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This is happening across every single industry though. My opinion: capitalism has corrupted literally every single thing it has touched.

coffeeblack 4y ago
Capitalism? Do you think it was all way better in Soviet Russia? Blaming “capitalism” is just the “old man yelling at cloud” if you are 20.
- diordiderot 4y ago
  Yes, economic systems are completely binary. Just like political ones. Either everybody votes on everything or absolute monarchy. Wait...
- danielheath 4y ago
  There's a cogent argument to be made that under capitalism, once market saturation is reached, any further excess wealth (and capitalism creates lots of that!) is redirected to zero-sum competition (which is, on a societal level, waste). I don't think capitalism corrupts everything it touches - but I'm pretty sure it corrupts saturated markets, and these days that's an awful lot of things.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    > There's a cogent argument to be made that under capitalism, once market saturation is reached, any further excess wealth (and capitalism creates lots of that!) is redirected to zero-sum competition (which is, on a societal level, waste). I think that's a strong take and agree somewhat. It's not at odds with the fact that capitalism has created more innovation, wealth and raised standards of living more than any other period in history. The problem is not capitalism, it's that capitalism is over. In the long tail of diminishing returns all that's really left for people holding obscene sums of money to do amidst shocking inequality is to lie, cheat, steal and rat-fuck one another over the remaining opportunities to die on the biggest pile of ostentatious wealth. Capitalism was a great system that ran out of fuel. I don't think we expected it to stall so soon, but it's hit some internal limit. We should be as worried about that as climate. These problems are bound up together. If we are going to preserve the liberty, opportunity, and democracy that have naturally ridden along with it we had better figure out a way to creatively re-invent the industrious ethic underpinning capitalism because, frankly, the Chinese model of consumer-communism is nothing to celebrate or hope for.
- Matumio 4y ago
  I think it's fair to blame this one on capitalism-like structures without implying that the way to solve this is communism. Clearly institutional competition for grant money has increased and changed what it means to be a successful researcher. Incentives are displacing virtues. But it's hard to find incentives, especially financial ones, that are fully aligned with honest research. Maybe we are trying too hard to find those.
  - origin_path 4y ago
    Capitalism-like structures? The corruption here is fully within academia, which is a non-capitalist reputation economy running parallel to the real one. Absolutely nothing about this event has anything to do with capitalism except the fact that capitalist incentives and systems (short selling) led to its exposure. Really, the whole point of academia is that it's not capitalism. It's much closer to communism. Resources are allocated by committee according to the priorities of the state. There are no price or market signals anywhere, and who gets ahead is largely related to how well they project their own work upwards. Plus of course, it seems to be strongly ideological. Academia is completely dominated by the left to the extent that in some departments there are almost no conservatives at all.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  You can decry Western Capitalism without lauding dictatorship with a communist twist. Some people latch onto whatever they can to gain power to exploit people. Using failed dictatorships to prove 'communism is worse than capitalism' (which in the West we heavily curtail, but only to the point where we avoid uprisings against those holding power) is exactly the sort of shallow, illogical thinking you seem to rail against. Communism fails because it doesn't account for human greed; it assumes everyone is onboard with improving society. Capitalism succeeds inasmuch as it panders to human greed to the point of evil and ignores the vast majority whom it fails. Mind you, anarcho-syndicalism is where it's at, you can expect to wield supreme executive power just because some water tart gives you a sword ... /montypython
mentos 4y ago
I feel like capitalism is a natural phenomenon of specialization. Imagine if the human body didn’t have a dozen different organs each producing a specialized product for your body and instead had one organ that tried to do everything?
- Ghexor 4y ago
  I'm curious, do you have a counterpart to "capital" and "property" in your analogy? I think capitalism facilitates specialization - and that quite effectively at scale. Specialization can occur without capitalism, too. There are other systems to coordinate specialists.
  - capitalsigma 4y ago
    Of course -- just look at all of those successful centrally planned economies throughout history that definitely did not regularly subject their population to famine
- philosopher1234 4y ago
  Black Plague was natural too. That’s no defense of it.
thehappypm 4y ago
Capitalism has produced more science and technology than any other system. It’s not a coincidence that the Industrial Revolution didn’t happen until capitalism was the prevalent Western system.
- philosopher1234 4y ago
  What you wrote is consistent with the comment you replied to Just because capitalism has generated good things doesn’t mean it’s perfect. We need to acknowledge the damage it’s causing and think of ways to move beyond it. Unless you want this to be the way things are for the rest of humanity.
Flankk 4y ago
The perverse incentives still exist outside of capitalism. People, including scientists, do not like to admit when they are wrong. There is no incentive to retract a study. Bribery and corruption are not a trait of any particular economic system. It is easy to make criticisms but sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
throwawaymaths 4y ago
Yeah but that's true for basically every politico-economic system. Should we go into lysenkoism or mao telling people to kill sparrows, or Sri Lanka stupidly banning non-organic farming, or the EU ending nuclear and adopting coal?
- ncmncm 4y ago
  You got the first two right, and the second two completely wrong.
photochemsyn 4y ago
Well, keep in mind that in this particular case, it was capitalist attitudes that exposed the fraud. From the dailykos article: > "The suspicion that something was more than a little wrong with the model that is getting almost all Alzheimer’s research funding ($1.6 billion in the last year alone) began with a fight over the drug Simufilam. The drug was being pushed into trials by its manufacturer, Cassava Sciences, but a group of scientists who reviewed the drug maker’s claims about Simufilam believed that it was exaggerating the potential. So they did what any reasonable person would do: They purchased short sell positions in Cassava Sciences stock, filed a letter with the FDA calling for a review before allowing the drug to go to trial, and hired an investigator to provide some support for this position." However, the desire to gain a profit by pushing a questionable drug through trials was also involved. I'd note however, that in the Soviet Union, the likes of Lysenko also pushed fraudulent research in order to improve their standing in the Soviet heirarchy, which came with various rewards. People like wealth and power, and some will do anything to get it, regardless of the nature of the society they live in.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
Forgive me, I don't think the corruption necessarily follows from "capitalism". Corruption is a thing that stands alone, and it is multi-faced: Some is greed. Some cowardice. Callousness and lack of compassion. Self hate, lack of good character and backbone. Then there's laziness and sloth. We call it "convenience" today. And a measure of self-importance, egotism, or pride. We can't point the finger at one political ideology that's only a few hundred years old. Start with Aristotle, the cardinal virtues, or with Dante or Cadmus on "sins". Read any religious text. Or as commenter here reminded me today, dig into anthropology, which is fascinating.
maskil 4y ago
What does this have to do capitalism? Funding for these projects is often disconnected from the market. They are usually dispersed by massive bureaucratic agents with incentive structures that have nothing to do with profit (more internal politics and prestige).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
BurningFrog 4y ago
I've learned that to some people "capitalism" is just shorthand for the dark force behind all evil, and functions a bit like "the devil" in Christian tradition.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
This isn't capitalism; it's nepotism and cronyism, and those are not the same as capitalism. Capitalism is just a means of generic exchange, it's a hammer that can be used to build something or bash in someone's skull.

coffeeblack 4y ago

Capitalism? Do you think it was all way better in Soviet Russia? Blaming “capitalism” is just the “old man yelling at cloud” if you are 20.

diordiderot 4y ago
Yes, economic systems are completely binary. Just like political ones. Either everybody votes on everything or absolute monarchy. Wait...
danielheath 4y ago
There's a cogent argument to be made that under capitalism, once market saturation is reached, any further excess wealth (and capitalism creates lots of that!) is redirected to zero-sum competition (which is, on a societal level, waste). I don't think capitalism corrupts everything it touches - but I'm pretty sure it corrupts saturated markets, and these days that's an awful lot of things.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  > There's a cogent argument to be made that under capitalism, once market saturation is reached, any further excess wealth (and capitalism creates lots of that!) is redirected to zero-sum competition (which is, on a societal level, waste). I think that's a strong take and agree somewhat. It's not at odds with the fact that capitalism has created more innovation, wealth and raised standards of living more than any other period in history. The problem is not capitalism, it's that capitalism is over. In the long tail of diminishing returns all that's really left for people holding obscene sums of money to do amidst shocking inequality is to lie, cheat, steal and rat-fuck one another over the remaining opportunities to die on the biggest pile of ostentatious wealth. Capitalism was a great system that ran out of fuel. I don't think we expected it to stall so soon, but it's hit some internal limit. We should be as worried about that as climate. These problems are bound up together. If we are going to preserve the liberty, opportunity, and democracy that have naturally ridden along with it we had better figure out a way to creatively re-invent the industrious ethic underpinning capitalism because, frankly, the Chinese model of consumer-communism is nothing to celebrate or hope for.
Matumio 4y ago
I think it's fair to blame this one on capitalism-like structures without implying that the way to solve this is communism. Clearly institutional competition for grant money has increased and changed what it means to be a successful researcher. Incentives are displacing virtues. But it's hard to find incentives, especially financial ones, that are fully aligned with honest research. Maybe we are trying too hard to find those.
- origin_path 4y ago
  Capitalism-like structures? The corruption here is fully within academia, which is a non-capitalist reputation economy running parallel to the real one. Absolutely nothing about this event has anything to do with capitalism except the fact that capitalist incentives and systems (short selling) led to its exposure. Really, the whole point of academia is that it's not capitalism. It's much closer to communism. Resources are allocated by committee according to the priorities of the state. There are no price or market signals anywhere, and who gets ahead is largely related to how well they project their own work upwards. Plus of course, it seems to be strongly ideological. Academia is completely dominated by the left to the extent that in some departments there are almost no conservatives at all.
pbhjpbhj 4y ago
You can decry Western Capitalism without lauding dictatorship with a communist twist. Some people latch onto whatever they can to gain power to exploit people. Using failed dictatorships to prove 'communism is worse than capitalism' (which in the West we heavily curtail, but only to the point where we avoid uprisings against those holding power) is exactly the sort of shallow, illogical thinking you seem to rail against. Communism fails because it doesn't account for human greed; it assumes everyone is onboard with improving society. Capitalism succeeds inasmuch as it panders to human greed to the point of evil and ignores the vast majority whom it fails. Mind you, anarcho-syndicalism is where it's at, you can expect to wield supreme executive power just because some water tart gives you a sword ... /montypython

mentos 4y ago

I feel like capitalism is a natural phenomenon of specialization. Imagine if the human body didn’t have a dozen different organs each producing a specialized product for your body and instead had one organ that tried to do everything?

Ghexor 4y ago
I'm curious, do you have a counterpart to "capital" and "property" in your analogy? I think capitalism facilitates specialization - and that quite effectively at scale. Specialization can occur without capitalism, too. There are other systems to coordinate specialists.
- capitalsigma 4y ago
  Of course -- just look at all of those successful centrally planned economies throughout history that definitely did not regularly subject their population to famine
philosopher1234 4y ago
Black Plague was natural too. That’s no defense of it.

thehappypm 4y ago

Capitalism has produced more science and technology than any other system. It’s not a coincidence that the Industrial Revolution didn’t happen until capitalism was the prevalent Western system.

philosopher1234 4y ago
What you wrote is consistent with the comment you replied to Just because capitalism has generated good things doesn’t mean it’s perfect. We need to acknowledge the damage it’s causing and think of ways to move beyond it. Unless you want this to be the way things are for the rest of humanity.

Flankk 4y ago

The perverse incentives still exist outside of capitalism. People, including scientists, do not like to admit when they are wrong. There is no incentive to retract a study. Bribery and corruption are not a trait of any particular economic system. It is easy to make criticisms but sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

throwawaymaths 4y ago

Yeah but that's true for basically every politico-economic system. Should we go into lysenkoism or mao telling people to kill sparrows, or Sri Lanka stupidly banning non-organic farming, or the EU ending nuclear and adopting coal?

ncmncm 4y ago
You got the first two right, and the second two completely wrong.

photochemsyn 4y ago

Well, keep in mind that in this particular case, it was capitalist attitudes that exposed the fraud. From the dailykos article: > "The suspicion that something was more than a little wrong with the model that is getting almost all Alzheimer’s research funding ($1.6 billion in the last year alone) began with a fight over the drug Simufilam. The drug was being pushed into trials by its manufacturer, Cassava Sciences, but a group of scientists who reviewed the drug maker’s claims about Simufilam believed that it was exaggerating the potential. So they did what any reasonable person would do: They purchased short sell positions in Cassava Sciences stock, filed a letter with the FDA calling for a review before allowing the drug to go to trial, and hired an investigator to provide some support for this position." However, the desire to gain a profit by pushing a questionable drug through trials was also involved. I'd note however, that in the Soviet Union, the likes of Lysenko also pushed fraudulent research in order to improve their standing in the Soviet heirarchy, which came with various rewards. People like wealth and power, and some will do anything to get it, regardless of the nature of the society they live in.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

Forgive me, I don't think the corruption necessarily follows from "capitalism". Corruption is a thing that stands alone, and it is multi-faced: Some is greed. Some cowardice. Callousness and lack of compassion. Self hate, lack of good character and backbone. Then there's laziness and sloth. We call it "convenience" today. And a measure of self-importance, egotism, or pride. We can't point the finger at one political ideology that's only a few hundred years old. Start with Aristotle, the cardinal virtues, or with Dante or Cadmus on "sins". Read any religious text. Or as commenter here reminded me today, dig into anthropology, which is fascinating.

maskil 4y ago

What does this have to do capitalism? Funding for these projects is often disconnected from the market. They are usually dispersed by massive bureaucratic agents with incentive structures that have nothing to do with profit (more internal politics and prestige).

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

BurningFrog 4y ago

I've learned that to some people "capitalism" is just shorthand for the dark force behind all evil, and functions a bit like "the devil" in Christian tradition.

stjohnswarts 4y ago

This isn't capitalism; it's nepotism and cronyism, and those are not the same as capitalism. Capitalism is just a means of generic exchange, it's a hammer that can be used to build something or bash in someone's skull.