> This ascribes an agency to capitalism that doesn’t exist.

Oh no, it really doesn't.

Captialism is everyone working to maximize profit. It's the lack of foresight on social problems and pressures in capitalism that leads to exactly this problem.

> The families themselves make the choices to have more or fewer children.

Right, because of the pressure of a capitalist society. People can be priced out of having children if necessities like food, housing, and clothing price them out of being able to take care of a child.

> Capitalism says nothing about free time.

Capitalism is about maximizing profit. A direct path towards that is paying employees the minimal amount and having them work the most hours to extract the maximum amount of value from them.

Before mass unionization, 60 or 80 hour workweeks were pretty common in the US. Even today, we see companies that use salaried employees as a way to make employees work longer hours.

If overtime wasn't so expensive, you could bet that McDonalds would have people working 12 hour shifts. Hospitals already do that to nurses.

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JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago | parent [-]

> capitalism is everyone working to maximize profit

This is nonsense. Capitalism is about the private ownership of productive stuff, i.e. capital. That’s it. Profit is a corollary, and one that is bounded by preferences and tastes.

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saubeidl 9 hours ago | parent [-]

That completely ignores the coercive law of competition.

"Accumulate! Accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets."

- Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1

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JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> completely ignores the coercive law of competition

Not a forcing function unless you’re levered. Competition can’t push your return on a productive asset below zero (by definition), just lower by increasing the value of said asset while reducing the cash flows from it.

	▲	tankenmate 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		`Not a forcing function unless you’re levered`; but every one is levered, you aren't born with all the housing, food, and water you'll need for the rest of your life. Everyone is born with a net negative of the necessities of life, the difference though is that a very small minority are bequeathed this by well heeled ancestors. But for the overwhelming majority there is a life long struggle to afford to live a suitable life.

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lanfeust6 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Out-competing yields rewards for effort, that doesn't make it necessary. All that's necessary is maintaining. Many small businesses coast by for 30 years with no aspiration to do more.

Japan has had stagnant GDP growth for decades. Growth is not "necessary" as socialist like to project, it's just better. Productivity/innovation increases through growth have drastically improved our quality of life. Meanwhile socialists treat the world as zero-sum, as though everyone started out with a pile of cash which gets divvied up. Redistribution can be good, but you first need to generate the wealth.