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Capital is just another name for power and powerful people fight to maintain and accumulate more power - welcome to the world, summer child. It's woefully naiv

Capital is just another name for power and powerful people fight to maintain and accumulate more power - welcome to the world, summer child. It's woefully naive to expect individuals to give that power up for social-positive goals, it practically never happened throughout human history. We achieve social-positive goals by behaving as a society and limiting what the powerful can do with their power - democracy, market regulation, progressive taxes, they are all forms of limiting the accumulation of capital and power. And it just so happens that the current system we came up with - a mixed market with a strong, democratically elected public authority, yet freedom for individuals to pursue taxable profits - is the one that seems to work the best, because it pushes powerful people, both politicians and capitalists, to cater to the needs of society if they need to maintain their power. It's not an utopia, human nature has not changed and some would chain other people up tomorrow like in medieval times if they could get away with it, yet it works remarkably well. It's nothing short of amazing that it works, really, we are privileged to live in a society where the powerful are so limited in what they can do with their power. We can still fine tune & tax more, of course.

matthewdgreen 4y ago
We didn’t just “come up with that society”: many aspects of it were deliberately constructed because previous iterations failed badly. Deposit insurance, which is the subject of this post, was a depression-era phenomenon that came into existence because many banks failed catastrophically. Many other aspects of our modern society, from old-age pensions to welfare to our global defense alliances, were also born of similar disasters. The main objection in this post is that certain members of our society seem to view those developments as “old fashioned” and unnecessary, and would like to roll them back. Some go so far as to advocate for and donate considerable wealth to politicians who promise to do so. But of course when those people are themselves exposed to the exact risks those systems were designed to protect against — suddenly they’re enthusiastically in favor of government protection. The lesson here is that you should not look at our society and take it for granted. It took work to get us here, and it takes constant work to keep it in place. There are people who would throw it away for a momentary profit, and those people will tell you their beliefs are founded in principle. But for your own protection, you should pay attention to how seriously they take those principles when their money is on the line, and update your mental model accordingly. In this case the answer is: they do not take those principles very seriously at all.
- cornholio 4y ago
  Of course it didn't all spontaneously emerge, it was a result of a long political struggle of the masses against those in power; I was condensing for brevity and specifically mention existing room for improvement. I disagree though with your the read of the article. In the author's own words: > I would probably argue that venture capitalists are not good for society regardless of what they’re investing in. ... I am feeling particularly secure in my opinion on the investor class after the shitshow we just witnessed ... > People are realizing that despite the hundreds of billions of dollars being deployed each year by venture capital firms in pursuit of “innovation”, the world doesn’t really feel hundreds of billions of dollars better off for it. The sentiment here is clear, and has nothing to do with rolling back old-fashion regulations. Rather, it's a pure and unadulterated call against investor freedom and profit driven innovation. It's, dare I say it?, a call for economic Stalinism: stripping the "investor class" of their power to direct economic activity, investment and innovation. The author is silent about the implications of those ideas, but let's just say the historic record is not excellent. This is what I reacted to, and I'm telling the author to chill, go a little easier on that thick ideological slurpee, perhaps read a little more and come back when they come to appreciate the finer nuances of how society really works.
  - JoeJonathan 4y ago
    She’s not proposing legislation. She’s saying these guys are hypocrites who privatize the wins and socialize the losses.
zpeti 4y ago
Yet "capitalism" is actually the best way to limit that power of powerful people and make status pretty closely linked with ability. In every other attempt at forming different societies (from feudalism to capitalism) it's generally the ones good at power games that win, not the ones with the actual best abilites. It is said of Stalin he was the best power game player ever born, he was equalled by no one in power accumulation games. The possible exception to this is small tribes, where it was usually the people who added the most to a tribe that got power (if you were a power game player two friends could basically topple you). But we're not going back to tribal life, so there we go. Capitalism is still the best of all the bad systems we have.
- kqr 4y ago
  I'm incredibly curious what your sources are. Many of the confident claims in your comment go counter to what I've learned.
- JoeJonathan 4y ago
  Is status really linked to ability? Was SBF an anomaly, or just might it have been the case that he benefitted from obvious unearned social capital, like his Stanford professor parents? And that he, like plenty of others, told a story about “doing good by doing well” that so many wealthy people love to hear?
- Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
  Highly regulated capitalism maybe. Unregulated capitalism is a dystopia generator.
surgical_fire 4y ago
> And it just so happens that the current system we came up with - a mixed market with a strong, democratically elected public authority, yet freedom for individuals to pursue taxable profits This is naive to the point of absurdity, when the rich and powerful quite often are gifted loopholes for the profits to not be taxable, with a wink and a nudge from the "democratically elected public authority". I would certainly love to live in your illusion that "we are privileged to live in a society where the powerful are so limited in what they can do with their power" when they are constantly bailed out from their mistakes and get literal "get out of jail free cards" from their misdeeds. Things that would get you in prison get them a slap on the wrist at most.
- cornholio 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - foverzar 4y ago
    > and by living I mean bring your backpack and no cash, and try to make a comfortable life, obtain employment or start a business without using your existing capital or home country connections. I don't really suppose the experience would be vastly different to being an alien in an OECD country, tbh.
  - surgical_fire 4y ago
    > You can easily test the strength of that illusion by living for a time in almost any non-OECD country I lived in both sides of the fence, don't worry. > just that we need to appreciate what we have and not talk out of our behinds about the oppression Yes, I'm thankful to be able to discuss with you how badly we are screwed without fear of getting even more screwed. What else should I be thankful for that our benevolent ruling class gives me? That they don't behead me and put my head on a stake? You seem to mistakenly believe that I would like to burn down the system to live under a Khmer Rouge 2.0. I just don't live under any illusion that our ruling class is benevolent. That they exert their power through political influence and crony capitalism instead of just coming to my house and murdering my family is not something to be thankful for.
lordnacho 4y ago
> And it just so happens that the current system we came up with - a mixed market with a strong, democratically elected public authority, yet freedom for individuals to pursue taxable profits - is the one that seems to work the best, because it pushes powerful people, both politicians and capitalists, to cater to the needs of society if they need to maintain their power. It's not an utopia, human nature has not changed and some would chain other people up tomorrow like in medieval times if they could get away with it, yet it works remarkably well. I think the conclusion I'm coming to, at least for now, is that while that is in fact the system that we owe much of our current wealth to, it is not necessarily the system we currently live under. Yet we do have a society that likes to pretend it is still the system.
jeffwask 4y ago
> It's woefully naive to expect individuals to give that power up for social-positive goals, it practically never happened throughout human history. I would disagree emphatically with this statement. Prior to the advent of capitalism (200 years ago) there was significantly more long term vs short term thinking in society. We as a people and culture often engaged in massive generation spanning projects where the people who would see and benefit from the results could be generations in the future and the people who started the project would be long dead before it was finished. How much of this do we see today? The ROI cycle now is what a quarter, a few years... While I don't disagree that power tends to accumulate and is seldom given away, the focus wasn't solely on the acquisition and hoarding of capital. You can see the change in architecture, city design, the arts, and almost every aspect of life. Even simple utilitarian structures were often built as monuments of progress expected to serve generations. We can't even expand existing highways to meet demand. There always were and always will be the selfish in society but society as a whole wasn't always this selfish.

matthewdgreen 4y ago

We didn’t just “come up with that society”: many aspects of it were deliberately constructed because previous iterations failed badly. Deposit insurance, which is the subject of this post, was a depression-era phenomenon that came into existence because many banks failed catastrophically. Many other aspects of our modern society, from old-age pensions to welfare to our global defense alliances, were also born of similar disasters. The main objection in this post is that certain members of our society seem to view those developments as “old fashioned” and unnecessary, and would like to roll them back. Some go so far as to advocate for and donate considerable wealth to politicians who promise to do so. But of course when those people are themselves exposed to the exact risks those systems were designed to protect against — suddenly they’re enthusiastically in favor of government protection. The lesson here is that you should not look at our society and take it for granted. It took work to get us here, and it takes constant work to keep it in place. There are people who would throw it away for a momentary profit, and those people will tell you their beliefs are founded in principle. But for your own protection, you should pay attention to how seriously they take those principles when their money is on the line, and update your mental model accordingly. In this case the answer is: they do not take those principles very seriously at all.

cornholio 4y ago
Of course it didn't all spontaneously emerge, it was a result of a long political struggle of the masses against those in power; I was condensing for brevity and specifically mention existing room for improvement. I disagree though with your the read of the article. In the author's own words: > I would probably argue that venture capitalists are not good for society regardless of what they’re investing in. ... I am feeling particularly secure in my opinion on the investor class after the shitshow we just witnessed ... > People are realizing that despite the hundreds of billions of dollars being deployed each year by venture capital firms in pursuit of “innovation”, the world doesn’t really feel hundreds of billions of dollars better off for it. The sentiment here is clear, and has nothing to do with rolling back old-fashion regulations. Rather, it's a pure and unadulterated call against investor freedom and profit driven innovation. It's, dare I say it?, a call for economic Stalinism: stripping the "investor class" of their power to direct economic activity, investment and innovation. The author is silent about the implications of those ideas, but let's just say the historic record is not excellent. This is what I reacted to, and I'm telling the author to chill, go a little easier on that thick ideological slurpee, perhaps read a little more and come back when they come to appreciate the finer nuances of how society really works.
- JoeJonathan 4y ago
  She’s not proposing legislation. She’s saying these guys are hypocrites who privatize the wins and socialize the losses.

zpeti 4y ago

Yet "capitalism" is actually the best way to limit that power of powerful people and make status pretty closely linked with ability. In every other attempt at forming different societies (from feudalism to capitalism) it's generally the ones good at power games that win, not the ones with the actual best abilites. It is said of Stalin he was the best power game player ever born, he was equalled by no one in power accumulation games. The possible exception to this is small tribes, where it was usually the people who added the most to a tribe that got power (if you were a power game player two friends could basically topple you). But we're not going back to tribal life, so there we go. Capitalism is still the best of all the bad systems we have.

kqr 4y ago
I'm incredibly curious what your sources are. Many of the confident claims in your comment go counter to what I've learned.
JoeJonathan 4y ago
Is status really linked to ability? Was SBF an anomaly, or just might it have been the case that he benefitted from obvious unearned social capital, like his Stanford professor parents? And that he, like plenty of others, told a story about “doing good by doing well” that so many wealthy people love to hear?
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
Highly regulated capitalism maybe. Unregulated capitalism is a dystopia generator.

surgical_fire 4y ago

> And it just so happens that the current system we came up with - a mixed market with a strong, democratically elected public authority, yet freedom for individuals to pursue taxable profits This is naive to the point of absurdity, when the rich and powerful quite often are gifted loopholes for the profits to not be taxable, with a wink and a nudge from the "democratically elected public authority". I would certainly love to live in your illusion that "we are privileged to live in a society where the powerful are so limited in what they can do with their power" when they are constantly bailed out from their mistakes and get literal "get out of jail free cards" from their misdeeds. Things that would get you in prison get them a slap on the wrist at most.

cornholio 4y ago
[flagged]
- foverzar 4y ago
  > and by living I mean bring your backpack and no cash, and try to make a comfortable life, obtain employment or start a business without using your existing capital or home country connections. I don't really suppose the experience would be vastly different to being an alien in an OECD country, tbh.
- surgical_fire 4y ago
  > You can easily test the strength of that illusion by living for a time in almost any non-OECD country I lived in both sides of the fence, don't worry. > just that we need to appreciate what we have and not talk out of our behinds about the oppression Yes, I'm thankful to be able to discuss with you how badly we are screwed without fear of getting even more screwed. What else should I be thankful for that our benevolent ruling class gives me? That they don't behead me and put my head on a stake? You seem to mistakenly believe that I would like to burn down the system to live under a Khmer Rouge 2.0. I just don't live under any illusion that our ruling class is benevolent. That they exert their power through political influence and crony capitalism instead of just coming to my house and murdering my family is not something to be thankful for.

lordnacho 4y ago

> And it just so happens that the current system we came up with - a mixed market with a strong, democratically elected public authority, yet freedom for individuals to pursue taxable profits - is the one that seems to work the best, because it pushes powerful people, both politicians and capitalists, to cater to the needs of society if they need to maintain their power. It's not an utopia, human nature has not changed and some would chain other people up tomorrow like in medieval times if they could get away with it, yet it works remarkably well. I think the conclusion I'm coming to, at least for now, is that while that is in fact the system that we owe much of our current wealth to, it is not necessarily the system we currently live under. Yet we do have a society that likes to pretend it is still the system.

jeffwask 4y ago

> It's woefully naive to expect individuals to give that power up for social-positive goals, it practically never happened throughout human history. I would disagree emphatically with this statement. Prior to the advent of capitalism (200 years ago) there was significantly more long term vs short term thinking in society. We as a people and culture often engaged in massive generation spanning projects where the people who would see and benefit from the results could be generations in the future and the people who started the project would be long dead before it was finished. How much of this do we see today? The ROI cycle now is what a quarter, a few years... While I don't disagree that power tends to accumulate and is seldom given away, the focus wasn't solely on the acquisition and hoarding of capital. You can see the change in architecture, city design, the arts, and almost every aspect of life. Even simple utilitarian structures were often built as monuments of progress expected to serve generations. We can't even expand existing highways to meet demand. There always were and always will be the selfish in society but society as a whole wasn't always this selfish.