4 ms·

So some dude, thousands of kilometers away, grew his bananas, put them in a boat, for a weeks long trip to Europe, followed by hundreds of kilometers in a truck

So some dude, thousands of kilometers away, grew his bananas, put them in a boat, for a weeks long trip to Europe, followed by hundreds of kilometers in a truck, to end up in my office trash Along with millions of other bananas that got eaten. You're arguing against economies of scale here, and you'll need to show your work rather than dismissing long-distance trade as "madness".

rakoo 4y ago
That's the thing. Under capitalism the only way to measure something is money. Millions of tons could be sold, profit was made, so it's OK to throw away a few tons. Environment, living and working conditions, resources and materials being taken from non-renewables sources, all of those are unimportant under capitalism, all of those are unimportant with capitalism and are the reason why no one asks themselves whether it's really worth shipping fruits from the other side of the world. Sometimes even by plane.
- kqr 4y ago
  Right. In a system where people feel forced to work crazy hours in the middle of the ocean; in a system where someone else pays the externalities of petroleum; in a system where the raw materials for a freighter can be dug up by people who may not need to understand why anyone would need bananas shipped to them; in a system rich people have shaped so that it feeds them whatever exotic fruits they desire... only in such a system can shipping bananas to be thrown out be considered "cheap because economies of scale". Economies of scale means individual suffering turns into statistical noise.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  Because the environment is so much less polluted and working conditions are so much better in non capitalist countries?
  - kqr 4y ago
    I don't know if there's been a good example of an actually non-capitalist country yet. I'm not a historian, but all examples I can think of have a small class of people owning the means of production. They aren't always the bourgeoisie but sometimes a political elite or dictator's following. What I can say is that on a more local scale, the non-capitalist systems I've had experience with have been much more pleasant than the ones where a small set of people held most of the power over production.
    - fallingknife 4y ago
      So if there are no examples of non-capitalism to compare too this makes the claim of 'x is caused by capitalism' all the more ridiculous.
      - kqr 4y ago
        There are two ways to make causal claims: by empirics and by theory. That is a theoretical claim, not an empirical one. Ideally we should have both.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    They're virtually all playing the capitalist game, slapping "communist" in your country/government name isn't enough
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - robocat 4y ago
    Can you name a mostly capitalist country? Most countries have a significantly socialist element, greater than 30% of the economy. For example, the government sector makes up a third of New Zealand GDP. https://www.statista.com/statistics/436523/ratio-of-government-expenditure-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp-in-new-zealand/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/436523/ratio-of-governme... Also if you look at how you “spend” your own time you might find that a lot of it is not on purely capitalist hours, but instead time is spent on hobbies, sports, children, friends, family and other pursuits that would be regarded as non-capitalist. Edit: I would be regarded as a capitalist within New Zealand (I am a successful founder, I don’t much believe in agricultural/industry subsidies), but I would be regarded as on-the-left in the US (I’m generally supportive of government health systems and social equality).
- philwelch 4y ago
  The problem isn’t capitalism; it’s the imperfection of humanity. No economic system in history has eliminated waste. The only industrialized alternative to capitalism was notoriously even more wasteful. Price systems work by simplifying and transmitting information relevant to production and consumption decisions. If the price goes up, consumers who can go without the thing can stop buying it and producers who can make more of the thing can start making it, and they each have the incentive to do so. When it comes to externalities with the environment, these can be incorporated into the price system. That’s how a carbon tax would work. It turns out that the intuitions of would-be central planners are often completely wrong. The truth is, lots of people do ask themselves if it’s really worth it to ship bananas from Latin America to Europe. They work for the fruit company and their decision is based on the costs and benefits. If there are costs that they aren’t considering, then the solution is to incorporate those costs into the price system, not to have some banana commissar decree that oceanic banana shipping is banned because, in his enlightened gut feeling, it’s “absurd”.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    > The only industrialized alternative to capitalism was notoriously even more wasteful Or eating locally grown stuff that doesn't need to be shipped form the other side of the planet, but when you say that people think you're the mad man... I'm telling you, the whole system is mad, you're just too deep into it to realize, the dissonance would be too strong
    - missedthecue 4y ago
      Are you under the impression that Ecuadorians never discard brown bananas?
    - philwelch 4y ago
      What exactly is your basis for thinking it’s crazy to ship things from the other side of the planet? What cost benefit analysis have you done to come to this conclusion? Or are you just appealing to your own amateur intuitions? If there’s an ecological cost that isn’t being accounted for, the solution is to adjust policies so the cost is reflected, e.g. via a carbon tax. And I’m sure if we had a carbon tax, we would eat more locally grown food because it would be more cost effective. On the other hand, different parts of the world vary widely in terms of what can be grown there and how efficiently it. It’s a complicated problem that can’t be solved top-down, and certainly can’t be solved by some armchair hippie going “the whole system is mad, man!”
- jstummbillig 4y ago
  People did ask themselves. They found, yes, it's worth. You might disagree, but I don't I think the number of rotten bananas a process produces offers any meaningful answer. At best it's a baseline and by itself about as useful as "x people die from y every year". What about it? Is that number supposed to be good or bad and what is the bigger context? Doing stuff causes other stuff to happen. People die in car accidents, but a lot of death is prevented because we have cars, but then people also die because of pollution or get depressed because of noise pollution, and it keeps goin from there. It's hard. Let's be empathetic with each other, and good, and also think a lot about what is going on.

rakoo 4y ago

That's the thing. Under capitalism the only way to measure something is money. Millions of tons could be sold, profit was made, so it's OK to throw away a few tons. Environment, living and working conditions, resources and materials being taken from non-renewables sources, all of those are unimportant under capitalism, all of those are unimportant with capitalism and are the reason why no one asks themselves whether it's really worth shipping fruits from the other side of the world. Sometimes even by plane.

kqr 4y ago
Right. In a system where people feel forced to work crazy hours in the middle of the ocean; in a system where someone else pays the externalities of petroleum; in a system where the raw materials for a freighter can be dug up by people who may not need to understand why anyone would need bananas shipped to them; in a system rich people have shaped so that it feeds them whatever exotic fruits they desire... only in such a system can shipping bananas to be thrown out be considered "cheap because economies of scale". Economies of scale means individual suffering turns into statistical noise.
fallingknife 4y ago
Because the environment is so much less polluted and working conditions are so much better in non capitalist countries?
- kqr 4y ago
  I don't know if there's been a good example of an actually non-capitalist country yet. I'm not a historian, but all examples I can think of have a small class of people owning the means of production. They aren't always the bourgeoisie but sometimes a political elite or dictator's following. What I can say is that on a more local scale, the non-capitalist systems I've had experience with have been much more pleasant than the ones where a small set of people held most of the power over production.
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    So if there are no examples of non-capitalism to compare too this makes the claim of 'x is caused by capitalism' all the more ridiculous.
    - kqr 4y ago
      There are two ways to make causal claims: by empirics and by theory. That is a theoretical claim, not an empirical one. Ideally we should have both.
- lm28469 4y ago
  They're virtually all playing the capitalist game, slapping "communist" in your country/government name isn't enough
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- robocat 4y ago
  Can you name a mostly capitalist country? Most countries have a significantly socialist element, greater than 30% of the economy. For example, the government sector makes up a third of New Zealand GDP. https://www.statista.com/statistics/436523/ratio-of-government-expenditure-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp-in-new-zealand/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/436523/ratio-of-governme... Also if you look at how you “spend” your own time you might find that a lot of it is not on purely capitalist hours, but instead time is spent on hobbies, sports, children, friends, family and other pursuits that would be regarded as non-capitalist. Edit: I would be regarded as a capitalist within New Zealand (I am a successful founder, I don’t much believe in agricultural/industry subsidies), but I would be regarded as on-the-left in the US (I’m generally supportive of government health systems and social equality).
philwelch 4y ago
The problem isn’t capitalism; it’s the imperfection of humanity. No economic system in history has eliminated waste. The only industrialized alternative to capitalism was notoriously even more wasteful. Price systems work by simplifying and transmitting information relevant to production and consumption decisions. If the price goes up, consumers who can go without the thing can stop buying it and producers who can make more of the thing can start making it, and they each have the incentive to do so. When it comes to externalities with the environment, these can be incorporated into the price system. That’s how a carbon tax would work. It turns out that the intuitions of would-be central planners are often completely wrong. The truth is, lots of people do ask themselves if it’s really worth it to ship bananas from Latin America to Europe. They work for the fruit company and their decision is based on the costs and benefits. If there are costs that they aren’t considering, then the solution is to incorporate those costs into the price system, not to have some banana commissar decree that oceanic banana shipping is banned because, in his enlightened gut feeling, it’s “absurd”.
- lm28469 4y ago
  > The only industrialized alternative to capitalism was notoriously even more wasteful Or eating locally grown stuff that doesn't need to be shipped form the other side of the planet, but when you say that people think you're the mad man... I'm telling you, the whole system is mad, you're just too deep into it to realize, the dissonance would be too strong
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    Are you under the impression that Ecuadorians never discard brown bananas?
  - philwelch 4y ago
    What exactly is your basis for thinking it’s crazy to ship things from the other side of the planet? What cost benefit analysis have you done to come to this conclusion? Or are you just appealing to your own amateur intuitions? If there’s an ecological cost that isn’t being accounted for, the solution is to adjust policies so the cost is reflected, e.g. via a carbon tax. And I’m sure if we had a carbon tax, we would eat more locally grown food because it would be more cost effective. On the other hand, different parts of the world vary widely in terms of what can be grown there and how efficiently it. It’s a complicated problem that can’t be solved top-down, and certainly can’t be solved by some armchair hippie going “the whole system is mad, man!”
jstummbillig 4y ago
People did ask themselves. They found, yes, it's worth. You might disagree, but I don't I think the number of rotten bananas a process produces offers any meaningful answer. At best it's a baseline and by itself about as useful as "x people die from y every year". What about it? Is that number supposed to be good or bad and what is the bigger context? Doing stuff causes other stuff to happen. People die in car accidents, but a lot of death is prevented because we have cars, but then people also die because of pollution or get depressed because of noise pollution, and it keeps goin from there. It's hard. Let's be empathetic with each other, and good, and also think a lot about what is going on.