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On January 08 2020 03:21 RenSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2020 03:06 Nebuchad wrote:On January 08 2020 02:59 RenSC2 wrote:On January 08 2020 02:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 08 2020 02:13 RenSC2 wrote:On January 08 2020 01:35 Nebuchad wrote:On January 08 2020 00:42 RenSC2 wrote:
I'll defend capitalism.
Let's start with a true story. Many years ago, my father ran the IT department for a company. After the fall of the USSR, the company brought in some Russian immigrants to work in his IT department. My father found out they were stealing from the company and wanted to fire them. His boss, the owner (and founder) of the company instead said something like, "They're not bad, they're ignorant. They grew up in socialism and the only way to get ahead in socialism is to steal. We'll work with them." The owner, a true self-made billionaire with Russian ancestry, felt pity for them and wanted to help them. He recognized that the methods of getting ahead in socialism are corruption and theft. If you can re-educate people to teach them that in capitalism you can get ahead through hard work, then you can end up with some good employees and those employees can end up with a better life than they'd ever have under socialism.
People want to get ahead. I'm going to take that as a self-evident truth. In socialism, the outlet for that desire is loyalty to the system (like KGB members getting ahead, hello Mr. Putin) or to outright steal. Ethics and morals be damned. Capitalism directs that desire into something much healthier. It directs it into innovation and hard work. Yes, theft can get you ahead in capitalism too, but at least there it's not the only way.
Capitalism is essentially a force of nature. If you can accept that people can own things (which is not unique to capitalism), then capitalism is a natural extension of that ownership: you can use what you own to make money. You can use your own labor to make money. You can use the piece of land you own to make money. You can use the factory on the land to make money. You can use the money to make money.
Anything else is either saying that people can't own things or is trying to cut people off from the nature of ownership.
Having said that, unrestrained capitalism is not good. The government is supposed to be the check on capitalism to keep its excesses in check. The government is the part where society gets to vote and say, "hey, you have too much". Unfortunately, some of the people who should be educating society on a better form of capitalism have instead decided that the bankruptcy of socialism is better. We've seen socialism, it isn't a new idea, every implementation the world has seen stinks.
If instead, you worked to curb the excesses of capitalism through educating the population, then you'd have more success and end up with a better system. For starters, teach people that taxes aren't all bad. The inheritance tax should be high. If it's a 90% tax over 100 million (or pick your number), then you can prevent infinite generational wealth while still allowing a parent to set up their children for life. You also de-incentivize excess wealth because you'll never get to use it (currently true) and 90% of it will go back to the government anyways (not currently true). Right now, a large portion of people who will never be effected by the inheritance tax voted to get rid of it (part of the Republican platform).
If you also used the government to force people to pay for their ecological destruction, then you'd get different calculus on various capitalistic endeavors. Things like a carbon tax could greatly change society for the better by making some activities unprofitable. However, again, we've been conditioned to think taxes = bad. Fight that fight and the environment has a chance. Pretending that socialism has answers when it has never had any answer for the environment before seems quite dubious.
Finally, there are some areas where socialism can be used in a capitalistic society. I look to socialism to set a floor. Everyone deserves the law, so police and the courts should be socialized (they already are, socialists love the socialized police force /s). Everyone deserves basic health protection so the fire departments and healthcare should be socialized (fire usually is, healthcare not really... an area where I'd love to see universal healthcare). Everyone deserves a basic education so we have public schools and libraries (although I'm not a fan of free college, I think that's past the limit of basic education).
In my ideal society, government sets the floor through socialism and curbs the excess through taxes (which also pay for the socialism); however, we allows capitalism to work in the middle. Many European countries are headed in that direction. The US has a reasonable structure to move in that direction, but it takes people pushing for it, rather than trying to throw the whole thing out and implement something that has never worked before in some magical undefined new way.
I like your anecdote a lot. It shows that in socialism, the people who want to get ahead of others in undue ways had to resort to covert methods, like corruption and theft. Under capitalism, your father saw these corrupt methods and reacted with a sense of injustice. It is unfair that these people are trying to get ahead in undue ways. Your father's boss, being a parasite that feeds off of his workers, understood and sympathized with the willingness of these people to get ahead at the expense of others, and so he showed them the legal ways of doing that (it's not "hard work", I don't know if I have to get into that). You can say "people want to get ahead" if you want, but it's not indicative of what we should do about it. People want to have sex with the people who they are attracted to, doesn't mean laws shouldn't be concerned with whether they have the consent of these people. People want to get ahead in sports, doesn't mean laws against doping are counterintuitive. People want to get more power in politics, doesn't mean authoritarianism is awesome. In fact, it is the very fact that people want those types of things that makes it necessary that our system tries and prevents them from achieving that. We need to dig a little deeper than just what human instincts are, we need to determine if that human instinct is something that we want our society built around or not. The first thing to realize is that capitalism doesn't reward "people" for wanting to improve their conditions, it rewards "me" for wanting to improve "my" condition. In order to function capitalism requires a majority of individuals to be in the lower class and stepped on by others. We can see that you understand that at least subconsciously since you said "get ahead", which implies that there are other individuals that are behind you rather than just all individuals moving forward and fulfilling their potential. So the society that you create isn't good for "people", it's good for "the specific people that are winning at society". Such is the way of competition. Capitalism is most definitely not a force of nature. It literally doesn't exist in nature, it is purely a human construct. Fascism is also a human construct, and socialism is also a human construct. "People can't own things" is too restrictive a description. You can't own things if you plan on using these things to make money off of other people just for owning them. If you have a toothbrush and you own that, it's not exactly the same as being a CEO or a landlord. The issue I have with your vision is that it still kind of says that capitalism is bad. It states that we need the government to bring some good regulation in order to limit its excesses, but I'm not seeing what it is exactly about capitalism that justifies that we keep it and regulate it, instead of just figuring out better systems. When it comes to that, you just reverted back to "we tried some other things and they were bad", and "it's a force of nature". Neither are convincing arguments. And you miss the obvious. If the CEO didn't create the company, thousands of people don't have jobs or they have jobs at worse companies. To call him a parasite seems very wrong. He used his hard work (started with 1 store) and out competed a lot of competition to become a billionaire. He created opportunity for people. People wanted to work for him. That doesn't sound like a parasite. The other obvious thing that you missed is the amount of wealth in capitalist societies. Socialism seems to breed poverty. Capitalism has often bred wealth. America's poor are often fat. They live a wealthier life than the a large number of people in socialist countries (enjoy the Maduro diet, etc). Capitalism may be about each person striving for themselves (although I'd also argue for their families/friends as well), but the opportunity is open to everyone. So in actuality, huge swathes of people "get ahead" and society as a whole gets richer through more innovation and productivity. Directing human nature in a healthy way is much better than trying to deny it. So yes, you need laws directing nature, but you don't try to cut off nature. To use your example, men want to have sex with attractive women. There is no law saying that men can't have sex. Instead, there are laws that require consent, and to get consent men have to make themselves attractive in some way. The laws around sex direct men to be better versions of themselves and improve society. Much like Capitalism directs greed into a richer society. As for your toothbrush, in your system, I can own my own toothbrush. Cool. But I can't lend it out to someone else for something in return? Okay, gross in this case, but why not? Who distributes the toothbrushes if I cannot? The government? Who makes the toothbrushes? The government? And why would they do that? Profit. Control. Socialism creates centralized power at the expense of the people. In capitalism, the power is distributed between anyone who owns things and ownership starts with your own time and effort (assuming the abolition of actual slavery). For the last bit, I am saying that you don't have any solutions. You sit on the sideline and provide nothing except criticism. My system actually seems to work in the real world. It's only true that they would have at to work at worse places with worse bosses if you assume capitalism as a premise. Which, again, isn't a defense. I don't agree that it seems wrong to call him a parasite, the way he makes money is that people create value in his enterprise through their labor and he gets some of the profits not because of his personal level of hard work but because he owns it. Socialism doesn't "seem to breed poverty", socialism tends to emerge in societies that are poorer, often due to being at the wrong end of international capitalism. Some of the societies that underwent socialism saw a large improvement in their wealth and their overall level of society, Burkina Faso and Bolivia being the biggest examples I believe. I believe you can make a similar argument even with the USSR but I'm not interested in doing that since I don't like the USSR very much. You did nothing to demonstrate that we are directing greed in a healthy way, you just said that it was human nature. In my system the people who make the toothbrushes are the people who work in toothbrush factories (lol, I don't know), they just happen to own their own factory through workplace democracy, and therefore they get the full value of their labor instead of having a capitalist feed off of them. Again we're attacking other systems rather than defending capitalism though, I hope nobody is surprised  Nobody is surprised that you can't defend socialism. Who builds the toothbrush factory? In a society without ownership, who has the capital to build a toothbrush factory in the first place? Does socialism only work if you take over a capitalist society first? And then it slowly fades away and society breaks down as the old capitalist structures break down? Hello Venezuela. In practical socialism, the government ends up making all the decisions like that because they are the only ones who have the power. The factory workers become slave laborers at the government's will. Those that refuse will end up in the gulags or with a bullet in the head. In capitalism, a capitalist sees the opportunity and builds the factory. Then the workers give their labor in exchange for the opportunity created by the capitalist and make some money off of it. It's a symbiotic relationship, not parasitic. If the worker is smart, he saves up a bit and enjoys some of the greater benefits of capitalism as well. It's a highly functional system. Marx certainly believed that we needed capitalism first in order to have better things next, yeah. Also, who cares? We do have a capitalist society to take over, it's not a problem if we need it. Why do the societal structures break down if workers own their labor instead of a boss? What has Venezuela got to do with anything? Did Venezuela get rid of its owner class while I wasn't looking? So socialism only works if it takes over a capitalist society. Yet a capitalist society can spring up from a guy grabbing some rocks out of the ground and trading them for someone else's property. Let's get back to it. The socialists take over the toothbrush factory that the capitalists built. It works for awhile. Hurrah. Then the machines start wearing down over time. Who pays to replace the large machinery? The workers who have no capital? No, you need a new capitalist to come in and pay for that new machinery. Except, nobody has an incentive to do so because they can't profit off it in a socialist society. Perhaps the government steps in, except now it has control. The laborers only work if the government says so. People only get toothbrushes if the government says so. In capitalism, when the machines break down, the capitalist who has been accumulating capital can put some of that capital back into the machinery (or get a loan if he didn't save up enough) and the laborers don't need to worry about their jobs. People can buy a toothbrush in a free market that keeps the price low. Seems a hell of a lot better than the alternative. Venezuela is relevant because is had a socialist takeover. It had a profitable Oil Industry built by capitalism, the socialists took it over and used its profits for awhile to benefit the people a little and the politicians a lot. Then the industry started to break down. Now the people are starving. I guess you don't defend Venezuelan socialism like GH has?
I won't comment on Venezuela as I don't know that much about what has been happenig there in the last decade (apart from the broadest picture), I will however comment on your perception of socialism. You ask, who will pay for machines? I'd imagine that in a truly socialist society, the need for replacements would be recognized and another factory would be commisioned to manufacture necessary machines, so that the society can continue to enjoy brushing their teeth. Why do you assume that a true socialist society would be impotent and incompetent without the guiding light of capitalists? Obviously there would be people or bodies who organize such things, socialism doesn't necessarily means that there is no government (unless we're talking about e.g. Bakunin's anarchist version of socialist/collectivist theory). Communism, and by extension socialism in essence means that in a society, everyone enjoys the fruits of labour, but also has a duty to take part in the production of these fruits to the best of their ability. This means that just as the toothbrush factory provides brushes for everyone, everyone have a responsibility to make sure the toothbrush factory can continue functioning.
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@GH The exercise is to define good without being able to use the word bad. To define light without using darkness. Cold without hot, etc. Capitalism is good because it is proven to work. It is proven to benefit society as a whole through greater wealth for all.
However, the word "greater" is relative to something else. "Benefit" is only compared to something else. Even "proven to work" is compared to something else. Do you see why the exercise is stupid without being able to compare?
@Stratos_speAr
Yes, every socialist society eventually ends up like the USSR. That is the endgame of socialism, I'll address it more later in this post. Capitalism ends up with monopolies without government interference, which is why I advocate for restrained capitalism.
"3) You assume that the ownership class got their money and resources from hard work. This is very rarely true. The majority got it through crimes, exploitation, inheritance, and favors given due to their race, sex, or nepotism."
That's a very jaded view that does not mesh with my reality. I vaguely know 2 billionaires. One I mentioned, and another who sold his .com business during the boom. Both came from the middle class. Both had good ideas and then put a ton of work into it (the one I mentioned more so than the other one). Both live good lives and take care of their families. Neither one would be a criminal (unless you want to criminalize using other people's labor like a socialist might).
@GH again
2. Socialism doesn't criminalize workers keeping capital for repair and replacement of equipment. It prevents one asshole "owner" from deciding he's just going to liquidate the factory and buy a yacht with his workers pensions when shit breaks.
So socialism doesn't criminalize capitalism? So what you really want is capitalism, just not quite so much? You want people to have capital, just only the exact amount they need for what you deem to be an acceptable life. And of course that means saving enough for capital repair rather than buying a boat. And of course we trust those workers to be responsible with their money and would never buy a boat when they need to save that money for a repair. And of course, the responsible people will have to pay for the repair and won't benefit any extra from being responsible while the irresponsible people will have a boat.
@Nebuchad
Who gives the worker a loan? Certainly not a capitalist because those don't exist. So who has money to give out the loan? The government. So socialism slowly plods its way towards USSR style.
@PoulsenB
And who is it that directs everyone to work together? "People or bodies who organize such things", you mean the government?
"Everyone enjoys the fruits of labour, but also has a duty to take part in the production of these fruits." Who enforces that? That's right. The government. Gulags and bullets.
@Stratos_SpeAr
"2) You state that people become "slaves to the government's will" in socialism. What is the meaningful difference between being a slave to a socialist government and being a slave to capitalist corporations?"
Capitalist corporations have to compete for your labor. Socialist government controls all.
Do you guys see why socialism is ridiculous yet? If we start with something that works, like capitalism, then we can tinker with it and create a better society. My first post in this series of posts started from that point, pointed out some pitfalls of capitalism and some simple ways to address them.
The Wright Brothers started with Bicycles because they worked. They didn't start from nothing.
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On January 08 2020 04:07 RenSC2 wrote:@GH The exercise is to define good without being able to use the word bad. To define light without using darkness. Cold without hot, etc. Capitalism is good because it is proven to work. It is proven to benefit society as a whole through greater wealth for all. However, the word "greater" is relative to something else. "Benefit" is only compared to something else. Even "proven to work" is compared to something else. Do you see why the exercise is stupid without being able to compare? @Stratos_speAr Yes, every socialist society eventually ends up like the USSR. That is the endgame of socialism, I'll address it more later in this post. Capitalism ends up with monopolies without government interference, which is why I advocate for restrained capitalism. "3) You assume that the ownership class got their money and resources from hard work. This is very rarely true. The majority got it through crimes, exploitation, inheritance, and favors given due to their race, sex, or nepotism." That's a very jaded view that does not mesh with my reality. I vaguely know 2 billionaires. One I mentioned, and another who sold his .com business during the boom. Both came from the middle class. Both had good ideas and then put a ton of work into it (the one I mentioned more so than the other one). Both live good lives and take care of their families. Neither one would be a criminal (unless you want to criminalize using other people's labor like a socialist might). @GH again Show nested quote +2. Socialism doesn't criminalize workers keeping capital for repair and replacement of equipment. It prevents one asshole "owner" from deciding he's just going to liquidate the factory and buy a yacht with his workers pensions when shit breaks. So socialism doesn't criminalize capitalism? So what you really want is capitalism, just not quite so much? You want people to have capital, just only the exact amount they need for what you deem to be an acceptable life. And of course that means saving enough for capital repair rather than buying a boat. And of course we trust those workers to be responsible with their money and would never buy a boat when they need to save that money for a repair. And of course, the responsible people will have to pay for the repair and won't benefit any extra from being responsible while the irresponsible people will have a boat. @Nebuchad Who gives the worker a loan? Certainly not a capitalist because those don't exist. So who has money to give out the loan? The government. So socialism slowly plods its way towards USSR style. @PoulsenB And who is it that directs everyone to work together? "People or bodies who organize such things", you mean the government? "Everyone enjoys the fruits of labour, but also has a duty to take part in the production of these fruits." Who enforces that? That's right. The government. Gulags and bullets. @Stratos_SpeAr "2) You state that people become "slaves to the government's will" in socialism. What is the meaningful difference between being a slave to a socialist government and being a slave to capitalist corporations?" Capitalist corporations have to compete for your labor. Socialist government controls all. Do you guys see why socialism is ridiculous yet? If we start with something that works, like capitalism, then we can tinker with it and create a better society. My first post in this series of posts started from that point, pointed out some pitfalls of capitalism and some simple ways to address them. The Wright Brothers started with Bicycles because they worked. They didn't start from nothing.
I think it's clear you didn't engage in the exercise of defending capitalism on its own merits.
I can't really speak much more than that to your grasp of socialism, or capitalism for that matter.
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To say that socialism is darkness doesn't show that capitalism is light. Several things can be darkness. As I argued at the start, my impression is that people who defend capitalism have a lot of issues showing that it's light, so instead they argue that some other things are darkness and then they convince themselves that this shows that capitalism is light. It doesn't. Your overall performance has done little to dissuade me from that impression.
As to your answer to me, well loans are usually given by banks. We can discuss if banks should be nationalized or not, I think what they've done in the last financial crisis shows that there is merit to this idea but ymmv. Either way, it doesn't follow that you're therefore dependant on "the government".
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On January 08 2020 04:07 RenSC2 wrote:@GH The exercise is to define good without being able to use the word bad. To define light without using darkness. Cold without hot, etc. Capitalism is good because it is proven to work. It is proven to benefit society as a whole through greater wealth for all. However, the word "greater" is relative to something else. "Benefit" is only compared to something else. Even "proven to work" is compared to something else. Do you see why the exercise is stupid without being able to compare? @Stratos_speAr Yes, every socialist society eventually ends up like the USSR. That is the endgame of socialism, I'll address it more later in this post. Capitalism ends up with monopolies without government interference, which is why I advocate for restrained capitalism. "3) You assume that the ownership class got their money and resources from hard work. This is very rarely true. The majority got it through crimes, exploitation, inheritance, and favors given due to their race, sex, or nepotism." That's a very jaded view that does not mesh with my reality. I vaguely know 2 billionaires. One I mentioned, and another who sold his .com business during the boom. Both came from the middle class. Both had good ideas and then put a ton of work into it (the one I mentioned more so than the other one). Both live good lives and take care of their families. Neither one would be a criminal (unless you want to criminalize using other people's labor like a socialist might). @GH again Show nested quote +2. Socialism doesn't criminalize workers keeping capital for repair and replacement of equipment. It prevents one asshole "owner" from deciding he's just going to liquidate the factory and buy a yacht with his workers pensions when shit breaks. So socialism doesn't criminalize capitalism? So what you really want is capitalism, just not quite so much? You want people to have capital, just only the exact amount they need for what you deem to be an acceptable life. And of course that means saving enough for capital repair rather than buying a boat. And of course we trust those workers to be responsible with their money and would never buy a boat when they need to save that money for a repair. And of course, the responsible people will have to pay for the repair and won't benefit any extra from being responsible while the irresponsible people will have a boat. @Nebuchad Who gives the worker a loan? Certainly not a capitalist because those don't exist. So who has money to give out the loan? The government. So socialism slowly plods its way towards USSR style. @PoulsenB
And who is it that directs everyone to work together? "People or bodies who organize such things", you mean the government?
"Everyone enjoys the fruits of labour, but also has a duty to take part in the production of these fruits." Who enforces that? That's right. The government. Gulags and bullets.@Stratos_SpeAr "2) You state that people become "slaves to the government's will" in socialism. What is the meaningful difference between being a slave to a socialist government and being a slave to capitalist corporations?" Capitalist corporations have to compete for your labor. Socialist government controls all. Do you guys see why socialism is ridiculous yet? If we start with something that works, like capitalism, then we can tinker with it and create a better society. My first post in this series of posts started from that point, pointed out some pitfalls of capitalism and some simple ways to address them. The Wright Brothers started with Bicycles because they worked. They didn't start from nothing.
Work can be directed for example by worker councils or specialists elected by them to run things based on their expertise. And overall, in a true socialist society, everyone would subscribe to a social contract that shared production and enjoyment of fruits of labour is the main goal of that society. It doesn't necessarily entail everything immediately devolving into centrally planned economy, gulags and brutal opression. You sound like you think that the only possible version of "socialism" is the USSR-style single-party totalitarianism. If that's the case then further discussion is pointless.
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On January 08 2020 05:19 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2020 05:09 PoulsenB wrote:On January 08 2020 04:07 RenSC2 wrote:@GH The exercise is to define good without being able to use the word bad. To define light without using darkness. Cold without hot, etc. Capitalism is good because it is proven to work. It is proven to benefit society as a whole through greater wealth for all. However, the word "greater" is relative to something else. "Benefit" is only compared to something else. Even "proven to work" is compared to something else. Do you see why the exercise is stupid without being able to compare? @Stratos_speAr Yes, every socialist society eventually ends up like the USSR. That is the endgame of socialism, I'll address it more later in this post. Capitalism ends up with monopolies without government interference, which is why I advocate for restrained capitalism. "3) You assume that the ownership class got their money and resources from hard work. This is very rarely true. The majority got it through crimes, exploitation, inheritance, and favors given due to their race, sex, or nepotism." That's a very jaded view that does not mesh with my reality. I vaguely know 2 billionaires. One I mentioned, and another who sold his .com business during the boom. Both came from the middle class. Both had good ideas and then put a ton of work into it (the one I mentioned more so than the other one). Both live good lives and take care of their families. Neither one would be a criminal (unless you want to criminalize using other people's labor like a socialist might). @GH again 2. Socialism doesn't criminalize workers keeping capital for repair and replacement of equipment. It prevents one asshole "owner" from deciding he's just going to liquidate the factory and buy a yacht with his workers pensions when shit breaks. So socialism doesn't criminalize capitalism? So what you really want is capitalism, just not quite so much? You want people to have capital, just only the exact amount they need for what you deem to be an acceptable life. And of course that means saving enough for capital repair rather than buying a boat. And of course we trust those workers to be responsible with their money and would never buy a boat when they need to save that money for a repair. And of course, the responsible people will have to pay for the repair and won't benefit any extra from being responsible while the irresponsible people will have a boat. @Nebuchad Who gives the worker a loan? Certainly not a capitalist because those don't exist. So who has money to give out the loan? The government. So socialism slowly plods its way towards USSR style. @PoulsenB
And who is it that directs everyone to work together? "People or bodies who organize such things", you mean the government?
"Everyone enjoys the fruits of labour, but also has a duty to take part in the production of these fruits." Who enforces that? That's right. The government. Gulags and bullets.@Stratos_SpeAr "2) You state that people become "slaves to the government's will" in socialism. What is the meaningful difference between being a slave to a socialist government and being a slave to capitalist corporations?" Capitalist corporations have to compete for your labor. Socialist government controls all. Do you guys see why socialism is ridiculous yet? If we start with something that works, like capitalism, then we can tinker with it and create a better society. My first post in this series of posts started from that point, pointed out some pitfalls of capitalism and some simple ways to address them. The Wright Brothers started with Bicycles because they worked. They didn't start from nothing. Work can be directed for example by worker councils or specialists elected by them to run things based on their expertise. And overall, in a true socialist society, everyone would subscribe to a social contract that shared production and enjoyment of fruits of labour is the main goal of that society. It doesn't necessarily entail everything immediately devolving into centrally planned economy, gulags and brutal opression. You sound like you think that the only possible version of "socialism" is the USSR-style single-party totalitarianism. If that's the case then further discussion is pointless. People's main issue with socialism is how do you obtain a "true socialist society"? Everywhere it has been tried individuals do not subscribe to that social contract. They see others getting ahead and try to get their own and it breeds corruption. That is really the rub, if that could be solved I don't think many, out side of those who are currently way ahead in this system, would oppose it.
I agree that this is the main hurdle, and I don't know what the solution is. Perhaps it is impossible to achieve at all and the best we can hope for is humane, regulated capitalism with a strong welfare state.
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The problem from a human side is more or less genetics, because we have individuals that are driven by competition, or by standing high in the hierarchy. It's these people that will get to the top eventually and dictate things and people will follow them because they're so charismatic, persuasive, talented, ...
The problem from a capitalistic side is many of these people have built empires that are above the law. They're not inherently evil, but legislation always lags behind innovation. When you bring in innovative financial institution and tech, you'll get into trouble, because that involves money/resources and that's so inextricably tied to everything you can do as a human in society.
Intelligent, industrious and conscientiousness people will find ways to oppose a system that opposes giving them platforms.
If you add some factor of risk taking or careful/thoughtful risk taking in there and you have recipe for an emperor.
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On January 08 2020 05:51 Uldridge wrote:
The problem from a human side is more or less genetics, because we have individuals that are driven by competition, or by standing high in the hierarchy. It's these people that will get to the top eventually and dictate things and people will follow them because they're so charismatic, persuasive, talented, ...
The problem from a capitalistic side is many of these people have built empires that are above the law. They're not inherently evil, but legislation always lags behind innovation. When you bring in innovative financial institution and tech, you'll get into trouble, because that involves money/resources and that's so inextricably tied to everything you can do as a human in society.
Intelligent, industrious and conscientiousness people will find ways to oppose a system that opposes giving them platforms.
If you add some factor of risk taking or careful/thoughtful risk taking in there and you have recipe for an emperor.
It makes perfect sense for capitalism to end up with this problem, as that clearly maximizes the profits of the capitalist class. If you don't try and build a monopoly and you don't try and influence the law so that you get to be above it, you are going against your own interests. Competition is also against your interests, as it creates the possibility that you will lose your standing. From the perspective of the person trying to get ahead, rather than concerned with the well-being of society, that we've depicted so far, there's no reason not to want all of this.
This is why I see neoliberalism as a logical consequence of the framework of capitalism, and not some aberration that we're going to just eliminate by going back to social democracy and never thinking about it again. This is also why I believe there is a tension between democracy and capitalism, as oligarchy would be a much more suitable form of government for this vision of society.
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I'm not going to discuss this with you Jimmi, I thought I was being clear but apparently I need to state it.
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Another great and nuanced discussion about a totally undefined notion of "socialism" versus a just as undefined "capitalism". It's only the 200th time on this thread. Nevermind that for some people here, socialism is some badly digested notions of marxism that are gonna save us all, for some others it's Venezuela and for some others it's Denmark. Oh and that capitalism covers a spectrum going from Ayn Rand to Norway in the 80s.
We are not here to talk about the real world anyway, it would be tiring 
On January 07 2020 03:38 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2020 02:57 Erasme wrote:
This is a typical issue with americans, you hate the word "socialism" even though the definition is quite broad. If you link bernie sanders to stalin because they're both "socialist" then you're an idiot Politics is overall very simple, but a lot of people have had a vested interest in making it appear more complex for a lot of centuries, so it's easy to lose yourself in the conflicting information that's floating around; that's what it's there for.
Politics is overall very complicated, but a lot of people have had a vested interest in making it appear more simple for a lot of centuries, so it's easy to just get people fired up for empty theory detached from all reality.
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Canada5565 Posts
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CNN settling doesn’t actually mean any of that, but it’s nice that you feel vindicated.
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On January 08 2020 07:31 Biff The Understudy wrote:Another great and nuanced discussion about a totally undefined notion of "socialism" versus a just as undefined "capitalism". It's only the 200th time on this thread. Nevermind that for some people here, socialism is some badly digested notions of marxism that are gonna save us all, for some others it's Venezuela and for some others it's Denmark. Oh and that capitalism covers a spectrum going from Ayn Rand to Norway in the 80s. We are not here to talk about the real world anyway, it would be tiring Show nested quote +On January 07 2020 03:38 Nebuchad wrote:On January 07 2020 02:57 Erasme wrote:
This is a typical issue with americans, you hate the word "socialism" even though the definition is quite broad. If you link bernie sanders to stalin because they're both "socialist" then you're an idiot Politics is overall very simple, but a lot of people have had a vested interest in making it appear more complex for a lot of centuries, so it's easy to lose yourself in the conflicting information that's floating around; that's what it's there for. Politics is overall very complicated, but a lot of people have had a vested interest in making it appear more simple for a lot of centuries, so it's easy to just get people fired up for empty theory detached from all reality.
It's funny that you coupled those two answers. One of the major ways in which Politics was made more complicated was in introducing more parameters, like different definitions for the same terms, to ensure that people don't immediately know what they're talking about and have different associations for certain words. What you complain about in the first part is what you negate the existence of in the second part. But perhaps we shouldn't bicker about this, I don't know.
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EPT
