6 ms·

Capitalism only works in optimizing those things it measures in the first place. Progress of society does not even enter into it, at all. If 300 million people

by musage 9y ago

Capitalism only works in optimizing those things it measures in the first place. Progress of society does not even enter into it, at all. If 300 million people had nothing and screamed in pain all day, and one person had it it all and multiplied it by X, the GDP would be multiplied by X. So what kind of measure is that? I also find it interesting that nobody even mentioned capitalism "not working". The comment said that any mention of capitalism is often followed by generic praises. I guess another form of that is "capitalism brought us great things, and is better than the alternatives we had so far, but [criticism of some aspects or consquences of it]" -- which acknowledges that it "works", just like using coal to heat your home works, like many things undeniably work; yet even that would raise the above question, how come it's treated like a religion? If it's so great, why so defensive to the point of scoring own goals?

kobeya 9y ago
> Capitalism only works in optimizing those things it measures in the first place. Progress of society does not even enter into it, at all. If 300 million people had nothing and screamed in pain all day, and one person had it it all and multiplied it by X, the GDP would be multiplied by X. So what kind of measure is that? A utilitarian would say that is a equal outcome to everyone having equal measures of happiness.
- arthur_pryor 9y ago
  > A utilitarian would say that is a equal outcome to everyone having equal measures of happiness. lots of people (myself included) would strongly posit that utilitarianism is a thoroughly incomplete foundation for a moral framework. to be clear, i think it's absurd and callous to treat those outcomes as equal for anything other than a back of the envelope calculation or a thought experiment. if you're going to put forward a philosophy 101 idea, at least do the philosophy 101 level work of trying to defend a controversial point of view against charitable objections.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    My point is that you cannot replace GDP with a better metric of societal "goodness" without objectivity defining "good", and that is an unsolved problem.
    - musage 9y ago
      What makes the GDP "better" than any other "objective" measurement then? Why not take number of citizens multiplied with how many corners their furniture has in total? There is no easy metric for societal goodness, likely not even a complicated "objective" one. Capitalism is like a blind man demanding a painting make a sound for it to exist. Since it can only measure numbers, it doesn't even attempt to answer the question of societal goodness or any other interesting ones. That is beyond its scope, and that's that's why you shouldn't mix up things like "GDP" and "progress of society". You might say capitalism is a combustion engine, without anything additional it just eats energy and spins. The idea was, or rather is now claimed to have been, that since consumers are informed and aren't going to buy things that harm them, we'll end up with progress. Instead too many too powerful corporations are playing their clients like a piano and subvert governments, often enough in concert, and produce plenty of harm (and, to be fair, also good) that doesn't even get to enter the equation, because it's not a number or a contract etc.
- qq66 9y ago
  No, because actual measured happiness shows strongly decreasing marginal utility of money.
WalterBright 9y ago
> Progress of society does not even enter into it, at all. Capitalism in America, 1800-1900, brought along with it enormous, unprecedented, and historic improvements in longevity, height, and reductions in infant mortality.
- splintercell 9y ago
  Capitalism in India (and many other countries), 1990- is bringing enormous, unprecedented and historic improvements in poverty levels.
- makotech222 9y ago
  State Capitalism / Socialism in the USSR did the same in less than half the time.
  - mixmastamyk 9y ago
    But was not sustainable.
  - adventured 9y ago
    Was that before or after it murdered millions of Russians through poverty and gulags? And was that before or after American industrialists and corporations built up most of the Russian-USSR industrial foundations pre-Stalin? Because post that, the USSR was barely able to feed itself for four decades.
    - WalterBright 9y ago
      Do you mean during WW2 when US industry massively helped the USSR? That was under Stalin.
    - rev_bird 9y ago
      The murder thing gets brought up a lot, and it seems nonsensical to me for two reasons: First off, Russian communism gets blamed for millions of deaths, while American capitalism has never killed anyone. How many thousands of Americans die every year from lack of medical care? How many workers had their lives shortened (or ended) by unsafe working conditions? How many of those workers were children? How many millions will die of famine caused by runaway climate change that capitalists had no incentive to address? I'm not demanding answers, I just wanted to point out that if we're keeping score, we should consider both sides. The other part that I can never square up in my head, particularly as it relates to the Holodomor and gulags and whatnot, is that those things don't seem particularly related to communism itself -- the starvation of the Ukrainians is a travesty, but one that was enabled by an authoritarian government, not a communist one. Unimaginably terrible things happened in the USSR, but was that because of communism, or because of the communist rulers?

by musage 9y ago

kobeya 9y ago

> Capitalism only works in optimizing those things it measures in the first place. Progress of society does not even enter into it, at all. If 300 million people had nothing and screamed in pain all day, and one person had it it all and multiplied it by X, the GDP would be multiplied by X. So what kind of measure is that? A utilitarian would say that is a equal outcome to everyone having equal measures of happiness.

arthur_pryor 9y ago
> A utilitarian would say that is a equal outcome to everyone having equal measures of happiness. lots of people (myself included) would strongly posit that utilitarianism is a thoroughly incomplete foundation for a moral framework. to be clear, i think it's absurd and callous to treat those outcomes as equal for anything other than a back of the envelope calculation or a thought experiment. if you're going to put forward a philosophy 101 idea, at least do the philosophy 101 level work of trying to defend a controversial point of view against charitable objections.
- kobeya 9y ago
  My point is that you cannot replace GDP with a better metric of societal "goodness" without objectivity defining "good", and that is an unsolved problem.
  - musage 9y ago
    What makes the GDP "better" than any other "objective" measurement then? Why not take number of citizens multiplied with how many corners their furniture has in total? There is no easy metric for societal goodness, likely not even a complicated "objective" one. Capitalism is like a blind man demanding a painting make a sound for it to exist. Since it can only measure numbers, it doesn't even attempt to answer the question of societal goodness or any other interesting ones. That is beyond its scope, and that's that's why you shouldn't mix up things like "GDP" and "progress of society". You might say capitalism is a combustion engine, without anything additional it just eats energy and spins. The idea was, or rather is now claimed to have been, that since consumers are informed and aren't going to buy things that harm them, we'll end up with progress. Instead too many too powerful corporations are playing their clients like a piano and subvert governments, often enough in concert, and produce plenty of harm (and, to be fair, also good) that doesn't even get to enter the equation, because it's not a number or a contract etc.
qq66 9y ago
No, because actual measured happiness shows strongly decreasing marginal utility of money.

WalterBright 9y ago

> Progress of society does not even enter into it, at all. Capitalism in America, 1800-1900, brought along with it enormous, unprecedented, and historic improvements in longevity, height, and reductions in infant mortality.

splintercell 9y ago
Capitalism in India (and many other countries), 1990- is bringing enormous, unprecedented and historic improvements in poverty levels.
makotech222 9y ago
State Capitalism / Socialism in the USSR did the same in less than half the time.
- mixmastamyk 9y ago
  But was not sustainable.
- adventured 9y ago
  Was that before or after it murdered millions of Russians through poverty and gulags? And was that before or after American industrialists and corporations built up most of the Russian-USSR industrial foundations pre-Stalin? Because post that, the USSR was barely able to feed itself for four decades.
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    Do you mean during WW2 when US industry massively helped the USSR? That was under Stalin.
  - rev_bird 9y ago
    The murder thing gets brought up a lot, and it seems nonsensical to me for two reasons: First off, Russian communism gets blamed for millions of deaths, while American capitalism has never killed anyone. How many thousands of Americans die every year from lack of medical care? How many workers had their lives shortened (or ended) by unsafe working conditions? How many of those workers were children? How many millions will die of famine caused by runaway climate change that capitalists had no incentive to address? I'm not demanding answers, I just wanted to point out that if we're keeping score, we should consider both sides. The other part that I can never square up in my head, particularly as it relates to the Holodomor and gulags and whatnot, is that those things don't seem particularly related to communism itself -- the starvation of the Ukrainians is a travesty, but one that was enabled by an authoritarian government, not a communist one. Unimaginably terrible things happened in the USSR, but was that because of communism, or because of the communist rulers?