Why do people honestly hate capitalism so much now?

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I wrote an extensive reply to each of your points but it didn't post it and now I lost the text. God damn it!

So now I'm not going to write all that again in my phone. I will reply much shortly.

It is acknowledged that the market goes through periods of recession. There have been three strategies of how to cope with them
1. Let the market sort it out (Astrian school). Pure classical liberalism- doesn't think the state can do anything really.
2. Fiscal policy (Keynesianism). Implemented during the great depression. Accused of turning a periodic recession into the great depression. Considered a pseudoscience.
3. Monetary policy (Milton Friedman, classical liberal). Implemented during the 2008 recession. Causes inflation, like the one we are going through right now. Risk of interference in the democratic process. Modern banking system maladies.

Conclusion: The market goes through flactuations. Government can't really do anything about it. Politicians face preasure from public discontent. They try intervention. Intervention makes things worse (see great depression). Milton Friedman proposes monetary policy which works if implemented correctly. In this way politicians can appear to intervene without making things worse.

Despite the cyclical recessions, overall the free market works much better than a centraly planed economy. That is because central planners are unable to decide what each member of society needs the most and effectively calculate the amount of resources allocated to that need. While the free market spontaneously does that through the flactuation of prices.

I would also direct you to the "Maslow's hierarchy of needs" in regard of what motivates people. As a psychological argument instead of economics argument. The economics argument is the ability of the market to allocate resources efficiently through the flactuation of prices.

For example: Suppose that at a given moment there is a certain amount of raw milk produced. That milk can be processed into processed milk, yogurt, cheese, ice cream and other products. How does an economy decide how much of it to allocate to each final product. The individual preference of the customers will decide. The more customers are willing to pay for a product, the more incentive there is for the producer to buy the raw milk. If more people are willing to pay more for ice cream than for yogurt, the ice cream producer has more revenue and thus more capital to compete the yogurt producer for a bigger share of the raw milk. Thus the limited resource of raw milk is correctly allocated according to the demand of the people.

A centrally planned economy is completely unable to allocate resources correctly. It has to keep thousands of bureaucrats to keep track of all needs of the people while simultaneously properly calculate the amount of each resource allocate to each need. This inability resulted in a tremendous waste of resources. For example, they would produce more yogurt than ice cream. But people want ice cream instead of yogurt. So you have a lot of people not getting what they want and a lot of yogurt that nobody wants and it is left to rot. Now multiply that with the billions of products consumers need in an economy and you have a total mess.

IMO a growing number of people hate capitalism because it no longer serves them nor affords them a reasonable quality of life for their toils.

Used to work just fine for Most people 25 years ago, but now that it’s resulted in housing being astronomically unaffordable for the majority of occupations & professions, people are understandably pissed.

It used to be that the vast majority of people who could manage to hold down damn near any job could afford shelter, food, and the basic necessities of life. Those with high incomes could also have luxuries. Now? Even those with what are considered high, or at least very solid middle class, incomes cannot afford much at all thanks to this amazing economic system of grift, corruption, exploitation etc.

Why should someone have to be well within the top 1% of capitalists in order to live the quality of life people enjoyed 50 years ago? Not everyone is a slick salesman or savvy investor - and they shouldn’t have to be just to live a basic life.


I’m sure there would be faults in some other economic system, too, but these are reasons people are frustrated with this one.

No, it's not a bible. It's more like an entire library of academic work, since Adam Smith to this day. I cannot convince you because only you can convince yourself. I wrote that in the context of a polite discussion. I'm not seeking to convince anyone.

As I already said, the free market has shortcomings and that is aknowledged by it's proponents. Nobody is handwaving them. But also, as I already said, there is no better alternative.

The increase of housing prices happens for one reason, the demand is high and the supply is low. You should ask yourself why the supply is low? Why the builders are not building more? Don't they want more profits? The reason is because of state regulations, by the municipalities and the central government. They do not give easily permits for construction for various reasons like environmental concerns, anti-gentrification policies, like zoning and also pure bureaucracy. They also tax the s**t out of the building enterprice. This lead naturally to more people competing for fewer houses. If you want the culprit, knock at the government's door. The increase of housing prices has nothing to do with the free market.

No, it's not a bible. It's more like an entire library of academic work, since Adam Smith to this day. I cannot convince you because only you can convince yourself. I wrote that in the context of a polite discussion. I'm not seeking to convince anyone. As I already said, the free market has shortcomings and that is aknowledged by it's proponents. Nobody is handwaving them. But also, as I already said, there is no better alternative.

Not entirely accurate. It has nothing to do with local demand. It’s Billions and Billions of investment dollars that have flooded in to buy housing that no one lives in + Airbnb and then immigration & zoning regulations.

But we’ve constructed more than enough housing to house the people here, it’s that a lot of housing stock never becomes homes because it’s owned by investors just to park large amounts of money outside of China or used as short term vacation rentals etc.

It’s impossible for anyone to build enough housing to satisfy global investors, every tourist that wants to visit, and to have a balanced affordable housing market for the local population here. Too much outside money manipulating things.

And that’s why people earn $60k/yr and houses in the suburbs are $1.7M.

We agree to disagree. If there is a housing price crisis, why do they still keep the regulations? If they would let anybody build, the prices would go instantly down.

We agree to disagree. If there is a housing price crisis, why do they still keep the regulations? If they would let anybody build, the prices would go instantly down.

Of course there are speculators. Whenever a market becomes a market of rare commodities, speculators come along. Deregulate everything and the speculators will go somewhere else.

Probably lobbying of those who have really big money in real estate.

If there is a housing price crisis, why do they still keep the regulations?