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The question is whether capitalism should be redeemed, no?

by alistoriv 10y ago

ArkyBeagle 10y ago
There's a big increase in the exponent of global GDP growth starting about the time of capitalism - 1790 or 1820 or so.
- alistoriv 10y ago
  thank you that has nothing to do with my comment
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    Oh yeah it does.
    - alistoriv 10y ago
      No one can deny that there has been a great period of growth under capitalism, but it's also ridiculous to deny the fact that along with said growth there have also been many crises. That's what this article is about. So, the question that I originally posed was asking not whether GDPs are bigger now than they were in the Middle Ages, but whether or not we should move on from capitalism to something better. Your comment did absolutely nothing to answer that question.
      - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
        Thanks for clarifying. Which "something better"? Does "something better" still contain all the salient characteristics of what we call capitalism such that we keep the advantages? We're pretty sure that many things are entangled here; it's not clear that we have the means to disentangle them I'll put up with a lot to see freedom from food insecurity, basic clean water and good abatement of public disease vectors. If we break the system in certain ways, we may lose the ability to do even that. Don't say this doesn't happen; look at some of the South American countries. I try to sidestep all the ideology by thinking that the things we don't like about the Rubric Currently Known as Capitalism probably involve the use of economic rents to enrich certain people and not enrich other people. If that tool works ( and I can't defend it beyond a rudimentary level, frankly ) then the things you're talking about that you don't like aren't actually part of capitalism. And i think we're really talking about "why is growth slow?" Well, good question but my biases lead me to think that this is a lot demographic and the rest is bad monetary policy grounded in a basic lack of understanding of things like the proper role of central banks and public debt. I don't know that if we had 4% {rN}GDP growth we'd even be talking about this. In that case, "replacing" capitalism might just make it worse.

The question is whether capitalism should be redeemed, no?

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

There's a big increase in the exponent of global GDP growth starting about the time of capitalism - 1790 or 1820 or so.

alistoriv 10y ago
thank you that has nothing to do with my comment
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  Oh yeah it does.
  - alistoriv 10y ago
    No one can deny that there has been a great period of growth under capitalism, but it's also ridiculous to deny the fact that along with said growth there have also been many crises. That's what this article is about. So, the question that I originally posed was asking not whether GDPs are bigger now than they were in the Middle Ages, but whether or not we should move on from capitalism to something better. Your comment did absolutely nothing to answer that question.
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      Thanks for clarifying. Which "something better"? Does "something better" still contain all the salient characteristics of what we call capitalism such that we keep the advantages? We're pretty sure that many things are entangled here; it's not clear that we have the means to disentangle them I'll put up with a lot to see freedom from food insecurity, basic clean water and good abatement of public disease vectors. If we break the system in certain ways, we may lose the ability to do even that. Don't say this doesn't happen; look at some of the South American countries. I try to sidestep all the ideology by thinking that the things we don't like about the Rubric Currently Known as Capitalism probably involve the use of economic rents to enrich certain people and not enrich other people. If that tool works ( and I can't defend it beyond a rudimentary level, frankly ) then the things you're talking about that you don't like aren't actually part of capitalism. And i think we're really talking about "why is growth slow?" Well, good question but my biases lead me to think that this is a lot demographic and the rest is bad monetary policy grounded in a basic lack of understanding of things like the proper role of central banks and public debt. I don't know that if we had 4% {rN}GDP growth we'd even be talking about this. In that case, "replacing" capitalism might just make it worse.