3 ms·

Also, there were plenty of contradictions with capitalist principles of profit-oriented production. There were lots of examples when factories or whole industri

Also, there were plenty of contradictions with capitalist principles of profit-oriented production. There were lots of examples when factories or whole industries worked not only suffering constant financial losses, but without common sense at all, like empty trucks roundtrips to meet the plan of "distance per month", assigned from above.

lovecg 6y ago
Or the whaling industry charged with bringing in an absolutely meaningless required quota of whale carcasses with tragic results. It’s almost like a runaway AI chasing an arbitrary goal.
- kubanczyk 6y ago
  It was runaway I in this case.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
The constant financial losses aren't a symptom of poor management because some services - like health care and public transport - are public costs that shouldn't be run to generate shareholder profits. The dogma that they should be run at a profit makes as much sense as expecting your plumbing, heating, and car to generate cash for your household budget. "Empty trucks" are very much a thing in capitalism. Ask any airline about flying empty planes to keep slots. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/airport-slots-ghost-flights/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/airport-slots-ghost-f... The real difference between "capitalism" and "communism" is that capitalist economies are consumption-driven and geared to producing status-signalling Veblen goods and services, while communist economies tend to be run on a defensive war orientation. It's easy to sell ad-driven acquisition and consumption as freedom, but real freedom is a rather difficult principle for a society to deal with. Both are totalitarian, strongly nationalist and propagandising, and unsustainable in their different ways, but - at least in the home territories - capitalism does a much better job of painting a smiley face on its bleak underside and keeping its failures out of the mainstream narratives.

lovecg 6y ago

Or the whaling industry charged with bringing in an absolutely meaningless required quota of whale carcasses with tragic results. It’s almost like a runaway AI chasing an arbitrary goal.

kubanczyk 6y ago
It was runaway I in this case.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

The constant financial losses aren't a symptom of poor management because some services - like health care and public transport - are public costs that shouldn't be run to generate shareholder profits. The dogma that they should be run at a profit makes as much sense as expecting your plumbing, heating, and car to generate cash for your household budget. "Empty trucks" are very much a thing in capitalism. Ask any airline about flying empty planes to keep slots. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/airport-slots-ghost-flights/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/airport-slots-ghost-f... The real difference between "capitalism" and "communism" is that capitalist economies are consumption-driven and geared to producing status-signalling Veblen goods and services, while communist economies tend to be run on a defensive war orientation. It's easy to sell ad-driven acquisition and consumption as freedom, but real freedom is a rather difficult principle for a society to deal with. Both are totalitarian, strongly nationalist and propagandising, and unsustainable in their different ways, but - at least in the home territories - capitalism does a much better job of painting a smiley face on its bleak underside and keeping its failures out of the mainstream narratives.