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DeepElemBlues
United States5079 Posts
Seriously? Yes, seriously. Or do you think that the modern economy as it exists in the West could function with a large class so poor that it lives hand-to-mouth? Just what do you think drastic inequality is? The current West? Go to Africa, or India, or hop in a time machine and go to Soviet Russia or Maoist China or the first five years of the Great Depression, and you'll understand what drastic inequality actually is. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On May 07 2012 15:30 BluePanther wrote: I think you deride finance as "imaginary" because you don't really understand what it accomplishes, how it works, or why it works. Finance makes trade incredibly more efficient, and there is a lot of money to be made for that reason.. Well, I'm tired of explaining that I'm devoting a great deal of time right now to understanding how finance works, and earlier in this thread I was defending its utility. At this point the conversation is just people explaining competition to me and giving me the neoliberal party line. I understand all of these things, I think capitalism is a necessary stage in the development of civilization, but I don't think that it is the end of history, Fukuyama can go jump in a lake. Anyway, I've heard all this before and I think we've run out of things to say to each other. Have a good night! edit: just in case people think I'm defending the op, I'm not, that's silly. Just want to clear up that confusion if it exists. | ||
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Maenander
Germany4926 Posts
It's ironic that people who work in a sector where it actually fails praise the market mechanism . | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On May 07 2012 15:32 DeepElemBlues wrote: Yes, seriously. Or do you think that the modern economy as it exists in the West could function with a large class so poor that it lives hand-to-mouth? Just what do you think drastic inequality is? The current West? Go to Africa, or India, or hop in a time machine and go to Soviet Russia or Maoist China or the first five years of the Great Depression, and you'll understand what drastic inequality actually is. Ok, so I really should just go away, but... your defense of capitalism is "better than Maoist China, Stalinist Russia, and Africa and India after the ravages of colonial exploitation?" talk about low expectations. | ||
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BluePanther
United States2776 Posts
On May 07 2012 15:34 sam!zdat wrote: Well, I'm tired of explaining that I'm devoting a great deal of time right now to understanding how finance works, and earlier in this thread I was defending its utility. At this point the conversation is just people explaining competition to me and giving me the neoliberal party line. I understand all of these things, I think capitalism is a necessary stage in the development of civilization, but I don't think that it is the end of history, Fukuyama can go jump in a lake. Anyway, I've heard all this before and I think we've run out of things to say to each other. Have a good night! edit: just in case people think I'm defending the op, I'm not, that's silly. Just want to clear up that confusion if it exists. So what do you think is the "end game"? Also, you keep saying "I'm devoting time to understanding this" but you don't really say what... I'm not some idiot off the street: I have a B.S. in Social Sciences (i.e., economic sociology) and a J.D., where my studies focus on social structures. I'm not just talking out of my ass. | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On May 07 2012 15:26 sam!zdat wrote: Yup, I understand this. I haven't learned enough yet to give a coherent critique of finance. My starting point for this is elsewhere. The main problem is that when you have capital with no obvious new markets to invest in, capital is forced to create new markets. A lot of these new markets are just artificial demand, because media is very powerful (and controlled by capital) and convinces people they need to buy things to be happy. So we end up doing a lot of unnecessary things, fighting wars for oil and to preserve economic hegemony, etc. Ok, well that's two places where we'll have to agree to disagree  | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On May 07 2012 15:40 BluePanther wrote: So what do you think is the "end game"? Also, you keep saying "I'm devoting time to understanding this" but you don't really say what... I'm not some idiot off the street: I have a B.S. in Social Sciences (i.e., economic sociology) and a J.D., where my studies focus on social structures. I'm not just talking out of my ass. Yes, very good, you know more about this aspect of the topic than I do. My field is critical theory, literature, history of thought, etc. Like I say, I am working on expanding my knowledge to include political economy and macroeconomics - I'm hardly an expert in these things, but I do have some understanding of how a contemporary financial market works. I certainly know what competition is, and why it drives innovation and, usually, promotes efficiency. From my work in the field in which I AM an expert, however, I believe that the conditions under which capitalism functions effectively break down in postmodernity and in an information age, and that late capitalism has a number of highly undesirable social, economic, environmental consequences. I do understand the power of markets, but I do not think that markets should rule our entire society as they presently do. I don't have a full theory of the end game yet, sorry. I have some ideas but this is a pretty hostile environment to put forth thoughts that are in progress. You weren't the one who said that farming pigs was the same as finance capital, though, were you? There have been a couple of voices. I'm sorry if I seemed rude at any point. | ||
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DeepElemBlues
United States5079 Posts
On May 07 2012 15:38 sam!zdat wrote: Ok, so I really should just go away, but... your defense of capitalism is "better than Maoist China, Stalinist Russia, and Africa and India after the ravages of colonial exploitation?" talk about low expectations. Talk about dodging. Capitalist countries don't have drastic inequality, those are some examples of countries where drastic inequality actually exists or existed, and guess what, those countries aren't capitalist. India is a capitalist country for a small portion of the population, most of Africa is fascist or extremely corrupt, and the USSR and Maoist China were flavors of communist. Also again please go do some more reading, India was definitely not "ravaged" by "colonial exploitation" - India was actually built up to a great degree both materially and socially by the British - and most of Africa wasn't either. Most of Africa wasn't lifted up by colonialism but most of it wasn't ground down either (places like the Congo being notable exceptions). African dictators and warlords have done more to mess up Africa than European imperialists ever did. but I do not think that markets should rule our entire society as they presently do. When government spending makes up 15-25% of a given Western nation's economy, markets rule our entire society? | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On May 07 2012 15:47 DeepElemBlues wrote: Talk about dodging. Capitalist countries don't have drastic inequality, those are some examples of countries where drastic inequality actually exists or existed, and guess what, those countries aren't capitalist. India is a capitalist country for a small portion of the population, most of Africa is fascist or extremely corrupt, and the USSR and Maoist China were flavors of communist. Also again please go do some more reading, India was definitely not "ravaged" by "colonial exploitation" - India was actually built up to a great degree both materially and socially by the British - and most of Africa wasn't either. Most of Africa wasn't lifted up by colonialism but most of it wasn't ground down either (places like the Congo being notable exceptions). African dictators and warlords have done more to mess up Africa than European imperialists ever did. Yeah, I'll cede India and Africa; I don't know anything about that. My understanding is that the CIA had a lot to do with a lot of those african warlords, though. Anyway, the point is that things could be much better than they are, not that capitalism isn't better than other things. Capitalism's great. But we can do better. | ||
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xeo1
United States429 Posts
We are not born with greed, envy, hatred or bigotry. Our behavior and values are reflective of the culture we are exposed to. incentive: Motivation and incentive exist when people have meaningful tasks. True growth and development occur when people are involved in creative, challenging, and constructing endeavors. However, motivation and incentive die in the daily ground of boring and repetitive jobs required to earn a paycheck. Sad to see poll results. I am waiting for the day people realize profit cannot dictate the world, hopefully won't be too late. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On May 07 2012 15:47 DeepElemBlues wrote: When government spending makes up 15-25% of a given Western nation's economy, markets rule our entire society? How do politicians get elected? Who does that spending largely benefit? edit: and I really must know, if you're not from Dallas why are you called DeepElemBlues | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On May 07 2012 15:47 DeepElemBlues wrote: When government spending makes up 15-25% of a given Western nation's economy, markets rule our entire society? Hah! I wish it was that little! USA 47.7% gogo free market capitalism! http://www.economist.com/node/18359896 | ||
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1338 Posts
On May 07 2012 15:40 BluePanther wrote: So what do you think is the "end game"? Also, you keep saying "I'm devoting time to understanding this" but you don't really say what... I'm not some idiot off the street: I have a B.S. in Social Sciences (i.e., economic sociology) and a J.D., where my studies focus on social structures. I'm not just talking out of my ass. I will answer that for him, although it might not be his answer. The end game is a post scarcity economy. This may indeed remain capitalistic in nature, or it may not, it's simply too far away for us to reasonably make predictions. The universe, and even just our neighbourhood is a very large place, presumably with a lot of untapped resources, resources we should be attempting to use, certainly there should be enough to at least make sure there are no large portions of humanity who's basic needs are not met. Money is ultimately just a tool, you can't eat money, you can't breathe money, I guess you can burn money to keep you warm, but it's not even a great fuel. Money is pegged to the amount of available material and labour resources, and all total money can only reasonably worth as much as material and labour we have access to. In that way, ultimately, money is not 'real' in that increasing overall amount of money will not increase overall standard of living. You must increase the overall available resources that is represented by that money. Assuming our population does not explode in proportion to new resources that we tap into, there is enough 'stuff' in the local neighbourhood to meet everyone's material needs (not to say we have the technology to do this yet, merely that the basic building blocks are available, and that this is in theory viable). Ultimately our entire history has been defined by the scarcity of resources, our economy, our politics, our sociology, everything about us as a collective is underpinned by this. However there certainly is the resources available to change that if only we could tap into it. When we do, who knows what it will be like? When there simply is too much materials to go around, when automation amplifies the effects of human labour by such an incredible degree we barely have to work to get what we need. Then who knows if the concept of money will still be relevant? I think the social, political and perhaps psychological ramifications of a post scarcity economy, or something like it is both the logical goal and endpoint for human development, and so far away and foreign from what we have now that all bets are off. | ||
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gmen650
United States6 Posts
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BluePanther
United States2776 Posts
On May 07 2012 16:04 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote: I will answer that for him, although it might not be his answer. The end game is a post scarcity economy. This may indeed remain capitalistic in nature, or it may not, it's simply too far away for us to reasonably make predictions. The universe, and even just our neighbourhood is a very large place, presumably with a lot of untapped resources, resources we should be attempting to use, certainly there should be enough to at least make sure there are no large portions of humanity who's basic needs are not met. Money is ultimately just a tool, you can't eat money, you can't breathe money, I guess you can burn money to keep you warm, but it's not even a great fuel. Money is pegged to the amount of available material and labour resources, and all total money can only reasonably worth as much as material and labour we have access to. In that way, ultimately, money is not 'real' in that increasing overall amount of money will not increase overall standard of living. You must increase the overall available resources that is represented by that money. Assuming our population does not explode in proportion to new resources that we tap into, there is enough 'stuff' in the local neighbourhood to meet everyone's material needs (not to say we have the technology to do this yet, merely that the basic building blocks are available, and that this is in theory viable). will finish this later, getting kicked out of the lab >< This is not incompatible with what I'm saying. As resources become more available and less scarce, then you are merely changing the value of the waste. Not using something that is essentially free means that wasting it is less detrimental to the system. Efficient use of that resource less useful. The value of efficiency optimization plummets, and an equilibrium is hit somewhere, even if it gets to the point where it is completely negligible. For example, there is a huge difference in how waste of a resource like gold is treated compared to a product like paper. Gold, a scarce resource, is recycled fanatically. Paper, a more abundant resource as of now, is recycled with less enthusiasm and efficiency. The more abundant the resource, the less effort is put into recycling or reusing it. In other words, less efficient usage is cost-effective for our time/pleasure. However, gold commands a much higher attentiveness for being cost-effective. It's all an equilibrium. You can throw money out the window, it doesn't matter. Money is merely an instrument by which one is able to valuate these decisions which happen with or without money's existence. | ||
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1338 Posts
On May 07 2012 16:15 BluePanther wrote: This is not incompatible with what I'm saying. As resources become more available and less scarce, then you are merely changing the value of the waste. Not using something that is essentially free means that wasting it is less detrimental to the system. Efficient use of that resource less useful. The value of efficiency optimization plummets, and an equilibrium is hit somewhere, even if it gets to the point where it is completely negligible. For example, there is a huge difference in how waste of a resource like gold is treated compared to a product like paper. Gold, a scarce resource, is recycled fanatically. Paper, a more abundant resource as of now, is recycled with less enthusiasm and efficiency. The more abundant the resource, the less effort is put into recycling or reusing it. In other words, less efficient usage is cost-effective for our time/pleasure. However, gold commands a much higher attentiveness for being cost-effective. It's all an equilibrium. You can throw money out the window, it doesn't matter. Money is merely an instrument by which one is able to valuate these decisions which happen with or without money's existence. I didn't say it would be incompatible, just answering your question of what the endgame would be. That is the logical 'endgame' for what human economy would strive for, where everything is basically so abundant, where people's basic needs are so easily looked after that they would only be doing any meaningful amount of work to pursue their interests. All economic models are based, somewhere down the line, on a scarcity of resources. Since all human economies have been based as such. So if we should ever reach a post scarcity economy, who knows if our model still holds true? Imagine this: We have access to so much resources and automation, that individually we can do basically do anything we want(ok it's unrealistic, I'm sure we could find hobbies that wasted enough resources to not be viable if we tried). Then what is the point of our current model of currency or ownership? If someone who owned basically nothing could still access any amount of resources they could reasonably use due to abundance, then whats the point of being the equivalent of today's billionaire? I'm not saying all economic models will definitely break down, merely that a post scarcity economy is operating outside the bounds of what all current economic models are built to represent, and the results will be wildly unpredictable, at least for us. | ||
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Chaosvuistje
Netherlands2581 Posts
On May 07 2012 15:53 xeo1 wrote: human nature: We are not born with greed, envy, hatred or bigotry. Our behavior and values are reflective of the culture we are exposed to. incentive: Motivation and incentive exist when people have meaningful tasks. True growth and development occur when people are involved in creative, challenging, and constructing endeavors. However, motivation and incentive die in the daily ground of boring and repetitive jobs required to earn a paycheck. Sad to see poll results. I am waiting for the day people realize profit cannot dictate the world, hopefully won't be too late. Look, kid. I agree with some of the points you bring up. Motivation based on mastery, wanting to belong work a lot better than monetary incitives. If your poll was based on individual ideas, I'm pretty sure I would vote in favour of some of them. The idea as a whole does not hold up. The only thing destroying money would do now is the collapse of the banking and money based systems, soon followed by the collapse of other industries as people freeload. This society cannot hold up in the current enviroment. That's why people have voted against it. Even if we take resources out of the equation and focus only on the people, they have grown up with 'envy, greed and hatred'. How do you plan on dealing with those in 'the large transition'? Policing their every move? Having large believer mobs crunch out their malicious thoughts? They have tried those ideas in a lot of countries and none of them actually achieved their goal of having a single opinion among the people. If you plan to ignore them how do you plan to stop those people from destroying your society in war or hogging resources? You can't really believe that just because everything is free that everyone will share or not own things. I would've invoked Godwins Law, but this topic has brought up other topics in this thread that I do like to follow, namely from the people with actual semi-realistic plans ( those anarcho-communist guys ). | ||
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BluePanther
United States2776 Posts
On May 07 2012 16:38 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote: I didn't say it would be incompatible, just answering your question of what the endgame would be. That is the logical 'endgame' for what human economy would strive for, where everything is basically so abundant, where people's basic needs are so easily looked after that they would only be doing any meaningful amount of work to pursue their interests. All economic models are based, somewhere down the line, on a scarcity of resources. Since all human economies have been based as such. So if we should ever reach a post scarcity economy, who knows if our model still holds true? Imagine this: We have access to so much resources and automation, that individually we can do basically do anything we want(ok it's unrealistic, I'm sure we could find hobbies that wasted enough resources to not be viable if we tried). Then what is the point of our current model of currency or ownership? If someone who owned basically nothing could still access any amount of resources they could reasonably use due to abundance, then whats the point of being the equivalent of today's billionaire? I'm not saying all economic models will definitely break down, merely that a post scarcity economy is operating outside the bounds of what all current economic models are built to represent, and the results will be wildly unpredictable, at least for us. But it's still the same system... | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
A lot of this depends on things like 3d printing, biotech etc. and how that develops. Intellectual property rights can't be enforced, I don't think, without unacceptable social consequences, and so these developments, or things like them, will pose a serious threat to consumer capitalism. I think cultural changes may have an important effect as well. edit: the most critical point in the present is that we need to fix our educational system in a bad way. | ||
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1338 Posts
I'm saying we don't know what the system would be. In my example I'm merely pointing out our current model of the system becomes rather meaningless since there's no point accruing currency as it won't increase your quality of life or make you financially more secure. Assuming that the system does actually break down, then I'm sure we would be smart enough to use a different system. I'm not proposing an alternate system, just saying that it is possible that our current model can completely break down due to large changes brought about by abundance. In which case it wouldn't be the same system, since the system we have might very well not be meaningful, and therefore not useful. | ||
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