Billions are suffering so a few could live in luxury and exploit the People

There are some criticisms of Capitalism that are accurate. I think some countries find themselves in truly hopeless positions because they have few natural resources that can be converted easily into great wealth, and because the economic system in "globalization" tends to focus on

• Extracting resources from the developing world and poorest countries (low income extraction jobs, mostly)
• Doing some manufacturing and services job in the middle-income countries.
• Complex manufacturing & services in the developed world with the highest incomes.

When people try to flip the narrative, it doesn't work. The developed countries fiercely protect their manufacturing jobs and slap tariffs on everything. The middle-income countries do this perhaps even more. It is not an easy task to break out of intense poverty.

... But one thing to be aware of, I think, is that capitalism generally has improved the world by making it so even the farmers in the poorest countries tend to have cell phones and be connected to the internet. Yes, of course, there are still endless problems in the developing world, and I am disgusted by the excessive lifestyles we sometimes take for granted in rich nations.... But it has been a net gain.

You know, we have the issue of 'Hell Joseun' in Korea, but this is really a generational gap...

People over 40 either remember poverty directly or were close enough to intense poverty to not complain so loud and consider what has become of KR as a miracle, and people under 40 tend to have no significant memories of the intense poverty.

This makes everything very sensitive and kind of strange...

There are kids who think their life is over & they have been cheated by the world because their family cannot afford to take trips abroad, because their father drives a taxi, because they are considered poor by their peers...

But this is completely unrealistic and very insulting to regular, working class people who did the best they can with what they have in a highly competitive society where their effort had increasingly diminishing returns due to competition and cronyism.

The amount of cronyism is absurd. It is even the case that a great deal many wealthy people will pay to secure their children somewhat prestigious positions even though their children are rather talentless simply because it would be a sore thumb for them to have to say that their youngest son is unemployed or, EVEN WORSE, works a regular cubicle job at a regular company you never heard of.

Life is not fair.

But... I support freedom, in general, and I believe governments routinely fail to fix your problems and often make them worse. Nonetheless, I am something of a nationalist and I support positive visions for public welfare. I support some amount of centralization, but I dislike totalitarianism.

Alleviating poverty has to be tackled in very specific ways for very specific economies, and even then ,nothing is guaranteed to work.

South Korea became rich because of the smart, economic nationalist policies that developed industry & because we had massive cultural infrastructure from our forefathers that already had in place a competitive, educated society that was highly organized and valued scientific and cultural thought.

North Korea missed out on this because they were taken over by Marxist megalomaniacs & idiots who eventually gave up on Marxism and just created a neofeudal society... All the CLASSISM and HIERARCHY they hated, but with the Communists on top and everyone else are the peasants.

This is why I dislike Utopian systems. They never work, and when they fail the state just becomes a Mafia State where the Revolutionaries sit on the top and extort the local population for decades & decades & decades. You can never get rid of them, and they make it even illegal to question them.

I am not exactly an interventionist, but I also think it's karma when tyrants get a bullet in the head.

Rather choose to believe any story that makes you feel comfortable.

#23

@Noflaps (#20)
open your eyes:

• playhalls, casinos,
• prostitution, sextrade ( how much thete is online might serve as gauge ),
• slums, homeless, outcasts,
• all those bars and snackbars and imbiss restaurants + shisha bars + night bars + tailoring + "import-export" "shops", (again:) playhalls, ... all in one street.
• check out how actually many folks are on drugs!
• and that partly goes hand in hand with illegal weapon trade

it's just not your world that you know little about by actual own experience, it strongly seems, as you talk like out of ivory tower, with a life well settled, if all you can see is boats from venezuela and epsteen file as what criminal niche things are going on in this world ...

• ... while in fact economy is cancered with mafia - russian mafia, camorra, ndrangheta, cosa nostra, sacra corona unita, https://www.finanzaebusiness.it/2025/08/le-quattro-mafie-italiane-cosa-nostra.html?m=1, ... and many more mafias, of asia, idk whole planet, every country - it's more than just criminal - it's a phenomenon that comes with capitalism's 'to have or die' - an only way to survive for many

• look how northern southamerica, arab & asian countries are famous for their "afghan, opium, moroccan, .. [whatnotall]" - it is a normal part of it all.

• look how synthetical drugs are flooding the scene over the last decades, naturally grown and produced drugs are not enough anymore - it needs artificially "built" ones on top and for the more
  thousands of tons of it trillions of dollars involved [ there's regularly news for 'greatest interpol coup against mafia' or 'greatest ever drug find' that may also serve as measure for how big this parallel world, this state within a state, is ]

illegal people, illegal work, illegal activity, illegal economy - it's so much and intense, it's part of the system, part of economy

like a bad rotten bone that you still want to keep and cling to

Do a lot of people get rich from existing generational wealth, exploiting workers through conditions that basically equal modern-day slavery, and through loopholes in paying taxes (cough cough modern art)?

Absolutely.

Are most billionaires AHs? (I'm assuming that's what you meant and not millionaires, which is indeed a sum that someone could get through hard work.)

Sure.

BUT
At the end of the day, I have yet to see a single solution proposed to this that isn't hugely impractical/completely ignores the needs of the working class. People get uncomfortable when this is said but...a lot of social justice movements are pretty impossible to support when you're dirt poor already. In fact, a lot of progress made in the name of alleviating exploitation of the working class only lines the pockets of the upper class writing the laws...so...

#25

more than describing and deploring what's going on, what's needed are solutions, ways out of this misdevelopment that humanity has taken

i encourage to put any reasonable ideas, improvements, feasible ways to go here:
https://lichess.org/forum/off-topic-discussion/what-are-more-humane-systems-than-capitalism?page=3#21
( in case you'd overseen it )

#26

{
what's that downvote for? (in #23) [edit, 1h: oops - gone again lol plz mek up yer mind haha]
you have to word it, else it can't be understood

...

and where im at it - where's my upvotes for putting noflaps'es beautiful tale of

who works hard will be wealthy

in a more reallike context, ha?
}

America could be fine with some changes.Strong welfare,where the even very poor lives a decent life.
Free and good healthcare for everyone.Stop making wars with weaker countries to take advantage of their natural resources.You make those people live in hell.War is horrible.Thats abaut it.Nothing is really complicated,people tend to make simple things complicated

With all due respect, I think any former actual slave would have very little trouble distinguishing most modern-day employment in the West from actual "slavery."

I wrote a great deal more -- including some helpful hints that statistically seem to help people have a decent life, if not wealth or vast success.

But I decided to erase it all. It's rare for anybody to change his or her mind about any of this. The influence of peers, colleagues and media (social and national) is very hard to overcome.

And I don't want to become the very sort of lecturer that I don't wish to listen to myself. Let's just assume that most of us are intelligent, experienced and educated folks (this is a chess server, after all) ...

... and then we can simply agree to disagree.

#29

not 'modern-day employment' but 'modern slavery'.
there's no more whip, agreed.
inform yourself how much people are being oppressed and forced to work and slaved with little to no chance to escape their wretched existence under scrupuless landlords and companies.

for many people in the world life's not worth a dime to their criminal oppressors.

not worth a whip

{ service: }
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

Although the US is a relatively wealthy country by international standards,[5] it has a persistently high poverty rate compared to other developed countries due in part to a less generous welfare system.[4]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=usa+slums&ia=web

'extreme poverty'

it says there...

and that's, {for your view in and from u.s.}, even only yet in the u.s. while actually the topic is capitalism worldwide

[ it's all only two clicks away... ]

Wait -- I DO have to write a bit more, because I just noticed something.

@DuMussDieUhrDruecken , I did NOT say that working hard "will" make anybody wealthy. The converse of a statement is not necessarily equivalent to the statement itself.

Saying that having wealth typically requires hard work is NOT equivalent to saying that hard work typically results in wealth.

Being "wealthy" is statistically rare and fortunately is not necessary to be "happy" and "dignified" and "fulfilled."

But as between complaining and working hard, I know which one I think is more necessary, indeed more useful, to succeed in life, typically. But even if hard work won't necessarily make anybody wealthy, is "wealth" really a necessity? I think not. And I don't resent not having it, even if some others do.

If a person wants a spaniel, he or she may have to work to keep it in the style the spaniel deserves. Spaniels don't grow on trees. And neither does spaniel food.

But a spaniel is merely a comfort. Not the key to wealth. And that's fine. A good spaniel is a joy .... well, not forever, unfortunately. But they DO have puppies! Some of them.

By the way, if a person (even a landlord!) is "scrupulous" that's a GOOD thing.

What's NOT good is to be "UNscrupulous" (capitals added merely for emphasis).

Don't believe me -- it can easily be checked online. I'm merely trying to help. I admire your apparent multilingual nature.