Frank Casa

If the Ukraine was so Nazi, why didn’t Russia go to the UN and create a multi-country coalition to remove the Nazis and save the people?

And why would these Nazis elect a Jew?

We actually used to have some form of stakeholder capitalism, at least practiced at a large number of companies. This is before the greedy corporate raiders ruined it, where they made investors the priority. It only existed for a short period, between the abuses of the past, and the abuses of now. But it was long enough where some people enjoyed an entire career.

At these companies, employees used to have jobs for life, pensions, and generous benefits. But then the corporate raiders took that all away. That is also about the time that employee’s wages stopped growing and started to stagnate or worse.

Was it perfect? No. But it was better than communism, and better than laissez-faire capitalism, and better than crony capitalism, which we have now.

The good news is that some people are trying to bring stakeholder capitalism back. Many states now have something called a “public benefit corporation” which is legally required to consider all of the stakeholders, not just the investors. These laws would prevent corporate raiders and investors from gutting these companies at the expense of the workers and consumers.

Plus, cooperatives and employee-owned companies have been around for a long time. Both employees and consumers are treated much better at these enterprises than they are at their investor-owned counterparts.

It is a model that works, and must be protected.

In the United States, “lack of transparency” or “not transparent” is mostly used. Although “opaque” is sometimes used in some circles of people.

There are different kinds of capitalism, just like there are different types of socialism.

Authoritarian socialism or communism is the worst, and crony capitalism is what we currently have, and is pretty bad too. But there are things like democratic socialism and stakeholder capitalism which attempt to balance competing interests.

For example, stakeholder capitalism is where all of the stakeholders benefit from their contributions, including labor. Workers get a share of the profits of the company, and are paid well as stakeholders in the company. The workers often own part or all of the company. There are also cooperatives, where the customers own the enterprise. Cooperatives work great for healthcare and necessities like groceries.

People tend to pick the worst examples of capitalism and socialism, but those are not the only flavors.

China suffers from the same problem the USSR did. When you have one party rule, it does not matter how democratic the constitution says a country is. If you can only elect people from one party, and the party determines who can run for office, voters can only select from a list of candidates that are aligned with the party and its leader. This effectively transfers power to the party leaders and away from elected officials and the people.

The fediverse mostly has two types of people: people who don’t want to be part of surveillance capitalism, and those who got banned on centralized social media for bad behavior. Unsurprisingly, the second group causes the same problems here as they did on centralized platforms.

As long as you never say anything even remotely political or controversial, you are fine.

But that comes at a cost of self expression. Conform or be cast out (blocked).

I just thought of some good examples of crazy. (I don’t call them crazy, but other people do.)

Stance 1: Anti-Immigration (don’t let foreigners in).
Stance 2: Open Borders (let anyone in with no checks, including criminals)
Stance 3: Immigration Reform (allow immigration and make the process easier, but weed out the criminals)
Stance 4: Status Quo (allow immigration, but it is difficult and time consuming)

Many people think that stances 1 and 2 are “crazy.” I just think that they are counterproductive and ineffective. And the anti-foreigner thing is racist.

Most people’s grievances right now are the economy and inflation. And they want change. They want the elites to have less control over their lives.

Sure, the right has some crazy ideas. So does the left. But the middle decides elections because they are the swing voters, and the middle’s main grievances are the economy and that they feel helpless in a world where the wealthy control everything.

There is what the public thinks they rejected due to propaganda, and there is what is really going on.

In this case, the propaganda said that Trump was fascist and Harris was leftist.

The reality: both parties are market capitalists, and cater to their wealthy donors, and disregard what the public wants if it conflicts with what their wealthy donors want.

Even if their thinking is based on false premises, as you claim, they have legitimate grievances. The Democrats will never get their votes if they don’t address the grievances with a realistic alternative plan.

I think I know who you are talking about. The loud and proud ones. But what the loudest people are saying is no necessarily what most people are thinking. So you can’t assume everyone thinks like them.

I think the problem is that many Democrats are stuck in an information bubble, and instead of listening to the other side, they demonize them and cancel them. It is hard to figure out what the other side is thinking if you don’t actually listen to what they are thinking.

I think that America rejected leftism, not liberalism.