South Park takes some hard shots at Amazon in a surprisingly anti-capitalist episode
TV Reviews RecapA little less than 20 years ago, a still-finding-its-legs South Park aired a memorable episode called “Gnomes,” which focused both on the omnipresence of Starbucks Coffee (named Harbucks in the episode), as well as little gnomes that steal your underpants in the night, with their ultimate goal being “profit.” That episode is likely best-known for the scene in which Cartman whacks a gnome in the head with a baseball bat, to which the gnome replies “is that all you got, pussy.” That being said, what made “Gnomes” truly important in terms of understanding the show’s beliefs was its main thesis statement, “big corporations are good.” The show argued that Starbucks coffee was successful because it had a good product. It’s no secret that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are libertarians, and while they’ve made similar points, that episode stands out as their most explicitly pro-capitalist moment.
Two decades later, things have gotten radically different. “Unfulfilled” focuses on the arrival of an Amazon Fulfillment Center in town, and the fallout it causes. Things get miserable pretty quickly. Stephen Stotch yells at Butters for seemingly no reason, and we soon find out it’s because he’s being worked to death since taking a job at the factory. We soon find out many others have joined him, as the Center has pretty much eliminated every job in town. The frightening working conditions at Amazon factories have been talked about quite a bit lately, and they don’t sugarcoat things here, as a worker named Josh is quickly maimed by a robot, which the company attributes to human error. This ends up being the last straw, as the workers go on strike, leaving everyone in town without their precious Amazon stuff. In Season 8's “Something Walmart This Way Comes,” the show argued that boycotting Walmart was a dead-end, because another Walmart would simply take its place. This episode grants more power to the worker than that episode did to the consumer, because the strike causes legitimate chaos, as just about everyone has come to depend on Amazon deliveries.
The ensuing crisis leads to Jeff Bezos’ arrival in South Park, and once again, he is spared no mercy. He speaks seemingly through thoughts, and while his brain is pulsating through his head, when he turns around, it’s revealed that the back of his head is a butt (I guess he has TGS, but in reverse). Visual humor aside, the point is driven home when Bezos tells the mayor that Amazon’s philosophy is that the customer is the only thing that matters. Indeed, this is pretty much the primary reason Amazon has become so massively successful. Getting the product out as quickly as possible is the only priority, and the workers are entirely disregarded. A few weeks ago, Saturday Night Live defended Amazon in multiple capacities, with Bezos being portrayed as in heroic opposition to President Trump, while Colin Jost argued that New York had “won the lottery” when Amazon decided to come there. South Park takes a wider, much more informed view, showing both how the jobs they would “create” would only take away other existing jobs, and that they would involve workers facing unspeakably cruel conditions. That a show with a history of defending capitalism would come to this conclusion while SNL argued that it’s actually fine shows that this was quite a blind spot on the latter’s part.
Without any Amazon delivery, the boys are desperate to get parts for the upcoming bike parade, and with nowhere else to turn, they head to the nearly abandoned South Park Mall, where a handful of mall employees have suffered severe mutations since the customers stopped coming in. This was one of the most genuinely disturbing scenes the show has ever done, and not in a remotely comedic way. Unfortunately, the mall mutants are of no help. Online shopping has made it so consumers can find exactly what they want at all times, and picking from a limited inventory isn’t enough to satisfy the boys’ demands. Desperate to prepare for the race, they look to end the strike by sending the mutants to work in the factory as scabs.
Towards the end, the episode takes a turn from implying socialist concepts, to straight up saying them. The mangled worker—who is repackaged in an Amazon box and will die if his organs leak out—begins openly quoting Marx and talking about seizing the means of production. Perhaps Trey and Matt realized the arguments they were making were more left-wing than what they had been previously known for, and decided to comment on it directly. As we might guess from the second-to-last episode of the season, things end on a cliffhanger, as the striking workers prepare to face the mall mutants in what should be quite a battle.
In all honesty, I’m stunned by this episode, even moreso than I was when they brought back ManBearPig, and acknowledged the errors of his first appearance. In a way, this can’t help but feel like a companion piece to the ManBearPig episodes. When the effects of global warming weren’t really being felt yet, it was easier to argue that maybe the whole thing was overblown and Al Gore just wanted attention. Likewise, two decades ago, the horrors of modern capitalism weren’t as readily evident, and it was easier to tell yourself that everything was Actually Fine, and the people predicting doom were simply getting bent out of shape (“How many Native Americans did you slaughter to make that coffee?!”). Now, anyone who pays attention is acutely aware of what’s going on, and how utterly unfettered modern capitalism has gotten. As such, South Park had no choice but to re-examine their values, and, in this episode, come to the conclusion that no, big corporations aren’t necessarily good. It was a stunning and massively encouraging change of heart, and it also did a great job of setting us up for yet another suspenseful finale next week.
Stray Observations
- “16 Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford plays over an early sequence of workers at the factory. By which I mean they play the entire song. Maybe a little too long, but it certainly was effective.
- Also fun is the “Unfulfilled” song as people are forced to adjust to life without Amazon. “Somebody just bitch-slapped the smile out of me.”
- “If you pay for free shipping, can you go anywhere you want?”
- I realize that this is the first episode of a two-parter, and next week’s episode could contradict the message of this one. But after portraying Amazon and Bezos as this brutally evil for a whole episode, I don’t see how you do an about-face the following week.
- Okay, I’m really curious to see which story-arcs they’ll fit into the finale. Obviously, the Amazon plot has become the center, but I imagine they’ll also tackle Cartman’s anxiety plot, as well as the success or failure of Tegridy Farms. It’d be weird to just leave those threads hanging into next season, right? Does Mr. Hanky come back? I mean, that episode was awhile ago, and it feels like the season has moved on, but then again, it is Christmas time. There is going to be a lot to sort through next week.
521 Comments
A little less than 20 years ago, a still-finding-its-legs South Park aired a memorable episode called “Gnomes,” which focused both on the omnipresence of Starbucks Coffee (named Harbucks in the episode), as well as little gnomes that steal your underpants in the night, with their ultimate goal being “profit.” That episode is likely best-known for the scene in which Cartman whacks a gnome in the head with a baseball bat, to which the gnome replies “is that all you got, pussy.”
Small nitpick, isn’t “Gnomes” best-known for the aforementioned three phase business plan “Collect Underpants > ? > Profit”?
That didn’t just spawn an early internet meme, it spawned a meme that people still reference twenty years later.
I’ve never seen that episode, but yes it is.
it’s such a well-known meme that I’m 100% certain John is trolling by going with a different quote from the episode.
exactly.
I think he is, but that part is hilarious as well.
AH! JESUS! You’re right!
100% correct.
When the episode was mentioned, that’s where I assumed the sentence was going, not to a gag with Cartman hitting someone.
It is the perfect encapsulation of an entire kind of management style. Generally the one that requires everyone to find a new job after about a year.
I think it was more a mockery of conspiracy theories about all the things shadowy heads of industry are supposedly doing.
It can all be explained by John’s business plan:
1. Misremember the cultural importance of a South Park episode.2. ?3. Profit.
Misremember the cultural importance of a South Park episode.
LOL at “the cultural importance of a South Park episode” Grow the fuck up, kid.
Also, I don’t remember the moral being “Harbucks rock!”I seem to remember the moral being corporations don’t trump local business on quality per sa, but often local quality is overrated for it’s “quaintness”. Been like 10 years since I’ve seen it, but wasn’t the end the town pretty much agreeing Harbucks was evil but Tweek’s Dad’s coffee also tasted like ass?
A well-reasoned argument, sir. Counterpoint: eat the rich.
like all apex predators, they are chock full of persistent toxins. Pass.
Wait a minute, what was step 2?
I didn’t know “your tears are delicious” came from South Park until I saw that Scott episode. It’s one of those memes that’s so popular no one knows where it came from
This guy’s right, that’s far and away the most memorable part of that episode.
THANK YOU! I’ve been seeing that meme forever and have been scouring my brain for years trying to figure out where I’d seen it originally! (Well I didn’t scour HARD, or I could have just looked it up, but it’s been nagging me in the back of my brain.)
Yeah, this article seems to either be trolling or just dumb. That’s one of the biggest memes South Park had a hand in. It predates modern internet meme culture and damn near everyone knows it, even if they’ve never seen South Park.
That’s probably one of the most well-known moments in the entire series, to be perfectly honest. I literally don’t even remember anything else about that episode… Not even the Harbucks stuff, which was the main plot line.
This,It isn’t a small nitpick as someone from CO who grew up with South Park and VHS tapes being shared around as our cable at the time did a messed up split of the channel was VH1 half of the day and CC the other.Sure Cartman hit the gnome but everyone remembers the underpants/profit joke.
I originally posted this in response to the wrong poster: I’m not really a meme guy, but I can’t believe I missed that having lived through the plethora of Web businesses in the 90’s that had zero fucking business plans, yet had investors for whatever reason. That is a perfect encapsulation of the phenomena.
when are they going to get to the bike parade?????????!!!!!!!
I liked the meta-commentary of Cartman mentioning how the boys hardly ever do things as a group anymore, because that’s definitely been a criticism I’ve had of the past few seasons (even though this show’s definitely made a comeback in recent years, aside from the disastrous 2016 election season). I tend to enjoy this show the most when it focuses on the misadventures of the four boys, rather than always feeling the need to take on current events.
Bezos’ look and way he communicates are based on the aliens from the original Star Trek pilot, “The Cage”.
I was shocked the reviewer didn’t pick up on that, either.
because the reviewer was too busy going on political rants to actually recap the show
They are too busy making self serving leftist rants to actually do analysis or real reviews on this site anymore. Not since they chose to become virtue signaling click bait site. They used to be good and moderate.
Because it’s from a pilot from 50 years ago? Sure, it’s a classic TV show, but still
South Park has been sprinkled with Star Trek references since at least Planetarium (off the top of my head.) If you do not at least posess cursory knowledge of Star Trek the original series you are not qualified to be doing South Park episode analysis. Period.
“Shocked”? I mean, I watched “The Cage” again all of two days ago but I don’t expect most people in 2018 to recognize a visual cue from a 1960s TV pilot
A far argument, until you stop to consider how frequently “South Park” references “Star Trek” (directly or indirectly). Plus, the aforementioned teacher in the Pike wheelchair…
He’s too excited that South Park may be making left-wing, socialist arguments to notice.
God forbid someone didn’t grow up watching Star Trek
After reading the article, I’m not surprised at all.
It’s been a long time since I was shocked by the apparent cluelessness of an AVC reviewer. I mean, so long that I can barely remember that there WAS once a time when it would have been shocking.
The reviewer isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He was more concerned with trying to project his liberal beliefs onto the episode than actually trying to follow it.
bruh, he writes for the avclub….
And “the Menagerie,” of course. And I was surprised they didn’t catch that too, especially given that the show has gone to that well before – the kindergarten teacher being in the “Pike box,” etc.
Ohhhh. I thought they were parodying “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” with Bezos and the mall workers.
In addition, I think the mall workers were a Morlocks reference, from H.G. Wells The Time Machine.
And I thought the rear of his head looked more like like a ball sack than an ass. Maybe that’s just me though.
Directly influenced by “the menagerie” as well.
A fun episode. I lost it at the Mall scene. That was hilarious. And you don’t see it much in SP, but the music in this episode worked well. Looking forward to the 2nd half.
I realize that this is the first episode of a two-parter, and next
week’s episode could contradict the message of this one. But after
portraying Amazon and Bezos as this brutally evil for a whole episode, I
don’t see how you do an about-face the following week.
I’ll tell ya how (which you should really know by now): Because its South Park. They make fun of everyone, many times with sole reason just being to make fun of them. It’s not always, but sometimes the lesson is really just “Hey, let’s just dick around and make ourselves (ie Matt and Trey) laugh”
I mean they were already mocking the Marxist box in this episode. How did the author miss that?
how are they mocking him? he’s making a very articulate argument while the reporter is too dumb to understand and is asking stupid questions. (I mean they could be given they’re LiBerTariAN)
The Marxist can’t think outside of the “box”, he has valid points for sure, but as always the critiques of Marxism or really Materialists in general is just how myopic they are in their critiques of Capitalist societies. Not everything is about the material conditions of a society, it’s only a part of the picture (even if it’s a large part of it).
Maybe I’m completely wrong, but that’s how I felt when they presented him. I’d be willing to bet that’s what the next episodes theme might be.
I don’t know how someone could type that in an attempt to ridicule someone else.Do you really not know how silly you come across? You’re like a child.
YoU’re liKe a ChilD.
(yes you totally begged for it)
And and the last line was Marx box saying now you can follow me into hell
exactly
maybe it was just me but when the interviewer asked if he could/would get “hot in the box” I thought possibly the implication was that he sounded like the kind of stoned-off-their-ass student whose (generally well-intentioned) “insights” into the workings of the world can be a little trite & quick to assume the efficacy of largely-if-not-entirely untested alternative variants of society…which may or may not be fair, if true…but potentially aligns with a sentiment popularly ascribed to Churchill of which I’m fond of a variant by Disraeli to the effect that “If you don’t begin to be a revolutionist at the age of twenty then at fifty you will be an impossible old fossil. If you are a red revolutionary at the age of twenty you have some chance of being up to date when you are forty”…dont think I’ve ever qualified as a revolutionary of any colour, though, so my chances of being up to date are maybe not-so-great…
Yeah I think Bezos’s focus on Butters and the Bike Parade in the Alexa view is going to pay off in the second half with the “here’s the good side” premise.
I’ll tell ya how (which you should really know by now): Because its South Park. They make fun of everyone, many times with sole reason just being to make fun of them. It’s not always, but sometimes the lesson is really just “Hey, let’s just dick around and make ourselves (ie Matt and Trey) laugh”yeah, that kinda what would make them basically assholes.
Because they like to laugh and make fun of people in a comedy? Please explain
in a surprisingly anti-capitalist episodeNot really. I know you want to falsely sell the point that they went after Starbucks and Amazon and then absolutely nothing in between because…. narratives? They’ve gone after big box retailers, video game manufacturers, and many others. Hell, the entire SoDoSoPa arc was blatantly about this.Your entire final paragraph is nothing more than entitled white boy drivel. Seriously. We get it dude. You’re “woke.” And a show that you have at times literally made up things that weren’t even in there has a topic and target that gives you a hard on to go after. It’s almost like, gasp, South Park creators have no problem going after ANYONE… something you’ve blatantly ignored in your recaps.I realize that this is the first episode of a two-parter, and next week’s episode could contradict the message of this one. But after portraying Amazon and Bezos as this brutally evil for a whole episode, I don’t see how you do an about-face the following week.That’s not a stray observation. This is you creating a hypothetical narrative to keep yourself worked up. Those are very different things.You spent more time in the recap of a cartoon show making sure everyone knows your exact politics than actually doing the one thing you’re paid to do – recap the show.
You understand how Marxism really works out, right?
“Now, anyone who pays attention is acutely aware of what’s going on, and how utterly unfettered modern capitalism has gotten.”I have been paying attention and I disagree. Significant improvements in education access and standards, life expectancy, reduction of crime, reduction of international conflict, increases in material convenience, and quality of life have all taken place as a result of implementation of capitalist systems with improving social support structures. Reduction of global poverty is entirely attributable to gains from open markets and trade following disastrous famines in the command-and-control ostensibly Communist economies of the 20th century. Refusal to admit that tangible progress has been achieved through democratic capitalism is a misreading of 20th century history and is not supported by empirical time-series data. Meliorism is not a myth.That being said, I enjoyed this episode of South Park.
Counterpoint: our president is a cartoon rich guy who literally shits in gold toilets and cheated his way to the office. (He might also get away with it, too, thanks to control of public opinion through traditional and social media.)
You sound like you’re missing a third IQ digit
I blame the decline of ascots and flower-decorated vans. It used to be that groups of young people led by an ascot-wearing leader would investigate and succeed in pulling off the mask of such people revealing them to be the disguised owners of abandoned amusement parks and the like.
I blame the decline of Communism, it offered a counterpoint that helped keep capitalism in check.
I’m not sure the tens of millions murdered by Communism really justify it as a useful foil for capitalism. And we still have the actually pleasant (and non-murderous) social-democratic states like Denmark and Sweden to serve as alternatives to raw capitalism red in tooth and nail.
I blame the decline of ascots and flower-decorated vans. It used to be that groups of young people led by an ascot-wearing leader would investigate and succeed in pulling off the mask of such people revealing them to be the disguised owners of abandoned amusement parks and the like.
We get it.
cheated his way to the officeHow exactly?
This has nothing to do with capitalisim?
Counter-counterpoint: the alternative was a rich woman who shits on everyone and tried cheating her way into the same office
That is not a counterpoint, that is just entirely unrelated.
My favorite quote about Trump is from Mulaney – “Donald Trump is like what a hobo imagines a rich man to be… ‘Ohh, as soon as my number comes in, I’m gonna put up tall buildings with my name on ’em! I’ll have fine golden hair, and a tv show where I fire Gene Simmons with my children.’” I’ll add to that “and even my toilets will be gold!”
thanks to control of public opinion through traditional and social mediaTrump is good at one thing: drawing attention to himself. The vast majority of coverage is negative. One doesn’t have to go any further than Gizmodo Media articles to see that. Doesn’t seem much like control to me.
This is a political problem, not an economic one.
Counter-counterpoints: Obama was a two-term president but a few short years ago, establishing the ACA, a student loan forgiveness program, his ARRA benefits relieved pressure on the middle class.Capitalism is complex and comes in many flavors. Trump’s pro-business flavor favors the few and limits market growth. He is an ideological descendent of crooked tycoons who built their fortune on false promises, exploited loopholes, bribed officials, and shady dealings… all things that helped him win this last election and keeps the WH wheels greased.Meanwhile, Bill Gates, far richer than Trump with greater influence and reach, is using his money to fund technological advances to cut down on human waste, figuratively and literally, that is threatening the planet. Elon Musk is sending stuff to space.It’s not Capitalism that made Trump president. He swindled his way into office with a little money and help from his friends, that old trick favored by power-hungry a-holes who lack actual aptitude or talent.
HAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!! That’s rich… Yeah… he has so much control over social media, especially his twitter. He has really brainwashed America and this is why he is the media darling beloved across the internet because for some reason some ads on Facebook (even though more supported Hillary) ran. That would especially explain his higher than ever approval rating. Must be that good ol’ Russian collusion they spent 2 1/2 years trying to find… this guy right here has your answers Mueller 🙂
Counter-counterpoint: our president is not really rich.
The electoral college is not cheating your way into office, and you leftists only have a problem with it the day after the 2016 election when things didn’t go your way.
All right, but apart from that what has capitalism ever done for us?
Peace?(I’ll shut up now….)
The aqueduct?
The roads?
Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.
Romanes eunt domus!
The aqueduct?
In case people don’t get the reference.
The aqueducts?
Brought peace?
Brought peace?
Delusions of grandeur.
Capitalism has definitely done a lot for us. It’s also killing the planet unfortunately. It might be time to adapt and evolve.
Does North Korea or South Korea have less human impact on the environment? Which of those two are better places for humans to live?
So, as long as a place is good for humans, who cares about the impact on the environment?Also, is the only choice in this scenario North and South Korea? I had no idea that this was such a binary choice.
Communism and socialism kill the planet just as successfully, if not moreso. Production is production regardless of ownership, and capitalist / democratic societies are much more successful at demanding accountability.
I’m not sure your first statement is true, as communist and socialist states have a much smaller influence on the planet as whole compared to the gargantuan series of interconnected nations and corporations that exist with the capitalist system.As to the issue of accountability, the fact that nobody was held responsible for the events leading to the crash of 2008 makes me think that as much as we may demand accountability, we don’t really get it under capitalism either. (And that’s just one example of financial institutions and corporations that have not been held accountable for shitty behaviour. See Nestle and Union Carbide).
No. Unscrupulous consumerism is killing the planet.We can simply get water from the tap, but we buy it in bottles. It’s US, people. FIGURE IT OUT.ETA:For fucksakes, THAT’S WHAT THE EPISODE IS ABOUT! Amazon is only giving US, THE CONSUMER, what we want!
We get water in a bottle because a company came up with the idea of putting water in a bottle and charging people for it. And people bought it because they were sold on the idea that there’s nothing inherently ridiculous about paying for water when you can get it out of the tap. Eventually enough people do it and it becomes normal, and nobody questions it, and the supermarket shelves are stacked with water bottles, and the water bottle companies begin sponsoring sporting events and you see their logo on billboards and they become part of the every day fabric of your life.That, to me, is Capitalism in a nutshell.
underrated comment right here
Ok, I’ll bite. Adapt and evolve into what?
I dunno man, if I knew I’d be writing a book and trying to change the world, and not wasting my life typing out a comment that nobody really gives a shit about on a website.I do know that we can’t keep thinking of Capitalism as the only system that we will live under forever. Because nothing ever lasts forever. Everything is finite.
I hear that capitalism also makes the sun come up every morning and is the reason for every puppy’s smile.
Significant improvements in education access and standards, Education access and standards are largely determined and implemented by governments, not the private sector. The highest-ranked educational systems on Earth all have one thing in common: an emphasis on public education. The private sector is garbage when it comes to education. life expectancy Life expectancy is actually FALLING in the US, as well as most other countries with capitalist for-profit healthcare systems. You know where it’s rising, though? Every nation that has socialized healthcare. HMMM.I could go on, but I think you get the gist here: You can’t just make a laundry list of Nice Things and then arbitrarily credit capitalism for all of them.
You can’t just make a laundry list of Nice Things and then arbitrarily credit capitalism for all of them.
Thank you. That rightwing talk radio dictation of a comment left me too flummoxed to respond. Thanks for stepping up with supported facts.
Socialism for education, health, public transportation, essentials, etc., capitalism for other stuff? Every country anyone would ever want to live in is some mix of capitalism and socialism and people can argue all day about where on the spectrum is ideal, but I never understood these screaming matches making sweeping declarations like “CAPITALISM DOESN’T WORK” and “SOCIALISM DOESN’T WORK” or whatever.
I think that there needs to be a hybrid approach to how we do things. Restricted capitalism is good-to-great for optional things, but there needs to be some publicly-provided base-form of the necessities.Healthcare is a prime example. Everyone deserves a good, base level of healthcare, but there can still be levels of profit above that for people who want it. Two people could have the same surgery covered, but the richer patient could choose to go to the resort-like recovery and rehab center, while the poorer patient can go to the basic one that still provides all the necessities.The same could be said for transportation. The government should provide cheap, reliable transportation for those that need it and then people who want something else can purchase it. It’s not like cars disappeared from NYC after the subway…For all the problems that the USPS has, we can definitely say that it hasn’t prevented people from going into the mail business. FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc. all deliver mail and packages, but offer services above and beyond what the USPS is able to do.
It’s not like cars disappeared from NYC after the subway…In New York City, the subway system predates the cars. It opened in 19o4, when the occasional automobile was a rare sight among the masses of horse-drawn carriages. (Those did disappear after it opened, but I don’t think it was a factor.) It actually better supports your point about the ability of public and private services to co-exist, since the public conveyance didn’t merely fail to drive an already-established private one out of business, it didn’t even hinder a nascent one.
Good point!
You can’t just make a laundry list of Nice Things and then arbitrarily credit capitalism for all of them. But that’s the American Way!
I’m sorry, what’s the alternative?
The “reduction in international conflict” and “reinforcing social systems” are both laughably false. Capitalism has destroyed traditional social networks, in the developed and developing world, and the conflicts one is just a flat out ignorant misreading of basic IR theory. It’s like they took Democratic Peace Theory, which is already dubious, and took it to a far more irrational end.
Life expectancy has flatlined in the UK as well, just as Whitehall is privatising our healthcare system.
If you think social systems aren’t being mismanaged and destroyed, then you have a giant blind spot.
>Government systems are being mismanaged!>This is capitalism’s fault!What level of woke is this?
When government systems are privatized (like the prisons and military ffs) then what’s at fault there? When politicians are able to take advantage of relaxed campaign finance laws to swim in undisclosed funds, what’s at fault? When members of Congress can conduct all the insider trading they want and become incredibly wealthy lobbyists when they feel like, what’s at fault there? When our government starts a war based on lies for the gathering of profit like the Iraq War…what is at fault there?Sounds like your dumb ass is enjoying a coma.
What you said is certainly an issue in the US but it’s not the fault of capitalism, it’s the fault of a democratic system that rewards money and power. The political system is what really needs an overhaul.
Democracy is the problem? Hoooo boy.Those issues are directly attributable to capitalism. The burning need to get money overruling any other sense of duty or purpose. rewards money and power.
That’s capitalism!
You obviously don’t understand capitalism. Capitalism only seeks to provide a framework for trade. In capitalism, you combine work and ingenuity to create demand which becomes wealth (like Apple making the iPhone). Our Democracy rewards politicians who tell people only what they want to hear, who have tons of money and who aren’t terribly concerned with ethical issues. Am I right?
You’re ignoring the byproducts of a system based on avarice. Yes, when you live in a system who rewards whoever has the most capital then you’ll have people willing to do whatever they can to get the most capital.
You’re repeating my point back to me and telling me I don’t understand it, and that’s sort of funny.
MisterPiggins, like a large part of the commentariot here, are bleedovers from splinter, and just sling insults when their little communist utopia in their head is challenged.
Oooh, libertarian bitchiness! So funny.
That has nothing to do with economics.
When it’s done for profit it does. For example, when government officials are lobbied and given campaign funds to be favorable to privatization, then you have a private prison industry. When you lobby and pay politicians for stricter laws and longer sentences for formerly minor offenses, you create bodies to put in those prisons. When you lobby for the chance to have those bodies work on your products in those prisons for a ridiculously small amount of pay, you are profiting directly from those prisoners. And when those private prisons jack up the prices of phone calls, commissary, and reduce or eliminate other services then that is further profit. This is not the only example, but it’s a pretty egregious one.And let me head you off. If you wanna say something dumb like “they shouldn’t be breaking the law” then don’t even reply.
That’s literally human flaws, and has nothing to do with economics.The only time those factors aren’t problem are in heavily punishment-oriented dictatorship like Saddam or Kim Jong.Communist USSR had huge issues with that. Let’s not act like it’s something unique to Capitalism.
Listen whatever you are, human flaws have driven economics since there was a humanity. Economics IS NOT a hard science, it has more in common with psychology than physics, more to do with whims than concrete. I didn’t think I’d be telling anybody this, but apparently you are the dumbest fuck.The Soviet Union wasn’t capitalism and it actually wasn’t communism. Get off the internet and go to school. They probably miss you.
Yup, and I’m kind of surprised I have explain how graft and bribery isn’t something unique to capitalism to an idiot on the internet. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
Please inform me of the perfect system that works better than what we have now, and no- not something that you read in economics class. Something real.
European-style Socialism. You would probably say that isn’t really socialism, but it is clearly different than what America does. And it works.Glad to see I touched a nerve though, nice double post.
Yes, it works as long as germany keeps paying for it. It’s also not socialisim. It’s capitalism with stronger social programs and leaders that aren’t handicapped into extreme left nuttiness or right wing handicap.
Yeah, I got you figured out. Try again when you’re out of high school, mmmkay?
That’s funny coming from someone who just finished his freshman poli-sci/eco class and think he knows how the world works. Socialism is the left version of a hard libertarian. Great concepts….. in theory.Communism is applied socialism, (In economics) and we’ve already seen how that goes.
*snerk* You honestly think real communism has been tried? See, you should go to college cuz you don’t know dick.
Ahhh.. here it is. “Real Communisim” Like “Real Libertarianism” will never be tried, because they don’t exist outside the pages of a perfect science experiment. We’ve tried various flavours repeatedly, Venezuela, China, USSR, etc etc, etc, and it’s been proven repeatedly that it doesn’t work.Humans tend to fuck up perfect systems.
What’s really funny is that after disdaining college you turn around and throw around terms you clearly don’t understand. If only there was some place you could go to learn things and to look a little less stupid, huh? Tell me how fancy book learning doesn’t learn me about the ‘real world’, capiche? Or whatever it is dumb guys who never got their 11th grade say.
So, basically you had nothing to reply with except insults. Got you. Keep re-trying communism, and keep redefining that it wasn’t communisim each time it fails.
How you going to complain after you’ve been insulting me too? What a buttercup. Listen, you might just want to get off the internet now. It’s rough, someone might even call you a Tucker Carlson talking-point spouting cockgobbler cumdumpster. Or something worse.Bitch.
I’m sticking with discussion at the same time, eg; multitasking. You should try it.huh. I guess I’d feel insulted if I knew who TC is.Still nothing but insults I see. I guess I’ll go back to counting the successful communist nations….Done.
Yeah, there haven’t ever been any. Kind of my whole point. Byeeeeee
Your point to prove communism is better than capitalism is that there haven’t been any successful communist countries? Isn’t that self-defeating?
Putting words in my mouth, hah!
I’m literally reading what you posted. What did you mean by: “Yeah, there haven’t ever been any. Kind of my whole point.”
I literally was responding to your point about there “being none”
Yup, and I’m kind of surprised I have explain how graft and bribery isn’t something unique to capitalism to an idiot on the internet. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
Please inform me of the perfect system that works better than what we have now, and no- not something that you read in economics class. Something real.
Capitalism is outdated, its not the be all and end all. I don’t think a lot of those things can be directly attributed to capitalism, they just happened to happen under capitalism because it’s the economic system the vast majority of the world has been under in the last 200 years, when we also happened to have made massive scientific advancements that improved quality of life. They weren’t necessarily to do with capitalism at all, as most scientists don’t do it to get rich, and 200 years ago most of them were bored aristocrats who worked on stuff as essentially a hobby. Once we get to fully automated luxury socialism with all our basic needs met, think of how many people can discover huge scientific advancements out of passion for their art. Capitalism has created vast amounts of wealth, its very good at that, but its not good at distributing it fairly. It’s led to most of the worlds wealth being hoarded by a small minority, and a large portion of the world lives in poverty or doesnt have access to basic healthcare, even in countries like the US that could feed, treat, and house all their citizens several times over while still remaining rich af.
Capitalism has lifted billions out of extreme poverty. Name a single system that comes close to that.
WTF world do you live in, billions live in extreme poverty today.
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/12/23/14062168/history-global-conditions-charts-life-span-poverty
Considering there were only about a billion people in the world in 1820 the amount is about the same. Again, I don’t see anything to suggest capitalism has helped billions out of extreme poverty, but that things such as access to clean water, medical advances, government assistance and public services -none of which are capitalist- also became prevalent in the last couple of hundred years. There may be more wealth in the world but it’s not in the hands of the majority, it’s hoarded by the rich, and that’s a HUGE problem. We need a better system. I’m not arguing capitalism has done no good, but when feudalism was the dominant economic system people were saying the same shit about it. A better world is possible, workplaces need democratising and robust public services are necessary.
>Considering there were only about a billion people in the world in 1820 the amount is about the same. Do you understand percentages? Despite our population exploding over the past century the overwhelming majority of mankind does not live in extreme poverty. If it was the same you would expect to see 90% (over 6 billion) living in extreme poverty. >Again, I don’t see anything to suggest capitalism has helped billions out of extreme poverty, Go ask the populations of Africa, China, and India if capitalism has helped them. To deny the immense transformation going on in those nations thanks to capitalism is to deny reality. >None of which are capitalist,True expect for the pharmaceutical companies, the patent system, the technology used to allow these things to operate, the free trade that enables peaceful relations between nations to flourish and the fossil fuels that have allowed all of this to take place.
>it’s hoarded by the richI have zero issue with Jeff Bezos being super rich. I know he is the favorite punching bag by progressives right now but his company has made my life better and has changed the face of commerce as we know it. Being envious of the wealthy will never make you happy.
>We need a better system. Such as? What would be your ideal society? >workplaces need democratising
How would a democratically ran Walmart function?
The places in the world you cite have gigantic and militant socialist movements and parties compared to the U.S., and you think they’re huge supporters of capitalism because, frankly, you don’t know a lot about the topic you’re trying to discuss. Like: you’re trying to talk about India but don’t seem aware that people in the Indian countryside are currently lending their support to an armed Maoist insurgency there. This is life or death in countries suffering from extreme exploitation of labor & resources, and the people’s response to capitalism, correctly, is opposition by any means necessary to stay alive. When the ballot has been stolen by capitalists, the bullet is all the survivors have left.
China isn’t a capitalist nation? That would come as a surprise to the population who is enjoying the largest escape from extreme poverty ever seen in human history.
That you can’t even address my comment would seem to be the best support for it anyone could imagine. Please try to learn the basics about what’s going on in politics before you start making grandiose pronouncements about entire countries and continents. It will make you look less ridiculous and help keep you from wasting others’ time.
Here’s how I know you are full of shit: Is the life of the average Chinese citizen better or worse than it was 50 years ago? China is one of the most capitalist nations on Earth as one stroll down Shanghai will show that. My favorite quote from you: “ the people’s response to capitalism, correctly, is opposition by any means necessary to stay alive.”. Do you think life was better under Mao when there was mass starvation?
The People’s Republic of China is an interesting case, you should try a book or something.
LOL
everything you said was wrong, but this:“Go ask the populations of Africa, China, and India if capitalism has helped them. To deny the immense transformation going on in those nations thanks to capitalism is to deny reality.”is so insulting to the slave class in those countries, literally saying that they should be so grateful for the sweatshops and mines capitalism has forced them into because doing otherwise is equal to death. the rich don’t need to do this. the rich don’t need more wealth after their first billion, even their first million. theres an asymptotic limit to happiness compared to wealth at around 75k per year. any person making more than that doesn’t increase their happiness much more, and at some point its just numbers stored in a bank. one super rich person deprives millions of food and housing. what is the miniscule amount of happiness they get from adding another billion to their wealth compared to the same amount of happiness to a million people knowing they are guaranteed food, healthcare, housing etc for years? what is the point of the super rich being super rich? do they not realize the misery they cause just by existing and hoarding wealth?
>everything you said was wrong I noticed you never made an attempt to disprove a single thing I said.>is so insulting to the slave class in those countries, literally saying that they should be so grateful for the sweatshops and mines capitalism has forced them into because doing otherwise is equal to death.That’s funny since people line up for a chance to even apply to work at a sweatshop. The work sucks but it is far better than being a subsistence peasant in rural China. They can earn a hundred times what they did before. You are so sheltered to the reality of extreme poverty it is almost embarrassing.
>do they not realize the misery they cause just by existing and hoarding wealth?How has Jeff Bezos negatively impacted your life on a personal level? What about Bill Gates? Gates created a company that changed the world and directly employs 130,000 people. Your fantasy of seizing their wealth to feed everyone has been tried more than once at it always results in mass starvation and bloodshed since it mandates an authoritarian police state.
That’s funny since people line up for a chance to even apply to work at a sweatshop
The fact you see this as a positive thing and not indicative of the awfulness of capitalism is mindblowing.
“Haha, capitalism is so good people are DYING to work in a sweatshop! Because they can’t afford to eat.”
And you don’t seem to understand that the larger the gap between have’s and have-nots, the much more likely a violent revolution will occur. FDR understood that when he saved capitalism by introducing enough socialist programs to appease the uprising masses. And socialism is an economic system that dos not in any way depend on what type of government you have.
LOL
Tyler Paulson is a hero. Seriously.
But you are going to have a hard time here because many people you are debating with do not have the foundation in knowledge that much of what you are saying is built upon. In other words, you are standing on completely different fields. They don’t see the facts you see because they have never done the homework.
If you believe science, technology, and pharmaceuticals are where they are because of capitalism, you are sadly misinformed.
It certainly does look like his chart is in percentages which makes the total population irrelevant.
https://m.soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-58-the-neoliberal-optimism-industry
as someone observed elsewhere, if you adjust the gradient to account for the fact that the overall population is increasing more or less exponentially overall the change in terms of the raw numbers of individuals experiencing such circumstances paints a significantly different picture…not saying you’re entirely wrong…but if you do t think that graph is an exercise in statistical xherry-picking you’re ignoring a significant element of why this is a conversation worthy of our time…imho & all that…
And where is the causation evidence that capitalism is responsible?
https://m.soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-58-the-neoliberal-optimism-industry
Science has.
LOL
Poverty reduction? Only in graphs, because the number of humans are even more, making that the number of poors are also much bigger than before. So if the poverty line was reducted from 65% to 55% (for example, they are not real stats), we have to considerate that now, maybe we are like 4 times more; added to that, our resources are also limited, making them even more expensive. I’m not saying capitalism is the root of evil or it must disappear, but it has still a lot of issues that should be fixed, the mere reason that a man like Jeff Bezos is too damn rich while Amazon has a reputation of terrible working conditions is one of those things that must be fixed in the system.
90% of the human population lived in extreme poverty two centuries ago. Now 90% do not. Thanks capitalism!
I see you like making up your numbers around here.
mych as I do get (& even take) your point I think that attributing the whole of that swing to any single aspect of our cultural & societal evolution is over reductive to the point of naivety…it’s not as though there are a various other historical timelines of humanity as a whole with which to demonstrate that the same changes might have been wrought via different means but on the other hand proving that (for example) it would have been impossible under any other system is a pursuit as fruitless as any attempt to prove a negative…you have a sound point, there’s no need to over-egg the pudding, as it were…
In fact, the mere injustice of the capitalist system is making extreme right and extreme left winger to have more and more power. The reason is simple, people start to feel like “unfulfilled”, start to feel that we don’t matter anymore and only big corporations and crony politicians working for them have a voice. They start to follow leaders that attack the stablished system.
So…you disagree that modern capitalism has not become unfettered? Because your cherry-picked list up there doesn’t make that clear.
Don’t bother on these sites they don’t get the idea that corporatism is different from capitalism and they simply cannot see the global benefits of trade and capital flow. See the comment bellow to prove that point.
Corporatism/Monopolies are the logical end result of unrestrained capitalism, so your comment is pointless
Cool. Can we agree that corporatism is bad, then?
Oh hell ya, its the death of capitalism and good government – which actually go hand in hand.
That only works if capitalism is restrained somewhat, though. That shit needs fetters on it.
Which is what the rule of law is useful for. As a general concept libertarians prize maximum freedom in an order way, the idea libertarians are one step away from anarchists is (for the most part as some wack-a-doddles do exist) an invention of the left (and the social conservative right). Generally libertarians are uneasy by “big” which includes both big government and big business, which in this day and age is practically the same thing.
Ironically, I have seen self-proclaimed libertarians stating anarchism is a right-wing philosophy adjacent to libertarianism on single line spectrum.Of course freedom in a society has nothing to do with how right or left wing it is.
Yeah, this. The two are related, but not the same.
Have there been improvements over many decades? Of course.That doesn’t mean we haven’t started regressing. Life expectancy has dropped for 3 years in a row now. Longest lasting decline since WWI. While you’re busy disagreeing, signs of reversal are happening whether you want to acknowledge them or not.
“Reduction of global poverty is entirely attributable to gains from open markets”
There has been no reduction in global poverty. What little reduction there has been has been in China, a State-Capitalist monopolistic society. The rest of the world, poverty has actually risen, but the UN and World Bank keep lowering the metrics of what is classed as poverty, to the point people living 4x under the malnutrition line and have to be severely malnourished for over a year is what is considered “poverty” and “hunger”. They also let the IPL actually lower due to not raising it with inflation, so with magical flicks of the pen, and people getting materially poorer, poverty has been “reduced”.
“not supported by empirical time-series data.”
You mean, Economists literally manipulating and cherry picking data while constantly moving goal posts. Poverty, hunger and inequality has risen across the board by the standards Economists set in the 80s and when they didn’t reach those goals, they just conveniently came up with a new way to count poverty that magically saw people lifted out poverty by doing nothing. Like a perfect Neoliberal, blinded by bad data.
…have all taken place as a result of implementation of capitalist systems with improving social support structuresEmphasis mine. This is the linchpin of your entire argument, yet you’re somehow overlooking the fact that the US has eroded its social support structures to a grotesque extent. If you’re working a full-time job for either the richest family in America (Walmart) or the richest man in the world (Amazon), you shouldn’t have to go on food stamps, nor should your coworkers have to undertake a food drive for you.
Much of what you said is true. But unfettered capitalism can work against its own principles. One of the great benefits of capitalism is how competition encourages innovation. But when massive corporate mergers/takeovers sweep through industries, it drives down consumer choices and discourages new ideas, new technology, etc. Don’t believe me? Look at the airline industry.
Funny since lyft/Uber have such a good product taxi companies are begging the government to step in and stop them. Same with Airbnb and the hotel industry.
The airline industry? Which once offered a product that was only accessible to the wealthy and is now a common feature of everyday life, that industry? Average ticket prices in 1980 were north of $600; today they’re about $350 AND you can get pretty much anywhere in the country with no more than one plane change. Pick another example.
Yes, but prices have been going up again recently, and the number of airlines to choose from have shrunk to just a few. And the only economic option for anyone less than wealthy is coach, which is a sardine can.
That’s based more on fuel costs than lack of competition. Oil going from $30 to $70 (before settling into the mid-$50s) is a huge expense increase for the carriers.
ya and before there was no sardine can. you should just be happy to be able to use the amazing tech that is flying. no one deserves to fly business class. if you can’t afford it, too bad.
fair enough as far as it goes but I think some would question that cheaper flights happening in greater numbers is the overall result that is best for us all in the long-run…at least with the current technology, which shows no signs of being superceded…
That’s exactly the point, in the 20th century the benefits outweighed the harms. In the 21st century we’re seeing what unfettered capitalism does to wages, health care, the environment, 3rd world countries expected to specialize in specific raw materials etc. Capitalism is not all bad but unfettered capitalism has led us to this point where corporations have too much say in what happens to the world and we are losing the ability to see the long-term effects of our actions or even if we can see them we can’t act on the knowledge.
If you’re paying attention and you disagree that capitalism has become completely unmoored you’re either really dumb or not paying as close attention as you think.
at least your username matches
You failed to address the statement you claim to disagree with. One can appreciate the good accomplished through capitalism while recognizing the damage created by its excesses (hence the term “unfettered”).
The hoarding of wealth is an issue.
https://m.soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-58-the-neoliberal-optimism-industry
Our country is one of the strongest capitalist countries and our education system has ranked below other countries. Reduction of crime? The war on drugs is an example of a waste of tax dollars and “reduction of crime”. Thanks to for profit prisons, they have reasons to arrest people with draconian drug laws. Our president seems to be causing more international conflict during this presidency.I wouldn’t thank capitalism for a higher quality of life, it thanks to labor movements that fought against capitalism that we have a better quality of life today. Markets aren’t exclusive to capitalism, capitalism just means private ownership of capital and private property.Workers didn’t own the means of production during the 20th century communist societies, really they where just dictatorships with government control of the means of production. These nations were also less industrialized and were born from violent revolts so their start was weak regardless of economic and political system.
life expectancy
Not so fast, my friend…http://fortune.com/2018/02/09/us-life-expectancy-dropped-again/
Capitalism in itself is not bad. As a matter of fact, I’d argue it is good. But the problem is that what we call “Capitalism” now is not what it really is.We live in an era when the term “Capitalism” has been co-opted by Corporatism. Capitalism works when the vast majority of the economy is in small to medium sized businesses. As is, the majority of our economy (Not just in the US but worldwide) rests in large mega-corporations.Capitalism can only work when consumers can vote with their wallets. But companies like Amazon (And Wal-Mart and StarBucks and so on) only work when they basically remove all other competition. Amazon isn’t providing a better set of products – they are just providing the only product for much of the things they sell. It’s not like a lot of other worldwide distribution companies have popped up to sell things like Amazon.It’s easier to see in terms of Wal-Mart and their strategy – move into a small rural area, provide products at a lower cost than the existing businesses can, run competition out and then sit there as the only place to buy… everything. That’s not Capitalism or market forces, that is a much more predatory strategy that literally rests on the concept of getting rid of capitalist competition.And yes, I am sure someone could start up a competitor to Amazon – but they’d have little chance of making any headway and even if they did, Amazon could just buy them.Add to that that Amazon doesn’t just sell products. They sell the server space that a sizable portion of the internet runs on AND they make products to sell. TBH if we wanted to go to a capitalist form we’d need, in terms of Amazon, to break them up into about three pieces : an online retailer, AWS and a manufacturer…
Nope… capitalism is bad
I too hate living in the most peaceful, prosperous, and safest time in human history. If only I could go back to being a subsistence farmer with no electricity. Then I would be happy.
you’re mixing up technical/medical progress and capitalism here. average people don’t get any benefit from the infinite growth in the production of merchandises. only a few people do. also communist countries had their problem, but extrem poverty and lack of education wasn’t necessarily one of them; milage may vary. capitalist countries who had communist influences and strong solidarity systems do way better in keeping people from total misery than vanilla capitalist countries like the US (I take France as an exemple here). That’s a documented fact; but you can just take the healthcare situation to understand how bad you have it.
also things are objectively getting worst and worst for most people.
Uh…..please support your statements about communism with facts.
see my answer to someone above.“seize the means of production” as in workers collectively own their own business/place and they can COLLECTIVELY as in DEMOCRATICALLY decide what to do with it; instead of shareholders or people with the most money to own it telling them what to do (which is not democratic) . that’s pretty straightforward. and that’s one of the basis of communism. of course maybe you just need to rewire your brain a bit to be able to see this way.
Actually, I own a decently sized manufacturing business in Philadelphia. My 30 employees are happy, well-compensated, and with decent benefits. I sit on a couple manufacturing councils and a Board or two. What you’re talking about is an ESOP. It’s a good model for certain types of businesses, and a way to facilitate ownership transition. But the resulting entity is in no way shape or form “communist”. There is still a hierarchy and an org chart, and compensation is not the same just because the employees “own it.” That’s simply non-workable. There are different levels of experience, job roles, intelligence, and continue from there. But, there generally is transparency. I don’t particularly need to rewire my brain, thank you. When you’re a bit older and have some real world employment experience under your belt, let’s chat again.
well you’re a good boss; good for you. In France the juridic status is a “cooperative”; it probably isn’t exactly the same; and yes you have the option to pay people differently; and have people just be employees and not shareholders, or different decision powers according to how long you’ve been there; and it also has to exist within a capitalist society framework. Neverheless that’s still the basic principle of a “Kolkhoze”; and that’s one of a basic principle of marxist theory; I’m really sorry you apparently find this fact offending.
and by the way do what you will with your brain but fuck off very much with your patronising tone dude.
It’s spelled “patronizing”.
The period goes in the quotes.
“There is still a hierarchy and an org chart, and compensation is not the same just because the employees “own it.””And you believe those are capitalist things?
What?
I believe I was clear enough.
Do you have any real world experience? What do you do for a living?
I was a senior counsel and patent counsel for Xerox for 16 years. I currently work for Georgetown University.
Ok. Please stop calling my office and asking if I want to upgrade my copiers. The answer is still no.
My first response was to assume you were attempting a joke, but then I realized there was an upper level sales guy out with my same name. My guess still is you were making a joke, but in case you weren’t, that’s not me. I am a lawyer.
Don’t be a sore loser
Wtf??? LoL
“Rising standards of living” is a horrible argument. It’s barely an argument at all.There were rising standards of living in slave societies also. Slaves had significantly higher standards of living in early 19th century than they had in the early 18th century. Is that an argument for slavery?This argument works for Stalinism as well. Until 1989 the USSR was the Second World, not the Third World. There was substantial economic development and, again, rising standards of living there also. After the Capitalist reforms were introduced, the country went back to the Third World.Up until the 1960’s, the biggest concern in the West was that the USSR would reveal itself as a “model for modernisation within a single generation”*, therefore, one could at least say it was moderately successful.This was the view of Truman and Churchill who would go so far as to defend Stalin against personal attacks (they openly didn’t care about what happened within the USSR).The entire Red Scare was the fear that their economy would eventually be successful (they even considered Cuba’s growth impressive (hence the embargo). They never feared “the Communists” would attack anyone; they feared their ideas would spread and economic success would aid that.*Paraphrasing Arthur Schlesinger.
what people seem to fail to understand is that communism at its core is about applying democratic principles to production and labour. In a capitalist society there’s absolutely no democracy in any organised corporations. you can’t conflate bureaucratic state socialism and the basic principle of workers owning their own tools and deciding together how they’re gonna use them and to what end. in this scenario the state has basically no saying. and in my opinion it should only have a say in the production of people essential necessities (water, energy, transport, telecomunications, healthcare, and probably housing). I’m talking about coop systems here; it’s not like there are not tons of good examples of that.
….what?
“communism at its core is about applying democratic principals to production and labor.”That’s the silliest thing I’ve heard this week, and that’s saying something. What choice did Soviet Russians have? They weren’t capitalists permitted to ply their trades wherever they saw fit. They were told where to go to school, where to work and where to live. There was no personal incentive to deliver value, no profit motive for the business to perform efficiently, and an entire bureaucracy overlaying the whole thing that had every incentive to only tell their political overseers exactly what they wanted to hear.
If you were paid the same as everyone else no matter the quality of your work, how quickly does your (and everyone else’s) effort lapse and the entire place degrade to match the lowest common denominator? There’s a reason that communist nations eventually decay into totalitarian states – because people have to be forced to continue living that way. The state has no say? The state has the ONLY say.
Meanwhile the U.S. has the most fluid labor market in the world. Right now there are more job openings than there are unemployed adults. So under which system do you think it’s easier for a worker to decide how he or she wants to apply their labor?
yeah I didn’t say anything about soviet union here. maybe don’t conflate socialist principles with authoritarian state communism.I even didn’t say anything about everyone being paid the same. I’m talking about the basic cooperative principle: workers own their business/corporation/whatever; they share profit and losses together; they can decide together how they want to run in. they can decide to pay people better than other if they wish, they can decide to include more people gradually; but in this scenario there is no shareholders other than people who actually work there; they decide their fate together. It’s not science fiction; it’s common practice in agriculture; small businesses; and in some cases when a big corporations decides to abandon a factory; workers can take it back this way. I don’t know how it works in the US; but in France we have special administrative status for these structures. that’s the “seize the means of production” part. To this you can add strong protection to unemployed, poor people so they don’t die in the streets; strong public services (free when possible); free healtcare; and well you’re on your way to something close to socialism. (the key is: the state DOESN’T need to control everything). they are many different approach to it but that’s just a few examples.
by the way how is paying for your healthcare via kickstarters campaings working out for you people?
You can’t discuss communism without the Soviets, because the USSR is exhibit A for what happens when you try to implement it. It’s a system that sounds great in a high school philosophy class but in practice always devolves into an authoritarian state. And the costs of my healthcare were just fine before the ACA, which resulted in doubled premiums and copays, and deductables so high I may as well not have insurance any more. How’s living off the medications and procedures innovated and paid for in and by the U.S. working for you? Pretty well, I expect.
“You can’t discuss communism without the Soviets, because the USSR is exhibit A for what happens when you try to implement it. “Whoever told you that lied to you.
Lol
“If you were paid the same as everyone else no matter the quality of your work, how quickly does your (and everyone else’s) effort lapse and the entire place degrade to match the lowest common denominator?”That says more about you than people generally.
Lol
Show me a communist country that supports human rights please.
It’s adorable that you actually believe this. Like my dude in case you haven’t noticed: the gap between the rich and the poor is becoming wider and wider globally. That’s a feature of capitalism, not a bug. The positives that you attribute to capitalism are because of limiters placed on it, not because it magically works.
You’re been paying attention to right wing radio and their talking points.
And as long as you ignore the fact that capitalism is currently devouring democracy like a cancer, the interrelated hyper-concentration of wealth and power, and the preceding 500 years of imperialist slaughter, that all sounds jim fuckin’ dandy.
THANK YOU!
Cool story, bro.
You’ve just taken a whole heap of variables and arbitrarily attributed them to “democratic capitalism” (which is undefined) based essentially on nothing but your own rather obvious desire to lionize “democratic capitalism”. Real live political scientist and historian here to tell you, that doesn’t pass muster. I mean you’re claiming a “reduction in international conflict” is a result of capitalism?! That’s a huge leap.This sort of comment is why neoliberals are getting such flack these days. This isn’t intellectually honest or defensible on the merits.
“Unfettered” was the key word there. America’s power and prosperity grew fastest and strongest during periods of more regulated capitalism and many of the advances used so effectively by private industry were developed in big federal programs. Examples include WWII industrial ramp-up, Apollo, GPS, and network communication protocols. But look at things since the 80’s and while it looks rosy at first glance, the American middle class has been hollowing out and, adjusting for inflation, the median wage barely budged for 30 years. The pursuit of pure profit, untethered to any other values (usually imposed by a regulatory body), is ripe for exploitation which just further concentrates wealth.
You’re right that capitalism has improved things around the world by lifting billions out of poverty. However when you look at the areas of specific growth, democracy is often nowhere to be seen and heavy-handed government regulation is present. Much has been made of China’s success in switching to capitalism but pro-capitalists never mention that China’s economy is very regulated and has been rife with the sort of large-scale initiatives championed by socialist governments. Reaganites screamed so loud that any tax cut was good, that any regulation was bad, and that capitalism alone defeated the Soviet Union that it has become a modern myth. But you can draw a direct line from this change in attitudes toward the role of government and private industry to the diminishing of American global influence and the decline of the American middle class, even as the more markets opened up to us.
TLDR: Unregulated capitalism bad, regulated capitalism good.
If it was 1971, I might cede you the point.In 2018, you are either ignorant or arguing in bad faith.
The key is that word “unfettered”. Like almost everything else under the sun, Capitalism is neither a good nor a bad thing inherently and implicitly in all circumstances. It depends very much how we use it, how much of it there is and how it applies to a given circumstance. Economic opportunity that allows for new industries to flourish and 13 different types of frozen turkey at the market without ever having to call up and order one ahead of time are good. The gross devaluation of labor at all levels and destruction of the middle class, not so much.Yes, capitalist principles are excellent, historically, at reducing poverty. Paradoxically, unregulated or poorly regulated markets are excellent at producing oppression that creates and traps people in poverty instead of lifting them from it.Socialism isn’t the opposite of Capitalism, it’s just a direction on a spectrum – and one that isn’t a simple line but rather a circle, technically. We need to move drastically in the Socialist direction, for at least a little while, since we’re quickly approaching the absolute far end of the purely Capitalist part of that spectrum, and it’s literally poisoning our society, our nation, our culture, and our economy. The problem is that Steerage is filling up first, and the unbelievably rich-and-getting-richer One-Percenters on the Bridge, who thanks to deregulation and bought-and-paid-for regulation that makes them de facto oligopolies if not outright monopolies, don’t believe the ship is flooding just yet… or just don’t care because conditions are still so fantastic on the Bridge…
Our markets are not pure capitalism. many of those gains were fought for by unions and regulations enforcing worker protections.
I love how our society cripples capitalism through strict regulation and then says “See! Capitalism doesn’t work!” As if Amazon getting huge tax breaks has anything to do with capitalism.
I’m not really a meme guy, but I can’t believe I missed that having lived through the plethora of Web businesses in the 90’s that had zero fucking business plans, yet had investors for whatever reason. That is a perfect encapsulation of the phenomena.
This post is placed in the wrong section.
Get fucked. You should be embarrassed to call yourself a “neo-liberal”. Get your Steven Pinker bullshit out of here.
put down the corporate funded Steven Pinker cherry picked nonsense and learn about the way the world actually is.
“actual-neoliberal” lol
Life expectency in the United States is on the decline, partially attributable to an opiod epidemic driven by lax regulation and capitalism that will more than likely result in a slap on the wrist on the corporations and owners responsible.Along those same lines, the United States spends more than any other modern, developed nation on healthcare while receiving worse service, the reason? A for profit insurance and healthcare scheme that has reached the point of gaming patent law in order to drastically increase prices on previously cheap medications.On the education front, state money is siphoned off into private religious schools, private for-profit colleges are engaging in predatory schemes to attract students, college debt rivals home loan debt in size, and the United States trails twenty-fourth in science, twenty-fourth in reading, and thirty-eighth in math.On the crime side, the U.S. leads in firearm fatalities, where reform cannot take place, in part, because of interest groups heavily funded by firearms manufacturers. Manufacturers that receive liability protection through lobbied-for politicians in a world where money equals speech, and without a clear quid pro quo transaction, political corruption doesn’t really exist.On the quality of life side, Americans fear the costs described above more than citizens from other developed nations, and, since I’m writing this online, they pay more for worse internet than quite a few countries, the reason? Unbroken and uncontrolled monopolies.I’m sure there are other examples that could be discussed, but the problem here is that what is criticized is unfettered capitalism. Unfettered. Not the social democracies of Europe, which are called communist and socialist by quite a few graduates of the U.S. education system, and not the Keynesian capitalism of the post-war United States, but the capitalism that exists now.
All of the benefits you claim are actually the result of people people fighting against capitalism. But it’s pretty much universal that capitalists are willing to lie to support the wealth of the elite.
I came here to find a neoliberal redditor, aka, “a redditor”, defending capitalism.I am not disappointed.
Education access and standards? Standards are arguable, Common Core is certainly not a delight but otherwise perhaps.
Education access has certainly increased, although with diminishing
returns as educated wages stagnate and education related debt is
threatening to collapse the entire structure in the US. That there has
been a reduction in international conflict is farcical, we are in the
Forever War envisioned by the Metal Gear Solid series(among many others)
as we speak, but we have been isolated from consequences in the west.
We feel the war less, although the war continues unabated and capitalism
has made the war cheaper to produce.Convenience has
certainly increased sharply with the advent of the internet, although
pointedly the internet was not invented by capitalism. Quality of life
is difficult to measure, the Millennial generation is poorer, has more
debt, has worse prospects, owns less property(including housing) with
poor prospects OF owning property in the future, faces damning
structural problems and cataclysmic healthcare costs, but has cheaper,
easier access to creature comforts and consumer goods. Quality of life?
In ways that don’t matter, but bring fleeting comfort, in most other
ways no.Ah, the World Bank, I mean what’s discussing
anything opposite a neoliberal without the World Bank rearing its ugly
head? Poverty, interesting, the World Bank defines poverty strictly in
the most extreme terms, and indeed 1.90$ a day is extreme, and the
number of people living on that amount has reduced dramatically, but
that’s not all of poverty, is it? The good comes from moving
industrialization to “second world” countries, elevating a Chinese
worker from 1.90$ a day to 10$ a day looks nice on a pie chart, but when
GM shuts down multiple factories of people earning 25$/hr to hire as
many in China making 10$ a day, well, it falls apart, doesn’t it? World
Bank likes to howl about extreme poverty, but the overall wealth and
quality of life for the majority of people in capitalist countries is
the real metric, and it’s marred by gross, unrestrained capitalism.You’re
right to put down Communist enclaves, but indeed, socialist leaning
regulated capitalist societies are the happiest, healthiest, wealthiest
societies on Earth, and the most unfettered capitalist country struggles
to rank in the top 30 on almost every metric.That says something.
We don’t have “democratic capitalism.” We have capitalist democracy. Big difference, chief.
Why is it that anytime someone says, “Hmm, maybe holding the people with all the money to SOME standards wouldn’t kill us,” some other idiot has to jump in and equate that position with communism? REGULATED capitalism (paired with strong social-democratic core values) certainly went a long way toward creating the world your describing. But what kind of dark, sound-proof safe room do you have to live in to imagine that’s the world, currently? Much like it is with climate change, you now have to be willfully ignorant to not see the slow, creeping disaster forming just off thataway.
Actually curious if you are conflating the availability of information on the World Wide Web with the reduction of public education accessibility in geographic areas.
I agree on various societal improvements that are direct results of capitalisms products (Technology, Automation, and various computing side effects) however its important to note that in the US we have backslid terribly in maternity health and educational equality.While it is absolutely possible to get an education with above average attentionspan and effort the average schoolkid in the US costs their parent 10x what it cost in 1960 to go from Kindergarten to 4-year degree.Now I am sure the college debate is easy to deflect but you also have to remember the rise of the “limited enrollment” charter school is now even further separating cream from the whey and the difference between average and above-average is decided as early as grade school application deadlines.Grade school application deadlines…..can we acknowledge that the concept is implying some not great stuff about an education system for all but rather an education system for those who can afford to pay?
“with improving social support structures”See, I missed the part where that happened.
Capitalism was a groundbreaking step forward from feudalism, even Marx argued that. It just will inevitably eat itself and lead to something different, hopefully better but could be much worse.
I have been paying attention and I disagree. Significant improvements in education access and standards, life expectancyI take it you do not live in the US? Education, and life expectancy have both gone down recently.
You’re speaking sense, prepare to be ridiculed.
The modern State is largely responsible for those improvements, not capitalism.
reduction of international conflictThat’s got a lot to do with all the big players having nukes. Capitalism was already well established in the West during WW1 and WW2 and it didn’t make a blind bit of difference.
I assure you, this is not some pro left wing thing. Next week, when part 2 airs, you socialists are going to be ripped a new one. Just sayin. Socialism doesn’t work. It has NEVER worked. And if it ever takes hold int he USA, God help us all!
Agree. And we can embrace the great things of Capitalism while acknowledging that the rapid growth of centralized corporatism and the gig-economy has been faster than the user/worker’s ability to keep up with it, leading to dis-empowerment that leads to exploitation. Acknowledging that our current system has issues worth solving isn’t anti-Capitalist any more than taking your car to get fixed, or switching to an EV is “anti-car.”
I’m not disagreeing with you Neo. However South Park and it’s view are uniquely American. When you look at the economies that are booming in the world you see an interesting mix of Socialism with Capitalism. When you look at Europe, you see the same. Social Democracy, where universal healthcare and education are givens, seems to work much better then the unfettered Capitalism of the United States at this period of time.
All of that can be true and the current structure can be bad for lower class workers and the general populous. Things that were once great can loose their usefulness, like Roy Hibbert. Revolutionary one minute, and lacking the tools to keep up the next. Kingdoms were better than Chief-doms, Empires were better than Kingdoms, Republics were better than Monarchies. They all sucked in one way or another. Capitalism revolutionized the world, but it didn’t end the need to adapt governance to meet the needs of the people.
I can quote all the exact same statistics you did and come to the same conclusion about recent rises in atheism & it would make the same amount of sense. These things are not because of capitalism, they are despite it. Capitalism is literally the human obsession with accumulating capital, which gradually corrupts and takes over governments and makes them dysfunctional. It’s not some Entity that takes over states & then gets to take credit for all that those states produce.
username checks out at least
Is this what other South Park fans are actually like, and I’ve just been too wrapped up in myself to notice?
The issue is Friedmanesque capitalism. (Maximize profit at all cost, company only exists to serve the shareholder, etc.) I would also seriously question whether or not social support systems have gotten better. (While they may have improved, they are overwhelmed. The shear number of workers who need help is increasing due to profit maximization.) The “Social Contract” most companies abided by until the mid-late eighties has been completely abandoned and we, at least in the states, have not maintained labor law in a manor to equalize these effects. 20 years from now, there will be half as many jobs. And, a larger share of them will be “traditionally” low wage service jobs. Labor laws and social support systems have failed to account for the last 30 years of labor market change. We have some catching up to do. Also, I sincerely believe, much of the democratic socialism talking points would be moot if Friedman hadn’t been taken seriously.
I think that the 21st century capitalist GRIFTER in the most powerful office on the planet kind of blows your whole assertion to smithereens. He has a history of being a capitalist grifter and now has numerous investigations against him, and just had his foundation dissolved because of financial improprieties. This is not me repeating what the media puts out but someone who lives in New York and was familiar with this person’s capitalistic attitudes and behaviors before he even went to the White House. Add to that the capitalist’s that defend him and share his view. Even if you want to go with his view that there’s a “Deep State” out to get him that supposed Deep State is a result of capitalism, a group of people or person that wants to still hold on to power. The person that occupies the White House now says just the opposite of what you expressed as far as what is going on in this country now. Whether he’s lying or what he’s a capitalist that’s giving us some insight on his capitalist view, and it’s nowhere near what you laid out and there are others like him. I’m African American and fifty nine years old, which means I’ve been around for a while and I’m also in the Social Work field working and have been working with “at risk” and “vulnerable” populations. I haven’t seen any significant improvements in any of the communities I’ve worked with that are a result of capitalism. The fact that there are at risk and vulnerable populations in the 21st century in the wealthiest nation on the planet should make you rethink your position. Unarmed Black people being killed by police who “fear for their lives” every time they engage a Black person isn’t an improvement by any means. I don’t know what 20th century history you’re reading but I know I can compare what I was told as a high school student back in the 70’s about what this capitalist country could and would be and compare it to what I’ve seen and been through and right now, that “future” I was told I could look forward to is a myth. Right now there are people screaming about putting a wall up on the southern border of this country and a president willing to shut the government down because of it. You call that an improvement of capitalism? A wall that’s meant to keep people out does the opposite of all the positives you laid out about capitalism and that there are actual populations in this country that support that kind of says the capitalism that we’re seeing is about SELF.
I think people tend to try and one or the other the 20th century. The problem in this country is that it is so pro Capitalism that the disregard is for how much Socialism was needed to glue everything together. What has happened since Reagan is that the glue has been chipped away, and so people are right to shit on Capitalism as it is now, and on people who refuse to acknowledge or listen to the reasoned calls for things like oversight and regulation considering it some sort of appeal for straight communism. That is the boogeyman the Paul Ryans of the world have hammered for decades now and people have bought it. “You can ride a horse without reins because a horse naturally runs”
I think you are giving capitalism far too much credit. Capitalism made those things you mentioned possible but it only delivered those things by force and under duress. If you look at capitalism prior to the Labor Movement, it was an ugly thing. It gave us the Ludlow Massacre, the Battle of Blair Mountain, child labor, Pinkerton detectives acting as hired muscle to keep workers in line. It gave us towns where companies put machine gun nests on roofs to keep workers “in their rightful place”. Chits in place of pay that could only be used at the company store. People worked in terrible conditions with no concern for safety of the workers, no responsibility taken for their maiming or death. The government in several cases used military force against its own citizens. (Like the national guard slaughtering women and children in their tents in the Ludlow Massacre) Before a multitude of laws that were gained by violence and bloodshed, capitalism was a modernized, twisted version of the feudal system, with Lords and vassals, but with the twist that the Lord has no responsibility for his serfs. The nice side effects you point to in your post were the results of an uprising to restrain capitalism, for it’s own good.I’ll take capitalism over any other system, but I’ll take mine nicely fettered, thank you-and-good-night.
The average person had more wealth globally 100 years ago. Capitalism has driven more to poverty in the 3rd world by removing their existing economies and forcing them to be the underpaid labor for the advancements you tout. Just because you only want to see the improvement for 1 billion doesn’t mean the cost to another 3 billion was worth it.
Josh the Marxist box is hands down my favorite new character. This is has been a great season!
Although I would’ve liked it if his voice sounded more muffled. He is talking from inside a box after all.
This season in general has really felt like Parker and Stone reflecting on the show they’ve made and the stances they’ve taken over the years and doing something almost nobody else in this day and age would ever do: admit they were wrong. Not just the obvious Man Bear Pig and tonight’s episode, but even the Mr. Hankey episode seems like a commentary on some of the joke’s they made in years past (Cartman’s antisemitism is less funny when we’re surrounded by actual antisemites on a daily basis), the priest episode feels like them saying “Hey, the obvious jokes are funny… but maybe we can do more than just make them all the time.”
Dare I say it, it almost feels like given the current climate Parker and Stone might NOT be pure libertarians anymore. I honestly don’t know; has anyone interviewed them about their politics in the last year or so?
and tonight’s episodethey weren’t admitting they were wrong. They were just going after a company. They’ve done it many times before, even if the reviewer only remembers one.but even the Mr. Hankey episode seems like a commentary on some of the joke’s they made in years pastUm wow. You totally misread that episode. It was actually the exact opposite – a middle finger.
Yeah, the Whole Foods episode was pretty critical. That was even referenced in this episode with Kenny living among the ruins.
Agreed. And the original ManBearPig episode ended with ManBearPig being real…people need to go back and watch the post-credits scene, because it seems like everybody’s missing the entire point of that episode.
I assume you are referring to anti-semites like Farakhan and Sarsour.
Yep, THAT’S what they’re going for, not the literal Nazis and white supremacists walking the streets
Why do you want to avoid focusing on the majority of anti-semites to focus on 2 in particular? Would the rest of them start to look a little too much like your family photo?
Mm hmm, that’s nice, bye bye now.
I’m so glad you found the two dark-skinned mostly irrelevant leaders of minor parts of the American Left that you could point to in your whataboutist nonsense. I’m sure those guys are just as responsible for the Temple shooting as the dog-whistle ploys by the modern Republican party and the current President that they continually spout on mainstream media, and who only support Israel so that their idiot base can fulfill their apocalyptic dreams.
Jesus wept, y’all. Why is the party of responsibility the quickest to blame everyone but themselves?
At one of their Fractured But Whole panels in recent years, someone asked how they felt about the show as a cultural touchstone (something like that) and the subject of their Libertarianism came up.They said that they’ve grown along with the show and that looking back on old episodes was like seeing who they were at the time, not who they are now. They talk about how they used to identify with the kids and now they identify with Randy and they wonder if they’re still relevant and cool.They clarified their political position as “punk-rock” (verbatim), not Libertarian. Makes sense, and honestly, when they were first coming up, Libertarianism was thought of as the punk-rock, anti-establishment party by naive twenty-somethings.Looking at SP’s history, it’s always been punk-rock – a middle-finger to parents, teachers, pop culture, and any dominant institutions that try to force their values on the little guy. Of course, “Rod Stewart is lame” has evolved into takedowns of HSN, Disney, nostalgia-fever, and overbearing PC culture (not decency, but PC culture).I respect the guys for tackling issues that are sometimes so complex that they can’t be neatly resolved in a half-hour episode or even a whole season. Sometimes you can see Trey thinking on the page and trying to make sense of the world changing around him.I happen to love it. The old adage “the more I know, the less I understand” is a truth that few shows are willing to embrace, much less media outlets.
IMHO, SP remains the best and most fearless satire around. You can’t run over officials complicit in child abuse with a cumboni on Colbert’s show, after all.
24 Amazon workers sent to hospital after robot accidentally unleashes bear sprayCoincidence? I think not.
Definitely coincidence. Now if it were ManBearPig spray…
Wouldn’t bear spray at least be 33% effective against ManBearPig?
Should be 50% effective, since he’s half-man, half-bear, and half-pig.
100%, actually, since the spray quite obviously works on men, too.
underrated comment.
50%. MeanBearPig is half man, half bear, half pig.
So more of a nuisance, then.
Consecutive Days without a workplace accident: 0Consecutive Days without a workplace bear attack: 11,202
This review felt rather weak to me. Yes you did highlight the politics the show addresses which is certainly the main point. But you failed to comment on the particular jokes they used. This episode went much deeper than just criticizing capitalism. The peak joke “We have been downgraded from Prime to USDA Choice” a joke on how the consumer is meat. You also did not comment on the references in this episode. Talosians from Star Trek as the basis for Jeff Bezos, and the scabs scene was an brilliant reference to “Billy Elliot” that I think most people missed. And as Screamapillar mentioned I don’t know how you were not aware of the “What’s step 3?” meme.
Step 3 is profit, man.
Surprised it took the show this long to tackle Amazon and its notorious grip over the marketplace, but it was damn sure worth the wait. Between the mall lying dormant as a ghost town full of zombie employees and Jeff Bezos’ depiction as some sort of all-knowing Star Trek-looking alien, the visuals alone put this episode in the top three of the season for me. Also, that Irish factory worker with the two broken arms getting to say “fuck” uncensored (or “fook,” in his case) really makes me hope he sticks around as a recurring gag character.I just can’t believe the finale’s already next week. A new battle to the death between Mr. Hankey and Jeff Bezos sure would make one hell of a Christmas special.
His arms aren’t broken. He has papercuts. They cover that at one point. Coupled with the “16 tons” song, it’s a tongue-in-cheek comment about how the “worst things” about this “horrible” company are not comparable to what people faced 50 years ago (or even in many industries today).
To me, this totally bookended “Cash for Gold,” one of the great rage-ey South Park episodes of all time.(Also, I understand from my husband that Jeff Bezos was a Star Trek reference.)
Once again, this reviewer sees what appears to be a left leaning arc, latches on to it and completely misses the point. This episode was not “anti-capitalist,” it was anti-monopolist. It showed the dangers of what happens when a company becomes too big to fail and had a parasitic relationship with its employees who are also it’s customers. Unlike the monopolies of the past, like Standard Oil, Amazon does makes its consumers lives better, just look at what the boys found out when they tried to shop at the mall. The mall has nothing they want and is unable to meet their needs. In the past, they would have just settled for whatever they could find, but Amazon can give them exactly what they want, at a good price and delivered quickly. Amazon has clearly stomped the competition that was unable to adapt and meet consumer demand. The problem now is that there is no competition, which means there are no other jobs or alternatives. The solution would be to break up Amazon so that companies with the same technology and know how can compete and bring that competition back to the market. This is the whole reason we have anti-trust laws; now we just need people with the will go use them. 20 years ago, we used them because Microsoft dared it include Internet Explorer with Windows. Where is the line to use them in Amazon?
Monopolies are the natural outcome of unregulated capitalism. To separate the two is naive. We’ve seen this before in the early 20th century and increasingly again lately.
Naivete is one of the basic tenets of Libertarianism.
So you’ve never met a libertarian?
And ignorance is one of the basic tenets of Liberalism.
Externalities will be solved by the market. — Every Libertarian I ask about ecological long duration negative impacts.For those who missed it…the market doesn’t service externalities.
Hey, watch how you’re talking; I was Libertarian once, when I was young and…Oh.
I was going to say the same thing. Since the industrial revolution, and the emergence of modern capitalism, only regulation has been effective in battling monopolistic behavior. Regulations which, of course, are truly anti-capitalist policies. Therefore any criticism of monopolies is a criticism of true capitalism.
How would you regulate capitalism?
The way we did after the Great Depression, or really, it was pretty good until the Regan 80’s, but the table for the Reagan Revolution was being set starting from around the time Reagan was elected governor in California. Deregulation has led to most of our economic and environmental woes.
Wrong, monopolies can’t possibly exist in unregulated capitalism because competition prevents that from happening. When you have regulation, it’s too onerous for smaller companies to abide so competition is stifled and only the big rich companies survive.This is precisely why you won’t see small healthcare companies or boutique car companies anymore because they can’t afford to meet regulation to compete. Nobody loves regulation more than the giant “monopolies” who can afford to meet said regulation. Speaking of monopolies, you seem to be OK with the biggest monopoly known to mankind, the U.S. government.
Actually, governments are usually a partner in monopolies by going along with lobbying and creating laws that help existing businesses by making it more difficult for competitors to enter the marketplace.Which isn’t to say the hardline libertarian view is best. There is a need for government regulation, but I think people need to think long and hard about how the regulators (appointed by both major parties) are usually people with significant ties to existing firms and are not neutral parties.
Monopolies only exist for as long as they are able to offer the best products for the best price while being the most convenient for the consumer. Walmart was a “monopoly” that nobody could compete with, now we see they’ve been surpassed. There will be competitors to Amazon and if they don’t continue to innovate then they will become stale and others will catch up; this is all to the benefit of the consumer.
Monopolies depend almost entirely on government enabling, generally through legal regimes like patents, use of public resources (like right of ways for railways, electrical lines, and internet architecture), or regulatory hurdles set up by a partnership of the government and the incumbent monopoly which prevent market entrance by competitors. Without the government, it’s damned hard to corner a market when anyone can rip off your business model and attempt to undercut you freely.
I think he was talking about regulated capitalism tho. So your comment is out of place
So many Marxists complaining about monopolies in capitalism but not a peep for the worst monopoly of them all – a communist-run economy. A laissez-faire capitalist monopoly can’t make competing against them illegal like communism.
Monopolies are the natural outcome of unregulated capitalism. To separate the two is naive. We’ve seen this before in the early 20th century and increasingly again lately.
Amazon isn’t a monopoly in the economic, legal, or even laymen sense of the word. They control approximately 5% of the retail market and have only hovered around 50% of the online retail market in recent years. To use your own example, Standard Oil, an actual monopoly, controlled 90% of the refined oil market in the United States.
You don’t think Standard Oil improved the lives of their consumers? It was founded at a time when technology and industry was just starting to clamor for refined oil, and the company was critical to serving that need. They didn’t become the largest multinational corporation in the world without reason. Finally, and I hate to break it to you, but anti-trust regulations are themselves fundamentally incompatible with laissez-faire capitalism. They are themselves anti-capitalist. You can’t criticize monopolies without recognizing them as a natural growth of a capitalist system.
Amazon has 90% of ebook sales. They fit a monopoly in that sector, and likely many more. They also account for 50% of all ecommerce and are growing.
What percentage of all book sales do they control?Calling it a monopoly cause it controls one part of one sector is like saying The WWF has a monopoly on sports broadcasting
You do realize that the WWE is a monopoly in professional wrestling and enjoys more than its share of control over various venue rent.There are multiple books by former WWE stars about how abusive the pay disparities are and the rampant medical violations, hell you don’t have to go back more than a handful of years to discuss the actual corpses of individuals who were cast off by the WWE.Vince McMahan enjoys his fifedom that will this year likely hit a billion in income.
It is a wrestling monopoly, like Amazon is an ebook monopoly. It’s not a sports monopoly any more than Amazon is a book selling monopoly
Only they are a bookselling monopoly. It’s a misconception to believe they have to be the sole player to be a monopoly.
Whether you are a monopoly has a lot to do with market definition. Saying Amazon is a monopoly in book sales is legitimate. Saying they have monopolistic power in online retail, is also legitimate.
Stop moving the goalpost before you declare Bob’s Bait and Tackle Shop a monopoly just because the locals have to drive to the next town over for live bait.
I’m of two thoughts on your post here:On one hand, Amazon has merely accelerated what were already long-term trends towards corporate and big box chains killing off the “mom and pop stores,” while employing low-wage labor. I find it hard to shed a tear for the likes of Barnes & Noble or Best Buy, because when it was their time to rise, they did plenty of rampaging all on their own. And at least for malls, it’s well-known that we have had too many of them. Does one average-sized city really need five malls with all the same stores?On the other, though, we don’t have to go all-or-nothing on capitalism. Laissez-faire capitalism—or, as it has been rebranded since its late-20th century revival, neoliberalism—is not the only way. A lot of American prosperity grew out of the reforms of the Progressive Era, with its social democratic character that created a lot of labor laws, business regulations and antitrust legislation we take for granted today, while the laissez-faire capitalism of the late-19th century Gilded Age gave us labor unrest, extreme income inequality and large, inefficient monopolies entirely due to a lack of competition. Often overlooked, too, is German ordoliberalism, a somewhat more capitalist variant of social democracy, which emphasizes the state’s interest in ensuring market competition to actively prevent the emergence of market oligopoly or monopoly.Laissez-faire capitalism is one of those ideas that has demonstrably failed, only for us to revive it and wonder why we continue to get the same results, but it doesn’t mean we have to go to the other extreme and abandon capitalism entirely.
I never included B&N in my list of chains of concern as growing up in the suburbs, B&N and Borders were salvation when they came around. They weren’t many non Walden’s or B Dalton bookstores around, and those had shitty selections. And the few independent bookstores that were around didn’t have huge selections either. If I lived near a place like Powell’s or the Strand, I would see a lot less to like about those places.
Standard oil didn’t become a Monopoly without government interference in the free market. Government interference allowed Standard Oil to skirt rules that other oil distributors couldn’t which lowered their prices compared to the competition. That’s not capitalism, that is corporatism. Monopolies are not a natural growth of a capitalist system. Capitalist systems have constant competition unless an unfair playing field is created through government interference.
And breaking up Standard Oil was also wrong. They were always subject to competition. Standard Oil owned 88% of refining business at its height, but its market share had already decreased to 64% by 1911 before the anti-trust case, and continued to drop. Anti-trust is simply a cudgel wielded by the politically connected to destroy their competition when they can’t competently compete in the marketplace.
They are a natural growth of a capitalist system like a tumor is a natural growth of a biological system. Still not so great for the system as a whole so why not take steps to reduce the tumor?
South Park is clearly trying to portray Amazon as a form of vertical monopoly, whether it actually is one or not. As I noted higher up, they use the song 16 Tons which refers to mining workers trapped living in a company town, getting deeper and deeper into debt at a company store (which typically would have been their only retail option) and being stuck in an endless cycle of working to pay more money to their employer without ever getting ahead. During the song South Park shows a modern version of the same thing, with workers laboring to buy Amazon products and use Amazon services. Later they show all other retail options have basically become defunct, giving the workers no option but to shop at Amazon. To be fair, the show also makes a point of showing people voluntarily put themselves in this position by choosing the convenience of Amazon over local retail, but it’s clearly become a monopoly in the show.
“50% of the online retail market”Newsflash, that’s a monopoly or enough market power to be treated as such by the FTC.
Well except Amazon DOES have competition. You can go to the website of Walmart, Target, on the clothing and homegoods side or Lowes, Homedepot, Autozone on the other end and get about 90% of what you can via Amazon. I’m not saying they compete WELL against Amazon, but there is come competition. I think the main problem is Amazon has had such a long lead time to build out its business model the way it has, that competitors like Walmart etc, are behind and need to catch up. But at the same time the point the episodes take on malls is pretty spot on, it sucks as that is more or less local money, but its true. Less so with things like clothes, makeup and things like that as almost any Dillards of Macy’s will have a selection that while not rivaling Amazon can get pretty darn close.
Why can’t you shop local? What’s wrong with adapting your plans to what resources and products are readily available to you, and shopping online only as a necessity? Why do people today HAVE to have exactly what they want at all times?Amazon isn’t evil; it’s just a perfect reflection of society’s pervasive “thrift and convenience at all costs” attitude.
Well I DO shop local, for things I can find locally. My main purchases outside of groceries are movies, and I buy them at my local best buy since our GOOD movie store, Hastings shut down. But there are plenty of things I do get from amazon, yes out of convenience. But somethings I just can’t find locally if I am looking for specific items.
Hastings? I loved Hastings. You must be from the south-central US, like me.
Why would I pay more for a product by choice? Is this satire? >Why do people today HAVE to have exactly what they want at all times? Because I want to and the free market is happy to allow competition to have several merchants compete for my hard earned money.
Because most people’s choices are limited on the local level. Unless you live in a massive metropolitan area like Chicago, LA, or NYC, you’re not going to have the same kind of variety down at the local drug-store or bookshop that you have on Amazon.
The slightly lower prices and two-day shipping are just an added bonus for most people.
People don’t shop local because it’s expensive. Walmart and Amazon are as big as they are because they provide cheap goods. Before Walmart, it was much harder/more expensive for lower income people to purchase basic necessities like clothing.
I’d love to shop local, but my local stores have such a limited range of products and sizes, that even if they have what I want, they almost never have my size left. I work, so I don’t have the time to go every single day so I can get there when the shipments come in, and I’m a common size in everything so my size sells out right away in everything. I also don’t have the time to go to several different stores looking for one item. What a waste of time that was, when I was a teenaged shopper. If retail stores had offered to order your size, then it would have been a different story. The take-it-or-leave-it attitude harmed them. I still shop for shoes locally, because my local shoe store will try to get my size.
yea, thanks I thought that was odd too.I haven’t seen it recently, but I don’t remember the moral being “Starbucks is awesome!!” I seem to remember it being “corporations product quality doesn’t suck just because it’s mass produced but they can push out main street, and local fair isn’t always the best just because it’s made local”
I just have one question Karl: Did you ever fix the cable, or did Jackie Treehorn call it off?
I just have one question Karl: Did you ever fix the cable, or did Jackie Treehorn call it off?
Sometimes I wonder if this reviewer is watching the same show as the rest of us.
Capitalism sucks dude
…It just had a guy making a very articulate and concise marxist point. but yeah we’ll see where this leads.
Marxist points are anything but articulate. They lack a complete understanding of even basic economics.
..basic economics which are, as everyone now, immutable laws; like physics; and not at all the results of a particular historical and social configuration. yeah. I know this one.
when you say “monopolies of the past, like Standard Oil” it makes me think that you don’t know the history. Standard Oil was just broken into two tiny little companies known as Exxon-Mobil and Chevron, who certainly never dumped oil into the ocean in a giant disaster or covered up climate change. so we all lived happily ever after, yay for anti-trust laws!
So you realize that the bit “AMAZON IS ONLY TRYING TO PLEASE THE CUSTOMER” is pointing directly at US, the consumer, right? We like to get by blaming the “Evil Corporation(TM)“ but really, it’s US to blame because we want our shit CHEAP and we want our shit NOW.Talk about missing the message…
Monopolies are practically a cornerstone of libertarian and conservative economics.They may argue otherwise but every policy they support encourages the formation, growth and long-term sustainability of monopolies.
And then try to explain away all the wealth disparity with some fantastical and janky just-world theory.
There is plenty of competition. Wal-mart, target, Costco and so on exist.
Eh, but Ebay is the largest Amazon competitor by far, and even they only had 6.6% of the online retail market in 2017 vs. Amazon’s 43.5%. Walmart only had 3.7%, Cosco 1.2% Amazon’s top 10 competitor’s combined only had around half the sales that Amazon did last year. There is no significant competition to Amazon when it comes to online retail sales, and as far as I know Amazon’s market share increased to 50% this year.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2018/08/06/who-are-the-top-10-u-s-online-retailers/#279003043401
When you’re reviewing South Park based on how closely an episode reflects your politics or offends your ideology, it’s not surprising that such shallow critiques would misrepresent and overly simplify the show’s intentions.
I wonder how many posters here have never used Amazon? Perhaps zero?Amazon is also a large distributor and storefront for thousands of small businesses. I would think if Amazon was broken up, it would lose the very thing that people like, one stop shopping. The people have spoken and they definitely like the Amazon way of shopping.
The use of 16 Tons is also very telling. The lyrics describe a time when coal workers in isolated locations have no choice but to shop in the “company store” – it was not uncommon at that time for large employers to have company towns where workers lived in company-owned housing and had to buy everything from the company, in some cases because they were paid in company “scrip” instead of actual cash. During the song, South Park shows workers becoming completely dependent on Amazon not just for employment and money but all their consumer goods and entertainment, creating a world where they work at Amazon in order to make money to spend at Amazon. Things of course are quite a bit different than the total control companies had over mine workers’ lives back in the time of 16 Tons, but it’s an interesting parallel.
“Amazon has clearly stomped the competition that was unable to adapt and meet consumer demand.” Amazon’s business model was to lose money for over a decade. Most businesses fail if they do that. Amazon did not, because they emerged at a time when the investing class thought everything internet was bright and shiny and managed to grow their investments. They aren’t just an accidental monopoly following good business practices that needs to be broken up, Their whole business model was to become the online retail monopoly.
More anti-monopsonist, but now we’re splitting hairs.
People living in a modern western country complaining about capitalism is pretty much the same thing as a teenager telling their parents who feed them and put a roof over their head that they hate them.
It’s so strange to me that this website and the people who comment on it are constantly talking about how the world has it out for poor people, the rich want the poor to die, etc. while also talking about how the system responsible for lifting the majority of the world out of poverty (capitalism) is a bad thing? How exactly do you reconcile this?My guess is just a poor understanding of what capitalism is.
Yup. It’s like a freshman in college level understanding.
That’s generous. I’d say it’s a 3rd-grade level understanding of economics and I’m not even being hyperbolic.
GSYBE is garbage
Ahem…https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/08/exposing-great-poverty-reductio-201481211590729809.htmlThe only freshman in college here is the one blindly parroting the World Bank’s misleading claims.
This says nothing about capitalism, this article is talking about the Millennium Development Campaign by the UN. Did you even read your own source?This article is peppered with stuff like this, tailoring the dataset to fit their narrative. Leaving china out multiple times, when their vast drop in poverty numbers was due to them abandoning communal farming for a market economy. In fact, even the $1.25 line shows that, without factoring China, the poverty headcount is worsening, with 108 million people added to the ranks of the poor since 1981. And misleading tidbits like this: The worldwide total rose from 1.2 billion in 1987 to 1.5 billion today and, if recent trends persist, will reach 1.9 billion by 2015.” Totally ignoring the fact that the global population increased by over 2b people in that same time. This is the reason they frame this “fact” this way. If they were using percentage of the total population, the number is dropping.Seriously, read your sources before you try to use them to prop up your position. It’s hilarious that you talk about misleading claims and then post this article fro al jazeera of all places that isn’t even talking about capitalism.
you’re probably middle class and don’t know what capitalism does to, say, the people of flint, michigan? your particular viewpoint of capitalism is too narrow to see the horrible shit that it does to ~the working class~ which you might want to see how they live sometimes.i don’t see where you get this idea that it lifted the “majority” out of poverty. how did you define poverty for instance? it seems to me like a lot of people are still impoverished. if i went to my home country of the philippines i would see pretty much everyone in poor conditions. if i drove south 2 hours into mexico i would see pretty much everyone in poor conditions. where is this majority? in white countries, where white people have enjoyed the fruits of exploiting the working class of other countries, hiding the abuses of capitalism across the ocean in africa and asia and south america?
you’re probably middle class and don’t know what capitalism does to, say, the people of flint, michigan? your particular viewpoint of capitalism is too narrow to see the horrible shit that it does to ~the working class~ which you might want to see how they live sometimes.I am middle class, thanks to capitalism. As far as water is concerned, capitalism hasn’t been allowed to do much for flint as public utilities are highly regulated by the government and there is almost no competition. Lack of spending on infrastructure by the government and just general mismanagement cause the problem to spiral out of control. Thankfully, generous capitalists like elon musk, who installed water filters in schools out of his own pocket, and others who donated bottled water and monetary aide to families were able to help in that way. With more competition in public utilities (capitalism), utility providers would be beholden to the market. If your water provider has a lead based infrastructure, you could possibly have another choice. i don’t see where you get this idea that it lifted the “majority” out of poverty. how did you define poverty for instance? it seems to me like a lot of people are still impoverished. Global poverty was cut in half between 1990 and 2010. This is 5 years earlier than previously projected. When china started opening markets and adopting capitalism in the late 70’s and early 80’s, they reduced their extreme-poverty rate from 84% in 1980 to 10% now. Yes, a lot of people are still impoverished. Nobody is claiming that capitalism has or ever will lift EVERYONE out of poverty, but it has been the biggest driving force of doing so in history. if i went to my home country of the philippines i would see pretty much everyone in poor conditions. if i drove south 2 hours into mexico i would see pretty much everyone in poor conditions. where is this majority? in white countries, where white people have enjoyed the fruits of exploiting the working class of other countries, hiding the abuses of capitalism across the ocean in africa and asia and south america? Because mexico and the philippines are both developing countries with corrupt governments. Private industry is not the reason why these countries are the way they are. Honestly, there are a lot of factors but blaming a system of having privately owned businesses trading goods for profit for all of their issues is greatly over-simplifying the issue, which is typically what people who criticize capitalism do. “HOW IS CAPITALISM GOOD IF POOR PEOPLE STILL EXIST” is basically the argument that you are making, and honestly that’s pretty dumb and short-sighted. Capitalism is a tool. Capitalism is freedom. This means that good people can do good things with it, and bad people can do bad things with it, much like a lot of other things. That’s like saying water is bad because people drown in it all the time.
Capitalism can never fail, it can only be failed. This is a “No true Scotsman” classic.
Care to eleborate? I’m no economist so if I got something wrong, enlighten me
With more competition in public utilities (capitalism), utility providers would be beholden to the market. If your water provider has a lead based infrastructure, you could possibly have another choice.And if no private water provider felt it was profitable to serve you with water, what then?
Water is a human necessity and there will always be demand. Since there will always be demand, there will always be profit. More competition means more pressure for lower price and better quality. This is economics 101 stuff dude
Water is a human necessity and there will always be demand. Since there will always be demand, there will always be profit.Not true, especially for a public company that’s expected to not just turn a profit, but turn a higher profit year over year. Some customers just aren’t worth serving, even if they’re willing to pay. Most things that require extensive infrastructure, in fact, are only
really profitable in large urban areas. The customer-per-mile figure is
too low otherwise.Example 1: Rural electrification. Power utilities were not willing to serve farms in rural areas until the government subsidized them.Example 2: Telecoms. Many rural areas and small towns have only dialup or high-latency satellite for Internet access. There’s no interest in wiring up these areas because there’s not enough money in it. When the analog cell system shutdown approached, there were protests from people in parts of northern Michigan because they had *no* other phone service; the landline companies weren’t interested in wiring them up, and they were out of range of digital towers.One great irony here is some of the most conservative, anti-government states in the country wouldn’t have phone service, electricity, airline flights, decent roads, or train service if the government weren’t subsidizing them.
“Not true, especially for a public company that’s expected to not just turn a profit, but turn a higher profit year over year. Some customers just aren’t worth serving, even if they’re willing to pay”
The moral is perhaps you should move to where people are or bear the costs of living in distant, difficult to reach places yourself rather than trying to force other people to bear those costs for you. You don’t have the right to have food, water and power delivered to you on whatever mountaintop you choose to live on.
This guy gets it.
The moral is perhaps you should move to where people are or bear the
costs of living in distant, difficult to reach places yourself rather
than trying to force other people to bear those costs for you.The thing is, society needs things that require people to live in remote places, like food.Politically conservatives/libertarians are sort of muddled on this idea — they dislike subsidies in general; but they also decry urbanism and believe rural people to be the virtuous “real Americans,” even though the rural lifestyle is maintained only by generous subsidies.
Please educate yourself.https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/blackboard.learn.xythos.prod/578576e57d790/77804?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27Strategic%2520Waters%2520Tragic%2520Waters.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20181207T033522Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIL7WQYDOOHAZJGWQ%2F20181207%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=3afb9251d3146007af5a456a95ae70f61e03e205ebad630ffa088f7b51392bdb
The naivete of your statement is amazing. Look as wifi (yes, less required, but still highly desirable) It is quite common in rural or poor areas for wifi providers to simply not operate as it wouldn’t be profitable. Of course, they then complain like hell when the government steps in to provide what they are not. See also, https://democracyctr.org/archive/the-water-revolt/bechtel-vs-bolivia-details-of-the-case-and-the-campaign/Basic human needs should never be subject to the market principle because then you it’s “pay or die” capitalism. Demand will always be there.
No idea what a WiFi provider is dude
ISP
1. Internet access is not a basic human need2. Businesses should not be forced to operate in markets that are un-profitable3. Satilite internet exists for this exact reason and invalidates your argument. It is available anywhere that has a view of the sky.
You are missing the point. Water suppliers will not build the infrastructure or supply people if it’s not profitable. Even if they do, we would end up with Flint like situations.There are many things that the government does better than private business. The massive success of Social Security proves that.
Then you could do what you can always do in nature, go get some yourself. Or maybe go live somewhere that it is profitable for them to serve. You don’t have a right to have everything brought to you on the mountaintop you’ve chosen to live on.
“Because mexico and the philippines are both developing countries with corrupt governments. Private industry is not the reason why these countries are the way they are.”Tell that to the governments that were overthrown all over South America by the United States because it conflicted with their business interests. Just look into the term Banana Republic. The Philipines were devestated multiple times by mutliple countries in the name of business. So yes capitalism may have some good qualities but to ignore the savagery that it has directly caused developing countries is naive and ignorant.
You’re conflating capitalism with imperialism. If you weren’t aware, imperialism has been around far longer than capitalism.Also, would love a source for this:
The Philipines were devestated multiple times by mutliple countries in the name of business.
This is just patently false.
Capitalism and Imperialism have gone hand in hand throughout the history of the United States due to excess goods and the need to open markets. Other reasons include cheap labor and raw materials or agriculture. If you want other examples look into how Hawaii became a state because of the pinapple plantations. But here is a source for what you asked. If you would like I can find others or you can google it yourself.“The decision by U.S. policymakers to annex the Philippines was not without domestic controversy. Americans who advocated annexation evinced a variety of motivations: desire for commercial opportunities in Asia”Source: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/war
You’re acting like these things wouldn’t exist without capitalism.People who use “capitalism” the way you do need to get out more. You talk about it like it’s the dark side of The Force, or voo doo.Read a book.
you’re saying people will still exploit each other’s labor under systems other than capitalism? yes, of course that’s true. that doesn’t mean we should try to figure out a solution to that, no?i like that you suggest that my problem is that i need to “get out more” yet i should “read a book.” which is it? i don’t see what your problem is with my use of the word “capitalism.” i used it exactly twice. i assume you must be referring to the second time i use it, since i was referring to the original post the first time (which uses it in the same general way that i do, yet you seem to have no comment for them). if you mean the second time, then you must believe that we didn’t export our factories overseas because it’s much more profitable to exploit the labor there where you don’t have to pay a minimum wage or provide benefits. because that is a capitalistic process. that is maximizing profits. and that’s how i meant to use it there. if that is not “capitalism” then tell me what you think that is?
Capitalism is highly correlated with massive increases in wealth over time, which you can contrast with non-capitalist countries and see that wealth doesn’t automatically increase over time without it. Economics also provides good mechanistic explanations for how it could be responsible. At this point doubting the power of free (or at least relatively-free) markets is a pretty anti-science position.
You do realize it was the government that caused the Flint crisis and not capitalism right?
You have very…very little understanding of anything that you’re talking about here.
“you’re probably middle class and don’t know what capitalism does to, say, the people of flint, michigan?”Problems caused by central planning requires more central planning. Where does capitalism fit?
“The poisoning of Flint is linked to the 2013-14 Detroit bankruptcy, which was carried out with the backing of the Obama administration. The pensions and health benefits of city workers were slashed and public assets were sold off or privatized, including the treasures of the Detroit Institute of Arts and the city’s century-old public water system. This led to sharp increases in water prices in Detroit, Flint and other cities, and mass water shutoffs of working-class customers.The modus operandi of the conspiracy of politicians and corporate holders of city bonds to plunder the incomes of city workers and seize public assets in Detroit has become a model for similar attacks across Michigan, in other US states and now in Puerto Rico. Municipalities and school districts have been starved of resources by federal, state and local authorities, forced to take on immense levels of debt, and then put under financial dictators who do the bidding of the banks.”https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/01/20/pers-j20.html
What does any of this have to do with capitalism?
What did capitalism do to Flint, Michigan?
Approximately 25% of the “content” here are advertisements for Amazon. Back in my day, AV Club writers wouldn’t dare complain about the overwhelming deliciousness of Hormel Black Label Bacon. The kids today just don’t get the concept of don’t shit where you eat.
Love that. Like you said, these people complain about capitalism from their macbook on a site filled with ads over the internet for profit, for a company owned privately, in an office that they most likely had to drive to in their car, also produced by a private company for profit. For people that supposedly hate capitalism, they sure love benefiting from it.
Capitalism = good. There. Socialism = good. Uh-oh. The two working together to make things better, with capitalism as a baseline and socialism making capitalism more aware of its misdeeds? Hm. As has been mentioned elsewhere in these comments, monopoly and conglomeration are enormous problems. There’s a paucity of representation in our government, nevertheless genuinely good ideas about how to tackle our economic/environmental futures. Throwing cash at a system to first break it then crush the wills of any who would oppose it (lobbying) has worked out well for anyone who made out of the global recession in 2008, but structurally, free-riding and corporate misappropriation, poor morals, bad ethics and poor leadership have been here since Reagan and have slowly deteriorated the heart of our country and brought on decay. Reagan was a cavity and the tooth is basically dead now, only scraps left to chew with for the underclasses. What did HW’s greatest generation and those who survived the depression figure out? That once you let the tiger out of its cage it mauls and eats people and gets used to it. How sad he worked for an administration that worked towards such a goal (When the Tigers Broke Free). We have to put the tiger back in its cage. We can admire it once in a while at the zoo, but tigers belong in cages in polite society.
This comment is extremely disorganized, and i’m not really sure of your overall point, but I’ll try to address some things.To have a functioning society, there are definitely some things that should be regulated by the government, specifically (in my eyes), protections against tactics that are overly unfair to a consumer (such as anti-trust laws) and certain safety regulations (like making sure food has expiration dates, toys for kids don’t contain harmful chemicals etc.). It’s a slippery slope though, because too much government in the market ultimately hurts it (such as lack of competition in public utilities).In a previous comment, I stated that capitalism is basically just a platform. All it is is the idea that private businesses can sell goods and services for profit. What an individual chooses to do with that platform is more an indictment on the individual than capitalism itself.
So, “Capitalism”. Thanks.
Attributing the whole success of the modern world to capitalism is about as reasonable as universally opposing capitalism. It’s one aspect of our modern world and an outgrowth of our desire for trade, something we’ve been doing since at least the neolithic. But to claim the modern world exists solely because of capitalism ignores big government interventions that shaped history. It ignores scientific and cultural advancements and exchanges that shaped the modern world. It ignores thousands of years of history during which many merchants got rich and powerful through global trade yet didn’t kick off the industrial revolution. To attribute the modern world to capitalism requires cherry picking the most prosperous time in human history during which almost every aspect of human endeavor radically changed and became more sophisticated.
Capitalism is just system for exchanging goods but it has become a cult/religion and its devotees are quick to declare heresy on anyone who doesn’t give it sufficient deference. They ignore that you can draw a direct line between the greater embrace of capitalism and distrust of government and the hollowing out of the American middle class. They ignore that as western democracies have become less socialist and more free market since the 80s median wages have stagnated, leading to the current rise of unrest in the west. They ignore that many of the modern successes of capitalism came about because of big government and scientific programs (Interstate highway system, World War II, Marshall Plan, Apollo, GPS, network communication protocols). They ignore the majority of scientists and intellectuals throughout history who were driven by knowledge alone in favor of thieves and hucksters who stole technology or used unfair practices to get rich (Edison, Rockefeller, any of the tech CEOs who’ve paid settlements for intellectual property suits).
TLDR: Capitalism isn’t bad, but it isn’t the end-all-be-all. People treat it like religion to the detriment of everything else.
I never attributed the entire success of the modern world to capitalism, all I said was that it had been the biggest force lifting people out of poverty in the modern world. Cool attempt at a strawman tho
Privatizing the water supply is asinine, and we already see the results with corporations like Nestle. Would you be fine with a corporation causing a drought because they’re sucking up the water supply in order to sell back to people in bottles at a profit? This serves NO public good. The problem with Flint is that Michigan cut taxes on corporations and the one percent so much that they switched to a cheaper, known unsafe water supply, because the government does the bidding of corporations. It’s criminal.It is untrue that capitalism has ‘lifted the world out of poverty.’https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/08/exposing-great-poverty-reductio-201481211590729809.htmlAre you seriously using the “Durr, they have computers, how can they hate capitalism?” argument? What idiocy. You cannot live outside this system. Hell, this South Park episode illustrated this EXACT problem if you were paying attention. Workers are paid so little for their labour that they have to rely on retailers like Amazon to afford products, which at the same time drives these companies into profitability, because no one can afford much else, which keeps the company going in providing more jobs with substandard wages and work practices. It is a self destructive cycle playing out all over North America with retailers like Walmart.
Im guessing you didn’t read your own source, because nowhere in there does it say capitalism leads to more poverty or that capitalism has not been effective for reducing poverty. What it does say is that the millennium project by the UN wasn’t as successful as they said it was. Cool. It also says that the “absolute” number of people in poverty has risen, not taking into account that the percentage of people in extreme poverty has decreased. It also states that the millennium project numbers are skewed because it includes the number of people that rose from extreme poverty in China…. Because they stopped communal farming and started adopting a market economy.Lastly, “Workers are paid so little for their labour that they have to rely on retailers like Amazon to afford products,”This is so incredibly vague. Which workers? Workers that have little valuable skills that work in warehouses? Did you know that the lower class has been steadily shrinking while the middle/upper middle class is the fastest growing class in the USA? The technology we have because of capitalism allows us to obtain skills online extremely cheap and easily. I have no degree, paid a total of $100 for online courses on udemy, and once I take $500 in exams I’ll be qualified for jobs at $80k +. It has never been easier to leave the lower/working class. Companies like Amazon make acquiring products cheap and convenient and like you even said, provide countless jobs. You’re right, low skill jobs pay little. It’s up to you to obtain the skills needed for higher pay, and you don’t need to pay for college to get there if you’re a hard worker.Im not going to pretend like capitalism is absolutely perfect, or that it can’t cause any issues ever, but please let me know if you figure out a more effective system to put money in people’s pockets and provide access to good cheap products.
“Did you know that the lower class has been steadily shrinking while the middle/upper middle class is the fastest growing class in the USA? “That argument is based on a distortion of the data.
“Would you be fine with a corporation causing a drought because they’re sucking up the water supply in order to sell back to people in bottles at a profit”
Except that doesn’t happen and as far as I know, has never happened. It’s government that creates water shortages by monopoly infrastructure and price controls. Clean water is a good that has to be produced, delivered and quality controlled, just like any other. Take a look at Flint, Michigan and tell me you think government does a good job of serving that market. Compare to Nestle, when has nestle poisoned anyone?
Thank you for articulating this better than I can lol
“Except that doesn’t happen and as far as I know, has never happened. It’s government that creates water shortages by monopoly infrastructure and price controls.”That is funny. No basis in reality, but funny.
People living in a modern western country complaining about capitalism is pretty much the same thing as a teenager telling their parents who feed them and put a roof over their head that they hate them.Less straw man and more an overly serious response to a flippant broad analogy.But you are referring to people living in a modern western country and they complain about what they see. Capitalism is failing them as their productivity continues to go up but not their relative pay. Americans work more hours than previous generations and are financially worse off. This has been happening for 30 years despite massive growth in per capita GDP during that time. The wealthy of today aren’t working harder or contributing more than the wealthy company owners in the postwar boom but they are taking home a MUCH larger share of profits today.
the people who comment on it are constantly talking about how the world has it out for poor people, the rich want the poor to die, etc. while also talking about how the system responsible for lifting the majority of the world out of poverty (capitalism) is a bad thing?Discussing the shortcomings of capitalism in modern western countries is totally the same as considering capitalism a bad thing. Also I believe we think the rich don’t give much thought to whether the poor live or die rather than actively pushing for it.
People living in a modern western country complaining about capitalism is pretty much the same thing as a teenager telling their parents who feed them and put a roof over their head that they hate them.
Let’s run with your analogy.In this case, Mommy and Daddy Capitalism do not provide food and shelter, you have to work for them in order to get it and compared to their steak dinners and house with plumbing, HVAC, electricity and cable, you get ramen and a cardboard box for your efforts. Although you do all the work that makes the house viable, they keep the lion’s share of the benefits to their selves.the system responsible for lifting the majority of the world out of poverty (capitalism)
The living standards of slaves in the US increased over time. Is that an argument for slavery? If not, it’s not an argument for capitalism. The world now has the resources for ending poverty and hunger altogether, but it’s not happening because it wouldn’t be “profitable” to the Powers That Be. And that is ignoring the fact that the claim you are blindly parroting is only true by the bar for extreme poverty set by the World Bank, (which does not pace inflation in a sleight of hand trick to feign improvement).https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/08/exposing-great-poverty-reductio-201481211590729809.html
The World Bank standard for poverty is $2 a day, so “moving a million people out of poverty” can merely consist in moving a million people from incomes of $1.99 a day to $2.01 a day. In one widely-cited study, there were only two nations in which the average beneficiary jumped from less than $1.88 to more than $2.13: Pakistan and Thailand. Every other nation was making minor jumps in between. This is better than nothing, but still small stuff to set against the costs of trade liberalization. It is definitely not the qualitative jump from material misery to a decent standard of living that people imagine from the phrase “lift out of poverty.” Economic growth, not capitalism, lifts people out of poverty.
What I don’t get is how posters like you (sorry to attack you BTW) and “socialist” posters throughout this thread can take any binary position whatsoever.It’s been about 30 years since I took macro econ, but even then one of the basics tennets that everyone agreed upon was: pure capitalism doesn’t work; and pure socialism doesn’t work. A society that is fair and just requires both capitalist principles to spur innovation, investment, access to markets, etc.; And socialist principles to regulate the markets, protect the public, and yes, spread some of the wealth.Now what is that proper balance? Fuck if I know, but it’s ever fluctuating and way too complex for a south Park comment thread (but it should definitely include socialized healthcare).
I actually touched on this in a previous comment. Capitalism isn’t perfect and definitely does require a certain level of government oversight to protect consumers, at least in the modern world.
Capitalism “require[s] a certain level of government oversight to protect consumers” is the claim, made by people who assume the answer without even trying anything else.
I think I worded that poorly, but I’m really just talking about being able to have some form of legal recourse for things like bait and switch, fraud, scams etc. Government is pretty terrible at pretty much everything, and we do have entirely too much government regulation in private businesses currently, but there has to be at least something
I agree there has to be protection for individual rights, so we need remedies against theft and fraud. I’d be okay with a minimal government that existed just to protect our rights, but most of what is done through regulation could be done privately.
Except it wouldn’t be. Or it wouldn’t be done nearly as well as it would be by an accountable government.
“Pure capitalism doesn’t work” is something often repeated with no evidence. Regulating the market and protecting the public are things private groups could be doing if the state wasn’t monopolizing those areas. “Spreading some of the wealth” is just a euphemism for stealing, but there’s such a thing as voluntary mutual aid societies where people can join together to protect each other in case of emergencies, and they existed and worked here in America.
I spent a few thousand hours in Mortgage foreclosure courtrooms between 2007 and 2013 (both prosecuting and defending them). I saw a lot of tears and heartache (from both clients, and borrowers I was prosecuting against).I think they might take issue with your claim that banks would do just fine regulating themselves.
There’s a difference between “regulation” and protection for individual rights. I want everyone’s individual rights protected, and while I can imagine a truly voluntary society with private law systems protecting individual rights, I understand that’s a big jump for most people. I’d be okay with a minimal state designed simply to defend individual rights. We don’t have “theft regulation,” we have laws to protect your individual rights to property. Similarly, we need laws to protect against fraud, assault, murder, all violations of rights.
Other than that, we don’t need to dictate to banks everything they do. So long as they’re offering services to customers that customers want, and critically, so long as they’re not protected from the negative consequences of their actions by the state, as they are today, or given free reign to create money with no consequences, as they are by today’s states.
I never said they’d do just fine regulating themselves, either. I see opportunities for certification agencies with reputations customers trust, insurance companies and so on, all private mechanisms for regulation.
Wow. You really are naive.
Pure capitalism that is completely unregulated would lead to cartels and monopolies and people not being serviced because it is economically inconvenient to service them. Look at telecoms and internet access in rural or poor communities.
They’ve been brainwashed; they believe that the reason they aren’t successful is become the system is keeping them from being successful, that way they don’t have to accept responsibilities for their failures and mediocrity.I mean, it’s either that or they’re just incredibly stupid.
Your post let’s me know you have a poor understanding of history. Welcome to the Dunning-Kruger club. Now, go and learn something about this country, especially from the post-civil war era up to WWII. Damn fool kids these days, look around at the marvel of our modern society and think it just “happened” as a natural outgrowth of capitalism…hmph!Now get off my lawn. I have clouds to yell at.
Keep suckling on that money teat till you look up one day and your house has burned down. Its happened to the rich in California already. If it ain’t that it’s a hurricane, coming to a town near you, enjoy 😉
Thats what insurance is for 🙂
Why can’t Seth MacFarlane ever be as good as Trey and Matt? If he did this episode, it’d be the most insufferable Brian episode of all time.
The right will shit on anything the ‘left’ owns. Bezos is liberal, of course south park hates him. rump hates bezos too
South Park is not “the right” and never has been.
south park is “rightwing” in an episode about workers revolution……??????????
Meanwhile the major tech companies use their liberal bona fides to avoid criticism from those on the left who would be apoplectic if they were run or owned by right-leaning people. It’s a great business model.
Except they don’t escape criticism from the left. Way to prove you’re in a bubble.
Because the Left is not and has not been critical of silicon valley? Have you read any opinions on the the Valley in the last decade?
I mean, I can’t think of any clear example of a left-leaning media organization being critical of tech companies. NOPE! CAN’T THINK OF A SINGLE EXAMPLE THAT MAY OR MAY NOT CURRENTLY BE AT THE TOP OF MY SCREEN AS I TYPE THIS COMMENT!
I love how you think South Park is “the right”. A very…very stupid thing to think much less write.
your political compass is completely fucked up. Bezos is the incarnation of the right (liberal in the economic sense); he’s a super rich asshole who treat his workers as slaves while bathing in his pool of money; no he’s not “everything the right hates”; of course he’d be chum with Trump and Elon Musk, they come from the same background, and their ultimate goal is to fuck off to Mars or a militarised desert island after the collapse of civilisation they will have themselves caused.
People with genuine left-leaning politics don’t tend to like Bezos, but sure why not.
Calling South Park right is a good way to show you’ve literally never seen an episode of South Park.
On the contrary, the mall mutants scene was absolutely hilarious.
At first I thought that this episode was going to pivot to South Park being awarded the Amazon 2.o HQ. Maybe that will happen in the finale. Who knows. Maybe get Randy off the farm and put Cartman in a position of power he can abuse to no end.
Yeah, modern capitalism has given full employment, record wealth, higher standards of living and greater freedom than any other time in human history. The absolute horror of living today is terrible huh? You are basically retarded if you think socialism or communism is an answer to anything. How’s Venezuela doing these days?
This was a really hilarious and timely episode. Where I live we have dozens of dead malls and I imagine going inside of one would be rather like this episode. And the way they portrayed Bezos is even funnier to me than the way they portrayed Zuckerberg last season. Now we just need an episode with both of them in it.
Ah South Park. You want to be biting commentary on society but then you gotta go an put a butt on someone’s head for “laughs?”.
It wasn’t a butt for laughs. Bezos was clearly being portrayed as a Talosian from Star Trek (original series), who used telepathy and could create illusions to give anyone their desires. They had enlarged brains and the backs of their heads actually looked like that – you can find a few behind shots in Google Image search. In the episodes they were in, there was a human woman who had survived the crash of a ship on their planet, and while they saved her life they didn’t know enough about human physiology to not leave her disfigured, so they used their illusion powers to restore her beauty and to try and lure Captain Pike to stay on the planet and be her companion.
As for the mall workers, I’m pretty sure their look was based on the Morlocks from H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, but I can’t be 100% sure on that.
Here ya go.
Actually my first thought was Powell’s, the Goon.
well that’s a very accurate portrayal of an asshole.
The Jeff bezos character was modeled after the villain in the original unaired star trek pilot. Check it out. I think it’s called the cage. They then edited it up and put it in a later 2 part episode called The Menagerie.It will give you more insight into the joke.
Stephen Stotch yells at Butters for seemingly no reason,this is unusual?
American libertarianism is not the only form of libertarianism in the world. There is also Libertarian Socialism which can be found in Europe and the independent city state of Acteal in Chiapas, Mexico. I cant say if this is the train of thought Matt and Trey are headed on though.
Mid 16 Tons, I thought it would be a great troll if they literally played it on repeat for 30 minutes while things got progressively worse at the Amazon distribution center.
FOR IDIOTS ONLY
Surprisingly? Is this your first time seeing South Park?
PAYING for FREE shipping. That will always hurt my brain.
I order my 40-pound bags of dog food through Amazon, at least once a month. Forget everything else, I cover that Prime membership through that alone.
It’s kind of like a concierge plan. You expect to use it, but some will subsidize others because not everyone uses it as much. Seems to make decent economic sense.
I also get Prime Video which has a lot of content that I enjoy and access to digital magazines.
The abandoned mall still playing Anita Baker over the speakers got a gut laugh out of me. Maybe the biggest laugh this season.
Also, I’m enjoying that ‘the mall’ is where the kids want to go, as malls were the boogey-man that destroyed Main Street ‘mom and pop’ stores, much like Amazon destroyed the mall, in the context of this episode. Putting “the mall” as the stand in for the ‘good old days’ is very funny! 🙂
I’m obviously rooting for the workers on strike and the box guy, but I fear they will make them the butt of the joke in the next episode, as everything else; because it’s south park; and that’s kind of what they do.
I’m sure we’ll get a “They took our jerbs” as part of it.
Knowing full well how the show is written (Frantically throw shit at the wall) the reviewer still refuses to acknowledge that this is fiction and does not nessecerily espouse the creators views. Nor have to have a fucking thesis.
“Likewise, two decades ago, the horrors of modern capitalism weren’t as readily evident, and it was easier to tell yourself that everything was Actually Fine,”No and no.
“At the… the m… m… the mall.”“Guess we haven’t been to the mall in a while.”“There are many, but yet none.”
That was a great sequence. I wish it had gone on longer.
Kind of like the big black Friday finale episode of the console wars arc a few years back.
This entire piece reads like a shitty attempt from a college freshman to “compare and contrast our talk this week about political systems with something you find in the media”. Jesus christ, is it possible for someone to miss the fucking point more?
There’s like a dozen ads every day on this site for stuff sold on Amazon.
South Park getting anti-capitalist? There’s one for the ages.
“Big corporations are good” is a drastically oversimplified reading of “Gnomes.”
The episode certainly takes a swipe at kneejerk anticorporate sentiment — people (in the episode) hate Starbucks simply because its a big corporation, not because of anything to do with the quality of its coffee — but look at the Underpants Gnomes themselves.
The episode’s avatars of capitalism don’t know what the hell they are doing. Much like “The Chewbacca Defense,” became an easy way to reference nonsensical legal arguments, “Underpants Gnome Logic,” with the missing second step linking getting underpants to profit, became a term for blinkered corporate thinking.
Okay, I’m really curious to see which story-arcs they’ll fit into the
finale. Obviously, the Amazon plot has become the center, but I imagine
they’ll also tackle Cartman’s anxiety plot, as well as the success or
failure of Tegridy Farms. It’d be weird to just leave those threads
hanging into next season, right? Does Mr. Hanky come back? I mean, that
episode was awhile ago, and it feels like the season has moved on, but
then again, it is Christmas time. There is going to be a lot to sort through next week.I don’t know why you think that South Park is going to revisit any of these things, but especially Mr. Hankey who now lives in Springfield.
I figure Cartman’s anxiety plot disappeared with his Budda Box this episode. Tegridy Farms maybe will ship it’s wares thru Amazon, but i suspect it’s just where Stan lives now.Next week will probably just center around strike busting and the bike parade (I bet it’s going to be a mashup of Hanna Barbaras Wacky Races and that Peanuts special where they race the boats down the river), and that’s it.
They already did this with Walmart taking over the town. Keep up John
I feel in a discussion of capitalism and South Park, one should at least mention the Walmart episode.
I have a feeling this guy doesn’t even watch the show. He just skims the episode and shits out a review. Then completely forgets about it.
Question: Is it possible they’re just trolling their most vocal fans (as they are wont to do)? I haven’t watched this show in more than a decade, apart from a few exceptions (e.g. Imaginationland, The Rape of Indiana Jones [whatever it was called], the two-parter with Richard Dawkins and Mrs. Garrison…) – do you get the sense they’re on the level here, or is it just more of what they do best i.e. making earnest people shit themselves with indignation, and we’ll be back to the old standard in a season or two?
Did anyone here see the episode Scrotie Mcboogerballs?
Sixteen Tons is a brilliant choice. I love the parallels between coal mining and Amazon fulfilment. Working for Amazon for money while spending even more money at Amazon is exactly the kind of soul-crushing working condition that song was talking about.
But it was also a tongue-in-cheek joke. They go off about how they are busting their backs and barely make enough money but in all the factory scenes, they are standing around, driving machinery or using remote controls to run the factory processes.
Only 2x in the entire scene does a worker physically lift anything and neither time are they shown to have any difficulty. They even bring this back up when the only real complaint they have is that “I’ve endured so many papercuts from the boxes!”
As for the low wages, they show that the workers were all making frivolous purchases and spending their money at the bars and expensive restaurants in the upscale side of South Park while complaining about it.
It’s actually a pretty perfect representation. Yes there are issues with Amazon but their starting salary and benefits beat literally any other retail outlet. People complain about the labor but 90% of it is automated (unless you’re in one of those states that put strict rules on automation). If you ever see the actual inside of those fulfillment centers, South Park nailed it. It’s not exciting work, but retail and shipping rarely are.
“unspeakably cruel conditions”LOL – Garment Workers circa 1911 NYC
Wait. South Park is still on the air?
I wonder how many of these anti-amazon posts were posted from a device purchased from Amazon…
Big corps often treat workers better than mom and pop businesses. How many people does Amazon pay under the table, and thus deny SS money? Let’s not pretend that mom and pop businesses do not exploit workers
Yeah. I worked for a place in college that paid us under the table. It was great at first but then suddenly our paychecks all went down by $2/hr and we were told we were crazy and that they had never paid us the previous amount. They also started sending us home for literally anything. Bathroom break longer than 5 minutes? “Go home. We’ll see you next week.” “But it’s Monday…” “Well, it doesn’t look like you have work to do anyway.” Can’t make it in when they call you last minute due to classes or some other conflict? You may be off for the next 2-3 weeks.If you argued, you were gone. You had never “actually” worked there anyway so you had no way to fight back.
South Park is alt-right/libertarian garbage.
Cracks me up that an Amazon Cube popup showed up when I opened the article.
Capitalism =/= free markets. If you support free markets, you should be against large corporations. Multinational corporations and other large players distort markets. If any individual participant can affect a market by it’s lone action, then the market is not longer free,I used to be on the fence about predatory pricing until Amazon. I believe control of distribution led to both Microsoft and Standard Oil’s monopolies. However, Amazon very clearly used predatory pricing to drive competitors out of the business and because they haven’t raised prices, the followers of Bork won’t do anything.
… but free markets naturally lead to consolidation of power. A favorite will always emerge and once they have a lead, it only grows exponentially.
You need solid antitrust law to have free markets. Adam Smith knew that (or rather knew about the problem you mentioned and knew that it needed to be addressed).
Of course, with any regulation at all, some would argue that the market is no longer free.
But they won’t be efficient if technically “free” either. Anticompetitive practices will balloon over time and big players will control the markets.
“once they have a lead, it only grows exponentially” – Demonstrably false, as shown by all the large companies that have been in dominant positions in the market and lost them. Competition is always with us and no one can rest on their laurels. If they do, the next competitor to enter might eat your lunch. I’m sure IBM never expected Microsoft, Microsoft never expected Google, or for Apple to come back. Being large or having a large market share today isn’t a guarantee you’ll have one tomorrow.
That’s because markets change. New products or technologies or methods of manufacturing and/or distribution arise. In time all great leaders fail, market and government. That is not an argument against enforcing competition law.
Losing a dominant position many years down the road (most often due to radical changes in technology) disproves a lead reinforcing itself, how?And massively dominant players being overtaken every 20 years by another massive, dominant player is your idea of a competitive market?
If you support free markets, you should be for any size corporation that works effectively and efficiently. What support for free markets isn’t is support for big business. There shouldn’t be special subsidies and tax breaks for large companies, supporting them over small companies. We need a separation of market and state so that the market can evolve the best solutions without those being tampered with by government. Microsoft and Standard Oil were both fine, having a temporarily dominant position doesn’t mean that you’re not still subject to competition or that capitalism has stopped working. Anti-trust is just a cudgel used by the politically connected to destroy their competitors when they can’t competently compete in the market.
Short answer you’re wrong. They aren’t OK because they control exercise enormous power in their marjetplaces. They are not subject to supply and demand as normal businesses are. That is the point. It isn’t any more free than Communist Russia at that point. MS and SO were not fine as they basically dictated terms and could keep competitors off the market. Do such ‘opolies last forever? Not so far, but that does not mean that the markets they operate in are free while they exist. Look at Amazon – they are proof that predatory pricing works. Whether they ever raise their prices or not, is irrelevant (One of the many reasons Bork had no business being anywhere near the Supreme Court, was his gross misunderstanding [or more likely misrepresentation] of the goals of antitrust law). In addition to predatory pricing, they also use the classic control of distribution to further their dominance as anyone trying to sell product on the internet pretty much needs an Amazon store if they want to sell their product. Adam Smith understood these things. Capitalists don’t. Unregulated capitalism does not work any better than unregulated socialism.
I remember their wal-mart episode taking up the town’s small businesses. I think the kids destroyed the heart of walmart
The Billy Elliot reference was by far my favorite random pop-culture reference of the season
The whole time I kept thinking of this
Bezos is a character from the first Star Trek episode “Glass Menagerie”.
Jeff Bezos isn’t just a weird butt head guy in this episode, he’s actually supposed to be the lead alien from the first episode of Star Trek
Two of my favorite shows have now done Amazon episodes this season. Without a doubt this was comparatively better od a South Park episode than “Kerblam!” was as Doctor Who episode.
the “Unfulfilled” song is the greatest Elvis Costello parody ever. Too bad they couldn’t get him to sing it. Must have shot their wad on the “16 Tons” rights.
now in real lifehttps://twitter.com/AmazonEnLucha
Second part musings: Josh’s box gets delivered – probably to Butters or that kid who always wins the bike parade – and opened thinking it’s bike decorations. Or maybe it goes to the boys and they decorate their bikes with the gore.Mall mutants go to work at the fulfillment center, make it their new purpose, neither is ever seen on the show again, though I’m thinking it will be the robots and automation that take over leaving all the workers jobless.Whatever happens I really like this plot and haven’t anticipated an episode of South Park this much in a long time.
Everyone writing reviews on the new episodes of south park needs to shut the fuck up. You’re literally just happy that they’ve been kissing up to your agenda. Calling Manbearpig an “error” man fuck you. You’re pretentious and it shows.
A bit of mixed messaging for me. Yes, Amazon was portrayed as soul-crushing and stressful with some danger. Still might be an improvement over being a zombie in the mall. Towards the end it seems that Bezos is going to recruit the zombies, so it may be seen as a step up.
Consumerism seems to be the disease this season, without a solid cure. Scooters pop up, are the best thing ever, then the backlash. Same with the Buddha Box, same with Amazon. Manbearpig made some kind of deal with cars and ice cream. Tegridy seems like an attempt to escape, but Randy relies on Amazon to ship his products. Everyone winds up unfulfilled. South Park has tackled consumerism before in Margaritaville along with debt and the recession.
Certainly a lot of loose ends to tie up in one more episode.
South park is getting shitty. Neither trey parker or matt stone have probably had to work extremely hard to survive, so they are getting pretty ignorant. Same thing with the newer Manbearpig episodes, where these “effects of GW” people say are happening now can be explained my much simpler and more realistic studies. (Let the grass be grazed off by stock, california wouldn’t suffer those fires so much) and ignorant folks like you reviewing the newer episodes are just eating this shit up because you’re happy about the praise to your agenda. Fuck you. “Anyone who pays attention is acutely aware of what’s going on” you wouldn’t know what’s going on if it hit you in the ass. You don’t know whats going on in real life. You dont even know what it’s like to have to work to barely survive. You don’t know what the real world is. You have a second dimensional fantasy view. That’s how ignorant you are.
To be fair to Colin Jost, the new Amazon center in Long Island City isn’t a distribution center. It’s place for management and white collar types who will make over $100k. So from that perspective, NYC won the lottery. Whether or not it will displace low income residents is a different issue than the horrible working conditions of the low paid warehouse employees.
As someone who actually works at an Amazon Fulfillment Center, I would hardly describe the working conditions as “unspeakably cruel.”
Agreed. I don’t get how people are missing the tongue-in-cheek part about using “16 tons.” They’re playing that song while showing workers standing around supervising the automation or running machinery. Also the fact that the “broken arm” guy actually just has papercuts, not real injuries.
They’ve touched on this before with the Wall Mart episode and even the gnomes one. They probably still support capitalism but definitely are wary of lack of competition. The 16 tons sequence and the random Irish guy was some of the best material they’ve done in years
I worked at an Amazon warehouse for a few weeks and am trying to never buy anything from them again. It’s a bad direction for civilization in general.
I assure you, this is not some pro left wing thing. Next week, when part 2 airs, you socialists are going to be ripped a new one. Just sayin. Socialism doesn’t work. It has NEVER worked. And if it ever takes hold int he USA, God help us all.
I have not watched this show in a very, very long time…however I think that the wonderful thing about South Park is that throughout it’s run it’s had its fingers directly on the pulse of the nation. And as a whole, I think we are realizing that we have gone to far in one direction. That regulation is good, that the average worker should be respected. That somehow we have forgotten how to talk “to” each other. And that we fucked ourselves.
Another nit to pick with your review. NY and VA are receiving HQ offices, not fulfillment centers. Difference in community effects as well as job opportunities (for one example, there’s no guarantee they won’t simply relocate a lot of employees). The problems I object to in the expansion are government subsidies, infrastructure taxation, ballooning house prices/rents etc.
Im not surprised AV club writers miss the socialist box joke.
“When the effects of global warming weren’t really being felt yet…” still waiting on them you know!!!
The pulsing head telepathy of Bazoes is based on a creature from the original Star Trek series- the first episode I believe.
Surely the most famous bit from “Gnomes” is the now-ubiquitous “1. [something], 2. [something else], 3. ????, 4. PROFIT” meme?Either way, I never saw that episode as explicitly pro-capitalist. It came across to me as a swipe at the kneejerk anti-corporate mentality, creating an artificial example in which it is entirely unjustified for the purpose. People accuse South Park of fence-sitting like that’s the worst thing in the world, and I think “Gnomes” was one of the early episodes that says “Fine, if you insist we take a side, we’ll take the one that’ll annoy you the most.” They did something similar with the Rob Reiner/smoking episode, which obviously wasn’t pro-smoking, just critical of the anti-smoking lobby. The Gnome portrayal of capitalism – where you do something and it turns into profit by some unclear, never-questioned protest – could be a critique of bad business models which, in the libertarian mind, deserve to fail. But it can equally be a recognition that what will make PROFIT is not particularly clear. Supposedly the vast majority of businesses fail, so even if you like capitalism, you have to admit that it’s not very efficient (and when it is, we end up with “Unfulfilled”).Point being that you can criticise a movement and skewer its real-world faults without throwing yourself bodily behind the alternative – something that I think the disgruntled South Park Republicans failed to grasp when they realised that the enemy of their enemy wasn’t necessarily their friend.“Unfulfilled” feels like a criticism of perfect capitalism – when the machine works so well that there’s almost no potential for failure, and no potential for satisfaction or fulfilment. The comparison to how the kids used to go on adventures to try to do trivial things is quite apt. Being able to just summon the exact means to do whatever you do is technically exactly what you want – but perhaps it’s not what you need. But then on the other hand you have Butters, who appears to be pretty much happy with the stuff that he wanted – as fulfilled as ever. So maybe it’s not about resisting the perfect machine, but about resisting the apathy that comes with it and finding a purpose that doesn’t rely on a constant need to overcome.Also the talking box was funny.
I would be personally thrilled if they brought back Mr Hanky as PoodiePoo, or some such. Looking back, it was a bit weird not to mention that they replaced Hanky with Pewds, right before Pewds got in shit for his off-colour humour, in an episode about Mr Hanky getting in shit for his off-colour humour.
Anti-monopoly is not the same thing as anti-capitalism. Remember five mitues in when the Tweeks went out of business because Amazon ships coffee? The other point of the episode is the way that Amazon treats its employees. Amazons “big business” yet leftists are coming to their defense? What principals do you hypocrites have? You care about livable wages right? You think Amazon pays a livable wages? Imagine how much pollution they put out each year being one of the biggest businesses in the US? How much does Jeff Bezos do for climate change? You guys would would cut off your noses inspite of your faces. You’re willing to over look your own “principles” to bag on southpark who is actually pretty left of center and stand by a follow “anti trumper” and you’re too stupid to know any better. Thats why republicans and moderates (and the rest of the world) don’t take you seriously.
I see a lot of people on here arguing the demerits and merits of capitalism, as well as corporatism encroaching on capitalism. I just want to point out what someone deep in a reply said: This episode is about Giving the Consumer what they Want. Regardless of the driving factors. It’s more like Bezos is alien to humanity in that he fundamentally only really cares to give people what they want: their stuff. So maybe it’s more to point out that as consumers, we are doing this to ourselves, he’s just logically and emotionlessly providing the means for us to have stuff we need.
But there’s also the aspect that the consumers are only able to afford and purchase what they need to live from their employer…
I hope that alien Jeff Bezos’ plan is that the suffering we endure to get our stuff might be temporary, considering how quickly we might be able to automate all the jobs done by Amazon factory workers.
There was also the aspect of purpose… mentioned by the mall workers. Overall I really liked the episode and I don’t see any easy answers. I do think that capitalism served it’s purpose. I believe that the single most important thing we could do is take money out of government. I think that our out-of-control consumerism is unfortunate. I don’t think Jeff Bezos is portrayed in this episode in a negative way, just an entity whose sole goal is to give us what we want.
You have to take everything they do on south park with a grain of salt, and remember that it is still a cartoon that makes fun of what ever is relevant at the moment. It doesn’t necessarily mean they hate corporations, but they’re easy targets. And evil or not, Trey still orders from Amazon on the regular.
You’ve never seen “This Island Earth” have you?
You get it.
Was originally trying to reply to the author of this “article”.
This episode has nothing to do with being ‘against capitalism’ and everything to do specifically with Amazon. While capitalism created Amazon, it also holds the key to the solution. If enough people give a shit that Amazon treats their employees so poorly, the solution is to spend your money elsewhere. It really is that simple.
If anyone thinks “free market” means no regulations, they don’t understand the term.
Free market means free from undue influence. This includes from monopolies (and, more relevant for this episode, monopsonies) as well as government.
This episode is 100% in line with their libertarian beliefs.