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Wow, I'm really surprised to find someone on HN who is against capitalism. Here are a few points for you to consider, they might help you clarify your position

Wow, I'm really surprised to find someone on HN who is against capitalism. Here are a few points for you to consider, they might help you clarify your position on capitalism: 1. What you are probably really against is collusion between big government and big business. This is a real problem and is antithetical to true capitalism. 2. In a free market economy, there is plenty of room for charity and there is no one stopping people from organizing and participating in communes. 3. Taking my money through force to redistribute through inefficient state run welfare programs is not going to benefit anyone but the government. The poor will continue to be poor, and the elite will continue to extort those who actually add value.

jacquesm 16y ago
He's right though, in the communist countries that I've visited there was nobody homeless. I am surprised that on HN someone that states something that contributes to the discussion gets modded to -4, I thought we reserved that for trolls. You can find plenty of things wrong with communism, and I think that for the most part capitalism is to be preferred but that doesn't make him factually wrong.
- mrkurt 16y ago
  Communism isn't the opposite of capitalism. China's both communist and capitalist. It also, incidentally, has extreme levels of poverty. The communist countries you visited likely did a good job of hiding the homelessness. It's one of the advantages of having that sort of control over your subjects.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    > The communist countries you visited likely did a good job of hiding the homelessness. The communist countries I visited I lived in for quite a while, and no, they didn't do a good job of it, it simply didn't exist. I would have definitely noticed. And yes, I did visit the poorer regions. Now they have homeless people though. But they're no longer communist. Everybody had a job, everybody had a house. Maybe the job was changing the traffic lights or something similarly inefficient but you'd have a job, guaranteed. And I know it isn't the opposite.
    - Vivtek 16y ago
      Second this, although the only communist country I knew was Hungary and I got to know it just before the regime change. The Communists built huge housing projects around Budapest specifically to ensure that everybody, no exceptions, had a place to live and a job to work. It might be a stupid, demeaning job - there were no vending machines - but it was work, and a place to call home. Now, there are tent cities along the Danube and in the corners of the railway easements. Say what you like about the wonders of capitalism and the "fact" that communism just swept the problems under the rug, but anybody who actually witnessed both knows that for the people on the very bottom, communism is far, far better. And for the people in the middle, it was about the same, albeit with fewer electronics. Of course, for people at the top, it's the same; they're just allowed to be honest about their Swiss accounts now.
      - steveklabnik 16y ago
        Chomsky actually says that the fall of the USSR was actually a great victory for socialism/communism, because it wasn't actually communist. I am not educated enough on the subject to know how correct he is, but it's interesting nonetheless.
        jacquesm 16y ago
        Chomsky refers to the 'real' communism, which has to date not been implemented by any society (and which possibly can not be implemented with people the way they happen to be). It always has been a version of an oligarchy. The same goes for those 'communist' countries out there today.
        steveklabnik 16y ago
        It's quite true, and sounds very close to the No True Scotsman fallacy. I don't believe that statist communism could ever work.
        jacquesm 16y ago
- dschobel 16y ago
  I imagine the reason he got modded to oblivion was that he made an extraordinary claim "...I think it's important to point out that poverty and homelessness are symptoms of capitalism, which is the real problem" with no attempt at justification. Besides which, capitalism is not a form of government. So he started from a position of error and then went out on his limb from there.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    So, you point that out. Downmodding for being wrong is ridiculous.
    - dschobel 16y ago
      I did point it out and I didn't down-vote him (because I was hoping he would expound on it). But you know that voting means different things to different people (and HN has gone on vast navel-gazing tangents trying to define it). If people see a controversial position half-heartedly argued, the bad marks should not come as a shock nor am I sure they are unreasonable. In the end though, the points are utterly irrelevant as long as it doesn't dissuade others from taking controversial positions and, crucially, defending them.
  - duairc 16y ago
    It was an extraordinary claim (given the demographic here) and I made no attempt to justify it, so I can see why it was modded so harshly. I think the modding was a bit extreme, but I knew when I was making the post that it was going to be a -4 type of thing. However, I don't think question of whether or not capitalism is a form of government has anything to do with the point I was making.
    - gloob 16y ago
      Meant to upvote you and fat-fingered it, sorry.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    > Besides which, capitalism is not a form of government. But he also didn't say anything about government. He said it was capitalism.
- brg 16y ago
  Could you please name those communist countries? I still have family in mainland China, and we know there is a homelessness problem in China. The government effectively insures that they are out of sight, so they beg where they can out of sight. You can find them in loading docks or behind restaurants. This is not a new problem that has started since economic reforms, it has always been around. I have talked with my coworker, someone who lived in Soviet Russia until his 20s, and he will confirm that they also had homelessness problem. At that time it was dealt with similarly. (1)Simple searches give clear depictions and discussions of the homelessness problems in these current and historical examples. (1)Post edited here to remove an inappropriately rude and confrontation postscript (I accused the parent of lying or being willfully ignorant; which does not cover the gamut of possibilities)
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    I've lived in Poland, spent plenty of time in then Czecho-Slowakia and a lot less in Eastern Germany. > You are either dramatically incorrect or lying. Sorry ?
    - brg 16y ago
      You begin the post with "He's right though," and then provide anecdotal evidence. I am not arguing against your experience. Your experience is not wrong; I am arguing against that the grandfather post is "right" that homelessness is a symptom of capitalism, to which you agreed and supported.
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        Those countries that did not have homelessness under Communism have plenty of it under capitalism, for those countries that I have experience with. That's not a scientific study, but it definitely should give you pause. Oh and I forgot to add Romania to the list. I said "in the communist countries that I've visited", to qualify my experience, and to make sure that you understood that I was not speaking for all communist countries at all times.
- cma 16y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
drunkpotato 16y ago
Yours points are true but also somewhat simplistic. I'm not addressing you point by point, but laying out a couple of points for you to consider. 1. There is a tendency to corruption in any concentration of power, government or corporate. There still remains the problem in capitalism that concentration of capital leads to entrenchment, stagnation, and corruption, and our regulations, faulty as they certainly are, have historically at least attempted to address problems in concentration (Sherman Antitrust Act and the original Glass-Steagall Act). There is no fire-and-forget legislation that can guarantee this, of course, since it is also in the nature of power to route around such fault lines. 2. Many theories based on the free market assume rational actors. The bulk of psychological research shows that this is a faulty assumption for individual humans. I argue that we also have sufficient evidence that this is a faulty assumption for behaviors in aggregate (corporations and governments). We need to take this into account when we talk about the power, the benefits, and the faults of the free market. With regards to your point 2, I'm interested in data you have regarding the relative effectiveness of charity and the welfare state. My understanding is that the European-style welfare state consistently gets more balanced outcomes and a higher quality of life for more people than reliance on charitable institutions. Your point 3 is too laden with loaded words to be used effectively in an argument and reads more like right-wing talking points than an attempt at discussion. When discussing this in the future, I recommend sticking to redistribution and outcomes, and leave out the rhetorically charged "taking my money through force" and "extort". Also, you will be hard-pressed to find anyone who will argue that "inefficient state run welfare programs" are a good thing; really the argument is about relative efficiency between state welfare systems and private charity.
- tommynazareth 16y ago
  I'll concede that my second and third points skew the conversation away from the issue of addressing homelessness. If the topic were 'personal liberty' than they might have more relevance. I guess the attack on capitalism as being 'evil' brought out my personal bias.
duairc 16y ago
> Wow, I'm really surprised to find someone on HN who is against capitalism. Heh, yeah :) It's possible to like computers and enjoy programming without being a capitalist though! Look at the free software movement! What you are describing is "anarcho"-capitalism, I think. I'm an anarchist. We seem to agree agree on some things. I think most of the same things that stop people from organising and participating in communes in our current society would still exist in an "anarcho"-capitalist society. The rich still control the means of production, and the poor need to work for the rich in order to survive. I can't see that ending well. That's the essence of it.
- sagarm 16y ago
  Capitalism and F/OSS advocacy are not contradictory. I'm of the opinion that for certain kinds of software, F/OSS is the most efficient approach in the context of a free market. In particular, for software that (1) has a wide audience and (2) does not provide a significant competitive advantage, it makes sense to share the development burden amongst others that need the same software. A successful open source project is cheaper to maintain because of market forces: more organizations (including your own) are able to develop expertise in the software, driving down the price of such support.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    It's absolutely true that sometimes F/OSS can make sense as a tactic within capitalism. Generally though, F/OSS is used as an example of how people don't behave rationally, in an economic sense.
    - ArturSoler 16y ago
      Rationality in an economic sense does not mean "logical". What it means is "purposeful".
Vivtek 16y ago
Wow, I'm really surprised to find someone on HN who is against capitalism. Perhaps after you've been here longer you'll realize it's not all that homogeneous an audience. Your point 1 is well taken (meaning: I personally agree). Point 2 is somewhat simplistic; large-scale organization is superior to voluntary charity, which is why third-world countries have poverty problems and billionaires at the same time, while Sweden doesn't have much of a poverty problem. Point 3 is so full of loaded terms it's nearly useless except as an indication of your own biases.
raganwald 16y ago
"I'm really surprised to find someone on HN who is against capitalism." Hello, my name is Reginald and I am a Socialist.
steveklabnik 16y ago
I tend to refer to myself as a "centrist libertarian", because I used to be hardcore right libertarian, but lately have developed relatively strong anarchist sympathies. (Oh, and capitalists can't be anarchists.)
- duairc 16y ago
  Out of curiousity, why did you stop at the centre in your journey leftwards?
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    I don't 100% buy it yet. I feel the same way about capitalism that I do about religion; losing my religion was a long journey over a period of years, that took a lot of unlearning. I'm in the middle of that process with capitalism now.
    - duairc 16y ago
      That's cool :) Good luck! I'd really recommend getting involved in your local anarchist collective (which from Google seems to be this one: http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/8085 http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/8085). Actually, shit, after a bit more Googling, that place seems to be dead. That's very sad. If a new place pops up though, try to get involved if you can. I've really, really benefited from getting involved with Seomra Spraoi, which is a similar type of place in Dublin. Being able to be around people who understand your basic assumptions in life, in a fun and sociable environment, has done so much to keep me sane.
      - steveklabnik 16y ago
        We have a local FNB that I've been meaning to go help with, but haven't found the time. I was also involved in the G20 stuff here. In the meantime, I've +frontpaged /r/anarchism, been doing a lot of reading, and taking it slow.
        16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

He's right though, in the communist countries that I've visited there was nobody homeless. I am surprised that on HN someone that states something that contributes to the discussion gets modded to -4, I thought we reserved that for trolls. You can find plenty of things wrong with communism, and I think that for the most part capitalism is to be preferred but that doesn't make him factually wrong.

mrkurt 16y ago
Communism isn't the opposite of capitalism. China's both communist and capitalist. It also, incidentally, has extreme levels of poverty. The communist countries you visited likely did a good job of hiding the homelessness. It's one of the advantages of having that sort of control over your subjects.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  > The communist countries you visited likely did a good job of hiding the homelessness. The communist countries I visited I lived in for quite a while, and no, they didn't do a good job of it, it simply didn't exist. I would have definitely noticed. And yes, I did visit the poorer regions. Now they have homeless people though. But they're no longer communist. Everybody had a job, everybody had a house. Maybe the job was changing the traffic lights or something similarly inefficient but you'd have a job, guaranteed. And I know it isn't the opposite.
  - Vivtek 16y ago
    Second this, although the only communist country I knew was Hungary and I got to know it just before the regime change. The Communists built huge housing projects around Budapest specifically to ensure that everybody, no exceptions, had a place to live and a job to work. It might be a stupid, demeaning job - there were no vending machines - but it was work, and a place to call home. Now, there are tent cities along the Danube and in the corners of the railway easements. Say what you like about the wonders of capitalism and the "fact" that communism just swept the problems under the rug, but anybody who actually witnessed both knows that for the people on the very bottom, communism is far, far better. And for the people in the middle, it was about the same, albeit with fewer electronics. Of course, for people at the top, it's the same; they're just allowed to be honest about their Swiss accounts now.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      Chomsky actually says that the fall of the USSR was actually a great victory for socialism/communism, because it wasn't actually communist. I am not educated enough on the subject to know how correct he is, but it's interesting nonetheless.
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        Chomsky refers to the 'real' communism, which has to date not been implemented by any society (and which possibly can not be implemented with people the way they happen to be). It always has been a version of an oligarchy. The same goes for those 'communist' countries out there today.
        steveklabnik 16y ago
        It's quite true, and sounds very close to the No True Scotsman fallacy. I don't believe that statist communism could ever work.
        jacquesm 16y ago
dschobel 16y ago
I imagine the reason he got modded to oblivion was that he made an extraordinary claim "...I think it's important to point out that poverty and homelessness are symptoms of capitalism, which is the real problem" with no attempt at justification. Besides which, capitalism is not a form of government. So he started from a position of error and then went out on his limb from there.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  So, you point that out. Downmodding for being wrong is ridiculous.
  - dschobel 16y ago
    I did point it out and I didn't down-vote him (because I was hoping he would expound on it). But you know that voting means different things to different people (and HN has gone on vast navel-gazing tangents trying to define it). If people see a controversial position half-heartedly argued, the bad marks should not come as a shock nor am I sure they are unreasonable. In the end though, the points are utterly irrelevant as long as it doesn't dissuade others from taking controversial positions and, crucially, defending them.
- duairc 16y ago
  It was an extraordinary claim (given the demographic here) and I made no attempt to justify it, so I can see why it was modded so harshly. I think the modding was a bit extreme, but I knew when I was making the post that it was going to be a -4 type of thing. However, I don't think question of whether or not capitalism is a form of government has anything to do with the point I was making.
  - gloob 16y ago
    Meant to upvote you and fat-fingered it, sorry.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  > Besides which, capitalism is not a form of government. But he also didn't say anything about government. He said it was capitalism.
brg 16y ago
Could you please name those communist countries? I still have family in mainland China, and we know there is a homelessness problem in China. The government effectively insures that they are out of sight, so they beg where they can out of sight. You can find them in loading docks or behind restaurants. This is not a new problem that has started since economic reforms, it has always been around. I have talked with my coworker, someone who lived in Soviet Russia until his 20s, and he will confirm that they also had homelessness problem. At that time it was dealt with similarly. (1)Simple searches give clear depictions and discussions of the homelessness problems in these current and historical examples. (1)Post edited here to remove an inappropriately rude and confrontation postscript (I accused the parent of lying or being willfully ignorant; which does not cover the gamut of possibilities)
- jacquesm 16y ago
  I've lived in Poland, spent plenty of time in then Czecho-Slowakia and a lot less in Eastern Germany. > You are either dramatically incorrect or lying. Sorry ?
  - brg 16y ago
    You begin the post with "He's right though," and then provide anecdotal evidence. I am not arguing against your experience. Your experience is not wrong; I am arguing against that the grandfather post is "right" that homelessness is a symptom of capitalism, to which you agreed and supported.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      Those countries that did not have homelessness under Communism have plenty of it under capitalism, for those countries that I have experience with. That's not a scientific study, but it definitely should give you pause. Oh and I forgot to add Romania to the list. I said "in the communist countries that I've visited", to qualify my experience, and to make sure that you understood that I was not speaking for all communist countries at all times.
cma 16y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

drunkpotato 16y ago

Yours points are true but also somewhat simplistic. I'm not addressing you point by point, but laying out a couple of points for you to consider. 1. There is a tendency to corruption in any concentration of power, government or corporate. There still remains the problem in capitalism that concentration of capital leads to entrenchment, stagnation, and corruption, and our regulations, faulty as they certainly are, have historically at least attempted to address problems in concentration (Sherman Antitrust Act and the original Glass-Steagall Act). There is no fire-and-forget legislation that can guarantee this, of course, since it is also in the nature of power to route around such fault lines. 2. Many theories based on the free market assume rational actors. The bulk of psychological research shows that this is a faulty assumption for individual humans. I argue that we also have sufficient evidence that this is a faulty assumption for behaviors in aggregate (corporations and governments). We need to take this into account when we talk about the power, the benefits, and the faults of the free market. With regards to your point 2, I'm interested in data you have regarding the relative effectiveness of charity and the welfare state. My understanding is that the European-style welfare state consistently gets more balanced outcomes and a higher quality of life for more people than reliance on charitable institutions. Your point 3 is too laden with loaded words to be used effectively in an argument and reads more like right-wing talking points than an attempt at discussion. When discussing this in the future, I recommend sticking to redistribution and outcomes, and leave out the rhetorically charged "taking my money through force" and "extort". Also, you will be hard-pressed to find anyone who will argue that "inefficient state run welfare programs" are a good thing; really the argument is about relative efficiency between state welfare systems and private charity.

tommynazareth 16y ago
I'll concede that my second and third points skew the conversation away from the issue of addressing homelessness. If the topic were 'personal liberty' than they might have more relevance. I guess the attack on capitalism as being 'evil' brought out my personal bias.

duairc 16y ago

> Wow, I'm really surprised to find someone on HN who is against capitalism. Heh, yeah :) It's possible to like computers and enjoy programming without being a capitalist though! Look at the free software movement! What you are describing is "anarcho"-capitalism, I think. I'm an anarchist. We seem to agree agree on some things. I think most of the same things that stop people from organising and participating in communes in our current society would still exist in an "anarcho"-capitalist society. The rich still control the means of production, and the poor need to work for the rich in order to survive. I can't see that ending well. That's the essence of it.

sagarm 16y ago
Capitalism and F/OSS advocacy are not contradictory. I'm of the opinion that for certain kinds of software, F/OSS is the most efficient approach in the context of a free market. In particular, for software that (1) has a wide audience and (2) does not provide a significant competitive advantage, it makes sense to share the development burden amongst others that need the same software. A successful open source project is cheaper to maintain because of market forces: more organizations (including your own) are able to develop expertise in the software, driving down the price of such support.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  It's absolutely true that sometimes F/OSS can make sense as a tactic within capitalism. Generally though, F/OSS is used as an example of how people don't behave rationally, in an economic sense.
  - ArturSoler 16y ago
    Rationality in an economic sense does not mean "logical". What it means is "purposeful".

Vivtek 16y ago

Wow, I'm really surprised to find someone on HN who is against capitalism. Perhaps after you've been here longer you'll realize it's not all that homogeneous an audience. Your point 1 is well taken (meaning: I personally agree). Point 2 is somewhat simplistic; large-scale organization is superior to voluntary charity, which is why third-world countries have poverty problems and billionaires at the same time, while Sweden doesn't have much of a poverty problem. Point 3 is so full of loaded terms it's nearly useless except as an indication of your own biases.

raganwald 16y ago

"I'm really surprised to find someone on HN who is against capitalism." Hello, my name is Reginald and I am a Socialist.

steveklabnik 16y ago

I tend to refer to myself as a "centrist libertarian", because I used to be hardcore right libertarian, but lately have developed relatively strong anarchist sympathies. (Oh, and capitalists can't be anarchists.)

duairc 16y ago
Out of curiousity, why did you stop at the centre in your journey leftwards?
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  I don't 100% buy it yet. I feel the same way about capitalism that I do about religion; losing my religion was a long journey over a period of years, that took a lot of unlearning. I'm in the middle of that process with capitalism now.
  - duairc 16y ago
    That's cool :) Good luck! I'd really recommend getting involved in your local anarchist collective (which from Google seems to be this one: http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/8085 http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/8085). Actually, shit, after a bit more Googling, that place seems to be dead. That's very sad. If a new place pops up though, try to get involved if you can. I've really, really benefited from getting involved with Seomra Spraoi, which is a similar type of place in Dublin. Being able to be around people who understand your basic assumptions in life, in a fun and sociable environment, has done so much to keep me sane.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      We have a local FNB that I've been meaning to go help with, but haven't found the time. I was also involved in the G20 stuff here. In the meantime, I've +frontpaged /r/anarchism, been doing a lot of reading, and taking it slow.
      - 16y ago