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Not to mention Capital itself. Whether or not you agree with it, and its historiography is mostly proved bunk by now, its analysis has value. The linked article

Not to mention Capital itself. Whether or not you agree with it, and its historiography is mostly proved bunk by now, its analysis has value. The linked article is kind of boring because it explicitly does not analyze the structural conditions of capitalism which make the phenomena it criticizes inevitable. You can't fight these trends within the framework of capitalism.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago
I tend to rely ( probably too much ) on Adam Smith for my ideas about capitalism, and so far as they go these phenomena are not that. Specifically land leads to Ricardian rents, and historical examples of taxing land rents abound. Japan went from medeviel backwater to industrial giant in ... decades through the use of land taxation. At some point, they decided the classical Japanese values were more important and that is when the industrialists took over as an update to the Samurai and the rest is history. I don't blame them - classical/medieval Japanese culture is extraordinarily beautiful. But the Bushido Code does not mix with machine guns. Generally, capitalism if practiced by ... Vulcans or robots would not result in most of what we attribute to it as ills. But humans love to cheat, and the cost of prosecuting all that cheating is probably too high. We also seem unable to develop a media culture that does not fawn all over the rich and powerful. Actual Capitalist ethics emphasize consumer surplus most of all. Whether the externalities are what we think they are is a much richer discussion. Quite difficult. It is important to realistically believe you are serving your fellow man in this way.
- Kalium 11y ago
  Our media culture seems to have two modes - aspiration and spite. Either we aspire to be like more "successful" people or we spite them for being more "successful" than us. I suspect this maps well to an ingroup/outgroup divide.
- zo1 11y ago
  >"We also seem unable to develop a media culture that does not fawn all over the rich and powerful." They get the opposite as well. I've seen so much sheer, unreasoned hatred of the rich, simply for being rich. Almost as if it is assumed that they only got that way by some illegal/immoral means. Then, you get the other half of that side of the coin. That even if the rich did earn their money using legal/ethical means, they don't deserve it (or to keep/use it). It's inherent in all discussions of wealth inequality. Really, it's not enough to just let it be, but everyone wants to play social-engineer with progressively richer individuals. One additional thing, that you can see running in this discussion. That legality is not somehow an indicator of fairness/justice. A few commentators here have noted that rich people use tax "holes" and legal financial constructs to "evade" tax, as if it's a bad thing, and as if it's not something that was put in place by legal, democratic means. At this point, I'm inclined to believe that these individuals are content with circular reasoning because none of these points can be proven by themselves, and rather always rely on some other piece of the landscape to deflect critique.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    You have equal but opposite contempt for the poor in, of course, different people. And depending on which sort of rich person they are, different media will take totally different angles.
ricksplat 11y ago
I don't think history has proven Das Kapital to be complete bunk - it's kind of like Freud - often said to be bunk but many of his ideas were revolutionary at the time and are considered to be mostly mainstream now. Things like the subconcious, ego, the importance of childhood development on adult psyche - even if not completely scientifically rigorous are useful tools for understanding our reality. But it was his more loony ideas that stick out now and for which he is remembered. So that's why people think that firstly rather than take note of the other stuff. And so it goes with Marx, the first volume certainly is hugely prescient and correctly predicts much of the economic progress that has come since. Workers as stakeholders in a business is considered fairly mainstream in many modern economies as is the role of the state. But as with Freud it was the later stuff particularly in Volume 2 that got him his reputation as a looney. Sadly he formulated the manifesto as a precursor to writing the book and this bound him to a particular conclusion even if his research in the meantime didn't match up. Volume 2 was never finished and what was eventually published was the unfinished manuscript as well as some notes, post humous. It is unfortunate that Marx couldn't have just left it at Volume 1, and put aside the fanatical fervour of his younger years. Had he done so it could have formed the basis of a more humane society and he would not have been associated with some of the more attrocious implementations of communism, and a reputation which he doesn't wholly deserve.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

I tend to rely ( probably too much ) on Adam Smith for my ideas about capitalism, and so far as they go these phenomena are not that. Specifically land leads to Ricardian rents, and historical examples of taxing land rents abound. Japan went from medeviel backwater to industrial giant in ... decades through the use of land taxation. At some point, they decided the classical Japanese values were more important and that is when the industrialists took over as an update to the Samurai and the rest is history. I don't blame them - classical/medieval Japanese culture is extraordinarily beautiful. But the Bushido Code does not mix with machine guns. Generally, capitalism if practiced by ... Vulcans or robots would not result in most of what we attribute to it as ills. But humans love to cheat, and the cost of prosecuting all that cheating is probably too high. We also seem unable to develop a media culture that does not fawn all over the rich and powerful. Actual Capitalist ethics emphasize consumer surplus most of all. Whether the externalities are what we think they are is a much richer discussion. Quite difficult. It is important to realistically believe you are serving your fellow man in this way.

Kalium 11y ago
Our media culture seems to have two modes - aspiration and spite. Either we aspire to be like more "successful" people or we spite them for being more "successful" than us. I suspect this maps well to an ingroup/outgroup divide.
zo1 11y ago
>"We also seem unable to develop a media culture that does not fawn all over the rich and powerful." They get the opposite as well. I've seen so much sheer, unreasoned hatred of the rich, simply for being rich. Almost as if it is assumed that they only got that way by some illegal/immoral means. Then, you get the other half of that side of the coin. That even if the rich did earn their money using legal/ethical means, they don't deserve it (or to keep/use it). It's inherent in all discussions of wealth inequality. Really, it's not enough to just let it be, but everyone wants to play social-engineer with progressively richer individuals. One additional thing, that you can see running in this discussion. That legality is not somehow an indicator of fairness/justice. A few commentators here have noted that rich people use tax "holes" and legal financial constructs to "evade" tax, as if it's a bad thing, and as if it's not something that was put in place by legal, democratic means. At this point, I'm inclined to believe that these individuals are content with circular reasoning because none of these points can be proven by themselves, and rather always rely on some other piece of the landscape to deflect critique.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  You have equal but opposite contempt for the poor in, of course, different people. And depending on which sort of rich person they are, different media will take totally different angles.

ricksplat 11y ago

I don't think history has proven Das Kapital to be complete bunk - it's kind of like Freud - often said to be bunk but many of his ideas were revolutionary at the time and are considered to be mostly mainstream now. Things like the subconcious, ego, the importance of childhood development on adult psyche - even if not completely scientifically rigorous are useful tools for understanding our reality. But it was his more loony ideas that stick out now and for which he is remembered. So that's why people think that firstly rather than take note of the other stuff. And so it goes with Marx, the first volume certainly is hugely prescient and correctly predicts much of the economic progress that has come since. Workers as stakeholders in a business is considered fairly mainstream in many modern economies as is the role of the state. But as with Freud it was the later stuff particularly in Volume 2 that got him his reputation as a looney. Sadly he formulated the manifesto as a precursor to writing the book and this bound him to a particular conclusion even if his research in the meantime didn't match up. Volume 2 was never finished and what was eventually published was the unfinished manuscript as well as some notes, post humous. It is unfortunate that Marx couldn't have just left it at Volume 1, and put aside the fanatical fervour of his younger years. Had he done so it could have formed the basis of a more humane society and he would not have been associated with some of the more attrocious implementations of communism, and a reputation which he doesn't wholly deserve.