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I expect that's far from the truth. It's the expected result from something-other-than-capitalism. Mercantilism is one such. Rent-seekey K-Street lobbying is an

I expect that's far from the truth. It's the expected result from something-other-than-capitalism. Mercantilism is one such. Rent-seekey K-Street lobbying is another.

ryandrake 11y ago
Capitalism is essentially a system where wealth is deployed to generate income, which in turn, increases wealth, which again generates more income. Without checks and limits, the end result of this is, almost by definition, wealth concentration.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  None of that is actually true. In capitalism, market capitalism, selling someone something produces what's called "consumer surplus". The buyer receives more in utility than they spent. It's one of the few un-controversial principles of economics. There is no one story for the present apparent concentration fo wealth. We've had capitalism before such that there wasn't a lot of concentration of wealth - and the tax system wasn't always the reason. I think the reason is economic rents, and rents are specifically not capitalist.
  - mercer 11y ago
    Interesting. Would you mind elaborating a bit more?
    - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
      Russ Roberts has some ... mash note podcasts, peans to Adam Smith on EconTalk. He's much better situated to speak on it than I am. Shortly, Smith wrote "Theory of Moral Sentiments" before "Wealth". "Wealth" was a critique of Meracntilist (royal) patent systems. The short version is that capitalism has a moral founding. What we now call capitalism can be pretty amoral, but that's our doing. I'm hoping that a better understanding of rents can enable us to have a better capitalism. Principally, because I don't much think collectivism can be demonstrated to work, and collectivism is frequently seen as the answer to the excesses of what we call capitalism. If we see income from rents as less morally defensible than income from work then that's possibly a method for getting closer to what we want. As it is now, they're simply "profit". Rather than taking two binary positions - pro and anti capitalism - perhaps the work that needs to be done is a better critique of it , and a refinement of terminology. Finally, the ways in which we are unequal are much less ... physical than in the past. Capital itself has become more and more ephemeral, and it may be that returns to what I'd consider "real" capital - think a building full of lathes - is just as low as that to labor. So much inequality is due to the abstraction of control of capital.

I expect that's far from the truth. It's the expected result from something-other-than-capitalism. Mercantilism is one such. Rent-seekey K-Street lobbying is another.

ryandrake 11y ago

Capitalism is essentially a system where wealth is deployed to generate income, which in turn, increases wealth, which again generates more income. Without checks and limits, the end result of this is, almost by definition, wealth concentration.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago
None of that is actually true. In capitalism, market capitalism, selling someone something produces what's called "consumer surplus". The buyer receives more in utility than they spent. It's one of the few un-controversial principles of economics. There is no one story for the present apparent concentration fo wealth. We've had capitalism before such that there wasn't a lot of concentration of wealth - and the tax system wasn't always the reason. I think the reason is economic rents, and rents are specifically not capitalist.
- mercer 11y ago
  Interesting. Would you mind elaborating a bit more?
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    Russ Roberts has some ... mash note podcasts, peans to Adam Smith on EconTalk. He's much better situated to speak on it than I am. Shortly, Smith wrote "Theory of Moral Sentiments" before "Wealth". "Wealth" was a critique of Meracntilist (royal) patent systems. The short version is that capitalism has a moral founding. What we now call capitalism can be pretty amoral, but that's our doing. I'm hoping that a better understanding of rents can enable us to have a better capitalism. Principally, because I don't much think collectivism can be demonstrated to work, and collectivism is frequently seen as the answer to the excesses of what we call capitalism. If we see income from rents as less morally defensible than income from work then that's possibly a method for getting closer to what we want. As it is now, they're simply "profit". Rather than taking two binary positions - pro and anti capitalism - perhaps the work that needs to be done is a better critique of it , and a refinement of terminology. Finally, the ways in which we are unequal are much less ... physical than in the past. Capital itself has become more and more ephemeral, and it may be that returns to what I'd consider "real" capital - think a building full of lathes - is just as low as that to labor. So much inequality is due to the abstraction of control of capital.