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Consumption is the final purchase of goods and services by individuals. What other direction or purpose ("fuel") should a system have? A system that doesn't en

Consumption is the final purchase of goods and services by individuals. What other direction or purpose ("fuel") should a system have? A system that doesn't end in consumption either doesn't produce anything, or produces for no reason, which seems wasteful.

bottled_poe 11y ago
One of the problems with pure capitalism is that it favours those that are buying. i.e. those with money. The direction of progress under a capitalist system is governed by the desires of the wealth-holders (whether that is millionaires, the middle class, or some other cross-section of society), not humanity as a whole.
- mseebach 11y ago
  That would be a lot more powerful argument if capitalism didn't so readily churn out ever-cheaper (ie, directed at the poor) offerings of, well, everything. Walmart and Spirit Airlines (to pick a few out of many such offerings) aren't exactly pandering to the rich. Anyway, this was not the point the GP made, and thus not what I responded to.
  - bottled_poe 11y ago
    That's not a counter argument - cheap products exist because there is a market for it (whether the market demographic is rich or poor, it doesn't matter). It still hinges on the exchange of money to decide what should be produced. It's far from perfect, but it does seem to have a blurry correlation with what humanity needs (in my opinion).
    - mseebach 11y ago
      I guess it's not a counter argument as much as disagreeing with the premise. If the outcome is good (a wide range of products available to the poor) then why declare the mechanism by which it happens (exchange of money) problematic? At least, let's focus on concrete problems. The problem with declaring something "far from perfect" is deciding what perfect looks like. The fact that even the poor has a Walmart-sized vote in what gets produced looks like a pretty strong vindication of the system to me. Sure, there are always areas that can be improved, I'm not declaring the current state of things perfect, but I'm appealing to a focus on specific, practical improvement, rather than a yearning for an abstract perfect state that epistemologically probably can't be known.
galfarragem 11y ago
Consumption is necessary (as a mean) in all systems but it's not fomented as it is in capitalism. In advanced capitalistic societies comsumption exists mostly to feed the system and this over consumption doesn't seem to correlate to extra life quality.
- mseebach 11y ago
  If not consumption as the final purchase of goods and services by individuals is the goal (not a mean), then what is the goal? Since the system is made of people producing goods and services for other people to enjoy (consume) what is the problem with feeding the system itself? Absolutely, some sorts of production are destructive in excess of the consumption value of the goods produced, but most certainly aren't, so I don't see how that indictes the system as a whole.
  - galfarragem 11y ago
    In my opinion the goal should be the well-being of society and consumption should be just a mean to achieve it. After some level, consumption doesn't seem to correlate with well-being, becoming just a waste of resources that could be allocated more efficiently having in mind this optimization towards the well-being of society. The problem, IMHO, happens when we don't 'fuel' the capitalistic 'society engine' with more and more consumption, strange things seem to happen: the 'engine' stiffs.

bottled_poe 11y ago

One of the problems with pure capitalism is that it favours those that are buying. i.e. those with money. The direction of progress under a capitalist system is governed by the desires of the wealth-holders (whether that is millionaires, the middle class, or some other cross-section of society), not humanity as a whole.

mseebach 11y ago
That would be a lot more powerful argument if capitalism didn't so readily churn out ever-cheaper (ie, directed at the poor) offerings of, well, everything. Walmart and Spirit Airlines (to pick a few out of many such offerings) aren't exactly pandering to the rich. Anyway, this was not the point the GP made, and thus not what I responded to.
- bottled_poe 11y ago
  That's not a counter argument - cheap products exist because there is a market for it (whether the market demographic is rich or poor, it doesn't matter). It still hinges on the exchange of money to decide what should be produced. It's far from perfect, but it does seem to have a blurry correlation with what humanity needs (in my opinion).
  - mseebach 11y ago
    I guess it's not a counter argument as much as disagreeing with the premise. If the outcome is good (a wide range of products available to the poor) then why declare the mechanism by which it happens (exchange of money) problematic? At least, let's focus on concrete problems. The problem with declaring something "far from perfect" is deciding what perfect looks like. The fact that even the poor has a Walmart-sized vote in what gets produced looks like a pretty strong vindication of the system to me. Sure, there are always areas that can be improved, I'm not declaring the current state of things perfect, but I'm appealing to a focus on specific, practical improvement, rather than a yearning for an abstract perfect state that epistemologically probably can't be known.

galfarragem 11y ago

Consumption is necessary (as a mean) in all systems but it's not fomented as it is in capitalism. In advanced capitalistic societies comsumption exists mostly to feed the system and this over consumption doesn't seem to correlate to extra life quality.

mseebach 11y ago
If not consumption as the final purchase of goods and services by individuals is the goal (not a mean), then what is the goal? Since the system is made of people producing goods and services for other people to enjoy (consume) what is the problem with feeding the system itself? Absolutely, some sorts of production are destructive in excess of the consumption value of the goods produced, but most certainly aren't, so I don't see how that indictes the system as a whole.
- galfarragem 11y ago
  In my opinion the goal should be the well-being of society and consumption should be just a mean to achieve it. After some level, consumption doesn't seem to correlate with well-being, becoming just a waste of resources that could be allocated more efficiently having in mind this optimization towards the well-being of society. The problem, IMHO, happens when we don't 'fuel' the capitalistic 'society engine' with more and more consumption, strange things seem to happen: the 'engine' stiffs.