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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

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