4 ms·

> The race to the bottom is all around us. You live in SF by chance? Because globally and historically that’s absolutely not what the data says about markets.

RedCondor 3y ago
Marketers take a lot of credit for achievements that don't belong to them. Take, for example, Hayek's rather more honest commentary on vacations and human rights generally: >[The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights] is admittedly an attempt to fuse the rights of the Western liberal tradition with the altogether different concept deriving from the Marxist Russian Revolution. It adds to the list of the classical civil rights enumerated in its first twenty-one articles seven further guarantees intended to express the new ‘social and economic rights’. (…) The conception of a ‘universal right’ which assures to the peasant, to the Eskimo, and presumably to the Abominable Snowman, ‘periodic holidays with pay’ shows the absurdity of the whole thing. (…) What are the consequences of the requirement that every one should have the right ‘freely to participate in the cultural life of the community and to share in the scientific advances and its benefits’. (…) It is evident that all these ‘rights’ are based on the interpretation of society as a deliberately made organization by which everybody is employed. They could not be made universal within a system of rules of just conduct based on the conception of individual responsibility, and so require that the whole of society be converted into a single organization, that is, made totalitarian in the fullest sense of the word. https://redsails.org/concessions/ https://redsails.org/concessions/ The decay we witness today is simply the rollback of concessions copied from socialist states and artificially bolted onto capitalism to reduce socialist ferment. The consequences are predictable.
- alchemist1e9 3y ago
  I see. So this is about “the right” to take a vacation? What are you talking about and what am I? we seem to live in different realities. I can’t even imagine somehow I would have a government “right” to take a vacation. Who is paying for it? I don’t get it.
  - RedCondor 3y ago
    All so-called "capital returns" are in reality produced by working people, and therefore people get to democratically decide what they do with them, through whatever decision-making forms they politically choose and consent to organize themselves under. Insofar as there are disagreements, because capitalist "geniuses" don't think their riches should be subject to democracy, we have a struggle between socialism and capitalism.
    - alchemist1e9 3y ago
      Except history shows us that in 100% of the cases that working people seize the production and allocate the gains they do a unbelievable bad job. Socialism is the single most failed idea in human history, yet we refuse to properly teach that in our education system. I suspect in the future it will be view a bit like refusing to teach other scientific subjects, like evolution. In reality a mob of people end up producing nothing without capitalists and markets. There is a joke that the IQ of a mob is roughly the highest IQ in the mob divided by the size of the mob.
      - RedCondor 3y ago
        Cool joke. I encourage anyone on the fence between this libertarian and I to read the "Concessions" essay I linked up above.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        > Socialism is the single most failed idea in human history, yet we refuse to properly teach that in our education system. Well... let's see until we have the capitalist end game before we draw that conclusion, there is a fair chance that it will make the failures of socialism look like a picnic. > I suspect in the future it will be view a bit like refusing to teach other scientific subjects, like evolution. Economic systems aren't science, they are just means of organizing large numbers of people in ways that are hopefully sensible. A system that maximizes for growth can work, for a while, but isn't long term sustainable. So depending on your horizon you may think it is a great idea or a terrible one. Markets aren't bad per-se, but they have the potential to lead to catastrophe and if you don't acknowledge that potential and deal with the risk then the chances of it happening increase.
jjoonathan 3y ago
Any system that is in control and doesn't actually manage to stop progress can make this claim, monarchies and socialist systems included. Capitalism is very good at maximizing the amount of money available for investment, so it probably is uniquely qualified to make a claim to be the best system for encouraging progress, but just as clearly it aggressively funnels technology down paths that are tuned for maximum value extraction and that's not something I believe is good for society as a whole, or even progress on a long enough timescale.
- alchemist1e9 3y ago
  For what it’s worth, not much, but me personal believe that you believe that without evidence and primary due to the propaganda governments have fed you to scapegoat the evil “capitalists” and markets as a way to deflect blame for serious problems away from themselves. Governments need to regulate to prevent harm, we all agree. Yet they claim it’s the markets doing it! No, markets do what is most efficient and optimal given the rules they can operate within. Governments are the failure point for basically all the serious problems. Instead of making neutral evidence based rules as regulations, politicians tend to reach for redistribution to buy votes, which when combined with scapegoating markets, is a winning combination to remain in power. Unfortunately history shows, unambiguously, it’s a losing combination for the society.
  - jjoonathan 3y ago
    Funny, I think that you believe what you do without evidence primarily due to the propaganda spread by the wealthy elite that own and control the system and want to deflect blame for serious problems away from themselves by blaming the government. The private sector is bigger than the public sector, both in terms of dollar expenditure and in terms of political power. Politicians have to be vetted by rich people (the campaign finance process) before they are even options for election. If you're wealthy enough to monetize policy changes, it's easy to lobby with positive net expected value, if not, it isn't. The whims of the wealthy are in the driver's seat, the will of the people is not. Quick exercise. Many people are confused about the social class they inhabit. Tax policy is the easiest way to demonstrate the actual reality, because whoever is in charge always decides that someone else should pay the taxes. Take out last year's 1040. I want you to look at 3 lines: Line 1, what you earn from working, Line 7, what you earn from owning assets, and Line 9+3/4, your unrealized capital gains. Line 1 has high tax, Line 7 has low tax, and Line 9+3/4 has no tax. Who do you think decided these tax levels? Populists? Do you feel in charge here? > markets do what is most efficient and optimal given the rules Markets don't maximize value in the colloquial sense, the value that they optimize is wealth-weighted. Feed a starving orphan? Zero market value because the orphan has no wealth to pay you. Merge up all the banks so they can load up on risk and arrange for bailouts when they go bust? Enormous market value because it makes rich investors richer, the single most weighted value in all the world. The market will ejaculate capital and connections all over this brilliant value-creating enterprise. Oh, and part of it will involve bribing public officials so you can even blame the government for allowing you to rob the plebs. Lol. Ok, so the markets don't do what people want, they do what wealth-weighted people want. What rich people want. Is that so bad? You and I still get enough weight in the process to live a decent life. Besides, Warren Buffet seems pretty humble and someone has to be diligent about the high level investment decisions, right? Well, here's the problem: financial assets are a moral hazard. Cynically, capitalism entitles rich people to get paid for being rich. Passive income is the ultimate luxury, the most valuable commodity, and rich people indulge exorbitantly. Even Warren Buffet. Especially Warren Buffet. When his passive income streams are threatened, the happy investment grandpa turns into a nasty selfish asshole out to bust the balls of the people doing the real work at the companies he owns (seriously, look into the terms of the BNSF negotiations) because on the opposite side of a passive stream is (arguably) a stream of unreciprocated labor. The counterargument is that Labor Theory of Value is clearly bunk because there's more to value than labor, but just as clearly there is moral hazard in letting someone who doesn't produce the surplus value decide what to do with the surplus value. Wouldn't they just stuff it in their pockets? Yes. That's literally what the stock market is. The entire private sector is organized explicitly for the purpose of stuffing pockets and everything else is merely an emergent consequence of that. Maybe that's ok. After all, every contract is individually agreed to, right? Problem: one side gets much more control over the rules of the game than the other, so consent is dubious. On the first day of business school they teach the prisoner's dilemma, where freedom to control the rules of a game trumps freedom to choose inside of a game. In theory, competition keeps businesses is check, but in practice businesses do everything they can to avoid competition, some successfully, so does it really? In any case, every system needs investment and investment is all about reducing consumption today (which rich people are in a unique position to do) in order to spend the money instead on a factory or a risky venture or something that is expected to make the world better tomorrow, returning a cut to the investor, rewarding success and punishing failure. This is good for everyone, right? Well, yes... when it plays out that way. But markets are amoral. They don't really know if you created value or extracted value and they don't care. The money in your pocket doesn't care if you are a highway robber or robber baron or someone who worked hard for that money. As far as markets are concerned, "create problem, sell solution" is just as legitimate an enterprise as solving an actual preexisting problem. Better, even, because fundamental value creation is hard and you have to compete, while monopolization is all about not competing. What do the best performing market sectors over the last few decades have in common (health care, housing, and education)? Monopolized scarcity. Is this really best for society? You notice how business school tends to focus less on building a better product and more on building a better moat? They know what they are doing, and while it's the best strategy for them, is this really the best way to run society? By maximizing free money for the rich and observing that a somewhat functional society springs up as a side effect? Capitalism is great at growth and terrible at stewardship. It wins a land grab but it leaves behind a nasty class structure. Is it worth it? I have no idea. I just try to win. I'm a lot less certain than I used to be, though.
macintux 3y ago
The “bottom” is also subjective. I see small-town grocery stores everywhere in Indiana dying due to cheap Dollar General stores popping up next to them. So much for fresh fruit & vegetables, so much for the Amish bakeries that would distribute baked goods through the local groceries. But hey, cheaply-made goods from China are more widely available.
- someplaceguy 3y ago
  Not every negative aspect of changes caused by a market-driven process is actually an indication that those changes are negative as a whole. You should contemplate why the market caused resources to be allocated this way, instead of your preferred way, as usually the market allocates resources more efficiently than any single person could ever hope to achieve. It may turn out that the negative changes you perceived are more than balanced by other positive changes that you weren't able to perceive. In your example, the lives ot Chinese people who benefitted from those changes may have improved a lot more than whatever setbacks you may have experienced. Or maybe people around you can now buy things they couldn't afford before. That said, this is not always true, as markets don't take into account externalities. But still, we don't know of any system of global resource allocation better than letting markets do their job while governments try to control their externalities.

RedCondor 3y ago

Marketers take a lot of credit for achievements that don't belong to them. Take, for example, Hayek's rather more honest commentary on vacations and human rights generally: >[The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights] is admittedly an attempt to fuse the rights of the Western liberal tradition with the altogether different concept deriving from the Marxist Russian Revolution. It adds to the list of the classical civil rights enumerated in its first twenty-one articles seven further guarantees intended to express the new ‘social and economic rights’. (…) The conception of a ‘universal right’ which assures to the peasant, to the Eskimo, and presumably to the Abominable Snowman, ‘periodic holidays with pay’ shows the absurdity of the whole thing. (…) What are the consequences of the requirement that every one should have the right ‘freely to participate in the cultural life of the community and to share in the scientific advances and its benefits’. (…) It is evident that all these ‘rights’ are based on the interpretation of society as a deliberately made organization by which everybody is employed. They could not be made universal within a system of rules of just conduct based on the conception of individual responsibility, and so require that the whole of society be converted into a single organization, that is, made totalitarian in the fullest sense of the word. https://redsails.org/concessions/ https://redsails.org/concessions/ The decay we witness today is simply the rollback of concessions copied from socialist states and artificially bolted onto capitalism to reduce socialist ferment. The consequences are predictable.

alchemist1e9 3y ago
I see. So this is about “the right” to take a vacation? What are you talking about and what am I? we seem to live in different realities. I can’t even imagine somehow I would have a government “right” to take a vacation. Who is paying for it? I don’t get it.
- RedCondor 3y ago
  All so-called "capital returns" are in reality produced by working people, and therefore people get to democratically decide what they do with them, through whatever decision-making forms they politically choose and consent to organize themselves under. Insofar as there are disagreements, because capitalist "geniuses" don't think their riches should be subject to democracy, we have a struggle between socialism and capitalism.
  - alchemist1e9 3y ago
    Except history shows us that in 100% of the cases that working people seize the production and allocate the gains they do a unbelievable bad job. Socialism is the single most failed idea in human history, yet we refuse to properly teach that in our education system. I suspect in the future it will be view a bit like refusing to teach other scientific subjects, like evolution. In reality a mob of people end up producing nothing without capitalists and markets. There is a joke that the IQ of a mob is roughly the highest IQ in the mob divided by the size of the mob.
    - RedCondor 3y ago
      Cool joke. I encourage anyone on the fence between this libertarian and I to read the "Concessions" essay I linked up above.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      > Socialism is the single most failed idea in human history, yet we refuse to properly teach that in our education system. Well... let's see until we have the capitalist end game before we draw that conclusion, there is a fair chance that it will make the failures of socialism look like a picnic. > I suspect in the future it will be view a bit like refusing to teach other scientific subjects, like evolution. Economic systems aren't science, they are just means of organizing large numbers of people in ways that are hopefully sensible. A system that maximizes for growth can work, for a while, but isn't long term sustainable. So depending on your horizon you may think it is a great idea or a terrible one. Markets aren't bad per-se, but they have the potential to lead to catastrophe and if you don't acknowledge that potential and deal with the risk then the chances of it happening increase.

jjoonathan 3y ago

Any system that is in control and doesn't actually manage to stop progress can make this claim, monarchies and socialist systems included. Capitalism is very good at maximizing the amount of money available for investment, so it probably is uniquely qualified to make a claim to be the best system for encouraging progress, but just as clearly it aggressively funnels technology down paths that are tuned for maximum value extraction and that's not something I believe is good for society as a whole, or even progress on a long enough timescale.

alchemist1e9 3y ago
For what it’s worth, not much, but me personal believe that you believe that without evidence and primary due to the propaganda governments have fed you to scapegoat the evil “capitalists” and markets as a way to deflect blame for serious problems away from themselves. Governments need to regulate to prevent harm, we all agree. Yet they claim it’s the markets doing it! No, markets do what is most efficient and optimal given the rules they can operate within. Governments are the failure point for basically all the serious problems. Instead of making neutral evidence based rules as regulations, politicians tend to reach for redistribution to buy votes, which when combined with scapegoating markets, is a winning combination to remain in power. Unfortunately history shows, unambiguously, it’s a losing combination for the society.
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  Funny, I think that you believe what you do without evidence primarily due to the propaganda spread by the wealthy elite that own and control the system and want to deflect blame for serious problems away from themselves by blaming the government. The private sector is bigger than the public sector, both in terms of dollar expenditure and in terms of political power. Politicians have to be vetted by rich people (the campaign finance process) before they are even options for election. If you're wealthy enough to monetize policy changes, it's easy to lobby with positive net expected value, if not, it isn't. The whims of the wealthy are in the driver's seat, the will of the people is not. Quick exercise. Many people are confused about the social class they inhabit. Tax policy is the easiest way to demonstrate the actual reality, because whoever is in charge always decides that someone else should pay the taxes. Take out last year's 1040. I want you to look at 3 lines: Line 1, what you earn from working, Line 7, what you earn from owning assets, and Line 9+3/4, your unrealized capital gains. Line 1 has high tax, Line 7 has low tax, and Line 9+3/4 has no tax. Who do you think decided these tax levels? Populists? Do you feel in charge here? > markets do what is most efficient and optimal given the rules Markets don't maximize value in the colloquial sense, the value that they optimize is wealth-weighted. Feed a starving orphan? Zero market value because the orphan has no wealth to pay you. Merge up all the banks so they can load up on risk and arrange for bailouts when they go bust? Enormous market value because it makes rich investors richer, the single most weighted value in all the world. The market will ejaculate capital and connections all over this brilliant value-creating enterprise. Oh, and part of it will involve bribing public officials so you can even blame the government for allowing you to rob the plebs. Lol. Ok, so the markets don't do what people want, they do what wealth-weighted people want. What rich people want. Is that so bad? You and I still get enough weight in the process to live a decent life. Besides, Warren Buffet seems pretty humble and someone has to be diligent about the high level investment decisions, right? Well, here's the problem: financial assets are a moral hazard. Cynically, capitalism entitles rich people to get paid for being rich. Passive income is the ultimate luxury, the most valuable commodity, and rich people indulge exorbitantly. Even Warren Buffet. Especially Warren Buffet. When his passive income streams are threatened, the happy investment grandpa turns into a nasty selfish asshole out to bust the balls of the people doing the real work at the companies he owns (seriously, look into the terms of the BNSF negotiations) because on the opposite side of a passive stream is (arguably) a stream of unreciprocated labor. The counterargument is that Labor Theory of Value is clearly bunk because there's more to value than labor, but just as clearly there is moral hazard in letting someone who doesn't produce the surplus value decide what to do with the surplus value. Wouldn't they just stuff it in their pockets? Yes. That's literally what the stock market is. The entire private sector is organized explicitly for the purpose of stuffing pockets and everything else is merely an emergent consequence of that. Maybe that's ok. After all, every contract is individually agreed to, right? Problem: one side gets much more control over the rules of the game than the other, so consent is dubious. On the first day of business school they teach the prisoner's dilemma, where freedom to control the rules of a game trumps freedom to choose inside of a game. In theory, competition keeps businesses is check, but in practice businesses do everything they can to avoid competition, some successfully, so does it really? In any case, every system needs investment and investment is all about reducing consumption today (which rich people are in a unique position to do) in order to spend the money instead on a factory or a risky venture or something that is expected to make the world better tomorrow, returning a cut to the investor, rewarding success and punishing failure. This is good for everyone, right? Well, yes... when it plays out that way. But markets are amoral. They don't really know if you created value or extracted value and they don't care. The money in your pocket doesn't care if you are a highway robber or robber baron or someone who worked hard for that money. As far as markets are concerned, "create problem, sell solution" is just as legitimate an enterprise as solving an actual preexisting problem. Better, even, because fundamental value creation is hard and you have to compete, while monopolization is all about not competing. What do the best performing market sectors over the last few decades have in common (health care, housing, and education)? Monopolized scarcity. Is this really best for society? You notice how business school tends to focus less on building a better product and more on building a better moat? They know what they are doing, and while it's the best strategy for them, is this really the best way to run society? By maximizing free money for the rich and observing that a somewhat functional society springs up as a side effect? Capitalism is great at growth and terrible at stewardship. It wins a land grab but it leaves behind a nasty class structure. Is it worth it? I have no idea. I just try to win. I'm a lot less certain than I used to be, though.

macintux 3y ago

The “bottom” is also subjective. I see small-town grocery stores everywhere in Indiana dying due to cheap Dollar General stores popping up next to them. So much for fresh fruit & vegetables, so much for the Amish bakeries that would distribute baked goods through the local groceries. But hey, cheaply-made goods from China are more widely available.

someplaceguy 3y ago
Not every negative aspect of changes caused by a market-driven process is actually an indication that those changes are negative as a whole. You should contemplate why the market caused resources to be allocated this way, instead of your preferred way, as usually the market allocates resources more efficiently than any single person could ever hope to achieve. It may turn out that the negative changes you perceived are more than balanced by other positive changes that you weren't able to perceive. In your example, the lives ot Chinese people who benefitted from those changes may have improved a lot more than whatever setbacks you may have experienced. Or maybe people around you can now buy things they couldn't afford before. That said, this is not always true, as markets don't take into account externalities. But still, we don't know of any system of global resource allocation better than letting markets do their job while governments try to control their externalities.