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how do you think about politics and capitalism than? can the system still be simplified enough to grasp it well enough to change it? where would an individual

how do you think about politics and capitalism than? can the system still be simplified enough to grasp it well enough to change it? where would an individual who has grasped it find the power to change anything? capitalism seems super stable for now one of the most sad thoughts I heard: if you try to change the system to the better you might keep it from hitting the wall and actually stabilize it

hans1729 7y ago
No one claimed that every system can be changed; traffic will be traffic. The same applies for the rules of politics [0]. Not sure how you get the idea that "capitalism" is a bad thing, the majority of educated people (and not just Americans) would strongly disagree; there is a reason why all credible attempts at non-market-driven growth failed, see China and Russia. You may look at the struggle in the world and link it to the perceived epxloitation of the poor, but if you'd ask the people who e.g. work in the textile-industry in "3rd world countries" wether they'd prefer not to have any job (because that's the sole alternative within our system) or keep on working under current conditions, they would prefer to keep feeding their family. The riches we enjoy through what you call capitalism aren't merely the number in your bank account: wealth includes the services we provide for another: being able to get a haircut at any time, etc. -- see what "being rich" without a functioning economy did to Venezuela, which was flowing in oil-money, distributed it among its people, and, in consequence, failed to keep up with the rest of the world. The system isn't what it is because of money and greed, but because it's the best we came up with, the implications of political workings notwithstanding. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
- geggam 7y ago
  It's a cycle. We have to go through the socialism so people see how bad it gets. People forget people aren't inherently nice when it comes to survival.
- dnautics 7y ago
  Venezuela did not distribute it's oil wealth among it's people, or if it did so, it did so highly unequally, which, arguably is a natural consequence of state socialism, as predicted by Tucker and Bastiat.
muzani 7y ago
It's clear it doesn't work perfectly - depression rates in capitalist countries are very high, salaries are still a problem, even when GDP improves. The Communist revolution took off all over the world, but later everyone learned that communism isn't better. All change takes time and energy. I think we're still missing a great economic thinker who can try to solve it. We've put a lot of our energy into things like electronics, computer, medicine in the past century, because that's where all the big problems were. It's likely someone will revise capitalism soon enough, especially given all the computing power we have to make models, and even the data that can be pulled from things like MMOs.
- prometheus76 7y ago
  I think it's going to be impossible to improve on price being determined atomically by buyers and sellers agreeing on an individual basis what something is worth. That's the heart of what makes capitalism so effective. What this individual is willing to pay for that individual item is almost impossible to predict down to more than a pretty broad range of pricing. So many variables factor into what one person will pay for an item. And that determination changes even for that person depending on timing. I might be much more likely to make an impulse buy on payday than I am on the day before payday. The decisions around how much something is worth is too unpredictable to be centralized or predicted. "Let the market decide" is a misdirection from what makes free markets great: individuals deciding, for themselves, whether to make a purchase after a seller has suggested (or demanded) a price. No central planning algorithm can take the place of that, which is why attempts at centralizing an economy are always undermined by black markets.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  > All change takes time and energy. I think we're still missing a great economic thinker who can try to solve it. We’ve known that the economy is an intractable problem for a lot longer than I’ve been alive. Capitalism approximates an efficient solution. There’s a large economics and computer science literature on this if you’re interested, or for a fictional treatment you could read Red Plenty, Francis Spufford, which is an historical novel covering the theory in the historical background it was developed in[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_calculation_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_calculation_debate > The socialist calculation debate, sometimes known as the economic calculation debate, was a discourse on the subject of how a socialist economy would perform economic calculation given the absence of the law of value, money, financial prices for capital goods and private ownership of the means of production. More specifically, the debate was centered on the application of economic planning for the allocation of the means of production as a substitute for capital markets and whether or not such an arrangement would be superior to capitalism in terms of efficiency and productivity. [1] http://crookedtimber.org/category/red-plenty-seminar/ http://crookedtimber.org/category/red-plenty-seminar/ Multiple erudite articles riffing on a great book, from economic and other perspectives.
aksx 7y ago
Capitalism is the way a system set of connections between subsystems and politics is a way to reorganize a system from within itself. > can the system still be simplified enough to grasp it well enough to change it? That would be a model of a system not the system itself, and as George box said "All models are wrong, but some are useful" > where would an individual who has grasped it find the power to change anything? If an individual is able to change connections between subsystems, they can change the behavior of the higher level system. But the impact of the change is dependent on the systems being changed.
- anotheryou 7y ago
  > That would be a model of a system not the system itself also worth keeping in mind that a more cybernetic model is totally fine with complex black boxes within the model. This way sometimes you can find truth going from big to small.
sah2ed 7y ago
> how do you think about politics and capitalism than? > can the system still be simplified enough to grasp it well enough to change it? As for a systematic understanding of politics, The Dictator’s Handbook is a good introduction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dictator%27s_Handbook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dictator%27s_Handbook

hans1729 7y ago

No one claimed that every system can be changed; traffic will be traffic. The same applies for the rules of politics [0]. Not sure how you get the idea that "capitalism" is a bad thing, the majority of educated people (and not just Americans) would strongly disagree; there is a reason why all credible attempts at non-market-driven growth failed, see China and Russia. You may look at the struggle in the world and link it to the perceived epxloitation of the poor, but if you'd ask the people who e.g. work in the textile-industry in "3rd world countries" wether they'd prefer not to have any job (because that's the sole alternative within our system) or keep on working under current conditions, they would prefer to keep feeding their family. The riches we enjoy through what you call capitalism aren't merely the number in your bank account: wealth includes the services we provide for another: being able to get a haircut at any time, etc. -- see what "being rich" without a functioning economy did to Venezuela, which was flowing in oil-money, distributed it among its people, and, in consequence, failed to keep up with the rest of the world. The system isn't what it is because of money and greed, but because it's the best we came up with, the implications of political workings notwithstanding. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

geggam 7y ago
It's a cycle. We have to go through the socialism so people see how bad it gets. People forget people aren't inherently nice when it comes to survival.
dnautics 7y ago
Venezuela did not distribute it's oil wealth among it's people, or if it did so, it did so highly unequally, which, arguably is a natural consequence of state socialism, as predicted by Tucker and Bastiat.

muzani 7y ago

It's clear it doesn't work perfectly - depression rates in capitalist countries are very high, salaries are still a problem, even when GDP improves. The Communist revolution took off all over the world, but later everyone learned that communism isn't better. All change takes time and energy. I think we're still missing a great economic thinker who can try to solve it. We've put a lot of our energy into things like electronics, computer, medicine in the past century, because that's where all the big problems were. It's likely someone will revise capitalism soon enough, especially given all the computing power we have to make models, and even the data that can be pulled from things like MMOs.

prometheus76 7y ago
I think it's going to be impossible to improve on price being determined atomically by buyers and sellers agreeing on an individual basis what something is worth. That's the heart of what makes capitalism so effective. What this individual is willing to pay for that individual item is almost impossible to predict down to more than a pretty broad range of pricing. So many variables factor into what one person will pay for an item. And that determination changes even for that person depending on timing. I might be much more likely to make an impulse buy on payday than I am on the day before payday. The decisions around how much something is worth is too unpredictable to be centralized or predicted. "Let the market decide" is a misdirection from what makes free markets great: individuals deciding, for themselves, whether to make a purchase after a seller has suggested (or demanded) a price. No central planning algorithm can take the place of that, which is why attempts at centralizing an economy are always undermined by black markets.
barry-cotter 7y ago
> All change takes time and energy. I think we're still missing a great economic thinker who can try to solve it. We’ve known that the economy is an intractable problem for a lot longer than I’ve been alive. Capitalism approximates an efficient solution. There’s a large economics and computer science literature on this if you’re interested, or for a fictional treatment you could read Red Plenty, Francis Spufford, which is an historical novel covering the theory in the historical background it was developed in[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_calculation_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_calculation_debate > The socialist calculation debate, sometimes known as the economic calculation debate, was a discourse on the subject of how a socialist economy would perform economic calculation given the absence of the law of value, money, financial prices for capital goods and private ownership of the means of production. More specifically, the debate was centered on the application of economic planning for the allocation of the means of production as a substitute for capital markets and whether or not such an arrangement would be superior to capitalism in terms of efficiency and productivity. [1] http://crookedtimber.org/category/red-plenty-seminar/ http://crookedtimber.org/category/red-plenty-seminar/ Multiple erudite articles riffing on a great book, from economic and other perspectives.

aksx 7y ago

Capitalism is the way a system set of connections between subsystems and politics is a way to reorganize a system from within itself. > can the system still be simplified enough to grasp it well enough to change it? That would be a model of a system not the system itself, and as George box said "All models are wrong, but some are useful" > where would an individual who has grasped it find the power to change anything? If an individual is able to change connections between subsystems, they can change the behavior of the higher level system. But the impact of the change is dependent on the systems being changed.

anotheryou 7y ago
> That would be a model of a system not the system itself also worth keeping in mind that a more cybernetic model is totally fine with complex black boxes within the model. This way sometimes you can find truth going from big to small.

sah2ed 7y ago

> how do you think about politics and capitalism than? > can the system still be simplified enough to grasp it well enough to change it? As for a systematic understanding of politics, The Dictator’s Handbook is a good introduction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dictator%27s_Handbook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dictator%27s_Handbook