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[–] [S] 38 points 2 years ago (6 children)

The point is we're getting "innovation" at the expense of people. That person says they have no teeth because they can't afford dental care in America since for-profit healthcare is another feature of capitalism.

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I find it beyond infuriating that dental isn't even considered healthcare per se. It requires entirely separate "insurance," all of which is hot garbage. I need my wisdom teeth out, because they never fully erupted and now they're rotting in my gums. I shred my cheeks eating because I can't afford the $5,000 they quoted me for an oral surgeon. My dental "coverage" only pays out a max of $2,000 annually so I just deal with it and pull out the chunks as they break off.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    $5000?!! That is insane.

    In the UK, dental care isn't free (unless you're below 18, a student, unemployed, pregnant, have been pregnant in the past year, or there is a serious risk to your wider health), but it still caps out at £307 for the most serious dental work. Most people here are furious about it costing anything at all.

    Though getting prompt dental care has been way harder after the COVID backlog...

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    And $5,000 isn't even out of range. Kids needed a couple fillings? $1,000 with insurance. Grandma needs a root canal? $1600 with insurance and Medicare.

    It's a huge fucking racket and the fact that it still exists decades after Obamacare is extremely frustrating

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    Well, the point is also that it's not useful innovation. Profit is prioritized, not utility. Sometimes that results in useful innovation, but frequently it results in potentially useful innovation being avoided because it'd cost too much with a low chance of return on value.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    But there are plenty of other capitalistic societies where health care is covered for all like Canada. You can reign in capitalism and manage it and have socialism in the same system. The issue in the USA is not capitalism, it is out of control capitalism.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's cronie capitalism. We don't actually have a free market and we don't get actual competition.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Exactly. Blaming the issues we are seeing on Capitalism is not blaming the root cause.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I never understood why everyone blames capitalism, when almost all of the places they spout as being great...are built with capitalism money...

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Right and further, when you look at the people complaining about capitalism and ask them if they shop ethically…you know making sure their coffee beans are fair trade, their clothes makers are paid a living wage, their veggies are picked by those fairly compensated etc etc let alone slave labour in the mix, they almost always look like a deer in the headlights. They say they hate capitalism but they seek the lowest price therefore they reinforce the behaviour they hate.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Nailed it. I don't eat fast food anymore because of the cost. I'll order out from a local restaurant because it's a few bucks more than fast food at this point, and I usually get my meal quicker. Panda Express? Nope... I'm going to the local Chinese place and getting double the food for the same cost and the Chinese immigrants there are awesome people who make bangin' food.

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  • [–] -4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    we have capitalism in europe, but also healthcare. this just proves america bad, but not capitalism bad.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Healthcare in Europe has been eroded for decades. In my country healthcare basically covers very bad conditions,.such as cancer, chronic conditions, such as diabetes, or degenerative conditions, such as MS.

    Often, medical intervention fails to take into account quality of life or the psychological consequences of illnesses.

    For instance, my late father was diagnosed with a lung cancer and he was sent home without a pain management protocol.

    So, long story short: capitalism bad in the long run.

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  • [+] -9 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Not true at all. Your country is just sold to the highest bidder. Don't pretend you are a democracy. Don't pretend you are a capitalism society.

    Please admit you are a slave of your corporate masters and that they need you toothless. It's called a corporatocrazy (sic.).

    Europe has 418 hotsauces (incl from USA and Cuba) and nobody needs to have toothpain (but replacing them with expensive implants may require more money as average person has)

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  • [–] [S] 15 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Corporations being in control of a nation is the ultimate goal of capitalism. So I think I will call the U.S. a capitalistic society. One which has come very close to reaching that goal.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago

    Capitalism is an economic system. Extreme capitalism leads to corporatocracy like the US, which makes it a political system.

    I don't even think we disagree on anything.. You are just confusing words/symantics

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  • [–] -5 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Nope, not true. Capitalism in its base is just the fact you are free to exchange with others.

    Businesses should not be allowed human rights. And especially not to influence politics (even if through third and such parties like lobbyists and superpacs)

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That's not what capitalism is. People have been exchanging things long before the 1600s. Capitalism is about allowing private interests to own a state's productive capacity for the purposes of profit.

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  • [+] -6 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The word government isn't even in that entire article. Maybe quote a specific part instead of idiotically linking a main Wikipedia page...?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Okay, allow me to copy/paste the relevant section, the first sentence.

    Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.

    Meaning individuals (aka private interests) own and control the means of production with the goal of generating profit, rather than they be publicly controlled, which is to say controlled by the government.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Controlled by the government part is added by you with no source. Typical American basement dwelling commie

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100353611

    There's your source. That makes two versus your zero? Surely you know what you're talking about.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Dude quoting general things doenst make your point... At all... Nor does downvoting me..

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Brother, you asked me to source the definition of public ownership so I got you a literal dictionary definition of it. And for the record, I haven't downvoted any of your comments, not even the ones I found irritating.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I did not ever ask that. Please refrain from putting words into my mouth. What are you, a tankie?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Controlled by the government part is added by you with no source. Typical American basement dwelling commie

    Okay, maybe you didn't ask for it, precisely. But you seemed to be bothered that I didn't provide one, so I did.

    You seem to be in your feelings about all this, though.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I left Europe 14 years ago because it wasn't nice anymore in my home town. Sorry for you guys but if you live in the USA you shouldn't think you know everything about Europe...

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    I don't think I've made any specific claims about Europe in our discussion. I don't live in the USA, I live in Canada, but either way I would never claim to know everything about Europe because I don't.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You are conflating commerce with capitalism. They aren't the same things.

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  • [–] -4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    F u tanky moron. Extremists are always bad Left wing as much as extreme capitalism.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I'm not a tanky.

    You're still conflating capitalism and commerce.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    He called me a Tankie in another thread. He doesn't know what it means.

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  • They're right though. Freely trading goods and services is commerce, and an economy based on commerce is a market economy.

    Capitalism is specifically a market economy where the means of production are owned privately by an investor class, who increase their wealth exclusively by "profit": a discrepancy between the value the workers in a company contribute, and the compensation paid to those workers (Price- Cost [including wages] = Profit).

    There are non-capitalist market economy models. Like market socialism, in which economic production is still generated by private companies in a free market, but those companies are owned by the workers themselves rather than by non-employee shareholders.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    You're wrong, and you don't know you're wrong.

    If you care at all that you might be wrong, you would read David Graeber's "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" and learn more about this.

    But you won't, because this is the Internet.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You seem unclear on what capitalism is.

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  • [+] -7 points 2 years ago

    Capitalism isn't necessarily EXTREMIST. I can be limited, actually it IS in ALL COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD. however, in some shithole countries like the US of aholes, it's limited in the wrong ways because of lobbyists and meek population being distracted by bread and games.

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