They'll just raise your rent to pay for cleaning and new security cameras. The man is quite adept at the game of keeping you down.
theparadox
We are kind of not doing it now, and with feudalism.
In the US, conservative lawmakers have been waging a quiet war against our postal system for a while now.
Highlights: They forced it to be self-sustaining (cut federal funding), then when that didn't kill it they forced it to, in a very short time frame, pre-fund retirement benefits ahead of time for all current and former employees.
The postal system is more or less dependent on the funds it gets from spam mailers.
Edit: To clarify, I'm not insinuating that the bulk/majority of its income is from junk mail, I'm just stating that its not nothing, so they don't really have an incentive to kill that source if revenue.
Then stop funding them with tax payer money.
The big ISPs? I agree - they can't be trusted. However, in most cases access wasn't happening at all without grants. The big guys just came in, strutted around promising the sun and the moon, then took the money and sat on it.
I want to see small towns do community infrastructure as an alternative to the terrible single ISPs that are normally present.
In many communities, it isn't possible to do that without the help of grants... running cable or fiber isn't cheap.
...but we can agree on this. I'd love to see municipal broadband break up these ISP monopolies.
Unfortunately, many states and municipalities have stupid laws still on the books that explicitly prohibit municipal broadband or force them to jump through hoops like getting ISPs to bid to provide the services first or some other bullshit. Its irrational fear of government run programs and socialism or whatever. Those laws are starting to get repealed.
Edit: I have mixed feelings about StarLink. I don't trust that they won't act just as terribly as the rest if given the chance and they are throwing a lot into the atmosphere without considering or planning for the consequences.
It is crazy to try to force pricing or other free market values.
The US government has, on multiple occasions, spent many many billions of dollars subsidizing the expansion of broadband internet. Often the ISPs would take the funds and under deliver, drastically. Like "Sure, we'll take $ to provide broadband in these areas" then provide it for like, a neighborhood within that area, mark that area as having access to broadband now, and cash their check.
...Or they'll lie about covering areas or planning to cover areas to prevent rival/startup ISPs from getting similar funding to expand access to an area without access. Imagine you don't have broadband and your ISP lied to the FCC so a rival ISP could not get grants/subsidies they'd use to fund their broadband expansion to your area.
They lie and cheat to steal government and customer money and maintain their anticompetitive monopolies. Its not a free market.
Market socialism can be distinguished from the concept of the mixed economy because most models of market socialism propose complete and self-regulating systems, unlike the mixed economy. While social democracy aims to achieve greater economic stability and equality through policy measures such as taxes, subsidies, and social welfare programs, market socialism aims to achieve similar goals through changing patterns of enterprise ownership and management.
I mind if you are simultaneously linking to a Wikipedia article defining it as being completely self regulated, lacking any form of social welfare.
Capitalism's problem is that, ultimately, it's "compete" or die because you need to work to afford to live. I'm not necessarily advocating for the nationalization of all industries or a command economy. There can be competition, but the playing field needs to be leveled first. Workers owning the enterprise as a collective is a step in the right direction but that still leaves the door open for "B2B" exploitation when an enterprise's failure can mean its workers now cannot afford to live.
A theory to use as a standard for regulation assuming you are restrained to a capitalist system, maybe.
But it is a system that can be maintained with appropriate regulation.
The nature of Capitalism requires that some have while others have not. Many of those among the capitalist class will use the full force of their power to obstruct and corrupt regulation, find loopholes, and obtain more power. Regulatory capture, pivoting to the bleeding edge of industry where nobody knows how to regulate yet (financial derivatives, crypto, AI), or just leading a coup - they'll find a way.
The only way is something that resembles socialism, but you can call it "appropriate regulation" if it makes you feel better. Sure, competition has its place... but it doesn't belong anywhere near basic human needs.
I think perfect competition is impossible. The incentive is not to compete fairly, it's to maximize profits and the most effective ways to maximize profits are anticompetitive, exploitative, or both. Anyone arguing for a society built around such a system is either naive or trying to buy more time with false hopes.
Virtually every condition in the ideal scenario is a barrier for profit, and I don't think any civilization has managed even a single one of those conditions. There will always be actors looking to take advantage of any loopholes or create unregulated markets.
It's just not a system that is sustainable. The incentives are simply wrong and the society built around those incentives can't maintain a system of perfect conditions even if one were to exist.
Demonstrating the inherent contradiction of capitalism in practice.
Capitalism is allegedly the only fair way to price things, via the "Price Mechanism". However, capitalists have simultaneously been creaming their pants at the idea of charging specific people or people in specific situations more, because they can get more profit, in service of Profit Maximization.
I'm sure I'll get a lecture on how they are not at all mutually exclusive but I don't care, honestly. It's either going to price gouge when the customer is perceived to be in more need (low battery pricing for taxi apps) or have a price based on the customer's ability to pay... at which point why not socialism?
Essentially, the capitalist will support what is best for themselves and make up reasons why it theoretically might benefit consumers (but not really).
My point is that people like Trump aren't looking to help the weak. Trump is looking to exploit them. The only "problems" be wants to fix are barriers to more easily exploit them.
By blaming the minorities, he creates a scapegoat for his base and others to blame for their problems. This distracts them from the fact that him and people like him are the cause of their problems.
Sure, some of them are racist but I honestly think most of them are just hurt, angry, scared, ignorant, and desperate. If they had more exposure to minorities most of them would change their beliefs.
I think the problem is that the powerful are endlessly fucking over the weak for profit. It's been getting worse and we're feeling more squeezed every year.
Racism is just a tried and true, old reliable, when it comes finding a scapegoat to get people to blame someone else.
Fundraisers and charities, when you have a lot money, are rarely acts of charity. They tend to be PR campaigns and power plays.
Honestly, even when the acts have good intentions, they are often quite damaging. The involvement of the wealthy in charity is very similar to their involvement in politics. Their wealth buys influence and gives them a disproportionate say that allows them to ignore and overrule the will of the people and sometimes even reality.
For example, look into the impact of Bill Gates's "acts of charity" in the education space. He poured money into charter programs that negatively impacted public education. Later studies showed that his programs were not particularly effective.
Let's say, hypothetically, that a very rich person is convinced by some charlatan that they found the a means to produce free energy. The wealthy person throws tons of money at the idea. How many talented people will be taken from other legit programs because the paycheck at Bullshit Energy Nonprofit is better? These rich people are successful and think they know bestr. Their money ensures they get treated like experts because money makes things happen whether or not those things are helpful.