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Capitalism can be a very efficient system, but it also has flaws. We have seen a trend towards larger, more sophisticated and more expensive cars. It simply wou

Capitalism can be a very efficient system, but it also has flaws. We have seen a trend towards larger, more sophisticated and more expensive cars. It simply wouldn't be as profitable for manufacturers to make small, reliable and efficient cars. There's less profit in that.

avalys 5y ago
What exactly is the "flaw" in capitalism here you are insinuating here? There are plenty of small, cheap, reliable, and efficient cars available, if that's what you want to buy. The Toyota Prius. The Honda Fit. The Tesla Model 3? Is it a "flaw" in capitalism that some people don't want to buy those? That someone can choose to buy a Chevrolet Suburban instead of any of these options? The market for automobiles is as competitive as it gets. If a manufacturer is making profits, it's because they're selling what people want to buy. From my perspective, the only "flaw" here would seem to be that capitalism makes it difficult for you to impose your own preferences on others.
- chapium 5y ago
  The "flaw" of capitalism is that individuals rarely pay the full cost of their decisions, leading to inefficiency.
- toxik 5y ago
  Did you not read TFA? The outcome is not positive for any party. Bigger cars consume more gas, kill more people, etc, and people buy them because they can. That’s a failure of market forces to do the right thing.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    > The outcome is not positive for any party. The outcome for the buyers of those vehicles is estimated by those buyers to be positive. I don't know if it is or isn't, but it seems at least a little presumptuous to conclude that a third party (you or I) knows more about the buyer's preferences/value function than the buyer themself. If the outcome were known to be negative for everyone, it would be a lot less common.
    - anigbrowl 5y ago
      Not sure the howls of pain at gas stations support your hypothesis.
      - fredophile 5y ago
        Do you think those buyers didn't know they'd get bad gas mileage or us it more likely that they care about other factors more? I hate the cup holder in my car. It pisses me off on a regular basis. I still think buying my car resulted in a net gain for me.
        anigbrowl 5y ago
        I think they fooled themselves into believing that low gas prices were a norm and that filling up a huge tank shouldn't be that expensive. I don't remember the details exactly because it didn't affect me, but I'm thinking back to a similar thing ~15 years ago where Hummers got super popular due to a combination of aesthetics and favorable tax treatment, but then the price of gas shot up following some reversal in the Middle East and lots of people decided the total cost of ownership wasn't that great after all.
        spanktheuser 5y ago
        I'd argue that the buyers are getting a free ride by offloading the negative externalities of the purchase to others. So we have to consider the cost of climate change remediation, the cost of accidents etc. A study by the Technical University of Dresden(1) estimated a rough cost to society of €16,000 per new car sold. 40%-60% of that cost was due accidents, the single highest cost category. The costs will change from society to society, but given the mix of vehicles in the United States and the structure of our health care system I feel confident that A) the accident cost are higher here and B) those costs will be distributed in less equitable fashion. 1 https://stopclimatechange.net/fileadmin/content/documents/move-green/The_true_costs_of_cars_EN.pdf https://stopclimatechange.net/fileadmin/content/documents/mo...
- RyanHamilton 5y ago
  If you were hit by one of these vehicles and received a life changing injury, even if they paid you the "market rate" for your loss of ability, would you see that as a good outcome? capitilism working? The price of cyclist deaths, pollution, vehicular/pedestrian inury is not being priced in adequately. Over 90% of these car drivers have no real need for vehicles this large but when te cost to them is small who cares.
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  But I don't want to buy a vehicle. I want to not be hit by one whose driver doesn't pay attention to their environment because they feel invulnerable. You might respond that I could insulate myself within a similar behemoth, but I like walking and would prefer not to be burdened with the negative externalities of automakers' profit maximization strategies. Put another way, why should I be imposed upon by others' preferences, in every respect from potential collisions to parking space to street blockages?
- abootstrapper 5y ago
  With most issues American’s be like, “it is my right to shit in the stream and you can’t stop me with your preference for clean water. Go further up stream if you want clean water.” And pretty soon the whole river is full of shit, or covid, or lead, or CO2, or enormous death vehicles, or whatever, it’s a metaphor. So yeah, I’d like to force my “preference” of having people cease shitting in the stream. Their actions are not taking place in a vacuum and they’re affecting other people negatively.
anm89 5y ago
What does this have to do with capitalism at all? The idea that im allowed to own and exchange money means big cars bad? Given that there are what maybe 1 or 2 command economies on the planet, are they somehow automotive paradises? Im going to say probably not given that cars are a privelege for a small elite class in those places.
- sli 5y ago
  Exchanging money is commerce, not capitalism. Capitalism is private (not personal, but private) ownership, usually of the means of production but not always limited to just that. Anyway, there are numerous well-functioning cities on the planet that are bicycle-centric rather than car-centric.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Capitalism is private (not personal, but private) ownership Note that the sense of “private property” used in the definition of capitalism by its critics is not typically used or understood within capitalism except by people who follow the theory of those critics, and that “private property” to people more immersed in the theories supportive of capitalism tends to just mean non-public property.
- spanktheuser 5y ago
  To clarify a common point of confusion: what you seem to be describing (personal property, market economy) is not unique to capitalism. Market socialism is not command economy and involves the use of markets and money to efficiently allocate resources. However, there's a substantial difference in corporate / business ownership; profits are generally redistributed to the workers and thus reward labor over capital accumulation.
  - anm89 5y ago
    Market socialism is capitalism with a welfare state. The US has capitalism with a welfare state. Canada has capitalism with a welfare state. Norway has capitalism with a welfare state. Russia has capitalism with a welfare state. Basically every country on the planet has capitalism with some amount of redistribution. The socialism / capitalism "debate" is just bickering over the details of how much welfare. But lets be clear, every single one of these countries is capitalist. Every single one of these countries has businesses which can own property and money and make profits. Every single one of these countries has banks which charge interest (yes including muslim countries which have to play financial and verbal gymnastics to hide this fact) Scandanavian countries and Canada are socialist as much as China and Vietnam are communist (they all arent). None of those places involve businesses which are required to distribute any sizable amounts of profits to workers. You are arguing nuances of how competing utopias (dystopias) maybe could exist because no where actually does those things. Here go look at the wikipedia entry for socialist countries to see a dumpster fire of failed economies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states#Marxist%E2%80%93Leninist_states https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states#Mar... These places are THE MOST CAPITALIST because when everyine has nothing, money can get you anything. I bet you could easily buy human organs or child prostitutes in any one of the places on the list so Im going to say they havent created post capitalist utopias.
Dig1t 5y ago
Reliable and efficient are obviously things that capitalism have made better through competition, see the popularity of Japanese cars in the US. Modern cars are objectively more reliable, safer (for the passengers), and more efficient (see the popularity of the Prius) than any time in history, though obviously emissions regulation is helping here as well. Their exterior size and dimensions are another question that obviously seem to need some regulation.

avalys 5y ago

What exactly is the "flaw" in capitalism here you are insinuating here? There are plenty of small, cheap, reliable, and efficient cars available, if that's what you want to buy. The Toyota Prius. The Honda Fit. The Tesla Model 3? Is it a "flaw" in capitalism that some people don't want to buy those? That someone can choose to buy a Chevrolet Suburban instead of any of these options? The market for automobiles is as competitive as it gets. If a manufacturer is making profits, it's because they're selling what people want to buy. From my perspective, the only "flaw" here would seem to be that capitalism makes it difficult for you to impose your own preferences on others.

chapium 5y ago
The "flaw" of capitalism is that individuals rarely pay the full cost of their decisions, leading to inefficiency.
toxik 5y ago
Did you not read TFA? The outcome is not positive for any party. Bigger cars consume more gas, kill more people, etc, and people buy them because they can. That’s a failure of market forces to do the right thing.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  > The outcome is not positive for any party. The outcome for the buyers of those vehicles is estimated by those buyers to be positive. I don't know if it is or isn't, but it seems at least a little presumptuous to conclude that a third party (you or I) knows more about the buyer's preferences/value function than the buyer themself. If the outcome were known to be negative for everyone, it would be a lot less common.
  - anigbrowl 5y ago
    Not sure the howls of pain at gas stations support your hypothesis.
    - fredophile 5y ago
      Do you think those buyers didn't know they'd get bad gas mileage or us it more likely that they care about other factors more? I hate the cup holder in my car. It pisses me off on a regular basis. I still think buying my car resulted in a net gain for me.
      - anigbrowl 5y ago
        I think they fooled themselves into believing that low gas prices were a norm and that filling up a huge tank shouldn't be that expensive. I don't remember the details exactly because it didn't affect me, but I'm thinking back to a similar thing ~15 years ago where Hummers got super popular due to a combination of aesthetics and favorable tax treatment, but then the price of gas shot up following some reversal in the Middle East and lots of people decided the total cost of ownership wasn't that great after all.
      - spanktheuser 5y ago
        I'd argue that the buyers are getting a free ride by offloading the negative externalities of the purchase to others. So we have to consider the cost of climate change remediation, the cost of accidents etc. A study by the Technical University of Dresden(1) estimated a rough cost to society of €16,000 per new car sold. 40%-60% of that cost was due accidents, the single highest cost category. The costs will change from society to society, but given the mix of vehicles in the United States and the structure of our health care system I feel confident that A) the accident cost are higher here and B) those costs will be distributed in less equitable fashion. 1 https://stopclimatechange.net/fileadmin/content/documents/move-green/The_true_costs_of_cars_EN.pdf https://stopclimatechange.net/fileadmin/content/documents/mo...
RyanHamilton 5y ago
If you were hit by one of these vehicles and received a life changing injury, even if they paid you the "market rate" for your loss of ability, would you see that as a good outcome? capitilism working? The price of cyclist deaths, pollution, vehicular/pedestrian inury is not being priced in adequately. Over 90% of these car drivers have no real need for vehicles this large but when te cost to them is small who cares.
anigbrowl 5y ago
But I don't want to buy a vehicle. I want to not be hit by one whose driver doesn't pay attention to their environment because they feel invulnerable. You might respond that I could insulate myself within a similar behemoth, but I like walking and would prefer not to be burdened with the negative externalities of automakers' profit maximization strategies. Put another way, why should I be imposed upon by others' preferences, in every respect from potential collisions to parking space to street blockages?
abootstrapper 5y ago
With most issues American’s be like, “it is my right to shit in the stream and you can’t stop me with your preference for clean water. Go further up stream if you want clean water.” And pretty soon the whole river is full of shit, or covid, or lead, or CO2, or enormous death vehicles, or whatever, it’s a metaphor. So yeah, I’d like to force my “preference” of having people cease shitting in the stream. Their actions are not taking place in a vacuum and they’re affecting other people negatively.

anm89 5y ago

What does this have to do with capitalism at all? The idea that im allowed to own and exchange money means big cars bad? Given that there are what maybe 1 or 2 command economies on the planet, are they somehow automotive paradises? Im going to say probably not given that cars are a privelege for a small elite class in those places.

sli 5y ago
Exchanging money is commerce, not capitalism. Capitalism is private (not personal, but private) ownership, usually of the means of production but not always limited to just that. Anyway, there are numerous well-functioning cities on the planet that are bicycle-centric rather than car-centric.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Capitalism is private (not personal, but private) ownership Note that the sense of “private property” used in the definition of capitalism by its critics is not typically used or understood within capitalism except by people who follow the theory of those critics, and that “private property” to people more immersed in the theories supportive of capitalism tends to just mean non-public property.
spanktheuser 5y ago
To clarify a common point of confusion: what you seem to be describing (personal property, market economy) is not unique to capitalism. Market socialism is not command economy and involves the use of markets and money to efficiently allocate resources. However, there's a substantial difference in corporate / business ownership; profits are generally redistributed to the workers and thus reward labor over capital accumulation.
- anm89 5y ago
  Market socialism is capitalism with a welfare state. The US has capitalism with a welfare state. Canada has capitalism with a welfare state. Norway has capitalism with a welfare state. Russia has capitalism with a welfare state. Basically every country on the planet has capitalism with some amount of redistribution. The socialism / capitalism "debate" is just bickering over the details of how much welfare. But lets be clear, every single one of these countries is capitalist. Every single one of these countries has businesses which can own property and money and make profits. Every single one of these countries has banks which charge interest (yes including muslim countries which have to play financial and verbal gymnastics to hide this fact) Scandanavian countries and Canada are socialist as much as China and Vietnam are communist (they all arent). None of those places involve businesses which are required to distribute any sizable amounts of profits to workers. You are arguing nuances of how competing utopias (dystopias) maybe could exist because no where actually does those things. Here go look at the wikipedia entry for socialist countries to see a dumpster fire of failed economies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states#Marxist%E2%80%93Leninist_states https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states#Mar... These places are THE MOST CAPITALIST because when everyine has nothing, money can get you anything. I bet you could easily buy human organs or child prostitutes in any one of the places on the list so Im going to say they havent created post capitalist utopias.

Dig1t 5y ago

Reliable and efficient are obviously things that capitalism have made better through competition, see the popularity of Japanese cars in the US. Modern cars are objectively more reliable, safer (for the passengers), and more efficient (see the popularity of the Prius) than any time in history, though obviously emissions regulation is helping here as well. Their exterior size and dimensions are another question that obviously seem to need some regulation.