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The capitalism that’s lifted more people out of poverty than any other system in human history. Hopefully it’s not over.

Reki 4y ago
Just because paperclips are useful doesnt mean we should keep making more of them forever.
- GauntletWizard 4y ago
  The nice thing about capitalism is that it has controls on it, like "Who wants to buy the products", and "Does everyone think that corporation's leader is an asshole and will buy from competitors" that a command economy doesn't.
  - psi75 4y ago
    It really doesn't. The vast majority of economic activity in our system is driven by coercion and need, not want and certainly not freedom. People don't show up to jobs where they take orders from idiots for an exact lower bound of 40 hours per week (but, in practice, often more) because they're freely choosing to do so.
FpUser 4y ago
It did and the best time has passed. Right now we have rich getting richer poor getting poorer and middle class evaporating. The way it works it may no longer serve the purpose. Not like there is any viable alternative. We have finite resources and ever growing population. Unless these factors are mitigated somehow (dirt cheap infinite energy for example) we do not have much to look forward to.
psi75 4y ago
"Capitalism" is a funny way of spelling "China". To be clear, I'm not saying the CCP is a force for good. I don't really think it is; I'm not a fan of them at all. They do a lot of fucked-up shit. But it is a statistical fact that this lifting out of poverty has been going on since 1980 comes entirely from one country's influence on the data, and that's China. The rest of the world is net neutral, with some losers and some winners. Capitalism only improves human life when heavily restrained, and what we've learned since about 1980 is that even mild, neutered, "nice guy" capitalism will, in time, erode the restraints put upon it... and then you get the catastrophe of the American 21st century... which is probably going hit Europe just as hard in 10-15 years because, ultimately, dangerous and greedy assholes aren't limited to one nation but exist everywhere.

Reki 4y ago

Just because paperclips are useful doesnt mean we should keep making more of them forever.

GauntletWizard 4y ago
The nice thing about capitalism is that it has controls on it, like "Who wants to buy the products", and "Does everyone think that corporation's leader is an asshole and will buy from competitors" that a command economy doesn't.
- psi75 4y ago
  It really doesn't. The vast majority of economic activity in our system is driven by coercion and need, not want and certainly not freedom. People don't show up to jobs where they take orders from idiots for an exact lower bound of 40 hours per week (but, in practice, often more) because they're freely choosing to do so.

FpUser 4y ago

It did and the best time has passed. Right now we have rich getting richer poor getting poorer and middle class evaporating. The way it works it may no longer serve the purpose. Not like there is any viable alternative. We have finite resources and ever growing population. Unless these factors are mitigated somehow (dirt cheap infinite energy for example) we do not have much to look forward to.

psi75 4y ago

"Capitalism" is a funny way of spelling "China". To be clear, I'm not saying the CCP is a force for good. I don't really think it is; I'm not a fan of them at all. They do a lot of fucked-up shit. But it is a statistical fact that this lifting out of poverty has been going on since 1980 comes entirely from one country's influence on the data, and that's China. The rest of the world is net neutral, with some losers and some winners. Capitalism only improves human life when heavily restrained, and what we've learned since about 1980 is that even mild, neutered, "nice guy" capitalism will, in time, erode the restraints put upon it... and then you get the catastrophe of the American 21st century... which is probably going hit Europe just as hard in 10-15 years because, ultimately, dangerous and greedy assholes aren't limited to one nation but exist everywhere.