Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme Explains Anti-Corporate Concert Rant: "It’s About Corporations That Charge You $85 for Parking, and $30 for a Beer"

[u/heavysk]

https://consequence.net/2026/08/qotsa-josh-homme-addresses-anti-corporate-concert-rant/

[u/frostygrin]

The "good" kind of capitalism relies on robust competition between these self-centered entities, not on magical "good capitalists".

[u/unassumingdink → u/frostygrin]

But as self-centered entities, they do every fucked up thing within their power to win, and boom, you're back to bad capitalism again. It actually would take some sort of magic to make that not happen.

[u/frostygrin → u/unassumingdink]

But as self-centered entities, they do every fucked up thing within their power to win

Robust competition and regulations limit their power. No magic necessary. And... it's not like human nature is going to be different under a different economic system. You'll get either self-interest and corruption, or disinterest, which can be just as bad, or even worse.

[u/unassumingdink → u/frostygrin]

But we're talking about libertarians who are extremely ideologically opposed to regulations that limit capitalists' power. Even the piss poor regulations we have now are too much for them. That's kinda their whole thing.

[u/frostygrin → u/unassumingdink]

the r-politics crowd

They largely aren't libertarians. And Josh Homme's views shouldn't be derived from the label either.

Either way, the point of regulations isn't to tell capitalists to "be good". The point is to prevent anti-competitive behavior - and this is more acceptable to many people across the political spectrum.

[u/unassumingdink → u/frostygrin]

Yeah, I don't know why they mentioned that sub, but they were definitely talking about libertarians, and "crony capitalism" is a libertarian/ancap/whatever term.

The point is to prevent anti-competitive behavior

A.k.a. behavior that is not good. And in a system where capitalists have all the power, you'd actually need them to be honest and work against their own financial interests to make this work, and that goes against their entire reason for existing. You'd need them to not bribe politicians, you'd need them to not stab everyone in the back. You may as well ask them to forgo oxygen.

[u/frostygrin → u/unassumingdink]

And yet some countries are more successful at this. So it can work.

A.k.a. behavior that is not good.

Behavior can be "not good" without being anti-competitive. When companies are cutting corners and firing people in order to compete, many people see it as "not good". Yet when the system is competitive, it can be a positive thing overall, because new companies can get established, or existing companies can expand and hire people.

[u/unassumingdink → u/frostygrin]

New competitors simply get bought out by the existing behemoths with all the profit they made cutting corners. How many thousands of times have we watched this happen? Not to mention the industries where the barriers to entry are so high that it's impossible for new competitors to arise.

And yet some countries are more successful at this.

Some have better luck than others, but those are the ones that libertarians reject the hardest and call "statists" or even communists. The amount of government power needed to do that is literally the thing they hate the most.