Why do some people defend the billionaires and capitalism?

Many people do not grasp the sheer size of the disparity between the truly wealthy and everyone else.
- They really think billionaires are like them, the only difference is that someone else goes to Walmart for them
  
  Billionaires are like everyone else. That's the reason I don't look up to any. They're just as human as I am. No amount of money can ever make them anything else or anything more. They have access to an absurd degree, and they can afford far, FAR more, but they will never escape their base human nature. Almost anyone can be a billionaire. Some current billionaires prove that every moment they open their mouths.
- Or they take capitalism as good and freedom as an axiom.
  
  Most people will take "freedom" as an axiom, but how "freedom" is defined varies a lot. In a society where the commons are pretty much fully enclosed and you are homeless, the petite-bourgeois may very well be free, but you really aren't.
- I believe your comments is just a paraphrase of: "They are being stupid"
  In my opinion this is a very toxic way of thinking and does not try to understand the arguments "the other side" presents.
  
  I don't think it's that bad-faith. I myself still find it positively mind-blowing to comprehend when the data is right in front of me.
  Someone might equate wealth to hard work, but it hasn't really hit them, the real literal difference between 1 million dollars, and 1 billion, and then the news is talking about "trillionaires."
  There's just no way to earn a billion dollars, to yourself, through honest work and by not exploiting others. And I think a lot of folks really don't realize this. They know that's a lot, but they might change their mind and realize how outrageous it is, when you present them with something like:
  "Joe, you could get 3 more promotions and work 80 hours a week for 13 lifetimes and still not earn that much. Do you really think this is just petty jealousy at play?"
  They might just change their mind.
  But a lot of folks grew up in a time or place where people who ran the company started at the bottom, and it really needs to hit them hard that this just isn't reality anymore.

I assume they think they will be able to achieve the same status in the game that's designed to literally oppress them and make them think they are cared by the billionaires.
- It's the American dream. What is the quote? We're all embarrassed potential millionaires?
  
  That's why the "hustling culture" is so important and prevalent in our society right now.
  Everyone "knows" someone that made bank with either youtube, selling some pyramid-scheme product, bitcoins, some collectibles, craft beer, lottery... you name it.
  Social media (and before that was TV) is selling us the idea that there's a shortcut to becoming rich, you just need to find it, hustle, and you will become one of the rich persons.
  That's also why there's so much cult of wealth and billionaires.
  That said, a large portion of Millennials and after them have a rather negative view of billionaires and are rather skeptical of becoming rich, or even becoming home owners.
  
  Something like "Temporarily inconvenienced billionaires" I think?
  
  I'll have you know I'm a millionaire with a cash flow problem.
- This has been studied, and the ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’ idea is actually wrong.
  The real reason is because some people (especially conservatives, because it’s a core part of conservative ideology) believe that in order for society to work, a hierarchy must be maintained wherein the ‘deserving’ are at the top, and everyone else is in their rightful place. Any threat to the natural hierarchy will undo the societal order and bring chaos and carnage.
  This is why Obama becoming president was such an affront – because his presence outside his ‘rightful place’ was an existential threat to the natural order.
  This belief has its roots way back when feudalism began to fail and the moneyed classes needed to find a new way to retain their power – both capitalism and conservatism were born at that time, with ideologies shifting from birthright to ‘earned’ status, which enshrined the haves and have-nots into literally sacred structures of meritocracy and social darwinism, and colonialists specifically fostered strict adherence to the social order. It became ingrained culturally that adhering to your station, whatever it is, is crucial for society to function. That there’s honour in being a cog in the machine, and that not accepting your lot in life is a danger to everyone. (eta: this is mostly subconscious, but you can see it if you ask ‘why’ enough times of someone who idolises Musk, for example. You’ll eventually whittle them down to these themes.)
  That’s a nutshell view of a complicated topic, but these people don’t believe they’ll strike gold one day. They believe people who are rich deserve to be treated as kings, for the same reason monarchist peasants did.
  
  Any pointers where I can read more about that?

because they prefer to dream of themselves as billionaires in potentia. it's hard to admit you've been duped, especially when society gives you so many targets to punch down on.
or, as futurama put it, link
- A slave doesn't dream to be free, but to be a king

Many reasons. One major factor imho is the belief or illusion to be living in a meritocracy. Which would mean, that someone who's rich has to have earned it and therefore criticism must stem from envy or jealousy. The same belief fuels the ideology of thinking of poor people to just be lazy leeches on society.
- The idea of meritocracy is such a bullshit lie it's laughable. We need it so our children don't live in a world without hope but much like santa claus they should shed the idea around the time of college. There are merit based reward systems. Ladder climbing is real. Only, many of them are corrupted by politics and mismanagement. Even if you succeed in an isolated merit based system it's only to incentivize more production and you will never reach the level of CEO or what ever.
  What we should teach young adults is that life is a lottery inside a lottery inside a lottery. Success is about increasing your odds by taking as many smart bets as you can. Bets where the reward is great and where you don't have much at stake if you lose. Betting with other people's money is the most efficient way of extracting value. The meritocracy isn't real, so neither is the morals around it. If you want nothing but an easy life this is how you do it. If your can't in good conscious gamble with other people's livelihoods we will see you on the ladder.

Well it's similar to what Churchill said about democracy... it's a bad system but it's better than all the others.
If you can put ideology aside and think in terms of economics, in many industries capitalism offers an efficient way of determining the an optimal price and quantity to produce considering the costs and value something brings. And it's something that allows for industries to function without an excessive amount of centralized planning which will often get things wrong.
But it's like a machine in a many ways. And like any machine it requires maintenance. Things like trust-busting, progessive taxation, regulations, and occasional stimulus are necessary to keep it running smoothly.
But once you bring ideology into it, it all becomes a shitshow. Some will argue capitalism is a perfect machine and any kind of maintenance on the machine will ruin it's perfection. Others take any kind of maintenance on the machine as a sign the machine will inevitably fail and needs to be replaced entirely. But then we go back to the beginning where other systems have been tried and they're worse. Charlatans, grifters, ideologues abound pushing people in every direct except for simply taking reasonable measures to keep the machine running smoothly. There's an almost religious devotion towards arguing the either the machine is perfect or the machine is doomed to failure and not only should be replaced they should accelerate the failure so it can be replaced sooner.
Zealots from all sides demonize the mechanics that are simply keeping things running. A lot of emotional nonsense about this thing. But to an economist, it's just a machine with both strengths and weaknesses. The functioning of the machine is well understood, and the other machines that have been tried didn't really work.
- I think decentralization of power is a nice feature too. Billionaires are power centers outside of the government, judiciary, or military. They exist as a result of lax control on the markets by the government. In countries without capitalism and property rights, the billionaires are the government and the judiciary and the military. So, even though it might seem like nationalizing their wealth would decrease inequality, if there aren't good safeguards for decentralizing government power, it would result in a less equal society.
  Part of the existence of billionaires is the ability to actually determine which money is theirs. In autocratic governments, you can't really say who owns what because you never know what the government might decide to take.
  I don't defend billionaires, I think power should be spread more fairly, but eliminating them via the government needs to be done wisely in order to maintain decentralization.
  
  Maintaining decentralization just allows for more centralization as markets coalesce into monopolist syndicates, better to centralize, make public property, and democratize.
  
  In countries without capitalism and property rights, the billionaires are the government and the judiciary and the military.
  In the US, they just have solidified a really good means of controlling it… I mean, the amount we don’t tax them, the super PACs we let them contribute to, and the control they have over our media are definitely forms of control that may not be “as bad” as other systems (arguably) but it seems like it’s really similar.

Because propaganda is effective.

Many don't even do it intentionally, they just don't grasp concepts like Historical and Dialectical Materialism, which requires reading lengthy books to fully grasp. They may be anti-Capitalist at heart, but without a solid understanding of theory they play into bourgeois hands.
There's also the fact that the ideas held by society are a reflection of the Mode of Production.
- Pretty sure they'd take everything you just wrote and say, "that sounds like critical race theory, which Jesus said was bad."
  
  Sure. The de-industrialization of America has been devastating for class awareness.
- It doesnt even require that much reading of such subjects. All it takes is to not be brainwashed by media and politicians.
  Critical thought and self awareness is all it takes
  
  I'm sorry, but I entirely disagree. Dialectical and Historical Materialism are incredibly far-removed from standard American discourse and takes quite a bit to understand, oversimplifying it is dangerous. If all it took to be a Marxist-Leninist was critical thought and self-awareness, the US would have had a proletarian revolution already.
  
  Usually it's my friend Cowbee here who tells people to read things, but here I will:
  https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
  "Brainwashing" is a reactionary myth (that originally comes from orientalist stories of Chinese hypnosis that were used to explain-away defectors in the Korean war) that is used to position the believer in a position superior to the masses ("sheeple"), and which only knows how to treat the latter condescendingly as blind followers of this or that, which is not how you do mass organizing if you want to succeed.

temporarily embarrassed billionaires
Richard Nixon's head : I promise to cut taxes for the rich and use the poor as a cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel!
[audience applauds]
Philip J. Fry : That'll show those poor!
Turanga Leela : You're not rich!
Philip J. Fry : But someday I might be rich, and people like me better watch their step

People who defend billionaires either have a vested interest, have actually bought that they're 1000x smarter than normal people, or have some (possibly vague) abstract moral position that overrules the basic idea of fairness. Often it's more than one.
Capitalism, as the term is commonly used, is poorly defined enough that you have to specify what it means here. Is it any kind of market? Is it large corporations? Is it every interaction being purely voluntary (somehow)? If you consider a big Soviet firm like Gosbank a "corporation", all three could also be socialist depending on who you ask.
Since this is .ml, for the classical Marxist definition that it's "private ownership of the means of production", the arguments are mainly against the proposed alternatives, or just that private vs. personal is hard to demarcate, and nobody wants to share a toothbrush.

Propaganda

I guess the central premise of capitalism is that while every society has its haves and have nots, capitalism is supposed to encourage the haves to invest in the economy rather than hoarding their wealth. In return, they stand to get even wealthier, but a stronger economy ought to generate more employment and generally improve the lives of commoners as well.
Unfortunately, in a never-ending quest to make wealth-generation more efficient and streamlined, employment is being eliminated through automation, outsourcing, etc. and the system is eating itself out from the inside. I doubt it can persist much longer, but what will replace it remains unclear. I pray that it will be something sensible that ensures everyone has their basic needs met and can still find rewarding pursuits in life. But there are so many ways it could go very wrong, and that includes staying on the current course.
- I guess the central premise of capitalism is that while every society has its haves and have nots, capitalism is supposed to encourage the haves to invest in the economy rather than hoarding their wealth. In return, they stand to get even wealthier, but a stronger economy ought to generate more employment and generally improve the lives of commoners as well.
  Nitpicky, but that's the premise of Liberalism, not Capitalism. Capitalism emerged not because it was an idea, but an evolution in Mode of Production. Liberalism is the ideological justification.
  Unfortunately, in a never-ending quest to make wealth-generation more efficient and streamlined, employment is being eliminated through automation, outsourcing, etc. and the system is eating itself out from the inside. I doubt it can persist much longer, but what will replace it remains unclear. I pray that it will be something sensible that ensures everyone has their basic needs met and can still find rewarding pursuits in life. But there are so many ways it could go very wrong, and that includes staying on the current course.
  Have you read Marx? He makes the case that due to Capitalism's tendency to centralize and form monopolist syndicates with internal planning, the next mode of production is Socialism, ie public ownership and planning of the syndicates formed by the market system.

Unfortunately many of us have been taught that being a good person and a good citizen equals being productive and accumulating resources. Things that are quantifiable and external to the actual person and their relationships.
Being productive and accumulating some resources can be good activities to spend time on, but they are practical necessities and not defining characteristics of existence.

Because it's in their personal interests to perpetuate capitalism
Because liberal ideology is hegemonic and it is what most people have been raised to believe
Plenty of other reasons why people hold the political beliefs they hold, surely it's obvious that there are many ways that someone can arrive at a belief system
- Your username on a post about capitalism makes me giggle
  
  You mean our post.
- I like how these pretty neatly map to the three I gave for defending billionaires, even though they're worded very differently and probably thought of completely independently. We even ordered them the same way.
  People who defend billionaires either have a vested interest, have actually bought that they’re 1000x smarter than normal people, or have some (possibly vague) abstract moral position that overrules the basic idea of fairness. Often it’s more than one.
  I suppose the 1000x smarter thing isn't the only propaganda reason given, but I'd say meritocracy is by far more pronounced than inherent property rights or red-baiting in today's mainstream media. People who go with the latter two tend to learn it through personal connections.

Our retirement is tied to it.
- my retirement is non-existent
  
  Maybe you should be working to fix that.
- This is the answer, right here

Because the average person doesn't have any real time to think deeply about politics. They believe whatever big media tells them. Some also can't understand how evil someone people can get.
"Surely the basic logic of how things work must be very consistent in order to have such a large and prosperous country like the USA. I don't understand it. Probably because I'm missing something not because it's fundamentally flawed"
- Because the average person doesn't have any real time to think deeply about politics.
  Because the economic elites have engineered it that way.
  They flooded the workplace with double the workers (both men and women), thereby depressing wages and forcing both parents to become wage earners to survive. Then, with both parents working outside the house, childcare and chores sucked up all available free time, and even more household costs went towards outside help (daycares, etc.).
  Then they began a tradition of kicking children out of the house when they became adults, thereby putting strain on infrastructure and increasing the demand for housing.
  Then they began a push for higher education, thereby saddling young adults with ridiculous amounts of debt at the point of their lives when they could least afford to shoulder said debt.
  All this makes us extremely time poor and resource poor, such that we cannot afford the head space to consider anything beyond where we put the next step or two that we make. As a society, the common man becomes far too busy just treading water to be concerned about in which direction they should swim.
  As such, most people take massive amounts of cognitive shortcuts, relying far too much on things spoon-fed to them from the very news sources that should be unbiased and impartial, but which are nearly always owned by the Parasite Class, which favour deeply regressive conservative policies that benefit only themselves at the expense of the common person.
  And most people don’t think deeply not because they cannot be bothered to think for themselves, but rather because they have far too much on their plate to afford to do so. They quite literally would mentally burn out if they were to do so.
  
  It's impressive that someone engineered the last century of economic history. That's some Palpatine level engineering!

Liberalism, its propaganda, and its consequences. Also a severe lack of class consciousness and knowledge of political theory.
- I think more important than that, is the reason for liberalism, which is the base, ie the Mode of Production.

The Post apocalyptic nature of alot of media makes me think that people can more easily Imagine the fall of human civilization then we can a better world where everyone's needs are met.
To the 1%, losing all your wealth and power be an apocalypse, so it is in their best interests that everyone would be thinking the same as well. No matter how much better we all would be together otherwise.

We’re raised by parents that must be obeyed for our own safety. Some people eventually learn to accept their parents are imperfect people and not gods. Many people do not. They look to kings and gods to protect and provide for them.
Those that have power negotiate with kings and gods. People without power attempt to use the only techniques they know to negotiate with their kings and gods: begging and/or pledging loyalty and service in exchange for scraps.
Of course this is but one of many reasons many people worship power.

It's not because they think they can be billionaires, it's because they've been taught (and in a minority of cases this is true) that they are better off going after the crumbs that billionaires leave them than trying some other system.

About defending capitalism (and not billionaires - who more often than not abuse this system). Some of us lived in other systems. And we understand any other system is way way way way worse.
There are however a lot of problems with capitalism and should be held on a very short leash. Or else monopoly happens. The most effective actions to keep capitalism at bay: strong anti-trust laws, strong worker protection (this includes a lot of stuff), wealth tax.
And be aware there are many flavours of calitalism. Most commonly people in USA are the most extreme where you have really "long leash". And people see such capitalism as failing and want to replace whole system.
- There are however a lot of problems with capitalism and should be held on a very short leash. Or else monopoly happens. The most effective actions to keep capitalism at bay: strong anti-trust laws, strong worker protection (this includes a lot of stuff), wealth tax.
  Capitalism eats the leash, you can't avoid this.
  
  As the above commenter mentioned it is possible to stop it eating the leash so to speak. The main problem is keeping all of those protections actually in place. We don’t seem to want to codify worker rights or anything else important to the constitution.
  
  Stick a finger up its butt and the leash will get spit back out? I think I read that somewhere, not sure if it works.
  
  This is simply not true. And whole EU is doing this more or less effectively. But your government has to be very very careful since this sure can happen.
  In recent years we have seen degradation of this leash. But EU commission started keeping up with global monopolies.
  I believe also in USA they are making some antitrust changes after a few decades of sleeping.

Ignorance, pride, "temporarily embarrassed billionaire" syndrome.

I think the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" idea is overstated, most people I interact with have a somewhat negative outlook on the economy and their future wealth.
I think the real issue is that no viable alternative is presented to most people.
The alternatives presented are Russian-style authoritarian oligarchy, Islamofascism, or a Venezuela-style "socialism" in which the narrative only focuses on poverty.
- The PRC is absolutely a viable alternative, it's a Socialist Market Economy that has been steadily transfering Private Property into Public Property as markets coalesce into monopolist syndicates, which are then capable of central planning.
  
  They have the most wild form of capitalism there is. And they married it with a lot of corruption and zero political freedom. This is not an alternative. Please.
- I think the real issue is that no viable alternative is presented to most people.
  As Marx said, "the ideas of ruling class are the ruling ideas"
  The alternatives presented are Russian-style authoritarian oligarchy, Islamofascism, or a Venezuela-style “socialism” in which the narrative only focuses on poverty.
  Funnily enough you are proof of your previous statement above. The ruling class is presenting any, both better or worse alternatives to you in such form that you immediately dismiss them.
  
  What gave you the idea that I'm dismissing them? I think you're confused.
  Good quote tho

For the same reason people idolize the King.

- In Ireland we suffered under British Imperialism and capitalism for hundreds of years and we had our own famine and repressions.
  
  Fact that us often ignored in Anglo world... Or when it is brought up... This oppression is different 🤡
- So your describing surveillance capitalism
  
  That's how I see how Zuckerberg sends your grandfather to Siberia for lack of work and unwillingness to work, as it happened with my grandfather :) Don't you think that you are exaggerating (so far) the level of problems in your country? All these problems of listening to you for the sake of selling goods are trifles compared to what any radical-communist-nazi who dares to power will do
- Under censorship you’ll not create . . . good meals
  Are you saying that the Soviets censored recipes?
  
  Yes. Food in the shop had a bad quality with a permanent deficit. Big amount of good food in modern country is making by a small business
- Not sure why you've got downvoted, but that's the reason why all Baltic states had such a reaction when the invasion started.
  That said, I would say that most of those states are highly socialistic despite having pretty much allergy to anything red and while preferring a capitalist system that doesn't mean they want or support billionaires.
  
  It could be because they arent even describing communism. These problems are easily found right now.
  The problem here is that people dont even know what communism is and they end up giving these kinds of answers. Makes you think thats probably why they made a new account
  Theres no genuine convo of why communism is bad.
- Because my country, Ukraine, was under communists and it was not good time with all genocides, holodomor, repressions, red terrors and other things
  Yes, but none of that is unique to communism, that's just corrupt government. Anywhere that develops systemic inadequacies and a culture of impunity can instantly become such. That's just something that is independent of the underlying system of economics. Like many capitalist systems like to point out that bourgeoisie who are after their own interest act as some check on the government who is usually in a power struggle for control. And that power struggle is what ensures no one side wins out.
  But there's nothing technically stopping the rich from becoming the actors of the government and when we as a society excuse profiteering in office, well then there's no barrier from the rich just becoming the government. Which that's just the French ancien régime that ultimately lead to the French Revolution.
  So it's NOT specific to just communism. It's just that's the most recent and easiest one to point out because of how blatant/brazen that system had become with it's corruption. Even with all of the "nay-saying" that might happen with United States detractors with their usual hum of "Oh well they're all corrupt!" Even with how passive some are with it, the corruption is nowhere near the level of being out in the open that was with the USSR. Politicians still weasel their way around because they know that there's still some bottom level of ensuring checks on that corruption that exist. And we have those checks not because we are a capitalist society.
  I think the idea that some economic system promotes some civic purity or prevents some form of government corruption is a bad linking of things that ought not be linked, because a pure capitalist society doesn't magically inherit some barrier of corruption. That barrier has to be formed independent of the underlying economic system.
  I'm not trying to detract from what happened under the USSR but that has way more to do with how power got consolidated post World War I and everything that lead to the toppling of the Russian Monarchy. The system of communism played a role in that consolidation of power, yes, but literally any tool could have been used if you have someone with the mindset of Vladimir Lenin who wanted to rapidly consolidate power during the Bolshevik revolution. I mean look at the current Myanmar Civil War and some of the ideas of General Min Aung Hlaing, no need for implementation of communist ideology there, he just wants to be in power, doesn't believe that the current transfer of power is legitimate, and is willing to get a lot of people killed in proving that point.
  I think given the current situation in the United States, the belief that you NEED communism to have totalitarianism is a dangerous linking of things that can actually happen independent of each other. You just need someone to wear down government legitimacy enough to start a civil war, that's all you need. Everything else is just tools at your disposal to get that goal done.
  So you have to understand the nuance here I'm trying level. I'm not saying it WASN'T COMMUNISM, what I'm saying is that it can be communism, but ultimately you just need someone who wants to consolidate power rapidly and exists in a society that will forgive abuses of power enough, sometimes that's done by de-legitimizing the current system enough. That's it, that's all that's required. Communism can play a role in that somewhere, but it doesn't have to.

Lack of successful alternatives? It's easy to find flaws with capitalism but every other system has its share of problems too.
- Socialism is the successful successor to Capitalism. Socialism isn't an idea you implement, but a consequence of markets coalescing into monopolist syndicates that make themselves ripe for public ownership and planning.
  
  This is the case only if you believe in Marx
- People will find ways to accrue wealth and power even if you change the rules of the game. Sometimes people on this platform make it sound like socialism or communism can solve our problems. but it's not that simple.
  
  You're right, Marxists don't describe a Utopia but the natural progression of the Mode of Production.

This might be relevant:
https://youtu.be/J_fZ9o6P0-A?si=-fl7rLryYZBDVgTN&t=194
Conditions here were deplorable by any objective measure. And if you'll recall, one of the hallmarks of early Russian industrialization was: the workforce was often transient. People moved back and forth between their home villages and jobs in the cities, and this flux meant that the places people lived and where they ate and bathed and got medical attention were only ever temporary expedients. It was a bit like you were going off to some particularly crappy summer camp. It was only meant to be temporarily endured, not lived in full time, and so conditions just never got better. People were not just renting rooms; they were renting corners of rooms. You could rent not just a bed, but part of a bed. Sanitation was, of course, practically non-existent, and the food was disgusting. The work itself, meanwhile, was long and grueling. There were no safety standards in the factories. There were hardly any rights for anybody at all. And pay was literally inadequate. The ministry of finance itself surveyed conditions and concluded that a family of four needed about fifty rubles a month to purchase basic necessities (that is, food and shelter and heat) and then they found that 75% of the workers were making less than 30 rubles a month. The economic and moral math was just not adding up.
https://youtu.be/J_fZ9o6P0-A?si=FtaiY47HVyXXBeAP&t=340
The lower skilled, less educated, and still mentally "peasant" workers tended to remain culturally conservative. They were orthodox christian and believed strongly in the divine benevolence of the czar. And indeed one of the things reported by both social democrats and SRs back to their respective central committees was that they struggled to recruit among these workers because they were out there pitching "overthrowing the czar" and everyone was like "What? We... we love the czar, and he loves us too!"
To them, the czar was not a villain, but a hero. Not the devil, but their savior. It understandably made recruiting for a political revolution to overthrow their "hero and savior" very difficult.
https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/revolutions_podcast/2020/02/1033-bloody-sunday.html
- Which is why the conservative mandate is to defund education and keep people as ignorant as possible.
  I mean, to keep the common man as ignorant as possible -- the children of the elites will always go to prohibitively expensive Montessori schools, which will better prepare them for critical thinking and bullshit detection so that they may better rule over and parasitize off the common man.

They feel they will make that money someday.

They sold a lottery ticket to the population and made it look like 99% of you can win when the odds are rigged like a gambling machine. Everybody would defend a gambling machine as “fair and balanced” with enough indoctrination. “The American Dream” was when everybody could afford everything on minimum wage but capitalism is a short term oriented goal where for profit is the only actual mission. Tell me how many people can be sacrificed for it and I would say everybody as climate change has proven and a trillion dollar industry has shown. These climate change activists are stupid enough to think they can take down big corporations with wallets older than some of them. Never in a million years as long as capitalism exists. Imagine 112 years of sitting on their asses and not until 10-20 years ago they decided to use tweezers to put some pressure on them. Now that the whole world is about to be changed completely and irreversibly they want to stop it. It’s basically a cancerous economy that only festers at the top of the economy sucking everything around it until theirs nothing left but the cancer.
- The American Dream” was when everybody could afford everything on minimum wage but capitalism
  Everybody except blacks of course...
  Gold age of America wasn't golden for everybody.
  And after civil rights the regime punished the whites for siding with the blacks. So now we are all field ******
  
  Don’t even get me started. Black people or minorities and America is top 10 worst duet. Richard Nixon ruined every generation afterwards and all of this modern day shitshow started festering with a strong back. We go backwards enough and slavery was abolished but the hatred just grew stronger and had a great foundation.

because they arent the ones being stripped of their livelihoods to fatten the moneypigs

I think you know why. Is this a real question or are you just fishing?
- I genuinely want to know from those that defend them.
- Pretty sure its fishing.

I think it's like the old trope of asking a fish how the water is and they reply "what's water?"

They believe that the status quo is better than any alternatives. They have not been exposed to other ways of living and those that have lock themselves to basic tribalistic thinking.
Imagine trying to get a sports fan to see the benefits of being a fan of another sports team. Even if they aren’t personally playing and their team isn’t winning they maintain loyalty. Some even bet on their loser teams and lose money just because of loyalty.
It’s all about team loyalty/ tribalism
- Excellent answer and I'll also jump off this to say this applies to marginalized groups just as much as anyone else, in a way I see a lot of people forget all about. Some percentage of marginalized people, through being in the right place and/or putting themselves there, do experience upward mobility through capitalism and therefore identify with it.
  People forget that queer conservatives exist, but think about a gay couple with a lot of wealth, living a fairly standard nuclear family existence with an adopted kid or two, integrated into a society that probably still doesn't fully trust them but sees enough signifiers of "normality" that they're willing to let it slide. Which side of the political divide benefits them the most to align with? And what ideological principles will they come to internalize in the long term? Might they come to see themselves as somehow different or better than others in their marginalized community?
  I'm getting tired of the fluff pieces expressing shock at the fact that some % of black voters are conservative, clutching their pearls at the thought of that number increasing, and speculating about black churches and "social conservatism." While also completely disregarding the fact that black voters have always leaned left yet are also affected by some of the same political shifts that every other demographic is. Our first loyalty is generally to our class.

Stockholm syndrome

Because communism ≠ utopia. I only hate on shitty billionaires and ones that used shady methods to amass their wealth.
- Blaming individuals produced by the system and not the system itself is strange. That's like saying the IDF isn't the problem, the soldiers are.
  
  That's a fair critique. I don't like the capitalism we currently practice. I prefer a blend of socialism and capitalism - a social democracy if you will. I don't hate large corporations per se. I do hate those who commoditize basic necessities such as healthcare and housing. This is where i believe there should be no privatisation.
  
  I don't know if billionaires are the product of capitalism per se. Billionaires are people who have found out how to exploit the current system the best. In a socialistic society there are plenty of opportunities for corruption and exploitation of the working class. The rules are just a bit different. Billionaires definitely will defend capitalism since it's how they're currently winning the game, but they'll adapt as soon as they need to as well. That or the winners will be a different group of people. Either way, the most powerful will always look for ways to consolidate even more power.
- Can you name a billionaire who doesn't match that description?
  
  How about celebrities and not shitty CEOs. I'm generalizing towards multimillionaires as well as there aren't that many billionaires. Unless the hate is specifically towards billionaires which I don't think is the case.
  However, i would put money on the off chance that there is at least one billionaire who wasn't shady about their wealth accumulation - think Steve Jobs. Unless you consider holding companies to be shady.
- ones that used shady methods to amass their wealth.
  Can you provide an example of one who didn't?
  I guess there some celebrities now in that club... But I can't even get behind these regime whores. They have no solidarity with the people from which they leech

Brainwashed since birth. GI Joe had the American Express slogan in an episode ("never leave home without it."). Alvin and the Chipmunks had a story about the Berlin Wall propagandizing communism. All the bad guys in Cobra have accents.
This shit is vile and it was on my morning cartoons.

Often because they're profiting from it themselves.

what if it was me

Living in denial is easy to continue doing and widely encouraged, while being very hard to overcome.

They don't have to balls to think for themselves.
- Liberalism doesn't exist because of moral failures of individuals, but because the Mode of Production supports the laws, ideology, art, culture, etc. that exist from it.

Interesting question. I don't think I've ever defended either. I've also only lived in capitalist countries, so I have no personal experience with other economic systems.

ITT: A lot of people answering for people who have diametrically opposed views to them.

Brainwashing.

I defend capitalism because it is the most equitable and productive economic system that has ever existed, lifting more people out of poverty than ever before.
Free markets create space for those who don’t fit in. As an autistic person, I appreciate a world where I can find a way to survive other than convincing a committee that I deserve to exist.
I don’t deserve billionaires per se, but I have nothing against their existence and I think that a billionaire under capitalism is more fair and more likely to have fairly and productively achieved their wealth than a billionaire under any other system.
And if you don’t think the other systems have billionaires, you’re blind.
Under a free market, one gets rich by providing value. Economic relations are mutually consensual. That’s the definition.
What is called “capitalism” these days is, generally speaking, the places where the free market has broken down. Slaves aren’t a free market scenario. Only having one available job isn’t a free market scenario. Big corporations controlling the government to prevent their competition from surviving or arising isn’t a free market scenario.
All the “worst aspects of capitalism” that people complain about are exactly the aspects of the world that most resemble capitalism’s alternatives like anarchy and centralized command economies.
We need more free market, not less. We need to let people buy a pack of cigarettes and then sell them for $2 a pop to make a profit, not kill them for doing this.
The anti-capitalist hate is the result of decades of anti-working class propaganda that has made generations of people dedicated to destroying the very thing that gives them hope and possibility in the world.
Biggest psy op in history, as Marx himself would be the first to recognize if he were alive and commenting today. I defend capitalism NOT because I want to fit in, but because it is the right thing to do.
- I defend capitalism because it is the most equitable and productive economic system that has ever existed, lifting more people out of poverty than ever before.
  Incorrect, Socialism gets that honor, the PRC is responsible. Read Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism.
  Free markets create space for those who don’t fit in. As an autistic person, I appreciate a world where I can find a way to survive other than convincing a committee that I deserve to exist.
  This is an absurd strawman of central planning.
  Under a free market, one gets rich by providing value. Economic relations are mutually consensual. That’s the definition.
  Even more absurd. Individuals get wealthy by exploiting laborers. Economic relations are enforced by the system itself, not consent. The Laborers must work to not starve.
  What is called “capitalism” these days is, generally speaking, the places where the free market has broken down. Slaves aren’t a free market scenario. Only having one available job isn’t a free market scenario. Big corporations controlling the government to prevent their competition from surviving or arising isn’t a free market scenario.
  Yep, Capitalism defeats itself. You can't turn the clock back.
  All the “worst aspects of capitalism” that people complain about are exactly the aspects of the world that most resemble capitalism’s alternatives like anarchy and centralized command economies.
  Correct, Capitalism socializes itself and paves the way for central planning.
  We need more free market, not less. We need to let people buy a pack of cigarettes and then sell them for $2 a pop to make a profit, not kill them for doing this.
  An absurd comparison and a strange call to go back in time to less developed Capitalism.
  The anti-capitalist hate is the result of decades of anti-working class propaganda that has made generations of people dedicated to destroying the very thing that gives them hope and possibility in the world.
  Capitalism's decay.
  Biggest psy op in history, as Marx himself would be the first to recognize if he were alive and commenting today. I defend capitalism NOT because I want to fit in, but because it is the right thing to do.
  Marx would be elated to be proven correct.
- I defend capitalism NOT because I want to fit in, but because it is the right thing to do.
  Talk about a hot take haha
  
  Are you denying that the vast majority of people commenting on this are against capitalism?
- If wealth is accumulated due to merit, why does wealth tend to accumulate within families? Are these families somehow more meritorious than the rest of the population? Is it perhaps the multi-generational connections made in industry providing additional benefit to those families?
  As for the free market, the FDA was formed because bakers in the free market realized that sawdust was cheaper than flour. The free market also requires perfect information to function correctly, but even if you have that how will it help if there is no better regulation. Once upon a time the only kind of match you could buy were made with white phosphorus, despite how dangerous it was to work with. It took regulation to switch to red phosphorus, even though the expense was only slightly higher.
  
  Are these families somehow more meritorious than the rest of the population?
  lacking multi-generational connections is still a pretty rosy picture of disadvantage. Statistically "unmeritorious" parents are far more likely to have their child suffer from malnutrition due to lack of money and neglect due to the parents working 2 jobs or having substance abuse issues. If the country has private schools, they won't have access to them and due to living in a low-wealth area their public schools will have a disproportionately high amount of other neglected and abused kids which makes everything harder.
- What's your take on this video?
  'Is capitalism actually reducing poverty?' w/ Richard Wolff
  https://youtu.be/Co4FES0ehyI

Some people think they are part of the club, rest don't know better

The simple fact is that capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty historically than anything else.
Is capitalism a perfect system? Of course it isn't. But it's the best one we've got.
- The simple fact is that capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty historically than anything else.
  This is patently false, the PRC holds that record and it was due to Socialism, not Capitalism.
  
  Lol. Firstly, China claims they've eradicated absolute poverty. Do you really believe that?
  Secondly, China has opened its markets to the world and allowed a ton of private ownership and private companies to take on the global markets.
  The only thing that isn't capitalist about China is the word "Communist" in the ruling party.
  
  TBH... It was due to free market reforms. Which in of itself is not capitalism though but normies can't tell the difference.
- Not true. Here you go..
  https://youtu.be/Co4FES0ehyI

Regulation is stripping freedom from people. We want freedom, we can’t regulate people.
I think that’s an argument.
- Except without regulation businesses will do what they want and that usually isn't the best thing for society.
  We need a well regulated capitalistic society
  
  Exactly. But the people I favor of billionaires don’t care.

Billionaires and capitalism isn't the same problem. We have billionaires because anti-monopoly committee isn't working :) that's a main reason why they're existing :)
- In late-stage capitalism, they are.

Regarding capitalism, in reality, it is the best system we’ve seen so far.
Yes, theoretically other systems could be better for the general public. But in reality, they never have been.
- Socialism has been proven to do far more for its citizens than Capitalism. Capitalism is just a phase in development, Socialism supercedes it.
  
  Did something supercede Socialism in Russia around the years 1988 to 1991?
- Life experience.
- Do you want some salt with that boot?
  
  No, but do you have sriracha?
  Please cite, with examples from reality, a better system.
- Bootlicker
  
  Understood.
  Please cite, with examples from reality, better systems.

Lack of good examples of countries that are successful without being capitalist?
Pretty ubiquitously non-capitalist countries have a pretty poor track record.
I often hear the phrase, capitalism is terrible, but it's the least bad of the terrible options.
As an aside, I'm arguing here for capitalism, not billionaires. Supporting capitalism isn't an endorsement of a complete lack of controls and safeguards.
- Lack of good examples of countries that are successful without being capitalist?
  There are many. The USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, etc. Have all drastically improved on previous conditions, achieving large increases in life expectancy, democratization, literacy rates, access to healthcare, housing, education, and more. Read Blackshirts and Reds.
  Pretty ubiquitously non-capitalist countries have a pretty poor track record.
  This is false. What are you specifically tracking? Freedom for the bourgeoisie?
  I often hear the phrase, capitalism is terrible, but it's the least bad of the terrible options.
  The phrase is typically used to describe democracy, not Capitalism.
  As an aside, I'm arguing here for capitalism, not billionaires. Supporting capitalism isn't an endorsement of a complete lack of controls and safeguards.
  It doesn't matter what you support, the Superstructure, ie laws and safeguards, comes primarily from the Base, ie the Mode of Production.
  Markets move themselves regardless of people's will towards centralized syndicates, monopolies over production. These make themselves ripe for siezure and central planning, markets themselves prepare the proletariat for running a socialized economy as they coalesce over time. This is why Marx says the bourgeoisie produces "above all else, its own gravediggers." There is no maintaining Capitalism, it eliminates itself over time.

because the idea of being super rich is awesome and i want to be super rich. so much bills i wouldnt have a thought about 😂
- For every person who is "super rich", thousands, if not millions, will go through strife and unfair hardship
  
  yep
- Well you are not going to be super rich, and even if you were, there probably would be tons of people who have to live in hell 24/7 in order for you to be super rich.
  
  why are so many people arguing with my comment as if im not answering the question OP asked

Implied in your question is the notion that a billionaire or corporation can never be right about a given topic. That just isn’t true.
Also, on any given topic people will have differing opinions for different reasons. Having an opinion that happens to align with a billionaire or corporation isn’t the same as defending those entities. Often you’re stuck siding with one of those entities no matter what side of an issue you fall on.
I like Mark Cuban’s efforts to lower prescription costs. Does that mean I’m siding with a billionaire? If you don’t agree with me should I be able to dismiss your opinion as support for the pharmaceutical industry?
Life isn’t black and white. Opinions can be nuanced and complex. I rarely see any comments defending companies for the pure love of capitalism. Reducing people’s opinions to an easy-to-villainize stance is just that – reductive. It doesn’t aid in meaningful conversation.

Because it's easier than defending socialism or communism
- That's only because capitalists are deaf to reason and demonstrable facts.
  
  Okay lil bro 😆
  The "Capitalists are stupid and anticapitalists are smart" comments are so adorable lollll