I am sure that your life is better now thanks to the spy device always in your pocket and not because of the advances in medicine, education, human rights...
I hate these glib comments that don't remotely reflect reality.
Go look at the goods people got in countries that didn't practice capitalism. They were worse in almost every way, more expensive if you could get them and often the things people wanted were completely unavailable because there was no market incentive informing production.
In my experience, this sort of comment is usually followed up by some personal preference of the commenter. Great. I don't want the same thing, so I guess something has to mediate the resource allocation and effort of society towards providing that want/need at a certain quality/price.. and guess how we do that?
Are you looking at the USSR and countries that followed its model?
I don't think you can look at any authoritarian regime and make assumptions about how an economic system performs. The autocratic features tend to cause society to break down.
For an actual anarchist production model, look no further than Open Source. It's built by people who self organize, to solve problems that are real (and often to make silly, inefficient things). It's often (but not always) motivated by something other than profit. It's people who believe in a credo organizing themselves around that credo and building the tools to sustain that credo.
But imagine if open source was behind an autocrat, there's no way it'd be nearly as rich or flourishing.
Voluntary hierarchy is different from autocracy. If the community really felt Linux was better worthy Linus, they could make that happen. Linus isn't operating secret police that scare the shit out of people.
> "goods people got in countries that didn't practice capitalism" are generally built to last.
No they are not. They were simple and people were poor so were forced for fix them for eternity, don't use them and absolutely not abuse them. Nobody gave a fuck about their craft in USSR. Everything was made from cheaply and from scraps.
Few things that might've survived (and I don't see _anything_ in my parents or in-laws homes) are literally prime example suvivorship bias.
> I don't want the same thing, so I guess something has to mediate the resource allocation and effort of society towards providing that want/need at a certain quality/price.. and guess how we do that?
This. Freedom of choice is the simplest way to describe the advantage of capitalism (free markets) over socialism. Obviously, markets don't solve everything, but the US certainly is not some anarcho-capitalist's libertarian fantasy.
I guess the lived memory of socialism's failures has passed and experience is the best teacher.
The device you're currently using is worse than the equivalent model was 10 years ago?
Over 30 years ago my family spent an _extra_ $1000 (in ~1993 dollars) on a computer system to upgrade from a 15" CRT to a 17" and increase the RAM from 16MB to 32MB.
The device I'm currently using has no headphone jack, no removable battery, no removable memory, no removable storage, a single solitary USB-A port and a locked-down BIOS that only lets you install Windows by default. All in the name of profit.
Yes, the device I'm currently using is worse than the equivalent model was 10 years ago. Thanks, capitalism.
Well it lasted 10 years less for pretty much same thing... Talking about my 27" 1440p monitor. Dell is still working. The 4 year old Asus have most likely some type of power issue and doesn't even want to start.
Just because a group claims an -ist or puts an -ism in their name doesn't make them so. The NAZIs weren't socialist, they locked them up. The CCP isn't communist except in name. Russia has been an oligarchy since before the wall fell.
And what we have in the US right now is not a free market, nor a well regulated and efficient one. You can call it crony capitalism, if you want, but when banks are bailed out to the tune of $Ts, Federal deficit spending is responsible for "positive" economic growth, and speculative companies are shoved into the indexes that make up what savings the working class has, it barely makes the cut.
Plenty of more "socialist" places with with free healthcare and rule of law, are more market capitalist. Enshitification happens where it is allowed to, because it is allowed to.
High gas prices do persuade people. Look at the vehicle fleet in California compared to the other states. It is very different and the gas is only slightly more expensive.
Californians get paid more on average, and car prices are mostly constant, so the higher price of electric cars is less of a barrier than in other places.
California is actually not a great example because their electricity rates are insanely high as well. A better example would be WA state where gas prices are very high but electricity rates are some of the cheapest in the country due to cheap hydro.
It sounds like you are trying to back-construct the reality you want, that low electricity prices lead to higher fleet efficiency, but that's flawed. You should look at the reality on the ground. Washington actually has double the rate of pick-up trucks compared to California, higher than the national average.
I want an electric car that has tactile buttons, an instrument cluster and doesn't put the entire brain of a car in a mobile app controlled by a remote server.
That car costs $200k in the US.
Outside of North America, the cars are really good and affordable. So it's out there. We are clearly doing something wrong here.
I want any car that doesn't spy on me for the profit of the manufacturer. Any car that I don't have to wonder if someone could gain remote access on the back of the manufacturer's data connection and use that to injure or kill me. At present the only option is (at least in general) physically disconnecting or otherwise damaging the modem which places you at risk of not receiving software recalls and prevents first responders from being automatically notified in the event of a serious crash.
I want an electric car that isn't bound to the stealership and isn't a ticking time bomb when they stop maintaining the software. If my car doesn't go for 200,000 miles, I feel like I was cheated.
> I want an electric car that has tactile buttons, an instrument cluster and doesn't put the entire brain of a car in a mobile app controlled by a remote server.
I had no trouble finding such an EV in the US last year. My Hyundai Kona SEL EV has something like 50+ tactile buttons, an instrument cluster, everything I need works without the app, and was nowhere near $200k (the total was $34k).
They don't seem to be selling Kona EV in the US this year, but their other EVs are similar. Same with the Kia Niro and the other Kia EVs. I'm pretty sure Chevy EVs are similar as far as buttons and the instrument cluster goes, although I think they might be more app dependent. Oh, Nissan EVs were also similar, although I have no idea about their app use.
The Kia (or КИ) Niro is a rebadged Hyundai Kona, both based on the K3 platform. They share drivetrains, but the interfaces can differ quite a bit, e.g. with one using physical buttons and the other using capacitive buttons.
The Kia Niro and the Hyundai Kona are dramatically different vehicles visually. Same platform and EV drivetrain, sure. But to say it's a rebadge is incorrect.
Same here (not Australia). A few years ago pretty much all the pure-EVs were Teslas and those were pretty rare, now the main brand seems to be BYD from a combination of them being far better value for money and people not wanting to drive a Swasticar. The other day I came back from the airport in an electric bus, switched to another electric bus, and did the last bit in a Bolt BYD.
They do it because they can. Country is rich and money is really no object to most consumers, so they buy what they subjectively "want", a car does not need to be "optimal" for them. And they want ICE cars because average age of a new car buyer is 53, they are buying what they are used to. That simple.
> Country is rich and money is really no object to most consumers
I take it you don't live here because that is an absurdly out of touch take. There's a massive stratification of wealth at present with a decent chunk of the younger population living paycheck to paycheck barely making rent (never mind hoping to ever own a home). On the far opposite side of the spectrum there's only a vanishingly small minority that sees money as "no object".
We certainly enjoy a high standard of living compared to much of the world and we're lucky enough to have cheap vehicles available but such specimens are far from what could be described as being in good condition.
Young people are irrelevant, they don't buy new cars at all. EV transition is about new car buyers. They are on average 53 and almost all 45+. These are doing just fine.
I was young and poor once upon a time, drove a 20yr old Subaru that overheated constantly because the radiator fins had completely rusted out (when I drove through a large puddle, the rusted out front passenger footwell floorboard folded up as a gout of streetwater burst into the car), had CV joints made from recycled cardboard, had to push start the thing on flat ground, etc. I didn't buy my first home until I was in my late 30s. I saved money like miser.
fc417fc802, you too will be older someday (if bots get older, I don't really know), and you will shake your head at the youths too.
> Country is rich and money is really no object to most consumers
It's not that everyone is so rich they can afford these vehicles. Even people of relatively low income can walk off a lot with a big truck.
There are a ton of auto lenders out there happy to lend to people with long loan terms and less favorable interest rates. The average auto loan term used to be around 6 years, now it's 8 years.
If you see someone driving a big, brand new truck in the US, odds are they don't have a lot of money. They probably have a lot of debt, which is much easier to obtain.
Americans are spending more on cars because Americans love cars/trucks and treat them as status symbols. Whenever I go to Europe on vacation, I see European families using small, affordable hatchbacks. They’re physically similar in size to Americans and so it’s not that Americans need massive vehicles because we are just larger.
Also, it feels like an "arms race" where people who are fearful on the road worry about being hit by a vehicle that is larger than their own. So they go big…
Also Europeans use public transport a lot. Friend of mine lives in a European city and has a car that probably hasn't been out of the garage in six months because there's no need for it. Another older friend got her drivers license when she was younger and eventually forgot how to drive, or possibly no longer felt comfortable doing it, because she never used it.
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[ 0.27 ms ] story [ 28.4 ms ] threadGo look at the goods people got in countries that didn't practice capitalism. They were worse in almost every way, more expensive if you could get them and often the things people wanted were completely unavailable because there was no market incentive informing production.
In my experience, this sort of comment is usually followed up by some personal preference of the commenter. Great. I don't want the same thing, so I guess something has to mediate the resource allocation and effort of society towards providing that want/need at a certain quality/price.. and guess how we do that?
I don't think you can look at any authoritarian regime and make assumptions about how an economic system performs. The autocratic features tend to cause society to break down.
For an actual anarchist production model, look no further than Open Source. It's built by people who self organize, to solve problems that are real (and often to make silly, inefficient things). It's often (but not always) motivated by something other than profit. It's people who believe in a credo organizing themselves around that credo and building the tools to sustain that credo.
But imagine if open source was behind an autocrat, there's no way it'd be nearly as rich or flourishing.
Maybe not the best argument to anyone responding from their Linux computers, as Torvalds is generally viewed as Benevolent Dictator For Life.
I'd look for more examples, but using Wikipedia for any sourcing feels too on-the-nose, considering Jimmy Wales seems to be in a similar BDFL position
> something has to mediate the resource allocation and effort of society towards providing that want/need at a certain quality/price
Yeah, exactly, not "squeezing every last bit of value out of a product to appease the shareholders", see "enshittification".
No they are not. They were simple and people were poor so were forced for fix them for eternity, don't use them and absolutely not abuse them. Nobody gave a fuck about their craft in USSR. Everything was made from cheaply and from scraps.
Few things that might've survived (and I don't see _anything_ in my parents or in-laws homes) are literally prime example suvivorship bias.
This. Freedom of choice is the simplest way to describe the advantage of capitalism (free markets) over socialism. Obviously, markets don't solve everything, but the US certainly is not some anarcho-capitalist's libertarian fantasy.
I guess the lived memory of socialism's failures has passed and experience is the best teacher.
Over 30 years ago my family spent an _extra_ $1000 (in ~1993 dollars) on a computer system to upgrade from a 15" CRT to a 17" and increase the RAM from 16MB to 32MB.
Yes, the device I'm currently using is worse than the equivalent model was 10 years ago. Thanks, capitalism.
It is increasingly less and less mine at every iteration. I owned every bit of my dad's 386.
And what we have in the US right now is not a free market, nor a well regulated and efficient one. You can call it crony capitalism, if you want, but when banks are bailed out to the tune of $Ts, Federal deficit spending is responsible for "positive" economic growth, and speculative companies are shoved into the indexes that make up what savings the working class has, it barely makes the cut.
Plenty of more "socialist" places with with free healthcare and rule of law, are more market capitalist. Enshitification happens where it is allowed to, because it is allowed to.
That car costs $200k in the US.
Outside of North America, the cars are really good and affordable. So it's out there. We are clearly doing something wrong here.
> That car costs $200k in the US.
Which car is that?
They don't seem to be selling Kona EV in the US this year, but their other EVs are similar. Same with the Kia Niro and the other Kia EVs. I'm pretty sure Chevy EVs are similar as far as buttons and the instrument cluster goes, although I think they might be more app dependent. Oh, Nissan EVs were also similar, although I have no idea about their app use.
https://evdbau.com/market-stats
In Australia Chinese cars had 4% of the market in 2020. They now have 35% and Chinese cars have the greatest share of any country.
https://www.anz.com/institutional/insights/articles/2026/07/...
Just as an aside, Australia is odd in that it has positive trade balance with China because Australia sells so much iron ore and coal there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_pa...
Is this of new car sales? Surely they've not taken over a third of the entire fleet in a few years.
Sorry, should have said they have a 35% share of new car sales, up from 4% just a few years ago.
I take it you don't live here because that is an absurdly out of touch take. There's a massive stratification of wealth at present with a decent chunk of the younger population living paycheck to paycheck barely making rent (never mind hoping to ever own a home). On the far opposite side of the spectrum there's only a vanishingly small minority that sees money as "no object".
We certainly enjoy a high standard of living compared to much of the world and we're lucky enough to have cheap vehicles available but such specimens are far from what could be described as being in good condition.
fc417fc802, you too will be older someday (if bots get older, I don't really know), and you will shake your head at the youths too.
It's not that everyone is so rich they can afford these vehicles. Even people of relatively low income can walk off a lot with a big truck.
There are a ton of auto lenders out there happy to lend to people with long loan terms and less favorable interest rates. The average auto loan term used to be around 6 years, now it's 8 years.
If you see someone driving a big, brand new truck in the US, odds are they don't have a lot of money. They probably have a lot of debt, which is much easier to obtain.
https://youtu.be/GL_I6_0FcTg has a humorous take on it.