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> the profit motive can take us down a highly problematic and noticeable path when i was writing a sibling comment i had this same realization. the fault of ca

> the profit motive can take us down a highly problematic and noticeable path when i was writing a sibling comment i had this same realization. the fault of capitalism is that its an expression of populism, of the tyranny of the majority. i think the american founders had this correct, at least in principle: there needs to be a system of checks and balances with populism meeting elitism. i wonder how one would go about architecting such an economic system. free market capitalism only for small businesses, no larger than one state? stronger government intervention interstate?

theunixbeard 5y ago
China does this to some degree. Small businesses are free to transact without much intervention but very large companies get influenced/controlled by the small government elite in the Chinese Communist Party.
- slowmovintarget 5y ago
  In which corruption is among the most pronounced problems.
SllX 5y ago
That’s a misapplication of the principles they sought to apply and why they sought to apply them. To put “checks and balances” in context, the United States was not at the time a “state” in the post-Napoleon sense, it was a Union of States that better fit that model, and what they were trying to create was something in between the completely impotent Congress of the Articles of Confederation and a centralized Congress with carte Blanche authority. We got a Congress that could do more stuff, with theoretically carte Blanche authority, but unable to act with that because Congress cannot speak with one voice, and we gave it a whitelist of powers that it could exercise, later supplemented with a blacklist of powers it was forbidden from exercising. The United States also for the first time had its own Executive authority separate from the militias and armies it paid for and its own courts and revenue separate from the States. The impetus for this by the way was not successfully prosecuting a war of Independence, that made the Constitutional Convention more possible and peaceful than it otherwise might have been, but because Congress, as it existed at the time under the Articles of Confederation where each State had effectively one vote, could not effectively resolve State and marketplace disputes. If Rhode Island’s government was knocked out and taken over by a militia of debtors devoted to the cause of cancelling their own debts, especially their out of State debts, there was not a damn thing Congress could do on its own. No bankruptcy courts, no protections, no courts of any kind flying the American flag and a Massachusetts Court couldn’t effect action beyond the borders of Massachusetts; Massachusetts would have to go to war to effect any action in Rhode Island. Political systems are considered dangerous and hard to manage, in need of those checks and balances, because their powers as seats of authority are a target for ambitious people who seek to control or abuse their fellow men, and those powers range all the way up to cancelling debts, seizing private property and putting people to death. Economies don’t have offices of power because they are not organizations to be managed and controlled: only the results of human activity.
einpoklum 5y ago
> when i was writing a sibling comment i had this same realization. the fault of capitalism is that its an expression of populism, of the tyranny of the majority. Then, you had the opposite realization to mine, since I described a "tyranny" of the capital-owning minority, who, in particular, control the large film production studios. And if you believe they simply must give the people "what they want", then I'll quite some Bakunin at you: > ...That abstraction called the common interest, the public good, the public safety, ... where all real wills cancel each other in that other abstraction which bears the name of the will of the people. ... this so-called will of the people is never anything else than the sacrifice and the negation of all the real wills of the population; just as this so-called public good is nothing else than the sacrifice of their interests." obviously these harsh words are not directed at the outpouring of Kung-Fu Panda and Marvel superhero films, but if you tone it down a few notches it sort of applies.

theunixbeard 5y ago

China does this to some degree. Small businesses are free to transact without much intervention but very large companies get influenced/controlled by the small government elite in the Chinese Communist Party.

slowmovintarget 5y ago
In which corruption is among the most pronounced problems.

SllX 5y ago

That’s a misapplication of the principles they sought to apply and why they sought to apply them. To put “checks and balances” in context, the United States was not at the time a “state” in the post-Napoleon sense, it was a Union of States that better fit that model, and what they were trying to create was something in between the completely impotent Congress of the Articles of Confederation and a centralized Congress with carte Blanche authority. We got a Congress that could do more stuff, with theoretically carte Blanche authority, but unable to act with that because Congress cannot speak with one voice, and we gave it a whitelist of powers that it could exercise, later supplemented with a blacklist of powers it was forbidden from exercising. The United States also for the first time had its own Executive authority separate from the militias and armies it paid for and its own courts and revenue separate from the States. The impetus for this by the way was not successfully prosecuting a war of Independence, that made the Constitutional Convention more possible and peaceful than it otherwise might have been, but because Congress, as it existed at the time under the Articles of Confederation where each State had effectively one vote, could not effectively resolve State and marketplace disputes. If Rhode Island’s government was knocked out and taken over by a militia of debtors devoted to the cause of cancelling their own debts, especially their out of State debts, there was not a damn thing Congress could do on its own. No bankruptcy courts, no protections, no courts of any kind flying the American flag and a Massachusetts Court couldn’t effect action beyond the borders of Massachusetts; Massachusetts would have to go to war to effect any action in Rhode Island. Political systems are considered dangerous and hard to manage, in need of those checks and balances, because their powers as seats of authority are a target for ambitious people who seek to control or abuse their fellow men, and those powers range all the way up to cancelling debts, seizing private property and putting people to death. Economies don’t have offices of power because they are not organizations to be managed and controlled: only the results of human activity.

einpoklum 5y ago

> when i was writing a sibling comment i had this same realization. the fault of capitalism is that its an expression of populism, of the tyranny of the majority. Then, you had the opposite realization to mine, since I described a "tyranny" of the capital-owning minority, who, in particular, control the large film production studios. And if you believe they simply must give the people "what they want", then I'll quite some Bakunin at you: > ...That abstraction called the common interest, the public good, the public safety, ... where all real wills cancel each other in that other abstraction which bears the name of the will of the people. ... this so-called will of the people is never anything else than the sacrifice and the negation of all the real wills of the population; just as this so-called public good is nothing else than the sacrifice of their interests." obviously these harsh words are not directed at the outpouring of Kung-Fu Panda and Marvel superhero films, but if you tone it down a few notches it sort of applies.