Americas Middle Class Massacre *sobs*

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Clearspira, Capitalism is not as old as human civilization. Capitalism is the social system that came after Feudalism. And most failed communist states tended to happen because they got the shit bombed or sanctioned out of them by capitalist states.

The Mesopotamians were using money 7000 years ago. We have found actual accounts that detail the goods traded. Sounds like capitalism to me. Any difference between that and today sounds like splitting hairs frankly.

Well, it sounds like splitting hairs but to economists the difference is pretty important. Money is an agreed-upon unit of exchange. Capitalism is how you get things like stock markets and landlords.

[Draco Dracul]

Clearspira, Capitalism is not as old as human civilization. Capitalism is the social system that came after Feudalism. And most failed communist states tended to happen because they got the shit bombed or sanctioned out of them by capitalist states.

Sure Socialism could work in theory, but in practice any government that tries it gets overthrown by the CIA.

You seem to be confusing communism and socialism. They're not the same thing. Universal healthcare is not ''communism''. An unemployment safety net is not ''communism''.

Socialism actually works very well.

Niether universal healthcare nor unemployment safety nets are socialism, though a socialist country will have both. Socialism is the ownership of the means of production by the state, it can exist either as an ideology in it's own right or as an intermediary state between capitalism and communism prior to the abolition of the state.

[clearspira]

Clearspira, Capitalism is not as old as human civilization. Capitalism is the social system that came after Feudalism. And most failed communist states tended to happen because they got the shit bombed or sanctioned out of them by capitalist states.

The Mesopotamians were using money 7000 years ago. We have found actual accounts that detail the goods traded. Sounds like capitalism to me. Any difference between that and today sounds like splitting hairs frankly.

If has money is all that's needed to be capitalism, then by your own definition communism has never even been attempted.

Fair question, lets go by the ACTUAL definitions.

Communism: A theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

Capitalism: An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

The latter describes basically any country with a monetary system regardless of what it calls itself. China for example is no more ''actually communist'' than a fork is actually a teaspoon.

[clearspira]

Clearspira, Capitalism is not as old as human civilization. Capitalism is the social system that came after Feudalism. And most failed communist states tended to happen because they got the shit bombed or sanctioned out of them by capitalist states.

The Mesopotamians were using money 7000 years ago. We have found actual accounts that detail the goods traded. Sounds like capitalism to me. Any difference between that and today sounds like splitting hairs frankly.

Well, it sounds like splitting hairs but to economists the difference is pretty important. Money is an agreed-upon unit of exchange. Capitalism is how you get things like stock markets and landlords.

As you noted yourself, capitalism as a concept was what replaced feudalism. But there was an intermediary form called mercantilism. Which, I have Wiki open as I type this, and it really does not seem all that different. Sounds rather Ferengi actually.

I think we do need to separate what capitalism has become V what capitalism could have been if history had been different.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Libertarianism and Communism are two completely incompatible philosophies. One champions the individual, one champions the group. In fact, its so ludicrous a notion, that Wikipedia does not recognise it. I know, I just checked. Literally the only reference on Wiki I could find to this was under Anarcho-Communism.

Putting that aside, Communism does not work in real life and there is not a single example of it working anywhere beyond a few little island tribes where if you squint hard enough, perhaps, what they have is Communism. There is a reason what Capitalism is as old as human civilisation - it works, it always has worked, and will always work until we reach post-scarcity. At that point - if we reach that point - Communism has a chance. See you in a thousand years time.

Private property tends to be the lubricating factor for what makes capitalism work. It caters to individual autonomy rather well. And frankly any system of social contract essentially needs to be balanced as to for the one or the many against the public.

Also, the framing of government as essentially a passive market entity rather than a private firm allows it to operate squarely as a provision to market failures, going so far as to normalize roads and mail to every house to establishing an unwavering security force in the form of police.

That doesn't cover everything though. Autonomy allows for a lot of injustice, which isn't supposed to be handwaved away for the sake of simply "how things are." Also government can administer economic change on a systemic level that is unparalleled in private markets.

[TGLS]

Fair question, lets go by the ACTUAL definitions.

Communism: A theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

Capitalism: An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

I see. So Sparta & Company Rule in India were communism and the Soviet Union under NEP and New Spain were capitalism.

--

The definitions you've given are excessively reductionist. Where does Feudalism fit? Yugoslavian worker cooperatives? Britain during WW2? Ancient Egypt? Tang China? Imperial Japan? South Korea and their five year plans in the 60s? Banana republics? North Korea and their Jangmadang? The antebellum south? The VOC? Rupert's Land? Government monopolized or dominated industries?

I look at definitions of capitalism, socialism, feudalism, mercantilism, etc. as monads that don't exist, but are still worth talking about. The US might be 83% capitalist and China might be 53% capitalist, but China might be more capitalist in some aspects. The Soviet Union in the late 80s might have been 30% capitalist assuming all the laws were in effect, but perhaps as high as 74% when you take account all of the corruption.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Fair question, lets go by the ACTUAL definitions.

Communism: A theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

Capitalism: An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

I see. So Sparta & Company Rule in India were communism and the Soviet Union under NEP and New Spain were capitalism.

--

The definitions you've given are excessively reductionist. Where does Feudalism fit? Yugoslavian worker cooperatives? Britain during WW2? Ancient Egypt? Tang China? Imperial Japan? South Korea and their five year plans in the 60s? Banana republics? North Korea and their Jangmadang? The antebellum south? The VOC? Rupert's Land? Government monopolized or dominated industries?

We've classified them as either 1st, 2nd, or 3rd world.

[GreyICE]

As a small investor with a personal investment account, a retirement IRA, and nearly a decade of experience in both traditional stock and crypto trading there is so much wrong with this.

Firstly the price of a stock going up is absolutely a benefit to the company that issued it. If the share price goes up it provides the company with greater capital flow and allows them to take advantage of capital offers while also increasing the value of the assets of the various share holders, and the company itself. It also creates collateral that the company can use to take out credit against. (i.e. a
collateralized loan)

It doesn't create any capital flow, because again the company isn't selling anything or buying anything.

It can be used as loan collateral, sure. That's one of the fun game of vulture capitalists. But companies can use many other things for loan collateral - such as actual land and capital. And any bank knows that stock collateral is no more than a proxy for that, and treats it as such.

Buying shares in a company also means that you literally own a portion of that company. whether it's a fraction of a single share or millions of shares you own a portion of the company equal to the size of the share ratio that you own. As a result you have the right to vote in company decisions, and the weight of your vote is based on ratio of shares that you own. I know this because I routinely receive emails informing me of upcoming board votes and asking if I have an opinion and do I wish to cast a vote.

Sure. You can cast 1/100,000,000 of a vote on a board which is pretty much preselected.

Do you have any actual interest in the company, any knowledge of what the company does, or how they operate, or how the board's policies might affect employees? No. In point of fact it's probably a blessing that shareholder vote is irrelevant, because if you did know you'd probably do something awful.

Want an example? Apple. Apple is constantly running into trouble with government agencies, both US and foreign, when it comes to them handing over customer's private data. Now in the last few years Apple has had it's arms twisted into compliance in certain areas but generally they take a strong stand in that regard and rarely back down. Why? because that's what the shareholders voted for. I own Apple stock, not very much, but I own some regardless (They pay a fairly nice dividend).

Now you ask "well why do companies always make decisions that harm small investors and regular people" Well it's simple, the 1980's happened and in the space of a decade the US's largest industry became financials. As a direct result of this it became very hard (or perhaps frustratingly complex would be a better way to say it) for regular folks to buy, sale, and trade stock. Then comes the fintech revolution, and suddenly anyone with some patience, a willingness to learn, and has ten or fifteen bucks sitting in their account at the end of the week could suddenly get involved.

You see because of financialization up until only five years ago or so, most stock was owned by a fairly small number of people, and in turn it was these people who set the direction of the company, but now millions of millennials are flooding into the market and sucking up all the spare stock, this is why the stock market has boomed by the way (that and stock buybacks but the arguments I've seen over which has had the biggest effect are both amusing and often undecided). While the real economy has lagged, billions of dollars of spare cash and stimulus checks have been flowing into the markets. Stocks, just like any other asset are affected by supply and demand, we've been seeing a lot of asset shortages over the last ten to twelve months and as a result prices keep going up, and the number of shareholders is rapidly increasing for the first time in decades. We are witnessing history, as the old, grumpy, stick in the mud conventual traders on wallstreet are being forced to come to terms with this. They don't like it but they have no choice. Decentralized finance is here to stay and eventually wallstreet will either adapt or go extinct.

Well first of all, on Apple, here's your vote:

Shareholders vote for all of Apple's recommendations at annual meeting
https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/02 ... al-meeting

Wow that was extremely valuable I can't believe I ever called that a rubber stamp formality.

This idea of a financial revolution by "the little people" is so insanely delusional I have to check if we're on a science fiction forum. *check*... okay, I didn't log into AOL Luddites by accident, so what the fuck is this?

We have decentralized AIs constantly scanning millions of twitter posts, news articles, etc. and relating that to sales prices on a daily basis. They have databases of billions of articles and news, and can relate that to sales data. And predictive algorithms are very, very damn good at this. We don't have to imagine this in some future world - trading companies are already doing this. And the predictive algorithms are frighteningly good.

Slow? Do you know how hard it is to outrun a computer? How hard it is to beat one? You've got some fucking 1990s model stuck in your head where the investing firms are making stock trades with ticker tape. Not only do they make trades using supercomputers in milleseconds, they have faster access to the data than you.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... ll-street/

You exist in this bubble where you think the market can somehow be used as a tool for good because you think an ordinary, middle class person can outthink a fucking supercomputer. That ANYONE can outthink a supercomputer.

Stocks are meaningless to actual companies, and have nothing to do with value, and you're not going to get rich trying to play quickdraw against a machine.

[GreyICE]

Fair question, lets go by the ACTUAL definitions.

Communism: A theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

Capitalism: An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

The latter describes basically any country with a monetary system regardless of what it calls itself. China for example is no more ''actually communist'' than a fork is actually a teaspoon.

Of course. But if you stop, you realize that many forms of socialism are capitalist under that definition.

That's when it's useful to drill down and nail some complexity. Otherwise everything gets hopelessly vague, like when I point out that there's no reason a fully socialist system can't be fully capitalist (there isn't). Actually my preferred economic system is fairly close to that.

[Thebestoftherest]

Fair question, lets go by the ACTUAL definitions.

Communism: A theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

Capitalism: An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

The latter describes basically any country with a monetary system regardless of what it calls itself. China for example is no more ''actually communist'' than a fork is actually a teaspoon.

Of course. But if you stop, you realize that many forms of socialism are capitalist under that definition.

That's when it's useful to drill down and nail some complexity. Otherwise everything gets hopelessly vague, like when I point out that there's no reason a fully socialist system can't be fully capitalist (there isn't). Actually my preferred economic system is fairly close to that.

Is government by currency the only measurements