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Comment by Supermancho | Hacker News Reader

Capitalism rewards dishonesty. Every company is a grifter to some degree. This is more widespread in technical service companies.

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In eastern europe (COMECON) during the cold war days, the factories were famous for cranking out products that claimed to do something but did not deliver on the promise. Did they do that because they were run by capitalists?

Google China melamine contaminated milk.

I find it hard to believe any claim that they weren't capitalists. Almost nothing in the USSR was operated or managed by worker collectives. Nor in China. A handful of people managed the capital of these businesses and profited off them, and the people who own, operate, and profit off of capital investments are capitalists, even if they slap a PR sign up claiming they aren't.

Technically you are wrong. The best kind of wrong.

That's why I specified the eastern european countries where many of the factories actually were controlled by the unions. They themselves acknowledged that they were fudging their numbers on a regular basis to get undeserved bonus money for workers.

Thank you for pointing out that this has nothing to do with capitalism.

Humans are dishonest, and implying that that doesn't manifest in other economic systems is willfully and maliciously false, a statement only used by propagandists.

We are talking about capitalism because we live in capitalism and are observing problems with capitalism. We are not currently living in the USSR.

To an extent. Just not to the extent that dishonesty is rewarded in socialism and communism.

At least Capitalism in a free society is largely self correcting.

Capitalis does no such thing, the market available to the company does. Every problem people blame on "capitalism" is solvable with appropriate regulation. That's literally the point of regulation, too. Dozens of other countries show you can have a vibrant economy that isn't beholden to a few billionaires.

> Every problem people blame on "capitalism" is solvable with appropriate regulation.

Capitalism makes capitalism hard to appropriately regulate. Concentration of capital means concentration of power.

> Capitalism makes capitalism hard to appropriately regulate. Concentration of capital means concentration of power.

And yet many countries have a better handle on it than the USA. I just never, ever buy into the whole "it's to hard for America to do a thing that other countries do". I think the US is capable of anything we put our collective will towards, we just need leaders who want to lead the whole nation rather than personal profiteers.

The general trend has been towards deregulation, and capital concentration, almost everywhere for decades. US is just ahead.

The talk in EU is now that we have to ease regulation because we can't compete with countries with laxer regulation. The same race to the bottom has happened in e.g. taxes and labor protections ever since capital controls were lifted.

> I think the US is capable of anything we put our collective will towards, we just need leaders who want to lead the whole nation rather than personal profiteers.

I sure hope so but I can't really see it happening. The whole US political system seems to be FUBAR, largely because the concentrations of capital bought it.

Capturing the regulators is a great way to make yourself immune to market pressure.

> Capitalis does no such thing, the market available to the company does. Every problem people blame on "capitalism" is solvable with appropriate regulation

Too bad that capital owners deeply hate regulation and do everything they can to deregulate everything.

Hell, it doesn't even need to be capital owners. Plenty of bootlickers here on HN that always cry about any kind of government regulation.

> Capitalis does no such thing,

I think it's obvious that this is incorrect. Part of regulation is to try and curtail grifting. It is not possible to prevent it and is the tendency of the system.

Not being able to eliminate it doesn't mean controlling it is impossible or that we shouldn't try. In any system there will be cheaters, it's how you deal with it that counts. A well regulated economy makes wealth spread around.

It's a wonderful thing that no other economic systems reward dishonesty.

>>> Grifters exist, but not everyone is a grifter.

>> Capitalism rewards dishonesty.

> It's a wonderful thing that no other economic systems reward dishonesty.

This is a whataboutism. To rephrase, "all economic systems reward dishonesty." - That's the point. Saying not every market participant is a grifter is a form of denial.

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