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Comment by saulpw | Hacker News Reader

"Capitalism" can't become more humane, by its nature. Money is a great technology for coordinating people and work, but capitalism (being the system in which the capital class is allowed to allocate resources without oversight, and to reap the vast majority of the rewards of everyone's labor and invention) systematically optimizes away anything that is not monetizable. And humanity is neither monetizable nor optimizable.

"More poems, faster, cheaper!"

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I think social democracy is, by its nature, trying to be a humane system while allowing a form of capitalism. The Nordics may not be a perfect example of social democracy, but a useful one. Looking closer to home, the progressive era in the US was all about making society more humane while still allowing capitalism. In the sense of capitalism of these examples, I definitely think it can be humane.

For a more recent example, listen to this podcast episode: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/vanguard

yes that's why it's inhumane and relies on unequal exchange/exploitation of the global south while still backsliding on domestic welfare appeasement policies

Global south is not exploited inhumanely. This ideology called "thirdworldism" or "decolonialism" is becoming popular but it ultimately fails on any scrutiny.

The west has not got rich at the expense of the global south. Both have gone up .

> The west has not got rich at the expense of the global south

What timeframe are you considering in this opinion?

The post-colonial time obviously, when much of the "Global South" has become independent states, thus peers, not colonies.

do you actually believe they became 'peers' on equal footing? does them being 'peers' somehow prevent extractive relationships in a capitalist global system?

Wow. Tell that to the cobalt miners in the DRC.

Did "The West" cause warlords in DRC to exist? Even if you ignore the efforts by western firms to not buy cobalt from the DRC, it's questionable whether the DRC would be better if they had no exploitable natural resources. Neighboring countries without natural resources aren't exactly paragons of good governance either.

The progressive era in the US had nothing to do with capitalism, it's a different axis. And also a very useful red herring for the people with capital. "They have you fighting a culture war so you aren't fighting a class war" and all that jazz.

"The Great Tax Wars" by Steven R. Weisman is about the debate about taxes during the progressive era. On p 123 [1] we read

  “Since 1860, federal taxation had increased sixfold, yet the tax burden was primarily borne by the poor. At the same time, corporate profits had increased tenfold, much of it untaxed. It cost rich Americans 8 to 10 percent of their earnings to finance the government, while the poor paid taxes equivalent to 75 to 80 percent of their savings.”

Sounds very much like today: those with capital (like me) are benefiting from a low tax rate, while those who do have capital and earn their income from labor pay a higher percentage of their income as taxes. I definitely see the debates of the progressive era as being about capital.

[1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Great_Tax_Wars/kw-Q...

> those who do have capital and earn their income from labor...

I meant "those who do NOT have capital ...

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