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"giving more to those who already have too much" who are you to say what quantity or quality of goods people should have? That by itself isn't a "rational" allo

by Qasaur 9y ago

"giving more to those who already have too much" who are you to say what quantity or quality of goods people should have? That by itself isn't a "rational" allocation but a highly subjective one. When I say rational I mean that objectively, capitalism and markets reward agents who make the right market choices, and that in my book is allocating resources efficiently.

erikb 9y ago
Well if I sit in a meeting with 2 programmers who work 80h+ to produce value for the company, 2 consultants, 2 managers, 2 architects, each of them earning 3x-10x of what the programmers earn, but all living off of what the programmers produce, then I think it's quite clear that this is not sustainable. I think that's good enough as an explanation of why it's not rational. There doesn't need to be a known truth about what's rational to see that this is not rational. And now don't come to me with "each of them does different tasks". I can distinguish between architects who design systems and architects who happen to come to 10 biweekly meetings in a row without having designed anything. Also please note that I'm not blaming anybody. The programmers are just as responsible in my eyes, sometimes even supporting the other people in their parasitic positions. Last but not least there's also literature out there showing that nearly all systems in their early stages contain huge amounts of people willing to sacrifice their own good for the community, thereby creating public goods, and later stages societies more and more focussing on stealing and centralizing the goods in a private manner. Capitalism is simply a system in its later stage and will be overcome by a just-as-flawed system at some point.
dredmorbius 9y ago
You'll find extensive discussion, and defence, of just this position from Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, amongst many, many, many others.

by Qasaur 9y ago

erikb 9y ago

Well if I sit in a meeting with 2 programmers who work 80h+ to produce value for the company, 2 consultants, 2 managers, 2 architects, each of them earning 3x-10x of what the programmers earn, but all living off of what the programmers produce, then I think it's quite clear that this is not sustainable. I think that's good enough as an explanation of why it's not rational. There doesn't need to be a known truth about what's rational to see that this is not rational. And now don't come to me with "each of them does different tasks". I can distinguish between architects who design systems and architects who happen to come to 10 biweekly meetings in a row without having designed anything. Also please note that I'm not blaming anybody. The programmers are just as responsible in my eyes, sometimes even supporting the other people in their parasitic positions. Last but not least there's also literature out there showing that nearly all systems in their early stages contain huge amounts of people willing to sacrifice their own good for the community, thereby creating public goods, and later stages societies more and more focussing on stealing and centralizing the goods in a private manner. Capitalism is simply a system in its later stage and will be overcome by a just-as-flawed system at some point.

dredmorbius 9y ago

You'll find extensive discussion, and defence, of just this position from Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, amongst many, many, many others.