| Ideas
Capitalism is Not Well Thought Out, and These Anomalies Prove It
Many market trends and corporate practices not only expose the systemic flaws of the current economic system, but are also wholly avoidable.
By Cohen Harvey and Nicholas Just, February 9, 2021
Title Image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Our current economic system has led to some strange anomalies within our society. With the most important thing anyone can think of being money and the business’s bottom line has spawned some of the following scenarios.
Progressives are advocates for “buying black”, claiming that buying goods from black-owned businesses is a legitimate way to give back and support African-American communities. According to The Black Star Project, one American dollar will stay within the Black community for an average of six hours as opposed to 17 days in white communities and 30 days in Asian communities.
For most consumers, buying a product or service is mostly based on convenience. At any given moment, it is more convenient to buy from a white-owned business than a black-owned business. This movement is pelquier as it changes the fundamentals of the free market. The consumers sacrifice their convenience when possible in favor of racial equality under the preconceived notion that such equality is achievable under capitalism, the movement does show that we must at least fundamentally change capitalism to achieve equality.
Because of planned obsolescence, many working phones are discarded in favor of newer, more expensive models. Poravute Siriphiroon / Shutterstock.com
Planned obsolescence, a policy by which goods are produced in a way that they will break or become useless sooner than they could be made to do, has forced consumers to fork over more money in the long run. For many products and services, this shortened lifespan can be induced through subpar quality parts that cannot be repaired or replaced easily, or by imposing restrictions and barriers to make repairs more difficult.
Many newer companies, most notably in the tech industry, even purposefully slow down their technology to force people to buy the latest model, as seen with the 113 million dollar settlement Apple paid after being brought to court by an angry customer.
“They don't make ‘em like they used to” is ringing true in this modern age of forced hypercosumerism and the disposability of the products seen on shelves. The sad truth is that you would probably be better off buying a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer or a Fridgidaire from the 1950s if you wanted something that would last. Worse yet, this trend shows no signs of stopping. It seems that as we move forward, planned obsolescence becomes more and more popular.
These are just among many other phenomena that put into perspective how capitalism’s “invisible hand” has given most people an ever worsening share to live off of. Why should people settle for meager improvements in inequality, or for a lower quality and more expensive product? The free market will not solve these unfavorable conditions; rather, it is the cause of them. It is only by realizing this and initiating a change away from the capitalist order that society can even hope to begin grasping at a new way of managing production that benefits all.