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On your first issue about lack of cohesion and Identity, I think that is by default; first, its a nascent nation comprised of immigrants. It would make sense to

On your first issue about lack of cohesion and Identity, I think that is by default; first, its a nascent nation comprised of immigrants. It would make sense to describe themselves by their ethnicity, than it would be to a generic 'American' moniker that doesn't really pinpoint what it is they're ascribing to themselves. Furthermore, you have multi-generational citizens like myself who will identify more with our unique culture, than to the US as a whole. My entire time in Europe I regarded myself as Californian, and not American; I'd correct people who tried to foist that term onto me as it didn't reflect my value system. If they really wanted a History lesson on the matter I'd tell them California existed before the US did and how much Law and culture differs between CA and the rest of the US. There is a reason its many laws are aggregated as 49, pertaining to the rest, and not California. That has many caveats and drawbacks, but it exists and its worth noting. > Moreover, it's easy to be disappointed with Americanism. Generational memory exists. People built last century expecting a better future this century, but capitalism and irresponsibility failed to make it happen. This country built roads and bridges it cannot afford to maintain [3], a health care system that bankrupts people and sells them addictions, an economy that disproportionately favors the rich, and a government that has spurred some dystopian agencies [5], destabilized many other governments [6] and is constantly at war [7] while failing to address the needs of its population. For once I'd really like someone define what Capitalism has to do with the cronyism we've seen in the US since the gilded era. Capitalism as the mode of functional means of production has been lost since then, in its place you have robber-barons who monopolize a sector/Industry through the use of lobbyist and donations to politicians campaigns that keeps them in office way longer then was intended (Pelosi) and then offer them cushy jobs as consultants, effectively undoing the critical aspect of Capitalism: Competition. At no point or time can I look at Jeff Bezos or Amazon and say that's Capitalism's success story, instead what you have is State sanctioned protectionism that skewed the playing field for an Amazon to take over and benefit from the model that is often berated. Labor laws seem to be entirely negligible to an entity that knows it can have a system bend to its will. The same applies to banks who not only create continual booms-busts cycles to consolidate their power, and wealth over a system but they enter into a realm in which we HAVE to believe they are 'too big to fail.' And suffer the consequences as nepotism and plutocrats emerge as the real rulers of Society. That is exactly the antithesis of Capitalism. Just for claity's sake: as an Anarcho-Capitalist I think Capitalism is inherently flawed at its core, as it relies on perpetual growth that can only be maintained for periods of a time, and often at great consequence to the Environment when and entity like the State exists and is the supposed vanguard. As its entirely susceptible to corruption, but its the best we have to ensure commerce continues as the viable default rather than warfare to procure goods and services. But it's still often erroneously portrayed in a light that negates that much of the progress that got us to have critical things to modern Life and longer, healthier life expectancy are somehow the mistakes of Capitalism and not the desired outcome. And that some how we should entrust this responsibility to the very entity responsible for the corruption of a system (Governments) to benefit its own largess. Just look at all the insider trading done by politicians on both sides as COVID was starting to shutdown the economy. That's what a political class does, it insulates itself from crimes that others would have to pay with jail or their very Life. Look at SLS with ULA, look at the entire banking sector post 2008... I can go on. But I'd really like to see a response to this question: Define Capitalism, and how IT has led to the captured Markets and Industries you see, and are responsible for the entrenched wealth and inequality you describe.

CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
Capitalism puts capital in the hands of private owners for the sole purpose of rent extraction. I’d say decoupling capital from production in this way leads inevitably to all the things you mentioned for the simple fact that it optimizes for exactly that outcome rather than producing value. I guess the theory goes that capital invested in profitable endeavors should produce value as a side effect. But it seems the capitalists determined that speculation and protectionism produces far more rent than actual value creation. Edit: Not that this is an argument for central planning. Just that we still need to find a mode of production that optimizes for producing value rather than rent.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Capitalism puts capital in the hands of private owners for the sole purpose of rent extraction. That's one possible result of capitalism, but not the only possible one. > I guess the theory goes that capital invested in profitable endeavors should produce value as a side effect. No, you have it backwards. Capital invested in profitable endeavors to produce value is the primary effect. You need capital investment to increase productivity, and you need increased productivity to produce more value with the same inputs, which benefits everyone, but also benefits the owners of the capital. In other words, it's a positive sum process. The fact that ownership of such capital can also be used to extract rents, which is not positive sum, is the side effect. > it seems the capitalists determined that speculation and protectionism produces far more rent than actual value creation. Speculation is not the same as rent seeking; it's a legitimate (though risky) form of investment. Protectionism is not an inherent feature of capitalism; it's what you get when you allow the government to play favorites. > we still need to find a mode of production that optimizes for producing value rather than rent. We already have one: free markets, no government playing favorites. The problem is actually sticking to it.
  - CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
    To clarify, I meant capital invested _as private propery_ is primarily for rent extraction. Speculation, as in buying some capital just to exclude it from others to profit from the resulting opportunity cost. Is the kind of rent seeking I was thinking of. I agree with your notion capital as such and it’s role in production. I just think there could more interesting approaches invented to allocate it. For example to endeavors that don’t produce much rent, or even profit, such as commons based production (open source software being one example). Markets mainly optimizes for lowering costs, not producing value. They are important tools for managing resource allocation, but thinking of them as optimize for value puts you dangerously close to interpret market prices as a measure of value.

CuriousSkeptic 6y ago

Capitalism puts capital in the hands of private owners for the sole purpose of rent extraction. I’d say decoupling capital from production in this way leads inevitably to all the things you mentioned for the simple fact that it optimizes for exactly that outcome rather than producing value. I guess the theory goes that capital invested in profitable endeavors should produce value as a side effect. But it seems the capitalists determined that speculation and protectionism produces far more rent than actual value creation. Edit: Not that this is an argument for central planning. Just that we still need to find a mode of production that optimizes for producing value rather than rent.

pdonis 6y ago
> Capitalism puts capital in the hands of private owners for the sole purpose of rent extraction. That's one possible result of capitalism, but not the only possible one. > I guess the theory goes that capital invested in profitable endeavors should produce value as a side effect. No, you have it backwards. Capital invested in profitable endeavors to produce value is the primary effect. You need capital investment to increase productivity, and you need increased productivity to produce more value with the same inputs, which benefits everyone, but also benefits the owners of the capital. In other words, it's a positive sum process. The fact that ownership of such capital can also be used to extract rents, which is not positive sum, is the side effect. > it seems the capitalists determined that speculation and protectionism produces far more rent than actual value creation. Speculation is not the same as rent seeking; it's a legitimate (though risky) form of investment. Protectionism is not an inherent feature of capitalism; it's what you get when you allow the government to play favorites. > we still need to find a mode of production that optimizes for producing value rather than rent. We already have one: free markets, no government playing favorites. The problem is actually sticking to it.
- CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
  To clarify, I meant capital invested _as private propery_ is primarily for rent extraction. Speculation, as in buying some capital just to exclude it from others to profit from the resulting opportunity cost. Is the kind of rent seeking I was thinking of. I agree with your notion capital as such and it’s role in production. I just think there could more interesting approaches invented to allocate it. For example to endeavors that don’t produce much rent, or even profit, such as commons based production (open source software being one example). Markets mainly optimizes for lowering costs, not producing value. They are important tools for managing resource allocation, but thinking of them as optimize for value puts you dangerously close to interpret market prices as a measure of value.