Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

So I created this account because I like the community here and I wanted to discuss the shit people discuss. (Ignore my username)

I've been using this site of all places to catch up on what's going on with the Gamestop Stock Surge and laughing at how the hedge fund billionaires are getting fucked. This event seems to have unified populists across the spectrum against the elite and it's very interesting to see something like that happen.

I'm someone who tries my best to keep an open-mind on things. I do go into political chats on things like discord servers and I've been hearing two separate conclusions from the results of this event

Conclusion 1: This event proves that the concept of a "Free Market" is utter bullshit nonsense, as the elite can just ban the poor and middle class from meaningfully engaging in the economy as we've seen the Robin-Hood app ban people from buying gamestop and AMC stock intentionally in order to defend the billionaires and hedge funders and prevent the mostly middle class redditors from actually gaining a financial upperhand and social mobility, especially since that would mean at least to some degree lessening their influence on the economy. Capitalism doesn't benefit anyone but the rich, it's built entirely to make the rich richer and poor poorer and Oligarchy is an inevitable conclusion to it, not an exception

Conclusion 2: This event proves that a genuine free market can work for the people but that we live under crony capitalism. The r/wallstreetbets users fair and square participated in the economy using their own money to fight against a corrupt hedgefund manipulating the economy for the benefit of them over everyone else. Melvin Capital was intentionally collaborating with the government, robinhood and other corporations to benefit them rather than fairly competing. Billionaires are using things like regulatory capture, lobbying and hedgefunds to prevent smaller businesses and individuals from succeeding and try to prevent people from getting involved in the economy itself beyond benefitting them. Capitalism in itself is not bad, but it's clear that billionaire cronyists are manipulating the system so Big Businesses benefit more than small local mom and pops and self-made individuals.

I myself don't want to share which belief/conclusion I believe in myself(and tbh I could've worded both better). I merely want to spark a civic debate among the users here. I do not wish to divide the movement in any way, once again the unitary nature of the movement is what makes me support it a lot. But I think it would be interesting to see some perspective and have a means to discuss the effects of the stock surge. Also obviously, my two conclusions I mentioned are not the only perspectives people have on this event, just the ones I saw the most.

With that said feel free to discuss, I'll simply moderate the debate.

I personally agree with both perspectives, surprisingly. At least when it comes to American capitalism. While it could work if it actually was fair, the American idea of a free market is complete bullshit, and nothing is being done to effectively address the problem of astronomical barriers to entry and the extreme wealth inequality of the people in this country.

Also, pretty decent username, I'd give it a 7/10.

I think your first conclusion is actually close to what Marx already predicted in his "Das Kapital" book lol

As for myself I'm pretty much doing the same thing as you: watching how it goes. I would however tend to lean towards the second conclusion, i.e., that unregulated capitalism is the problem, though I'd argue that there are some ideas within capitalism or associated ideologies that are inherently wrong. The idea, for instance, that infinite growth is possible, but that's another topic. In my opinion, capitalism doesn't necessarily need to be thrown out of the window, but it really needs much more regulations in order to be sustainable and beneficial to most people on long term.

Capitalism appeared to be the best system by the end of the 20th century because it kind of worked: millions if not billions of people have been lifted out of poverty worldwide, access to food, technology and health services drastically improved as well, and some countries that were left in a dire state after WW2 managed to become leading countries by the end of the century (think of western Europe countries, or eastern countries like Korea or Japan) partly thanks to capitalism (emphasis on partly because I don't know the full story). However, this trend seems to go backwards in this early 21th century as we are seeing billionaires becoming insanely rich and big companies becoming so large Denmark thought of sending an ambassador to them as if they were countries while the common people are struggling more and more, especially with the various crises that happened such as the 2008 recession and now the COVID-19 pandemic. It's no longer being beneficial to most, but it still is to some. That doesn't necessarily mean we should give a try to socialism, but rather that some regulations or reforms are much needed. For instance, the fact that some people just can't work due to the pandemic, which could last for some years (it's uncertain by now, even with the vaccine), makes a strong case for an UBI (and this comes from someone who initially didn't like this idea that much).

But I digress, because what we are seeing now is more of a fun "take that" to Wall Street rather than a political revolution, because if we can call this a movement, then it currently has no requests with respects to the economy and is at best nihilistic (which can be dangerous on long term). It's hard to predict what can come out of it. Anyway, the biggest highlight is what WSB has been doing is actually legal: they've been playing the game accordingly to its current rules. If that doesn't call for more regulations, shit's fucked.