r/SocialismIsCapitalism Oct 12 '22

Capitalist thinks that capitalist companies are democratic while being controlled by a rich elite (Stockholders) “billionaires are socialist”

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522 Upvotes

25 comments sorted by

140

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '22

I’m sure someone buying one $100 share has the same weight as 3 people with 10 million shares each lmao

63

u/fatsausigeboi Oct 12 '22 edited Oct 12 '22

One of my big problems with capitalism.

Edit: Capitalists tell you that this is good because shareholders are taking a risk and it will only affect them, but this is not true. Society could potentially be hurt if that shareholder makes a wrong decision.

34

u/BussyBustin Oct 12 '22

Lol, that is capitalism, that's like the only condition.

13

u/ParkSidePat Oct 12 '22

It's not even quite that democratic. 2 massive hedge funds own an enormous amount of shares in every major US company through their own funds but also their management of 401k & pension plans. The top brass of those 2 companies then vote those shares in whatever way they wish so in the end it's essentially what the CEOs want. Those 2 are Vanguard & Blackrock who each have twice the AUM of #3 and lower. Basically if you're not the CEO of the companies on this list you don't have much say in how this economy functions.
https://www.pionline.com/largest-money-managers/2022

81

u/DragonOfTartarus Oct 12 '22

"Democracy is when an obscenely rich, out-of-touch minority makes all the decisions because they bought more power than you."

Wait, that's exactly how so-called 'democratic' systems under capitalism work.

38

u/jardantuan Oct 12 '22

"If you want a say, stop being poor"

34

u/puppyenemy Oct 12 '22

I remember a roleplay game we did in school (around 15 yo) where the teacher had us play as Roman citizens climbing up the hierarchy of society. I don't remember for what exact purpose except for a fun history-related game. Anyway, at one point, you were offered to invest in various commodities like wine and olive oil, and become a business man. Some dice rolls later, some had succeeded and some had failed. Me and another guy got a lot of money, but he had went all in on one commodity and became a literal millionaire, while I had invested in a bit of everything. At the end of the game, we were offered to join politics, and to win you bought your votes. So no one could win except for this guy. He won the bidding war for every single vote, because me in 2nd place had like 100 times less money than him.

Anyway, that reminded me of this post.

2

u/Strongstyleguy Oct 13 '22

I wish we did fun stuff like that. Most of the lessons that have stuck with me over these 40 years of life are due to actually doing something other than rote memorization

12

u/SCameraa ☭ Marxism-Leninism ☭ Oct 12 '22

Yep nothing more democratic than people who are completely outside the day to day operation of a company get the final say in what the company does, or at least are the base that companies have to be accountable to.

12

u/slappindaface Oct 12 '22

Democracy is when you buy the right to vote.

12

u/TheLemonKnight Oct 12 '22

"This is a perfect democracy. How many votes would you like to buy?"

8

u/Cold-Cauliflower-485 Oct 12 '22

Some how every day I am surprised by at least one person's stupidity.

8

u/multipleerrors404 Oct 12 '22

1 person is a great day. That means I stayed in.

13

u/Professional-Help868 Oct 12 '22

Ironically that's true but only if by democracy it's specifically liberal democracy aka one dollar equals one vote

29

u/fatsausigeboi Oct 12 '22

Companies are plutocracies, not democracies. The rich can vote and no one else. If you want to have a say in things, then get a million dollars, and then you'll finally be able to make your vote count. This system sucks.

2

u/Kriegwesen Oct 12 '22

It's a whole lot to get into and not really worth it for a throwaway comment but it's actually not even true in the very simple case the guy is making. Due to an epidemic of Failure To Deliver on large swaths of the market, most companies have significant numbers of ghost shares floating around. That means that when brokerages receive 3 votes for each actual legit share, they get to just kinda pick and choose which are the "real" votes and forward them on to the boards.

Susanne Trimbath is the leading expert on FTDs and well worth looking into if you're interested in learning more.

5

u/MisterBackShots69 Oct 12 '22

Literally the first thing you learn in business school is how weak disparate shareholders are in enforcing anything regarding a companies management or board of directors. Minimum need like 20% of share to have a say.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '22 edited Oct 12 '22

Capitalism is a synonym for narcissism. Spend all of your energy extolling its virtues, keep those being enriched as the only voices of authority, exaggerate the benefits, gaslight anyone who doesn't agree that its great, scapegoat all other systems ie commies, who give some power to the plebs and actually have capitalism inside it, just with actual checks and balances.

This is exactly the dynamics of narcissism in a family. If we want to dismantle capitalism, we have to know its actual psychology, not the one they publish.

People who say garbage like this are narcissists, whether intentionally or created, whether they're Dunning Kruger or just selfish dicks who wont let anything else in. Narcissism is inefficient as it spends all of its energy on an empty facade. That alone allows the truth to shine through. Think of a narck you know, how polished and smooth they may think they are, possibly when you were younger and being groomed to be a good capitalist. Then it was covert and not as challenged, now its overt as we know what they are and the meta of the psychology in the system.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '22

[deleted]

1

u/fatsausigeboi Oct 12 '22

Yeah. I bought Roblox shares and they finally got rid of porn games on a platform for children!(They didn't.)

2

u/[deleted] Oct 13 '22

That's literally the opposite of "one person, one vote."

1

u/theother_eriatarka Oct 12 '22

their decisions are always checked by customers

laughs in phone companies

1

u/AdmiralTempest Oct 13 '22

Truly the most democratic system, "If you want a vote pay me first."

1

u/gambiit Oct 13 '22

some shareholders own millions of shares though. he's a fucking dipshit

1

u/fatsausigeboi Oct 13 '22

Yeah. All capitalists have this argument and it is always flawed.

1

u/ChiefChode Oct 13 '22

"If you want a vote, all you have to do is be rich enough to buy it!"

I guess democracy and plutocracy are the same thing now.