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Trickle down referred to giving tax breaks to rich people so that they would buy expensive things (like Ferraris) and that this spending would spur economic mov

Trickle down referred to giving tax breaks to rich people so that they would buy expensive things (like Ferraris) and that this spending would spur economic movement because people have to sell, make, and repair Ferraris. The money they receive they would then use to buy groceries or a new TV. This is far different than the notion of the invisible hand, if only we counted government influence (deciding winners and losers). > If you encourage capitalistic self-interest enough, it will create benefit? Yes. Look around. I don't discount the role government has played when it does do good things, but the wonders of the world today are largely driven by the desire to do some work in order to gain some measurable economic benefit. Period. You can't just create "this benefit directly". How would you do that? I also think your general perspective on business is being warped by your obvious bias. Competition in industry does not necessarily lead toward mean-spirited relationships, or destructive competition. It can, but look at the tech industry, if anything, the opposite has happened. Also, the wastage of resources is almost laughable. I say this not to be condescending, but because if there is one entity on the planet that is inefficient, it's government. Businesses go out of business if they don't use resources in the most efficient possible way. A government just prints more money, or if worse comes to worse, passes laws or regulations that distort the economy. There are countries that do better when it comes to private-public cooperation, namely Scandinavian countries, but even those companies are capitalist countries and recognize that government does not have the capacity to guide economic development as a whole compared to the free exchange of goods and services. It's helpful once in awhile to jumpstart an industry, like solar/wind power in the United States, but government should largely stay out of business (aside from obvious regulation and protection).

TeMPOraL 9y ago
Waste of resources is a good point. Both governments and private industries waste a lot, but the kinds of waste are different. For starters, in such discussion I'd ignore money, because as good as it is for being a proxy for everything, it's still ultimately an arbitrary, abstract quantity. Printing money, in a way, is fine. We should talk about waste in terms of real resources - like energy and human time. > Businesses go out of business if they don't use resources in the most efficient possible way. Except often there are more businesses than strictly needed, and the surplus production is a waste. But more importantly, in a saturated market every bit of fuel, paper, metal, every kilowatt-hour and every man-hour spent on advertising is a waste of resources. Simple as that. The companies play zero-sum games on such markets, where every action is meant to cancels out effects of actions of other companies. Governments don't advertise, because they don't play the competition game (at least not internally). Point being, there's lot of waste, public and private alike. Some is probably unavoidable thanks to thermodynamics alone, but it would be worth our time to consider how to build systems that waste less energy and human time just to operate.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Tangentially, I cannot help but add this: mining imaginary points using electricity is one of the most egregious wastes of resources the human mind has ever conceived of. Burning our planet because we cannot trust one another to issue currency equitably is wrong in the worst way.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Yes, that's my feeling too. But in lesser way, this applies to a lot of our social and commercial systems - we're spending energy to enforce large-scale coordination between people. That spending could be entirely avoided if we could trust one another more. I doubt that in the nearby future we'll be able to make humans more cooperative by default, but I think it's worth stopping to consider just on what exactly we're spending energy, and maybe if there are ways to avoid that. In particular, I shake my head when I see people excited about new "trustless" systems that replace inter-personal trust with cryptography. It's not a victory, it's a defeat. Maybe necessary, but still a loss.
    - coredog64 9y ago
      High trust societies are typically ethnically or culturally homogeneous. It is far easier to feel empathy for someone that looks and/or acts like you. I get the sense that this homogeneity is no longer seen as a benefit (for both good and bad reasons) and so expect that we are going to expend even more energy on coordination in the future.
      - aninhumer 9y ago
        I think improving equality or at least reducing poverty could go a long way to towards increasing societal trust, even in the presence of cultural differences. Happier people are less angry, and thus less likely to hate the other, especially if the other has a similar quality of life to you. Not to mention economic background is a major aspect of cultural differences. Also, pockets of cultural homogeneity would be less of a concern if people still had similar opportunities regardless of which one they fit into.
ue_ 9y ago
>Also, the wastage of resources is almost laughable. I say this not to be condescending, but because if there is one entity on the planet that is inefficient, it's government. I'm not arguing for government, at least not necessarily. Although there are cases of the government forcing commodity producers to destroy their excess commodities, businesses by themselves also engage in these practices to maintain a favourable price with regard to supply and demand of their commodity. >You can't just create "this benefit directly". How would you do that? Workers working for themselves, receiving the product of their own labour, without engaging in the tedious exchange of commodities for money. Democratic decision as to how excess product is allocated and whom it is given to. >government does not have the capacity to guide economic development as a whole compared to the free exchange of goods and services I don't think we should be saying this as fact; it's useful to remember that central planning does not only come in the form of fixed five-year plans, nor is central planning necessary to rid ourselves of wage labour. My "bias" may be that I am a Communist (which I find I am freuently downvoted for even mentioning) though I doubt any of us can say we are free of some bias. Having a position on a certain mode of organisation of society is by no means having a bias, in my opinion anyway. https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-dairy-farmers-dump-43-million-gallons-of-excess-milk-1476284353 https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-dairy-farmers-dump-43-...
- muninn_ 9y ago
  I'm an anarchist, which is usually a non-starter for many conversations, so I sympathize with being a Communist and having that distract from your message. The reason I mentioned this bias was because the statements you were making appeared to be standard talking points of somebody who has already drawn a conclusion. I celebrate differences in opinion for political philosophy and didn't mean to imply that your stance meant anything bad. > Workers working for themselves, receiving the product of their own labour, without engaging in the tedious exchange of commodities for money. Democratic decision as to how excess product is allocated and whom it is given to. There is nothing to stop this right now. In fact, co-ops are becoming more regular, and bartering has been enabled by online systems. The US government allows people to buy products using Bitcoin, create worker-owned shops, and freely barter goods. Central planning means you can only do one of those three, and historically it has been done poorly. >I don't think we should be saying this as fact; it's useful to remember that central planning does not only come in the form of fixed five-year plans, nor is central planning necessary to rid ourselves of wage labour. I hate to state this as a matter of fact, but I think it is. Government cannot foresee the needs of the people beyond perhaps making sure everybody has a ration of energy or food or something like that. Central planning is just far too complicated and harsh. I think your only hope for a more communistic society is through technological innovation that drives the prices of goods so low that profit simply cannot be made.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

Waste of resources is a good point. Both governments and private industries waste a lot, but the kinds of waste are different. For starters, in such discussion I'd ignore money, because as good as it is for being a proxy for everything, it's still ultimately an arbitrary, abstract quantity. Printing money, in a way, is fine. We should talk about waste in terms of real resources - like energy and human time. > Businesses go out of business if they don't use resources in the most efficient possible way. Except often there are more businesses than strictly needed, and the surplus production is a waste. But more importantly, in a saturated market every bit of fuel, paper, metal, every kilowatt-hour and every man-hour spent on advertising is a waste of resources. Simple as that. The companies play zero-sum games on such markets, where every action is meant to cancels out effects of actions of other companies. Governments don't advertise, because they don't play the competition game (at least not internally). Point being, there's lot of waste, public and private alike. Some is probably unavoidable thanks to thermodynamics alone, but it would be worth our time to consider how to build systems that waste less energy and human time just to operate.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Tangentially, I cannot help but add this: mining imaginary points using electricity is one of the most egregious wastes of resources the human mind has ever conceived of. Burning our planet because we cannot trust one another to issue currency equitably is wrong in the worst way.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Yes, that's my feeling too. But in lesser way, this applies to a lot of our social and commercial systems - we're spending energy to enforce large-scale coordination between people. That spending could be entirely avoided if we could trust one another more. I doubt that in the nearby future we'll be able to make humans more cooperative by default, but I think it's worth stopping to consider just on what exactly we're spending energy, and maybe if there are ways to avoid that. In particular, I shake my head when I see people excited about new "trustless" systems that replace inter-personal trust with cryptography. It's not a victory, it's a defeat. Maybe necessary, but still a loss.
  - coredog64 9y ago
    High trust societies are typically ethnically or culturally homogeneous. It is far easier to feel empathy for someone that looks and/or acts like you. I get the sense that this homogeneity is no longer seen as a benefit (for both good and bad reasons) and so expect that we are going to expend even more energy on coordination in the future.
    - aninhumer 9y ago
      I think improving equality or at least reducing poverty could go a long way to towards increasing societal trust, even in the presence of cultural differences. Happier people are less angry, and thus less likely to hate the other, especially if the other has a similar quality of life to you. Not to mention economic background is a major aspect of cultural differences. Also, pockets of cultural homogeneity would be less of a concern if people still had similar opportunities regardless of which one they fit into.

ue_ 9y ago

>Also, the wastage of resources is almost laughable. I say this not to be condescending, but because if there is one entity on the planet that is inefficient, it's government. I'm not arguing for government, at least not necessarily. Although there are cases of the government forcing commodity producers to destroy their excess commodities, businesses by themselves also engage in these practices to maintain a favourable price with regard to supply and demand of their commodity. >You can't just create "this benefit directly". How would you do that? Workers working for themselves, receiving the product of their own labour, without engaging in the tedious exchange of commodities for money. Democratic decision as to how excess product is allocated and whom it is given to. >government does not have the capacity to guide economic development as a whole compared to the free exchange of goods and services I don't think we should be saying this as fact; it's useful to remember that central planning does not only come in the form of fixed five-year plans, nor is central planning necessary to rid ourselves of wage labour. My "bias" may be that I am a Communist (which I find I am freuently downvoted for even mentioning) though I doubt any of us can say we are free of some bias. Having a position on a certain mode of organisation of society is by no means having a bias, in my opinion anyway. https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-dairy-farmers-dump-43-million-gallons-of-excess-milk-1476284353 https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-dairy-farmers-dump-43-...

muninn_ 9y ago
I'm an anarchist, which is usually a non-starter for many conversations, so I sympathize with being a Communist and having that distract from your message. The reason I mentioned this bias was because the statements you were making appeared to be standard talking points of somebody who has already drawn a conclusion. I celebrate differences in opinion for political philosophy and didn't mean to imply that your stance meant anything bad. > Workers working for themselves, receiving the product of their own labour, without engaging in the tedious exchange of commodities for money. Democratic decision as to how excess product is allocated and whom it is given to. There is nothing to stop this right now. In fact, co-ops are becoming more regular, and bartering has been enabled by online systems. The US government allows people to buy products using Bitcoin, create worker-owned shops, and freely barter goods. Central planning means you can only do one of those three, and historically it has been done poorly. >I don't think we should be saying this as fact; it's useful to remember that central planning does not only come in the form of fixed five-year plans, nor is central planning necessary to rid ourselves of wage labour. I hate to state this as a matter of fact, but I think it is. Government cannot foresee the needs of the people beyond perhaps making sure everybody has a ration of energy or food or something like that. Central planning is just far too complicated and harsh. I think your only hope for a more communistic society is through technological innovation that drives the prices of goods so low that profit simply cannot be made.