I have a feeling that anything other than "free market capitalism" is going to be shunned around these parts. :)
Great read. And the predecessor as well. https://medium.com/@cjdew/the-obsolescence-of-capitalism-340...
Great read. And the predecessor as well. https://medium.com/@cjdew/the-obsolescence-of-capitalism-340...
As it should. If it weren't for capitalism we would not enjoy any of the abundance we have become accustomed to having in the past century. Capitalism, as limited as it is in the current world, has provided such that royalty of past centuries would envy certain aspects of a poor person's life today (I'm talking first world country poor).
The main problem with this article, and many like it, is it identifies problems existing in today's world, and then completely misattributes them. For example, the problem with food distribution has very little to do with businesses, or individuals, desiring profit. Neither does inequality (if we can even call that a problem) stem from capitalism.
(b) How is it possible to say inequality does not stem from capitalism? Where else could it stem from.
I am not advocating the abolition of capitalism, I advocate a mixed economy.
Campaigners against inequality (who are xampaigners for economic and social justice by and large) do not campaign to make every one "equal", but to make the spread smaller and the lives of those with the least less bleak.
I live in New Zealand which is a modern industrialised democracy and is quite wealthy. We have large sections of our population that are malnourished, inadequately housed, poorly educated and cut off from main stream society. The proportion of our population suffering so was much less in the years between the depression and the 1980s, during which a conscious effort was made by the state to maintain a high wage full employment economy.
The policies that worked then will not work now, but what we have is not working and is generating large costs and inefficiencies.
So it is irrelevant that "inequality stems from the fact that people aren't equal in their strengths and weaknesses". The conditions of the weakest and the degree to which the strongest can corral the resources is what counts
W
I see no evidence this is true.
For me economic inequality isn't a problem as long as people are equal under the law.
Person A is an upper class CEO living in the U.S. in the 1930s. He has a large mansion, a paid cook and other staff which care for the "menial stuff." It's likely his bank account will never drop below seven digits. Martian A is an explorer who travels the universe in the year 2430. When he's hungry he commands his computer to make him some food. Other of his needs are met with similar ease. Is Person A inequal from Martian A? Yes. Is one of their lifestyle's more desirable than the other? Perhaps, that's for the individual to say. Is it a problem? No.
(b) -
>Where else could it stem from
How about the fascist system of government which partners with businesses to provide them special perks? How about the Federal Reserve which creates new money which becomes first available to connected businesses and in turn they benefit the most? How about any number of regulations, including minimum wage which makes it unprofitable to hire low-skilled workers?
>How is it possible to say inequality does not stem from capitalism?
Prove that it does.
I didn't liked your point A. Your comparison doesn't make any sense.
There is a disconnect between the colloquial form of capitalism which is conflated with 'free markets' and a generous reading of marx's concept of capitalism: as in "capital -ism", or the idea that accruing capital is a social good in and of itself. Note that capital-ism in the most general sense does include the concept of 'crony capitalism' whereas free-market-ism shuns 'crony capitalism'.
Crony capitalism aside, it is unclear if capitalism necessarily creates (more) inequality, although it does underpin a philosophical motive to drive individuals to extract the most from their competitive advantage, that doesn't mean they will be successful at it.
'Mixed economies', while they sound nice and centrist, I think, tend to be the worst. Ultimately, it creates a vehicle by which political comparative advantage, which is zero-sum, and coercive (if you don't follow the law you can be thrown in jail) to economic advantage, which more easily compounds.
That argument can't be directly applied to the future. Just because a system worked in the past, doesn't mean that it will work in a future world with different constraints. Hence why many think that today's capitalism is not a good political model for the envisioned future of mass automation.
And of course we can't hold on to an idea out of reverence and respect, i.e. "be grateful for what it has done for you, you privileged first-world dweller, you".
Well then I'm confused, since I was just going by what you seemed to refer to. And I assumed that you were talking about a contemporary (now, + recent history) capitalistic system. What kind of capitalism were you talking about? Something that existed before but doesn't anymore?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-unit...
The problem with inequality is that the 20th century middle class was specifically what made America great, by providing a consumer base to buy all the wonderful things people wanted to make. You can only sell so many jeans to the richest one percent.
No, it isn't the "capitalist" incentives, it the the damn foolish politicians setting incentives that are not generating a proper outcome. It has nothing to do with capitalism.
You can bet if the private prisons were paid on capacity instead of occupancy and incentivized a bonus for non-returning prisoners after 5 years, you would get totally different results.
Crappy incentives will destroy any economic system by generating bad actors. Look at the actions of the prison guards union in California and see the same behavior from a public perspective.
There are other things rich people buy besides jeans. Buying yachts requires much more fabric and seamstresses than jeans do. It also employs more people and a greater diversity of people than making jeans do; lumber workers, software engineers, nautical engineers, construction workers, seamstresses, welders, interior designers, architects, plumbers, and the list goes on.
Buying a $30mil yacht results in a much greater economic stimulus than buying a million jeans ever would. There are a greater diversity of jobs required for luxury goods. This means people can work on what they want rather than all doing low skilled labor.
You don't think the war on drugs has anything to do with the higher incarceration rates?
So yeah, my bayesian filter is going to shun anything but free market capitalism. Especially because for many it has become a political stop-word, even though we sit in the greatest luxury in history. For me, any article that wants to replace capitalism first has to explain how it rolf-stomp every system that came before it, and how their new proposed system will augment capitalism.
http://smile.amazon.com/Why-Not-Capitalism-Jason-Brennan/dp/...
Is one of them. It made a totally convincing argument for why socialism should rofl-stomp capitalism for production efficiency (which is quite something in that capitalism strength is rofl-stomping every other system in production efficiency).
The other I have forgotten, but it basically proved that poor peoples minds worked differently (as a function of their environment) and so they really couldn't pull themselves up.
We also sit in the greatest state incarceration of individuals in the history of the world, thanks largely to the privatization of prisons (ie, Capitalist incentives turned onto a societal function where they don't belong)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-unit...