Best System Possible

There has always been an owner class who wields the power of ownership over people who don't possess resources. We just started calling it capitalism relatively recently.

Capitalism, to be fair, refers to a specific form of ownership. Namely, market-oriented economies with stock company firms (often limited liability) controlled predominantly by an investor class. This has some unique effects, both good and bad.
On the good side, since we're on Lemmy and the Marxist acknowledgement that capitalism destroyed the 'idiocy' of rural feudalism is altogether too rare:
Capitalism relatively quickly redistributes resources to where they receive a (perceived) high Return On Investment. Clientistic and feudal societies de-emphasize this by creating extremely personal feedback loops for investment - capitalist society reduces (though definitely not eliminates) this incestuous closed-wealth cycle in favor of a cold, soulless system of maximizing gain. This also prioritizes technological and infrastructure development as a means of creating ever-greater ROI, which is a legitimate public good, even if done for soulless reasons.
Capitalism reduces the ability of holders of economic power to independently employ force against others by decoupling the investor class and the managerial class, and thus reducing the social power of both. While capturing the coercive apparatus of the state is something that capitalists generally do, it is an additional step before force can be employed without serious risk of negative consequences, and one which can very easily go wrong if other elites see an opportunity to employ the letter of the law against a competitor. An investor, ultimately, does not control many, if any, personal forces with which to brutalize the oppressed or rival elites; they must go through the state, which, while generally amiable to the interests of the elite in general, is generally also not in thrall to any single elite and has many competing factions in it - some of which may even be in the vague interest of the working class - which can hinder or prevent such incidents of brutality.
Capitalism, by the creation of a highly economically mobile investor class, creates class mobility which damages traditional castes and rigid aristocracies. The 'rags to riches' story is one that is greatly exaggerated by capitalist mythology, but nonetheless is an occurrence which is extremely difficult to achieve in other systems by comparison save by total acquiescence of the elite. Capitalism, thus, creates a sort of steady line from the working class to the middle class, and the middle class to nouveau-riche which steadily-if-slowly dislodges 'old money', reducing (though, again, definitely not eliminating) the influence of established client networks which extend the power of traditional elites beyond their nominal property holdings.
Capitalism, by its demand for labor mobility, weakens the hold of traditional local elites and prejudices which tend to hold strong in sedentary societies with low labor mobility. While capitalist societies are certainly not immune to bigotry, it's also no coincidence that as capitalist and protocapitalist societies arose, traditional ethnic and religious restrictions and prejudices weakened. Capitalist societies, in this sense, resemble nomadic societies in their ability and willingness to integrate diverse populations, and by the mimicking of the aspirational middle class of the values of upper-class bourgeoisie, spread this more 'utilitarian' view of bigotry to the general population.
On the bad side, which will be a bit short because I presume most of us on fucking Lemmy, of all places, are aware that capitalism is dogshit in many, many ways:
Capitalism's obsession with maximizing wealth (as wealth is the primary form of power for the investor class) and high fluidity of capital means that short-term gains are often prioritized over long-term gains. For most economic purposes, this is actually not that bad in and of itself - in a rapidly-changing capitalist society, long-term investments are much more likely to go awry. But as we've found out with the rise of the industrial revolution, the environmental effects of this have been ruinous and murderous as the extra 5% return on investing in coal has beat out both the march of human progress in developing renewables and the actual, literal destruction of the biosphere which enables human life and economic activity at the current level.
Capitalism's decoupling of investors from consequences means that the destruction of firms, regardless of their greater social utility, is regarded as a very casual thing despite the massive damage it causes to the fabric of ordinary society. As long as the return is greater on the time scale the investors are worried about, no amount of public good will stop it, nor public outcry, since investors are generally numerous and hard to 'narrow in' on for reasons of creating a negative reputation. For every Bezos or Musk with a bad reputation, there are a thousand unknown vulture capitalists dismantling or enshittifying perfectly functioning firms for personal gain, and even knowing their names won't help - because unlike prior elites with narrow portfolios and areas of operation, investors are fucking legion - innumerable and everywhere.
Capitalism's obsession with wealth as the primary means of accumulating power means the old notion of noblesse oblige, wherein the social contract could be invoked against the elite, is greatly weakened. Instead, our social contract is directly with the state, creating a 'middleman' situation wherein we struggle to make demands directly against capitalist elites, who are not reliant on our direct cooperation the way feudal and clientistic societies are. The capitalists do not need goodwill - the state they rely on needs goodwill. The capitalists need only cold, hard capital.
Capitalism's obsession with wealth as the primary means of accumulating power and the focus on ROI means there is a certain self-defeating element to capitalism - left unrestrained, capitalism reverts to a clientistic system as one or a few capitalists obtain obscene wealth, then use that wealth to get average returns-on-investment... using ever-greater percentages of the total wealth of their society, accumulating more and more until they are capable of overturning all other elites and counter-elites in their society. With sufficient inheritance - which is more easily passed down than the social capital of feudal or clientistic societies - a few generations can create some truly horrific accumulation of wealth. Typically, this is stopped after some misery for general society by other elites making concessions to us filthy poors in exchange for support against Bad Elite(tm), or by counter-elites proposing radical reforms to damage the current accumulation of wealth/power, but can result in the total overthrow of capitalism in exchange for blatantly clientistic societies. As long as capitalism exists, this quiet struggle is essentially always ongoing, with elites trying to make it 'to the top' like this, other elites trying to stop them, and counter-elites wondering if there isn't a way of reform to stop it.
- Noticed this typo and had to save it before I fixed it.
  uwu what's this? [nuzzles your investments]
- Thank you, it can be hard to get across the nuance of the various social systems with some people who are fully against capitalism, even if I by and large agree with their criticisms. There are so many advances that may never have come to fruition in a market-less or feudalistic society, like the abolishment of slavery, LGBTQ rights, marijuana legalization, and the relative calm/peace of our time, not that these are perfect or fully/permanently actualized yet either. By opening up independent paths to sustenance and self-actualization you can empower people who otherwise would've been trapped under the thumb of lords or councilors.
  The problem is that despite presenting potential opportunities, it can also be corruptible and bring its own injustices to society. I see the administration of capitalism like how the American founders remarked about democracy -- it requires the occasional watering with the blood of tyrants (oligarchs) and patriots to thrive. No system is fully uncorruptible, capitalism included, but the systems suggested by staunch anti-capitalists (state markets, anarcho-communism) tend to veer toward authoritarian cruelty and societal regression way faster than countries with free markets.
  My personal take is that a heavily socialized society is needed to prop up a more stable and just market system. We need permanent, effective social safety nets, strong union support and deference, free voting and more fair/equal representation, regular monopoly-busting and wealth/inheritance taxes, and depending on the output of our markets, a universal basic income (NOT as a replacement of safety nets).
- Sometimes I wish it were possible to upvote twice.
- Thanks for a well rounded write up. I always enjoy reading your posts.
- I'm not even done watching this yet, but the suggestion is that the spice trade had a lot to do with what our current economy looks like, with stock company firms that you mention.
- I agree with everything said here and appreciate your nuanced take, but:
  Capitalism's obsession with wealth as the primary means of accumulating power means the old notion of noblesse oblige, wherein the social contract could be invoked against the elite, is greatly weakened. Instead, our social contract is directly with the state, creating a 'middleman' situation wherein we struggle to make demands directly against capitalist elites, who are not reliant on our direct cooperation the way feudal and clientistic societies are. The capitalists do not need goodwill - the state they rely on needs goodwill. The capitalists need only cold, hard capital.
  Is this not at least partially counter-balanced by labour unions?
- Amplifying that last point:
  Capitalism amplifies and perpetuates injustice. E.g. descendants of both enslaving and enslaved are receiving exponentially multiplied effects of actions 100+ years ago.
  Because wealth is power, concentrated wealth often receives far better than average returns by rigging systems in its favor.
  Even ignoring these perversions, capitalism is terrible at answering the economic question, "for whom to produce." This isn't much of a change relative to previous systems, but it compares unfavorably in this regard to planned economies.
There is a big difference between the model of economy in the past and the current one. And that is that for the longest time, the primary aim was survival and personal satisfaction. Our current system is different in that it requires constant growth. You can never produce or consume too much. If the economy stops growing, that is a catastrophe. And there were obviously problems in the past and capitalism has also lead to great achievements, but the requirement of constant growth is definitely a problem.
Not quite. There have been many different types of societies where power accumulation wasn't as unchecked as monarchies, despotism or current capitalism. None of them were as deeply interconnected commercially as our societies today, but they weren't isolated things. The Dawn of Everything explores a number of those old societies very well
Ehhhhhhh. Not really and not always. There are a lot of examples of prehistoric societies who really didn't have ownership based class systems.
I don’t think that’s true, the concept of ownership (and more specifically land ownership) was an outcome of agriculture.
A tribe leader did not have the same relationship to their people compared to a slave owner.
- I don’t think anyone is gonna be willing to go back to the hunter gatherer lifestyle
True, but even the most despotic feudal tyrants did not actively seek the destruction of the entire planet for money. It is the specifics of our current system that enables the most psychopathic people in our society to control it.
- True, but even the most despotic feudal tyrants did not actively seek the destruction of the entire planet for money.
  Pre-capitalist pollution is still very significant on the global level; capitalism coincides with the development of coke and, eventually, the industrial revolution. Lack of technology, not lack of malice, is the driver there, considering feudal lords are the ultimate NIMBY types - whenever they can force a negative externality onto someone else, they will. For that matter, feudal and clientistic warlords in the modern day do not exactly have an excellent environmental record. The difference would be, I think, that rather than ROI being the driver of ever-increasing pollution, it would be something more akin to WW1 on steroids.

My 2 cents:

I think that saying was about democracy, not capitalism
Bear in mind that US is a capitalist lunapark. Most developed countries understood that social policies are absolutely necessary for people, even though we could call those countries a "capitalist country" or countries "based on capitalism". Just saying that don't take what's happenning in the US as a base because it's not
If we're about to start to brainstorm about different systems - bear in mind that (not all but many) people are greedy, proud, jealous and sometimes assholes. And personally, I have a really hard time to design a system that would handle all those wonderful human treats in some decent way

P.S. I was born in socialist Czechoslovakia and its goal was noble but ... it's amazing to watch human greed and jealousy to take over a system like socialism

Yah and a lot of the time you hear that saying about democracy people say basically 'it's not great but it's better than anything else we've tried'.
I would also add to what you're saying about the lunapark - capitalism could work as part of a larger system. At least I think it could. But the uber rich have decimated the normal checks and balances which are the most important element to any system - not just a capitalist democracy.
Yep this is my understanding.
Most Western democracies have capitalism plus socialised services like health and defence.
I think our only hope is for aliens or AI to take over. Whenever humans form a large group, the worst qualities rise to the top. This is how we became the dominant species, but we don't need it anymore.

Yeah, lets go back to feudalism.

USA is way ahead of you

Nah ... earth has seen worse - massive hurricanes, global volcanic eruptions, giant shifts of plate tectonics, global warming, global cooling, snowball earth, endless rain, oxygen rich atmosphere, no atmosphere, asteroid impacts, environmental/ecological collapse, planet wide extinction events, gamma ray bursts, cosmic radiation, solar flares

We can just add the human species under capitalism as a small footnote to all of it.

If we don't try to save ourselves, we'll just end up as a small thin geologically odd layer in earth's history .... alien archaeologists in a few million years will see the K-Pg layer that wiped out the dinosaurs and then this thin weird radioactive layer of mismatched minerals and material that lasted for a few hundred years.

If we don’t try to save ourselves, we’ll just end up as a small thin geologically odd layer in earth’s history … alien archaeologists in a few million years will see the K-Pg layer that wiped out the dinosaurs and then this thin weird radioactive layer of mismatched minerals and material that lasted for a few hundred years.
And they sent down some astronauts
To study our bones
Through the miles of garbage
Beneath all the junk that we owned
Carbon dating beer cans
Condoms and Twinkie wrappers
We were something beautiful, baby
What the hell happened?
- HEY! ... It's your cake day today!!! ... Happy Birthday @PugJesus@lemmy.world may the fiery heart of your canine divinity find a good chewy dog bone today. Happy Cake Day!

Capitalism exists to perpetuate the power of the wealthy

I don't think capitalism is the problem in itself. The problem is that approaches such as the social market economy, which puts the economy at the service of society, are being increasingly undermined.

This has mainly to do with the US, which is pushing through its ruthless, unregulated capitalism by any means necessary – and this capitalism does not serve society at all, but aims exclusively to put a few people above everyone else.

Trump is the personification of that: An unscrupulous criminal who will stop at nothing to make a profit.

I mean... this is not fair. Feudalism is the same thing just with extra steps or.you could even say capitalism is feudalism with extra steps. Theres a short timeframe where capitalism is productive after it gets introduced usually and then it turns into feudalism. And feudalism has existed for thousands of years.

Relevant video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqP5B-kS85U

Yeeeeee feudalism!!!!!

"but it's the only system that works". No one said this. Inventing imaginary enemies to argue against. And all the comments here joining in on an argument against no one. Don't you all feel smart.

"people" say this all the time. people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about, or aren't in their right minds. Usually, these people are victims of propaganda, as the US has spend decades convincing everyone that anything socialist or communist is evil. These people exist, and pretending they don't is almost like ignoring that 1/3 of the US population actively supports fascism.