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I'm not sure what the "free market" has to do with it. Capitalism, communism, feudalism, socialism, etc.. always end with the majority of money and power concen

I'm not sure what the "free market" has to do with it. Capitalism, communism, feudalism, socialism, etc.. always end with the majority of money and power concentrated with the few. It's just human behavior to be selfish.

soledades 4y ago
I agree with the first part of your point, but this in particular is an emergent phenomena that only happens with large-scale civilizations. So I think some kind of sociological argument makes more sense (I don't know what that would be though).
- Zircom 4y ago
  I've read that there is a certain number of people that we're basically optimized to coexist within a societal structure, and modern civilization passed that a long time ago, and human beings in general just aren't capable of empathy on the scale of modern civilization. And I mean, it makes sense when you think about it. On some abstract level you have to know that even meagre standards of living in western society requires someone, somewhere to be suffering to provide it. $1 for a pound of bananas shipped from across the world before they even have a hint of yellow on them? That shit don't come without a cost, and our $1 sure as hell aint paying it. But we all just kind of don't think those people just to get through the day, because dwelling on the extent of suffering and horror we've wrought upon our fellow man in pursuit of whatever fresh hell the guys over at Oreo have managed to shape into the general form of a cookie would leave us a broken shell of a person and unable to show up for our next shift at the Big Mac factory.
  - oblio 4y ago
    > I've read that there is a certain number of people that we're basically optimized to coexist within a societal structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number > Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. It has been proposed to lie between 100 and 250, with a commonly used value of 150.
- tpxl 4y ago
  > this in particular is an emergent phenomena that only happens with large-scale civilizations Is it? If you have N participants in a market and a bunch of investment opportunities that are on average net negative, the person with the most money will take the most opportunities resulting in their relative worth increasing the most. The endgame for this is one person with all the money. Works for N=2 and N≃infinity. It doesn't happen in (some? most?) small communities because of specific things that aren't present in big communities.
Zircom 4y ago
Oh absolutely agree, everything up until now has eventually descended into the age old pattern of power and money finding it's way concentrated into the hands of the few elite, however capitalism with it's private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit, and rewarding accumulation of capital, seems like it's designed from the ground up to funnel money and power into the hands of the few, where at at least in theory communism/socialism/other -isms are designed to try to share the wealth. Of course, said -isms require either an unbroken chain of morally righteous people with absolute power being in charge of said means of production fairly for the equal enrichment of everyone, or some kind of system of checks and balances to keep those in power from abusing it and preventing corruption from outside the political power structures, the exact formula of which we've yet to figure out. Personally I'm of the opinion we should just throw the baby out with the bathwater and chalk this whole civilization experiment up as a mistake and go back to tribal societies of yestermillennia. Of course, the vast majority of the current human population disagrees with me in that regard and I will admit there are some good things about it, so until that changes I'll be here plugging along like the rest and hoping for better days.
dr_dshiv 4y ago
Yeah, but capitalism has more mechanisms that allow the big to be disrupted by the growing small. And a way for all to rise together through trade. And, of course, capitalism and socialism work best together.

soledades 4y ago

I agree with the first part of your point, but this in particular is an emergent phenomena that only happens with large-scale civilizations. So I think some kind of sociological argument makes more sense (I don't know what that would be though).

Zircom 4y ago
I've read that there is a certain number of people that we're basically optimized to coexist within a societal structure, and modern civilization passed that a long time ago, and human beings in general just aren't capable of empathy on the scale of modern civilization. And I mean, it makes sense when you think about it. On some abstract level you have to know that even meagre standards of living in western society requires someone, somewhere to be suffering to provide it. $1 for a pound of bananas shipped from across the world before they even have a hint of yellow on them? That shit don't come without a cost, and our $1 sure as hell aint paying it. But we all just kind of don't think those people just to get through the day, because dwelling on the extent of suffering and horror we've wrought upon our fellow man in pursuit of whatever fresh hell the guys over at Oreo have managed to shape into the general form of a cookie would leave us a broken shell of a person and unable to show up for our next shift at the Big Mac factory.
- oblio 4y ago
  > I've read that there is a certain number of people that we're basically optimized to coexist within a societal structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number > Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. It has been proposed to lie between 100 and 250, with a commonly used value of 150.
tpxl 4y ago
> this in particular is an emergent phenomena that only happens with large-scale civilizations Is it? If you have N participants in a market and a bunch of investment opportunities that are on average net negative, the person with the most money will take the most opportunities resulting in their relative worth increasing the most. The endgame for this is one person with all the money. Works for N=2 and N≃infinity. It doesn't happen in (some? most?) small communities because of specific things that aren't present in big communities.

Zircom 4y ago

Oh absolutely agree, everything up until now has eventually descended into the age old pattern of power and money finding it's way concentrated into the hands of the few elite, however capitalism with it's private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit, and rewarding accumulation of capital, seems like it's designed from the ground up to funnel money and power into the hands of the few, where at at least in theory communism/socialism/other -isms are designed to try to share the wealth. Of course, said -isms require either an unbroken chain of morally righteous people with absolute power being in charge of said means of production fairly for the equal enrichment of everyone, or some kind of system of checks and balances to keep those in power from abusing it and preventing corruption from outside the political power structures, the exact formula of which we've yet to figure out. Personally I'm of the opinion we should just throw the baby out with the bathwater and chalk this whole civilization experiment up as a mistake and go back to tribal societies of yestermillennia. Of course, the vast majority of the current human population disagrees with me in that regard and I will admit there are some good things about it, so until that changes I'll be here plugging along like the rest and hoping for better days.

dr_dshiv 4y ago

Yeah, but capitalism has more mechanisms that allow the big to be disrupted by the growing small. And a way for all to rise together through trade. And, of course, capitalism and socialism work best together.