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The central idea of capitalism is that voluntary exchange enriches both parties. So the answer to your first question is yes.

sametmax 9y ago
This assumes the exchange is symmetric, and that enrichment only happens with exchanges. Neither of these are true.
- wskinner 9y ago
  It doesn’t have to be symmetric. If there is $2 consumer and $4 producer surplus, both parties benefit. And just because enrichment, as you call it, can happen other ways than exchange, does not mean it doesn’t happen via exchange too.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    If it is asymmetric, the superficially apparent mutual gain may be illusory, because—while many people think for moral or aesthetic reasons that this should not be the case—there is enormous empirical evidence that the actual experience of utility related to material position is very strongly driven by relative material position, which is often far more significant than absolute material position.
    - Banthum 9y ago
      Parent is saying that it's better if everyone gets richer, even if some get more richer than others. So you're saying that it would be better if everyone was poorer individually, as long as they were more equally poor?
      - grasshopperpurp 9y ago
        >So you're saying that it would be better if everyone was poorer individually, as long as they were more equally poor? Why are you creating this either/or? Are you proposing that if we don't allow people like Gates and the Kochs to hoard billions of dollars that everyone will be poorer individually?
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > So you're saying that it would be better if everyone was poorer individually, as long as they were more equally poor? No, it's not at all that simple; there's both disutility associated with inequality and utility associated with absolute material position; how those net out is more complex than either “everyone getting more is better regardless of distribution” or “more equality is better regardless of how much per everyone gets”.
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      But is that empirical evidence talking about peoples' overall position, or their position with respect to one particular exchange? That is, it can be true that I feel rich or poor by comparing myself to others, not based on my absolute wealth. It can also be true that I look at any individual transaction and decide whether to make it or not based on whether it makes me better off in absolute terms.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > But is that empirical evidence talking about peoples' overall position, or their position with respect to one particular exchange? It's about overall position, but the outcome of every particular exchange is a change to overall position; now, if the asymmetry in exchanges were essentially random, this wouldn't matter, but when you have a system with distinguishable classes, and there is a clear relationship between class role and which side of the asymmetry of exchange you tend to fall on across exchanges—say “capital” having the greater gain and “labor” the lesser—then you can end up with a situation where the pattern of exchange, each seemingly mutually beneficial but asymmetrically so, ends up producing more disutility from increasing inequality on one side than utility from absolute gain.
danharaj 9y ago
The central idea of capitalism is the extraction of surplus value via property relations and wage labor. Voluntary exchange is not capitalism. Voluntary exchange has existed since the dawn of society. Capitalism is a form of production that developed with the industrial revolution. I can't tell if you've fallen for or are employing a sleazy equivocation.
- Banthum 9y ago
  I've always found this idea that capitalism was "invented" to be so strange. e.g. When an ancient king had land, and let poor people work the land in exchange for a part of their production, what would you call that? Sure sounds like, "the extraction of surplus value via property relations and wage labor" to me. Same story if the lord has a mill and charges people to use it. Or a bridge and charges people to cross it. Technology was worse, so there weren't as many physical forms of capital, but it definitely existed. Some people seem to have this need to see capitalism as this invention created by bad people. Because to admit now natural and organic it is would be to admit how much enforcement and violence their ideology really demands in order to obtain the real world.
  - danharaj 9y ago
    I didn't use the word invention, I used the word development. There was no connotation about naturalness in what I said. Neither did I make a moral judgment on the development of private property. So, why are you imposing on my words an argument that I wasn't making? > e.g. When an ancient king had land, and let poor people work the land in exchange for a part of their production, what would you call that? Sure sounds like, "the extraction of surplus value via property relations and wage labor" to me. Ok, if you want me to be more precise, private property relations, which are very different from feudal property relations. In fact, since property is a legal construct, this aspect of the development of capitalism could be called an invention, and the idea that capitalist forms of property are particularly ""natural and organic"" compared to other forms is quite suspect-- at least without any argument provided for it. As a foot note, one of the processes that developed private property was Enclosure [0] which was by no means nonviolent. But I'm not going to try to be as precise and rigorous as a history textbook in Internet comments I compose in between compiles. Feel free to believe that capitalism is natural and organic, or read a history book. Idk. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

sametmax 9y ago

This assumes the exchange is symmetric, and that enrichment only happens with exchanges. Neither of these are true.

wskinner 9y ago
It doesn’t have to be symmetric. If there is $2 consumer and $4 producer surplus, both parties benefit. And just because enrichment, as you call it, can happen other ways than exchange, does not mean it doesn’t happen via exchange too.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  If it is asymmetric, the superficially apparent mutual gain may be illusory, because—while many people think for moral or aesthetic reasons that this should not be the case—there is enormous empirical evidence that the actual experience of utility related to material position is very strongly driven by relative material position, which is often far more significant than absolute material position.
  - Banthum 9y ago
    Parent is saying that it's better if everyone gets richer, even if some get more richer than others. So you're saying that it would be better if everyone was poorer individually, as long as they were more equally poor?
    - grasshopperpurp 9y ago
      >So you're saying that it would be better if everyone was poorer individually, as long as they were more equally poor? Why are you creating this either/or? Are you proposing that if we don't allow people like Gates and the Kochs to hoard billions of dollars that everyone will be poorer individually?
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > So you're saying that it would be better if everyone was poorer individually, as long as they were more equally poor? No, it's not at all that simple; there's both disutility associated with inequality and utility associated with absolute material position; how those net out is more complex than either “everyone getting more is better regardless of distribution” or “more equality is better regardless of how much per everyone gets”.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    But is that empirical evidence talking about peoples' overall position, or their position with respect to one particular exchange? That is, it can be true that I feel rich or poor by comparing myself to others, not based on my absolute wealth. It can also be true that I look at any individual transaction and decide whether to make it or not based on whether it makes me better off in absolute terms.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > But is that empirical evidence talking about peoples' overall position, or their position with respect to one particular exchange? It's about overall position, but the outcome of every particular exchange is a change to overall position; now, if the asymmetry in exchanges were essentially random, this wouldn't matter, but when you have a system with distinguishable classes, and there is a clear relationship between class role and which side of the asymmetry of exchange you tend to fall on across exchanges—say “capital” having the greater gain and “labor” the lesser—then you can end up with a situation where the pattern of exchange, each seemingly mutually beneficial but asymmetrically so, ends up producing more disutility from increasing inequality on one side than utility from absolute gain.

danharaj 9y ago

The central idea of capitalism is the extraction of surplus value via property relations and wage labor. Voluntary exchange is not capitalism. Voluntary exchange has existed since the dawn of society. Capitalism is a form of production that developed with the industrial revolution. I can't tell if you've fallen for or are employing a sleazy equivocation.

Banthum 9y ago
I've always found this idea that capitalism was "invented" to be so strange. e.g. When an ancient king had land, and let poor people work the land in exchange for a part of their production, what would you call that? Sure sounds like, "the extraction of surplus value via property relations and wage labor" to me. Same story if the lord has a mill and charges people to use it. Or a bridge and charges people to cross it. Technology was worse, so there weren't as many physical forms of capital, but it definitely existed. Some people seem to have this need to see capitalism as this invention created by bad people. Because to admit now natural and organic it is would be to admit how much enforcement and violence their ideology really demands in order to obtain the real world.
- danharaj 9y ago
  I didn't use the word invention, I used the word development. There was no connotation about naturalness in what I said. Neither did I make a moral judgment on the development of private property. So, why are you imposing on my words an argument that I wasn't making? > e.g. When an ancient king had land, and let poor people work the land in exchange for a part of their production, what would you call that? Sure sounds like, "the extraction of surplus value via property relations and wage labor" to me. Ok, if you want me to be more precise, private property relations, which are very different from feudal property relations. In fact, since property is a legal construct, this aspect of the development of capitalism could be called an invention, and the idea that capitalist forms of property are particularly ""natural and organic"" compared to other forms is quite suspect-- at least without any argument provided for it. As a foot note, one of the processes that developed private property was Enclosure [0] which was by no means nonviolent. But I'm not going to try to be as precise and rigorous as a history textbook in Internet comments I compose in between compiles. Feel free to believe that capitalism is natural and organic, or read a history book. Idk. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure