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50 ‘Humans Of Capitalism’ Pics That Might Make You Laugh And Cry At The Same Time
Interview
When it’s taken too far, capitalism becomes a mockery of itself, encouraging greed instead of rewarding effort and innovation. If you take a moment to really look at the state of the world right now, you might come to the conclusion that we’re living in a bizarre dystopia of sorts where consumerism is king, employees are burned out, and corporations (arguably) run rampant despite all the distrust that’s growing.
The ‘Humans of Capitalism’ Instagram page collects and shows off examples of what capitalism is actually like in our day-to-day lives, from the hilarious to the haunting. Scroll down to dive into the dark (not to mention weird) side of living in a capitalist society. And if you enjoy the content, be sure to join the ranks of the 286k Instagram users who follow the page or consider supporting them by purchasing their NFT art.
I reached out to Angel, the founder and moderator of the 'Humans of Capitalism' page to learn more about the account's history, about their views on capitalism and corporatism, and the possible alternatives to the system we have in place now. "I was inspired by a lot of things, like the absurdism of the current capitalistic system and its flaws, the injustice that 99% of the people experience every day while they are at work, shopping, and home," they told Bored Panda in an interview via email.
They said that people are bombarded with non-stop information to "build up their consumerist spirit so they can keep capitalism alive." Unfortunately, for Angel, the future doesn't hold much optimism. They think that with the improving technologies, the situation for the everyday man and woman gets even worse. "A not so famous movie from the late '80s, 'They Live' (1988), explains this concept perfectly. I believe everyone should watch it if they want to combat the urge of consumerism and mind control," they suggested. Scroll down for Angel's full interview with Bored Panda.
In the mood for some more quality reading about the pros and cons of capitalism? You should check out Bored Panda’s articles here, here, and here once you’re done with this one.
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Angel, the founder of 'Humans of Capitalism,' believes that capitalism evolves into corporatism after some time "because human greed cannot be measured." In fact, they are of the opinion that the system currently in place is one of corporatism, not capitalism.
"We often see many small businesses collapsing because they are not able to fight with the current trend or to combat with the giant competitors. So they have two options, close the business or sell it," they explained to Bored Panda how smaller businesses have their work cut out for them because they constantly have to compete against better-established, more powerful companies that have more clout.
"We have many companies that have been bought by enormous giants that I do not want to mention and they won't stop there, they are trying to get their hands on any business category. Is there a solution for it? I believe that there can be some solutions, but capitalists will work and find a way to bypass those solutions and continue with the destruction of the system while being totally ignorant about it," they said that capitalism aims to protect itself as a system, so changing it isn't as straightforward as some people think.
But what will happen with people in North Korea, if the police find this kind of USB at their home? I expect nothing really nice.
They know that better than you and they can make that choice for themselves. Watch the reports on Youtube from North Korean refugees that have managed to get out; North Koreans know what's going on and they take huge risks just to do things like watch a video from the outside world because they want to. The riskiness is not a reason to deny them the opportunity of that choice.
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Recently, a teenager got executed for listening to a k-pop song. Several other students of his age met the same fate when they watched Squid Games at school - and those are only the cases that leaked internationally. And only a few privileged citizens have access to a computer... So the thought might be nice, but it's seriously dangerous.
Leah Dickerson is actually right. These stories came from anonymous sources from a popular South Korean propaganda site. Another South Korean news site has noted that it would be almost impossible to confirm this story. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/report-questions-story-squid-game-smuggled-into-north-korea-2021-11%3famp
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I'm assuming this is a charitable organization that gets funds for doing " a good deed". But the reality is I highly doubt any of these USBs are getting anywhere close to NK. Would be better off donating them to shelters and libraries.
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Maybe they should fill them with information that will free citizen's minds from the capitalist propaganda machine and distribute them in the "developed" world.
except no-one reads. They just get their 'facts' from youtube which consist mostly of ranting propaganda of conspiracy nuts.
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A few, but NK's like District 12, so the power is iffy at best.
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And end up in front of a firing squad or a hard labor camp...like that teacher who smuggled in Squid Games and the 3 people who watched it
This is wrong on so many levels, just need that one edited Micheal Jackson song, JUST EAT IT. To play while shoving your USB in its mouth.😂🤣😝😛
This is highly irresponsible, those people can be beaten, starved or killed if caught with outside content.
A bit risky in a country that recently banned laughing for a couple of weeks
We really should be focusing more on China. They're more of a general threat, and without China, North Korea will pathetically flail around like that one eel that went into the brine pool.
How is this an example of a dystopian world where there are private property rights and individuals are free to do as they wish as long as they don't harm others? Sure, private property and individual liberty have their limitations, in particular when property rights are not perfectly defined or enforcement of those rights is not possible, e.g. because inefficient courts or legal proceedings, but I fail to see how this relates to those problems. Well, unless you are extremely cynical and conclude that under monarchy, despotism, communism or other totalitarian forms of government people who not be free to initiate these kinds of actions. But that would be an odd definition of dystopian. Is it dystopian to help those who are oppressed?
This is awful. People literally get executed if they're caught having foreign stuff.
Stupid!!! How would you react if Korea did that to the USA????? Though thinking on it, it might improve the IQ of the USA to delete people like The Trump :-(
The only people in North Korea with access to computers are government employees with high security clearances.
nah! it will not work.......who will use that? not everybody owns computer.
A USB with films on hands of one North Korean will be a permanent prison passport or a death sentence to the person. DO NOT MAKE IT
Another Best Comment by: Gerard Neaux 3 weeks ago To everyone whoa coming from a capitalist country and saying that they wouldn't risk their families. I'm from a former communist country: no revolutions were done without risking life. Also, people who had the guts to go against the regime counted on not being caught. You simply have no idea what it's like, so stop comparing your own lives and values with those of North Koreans. North Koreans are starving right now. You have the luxury of choosing to protect your family in a hypothetical scenario from the coziness of your full stomachs and warm homes.
I agree that revolution takes sacrifice. But what this notice is doing is sending death sentences to far too many innocent victims, teachers and superintendents who had no idea that the students were watching "Squid Game" and other Western movies on USB's and DVD's. Let people take the risk on their own, don't partake in creating more suffering for others. Read more: the smuggler got a death sentence and many people not even involved in the incident of the students got severe punishment and years in jail or working in the mines. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/squidgame-11232021180155.html
Best comment by: Joe Reaves 3 weeks ago Not sure why you're being downvoted. The 7 high school students caught watching the smuggled USB of Squid Game got between 5 years hard labour and life imprisonment (apparently some of them had rich parents who could bribe they system). As you say the smuggler got a death sentence. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/squidgame-11232021180155.html
This is ridiculous and dangerous. The. children may be beaten and the parents executed. No joke.
I'd suggest micro SD for that matter, as they are even easier to hide due to being smaller ... use in a neverconnected computer would seem safe, but I know in western countries there were computers equipped with GSM-card slots inside that at least could be used to spy on people off the web, so ... ....... I guess freedom is a risk whereever none of it exists, and people willing to take it, now, act now (as the collapse of north Korea will happen some day, inevadable) do their best to not waste more time in a confined country and deserve the support from everybody who has the glimpses of freedom we have. But then, again - even where no restrictions are in place, the majority stops to care and just is a mindless shopping robot, supporting the rich, who spy on us today in a way that even Erich Mielke himself (decade-long head of Stasi) could not even have imagined in his wettest dreams... What do WE do with our freedom? Enough to sustain it?
Great idea, but also give a list of tips for concealing them. Like perhaps inside those hideous portraits they have to hang of the Kim family tyrants.
This seems highly irresponsible, those people will be beaten, starved or killed if caught with outside content.
The DPRK just killed 5 people via rifle squad for listening to KPop. I wouldn't feel comfortable abetting someone's death and torture.
so this article is against communism yet posts and image against communism? this place confuses me sometimes
This is , hands-down, the dumbest thing I've seen in a long, long time.
They aren't. Only the very privileged one have access to one. Majority of people don't even have access to electricity.
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Of course, you need a computer and electricity for this to work, so....
He's banned laughter for 10 days as a remembrance of his dictator dad. Also a mass murderer of the citizens.
The people of North Korea are captives for life unless/until the glorious leader hands out the kool-aid
It's all good until that poor North Korean gets ratted out for having such a USB drive, and then 3 generations of that family are sent to horrifying slave labor camps for life, or worse, executed. In front of a huge crowd. Of people. Including children. Who are not allowed to cry at this event, not a single one of them. Or THEY will be executed too.
...so what's your solution? Let them all live short, poverty-stricken lives under a totalitarian regime for generations to come? No revolution comes without sacrifice.
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The North Koreans already do get their smuggled media and are aware they're living in a dictation. They don't need this risk.
I honestly don't understand why this is a downvoted comment - it's a whole different world there. No pretended shock over their lack of revolution will help them. It's the only world they know and live in fear of what happens to them and their families if they even slightly differ from what the regime tells them to. They need help and we need to start somewhere, but first we need to understand the conditions they are living in. Their only choice is to live in fear or risk death of family generations. The few brave that actually survived defecting are now constantly looking over their shoulder - and those are the people we should listen to.
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Do they even have something to plug their usbs into? Do they even know what usbs are
According to Angel, the founder of 'Humans of Capitalism,' each and every system, from capitalism to socialism, has a chance of becoming corrupt if bad behavior isn't punished. "If we go back in time where socialism or communism were at their prime, we can see that the top of the head of the system was corrupted and that resulted with the fall of the system," they said that people should look at communism realistically and historically, not romantically.
As for what the future might bring, Angel thinks that we might be moving toward a "utopia" of "automated communism where machines will produce, deliver, and take care of food supply, clothing, health." However, the issue would still be who controls the distribution system and how exactly it operates. What's more, this inevitably means that some people will be left without a job.
"The idea of getting free food, water, health, clothing, is nice and, in reality, if we take a closer look at the current system we can see that more people are let off and replaced by machines. For example, we can see that McDonald's workers are fired and they have been replaced with machines that work on touch or by sound and they take orders, forward orders to the employees, etc."
In Angel's view, as technology improves, more and more people will lose their jobs. However, they think that there will always be people who disagree with this point of view. According to them, these people argue that capitalism creates new jobs and someone will have to create the machines that replace workers, install them, maintain them, and do a myriad of other jobs related to automatization.
Unfortunately, the founder of 'Humans of Capitalism' thinks that, eventually, we'll end up with machines creating more machines, without the need of (barely) any human input. This would be done for the sake of maximizing profits by reducing employee costs.
"I believe that 50 years from now machines will provide food, clothing, healthcare services, and much more, by themselves, with little to no employees monitoring them. But there is an issue with that. You will leave millions of people jobless and cause huge riots as the famous quote from Jean-Jacques Rousseau goes: 'When the people shall have no more to eat, they will eat the rich.'"
Instead we get indoctrination, consternation, ruination, contamination, and eventually extermination.
Life isn’t always a black or white, a good versus evil affair. And the same can be said about capitalism, like about most things. However, problems start to appear when capitalism is taken to the extreme. Earlier, finance writer and financial independence expert Rick Orford went in-depth with me about the positives and negatives of capitalism, why social democracy works, and what role greed plays in financial crises and inequality.
In the expert’s view, when a large enough part of the population is willing to take risks, that’s when extreme capitalism and excessive greed thrive.
“Greed is widely accepted to be the reason for the two largest financial crises in the last century; namely 1929 and 2008. It also creates the income inequality that’s largely seen in the United States. Indeed, while everyone, in theory, has an equal opportunity to flourish, the scales seem to tip to those with the most money," the financial expert explained to Bored Panda.
According to Rick, capitalism isn’t dangerous to society, but an excess of it can be. “[Capitalism] allows folks like you and me to succeed by creating or investing in businesses. Indeed, one looking to borrow money from the banks today won’t have to pay much for the loan. As such, it encourages growth. However, extreme capitalism creates a scenario where greed overtakes reason, and it risks the financial system," he explained to me.
The expert noted that at the other end of the scale, opposite extreme capitalism, we’ll find social democracy, aka modern socialism. The way that this system works is by taxing citizens much more than capitalistic countries. In return, the citizens of those countries have access to vital services.
"Citizens are given services such as free and (easily) accessible healthcare, child care, social welfare, etc. Conversely, highly capitalistic societies charge for these services, making it incredibly challenging for the poor," Rick said.
In the expert’s opinion, capitalism can—theoretically—give absolutely anyone the ability to flourish. What’s more, he noted that we shouldn’t have the illusion that well-known businesspeople are always making a profit. They undertake big risks and suffer heavy losses as well. It’s not always a marathon of wins for them.
However, Rick warned that major companies and social media have the power to influence elections and change how people think. “Today, the news is largely distributed by some of the largest American corporations: Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Think Brexit or the 2016 American Presidential election,” he said.
I found a similar post back in the days in 9gag where somebody did the same thing with a newborn. It was titled with lifehacks. This is so sad.
According to the financial expert, capitalism can help ordinary people flourish, open up businesses, and sell their products. But when we compare their potential with that of industry giants, we realize that competition in the marketplace isn’t as straightforward as it seems.
“Those [products] with the best quality, price, customer service, or combination (of at least two) often do well. Increasingly, however, those who are willing to spend more at the beginning are seeing both extreme gains and losses. Famously, Amazon and Tesla, for example, have spent hundreds of millions of investors’ dollars before ever making a cent," he said.
Meanwhile, an expert working in the banking industry who asked Bored Panda to remain anonymous because of how sensitive his work is, said that capitalism disproportionately rewards individual incentives and punishes the lack of it.
"As someone acquires more capital, it—on average—becomes exponentially easier to acquire even more of it, which adds to extreme wealth inequality. It really bothers me when trillions in pension funds are wiped out only for a couple of bankers to get slapped on the wrist. Making sure that the costs of financial crises are borne by financial institutions that manufactured them (even if unintentionally), as opposed to transferring the burden to other members of society, would increase accountability,” he said.
According to the expert, capitalism cannot exist as “pure capitalism” and has to focus on “effective social programs” if we care about our fellow citizens.
Come on, they might be winding down after a hard day playing. We don’t know the full story.
Imagine if watermelon had a durable skin/rind that would negate the need for plastic waste...oh wait.
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Note: this post originally had 63 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
A lot of people don’t know what capitalism is including todays billionaires
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What a messy post, almost none of these have anything to do with capitalism.
To be brutal, most people do not really know what capitalism, or proper communism for that matter, is. What most folk label "capitalism" is more akin to "consumerism".
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Seems like somebody started a thematic post, but gave up halfway through and decided to just throw any more or less amusing picture in one post. At least half of them are neither capitalist nor dystopian.
Is Bored Panda hitting the eggnog hard today? This should have just been called Non Sequitur
This article an example of its own thesis: taking content ('product') from where it's produced, adding a small amount of comment ('added value') and repackaging it for new market ('distribution'). And other content platforms will do the same with this.
I agree except for the 'added value' comment. BP uses content it doesn't pay for, and advertises on its site, meaning it profits from the content (including our comments!). Then the editors get into the starka (Lithuanian tranya), write some rambling drivel to pad out the free content, and voila! Capitalism at its finest!
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Boredpanda used to expose great art now it's just "Americans bad westerners bad" "evil money evil capitalism." Snore.
Only like 12 of these actually connect capitalism to dystopian-like issues. There are plenty of connections between the two but Influencers (which have basically always existed, just in different forms) and silly products like the chicken arms are absolutely not evidence of the connection. 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
Definitely! I had to stop reading the comments after a while, because it made me feel like punching someone!
Load More Replies... This is what happens when you let Instagram pages and subreddits do your writing for you.
Note to world: Read up on your -isms, and apply them properly. Thank you. This was just, IMHO, dumba**-ism.
Some of those were actually good ideas, the tiny ear pins for face mask and the face mask that had a clear plastic cover so you could see a person’s mouth is useful for deaf people who must read lips. And service workers so customers can see smile & emotions
Agreeing with the rest of the comments here, this isn't about capitalism, bad post with funny images doesn't deserve the likes
Some of these seem to be lacking context, which makes it easy to interpret any way we want.
I could argue against every single example bp has, but it would take to long. I believe we need to learn from a master and be reminded again why Capitalism is one of the greatest systems ever discovered, and that since its implementation, we've seen the greatest leaps in human prosperity. What America is experiencing today is not capitalism. It is government cronyism. Here is Milton Friedman, nobel-winning economist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kx__dnAWqQ
That has nothing to do with capitalism, and also, capitalism is the least worse system.
Agreed. All of the countries with high standard of living, high happiness index, and lack of human rights abuses are capitalist societies. (In the US, capitalism has run amock, but it need not be so.)
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A lot of people don’t know what capitalism is including todays billionaires
Load More Replies... What a messy post, almost none of these have anything to do with capitalism.
To be brutal, most people do not really know what capitalism, or proper communism for that matter, is. What most folk label "capitalism" is more akin to "consumerism".
Load More Replies... Seems like somebody started a thematic post, but gave up halfway through and decided to just throw any more or less amusing picture in one post. At least half of them are neither capitalist nor dystopian.
Is Bored Panda hitting the eggnog hard today? This should have just been called Non Sequitur
This article an example of its own thesis: taking content ('product') from where it's produced, adding a small amount of comment ('added value') and repackaging it for new market ('distribution'). And other content platforms will do the same with this.
I agree except for the 'added value' comment. BP uses content it doesn't pay for, and advertises on its site, meaning it profits from the content (including our comments!). Then the editors get into the starka (Lithuanian tranya), write some rambling drivel to pad out the free content, and voila! Capitalism at its finest!
Load More Replies... Boredpanda used to expose great art now it's just "Americans bad westerners bad" "evil money evil capitalism." Snore.
Only like 12 of these actually connect capitalism to dystopian-like issues. There are plenty of connections between the two but Influencers (which have basically always existed, just in different forms) and silly products like the chicken arms are absolutely not evidence of the connection. 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
Definitely! I had to stop reading the comments after a while, because it made me feel like punching someone!
Load More Replies... This is what happens when you let Instagram pages and subreddits do your writing for you.
Note to world: Read up on your -isms, and apply them properly. Thank you. This was just, IMHO, dumba**-ism.
Some of those were actually good ideas, the tiny ear pins for face mask and the face mask that had a clear plastic cover so you could see a person’s mouth is useful for deaf people who must read lips. And service workers so customers can see smile & emotions
Agreeing with the rest of the comments here, this isn't about capitalism, bad post with funny images doesn't deserve the likes
Some of these seem to be lacking context, which makes it easy to interpret any way we want.
I could argue against every single example bp has, but it would take to long. I believe we need to learn from a master and be reminded again why Capitalism is one of the greatest systems ever discovered, and that since its implementation, we've seen the greatest leaps in human prosperity. What America is experiencing today is not capitalism. It is government cronyism. Here is Milton Friedman, nobel-winning economist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kx__dnAWqQ
That has nothing to do with capitalism, and also, capitalism is the least worse system.
Agreed. All of the countries with high standard of living, high happiness index, and lack of human rights abuses are capitalist societies. (In the US, capitalism has run amock, but it need not be so.)
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