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I don't understand why everyone hates capitalism now. Its like "what the cool kids do". You know whats really cool? Inventing stuff. Using the power of your mi

I don't understand why everyone hates capitalism now. Its like "what the cool kids do". You know whats really cool? Inventing stuff. Using the power of your mind to form matter into a new thing that the universe has never seen before. Whats really cool is starting a business that adds enough value to the world to hire people. Feeding them with the power of your mind and a little bit of shared elbow grease. The "cool kids" seem to be bashing capitalism today. Thats not cool.

deleted 9y ago
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emodendroket 9y ago
Hm, yeah, can't think of any events in the past few decades that would make people angry and distrustful of our economic system.
- chippy 9y ago
  You could say that of any bunch of decades in any part of history for the last three hundred years. I think it's a natural side effect of being human and living and perceiving in the present day. Every people in their own time think that they are living in the most crucial and important time ever, if one remembers that, and the perspective that history gives, we can temper our reactions.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I never said this was "the most crucial and important time ever" (how do you even quantify that?). What I wanted to imply is that since the 70s wages have stagnated and now many people are going backwards and experiencing worse standards of living, with occasional crises like the 2008 housing crisis along the way. It's not really surprising that people are looking for something different.
noahth 9y ago
One thing I don't think enough people appreciate about history is how nothing got invented before capitalism.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Indeed. Capitalism built the Pyramids and the Parthenon; capitalism took us to the Moon; capitalism made Homer write the Iliad for the license fees and produced the most widely printed book of all time, the Bible. /s More seriously, the lesson we should apply from Monopoly is that once the money is in few enough hands the "game" of capitalism is over.
  - 13years 9y ago
    Maybe we shouldn't consider Monopoly a game of 'capitalism'. Although, it probably in some respects does represent the popular idea of capitalism and the reality of our current regulated economic system. The game monopoly better represents a non free market economy. The players are constrained within the limited confines of the game. As players accrue money and resources they can't invest that into new businesses. The is no representation in the game of other economic pressures of supply and demand of human resources. All these limits are more analogous to a heavily regulated economy. And of course, part of the game is based simply on chance. Players aren't complete free to engage in free trade as they would see fit.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Sure you are; you can buy and sell properties at any time.
      - 13years 9y ago
        There are no limits in a real world economy on agreements, contracts etc between actors. Monopoly is a very closed system and in no way represents a real free economy.
        9y ago
FussyZeus 9y ago
I previously was a staunch pro-Capitalist person, but it really seems like we're approaching a point where it's not so much that it's a bad system, but that once we're in a post-scarcity economy, that it will no longer be required. We already have multiple products in the market that are so incredibly low-margin and so incredibly cheap to make that they barely retain value at all, and the market forces that put those products in that position are the same ones making everything from TV's to homes cheaper. At what point is the actual transaction of taking whatever token amount of money from me, so I can have the thing that cost you a haypenny to make, actually costing more than just giving me the thing? Logically, everything will eventually be driven to that point. I'm not saying when it will happen, I'm not even saying it's a good or bad thing. I simply accept that at some point Capitalism is no longer going to be needed.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Well, personally I think we have the opposite problem, which is that endless growth is not compatible with a planet with finite resources.
yosito 9y ago
> You know whats really cool? Inventing stuff. Using the power of your mind to form matter into a new thing that the universe has never seen before. Whats really cool is starting a business that adds enough value to the world to hire people. Feeding them with the power of your mind and a little bit of shared elbow grease. You seem to believe that these things are exclusive to capitalism. But none of those things are capitalism, nor would they automatically be excluded in a non-capitalist system.
- y4mi 9y ago
  Capitalism is a terrible system. It's just better than all the other systems that any society tried at scale.
  - owebmaster 9y ago
    China scale > USA scale Although USA economy is still bigger than China, it might change soon and then your presumption would be dismissed.
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      y4mi didn't say that capitalism was the system that had created the greatest scale, merely that capitalism was the system that had worked best at scale. So China's system can create a bigger economy than the USA? Fine. (And the new, non-Maoist system has lifted something like a quarter of a billion people out of poverty, which is an amazing achievement.) But can it create a per-capita income similar to the USA's? So far, no, not even close. So China is not actually a refutation of y4mi's point, and won't be for quite some time. Why can't China's system produce a better per-person outcome than the USA's? Well, China was starting from a much lower point after western domination, then Japanese invasion, then civil war, and then Mao's blundering and oppression. But apart from that, China's government has too much power. This gives too many opportunities for corruption, and corruption drains the life out of the economy. (And yes, the USA's government has too much power, too. The USA (I think) less corrupt than China, but the corruption is there, at least in the form of people using the government's power to hinder competitors. More direct forms are starting to show up, too, or at least we're starting to hear about them more than we used to. What system really works? A government strong enough that it can prevent people abusing the market (collusion, fraud, unsafe products), but not so strong that it's easy or useful to use the government as a mechanism of abuse, and not so cumbersome that it gets much in the way of normal (non-fraudulent, non-collusion, safe products) business.
tray5 9y ago
> I don't understand why everyone hates capitalism now People have been hating capitalism since the invention of capitalism, it's not new. Americans might just be starting to hate it but thats due to the fact that they really haven't been able to ever have a fair and honest discussion about the various economic systems of the world because of 80 years of capitalist propaganda and suppression of socialists and communists
13years 9y ago
Because corrupt corporatism and crony capitalism has been effectively conflated with free market capitalism. Most politicians who claim to support capitalism actually are supporting nothing of the sort. It then becomes convenient for the media to label capitalism as a corrupt system. It is true that our economic system has become quite corrupt and has abandoned free markets. So when politicians defend that system as a capitalism, then naturally that is where the association has been built.
- illuminati1911 9y ago
  This, times 1000. The title of news article is funny because monopoly cannot even exist in real capitalism nor can corruption. Both are features of socialsm/communism. Popularity of disliking/hating capitalism is probably due to the lack of proper basic education in the US.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    > The title of news article is funny because monopoly cannot even exist in real capitalism nor can corruption. [Citation needed]
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I don't believe that there can really be a meaningful distinction between "free market capitalism" and "crony capitalism." Capitalism creates powerful private actors in whose interest it is to pursue regulatory capture.
  - 13years 9y ago
    Regulatory agencies or any centralized governance becomes a target. This is why constitutionally no such authority was ever given to the federal government to institute such agencies. Saying there is no meaningful distinction is truly disingenuous. Like saying there is no difference between a fresh apple and a rotten apple. Obviously there is and there are reasons as to why the different states exist. One state is extremely beneficial and the other state is not.
fredley 9y ago
(Disclaimer: UK perspective) I think it's partly because the "cool kids" today have had to pay out hugely for their education, to find a non-existent job market on the other side, tremendous pressure on the housing market meaning it's completely unaffordable to live anywhere half-decent even if you do have a job. The generations above us benefitted hugely from a great wave of socialism following World War II - with the creation of the NHS, completely free university education, the ability to buy a house right out of university etc. There's a feeling (accurate or not) that this older generation, having benefitted hugely from socialist measures, are now 'pulling the ladder up behind them', entrenching their position of privilege while denying the same opportunities to younger people. It's not that capitalism is bad - it's probably one of the least bad economic systems - but that the swing away from socialism towards capitalism (it's not black and white - it's a smoothish gradient from one to the other) is exacerbating this situation. There is some evidence behind this - a report published recently showed that since tuition fees were introduced for universities, more children of wealthy people are attending and fewer from poorer backgrounds.
mrfusion 9y ago
Why don't you try joining a monopoly game in the middle of the game and see how much you still like capitalism? That's what people born today face.
- brightsize 9y ago
  > Why don't you try joining a monopoly game in the middle of the game and see how much you still like capitalism? And/or starting the game with sums of money that differ by orders of magnitude between players.
meri_dian 9y ago
Most people aren't very good at nuanced appraisals of things. While capitalism does have its weaknesses, it also seems to be one of the driving forces behind modernity, which I think most of us can agree is a supremely good thing. We've tried tearing down the system before. Communism failed, not because of failed implementation, but because the concept itself is a bad one. This is not to say that we should close ourselves off from thinking of new ways to organize our societies, but it seems that capitalism and all that it encourages is responsible for the 'rising tide' of global human civilization we've witnessed over the course of the industrial revolution to now. Sure there is inequality, but as they say, a rising tide lifts all boats. Would you want to be the average middle class or poor person 300 years ago, or today? As innovation continues to change the material conditions of the world, our economic systems will evolve in response, probably for the better. Capitalism will not look the same in 100 years or 1000 years as it does today. But over time gradual development will improve the system, not some grand scheme that calls for tearing down capitalism and replacing it with something else.
- deleted 9y ago
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- tray5 9y ago
  >Communism failed, not because of failed implementation, but because the concept itself is a bad one. This is a frustrating and arrogant thing to say. If you can honestly go through and thoroughly criticize the core collective works of great socialist thinkers like Engels, Marx, Lenin, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman and the uncountable thousands who have poured thousands of hours into tomes which are freely available online to study and understand, then you should do so. I would love to read this! You'd probably become a very famous person! But coming out gung ho and so arrogantly conclude that all these people, and all the hard work they have done in both theory and praxis is kaput without a very strong argument behind you is pointless and childish. It stifles conversation and is the reason discussing economic systems with people who don't understand them is an exercise in futility.
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    I actually respect a great deal of Marxist and socialist thought about our societies and economic systems. Capitalism has flaws, surely, and pointing them out is important so we can fix them. But on the whole, much of communist ideology and theorizing is far removed from reality and suffers from a lack of understanding about human nature. Socialist description and perspective on society is interesting and can be enlightening, but its prescriptions are bad. Many scientists and thinkers over the course of history have dedicated their entire lives to theories that are ultimately shown to be fairy-tails. It happens all the time.
Pigo 9y ago
I think it's funny how this little trivia about Monopoly gets brought up constantly, I think just to spark a debate about economics. Is this really not common knowledge already?
bildung 9y ago
> You know whats really cool? Inventing stuff. Using the power of your mind to form matter into a new thing that the universe has never seen before. Whats really cool is starting a business that adds enough value to the world to hire people. Feeding them with the power of your mind and a little bit of shared elbow grease. Not one of these points is limited to capitalism. Markets are a necessary but not a sufficient condition of capitalism. People's urge to create wonderful things did exist in the millenia before 1750, they did exist in the eastern bloc, and every day today multiple great things people do in their free time, making no economic sense at all, pop up on HN. Even in capitalist societies many if not most of the groundbreaking inventions and discoveries were and are state-funded.
- rayiner 9y ago
  > Not one of these points is limited to capitalism. The USSR beat us in almost every space milestone and would have beaten us to the moon if not for the untimely death of the guy running their space program.
  - tray5 9y ago
    Down votes aren't disagreement votes. If you have an issue with their comment then reply, but don't put them into the negative because you don't like the facts they point out.
    - rosser 9y ago
      You're explicitly wrong about downvoting being a mark of disagreement. That's been black-letter HN culture since forever. I don't entirely like it either (though I'll admit that I do it, too), but 'pg repeatedly went on record, saying he meant for it to be that way. That said, I can't stand it when people downvote comments pointing out objective, verifiable facts that they don't like. It happens all the time, and I despair a bit for the quality of discourse even possible in a community where that's a thing that people do.
  - Sommersonn 9y ago
    Yes, USSR did that, but for the cost of exhausting their economy, bringing poverty to their people and dissolving eventually. It's like comparing North Korea with Germany - NK can send rockets to space, while Germany can't. But can you say that NK is ahead of Germany in terms of inventions?
rainbowmverse 9y ago
I'm willing to cut people working themselves to death at 2-3 jobs to make ends meet a little slack on the depth of their economic theories.
anguswithgusto 9y ago
Ah yes, that holy grail of humanity: starting a business. Thank heavens that the czars of capitalism have given us such a generous outlet for all that latent human potential—unlike say, starting a family, starting a full-time art project, starting a humanities Ph.D without crippling debt, starting a round of chemo while unemployed, or starting our dinners at 6pm like our ancestors managed to do for ~200,000 years.
rayiner 9y ago
What's really cool is the majority of people having a pleasant and comfortable life and a bright future for their kids. Maximizing the prosperity of the majority is the purpose of a democratic society. People are ragging on capitalism because they're looking over the pond to countries that see capitalism as a tool to serve democratic interests rather than as moral worldview, and they kind of like that idea. Interestingly, those countries aren't really less capitalistic (the Heritage Foundation puts the U.S. in the same bucket on their Economic Freedom index as Sweden and Germany), but their culture is less centered around glorifying the capitalist.
- problems 9y ago
  > People are ragging on capitalism because they're looking over the pond to countries that see capitalism as a tool to serve democratic interests rather than a moral worldview, and they kind of like that idea. Interestingly, those countries aren't really less capitalistic (the Heritage Foundation puts the U.S. in the same bucket on their Economic Freedom index as Sweden and Germany), but their culture is less centered around glorifying the capitalist. I think you've made a great point here - but I've seen people explicitly saying they want communism. Look at how often /r/LateStageCapitalism, an explicitly communist subreddit is on the frontpage of reddit. If people were just pushing for a few more socialized services, I think they've got a good argument to make there. There are good tweaks that can be made. But if they're pushing for a complete change to the system I think they're off their rockers.
  - tylerhou 9y ago
    Small correction: the subreddit is /r/LateStageCapitalism.
    - problems 9y ago
      Yeah, fixed it. Thanks.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    Quite a lot of those people are "into" actual communism out of a mixture of ignorance and edginess. Revolutions sound great when you're naive. And it's not actually a great number of people as a proportion of the electorate! The key is what happens to suggestions for "good tweaks". Do they get considered reasonably and implemented fairly? Or are people denounced for even seeking tweaks? Flexible mixed-economy capitalism seems to be pretty stable. Capitalism that's blind to inequality produces an increasing long tail of disaffected victims with nothing to lose. Hence the rise of kick-over-the-table politics, epitomised by Trump.
rglover 9y ago
> You know whats really cool? Inventing stuff. Using the power of your mind to form matter into a new thing that the universe has never seen before. Whats really cool is starting a business that adds enough value to the world to hire people. 1000x yes. It's incredibly frustrating to see folks whining about capitalism all the while doing so using an iPhone and MacBook Pro, not understanding the irony.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  "How can you criticize feudalism? You're eating food that was grown on the lord's land, you know."
- phillnom 9y ago
  Yeah people should only be able to critique capitalism if they strip themselves of all possessions and live in the woods /s
jesusthatsgreat 9y ago
People hate capitalism until they see what happens when you put the state in charge of everything. The grass is always greener. Always has been, always will be. If only we could get over to the other side, I could prove it to you...
mcguffin777 9y ago
The majority of folk on the planet won't have that opportunity. You seem to think capitalism has created some utopia of easy access and opportunity I think people are hating on it not because it's cool but because it's yet another class warfare structure that's doing quite a lot to stifle, subjugate, and expropriate people's work Why should anyone be obliged to work for capitalism in a supposedly free society Why should I be forced into trade for of my creation and most valuable resource in time? You said creating is great. I agree. It's the forced parting with our creation that capitalism requires so the economy works and others can not contribute but simply place bets on who will create better It's now held up as a divine right almost and forced upon the world to the benefit of a slothful minority. It's used by people in America to control people in China Unless the Koch brothers or Gates figured out how to live for ever, they're not particularly unique. None of created anything more than a large financial structure that takes from others for their overwhelming benefit That's my take on it I'm reminded of the story about the Mexican fisherman and American businessman It's not efficient, imo, to motivate people to do superfluous work to get to the same place I'm not against the use in certain areas but the push into capitalism was sold under dubious reasoning and bolster national pride. That said it is the way the world works. I don't think it's the way it has to. But powerful capitalists say it does. That's my big problem. The leverage some have over others. Especially in a country where their leverage more often than not wasn't acquired through honest trade but manipulation and violence I'm against then the way people tend to wield the power they have over others and capitalism allows too much power for individuals The funny thing to me has been all the cries by some capitalists about wealth inequality and for competition in markets but isn't that socialism? Where there's plenty of opportunity to explore and no threat of being overpowered Its rooted more in distrust of the power structures that uphold it. And the oppressive reality many exist under due to it You seem to think everyone is on the same level under this system and can just go build a business today, but that's absurd on its face
mindcrime 9y ago
I don't understand why everyone hates capitalism now. Its like "what the cool kids do". A persistent campaign of propaganda aimed at capitalism. Because there are always either misguided "true believers" or corrupt glad-handers looking to exploit others for their own benefit, who are out there proselytizing for some socialist ideology and trying to tear down capitalism.
deleted 9y ago
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ionised 9y ago
If you're only going to look at the positives and pretend the negatives don't exist then it's no wonder you're confused by people bashing unrestrained capitalism.
amelius 9y ago
> I don't understand why everyone hates capitalism now. Its like "what the cool kids do". You probably never played Monopoly as a child then :) Also, perhaps you will find capitalism less cool when, say, Google decides to go into the exact same business as you are in now.
owebmaster 9y ago
> You know whats really cool? Inventing stuff. Using the power of your mind to form matter into a new thing that the universe has never seen before. Whats really cool is starting a business that adds enough value to the world to hire people. Feeding them with the power of your mind and a little bit of shared elbow grease. You know what's really really cool? A lot of people inventing stuff. Not only the ones that have parents that can help them live until their late twenties without have to work for a living. Socialism/communism aims to fix this. What I see is that China is having a tremendous creative boom right now.
simon83 9y ago
I'm one of those hatin' cool kids, I guess. Coincidentally I'm also a millennial, one of those ignorant kinds who simply does not get what a Good Life™ we have, at this point in time, compared to the last decades and centuries. Yes, we have it better nowadays (but only some parts of the world), but it could also easily have been way, way better by now (or worse, of course). Let me also say that I don't hate capitalism per se, it's more or less just a tool with no moral obligations. The problem with capitalism are the humans, like always, and Monopoly is perfect to experience the bad side of human nature: greed and the me vs. them attitude. Do you think it would be possible to come up with rules for Monopoly, where everyone would be a winner, living in abundance? Absolutely, but that would be boring. If I can't be the best of all, then why bother. It's Me vs. Them, and totally screw Them... Those people, whose families played Monopoly for long enough until now, and who were able to amass a lot of wealth and keep it within their small circle, they won't allow to change the rules. Because then they wouldn't be the Winner anymore. It's always Me First, and everyone else can die trying. Edit: I've been really depressive the past 15 years, it started once I was old enough to realize how our world is run. The lack of empathy and social justice is really sickening. I tried to play the game, but I'm not good at it because I lack the attributes that are required to become good at it. I don't care about money, I just want to stay alive, take care of my family and code cool and useful things. But I started to get a tiny little bit of hope that eventually things may drastically change in the future. Like I do think that we may be able to develop an AGI within this century. One that is rational and smarter than humans. I can totally understand Musks fear of an AGI that would try to destroy humanity (personally I hope it'd go only after the bad leadership :)), and while I think Musk has generally good intentions, he's still a hardcore capitalist, and I'm not sure if I want him and his buddies have too much say in this. Another shorter term solution to some of the problems we have with capitalism is to setup systems based on Blockchain technologies. I'm really no expert in this area, but I believe it would be possible to set up a financial system that allows for transparency, privacy, but no anonymity and no speculations like we experience nowadays with cryptocurrencies. Something that prevents corruption, black money, etc. Such blockchain technology could be also adapted for a voting system, where voter fraud then becomes impossible. One promising project I've recently discovered is Cardano SL [1], and the team behind it looks like they really want to make a change. I'll keep my fingers crossed. [1]: https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-sl/ https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-sl/
rosser 9y ago
I didn't realize no one had "invented" anything before we "invented" capitalism.
cmurf 9y ago
They're bashing two things: crony capitalism where companies put up barriers to entry and try to weaken government anti-competition and consumer protection laws so they can f* people over, which makes people angry; and the "religious" idea that pure capitalism (sometimes also conflated with pure free market, no regulations) solves every single problem, the idea that all things are products, and if you can't afford a product, go f* yourself. I think people understand the world is more complex than either planned economies, or pure free market ones, and hybrids are necessary. The question is how to make regulating them proactive rather than reactive which is how political based moderation of capitalism's excess are managed today. And I think that's because people are becoming suspicious of absolute ideological positions that think they have everything figured out. And that's because things are more complex. Just because you can't explain that complexity doesn't mean it's intellectually honest to fall back on a hand waive of propaganda "we need less regulation and more free market solutions" which is binary logic. Upon discovery that binary logic isn't how humans works, and maybe isn't how future computers will work, people are becoming more comfortable with nuance, layers, and dynamic approaches to problems, rather than tribal grunts of capitalism being perfection as if there's no such thing as market failure.

deleted 9y ago

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emodendroket 9y ago

Hm, yeah, can't think of any events in the past few decades that would make people angry and distrustful of our economic system.

chippy 9y ago
You could say that of any bunch of decades in any part of history for the last three hundred years. I think it's a natural side effect of being human and living and perceiving in the present day. Every people in their own time think that they are living in the most crucial and important time ever, if one remembers that, and the perspective that history gives, we can temper our reactions.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I never said this was "the most crucial and important time ever" (how do you even quantify that?). What I wanted to imply is that since the 70s wages have stagnated and now many people are going backwards and experiencing worse standards of living, with occasional crises like the 2008 housing crisis along the way. It's not really surprising that people are looking for something different.

noahth 9y ago

One thing I don't think enough people appreciate about history is how nothing got invented before capitalism.

pjc50 9y ago
Indeed. Capitalism built the Pyramids and the Parthenon; capitalism took us to the Moon; capitalism made Homer write the Iliad for the license fees and produced the most widely printed book of all time, the Bible. /s More seriously, the lesson we should apply from Monopoly is that once the money is in few enough hands the "game" of capitalism is over.
- 13years 9y ago
  Maybe we shouldn't consider Monopoly a game of 'capitalism'. Although, it probably in some respects does represent the popular idea of capitalism and the reality of our current regulated economic system. The game monopoly better represents a non free market economy. The players are constrained within the limited confines of the game. As players accrue money and resources they can't invest that into new businesses. The is no representation in the game of other economic pressures of supply and demand of human resources. All these limits are more analogous to a heavily regulated economy. And of course, part of the game is based simply on chance. Players aren't complete free to engage in free trade as they would see fit.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Sure you are; you can buy and sell properties at any time.
    - 13years 9y ago
      There are no limits in a real world economy on agreements, contracts etc between actors. Monopoly is a very closed system and in no way represents a real free economy.
      - 9y ago

FussyZeus 9y ago

I previously was a staunch pro-Capitalist person, but it really seems like we're approaching a point where it's not so much that it's a bad system, but that once we're in a post-scarcity economy, that it will no longer be required. We already have multiple products in the market that are so incredibly low-margin and so incredibly cheap to make that they barely retain value at all, and the market forces that put those products in that position are the same ones making everything from TV's to homes cheaper. At what point is the actual transaction of taking whatever token amount of money from me, so I can have the thing that cost you a haypenny to make, actually costing more than just giving me the thing? Logically, everything will eventually be driven to that point. I'm not saying when it will happen, I'm not even saying it's a good or bad thing. I simply accept that at some point Capitalism is no longer going to be needed.

emodendroket 9y ago
Well, personally I think we have the opposite problem, which is that endless growth is not compatible with a planet with finite resources.

yosito 9y ago

y4mi 9y ago
Capitalism is a terrible system. It's just better than all the other systems that any society tried at scale.
- owebmaster 9y ago
  China scale > USA scale Although USA economy is still bigger than China, it might change soon and then your presumption would be dismissed.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    y4mi didn't say that capitalism was the system that had created the greatest scale, merely that capitalism was the system that had worked best at scale. So China's system can create a bigger economy than the USA? Fine. (And the new, non-Maoist system has lifted something like a quarter of a billion people out of poverty, which is an amazing achievement.) But can it create a per-capita income similar to the USA's? So far, no, not even close. So China is not actually a refutation of y4mi's point, and won't be for quite some time. Why can't China's system produce a better per-person outcome than the USA's? Well, China was starting from a much lower point after western domination, then Japanese invasion, then civil war, and then Mao's blundering and oppression. But apart from that, China's government has too much power. This gives too many opportunities for corruption, and corruption drains the life out of the economy. (And yes, the USA's government has too much power, too. The USA (I think) less corrupt than China, but the corruption is there, at least in the form of people using the government's power to hinder competitors. More direct forms are starting to show up, too, or at least we're starting to hear about them more than we used to. What system really works? A government strong enough that it can prevent people abusing the market (collusion, fraud, unsafe products), but not so strong that it's easy or useful to use the government as a mechanism of abuse, and not so cumbersome that it gets much in the way of normal (non-fraudulent, non-collusion, safe products) business.

tray5 9y ago

> I don't understand why everyone hates capitalism now People have been hating capitalism since the invention of capitalism, it's not new. Americans might just be starting to hate it but thats due to the fact that they really haven't been able to ever have a fair and honest discussion about the various economic systems of the world because of 80 years of capitalist propaganda and suppression of socialists and communists

13years 9y ago

Because corrupt corporatism and crony capitalism has been effectively conflated with free market capitalism. Most politicians who claim to support capitalism actually are supporting nothing of the sort. It then becomes convenient for the media to label capitalism as a corrupt system. It is true that our economic system has become quite corrupt and has abandoned free markets. So when politicians defend that system as a capitalism, then naturally that is where the association has been built.

illuminati1911 9y ago
This, times 1000. The title of news article is funny because monopoly cannot even exist in real capitalism nor can corruption. Both are features of socialsm/communism. Popularity of disliking/hating capitalism is probably due to the lack of proper basic education in the US.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  > The title of news article is funny because monopoly cannot even exist in real capitalism nor can corruption. [Citation needed]
emodendroket 9y ago
I don't believe that there can really be a meaningful distinction between "free market capitalism" and "crony capitalism." Capitalism creates powerful private actors in whose interest it is to pursue regulatory capture.
- 13years 9y ago
  Regulatory agencies or any centralized governance becomes a target. This is why constitutionally no such authority was ever given to the federal government to institute such agencies. Saying there is no meaningful distinction is truly disingenuous. Like saying there is no difference between a fresh apple and a rotten apple. Obviously there is and there are reasons as to why the different states exist. One state is extremely beneficial and the other state is not.

fredley 9y ago

(Disclaimer: UK perspective) I think it's partly because the "cool kids" today have had to pay out hugely for their education, to find a non-existent job market on the other side, tremendous pressure on the housing market meaning it's completely unaffordable to live anywhere half-decent even if you do have a job. The generations above us benefitted hugely from a great wave of socialism following World War II - with the creation of the NHS, completely free university education, the ability to buy a house right out of university etc. There's a feeling (accurate or not) that this older generation, having benefitted hugely from socialist measures, are now 'pulling the ladder up behind them', entrenching their position of privilege while denying the same opportunities to younger people. It's not that capitalism is bad - it's probably one of the least bad economic systems - but that the swing away from socialism towards capitalism (it's not black and white - it's a smoothish gradient from one to the other) is exacerbating this situation. There is some evidence behind this - a report published recently showed that since tuition fees were introduced for universities, more children of wealthy people are attending and fewer from poorer backgrounds.

mrfusion 9y ago

Why don't you try joining a monopoly game in the middle of the game and see how much you still like capitalism? That's what people born today face.

brightsize 9y ago
> Why don't you try joining a monopoly game in the middle of the game and see how much you still like capitalism? And/or starting the game with sums of money that differ by orders of magnitude between players.

meri_dian 9y ago

Most people aren't very good at nuanced appraisals of things. While capitalism does have its weaknesses, it also seems to be one of the driving forces behind modernity, which I think most of us can agree is a supremely good thing. We've tried tearing down the system before. Communism failed, not because of failed implementation, but because the concept itself is a bad one. This is not to say that we should close ourselves off from thinking of new ways to organize our societies, but it seems that capitalism and all that it encourages is responsible for the 'rising tide' of global human civilization we've witnessed over the course of the industrial revolution to now. Sure there is inequality, but as they say, a rising tide lifts all boats. Would you want to be the average middle class or poor person 300 years ago, or today? As innovation continues to change the material conditions of the world, our economic systems will evolve in response, probably for the better. Capitalism will not look the same in 100 years or 1000 years as it does today. But over time gradual development will improve the system, not some grand scheme that calls for tearing down capitalism and replacing it with something else.

deleted 9y ago
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tray5 9y ago
>Communism failed, not because of failed implementation, but because the concept itself is a bad one. This is a frustrating and arrogant thing to say. If you can honestly go through and thoroughly criticize the core collective works of great socialist thinkers like Engels, Marx, Lenin, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman and the uncountable thousands who have poured thousands of hours into tomes which are freely available online to study and understand, then you should do so. I would love to read this! You'd probably become a very famous person! But coming out gung ho and so arrogantly conclude that all these people, and all the hard work they have done in both theory and praxis is kaput without a very strong argument behind you is pointless and childish. It stifles conversation and is the reason discussing economic systems with people who don't understand them is an exercise in futility.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  I actually respect a great deal of Marxist and socialist thought about our societies and economic systems. Capitalism has flaws, surely, and pointing them out is important so we can fix them. But on the whole, much of communist ideology and theorizing is far removed from reality and suffers from a lack of understanding about human nature. Socialist description and perspective on society is interesting and can be enlightening, but its prescriptions are bad. Many scientists and thinkers over the course of history have dedicated their entire lives to theories that are ultimately shown to be fairy-tails. It happens all the time.

Pigo 9y ago

I think it's funny how this little trivia about Monopoly gets brought up constantly, I think just to spark a debate about economics. Is this really not common knowledge already?

bildung 9y ago

> You know whats really cool? Inventing stuff. Using the power of your mind to form matter into a new thing that the universe has never seen before. Whats really cool is starting a business that adds enough value to the world to hire people. Feeding them with the power of your mind and a little bit of shared elbow grease. Not one of these points is limited to capitalism. Markets are a necessary but not a sufficient condition of capitalism. People's urge to create wonderful things did exist in the millenia before 1750, they did exist in the eastern bloc, and every day today multiple great things people do in their free time, making no economic sense at all, pop up on HN. Even in capitalist societies many if not most of the groundbreaking inventions and discoveries were and are state-funded.

rayiner 9y ago
> Not one of these points is limited to capitalism. The USSR beat us in almost every space milestone and would have beaten us to the moon if not for the untimely death of the guy running their space program.
- tray5 9y ago
  Down votes aren't disagreement votes. If you have an issue with their comment then reply, but don't put them into the negative because you don't like the facts they point out.
  - rosser 9y ago
    You're explicitly wrong about downvoting being a mark of disagreement. That's been black-letter HN culture since forever. I don't entirely like it either (though I'll admit that I do it, too), but 'pg repeatedly went on record, saying he meant for it to be that way. That said, I can't stand it when people downvote comments pointing out objective, verifiable facts that they don't like. It happens all the time, and I despair a bit for the quality of discourse even possible in a community where that's a thing that people do.
- Sommersonn 9y ago
  Yes, USSR did that, but for the cost of exhausting their economy, bringing poverty to their people and dissolving eventually. It's like comparing North Korea with Germany - NK can send rockets to space, while Germany can't. But can you say that NK is ahead of Germany in terms of inventions?

rainbowmverse 9y ago

I'm willing to cut people working themselves to death at 2-3 jobs to make ends meet a little slack on the depth of their economic theories.

anguswithgusto 9y ago

Ah yes, that holy grail of humanity: starting a business. Thank heavens that the czars of capitalism have given us such a generous outlet for all that latent human potential—unlike say, starting a family, starting a full-time art project, starting a humanities Ph.D without crippling debt, starting a round of chemo while unemployed, or starting our dinners at 6pm like our ancestors managed to do for ~200,000 years.

rayiner 9y ago

What's really cool is the majority of people having a pleasant and comfortable life and a bright future for their kids. Maximizing the prosperity of the majority is the purpose of a democratic society. People are ragging on capitalism because they're looking over the pond to countries that see capitalism as a tool to serve democratic interests rather than as moral worldview, and they kind of like that idea. Interestingly, those countries aren't really less capitalistic (the Heritage Foundation puts the U.S. in the same bucket on their Economic Freedom index as Sweden and Germany), but their culture is less centered around glorifying the capitalist.

problems 9y ago
> People are ragging on capitalism because they're looking over the pond to countries that see capitalism as a tool to serve democratic interests rather than a moral worldview, and they kind of like that idea. Interestingly, those countries aren't really less capitalistic (the Heritage Foundation puts the U.S. in the same bucket on their Economic Freedom index as Sweden and Germany), but their culture is less centered around glorifying the capitalist. I think you've made a great point here - but I've seen people explicitly saying they want communism. Look at how often /r/LateStageCapitalism, an explicitly communist subreddit is on the frontpage of reddit. If people were just pushing for a few more socialized services, I think they've got a good argument to make there. There are good tweaks that can be made. But if they're pushing for a complete change to the system I think they're off their rockers.
- tylerhou 9y ago
  Small correction: the subreddit is /r/LateStageCapitalism.
  - problems 9y ago
    Yeah, fixed it. Thanks.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Quite a lot of those people are "into" actual communism out of a mixture of ignorance and edginess. Revolutions sound great when you're naive. And it's not actually a great number of people as a proportion of the electorate! The key is what happens to suggestions for "good tweaks". Do they get considered reasonably and implemented fairly? Or are people denounced for even seeking tweaks? Flexible mixed-economy capitalism seems to be pretty stable. Capitalism that's blind to inequality produces an increasing long tail of disaffected victims with nothing to lose. Hence the rise of kick-over-the-table politics, epitomised by Trump.

rglover 9y ago

> You know whats really cool? Inventing stuff. Using the power of your mind to form matter into a new thing that the universe has never seen before. Whats really cool is starting a business that adds enough value to the world to hire people. 1000x yes. It's incredibly frustrating to see folks whining about capitalism all the while doing so using an iPhone and MacBook Pro, not understanding the irony.

emodendroket 9y ago
"How can you criticize feudalism? You're eating food that was grown on the lord's land, you know."
phillnom 9y ago
Yeah people should only be able to critique capitalism if they strip themselves of all possessions and live in the woods /s

jesusthatsgreat 9y ago

People hate capitalism until they see what happens when you put the state in charge of everything. The grass is always greener. Always has been, always will be. If only we could get over to the other side, I could prove it to you...

mcguffin777 9y ago

The majority of folk on the planet won't have that opportunity. You seem to think capitalism has created some utopia of easy access and opportunity I think people are hating on it not because it's cool but because it's yet another class warfare structure that's doing quite a lot to stifle, subjugate, and expropriate people's work Why should anyone be obliged to work for capitalism in a supposedly free society Why should I be forced into trade for of my creation and most valuable resource in time? You said creating is great. I agree. It's the forced parting with our creation that capitalism requires so the economy works and others can not contribute but simply place bets on who will create better It's now held up as a divine right almost and forced upon the world to the benefit of a slothful minority. It's used by people in America to control people in China Unless the Koch brothers or Gates figured out how to live for ever, they're not particularly unique. None of created anything more than a large financial structure that takes from others for their overwhelming benefit That's my take on it I'm reminded of the story about the Mexican fisherman and American businessman It's not efficient, imo, to motivate people to do superfluous work to get to the same place I'm not against the use in certain areas but the push into capitalism was sold under dubious reasoning and bolster national pride. That said it is the way the world works. I don't think it's the way it has to. But powerful capitalists say it does. That's my big problem. The leverage some have over others. Especially in a country where their leverage more often than not wasn't acquired through honest trade but manipulation and violence I'm against then the way people tend to wield the power they have over others and capitalism allows too much power for individuals The funny thing to me has been all the cries by some capitalists about wealth inequality and for competition in markets but isn't that socialism? Where there's plenty of opportunity to explore and no threat of being overpowered Its rooted more in distrust of the power structures that uphold it. And the oppressive reality many exist under due to it You seem to think everyone is on the same level under this system and can just go build a business today, but that's absurd on its face

mindcrime 9y ago

I don't understand why everyone hates capitalism now. Its like "what the cool kids do". A persistent campaign of propaganda aimed at capitalism. Because there are always either misguided "true believers" or corrupt glad-handers looking to exploit others for their own benefit, who are out there proselytizing for some socialist ideology and trying to tear down capitalism.

deleted 9y ago

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ionised 9y ago

If you're only going to look at the positives and pretend the negatives don't exist then it's no wonder you're confused by people bashing unrestrained capitalism.

amelius 9y ago

> I don't understand why everyone hates capitalism now. Its like "what the cool kids do". You probably never played Monopoly as a child then :) Also, perhaps you will find capitalism less cool when, say, Google decides to go into the exact same business as you are in now.

owebmaster 9y ago

> You know whats really cool? Inventing stuff. Using the power of your mind to form matter into a new thing that the universe has never seen before. Whats really cool is starting a business that adds enough value to the world to hire people. Feeding them with the power of your mind and a little bit of shared elbow grease. You know what's really really cool? A lot of people inventing stuff. Not only the ones that have parents that can help them live until their late twenties without have to work for a living. Socialism/communism aims to fix this. What I see is that China is having a tremendous creative boom right now.

simon83 9y ago

I'm one of those hatin' cool kids, I guess. Coincidentally I'm also a millennial, one of those ignorant kinds who simply does not get what a Good Life™ we have, at this point in time, compared to the last decades and centuries. Yes, we have it better nowadays (but only some parts of the world), but it could also easily have been way, way better by now (or worse, of course). Let me also say that I don't hate capitalism per se, it's more or less just a tool with no moral obligations. The problem with capitalism are the humans, like always, and Monopoly is perfect to experience the bad side of human nature: greed and the me vs. them attitude. Do you think it would be possible to come up with rules for Monopoly, where everyone would be a winner, living in abundance? Absolutely, but that would be boring. If I can't be the best of all, then why bother. It's Me vs. Them, and totally screw Them... Those people, whose families played Monopoly for long enough until now, and who were able to amass a lot of wealth and keep it within their small circle, they won't allow to change the rules. Because then they wouldn't be the Winner anymore. It's always Me First, and everyone else can die trying. Edit: I've been really depressive the past 15 years, it started once I was old enough to realize how our world is run. The lack of empathy and social justice is really sickening. I tried to play the game, but I'm not good at it because I lack the attributes that are required to become good at it. I don't care about money, I just want to stay alive, take care of my family and code cool and useful things. But I started to get a tiny little bit of hope that eventually things may drastically change in the future. Like I do think that we may be able to develop an AGI within this century. One that is rational and smarter than humans. I can totally understand Musks fear of an AGI that would try to destroy humanity (personally I hope it'd go only after the bad leadership :)), and while I think Musk has generally good intentions, he's still a hardcore capitalist, and I'm not sure if I want him and his buddies have too much say in this. Another shorter term solution to some of the problems we have with capitalism is to setup systems based on Blockchain technologies. I'm really no expert in this area, but I believe it would be possible to set up a financial system that allows for transparency, privacy, but no anonymity and no speculations like we experience nowadays with cryptocurrencies. Something that prevents corruption, black money, etc. Such blockchain technology could be also adapted for a voting system, where voter fraud then becomes impossible. One promising project I've recently discovered is Cardano SL [1], and the team behind it looks like they really want to make a change. I'll keep my fingers crossed. [1]: https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-sl/ https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-sl/

rosser 9y ago

I didn't realize no one had "invented" anything before we "invented" capitalism.

cmurf 9y ago

They're bashing two things: crony capitalism where companies put up barriers to entry and try to weaken government anti-competition and consumer protection laws so they can f* people over, which makes people angry; and the "religious" idea that pure capitalism (sometimes also conflated with pure free market, no regulations) solves every single problem, the idea that all things are products, and if you can't afford a product, go f* yourself. I think people understand the world is more complex than either planned economies, or pure free market ones, and hybrids are necessary. The question is how to make regulating them proactive rather than reactive which is how political based moderation of capitalism's excess are managed today. And I think that's because people are becoming suspicious of absolute ideological positions that think they have everything figured out. And that's because things are more complex. Just because you can't explain that complexity doesn't mean it's intellectually honest to fall back on a hand waive of propaganda "we need less regulation and more free market solutions" which is binary logic. Upon discovery that binary logic isn't how humans works, and maybe isn't how future computers will work, people are becoming more comfortable with nuance, layers, and dynamic approaches to problems, rather than tribal grunts of capitalism being perfection as if there's no such thing as market failure.