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Comment by curiousgeorgio | Hacker News Reader

> The free market never works for very long before hoarders take most of it.

I'm not sure you understand how a labor market works. There may be (and often are) local/temporary inefficiencies, but if "hoarders" are taking most of it, then why are there so many unfilled jobs across the country – including high-paying jobs?

Similarly, if employers aren't compensating employees fairly (which may be the case while the market adjusts to inflation + recession), they can only do that for so long before the market effectively forces them to pay/treat employees more favorably (no government intervention necessary).

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I don't think these are mutually exclusive. There can be a local deficit within an industry, and we might not be able to meet that demand with our labor pipeline.

At the same time, there can be an overall deficit of meaningful work for decent enough wages at the societal level.

The hoarders can selectively employ people who will make them richer, all while the rest of society continues to crumble around them. That's what's been happening in America for decades. Either you're in the upper class or things or actively getting worse.

> The hoarders can selectively employ people who will make them richer, all while the rest of society continues to crumble around them.

The magical device on which you're reading this comment would not have been possible without companies employing people they thought would help make the company richer. It's not a zero-sum game; we all benefit as a consequence of capitalism – from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor.

Have you ever owned a business or hired someone? If so, did you deliberately select employees who would not help the company be successful, and if so, did that somehow help prevent societal collapse?

I hear so many lies about the "evils" of capitalism (from all sources, not just here); I fear people are starting to believe them, as we're slowly being brainwashed into joining the next reboot of "let's see – again – how badly we can screw up the world with communism".

I don't think it's anywhere near that black and white. My specific complaint is with the free market being hindered by overconcentration and monopolists. There is a vast chasm between that and whatever you perceive communism to be. Technological progress doesn't depend on the world being controlled by Google and Apple. And even if it did, I'm not convinced the smartphone is a net positive for society. Shrug. Many shades of gray in our world, and economy too.

Capitalism fails the moment there is prosperity. Have you ever wondered why people starved during depressions even though there was an abundance of food?

People complain about central banks and low interest rates or about the decline of the west not because of a lack of prosperity, no the problem is that there is too much prosperity in the hands of the wrong people.

During times of actual scarcity, people are busily and happily working to get rid of the scarcity which is why we constantly try to create more jobs and why we constantly induce artificial demand increases, to maintain the scarcity that capitalism demands.

> fear people are starting to believe them, as we're slowly being brainwashed into joining the next reboot of "let's see – again – how badly we can screw up the world with communism".

You can abolish capitalism by introducing an actual free market, not one in name.

> we all benefit as a consequence of capitalism – from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor.

This is one of those "myths" of capitalism -- "everyone" benefits. While I'm a recipient of the benefits, I also realize that it's a system with flaws that drives inequity and preys on the poor.

I'm not sure that the impoverished really benefit from the constant stress of working 3 precarious part-time jobs to pay for rent and food, with little to no time for family or leisure. But, hey, latest tech gadget is cheap, so that's a universal benefit, right?

I always thought the American Dream was to own a house through hard work. Now working at multiple places barely covers your monthly expenses, forget buying something. Decent housing shouldn't be an intractable problem, but looking through the capitalistic lens it sure seems to be. But pretending that places where it fails are "lies" and that we have to become the Soviet Union is just fearmongering. Perhaps there are social interventions that could help?

I'm not sure the mechanism works as simply as you describe. Money is still cheap, so employers can hold out while waiting for conditions to return to normal, whereas employees generally don't have that option. It's not at all clear that the game simply resolves to employers paying more, locally or on average.

Prices can be sticky in more than one way it seems, and that might make for some interesting economics.

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