So if it’s city owned it’s bad because any profits would go back to the city. But if it private owned it’s good because the profits go to a few rich people? I must be missing something
In fact you could do one better - it doesn’t need to make a profit, just break even, so you could either have lower prices, helping the community save money, or higher wages, helping the community spend money. But since it helps most people instead of a few people, it’s bad according to capitalism.
Yes but if it‘s city owned, the profits won‘t go towards exploitation of (mostly) non-white laborers and dismantling the social system. Just think of how many humanitarian aid programs could be defunded and how much the environment could be stripped of its resources if we let the private sector maximize their profits!
If you’re inclined to be charitable, I believe the capitalist-brained reasoning goes something like:
These grocery stores will inevitably run at a loss and/or need to be subsidised - costing the taxpayers money - because the state couldn’t possibly run them as efficiently as a private enterprise competing in the free market.
The reasoning is actually that a food desert means greater revenues from a larger market circle for the desert wanderers to travel so they can eat. Company gets most of the profit without offering convenient service from the captives.
There is zero reason to run grocery stores at a loss. Competition that doesn’t extort as strongly as other cartel members does screw over the cartel.
Being government-run, the store will obviously have:
a poor selection of products leaving you with no choice
ugly packaging meaning only the poors will go there
long waiting lists for entry
yearly, quarterly and monthly subscriptions, all required and renewed seperately, taking hours in a queue and three trips to the social services hq each to renew
quotas on all items, groups of items and time limited - whenever one is passed the rest don’t matter
no added value like delivery or good customer service
no market research or innovation
no incentive to do better or improve service
an active loss of money due to bueraucratic ineficiencies
(Likewise, also spined it (almost) as much as possible.)
So if it’s city owned it’s bad because any profits would go back to the city. But if it private owned it’s good because the profits go to a few rich people? I must be missing something
In fact you could do one better - it doesn’t need to make a profit, just break even, so you could either have lower prices, helping the community save money, or higher wages, helping the community spend money. But since it helps most people instead of a few people, it’s bad according to capitalism.
I think that the problem is you’re looking at this from a reasonable perspective.
Yes but if it‘s city owned, the profits won‘t go towards exploitation of (mostly) non-white laborers and dismantling the social system. Just think of how many humanitarian aid programs could be defunded and how much the environment could be stripped of its resources if we let the private sector maximize their profits!
/s
If you’re inclined to be charitable, I believe the capitalist-brained reasoning goes something like:
These grocery stores will inevitably run at a loss and/or need to be subsidised - costing the taxpayers money - because the state couldn’t possibly run them as efficiently as a private enterprise competing in the free market.
(Not saying I agree.)
The reasoning is actually that a food desert means greater revenues from a larger market circle for the desert wanderers to travel so they can eat. Company gets most of the profit without offering convenient service from the captives.
There is zero reason to run grocery stores at a loss. Competition that doesn’t extort as strongly as other cartel members does screw over the cartel.
Being government-run, the store will obviously have:
(Likewise, also spined it (almost) as much as possible.)
“Won’t somebody think off the job creators?” they’ll unironically tell you after laying off thousands of people.