems existed (like feudalism) and everyone is equally rich. The whole point is that you have an underclass of people who have no "stuff" to trade and thus must sell their labor to capitalists in order to survive, and capitalists then in turn ensure that they stay poor. While you could theoretically have environmentally sound capitalism, so far it seems unlikely to occur. Of course, a global eco-socialist revolution also seems unlikely to occur so seems like we're all f'd, tbh.

[@numbersix8919]

@@takanara7 In fact, the majority of people living in feudal societies were disenfranchised (ripped off) during the transition to capitalistic private ownership, just as the people of the USSR were. They were then given the choice between starvation and property-less landless "wage slavery," as it was called by no less a figure than Abraham Lincoln.

[@Matt-wc5qb]

This video has the same vibes that a presentation I gave on cybersecurity before I spent years learning it. A lot of my ideas around it back then were logical, but not correct, and some were based on out of date information that has since been revised, but I still didn't know that because I hadn't done any real research. David Graeber's work on debt, governmental systems and trade before capitalism, and before recorded history disproves some of your early points. It doesn't do so by glossing over critiques, criticisms, and ignoring valid arguments intentionally or just to shorten a video. I don't think your point on penicillin holds any water. Penicillin research was funded by governmental research to aid wounded soldiers. There was no capitalist innovation in that. The ability for mass production isn't uniquely capitalist, just the motivations to do so for fulfilling a hole in a market and making profit. Finally, I don't think that listening to economists is going to fix capitalism. There is no incentive to listen to them (unless it means short term profit). Using economist's ideas to fix global warming will not happen as long as economic power can be used to get political power. Using the political power granted by vast amounts of capital to prevent any real regulations is the most efficient solution. This isn't doing capitalism incorrectly, this is doing it optimally. Any change done to fix this system through official means will not happen in time to save us from global warming because capitalism deems it most efficient not to have any changes at all.

[@appleturnover519]

This video was an INTRODUCTION to capitalism and not intended to FIX capitalism. If you want to FIX capitalism, find a way to feed the brains of all those Trumpsters out there.

[@noriantiri9310]

To be fair their are economists who support a way more radical view than what she presents. Their are some economists that are keynesianists for exemple, or neo-marxists

[@DomiJohnson]

"works best if customers can pick what they want". But you never mentioned that they cant, which is the most important thing. Free market assumes transparency (Keynes) which we dont have in a globalized world with many supply chains where at the end people are exploited.

[@zuz-ve4ro]

weird how all these apologetics assume away insane unequal distribution of customer power, called money. capitalism is fluid oligarchy.

[@donthiebautable]

It also assumes the customer is free to pick what they want in a practical sense, rather than being constrained by budget. I may be "free" to buy a quality item that lasts years and saves me money in the long run, but I am not free to spend money I don't have, so I buy shit that falls apart in 3 weeks over and over and *over*

[@ralphm4132]

shhh, you'll upset the neoliberals

[@ILikeCrunchyWater]

@@zuz-ve4ro unequal distribution of power in the form of money is only a problem if we presuppose that the game is rigged. Otherwise person A got more money (and power) by exchanging it for more important goods or services (or more of the same goods or services) that other people needed than person B did, and the argument that person A should have exactly as much power as person B becomes harder to make.

[@zuz-ve4ro]

@@ILikeCrunchyWater or when there is more than 2 people in your weird scenario. people aren't trading machines, it's not my intuition to ask a starving person for money when he starves. but it develops to be in systems where there is so much power in hands of so few that I can't do anything about people without homes on every turn.

[@ArchaeanDragon]

"But that's another story" is the new hand-wave.

[@AL_THOMAS_777]

Yup. When the argues are running out . . .

[@cafiend]

In a system where you “vote with your wallet,” those of us with little wallets get dragged around by the ones who have big and bigger ones. Also, generational wealth means that each generation does start from scratch.

[@ILikeCrunchyWater]

This only sounds bad prior to you having the realization that if person A has more money than person B, they got it by providing a more important good or service to more people than person B provided goods or services to. If person A has done 1000x as much for other people, in a way that's objectively measurable, why shouldn't they have more financial sway than person B?

[@mennol3885]

Usually generational wealth erodes in 3 generations down to poverty if not managed well. The only 2 ways to keep it are: 1. Be good at making money, which equals to be useful. This is not bad, they would have made their own wealth, they just got a head start. 2. Get your family into politics or criminal activity. This is bad, they cannot compete on equal terms, so they rig the system to preserve the status quo.

[@Call-me-Al]

​@@ILikeCrunchyWater i wish! That usually isn't how they got that amount of money.

[@LuckyFlesh]

​@@Call-me-AlThen how do they usually get it?

[@litlmayo]

⁠@@ILikeCrunchyWater​​⁠​​⁠​⁠ there is no objective way to measure “how much someone has done for society.” why is it neccessary to you to break to down solely to economic impact? is there no room for artistic impact? political impact? what about an amazon worker that’s helped ship millions of packages? or the creator of penicilin or insulin? are these people not as impactful as a billionaire like Oprah, or Warren Buffett? Furthermore, that is a false dichotomy. Those are not the only ways to make a company “worth more”. Microsoft used incredibly heavy-handed business tactics to force it’s competitors to assimilate into Microsoft. Amazon dropped the prices of diapers to a price that was unsustainable for other retailers to get rid of them, then raised the price back up after the other retailers were gone. These are not examples of “Well they were just better at selling diapers”, they are examples of companies attempting to eliminate competition so that they can have a monopoly, whether they were providing a better good/service or not. We do not live in a meritocracy.

[@tupG]

"Things went badly wrong but that's another story" she is not willing to tell. Just brush it under the carpet Sabine.

[@travcollier]

The medium of exchange story you tell about "what is money" is quite common, but not very well supported by evidence or really even theory. Things get really interesting when you realize that demand for a currency can be created by forcing people to pay taxes with that currency. Anyways, monetary theory isn't particularly critical to the video, but I thought that Sabine and others here might want to know. ETA: What is actually important and wrong here is conflating capitalism with market economics. That is not how (nearly all) critics of capitalism use the term. In my experience, most often the critics are referring to *finance centric* economic and social policies. Capitalism as in a system centerd on the priorities of those who own capital. If thst is what capitalism means, then even Adam Smith would likely side with the critics (he wrote an awful lot about how property owners undermine markets). The metaphor I prefer... Finance is like engine oil. It make the engine run much more efficiently, and modern engines require lubrication to work at all. However, lubrication oil is not fuel. More over, too much oil will actively damage an engine. Sadly, at least in the US, every economic hiccup over the last 4 decades has been addressed by making finance more profitable.

[@robertmuller1523]

While it is true that money predates any written record, even MMT apologists do not claim that money was invented for the purpose of tax collection. This would also not make any sense because the first currencies were backed by commodities, while the MMT narrative primarily represents an attempt to justify monetary state financing using fiat currencies.

[@Sputnikcosmonot]

Adam Smith said that any time two business owners meet in private a conspiracy against the populace is made.

[@ReadyAimSing]

"Not very well supported" is quite a charitable way to say "not a single shred of ethnographic evidence." Barter and coincidence of wants are a neoliberal creation myth.

[@davidturner9827]

Found the trashy MMT acolyte spouting crap in the KZbin comments section!

[@GhostOnTheHalfShell]

Lord, thank you for writing this.

[@NoNono-o3h]

This is like the meme of "if somebody is trying to rob you, just say no, its illegal to take your things without your consent"

[@VeteranVandal]

This also illustrates why regulations can't save capitalism, by the way.

[@MagDrag123]

Companies when they're fined $10 million for breaking a law and making $100 million: "Oh no! So anyway..."

[@cooterhead_jones]

Is making $100,000 a crime in itself? I would really like to see some examples of a company being able to pay $10 million in order to acquire $100 million. If true, they should do that all day long, every day, and tell me how can participate. I cant wait to hear you say you wouldnt sign up for such a deal. You could start small, sau $10,000 for $100,000. @@MagDrag123

[@VeteranVandal]

@@americaisthebestcountryever ... Only temporarily.

[@maxbailey9164]

@@americaisthebestcountryeverah yes those cfc regulations have saved the climate from pollution and the profit motive is definitely not still driving us toward extinction

[@iotaje1]

One correction about Token money : It was invented and used long before barter trade, and the evolution from barter to commodity money to token money is a myth. People in past communities even used virtual money most of the time, by simply remembering what other members of the community owed them. Dave Graeber's book on debt goes into this in great detail.

[@takanara7]

yeah this simplistic view of "how money started" is kind of ridiculous. If you actually look at how primitive societies actually worked, people mostly just helped eachother out and kept track of who helped them who owed them favors, etc. The other problem is that today, we could obviously just use computers to keep track of all this trade stuff without need rich people hoarding all the wealth. In the examples here, she's just using individuals who just "happen" to have all these resources? but how did they get them originally? Does this guy with the apples have workers on his farm, or whatever?

[@thomasjgallagher924]

I didn't take her explanation as being chronological. I think the order was chosen to show why fiat is more effective for those who question the integrity of the system. Afterall, the idea of enjoyably edible apples (as used in the example) is pretty recent too. :)

[@iotaje1]

@@thomasjgallagher924 The issue is that this myth comes from Adam Smith who presented it as a chronological evolution. Smith had studied societies that used barter and then commodity money for trade, but all of those societies had used money before, and simply kept their old habits after the currency became unavailable.

[@numbersix8919]

@@takanara7 Hey a lot of people don't like Zardoz but IMO it's the ultimate SF movie. You reminded me, that is exactly how the Eternals manage their economy. Each Vortex (where the Eternals live) posts its surpluses and shortfalls via the Tabernacle (a godlike AI) and they trade them directly. And everybody works equally at manual labor. No spoilers though! People make fun of Sean Connery because of his Exterminator uniform (bright red panties and thigh-high boots) but I say, grow up! This is a serious movie.

[@thomasjgallagher924]

@@iotaje1 Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

[@morten1313]

She was so close, she was so close at the end. What she doesn't realise is that you cannot "just set it correctly", by nature capitalism will force deregulation and centralisation because that's what makes money, why politicians and top capitalists all in the same class in the US? It's not going to change by itself in the system.

[@brainbitsnbytes]

There is a core problem even with the basic capital you mentioned. Those with the money to invest are the only ones getting the return, thereby continually concentrating wealth and disrupting the ability for the majority to trade. And that doesn't even include all the psychological biases that make it even worse like reducing people to resources, corruption, and imbalance of power.

[@fjooyou]

Those with money are the only ones running the risk of losing it too. What basic thing to forget about investors lol.

[@drrodopszin]

Now we just need to prove mathematically that this capital concentration in the hand of non rational, short term thinking people is inevitable. Wish we had done this capitalism experiment in multiple countries with multiple cultural backgrounds... Hmm, hmm.

[@mauwrice5472]

@@fjooyou are you insinuating that workers don’t share in corporate losses? what are you 12?

[@drrodopszin]

​@@fjooyouand also how extremely stupid those investors can be, when they are convinced by techno blah-blah. Remember Elizabeth Holmes? Anybody believing the drop of blood sales pitch is unfit to have that much money. All the while people with great ideas but low social skills are not getting funded. Because having money and knowing what to invest in has not a too big correlation.

[@fjooyou]

@@mauwrice5472 The topic was investors, the ones paying the workers, who's at the risk of "losing" that money if the corporation fails.

[@HPDevlin]

All the problems with Capitalism arise out of "but that's another story."

[@DrTheRich]

as it does for any version of any system you try to explain in 15 minutes lol

[@yamiyomizuki]

​@@DrTheRich if you are going to expect people to accept your position, you shouldn't be leaving multiple essential points unexplained. if 16 minutes isn't enough, you can always make the video longer.

[@DrTheRich]

@@yamiyomizuki She never claims to expect people to accept her position. She just presents the subject, if don't you want to believe it then don't. Besides youtube is filled to the BRIM with more expansive videos on the subject If she made the video longer than 15 mins, people would get bored after 15 and still complain she didn't explain enough. Heck people often only watch 1 minute and then already comment about stuff that would be explained the next minute after...

[@TheShizzlemop]

uhhhhhhhhhhh@@yamiyomizuki

[@kryptoid2568]

​@@yamiyomizukithis increases watch time anyway

[@f.schnell]

People are fully within their rights to branch out and comment on topics that they are not "experts" in, but really sticks out to me is how matter-of-factly she presents loads of statements here. This is no way to make a video on societal issues, where is the reflection, reasoning, the sources? This lack of reasoning would be typical for PragerU and similar propaganda channels, but is far below what I expected from Hossenfelder, whose videos I have enjoyed for a long time. This seems like a classical case of a overconfident STEM person barging into humanities to "solve all of this", which I kindly ask all my fellow people in STEM to refrain from doing. A different and more nuanced approach is needed in these fields.

[@zukes6517]

This really hit the nail on the head

[@no-cv4dx]

This seems like a bot comment. It says nothing about what's actually in the video, just a negative comment that is general and can be posted to any video.

[@denvertuttle2583]

Yes but, according to Sabine (whom I normally love!) "That's another story." 😕

[@mikean7074]

There's not much backing up what she says because that's how all religion functions. She is fully in the cult of capitalism.

[@1873Winchester]

@@no-cv4dxNah it's specific enough. the PragerU reference for instance is too specifically suitable to this topic, as is the STEM person barging into other fields analogy. It's not generalized and it's not AI generated.

[@ElodieGotchi]

Distribution on a large scale like the example of the pennicilin could be done under socialist/planned economics too. It's not a constant of capitalism only, and the issue with capitalism is it will be badly planned as it is mainly about profit, not saving lives

[@unh83]

Sabine: Brings up major flaw in her argumentation Also Sabine: But that's another story

[@normanrockwell8372]

*cries in marxism*

[@johnnonamegibbon3580]

@@normanrockwell8372 Cringe toothless conservative take. The left is right about markets. They aren't real. Once corporations exist you can no longer control your own borders, media, elections, policy. You have no control over your own government. So even as a conservative you should not agree with Sabine's bad take.

[@Aaackermann]

Thank you so much for pointing this out! I was stunned when I heard her saying this! Jesus.

[@jason59k55]

@@normanrockwell8372 man if only sabine followed the tracks of einstien. (he made a text called "why socialism," its a great read for marxists and regular socialists of you haven't already)

[@lavendeer6290]

The problem is that capitalism has always been rotten to the core for hundreds of years but we can fix that easily by getting rulers to concede power to people who read number books

[@maddruid840]

I really like your physics videos.

[@Mythhammer]

So do I. I suspect she should stick to those.

[@rodrigo.55]

yeah

[@glowerworm]

Lmao what a perfect comment 👌 Deserves to be at the top. For those who don't have the option, I'd just like to say that I can view the dislikes and they're literally 50% of the likes. So 1/3 of the people who watched this video disliked it.

[@aylbdrmadison1051]

Me too. And since I've studied what she obviously has not, she really does need to stick to what she knows, or at least not be afraid to read the source material that is more than obvious she has not. She is purely right-wing in her analysis, and even using tired old narratives that were debunked decades ago.

[@aylbdrmadison1051]

@@glowerworm : _"So 1/3 of the people who watched this video disliked it."_ Proud to count myself among them. This video starkly reminds me of dealing with laborers who claimed to be "master carpenters" when I was just a journeyperson myself, and could tell they didn't know a damned thing about carpentry. Still, I know they all had other talents I didn't. Bigoted ideals blind the bigot. And classism is a form of bigotry.

[@timothybell5698]

I'm not sure money came out of bartering. Based on paleolithic tally sticks, and probably a whole bunch of other evidence, I'd say David Graeber is right when he suggests it's an IOU made material. Debt exists before money, in other words, and bartering may come into the picture, but would pretty much be tangential.

[@numbersix8919]

I don't think Dr H accepts any of the social sciences as valid except the most shady of them? (Modern economics.)

[@araaraaura1887]

IOUs are just debtified barter.

[@MrOzzification]

@@araaraaura1887Your statement implies one can barter with currency... which is just flatout wrong. Its a misunderstanding of debt and how money (credit/IOU) was first established as a tool for tracking debt. Something we have plenty of historical evidence to backup. Something which the barter-to-money myth on the other hand, does not.

[@TooManyBrackets]

You're right. It didn't

[@araaraaura1887]

@@MrOzzification IOUs are not currency by definition.

[@rodrigovieiraramos4829]

As an economist I am happy that this is an actually a pretty unbiased vision, But still too simplistic of a view of economy. Capitalism cant be seem as the reason of progress, just because you dont have anything to compare it, and marx pretty much agrees you need a really advanced capitalist society to make socialism work( why Cuba and thing like that dont work). But the reason the system Didnt collapse is because the exploration was moved to the “South”. Is so Nice to say in germany capitalism is good, when everthing you buy and wear is made by cheap children labor and slave labor in Asia , África, and latin América. And in Didnt even start with the changes made after the 80s, that basically made capitalism a Gamble speculation game instead of economic and social Growth.

[@AtypicalScot]

That's a contradiction: if free market competition is beautiful decentralised self organisation it cannot be at the same time necessarily regulated by centralised bureaucracy so by your own rationale free market capitalism simply doesn't work, it requires its antithesis (centralised planning) to function 'correctly' which, if done correctly to eliminate all the contradictions of capitalism (of which there are many) becomes socialism. But that"s another story.

[@DRDR3ADSA]

Hahaha, excellent point 👏🏾. Her arguments are weak at best, and completely wrong at worst. You've basically just dismantled her pathetic video in a couple sentences. Very poor quality from Sabine tbh

[@Lewa500]

Market regulation isn't socialism. It's there to ensure markets remain open and fair. That's what "free" means. It doesn't mean free from regulation. You can't have freedom of speech without a governing institution there to enforce that freedom. Otherwise you'll have your speech silenced by the most powerful in your society. At the same time, socialist economies must necessarily allow for decentralized markets in order to allocate resources efficiently. That's why China did so in the first place.

[@AtypicalScot]

A free market economy is one without state intervention or regulation thus free means without regulation. not sure what you've been reading?@@Lewa500

[@notimportant2478]

if free market competition is beautiful decentralised self organisation it cannot be at the same time necessarily regulated by centralised bureaucracy. Why ? Your argument looks like it has the form of: Competitive decentralized self organization => no centralized regulatory body. To give a counter-example to your argument: Human society is a set of decentralised self-organized individuals (in competitions for ressources and reproduction) and it is regulated by a centralized body (the law) it's very hard to even exist and scale without a centralized body.

[@al2642]

She got this all wrong. How possible, she's an extremely prepared and intelligent human being..... Was not expecting. Something went wrong recently....

[@PaoloDiGiusto]

It reminded me of the "true Scotsman fallacy": 1. Capitalism is good for all 2. This consequence of capitalism is bad for someone. 3. But *true* capitalism is good for all. Too easy to put the blame for all "market failures" onto insufficient rules, or insufficient rule enforcing. This is NOT another story, this is the heart of the story. I could agree if you had said: Capitalism is a necessary - albeit painful - phase in the development of human society. But it is not "the end of History" - or maybe yes, as it will drive human society to disaster.

[@Penname25]

Funny socialists do the same thing when they attempt to create real Socialism were not socialist, as if the Impact doesn’t matter

[@VeteranVandal]

Capitalism Realism bby. Gotta end the world instead of ending capitalism.

[@takanara7]

The end of history in the form of the end of the human race. Or perhaps we'll all be governed by AIs in the next few years. I bet most Americans would rather vote for ChatGPT then Trump or Biden, lmao.

[@christophermusgrave2970]

Nevermind that the objective outcome of capitalism has been to overwhelm any institution that sets out to restrict it's action.

[@rogermwilcox]

I've heard similar arguments made about "true communism".

[@kilgoreT010]

Unfortunately, I do not have a capital, therefore I am what Sabine would call “another story”.

[@Martin-so7ep]

have you tried trading your banana for some eggs ?

[@aaaaallllld7576]

Omg I am overrun with excess chickens, time to issue some loans.

[@ElementalAer]

Yes, that's the whole Marx analysis, that Sabine left in "another story". Some people don't have capital, and the ones who have exploit the ones who don't for even more capital, becoming a cycle. And as the ones who have the capital can make the rules, there's no more free and regulated market, becoming the whole "late stage capitalism" we are in

[@formbi]

​@@ElementalAer not just late stage capitalism, enterpreneurs have always worked with states (look up enclosure acts and primitive accumulation)

[@DragonHuman00]

@@ElementalAer People have been crying about capitalism being in the "late stage" for decades yet it has only improved over time. It's time to let the expression go, you only look dumb saying it.

[@pedrosaraiva]

This is just a PragerU video. It's all here: the misdirections ("sure it has its criticisms but that's another story") the historical innacuraccy (money didn't show up because people were tired of trading goods all the time lol, also, people were lending money with interest for various reasons waaaaaaaaaaay before capitalism) the false equivalences (markets, economy, capitalism, these are all related but different concepts) overall lack of critical thinking (So the University developed penicillin because of capitalism? The university predates capitalism, c'mon thats an easy one; or like "The market didnt know the water had value" sure the people benefiting from the market understand water is good - what happened there?). Words not meaning anything ("Free market is capitalism + rules"? so marketed socialism is free market? or not because too many rules? what?) We even have the vague reference to Marx as "the guy who thought capitalism was bad because of the - _ew_ - wOrKeRs" You could sum up all the parts she brushes off whenever there's a criticism of capitalism and come out with an actual more productive video about how capitalism is bad...

[@Jazzyluvsyou100]

1. Capitalism requires rules and governing bodies to enforce contracts. Capitalism in it's purest since must have a governing body. capitalism by default, after that, technically has no restrictions, you can write contracts with any number of stipulations as long as both parties agree. Socialism comes from a different perspective: By default socialism has prescriptions on how different people can organize, , IE what type of contreacts that you are allowed to go into, it requires democratic control of the workplace, in some form, as it by defalt moralizes the employee/employer relationship. Capitalism by default does not do this. Obviously every human organization in the real world is regulated, and always has been and always will be. But capitalism has different sets of prescription inherent in its philosophy. Specifically democratic control of the workplace is more or less a requirement in socialism while in capitalism it is not. You in a capitalist system could technically have contracts that allow socialist organizations, but socialism can not allow a non democratic workplace to truly exist. Capitalism, by and large is good, and anyone who disagrees is frankly a historical, Much socialism that many people advocate for in the real world is entirely compatible with capitalism. Also words like socialism/capitalism/communism are kind of muddled words. Capitalism is actually kind of a nebulous term. Property rights and the ability for anyone to freely own capital are some of the primary differences compared to socialism/communism/markets. Back in the day some people were straight up restricted by law to have no property rights, as well as no freedom of association. Umbrella terms politics arguing is always a bitch though.... so i get your frustrations.

[@LL-xg1xo]

You have made 0 coherent arguments against the video.

[@lukebottonemulvey225]

Hi Sabine, I love your channel for your approachable coverage of science, but there are a few glaring errors in this video, both logically and factually. 1) Let's start with the notion that currency emerged as a workaround for the inefficiencies of barter-trade relationships. The narrative you outline is a common one, popularized by Adam Smith's work "The Wealth of Nations" as you said. The problem here is that Smith's account of currency being "invented" to facilitate barter was purely speculative. The historical record shows *zero* cases of currency arising in this way. In fact, there is not even evidence of a society in which barter is the primary mode of exchange. The evidence shows that tribal societies operate(d) on the basis of a "gift economy." Instead of strictly accounting for debts, these economies function on a loose basis of credit. This is in part because hording surplus is A) difficult to do when you're producing perishable goods in a society without refrigerators and B) unhelpful in facilitating the long term survival of your tribe. If you have extra milk, you would be happy to give it away to a neighbor who needs it because you trust that she is likely to have your back when you need something. Furthermore, this type of cooperation fosters strong social bonds between tribe members. In most tribal societies, it is actually taboo to give someone a gift equal to what they gave you, because it implies the debt is equalized and your gift exchange is over. If you gave me a bucket of milk, I might give you something more valuable, like a chicken, so that you give me something back and we keep the gift economy going. Even if it is difficult to imagine cooperating with other people in this way from the vantage point of our alienated society, these are the types of social structures we find in reality. Many currencies emerged independently around the world, often starting out as tokens of religious importance, or later as a way to more efficiently extract taxes from colonized populations. I'd recommend checking out the book "Debt: The First 5000 Years" for more on this topic. It would make for a great topic for a video. 2) The next point you make takes a huge leap from primitive economies to society where there are already capitalists ready to invest in your individual enterprise. I cannot stress enough that the "juice press example" you gave in the video did not happen in tribal society. You are already working off faulty premises you laid out in the previous point, so my main contention would be that Sue couldn't/wouldn't have accumulated so much more surplus from here chickens than apple juice guy got from his apples because both of these enterprises would require *private* ownership of land, because if the land is public, than anyone could take the chicken's eggs or pick apples and both businesses would collapse. Tribal societies did not enforce individual ownership of private lands, but lets assume they did. This begs the question then, how did each person acquire the land for themselves? Did they buy it from someone else? If so how did that person get the land? Did they just tell everybody a certain plot of land was their's? If so how do they prevent other people from trespassing? This line of questioning shows that we are assuming a level of societal development that upholds and enforces regimes of private land ownership (i.e. with some sort of police force). I'll repeat again, this did not emerge as the natural product of barter relationships in tribal societies, but instead out of the individual expropriation and hording of surplus from private plots of land, and the exclusion of other people from using that land. For sake of keeping this comment under 10000 words, the wiki for "primitive accumulation" explains this concept in more detail. The main point is that this example is a gross simplification of how societies develop and shows a projection of our current social structure onto those of the past. 3) The last few segments of this video are really what drove me to write this comment. The idea that it was not the industrial revolution, but capitalism itself that drove the last 150 years of progress is ridiculous on its face. For one, the birth of capitalism was a gradual process starting back at least since the protestant reformation. It seems a bit too convenient that you mark the beginning of capitalism at the same time that the industrial revolution took off, and even more ridiculous you claim that capitalism caused the industrial revolution and all the progress that came with it. I'm sorry, did market forces create the disproportionate concentration of coal in the British Isles that made the industrial revolution possible? Was it the free market that built all the train lines across Europe and the Americas? Even more, you say later that Marx gave capitalism a bad reputation, and that "there was an element of truth to his fears because some things went badly wrong during the industrial revolution." Funny how capitalism gets all the credit and the industrial revolution gets all the blame. Next you claim that capitalism is an efficient system to distribute resources. That's not true. In the united states grocery stores throw away anything that doesn't sell because giving it away to people who need it would drag down the price of food. Same with tech companies. They would rather destroy what they create instead of giving it away. Same with landlords, who keep their units empty instead of housing the homeless. Nothing against the landlords or grocery stores or tech companies btw, they're making the rational choice in a system that favors profits over utility. But it doesn't sound very efficient to me. I'm not familiar with the penicillin example you gave, but I do know that there were scientists who could have patented it (making a lot of money like a good market actor), but specifically did not because of ethical concerns. Or take Jonas Salk, who invented the polio vaccine and chose to not patent the it or seek any profit from it in order to maximize its global distribution, saving millions of lives in the process. Or take the internet, or highways, or libraries, or hospitals, or NASA, or the myriad of innovations funded by, created by, and used by working people, not because they want a profit, but because they want to make a better world for other people. If the greatest inventors and scientist of our time were looking for money, they wouldn't have become scientists, they would have worked in the insurance industry. Finally you talk about capitalism causing environmental problems. I agree. However, you can't just brush off everything bad about capitalism as an externality. Companies are just trying to make a profit in the market, any unintended consequences are necessarily a product of that original impetus. As far as your bit on taxing carbon as a means of fighting climate change, that's probably a step in the right direction, but the idea that the climate is the only downside of capitalism, and that we would've avoided the problem if only we listened to economists is silly. The reason oil giants didn't listen to economists is because they couldn't hear them over the "cha-ching" of the potential profits they could make by lying about the risks of climate change. Same story with big tobacco lying about the carcinogenic risks of smoking or DuPont dumping PFAs into the Ohio River. These aren't externalities, they are results people making the conscious choice to trade human wellbeing for surplus value. In summary, this video presents misinformation about to the origins of currency, the nature of investment relationships, the driving force of the last 150 years of human progress, and potential solutions we can use to get out of this mess. And I haven't even scratched the surface on the exploitative relationships between workers and capital owners or the devastating effect capitalism has on democracy. I understand you're not a big social-science person, but I really hope you make a more thought-out video soon. Edit - My favorite part is when she says "capitalism will kill us all"

[@rodrigoviannadealmeida7323]

THANK YOU so much for pointing out some of the issues I had with this video and going beyond and explaining many things I did not know. This video of Sabine's was a huge disappointment, in my personal opinion, as it was purely based on commonsense and did not seem studied through. This channel should understand that the viewership it seeks to attract is not usually satisfied with long minutes of simple explanations of basic commonsense ideas that we could've understood in a couple of words as we are acquainted with most of the basic concepts.

[@anakides]

Thanks for the comment. Thank god for capitalism!

[@salokin3087]

Salk didn't patent the vaccine cause he and the insitution couldn't patent it easily, it wasn't altruistic

[@Synochra]

Thank you for taking the time to write all this down.

[@Kevin-pg6uz]

Thanks for this really clear and comprehensive and detailed breakdown. Good comment 👍

[@WhoIsTheEdman]

Barter as a motivator for the invention of money is a historical myth. Far more common than barter for economic exchange was the practice where people would gift someone something with the informal expectation that it eventually be reciprocated. This is a "gift economy", and it's like "next drink on me" but as a society wide expectation.

[@zuz-ve4ro]

I'm here to remind people to read David Graeber

[@ronblack7870]

maybe in small communities in africa but in places where people don't know their neighbor how does that wok?

[@Matthew.Morycinski]

Unfortunately, it doesn't scale.

[@zuz-ve4ro]

@@Matthew.Morycinski you literally likely forgot to ask your friend to return your money for pizza. these things were basis of economies for thousand of years and still are. exchange is bureaucratic, gift and trust is joyous. but bureaucratic norms are reproduced by corporate or statist rulers, who need to have "justice" imposed in a simplistic way.

[@Fear_the_Nog]

how is that a historical myth? It's literally how currency was created, to better account for trade and compensation in concentrated urban systems, like Ancient Ur or Uruk.

[@lightningspirith]

The number of "that's another story" in this video tells me that this is more complex than what is presented here.

[@raulgalets]

I was going to do a similar comment. Sabine is really clear and concise, but this video is really lacking.

[@chubbard09]

I usually love SH's videos, but it was ridiculous to me, this cherry-picked, elitist version of capitalism. She barely alludes to the vast exploitation, the labor unions or the class struggles, or the extreme inequality, rampant unsustainable consumerism, and the way that wealth and political power naturally become corruptly intertwined. Modern capitalism is based upon a paradigm of infinite growth and creating the most shareholder profit. Even from a purely scientific/materialistic perspective, that aspect of capitalism is a fantasy. I think SH is eager to cover topics outside of just the physics/cosmology field, and being unabashedly and ideologically pro-capitalist seems like an edgy way to keep her brand relevant. I obviously have huge respect for SH. I think she is putting way too much faith in the capitalist system to address its own flaws. What's that old quote about "it's difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends upon not understanding it" Sadly, the big capitalists of the day understand the consequences, they just don't care. Personally, I'm non ideological - I'm not for or against capitalism, but (agreeing with SH here) I think it needs to be applied properly, perhaps alongside socialism and democracy as guiding forces. There is no one ideology that will solve the worlds' problems.

[@glowerworm]

​​​@@chubbard09literally, capitalism majorly failed the US like 6 times in the last century. It was only with the government intervening with a heavy hand and artificially pumping life into the economy (i.e. the opposite of a free market-dare I say "socialism"?) that the US economy didn't collapse into rubble. I didn't like this video at all. In some ways it was sort of disgusting to witness.

[@gh0s1wav]

​@@chubbard09exactly even by her ideal explanation of capitalism it would lead to heavy inequality. The rich can borrow more money for more investment and they can lend money to make off of interest. Theres risk involved but the richer you are the less risk you have to take because eventually even the safest investments give you hella money because of the sheer capital that you can pump into it. This doesnt even touch on lobbying. I think what SH has realized about her audience (academics and liberals) is that you basically get points for stating a view that's contrary to oil's opinion even if it's not right. Its seen as edgy and brave but this video is way to shallow for that to work (at least on me lol)

[@johannalvarsson9299]

Yeah, I have he suspicion that we will get more videos about the topic that will fill in the gaps, but I might be wrong.

[@tomvandongen8075]

I check back in every couple of weeks to see if this video is still up and somehow it still is...

[@Thomas-gk42]

Yes, she's convinced, that she's right (and she even is in a way, cause the major problem is not what she says, but what she's ommitting). I like her very much, she's a brilliant mathematician, thinker and communicator and this is the only of nearly 400 videos, I think that is failed, so I can live with it. I don't need a channel, that's parroting my beliefs. I'm a little bit sad, because I see, that this is harmful for her work. But she's not only brilliant, she's stubborn too. So I'm afraid, we have to wait for a deletion.

[@MultiChrisjb]

@@Thomas-gk42 I would never want her to delete this. Idc how wrong it is, it shows her understanding of capitalism. And this is really how some people think about this stuff. I wouldn't want flat earthers deleting their videos either. It's important to know who the idiots are.

[@Thomas-gk42]

@@MultiChrisjb If you mean she's an idiot like the flat earthers, she's not of course. This video follows the math of micro economics, without using that math, which surely is too complicated for a vid like this. But the simplification makes it boring, different to physics stuff, that's just one mistake, she made, besides all the propaganda like statements, that aren't that funny, as she normally can be. The use of the term 'capitalism' already is a failure, since she just explains free markets and financial systems while 'capitalism' has a negative notion in itself, it's a political battleterm, something that she perhaps didn't notice. As I said, no one is flawless and I can live with that.

[@Thomas-gk42]

@@MultiChrisjbMy answer faded, try it once more. If you mena.,she´s an idiot like flat earthersyou´re wrong of course. This video has alot of problems though. no one is flawless.

[@appleturnover519]

@@Thomas-gk42 This was a simple OUTLINE to capitalism, with the inherent rough edges, not a course in micro- and macro-economics.

[@reamoinmcdonachadh9519]

Sabine has a new catch phrase "But that's another story"

[@zuz-ve4ro]

as if a holistic theory of politics destroyed her narrative

[@juliap.5375]

She lied in first two stories (there are described hundreds societies which perfectly lived without any kind of fiat money for centuries), described actually shameful story about penicillin (US classified technology of it production, so allies in USSR were forced to re-invent own during WW2), forgot to mention that in most cases all inventions in capitalism immediately patented and not available for anyone else (e.g. Zolgensma - gene therapy used to treat spinal muscular atrophy for children, cost over $2 million; for comparison in Russia similar gene therapy is free, technology is open and any developed country can repeat it - regards to so-called ‘state capitalism’, it is how nowadays Russians calls own communism) and then “that’s another story” 😂😂😂 Also I lied a lot over free markets. Where and when she saw free markets? As soon on market arrived real competitor, then market immediately became closed. Free market in capitalism exist inly when developed country need to open market of undeveloped to flood it with own goods and suppress any local industry. Classical instrument of neo-colonialism.

[@HelgeHolm]

"The weather is nice outside today. Yes, the thunder is very loud, and we can't see the sun through the torrent of rain, but that's another story."

[@rogermwilcox]

What do you mean "new"?

[@lobotomizedamericans]

"Hundreds of millions of people get by just fine under capitalism, of course there are at least 4 billion who live on between $1 and $5 dollars a day, but that's another story."

[@CalamitousProphet]

I... Don't know how to feel on this one, Sabine. On one hand, you do seem to know and point out that there are downsides that should be regulated, but you *seem* to present simply passing laws against things as an effective control, or taxing certain activities. I live in the United states, where monopolies are firmly illegal. I also live in the united states, where anticompetitive regional monopolies are absolutely everywhere in utility companies. Openly so. I live in the US where the government is meant to regulate companies. I also live in the US where corporate "sponsorships" of candidates allows corporations to help select who gets put in power and who doesn't, meaning those that rise to power are those the corporations find favorable. This is because money equates to social power. And social power isn't something those who amass it easily part with. And Social power can be used to influence society as a whole. Further, while capitalism may have indeed been important for early scientific development, our current situation seems to be very much harmed by it. In the modern era, science is only given grants if it appears to be profitable. The many recent replicability crises, junk science using p hacking to show some product has x properties, Professors literally forging and making up test results and claiming they felt it was the only way to continue securing grants... Even the Anti Vax movement was fueled by that "invisible hand" when a now ex scientist that had a single vaccine's profits to worry about spoke out against the combined vaccine that made his product useless. Sabine, I'm not sure what happened here. But if you ever revisit the topic, I really, truly hope that when it comes to the downsides and burdens, you won't say again that it is a story for another time.

[@frederikmesser7463]

Really well said! She seems to be trying to seperate capitalism from the results it produces: money is power, which means money decides government which means externalities get ignored. We didnt forget to restrain capitlaism. It necessarily lets all hell break loose!

[@nickrails]

Yep. It's so simplistic as to essentially useless beyond being a primer for children.

[@tomwhone9804]

Capitalism is known for competitive markets but it recognizes and supports monopiles in the proper situations.. Capitalism supports monopolies when the structural situation or the capital costs are too high to support competitive markets. Utilities and railroads are good examples where monopolies often make sense and are used. Mass transit and the mail used to be exclusively that way but as time and technology move, we are seeing the mail replaced by email, UPS and FedEx. We see mass transit partially displaced by Uber and Lyft. Unfortunately, the complexity of many situations is such that laypeople don't have enough expertise to make good decisions. Your vax example is a good one. The simple truth is vaccines should go through longitudinal studies and they did not. One side can legitimately argue the need to use the vaccine immediately while the opposing side can legitimately argue the opposing view. We still don't know the possible problems these vaccines may cause 10-20 years down the road. The only advice I can provide is that everyone would need to make the best decision they can for themselves with the information available at the time and hope for the best.

[@nickrails]

@tomwhone9804 How is having a regional monopoly for the essentials of living - water and energy - possibly in the best interests of the consumer? If the system doesnt support competition for basic human needs then they should be part of state infrastructure with the profit motive entirely removed, in order for the goverment to fulfil a basic task of providing clean water and energy - which allows humans to function within the rest of the market. Same goes for other basic infrastructure - it allows goods and services to operate and move efficiently. Capitalism can't work effectively if you can't get your goods to market because the transport infrastructure is f*cked. Such privatised monopolies for basic necessities simply encourage price gouging, and in order to keep their privileged status, spend considerable sums lobbying government and running media campaigns. Of course, if they poorly manage their services, then they know the government will step in and nationalise any liabilities in order to keep such basic utilities available to citizens. Privatised profits, but any losses are nationalised. This happens time and again in the UK and fortunately we can and will redress through the ballot box because the public are sick of it. Nationalised water companies used to make zero profit (re-investing income into infrastructure) and zero debt. Now those same privatised regional monopolies have huge debt with no investment in infrastructure while they pump raw sewage into our rivers and seas.

[@CalamitousProphet]

@@nickrails This. So much this. I'm going to have to firmly agree here. Basic necessities to living shouldn't be privatized. Profit should not be our primary motive. Reinvesting the people's own money into trying to make the lives of your people better should be the norm for government and economic systems. And lobbying, a company spending tons of money to try to bend the government and the will of the people to the will of a private corporation is something that I find the legal status of to be indefensible.

[@robsmith1a]

Maybe the title of the video should be 'But that's another story'?

[@Wavezzzz601]

Capitalism is good when its good and when it isn't thats another topic for another day.

[@NewSocialistEraVideos]

Truuuuuue-uhhhh

[@temari2860]

Socialism is good when we will have it for real, and all the times it was a failure it just wasn't done right.

[@themachine5647]

Yah I have great respect for Sabine's science perspectives, but I wish she would stay away from civics and social/political issues, she's really shoved her foot in her mouth a few different times already and I much rather she stop providing fuel for political pundits. These "educational" videos are not in-depth or nuanced enough to give people a fair perspective, and Sabine's lack of knowledge in American culture and politics really shows when she tries.

[@ez112111]

Capitalist countries like Irak or Lybia are countries you don't want to live in but that's another story

[@Spiral773]

I find her physics videos to be among the best, but she fails to recognize her biases on social/political topics by trying to take a "both sides" approach that ends up lending credibility to bigoted or otherwise harmful viewpoints. Just like its not possible to be without scientific bias, the same is true for politics and social matters and its intellectually dishonest to pretend that's not the case.

[@alexgroot2508]

Regulating capitalism, even extensively, is coping. Not a solution. We'd been regulating it for decades post WW2 and oh, look at that, neoliberalism happened and a heaping chunk of that regulation got torn down and reregulating it has become a lot harder because capitalism entrenched itself so firmly in it's new freedom that even reform is an uphill battle of ridiculous proportions. Capitalism's problems are not bugs, but features. It is inherent to the system and 'reforming it' only works very briefly before the pushback corrects it back to business as usual. That's why reformism doesn't, and has never, worked to actually fix the problem.

[@matthiasriedl9645]

Hi Sabine. I would like to hear "the other stories" ;) - What are the social consequences by capitalism? How can I working on minimum wage compete with, lets say, amazon. I indeed think I have a great business idea. But no money. What should I do?

[@DarthGangsta]

The first $1M is the hardest to earn. Creating a lot of money in the beginning involves sacrifice, at least for most. Imao

[@Anirossa]

Just need a small loan of a million dollars, lol

[@rainbowevil]

@@MarieAntoinetteDaCakeEater what a lot of meaningless words, impressive! I think you need to upgrade to GPT4, it gives more coherent sentences.

[@draem01]

@@MarieAntoinetteDaCakeEater that's a whole lot of nothing

[@kristoffer3000]

@@DarthGangsta Just be born into wealth like the other capitalists

[@nickylo2178]

You could do a follow up called "the other stories of Capitalism" and do justice to the tremendous suffering this system causes.

[@Thomas-gk42]

If you mean that seriosly, I agree. Perhaps she does, but I think, she should wait for a while, cause otherwise, she will trigger the professional haters again.

[@1873Winchester]

20 million deaths per year from preventable causes per Oxfam. That's 100 million every 5 years. So capitalism does a communism death toll ever 5 years.

[@AL_THOMAS_777]

@@1873Winchester This system is indeed a MAN-EATER !

[@AL_THOMAS_777]

🙌 👏 🙏 🤝 👍 I could name more than a dozen undeniable ANTI-capitalist sources for Sabine but - sorry for that - I doubt that she´ll read it ! Otherwise she would have been prepared much better or made a (round table) DISCUSSION about this important matter possible !!

[@rogerphelps9939]

But without it there would be orders of magnitude more suffering.

[@linkCable]

"capitalism isn't bad, we just didn't pay attention to economists"... how did this not register as a contradiction

[@cameron7374]

How is it supposed to be a contradiction? Capitalism wasn't made by economists.

[@gogudelagaze1585]

Because it's not a contradiction. The core of capitalism is fine, much like the core of Marxism is perfectly fine. The problem lies when people do not play fairly, and exploit the system - in the case of capitalism, that is mainly through rent seeking behaviour, such as monopolies, cartels, and all the other things Sabine mentioned. Even IP law, which I hate with a passion has usefulness and brings value, so long as it does not overly advantage the owner. Capitalism can work, but the system must be set up in such a way to disincentivise abuse of it. Ironically, many of these restrictions existed, but have been torn down, or not been enforced in the last few decades, which is why we are in the problem we are in.

[@daddyleon]

It's not a contradiction, there's just a freakishly high overlap between what the ruling economic consensus is and with the problems of capitalism.

[@uncletrashero]

Capitalism is ANARCHY i dont see how anyone can fail to understand this at this point. Nearly every single law we create in the 1st world is a law designed to CURB some aspect of natural capitalism. so basically every law we write is a socialist law. Anti monopoly, Regulatory laws, welfare, soc sec, health care, etc etc etc. its ALL ANTI CAPITALISM. BECAUSE CAPITALISM SUCKS AND ITS OBVIOUS AND SO WE KEEP WRITING LAWS TO WHITTLE IT DOWN INTO NOTHING. because there is only one aspect of capitalism that we actually care about: individual poor average citizens having Choices. coincidentally the Capitalists have been aware of this for centuries, WHICH IS WHY THEIR PROPAGANDA BULLSHIT ALWAYS HAS TO MAKE UP LIES ABOUT HOW "Socialist will rob you of your choices! Everything will be colorless and boring!" ITS . BULLSHIT. PURE. BULLSHIT. Socialism is just DEMOCRACY. which is ANTI ANARCHY. Under DEMOCRACY the majority of people WRITE LAWS THAT ENSURE WE CAN STILL HAVE CHOICES. SO OBVIOUSLY IF WE HAVE DEMOCRACY CONTROLLED SOCIALISM, THEN WE WILL STILL HAVE CHOICES. COME ON HUMANS> TIME TO TURN ON THOSE DAMN BRAINS. YOU NEED MORE THAN 100 IQ TO RIDE

[@tmsphere]

Saying the system is perfect but people ruin its perfection by being ppl is just you admitting your system doesn't work for people as people, what's the point for such system? Bacteria? Fruited bats? It's supposed to work for people.