When did the Purge become realistic intelligent science fiction literature?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

You're taking the figurative supply-side characterization of "capitalist" as an official emblem of what capitalism is in a scientific sense.

Monopolies are a market failure, and are illegal.

Profits signal to the public that there is opportunity to be made in an industry.

Business tycoons are figurative "capitalists" and hate competition because it undercuts profits. Competition is encouraged in capitalism. Thus monopolies are not "capitalist".

[Madner Kami]

You're taking the figurative supply-side characterization of "capitalist" as an official emblem of what capitalism is in a scientific sense.

Monopolies are a market failure, and are illegal.

Profits signal to the public that there is opportunity to be made in an industry.

Business tycoons are figurative "capitalists" and hate competition because it undercuts profits. Competition is encouraged in capitalism. Thus monopolies are not "capitalist".

Never thought I'd ever say this, but... BridgeConsoleSmasher gets it.

[Riedquat]

I've seen it done in this very thread. "Monopolies aren't true capitalism!" Monopolies are inevitable under capitalism, because the goal of capitalism is to maximize profits.

They're also when it ceases to be capitalism because when that happens, it's just absolute control.

And why is that not capitalism? The hope is that capitalism results in competition, lower prices, innovation etc. as businesses try to stay ahead of each other but that's about outcomes, not methods, and the same's true of monopolies.

As Fuzzy said monopolies are the inevitable result, without some constraint one will eventually get ahead of the others, at least for a while (until they fall complacent most likely, which can sometimes happen).

I'm certainly not one of those who does the whole "no true Scotsman" nonsense about capitalism - it's still capitalism even if it needs some non-capitalist constraints to avoid monoplies, but monopolies are what you get if you let things go to extremes.

This shouldn't really be too surprising. No simple concept is ever going to work if you just leave things to it. There's a temptation to trust in a system so that you don't have to make decisions yourself (usually defended by some idiocy like "who are you to decide?") but the world's too complex a place for that. The best outcomes rely on having to step in from time to time, hence accusations of "inconsistency" are also sometimes an example of moronic thinking.

[hammerofglass]

It's apparently an inherent flaw in human nature, all political experiments if left unchecked end up with more and more wealth and power accumulating in fewer and fewer hands. Leave it too long and you've invented kingship yet again.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

It's apparently an inherent flaw in human nature, all political experiments if left unchecked end up with more and more wealth and power accumulating in fewer and fewer hands. Leave it too long and you've invented kingship yet again.

Well I agree with Jon Stewart when he says that America is indeed unprecedented in its economic foundations in a progressive sense. It's my opinion that the economic congregation of the EU is a reflection of what makes the US economy what it is. In fact, the EU GDP has a world share of 15.2% while the US GDP is at 15.5%. Given that, I'm only assuming that it's much harder to achieve monopoly status within the EU but I'd like to look into that to be more forthright.

Maybe he was talking about freedom of press, but it's a consistent outlook.

[clearspira]

It's apparently an inherent flaw in human nature, all political experiments if left unchecked end up with more and more wealth and power accumulating in fewer and fewer hands. Leave it too long and you've invented kingship yet again.

Yep, and the sad thing is, the worst is yet to come. Corporations are trying to get us into space for a reason: the mission is not ''where no man has gone before'' it is ''where no McDonalds has gone before''.

There is so much real estate up there. So many resources. And above it all, the flags of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. World governments will never be able to out-compete the corps because they will still have plenty of terrestrial things to spend their money on - Amazon will not have that restriction. As long as they are set up and profitable on Mars they can up stakes and end operations on Earth within a day.

The next 50-100 years are going to be very interesting if we live that long.

[Riedquat]

It's apparently an inherent flaw in human nature, all political experiments if left unchecked end up with more and more wealth and power accumulating in fewer and fewer hands. Leave it too long and you've invented kingship yet again.

It makes perfect sense really, our drives evolved when we were hunter-gatherers, and "get as much as you can now" is a good survival strategy there. The likelihood of grabbing more than was good for you would've been hard enough that no sense of "that's enough" evolved, it just didn't happen often enough to make any difference at all.

It's a positive for human nature that we've created any sort of system that attempts to moderate it at all, although we're in danger of forgetting why we did.

[CharlesPhipps]

And why is that not capitalism?

No.

You may be right that it's a failed ideology that does not work but if you're not engaging in the actual arguments for it based on the principles thereof.

Just how they've failed to be reigned in.

Basically, it's like saying, "Marxism doesn't work because inevitably the government becomes an authoritarian shitshow."

It may be RIGHT but it's not the way it's written.

[Riedquat]

And why is that not capitalism?

No.

You may be right that it's a failed ideology that does not work but if you're not engaging in the actual arguments for it based on the principles thereof.

Just how they've failed to be reigned in.

Basically, it's like saying, "Marxism doesn't work because inevitably the government becomes an authoritarian shitshow."

It may be RIGHT but it's not the way it's written.

Which doesn't mean that the authoritarian shitshow isn't Marxist. That the results of something aren't what its creators hoped for doesn't mean that it isn't what they created.

[CharlesPhipps]

Which doesn't mean that the authoritarian shitshow isn't Marxist. That the results of something aren't what its creators hoped for doesn't mean that it isn't what they created.

It does, however, mean that its not working the way its supposed to.