I think the discomfort comes from a deep, pretty much unconscious understanding we all have about how capitalism, taken to it logical extremes, will always perpetuate inequality to the extreme degree, and how gross inequality donned up in the guise of philanthropy is still gross inequality.
His content is a direct display of our economic system at the limit, at which point it becomes absurd. When you recognize that this is quite literally the system under which the majority of the world's economics are organized it becomes deeply serious and deeply uncomfortable.
There's also the plain psychological elements surrounding the fact that the content takes something that used to be valued for its moral goodness (generosity, charity) and transforms it into something valued strictly for its economic fruitfulness (means for generating capital) but this is capitalism's totalizing effect at work: because money is such a pure abstraction it's possible to monetize anything thereby killing off the more humane and traditional values that used to make certain pursuits meaningful to humans.
I fail to see how, given the system we currently have is called capitalism and given that this content is contemporary. The behavior is analogous to behaviors that would have potentially been possible under aristocracy, but it's pretty clearly a phenomenon of late capitalism unless you take a completely ahistorical view of existence. Ideas with historicity have history, they aren't fixed idealist definitions...Mr Beast is functioning in a system we call capitalism because of the general rules it follows and taking actions enabled by the flow of wealth in such a system.
Capitalism isn't just some abstract Platonic definition, we are living it, it evolves in time. Just as the feudalism before it was a lived system that evolved in time, that eventually collapsed, giving way to a new mode (capitalism), the same will happen under this economic system.
This has nothing to do with capitalism, it does have to do with the power dynamic though when one person can easily have a significant impact on another person’s life though.
The same uncomfortablenesses would arise if this were videos of some govt leader going around granting early retirement to people.
And such power dynamics are (at least partially, if not to great extent) enabled by the fact that late-stage capitalism like we have in the US emphasizes individual wealth over social support systems that would otherwise redistribute wealth, make people more equal (read: give them less undue power over each other), and generally remove the conditions of possibility for this sort of content.
I'm sorry but to watch Mr Beast's videos and turn around and say "it has nothing to do with capitalism" stinks to me of the worst kind of kool-aid drinking and willful ignorance. This isn't an either/or game. You can remain a capitalist and still be aware of the inherent flaws of the approach when it lacks proper guardrails, acknowledge the real problems we have, and level critiques to try and make the system more equitable. People get so dogmatic about it, it's practically a religion.
> And such power dynamics are (at least partially, if not to great extent) enabled by the fact that late-stage capitalism like we have in the US emphasizes individual wealth over social support systems that would otherwise redistribute wealth
The social systems you talk about are the biggest they’ve ever been, and the US is going to need to raise tax revenues by 30% just to break even on the current ones.
At no time in history have social nets been so strong in the west, yet it’s never enough.
I don’t know what the solution is, but saying social nets are the solution and we need more of them are about as black and white and unnuanced views as saying we need to abolish them. Neither is true.
the problem with social nets is the holes that some people fall through. most social nets are one size fits all solutions that ignore the individual issues that prevent some people from benefiting from them. so yes, we need to keep working on those social nets until those holes are closed and they will help everyone that is actually in need.
Totalitarianism is much different because ultimately some human is making all the decisions on the allocation of capital. The uncomfortableness that the parent is describing isn’t with the power disparity, it’s with the fact that our world is increasingly controlled by paperclip maximizers.
His content is a direct display of our economic system at the limit, at which point it becomes absurd. When you recognize that this is quite literally the system under which the majority of the world's economics are organized it becomes deeply serious and deeply uncomfortable.
There's also the plain psychological elements surrounding the fact that the content takes something that used to be valued for its moral goodness (generosity, charity) and transforms it into something valued strictly for its economic fruitfulness (means for generating capital) but this is capitalism's totalizing effect at work: because money is such a pure abstraction it's possible to monetize anything thereby killing off the more humane and traditional values that used to make certain pursuits meaningful to humans.