Maybe you should have kept up and innovated instead of just trying to stifle your competition and enshittify your products idiots.
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2026
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But think of the short-term shareholder value! Have you no decency?
I do not.
well, username checks out
Compete or die
almost as if competition is what capitalism was always supposed to be about
No, thats what markets are about. Capitalism is about making money by stealing other people’s surplus labor value.
No, that's what capitalism becomes when unregulated. Just as communism does the same when unregulated. The fact the US is on the literal same trajectory as Russia post USSR collapse is proof.
Open any Economics text book that defines what capitalism is, and by it's literal definition, OP is correct. Capitalism, at its core, is about using capital + labor to make better products with better materials to compete in a market of others doing the same where consumers ultimately choose which company they buy from; in turn controlling which company thrives or dies. Competition is literally a key component of capitalism. It's what most regulatory bodies were designed to protect (before they were captured). So without competition, we have something else that just looks like capitalism, but functions exactly like fascism.
I'm not defending capitalism by the way. I'm just pointing out what it is actually defined as versus what it has now become. I wouldn't say Russia is Communist anymore by any means, so calling what the US and others practice now "Capitalism" is likewise mistaking what their system was in place of what it has become.
Wikipedia disagrees with you. Markets are just one component of capitalism.
The very first line is exactly my definition:
“Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit.“
Wikipedia fully agrees with me if you read the very next paragraph from your link you didn't quote, emphasis mine:
This socioeconomic system has developed historically in several stages, and is defined by a number of constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth.
Yes I understand markets are one component of capitalism, I also understand that without them we don't have capitalism as like you've said that's a constituent component necessary for it to be defined as capitalism.
What market is there for Facebook? Google? X? Your ISP? Your government? Is it like 2 companies you have a choice between at most? Between Verizon or Quest? Between Facebook or MySpace? Between Democrat or Republican?
If there's extremely limited choices in your markets, you don't have markets. So you don't have capitalism.
If you don't have markets where things can compete for money based on their innovation, you get enshittification from the few companies who control everything. Which is very obviously where we are now.
In short, the enshittification of all things is because we no longer have competitive markets for consumers to use their money to buy what's best. In its place, instead we have a CRAPitalist system that clearly doesn't fit the definition of capitalism.
Which is my point. Which is why you cherry picked your answer from Wikipedia rather than reading more than the first paragraph.
So competitive markets are one part of a capitalist system, like I said… and capitalism is defined by using these markets to extract surplus labor value, like I said…
You're missing the point completely my dude. There are no competative markets anymore. So there is no capitalism anymore. Do you understand?
Without a competative market, the system that's extracting surplus value is NOT CAPITALISM.
Do you understand what the word "constituent" means?
It means, "a component that is part of a whole (noun) or something that's necessary to form a part of a larger structure (adjective)."
Competative markets are constituent components to Capitalism. Thats what the wipedia page you linked says right after you stopped quoting it. So without competative markets there is no "whole" there is no capitalism.
If you sit down in a theater to watch a movie, and the projector doesn't work, do you think you watched that movie? You bought a ticket for it. You sat down. But the constituent component of a projector broke, so all you saw was a black screen.
That is not a movie. Let alone watching one. But you would argue it is because you bought the ticket and sat down in the theater.
Capitalism's competative markets are likewise broken, so what people are now experiencing is NOT capitalism.
This is not a hard concept to understand.
"We took zero action to compete and relied on protectionism and other forms of corruption to stay in business knowing that China was pulling ahead, we refused to plan for the future and harvested all the money for our owners instead and now we're fucked unless you bail us out! Not the owners, of course, who could afford to bail us out, they will continue siphoning money even though they're clearly incompetent, we need your taxes" ... How about no?
Capitalists sound strange when they are faced with actual competition. That's... kinda the whole point guys.
Yes, but there also is a legitimate issue related to staffing.
Everyone should be in unions, but unions ARE going to fight this level of automation to the bitter, as it will result in job cuts. In this particular instance, I think if you cut the CRO compensation to 0 they'd still be in trouble against some of these factories that automate almost the entire process.
This is the kind of "machines coming for your jobs" that's realistic. AI may be a bunch of vaporware, but this stuff is different.
Then stop being greedy fuckers
Aw, Capitalism not working out for you car manufacturers? Awww, that’s too bad.
Won't somebody PLEASE think of the shareholders‽
yes I do think of the shareholders.. in a dream.. also involving woodchippers and guillotines
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That's capitalism.
¯\(ツ)/¯
that he did not spot a single human worker on the supplier's floor.
I know that workers cost money to have but eveytime I read something like this I wonder if the corporations take into consideration the decrease in the number of people who may be able to purchase the product in the first place.
I have had this same thought and I feel like I’ve come to a realization. If companies can cater to the desires of the top 10% or so, they can make more money. Why sell 200 $5 objects when I can cater to the affluent and sell 6 $250 objects.
I see this constantly with Automobiles and construction. Auto manufacturers do not make the cheap baseline cars for the most part Because they’ve realized they can make more money manufacturing the fancier vehicles /trim levels with higher margins.
Same thing with new buildings; affordable housing is not what is being built. You only see fancier, expensive construction, with higher margins, being constructed.
When you have an economy that isn’t capitalist, you can plan it…and extracting surplus value from workers isn’t necessary. You can automate your industries without destroying the quality of life of the people….in fact, you improve it because people can work less.
It really is that capitalism has exhausted its usefulness and ability to advance society. It is now socialism or barbarism.
"We insisted on fossil fuels and now Chinese electric car companies are eating our lunch, boo hoo"
Cry more fat capitalists
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Maybe the workers at Toyota, Ford and Honda should take control of these plants. They would run it better without the capitalist leeches squeezing out every ounce of profits into their own pockets.
I cannot wait to see legacy auto disappear. It’s about time they failed. It’s fucking absurd that the most expensive piece of tech I own has a 15fps display with touch response rate measured in seconds, rather than milliseconds. They did this to themselves.
Legacy auto did nothing to compete with Tesla software, and they came out over a decade ago.
Oh, and they took the ‘10 bailouts and did fuckall with them. They didn’t take the bailouts and make a suddenly better product.
Back in the 80s, American cars got really, really crappy, and that's when Honda, and Toyota, and later Hyundai, Daiwoo, and Kia were able to get market share. American car companies got their shit together, and started making cars that could compete again. So here we are a few decades later, in the same spot.
These scummy Capitalists get a taste of luxury, and they start getting lazy, while the Asians continue to crank away like they're in last place. In the past, the Capitalists finally wised up, and got back into the game, but the current crop are so breath-takingly ignorant, that I doubt they could even recognize that they're in trouble. If someone were to try to explain it to them, they'd probably just attack back.
The Japanese and Koreans will get their shit together. America won't.
"we've built a model based on charging an assload of money for features that barely work and China is making cheap cars that do the job better. Because, you know, the cheap bullshit we've been building. If you force us to compete again we'll lose!"
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China will soon, or prolly has already, be the number 1 country. US oligarchs are just focussed on getting richer instead of trying to advance humanity technologically.
A nation can enrich it's elites in the short term at the expense of its people, or it can invest in its people (education, commons, etc) at the expense of its elites.
The west, and especially my cesspool the US has made its choice.
China has been heavily building up its commons and infrastructure in the same 40 year span the US has let its commons and education fall into utter ruin in order to sell economically segregated education and gated communities for private profit.
The US is culturally indoctrinated to be hostile towards the very concept of society. Imagine resenting paying into universal healthcare because you don't want to accidentally pay for your countrymen's "bad decisions" like... Eating food.
I go on Rednote quite a bit. The US attitude towards China, just like non pure crony capitalism is "they are evil and from hell" for being a society. Their people, not their politicians, their people, are sweet, intelligent, and mostly treat Americans with an "are you guys OK? We've heard (true) horror stories."
Thats humanity. Why would I want my schaudenfreude and greed ruled cesspool to "win?" It's not about winning, it's about the wellbeing of ALL your people. If the US dominates the world culturally, all that would mean is that humanity stands for "fuck you I got mine" at which point I have no comradery with my species whatsoever.
Actual human worth/value is measured in empathy for one another, which makes the US destitude in what matters.
Actual human worth/value is measured in empathy for one another, which makes the US destitude in what matters.
well said. i had the exact same thought yesterday.
I dunno how the Japanese and Koreans will do, but I 100% guarantee that the American companies will do absolutely nothing, whine about it to their child rapist in chief and then get a massive government bailout paid for by ordinary Americans.
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Honda and Toyota have been EV technology laggards all along, even behind us automakers
Is everyone going to import the dregs of their technology to the us, to eke out a few more quarters of profitability before becoming irrelevant?
I would absolutely love to have a Toyota Tacoma hybrid to replace my v6 Tacoma but I'm not going to spend $90k + to buy with old tech when the BYD one is looking to be $40k and will have the latest battery tech.
Cold Take:
Good. They don't deserve to survive. Demand will ensure industry bounceback and stability long term, at least nationally as new buniesses fill the void and labour recovers. Mind you, the US industry will probably never compete globally again having collectively chosen to just lag behind technological trends toward efficiency and sustainability to appease fossil fuel entanglements. These companies made the decisions they did not to adapt at a critical turning point and this is the result, and their current rhetoric is an artifact of decades of coddling by a lopsided nanny state spoon-feeding subsidies and bailouts to shitty investors and executives with garbage management practices at the expense of public services and infrastructure. There is no too big to fail, that's capitalist coping propped up by a corrupt and captured economy that THEY lobbied for.
In short, get fucked, and take your CEOs with you.
This depends on the strategy. If China lowered the prices and waited for the US car makers to go bust, they could then raise the prices as high as they want. US manufacturers would eventually continue production, but things would need to be automated for them to be competitive.
Personally, I think they should allow China to sell small cars in the United States. It's a product that isn't currently sold on our market.
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ok
I'm curious what exactly this means. . . Are they taking raw materials in one door and finished cars out the other? Because that seems unlikely, would be impressive tho.
China's robotics/automation is next level. They have gigapresses to form the car body in one step.
The bigger question is if we can't manufacture shoes in the west, why not just design cars instead of making them as well?
I would bet that Chinese auto manufacturers aren't taking 6 billion a month out of their company to pay shareholders in stock buybacks. Maybe reinvesting in the company to remain competitive is in fact, a good strategy.
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Oh no my portfolio... Seriously, there's something called competition, it's been around for a long time. If Chinese companies continue pushing ahead while US companies remain complacent then that's just what will happen. These older car manufacturers have had DECADES to prepare for the newer battery tech to design and build good affordable BEVs, but they just didn't.
This is what happens when billionaires try to steal the future. Read about the General Motors EV1. Oil companies have fought against the development of EV charging infrastructure in the US.
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