Hacker News Reader

Comment by lazide | Hacker News Reader

Also - every system that has ever existed has had some variant of this.

Output and effectiveness towards market needs has to matter or eventually the system collapses under its own weight. Churn has to happen, or ‘deadwood’ builds up through inertia.

And when the system collapses, it’s like a forest fire with a massive amount of dead wood - it burns everything to the ground, not to grow again for a generation. As compared to periodic wildfires that may suck, but for which sprouts pop back up again in the spring.

View on HN

That depends on who gets to define "market needs" and how.

Currently "the market" is literally just a betting shop for shareholders, which seems an odd way to be making important strategic decisions.

The market as in who needs things, and is willing/able to pay for them, and who provides things and is willing/able to sell them.

I’m not talking about the stock market (which is built on top), I’m talking the actual economy.

Of course, command economies exist (and may again), and those tend to shortcut many of the niceties eh?

> The market as in who needs things, and is willing/able to pay for them, and who provides things and is willing/able to sell them.

That's literally begging the question. There's no intrinsic need for a system to allow for the centralization of wealth to the same extent our present system does, nor for such widespread commodification. It's entirely possible to imagine a system with a different conceptualization of property rights for example -- because we know that property rights have changed over time and were different in different societies. Copyright alone is a great example for how arbitrary property rights are given how drastically it has changed over time.

What has that to do with my comment at all?

I’m talking about all economic systems, including the USSR, China, US, European markets, etc.

Fundamentally, for an economy to exist it connects those who produce/have with those who consume/want, mediated by some exchange of value (though in command economies that last part can be remarkably performative).

And fundamentally, if there is no connection to people’s actual needs, and no clearing of old/non-competitive ways to meet those needs there is going to be a very, very bad time. Eventually.

> Of course, command economies exist (and may again), and those tend to shortcut many of the niceties eh?

Command economies like corporations?

Internally a corporation is a command economy, externally it isn’t of course.

Other command economy examples - gov’t, the USSR, the US during wartime, Russia right now, etc.

Aka when someone in a position of authority says ‘money gets spent here and this way’, regardless of any natural market tendencies (and sometimes with little regard to solvency or pesky things like quality of life).

> any natural market tendencies

Obviously the caveat here is that the "market tendencies" aren't defined democractically. It's very much "voting with your dollar" where the voting itself is limited to what options the market provides and the dollar is limited to how much money each market participant has. In that sense monopolization is very much a natural market tendency although most people in favor of "letting the market decide" over government control/intervention would argue that monopolization is bad and actively harmful to a free market.

Yup - every real world economy is shades of gray. Even Kyhber Pass weapons dealers.

There are some clear examples like wartime economies, planned economies, ‘chaotic flea market’ like many Chinese markets, US food markets, etc.

It is not literally just a betting shop for shareholders. Most companies aren't even public or have shares.

Using FAANG as the example for all jobs is not useful even though this is HN.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com