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The author says something that I think actually illustrates the main issue I would take with their argument: > capitalism alone can’t be the engine of human pr

The author says something that I think actually illustrates the main issue I would take with their argument: > capitalism alone can’t be the engine of human progress For one, very few people claim that capitalism alone is the solution to human progress. That being said, it very much is the engine. We don't know of a better engine than capitalism, it creates value at unprecedented rates. That doesn't mean that you can't steer its output towards objectives that benefit society in ways that markets are unlikely to address in a timely fashion. Take Norway. It has a trillion dollar fund, started from selling oil, now continuing to make money by investing in foreign companies. In addition to this, they have a market economy. Because they have so many socialized programs, the implication seems to be that this is not a capitalist country, but this is simply not true. Capitalism, again, is the engine. Because a state with taxpayer funding produced a notable step forward for humanity does not mean that capitalism had nothing to do with this, it means that capitalism produced the taxpayer funding.

JohnFen 7y ago
> very few people claim that capitalism alone is the solution to human progress. I see people claiming that all the time.
- ralusek 7y ago
  Name a single notable person.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    I didn't claim that I hear notable people say this frequently. I just claim that I have often heard people make this claim generally. I'm honestly confused about why my comment got downvoted. I was not making a comment about capitalism itself, either for or against.
- anm89 7y ago
  Capitalism is simply a combination of the existence of property rights, money, and the right to freely enter into contracts except when prohibited by law. How could this ever solve anything? It's not a solution, it's a framework. It's like saying that Ruby on Rails is the solution to your company. We'll by definition it can't be. It can be used to do whatever your company needs but the framework can't be the company as it doesn't do anything useful in a vacuum. However it's certainly a much better model than generating an HTTP stack in assembly to make your SAAS business. It solves a real problem that allows you to operate but it doesn't solve your higher level problem. Capitalism is exactly the same. The lack of it can cause major problems. The existence of it cannot solve many problems but it can provide the only efficient framework in which many problems can be solved.
  - mikestew 7y ago
    Once in a while I don't downvote a well-deserving comment (and I am not saying parent(s) are one of those) because a child comment would get buried. I think parent comment is sketchy at best, but this comment is a nice perspective that makes it worth wading to. Just like one can use RoR to make shitty websites, and RoR is just the tool here, one can use capitalism to...oh, you know where this is going.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Rodney Stark says that the distinguishing mark of capitalism is that (at least part of) the profits are re-invested in better tools for productivity gains. In this view, "the existence of property rights, money, and the right to freely enter into contracts except when prohibited by law" are prerequisites, but they aren't capitalism. Capitalism is what you do once you have that foundation in place.
    - anm89 7y ago
      From wikipedia: "Rodney William Stark is an American sociologist of religion". Whoever this guy is, he doesn't matter enough to get to redefine capitalism. Being in the general field of economics would be a start.
dredmorbius 7y ago
There are numerous variant "capitalism (is|as) the engine of (growth|wealth|progress|innovation)" quips and assertions which are trivially found. Most seem to have emerged since the 1950s, at an increasing rate through the 60s, 70s, 80s, and onward. Largely (though not wholly) from right/libertarian propaganda mills and commentators, repeated liturgically as articles of faith. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=capitalism+engine+of+growth&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=capitalism+engine+of+growth&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=capitalism+engine+of+(growth%7Cwealth%7Cprogress%7Cinnovation)&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=capitalism+engine+of+(growth%7Cwea... https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=engine%20of%20growth&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cengine%20of%20growth%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=engine%20of%20... https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=engine+of+progress&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cengine%20of%20progress%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=engine+of+prog... https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=engine+of+innovation&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cengine%20of%20innovation%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=engine+of+inno...
elliekelly 7y ago
> Because they have so many socialized programs, the implication seems to be that this is not a capitalist country, but this is simply not true. Capitalism, again, is the engine. I'm curious how you've concluded that capitalism, alone, is "the engine"? Norway has a market economy but that doesn't exist in a vacuum. Surely their strong social safety nets provide a great deal of value or else Norwegians wouldn't spend the time and money administering them.

JohnFen 7y ago

> very few people claim that capitalism alone is the solution to human progress. I see people claiming that all the time.

ralusek 7y ago
Name a single notable person.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  I didn't claim that I hear notable people say this frequently. I just claim that I have often heard people make this claim generally. I'm honestly confused about why my comment got downvoted. I was not making a comment about capitalism itself, either for or against.
anm89 7y ago
Capitalism is simply a combination of the existence of property rights, money, and the right to freely enter into contracts except when prohibited by law. How could this ever solve anything? It's not a solution, it's a framework. It's like saying that Ruby on Rails is the solution to your company. We'll by definition it can't be. It can be used to do whatever your company needs but the framework can't be the company as it doesn't do anything useful in a vacuum. However it's certainly a much better model than generating an HTTP stack in assembly to make your SAAS business. It solves a real problem that allows you to operate but it doesn't solve your higher level problem. Capitalism is exactly the same. The lack of it can cause major problems. The existence of it cannot solve many problems but it can provide the only efficient framework in which many problems can be solved.
- mikestew 7y ago
  Once in a while I don't downvote a well-deserving comment (and I am not saying parent(s) are one of those) because a child comment would get buried. I think parent comment is sketchy at best, but this comment is a nice perspective that makes it worth wading to. Just like one can use RoR to make shitty websites, and RoR is just the tool here, one can use capitalism to...oh, you know where this is going.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Rodney Stark says that the distinguishing mark of capitalism is that (at least part of) the profits are re-invested in better tools for productivity gains. In this view, "the existence of property rights, money, and the right to freely enter into contracts except when prohibited by law" are prerequisites, but they aren't capitalism. Capitalism is what you do once you have that foundation in place.
  - anm89 7y ago
    From wikipedia: "Rodney William Stark is an American sociologist of religion". Whoever this guy is, he doesn't matter enough to get to redefine capitalism. Being in the general field of economics would be a start.

dredmorbius 7y ago

There are numerous variant "capitalism (is|as) the engine of (growth|wealth|progress|innovation)" quips and assertions which are trivially found. Most seem to have emerged since the 1950s, at an increasing rate through the 60s, 70s, 80s, and onward. Largely (though not wholly) from right/libertarian propaganda mills and commentators, repeated liturgically as articles of faith. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=capitalism+engine+of+growth&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=capitalism+engine+of+growth&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=capitalism+engine+of+(growth%7Cwealth%7Cprogress%7Cinnovation)&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=capitalism+engine+of+(growth%7Cwea... https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=engine%20of%20growth&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cengine%20of%20growth%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=engine%20of%20... https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=engine+of+progress&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cengine%20of%20progress%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=engine+of+prog... https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=engine+of+innovation&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cengine%20of%20innovation%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=engine+of+inno...

elliekelly 7y ago

> Because they have so many socialized programs, the implication seems to be that this is not a capitalist country, but this is simply not true. Capitalism, again, is the engine. I'm curious how you've concluded that capitalism, alone, is "the engine"? Norway has a market economy but that doesn't exist in a vacuum. Surely their strong social safety nets provide a great deal of value or else Norwegians wouldn't spend the time and money administering them.