3 ms·
I question that kind of opinion talk, which boils down to (often implicitly) debating the definition of words in a boring way and/or trying to attribute meaning
by temac 7y ago
I question that kind of opinion talk, which boils down to (often implicitly) debating the definition of words in a boring way and/or trying to attribute meaningless merits and demerits to whole arbitrary idealized "class" of people.
There is so little information and it is so caricatural and simplistic to come and state in a kind of absolute tone that "entrepreneurs" are good and they build "value" (while basically the "others" are all of the inverse?)
I do not expect to get any insight from somebody with that kind of point of view. I already know that some people have that kind of point of view, and I already know that some people have radically different one, and the philosophical framework in both cases has some validity, with idealistic components and realistic ones, of which both intuitively and descriptively we should strive to get a balance from.
On top of that, postmodern capitalism has taken a turn that very few academics would found merits in (and even fewer have called for), yet it managed to influence the policies in way that are not even widely debated (at least as widely as they should) by the media and the public. So the ever increasing amount of discretionary power that a defacto class (real this time, because having 100000 times more wealth than your "neighbor" is a criteria vastly more useful than being e.g. an Uber driver vs. being salaried in a taxi company) of people already have achieved and are continuing to amass is extremely concerning, even more so given the choice that have been made, the impact that this yield, and the quasi complete lack of action that could show we could have some confidence in their infinite wisdom.
I do not buy that the only thing that is needed is some kind of natural regulation by (re-?)allowing "failure". "Risk takers" can still have a shitload amount of money after they loose some.
If some attempts of political organization in other forms failed, my guess is that postmodern capitalism in the form of unbridled individualism and deathmatch to grab control and dispend resources will fail harder.
And I'm not sold on the concept on "not true capitalism", because of the principle of realism, that I refuses to apply only when it suits my narrative. A far better and hopefully far more actionable way to present things is to state that model X tends to degenerate into concrete situation Y, while model T tends to yield Z. So of course there will be some corrections to give. AND I do not believe we should primarily listen to people who do not recognize some extraordinary value brought by some people in the society (e.g. nurses, they could be on the "sideline collecting their salary"?), to decide of those corrections. I believe that individualism and hubris is a big component in those deviations, regardless of the original ideal.
On the other hand, trying to attribute merit or demerit on abstract mythical "entrepreneurship" without the details is an activity I consider having absolutely no meaning: I'll be more happy that some projects fail so I could consider people achieving success in horrible projects even "worse" than people failing at such projects, and on another dimension failures (on both horrible and wonderful projects) can be attributed on their leaders while other on other factors.