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This can best be framed (as Marx did) in terms of feudalism. Feudalism as an economic system captured the surplus value of labor right up to the monarch. This

by jmyeet 4y ago

This can best be framed (as Marx did) in terms of feudalism. Feudalism as an economic system captured the surplus value of labor right up to the monarch. This was done through a number of layers, what you'd call vassal lords. In some places these structures exist today (eg the various duchies in the UK that still derive an income from their holdings to whatever royal or aristocrat is appointed to benefit from them). One might be tempted to call this distributed feudalism because of the existence of intermediate lords but it's one of those distinctions without a difference. The monarch will ultimately seek to extract as much value from his or her vassal lords as is possible. At times this was an explicit goal (eg Louis XIV keeping the nobility poor through Versailles). "Distributed capitalism" is likewise a distinction without a difference. You can have smaller farms. These will be gobbled up Cargill or whoever, often coercively through predatory pricing of key products. The forces at work always seek to capture that surplus value of labor into a smaller and smaller group at the top. You see the effects of this everywhere: massive consolidation in every sector. All of the food in the US is produced by like 6 conglomerates.

mindslight 4y ago
> You can have smaller farms. These will be gobbled up Cargill or whoever, often coercively through predatory pricing of key products. The forces at work always seek to capture that surplus value of labor into a smaller and smaller group at the top. You completely ignored the last bit of my comment where I pointed out a likely cause of much of the consolidation, that isn't just "capitalism". A privileged class of people getting a cheat code of easy money to buy up ever more of the productive economy is not what I'd call a level playing field. I see many dynamics that should discourage concentrations of wealth, like the utility value of money goes down as you have more (rich people overpay for stuff), and centralization often creates extra waste to help uniformity. I'm not going to assert that the overall dynamic is definitely this way (and then just-world-fallacy the way things currently are), rather I'm just pointing out that distributed capitalism is most certainly not the experiment we're running. And to head off the common retort that these subsidies are inevitable as capital captures the government - if this is true then there's really no point in analyzing any -isms as it means we'll always be stuck in this type of "capitalism".

by jmyeet 4y ago

mindslight 4y ago

> You can have smaller farms. These will be gobbled up Cargill or whoever, often coercively through predatory pricing of key products. The forces at work always seek to capture that surplus value of labor into a smaller and smaller group at the top. You completely ignored the last bit of my comment where I pointed out a likely cause of much of the consolidation, that isn't just "capitalism". A privileged class of people getting a cheat code of easy money to buy up ever more of the productive economy is not what I'd call a level playing field. I see many dynamics that should discourage concentrations of wealth, like the utility value of money goes down as you have more (rich people overpay for stuff), and centralization often creates extra waste to help uniformity. I'm not going to assert that the overall dynamic is definitely this way (and then just-world-fallacy the way things currently are), rather I'm just pointing out that distributed capitalism is most certainly not the experiment we're running. And to head off the common retort that these subsidies are inevitable as capital captures the government - if this is true then there's really no point in analyzing any -isms as it means we'll always be stuck in this type of "capitalism".