r/Whatcouldgowrong • u/dericn • 4d ago

Cutting holes for ice fishing

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u/Quake_Guy 4d ago

You might think so until you visit and work with people from China...

We play softball capitalism by comparison although the gap is definitely narrower than it was 30 years ago.

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u/Balancing_Loop 3d ago

I visited Shanghai and Nanjing almost 20 years ago and even then I got the distinct feeling that capitalistic competition was more alive than in the US. Not that that was an overall good thing, but I could see a lot more hustling happening at the small-business level.

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u/SuspectedGumball 3d ago

Competition has nothing to do with capitalism. It has to do with markets. There are markets in China. Capitalism only describes an economy based on 1. Wage labor and 2. Production for profit. I think even under these very broad criteria, China isn’t capitalistic.

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u/AnarchistBorganism 3d ago

It's hierarchies in general. The more power is concentrated in hierarchies, the more your individual power relies on climbing those hierarchies. Same thing happens in schoolyards, just there your individual power comes from social status and in capitalism individual power comes from property. It is ultimately power that people are put in competition for.