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Race to the bottom vs. race to the top. Both are happening. Some are probably competing for most delicious lemonade, but only these two capitalists can afford it and the rest of us drink their piss. The idea of competition in order to race to the top is not a bad idea, and can be usefull in some contexts. It’s just that the race to the bottom is usually omitted, or presented as a positive rather than a negative. The idea being something like:
capitalism leads to good things, capitalism leads to people drinking piss, ergo people drinking piss is a good thing.
which is why we need anti piss-in-lemonade laws and limits on how much water there can be for a given number of lemons.
we don’t need to remove capitalism, instead we can restrain it from harming people
we don’t need to remove capitalism, instead we can restrain it from harming people
That’s what we’ve been telling ourselves for almost 200 years, and yet we are as we are…
There are no laws against piss in the lemonade. Check FDA for more details https://www.fda.gov/food/current-good-manufacturing-practices-cgmps-food-and-dietary-supplements/food-defect-levels-handbook and look for the term “Mammalian excreta”, which means both piss and shit.
Yes, your food can be full of shit and piss and it is full of shit and piss. Enjoy the rest of your day!
Part of me agrees with you. The other part of me knows how well capitalism can pivot so much quicker than laws can be made to curtail the bad practices, that the system seems to be the issue. Maybe the government is the issue too, but it’s a lot of bad faith companies that ruins the bunch. Forward thinking and progressive thinking with quick measured action could do it, but most people who are elected aren’t capable of that or are too compromised to make anything work.
Regulation could keep capitalism in check.
In reality capitalists use their money to make and change laws through lobbyists or bribes, and by propaganda through owning all media.
Not in reality, but in the US. Lobbying is called corruption elsewhere and is a crime. Don’t put this shit on capitalism, it’s a US only problem.
Couldnt that be made illegal too?
Removed by mod
There’s more lemonade by volume in Lemon Pledge furniture polish than in Country Time Lemonade.
[That’s why the small print says “Lemonade flavored drink”]
Competitions end. And when competitions end in a world where everything is “run like a business,” the winners are not handed medals, but monopolies.
They are handed an extinction. Thanks for making a bunch of useless piles of paper.
Every capitalist wants to invest as little and profit as much as possible.
- A history of the world in seven cheap things (p.21)
Enshittification
“We are in fact the same company”
And also killed the dude that was trying to compete.
Monsanto secret memo, paraphrased: Our competitors are not our adversaries. They are our allies. The customer is our adversary.
Disclosed during a price-fixing investigation.
Lemon-scented Roundup® is tasty and nutritional, too!
More like … I own the sugar plantation so I can use as much sugar as I want … I can dump so much sugar into my lemon flavored water that it will be like selling crack to children. Once they’re hooked, these kids will beg their parents to buy my stuff for cheap … for the rest of their lives!
The sugar laden crap I get them hooked on also causes diabetes which is why I also own the diabetes medication pharmaceutical where these kids will buy their drugs as diabetic adults.
I’ll make money on these dumb kids through every stage of their miserable lives.
Oh and I fired the kids who started the stand.
…and paid off the zoning commission to shut down the others, guaranteeing mine is the only legal swill in town.
Trying to explain this to people I know is nearly impossible. They always think “but when I’m rich I want all the money and no regulation!” Well guess what you work at Walmart and will never be rich so I guess let yourself get endlessly exploited then. There is no ethical billionaire. Maybe not even millionaire tbh.
ik a few ethical millionares
At this point I don’t even consider 50 million net worth “rich”. There are 2 classes of people. Billionaires and their cronies, and everybody else.
I think at around 5 million you no longer need to labor to live. You can put that in safe investments and just coast. That’s maybe not super rich, but it’s definitely above a milestone.
As things are, every Millennial and anyone in a later generation is going to have to be a millionaire to retire to a reasonable level of comfort. It could also be true that there are no ethical millionaires. Where does that leave us?
Can’t speak for y’all, but I’m firmly in “will never be able to retire” territory.
Ditto. I am putting money away in my 401k like a good little citizen but I have no clue how that money will EVER be enough to support myself (not to mention any one else I might have around) in my old age.
My plan is to die in the water wars. Looking at the state of things, it won’t be long now.
It’s not that hard to be a millionaire by retirement if you have a decently good paying job. Assuming you’re making $84k a year (good money, but hardly “capitalist pig” level) and invest 6% of your income every year in your retirement account (~$5k a year) at a roughly 7% average interest rate (historical stock market average) for 40 years that gets you to $1mil.
Very true
It should be "I used water, corn syrup, and yellow dye #65“ VS “I used piss.” Only “organics” use some of the real stuff, with some “natural” flavors.
That was honestly pretty nice of the first guy to not use piss.
That´s how you build brand confidence
So we must buy his because he’s the lesser of two evils! That will fix the lemonade industry
Whew. I’m glad we solved that.
Shout out to the $8 quart of ice water with half a lemon in it sold as “lemonade” at last year’s ren faire. Though I did get lemon-flavored melted ice for the next few hours out of the deal.
You’re just lucky they didn’t sell you piss. Alternatively, you missed out on an “opportunity in the market” by not selling your lemonade piss.
Only $8 for a quart of water? Pretty sure the one I went to charged that much for about half as much.
Should have an intermediate step where one of the competitors beats the other. Then the third should have only the remaining one, now big, and selling worse lemonade.
Or they merge lemonade stands
Yeah. I should have said it also needs an acquisition of the loser slide. 😂
Yeah fair! Hopefully they stop using piss for lemonade… 😅
Recent willy Wonka movie did a great job with this
