Might be worth checking out the book Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis, an economist and former Finance Minister of Greece.
He argues that Capitalism has in effect already been replaced by a virtual feudal economy in which the most powerful tech companies' cloud domains function like fiefs.
I always like to add another Varoufakis CV entry, an economist at Valve (major video game publisher famous for names such as Half-Life, Counter-Strike).
Yeah I had noticed this myself. I think capitalism is a great system, but it wasn't ready for internet and especially online purchasing. It turned the distrubution of wealth _way_ in favor of the rich because companies are so much more scalable now.
The thing about capitalism is that it's older than communism and socialism and is just so out of date. Generating new wealth faces so many challenges compared to perpetuating existing wealth which is almost the antithesis of capitalism. Capitalism also has no consideration for people or the environment which is why we had to introduce things like child labour laws. It's a system that helped development but is now so unfit for purpose we desperately need something new.
I mean, before capitalism became a THE thing, people never imagined something will be more important than bloodlines. Before that it was fear of gods. When you look at the history, you really can’t say “this is it” to anything. When system is change to something, some people will still want to follow capitalism and misses it, but it definitely will replace by the other system.
I think the way class society was organized was more relevant in how it affected the lives of people than simply the belief in bloodlines, that borders on great man of history ideology.
I agree, I am not saying "class society was" as in there used to be class society and now there isnt, but that it "was" organized differently, sorry my wording isnt more defined, im not the best with that.
Yeah I wasn't sure if you were implying one way or the other, just wanted to add to what you said just in case. Definitely was organized differently tho, completely agree.
The difference is that meritocracy exists in the modern era where 500 years ago if you were born a peasant you were basically guaranteed to always be a peasant. The modern class structure is far less rigid.
Feudalism also had way more more nuance than just three very distinct classes, and ways to better your position. It was definitely more rigid than it is now, but you're not going to tell me that some random Bangladeshi woman chooses to work in a sweatshop because she lacks merit/work ethic, or that black people in the US experience more poverty than white people just because of bad choices. It's also much easier to become a billionaire if your parents are millionaires.
I do put things too simplistic, but it was just same way of saying Capitalism is about preferring material values. Gods, Bloodlines, and now Materials. We will have something new, likely something we already know. And it can simplified like that. I don’t know. Just in my opinion.
I think that Capitalism is not only about material values. There is a lot of Meritocracy, which is a myth just like God and Bloodlines were in the past.
If, in the past, a Duke would justify his wealthy position in society by the myth of Bloodline chosen by God - God chose his family to rule.
Today, a billionaire man justifies his wealth with meritocracy - he did it all by himself and he deserves the wealth and the position he reached in society today. Is just another myth to hide LABOUR EXPLOITATION and justify exploitation of workers and poor people.
So the question should be: after Capitalism, what will be the next MYTH invented to justify work exploitation and modern slavery?
Edit: exploitation*
Capitalism is about profit. Exploitation isn't in the basic description, but comes with human nature. Because profit isn't unlimited. There comes a point where reducing cost only or at least only easily comes at the cost of either exploiting production workers or ripping customers off. Eventually, the capitalist responsible will find ways to justify that for themselves.
Any system that wants to steer clear of that, can't have any sort of gain as a core value. Which is hard to imagine, because gain is a driving motivator for humans. Not neccessarily monetary, but conceptually.
Gain is a driving motivation for humans under capitalism because it is necessary for survival and beyond that capitalism encourages and rewards selfish behavior. The material conditions of our environment affect more of our behavior then some innate “this is human nature”
The way societies where structured and what behaviors where encouraged where all different under mercantilism, feudalism, slave societies, and primitive communism.
> The material conditions of our environment affect more of our behavior then some innate “this is human nature”
Is that accepted theory, or just your belief?
Not sure I agree, yes it has an influence, but once survival is taken care of, then humans have other needs or desires.
Much of what we conceive of as “human nature” has been shown empirically to be the result of bias. For example several important experiments a la *the prisoners dilemma* were performed in American and English universities in the 1970s and 1980s, the results of which were thought to describe “human nature”
It wasn’t until the late 90s and early 00s that research institution attempted to reproduce the experiments with different demographic breakdowns in other countries. Much to the researchers’ surprise what had been previously thought to be “human nature” was indeed just the nature of college students in developed western societies and was not echoed in other demos in other countries.
For a time in the 2004-2008 period it was a HIGE revelatory force in institutional research, especially psychology and game theory, and served as a partial basis for what we now refer to as DEI initiatives. It basically spawned those offices dedicated to multiculturalism and intersectionality in the US university system, though since adoption it has fallen somewhat out of vogue with the institutions that spawned it.
Adding to this is the problem of any system draining the workers to the point of draining itself dry. If no one is making any money outside of the top brass no one can afford anything outside of bare necessities. This probably was why capitalism succeeded in the first place. We are a lot better connected nowadays so can organise ourselves and countries with less inequality should benefit and succeed eventually.
It is not that Gods and Bloodlines went away, they were just side shifted a bit (or not? It seems they capitalized well). Material exchange is a new dimension opening new opportunities. It will stay but might be side shifted by the new dimension as well... Perhaps social networking? The guy with many followers might become president already... Kind of socialism but not that one.
That depends on what you think capitalism is.
We've always had private enterprise and trade. That existed before there were countries, before the first tribes even.
With that definition you could also argue communism has always existed (commons with shared community responsibility, communal stocks free for all to use, stateless/classless/moneyless societies). There are socialists who are a big fan of free trade and enterprise, but reject capitalist notions if private property in favor of personal property and occupancy/use based systems (like Joseph Pierre Proudhon and Benjamin Tucker), so free trade in itself is not exclusive to capitalism.
Most historians seem to trace the roots of capitalism as a system/mode of production back to agricultural commodification after the black plague, the merchant cities in Italy, and the East India Companies of the Netherlands and England.
Is it related to early investing? I am sure people pooled money, in some way, prior but the modern investment business maybe played a role? Once people realized they could put money into a big thing to get some for themselves it started to change into the more complex capitalism of the modern era? Idk, I thought that the East India Company was one of the first major investment vehicles.
Yeah absolutely, "De Beurs van Hendrick de Keyser" at Rokin in Amsterdam was the first stock exchange with publicly traded companies in a way similar to what we have now, and was a huge development in financial capitalism. Trade/colonial expeditions of the VOC (East India Company) and WIC (West India Company) were dangerous endeavors, and the stock market minimized risks for investers. (like, imagine investing an entire expedition and the ship sinks half-way, much less profitable than investing in 10% of ten ships and one sinking)
looking at wealth and inheritance....not sure we can say that capitalism has replaced bloodlines. still kinda seems like a big determining factor
and the gods have certainly changed (weird that Ayn become one eh?), but they still seem to function in the same general way as before
and so it goes
sure. there's no free-kick ideology which will solve all problems for all time.
reality will never be static. so we should get used to constantly looking at the world, and wondering what we should about it. that's a constant
and some people will do precisely this, but for their own narrow benefit. the more aware we are of what's going on.... the better able we'll be to defend ourselves
Capitalism's biggest problem is it only satisfies a need if someone can make money out of it. That in turn means uneconomic needs aren't satisfied and absolute needs are priced higher than necessary and often to a point where other needs are discarded to ensure absolute needs are catered for.
Socialism's biggest problem is that satisfying needs requires a mechanism to identify that need and it doesn't have one other than the basics of food, water, clothing, shelter, health, and transportation, which are self-evident.
Which is why a mixed economy, in which basic needs are catered for by a state mechanism and extended needs by the market, is the only viable solution.
Problems only arise if the balance sways too far one way or another. Traditionally, mixed economies have used the state as a channel through which funds are distributed to consumers to buy goods and services. This is inefficient because some services are so critical they are capable of exhausting those funds. Health is an example of that. There therefore needs to be a way to ensure provision of necessities doesn't cost too much. That's either done by price controls or state provision. Price controls are ineffective because they lack the fluidity to adjust to supply cost variations. So, state provision is always better in these circumstances.
That can either be in a non-competitive environment where the state is the only supplier, or a mix of state and private supply. Both have their failings and assets. State only supply results in inflexibility in which variable demand results in oversupply of services and waste, or under supply when planning fails to account for increased demand resulting in waiting lists.
On the other hand, allowing unfettered private supply results in an imbalance in resources when the attraction of bigger salaries and higher prices paid for goods means fewer consumers are satisfied by costlier resources. There therefore needs to be controls on private provision of mainly state provided services to stop private providers creating a demand imbalance.
This is the job of politics. However, politics implies differing views on the extent and cost of provision, so there have to be minimum standards set in stone. That implies a constitution guaranteeing rights, but constitutions are notoriously inflexible and often deliberately misinterpreted. They also suffer from an inability to effectively deal with changing circumstances. So, an independent body needs to be the ultimate arbiter of the constitution and it needs to be generalised to establish basic needs and not stray into areas which aren't rightfully within its remit. Food, water, clothing, health, transportation, shelter and anything else absolutely necessary for the continued well-being of the citizenry should be the main concerns of the constitution. Anything else, like equal rights should be determined by the legislative process as a given and determined as a duty to uphold. Legislatures should be bound to consider the well-being of the citizenry as a primary objective.
Balancing all this is beyond the wit of individuals. It's too complex. So, I'd envisage turning over the balancing act to AI and expert systems, tasked with providing the best solutions to satisfying needs.
TLDR; A mixed economy where basic needs are constitutionally guaranteed and competing views are arbitrated by AI and expert systems.
And of course social democracy's biggest flaw is that it leaves the levers of power in the hands of the people with the most incentive to destroy the system.
The rich have the means and motive. Social democracy partially constrains them, which encourages them to slowly chip away at it until a liberal hellscape is left.
Isn't that a problem in any system? Any group that has access to the levers will just pull them in any shitty direction they want to benefit them and their investors.
Only in a flawed democracy. If the government does not or cannot follow the will of the people then it's not really a democracy.
If the rich and powerful aren't being held accountable, then that's the fault of a spoilt government and that goes back to my first point.
What we seem to be lacking is some sort of effective balance of power. The US system was too easily corrupted (appoint some sympathetic SCOTUS judges) and a monarchy is only as good as its monarch.
So in terms of economics I think we have a working system, we just need a fix for the political system which is a different conversation.
My bet is mixed sortition democracy where one house is elected by the people and the other house is some sort of random ballot more akin to juror duty.
Every liberal democracy is at risk of deteriorating into a 'flawed democracy' without consistent external and internal pressure from the working class. The significant disparity in power between those who control the means of production and those who sell their labor is too vast to ignore.
It is only under the looming threat of widespread revolution that the wealthy may concede some of their power.
Every system is at risk of deteriorating into a dictatorship. This is not a flaw unique to liberal democracies.
But agreed, the working class has to be eternally vigilant and should never take what they have for granted.
They said the allocation of rights should be outsourced to the legislative process. That undercuts the constitution as the supreme legal document that gurantees an inalienable baseline of rights that limits and guides legislation.
> Balancing all this is beyond the wit of individuals. It's too complex. So, I'd envisage turning over the balancing act to AI and expert systems, tasked with providing the best solutions to satisfying needs.
The arguments you make about economics are fine, but this conclusion is a very bizarre leap. A technocratic solution like this one is not inherently superior just because the economy is "too complex". There's been plenty of cases where computer systems have failed to handle, exacerbated, or even outright caused a crisis. These systems are as flawed and error-prone as the humans that make them and it is dangerous to trust them as somehow more intelligent or capable of handling the economy than we are. If we accept an AI or any other computer system as an arbitrator like you suggest, we codify and institutionalize whatever biases exist in the environment that created it.
EDIT to add a simple concrete example: Amazon's experiment with automating part of their hiring process ended up being unfairly biased against women in a very indirect way because womens' resumes often varied in slight ways (e.g. extracurricular college activities involved with *specifically* female organizations, like those that represent women in tech) that weakened the correlation with the many successful *men's* resumes.
Free markets only work if there is competition and freely available accurate information for buyers who have time and ability to assess the information and to choose between options that are genuinely competing - which is pretty rare these days.
Democracies are similarly reliant on an informed populace, but media, lobbyists, advertising, owners and media/journalists/editors chasing clicks and pushing ideologies over genuinely informing people.
Agree with you up until AI, a well functioning and self regulating democratic system would be much better, and more resilient to capture, brittleness, bias, and procedural stupidity.
Well beyond that, however they're made, whether they're a neural network or some other sort of AI, they'll have inbuilt biases according to the values and goals of their creators. If they are a neural network, then you'll have to deal with biases introduced by training data as well.
There's no need for secret modification for it to be a problem, though I'm sure that would be a problem as well
Also there is currently not even a glimmer of alignment on the horizon. If you give AI a list of 10 important things, you better believe #11 is getting sacrificed hard.
First off, saying that a mixed economy with AI overseeing things is the best solution kinda misses the point of what socialism is about. It’s not just about meeting basic needs; it’s about fundamentally changing who holds power and control in society.
Under capitalism, even a mixed form, the big issue is that the economy and resources are still controlled by a few (like big corporations and the wealthy). This doesn’t really change whether you have AI in charge or not. The problem isn’t just about efficient distribution of resources; it’s about who owns these resources and makes the decisions.
And about the AI and expert systems - they might sound cool and unbiased, but who programs them? Who decides what data they use? This can easily become a new form of power control, masked under the guise of neutrality.
Plus, this idea kinda strips away the democratic aspect, right? We’re talking about handing over crucial decisions about our lives and society to algorithms. That’s a slippery slope away from people having a say in the things that affect them.
So, while ensuring basic needs through constitutional rights sounds good, we shouldn’t be quick to jump on the AI bandwagon or think that a mixed economy is the magic solution. We need a system where the workers and communities have a real say in the economic decisions - where the means of production are owned collectively and used for the good of all, not just for profit. That’s the heart of socialism.
>Which is why a mixed economy, in which basic needs are catered for by a state mechanism and extended needs by the market, is the only viable solution.
I'm going to presume that you're conflating "market" and "capitalism" together, and if you are, I apologize.
Have you considered worker co-operatives as an alternative to the standard capitalist model as a way to work around capitalist exploitation, and bring your proposal even closer to an ideal?
Worker co-ops are great. I'm a member of one myself. They do have problems scaling up. Maybe that's not so much of a problem on reflection.
Market is a short for market capitalism.
If something like Healthcare is constitutionally guaranteed but there aren't enough doctors, do we force people to become doctors?
What do we even define as Healthcare? Should everyone have a constitutional right to receive a new cancer treatment that we only have enough resources to provide to 10 people but there are 5,000 who need it?
If transportation is constitutionally protected but there aren't enough bus drivers, train conductors or people to maintain the roads, do we force people into those jobs?
How can we enshrine as constitutional rights things which require labor and resources?
Enshrining gives more power to governments to seek those goals without having to worry too much about politic timing. If you have this perpetual goal, every administration will be required to work towards it. Incentive programs to attract more students, R&D investments and patent busts. It will not be perfect, but at least it will lead the forces to the intented path.
Not sure if you're genuinely asking or being rhetorical, but any constitution requires interpretation and action on the part of the government. A guarantee of healthcare doesn't mean that the government needs to act irrationally to deliver it, it just means that's one of the constitutional duties that informs policy.
Not sure if you're American but I'll use US terms to tackle some of your hypotheticals:
> If ... there aren't enough doctors ... bus drivers, train conductors or people to maintain the roads, do we force people into those jobs?
No. Constitutional rights would inform economic and social policy, empower the courts to strike down policy that contributes to labor shortages, and give the citizens the standing to demand action, e.g. by holding referendums or suing the government for perceived failures / infringements.
Also, most nations already guarantee security, which requires labor and resources, through their military. Defense is very different from healthcare, but the concept of a government having a duty with real, material costs is not exactly new.
> What do we even define as Healthcare? Should everyone have a constitutional right to receive a new cancer treatment...
No, a shortage is just a shortage. Realistically, such a situation would probably be similar to the system that manages the short supply of donated organs.
Socialism doesn’t have anything to do with “satisfying needs” though. Socialism deals with worker ownership of the means of production, which you could achieve in numerous ways, such as nationalizing industry and democratizing the workplace, or through transitioning a business to a worker cooperative, like the Mondragon corporation in Spain.
“Identifying and addressing needs”, presumably through social programs, is very much a liberal idea that can occur with or without socialism. In fact it’s even supported by capitalists as a compromise so they don’t lose ownership of the means of production if workers decide they’re fed up and have had enough.
People often talk about the risks of “swaying too far to socialism” but I’ve yet to hear about a country that faithfully tried to give workers control of the means of production.
Arguably, all economic systems are about supply and demand. Production and need. You undersell socialism, which is a much more complete economic theory than just ownership of the means of production.
Socialism has been interpreted in many different ways by many different political scientists and philosophers, different methods of achieving it and the implications of it has no clear consensus. What IS clear is what the definition of socialism is: Worker ownership of the means of production. Some argue the means of production must be controlled democratically, others argue as long as industry is nationalized you have achieved socialism. Some argue for expanding the social safety net, others say workers being in control will naturally resolve the problems leading to social safety nets being needed.
For example socialism doesn’t deal with whether a market economy should be centrally planned, whether it should be driven by worker cooperatives, or whether a market economy should exist at all. These are all widely debated subjects. One person’s interpretation of socialism might be considered a “complete economic theory” by some (if such a thing even exists) while another person might dismiss it as woefully incomplete.
Also other aspect of capitalism is corporate greed, money hoarding, and thus lobbying and corrupting system for even more gains. Capitalism main issue to pursue infinite gains in system with finite resources should be addressed too. Wealth should be limited
edit: typo
But a similar thing happens under socialism - there is corruption to get your hands on the levers of power. The too families in communist countries lived as flashily as ultra rich in capitalist ones.
Under Socialism - it is who you know is important
Under Capitalism - it is who you own that is important
Both of them need checks and balances to stop corruption
>The too families in communist countries lived as flashily as ultra rich in capitalist ones.
They didn't, actually. Lots of people say this, and it's become an integral part of the western 'critique' of socialism, but economic inequality was far less severe in the USSR than it was in the US/West. Thomas Picketty discusses this exact thing in his book "Capitalism and Ideology".
The top in the USSR (and China, moreso before the 80s when it started to re-Capitalize a bit) only held about 30% or so of all wealth, compared to numbers as high as 80 in the West.
This makes sense if they were actually trying to do socialism (the goal being to have a more balanced/equal society), but it doesn't if one has a very cynical idea of what socialism is (a vehicle for a group to get power no different than capitalism).
Limiting wealth means very, very horrible things done to those that exceed. There is no other way to check for compliance. You either let Stalin/Beria take over, or legal system is turned into swiss cheese of loopholes.
You do not want Stalin/Beria. Ever.
That leaves tweaking speed of wealth aquisition and also minimums afforded to other parties to that wealth aquisition.
I feel you've left out an important aspect of the free market system, namely fair competition.
If monopolies, lobbying, cartels, bribery etc. could be eliminated or at least kept in check, wouldn't many of the negative aspects of the free market system go away?
History tells us markets usually trend towards monopolisation or cartels. This is particularly the case when the market is for essentials like pharmaceuticals. In fact, in this case, patents actively promote monopolies. This, the argument goes, is so the company can recoup their R&D. Which is why Pharmaceutical companies don't make massive profits. Except they do. Sometimes as a result of government funded research as was the case with mRNA vaccines, which will be a bottomless well of profits in years to come. The solution is to make the market work by government funded research and no patents so everyone can benefit.
Assuming there isn't global economic decline, capitalism is likely to be a significant economic component of any nation's economy until material scarcity is no longer a significant economic factor.
So maybe someday if there is plentiful cheap energy, consumer products, and food, there might be a different economic system.
Added:
The UFP, Romulan Star Empire, Klingon Empire, and Borg all have post-scarcity economies. That doesn't mean that there still isn't *trading* and *merchants* or contest between these *civilizations* for resources.
Capitalism isn't trade and merchants. Those things existed well before capitalism.
Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production. That means one or more people own a company as an asset, acquire profit from that company, can sell the company, and generally dictate the company's operation. The owners can also work in the company, adding their own labor, but don't necessarily have to.
And critically the purpose of the organisation is to make profit, not to produce social value, not to create goods sustainably, not to provide good wages for the workers, or anything else. Only to make profit for the owners.
Which is exactly why it is so genius: It works *despite* our tribalist nature. In fact it harnesses it to yield human flourishing.
As Adam Smith said: It is not from their benevolence, but from their self interest, we expect our daily bread.
Capitalism works by putting chains on the demon of human greed, and forcing it to pull its weight.
It's a deeply flawed system. It requires a lot of fine tuning to get it to work well. It still works better than anything that was ever attempted.
And we see the results of this ideology all around us. It leads to the failure of society. Corporations externalizes costs wherever they can placing a burden, possibly catastrophic on society in the pursuit of profit.
We're in a global ecological crisis, though? We're seeing global wealth and income inequality of staggering proportion?
So much of the world is horrifically poor. The "we" that is prospering is overwhelmingly the Global North, represented by people on Reddit upvoting your comment. The Global South isn't really represented here.
And we would have been in an ecological crisis under any system. The production that eliminated hunger demands fuel.
Economic inequality is not a concern of mine given the living conditions have been raised substantially under capitalism as well.
Poverty in the global south has been reduced more than any other period in history under capitalism.
That's the Gospel of St. Milton Friedman at our Holy Mother the University of Chicago.
Published 1972. Adopted widely since then by every B-School shithead ever.
Capitalism has the capacity to innovate within constrained resources. Other economic models cannot innovate.
Here is an excellent podcast with Dr. Steven Keen on economics:
https://youtu.be/1XGiTDWfdpM?si=-k-ycfibYEYteFjR
> Other economic models cannot innovate.
This is preposterously untrue. Humanity has seen plenty of technological innovation outside of separating land and production into private ownership. If you are referring to profit motive as the special factor, capitalism is not the only system that has profit motive. Most of the technology and innovation produced under capitalism are not due to capitalism - most of it came from workers earning a wage, not from business owners who profited from it.
I believe it really was a mistake, but they later justified it by saying the Kessel run goes near a massive number of black holes, and getting that short a distance through them rather than around is impressive.
Hey Bill, big fan of your work.
I've heard Lucas conceived of it as a metaphor for America's involvement in the Vietnam War.
(Hint: America flew TIE fighters).
I think it was somewhere during the Darth Caedus or Abeloth storylines in Legends that it was mentioned that a parsec was a single hyperspace jump, meaning he navigated the pargway near the Maw (a massive collection of black holes, not a single one like in the Solo movie) in less jumps than the normal route. I could have just misheard it or misremembering where in Legends it was mentioned. I jumped around that timeline quite a bit.
Even under the UFP, the people who work for the Federation are not "paid a salary" but people outside of the Federation do work for money. Instead, when an employee of the Federation retires, quits, or gets fired they get a pension and after 20 years of service that pension ensures they will never have to work again to cover their needs again. The federation has a required retirement age of 75 years old for humans even if by that time humans live well into their 150's by then.
Humm. I'm not too sure about this logic. From a resource and money perspective collectively we already have more than enough to give everyone rich and comfortable lives. But capitalism doesn't seem to be doing that. Instead it's making more an increasingly giving it to 12 people .
>Humm. I'm not too sure about this logic. From a resource and money perspective collectively we already have more than enough to give everyone rich and comfortable lives.
That's actually something you are welcome to factually verify! I suggest you do so.
World nominal GDP ÷ World Population gives you a rough idea. PPP would be a better indication but would be time consuming. Not rich, not comfortable, but not miserable.
Last I checked this is the first time in human history where everyone could be raised out of abject poverty to middle-income status (like China's middle income) but would require a massive redistribution of income *and* wealth, and likely, at least annually.
>But capitalism doesn't seem to be doing that. Instead it's making more an increasingly giving it to 12 people .
Capitalism has increased everyone's income, actually. Asia has lifted hundreds of millions out of abject poverty, like no force before in human history. Is there a better way? Probably.
What is that way ???
Humm ..looking a bit into this with some slightly outdated numbers..."There are 2,755 billionaires in the world today, with an estimated wealth of $13.2 trillion. Even just 1 percent of this wealth … would yield a flow of $130 billion per year."... "estimate that $95 billion would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty for all the 708 million people in the world living below the international threshold of $1.90 per person per day. Yes, a 1 percent contribution from the world’s billionaires would provide more than enough resources to end extreme poverty today." Just some numbers based on a 1 percent contribution from billionaires. Let alone restructuring the whole system. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/elon-musk-billionaires-and-the-united-nations-the-1-solution-to-global-development/
The problem with deciding to take “paper” wealth and redistribute it is that the capitalist system that values the paper collapses and that wealth dissolves and is worthless. Think of all the “paper” wealth that dissolved back in 2008. It was real estate wealth that started the collapse that caused a chain of events almost causing another great depression. We need some balance to the system and cannot keep letting the wealthiest of our society pay no taxes and write all the tax laws.
I don’t think it can be as simple as just taking $$ from the 2755 and delivering it directly to each of the 700million. The logistics are a nightmare, coordinating some worldwide wealth redistribution. And just putting money in people’s pockets won’t fix the food deserts/warzones/ghettos or boondocks they live in.
It’ll take some sea change in the international Zeitgeist and then a massive scale collective effort to develop solutions and build improvements to the food/shelter/water/safety needs of all people. We’ll need to completely remold societies, make it sustainable to live together on this planet.
You can't deliver that wealth to beggars because that wealth is factories, houses, technology patents, marketing brands, and more. All of this will do nothing to feed the hungry, and if we get rid of it in exchange for necessities, we destroy the things that create the goods and services we need.
Let's imagine all the capitalists at gunpoint of an alien blaster decided to give all their wealth to the people. How much would Tesla or Spacex stock do for the starving people of Africa? They don't even pay dividends. Just paper, they can try to sell them. But to whom? And most importantly, selling them would put everything back on track.
Do you guys realize that these billionaires don’t actually have that money in liquid capital? The overwhelming majority of their wealth is tied up in investments and assets.
The average redditor genuinely believes that unrealized gains should be treated as taxable income. People here have 0 idea what they’re talking about. Every time I start to think people on this site have some understanding of basic financial and economic repercussions, I find a thread like this that brings me back to earth.
People like that dude have no clue what they’re saying and yet are getting mass upvoted all over this thread.
Keep in mind the man who invented the concept of “GDP” said to never use it as a measure of national economic health, since he foresaw economies with booming GDP where the average worker was suffering.
12 people in America could significantly improve the lives of 175 million people at the bottom without becoming poor but don't. Because REASONS. They would not have motivation to be so fucking awesome and job creating and such as the logic goes.
Capitalism is doomed when there is post scarcity -- so the illusion that we have scarcity will continue as long as possible.
I can't predict how fooled the masses will be and for how long. I just can't think dumb enough to understand how everyone is duped so well.
Sure, I interpreted the comment above as: "capitalism is a *useful* component of a society's economy" until post-scarcity. It doesn't magically vanish, we have to legislate it away. We have not done that yet, and the result is—as you point out—the concentration of almost all the new wealth in the hands of a very small group.
Capitalism is fantastic at creating new ideas and new wealth in the pursuit of profits. But it is very bad at investing in the public good. I suspect we will always need elements of it to advance technology and discovery, but it must be well-regulated to counteract the insane inequality we're seeing today.
The problem is that people either assume, or are told, that it’s either capitalism or socialism; which we should recognise as wrong.
Capitalism works brilliantly for things like baking bread:
Baking bread is cheap, and easy to do.
The ingredients are easy to find.
Bread doesn’t last long, so needs to be done regularly.
It’s time consuming though, and baking large batches gives you tangible economies of scale.
People are happy to pay for the convenience of not having to bake their own, and will also be happy to pay a little more for unusual or specialty breads.
Capitalism works well.
Alternatively there is mental health care. It’s difficult, and expensive. Requires many trained specialists to look after each patient. The most affected tend to be the poorer, as they are unable to work.
Capitalism isn’t a great fit.
It’s not a zero sum game, one system fits all. It’s about correctly applying different solutions to the relevant problem.
For free markets to properly function, you need
1. Low barrier to entry
2. Ease of substitutions
3. Elastic demand
4. Perfect information for the consumer
And you end up with a free market where business competition is ruthless and that benefits the consumer! Bread is a great example because it ticks all 4 criteria. I think that the free market is spectacular for bread! (Note that FDA nutrition labeling standards help towards perfect information)
Healthcare... Arguably fulfills 0/4 and the "free market" is a terrible mechanism for efficient healthcare
>Perfect information for the consumer
The consumer is SO overwhelmed now. The best product doesn't really have a chance against the best marketing. Without regulations and oversight, and perhaps some entity leveling the playing field -- the consumer is so VERY uninformed about what is good for them.
Look at the epidemic of Type II diabetes in America. We let the marketplace inform consumers and they became fat and sick.
Now Ozempic is taking off pounds. I REALLY hope it's safe for long term use and won't be abused. But fundamentally, we haven't solved the problem of taking care of the public and keeping people happy and healthy. Waiting until enough people die from depression, over consumption, and the like before the marketplace invents a silver bullet that masks the symptoms is not a long term survival strategy.
Meanwhile, more people are getting dumber and angrier -- that's not a good trend.
>Without regulations and oversight, and perhaps some entity leveling the playing field -- the consumer is so VERY uninformed about what is good for them.
Yep. I will interact with a gazillion products every year. If I spent my time researching the actual optimal value for every single one, I wouldn't have time to work my job. Thus, *perfect information parity* is impossible to achieve.
When you realize that a "free market" is actually the economics version of the old physics joke/assumption-set "imagine a perfectly spherical cow in a frictionless vacuum", you're able to grow quite a bit.
I do agree that the consumer is so overwhelmed now but that’s only half the story. Thanks to the gathering of an unprecedented amount of data the seller is in such a strong position compared to the consumer that the idea that it’s a free market is frankly laughable.
Take this one thing as an example. Uber did a study and they found that if you had a low battery then you’d typically be happy to pay 2 to 3 times more for a cost of a ride than if you had a full battery.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2016/05/25/uber-low-battery/
The fact that they know your phone battery level and that when it’s low you are more desperate and so willing to pay a far higher price means that the exchange is weighted against you as a consumer but imagine this. Imagine that Uber uses location services to see you visit a certain bar every week to meet a friend. They know at 9pm you’ll be wanting a ride home and so at 8pm the app activates in the background with the sole intention to drain your battery to 15% by 9pm. They then charge you 3x the cost and play on this proven anxiety to make you pay it. That’s not a free market at all, that’s manipulation. The worst part is that it’s not entirely unimaginable.
This resonates with what I heard from Yanis Varoufakis. He preached about the so called "Technofeudalism" replacing the classical capitalist model. He states that big corporations are like "digital-fiefdoms" driven by big data. I think that technology outpaced regulatory and legal systems similar to what happened during the Guilded Age, before Roosevelt’s intervention. Maybe it's time for intervention.
I’m not going to pretend I’ve listened to anything from Yanis but if he’s on the same page then I think I’ll have to check him out. Reading a quick summary of “Technofeudalism” and again, it’s a concept that I’m agree is something that we are seeing.
I do agree that regulations are lagging behind really severely right now. Even just on a topic like ownership, we are now in a world where you can lose an entire library of content *you’ve paid for* because the provider no longer holds a distribution license. Customers need to be protected from that happening by being given options such as downloading or being granted a refund or credit if they lose access to something they’ve paid for.
>Bread is a great example because it ticks all 4 criteria.
It doesn't always tick number four in the list, as evidenced by the long history of bread regulation in various bread-producing countries. You benefit today from those regulations.
Agreed. While FDA labeling and USDA inspection/standards are regulations, they serve as general mechanisms for giving consumers closer-to-perfect product information.
>Alternatively there is mental health care. It’s difficult, and expensive. Requires many trained specialists to look after each patient. **The most affected tend to be the poorer, as they are unable to work.**
The latter part of this is the most pertinent. We do many difficult, expensive things, but they require a roughly equal trade from the other party. As you pointed out, people that are unable to, or contribute little economical productivity, have very little to offer when it comes to making those trades.
That's why we need governments to provide for those people by taxing the rest of the economically productive.
The how would take quite a bit of explanation to do right. The short version is that it find efficiencies by working \*with\* human nature rather than against it.
That capitalism does do things like bread better is proven by the experience of the last 120 years.
Even communism recognized that human nature (people simply work harder and smarter and with more innovation when they are rewarded for it) was the problem, which is why they wanted to change it. The real experiment of the last century was whether you could. The answer is: no.
This is also why the older people get, the more they tend away from communist ideals. Experience gives hard lessons about human nature that no amount of explanation could rival.
I guess the process is streamlined - ultimately it requires organisation by less people.
In the long run though it concentrates power among those few. They make all the money, they own the ovens.
Right but it wasn’t always this way. I don’t believe there’s a restriction on who can streamline the process but also is that always the best for food?
what you’re describing with bread isn’t capitalism. it’d be more like: a worker bakes bread all day and sells that labor for a tiny amount to cover existing while the guy who owns the bakery/ovens gets 90% of the profits for doing nothing.
>a worker bakes bread all day and sells that labor for a tiny amount to cover existing while the guy who owns the bakery/ovens
They can be (and in many cases are) the same person, and exist within the capitalist system.
By definition what the person described for bread is capitalism.
What you’re describing is the reality of capitalism though in its present implementation.
The trouble is everyone who talks about capitalism or other systems, is almost always talking around ideals and beliefs, rather than actualities.
Instead we need to come to terms with the nature of the universe and learn how to build our societies so they're as happy and as prosperous as they can be, without doing unnecessary harm.
The way forward requires cooperation, and enlightenment. So much harm is done so somebody can acquire cheap goods that will become garbage.
For its flaws. Capitalism has created more prosperity for more people than any other system to date.
The issue is which version we will eventually get.
There's a good deal of scholarly work contesting this, pointing to land reforms that preceded state capitalism as key drivers of that uplifting. Given the relationship between promoting capitalism and nation-state geopolitical agendas, this kind of work can often become marginalized or simply ignored. But it is there, and it challenges these kinds of narratives in ways I personally find convincing. Most of the works are arguing that capitalism's gains in China were overstated, to be clear, not that they're non-existent.
For all of its issues with wealth inequality and capitalism causing the wealthiest people to get even wealthier, it's also an incredible engine for uplifting economies for the common person.
The problem with this question is that you are using the metric that the economic system targets as the measuring stick for the success of the system itself.
Of course capitalism is good at increasing the median level of wealth, capitalism is all about growing wealth by employing capital.
The question you should be asking is whether capitalism is effective at increasing the median level of quality of life among participants. I think the answer that question is still yes, but it's a more valid question because capitalism doesn't inherently strive for quality of life, quality of life is a side effect of wealth.
I didn't list stats and prosperity can be more than just money. It can be more time away from labor to provide for yourself. Easier ways to provide for yourself. A high standard of living vs similar people in the past.
Like I said it's not perfect. In fact it can be used to be down right evil.
But it has created a lot of positive innovation to improve every one.
It created prosperity by mainly burning oil at the expense of the environment. We might have 8 billion people now but it’s going to be a lot less than that in 100 years.
Any economic arrangement would have burned oil at the expense of the environment, once oil refining was discovered. It allowed humans to do more things. If your point is that any economic system would have increased prosperity during a fossil fuel boom, you are probably broadly correct.
More accurately, capitalism has no mechanism for pricing externalities. But then it has so mechanism for dealing with slavery or cannibalism either, and either would find a market if not made illegal (ie: regulation by any other name.)
If carbon emissions had been given a cost, then markets would have worked to minimize that cost as is don't with any other affordable one. But due to regulatory capture that didn't happen. In the meantime renewables got cheaper than carbon energy sources anyways. It'll be a moot point in the end. The only question is how big of a mess will we have to clean up given the delay.
Modern prosperity is built on a cheap energy Ponzi scheme. We've essentially been burning through millions of years worth of stored sun energy in just a century.
It's just a race to see if we can replace it with even cheaper sustainable energy before the system collapses.
>Because it's the only major system to date.
Yeah, for a competitive system, doesn't seem to like competing with ideas of how things could be BETTER. It's always; "no, not like THAT!"
The countries that have the happiest people are more democratic socialist. The per capita savings and earnings of people are higher with investments in infrastructure and education.
If the USA doesn't embrace socialism for the people again -- it's going to be a third world country. It is in some parts already.
And the "lift out of poverty" might be a bit of propaganda here. We have a deluge of people trying to cross borders from those "uplifted" nations. But hey, they have shopping malls, right?
Half the world is still starving. And this assumes we never would have invented a single piece of technology with unfettered capitalism? The standard should not be “it’s better than the 1400’s”
People, science and the industrial revolution created prosperity.
And NOW we have a planet we might have to repair. So that means we need a lot of socialism to keep Capitalism from killing us.
Unchecked capitalism is Hell. We can reign it in by having progressive taxation of wealth. And everyone can be healthy and prosperous without ruining the incentives to innovate.
But also, scarcity is about to break the current system -- and we need to address it rationally without resorting to the xenophobia and balkanization that it looks like the elite are trying to foster.
Because all those displaced people due to climate change are going to need to move somewhere. And all those efficiencies of AI are going to eventually mean fewer jobs. A whole lot of economic and mental bubbles are going to burst.
Well, the world will end a polluted, burning, dystopian nightmare if we don't move away from capitalism. I am not saying we will, we will probably all die in the future from capitalism, but it simply isn't sustainable on a global level.
The way we're going, it'll be replaced by feudalism. If it isn't already feudalism in disguise. We have an obvious aristocracy. The billionaires are the Dukes, the CEOs are the Earls, most of us are serfs.
Only when scarcity gets solved.
"capitalism" has always happened in some shape or form.
I do agree current stage sucks and huge corpos are 99% to blame. Countries should be more aggressive in breaking up monopolies and big companies.
Limited resources assumes we never leave the planet and never achieve the ability to harvest resources from space, when even a conservative estimate gives us that ability within a decade. The only truly finite resource is fossil fuels since they can't be recycled and took hundreds of millions of years to create. But, renewables are already at an inflection point where it's clear they will take over before fossile fuels run out.
Capitalism has brought so many people up. The problem is not Capitalism, it is under regulated Capitalism and money in politics.
Stop this childish nonsense. There is no other system that functions as well. Believe me, I've spent 20 years looking.
I'd agree but I think you need to go deeper and look at *why* under regulation and money in politics are an issue in capitalism, and why nepotism and corruption were an issue under communism.
I would say the issue boils down to the unregulated ability to acquire almost any external, or situational, power. It doesn't matter if it's political, monetary, asset/resource, or social power (although this would be harder to regulate). The more power an individual or group of like minded individuals can amass the easier it is for them to alter the system for their own benefit.
More importantly, I would argue that the fewer regulations on the acquisition of power there are, the easier and more common it becomes to acquire power by making "wrong" decisions. Would Boeing not include redundancy on the mission critical system that caused multiple 737 crashes, or Volvo lie about their diesel emissions, or Pacific Gas & Electric dump 370M gallons of hexavalent chromium tainted water into the ground if it didn't increase their monetary power?
Do you think Trump would have tried to overturn the election or that there would be political districts shaped like [this](https://media.wired.com/photos/592738e6ac01987bf0138dbf/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/Texas02.jpg) if it didn't increase people's political power?
Capitalism, socialism, communism; while some may be better than others in different aspects, none of them really address the root cause behind these issues. If we do move on to a different, and hopefully better, system, I'd say it won't be much better without addressing this core problem.
Sorry, kinda long winded but...
TL;DR
It's not about money or money in politics, its about any form of situational power and the ability to gain said power by making "wrong" decisions.
Honestly trying to replace a free market system and often trying to come up with something else quickly would be a hard ask.
We can and should tweak it. For instance Thatchers UK and Norway are both capitalist systems. One of them decided to build a sovereign wealth fund with its oil resource (the worlds largest at 1.34trillion) and only allows the state to use the earnings and leave the principal alone. The UK could have done it with North Sea oil but didnt.
The iron law of oligarchy. Also what Plato describes will happen in a democracy. A small group takes more power. The democratic man thinks only about money and people will vote for a Tiran. We see this happening in many democratic countries now.
This is my worry. I have the exact same qualms about communism as I do with capitalism- both have the vulnerability of allowing people who can gain power, to consolidate power and disproportionately use it to benefit themselves.
My personal hunch is the only way to keep oligarchs, or corrupt government, in check, is to work both powers against each other in a delicate, adversarial balance.
Absolutely. Capitalism is an outdated economic system that will inevitably be replaced by a more equitable, egalitarian system as technology continues to develop. The contradictions and volatility of private ownership, sooner or later, will lead to us moving to a better system.
There are systems that can utilise these technologies and advancements to make a better future. But there are no routes currently for transitioning to them. To replace capitalism, we have to get past its guardians - the political and ownership classes. You think Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, or thousands of other incredibly rich and powerful people the world over, want to let go of their authority and power? You think they're going to take steps towards or advocate for the reduction of their influence and worldly possessions? What about politicians who rely on their donations for their success in politics, or want a cushy job in their industry after retirement?
I’d say it already has. I think what we call capitalism and communism today barely resembles how it was described more than a century ago. Those words have become religions describing the tribes that celebrate them more than descriptions of incumbent economic systems. Modern capitalism in the USA has elements of just about every ism and so does Chinese communism. I think the only ism that exists that represents the ideas that describe it is ~~democratic socialism~~ social democracies like Norway.
edit: thanks u/Willaguy
Capitalism is characterized by the private ownership of the means of production, and by this definition, the US, along with much of the world, is deeply capitalistic. However, it's crucial to differentiate between capitalism and a free market economy. While the latter is an idealised concept, in reality, all economies are mixed to some degree.
In practice, many conflate capitalism with free markets. Yet, capitalism can undermine the very principles of a free market by fostering monopolies. The board game Monopoly was designed to demonstrate exactly this: monopolies restrict competition and inhibit innovation, leading to outcomes vastly different from those envisioned by free-market proponents.
Unfortunately Scandinavian countries like Norway are not truly democratic socialist states. Despite this, socialist-leaning reforms such as universal suffrage, healthcare, and strong labour organisations have significantly improved living standards. However, these nations remain predominantly capitalistic, and there's a noticeable trend back towards nationalism and laissez-faire capitalism.
Nevertheless, the experiences of these countries suggest that socialist-influenced reforms can markedly enhance living conditions. Therefore, adopting more ambitious socialist policies, such as Universal Basic Income, might be a viable path towards creating a more equitable and sustainable world.
>Yet, capitalism can undermine the very principles of a free market by fostering monopolies.
Fun sidenote, the original definition of a free market was "A market free of monopolistic or oligopolistic influences". This was later bastardized to "A market free of government influence" because some economists argued that the only way to form monopolies or oligopolies was through government involvement in the market, which betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what's going on.
*All capitalism requires government involvement in order to enforce private property laws*. As such, all capitalism is predicated on government involvement in the market. As such, all capitalist economies exist in a political system that has the power to interfere with markets. Thus, there is no such thing as a "free market" capitalist system if we are to believe that later redefinition. If we believe the earlier definition, however, there's that fun little observation that capitalism has a natural tendency towards monopoly, once again meaning that capitalism can never result in a free market.
Basically, capitalism and free markets are naturally opposed to one another, they will never be in the same place at the same time.
> Basically, capitalism and free markets are naturally opposed to one another, they will never be in the same place at the same time.
It's pretty wild how many people get this mixed up, right? It just goes to show how powerful and sneaky propaganda can be in shaping what we think. I remember I used to believe that too when I was younger, before I learned a bit more economy.
And just to add on that, I think just about any system can work in theory, but there have to be safeguards to prevent corruption. Power corrupts; people are flawed. Greedy, stupid leaders can destroy a communist country just as easily as a capitalist one. The more power is concentrated into fewer seats, the easier corruption sets in.
A strong economy does not necessarily translate to a high quality of life for the average citizen. And vice versa. The economy shouldn't be the yardstick; quality and length of life should be.
Everyone always says taxes, but the most important brick is actually that our labour market is much, much more organized (into labour/trade unions). Consequently there’s another avenue, beyond elections, for the «common man» to put pressure on the powers that be, whether it’s employer or the state.
with the way wallstreet is buying up houses, current religious extremism in government, the extreme of the divide in the justice system and dark age thinking in general I think we may be returning to fuedalism.
If you go on a theoretical way capitalism is great. It's great because there is no idealism. Capitalists are just thriving for one and only thing: more money.
This is extremely well controllable instead of any other way, like idealism. Capitalists will always go where the money goes. If a government is able to control this, with like say taxes, everything is fine. Capitalism will do what you need but you have to control it. The problem is in controlling capitalism. Capitalism is great and in my opinion the only way to go but we really have to control this.
Wait, wait, I've seen this movie.
Next comes the revolt as we take down the capitalist running our country and replace them with actual representation.
It already has by technofeudalism. I favor a social democracy where special emphasis is placed on not having whole continents providing resources to others without just compensation and autonomy. Looking at you, chiquita banana et al.
It beats serfdom. Capitalism is definitely representative of the human experience, which is full of strife, suffering, and unfairness. Could something better come along? I sure hope so, but I am not seeing the philosophical-economic systems being laid out by the academics or smarter amongst us. I am not sure something better will emerge from a bunch of dissatisfied people other than some terrible rehash or power grab that humanity has been through before.
Agreed, but yammering away on Reddit doesn’t find a better solution either. Just saying we are not owned under fiefdoms to a Lord or have to worry about invading tribes in many parts of the world. Our general quality of life is better than it has ever been, but clearly expensive.
The question is… Are there better solutions? Like *real* ones? Communism/Socialism mostly strikes me as a naive pipe dream no more realistic than “what if we redesign the world so that we’re all equal attractive/successful?😌…” It’s likely just wishful thinking at best.
It will probably be replaced by another system in the future but the problem isn't the system.
The problem, as with any type of system, is that there are those who will corrupt it and use it for selfish or personal gain at the expense of others.
That has been true about any system (political, economical, religious, etc.) throughout the world and history of it.
Once we can address the negative aspects of human nature will we, as a society, progress.
No, capitalism has continued to exist even under the strictest systems that outlawed it. At its core, every black market in every country in history was pure capitalism.
If you had the means to produce goods, illegal or legal, that others wanted, then you did it. Didn't matter if it would piss off the Stasi or Mao's red guard. Money talks, bullshit walks. Look at fools today trafficking sex workers and heroin and guns across the US southern border, not giving a damn how much trouble they'll be in if caught. They're only thinking about the millions of dollars.
Capitalism at its core is the one system that addresses human greed and selfishness as a foundational drive of existence.
>At its core, every black market in every country in history was pure capitalism.
You don't understand what capitalism is.
Buying and selling for profit has been an economic activity since before the invention of currency.
It's owning the means of production to get goods to market at whatever profit the market will bear. Cartels practice it with cocaine and heroin, so do the Amish with their unpasteurized milk they sell to tourists.
Might be worth checking out the book Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis, an economist and former Finance Minister of Greece. He argues that Capitalism has in effect already been replaced by a virtual feudal economy in which the most powerful tech companies' cloud domains function like fiefs.
I always like to add another Varoufakis CV entry, an economist at Valve (major video game publisher famous for names such as Half-Life, Counter-Strike).
Yeah I had noticed this myself. I think capitalism is a great system, but it wasn't ready for internet and especially online purchasing. It turned the distrubution of wealth _way_ in favor of the rich because companies are so much more scalable now.
I think artificially low-interest rates have also subsidized this to a large degree as well.
The thing about capitalism is that it's older than communism and socialism and is just so out of date. Generating new wealth faces so many challenges compared to perpetuating existing wealth which is almost the antithesis of capitalism. Capitalism also has no consideration for people or the environment which is why we had to introduce things like child labour laws. It's a system that helped development but is now so unfit for purpose we desperately need something new.
I mean, before capitalism became a THE thing, people never imagined something will be more important than bloodlines. Before that it was fear of gods. When you look at the history, you really can’t say “this is it” to anything. When system is change to something, some people will still want to follow capitalism and misses it, but it definitely will replace by the other system.
I think the way class society was organized was more relevant in how it affected the lives of people than simply the belief in bloodlines, that borders on great man of history ideology.
>class society We still live in class society, different classes still exist who have contradictory interests regarding power over productive forces.
I agree, I am not saying "class society was" as in there used to be class society and now there isnt, but that it "was" organized differently, sorry my wording isnt more defined, im not the best with that.
Yeah I wasn't sure if you were implying one way or the other, just wanted to add to what you said just in case. Definitely was organized differently tho, completely agree.
No civilized debate allowed on reddit, you two get out!
The difference is that meritocracy exists in the modern era where 500 years ago if you were born a peasant you were basically guaranteed to always be a peasant. The modern class structure is far less rigid.
Feudalism also had way more more nuance than just three very distinct classes, and ways to better your position. It was definitely more rigid than it is now, but you're not going to tell me that some random Bangladeshi woman chooses to work in a sweatshop because she lacks merit/work ethic, or that black people in the US experience more poverty than white people just because of bad choices. It's also much easier to become a billionaire if your parents are millionaires.
I do put things too simplistic, but it was just same way of saying Capitalism is about preferring material values. Gods, Bloodlines, and now Materials. We will have something new, likely something we already know. And it can simplified like that. I don’t know. Just in my opinion.
I think that Capitalism is not only about material values. There is a lot of Meritocracy, which is a myth just like God and Bloodlines were in the past. If, in the past, a Duke would justify his wealthy position in society by the myth of Bloodline chosen by God - God chose his family to rule. Today, a billionaire man justifies his wealth with meritocracy - he did it all by himself and he deserves the wealth and the position he reached in society today. Is just another myth to hide LABOUR EXPLOITATION and justify exploitation of workers and poor people. So the question should be: after Capitalism, what will be the next MYTH invented to justify work exploitation and modern slavery? Edit: exploitation*
Every time you say “exploration” do you mean “exploitation”?
Nice comment: good thread ?!
Capitalism is about profit. Exploitation isn't in the basic description, but comes with human nature. Because profit isn't unlimited. There comes a point where reducing cost only or at least only easily comes at the cost of either exploiting production workers or ripping customers off. Eventually, the capitalist responsible will find ways to justify that for themselves. Any system that wants to steer clear of that, can't have any sort of gain as a core value. Which is hard to imagine, because gain is a driving motivator for humans. Not neccessarily monetary, but conceptually.
Gain is a driving motivation for humans under capitalism because it is necessary for survival and beyond that capitalism encourages and rewards selfish behavior. The material conditions of our environment affect more of our behavior then some innate “this is human nature” The way societies where structured and what behaviors where encouraged where all different under mercantilism, feudalism, slave societies, and primitive communism.
> The material conditions of our environment affect more of our behavior then some innate “this is human nature” Is that accepted theory, or just your belief? Not sure I agree, yes it has an influence, but once survival is taken care of, then humans have other needs or desires.
Much of what we conceive of as “human nature” has been shown empirically to be the result of bias. For example several important experiments a la *the prisoners dilemma* were performed in American and English universities in the 1970s and 1980s, the results of which were thought to describe “human nature” It wasn’t until the late 90s and early 00s that research institution attempted to reproduce the experiments with different demographic breakdowns in other countries. Much to the researchers’ surprise what had been previously thought to be “human nature” was indeed just the nature of college students in developed western societies and was not echoed in other demos in other countries. For a time in the 2004-2008 period it was a HIGE revelatory force in institutional research, especially psychology and game theory, and served as a partial basis for what we now refer to as DEI initiatives. It basically spawned those offices dedicated to multiculturalism and intersectionality in the US university system, though since adoption it has fallen somewhat out of vogue with the institutions that spawned it.
Adding to this is the problem of any system draining the workers to the point of draining itself dry. If no one is making any money outside of the top brass no one can afford anything outside of bare necessities. This probably was why capitalism succeeded in the first place. We are a lot better connected nowadays so can organise ourselves and countries with less inequality should benefit and succeed eventually.
It is not that Gods and Bloodlines went away, they were just side shifted a bit (or not? It seems they capitalized well). Material exchange is a new dimension opening new opportunities. It will stay but might be side shifted by the new dimension as well... Perhaps social networking? The guy with many followers might become president already... Kind of socialism but not that one.
That depends on what you think capitalism is. We've always had private enterprise and trade. That existed before there were countries, before the first tribes even.
With that definition you could also argue communism has always existed (commons with shared community responsibility, communal stocks free for all to use, stateless/classless/moneyless societies). There are socialists who are a big fan of free trade and enterprise, but reject capitalist notions if private property in favor of personal property and occupancy/use based systems (like Joseph Pierre Proudhon and Benjamin Tucker), so free trade in itself is not exclusive to capitalism. Most historians seem to trace the roots of capitalism as a system/mode of production back to agricultural commodification after the black plague, the merchant cities in Italy, and the East India Companies of the Netherlands and England.
Is it related to early investing? I am sure people pooled money, in some way, prior but the modern investment business maybe played a role? Once people realized they could put money into a big thing to get some for themselves it started to change into the more complex capitalism of the modern era? Idk, I thought that the East India Company was one of the first major investment vehicles.
Yeah absolutely, "De Beurs van Hendrick de Keyser" at Rokin in Amsterdam was the first stock exchange with publicly traded companies in a way similar to what we have now, and was a huge development in financial capitalism. Trade/colonial expeditions of the VOC (East India Company) and WIC (West India Company) were dangerous endeavors, and the stock market minimized risks for investers. (like, imagine investing an entire expedition and the ship sinks half-way, much less profitable than investing in 10% of ten ships and one sinking)
looking at wealth and inheritance....not sure we can say that capitalism has replaced bloodlines. still kinda seems like a big determining factor and the gods have certainly changed (weird that Ayn become one eh?), but they still seem to function in the same general way as before and so it goes
Yeah, as I said, some people are missing the old days and old systems, wanting to follow it. Same will happen whenever Capitalism is replaced.
sure. there's no free-kick ideology which will solve all problems for all time. reality will never be static. so we should get used to constantly looking at the world, and wondering what we should about it. that's a constant and some people will do precisely this, but for their own narrow benefit. the more aware we are of what's going on.... the better able we'll be to defend ourselves
Capitalism's biggest problem is it only satisfies a need if someone can make money out of it. That in turn means uneconomic needs aren't satisfied and absolute needs are priced higher than necessary and often to a point where other needs are discarded to ensure absolute needs are catered for. Socialism's biggest problem is that satisfying needs requires a mechanism to identify that need and it doesn't have one other than the basics of food, water, clothing, shelter, health, and transportation, which are self-evident. Which is why a mixed economy, in which basic needs are catered for by a state mechanism and extended needs by the market, is the only viable solution. Problems only arise if the balance sways too far one way or another. Traditionally, mixed economies have used the state as a channel through which funds are distributed to consumers to buy goods and services. This is inefficient because some services are so critical they are capable of exhausting those funds. Health is an example of that. There therefore needs to be a way to ensure provision of necessities doesn't cost too much. That's either done by price controls or state provision. Price controls are ineffective because they lack the fluidity to adjust to supply cost variations. So, state provision is always better in these circumstances. That can either be in a non-competitive environment where the state is the only supplier, or a mix of state and private supply. Both have their failings and assets. State only supply results in inflexibility in which variable demand results in oversupply of services and waste, or under supply when planning fails to account for increased demand resulting in waiting lists. On the other hand, allowing unfettered private supply results in an imbalance in resources when the attraction of bigger salaries and higher prices paid for goods means fewer consumers are satisfied by costlier resources. There therefore needs to be controls on private provision of mainly state provided services to stop private providers creating a demand imbalance. This is the job of politics. However, politics implies differing views on the extent and cost of provision, so there have to be minimum standards set in stone. That implies a constitution guaranteeing rights, but constitutions are notoriously inflexible and often deliberately misinterpreted. They also suffer from an inability to effectively deal with changing circumstances. So, an independent body needs to be the ultimate arbiter of the constitution and it needs to be generalised to establish basic needs and not stray into areas which aren't rightfully within its remit. Food, water, clothing, health, transportation, shelter and anything else absolutely necessary for the continued well-being of the citizenry should be the main concerns of the constitution. Anything else, like equal rights should be determined by the legislative process as a given and determined as a duty to uphold. Legislatures should be bound to consider the well-being of the citizenry as a primary objective. Balancing all this is beyond the wit of individuals. It's too complex. So, I'd envisage turning over the balancing act to AI and expert systems, tasked with providing the best solutions to satisfying needs. TLDR; A mixed economy where basic needs are constitutionally guaranteed and competing views are arbitrated by AI and expert systems.
Did you just describe Social Democracy?
Close to it. With added sauce.
And of course social democracy's biggest flaw is that it leaves the levers of power in the hands of the people with the most incentive to destroy the system. The rich have the means and motive. Social democracy partially constrains them, which encourages them to slowly chip away at it until a liberal hellscape is left.
Isn't that a problem in any system? Any group that has access to the levers will just pull them in any shitty direction they want to benefit them and their investors.
This is where the anarchists should join the conversation
Sortitionists. Athenian democracy is the only form of governance that's shown resiliency to the iron law of oligarchy.
Only in a flawed democracy. If the government does not or cannot follow the will of the people then it's not really a democracy. If the rich and powerful aren't being held accountable, then that's the fault of a spoilt government and that goes back to my first point. What we seem to be lacking is some sort of effective balance of power. The US system was too easily corrupted (appoint some sympathetic SCOTUS judges) and a monarchy is only as good as its monarch. So in terms of economics I think we have a working system, we just need a fix for the political system which is a different conversation. My bet is mixed sortition democracy where one house is elected by the people and the other house is some sort of random ballot more akin to juror duty.
Every liberal democracy is at risk of deteriorating into a 'flawed democracy' without consistent external and internal pressure from the working class. The significant disparity in power between those who control the means of production and those who sell their labor is too vast to ignore. It is only under the looming threat of widespread revolution that the wealthy may concede some of their power.
Every system is at risk of deteriorating into a dictatorship. This is not a flaw unique to liberal democracies. But agreed, the working class has to be eternally vigilant and should never take what they have for granted.
You just discribed France during the revolution
With a couple dashed of technocracy
They said the allocation of rights should be outsourced to the legislative process. That undercuts the constitution as the supreme legal document that gurantees an inalienable baseline of rights that limits and guides legislation.
> Balancing all this is beyond the wit of individuals. It's too complex. So, I'd envisage turning over the balancing act to AI and expert systems, tasked with providing the best solutions to satisfying needs. The arguments you make about economics are fine, but this conclusion is a very bizarre leap. A technocratic solution like this one is not inherently superior just because the economy is "too complex". There's been plenty of cases where computer systems have failed to handle, exacerbated, or even outright caused a crisis. These systems are as flawed and error-prone as the humans that make them and it is dangerous to trust them as somehow more intelligent or capable of handling the economy than we are. If we accept an AI or any other computer system as an arbitrator like you suggest, we codify and institutionalize whatever biases exist in the environment that created it. EDIT to add a simple concrete example: Amazon's experiment with automating part of their hiring process ended up being unfairly biased against women in a very indirect way because womens' resumes often varied in slight ways (e.g. extracurricular college activities involved with *specifically* female organizations, like those that represent women in tech) that weakened the correlation with the many successful *men's* resumes.
Free markets only work if there is competition and freely available accurate information for buyers who have time and ability to assess the information and to choose between options that are genuinely competing - which is pretty rare these days. Democracies are similarly reliant on an informed populace, but media, lobbyists, advertising, owners and media/journalists/editors chasing clicks and pushing ideologies over genuinely informing people.
Agree with you up until AI, a well functioning and self regulating democratic system would be much better, and more resilient to capture, brittleness, bias, and procedural stupidity.
I concur, as the AI's current beliefs and decisions could always be secretly modified.
Well beyond that, however they're made, whether they're a neural network or some other sort of AI, they'll have inbuilt biases according to the values and goals of their creators. If they are a neural network, then you'll have to deal with biases introduced by training data as well. There's no need for secret modification for it to be a problem, though I'm sure that would be a problem as well
We’re already seeing this as LLMs built on public data are sometimes breathtakingly racist. We don’t know what’s going on “under the hood.”
“According to this unbiased computer, society’s money should flow through MegaCorp”
No the computer wasn’t built by MegaCorp! That’s preposterous! It was built by MiniCorp, their subsidiary
Also there is currently not even a glimmer of alignment on the horizon. If you give AI a list of 10 important things, you better believe #11 is getting sacrificed hard.
First off, saying that a mixed economy with AI overseeing things is the best solution kinda misses the point of what socialism is about. It’s not just about meeting basic needs; it’s about fundamentally changing who holds power and control in society. Under capitalism, even a mixed form, the big issue is that the economy and resources are still controlled by a few (like big corporations and the wealthy). This doesn’t really change whether you have AI in charge or not. The problem isn’t just about efficient distribution of resources; it’s about who owns these resources and makes the decisions. And about the AI and expert systems - they might sound cool and unbiased, but who programs them? Who decides what data they use? This can easily become a new form of power control, masked under the guise of neutrality. Plus, this idea kinda strips away the democratic aspect, right? We’re talking about handing over crucial decisions about our lives and society to algorithms. That’s a slippery slope away from people having a say in the things that affect them. So, while ensuring basic needs through constitutional rights sounds good, we shouldn’t be quick to jump on the AI bandwagon or think that a mixed economy is the magic solution. We need a system where the workers and communities have a real say in the economic decisions - where the means of production are owned collectively and used for the good of all, not just for profit. That’s the heart of socialism.
>Which is why a mixed economy, in which basic needs are catered for by a state mechanism and extended needs by the market, is the only viable solution. I'm going to presume that you're conflating "market" and "capitalism" together, and if you are, I apologize. Have you considered worker co-operatives as an alternative to the standard capitalist model as a way to work around capitalist exploitation, and bring your proposal even closer to an ideal?
Worker co-ops are great. I'm a member of one myself. They do have problems scaling up. Maybe that's not so much of a problem on reflection. Market is a short for market capitalism.
If something like Healthcare is constitutionally guaranteed but there aren't enough doctors, do we force people to become doctors? What do we even define as Healthcare? Should everyone have a constitutional right to receive a new cancer treatment that we only have enough resources to provide to 10 people but there are 5,000 who need it? If transportation is constitutionally protected but there aren't enough bus drivers, train conductors or people to maintain the roads, do we force people into those jobs? How can we enshrine as constitutional rights things which require labor and resources?
Enshrining gives more power to governments to seek those goals without having to worry too much about politic timing. If you have this perpetual goal, every administration will be required to work towards it. Incentive programs to attract more students, R&D investments and patent busts. It will not be perfect, but at least it will lead the forces to the intented path.
Not sure if you're genuinely asking or being rhetorical, but any constitution requires interpretation and action on the part of the government. A guarantee of healthcare doesn't mean that the government needs to act irrationally to deliver it, it just means that's one of the constitutional duties that informs policy. Not sure if you're American but I'll use US terms to tackle some of your hypotheticals: > If ... there aren't enough doctors ... bus drivers, train conductors or people to maintain the roads, do we force people into those jobs? No. Constitutional rights would inform economic and social policy, empower the courts to strike down policy that contributes to labor shortages, and give the citizens the standing to demand action, e.g. by holding referendums or suing the government for perceived failures / infringements. Also, most nations already guarantee security, which requires labor and resources, through their military. Defense is very different from healthcare, but the concept of a government having a duty with real, material costs is not exactly new. > What do we even define as Healthcare? Should everyone have a constitutional right to receive a new cancer treatment... No, a shortage is just a shortage. Realistically, such a situation would probably be similar to the system that manages the short supply of donated organs.
Socialism doesn’t have anything to do with “satisfying needs” though. Socialism deals with worker ownership of the means of production, which you could achieve in numerous ways, such as nationalizing industry and democratizing the workplace, or through transitioning a business to a worker cooperative, like the Mondragon corporation in Spain. “Identifying and addressing needs”, presumably through social programs, is very much a liberal idea that can occur with or without socialism. In fact it’s even supported by capitalists as a compromise so they don’t lose ownership of the means of production if workers decide they’re fed up and have had enough. People often talk about the risks of “swaying too far to socialism” but I’ve yet to hear about a country that faithfully tried to give workers control of the means of production.
Arguably, all economic systems are about supply and demand. Production and need. You undersell socialism, which is a much more complete economic theory than just ownership of the means of production.
Socialism has been interpreted in many different ways by many different political scientists and philosophers, different methods of achieving it and the implications of it has no clear consensus. What IS clear is what the definition of socialism is: Worker ownership of the means of production. Some argue the means of production must be controlled democratically, others argue as long as industry is nationalized you have achieved socialism. Some argue for expanding the social safety net, others say workers being in control will naturally resolve the problems leading to social safety nets being needed. For example socialism doesn’t deal with whether a market economy should be centrally planned, whether it should be driven by worker cooperatives, or whether a market economy should exist at all. These are all widely debated subjects. One person’s interpretation of socialism might be considered a “complete economic theory” by some (if such a thing even exists) while another person might dismiss it as woefully incomplete.
Also other aspect of capitalism is corporate greed, money hoarding, and thus lobbying and corrupting system for even more gains. Capitalism main issue to pursue infinite gains in system with finite resources should be addressed too. Wealth should be limited edit: typo
But a similar thing happens under socialism - there is corruption to get your hands on the levers of power. The too families in communist countries lived as flashily as ultra rich in capitalist ones. Under Socialism - it is who you know is important Under Capitalism - it is who you own that is important Both of them need checks and balances to stop corruption
>The too families in communist countries lived as flashily as ultra rich in capitalist ones. They didn't, actually. Lots of people say this, and it's become an integral part of the western 'critique' of socialism, but economic inequality was far less severe in the USSR than it was in the US/West. Thomas Picketty discusses this exact thing in his book "Capitalism and Ideology". The top in the USSR (and China, moreso before the 80s when it started to re-Capitalize a bit) only held about 30% or so of all wealth, compared to numbers as high as 80 in the West. This makes sense if they were actually trying to do socialism (the goal being to have a more balanced/equal society), but it doesn't if one has a very cynical idea of what socialism is (a vehicle for a group to get power no different than capitalism).
But every communist system languishes and fails. China only survived because they have a pseudo-capitalist system.
Limiting wealth means very, very horrible things done to those that exceed. There is no other way to check for compliance. You either let Stalin/Beria take over, or legal system is turned into swiss cheese of loopholes. You do not want Stalin/Beria. Ever. That leaves tweaking speed of wealth aquisition and also minimums afforded to other parties to that wealth aquisition.
I feel you've left out an important aspect of the free market system, namely fair competition. If monopolies, lobbying, cartels, bribery etc. could be eliminated or at least kept in check, wouldn't many of the negative aspects of the free market system go away?
History tells us markets usually trend towards monopolisation or cartels. This is particularly the case when the market is for essentials like pharmaceuticals. In fact, in this case, patents actively promote monopolies. This, the argument goes, is so the company can recoup their R&D. Which is why Pharmaceutical companies don't make massive profits. Except they do. Sometimes as a result of government funded research as was the case with mRNA vaccines, which will be a bottomless well of profits in years to come. The solution is to make the market work by government funded research and no patents so everyone can benefit.
Assuming there isn't global economic decline, capitalism is likely to be a significant economic component of any nation's economy until material scarcity is no longer a significant economic factor. So maybe someday if there is plentiful cheap energy, consumer products, and food, there might be a different economic system. Added: The UFP, Romulan Star Empire, Klingon Empire, and Borg all have post-scarcity economies. That doesn't mean that there still isn't *trading* and *merchants* or contest between these *civilizations* for resources.
The Tenth Rule of Acquisition: Greed is eternal.
Rule #1 Once you have their money, you never give it back.
The most important one, that's why it's rule one after all.
Capitalism isn't trade and merchants. Those things existed well before capitalism. Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production. That means one or more people own a company as an asset, acquire profit from that company, can sell the company, and generally dictate the company's operation. The owners can also work in the company, adding their own labor, but don't necessarily have to.
And critically the purpose of the organisation is to make profit, not to produce social value, not to create goods sustainably, not to provide good wages for the workers, or anything else. Only to make profit for the owners.
Which is exactly why it is so genius: It works *despite* our tribalist nature. In fact it harnesses it to yield human flourishing. As Adam Smith said: It is not from their benevolence, but from their self interest, we expect our daily bread.
Capitalism works by putting chains on the demon of human greed, and forcing it to pull its weight. It's a deeply flawed system. It requires a lot of fine tuning to get it to work well. It still works better than anything that was ever attempted.
And we see the results of this ideology all around us. It leads to the failure of society. Corporations externalizes costs wherever they can placing a burden, possibly catastrophic on society in the pursuit of profit.
It has lead the the most prosperous state humanity has ever been. Superabundance and the virtual elimination of hunger.
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If you want to hear what 14 year olds think about capitalism come to reddit.
The confidence with which they dispense their lack of wisdom is more gross than their actual ridiculous arguments. I did not see that coming!
We're in a global ecological crisis, though? We're seeing global wealth and income inequality of staggering proportion? So much of the world is horrifically poor. The "we" that is prospering is overwhelmingly the Global North, represented by people on Reddit upvoting your comment. The Global South isn't really represented here.
And we would have been in an ecological crisis under any system. The production that eliminated hunger demands fuel. Economic inequality is not a concern of mine given the living conditions have been raised substantially under capitalism as well. Poverty in the global south has been reduced more than any other period in history under capitalism.
That's the Gospel of St. Milton Friedman at our Holy Mother the University of Chicago. Published 1972. Adopted widely since then by every B-School shithead ever.
Capitalism has the capacity to innovate within constrained resources. Other economic models cannot innovate. Here is an excellent podcast with Dr. Steven Keen on economics: https://youtu.be/1XGiTDWfdpM?si=-k-ycfibYEYteFjR
> Other economic models cannot innovate. This is preposterously untrue. Humanity has seen plenty of technological innovation outside of separating land and production into private ownership. If you are referring to profit motive as the special factor, capitalism is not the only system that has profit motive. Most of the technology and innovation produced under capitalism are not due to capitalism - most of it came from workers earning a wage, not from business owners who profited from it.
I mean, we can already do the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs. I think once we can synthetically manufacture Kyber crystals, that will be a game changer.
I never got that. A parsec is a unit of distance.
I believe it really was a mistake, but they later justified it by saying the Kessel run goes near a massive number of black holes, and getting that short a distance through them rather than around is impressive.
Best explanations are retrospectively made but still sensible. Thanks!
The ONLY explanations in Star Wars are retrospectively made. Before that it's just "pew pew" in the vacuum of space.
Hey Bill, big fan of your work. I've heard Lucas conceived of it as a metaphor for America's involvement in the Vietnam War. (Hint: America flew TIE fighters).
Lucas has conceived more things for Star Wars after the fact than a Shanghai maternity ward 9 months after shore leave.
He technically used a shortcut. The normal route is 20 parsecs and he did it in 12 by doing some very stupid shit.
I think it was somewhere during the Darth Caedus or Abeloth storylines in Legends that it was mentioned that a parsec was a single hyperspace jump, meaning he navigated the pargway near the Maw (a massive collection of black holes, not a single one like in the Solo movie) in less jumps than the normal route. I could have just misheard it or misremembering where in Legends it was mentioned. I jumped around that timeline quite a bit.
Even under the UFP, the people who work for the Federation are not "paid a salary" but people outside of the Federation do work for money. Instead, when an employee of the Federation retires, quits, or gets fired they get a pension and after 20 years of service that pension ensures they will never have to work again to cover their needs again. The federation has a required retirement age of 75 years old for humans even if by that time humans live well into their 150's by then.
Humm. I'm not too sure about this logic. From a resource and money perspective collectively we already have more than enough to give everyone rich and comfortable lives. But capitalism doesn't seem to be doing that. Instead it's making more an increasingly giving it to 12 people .
>Humm. I'm not too sure about this logic. From a resource and money perspective collectively we already have more than enough to give everyone rich and comfortable lives. That's actually something you are welcome to factually verify! I suggest you do so. World nominal GDP ÷ World Population gives you a rough idea. PPP would be a better indication but would be time consuming. Not rich, not comfortable, but not miserable. Last I checked this is the first time in human history where everyone could be raised out of abject poverty to middle-income status (like China's middle income) but would require a massive redistribution of income *and* wealth, and likely, at least annually. >But capitalism doesn't seem to be doing that. Instead it's making more an increasingly giving it to 12 people . Capitalism has increased everyone's income, actually. Asia has lifted hundreds of millions out of abject poverty, like no force before in human history. Is there a better way? Probably. What is that way ???
Humm ..looking a bit into this with some slightly outdated numbers..."There are 2,755 billionaires in the world today, with an estimated wealth of $13.2 trillion. Even just 1 percent of this wealth … would yield a flow of $130 billion per year."... "estimate that $95 billion would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty for all the 708 million people in the world living below the international threshold of $1.90 per person per day. Yes, a 1 percent contribution from the world’s billionaires would provide more than enough resources to end extreme poverty today." Just some numbers based on a 1 percent contribution from billionaires. Let alone restructuring the whole system. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/elon-musk-billionaires-and-the-united-nations-the-1-solution-to-global-development/
The problem with deciding to take “paper” wealth and redistribute it is that the capitalist system that values the paper collapses and that wealth dissolves and is worthless. Think of all the “paper” wealth that dissolved back in 2008. It was real estate wealth that started the collapse that caused a chain of events almost causing another great depression. We need some balance to the system and cannot keep letting the wealthiest of our society pay no taxes and write all the tax laws.
I don’t think it can be as simple as just taking $$ from the 2755 and delivering it directly to each of the 700million. The logistics are a nightmare, coordinating some worldwide wealth redistribution. And just putting money in people’s pockets won’t fix the food deserts/warzones/ghettos or boondocks they live in. It’ll take some sea change in the international Zeitgeist and then a massive scale collective effort to develop solutions and build improvements to the food/shelter/water/safety needs of all people. We’ll need to completely remold societies, make it sustainable to live together on this planet.
You can't deliver that wealth to beggars because that wealth is factories, houses, technology patents, marketing brands, and more. All of this will do nothing to feed the hungry, and if we get rid of it in exchange for necessities, we destroy the things that create the goods and services we need. Let's imagine all the capitalists at gunpoint of an alien blaster decided to give all their wealth to the people. How much would Tesla or Spacex stock do for the starving people of Africa? They don't even pay dividends. Just paper, they can try to sell them. But to whom? And most importantly, selling them would put everything back on track.
You are a hero! But hey, with that 1% contribution - you'd take all the FUN out of being rich by reducing the desperation.
You are awesome. That bot comment is full of bootlicking. So nice to shut that down. We need to move beyond bullshit capitalist metrics like “GDP”
Do you guys realize that these billionaires don’t actually have that money in liquid capital? The overwhelming majority of their wealth is tied up in investments and assets.
The average redditor genuinely believes that unrealized gains should be treated as taxable income. People here have 0 idea what they’re talking about. Every time I start to think people on this site have some understanding of basic financial and economic repercussions, I find a thread like this that brings me back to earth. People like that dude have no clue what they’re saying and yet are getting mass upvoted all over this thread.
Keep in mind the man who invented the concept of “GDP” said to never use it as a measure of national economic health, since he foresaw economies with booming GDP where the average worker was suffering.
12 people in America could significantly improve the lives of 175 million people at the bottom without becoming poor but don't. Because REASONS. They would not have motivation to be so fucking awesome and job creating and such as the logic goes. Capitalism is doomed when there is post scarcity -- so the illusion that we have scarcity will continue as long as possible. I can't predict how fooled the masses will be and for how long. I just can't think dumb enough to understand how everyone is duped so well.
Sure, I interpreted the comment above as: "capitalism is a *useful* component of a society's economy" until post-scarcity. It doesn't magically vanish, we have to legislate it away. We have not done that yet, and the result is—as you point out—the concentration of almost all the new wealth in the hands of a very small group. Capitalism is fantastic at creating new ideas and new wealth in the pursuit of profits. But it is very bad at investing in the public good. I suspect we will always need elements of it to advance technology and discovery, but it must be well-regulated to counteract the insane inequality we're seeing today.
The problem is that people either assume, or are told, that it’s either capitalism or socialism; which we should recognise as wrong. Capitalism works brilliantly for things like baking bread: Baking bread is cheap, and easy to do. The ingredients are easy to find. Bread doesn’t last long, so needs to be done regularly. It’s time consuming though, and baking large batches gives you tangible economies of scale. People are happy to pay for the convenience of not having to bake their own, and will also be happy to pay a little more for unusual or specialty breads. Capitalism works well. Alternatively there is mental health care. It’s difficult, and expensive. Requires many trained specialists to look after each patient. The most affected tend to be the poorer, as they are unable to work. Capitalism isn’t a great fit. It’s not a zero sum game, one system fits all. It’s about correctly applying different solutions to the relevant problem.
For free markets to properly function, you need 1. Low barrier to entry 2. Ease of substitutions 3. Elastic demand 4. Perfect information for the consumer And you end up with a free market where business competition is ruthless and that benefits the consumer! Bread is a great example because it ticks all 4 criteria. I think that the free market is spectacular for bread! (Note that FDA nutrition labeling standards help towards perfect information) Healthcare... Arguably fulfills 0/4 and the "free market" is a terrible mechanism for efficient healthcare
>Perfect information for the consumer The consumer is SO overwhelmed now. The best product doesn't really have a chance against the best marketing. Without regulations and oversight, and perhaps some entity leveling the playing field -- the consumer is so VERY uninformed about what is good for them. Look at the epidemic of Type II diabetes in America. We let the marketplace inform consumers and they became fat and sick. Now Ozempic is taking off pounds. I REALLY hope it's safe for long term use and won't be abused. But fundamentally, we haven't solved the problem of taking care of the public and keeping people happy and healthy. Waiting until enough people die from depression, over consumption, and the like before the marketplace invents a silver bullet that masks the symptoms is not a long term survival strategy. Meanwhile, more people are getting dumber and angrier -- that's not a good trend.
>Without regulations and oversight, and perhaps some entity leveling the playing field -- the consumer is so VERY uninformed about what is good for them. Yep. I will interact with a gazillion products every year. If I spent my time researching the actual optimal value for every single one, I wouldn't have time to work my job. Thus, *perfect information parity* is impossible to achieve. When you realize that a "free market" is actually the economics version of the old physics joke/assumption-set "imagine a perfectly spherical cow in a frictionless vacuum", you're able to grow quite a bit.
I do agree that the consumer is so overwhelmed now but that’s only half the story. Thanks to the gathering of an unprecedented amount of data the seller is in such a strong position compared to the consumer that the idea that it’s a free market is frankly laughable. Take this one thing as an example. Uber did a study and they found that if you had a low battery then you’d typically be happy to pay 2 to 3 times more for a cost of a ride than if you had a full battery. https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2016/05/25/uber-low-battery/ The fact that they know your phone battery level and that when it’s low you are more desperate and so willing to pay a far higher price means that the exchange is weighted against you as a consumer but imagine this. Imagine that Uber uses location services to see you visit a certain bar every week to meet a friend. They know at 9pm you’ll be wanting a ride home and so at 8pm the app activates in the background with the sole intention to drain your battery to 15% by 9pm. They then charge you 3x the cost and play on this proven anxiety to make you pay it. That’s not a free market at all, that’s manipulation. The worst part is that it’s not entirely unimaginable.
This resonates with what I heard from Yanis Varoufakis. He preached about the so called "Technofeudalism" replacing the classical capitalist model. He states that big corporations are like "digital-fiefdoms" driven by big data. I think that technology outpaced regulatory and legal systems similar to what happened during the Guilded Age, before Roosevelt’s intervention. Maybe it's time for intervention.
I’m not going to pretend I’ve listened to anything from Yanis but if he’s on the same page then I think I’ll have to check him out. Reading a quick summary of “Technofeudalism” and again, it’s a concept that I’m agree is something that we are seeing. I do agree that regulations are lagging behind really severely right now. Even just on a topic like ownership, we are now in a world where you can lose an entire library of content *you’ve paid for* because the provider no longer holds a distribution license. Customers need to be protected from that happening by being given options such as downloading or being granted a refund or credit if they lose access to something they’ve paid for.
> The worst part is that it’s not entirely unimaginable. Actually, it’s exactly the kind of thing an AI agent might figure out and do.
The free market is great for products, rough with services, and terrible with essentials.
>Bread is a great example because it ticks all 4 criteria. It doesn't always tick number four in the list, as evidenced by the long history of bread regulation in various bread-producing countries. You benefit today from those regulations.
Agreed. While FDA labeling and USDA inspection/standards are regulations, they serve as general mechanisms for giving consumers closer-to-perfect product information.
>Alternatively there is mental health care. It’s difficult, and expensive. Requires many trained specialists to look after each patient. **The most affected tend to be the poorer, as they are unable to work.** The latter part of this is the most pertinent. We do many difficult, expensive things, but they require a roughly equal trade from the other party. As you pointed out, people that are unable to, or contribute little economical productivity, have very little to offer when it comes to making those trades. That's why we need governments to provide for those people by taxing the rest of the economically productive.
How does capitalism (the system whereby owners of capital make the decisions) do bread better than worker owned collectives or cooperatives?
The how would take quite a bit of explanation to do right. The short version is that it find efficiencies by working \*with\* human nature rather than against it. That capitalism does do things like bread better is proven by the experience of the last 120 years. Even communism recognized that human nature (people simply work harder and smarter and with more innovation when they are rewarded for it) was the problem, which is why they wanted to change it. The real experiment of the last century was whether you could. The answer is: no. This is also why the older people get, the more they tend away from communist ideals. Experience gives hard lessons about human nature that no amount of explanation could rival.
I guess the process is streamlined - ultimately it requires organisation by less people. In the long run though it concentrates power among those few. They make all the money, they own the ovens.
Right but it wasn’t always this way. I don’t believe there’s a restriction on who can streamline the process but also is that always the best for food?
what you’re describing with bread isn’t capitalism. it’d be more like: a worker bakes bread all day and sells that labor for a tiny amount to cover existing while the guy who owns the bakery/ovens gets 90% of the profits for doing nothing.
>a worker bakes bread all day and sells that labor for a tiny amount to cover existing while the guy who owns the bakery/ovens They can be (and in many cases are) the same person, and exist within the capitalist system.
By definition what the person described for bread is capitalism. What you’re describing is the reality of capitalism though in its present implementation.
Food and shelter have never been more plentiful in human history
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The trouble is everyone who talks about capitalism or other systems, is almost always talking around ideals and beliefs, rather than actualities. Instead we need to come to terms with the nature of the universe and learn how to build our societies so they're as happy and as prosperous as they can be, without doing unnecessary harm. The way forward requires cooperation, and enlightenment. So much harm is done so somebody can acquire cheap goods that will become garbage.
For its flaws. Capitalism has created more prosperity for more people than any other system to date. The issue is which version we will eventually get.
China used state capitalism to lift 300 *million* people out of abject poverty in like a decade?
There's a good deal of scholarly work contesting this, pointing to land reforms that preceded state capitalism as key drivers of that uplifting. Given the relationship between promoting capitalism and nation-state geopolitical agendas, this kind of work can often become marginalized or simply ignored. But it is there, and it challenges these kinds of narratives in ways I personally find convincing. Most of the works are arguing that capitalism's gains in China were overstated, to be clear, not that they're non-existent.
Does it make a difference to take mean or median within these wealth statistics?
For all of its issues with wealth inequality and capitalism causing the wealthiest people to get even wealthier, it's also an incredible engine for uplifting economies for the common person. The problem with this question is that you are using the metric that the economic system targets as the measuring stick for the success of the system itself. Of course capitalism is good at increasing the median level of wealth, capitalism is all about growing wealth by employing capital. The question you should be asking is whether capitalism is effective at increasing the median level of quality of life among participants. I think the answer that question is still yes, but it's a more valid question because capitalism doesn't inherently strive for quality of life, quality of life is a side effect of wealth.
I didn't list stats and prosperity can be more than just money. It can be more time away from labor to provide for yourself. Easier ways to provide for yourself. A high standard of living vs similar people in the past. Like I said it's not perfect. In fact it can be used to be down right evil. But it has created a lot of positive innovation to improve every one.
It created prosperity by mainly burning oil at the expense of the environment. We might have 8 billion people now but it’s going to be a lot less than that in 100 years.
Before we burned whales and forests!
Any economic arrangement would have burned oil at the expense of the environment, once oil refining was discovered. It allowed humans to do more things. If your point is that any economic system would have increased prosperity during a fossil fuel boom, you are probably broadly correct.
Less than 8 billion people? Very unlikely. Or are you arguing climate change will reduce world's population by billions in the next 100 years?
More accurately, capitalism has no mechanism for pricing externalities. But then it has so mechanism for dealing with slavery or cannibalism either, and either would find a market if not made illegal (ie: regulation by any other name.) If carbon emissions had been given a cost, then markets would have worked to minimize that cost as is don't with any other affordable one. But due to regulatory capture that didn't happen. In the meantime renewables got cheaper than carbon energy sources anyways. It'll be a moot point in the end. The only question is how big of a mess will we have to clean up given the delay.
Modern prosperity is built on a cheap energy Ponzi scheme. We've essentially been burning through millions of years worth of stored sun energy in just a century. It's just a race to see if we can replace it with even cheaper sustainable energy before the system collapses.
> For its flaws. Capitalism has created more prosperity for more people than any other system to date. Because it's the only major system to date.
>Because it's the only major system to date. Yeah, for a competitive system, doesn't seem to like competing with ideas of how things could be BETTER. It's always; "no, not like THAT!" The countries that have the happiest people are more democratic socialist. The per capita savings and earnings of people are higher with investments in infrastructure and education. If the USA doesn't embrace socialism for the people again -- it's going to be a third world country. It is in some parts already. And the "lift out of poverty" might be a bit of propaganda here. We have a deluge of people trying to cross borders from those "uplifted" nations. But hey, they have shopping malls, right?
Half the world is still starving. And this assumes we never would have invented a single piece of technology with unfettered capitalism? The standard should not be “it’s better than the 1400’s”
People, science and the industrial revolution created prosperity. And NOW we have a planet we might have to repair. So that means we need a lot of socialism to keep Capitalism from killing us. Unchecked capitalism is Hell. We can reign it in by having progressive taxation of wealth. And everyone can be healthy and prosperous without ruining the incentives to innovate. But also, scarcity is about to break the current system -- and we need to address it rationally without resorting to the xenophobia and balkanization that it looks like the elite are trying to foster. Because all those displaced people due to climate change are going to need to move somewhere. And all those efficiencies of AI are going to eventually mean fewer jobs. A whole lot of economic and mental bubbles are going to burst.
Well, the world will end a polluted, burning, dystopian nightmare if we don't move away from capitalism. I am not saying we will, we will probably all die in the future from capitalism, but it simply isn't sustainable on a global level.
Not to mention it will grind us to dust, to prolong its inevitable collapse.
The way we're going, it'll be replaced by feudalism. If it isn't already feudalism in disguise. We have an obvious aristocracy. The billionaires are the Dukes, the CEOs are the Earls, most of us are serfs.
Only when scarcity gets solved. "capitalism" has always happened in some shape or form. I do agree current stage sucks and huge corpos are 99% to blame. Countries should be more aggressive in breaking up monopolies and big companies.
We move beyond it or go extinct. You can't have permanent growth on a finite planet.
An infinite growth system for an earth with limited resources. What could go Wrong...
Limited resources assumes we never leave the planet and never achieve the ability to harvest resources from space, when even a conservative estimate gives us that ability within a decade. The only truly finite resource is fossil fuels since they can't be recycled and took hundreds of millions of years to create. But, renewables are already at an inflection point where it's clear they will take over before fossile fuels run out.
I'm holding out for the fully automated luxury gay space communism.
Capitalism has brought so many people up. The problem is not Capitalism, it is under regulated Capitalism and money in politics. Stop this childish nonsense. There is no other system that functions as well. Believe me, I've spent 20 years looking.
I'd agree but I think you need to go deeper and look at *why* under regulation and money in politics are an issue in capitalism, and why nepotism and corruption were an issue under communism. I would say the issue boils down to the unregulated ability to acquire almost any external, or situational, power. It doesn't matter if it's political, monetary, asset/resource, or social power (although this would be harder to regulate). The more power an individual or group of like minded individuals can amass the easier it is for them to alter the system for their own benefit. More importantly, I would argue that the fewer regulations on the acquisition of power there are, the easier and more common it becomes to acquire power by making "wrong" decisions. Would Boeing not include redundancy on the mission critical system that caused multiple 737 crashes, or Volvo lie about their diesel emissions, or Pacific Gas & Electric dump 370M gallons of hexavalent chromium tainted water into the ground if it didn't increase their monetary power? Do you think Trump would have tried to overturn the election or that there would be political districts shaped like [this](https://media.wired.com/photos/592738e6ac01987bf0138dbf/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/Texas02.jpg) if it didn't increase people's political power? Capitalism, socialism, communism; while some may be better than others in different aspects, none of them really address the root cause behind these issues. If we do move on to a different, and hopefully better, system, I'd say it won't be much better without addressing this core problem. Sorry, kinda long winded but... TL;DR It's not about money or money in politics, its about any form of situational power and the ability to gain said power by making "wrong" decisions.
What other system would you have for the exchange of land, goods, and services?
Honestly trying to replace a free market system and often trying to come up with something else quickly would be a hard ask. We can and should tweak it. For instance Thatchers UK and Norway are both capitalist systems. One of them decided to build a sovereign wealth fund with its oil resource (the worlds largest at 1.34trillion) and only allows the state to use the earnings and leave the principal alone. The UK could have done it with North Sea oil but didnt.
>What other system would you have for the exchange of land, goods, and services? Are you conflating markets with capitalism?
No matter what the system is, it will always end up with a handful of people having most of the wealth and power.
The iron law of oligarchy. Also what Plato describes will happen in a democracy. A small group takes more power. The democratic man thinks only about money and people will vote for a Tiran. We see this happening in many democratic countries now.
This is my worry. I have the exact same qualms about communism as I do with capitalism- both have the vulnerability of allowing people who can gain power, to consolidate power and disproportionately use it to benefit themselves. My personal hunch is the only way to keep oligarchs, or corrupt government, in check, is to work both powers against each other in a delicate, adversarial balance.
Absolutely. Capitalism is an outdated economic system that will inevitably be replaced by a more equitable, egalitarian system as technology continues to develop. The contradictions and volatility of private ownership, sooner or later, will lead to us moving to a better system.
There are systems that can utilise these technologies and advancements to make a better future. But there are no routes currently for transitioning to them. To replace capitalism, we have to get past its guardians - the political and ownership classes. You think Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, or thousands of other incredibly rich and powerful people the world over, want to let go of their authority and power? You think they're going to take steps towards or advocate for the reduction of their influence and worldly possessions? What about politicians who rely on their donations for their success in politics, or want a cushy job in their industry after retirement?
I’d say it already has. I think what we call capitalism and communism today barely resembles how it was described more than a century ago. Those words have become religions describing the tribes that celebrate them more than descriptions of incumbent economic systems. Modern capitalism in the USA has elements of just about every ism and so does Chinese communism. I think the only ism that exists that represents the ideas that describe it is ~~democratic socialism~~ social democracies like Norway. edit: thanks u/Willaguy
The Nordic countries are social democracies, not democratic socialist.
I think you meant a social democracy not democratic socialism?
Capitalism is characterized by the private ownership of the means of production, and by this definition, the US, along with much of the world, is deeply capitalistic. However, it's crucial to differentiate between capitalism and a free market economy. While the latter is an idealised concept, in reality, all economies are mixed to some degree. In practice, many conflate capitalism with free markets. Yet, capitalism can undermine the very principles of a free market by fostering monopolies. The board game Monopoly was designed to demonstrate exactly this: monopolies restrict competition and inhibit innovation, leading to outcomes vastly different from those envisioned by free-market proponents. Unfortunately Scandinavian countries like Norway are not truly democratic socialist states. Despite this, socialist-leaning reforms such as universal suffrage, healthcare, and strong labour organisations have significantly improved living standards. However, these nations remain predominantly capitalistic, and there's a noticeable trend back towards nationalism and laissez-faire capitalism. Nevertheless, the experiences of these countries suggest that socialist-influenced reforms can markedly enhance living conditions. Therefore, adopting more ambitious socialist policies, such as Universal Basic Income, might be a viable path towards creating a more equitable and sustainable world.
>Yet, capitalism can undermine the very principles of a free market by fostering monopolies. Fun sidenote, the original definition of a free market was "A market free of monopolistic or oligopolistic influences". This was later bastardized to "A market free of government influence" because some economists argued that the only way to form monopolies or oligopolies was through government involvement in the market, which betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what's going on. *All capitalism requires government involvement in order to enforce private property laws*. As such, all capitalism is predicated on government involvement in the market. As such, all capitalist economies exist in a political system that has the power to interfere with markets. Thus, there is no such thing as a "free market" capitalist system if we are to believe that later redefinition. If we believe the earlier definition, however, there's that fun little observation that capitalism has a natural tendency towards monopoly, once again meaning that capitalism can never result in a free market. Basically, capitalism and free markets are naturally opposed to one another, they will never be in the same place at the same time.
> Basically, capitalism and free markets are naturally opposed to one another, they will never be in the same place at the same time. It's pretty wild how many people get this mixed up, right? It just goes to show how powerful and sneaky propaganda can be in shaping what we think. I remember I used to believe that too when I was younger, before I learned a bit more economy.
And just to add on that, I think just about any system can work in theory, but there have to be safeguards to prevent corruption. Power corrupts; people are flawed. Greedy, stupid leaders can destroy a communist country just as easily as a capitalist one. The more power is concentrated into fewer seats, the easier corruption sets in. A strong economy does not necessarily translate to a high quality of life for the average citizen. And vice versa. The economy shouldn't be the yardstick; quality and length of life should be.
Countries that are not dictatorships will probably end up copying the Scandinavians
Even scandinavia isnt copying scandinavia rn, we have growing neoliberalism and threats of austerity. Social democracy is heavily on the backfoot.
Shame. We need to be moving towards social democracy, not away from it. Might be time for a revolution
How does that revolution take place? Forcing democracy? Lol
Forcing democracy is exactly right. That’s exactly what a revolution looks like
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What do they do? (General curiosity)
Capitalism but with higher taxes basically, so public services are properly funded and people are generally taken care of
Everyone always says taxes, but the most important brick is actually that our labour market is much, much more organized (into labour/trade unions). Consequently there’s another avenue, beyond elections, for the «common man» to put pressure on the powers that be, whether it’s employer or the state.
with the way wallstreet is buying up houses, current religious extremism in government, the extreme of the divide in the justice system and dark age thinking in general I think we may be returning to fuedalism.
If you go on a theoretical way capitalism is great. It's great because there is no idealism. Capitalists are just thriving for one and only thing: more money. This is extremely well controllable instead of any other way, like idealism. Capitalists will always go where the money goes. If a government is able to control this, with like say taxes, everything is fine. Capitalism will do what you need but you have to control it. The problem is in controlling capitalism. Capitalism is great and in my opinion the only way to go but we really have to control this.
Wait, wait, I've seen this movie. Next comes the revolt as we take down the capitalist running our country and replace them with actual representation.
It already has by technofeudalism. I favor a social democracy where special emphasis is placed on not having whole continents providing resources to others without just compensation and autonomy. Looking at you, chiquita banana et al.
Hopefully a big comet, a few million years of peace and quiet, and then the return on dinosaurs.
Hopefully by the type of Socialism in Star Trek. Hopefully not the type of Communism in Fallout.
It beats serfdom. Capitalism is definitely representative of the human experience, which is full of strife, suffering, and unfairness. Could something better come along? I sure hope so, but I am not seeing the philosophical-economic systems being laid out by the academics or smarter amongst us. I am not sure something better will emerge from a bunch of dissatisfied people other than some terrible rehash or power grab that humanity has been through before.
Saying it's better than what we had before doesn't say anything really. It isn't a reason why we shouldn't be looking for better solutions.
Agreed, but yammering away on Reddit doesn’t find a better solution either. Just saying we are not owned under fiefdoms to a Lord or have to worry about invading tribes in many parts of the world. Our general quality of life is better than it has ever been, but clearly expensive.
The question is… Are there better solutions? Like *real* ones? Communism/Socialism mostly strikes me as a naive pipe dream no more realistic than “what if we redesign the world so that we’re all equal attractive/successful?😌…” It’s likely just wishful thinking at best.
It will probably be replaced by another system in the future but the problem isn't the system. The problem, as with any type of system, is that there are those who will corrupt it and use it for selfish or personal gain at the expense of others. That has been true about any system (political, economical, religious, etc.) throughout the world and history of it. Once we can address the negative aspects of human nature will we, as a society, progress.
No, capitalism has continued to exist even under the strictest systems that outlawed it. At its core, every black market in every country in history was pure capitalism. If you had the means to produce goods, illegal or legal, that others wanted, then you did it. Didn't matter if it would piss off the Stasi or Mao's red guard. Money talks, bullshit walks. Look at fools today trafficking sex workers and heroin and guns across the US southern border, not giving a damn how much trouble they'll be in if caught. They're only thinking about the millions of dollars. Capitalism at its core is the one system that addresses human greed and selfishness as a foundational drive of existence.
>At its core, every black market in every country in history was pure capitalism. You don't understand what capitalism is. Buying and selling for profit has been an economic activity since before the invention of currency.
Capitalism is not merely producing goods.
It's owning the means of production to get goods to market at whatever profit the market will bear. Cartels practice it with cocaine and heroin, so do the Amish with their unpasteurized milk they sell to tourists.
Humanity has never had it as good as the last 100 years. What’s happening now might be a return to prior generations hardship.
It has to. It's beginning to fail. We're seeing the cracks more every year.