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Comment by blacksmith_tb | Hacker News Reader

That's a pretty rosy hot-take when there are tens of thousands of people in the US sleeping on sidewalks, let alone other pesky externalities like climate change, microplastic pollution, endocrine disruptors and on and on. Of course it's tautologically true that capitalism has gotten us all the amazing stuff we have, but the collateral damage has been significant; that alone suggests it could be done better.

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The onus is on the critic to provide a better alternative. But all I ever see anyone propose is the same tired marxism that has been proven time and time again to be even worse. Its a lazy argument.

Perhaps we need to go back to first principles. Both capitalism and socialism are materialist. This is probably the wrong framework to structure society. It made sense when we became industrial. But we are now post industrial and at least in the global north rapidly approaching the possibility of post scarcity.

> thousands of people in the US sleeping on sidewalks Somehow this is capitalism's fault and I don't understand how. I have been touring Europe over the past month and throughout the many major cities and small towns I have been in, the amount of homeless is exponentially less. Does Europe not practice capitalism? Or is it possible that our government and culture is to blame, and not our economic system?

> Does Europe not practice capitalism?

Depends on if you subscribe to the brain dead “socialism is when the government does stuff”

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