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I don't like saying "the problem is capitalism" even though I think I often agree with what I assume people mean when they say this.
Capitalism is this huge concept and to some people it means shopping and lemonade stands, to others it means human slavery and the indentured servitude of debt.
The problem is the imbalance of power, monopolies of control and the systems that enable control. Extreme wealth and the recognition of the legitimacy of that wealth can function in this way.
@futurebird The problem is not capitalism, but greed. Capitalism has proven to be great at fostering innovation and motivating people. But without protections for those less fortunate, greed will ruin a society.
"Capitalism has proven to be great at fostering innovation"
I don't know if I buy into this one any more. If anything the need to make rent seems to get in the way of creativity and innovation more than anything.
The people I admire most, who have done the most amazing things hardly ever do it for the cash money.
What I *can* say is that having currency and markets aids in the distribution problem. It's a somewhat stable way to operate.
But, for motivation? It's broken.
I think it's important to push back on the idea that "Capitalism has proven to be great at fostering innovation." because it credits human creativity, scientific discovery and technological innovation to "putting up with" having inequality, suffering and concentrations of wealth so obscene they exceed the average persons ability to imagine large numbers.
I don't even know if the people who stumble, and shove their way into having such wealth understand how extreme these concentrations are.
We love the idea of the hard-working plucky person making a good profit and doing what they want with it. Why not?
But, that's not what we have created, it's not some system that rewards "hard work" or even meeting the needs of markets however perverse they might be.
The wealth is so extreme it can overwhelm all other human systems of control and power.
The courts can be bought.
The universities.
The churches.
The sports clubs.
The politicians.
Everything is for sale with no upper limit.
The wealth is so extreme it can overwhelm all other human systems of control and power.the key here is Freidmanism doing what it was designed to do.
Milton' Friedman was fairly reluctant to talk about his father, usually sticking to some variation of "didn't accomplish much". In reality Milton's dad ran a successful sweatshop until minimum wage legislation broke his business model and failing to adapt, was forced to file bankrupcy.
The whole schtick about letting the market regulate itself was born right there. And here we are after decades of Friedmanite economics right where old Milton's dad wanted his workers to be - working fulltime but barely being able to pay cost-of-living.
You could also factor in making education being more like indentured servitude than actually bettering yourself throught student loans and other later add-ons. But the core idea was always that of "what if government never intervened in Papa Freidman's factory?"
@futurebird
Agreed on all points! I don't think it's capitalism to blame per se though, it's corruption, and unfortunately that is evident in all governments. Perhaps caps on wealth and more equitable wealth distribution would help...
No, it’s not bad apples that cause it, the bad apples are the symptom… extreme inequality, and so monopoly and oligarchy, are structurally baked into the math of economic exchange that is at the heart of capitalism. We can’t police away the inherent traits of the system.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/
@DavidM_yeg @futurebird
"No, it’s not bad apples that cause it, the bad apples are the symptom… extreme inequality, and so monopoly and oligarchy, are structurally baked into the math of economic exchange that is at the heart of capitalism. We can’t police away the inherent traits of the system."
I had to go back to the original quote and the statement that "capitalism" means different things to different people. To one degree or another, monopoly, oligarchy, greed, and corruption are part of all governments. I do see your point, but for me it's power that corrupts and alters the system, not the other way around.
Sorry, but if you have a system that inherently and inevitably concentrates wealth (and therefor power) then it *is* the system that corrupts. I recommend reading the attached article.
@DavidM_yeg @futurebird
Aside from all the math in the article, btw way too much for me to grasp, the concentration of wealth at the top is inherent in all governments. Are the cards stacked against us? Do they make the rules? Absolutely. The good news is there are the means to redistribute the wealth to benefit society (progressive tax codes, grants, etc.). The problem is we are not doing that.
Will there ever be be a system that is equitable for all? While that utopian society would be nice, I think it is an unrealistic expectation. We will have to agree to disagree. Man's greed and quest for power will corrupt any system.
You’re missing the point though… the math (take my word for it… or that of the researchers who study it) says that any ‘level playing field’ or ‘free market’ WILL concentrate wealth *without* the need for corruption, and do so in an exponentially increasing way. This process doesn’t require bad actors (although it will attract them) - it’s part of the system, and your agreement, disagreement, or bad actors aren’t needed for it to happen.
@DavidM_yeg @futurebird @jturiano
Yes, capitalism concentrates wealth. But again, it doesn't have to. Here comes a big ol' German word, prepare yourselves....
Mitbestimmungsgesetz.
The TL;DR version, yes, capitalism concentrates wealth. But if the corporate boards of directors are composed of half workers and half investors, that wealth wicks out into the work force.
Here's more:
@tuban_muzuru @futurebird @jturiano
You can’t have even some capitalism without robust and constantly renewed and adjusted systems to counteract its inherent tendencies.
@DavidM_yeg @futurebird @jturiano
How often do I have to keep saying this ? Capitalism is amoral. It has no conscience. Stop reifying it, this is far and away the biggest pipe dream of them all, that wicked old capitalism is anything but what it's allowed to be.
“How often do I have to keep saying this?”
Umm, I don’t know… I’ve only heard you say it once.
I’m not sure anything I’ve said contradicts it, or was this directed at someone else?
@DavidM_yeg @jturiano @futurebird
What is this about Inherent Tendencies? Are you trying to say capitalism has ever worked without regulation.
Helpful hint: it hasn't.
No, of course I’m not trying to say that, jeez… go back and maybe actually read what I wrote before you comment again
@DavidM_yeg @futurebird @jturiano
Fan dancing. Anything but tell me about these Inherent Tendencies.
Run along
@futurebird
It's even worse. If you have the money¹ then you don't need to spend it. You don't need to really buy, just having it opens doors and grands you access to decisions.
The option to really buy a decision comes on top if needed.
__
¹or/and a high social status
@futurebird - Capitalism has demonstrated an excellent ability to make money from human innovation.
The notion that it's responsible for that innovation is much less clear.
By which I mean "nah, doesn't work like that."
Decent people can support innovation under capitalism, of course, and it happens, but they're going against its values when they do.
@jmax @futurebird capitalism has definitely proven to be great at fostering a very specific form of innovation that abstracts labor from the value it creates, fostering more capitalism.
Some of the innovations that came about that way are legitimately great on their own merits, but many of them really only benefit capital itself.
@futurebird
No economic system can guarantee there won't be concentrations of wealth and poverty because the concentration is created by the networking between all of us directed by our biases for or against each other.
Like people were saying here on Mastodon a while back during one of the influxes, you can't fix social problems with technology.
Poverty is created by exclusion from power and we can't fix that social problem with economic technology.
Redlining was a New Deal era policy.
RMiddleton.Art @futurebird I was watching Deadpool & Wolverine (I'm house sitting & it's cold; I'm curled up watching anything). There's a bit that says approximately: "the Danish are a happy people. You'll never see a Danish flag on the moon but the Danish are happy."
I suppose one could interpret it many ways. The message I receive from American corporate central is that "great achievements are fueled by inequality." I suspect many Americans think this way. This message is widely promulgated.
@futurebird
If you look at innovation, a lot of innovation is paid for by the state (directly or indirectly).
Internet, or computer technology in general, medicine, pharmacy. Often the research is funnded by the public but private companies are allowed to reap the profits.
IMHO opinion capitalism is only good in fostering decentralised decisions. E.g. nobody centrally decides on how many lemonade stands are necessary. This breaks for big companies (or monopolies) where decisions again are made centrally
It’s all about the individuals, using ideas in a way that benefits everyone involved. And since some individuals simply don’t do that, regulation is needed & must be overseen.
@futurebird to the degree that I ascribe any innovation value to capitalism, it's only true free market capitalism, where there is a government ensuring markets are free. Otherwise the system will inevitably tip into stagnant extractive monopolists.
/∞
∫ @futurebird @jturiano
Yeah, the free market is good for distribution below a certain scale, but capitalism (as in control by private ownership of resources and the means of production) is not the free market. It's always about extraction, not improvement for the sake of anything but more extraction.
@futurebird Leoardo DaVinci with his uncountable insights, James Clarke Maxwell realising electricity and magnetism were two sides of the same coin, and Einstein's relativity(ies) were all the products of well-off men productively farting about.
If we want to solve all our problems very quickly, we just need to take starvation off the table, and let the 8 billion people on this planet just fart about as they see fit. Unimaginable innovations will come.
@futurebird @jturiano Capitalism seems to be good specifically at creating a wide variety of *consumer goods*.
There's a cost associated with that, of course--lots of waste, exploitation and inequality, and all the shoddiness and danger that eventually comes from the desire to shave costs to the bone and optimize for profit margin. So even to make consumer goods without causing too much damage, it has to be heavily regulated. But I can't really argue that anything else has been better at it.
There's more to life than consumer goods, though, and it seems to be taken as an article of faith in the US specifically that it ought to be best to apply the same system to services that there's little evidence capitalism is good at providing, like education and health care and various public utilities.
I think there's a reason that in many countries with a basically capitalist mixed economy, these things tend to be socialized, and that they tend to be to some degree even here.
@futurebird @jturiano One of the hardest ones is journalism. Market capitalism is *great* at producing a torrent of entertainment, but when it does journalism, the way to sell it is to turn the journalism into entertainment, and if there's not a wall there it just corrupts the whole purpose. But putting it entirely in the hands of the state is problematic too.
There has to be some degree of independence but the people funding and making it, and the audience, all have to agree that trustworthy information is a valuable thing to have and roughly what that is. And it's just a difficult tightrope.
Scientific research is a similar deal. There have actually been capitalist enterprises that supported great research operations, like Bell Labs back in the day, but if the research is any good, sooner or later the people holding the purse strings are going to notice that they're not getting any profit out of most of it, and they'll either kill it or ruin it.
@futurebird @jturiano Of course, publicly funded science has the similar problem that the people don't necessarily agree it's worthwhile.
One of my least favorite political tropes, which Hank Green was actually talking about recently, is the old "Golden Fleece Award" tactic where you describe some (usually pretty low-dollar) scientific research in terms that make it sound like an absurd waste of money because you left out the part about what it's trying to investigate, and it becomes "putting shrimp on a treadmill" or something along those lines.
@mattmcirvin @futurebird @jturiano
1/2
another problem is that capitalism excels at externalizing the harms of side effects, especially if they're ignored or unforeseen. But good scientific research will always find these things, like the consequences of adding CO2 to the atmosphere, or lead to the water, or CFCs to the stratosphere.
@mattmcirvin @futurebird @jturiano
2/2
Combine that with good journalism, and capitalists will have to do what they hate most: innovate replacements for their favorite ways to get rich. That's why they have spent decades and billions of dollars in widespread efforts to bludgeon scientists into submission, or failing that, destroy them entirely.
For the record I'm in favor of lemonade stands and having a panoply of cool shops and markets. And I am against buying and selling human beings.
I know this is very radical and eccentric.
@futurebird IMO capitalism's fundamental flaw as a standalone economic system is that it has no solution to the problem of power; it doesn't even acknowledge that the problem actually exists – which is why the way central governments have abdicated their role in regulating the economy since the 1970s in the name of enabling "growth" has been so corrosive to the public _everything_. There are so many things the market cannot fix.
@futurebird The need for shelter and food are two of the biggest motivators I can think of. While it can be harmful, another great motivator is greed. If you look at the other end of the spectrum, Communism, while it can be good for developing countries, can stifle innovation. When doctors and inventors are not rewarded in proportion to the value they add to society, it may discourage some from entering those fields.
Since there is no true "free market", I believe some form of socialism is best system for the individual as well as society.
I agree on admiring those who do amazing things without the need for a cash reward.
Stupid minor example: VHS, the dumbest tech for magnetic video, won against its superior alternatives thanks to capitalism, not because it was *better*. And video streaming came years later than it could have, because companies were fighting it tooth and nail.
Not to mention all the art and movie projects that never came to fruition thanks to a lack of funding.
Science and medicine are decades behind our potential because we only work on what can be sold in the now and not on what we actually need.
We certainly don’t have the Windows OS everywhere because it’s so *good* and innovative.
Renewable energy / emission reduction is getting throttled thanks to capitalism, putting our future on the chopping block for a short-term profit. How’s that for innovation?
Schools are not working with up-to-date tech because we expect them to pay for it.
And don’t get me started on the backwards ways we are using AI.
You can have distribution chains without capitalism. Probably even more efficient ones.
Capitalism only claims to help but its „help“ only half-heartedly solves problems it created itself. We have built ourselves a fine cage we can’t break out easily, putting every real progress just out of arm‘s reach.
@orangelantern @futurebird
You make some very good points and I agree on more efficient distribution chains. Capitalism is not concerned with the "best" solution or innovation, only the one that makes the most money. Some form of government is needed to ultimately decide what is best for society, and that's where the problem lies.
It's just nonsense as well. The places we look to for big innovations are places where people are explicitly protected from capitalism: universities and government-supported enterprises.
IBM has outlasted most of its competitors by maintaining its research divisions.
12 of them.
You can thank them for the UPC barcode, the relational database, the hard disk drive.
Etc. Yeah.
And Bell Labs gave us the transistor.
I am not sure how IBM runs its research divisions, but everyone else (I know about) does it by insulating them from capitalist pressures. The fact that that is good for the health of a business just goes to reinforce the well-established point that capitalism isn't sustainable and leads to crises.
Well, I am reasonably sure, going back to when my first sweetie's Dad worked in IBM Thin Films in Armonk. They had a great swimming pool, lemme tell you her house was sweet.
What, pray tell, is Capitalist Pressure? It's entirely driven by balance sheets. It's not IMmoral, it's Amoral.
Capitalism is sustainable, as anyone who's taken Accounting 101 will tell you, from incorporation to dissolution. Describe these capitalist pressures. Fascinating.
So let's start over, on a sounder basis. Capitalism is risky - so to deal with that risk, we have regulators, who enforce the laws.
Capitalism is not about Free Trade. It's about a ying-yang of risk and regulation.
Some markets are so risky,. they require internal regulation, too - commodities futures markets, CBOT, those markets are both internally and externally rated.
Who told you otherwise?
If you want to start over, try a run where you are not a hilariously arrogant clown.
Move along. This isn't fucking Twitter, where slinging insults wins arguments.
I will move where I like.
@tuban_muzuru
Capitalism claims to reward risk, but it has a narrow definition of risk. In capitalism, you can be rewarded mightily if you gamble with money you already have. But if you gamble with your ideas and time, as with the prototypical propaganda piece garage inventor, your odds are poor; like 90% of new businesses fail. And if you're one of the unlucky billions who have to gamble with their bodies to make rent, your best case scenario is survival. But not too far past your 60s or 70s since you probably have no pension or welfare.
And in fact the first group would not have such large sums for gambling if they weren't benefiting from the deprivation of the other two groups. But mostly from the third group.
@dogfox @futurebird @jturiano
@SallyStrange @dogfox @futurebird @jturiano
If jumping to conclusions were an Olympic event, Sally...
I want you to define capitalism. Let's see how far you get without risk.
@tuban_muzuru why would I define capitalism without risk when I specifically mentioned that it rewards financial risk but distributes other, more direct type of risks down the class spectrum?
You're fan-dancing, too. I asked you for a definition of capitalism. .
Balance Sheet Capitalism is an entirely benign concept. All that about risk distribution - that's politics, not capitalism. Politics, the exercise of power.
Case in point: paying workers a living wage and ensuring their children is a sound business decision. Creates loyalty, etc.
Capitalist definition of risk encompasses probability and scenario planning.
@tuban_muzuru Me: capitalism rewards only certain kinds of narrowly defined risk
You: define capitalism without mentioning risk
Do you still want a definition of capitalism that doesn't mention risk? If so, I'd still like to know why. It doesn't make much sense in context.
Beg your pardon, capitalism is paired with risk in every aspect - financial risk is capitalism defined
Wow, when this guy who doesn't like insults on here finds you, he is going to be so mad...
@tuban_muzuru
Capitalist pressure = the pressure to maximize profits by unethical externalization e.g. polluting the environment or using violence to break strikes
@dogfox @futurebird @jturiano
@SallyStrange @dogfox @futurebird @jturiano
You were doing so well - until you got to "unethical"
Who says any action is unethical?
@SallyStrange @dogfox @futurebird @jturiano
Here's how my version operates:
Capitalism is amoral. We regulate commerce with laws and regulatory agencies to enforce those laws.
We now have an agency called the EPA. We have another called the Department of Labor.
Your problem is with the revolving door, that last paragraph in Animal Farm, pigs and men, which is which?
Commerce needs regulation or it can't even get the motor started.
@futurebird @jturiano capitalism needs a forcing function to make it social and innovative. There were tax incentives for companies to be innovative like Bell Labs or Xerox Palo Alto… not anymore. There were government (think DARPA) paid funding for basic science that now are no longer available, or not in the same amounts.
The problem is not capitalism per se. Capitalism requires regulation to work effectively.
As varies risk, so must vary regulation.
I have noticed, with very considerable despair, that so many otherwise intelligent people still blame capitalism. They buried Karl Marx in 1883 , time to move on.
P.S. ... and as long as the Left continues to demonize capitalism and not the useless, corrupt regulators - they will go on losing elections until the sun burns down to a cinder.
@tuban_muzuru @futurebird @jturiano I don't think ethical capitalism is possible since its core premise is maximizing profit and growth with finite resources.
@HeliosPi @futurebird @jturiano
No....
There is no such thing as Ethical Capitalism and all these goofy Lonely Planet types with their Fair Trade hooey realize this immediately upon arrival in places like Guatemala, where the government is utterly corrupt.
Repeat after me: Capitalism is amoral. It requires regulation for the people to even believe the money has value.
Capitalism is a railroad engine. Properly utilized, it can haul everyone down the tracks to a modicum of prosperity.
@tuban_muzuru @futurebird @jturiano Thanks for elaborating your perspective. Relying on regulation is how some people argue for the possibility of ethical capitalism, so i was surprised you recognize that but still believe in its validity.
That kind of government corruption is the result of free trade policies promoted by global capitalist institutions such as WTO, World Bank, and IMF, requiring neoliberal policy changes for loans. On top of a long history of colonialism and exploitation by European states and proto-capitalist institutions. Regulation isn't really possible because state and capitalist interests are intertwined.