6 ms·

We can replace capitalism when we have a better system, that does as good a job as accounting for human nature, distributes the gains of the economic system in

We can replace capitalism when we have a better system, that does as good a job as accounting for human nature, distributes the gains of the economic system in more egalitarian a manner, and doesn't concentrate the reigns of financial power in as few hands. Note I didn't say we can't reform capitalism, but all the ills and failings that will not doubt be enumerated ad nauseam in this thread almost all apply as well to EVERY OTHER economic system human beings have tried. The real solution is a post-scarcity economy, but we can't have that until we, you know, don't have scarcity.

drewcoo 5y ago
> We can replace capitalism when we have a better system That's not how those changes happen. Regular people everywhere constantly experiment with lots of changes. Some stick. Then we retcon a pretty story over it to make it seem like there was some monotonically "better" trend. It's certainly not as if humanity kept feudalism until a well-formed notion of capitalism was ready to replace it.
- sillyquiet 5y ago
  No, I agree completely. That's not what all the petty revolutionaries are espousing though. Their rhetoric is pretty clear that they are demanding a complete replacement with something better, usually some flavor of collectivism. I am arguing that's not possible. Improvement will be incremental and evolutionary, by necessity, and will most closely resemble capitalism for a long time
busterarm 5y ago
The post-modernists are too busy "deconstructing"/destroying society's foundations to waste their time on something as silly as offering solutions.
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  people are downvoting you but you are dead on. they're far more interested in tearing down existing systems, without any real plan that has any chance of being laid out and accomplished. What you have is a scattering of anarchist, socialist, and communist groups - all small in their own right, all with their own little ideas, and even vast deviations of those ideas within their little groups. Everyone has some alternate way to organize hierarchies, wealth/resource distribution... and they really don't get too hung up on the details of all those differences and hte problems each of those plans have. What they do have is a consensus that the "system" is so rotten to the core, so irredeemable that the whole thing must be torn down. In fact, in some ways, they court agreement with moderates, centrists and even some right-leaning anarchists and libertarians in some ways (at least as it might apply to government or corporate capture of government). So there's consensus in destruction. There's zero consensus in what to build in the wake of that destruction. Theres' little enclaves of DIYers, doomsday preppers, anarcho-houses, urban farmers, etc.. So what you will have, if said destruction ever gets anywhere is a power vacuum they're unable to fill. And instead what will fill it is foreign powers, capital forces worse than what you already have, criminal/mob groups, and a whole lot worse actors than we already have. Downvote me too. But 25 year old, often testosterone pumped up male, radicals normally can't see 5ft in front of their face. All they see is what they're mad at, at the moment, what is immediately unjust and they're willing to throw the baby out with the bath water like a Republican is to the entire taxation system.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    ...capital forces worse than what you already have... This sounds interesting, if a bit frightening. Could you describe these? What new innovations do the even worse capitalists have planned for us?
    - loudtieblahblah 5y ago
      i was speaking fairly generally about an array of fairly complex things, but more simply and precisely - capitalism may drive much of our society and much of our government is captures by capital. But the democratic system isn't bent 100% to their will. Mostly, but not entirely. Sometimes capital is restrained by that system, sometimes the illusion that it's restrained must be maintained as they hide behind a wall of bureaucracy you're not tearing down capital without tearing down the state that enables it - the same state that keeps it at bay. you take off the safeties, and the influence of money to control becomes even more unfettered and uncontrolled. if you "tear the system down", it's not like the power money has will just go away. you'll end up in a more of an AnCap scenario than some left wing dream of anarcho-communism. Think..Somalia but with a lot more monied powers at play
jwmhjwmh 5y ago
One alternative to capitalism from where we are now is a market economy of worker cooperatives. The market can still allocate resources, but the profit/surplus is distributed more equally (between the workers.) By encouraging the creation of worker cooperatives, government reforms can move us in this direction.
- busterarm 5y ago
  Who cleans the toilets at your software cooperative? How do you equally compensate everyone when a task requires highly specialized knowledge that only one individual can deliver?
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    Cooperatives can cooperatively decide to allocate more resources to more important tasks. One might suspect they would be less effective at such decisions than a Fortune 500 company, but that would be proof one has never worked at a Fortune 500 company.
  - freeone3000 5y ago
    Mate, if you think you're above cleaning toilets just because you also write software, maybe capitalism is the system for you.
    - busterarm 5y ago
      Completely agreed but this is also one of the fields I've heard "that's not my job description" the most in. Everyone decries the evils of context switching, meetings, interruptions when my headphones are on, etc. People come to this field because they don't like doing people-centric tasks, but people-centric tasks are at the heart of any organization -- especially one operating as a collective.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    Your question is begging the question. How do you know the person cleaning the toilets doesn't have the potential to be a better manager/developer than you?
eevilspock 5y ago
> accounting for human nature A different take: Capitalism reinforces the most base part of human nature and sabotages our ability as a species to transcend that nature. Our biology evolved to make culture possible, and as culture evolves we have the possibility of transcending that base nature. Or we can choose a culture that doubles down on "selfishness as a virtue". The whole point of culture is to enable us to evolve beyond our original core / bootstrap programming.
myWindoonn 5y ago
I usually pick three specific markets -- food, housing, and healthcare -- and I want to double-check: You believe that we have scarcities of these things? We certainly have artificial scarcities, but those seem like they were created by humans in order to control humans.
- insickness 5y ago
  There is a scarcity of the best medical care. The doctor who has pioneered breakthrough treatments is more scarce than the doctor who graduated last in his class.
  - myWindoonn 5y ago
    Is a scarcity of top-level research doctors the reason why insulin is expensive in the USA but not other rich democracies? Similarly, is a scarcity of luxury mansions the reasons why the USA has hundreds of thousands of homeless but not other rich democracies?
    - myWindoonn 5y ago
      No. The reason why insulin is expensive is because the USA has a free market for pharmaceuticals and allows manufacturers to set high prices. The reason why there are hundreds of thousands of homeless is because the USA has a free market for housing and allows homeowners to set high prices.
- ben_w 5y ago
  The UK has the NHS, the HNS is funded by the UK government (as is, if I understand right, healthcare tuition in the UK), and it seems to be one of the best value-for-money medical systems around (somewhat subjective: others are better while being more expensive, others are cheaper but don’t do as much), but despite all that, even the NHS gets criticised for not covering all medicines and surgeries. So yes, there is a scarcity, even if it’s only in the opportunity cost of what else can be done with the same money, like roads and fire brigades.

drewcoo 5y ago

> We can replace capitalism when we have a better system That's not how those changes happen. Regular people everywhere constantly experiment with lots of changes. Some stick. Then we retcon a pretty story over it to make it seem like there was some monotonically "better" trend. It's certainly not as if humanity kept feudalism until a well-formed notion of capitalism was ready to replace it.

sillyquiet 5y ago
No, I agree completely. That's not what all the petty revolutionaries are espousing though. Their rhetoric is pretty clear that they are demanding a complete replacement with something better, usually some flavor of collectivism. I am arguing that's not possible. Improvement will be incremental and evolutionary, by necessity, and will most closely resemble capitalism for a long time

busterarm 5y ago

The post-modernists are too busy "deconstructing"/destroying society's foundations to waste their time on something as silly as offering solutions.

loudtieblahblah 5y ago
people are downvoting you but you are dead on. they're far more interested in tearing down existing systems, without any real plan that has any chance of being laid out and accomplished. What you have is a scattering of anarchist, socialist, and communist groups - all small in their own right, all with their own little ideas, and even vast deviations of those ideas within their little groups. Everyone has some alternate way to organize hierarchies, wealth/resource distribution... and they really don't get too hung up on the details of all those differences and hte problems each of those plans have. What they do have is a consensus that the "system" is so rotten to the core, so irredeemable that the whole thing must be torn down. In fact, in some ways, they court agreement with moderates, centrists and even some right-leaning anarchists and libertarians in some ways (at least as it might apply to government or corporate capture of government). So there's consensus in destruction. There's zero consensus in what to build in the wake of that destruction. Theres' little enclaves of DIYers, doomsday preppers, anarcho-houses, urban farmers, etc.. So what you will have, if said destruction ever gets anywhere is a power vacuum they're unable to fill. And instead what will fill it is foreign powers, capital forces worse than what you already have, criminal/mob groups, and a whole lot worse actors than we already have. Downvote me too. But 25 year old, often testosterone pumped up male, radicals normally can't see 5ft in front of their face. All they see is what they're mad at, at the moment, what is immediately unjust and they're willing to throw the baby out with the bath water like a Republican is to the entire taxation system.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  ...capital forces worse than what you already have... This sounds interesting, if a bit frightening. Could you describe these? What new innovations do the even worse capitalists have planned for us?
  - loudtieblahblah 5y ago
    i was speaking fairly generally about an array of fairly complex things, but more simply and precisely - capitalism may drive much of our society and much of our government is captures by capital. But the democratic system isn't bent 100% to their will. Mostly, but not entirely. Sometimes capital is restrained by that system, sometimes the illusion that it's restrained must be maintained as they hide behind a wall of bureaucracy you're not tearing down capital without tearing down the state that enables it - the same state that keeps it at bay. you take off the safeties, and the influence of money to control becomes even more unfettered and uncontrolled. if you "tear the system down", it's not like the power money has will just go away. you'll end up in a more of an AnCap scenario than some left wing dream of anarcho-communism. Think..Somalia but with a lot more monied powers at play

jwmhjwmh 5y ago

One alternative to capitalism from where we are now is a market economy of worker cooperatives. The market can still allocate resources, but the profit/surplus is distributed more equally (between the workers.) By encouraging the creation of worker cooperatives, government reforms can move us in this direction.

busterarm 5y ago
Who cleans the toilets at your software cooperative? How do you equally compensate everyone when a task requires highly specialized knowledge that only one individual can deliver?
- jessaustin 5y ago
  Cooperatives can cooperatively decide to allocate more resources to more important tasks. One might suspect they would be less effective at such decisions than a Fortune 500 company, but that would be proof one has never worked at a Fortune 500 company.
- freeone3000 5y ago
  Mate, if you think you're above cleaning toilets just because you also write software, maybe capitalism is the system for you.
  - busterarm 5y ago
    Completely agreed but this is also one of the fields I've heard "that's not my job description" the most in. Everyone decries the evils of context switching, meetings, interruptions when my headphones are on, etc. People come to this field because they don't like doing people-centric tasks, but people-centric tasks are at the heart of any organization -- especially one operating as a collective.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  Your question is begging the question. How do you know the person cleaning the toilets doesn't have the potential to be a better manager/developer than you?

eevilspock 5y ago

> accounting for human nature A different take: Capitalism reinforces the most base part of human nature and sabotages our ability as a species to transcend that nature. Our biology evolved to make culture possible, and as culture evolves we have the possibility of transcending that base nature. Or we can choose a culture that doubles down on "selfishness as a virtue". The whole point of culture is to enable us to evolve beyond our original core / bootstrap programming.

myWindoonn 5y ago

I usually pick three specific markets -- food, housing, and healthcare -- and I want to double-check: You believe that we have scarcities of these things? We certainly have artificial scarcities, but those seem like they were created by humans in order to control humans.

insickness 5y ago
There is a scarcity of the best medical care. The doctor who has pioneered breakthrough treatments is more scarce than the doctor who graduated last in his class.
- myWindoonn 5y ago
  Is a scarcity of top-level research doctors the reason why insulin is expensive in the USA but not other rich democracies? Similarly, is a scarcity of luxury mansions the reasons why the USA has hundreds of thousands of homeless but not other rich democracies?
  - myWindoonn 5y ago
    No. The reason why insulin is expensive is because the USA has a free market for pharmaceuticals and allows manufacturers to set high prices. The reason why there are hundreds of thousands of homeless is because the USA has a free market for housing and allows homeowners to set high prices.
ben_w 5y ago
The UK has the NHS, the HNS is funded by the UK government (as is, if I understand right, healthcare tuition in the UK), and it seems to be one of the best value-for-money medical systems around (somewhat subjective: others are better while being more expensive, others are cheaper but don’t do as much), but despite all that, even the NHS gets criticised for not covering all medicines and surgeries. So yes, there is a scarcity, even if it’s only in the opportunity cost of what else can be done with the same money, like roads and fire brigades.