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"capitalism will magically work." Capitalism essentially DOES work. Any argument otherwise bears to burden of proof in presenting a more desirable alternative.

"capitalism will magically work." Capitalism essentially DOES work. Any argument otherwise bears to burden of proof in presenting a more desirable alternative. There are 0 starving people in the United States, there is an actual obesity epidemic among the poor. The absolute quality of life over the last century across capitalist nations has continued to explode across all societal strata.

notacoward 8y ago
> There are 0 starving people in the United States, That is somewhere between misleading and flat-out untrue. While starving to death in the US is exceedingly rare, the number is still non-zero and there are literally millions who are "food insecure" (the term used for statistics etc.) to some degree or other. That's starving, as anyone who has actually had trouble affording decent meals (as I did when I was young) would know. The fact that there are also poor people who are obese doesn't change that one bit. And you know the funny thing? The reason there are so few people starving to the point of death is distinctly non-capitalist food programs. Capitalism failed them; social democracy saved them. That you would claim the near opposite is frankly disgusting.
geofft 8y ago
> The absolute quality of life over the last century across capitalist nations has continued to explode across all societal strata. 1. I think that's true on average and probably true on the median, but it's unclear that's true for everyone. There are a lot of anecdotal stories of people working at a gas station to pay for college or even postgraduate school ~50 years ago, no loans or anything. That's just not possible today. I would bet that in terms of net worth, ~50 years ago the lowest class in the US was at least positive and is definitely not positive today. 2. In any case that's not what the author means by capitalism not working. The claim is not that quality of life has gone up, it's that the market is not operating in the way that advocates of capitalism say that it should. Perhaps you want to argue that oligopolies and regulatory capture and barriers to entry in new markets are morally good because they have had the empirical result of reducing Great Depression-style starvation. I think that's a coherent argument to make. (I'd ask some questions about how the leadup to the Great Depression involved oligopolies and regulatory capture and barriers to entry, but I imagine you could come up with convincing rebuttals.) But then you / the people who believe like you need to start selling capitalism as not free markets because that produces moral good, but as highly regulated and government-intervened markets that are centrally planned in a way that reduces suffering and quality of life and is therefore morally good. If you want to argue that the author's depiction of "capitalism" is a straw man and in fact capitalism is winning by killing needless competition, that's fine - just start saying it.

notacoward 8y ago

> There are 0 starving people in the United States, That is somewhere between misleading and flat-out untrue. While starving to death in the US is exceedingly rare, the number is still non-zero and there are literally millions who are "food insecure" (the term used for statistics etc.) to some degree or other. That's starving, as anyone who has actually had trouble affording decent meals (as I did when I was young) would know. The fact that there are also poor people who are obese doesn't change that one bit. And you know the funny thing? The reason there are so few people starving to the point of death is distinctly non-capitalist food programs. Capitalism failed them; social democracy saved them. That you would claim the near opposite is frankly disgusting.

geofft 8y ago

> The absolute quality of life over the last century across capitalist nations has continued to explode across all societal strata. 1. I think that's true on average and probably true on the median, but it's unclear that's true for everyone. There are a lot of anecdotal stories of people working at a gas station to pay for college or even postgraduate school ~50 years ago, no loans or anything. That's just not possible today. I would bet that in terms of net worth, ~50 years ago the lowest class in the US was at least positive and is definitely not positive today. 2. In any case that's not what the author means by capitalism not working. The claim is not that quality of life has gone up, it's that the market is not operating in the way that advocates of capitalism say that it should. Perhaps you want to argue that oligopolies and regulatory capture and barriers to entry in new markets are morally good because they have had the empirical result of reducing Great Depression-style starvation. I think that's a coherent argument to make. (I'd ask some questions about how the leadup to the Great Depression involved oligopolies and regulatory capture and barriers to entry, but I imagine you could come up with convincing rebuttals.) But then you / the people who believe like you need to start selling capitalism as not free markets because that produces moral good, but as highly regulated and government-intervened markets that are centrally planned in a way that reduces suffering and quality of life and is therefore morally good. If you want to argue that the author's depiction of "capitalism" is a straw man and in fact capitalism is winning by killing needless competition, that's fine - just start saying it.