7 ms·

The next capitalist revolution

63 points by wolfv 8y ago

elvinyung 8y ago
My takeaway from this article was mainly about how much competition should be fostered within the system. One interesting thing about the neoliberal era, it seems, is that the things in it seem to be simultaneously very big and very small. There are some very big things -- cyberpunk-style megacorps that literally have free rein to make and remake entire markets and populations -- and at the same time very small things -- gig workers, freelancers, contractors, and other kinds of "entrepreneurs" that are out on their own in a dog-eat-dog world of hustle. I think the question is less about whether we should have more competition, and more about whether this can be done safely. As it stands, you basically have two choices, modeled after the above: to become a cog in a machine (or a machine-in-the-making), or be completely out on your own. Can something sustainably exist in the middle, and without being consumed by the big thing or becoming the big thing?
ilaksh 8y ago
This is one of those really tough areas where the problems are so significant and comprehensive that the approach people want to take immediately gets into their worldview and belief system. And no one readily changes their worldview, so its difficult to have productive discussions about such things. Nevertheless I will state my worldview and hopefully mention a few specifics that might be anchor points for an attempted discussion. Technology _alone_ cannot solve our societal problems, but I believe that there is great opportunity to address them by better incorporating the right technologies into society. And I believe that peer-to-peer distributed (and so decentralized) technologies offer quite a lot of promise. Starting with the idea that over-centralization, whether it stems from a more socialist traditional system or a more capitalist traditional system, is one of the main problems, and technologies that are inherently decentralized can address that. Well, maybe I will just start with a few premises. I would like to suggest that we should re-evaluate all of our societal structures in a technological context. I think that we can usefully think of them all as types of (mostly primitive) technologies. For example, I suggest that money is in fact a technology. It is probably the most fundamental technology of society. I think that although an over-reliance on traditional money obviously causes problems, the answer is not to simply de-emphasize its use in society, although that can help in certain contexts. I believe that we should upgrade the technology of money and in doing so we can improve the functioning of society. I also believe that government is another type of fundamental technology for society. It should also have its technology upgraded. Another idea I have is that there is a fundamental interaction between money and government which we normally refer to as "corruption" with the idea that this is an abnormal state for the relationship. However I believe that the close relation between money and government in their present primitive forms is a core structural element, i.e. corruption is structurally guaranteed. I realize that convincing people of these views would require quite extensive prose. But it is unlikely that those with different worldviews would be convinced and I am tired of writing this answer so unfortunately I am not going to try right here. However at least I have explained some of my viewpoint. Anyway, I think that Ethereum and related or similar technologies are moral causes because they allow us the possibility of upgrading core technologies used in society. We can upgrade money with cryptocurrency. We can upgrade government using something like Ethereum-based decentralized autonomous organizations. I think that you need to upgrade money _and_ government at the same time and be sure that your system considers them as closely related so that you can handle "corruption" in a structural way.
- elvinyung 8y ago
  Shameless plug: I wrote a blog post a while ago using your premise to argue why decentralized technologies wouldn't be useful to society: https://www.notion.so/Yet-Another-Rant-About-Blockchains-ece6657d0a3b491bb39dd8002055a5af https://www.notion.so/Yet-Another-Rant-About-Blockchains-ece...
  - ilaksh 8y ago
    That is a well-written and interesting article. We have very different belief systems. My apologies for not having the motivation to try make a rebuttal. Maybe you will consider _not_ downvoting my comment because it will fade out and no one will even be able to see it. That means my ideas will be dismissed without consideration by new people to the thread. I am not downvoting your comment.
  - cafeoh 8y ago
    Interesting take on decentralized technologies. It feels to me like attacking (or defending) decentralized technologies in general is a bit abstract though. Just taking Bitcoin for example, where would you see this concept of racing to the bottom and trading away your values (outside of the shortcomings of the technology itself). Since it's a platform for holding and trading assets, I don't think there is the competitive aspect that would drive any of those behaviors, but maybe your article is focused on competitive scenarios more than anything else. But even when there is a notion of competition you say that to avoid the traps left around by an imperfect (perhaps unavoidably) system of incentives, coordination is necessary, questioning the need for a decentralized system in the first place. But is that really so bad/superfluous? What if the coordination necessary to make a decentralized system work led more easily to a desirable and elastic result than something crafted by hand. Again, maybe it's too abstract, but I picture a decentralized governance system where members would have to coordinate to achieve a proper equilibrium. For example the biggest hurdle to fighting lobbyism effectively isn't coordination from competing interests, it's the lack of resources. Wouldn't a decentralized system negate the power of money, networking, services, preferential treatment (and even blackmail) even if it still ended up causing/requiring coordination?
- 8y ago
orf 8y ago
None of this matters, not one iota. The world is choking in the filth we are creating, all while people like this pontificate about the next generation of the system that positively reinforces the creation of filth.
- darawk 8y ago
  Is there some alternative system that you'd prefer?
- jp555 8y ago
  People have been saying that forever. Although the amount of resources required to produce $1 of GDP has gone down ~90% in the last century. Economic growth = figuring out how to do more with less.
- chrissam 8y ago
  This sentiment is as old as religion: it's the good old millenarian instinct. People constantly think the world is on the precipice of something transformational (good or bad). We'll see. My money is on things chugging along pretty much as they have been. I think this planet can take far more than we can throw at it. RE: the article - seems like common-sense recommendations but no specifics. We'd all like to see more competition. The question is how to get there with as few side effects as possible. The specifics are the hard part.
  - YZF 8y ago
    I don't want to be around when we discover the planet can't actually take more than we can throw at it. We are unable to deal with minor pokes of the planet (storms, fires, earthquakes). Imagine what's gonna happen when it really pokes at us. We're probably gonna get wiped out. This planet is more fragile than people think and our power to control it is miniscule.
    - ineedasername 8y ago
      The planet has been around a while and taken a lot, certainly more than we can throw at it. Now, wether we can survive is another issue. But the planet will be just fine, especially by the standards of geological time.
fcarraldo 8y ago
> Ronald Reagan fostered competition across much of the American economy. > A similar transformation is needed today. Reaganomics is the cause, not solution to, today’s capitalism crisis.
- ci5er 8y ago
  That is a bold large-ish declaration. Would you be kind enough to define: 1) Today's capitalism crisis, and 2) Reagonomics' role in being the cause instead of the cure? Thanks so very much.
  - starbeast 8y ago
    I found some documentary footage from the era that I think explained this quite well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NrWX-FsXgQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NrWX-FsXgQ
    - ci5er 8y ago
      Nice clip. I'm sorry that I don't find it compelling for the purpose of answering the question as asked. Maybe you went to a different logic school.
      - starbeast 8y ago
        I got kicked out for abduction.
        ci5er 8y ago
        At least you're funny. (And, no, I have not downvoted you)
        starbeast 8y ago
        Personally I'm amazed that people appear to like the cheap shot I made with the spitting image clip, but hate the formal logic joke.
plainOldText 8y ago
What we need is a revolution in how people think about complex systems. People nowadays throw ideas around thinking they have a good understanding of how systems operate or should operate, when in fact most are clueless and fail to realize their ignorance. Society, economy, biological organisms, climate, cognition, etc are all complex systems, and no single person can claim to understand how they work, or the types of laws/rules we should adopt to govern their behavior. Not all is lost though, as we have slowly started to augment our cognitive power, by means of computation, and in the process have improved our capabilities to analyze and understand these ever evolving systems. I for one, have began to fight my ignorance by studying more books on complex systems. Here's a good one I've discovered recently: "Scale" by Geoffrey West. Also, a useful collection of resources, courtesy of Santa Fe Institute: https://www.complexityexplorer.org/ https://www.complexityexplorer.org/ (HINT: Go to explore -> browse section) ... and bonus, one of the most underrated channels on YouTube, Complexity Labs: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCutCcajxhR33k9UR-DdLsAQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCutCcajxhR33k9UR-DdLsAQ
- ci5er 8y ago
  Exponential growth, feed back loops and side effects are all hard to reason about intuitively. "Business Dynamics" by Stermer was surprisingly good. "How we know what is not so" by Thomas Gilovich is a good tonic against arrogance (as is "Uncommon Sense" by Comer). I really like SystemAntics (John Gall - Good luck finding the original!) about, mostly, how our arrogance fails us when we try to define systems that are complex and include humans...
  - stuxnet79 8y ago
    > I really like SystemAntics (John Gall - Good luck finding the original!) There's a PDF scan of this book available through Google search. Not a great PDF scan so it's not a comfortable read but it's doable. Anyway, I was only going to sample the book from that scan but ended up reading most of it because it was so good. Devastatingly bleak. Accurate. Subtle humor here and there. Highly recommended to anybody who hasn't read it yet. I just need to find a hard copy though ...
- 8y ago
claydavisss 8y ago
All of the sneering intellectuals are the ones buying the iPhones and ordering everything through Amazon Prime. How many high-minded Atlantic articles did you read on your iPad Pro today while waiting for your Tesla to charge? Lenin was right - the intellectual class is parasitic and must be eliminated for true progress.
- darawk 8y ago
  Lol, alright buddy. The intellectual class is why we have progress at all. Do feel free to go back to hunting and gathering, though.
  - claydavisss 8y ago
    You really think academics and critics are responsible for the successes of our society? Lol How many of your beloved CEOs are dropouts?
    - selectodude 8y ago
      Most of them dropped out from extremely prestigious institutions because they had a business to run. It's not like Bill Gates couldn't hack it at Harvard so he dropped out and started Microsoft.
      - tomjakubowski 8y ago
        Sure, but because he dropped out of school it would be a huge stretch to say Bill Gates is an "academic". It's not a stretch to say he's an "intellectual" though, probably? I guess to GP, you have to be an academic to be part of the "intellectual class." In any case, the comment's point would be way clearer if the poster had expressed it without so much snark.
    - sexydefinesher 8y ago
      Ah yes, Bill Gates, the working class hero.
- 8y ago
edoo 8y ago
Capitalism is literally the private ownership of the means of production, aka simple freedom. We in the US have never lived with anything but crony capitalism. Capitalism is the only process so far that creates wealth for everyone. If people are unhappy with our current form of capitalism they can look directly to the Marxist policies our government has tilted towards the last century that are supported by both the 'right' and the 'left'.
crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
Serious questions: who's working on innovating economic systems that take us out of capitalism? Forget competition... What about market-wide transparent collaboration?
Lidador 8y ago
“Neither Hayek, nor Habermas”
- qbaqbaqba 8y ago
  Nozick?
avmich 8y ago
> Ronald Reagan fostered competition across much of the American economy. How did he do that?

63 points by wolfv 8y ago

My takeaway from this article was mainly about how much competition should be fostered within the system. One interesting thing about the neoliberal era, it seems, is that the things in it seem to be simultaneously very big and very small. There are some very big things -- cyberpunk-style megacorps that literally have free rein to make and remake entire markets and populations -- and at the same time very small things -- gig workers, freelancers, contractors, and other kinds of "entrepreneurs" that are out on their own in a dog-eat-dog world of hustle. I think the question is less about whether we should have more competition, and more about whether this can be done safely. As it stands, you basically have two choices, modeled after the above: to become a cog in a machine (or a machine-in-the-making), or be completely out on your own. Can something sustainably exist in the middle, and without being consumed by the big thing or becoming the big thing?

ilaksh 8y ago

This is one of those really tough areas where the problems are so significant and comprehensive that the approach people want to take immediately gets into their worldview and belief system. And no one readily changes their worldview, so its difficult to have productive discussions about such things. Nevertheless I will state my worldview and hopefully mention a few specifics that might be anchor points for an attempted discussion. Technology _alone_ cannot solve our societal problems, but I believe that there is great opportunity to address them by better incorporating the right technologies into society. And I believe that peer-to-peer distributed (and so decentralized) technologies offer quite a lot of promise. Starting with the idea that over-centralization, whether it stems from a more socialist traditional system or a more capitalist traditional system, is one of the main problems, and technologies that are inherently decentralized can address that. Well, maybe I will just start with a few premises. I would like to suggest that we should re-evaluate all of our societal structures in a technological context. I think that we can usefully think of them all as types of (mostly primitive) technologies. For example, I suggest that money is in fact a technology. It is probably the most fundamental technology of society. I think that although an over-reliance on traditional money obviously causes problems, the answer is not to simply de-emphasize its use in society, although that can help in certain contexts. I believe that we should upgrade the technology of money and in doing so we can improve the functioning of society. I also believe that government is another type of fundamental technology for society. It should also have its technology upgraded. Another idea I have is that there is a fundamental interaction between money and government which we normally refer to as "corruption" with the idea that this is an abnormal state for the relationship. However I believe that the close relation between money and government in their present primitive forms is a core structural element, i.e. corruption is structurally guaranteed. I realize that convincing people of these views would require quite extensive prose. But it is unlikely that those with different worldviews would be convinced and I am tired of writing this answer so unfortunately I am not going to try right here. However at least I have explained some of my viewpoint. Anyway, I think that Ethereum and related or similar technologies are moral causes because they allow us the possibility of upgrading core technologies used in society. We can upgrade money with cryptocurrency. We can upgrade government using something like Ethereum-based decentralized autonomous organizations. I think that you need to upgrade money _and_ government at the same time and be sure that your system considers them as closely related so that you can handle "corruption" in a structural way.

elvinyung 8y ago
Shameless plug: I wrote a blog post a while ago using your premise to argue why decentralized technologies wouldn't be useful to society: https://www.notion.so/Yet-Another-Rant-About-Blockchains-ece6657d0a3b491bb39dd8002055a5af https://www.notion.so/Yet-Another-Rant-About-Blockchains-ece...
- ilaksh 8y ago
  That is a well-written and interesting article. We have very different belief systems. My apologies for not having the motivation to try make a rebuttal. Maybe you will consider _not_ downvoting my comment because it will fade out and no one will even be able to see it. That means my ideas will be dismissed without consideration by new people to the thread. I am not downvoting your comment.
- cafeoh 8y ago
  Interesting take on decentralized technologies. It feels to me like attacking (or defending) decentralized technologies in general is a bit abstract though. Just taking Bitcoin for example, where would you see this concept of racing to the bottom and trading away your values (outside of the shortcomings of the technology itself). Since it's a platform for holding and trading assets, I don't think there is the competitive aspect that would drive any of those behaviors, but maybe your article is focused on competitive scenarios more than anything else. But even when there is a notion of competition you say that to avoid the traps left around by an imperfect (perhaps unavoidably) system of incentives, coordination is necessary, questioning the need for a decentralized system in the first place. But is that really so bad/superfluous? What if the coordination necessary to make a decentralized system work led more easily to a desirable and elastic result than something crafted by hand. Again, maybe it's too abstract, but I picture a decentralized governance system where members would have to coordinate to achieve a proper equilibrium. For example the biggest hurdle to fighting lobbyism effectively isn't coordination from competing interests, it's the lack of resources. Wouldn't a decentralized system negate the power of money, networking, services, preferential treatment (and even blackmail) even if it still ended up causing/requiring coordination?
8y ago

orf 8y ago

None of this matters, not one iota. The world is choking in the filth we are creating, all while people like this pontificate about the next generation of the system that positively reinforces the creation of filth.

darawk 8y ago
Is there some alternative system that you'd prefer?
jp555 8y ago
People have been saying that forever. Although the amount of resources required to produce $1 of GDP has gone down ~90% in the last century. Economic growth = figuring out how to do more with less.
chrissam 8y ago
This sentiment is as old as religion: it's the good old millenarian instinct. People constantly think the world is on the precipice of something transformational (good or bad). We'll see. My money is on things chugging along pretty much as they have been. I think this planet can take far more than we can throw at it. RE: the article - seems like common-sense recommendations but no specifics. We'd all like to see more competition. The question is how to get there with as few side effects as possible. The specifics are the hard part.
- YZF 8y ago
  I don't want to be around when we discover the planet can't actually take more than we can throw at it. We are unable to deal with minor pokes of the planet (storms, fires, earthquakes). Imagine what's gonna happen when it really pokes at us. We're probably gonna get wiped out. This planet is more fragile than people think and our power to control it is miniscule.
  - ineedasername 8y ago
    The planet has been around a while and taken a lot, certainly more than we can throw at it. Now, wether we can survive is another issue. But the planet will be just fine, especially by the standards of geological time.

fcarraldo 8y ago

> Ronald Reagan fostered competition across much of the American economy. > A similar transformation is needed today. Reaganomics is the cause, not solution to, today’s capitalism crisis.

ci5er 8y ago
That is a bold large-ish declaration. Would you be kind enough to define: 1) Today's capitalism crisis, and 2) Reagonomics' role in being the cause instead of the cure? Thanks so very much.
- starbeast 8y ago
  I found some documentary footage from the era that I think explained this quite well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NrWX-FsXgQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NrWX-FsXgQ
  - ci5er 8y ago
    Nice clip. I'm sorry that I don't find it compelling for the purpose of answering the question as asked. Maybe you went to a different logic school.
    - starbeast 8y ago
      I got kicked out for abduction.
      - ci5er 8y ago
        At least you're funny. (And, no, I have not downvoted you)
        starbeast 8y ago
        Personally I'm amazed that people appear to like the cheap shot I made with the spitting image clip, but hate the formal logic joke.

plainOldText 8y ago

What we need is a revolution in how people think about complex systems. People nowadays throw ideas around thinking they have a good understanding of how systems operate or should operate, when in fact most are clueless and fail to realize their ignorance. Society, economy, biological organisms, climate, cognition, etc are all complex systems, and no single person can claim to understand how they work, or the types of laws/rules we should adopt to govern their behavior. Not all is lost though, as we have slowly started to augment our cognitive power, by means of computation, and in the process have improved our capabilities to analyze and understand these ever evolving systems. I for one, have began to fight my ignorance by studying more books on complex systems. Here's a good one I've discovered recently: "Scale" by Geoffrey West. Also, a useful collection of resources, courtesy of Santa Fe Institute: https://www.complexityexplorer.org/ https://www.complexityexplorer.org/ (HINT: Go to explore -> browse section) ... and bonus, one of the most underrated channels on YouTube, Complexity Labs: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCutCcajxhR33k9UR-DdLsAQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCutCcajxhR33k9UR-DdLsAQ

ci5er 8y ago
Exponential growth, feed back loops and side effects are all hard to reason about intuitively. "Business Dynamics" by Stermer was surprisingly good. "How we know what is not so" by Thomas Gilovich is a good tonic against arrogance (as is "Uncommon Sense" by Comer). I really like SystemAntics (John Gall - Good luck finding the original!) about, mostly, how our arrogance fails us when we try to define systems that are complex and include humans...
- stuxnet79 8y ago
  > I really like SystemAntics (John Gall - Good luck finding the original!) There's a PDF scan of this book available through Google search. Not a great PDF scan so it's not a comfortable read but it's doable. Anyway, I was only going to sample the book from that scan but ended up reading most of it because it was so good. Devastatingly bleak. Accurate. Subtle humor here and there. Highly recommended to anybody who hasn't read it yet. I just need to find a hard copy though ...
8y ago

claydavisss 8y ago

All of the sneering intellectuals are the ones buying the iPhones and ordering everything through Amazon Prime. How many high-minded Atlantic articles did you read on your iPad Pro today while waiting for your Tesla to charge? Lenin was right - the intellectual class is parasitic and must be eliminated for true progress.

darawk 8y ago
Lol, alright buddy. The intellectual class is why we have progress at all. Do feel free to go back to hunting and gathering, though.
- claydavisss 8y ago
  You really think academics and critics are responsible for the successes of our society? Lol How many of your beloved CEOs are dropouts?
  - selectodude 8y ago
    Most of them dropped out from extremely prestigious institutions because they had a business to run. It's not like Bill Gates couldn't hack it at Harvard so he dropped out and started Microsoft.
    - tomjakubowski 8y ago
      Sure, but because he dropped out of school it would be a huge stretch to say Bill Gates is an "academic". It's not a stretch to say he's an "intellectual" though, probably? I guess to GP, you have to be an academic to be part of the "intellectual class." In any case, the comment's point would be way clearer if the poster had expressed it without so much snark.
  - sexydefinesher 8y ago
    Ah yes, Bill Gates, the working class hero.
8y ago

edoo 8y ago

Capitalism is literally the private ownership of the means of production, aka simple freedom. We in the US have never lived with anything but crony capitalism. Capitalism is the only process so far that creates wealth for everyone. If people are unhappy with our current form of capitalism they can look directly to the Marxist policies our government has tilted towards the last century that are supported by both the 'right' and the 'left'.

crawfordcomeaux 8y ago

Serious questions: who's working on innovating economic systems that take us out of capitalism? Forget competition... What about market-wide transparent collaboration?

Lidador 8y ago

“Neither Hayek, nor Habermas”

qbaqbaqba 8y ago
Nozick?

avmich 8y ago

> Ronald Reagan fostered competition across much of the American economy. How did he do that?