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the history is debated, and knowledge is generally retrospective and rationalized. besides, the historical origin of capitalism has little to do with its pragma

the history is debated, and knowledge is generally retrospective and rationalized. besides, the historical origin of capitalism has little to do with its pragmatic purpose. capitalism wouldn't be a practiced (locally optimal?) economic system were it not relatively efficient at allocating capital in an economy. decentralization of the means of production is also a critical feature of its success, but i'm sure the 18th c. bourgeoisie didn't think about that either.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> capitalism wouldn't be a practiced (locally optimal?) economic system were it not relatively efficient at allocating capital in an economy. Why not? It's certainly reasonable to expect productive efficiency (at least in some sense of output, though not necessarily the pure aggregate utilitarian sense it is normally used) ceteris paribus to lead to better survival of an economic meme, but it seems unwarranted in the extreme to assume that that is the only differentiator in the survival of such memes, which is necesat for the implication you suggest to reliably hold. (And even if it does hold, what does that say about the near-universal evolution away from pure capitalism to various forms of the modern mixed economy?)
- clairity 8y ago
  sure, it's premature to be absolutely sure of the reasons for capitalism's current success (and potential demise), but that doesn't mean we can't draw any conclusions. the underlying conjecture is that capitalism combines with modern political and cultural systems to create broad distribution of esteem and opportunity, while also being more efficient at it, so that attention is drawn toward positive-sum production (and away from zero-/negative-sum conflict), making it more stable than other systems like feudalism. moreover capitalism seems to be flexible enough to combine with diverse political and cultural systems. the modern mixed economy, then, can be thought of as an expression of the pragmatic holistic sociopoliticoeconomic system (vs. the ideal) as it counteracts various forms of self-serving distortions. do you believe maximizing personal capital is a worthy goal in itself, or is there another reason for the debate?

dragonwriter 8y ago

> capitalism wouldn't be a practiced (locally optimal?) economic system were it not relatively efficient at allocating capital in an economy. Why not? It's certainly reasonable to expect productive efficiency (at least in some sense of output, though not necessarily the pure aggregate utilitarian sense it is normally used) ceteris paribus to lead to better survival of an economic meme, but it seems unwarranted in the extreme to assume that that is the only differentiator in the survival of such memes, which is necesat for the implication you suggest to reliably hold. (And even if it does hold, what does that say about the near-universal evolution away from pure capitalism to various forms of the modern mixed economy?)

clairity 8y ago
sure, it's premature to be absolutely sure of the reasons for capitalism's current success (and potential demise), but that doesn't mean we can't draw any conclusions. the underlying conjecture is that capitalism combines with modern political and cultural systems to create broad distribution of esteem and opportunity, while also being more efficient at it, so that attention is drawn toward positive-sum production (and away from zero-/negative-sum conflict), making it more stable than other systems like feudalism. moreover capitalism seems to be flexible enough to combine with diverse political and cultural systems. the modern mixed economy, then, can be thought of as an expression of the pragmatic holistic sociopoliticoeconomic system (vs. the ideal) as it counteracts various forms of self-serving distortions. do you believe maximizing personal capital is a worthy goal in itself, or is there another reason for the debate?