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He doesn't actually clarify his line of thinking. As someone who is also not much a fan of capitalism, my thought at getting those emails might be "this company

by themgt 10y ago

He doesn't actually clarify his line of thinking. As someone who is also not much a fan of capitalism, my thought at getting those emails might be "this company cut corners trying to turn a quick profit making a crap product, and now some poor shmucks at the bottom are getting fired. capitalism sucks" Soviet-style five year plans are also not the only alternative to hobbesian capitalism, that is a false dichotomy.

CWuestefeld 10y ago
Soviet-style five year plans are also not the only alternative Actually, what I had in my mind when I was typing that was an experience of my wife, very recently, right here in America. Her job is researching regulations for Medicaid across the country. Her boss came across documentation from State of Illinois that were contradictory, so he tried to call their offices. He logged 11 calls to them two weeks ago today, with no one taking his call, and then had to hand the question off to my wife. Last Monday she attempted to call, only to get a message saying that: (a) they were replacing their phone system for the entire week so they can't receive any calls; and (b) they normally don't take any calls during the last week of the month (!) but because of the phone system problems, they'd make an exception and open their phone lines for the last week of June. So she started trying again this past Monday, and it still took several days for her to get someone to pick up the phone. That can happen in any system where there's no market allowing people to reject bad alternatives, and to signal the importance of a product through the price system. But any time you remove the market forces (e.g., any socialist-type system where the government is making the calls), the system quickly stops responding to the needs of its customers. Can you imagine any capitalist company that would simply take down phone communications for a weeks while replacing the system? Years back, my employer put in a new phone switch, and the outage amounted to hours over a weekend. Even worse, can you imagine any company that would just say "we never take customer calls during the last week of any month"?
- davidgerard 10y ago
  It's entirely unclear that the US health insurance market is evidence that capitalism is a good thing, compared to literally the entirety of the rest of the first world, e.g. the UK, where Garrett is from.
  - CWuestefeld 10y ago
    Yes, my point was that this is an example of a NON-market-driven system, i.e., not an example of capitalism at work.
- acdha 10y ago
  I think trying to portray this as a contest between capitalism and socialism only confuses the issue. It's really a question of feedback loops: anyone who's dealt with a large phone company, airline, bank, etc. knows that the same dysfunctional behaviour often happens there as well; conversely, there are also many examples of government agencies where the management is responsible and sets service-level requirements to avoid unwanted behaviour. That avoids the classic arguments about whether socialism is really diametrically opposed to capitalism (Americans tend to treat it as synonymous with communism, much of the world tends to disagree) and instead places attention directly on the management culture which encourages that bad behaviour or chooses not to invest the resources necessary to provide better service.

by themgt 10y ago

CWuestefeld 10y ago

Soviet-style five year plans are also not the only alternative Actually, what I had in my mind when I was typing that was an experience of my wife, very recently, right here in America. Her job is researching regulations for Medicaid across the country. Her boss came across documentation from State of Illinois that were contradictory, so he tried to call their offices. He logged 11 calls to them two weeks ago today, with no one taking his call, and then had to hand the question off to my wife. Last Monday she attempted to call, only to get a message saying that: (a) they were replacing their phone system for the entire week so they can't receive any calls; and (b) they normally don't take any calls during the last week of the month (!) but because of the phone system problems, they'd make an exception and open their phone lines for the last week of June. So she started trying again this past Monday, and it still took several days for her to get someone to pick up the phone. That can happen in any system where there's no market allowing people to reject bad alternatives, and to signal the importance of a product through the price system. But any time you remove the market forces (e.g., any socialist-type system where the government is making the calls), the system quickly stops responding to the needs of its customers. Can you imagine any capitalist company that would simply take down phone communications for a weeks while replacing the system? Years back, my employer put in a new phone switch, and the outage amounted to hours over a weekend. Even worse, can you imagine any company that would just say "we never take customer calls during the last week of any month"?

davidgerard 10y ago
It's entirely unclear that the US health insurance market is evidence that capitalism is a good thing, compared to literally the entirety of the rest of the first world, e.g. the UK, where Garrett is from.
- CWuestefeld 10y ago
  Yes, my point was that this is an example of a NON-market-driven system, i.e., not an example of capitalism at work.
acdha 10y ago
I think trying to portray this as a contest between capitalism and socialism only confuses the issue. It's really a question of feedback loops: anyone who's dealt with a large phone company, airline, bank, etc. knows that the same dysfunctional behaviour often happens there as well; conversely, there are also many examples of government agencies where the management is responsible and sets service-level requirements to avoid unwanted behaviour. That avoids the classic arguments about whether socialism is really diametrically opposed to capitalism (Americans tend to treat it as synonymous with communism, much of the world tends to disagree) and instead places attention directly on the management culture which encourages that bad behaviour or chooses not to invest the resources necessary to provide better service.