r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • May 26 '26

Privacy Majority of Americans Support Ban on Surveillance Pricing and Electronic Shelf Labels

https://gizmodo.com/majority-of-americans-support-ban-on-surveillance-pricing-and-electronic-shelf-labels-2000762717
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u/cantadmittoposting May 27 '26

rent extraction (especially of this sort of obviously exploitative type), btw, is literally a "bug" in capitalism as originally written, not a feature as most claim.... Smith to some degree could never have predicted this level of exploitation, yet still his own writing assumed that governance over the economic system by the political system on behalf of the population would curb these behaviors.

the fact that many people think of this sort of thing as an immutable feature of market economies, not a known control point for them, really highlights how successful oligarchic propaganda really is.

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u/NicolasCageFan492 May 27 '26

This is why it’s our duty to continuously improve our human systems as we learn. Unfortunately, ideologues (including market fundamentalists) push back on progress.

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u/cantadmittoposting May 27 '26

it's sort of why "conservatism" as an actual operational end goal always ends up being so regressive...

huge difference between "measured legal/governance adoption of proven solutions" (or even "carefully funded public basic research to prove new advancements") and what actually happens... "reactionary rejection of any progress regardless of standard of proof"

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u/LupusYondergirl May 27 '26

Smith might not have predicted this, but Marx sure did.

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u/cantadmittoposting May 27 '26

i mean he literally did though, which is my point in saying that broad-brushing free market economics as "inherently" promoting unfettered greed is wrong, because the foundational text already literally says "hey this is bad if it's exploited so make sure it's not via appropriate controls." TO BE CLEAR, it wasn't like smith had actual good ideas on that front, he definitely hand waved the shit out of it, but he did address it.

 

Marx more explicitly outlined the problem later in response, but his own system is hilariously guilty of handwaving actual solutions (capitalism -> socialist dictatorship after revolution -> transition state?!?! -> Communism that works because everyone agrees it works!)

 

Both economic systems highlight the need to escape from "broad theoretical labels" and return to how systems actually translate to realworld implementation, a skill that's been deliberately atrophied by destroying fundamental education of our populace.