this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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Every system can and will get exploited. I am not sure how another economic system will fix this. Assholes will be assholes and if we don't stop them from getting into positions of power this will continue.
Not to say that capitalism isn't a bucket full of shit. But I would argue setting the incentives right, can mitigate damage. The issue is getting this done politically. Which brings us back to assholes (+capitalism) again.
Other economic systems have assholes, true, but capitalism is uniquely myopic in this respect. A socialist system would take away the polluters' power to hinder change. There's a reason (still capitalist to be fair) China is a world leader in renewable energy, and that's because they don't have rich and powerful lobbies forcing fossil fuels down people's throats.
Until capitalists use their wealth and power to remove those incentives, which leads us back to "end capitalism." This is the fundamental problem with reformism; under capitalism there will naturally be mechanisms for resisting and winding back said reform, making "nicer" versions of it mere interludes interrupting the crushing boot of exploitation and destruction we all know and love.
And the rollback of the incentive adjustments isn't theoretical. Incentives got adjusted around The Great Depression in many western countries like in the US and those changes have been slowly rolled back till the 70s, then much more quickly since then. And at breakneck speed since the dissolution of the Soviet bloc.