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this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
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I see no point in making a differentiation between mechanism and the methodology to which that mechanism enables the most exploit.
I disagree with your thought that capitalism optimizes work. It either ensures work is done many times over in parallel (competition) or arbitrarily based on the whims of the owner class (olig/monopoly), and that alternative/more efficient means are snuffed out where a more profitable option exists. It's an unstable and inefficient system that relies on civil expenditure (bail outs, infrastructure, etc) to function.
The capitalist system that requires you labor to for food and shelter is exactly the same mechanism that rejects people, pushes them out, exposes them, and props up the wealthy class. Your "Social Darwinism" is a fundamental consequence capitalism, not an unrelated ideology that just happens to exist simultaneously. Capitalism drives people to do [more] evil. Then they rationalize their behavior to protect their ego and power.
I'm not making the claim that capitalism optimizes work, it's the claim that liberals make. I think it's important to actually study and understand what other people believe, and as I stated before the idea of capitalism does not allow destruction or monopolization of natural resources, or to block others from using natural resources in a responsible manner (which was the core problem with feudalism).
The point is that billionaires are not liberals, and they don't believe in capitalism.
I'm not arguing whether capitalism is a flawed theory of economics which naturally leads to either fascism, social darwinism, or some third thing. I'm arguing that billionaires actually do believe in social darwinism, which is a different thing than liberalism or capitalism.
I think you're conflating liberalism with capitalism, which isn't necessary.
Capitalism can exist without liberalism. Liberalism is just one way the ideology has manifested but it can also become fascism under different circumstances, and fascism is still capitalist.
No, I'm literally giving examples of how Adam Smith defined the foundations of capitalism, which both liberals and so-called conservatives normally favor as their preferred economic theory, and how these foundations contrast with a different philosophy favored by different people.
Anyway, I'm done beating a dead horse here.
Adam Smith didn't invent capitalism. It's not a philosophy, it was an economic system that emerged from certain material relations. Liberalism, and fascism, are just two of the ideological frameworks that can reproduce capitalism's material base and both of which emerge from the material base of capitalism.
Ah, I see, I guess we don't have to consider what liberals think and how they view the world, because after all we possess the objective truth and their opinions don't matter.
We don't have to consider capitalism to have some kind of doctrine Orthodoxy, as if Adam Smith was a prophet and that deviations from liberalism aren't capitalist. It's still capitalism even if it isn't what Adam Smith envisioned.
Billionaires believe in capitalism, even if they don't believe in liberalism.