4 ms·

Capital has tended to trump social capital in the long term, particularly since sufficient capital can shape the public discourse.

dnautics 5y ago
Economic capital is interesting because 1) it's not a zero sum game. Most exchanges of economic capital result in the betterment of both parties. 2) in order to get some, you usually provide a good or service to someone else. These things are not necessarily true of other forms of social capital; you can definitely accrue political capital by killing people (or in a less dramatic sense, by being feared by people).
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Most exchanges of economic capital result in the betterment of both parties. 2) in order to get some, you usually provide a good or service to someone else. It's easy to misread that as something like everybody wins, but it's worth noting that such exchanges can still be extremely exploitative.
  - dnautics 5y ago
    Exploitativeness is extremely ill-defined and often used to push an agenda that is not really aligned with the interest of the party "being exploited". In any case, acknowledging that exchanges can be "unfair" for some definition of "unfair", I did use the word "Most". Capitalism/free markets do not guarantee that humans are not shitty but I challenge you to find a social system that does.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Exploitativeness is not necessarily ill-defined. It's just that when you define it rigourously, it either never happens or happens too often for the definers' ideological persuasion. And by the way, your statement is also extremely ill-defined. If you say that most transactions are not zero-sum, you are presupposing some kind of value system, which you didn't specify, and the value system for which that is true are also very ill-defined. It's also true that a positive sum interaction could absolutely be exploitative. So the actual amount of exploitative interactions is strictly higher than the number of zero sum or negative sum interactions.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > Exploitativeness is extremely ill-defined and often used to push an agenda that is not really aligned with the interest of the party "being exploited". One could say something similar about "betterment" in your original statement. > Capitalism/free markets do not guarantee that humans are not shitty Obviously. > but I challenge you to find a social system that does. We shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It irks me when "capitalism/free markets" is presented as some kind of "best possible economic system," or that it cannot be challenged unless the challenger is perfect. It's a set of trade offs (advocated by people with their own agendas), and I see little reason why different people shouldn't advocate different sets of trade-offs.

dnautics 5y ago

Economic capital is interesting because 1) it's not a zero sum game. Most exchanges of economic capital result in the betterment of both parties. 2) in order to get some, you usually provide a good or service to someone else. These things are not necessarily true of other forms of social capital; you can definitely accrue political capital by killing people (or in a less dramatic sense, by being feared by people).

tablespoon 5y ago
> Most exchanges of economic capital result in the betterment of both parties. 2) in order to get some, you usually provide a good or service to someone else. It's easy to misread that as something like everybody wins, but it's worth noting that such exchanges can still be extremely exploitative.
- dnautics 5y ago
  Exploitativeness is extremely ill-defined and often used to push an agenda that is not really aligned with the interest of the party "being exploited". In any case, acknowledging that exchanges can be "unfair" for some definition of "unfair", I did use the word "Most". Capitalism/free markets do not guarantee that humans are not shitty but I challenge you to find a social system that does.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Exploitativeness is not necessarily ill-defined. It's just that when you define it rigourously, it either never happens or happens too often for the definers' ideological persuasion. And by the way, your statement is also extremely ill-defined. If you say that most transactions are not zero-sum, you are presupposing some kind of value system, which you didn't specify, and the value system for which that is true are also very ill-defined. It's also true that a positive sum interaction could absolutely be exploitative. So the actual amount of exploitative interactions is strictly higher than the number of zero sum or negative sum interactions.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Exploitativeness is extremely ill-defined and often used to push an agenda that is not really aligned with the interest of the party "being exploited". One could say something similar about "betterment" in your original statement. > Capitalism/free markets do not guarantee that humans are not shitty Obviously. > but I challenge you to find a social system that does. We shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It irks me when "capitalism/free markets" is presented as some kind of "best possible economic system," or that it cannot be challenged unless the challenger is perfect. It's a set of trade offs (advocated by people with their own agendas), and I see little reason why different people shouldn't advocate different sets of trade-offs.