Why Capitalism Is Just Shitbag Science | Hacker News Reader

Why Capitalism Is Just Shitbag Science

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25 pointscolinprince36 comments

This article has too many depressingly correct statements. I am all for receiving just and proportionate reward for your efforts, and rewards for innovation and risk. I am also for UBI, and a brand of socialism where we all look after the weak, ill, and incapable. Also, nobody telling what to do. As long as I not harming anyone, leave me alone. I guess I am an anarchistic social capitalist.

I'd sign up for that

Chomsky calls this *libertarian socialism (or anarchy in the Bakunin mean)

I did not know that, and shall look it up. Thanks!!

I very much appreciate the 'no true scotsman' allusion to capitalism -- the asymptotic ideal manifestation that we're forever approaching, but can never obtain. And, of course, the anger about our tacit agreement to be okay with that.

It's an ideology, not a science

That's true, but a longer title for the article might have been, "The oft-repeated, scientific support for capitalism is shit".

Libertarians and classical economists often use data to support capitalism, so a scientific look at it is warranted.

This isn't a particularly scientific article, though. It's more like "let's cut through all the cynical rhetoric that capitalists use to make it seem like capitalism is good for everyone and not just the wealthy/powerful."

I have a hard time believing that.

There's tons of examples of the failure of overly centralized, planned economies: USSR, N. Korea, China, Venezuela, Greece. I don't need to test a science report. I just need to have lived for the last 40 years.

And they were all suppressed, corrupted and/or destroyed by the same powerful propagandists of monetary value, or capitalists. The version of history that you've been fed conveniently decided to forget that part since it ruins the point they're trying to make. But keep doing the drone-dance for all I care; collectively we are slowly becoming aware of the rules of the game, with or without your help.

He even comes the "No true Scotchman" of Communism, I see.

Of course, socialism/communism is infailable!

Of course, and communist revisionist always do their best to sell this idea that whenever communism fails, it's always a conspiracy and someone else's fault.

That, in spite of the repeated spectacular failures that were caused by communism.

I've also lived for 40+ years, but don't profess expertise from the same experience. :)

Conflating economic with government / ideological constructs is a common trap. Centralised & planned economies are common everywhere, I think, but in 'the west' they're just masked a bit more creatively -- and, of course, they're not planned by the state.

A completely centralized economy in just one narrow area, like phone communication, would be named a monopoly, and likely forcefully split.

Now imagine state monopoly on everything, and you're close to understanding what a Soviet-style centralized planning looked like.

Maybe we're just not capitalistic enough. No cash without capital: http://Catallax.info

And yet humanity is doing better than it ever has, by any metric.

Except for the important metrics of inequality of QoL/income/wealth.

> the important metrics of inequality

Of course that "keeping up with the joneses" is on par with avoiding famines and access to education and medical care.

Who cares if everyone is living better than ever, and has access to all luxuries in the world. I mean, my neighbor earns more than me! Down with the system, comrade.

Did you read the article?

"my neighbors spending most of their days driving to a job that I know pays them less than they need to feed their kids"

This doesn't sound like someone who has access to all luxuries in the world.

Yeah..no. Those same poor neighbours have access to clean water and basic medicine. Even America's "working poor" have access to untold quantities of food compared to people a few centuries ago.

Are things perfect? No. But are people, on average, waaaay better off than they've ever been? Yes.

We live in a world where Donald Trump is President.

This is not the best timeline.

1. Capitalism is very simple.

Okay ...?

2. Capitalism as an economic system is essentially defined as the process of private expropriation of public wealth.

My economics textbook defined capitalism as "A system for reallocating scarce resources from low-value uses to high-value uses". I don't like either definition, honestly.

3. Technically, the Earth is every creature’s inheritance ...

Technically, adverb. 1. according to the facts or exact meaning of something; strictly.

So what you're about to say is true, because you say it's true? Technically, this is where I stopped reading.

Bravo!

Capitalism is very simple. Capitalism as an economic system is essentially defined as the process of private expropriation of public wealth. Technically, the Earth is every creature’s inheritance but we in our late modern wisdom have conceded that only a select handful of people will get to profit from its resources while the rest are forced by either gunpoint or starvation to serve them forever or die.

Yeah, no.

Look, I'm not a rah-rah capitalism guy, but the fact is that the vast majority of wealth is based on human labor, the labor of individuals, applied to nature. While the latter certainly has a strong claim on being public wealth (a commons) the wealth produced by a human's labor belongs rightly to that person. (Economic rents then tend to concentrate that wealth, but that's a separate topic.)

There is an economic third way alternative to capitalist rent seeking and socialist totalitarianism: distributism. For a modern introduction to this idea, this is a good book:

https://www.amazon.com/Vocation-Business-Social-Justice-Mark...

Some people will be put off by the catholic moral basis, others by the term "Social Justice", but it's a good read for a different way to look at both the history of economics and the economic situation we find ourselves in today.

> There is an economic third way alternative to capitalist rent seeking and socialist totalitarianism: distributism.

It should be noted that Milton Friedman, who was as capitalist as it gets, advocated for guaranteed basic income, which is at its source an income redistribution scheme.

Whether the income is financed by taxes (taking cash out of the rich to distribute it to the poor) or through monetary policy schemes (printing away cash) the end result is that such a scheme results in redistributing wealth around the whole society.

Basic income + concentrated capitalism is a great way to minimize human liberty and maximize elite control of the population.

Friedman also implemented income tax withholding. So, despite what he wrote, he was no friend of practical liberty.

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