Just Be Rich

I agree with you--peoples living conditions should be improving and at a good rate. One thing to consider though, is when people talk about the affordability of anything from X years ago to now, oftentimes those "things" have changed significantly. For example, house sizes have gone up drastically over time, and at the same time house fewer people. In 1950's houses average 292 sq ft / person, where in 2010 it's up to 924 sq ft [1]. Healthcare "cost" have changed as a result of advancements in treatments but also due to a population living longer and longer. We need to take these things into account because it's going to be more difficult to buy a home that's 3x the size, and likely has a lot more expensive electronics and other appliances in it. You can't just wave the hand over what a home is today vs what it was 70 years ago.

I don't believe everyone needs a new iPhone every 12/24 months (or even one at all), or a 2000 sq ft house to themselves, but everyone does need food, shelter, affordable healthcare, and again I'm open to the argument for education.

I bring these points up primarily because there are ample examples of people from the FIRE community (financial independence retire early) who live on a minimal income but save and are able to retire early. In my opinion, they're able to save more simply because they focus on only buying what they really, truly need. And they're able to resist advertisements that attempt to convince them a want is a need. Many of the crazy successful examples from the community are dual income 6 figure earners, but there are examples of teachers retiring early by living frugally. One of the interesting things of capitalism is it's convinced society that many wants are needs. If you can outsmart society, you can profit/benefit.

I agree redistribution is what's needed, but where I disagree is on the how. I'd rather see more opportunity given instead of reward taken. I don't think a lack of government funds is the issue.

> As an aside, I'm quite curious what you mean by "underlying issues".

At a high level the problem that I think we'd agree on is more people need to be able to cover basic needs. Housing, food, healthcare, and arguably education. I'm not an expert in any one of these, but I have worked with hospitals before. There's a massive amount of resistance to change within hospitals. They move and innovate (and as a result improve) extremely slowly. They're very inefficient (25% of hospital costs amount to waste [2]). I'd argue this is one underlying issue under the umbrella of the "healthcare" issues. I don't wish to propose a solution--because I honestly don't claim to have one. There are some arguable reasons for why healthcare moves slowly--extreme risk aversion. But I think that's why we employ politicians with our tax dollars--to propose and implement solutions. A failure to fix these issues is a failure of our politicians, and since we vote them into office, a failure on our part.

Just as another example, I've been told that permits alone to build a home in my area cost ~35k. I've also been told that about 50% of construction costs (or perhaps it was only construction labor costs?) end up going to taxes. I don't have any sources to back this up--just heard from various sources I deemed semi reliable.

[1] https://compasscaliforniablog.com/have-american-homes-change....

[2] https://www.newsweek.com/us-wastes-25-healthcares-spending-1...

> Capitalism is called the 'least worst' system

Capitalism is only called "least worst" by capitalists themselves. Much of humanity considers capitalism "the worst".

> Give a viable alternative that doesn't descend into fascism

So, to give some historic perspective, capitalism is precisely the root cause of fascism. All totalitarian systems are capitalist by essence, and historic fascism in France, Germany, Italy, Greece (etc) was pushed not by popular support but by industry leaders. Mussolini himself even argued fascism should be called "corporatism" because such was its true nature. If you'd like to learn more about this, i strongly recommend a documentary called "Fascism Inc".

Now, i'm guessing you believe the USSR was a fascist alternative to capitalism. As an anarchist, i understand the USSR to be a form of State capitalism, not communism. Communism is when power and resources are shared, which is what the Soviet (workers councils) revolution was about before the Bolsheviks (Lenin's sect) seized power and murdered the revolutionaries to establish their dictatorship ("of the proletariat", or so they say).

To people in the USSR, the police was the same. The prison was the same. The factory was the same. The same cult of control and productivity plagued their lives under Lenin as it did under the tsar. And the same political persecution hit them with Trotsky's Red Army as with the Tsar's Okrana. If it looks like capitalism, that's because it is capitalism.

So, now that "dictatorship of the proletariat", "fascism" and "capitalism" have been ruled out as potential candidates for making society better, what about an actual democracy (anarchy)? What about a society in which nobody has to worry for a place to sleep and food to feed their children? In which nobody has to work side gigs to pay for education or health bills? In which regulations are decided not by a national parliament full of the worst psychopaths this planet holds, but by a local assembly of peers where people can decide for themselves?

Our current political systems in the west claim to be democracies but those claims fail any form of scrutiny. The designers of our political systems (in France and USA at least) were either slave owners or colonization advocates, and were in any case strongly opposed to women having political rights. For example Jules Ferry, who is revered in France as the founder of public schools, is less famous for his take on how "superior races" had a duty to civilize "inferior races"... which explains how and why the french public school system was used as a tool of colonization to destroy local cultures.

If you really think you live in a democracy, think about it. Were you given any occasion to vote on actual topics? If your neighborhood opposes a national law, are you free to have your own local regulation supersede the national law? Are you free to study how power applies in your country, and to report on it for your peers? At work, are you free to decide with your peers how to manage the company, or is a boss deciding for you? Are you reaping the benefits of your work, or is a boss and some shareholders reaping them for you?

This system is hated by most because it's ruining lives and killing millions of people. Capitalism is just as rude as Mao's rule, you just can't see it if you're part of the tiny privileged elite (as most of us on HN are). If you're looking for alternatives, please read some anarchist/liberation literature. There's centuries of social criticism and ideas on how to improve things... it just so happens the people formulating these are hunted/jailed/assassinated by those in power. A few names to get started: emma goldman, kropotkin, bell hooks, noam chomsky, david graeber, angela davis...

Sure, Amazon wins by providing lower prices through economies of scale. The details of how they acquire customers of small businesses are not relevant because it does not influence the end result. Wealth is moved from one party (a small business) to another (a large multinational). There is a clear loser.

And a well functioning social safety net (which also requires money from the state) to catch the youth who suffer from parental neglect and/or lack or resources. You can have role models aside from your parents.

It might be more liberating if the success narrative in the US focused on relative success instead of “absolute” success. But afaik and have seen in my life thus far, the people everyone knows, worships, or revered for their are 95% of the time the absolute best (sports star, movie star, fortune 50 CEO, bigwig politician, superstar dev, most well known doctor, most fancy medical practice in the US/world, etc)