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Comment by aaron-santos | Hacker News Reader

> incentive structure of capitalism is a good one for work.

The inventive structure of capitalism is good for capitalists. Why would they make it any other way?

Growth (when controlled for environment destruction and human rights) leads to helping the most people the fastest: https://press.stripe.com/#stubborn-attachments

You get that from proper incentives. Capitalism is mostly about creating an environment where people can leverage those incentives as easily as possible.

There's a deep irony that the system set up based on incentivizing and rewarding growth (and occasionally greed) has helped raise millions out of poverty while the systems based on altruism have led to the deaths of millions and massive amounts of suffering.

> helped raise millions out of poverty

You do know that 850M of those live in China, right?

Where do you think that comes from? The modern CCP leverages market economies to build that wealth. That success is because Xi recognizes the power for capitalism and growth to create wealth. They then try to control that though and the recent disappearance of Jack Ma and the government block of that IPO is more what I'm talking about.

The cultural revolution, hundred flowers campaign, and current Uyghur genocide are some of the classic negative aspects of CCP control. Those aspects are more the standard fare communist policy.

The good that's there comes from their embrace of capitalism and market incentives. The bad comes from the standard communist one party control, it's also what eventually leads to problems.

It comes from Deng Xiaoping, but I have yet to meet an advocate for adopting Dengist economic principles.

I thought Deng's principles were the foundation for modern China's economic policy? Is this not true?

"After Chairman Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Deng gradually rose to power and led China through a series of far-reaching market-economy reforms, which earned him the reputation as the "Architect of Modern China"." [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping

Attributing reduction in poverty rates primarily to Xi doesn't make much sense given the historical trends. See the world bank info[1] for a sense of the long term decline(1990-2016).

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY?locations=C...

That may be for Capitalism, but that's not what we have today. We have Corporate Feudalism. Capitalism makes a bunch of assumptions about the freedom of the market, freedom of information, freedom of capital and labor and so on - most of which Corporate Feudalism has undermined.

Capitalism and Communism has suffered the same fate from the same source, and this will remain true until we move into the age of plenty from the age of want, and probably beyond.

I'm being heavily downvoted in my other comments, but I don't agree.

Today we have more people starting more billion dollar companies more easily than any other time in human history. We have more freedom of movement, more wealth, etc.

There's a staggering amount of growth, a staggering amount of capital investment.

No system is its perfect ideal (and there are obvious issues today), but things are a lot better than they were in the age of a handful of national companies.

Sure, but that growth and investment did not and will not benefit you, or most anyone else. That 'value' gets aggregated into a vanishingly small group of hyper valuable individuals. In fact, at this stage the meaning of GDP for example is fundamentally decoupled from the actual wealth of the people.

I encourage you to research Mark Blyth's work on generational wealth and check out 'Angrynomics'

https://www.gq.com/story/mark-blyth-economics-interview http://cup.columbia.edu/book/angrynomics/9781788212793

It has and does benefit me directly. Why do you think so many move to the Bay Area or do startups?

As for others that see benefit less directly: https://press.stripe.com/#stubborn-attachments

Growth (when constrained for human rights and environmental protection) is the best way to help the most the fastest.

You see it everywhere, massive reduction of global poverty, infant mortality, etc. Even just things like the ability for almost anyone to have an iPhone and use of Amazon/two day shipping are examples. Inexpensive food is another.

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