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> Capitalism is an economic system and an ideology That's the problem right there: Capitalism has proven to be excellent at organising an economy. It's excelle

> Capitalism is an economic system and an ideology That's the problem right there: Capitalism has proven to be excellent at organising an economy. It's excellent! It works with human nature. The largest problems automatically provide the largest reward for solving! It locates decisions at the lowest possible level! The problem is when people use it as an ideology, i. e. as an end to itself. Intellectual property, for example, with its zero marginal costs, isn't as good a fit for capitalism as wheat: When you're charging $10 for a movie, many people will not watch it because it's only worth $5 to them. That's an inefficiency as glaring as communism ever produced, because it is value lost as a tribute to keeping the structure intact, even though no work would be required for it at all. There are many more inefficiencies of capitalism that we conveniently ignore. The complete finance sector is nothing but the bureaucracy needed to organise capitalism. Competition is a great method to get better results, but it also involves a lot of duplicated efforts. Advertisement is–and this is the usual argument of people defending it-neccessary for the functioning of capitalism because it spreads information the market needs. The inequality needed to serve as motivation breeds unhappiness and crime. These aren't arguments to abandon capitalism, because it quite obviously is the best system we've found so far. But that shouldn't preclude us from trying alternatives, especially in niches that are so different that the outcomes may be different from the traditional production of physical goods.

PoachedSausage 9y ago
Capitalism works well with, and propagates some aspects of human nature (whatever that is). Due to our evolutionary past, humans are more focused on the physically nearby, the present and very near future, so capitalism fails when we have longterm wide-scale problems to solve, like climate change.
pmontra 9y ago
> The largest problems automatically provide the largest reward for solving! In principle yes, but there are ways to game the system. Marketing is very good at creating false problems and aim consumers at them. Many of the things we work at are pretty much useless.
wu-ikkyu 9y ago
>The largest problems automatically provide the largest reward for solving! Is global warming a large problem? Because it would seem the destruction of the environment is highly profitable under the current system.
- noxToken 9y ago
  No. That's a side-effect of a highly profitable market. Subtle but important difference.
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    The OP said the largest problems get the highest reward. Not markets. What is a more important problem, having a environment to live in, or being able to use fossil fuels?
ameister14 9y ago
I don't think you described capitalism as an ideology. You seem to simply be talking about inefficiencies in capitalist execution. Capitalism as ideology is a bit different. For example, if someone is rich, they are higher status, but not only that - they are assumed to have innate characteristics that make them better, such as discipline and intelligence. We've created, and this predates capitalism and allowed for its spread, a social system that equates wealth with social power. That's a part of capitalism as an ideology. Another part is that people automatically view things in terms of cost. They weigh choices in monetary terms, as opposed to social, moral or physical. I disagree with your example of capitalist inefficiency, as well - you've chosen a price equilibrium inefficiency but you're using that example to illustrate that a product is ill-suited for capitalism. It isn't; if the movie was priced correctly, the inefficiency would disappear. Plus, as you pointed out, there are negligible costs for distribution (it's not really zero, but who cares) so profits on a product like that would be significant. That seems to me to be a better product for capitalist exploitation than wheat.
- matt4077 9y ago
  > I don't think you described capitalism as an ideology I wasn't trying to. I was saying that it works well as a means of organisation, before pointing out its weaknesses. Ideology is when you ignore those weaknesses, and try to shoehorn everything within the framework of capitalism. > If the movie was priced correctly, the inefficiency would disappear The problem is that it's hard to price it efficiently, because the value is different for different people. You can try price-separation, i. e. by geography, or the cascade of movie theatre to download to broadcast TV. But there's still a loss of welfare. As another example: I will never pay for a subscription to the WSJ, or to Adobe Creative Cloud, or to NGINX Plus. But my life would be marginally better if I had access to these products. And the only reason I don't is because there's no way to allow people like me access, without also allowing those free access that are currently paying.
  - ameister14 9y ago
    Ideology isn't when you ignore something's weaknesses and shoehorn everything within its framework. Blind adherence to an ideology can cause that, but it's not what the word means.

PoachedSausage 9y ago

Capitalism works well with, and propagates some aspects of human nature (whatever that is). Due to our evolutionary past, humans are more focused on the physically nearby, the present and very near future, so capitalism fails when we have longterm wide-scale problems to solve, like climate change.

pmontra 9y ago

> The largest problems automatically provide the largest reward for solving! In principle yes, but there are ways to game the system. Marketing is very good at creating false problems and aim consumers at them. Many of the things we work at are pretty much useless.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago

>The largest problems automatically provide the largest reward for solving! Is global warming a large problem? Because it would seem the destruction of the environment is highly profitable under the current system.

noxToken 9y ago
No. That's a side-effect of a highly profitable market. Subtle but important difference.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  The OP said the largest problems get the highest reward. Not markets. What is a more important problem, having a environment to live in, or being able to use fossil fuels?

ameister14 9y ago

I don't think you described capitalism as an ideology. You seem to simply be talking about inefficiencies in capitalist execution. Capitalism as ideology is a bit different. For example, if someone is rich, they are higher status, but not only that - they are assumed to have innate characteristics that make them better, such as discipline and intelligence. We've created, and this predates capitalism and allowed for its spread, a social system that equates wealth with social power. That's a part of capitalism as an ideology. Another part is that people automatically view things in terms of cost. They weigh choices in monetary terms, as opposed to social, moral or physical. I disagree with your example of capitalist inefficiency, as well - you've chosen a price equilibrium inefficiency but you're using that example to illustrate that a product is ill-suited for capitalism. It isn't; if the movie was priced correctly, the inefficiency would disappear. Plus, as you pointed out, there are negligible costs for distribution (it's not really zero, but who cares) so profits on a product like that would be significant. That seems to me to be a better product for capitalist exploitation than wheat.

matt4077 9y ago
> I don't think you described capitalism as an ideology I wasn't trying to. I was saying that it works well as a means of organisation, before pointing out its weaknesses. Ideology is when you ignore those weaknesses, and try to shoehorn everything within the framework of capitalism. > If the movie was priced correctly, the inefficiency would disappear The problem is that it's hard to price it efficiently, because the value is different for different people. You can try price-separation, i. e. by geography, or the cascade of movie theatre to download to broadcast TV. But there's still a loss of welfare. As another example: I will never pay for a subscription to the WSJ, or to Adobe Creative Cloud, or to NGINX Plus. But my life would be marginally better if I had access to these products. And the only reason I don't is because there's no way to allow people like me access, without also allowing those free access that are currently paying.
- ameister14 9y ago
  Ideology isn't when you ignore something's weaknesses and shoehorn everything within its framework. Blind adherence to an ideology can cause that, but it's not what the word means.