4 ms·

How is capitalism working out for the world?

by tenuousemphasis 5y ago

mnsc 5y ago
Please don't respond to snark with more snark.
ggambetta 5y ago
Infinitely better than communism ever did?
Hayvok 5y ago
It’s been awesome in general. Fueled the greatest expansion of economic output, standard of living, health, population increase, personal freedoms, etc. since we first rolled a wheel. But I tire of having to praise capitalism. Capitalism does not need my defending. Let’s see proof of another working system that hasn’t resulted in famines, gulags, brutal repression, and people trying to escape to - wait for it - a capitalist society.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Well, the Venus Project should scrap their ideas and just adopt Freiwirtschaft.
zopa 5y ago
I'm open to considering alternatives. But if the proposal is some form of central planning, I think the burden is on the proponents to actually have a plan. Pointing out problems isn't the same as having a solution.
geomark 5y ago
If the history books haven't been completely falsified, it would seem that it has raised hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty.
- laumars 5y ago
  It has also put hundreds of millions of people into poverty. Any system that rewards winners is going to see people lose. Now I’m not suggesting we should do away with capitalism either. Just that we shouldn’t fetish over it as the perfect solution.
  - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
    I'd be more comfortable discussing capitalism's flaws if that didn't imply I agreed with people I wouldn't want running a community garden, let alone a national economy. In fact, there's probably a linguistic divergence that predicts whose proposed solutions I'll find reasonable. What does capitalism mean to the person making the critique? To me it refers to any system involving private property and voluntary exchange thereof. I suspect people critiquing 'capitalism' are critiquing what I'd call 'growth-dependant corporatocracy' which I'm happy to critique all day long. Using 'capitalism' to refer to that indicates the kinds of solutions someone would bring forth if I decided to listen to them - and given the track record of those solutions, I feel justified in not listening.
    - jancsika 5y ago
      > and given the track record of those solutions, I feel justified in not listening. But that's one of the biggest problems with the ideology you're critiquing! I mean, what are the odds that a Frankfurt School-educated critical theorist in the 70s would be confronted with a product of capitalism that undermines one of the fundamental assumptions of both capitalism and classical Marxism? The likelihood is so low I'm sure they believed they could call it 0% and get on with their work. And in nearly all cases they probably could. Then the personal computer revolution brought the idea of zero marginal cost into the realm of practicality for most of the Western world. And the one field which claims to study hidden corner cases of the struggle for freedom and self-determination is stuck writing about the impact of zero marginal cost data only in retrospect. It's an embarrassing oversight, especially for a field that seems like it was designed specifically to illuminate (and predict!) esoteric social and technological developments that other fields would miss. E.g., the cheap, ubiquitous zero-marginal-cost factories that are our smartphones and laptops. Anyway, if your aim is to become the kind of ideologue you're attempting to avoid, by all means use your proposed filter to interpret the few interesting writings you come across as noise.
birriel 5y ago
I would encourage everyone to check out Thomas Sowell's 'Basic Economics', in which he lays out why centrally-planned economies are terrible at allocating scarce resources which have alternative uses.
AzzieElbab 5y ago
pretty good. so good, there is even a market for communist mythology and postmodernism miasma
NikolaeVarius 5y ago
Fairly well, there are issues, but otherwise, it seems to be fine.
scns 5y ago
Have to paraphrase Churchill: "Badly, but better than all alternatives we tried so far."
licebmi__at__ 5y ago
This is probably a bad place to ask this question. Posters here are likely to be biased to the minority for which capitalism is doing great.
stronglikedan 5y ago
It's the best system that ever was, and still the best, but ruined by crony capitalism in a lot of places.

How is capitalism working out for the world?

mnsc 5y ago

Please don't respond to snark with more snark.

ggambetta 5y ago

Infinitely better than communism ever did?

Hayvok 5y ago

It’s been awesome in general. Fueled the greatest expansion of economic output, standard of living, health, population increase, personal freedoms, etc. since we first rolled a wheel. But I tire of having to praise capitalism. Capitalism does not need my defending. Let’s see proof of another working system that hasn’t resulted in famines, gulags, brutal repression, and people trying to escape to - wait for it - a capitalist society.

imtringued 5y ago
Well, the Venus Project should scrap their ideas and just adopt Freiwirtschaft.

zopa 5y ago

I'm open to considering alternatives. But if the proposal is some form of central planning, I think the burden is on the proponents to actually have a plan. Pointing out problems isn't the same as having a solution.

geomark 5y ago

If the history books haven't been completely falsified, it would seem that it has raised hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty.

laumars 5y ago
It has also put hundreds of millions of people into poverty. Any system that rewards winners is going to see people lose. Now I’m not suggesting we should do away with capitalism either. Just that we shouldn’t fetish over it as the perfect solution.
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  I'd be more comfortable discussing capitalism's flaws if that didn't imply I agreed with people I wouldn't want running a community garden, let alone a national economy. In fact, there's probably a linguistic divergence that predicts whose proposed solutions I'll find reasonable. What does capitalism mean to the person making the critique? To me it refers to any system involving private property and voluntary exchange thereof. I suspect people critiquing 'capitalism' are critiquing what I'd call 'growth-dependant corporatocracy' which I'm happy to critique all day long. Using 'capitalism' to refer to that indicates the kinds of solutions someone would bring forth if I decided to listen to them - and given the track record of those solutions, I feel justified in not listening.
  - jancsika 5y ago
    > and given the track record of those solutions, I feel justified in not listening. But that's one of the biggest problems with the ideology you're critiquing! I mean, what are the odds that a Frankfurt School-educated critical theorist in the 70s would be confronted with a product of capitalism that undermines one of the fundamental assumptions of both capitalism and classical Marxism? The likelihood is so low I'm sure they believed they could call it 0% and get on with their work. And in nearly all cases they probably could. Then the personal computer revolution brought the idea of zero marginal cost into the realm of practicality for most of the Western world. And the one field which claims to study hidden corner cases of the struggle for freedom and self-determination is stuck writing about the impact of zero marginal cost data only in retrospect. It's an embarrassing oversight, especially for a field that seems like it was designed specifically to illuminate (and predict!) esoteric social and technological developments that other fields would miss. E.g., the cheap, ubiquitous zero-marginal-cost factories that are our smartphones and laptops. Anyway, if your aim is to become the kind of ideologue you're attempting to avoid, by all means use your proposed filter to interpret the few interesting writings you come across as noise.

birriel 5y ago

I would encourage everyone to check out Thomas Sowell's 'Basic Economics', in which he lays out why centrally-planned economies are terrible at allocating scarce resources which have alternative uses.

AzzieElbab 5y ago

pretty good. so good, there is even a market for communist mythology and postmodernism miasma

NikolaeVarius 5y ago

Fairly well, there are issues, but otherwise, it seems to be fine.

scns 5y ago

Have to paraphrase Churchill: "Badly, but better than all alternatives we tried so far."

licebmi__at__ 5y ago

This is probably a bad place to ask this question. Posters here are likely to be biased to the minority for which capitalism is doing great.

stronglikedan 5y ago

It's the best system that ever was, and still the best, but ruined by crony capitalism in a lot of places.