this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
887 points (94.1% liked)
Asklemmy
43792 readers
819 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
People haven't learned to vote with their wallets
As was once said(something like): if vote with your wallet, the people with bigger wallets get more votes.
Capitalism: a short story.
Sounds like a weird saying.
It assumes that the people with bigger wallets also use a larger portion (absolute money, not percentages) on the "thing" to begin with. If the billionaire and the middle class man uses 10€ on the same thing a month, and both stop doing it, then they both got the same amount of "votes". Much more fitting would be: "if you vote with your wallet, people who spend more money get more votes".
Of course this only applies if you're talking about boycots etc, and not about buying stuff.
And yes, people with bigger wallets probably have more sway and power when it comes to get getting their way if they want to, but when people talk about voting with your wallet, they're not talking about this.
Yep that's true, but I think in the long haul appealing to more people is better than just one
No, this line of thinking is wrong, I wish people would stop saying this. Voting with your wallet never works when 1% has >50% of wealth. It’s easier for 5% of people (wealthy, top execs) to agree on milking the rest than 95% of people to agree on boycotting a certain brand. That’s why we have regulations, we wouldn’t need them if “voting with wallets” actually worked.
Free market capitalism got us to this point, it cannot take us out of this.
1% might have 50% of the wealth, they do not account for 50% of the spending. Especially not at Taco Bell.
Pure capitalism is broken af, but companies like this will feel it if 10% of costumers stops going there. The increase in price can recover some of it, but only to a certain extent. It's a simple supply and demand issue.
That being said, I'm not from the US, so take my opinion on local issues with a grain of salth. And I definitely don't mean to imply that wealth inequality is not an issue. On the contrary.
Hard to do that when everything is a fucking oligopoly. If you don’t like Taco Bell, have fun also avoiding KFC, Pizza Hut, and The Habit, all owned by Yum! Brands.
Go to your locally owned Mexican restaurant instead.
Stop letting advertising direct your purchasing intent towards mega-corp brands.
We're in a generation of complacency. Nobody cares and our to busy consuming to care.
A sizeable chunk is too busy surviving.
The system is working as intended.
I mean, you would save a lot more money if you did 2 seconds of research by comparing prices before you buy things and also avoiding unnecessary expenditures like convenience foods like Taco Bell, junk food, and carbonated beverages.
It's amazing to me how many people let themselves get nickel and dimed to death because, "it's only $20."