5 ms·

That’s like saying there’s nothing inherently about dictatorships that makes them oppressive. While yes you can invent a hypothetical situation where the capita

by aabhay 6y ago

That’s like saying there’s nothing inherently about dictatorships that makes them oppressive. While yes you can invent a hypothetical situation where the capitalists give all their money to workers, the overwhelming empirical history is that capitalists don’t share their profit with laborers.

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
It's just that living conditions and average wealth has skyrocketed over the past couple hundred years. Deirdre McCloskey refers to it as the Great Enrichment: > The rise in the liberal nations has been a stunning 3,000 percent at the least—or if one allows properly for improvements in quality, such as better medicine and better housing (and for that matter, better economics), more like 10,000 percent. A factor of 100. Goodness. https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/commentary/great-enrichment https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/commentary/great-enrichment
- jessaustin 6y ago
  I also enjoy cherry-picking. Here's a different time period to consider: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
  - creddit 6y ago
    A couple hundred years isn’t exactly cherry-picking wrt capitalism...
- FranzFerdiNaN 6y ago
  That happened not because of capitalism but in spite of it. It happened because of technological development and rampant and ruthless exploitation of mostly foreign lands and people, and by stealing from future generations. It’s a terrible system that is constantly failing most people.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Sure, not because of capitalism but it spite of it. It's just that, in places that didn't have capitalist economies, it didn't happen. Not to the same degree (with the possible exception of China, and even they are looking capitalist in practice).
specialist 6y ago
"invent a hypothetical situation where the capitalists give all their money to workers" Well, ya, co-ops are technically corporations. But they're generally not corporatists. (For the purposes of a comment thread.) Just like Karl Marx wasn't a Marxist, a la No True Scotsman fallacy, we all agree that there's a lot of daylight between Sam Walton's profit sharing model and the epitome of corporatism that Walmart became. Hypothetically. Of course.
specialist 6y ago
"...a hypothetical situation where the capitalists give all their money to workers" Okay. I was being too coy. Let me try again. Co-ops are capitalists and distribute all the surplus to the workers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative So not hypothetical. Importance of co-ops in market economies will continue to grow. Very exciting.

by aabhay 6y ago

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago

It's just that living conditions and average wealth has skyrocketed over the past couple hundred years. Deirdre McCloskey refers to it as the Great Enrichment: > The rise in the liberal nations has been a stunning 3,000 percent at the least—or if one allows properly for improvements in quality, such as better medicine and better housing (and for that matter, better economics), more like 10,000 percent. A factor of 100. Goodness. https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/commentary/great-enrichment https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/commentary/great-enrichment

jessaustin 6y ago
I also enjoy cherry-picking. Here's a different time period to consider: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
- creddit 6y ago
  A couple hundred years isn’t exactly cherry-picking wrt capitalism...
FranzFerdiNaN 6y ago
That happened not because of capitalism but in spite of it. It happened because of technological development and rampant and ruthless exploitation of mostly foreign lands and people, and by stealing from future generations. It’s a terrible system that is constantly failing most people.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Sure, not because of capitalism but it spite of it. It's just that, in places that didn't have capitalist economies, it didn't happen. Not to the same degree (with the possible exception of China, and even they are looking capitalist in practice).

specialist 6y ago

"invent a hypothetical situation where the capitalists give all their money to workers" Well, ya, co-ops are technically corporations. But they're generally not corporatists. (For the purposes of a comment thread.) Just like Karl Marx wasn't a Marxist, a la No True Scotsman fallacy, we all agree that there's a lot of daylight between Sam Walton's profit sharing model and the epitome of corporatism that Walmart became. Hypothetically. Of course.

specialist 6y ago

"...a hypothetical situation where the capitalists give all their money to workers" Okay. I was being too coy. Let me try again. Co-ops are capitalists and distribute all the surplus to the workers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative So not hypothetical. Importance of co-ops in market economies will continue to grow. Very exciting.