5 ms·

Wages are shit for workers and thus consumption/demand are weak... this undermines the Chinese economy, which in turn undermines the US economy. Labor force pa

Wages are shit for workers and thus consumption/demand are weak... this undermines the Chinese economy, which in turn undermines the US economy. Labor force participation is also garbage. Savings rates are a bit moot when tons of people are living paycheck to paycheck, also. It's not 2007-2008, but it's not quite 1998 either.

rorykoehler 11y ago
Capitalism at it's finest. The race to the bottom will eventually force someones (possibly everyones) hand. The mechanism that will drive change (either violent/non-violent) is just a matter of who blinks first.
- maratd 11y ago
  > Capitalism at it's finest. The race to the bottom will eventually What are you going on about? If capitalism is a race to the bottom, we would have reached it a long time ago. Capitalism isn't new. It's been around for a while.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    I'm amazed anyone can try to defend a system that has manic-depressive episodes built in as a feature.
    - merpnderp 11y ago
      Because it's the system that's pulled several billion people out of abject poverty in the last 30 years? I believe the system that was tried before that was called socialism, and didn't work as well as capitalism.
      - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
        In Europe socialism created limited working hours, affordable health care, free public education all the way to university level - and beyond - and was also responsible for massive investment in infrastructure and R&D. Modern social democratic states wouldn't exist without it. You might want to understand what the word means before running down a political system you seem to know nothing about. As for abject poverty - there's more of that around than ever. Just because you choose to ignore it doesn't mean it's not there. And after this week, there's more on the way, too.
        merpnderp 11y ago
        I'd hardly call Europe socialist. Socialism is the social ownership (state ownership) of the means of production. A welfare state is a state with large programs to ensure the welfare of the people, which better describes much of Europe. As for extreme poverty, China has seen a 90% reduction in extreme poverty since 1981, and India has seen a 60% reduction since 1981, and Sub-Saharan Africa has seen a 12%. The Indian and Chinese reductions coincided with a relaxation on state owned industry and introduction of free market economic policies. Hate the corruption, hate the corporatism, but according to the world bank (and nearly every other NGO), capitalism has reduced human misery on this planet like no other force.
        vezzy-fnord 11y ago
        Socialism is the social ownership (state ownership) of the means of production. Social ownership != state ownership. That's only one manifestation of it. Socialism has historically been about common ownership, which implies decentralized, democratically structured worker cooperatives. One existing example today is Mondragon.
        rorykoehler 11y ago
        >(state ownership) of the means of production That would be Communism, a very extreme form of Socialism. Many countries in Europe are very Socialist.
        11y ago
  - rorykoehler 11y ago
    Produced goods are always getting cheaper. All trends point towards moving towards a zero marginal cost society. Economic pressures and the need to compete are forever pushing prices down. We are also getting more efficient at producing goods in parallel to this trend (another side effect of capitalism). The only way this will stop is through organized price fixing cartels.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >What are you going on about? If capitalism is a race to the bottom, we would have reached it a long time ago. Only for a long time it had internal pressure (workers demands) and external pressure (the Cold war etc). Else we'd be still with child labor, 14 hours work day and such...
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Workers and their demands are part of capitalism, as one of the sides of the labor market.
    - cma 11y ago
      Things like Taft-Hartley outlaw secondary strikes.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      Not if capitalists can prevent it, crush it, disallow it, etc -- along with their friends in the goverment, with "right to work" laws, etc. It's funny that for something supposedly pragmatic and empirical, as capitalism, there are people invoking the "no true capitalism" defense. I mean when they say that in "true capitalism" the government would not interfere and the market would adjust itself etc, where in real life (and in all know historical cases), the government is in the pockets of powerful moguls and big business lobbys).
      - wutbrodo 11y ago
        > It's funny that for something supposedly pragmatic and empirical, as capitalism, there are people invoking the "no true capitalism" defense. This is hugely disingenuous. It's about as fair as crying "no true socialism" if someone were to say "moving towards socialism leads to mass famine! Just look at Mao!". I think part of what makes conversations like this so frustrating for everyone involved is that people are using vastly different definitions. Those decrying capitalism are usually defining "socialism" as a mixed-market economy and capitalism as an unfettered "pure" Randian market economy. (In conversations critical of socialism, you usually see the opposite dynamic). The fact of the matter is that mixed-market economies are basically ubiquitous at this point, and for good reason. It's a lot easier to find a common understanding on which to debate when everyone is clear what the actual disagreement is: the market is good at certain things and bad at others, and gov't action is a sensible alternative in the areas it's better at (of which there are quite a few, not least dealing with externalities) or a damaging hindrance in the areas where it's worse than the market mechanism (explicitly setting prices, in most cases). The disagreement is over which things go in which category, which is a far less flame-baity way of thinking of it than "capitalism/socialism is just bad!".

rorykoehler 11y ago

Capitalism at it's finest. The race to the bottom will eventually force someones (possibly everyones) hand. The mechanism that will drive change (either violent/non-violent) is just a matter of who blinks first.

maratd 11y ago
> Capitalism at it's finest. The race to the bottom will eventually What are you going on about? If capitalism is a race to the bottom, we would have reached it a long time ago. Capitalism isn't new. It's been around for a while.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  I'm amazed anyone can try to defend a system that has manic-depressive episodes built in as a feature.
  - merpnderp 11y ago
    Because it's the system that's pulled several billion people out of abject poverty in the last 30 years? I believe the system that was tried before that was called socialism, and didn't work as well as capitalism.
    - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
      In Europe socialism created limited working hours, affordable health care, free public education all the way to university level - and beyond - and was also responsible for massive investment in infrastructure and R&D. Modern social democratic states wouldn't exist without it. You might want to understand what the word means before running down a political system you seem to know nothing about. As for abject poverty - there's more of that around than ever. Just because you choose to ignore it doesn't mean it's not there. And after this week, there's more on the way, too.
      - merpnderp 11y ago
        I'd hardly call Europe socialist. Socialism is the social ownership (state ownership) of the means of production. A welfare state is a state with large programs to ensure the welfare of the people, which better describes much of Europe. As for extreme poverty, China has seen a 90% reduction in extreme poverty since 1981, and India has seen a 60% reduction since 1981, and Sub-Saharan Africa has seen a 12%. The Indian and Chinese reductions coincided with a relaxation on state owned industry and introduction of free market economic policies. Hate the corruption, hate the corporatism, but according to the world bank (and nearly every other NGO), capitalism has reduced human misery on this planet like no other force.
        vezzy-fnord 11y ago
        Socialism is the social ownership (state ownership) of the means of production. Social ownership != state ownership. That's only one manifestation of it. Socialism has historically been about common ownership, which implies decentralized, democratically structured worker cooperatives. One existing example today is Mondragon.
        rorykoehler 11y ago
        >(state ownership) of the means of production That would be Communism, a very extreme form of Socialism. Many countries in Europe are very Socialist.
        11y ago
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  Produced goods are always getting cheaper. All trends point towards moving towards a zero marginal cost society. Economic pressures and the need to compete are forever pushing prices down. We are also getting more efficient at producing goods in parallel to this trend (another side effect of capitalism). The only way this will stop is through organized price fixing cartels.
coldtea 11y ago
>What are you going on about? If capitalism is a race to the bottom, we would have reached it a long time ago. Only for a long time it had internal pressure (workers demands) and external pressure (the Cold war etc). Else we'd be still with child labor, 14 hours work day and such...
- icebraining 11y ago
  Workers and their demands are part of capitalism, as one of the sides of the labor market.
  - cma 11y ago
    Things like Taft-Hartley outlaw secondary strikes.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Not if capitalists can prevent it, crush it, disallow it, etc -- along with their friends in the goverment, with "right to work" laws, etc. It's funny that for something supposedly pragmatic and empirical, as capitalism, there are people invoking the "no true capitalism" defense. I mean when they say that in "true capitalism" the government would not interfere and the market would adjust itself etc, where in real life (and in all know historical cases), the government is in the pockets of powerful moguls and big business lobbys).
    - wutbrodo 11y ago
      > It's funny that for something supposedly pragmatic and empirical, as capitalism, there are people invoking the "no true capitalism" defense. This is hugely disingenuous. It's about as fair as crying "no true socialism" if someone were to say "moving towards socialism leads to mass famine! Just look at Mao!". I think part of what makes conversations like this so frustrating for everyone involved is that people are using vastly different definitions. Those decrying capitalism are usually defining "socialism" as a mixed-market economy and capitalism as an unfettered "pure" Randian market economy. (In conversations critical of socialism, you usually see the opposite dynamic). The fact of the matter is that mixed-market economies are basically ubiquitous at this point, and for good reason. It's a lot easier to find a common understanding on which to debate when everyone is clear what the actual disagreement is: the market is good at certain things and bad at others, and gov't action is a sensible alternative in the areas it's better at (of which there are quite a few, not least dealing with externalities) or a damaging hindrance in the areas where it's worse than the market mechanism (explicitly setting prices, in most cases). The disagreement is over which things go in which category, which is a far less flame-baity way of thinking of it than "capitalism/socialism is just bad!".