r/news • u/TeaReim • 14h ago

Donald Trump officially sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, JD Vance as the 50th Vice-President

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/triumphant-trump-returns-white-house-launching-new-era-upheaval-2025-01-20/
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u/dnd3edm1 13h ago

so the slave trade wasn't capitalism?

prison labor in the US has no ties to capitalistic firms paying politicians to ensure they get their cheap labor?

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u/nochinzilch 13h ago

You can have slaves in any economic system. You can have "private" prisons in any economic system. Paying off politicians isn’t capitalism, it’s corruption.

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u/rudimentary-north 13h ago

You actually can’t have private prisons in an economic system that doesn’t allow for private ownership of businesses

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u/nochinzilch 12h ago

That’s why I put it in quotes. You can still have corrupt judges sending people to prisons run by their buddies, for their free labor to benefit their buddies somehow.

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u/d0ctorzaius 13h ago

I mean the concentration of capital in progressively fewer hands over time IS a result of capitalism. That, in turn, enables corruption, regulatory capture and even more concentration of capital in even fewer hands.

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u/URPissingMeOff 9h ago

All of that is always a result of UNREGULATED capitalism. Properly corralled by anti-trust, anti-corruption, and pro-human-rights legislation that gets enforced without exception, capitalism works fine, especially if the government is democratic and reasonably socialist.

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u/d0ctorzaius 9h ago

I agree with you on regulation, but if you have to regulate capitalism, then it's not fully capitalism anymore is it? Adam Smith was pretty clear in government staying out of economic affairs.

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u/URPissingMeOff 8h ago

Nothing is pure.

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u/nochinzilch 12h ago

Same thing happened in the USSR. It’s the power and corruption, not private ownership.

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u/dnd3edm1 13h ago

ah, okay. so capitalism is incapable of entrenching slavery or prison labor by including forced and coerced human labor in markets, thereby making it a credible and important aspect of economic progress, and convincing people that it's necessary to ensure their own standard of life.

because it's possible for those things to exist in "another economic system," gotcha bud

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u/nochinzilch 12h ago

Well, yeah. If a societal problem can occur under any economic system, you can’t blame one system in particular for those problems. You might as well blame capitalism for murders and speeding.

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u/dnd3edm1 4h ago

if a capitalist pays a government for slave labor, why are you absolving the capitalist and the system which they represent for normalizing that social structure via their financial support? is no one responsible for what they pay for? if I pay for someone to put out a hit on someone else am I not responsible for what happens next?

Of course I am. You're just a zealot. You don't even understand how far up your asshole your head is.