Can you expand please? From my observations the last thing capitalism provides is choice, considering most people I know who aren't fortunate enough to have passions that translate into big money (like software) absolutely despise their jobs.
Go to github.com. Look at all the different software languages, operating systems, shells, web servers, and so on and so forth.
Tool manufacturers. Housing choices.
All that stuff only can possibly exist in a capitalistic system. There is no other way. People have tried. We have massive amount of historical precedent on this sort of thing. At this point it should be self-evident.
Great.
Whenever I analyze arguments against the free market, it almost always seems that the person speaking thinks the market should give people what the person speaking thinks they ought to want.
Most notably, people are not "misled" into valuing the "wrong" things. You just have a different opinion of what people should value based on your own culture, values, etc. It doesn't mean they're wrong, brainwashed, or anything of the kind.
Even if they make all the different kinds of, say, cheese (and they don't), the quality is terrible, because they don't have those 99 competitors.
Housing choices? Is that the choice to buy / rent vs live on the street? Capitalism has given us the homeless crisis which was non-existing just 70 years ago.
So don't buy the big brands. Buy local.
Are you telling me that there is no possible way that you can go to a farmers market and buy food? That the only choice you have is one of Conagra's food brands?
That you can't go one the one of probably hundreds of grocery stores and restaurants that are probably within driving distance of your house?
This is what I mean by 'Open Your Eyes'. Like just go outside and look around! If you live is in a developed western country and you are complaining about lack of choices it's very likely that the problem is you and your own choices.
> Housing choices? Is that the choice to buy / rent vs live on the street?
Since when in human history has people never had to work for housing?
There is only a thin band of habitat in the earth that humans can survive and thrive without housing and technology and work. Too hot and we die. Too cold and we die. Not wet enough and we starve. Not dry enough and we starve.
To spread across the rest of the planet we had to work our asses off.
If you think life is harder for a 20-something having to deal with the indignity of living in a un-hip part of town because they can't afford a nicer place... then it is for a frontier family that has to grow their own food and build their own house from supplies they had to drag behind mules from hundreds of miles away? If so, I have some bad news for you.
"Having to work" is not evidence that capitalism is terrible. You are going to work no matter what. Whether it's socialism or capitalism or if you live in some monastery somewhere. It's not optional. It's never going to be optional.
It's easy to see this from the perspective of the customer only, but think of how many lives and brilliant minds are being wasted away in the system.
Go to Home Depot. Lots of tool brands to choose from, right? Ridgid, Milwaukee, Ryobi, Makita, maybe a couple of Hiltis over in the contractor section. Amazing variety thanks to capitalism, right?
Wrong. The first three brands I listed all belong to the same company, TTI. The only significant difference among them is in build quality, and it's minor; other than that, all that changes is the injection molds for the shell, and the price - which varies out of all proportion to the quality of the product.
That's not a true choice. That's an illusion of choice, deliberately promulgated by a near monopoly in order to gain access to as many market segments as possible, and exploit each to the maximal possible extent - by pretending to compete with itself, TTI makes a lot more money than if it didn't, because that means it can sell three kinds of differently shaped boxes of 18650 cells, and in the modern consumer/prosumer power tool business, that's where all the margin is.
That's great for TTI! For everyone else, not so much, because only the Milwaukee line doesn't actively suck, and even then you're better off spending more for Makita, precisely because that's not a zombie brand, and is still competing.
So, TTI's a great example of capitalism, sure. Is it a good thing? One of the major complaints about Soviet communism, after all, was precisely the lack of consumer choice that it imposed. If that's really the crux of the problem, then why isn't it a problem when capitalism produces the same outcome? Is it only a failure when the Reds do it, but an example of freedom and apple pie when the same exact thing happens under capitalism? Why?
What does China tell us about Republics, given that it is the Peoples Republic of China? What does North Korea tell us about democracy and repulbics, given that it is "The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea"?
No? But we are willing to take at face value oppressive regimes using "socialist" language?