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"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - Buckminster Fuller

by gemlog 8y ago

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - Buckminster Fuller Capitalism has to be replaced. Trying to change it is futile. We've been trying to tweak capitalism for a couple of hundred years and we're still stuck in a global board game of Monopoly. There is only one outcome in such a game and everyone knows it: one winner takes all and the rest ...

CryptoPunk 8y ago
First of all, the centralization of credit, which is the source of all of the problems cited in the video, was one of the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto. Central banks are the antithesis of a free market. Second, capitalism can be replaced in a free society if a superior model is introduced. No one is stopping people from starting up worker cooperatives, communes or non-profit organizations. By all means try to replace enterprises that are motivated by remuneration, but don't do it by violating people's right to freely contract. Do it by making a better model that people freely choose to switch to.
- extralego 8y ago
  >No one is stopping people from starting up worker cooperatives, communes or non-profit organizations. Funny how HN comments are so full of complaints about practices that inhibit businesses our system is actually designed for. What makes coops and communes so easy? Communist Manifesto isn’t a work anyone seriously defends. Marx didn’t even defend it. It’s a history scrap; significant by contextual events. If you read Marx’s seminal work, you’d not honestly raise such a moot point.
  - CryptoPunk 8y ago
    >>Funny how HN comments are so full of complaints about practices that inhibit businesses our system is actually designed for. What makes coops and communes so easy? Insofar as there are obstacles to starting businesses, communes, etc, they are a result of interventions by the state that inhibit the free market, like permitting and licensing requirements, so the solution there is to go more toward a free market, not less. >>Marx didn’t even defend it. That's extremely disingenuous. He authored it. He titled it 'The Communist Manifesto', thus placing it at the center of his political platform.
mythrwy 8y ago
Replaced with what? And I suspect you may as well try to replace gravity. Capitalism isn't going away I don't think, but rather the reverse. However it could be managed a bit better.
- hndamien 8y ago
  Bitcoin?
jumbopapa 8y ago
It's not like capitalism was just put here by someone, it's how free humans will interact by default. The idea that it can be "replaced" is one of the most asinine that I've ever heard. Even in places that have tried to practice something different capitalism has still existed in the way of black markets and has always emerged as king.
- xyzzy123 8y ago
  There are limits to how much a person can own without a state or an army backing them up. That is; a society, and a social contract. Your basic “apple-for-a-dollar” trading will always be around, sure. But billionaires and massive wealth concentration are a thing that can only exist if society is structured to allow it.
- ionised 8y ago
  Capitalism is not the default state of humans. Trade and markets might be, absent of all outside interference (I don't think this is even possible), but capitalism has definitions that go well beyond that.

by gemlog 8y ago

CryptoPunk 8y ago

First of all, the centralization of credit, which is the source of all of the problems cited in the video, was one of the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto. Central banks are the antithesis of a free market. Second, capitalism can be replaced in a free society if a superior model is introduced. No one is stopping people from starting up worker cooperatives, communes or non-profit organizations. By all means try to replace enterprises that are motivated by remuneration, but don't do it by violating people's right to freely contract. Do it by making a better model that people freely choose to switch to.

extralego 8y ago
>No one is stopping people from starting up worker cooperatives, communes or non-profit organizations. Funny how HN comments are so full of complaints about practices that inhibit businesses our system is actually designed for. What makes coops and communes so easy? Communist Manifesto isn’t a work anyone seriously defends. Marx didn’t even defend it. It’s a history scrap; significant by contextual events. If you read Marx’s seminal work, you’d not honestly raise such a moot point.
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  >>Funny how HN comments are so full of complaints about practices that inhibit businesses our system is actually designed for. What makes coops and communes so easy? Insofar as there are obstacles to starting businesses, communes, etc, they are a result of interventions by the state that inhibit the free market, like permitting and licensing requirements, so the solution there is to go more toward a free market, not less. >>Marx didn’t even defend it. That's extremely disingenuous. He authored it. He titled it 'The Communist Manifesto', thus placing it at the center of his political platform.

mythrwy 8y ago

Replaced with what? And I suspect you may as well try to replace gravity. Capitalism isn't going away I don't think, but rather the reverse. However it could be managed a bit better.

hndamien 8y ago
Bitcoin?

jumbopapa 8y ago

It's not like capitalism was just put here by someone, it's how free humans will interact by default. The idea that it can be "replaced" is one of the most asinine that I've ever heard. Even in places that have tried to practice something different capitalism has still existed in the way of black markets and has always emerged as king.

xyzzy123 8y ago
There are limits to how much a person can own without a state or an army backing them up. That is; a society, and a social contract. Your basic “apple-for-a-dollar” trading will always be around, sure. But billionaires and massive wealth concentration are a thing that can only exist if society is structured to allow it.
ionised 8y ago
Capitalism is not the default state of humans. Trade and markets might be, absent of all outside interference (I don't think this is even possible), but capitalism has definitions that go well beyond that.