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There are two kinds of capitalism: value creation capitalism (also known as industrial capitalism) and value extraction capitalism. The latter includes quite a

by api 6y ago

There are two kinds of capitalism: value creation capitalism (also known as industrial capitalism) and value extraction capitalism. The latter includes quite a lot of financial capitalism, profit-driven warfare, and casinos and other addiction-driven products. The former creates value while the latter extracts and concentrates it while overall creating net negative value. Addicting people to Skinner boxes is destroying hours of what otherwise might be productive, rejuvenating, or enriching time. It's macroeconomically indistinguishable from killing people. One of the central problems of modern Western capitalism is that we fail to distinguish between the two. A businessperson is successful an a genius if they make money; nobody bothers to distinguish between those that make money by creating value and those that make money by merely extracting it and leaving a path of destruction in their wake. Maybe we can figure out a way to re-channel the impulses of "cancel culture" in this direction, cancelling those that promote addictive net value destroying products and services. Since the algorithmic timeline and other personalized recommendation engines are by far the largest pushers of fascist and neo-racist ideology, the original goals of "cancel culture" might still be indirectly achieved.

MayeulC 6y ago
Well, I think capitalism can be summed up as "optimize for one metric: capital". In a capitalist world, if you want to change what companies are doing, make it more expensive to do so (alternatively, less lucrative). So I guess tax and fine companies, like GDPR does. I wish there was a simple way to add more metrics like pollution, social impact, health impact, etc. But those are rather hard to measure, usually not immediately available, and can be hidden in some way or another. It might be doable, though, as we were more or less able to do so with capital (track monetary exchanges, etc); which is a completely artificial metric. Disclaimer: I know nothing about actual economy theories.
tomjen3 6y ago
Cancel culture is not something that is very effective against rich people, because you can’t fire somebody who don’t have a job.

by api 6y ago

MayeulC 6y ago

Well, I think capitalism can be summed up as "optimize for one metric: capital". In a capitalist world, if you want to change what companies are doing, make it more expensive to do so (alternatively, less lucrative). So I guess tax and fine companies, like GDPR does. I wish there was a simple way to add more metrics like pollution, social impact, health impact, etc. But those are rather hard to measure, usually not immediately available, and can be hidden in some way or another. It might be doable, though, as we were more or less able to do so with capital (track monetary exchanges, etc); which is a completely artificial metric. Disclaimer: I know nothing about actual economy theories.

tomjen3 6y ago

Cancel culture is not something that is very effective against rich people, because you can’t fire somebody who don’t have a job.