Is Capitalism Saving Us? | Hacker News Reader

Is Capitalism Saving Us?

justinhonse.medium.com

9 pointsMaster_Rashi16 comments

Hmm, There is a conspiracy to form the one world government, and all the political leaders are colluding on it. The only ones that can save us are the rich and we need to clear the way to them making more money to make that possible.

I've heard it before on #chan and similar social media. Why am I reading it on HN now?

To be fair, the author of the article and the person who posted this are the same person. A medium article isn't too far away from a chan posting. Anyone can hop on and write whatever they want, and then post it here.

Oof, I hadn't even noticed this. Almost regret replying now. What nonsense.

Because Hacker News is ultimately a private business with a vested interest in keeping the status quo.

This is a miserable take. You think the rich care about your rights? Other than your right to spend your money on their shit, they don't care.

Exactly what I walked away with after wasting my time reading this. The other line that really irked me:

>One thing is clear — Covid may not be that deadly to people, but I think it’s primary goal is to kill capitalism.

How much more deadly does something need to be to be taken seriously in the land of the free? 440k unnecessary deaths in the span of a year apparently doesn't qualify?

Not gonna lie, there's a lot to not like about this article.

I went in pretty skeptical, as I do on all articles touching on this subject matter, but when I saw that the authors link to "world leaders and other influentials" stating they wanted to change society was a quote from a British model, I lost all hope.

Please use better sources for fear mongering next time.

OK, total aside — this post is pretty conspiratorial and has been flagged anyway — but there’s a link buried within a link that’s fascinating:

https://www.weforum.org/events/sustainable-development-impac...

The World Economic Forum created a 3D environment for their 2020 summit. I’m curious how effective it was, but I kind of love it.

Reminds me a lot of the kind of stuff people would make on SGI machines back in the 90s. Or the environment from the film “Disclosure”. Or the 3D IRIX interface from Jurassic Park.

Anyway, it’s interesting thing to consider as a way of presenting information. Both a “palace of the mind” / Second Life type presentation.

Horrible take.

Can I hijack this a little to ask a question? People casually equate "free markets" with capitalism, but is that necessarily correct? As I understand it, "capitalism" describes the structure of ownership of capital in a system. Couldn't that be different while still having "free" markets? Conversely, what about the capital ownership structure of a society would require that markets be more or less free? Good sources tailored to a non-expert would be really appreciated.

"Debt" by David Graeber goes into early Islamic markets where religious-inspired regulation kept the markets freer, by discouraging hoarding of wealth, for example. It's an amazing book I'd recommend to anyone.

It's a well written book that's got some bold suppositions about history and economics. If you're not on board with the conclusions reading the book will periodically find you stopping to shout, "But you're not describing things as they are but rather the way you want them to be," and then hurling the thing against a wall.

Good enough but don't get the kindle version.

It would be even more beneficial if you could encourage the wealthy to reinvest their money and take more risks on starting new businesses. I don’t think charity or taxes alone can completely solve the problem.

As with so many articles whose titles are questions, the answer is no.

The author is wrong on several premises: 1. Capitalism is not the thing that saves us from authoritarianism and fascism, nor was it before - in the context of WW2, for instance, I'd argue that authoritarianism and fascism's ruthless desire for continuous increases in power became self-defeating because of the enemies it made those regimes. 2. Capitalism does not represent a fight for liberty. It represents a bunch of individual actors fighting for their own resources, and therefore, implicitly, requires a certain amount of liberty, for those people only. 3. Capitalism does not actually care how many rights you have. It cares only about how much value you produce, no matter how you produce it. Capitalism only benefits those who already have enough resources to be "in" the fight. (The author notices this, but seems to think it's a good thing. It's not.)

Capitalism already saved us, after World War 2, from economic stagnation and, ultimately (in the model of the Soviet Union), collapse. Now, it's time for the next thing to come along and save us from the problems of capitalism.

It's difficult to say what exactly that thing is, but much as before, it probably doesn't involve capitalism totally dying or going away. It probably involves it being reined in, changed, and retrofitted, along with many other parts of our society.

Saving us from what?

The article starts by equating temporary pandemic lockdowns with an encroachment on fundamental rights:

> Is it just me, or are there business owners who want to open, and customers that want to get the hell out of their homes and pay for goods and services, who are primarily driving the pushback against a state that’s encroaching on our rights?

It then goes on to imply that the "sharing economy" is somehow anti-capitalism. Which is very weird because the "sharing economy" seems to be primarily about eroding worker rights in order to extract more profits.

The overall point seems to be that capitalism is the thing that will save us from... capitalism?

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