8 ms·

In a world where technical & economic progress are artificially retarded by statist regulation, capitalism is revolutionary. What makes me sad is to think about

by zeveb 10y ago

In a world where technical & economic progress are artificially retarded by statist regulation, capitalism is revolutionary. What makes me sad is to think about how much improvement we'd see if all technologies were as free as software (it also scares me to imagine what civil engineering would be like were it as free as software — obviously not all regulations are bad). Granted, I think it's a little twee when folks claim (to use the article's example) that they are 'building the restaurant of the future,' but that's harmless enough.

idlewords 10y ago
Capitalism can only exist within a framework of "statist regulation". Complaining about it is like a goldfish being angry that there are aquarium walls. You can argue that the aquarium is the wrong shape, or the castle is the wrong color, but you would not like a world where there were no state-enforced rules.
- nilved 10y ago
  > Capitalism can only exist within a framework of "statist regulation". This isn't true at all. We had capitalism before we had states and regulation.
  - theseatoms 10y ago
    Then what do you classify the enforcement of property rights as?
    - nilved 10y ago
      It doesn't take a state to do that. Dogs mark their territory.
      - ashark 10y ago
        But dog-marking anarchy is one very short step removed from government—the crappy ones, like feudalism and despotism.
        nilved 10y ago
        But it's removed.
        ashark 10y ago
        I meant to imply a progression, which I apparently failed to do. The hypothetical state of "there is no government; my private property exists to the extent that I can personally defend it" is incredibly unstable. Like, element-named-after-its-weight unstable.
        smallnamespace 10y ago
        Do you really find needing to personally defend your own property, on pain of death, better than some form of government? How are you going to guarantee that your neighbors won't be better-armed than you and rob (if you're lucky) or kill you? Why would anyone else want to join you in your utopia?
        aseipp 10y ago
        > How are you going to guarantee that your neighbors won't be better-armed than you and rob (if you're lucky) or kill you? It's easy: like most people who believe that shit, they likely also believe they'll be on the top of the food chain at that point -- just once the big mean government goes away, that is. It's likely the only thing that's kept them from being on top, after all. There is no consideration for the possibility that they will be ruled over or taken advantage of. That's not a credible theory, you see -- because it assumes they're not at the top. Thus, this possibility you have entertained is actually an impossibility, you see! Checkmate. > Why would anyone else want to join you in your utopia? Total, all-encompassing delusion and market worship.
  - lagadu 10y ago
    He says that in the sense that "day" doesn't make sense without "night": for the former to make sense, you need the latter to exist in order to compare/understand them.
  - idlewords 10y ago
    Where was this stateless capitalism?
    - AdrianB1 10y ago
      The ancient tribes all over the world were using capitalism as an economical form. There were no states at that time.
      - ashark 10y ago
        This is only true if you lop off parts of what makes a system "capitalism" until you can apply it to almost anything.
      - bbctol 10y ago
        What are you talking about? I thought previously you were asking serious questions, but this is just hilariously untrue. Pre-state tribes invariably used gift and sharing economies, and well up until the European Middle Ages those had evolved into feudal planned economies or vast palace economies such as that of the Incas. Capitalism is not the state of nature.
  - trgn 10y ago
    Capitalism developed in the merchant cities of Northern Italy and the Low Countries in the late Middle Ages. These states were certainly regulated, some of these regulations are recognizable to us (licensing requirements to practice trades, import taxes, trade barriers to certain countries, ...). Capitalism isn't the bedrock of humanity's economic interactions, it is a fairly recent economic model. It requires markets, private property (and its protection), individual agency to participate in contracts, what have you. These things didn't just emerge out of thin air, and they most certainly don't predate states and regulation.
    - AdrianB1 10y ago
      And what for of economy did people use before Italy "invented" capitalism? Were ancient Greeks socialists? Were they communist? What where they using, planned state economy?
      - ashark 10y ago
        "Capitalism" doesn't just mean "any system where trade for profit happens". It encompasses much more and implies the use of (and therefore invention and state sanction of) organizations like joint-stock companies and a much larger and more flexible credit system than what came before. Wikipedia is helpful here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalism
      - bbctol 10y ago
        Planned state economy might be pushing the usage of the word, but the government and economy were so intertwined in ancient Greek city states it's hard to call them capitalists. At the most extreme, they were palace economies, with all redistribution of goods done by the state, and most of them had the largest part of economic management handled at the agora.
  - bdavisx 10y ago
    Can you give us an example of what you mean by this?
  - forinti 10y ago
    The simple act of creating a business requires a legal framework and hence a state. The economy would be a lot different if the owner of an entreprise had to bear the risk of losing his own capital.
    - AdrianB1 10y ago
      So in ancient Greece if you wanted to do a business with olives and olive oil you needed a state to grant you a license and collect taxes? Really?
      - Daishiman 10y ago
        Well if you didn't want to get raided by foreign invaders you certainly had to have a form of state protection.
      - ashark 10y ago
        Taking Athens as an example, the Assembly seems to have had wide latitude to rule as they pleased on a huge variety of lawsuit. The ruling class was heavily preoccupied with the practice of law and rhetoric for the purpose of defending and prosecuting these suits, which seem to have been extremely common. I think it's fair to guess that yes, any upstart business would have required the consent of the Assembly (the government) in order not to be ruined by suits brought by their competitors, which probably means staying on good terms with at least some of said competitors and likely doing a lot of political work before launching the business. And certainly taxes would be collected. Plus, if you were in Athens odds were "you" were a slave. So the state's just a bit involved in your (in)ability to start a business in that case. Then there's Sparta with its requirements of state service and bizarre, heavy-handed property laws. And again, you're probably a slave.
radarsat1 10y ago
> What makes me sad is to think about how much improvement we'd see if all technologies were as free as software In some cases it might be fine, in others we might end up with http://i.imgur.com/NhebE.jpg http://i.imgur.com/NhebE.jpg It really depends.
yladiz 10y ago
If technologies were as free as software without regulation, cars would not have crumple zones, seat belts, airbags, anti lock brakes, or any other safety technology mandatory. Companies would use the cheapest pesticide even if it causes horrible birth defects and medical issues to grow our food. Medical and pharma companies would price their services and drugs however they want because they can and people have to buy it (which is what's happening already, and 17.1% of the US GDP is spent on medicine as of 2014[1], higher than any other country in the world). In every example, companies wouldn't do the right thing because it would cut into their profits, which is what capitalism boils down to. Not every regulation is good -- look at SF's housing and how you can have multiple overlapping regulations that mean that building a building is impossible in some situations -- but in many ways they're better than "free as software" technology. Edit: Yes, safety features like seat belts were available before they were mandatory, but not everyone would buy them. I would be surprised if car manufacturers marketed the seat belt much even if they offered it. 1: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?year_high_desc=true http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?year_high...
- TaylorAlexander 10y ago
  [Citation Needed]
  - yladiz 10y ago
    http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?year_high_desc=true http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?year_high... Sorry, I was a little off. It's 17.1%, not 17%. And I also said it's higher than any developed country when it's actually every country in The World Bank's data.
  - foldr 10y ago
    This is what actually happened before the relevant regulations were put in place.
- jerf 10y ago
  Seat belts were offered in cars prior to regulation [1]: "American car manufacturers Nash (in 1949) and Ford (in 1955) offered seat belts as options, while Swedish Saab first introduced seat belts as standard in 1958.[7] After the Saab GT 750 was introduced at the New York Motor Show in 1958 with safety belts fitted as standard, the practice became commonplace.[8]" "... The world's first seat belt law was put in place in 1970, in the state of Victoria, Australia, making the wearing of a seat belt compulsory for drivers and front-seat passengers. This legislation was enacted after trialing Hemco seatbelts, designed by Desmond Hemphill (1926–2001), in the front seats of police vehicles, lowering the incidence of officer injury and death." Wikipedia mentions "in 1959, Congress passed legislation requiring all automobiles to comply with certain safety standards." but the writing leaves it unclear to me whether that included mandating seat belts. The theory that government regulation is mandatory or companies will never do anything healthy requires a consumer base who assigns no regard to their health and safety, which is obviously false. I'm not say it's all market, either; I think a government that watches a free market but does not participate is generally the ideal. But the idea that we wouldn't have standard seat belts if it weren't for government is silly. In the general case, the government can't mandate things that don't exist yet. They can at least prod things in certain directions with things like CAFE standards, but that's all. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt#History

by zeveb 10y ago

idlewords 10y ago

Capitalism can only exist within a framework of "statist regulation". Complaining about it is like a goldfish being angry that there are aquarium walls. You can argue that the aquarium is the wrong shape, or the castle is the wrong color, but you would not like a world where there were no state-enforced rules.

nilved 10y ago
> Capitalism can only exist within a framework of "statist regulation". This isn't true at all. We had capitalism before we had states and regulation.
- theseatoms 10y ago
  Then what do you classify the enforcement of property rights as?
  - nilved 10y ago
    It doesn't take a state to do that. Dogs mark their territory.
    - ashark 10y ago
      But dog-marking anarchy is one very short step removed from government—the crappy ones, like feudalism and despotism.
      - nilved 10y ago
        But it's removed.
        ashark 10y ago
        I meant to imply a progression, which I apparently failed to do. The hypothetical state of "there is no government; my private property exists to the extent that I can personally defend it" is incredibly unstable. Like, element-named-after-its-weight unstable.
        smallnamespace 10y ago
        Do you really find needing to personally defend your own property, on pain of death, better than some form of government? How are you going to guarantee that your neighbors won't be better-armed than you and rob (if you're lucky) or kill you? Why would anyone else want to join you in your utopia?
        aseipp 10y ago
        > How are you going to guarantee that your neighbors won't be better-armed than you and rob (if you're lucky) or kill you? It's easy: like most people who believe that shit, they likely also believe they'll be on the top of the food chain at that point -- just once the big mean government goes away, that is. It's likely the only thing that's kept them from being on top, after all. There is no consideration for the possibility that they will be ruled over or taken advantage of. That's not a credible theory, you see -- because it assumes they're not at the top. Thus, this possibility you have entertained is actually an impossibility, you see! Checkmate. > Why would anyone else want to join you in your utopia? Total, all-encompassing delusion and market worship.
- lagadu 10y ago
  He says that in the sense that "day" doesn't make sense without "night": for the former to make sense, you need the latter to exist in order to compare/understand them.
- idlewords 10y ago
  Where was this stateless capitalism?
  - AdrianB1 10y ago
    The ancient tribes all over the world were using capitalism as an economical form. There were no states at that time.
    - ashark 10y ago
      This is only true if you lop off parts of what makes a system "capitalism" until you can apply it to almost anything.
    - bbctol 10y ago
      What are you talking about? I thought previously you were asking serious questions, but this is just hilariously untrue. Pre-state tribes invariably used gift and sharing economies, and well up until the European Middle Ages those had evolved into feudal planned economies or vast palace economies such as that of the Incas. Capitalism is not the state of nature.
- trgn 10y ago
  Capitalism developed in the merchant cities of Northern Italy and the Low Countries in the late Middle Ages. These states were certainly regulated, some of these regulations are recognizable to us (licensing requirements to practice trades, import taxes, trade barriers to certain countries, ...). Capitalism isn't the bedrock of humanity's economic interactions, it is a fairly recent economic model. It requires markets, private property (and its protection), individual agency to participate in contracts, what have you. These things didn't just emerge out of thin air, and they most certainly don't predate states and regulation.
  - AdrianB1 10y ago
    And what for of economy did people use before Italy "invented" capitalism? Were ancient Greeks socialists? Were they communist? What where they using, planned state economy?
    - ashark 10y ago
      "Capitalism" doesn't just mean "any system where trade for profit happens". It encompasses much more and implies the use of (and therefore invention and state sanction of) organizations like joint-stock companies and a much larger and more flexible credit system than what came before. Wikipedia is helpful here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalism
    - bbctol 10y ago
      Planned state economy might be pushing the usage of the word, but the government and economy were so intertwined in ancient Greek city states it's hard to call them capitalists. At the most extreme, they were palace economies, with all redistribution of goods done by the state, and most of them had the largest part of economic management handled at the agora.
- bdavisx 10y ago
  Can you give us an example of what you mean by this?
- forinti 10y ago
  The simple act of creating a business requires a legal framework and hence a state. The economy would be a lot different if the owner of an entreprise had to bear the risk of losing his own capital.
  - AdrianB1 10y ago
    So in ancient Greece if you wanted to do a business with olives and olive oil you needed a state to grant you a license and collect taxes? Really?
    - Daishiman 10y ago
      Well if you didn't want to get raided by foreign invaders you certainly had to have a form of state protection.
    - ashark 10y ago
      Taking Athens as an example, the Assembly seems to have had wide latitude to rule as they pleased on a huge variety of lawsuit. The ruling class was heavily preoccupied with the practice of law and rhetoric for the purpose of defending and prosecuting these suits, which seem to have been extremely common. I think it's fair to guess that yes, any upstart business would have required the consent of the Assembly (the government) in order not to be ruined by suits brought by their competitors, which probably means staying on good terms with at least some of said competitors and likely doing a lot of political work before launching the business. And certainly taxes would be collected. Plus, if you were in Athens odds were "you" were a slave. So the state's just a bit involved in your (in)ability to start a business in that case. Then there's Sparta with its requirements of state service and bizarre, heavy-handed property laws. And again, you're probably a slave.

radarsat1 10y ago

> What makes me sad is to think about how much improvement we'd see if all technologies were as free as software In some cases it might be fine, in others we might end up with http://i.imgur.com/NhebE.jpg http://i.imgur.com/NhebE.jpg It really depends.

yladiz 10y ago

If technologies were as free as software without regulation, cars would not have crumple zones, seat belts, airbags, anti lock brakes, or any other safety technology mandatory. Companies would use the cheapest pesticide even if it causes horrible birth defects and medical issues to grow our food. Medical and pharma companies would price their services and drugs however they want because they can and people have to buy it (which is what's happening already, and 17.1% of the US GDP is spent on medicine as of 2014[1], higher than any other country in the world). In every example, companies wouldn't do the right thing because it would cut into their profits, which is what capitalism boils down to. Not every regulation is good -- look at SF's housing and how you can have multiple overlapping regulations that mean that building a building is impossible in some situations -- but in many ways they're better than "free as software" technology. Edit: Yes, safety features like seat belts were available before they were mandatory, but not everyone would buy them. I would be surprised if car manufacturers marketed the seat belt much even if they offered it. 1: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?year_high_desc=true http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?year_high...

TaylorAlexander 10y ago
[Citation Needed]
- yladiz 10y ago
  http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?year_high_desc=true http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?year_high... Sorry, I was a little off. It's 17.1%, not 17%. And I also said it's higher than any developed country when it's actually every country in The World Bank's data.
- foldr 10y ago
  This is what actually happened before the relevant regulations were put in place.
jerf 10y ago
Seat belts were offered in cars prior to regulation [1]: "American car manufacturers Nash (in 1949) and Ford (in 1955) offered seat belts as options, while Swedish Saab first introduced seat belts as standard in 1958.[7] After the Saab GT 750 was introduced at the New York Motor Show in 1958 with safety belts fitted as standard, the practice became commonplace.[8]" "... The world's first seat belt law was put in place in 1970, in the state of Victoria, Australia, making the wearing of a seat belt compulsory for drivers and front-seat passengers. This legislation was enacted after trialing Hemco seatbelts, designed by Desmond Hemphill (1926–2001), in the front seats of police vehicles, lowering the incidence of officer injury and death." Wikipedia mentions "in 1959, Congress passed legislation requiring all automobiles to comply with certain safety standards." but the writing leaves it unclear to me whether that included mandating seat belts. The theory that government regulation is mandatory or companies will never do anything healthy requires a consumer base who assigns no regard to their health and safety, which is obviously false. I'm not say it's all market, either; I think a government that watches a free market but does not participate is generally the ideal. But the idea that we wouldn't have standard seat belts if it weren't for government is silly. In the general case, the government can't mandate things that don't exist yet. They can at least prod things in certain directions with things like CAFE standards, but that's all. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt#History