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That's not a weakness of capitalism (an economic system), but a weakness in the way our regulatory agencies and legislatures interact (our political system). P

That's not a weakness of capitalism (an economic system), but a weakness in the way our regulatory agencies and legislatures interact (our political system). People who call themselves "capitalists" typically want to reform the political end of things so it stops distorting the economic system.

chrischen 17y ago
Consider if government did not exist. A company can still use it's established might to artificially prolong it's existence. If any thing regulatory measures are actually designed to prevent this. Whether they are effective or not is a different story.
- lotharbot 17y ago
  What regulation is supposed to do and what regulation actually does are two very different things. Again, people who call themselves "capitalists" would generally like to reform the regulatory/legislative system so that it supports, rather than distorts, the market.
  - dhs 17y ago
    From where I see it, it looks like people who call themselves capitalists would generally like to reform the regulatory/legislative system so that it only supports the capitalists.
Qz 17y ago
I think the idea that economic and political "systems" are separate is dangerous, and part of how we got into this mess in the first place.
- lotharbot 17y ago
  Economic and political systems are conceptually different, though there is a lot of feedback between them. It is dangerous to treat them as entirely separate, and also dangerous to treat them as exactly the same. The specific criticism offered, namely companies retaining power due to legislative or regulatory influence, is at its core a political problem (with political solutions -- changing the way regulations and regulator-business relationships are handled.)
  - exit 17y ago
    the "political problem" is that those enacting the political system are unavoidably susceptible to the same modus operandi which capitalism prescribes for the economic system - the self-interested pursuit of wealth. "Economic and political systems are conceptually different, though there is a lot of feedback between them." this reminds me of wave particle duality. energy/matter qua wave is conceptually distinct from energy/matter qua particle. but there is no question of "feedback between them". "they" are both just analytic vantages on the same singular phenomena.
gruseom 17y ago
This, it seems to me, is what ideologues always do: redefine the term so that an existing real-world thing doesn't count as an example of it. Communists did this with the Soviet Union (sure they're bad but a real communist society would never be like that). Ideological proponents of capitalism do it today: the US system isn't really capitalism because the government is too much involved. And extreme-programming software projects that fail weren't really following the process. To me this is an unhelpful line of argument that is preoccupied more with labels and beliefs than with what is actually going on.
- lotharbot 17y ago
  Nowhere did I argue that our system is not really capitalist. I just noted that the specific criticism given wasn't a criticism of capitalism itself, but of the government system of regulations and legislation that we have tied to capitalism. It would be similar to, for example, criticizing the Soviet Union for corruption and calling it a critique of socialism, or criticizing a software company for stealing another company's code and acting like that was a critique of the extreme-programming process they were using. Valid criticism, sure, but not of the thing it's said to be of. There are plenty of valid criticisms of capitalism, communism, socialism, extreme-programming processes, and so on. But there are also plenty of criticisms that are misattributed to one of those things, which IMO harms our ability to create solutions to the problems.
exit 17y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
- lotharbot 17y ago
  "My friend is Scottish, and therefore a jerk." "I think his Scottishness is incidental to being a jerk. There are more relevant factors that contribute to his jerkness. He may be both Scottish and a jerk, but that doesn't imply causation." This is not an example of No True Scotsman. Just an example of criticism that should be labelled differently.

chrischen 17y ago

Consider if government did not exist. A company can still use it's established might to artificially prolong it's existence. If any thing regulatory measures are actually designed to prevent this. Whether they are effective or not is a different story.

lotharbot 17y ago
What regulation is supposed to do and what regulation actually does are two very different things. Again, people who call themselves "capitalists" would generally like to reform the regulatory/legislative system so that it supports, rather than distorts, the market.
- dhs 17y ago
  From where I see it, it looks like people who call themselves capitalists would generally like to reform the regulatory/legislative system so that it only supports the capitalists.

Qz 17y ago

I think the idea that economic and political "systems" are separate is dangerous, and part of how we got into this mess in the first place.

lotharbot 17y ago
Economic and political systems are conceptually different, though there is a lot of feedback between them. It is dangerous to treat them as entirely separate, and also dangerous to treat them as exactly the same. The specific criticism offered, namely companies retaining power due to legislative or regulatory influence, is at its core a political problem (with political solutions -- changing the way regulations and regulator-business relationships are handled.)
- exit 17y ago
  the "political problem" is that those enacting the political system are unavoidably susceptible to the same modus operandi which capitalism prescribes for the economic system - the self-interested pursuit of wealth. "Economic and political systems are conceptually different, though there is a lot of feedback between them." this reminds me of wave particle duality. energy/matter qua wave is conceptually distinct from energy/matter qua particle. but there is no question of "feedback between them". "they" are both just analytic vantages on the same singular phenomena.

gruseom 17y ago

This, it seems to me, is what ideologues always do: redefine the term so that an existing real-world thing doesn't count as an example of it. Communists did this with the Soviet Union (sure they're bad but a real communist society would never be like that). Ideological proponents of capitalism do it today: the US system isn't really capitalism because the government is too much involved. And extreme-programming software projects that fail weren't really following the process. To me this is an unhelpful line of argument that is preoccupied more with labels and beliefs than with what is actually going on.

lotharbot 17y ago
Nowhere did I argue that our system is not really capitalist. I just noted that the specific criticism given wasn't a criticism of capitalism itself, but of the government system of regulations and legislation that we have tied to capitalism. It would be similar to, for example, criticizing the Soviet Union for corruption and calling it a critique of socialism, or criticizing a software company for stealing another company's code and acting like that was a critique of the extreme-programming process they were using. Valid criticism, sure, but not of the thing it's said to be of. There are plenty of valid criticisms of capitalism, communism, socialism, extreme-programming processes, and so on. But there are also plenty of criticisms that are misattributed to one of those things, which IMO harms our ability to create solutions to the problems.

exit 17y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

lotharbot 17y ago
"My friend is Scottish, and therefore a jerk." "I think his Scottishness is incidental to being a jerk. There are more relevant factors that contribute to his jerkness. He may be both Scottish and a jerk, but that doesn't imply causation." This is not an example of No True Scotsman. Just an example of criticism that should be labelled differently.