> whatever system most effectively leverages comparative advantage / generates the most wealth / most efficiently allocates resources is that which is most humane, because it has the possibility to lift the most people from poverty, from inhumane conditions.
It is, of course, up to societies to regulate the allocation of those resources to maximize the realization of that possibility.
If I buy an iPhone from Apple for $1000, you'd think they "accumulated resources at my expense", but I got something -- an iPhone.
That iPhone is worth for me more than $1000, otherwise I'd keep the $1000.
For Apple, it's worth less, otherwise it would raise the price or go bankrupt.
Both parties are better off.
What people call "late stage Capitalism" is not Capitalism at all -- it is Cronyism. It is the private sector buying favors from the government. Capitalism prevents that by definition.
True capitalism may as well make people very rich, and although I've not verified it, I am willing to concede that it widens the wealth gap. However, poor people in capitalist countries are far richer than they would have been without it.
Why would you care about the gap? Care about how you are doing.
Under capitalism the government is nothing more than a management committee for the rich because the rich have millions of times more political influence than a regular citizen. Here's what a long term Cambridge study [3] found about the effects of capitalism in America:
>What do our findings say about democracy in America? They certainly constitute troubling news for advocates of “populistic” democracy, who want governments to respond primarily or exclusively to the policy preferences of their citizens. In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.
This mythical true capitalism you speak of has never been observed in practice because it's at odds with basic human nature. Capitalism favors psychopathic behavior because those who are willing to be ruthless, to step over others, cheat, lie, and steal will out-compete those who do not. Likewise, the idea that poor people in capitalist countries are far richer than they would be without it is a complete and utter fantasy. [4]
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/20/heres-why-so-many-americans-...
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/11/09/the-3-ric...
[3] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
[4] https://sci-hub.tw//https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10....
> Under capitalism the government is nothing more than a management committee for the rich...
You are mixing definitions here. Capitalism means private ownership, and what you've described there is government control. The US has Cronyism, not Capitalism. Your argument for it being mythic also mises the mark. Cheating, lying and stealing are illegal under Capitalism.
The 4th citation is completely false, as it considers non-capitalist countries capitalist. In that list, half the countries are "Mostly Unfree" or "Repressed" according to the Index of Economic Freedom[0].
If you actually look at capitalist countries, that paper supports that so-called "fantasy", as the countries mentioned as "High-income" are "Free" or "Mostly free". Irony at its best.
My claim is that capitalism accumulates wealth with a small percentage of the population who then end up running the country as an oligarchy. Your iPhone example does not in any way contradict that.
>You are mixing definitions here. Capitalism means private ownership, and what you've described there is government control.
No, I've described how capitalists subvert the government to the interests of the rich oligarchy produced via the system of capitalism.
>Your argument for it being mythic also mises the mark. Cheating, lying and stealing are illegal under Capitalism.
That's the whole point, cheating, lying, and stealing are all effective means of being competitive under capitalism. Since making profit is the sole metric for success, these behaviors are inherently encouraged by the system.
>The 4th citation is completely false, as it considers non-capitalist countries capitalist.
False, the study clearly explains its methodology and the definition for capitalist countries.
>In that list, half the countries are "Mostly Unfree" or "Repressed" according to the Index of Economic Freedom[0].
The discussion is whether capitalism improves quality of life, and the study clearly shows that it's false across the board.
Meanwhile, I fundamentally disagree with your definition of freedom. A system that forces people to sell vast majority of their lives simply in order to survive is a form of slavery. It takes an incredibly dim mind to primarily conceive of freedom in terms of consumerism.
Please do not change the subject, we were discussing zero sum game.
> No, I've described how capitalism subverts the government to the interests of the rich oligarchy produced via the system of capitalism.
Capitalism requires a separation of economy and state. What you're describing is Cronyism:
> Cronyism is the practice of partiality in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends or trusted colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations.[0]
If capitalism is polluted with cronyism, you get Crony Capitalism:
> Crony capitalism is an economic system in which businesses thrive not as a result of risk, but rather as a return on money amassed through a nexus between a business class and the political class.[1]
> That's the whole point, cheating, lying, and stealing are all effective means of being competitive under capitalism. Since making profit is the sole metric for success, these behaviors are inherently encouraged by the system.
Except for the part where you spend jail time for fraud or theft.
> False, the study clearly explains its methodology and the definition for capitalist countries.
> The discussion is whether capitalism improves quality of life, and the study clearly shows that it's false across the board.
Look, the point here is not terminology. If you think Ghana is capitalist (as the paper claims), I can see why you won't like that system. Please consider, for the sake of this discussion, my definition of capitalism.
> Meanwhile, I fundamentally disagree with your definition of freedom. A system that forces people to sell vast majority of their lives simply in order to survive is a form of slavery. It takes an incredibly dim mind to primarily conceive of freedom in terms of consumerism.
That's the beauty of Capitalism. You're free. If you don't like the way of life, you go with people who think the same way, and you build yourselves a _voluntary_ communist heaven. No one will stop you, as in capitalism, all the state does is protect you from violence (which I guess is a role we agree on).
I'm not changing the subject. My claim is that it's a zero sum game of resource accumulation. We're now at the point where over half the resources in the world have been accumulated with a handful of individuals. Capitalism is the engine that allowed this to happen.
>Capitalism requires a separation of economy and state. What you're describing is Cronyism:
Cronyism is a necessary result of capitalism. People who have capital will always be able to influence the state, there is no way to separate the two. Capitalists are able to buy media, fund political campaigns, bribe politicians, and so on. This is why capitalist countries necessarily turn into oligarchies.
>Except for the part where you spend jail time for fraud or theft.
Rich people in Western countries practically never go to jail for fraud and theft. The most egregious example was the 2008 global economic collapse where millions of people lost all their savings and none of the people responsible were punished. What's more, the institutions and people responsible got massive bailouts at the expense of tax payers.
>That's the beauty of Capitalism. You're free.
Vast majority of people under capitalism have to spend large portions of their lives working just to live. This idea that you can just go and do whatever you like is a total fantasy because the only people who have the means to do that are those who were lucky enough to be born rich. The rest of the population has to spend their lives subsidizing the lifestyle of these birth lottery winners. Any regular person needs to work for at least 40 hours a week just to live, this is majority of their week taken away from them. It's utter absurdity to claim that they're free to build themselves anything in the little free time they have remaining.
You appear to have an incredibly infantile understanding of the relationship between capitalism and society.
And here you just changed the subject. You again talk about the wealth gap. The wealth gap and zero sum game are not the same subject.
> Cronyism is a necessary result of capitalism. People who have capital will always be able to influence the state, there is no way to separate the two. Capitalists are able to buy media, fund political campaigns, bribe politicians, and so on. This is why capitalist countries necessarily turn into oligarchies.
But buying the state has nothing to do with capitalism -- it has to do with the existence of a state, and the existence of rich people. Rich people exist in every system we ever had in history, so unless you suggest we do something other than a state, all that is left is to strengthen our protection of capitalism with a better constitution.
> Rich people in Western countries practically never go to jail for fraud and theft.
Source please. But if true, is probably the fault of cronyism.
> The most egregious example was the 2008 global economic collapse where millions of people lost all their savings and none of the people responsible were punished. What's more, the institutions and people responsible got massive bailouts at the expense of tax payers.
That is the fault of government going hand the hand with the private sector. Without the government, the crisis couldn't have been that big. In short, the government had (1) very very low interest rates and (2) encouraged risky home buying (3) practically insured bad mortgages. Do you think a bank would loan to someone who can't pay back? Only if the government is there to the rescue.
There's a reason many Austrian economists predicted that crisis to amazingly fine detail.
Now, you may reply "they did it because rich people bought them". Maybe, but that's Cronyism, not Capitalism.
> Vast majority of people under capitalism have to spend large portions of their lives working just to live. This idea that you can just go and do whatever you like is a total fantasy because the only people who have the means to do that are those who were lucky enough to be born rich. The rest of the population has to spend their lives subsidizing the lifestyle of these birth lottery winners. Any regular person needs to work for at least 40 hours a week just to live, this is majority of their week taken away from them. It's utter absurdity to claim that they're free to build themselves anything in the little free time they have remaining.
I get what you're saying, but if you think there's a better way, a truly capitalist system doesn't stop you from implementing it inside of capitalism. So if you want that communist heaven, capitalism saves you the need for revolution, or the need to go find a large-enough desert island. You just build the commie heaven inside the capitalist land.
> You appear to have an incredibly infantile understanding of the relationship between capitalism and society.
That's bold, coming from the guy claiming Ghana is capitalist.
Either way, it seems like we are in agreement that Capitalism is not the problem, Cronyism is. The disagreement is if the end of all Capitalist systems is Cronyism. I think Cronyism is independent of Capitalism. All it needs is a state (=monopoly on force) and rich people. Just look at every country we had in history, capitalist or not, they all had a ruling class. The solution to that is to have the constitution limit the power of government even more. That way, when rich people will come to buy favors, there will be none for the politicians to sell.
It's the same subject, the wealth gap is precisely what's being discussed here. This is my original comment:
>The real question is towards what end those resources are being efficiently allocated. Capitalism is an incredibly efficient system for accumulating resources with a tiny percentage of the population at the expense of everyone else. This is precisely why late stage capitalist societies inevitably turn into oligarchies.
If anything, you're the one who keeps trying to change the discussion from the original topic.
>But buying the state has nothing to do with capitalism -- it has to do with the existence of a state, and the existence of rich people. Rich people exist in every system we ever had in history, so unless you suggest we do something other than a state, all that is left is to strengthen our protection of capitalism with a better constitution.
In practice, some systems are much more unequal than others. For example, people like Gates or Bezos simply didn't exist in USSR, there was no generational wealth, and the highest gap in pay was around 10x. Saying that there is no difference between that and what happens in capitalist countries is simply false equivalence.
>Source please. But if true, is probably the fault of cronyism.
And cronyism is a direct byproduct of capitalism and inequality.
And here's a breakdown of prison population by wealth in US. The prisons are predominantly filled with poor people, and you'll be hard pressed to find a CEO going to prison for any crime. Just recently Boeing killed two plane loads full of people due to criminal negligence, nobody's going to jail for that. The CEO got a golden parachute instead. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/income.html
>That is the fault of government going hand the hand with the private sector. Without the government, the crisis couldn't have been that big. In short, the government had (1) very very low interest rates and (2) encouraged risky home buying (3) practically insured bad mortgages. Do you think a bank would loan to someone who can't pay back? Only if the government is there to the rescue.
And why is the government going hand in hand with the private sector? It's as if, and bear with me here, the private sector bought the government with all that wealth capitalists have accumulated. It amazes me to no end that you're unable to make this connection.
>Now, you may reply "they did it because rich people bought them". Maybe, but that's Cronyism, not Capitalism.
Capitalism is the engine that creates a system of cronyism because it allows wealth to accumulate in the hands of the few. Again, this is not a complex concept that a fully grown adult should be struggling with.
>I get what you're saying, but if you think there's a better way, a truly capitalist system doesn't stop you from implementing it inside of capitalism. So if you want that communist heaven, capitalism saves you the need for revolution, or the need to go find a large-enough desert island. You just build the commie heaven inside the capitalist land.
Capitalism was the cause of the revolutions since it's been around. Meanwhile, you might want to read up on what USA does to communist and socialist countries around the world. Go read some history of South Asia, and Latin America for starters. No single socialist regime has been left unmolested in the past century.
>Either way, it seems like we are in agreement that Capitalism is not the problem, Cronyism is.
No, I'm saying that capitalism is a mechanism that allows wealth to be accumulated with a small percentage of the population, and these people end up running the country as an oligarchy as is the case with US, and other Western regimes right now. I don't think any system that allows large scale inequality is compatible with democracy.
Meanwhile, limiting the power of the government achieves the complete opposite of what you're proposing. A democratic government answers to its citizens, while private interests only answer to their owners. Wealth inequality is the root cause for the corruption of the government, and that's what needs to be eliminated to have actual democracy and representation of the people by the government.
"at the expense of everyone else" implies a zero-sum game. Wealth gap, however, can widen even in a positive-sum game. As demonstrated by my iPhone example. I can also create a simplified game that does this. Every turn, player A gets 10 points, and player B gets 1 point. Gap widens, yet all gain.
> In practice, some systems are much more unequal than others. For example, people like Gates or Bezos simply didn't exist in USSR, there was no generational wealth, and the highest gap in pay was around 10x. Saying that there is no difference between that and what happens in capitalist countries is simply false equivalence.
This may be true if only currency was measured, but wealth is measured with assets and services as well (expenses), and in the USSR there was a ruling class, and those close to it, and they enjoyed much better lives than the common man in the USSR. They had better goods, better services, and they, yes, enjoyed Cronyism. Communism is a very poor example, as there is literally a ruling class the controls other people's lives, which is something I gathered you want to avoid.
> And cronyism is a direct byproduct of capitalism and inequality.
> And here's a breakdown of prison population by wealth in US. The prisons are predominantly filled with poor people, and you'll be hard pressed to find a CEO going to prison for any crime. Just recently Boeing killed two plane loads full of people due to criminal negligence, nobody's going to jail for that. The CEO got a golden parachute instead. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/income.html
> And why is the government going hand in hand with the private sector? It's as if, and bear with me here, the private sector bought the government with all that wealth capitalists have accumulated. It amazes me to no end that you're unable to make this connection.
> Capitalism is the engine that creates a system of cronyism because it allows wealth to accumulate in the hands of the few. Again, this is not a complex concept that a fully grown adult should be struggling with.
All of these talk about either (1) Cronyism is bad or (2) Capitalism inevitably leads to Cronyism. (1) is something I agree with. (2) You've yet to demonstrate that is _unique_ to capitalism. Can you give me an example of a single country where there isn't a ruling class that enjoys better quality of life and government favors?
> Capitalism was the cause of the revolutions since it's been around. Meanwhile, you might want to read up on what USA does to communist and socialist countries around the world. Go read some history of South Asia, and Latin America for starters. No single socialist regime has been left unmolested in the past century.
That is Cronyism. Could you stop giving the Cronyisnt aspects of the US as examples of Capitalism? Capitalism calls for Non-aggression, and uses an Army in self-defense only.
> No, I'm saying that capitalism is a mechanism that allows wealth to be accumulated with a small percentage of the population, and these people end up running the country as an oligarchy as is the case with US, and other Western regimes right now. I don't think any system that allows large scale inequality is compatible with democracy.
> Meanwhile, limiting the power of the government achieves the complete opposite of what you're proposing. A democratic government answers to its citizens, while private interests only answer to their owners. Wealth inequality is the root cause for the corruption of the government, and that's what needs to be eliminated to have actual democracy and representation of the people by the government.
Well, we look differently at the role of government. To me, government isn't some tool to force other people. I don't care if it's the few rich forcing the majority middle class, or if it's the majority middle class forcing a rich minority. I am against forcing (using or threatening the use of physical force) other people.
This eliminates the "path to Cronyism" you described. When some rich people (not every rich person is bad) will go and ask for artificially low interest rates or for favoring regulation that limits competition, the government will be limited and could not give it to them.
Again -- if you believe some Communist or Socialist heaven is better suited to supply everyone's needs, no one is stopping you from building such a thing, as Capitalism lets you live as you wish. If it's as good as you say, most citizens will probably join you anyway. I'm not sure how democratic it'll be, but as long as it's voluntary, enjoy yourselves.
That's not what's happening in practice however. Your iphone example is frankly nonsense because the discussion is about wealth accumulation. And wealth is being accumulated with a small percentage of the population at the expense of everyone else. Average American has less savings than they did in the past decades, and they're forced to work more. Rich accumulate wealth at the expense of the rest.
Millennial in US have only 3% of the wealth while a handful of people own more wealth than the rest of the country. Thinking this isn't a zero sum game is height of stupidity.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/millennials-have-just-3-of-us-w...
>This may be true if only currency was measured, but wealth is measured with assets and services as well (expenses), and in the USSR there was a ruling class, and those close to it, and they enjoyed much better lives than the common man in the USSR.
I lived in USSR, and that's completely false, and shows that you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. First, there was no ruling class the way you have in capitalist societies because there was no generational wealth. The party consisted of regular people, and many of party leaders, like Khrushchev, came from villages. This was possible because social services like healthcare and education were evenly distributed. This is what meritocracy actually looks like. Second, the gap in quality of life was much smaller than it is in the west, and politicians and administrators were not the highest earners.
>All of these talk about either (1) Cronyism is bad or (2) Capitalism inevitably leads to Cronyism. (1) is something I agree with. (2) You've yet to demonstrate that is _unique_ to capitalism. Can you give me an example of a single country where there isn't a ruling class that enjoys better quality of life and government favors?
I don't have to demonstrate that this is something that's unique to capitalism. I only have to demonstrate that capitalism facilitates this problem. The fact that other systems aren't perfect is completely irrelevant to the question. Furthermore, you're making a false equivalence once again here. And your previous comment clearly shows that you're also deeply ignorant regarding how USSR actually functioned.
However, even if you were right that other systems failed to address the problem that is not defense of capitalism. It just means that we need to continue experimenting and trying new things.
>That is Cronyism. Could you stop giving the Cronyisnt aspects of the US as examples of Capitalism? Capitalism calls for Non-aggression, and uses an Army in self-defense only.
Cronyism is byproduct of capitalism. I'm not sure how many times I have to repeat this. The who are inseparable, and I've already explained why numerous times. If you still aren't able to wrap your head around this, I don't think there's anything else I can tell you here.
>Well, we look differently at the role of government. To me, government isn't some tool to force other people.
It appears that you don't understand what a democratic government is then.
>I don't care if it's the few rich forcing the majority middle class, or if it's the majority middle class forcing a rich minority. I am against forcing (using or threatening the use of physical force) other people.
And in your Mad Max world without government who prevents rich people from forcing poor people to do what they want again?
>This eliminates the "path to Cronyism" you described. When some rich people (not every rich person is bad) will go and ask for artificially low interest rates or for favoring regulation that limits competition, the government will be limited and could not give it to them.
It obviously does not. If you don't have a government that's answerable to the people, then all you're left with is Darwinism where strong abuse and exploit the weak.
>Again -- if you believe some Communist or Socialist heaven is better suited to supply everyone's needs, no one is stopping you from building such a thing, as Capitalism lets you live as you wish. If it's as good as you say, most citizens will probably join you anyway. I'm not sure how democratic it'll be, but as long as it's voluntary, enjoy yourselves.
Again, I've already explained that US has in fact been actively waging wars against every socialist and communist country out there. US currently forces sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela, it's done countless coups and regime changes in Latin America, it has installed brutal dictators like Pinochet, and killed millions of people to stomp out communism and socialism. You are deeply ignorant of history and geopolitics making your arguments naive and infantile.
You ignore other countries falling the exact same faults as you say Capitalism
You seem to support a democracy where a majority could vote to oppress a minority
You blame me for suggesting a world "without government" which is extreme intellectual dishonesty, especially when I mention limited _government_.
Then you, once again, point at the problems with the US that are Cronyism, not Capitalism.
Living in the USSR is nothing more than an anecdote, the same way Mainland Chinese claim wrongs about China, probably without even knowing[0].
I'm sorry, but this is the point where I leave this discussion, as it seems to go nowhere. I suggest you read a little about the quality of life in the 1950s in the US, before Cronyism caught up to it, and compare it to the quality of life in the USSR at the time.
[0]: Warning, difficult to watch. https://youtu.be/rbHxeOQA1Mc?t=933
The concrete numbers do not support your example. You just keep repeating nonsense over and over, but it's still nonsense. 3 richest people own more wealth than bottom 50% of the population, while millenials own 3% of the overall wealth. If you don't understand that there's a vertical wealth transfer happening to the capital owner class, then I really don't know what else to tell you.
>You ignore other countries falling the exact same faults as you say Capitalism
Regardless of what faults other systems have, it's clear that capitalism causes the problems I've outlined. The discussion is about capitalism and its impact on society.
>You seem to support a democracy where a majority could vote to oppress a minority
That's literally how democracy works, people vote and then we enact policies that are in the interest of the majority. Sounds like you're promoting authoritarianism here.
>You blame me for suggesting a world "without government" which is extreme intellectual dishonesty, especially when I mention limited _government_.
I'm not blaming you, I'm pointing out the absurdity of your argument.
>Then you, once again, point at the problems with the US that are Cronyism, not Capitalism.
Once again I'll repeat that cronyism is a byproduct of capitalism. I've explained this to you repeatedly, yet you keep on ignoring that and pretending that these things are separate. Now that's what I call intellectual dishonesty.
>Living in the USSR is nothing more than an anecdote, the same way Mainland Chinese claim wrongs about China, probably without even knowing[0].
Again, you ignore the concrete points I made about how USSR function. You're intellectually dishonest.
>I'm sorry, but this is the point where I leave this discussion, as it seems to go nowhere.
And here I thought I'd never see the end of your drivel. Meanwhile, you might want to watch some footage from Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. US killed over half a million people in Iraq alone buddy.
So, my stance is that money directly translates into increased opportunity in a capitalist society. Meanwhile, the relationship between capital owners and works is asymmetric where the capital owner keeps majority of the profit from the value that the workers create.