The main they don't survive is not due to capitalism. (Capitalism is just trade without use of force at the end of the day) but due to the lobbying power of corporations. Corporations constantly lobby the government for more regulation and rules, which they just budget for, but smaller companies don't have the funds to meet so they cannot stay in business. Look at the first couple of years of COVID for example, Walmart, Target and the big box stores lobbied the government to stay open because they were "essential" while all the small businesses got wiped out due to their lack of lobbying power.

The solution is to stop giving corporations the ability to lobby governments, and stop using the government to control/fund markets. Not to blame it on capitalism.

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Aunche 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> the small businesses got wiped out due to their lack of lobbying power

Small businesses have a lot if lobbying power (NFIB, US Chamber of Commerce to a certain extent) especially during the pandemic. The PPP loan forgiveness program was ridiculously generous. Despite it being marketed as a way to save jobs, only a third of the money ended up going towards jobs that were at risk.

	▲	KetoManx64 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Those are good points, but it again shows how government getting involved does more harm than good. The government forced the lockdowns instead of letting people make their decisions about their health, then they tries to aid the businesses they caused to suffer, and most of the money didn't end up where it was supposed to. So many examples of this over and over when you look at government involvement. > The fantastic 7 tech companies, get billions of dollars from the government grants, tax breaks, business > We have 4 ISP's that monopolize the market, due to the government giving them billions of dollars to expand infrastructure, which they misappropriated and then uses for lobbying against small ISP's > The SNAP program subsidizes big companies like Walmart, target, etc due to them being able to eat the costs of all the massive regulatiom around it. > etc. etc. etc.

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powerclue 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's not what capitalism is... or it's a very elementary understanding of it. Trade without force existed prior to and contemporary to capitalism. (See markets and mercantilism for more history there.) Capitalism is specifically the sort of mercantilism under which maximizing one's capital (typically the money commodity) becomes the aim.

Historically, money commodity was used to mediate exchange between two other commodities - I sell my wheat, get money, use money to buy pork. I'm buying commodities because I intend to use them or share them. Commodity -> money -> commodity. Capitalism inverts this -- the goal is to maximize money. I start with money, I convert it to a commodity that I can sell for a greater value, to get larger money. Money -> commodity -> money. You see Amazon operate this way: "if we can put one dollar in and get $1.01 out, do it".

Highly recommend this book on the transition in England and France from agrarian and feudal mercantilism into capitalism in the 18th and 19th centuries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Capitalism

	▲	skylurk an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Not sure about the currency vs commodity argument, but I agree with this argument linked article: > Thus it argues that the origin of capitalism lies fundamentally in social property relations rather than in trade and commerce. Capitalism is fundamentally a framework for ownership and property.
	▲	KetoManx64 38 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Thank you for that correction, I did oversimplify it. > Capitalism inverts this -- the goal is to maximize money. I start with money, I convert it to a commodity that I can sell for a greater value, to get larger money. Money -> commodity -> money. You see Amazon operate this way: "if we can put one dollar in and get $1.01 out, do it". Yes, that is correct and there is nothing wrong with this as long as there is no coercion happening (eg. Government involvement, lobbying and over regulation). Every person on earth should have the right to put in $1 into something and try to get $1.01 from it. You and I and every other individual get to then decide if we want to give that business owner that $1.01 or go to a competitor. In a truly free market, that business owner only earns that $1.01 profit by providing a good or service that voluntary customers value at more than the price they pay. The profit is the reward for creating value for others We currently live in a crony-capitalist world which has a lot of issues, but it's still much better than the 200m+ that have died under Marxism and Communism in the last 100 years.