Rich People are Evil

[Riedquat]

One of the bad things about it is that that's all it's really good at, resulting in "More wealth!" being shouted as the solution to every problem, and a willingness to sacrifice everything else at its altar (just look at how often "it's good for the economy" appears to be regarded a definitive there-can-be-no-possible-counter-argument-if-it's-demonstrated-it-is statement).

Mind you, the ability to feed, clothe, treat, and shelter humans is generally the biggest set of problems humans have to deal with. The thing is that plenty of people have no interest in other people having these benefits unless it somehow personally benefits them.

Capitalism is great at creating solutions to primal problems and the absolute worst enemy of distributing them.

And it's a problem that's been dealt with (in Western society at least, although hardly perfectly there) - even then I'm still not persuaded that it's capitalism that can claim all the success of that. To answer that you'd need to consider whether a society at any particular time could do a reasonable job of those but other barriers got in the way that only got solved by a capitalist approach. It's good at optimising the use of resources towards a particular end - wealth (and it cares not one jot about the distribution of said wealth, as you point out).

The most that can be validly said is that no-one's figured out a system that works better, which is more a criticism of everything else than an endorsement of capitalism.

[CharlesPhipps]

The big issue is that capitalism has occasionally collapsed in on itself. The Roman Empire and other Pre-Modern capitalist societies have destroyed themselves through overuse of slavery (not that I'm saying there's ever an acceptable one of it) and cheap labor. At some point, you need to regulate the rich's authority to have access to cheap labor and force them to pay or they eventually become oligarchs and subvert the government to the point it ends in revolution or collapse.

Why yes, I do teach history.

[Riedquat]

The "cheap labour" part is reflected in the classic management vs union conflict, with things going rather pear-shaped when either side gets ahead. One problem is that the right balance between them seems to be a point of unstable equilibrium.

There's also the wider goal to be kept in mind - to what end is it worth pursuing anything? If you want to keep or change the system, why? Throughout most of history, when for the majority survival wasn't even all that certain, it was simple. Of course that still applies to a lot of the world, but there are parts of it that have finally moved beyond that.

[CharlesPhipps]

The "cheap labour" part is reflected in the classic management vs union conflict, with things going rather pear-shaped when either side gets ahead. One problem is that the right balance between them seems to be a point of unstable equilibrium.

There's also the wider goal to be kept in mind - to what end is it worth pursuing anything? If you want to keep or change the system, why? Throughout most of history, when for the majority survival wasn't even all that certain, it was simple. Of course that still applies to a lot of the world, but there are parts of it that have finally moved beyond that.

My general view of the subject is that the end worth pursuing is determined by the public. Ideally, it'll eventually move to a post-scarcity economy and that people can pursue science as well as self-improvement without worrying about the lowest level of the Hierarchy of Needs.

*Star Trek theme plays*

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

One of the bad things about it is that that's all it's really good at, resulting in "More wealth!" being shouted as the solution to every problem, and a willingness to sacrifice everything else at its altar (just look at how often "it's good for the economy" appears to be regarded a definitive there-can-be-no-possible-counter-argument-if-it's-demonstrated-it-is statement).

Mind you, the ability to feed, clothe, treat, and shelter humans is generally the biggest set of problems humans have to deal with. The thing is that plenty of people have no interest in other people having these benefits unless it somehow personally benefits them.

Capitalism is great at creating solutions to primal problems and the absolute worst enemy of distributing them.

One good critique of the communist model was by a professor of mine, "The farmer who hates and loathes communism as well as hides food isn't that he thinks he's going to get rich if he doesn't give up his crop. It's that he fears he's not going to be fed or his family if he gives it up."

Capitalism is good at creating solutions to primal problems, then creating more of those problems for profit motive. Look at the Irish Potato Famine. There were plenty of food crops being grown, but all of those were for England, and England blocked foreign aid to Ireland because they wanted the people to starve. Look at the Flint water crisis. Look at homelessness in cities full of unsold real estate.

Maybe this falls under your distribution critique, but it seems to me that capitalism is at least as good at creating artificial survival problems as solving them.

As for communism, I feel we don't have enough data to say if it works. It hasn't been tried that many times compared to capitalism, and the united states likes to wreck attempts at it. Sure it was attempted in Russia, but capitalism isn't working out too well for them either. I kinda just think Russia is fucked.

[CharlesPhipps]

The Irish Potato famine is one of those rare disasters not caused by capitalism. That was just racism and genocide and religious bigotry.

As for communism, I feel we don't have enough data to say if it works.

I dunno, we've got a pretty expansive collection of nations either part of the Soviet Union or Chinese hegemony.

It hasn't been tried that many times compared to capitalism, and the united states likes to wreck attempts at it. Sure it was attempted in Russia, but capitalism isn't working out too well for them either. I kinda just think Russia is fucked.

Counterpoint but Czarist Russia still had serfdom so it was a feudal model rather than capitalist. Feudal models don't qualify because that's essentially a slave based economy. Mind you, modernized Russia stabilized ironically because of oil and its current economic crisis is due to sanctions on said oil.

The nation has come a long way since Yelstin and would have probably done better if not for the attempts to modernize the military versus other businesses plus the whole invading other nations.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

The "cheap labour" part is reflected in the classic management vs union conflict, with things going rather pear-shaped when either side gets ahead. One problem is that the right balance between them seems to be a point of unstable equilibrium.

There's also the wider goal to be kept in mind - to what end is it worth pursuing anything? If you want to keep or change the system, why? Throughout most of history, when for the majority survival wasn't even all that certain, it was simple. Of course that still applies to a lot of the world, but there are parts of it that have finally moved beyond that.

My general view of the subject is that the end worth pursuing is determined by the public. Ideally, it'll eventually move to a post-scarcity economy and that people can pursue science as well as self-improvement without worrying about the lowest level of the Hierarchy of Needs.

*Star Trek theme plays*

The problem is that capitalist societies actively resist post-scarcity. Capitalism benefits from scarcity of essential resources, whether natural or contrived, because it serves as a whip to coerce people into low-value labor with the threat of death by starvation/thirst/exposure.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

The Irish Potato famine is one of those rare disasters not caused by capitalism. That was just racism and genocide and religious bigotry.

As for communism, I feel we don't have enough data to say if it works.

I dunno, we've got a pretty expansive collection of nations either part of the Soviet Union or Chinese hegemony.

It hasn't been tried that many times compared to capitalism, and the united states likes to wreck attempts at it. Sure it was attempted in Russia, but capitalism isn't working out too well for them either. I kinda just think Russia is fucked.

Counterpoint but Czarist Russia still had serfdom so it was a feudal model rather than capitalist. Feudal models don't qualify because that's essentially a slave based economy. Mind you, modernized Russia stabilized ironically because of oil and its current economic crisis is due to sanctions on said oil.

The nation has come a long way since Yelstin and would have probably done better if not for the attempts to modernize the military versus other businesses plus the whole invading other nations.

I was referring to modern russia, not pre-revolution Russia. It's a kleptocracy that has been repeatedly rated as the most miserable nation on earth.

[CharlesPhipps]

The problem is that capitalist societies actively resist post-scarcity. Capitalism benefits from scarcity of essential resources, whether natural or contrived, because it serves as a whip to coerce people into low-value labor with the threat of death by starvation/thirst/exposure.

The real issue is the accumulation of wealth by smaller and smaller groups of people. While certain cartels (maple syrup, diamonds) create artificial scarcity, I think a larger flaw is when there's 100 million dollars made--99 million of it go to one person.

Or to make a joke, "The problem of trickle down economics is it's a trickle rather than a river."

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

The problem is that capitalist societies actively resist post-scarcity. Capitalism benefits from scarcity of essential resources, whether natural or contrived, because it serves as a whip to coerce people into low-value labor with the threat of death by starvation/thirst/exposure.

The real issue is the accumulation of wealth by smaller and smaller groups of people. While certain cartels (maple syrup, diamonds) create artificial scarcity, I think a larger flaw is when there's 100 million dollars made--99 million of it go to one person.

Or to make a joke, "The problem of trickle down economics is it's a trickle rather than a river."

But I would argue that this hyper-concentration is a natural byproduct of capitalism and its value system. You must spend money to make money, so the rich keep getting richer and use their leverage to keep money out of the hands of the poor.