6 ms·

Part of the problem is that the way we conceptualize money leads us to treat it as if it's a real thing, as opposed to an accounting system the state creates fo

by cs137 4y ago

Part of the problem is that the way we conceptualize money leads us to treat it as if it's a real thing, as opposed to an accounting system the state creates for various purposes, some of which are desirable and some of which are not. If it can be done, it can be afforded. Only if it is physically impossible can it not be "afforded". That is where we ought to start as a society. Where will we get the money for a universal basic income? There are an infinitude of options--the state literally made the stuff up. The question isn't why there is so little money for so many important things, and so much money wasted--the question is why, despite being ostensibly democratic, we are so bad at statecraft (and have been since the Boomers took charge).

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
Problem is, not everything that can be done can be afforded (at least, not all at once). Or, to put it in Thomas Sowell's terms, economics is about the allocation of limited resources that have alternate uses. You want the government to print a bunch of money? Great. Now we have a bunch of money. We don't have any more actual stuff to buy with the money, though. Are we any better off? No. Is science any better off? Maybe - depends on what we do with the new money. Are the poor and disadvantaged any better off? Maybe - it depends on how much money is created, and how that money is distributed. Sounds like what you really want is to smooth out who has access to how much stuff, and also support science better. Printing a bunch of money (and distributing it) might do it, but it depends a great deal on the details.
- cs137 4y ago
  What you're saying isn't wrong, but there are obvious solutions in front of us. We implement a universal basic income (indexed to inflation, so it absorbs any inflation it causes) to keep the minimal living standard high, we increase basic research funding by an order of magnitude or more, and we tax the hell out of the rich. The only reason this isn't happening is because so much of the putative "leadership", in every organ of society, is corrupted by the hyperconsumptive billionaire vampires that these institutions are supposed to regulate (or, better yet, prevent from existing in the first place). We face, in 2022, a number of problems that are actually pretty easy to solve, but the people in charge won't let us. Well, history tells us exactly what to do when we face that particular problem...
  - robocat 4y ago
    > and we tax the hell out of the rich If you are a developer in the US, you are the rich. Whenever people say “tax the rich” what they invariably mean is tax those that are richer than they are. If you are arguing from a moral standard, then shouldn’t most Americans be taxed and the actually poor ($2 per day) around the world receive those taxes? > hyperconsumptive billionaire vampires Which to the average sample of some outside the USA, the vampire is mostly regarded as the USA, using its economic might to equivalently tax most other countries through many means. Disclaimer: I’m not against the US, but definitely against some of the effects one of the richest country in the world has on other poorer countries (per capita). Edit: just noticed this quote: “In 1963, 20 percent of Americans lived in poverty. Today it’s 2.3 percent.” If you are not part of that 2.3%, then you are likely the rich of the world that should be taxed?
    - pdimitar 4y ago
      > Whenever people say “tax the rich” what they invariably mean is tax those that are richer than they are. Not at all. It's usually meant as "people who have much more money than they objectively need for survival, owning an estate and having some leisure". No need to resort to a straw man to win a discussion, please. > If you are arguing from a moral standard, then shouldn’t most Americans be taxed and the actually poor ($2 per day) around the world receive those taxes? Good idea, a lot of people would welcome it. Although me personally, I wouldn't want USA to become the hub of the world. History has shown us what extreme centralization leads to. > Which to the average sample of some outside the USA, the vampire is mostly regarded as the USA, using its economic might to equivalently tax most other countries through many means. Strange thing to say. Plenty of European billionaires are out there as well. Not to mention Chinese and Russian, and who knows how many from other Asian countries. > Edit: just noticed this quote: “In 1963, 20 percent of Americans lived in poverty. Today it’s 2.3 percent.” If you are not part of that 2.3%, then you are likely the rich of the world that should be taxed? The biggest problem with these discussions, every time, is that you don't consider that there are a lot of people out there with huge vested interest to misrepresent these percentages. The naive faith in institutions and democracy at large, while commendable, is a huge detractor from the quality of any politico-economical dialogue. The observable facts -- if you don't deliberately close your eyes, which many do because it's easier to pretend that when you're well-off then everybody else is -- are that democracy has been co-opted and abused as a term while the world is in fact an oligarchy and a rich people club that invents laws to legitimize their behaviour. And that's been true for centuries. But I know I will not convince you. Your criteria for this is likely "well, I don't see armed men trying to storm my house, hence democracy exists" or something similar and thus our discussion is doomed from the start. Back to "statistics", if you lived in a former Soviet satellite (like I did) you would see through these published percentages in five seconds. There are PLENTY of techniques to misrepresent information and they don't even have to lie -- that's the beauty of it (example: "What is poverty? Let's lower the minimum resources needed to define it. Boom, we have much less poor people officially now! Lol, good job boys, let's go to Thailand and spend money with funds from the fundraiser we have scheduled there.") And so it goes to eternity.
xialvjun 4y ago
Because the Soviet Union collapsed.
- cs137 4y ago
  Right. We didn't actually "win" the Cold War. As soon as "communism" (though it was never actually achieved) was perceived as defeated, the capitalists no longer had to justify themselves, which gave them license to tear town the regulations that restrained their worst impulses. This led to the dismantling of the "middle class", which is and always has been a state creation. Once the capitalists saw the end of an existential threat--the idea that socialism might work [1] due to its ostensible prominence elsewhere in the world--they realized they no longer needed one. So what is now the former middle class was left to twist in the wind. The US contributed to the destruction of the Soviet Union by forcing it to spend the bulk of its resources on its military. Granted, the Soviet system was suboptimal in a number of ways, but the constant threat of imperialist/capitalist aggression didn't help... war benefits capitalists and arms dealers, but is historically bad for the common people. It didn't help that a number of important figures within the USSR's final years (e.g., Yeltsin) were corrupt (ideologically and personally) and sought to undermine the system from within for their own financial and political gain. Capitalism's "winning" of the Cold War was one of the biggest humanitarian disasters of our time. It enabled the end of "nice guy" capitalism and the dismantling of the US middle class, but it also created widespread poverty while it stripped hope from the people of the former Soviet Union. (The reason Russia has done so much evil shit over the past 15 years is that hopelessness creates a market for hubristic imperialism of the kind Putin is selling.) It enabled an attempt to reconfigure the global economy into a for-profit police state that has cost millions of lives in the Middle East. The bipolar war-economy world was a pretty awful place, but the unipolar capitalist world is even worse, and the only thing that has kept us from seeing it is inertia--people who still believe in capitalism have already parted ways from the cliff, but haven't looked down yet. ---- [1] Although, of course, the failure of the Soviet Union didn't actually prove that socialism can't work. It existed in a state of siege socialism from which it was never able to extricate itself. Given the harsh conditions from which it emerged, as well as the fervency of the far-right (capitalists, fascists) in their will to kill it, the accomplishments of the USSR are considerable. However, it wasn't a great place to live. It remained mostly poor (because of said initial conditions as well as necessary but massive war expenditures) and was authoritarian to a fault; its great sin was that it was a system of economic totalitarianism--the economy literally controlled everything, from where people could live to what they could say--but, then again, so is ours.
junofan 4y ago
Money is not an accounting system created by the state for various purposes. It’s a solution to certain frictions in a barter economy. It is very real. > If it can be done, it can be afforded. Only if it is physically impossible can it not be "afforded". That is where we ought to start as a society. Isn’t this just Marxism? Non-commodity money and all that. I’m not really familiar with his work.
- NoGravitas 4y ago
  > Money is not an accounting system created by the state for various purposes. It’s a solution to certain frictions in a barter economy. That's a story that's often told, but it doesn't seem to actually be true. An examination of the historical and anthropological record shows that barter systems only exist in societies that formerly had money, but no longer do (for example, because the empire that was backing the currency collapsed). In societies that never had money, you see a variety of things, mostly formal gift economies, but sometimes things like tracking and cancellation of debts not denominated in a single unit. If you'd like to learn more about this, read "Debt, the first 5,000 years", by the late anthropologist David Graeber.

by cs137 4y ago

AnimalMuppet 4y ago

Problem is, not everything that can be done can be afforded (at least, not all at once). Or, to put it in Thomas Sowell's terms, economics is about the allocation of limited resources that have alternate uses. You want the government to print a bunch of money? Great. Now we have a bunch of money. We don't have any more actual stuff to buy with the money, though. Are we any better off? No. Is science any better off? Maybe - depends on what we do with the new money. Are the poor and disadvantaged any better off? Maybe - it depends on how much money is created, and how that money is distributed. Sounds like what you really want is to smooth out who has access to how much stuff, and also support science better. Printing a bunch of money (and distributing it) might do it, but it depends a great deal on the details.

cs137 4y ago
What you're saying isn't wrong, but there are obvious solutions in front of us. We implement a universal basic income (indexed to inflation, so it absorbs any inflation it causes) to keep the minimal living standard high, we increase basic research funding by an order of magnitude or more, and we tax the hell out of the rich. The only reason this isn't happening is because so much of the putative "leadership", in every organ of society, is corrupted by the hyperconsumptive billionaire vampires that these institutions are supposed to regulate (or, better yet, prevent from existing in the first place). We face, in 2022, a number of problems that are actually pretty easy to solve, but the people in charge won't let us. Well, history tells us exactly what to do when we face that particular problem...
- robocat 4y ago
  > and we tax the hell out of the rich If you are a developer in the US, you are the rich. Whenever people say “tax the rich” what they invariably mean is tax those that are richer than they are. If you are arguing from a moral standard, then shouldn’t most Americans be taxed and the actually poor ($2 per day) around the world receive those taxes? > hyperconsumptive billionaire vampires Which to the average sample of some outside the USA, the vampire is mostly regarded as the USA, using its economic might to equivalently tax most other countries through many means. Disclaimer: I’m not against the US, but definitely against some of the effects one of the richest country in the world has on other poorer countries (per capita). Edit: just noticed this quote: “In 1963, 20 percent of Americans lived in poverty. Today it’s 2.3 percent.” If you are not part of that 2.3%, then you are likely the rich of the world that should be taxed?
  - pdimitar 4y ago
    > Whenever people say “tax the rich” what they invariably mean is tax those that are richer than they are. Not at all. It's usually meant as "people who have much more money than they objectively need for survival, owning an estate and having some leisure". No need to resort to a straw man to win a discussion, please. > If you are arguing from a moral standard, then shouldn’t most Americans be taxed and the actually poor ($2 per day) around the world receive those taxes? Good idea, a lot of people would welcome it. Although me personally, I wouldn't want USA to become the hub of the world. History has shown us what extreme centralization leads to. > Which to the average sample of some outside the USA, the vampire is mostly regarded as the USA, using its economic might to equivalently tax most other countries through many means. Strange thing to say. Plenty of European billionaires are out there as well. Not to mention Chinese and Russian, and who knows how many from other Asian countries. > Edit: just noticed this quote: “In 1963, 20 percent of Americans lived in poverty. Today it’s 2.3 percent.” If you are not part of that 2.3%, then you are likely the rich of the world that should be taxed? The biggest problem with these discussions, every time, is that you don't consider that there are a lot of people out there with huge vested interest to misrepresent these percentages. The naive faith in institutions and democracy at large, while commendable, is a huge detractor from the quality of any politico-economical dialogue. The observable facts -- if you don't deliberately close your eyes, which many do because it's easier to pretend that when you're well-off then everybody else is -- are that democracy has been co-opted and abused as a term while the world is in fact an oligarchy and a rich people club that invents laws to legitimize their behaviour. And that's been true for centuries. But I know I will not convince you. Your criteria for this is likely "well, I don't see armed men trying to storm my house, hence democracy exists" or something similar and thus our discussion is doomed from the start. Back to "statistics", if you lived in a former Soviet satellite (like I did) you would see through these published percentages in five seconds. There are PLENTY of techniques to misrepresent information and they don't even have to lie -- that's the beauty of it (example: "What is poverty? Let's lower the minimum resources needed to define it. Boom, we have much less poor people officially now! Lol, good job boys, let's go to Thailand and spend money with funds from the fundraiser we have scheduled there.") And so it goes to eternity.

xialvjun 4y ago

Because the Soviet Union collapsed.

cs137 4y ago
Right. We didn't actually "win" the Cold War. As soon as "communism" (though it was never actually achieved) was perceived as defeated, the capitalists no longer had to justify themselves, which gave them license to tear town the regulations that restrained their worst impulses. This led to the dismantling of the "middle class", which is and always has been a state creation. Once the capitalists saw the end of an existential threat--the idea that socialism might work [1] due to its ostensible prominence elsewhere in the world--they realized they no longer needed one. So what is now the former middle class was left to twist in the wind. The US contributed to the destruction of the Soviet Union by forcing it to spend the bulk of its resources on its military. Granted, the Soviet system was suboptimal in a number of ways, but the constant threat of imperialist/capitalist aggression didn't help... war benefits capitalists and arms dealers, but is historically bad for the common people. It didn't help that a number of important figures within the USSR's final years (e.g., Yeltsin) were corrupt (ideologically and personally) and sought to undermine the system from within for their own financial and political gain. Capitalism's "winning" of the Cold War was one of the biggest humanitarian disasters of our time. It enabled the end of "nice guy" capitalism and the dismantling of the US middle class, but it also created widespread poverty while it stripped hope from the people of the former Soviet Union. (The reason Russia has done so much evil shit over the past 15 years is that hopelessness creates a market for hubristic imperialism of the kind Putin is selling.) It enabled an attempt to reconfigure the global economy into a for-profit police state that has cost millions of lives in the Middle East. The bipolar war-economy world was a pretty awful place, but the unipolar capitalist world is even worse, and the only thing that has kept us from seeing it is inertia--people who still believe in capitalism have already parted ways from the cliff, but haven't looked down yet. ---- [1] Although, of course, the failure of the Soviet Union didn't actually prove that socialism can't work. It existed in a state of siege socialism from which it was never able to extricate itself. Given the harsh conditions from which it emerged, as well as the fervency of the far-right (capitalists, fascists) in their will to kill it, the accomplishments of the USSR are considerable. However, it wasn't a great place to live. It remained mostly poor (because of said initial conditions as well as necessary but massive war expenditures) and was authoritarian to a fault; its great sin was that it was a system of economic totalitarianism--the economy literally controlled everything, from where people could live to what they could say--but, then again, so is ours.

junofan 4y ago

Money is not an accounting system created by the state for various purposes. It’s a solution to certain frictions in a barter economy. It is very real. > If it can be done, it can be afforded. Only if it is physically impossible can it not be "afforded". That is where we ought to start as a society. Isn’t this just Marxism? Non-commodity money and all that. I’m not really familiar with his work.

NoGravitas 4y ago
> Money is not an accounting system created by the state for various purposes. It’s a solution to certain frictions in a barter economy. That's a story that's often told, but it doesn't seem to actually be true. An examination of the historical and anthropological record shows that barter systems only exist in societies that formerly had money, but no longer do (for example, because the empire that was backing the currency collapsed). In societies that never had money, you see a variety of things, mostly formal gift economies, but sometimes things like tracking and cancellation of debts not denominated in a single unit. If you'd like to learn more about this, read "Debt, the first 5,000 years", by the late anthropologist David Graeber.