Canada's developers are building less housing despite crunch, a new study says. That could keep prices up - eviltoast
    • Smk@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Capitalism works for small market. It fails horribly for large market like housing. A small market where everyone can participate and compete is totally fine. Big market where you already need to be rich as fuck to do anything is the problem. We are more and more in big market. Every business domain is big. There is no place for smaller player anymore. No one can just build their home anywhere they like. You need specialized people and that’s a cost. Capitalism is totally fine when the market can be entered by anyone.

      • psvrh@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Capitalism does work for large markets, just not ones where the demand side of the market is structurally disadvantaged.

        Distribution, logistics and warehousing are great for capitalism, for example. Healthcare and housing, though, very much are not.

      • Rocket@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        You only need to be rich because of regulatory barriers, though.

        Without such barriers, multiple people could buy a Toronto or Vancouver residential property (they’re needlessly huge) and build many Japanese style homes (if not something more dense) on the plot. All very affordable when divided up.

        We just can’t do that because the government says “no”.

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Greed ruins every economic system

      Capitalism was supposed to avoid all the problems we face.

        • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Yes; under Mercantilism the nobles could sit around all day and their wealth would increase off the backs of the workers

          Enter Capitalism where you no longer have generational wealth and pay is based on how many hours you put in. The goal is that the artisan will be the richest in society because they spend their life working

          Or at least in theory; it fails when you add capitalists which just occupied the nobles branch before

          • folkrav@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I mean, are capitalists really added in? They’re baked in the system, from where I stand. How did it ever try to solve generational wealth, when wealth can be accumulated/inherited? When was it ever about wages, and not about profit incentives and private ownership of production? And is “spending your life working” the thing we want to encourage as a society?

            • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              If we change systems then people with wealth and power will erode it or seize the power vacuum created

              Also you are correct in saying you can’t have a Capitalist nation with inheritance

              A more recent example is Communism where every country that claims to adopt it doesn’t do that, instead they tend to adopt more authoritarian measures and centralized governments

              Going back even further you can look at Christianity where people are supposed to be banned from having wealth but they needed to get the elite on board for it to spread

              • Rocket@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                A more recent example is Communism where every country that claims to adopt it doesn’t do that

                Huh? There is no country that has ever claimed to have adopted communism. The “Communist countries” are so-named because they are ruled by the Communist Party – similar to calling Canada a “Liberal country” because the Liberals hold power – not because they have actually achieved communism or believe they have achieved communism.

                Those countries often claim that they are working towards post-scarcity (the precondition of communism), but that’s quite different.

              • folkrav@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                This point of view always leaves me scratching my head. What’s the point, exactly? Are we genuinely arguing that we are not living in a capitalist society?

                • Rocket@lemmy.ca
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                  1 year ago

                  Are we genuinely arguing that we are not living in a capitalist society?

                  We live in a mixed economy. We do have private ownership of capital (capitalism), but we also have community ownership of capital (socialism).

                  Is that still a capitalist society? Formal definitions of “capitalist society” suggests to me that you must have a capitalism economy and also a government that I think most people here would call “libertarian”. That does not describe Canada.

                  • folkrav@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    This is a very narrow definition of capitalism by which I can’t think of a single country that would qualify. I’ll be honest, it’s the first time someone argues with me that our modern world of Keynesian macroeconomics isn’t fundamentally capitalist.

                    I also strongly disagree that having social components to your market economy makes you not Capitalist. Free Market is not all Capitalism is.

                • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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                  1 year ago

                  The point is that you’re not going to get rid of the problems unless you get rid of the people that seek power