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Comment by 1stop | Hacker News Reader

I think you're missing the point. If I could summarise:

Capitalism generates capital. Yay for us, we now have lots of capital. But once you've generated all the capital, and maximised all the profits to the point of driving surplus value to 0. What then?

* Also a major nitpick, most of that billion were brought out of poverty in China in the 1950s at the peak of Maoism/Communism... so you're point is kind ironic, no? The majority of the remainder were also in China during DengXiao ping driven state run capitalism or "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics"... So even if you weren't missing the point, the point you are making is still very moot.

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"Also a major nitpick, most of that billion were brought out of poverty in China in the 1950s at the peak of Maoism/Communism."

If you're talking about the "Great Leap Forward" years (late 50s-early 60s), somewhere between 18 and 45 million Chinese people died, most of them by starving to death. The Chinese economy did not grow during that period. It shrank.

That's an odd definition of "brought out of poverty".

> But once you've generated all the capital, and maximised all the profits to the point of driving surplus value to 0. What then?

You're assuming you will be able to keep this capital forever. History demonstrates that most of even the richest families don't stay such after 3 or 4 generations.

Ask any Family Office managing finances for HNW investors and they'll give you examples.

* Decreasing marginal utility of wealth.

* Difficulty investing as wealth increases. Capital accumulation lowers rates, incentivizing individuals to spend (h/t Reisman)

* Empathy and philanthropy (one can't just ignore this, it's human action all the same).

* The calculation problem builds in inefficiencies as organizations grow (h/t Peter Klein).

Intergenerational differences in ability and goals and the squandering of inheritances.

Entrepreneurship and innovation. Punctuated equilibrium (h/t Schumpeter).

That doesn't actually matter to the point at hand. My point was we've got all the surplus value there is to be had.

The fact that we'll probably squander that too, or it will decrease in value, only strengthens the questions... so what do we do after that?

After what exactly? People will keep exchanging goods and services voluntarily in a free market for a long time. That's like worrying about what we'll do to deal with over-population on Mars. Let's focus on trying to get there first?

All the profits? like in a zero-sum game?

Wealth creation through creativity, like we do every time, that's what we do next.

This article was wasted time

The article is echoing a pretty well trodden train of thought on the ultimate conclusion of capitalism. Which no one has seriously been able to refute. Wasted time is a bit harsh.

Catchy one liners "Wealth creation through creativity" might help you sleep at night, but seriously, our creative endeavours have never produced anywhere near the amount of capital the resource sector has... What happens when we either get so efficient at resources that they cost nothing, or we run out of the resource?

It's trivially easy to refute the conclusion in fact. Fortunately history has already provided the refutation, dozens of times, and history will continue to prove that Capitalism is the only system that works long-term. All other systems rot and collapse, requiring constant reform back towards Capitalism (see eg: Sweden since the 1980s, UK since 1970s). There isn't a single example in world history of Socialism, Fascism, or Communism working. Every example of heavy welfare state systems has resulted in eventual stagnation and decline.

There is no ultimate conclusion to Capitalism, the system continues to create more prosperity, and capital continues to seek higher forms of productivity and profit, which perpetually raises the standard of living for any nation that deploys Capitalism with its well understood requirements (which include a strong judicial system, property rights, et al). New innovations and breakthroughs perpetually lead to new industry and expansion, creating perpetually greater numbers of jobs (which is why America doesn't only have 500,000 jobs available today; and America isn't even a properly functioning Capitalist nation, it's a poorly functioning highly regulated mixed economy).

So Sweden, Denmark and Norway have stagnated and declined? Can you be more specific?

More generally, Malthus had much more historical support for his thesis (that population would quickly grow to consume all the food available). But the rules changed.

"our creative endeavours have never produced anywhere near the amount of capital the resource sector has..."

http://www.forbes.com/global2000/

Only four of the top 20 could reasonably be described as "resource" companies (oil companies, in every case).

Are you suggesting banks are creative endeavours? I like the connotation.

Certainly. A bank is just a collection of ideas. It's a bunch of magnetic domains on hard disks that get reconfigured based on a set of rules.

It certainly isn't a natural resource like oil or iron ore.

What would you call it?

Your mind (the rational part) is just a collection of ideas. One of them is called oil.

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