Oh I know, but it used to be at least - on the small scale - somewhat mitigated by the fact that most people were basically decent and not trying to fuck everyone else over. I remember as a young child in the 70s that my mother shopped at a grocery store that wasn’t much bigger than my house is today, a little mom and pop operation that had been open for 40 years and run by an old guy, his wife, and a couple of their kids. They knew every customer who came in, knew each others’ families, and were actual acquaintances or even friends instead of merely friendly with them. Nowadays I couldn’t even tell you how to go about finding a grocery store that isn’t the size of my neighborhood and owned by one of maybe 5 companies. Monopolies certainly existed before, but I dunno if it was people, regulations, or what, but there was a while, when I was a kid, that at least the ground-level experience of it wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now.
That’s like saying eating fatty food never got you obese when you started.
The end goal of capitalism was and forever will be monarchies. It’s the game of monopoly until one player owns all.
Oh I know, but it used to be at least - on the small scale - somewhat mitigated by the fact that most people were basically decent and not trying to fuck everyone else over. I remember as a young child in the 70s that my mother shopped at a grocery store that wasn’t much bigger than my house is today, a little mom and pop operation that had been open for 40 years and run by an old guy, his wife, and a couple of their kids. They knew every customer who came in, knew each others’ families, and were actual acquaintances or even friends instead of merely friendly with them. Nowadays I couldn’t even tell you how to go about finding a grocery store that isn’t the size of my neighborhood and owned by one of maybe 5 companies. Monopolies certainly existed before, but I dunno if it was people, regulations, or what, but there was a while, when I was a kid, that at least the ground-level experience of it wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now.