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Without capitalist advancement, prices would rise at a frightening rate. Decide what you want - fully stocked supermarket shelves thanks to capitalist efficien

• kingkawn 11y ago
  Considering how deeply this community has internalized the importance of creative thought your analysis is pretty limiting to any new possibility being possible.
  • carapat_virulat 11y ago
    Everything is possible, except any small change in capitalism. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0vRYWtcOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0vRYWtcOU
  • cbeach 11y ago
    I'm still waiting for someone to come up with an alternative to capitalism that isn't communism, or some dilute form of communism. We have socialism - the erosion of capitalism to provide a reward for those that won't or can't work. What's your "new possibility"? Without a proposal, your point is moot.
    • arethuza 11y ago
      I would say that a "new possibility" would be acknowledging that a 100% capitalist society (whatever that would look like) is about as sensible as a 100% socialist society. I don't want to buy food from a state controlled organisation because they'd be crap at it. However, I'm not keen on healthcare being provisioned individually and privately or relying entirely on the market for policing or national security.
      • cbeach 11y ago
        That's the "dilute form of communism" I was referring to. Socialism is not a "new possibility." I concede, though, that nationalised health and defence has major benefits.
        • arethuza 11y ago
          My extremely humble suggestion is merely that acknowledging that a "free market/capitalistic" approach works best for many things and a "collective/socialistic" approach works for other things and stop pretending that its all of one or all of the other.
          • balfirevic 11y ago
            I think the main difference between the moderate supporters of free market vs. moderate supporters of socialistic approach (who are not pure libertarians or pure socialists) is the question of the default. "Socialist" would say: "It looks like all-around outcome might be better if this thing is regulated or restricted - so let's do that". Free market supported would say "let's not mess with people's freedom unless it is clear that not intervening in this particular instance is overwhelmingly harmful". For what is worth, I think many people favoring state intervention have a hard time making distinction between "I don't like this thing" and "this thing should be forbidden or restricted".
            • arethuza 11y ago
              I'm interested that you associate socialism with regulation and restriction - I guess as I'm from the UK I tend to associate it with service provision, particularly the NHS which is an avowedly socialist endeavor (and a pretty successful one at that). A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan NB I agree about your point about the default - I would very much go with the assumption that the free market should be left to provide services unless there is a really good reason why the state might be good at it.
    • kolbe 11y ago
      Did you even read the article? He's talking about the future when machines make scarcity close to moot.
    • Ensorceled 11y ago
      Your definition of every form of economics that isn't an extreme libertarian version of capitalism as "communism or a form of socialism" makes further discourse moot.
      • cbeach 11y ago
        That's a bit of a straw man. But anyway, if you want to contribute something to the debate, why not suggest an alternative system?
        • Ensorceled 11y ago
          It's not a strawman, it's literally what you said.
    • nibs 11y ago
      Banks that work properly would be the ideal form of capitalism, to me. In Canada at least, very little lending takes place to people who want to increase their capital doing useful things, unless you already have $10M+ in assets in order to get fancy AR-secured credit lines and other secured loans. The only way to get a loan is to tell the bank you want a house (capital gains but no value creation) or to go on vacation (consumption). In theory, you could create capital doing productive things, store it in the bank, and they lend it to others who can do useful things with it. I am thinking small business, as opposed to vacation consumption. I would be pretty "Liberal" or socialist about how I allocated money to small ventures. Almost anyone could get a small loan to start a venture, and then how that goes determines their lending credibility in the future. Again, I am sure this is where we started, but we are far from it now.
    • sdk77 11y ago
      Capitalism can't be communism because one is a financial / economical system and the other is a political system. The two are related but not always in the same way. European countries, especially the Scandinavian ones are very Socialist and capitalist. China is an even 'weirder' example. There already are many different forms of capitalism as an economic system under different political systems.
      • cbeach 11y ago
        Scandinavian countries aren't nearly as socialist or successful as non-Scandinavian socialists claim they are: http://www.bullshitexposed.com/scandinavian-socialism-debunked/ http://www.bullshitexposed.com/scandinavian-socialism-debunk...
        • realusername 11y ago
          I absolutely don't understand the point this website is trying to make, apart from "Norway is backed by big oil", which is true and the suicide part (which cannot be linked clearly to the economic model), everything else is either really subjective or does not account for the difference of purchasing power in the different countries. EDIT: Because I was downvoted: > "1. Scandinavia isn’t really all that socialist" Socialism does not have the same meaning in Europe and in the US and apparently, this was forgotten. They are liberal socialist countries, if you prefer. > "2. Scandinavia isn’t actually as prosperous as liberals like to claim" Raw GDP is unrelated how people actually live, I don't get this point. > 3. Scandinavians have lower gross and disposable incomes There is no mention of purchasing power, you can't buy the same things with the same salary in Dollars, it's comparing apples and oranges. > 4. But money isn’t everything! What about the poor? There is no mention anywhere in this part of the poverty rate of the different countries, just a graph of the poverty in the US (which does not argue for his point). > 5. Norway is backed by big oil Yes, and what about the other ones ? > 6. Scandinavians aren’t as happy as Americans Suicide rates are much much more than just economics themselves, and I don't understand why this is there.
    • calibraxis 11y ago
      Here's 4 alternatives to capitalism: http://thenextsystem.org/new-systems-possibilities-and-proposals/ http://thenextsystem.org/new-systems-possibilities-and-propo... Some of these, like Participatory Economics, have lots of literature/tutorials behind them.
    • calibraxis 11y ago
      We already live in a form of communism: "But in fact communism really just means any situation where people act according to the principle of “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs” — which is the way pretty much everyone always act if they are working together to get something done. If two people are fixing a pipe and one says “hand me the wrench,” the other doesn’t say, “and what do I get for it?”(That is, if they actually want it to be fixed.) This is true even if they happen to be employed by Bechtel or Citigroup. ... Communism then is already here. The question is how to further democratize it. Capitalism, in turn, is just one possible way of managing communism — and, it has become increasingly clear, rather a disastrous one." (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-hope-in-common http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-hope-in...)
    • bottled_poe 11y ago
      I'd be happy with socialism if it meant fewer pointless jobs filled by employees that don't want to do them. I see this as a major problem with our current system.
    • spdy 11y ago
      We are moving into a direction of nearly full automation. Most of us in this community can probably envision a world were robots do all the "blue color" work and lower "white color work" and soon even more with the progress we make in AI (Deep Blue as the most prominent example) Over the next decades we will lose millions of jobs and need an highly educated workforce for the fewer jobs remaining. But for some people the saying "you cant teach an old dog new tricks" will come true and this part of society needs a way to live in dignity. Talking for example about Truck/Taxi Driver / Assembly Workers / Mailmen you name it. We as a society have a choice to make and i hope it wont be one you can see in several Dystopien movies. We have seen communism and it did not work now we are on the full side of the other spectrum of capitalism and it does not work as well (Income inequality). Unconditional basic income could be one solution of many.
      • cbeach 11y ago
        Unconditional basic income would be my choice. Its advantages unify the Left and Right.
  • asift 11y ago
    How? Free market capitalism is the epitome of creative thought. It's not a limiting doctrine that says you can only do this or that. It's a doctrine that says you are free to engage with others however you want so long as you respect their autonomy and freedom to make their own decisions. If someone wants to start a voluntary socialist commune, they have the freedom to do so within a free market. Unfortunately for aspiring socialists, most people don't voluntarily want to adopt socialism (at least beyond a particular point) and socialists must then turn to force and coercion in order to enact their preferred style of society. Ignoring the emergent orders that arise from a free society of creative individuals is the truly limiting mode of thinking. (Note: I just used socialism as an example. You could substitute any style of governance that doesn't respect individual autonomy.)
    • warfangle 11y ago
      There sure was a whole lot of force and coercion behind social security.
      • asift 11y ago
        The fact that governments rely on coercion to enact policies like Social Security is not controversial among political philosophers. It's widely accepted. The controversy is regarding which cases, if any, governmental coercion is justified. There is a wide degree of disagreement here, but even those who believe coercion is justified still admit that it's coercion.
      • ArkyBeagle 11y ago
        We adjusted to it and I don't know anybody who makes a coherent case for it not making everyone better off, so long as we can figure out the accounting for the temporary, "pig in the python" problem looming.
        • asift 11y ago
          There are lots of coherent cases against Social Security. For instance, there are far better ways to achieve the desired ends of providing a social safety net. My favorite would be eliminating all other forms of welfare and adopting a basic income.
• halviti 11y ago
  Your comment makes the assumption that capitalism is a binary.
• elros 11y ago
  [citation needed]
  • cbeach 11y ago
    The USSR, Cuba, Vietnam, Communist China, North Korea, Venezuela, Argentina...
    • bottled_poe 11y ago
      There are plenty of "free market" countries where the economy has failed too, so I think a little more evidence is required...
      • afsina 11y ago
        Tell me some of those plenty. When there is little to no coercion from government I doubt any free-market society will fail. And even if it fails, it cannot be as miserably as those socialist ones. Freeing markets almost-always brings better economy.
        • bottled_poe 11y ago
          I guess that depends how we define failure. Some might say 14.8% poverty in a western country would be a failure. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-252.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
          • afsina 11y ago
            Looking at the many definitions of poverty, historical living standards and global averages, I say it is quite ok.
          • mineshaftgap 11y ago
            I make $70,000, pay little in taxes, except property, and the government pays for my children's healthcare. People misunderstand the US. Hell, I qualify for public housing, I guess I am considered as living in poverty, which is fairly ludicrous.
• sametmax 11y ago
  That is assuming that capitalism is the only way to get this kind of efficiency. In fact, it's the only way we could both imagine and successfully implement, but that's it. On the other hand, we now know the limits of it, the corruption it brings, and that's a certitude. So an intelligent and educated reaction is not to say "if you want result you need a self corrupting system" but rather "we like this abundance, and we can see our way to get it needs to be improved. How can we keep a balance between those ?"
  • cbeach 11y ago
    Power brings corruption. The kind of state power brought by communism brought the worst corruption the world has ever seen.
    • johanneskanybal 11y ago
      ..whereas the more balanced mix of socialism/capitalism in top eu countries make you seem like a 3d world country. The power brings corruption argument works on the premise of small local business.
    • SolaceQuantum 11y ago
      Are you sure? The robber barons in the industrial revolution was pretty bad.
  • deleted 11y ago
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• Ensorceled 11y ago
  I refuse to believe that our only choices as a species is between the very worst of libertarian capitalist excess and the very worst of Stalinism. I firmly reject the idea that nothing else can work or should even be tried.
  • taneq 11y ago
    What, you're saying that excluding the middle ground is a fallacy? By Jove, I think you may be onto something!
    • Ensorceled 11y ago
      Sigh, unfortunately this fallacy is alive and well as the OC clearly indicates.
    • carapat_virulat 11y ago
      The middle ground doesn't exist in itself. To have a middle ground you need to have a previous political position from which you can measure it, the illusion is believing that you can find a universal ideological space from which you can map the rest of ideological positions. That is, when you take a certain political position that not only determines what measures you want to apply, it also determines how you see every other political position. The center is not the same center for a conservative and for a left-winger.
      • Ensorceled 11y ago
        There is a vast middle ground between tyrannical communism and libertarian capitalism, especially considering how similar those political systems are on many axes. The fallacy that there is a 'center' is just as bad as the fallacy of there only being a left and a right. Politics and economics are far more complicated than a continuum represented by a one dimensional line.
• deleted 11y ago
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