3 ms·

Capitalism, like socialism, or postmodernism, or the labels conservative or liberal are almost devoid of meaning. But please, both the parent commenter and you

Capitalism, like socialism, or postmodernism, or the labels conservative or liberal are almost devoid of meaning. But please, both the parent commenter and you keep arguing what the true meaning of capitalism is. Meanwhile I will head to the market and barter some of my guns for butter.

cscurmudgeon 3y ago
> Meanwhile I will head to the market and barter some of my guns for butter. vs > Meanwhile I will head to the local apparatchik and request permission to barter some of my guns for butter while paying homage to dear leader. Those are two distinct experiences.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
The problem with these terms is not that they have no meaning, it's that they have no context-free virtue. Prohibiting leaded gasoline is good and prohibiting housing construction is bad, even if they're both government regulations. Competitive markets are good and concentrated markets are bad, even if they're both markets. But people want to assign a label to the category instead of the instance, and then they fight with people whose instance doesn't fit the label -- or whose instance does fit the label but they refuse to accept it because they assigned a different label to the category.
- jxramos 3y ago
  that's a pretty deep meta level observation, the wrestling with a category to sully it with bad associations.
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Indeed, or put another way, nuance doesn't exist on the internet. I've seen this time and time again, where one party will blame something on capitalism or government regulation as some blanket statement, without saying which policies they're even talking about. At that point, it's a tribal opinion that was arrived at through emotional means, not logical means.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    Better yet, sometimes that is what it is. For example, it's plausible that cost disease is largely a result of government regulation, but it's not a result of a specific government regulation, it's a result of the total number of regulations increasing over time like a ratchet when each one adds another tick to the cost of doing business.
    - hackerlight 3y ago
      > it's plausible that cost disease is largely a result of government regulation, but it's not a result of a specific government regulation Yes, but each individual regulation that is contributing to this aggregate cost disease has varying degrees of value. Even if a specific regulation contributes +1 to the overall cost disease, it may also contribute +2 of positive value elsewhere that makes it net worthwhile, all things considered. So we're back to where we started. Each distinct thing needs to be considered on its own merits without trying to automatically judge it based on what category it belongs to. Aside from that, I could not agree more with your overall view. It's a good distillation of the broader concept of thinking things through from first principles. I don't want more or less regulations. I want more good regulations, and less bad regulations. In some areas (e.g. carbon emissions), I only want more regulations. In other areas (e.g. housing construction), I only want less regulations. I think these conclusions come from starting with the desired end goal (e.g. less pollution) and working backwards. Many people wrongly start with an ideology (e.g. regulations are good) and work forwards from that.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > Even if a specific regulation contributes +1 to the overall cost disease, it may also contribute +2 of positive value elsewhere that makes it net worthwhile, all things considered. That's assuming they're not in competition for scarce resources, which they are. For example, it's more efficient to do something with fewer people than to do the same thing with more people. Not just for the directly proportional efficiency reason, but because larger teams have higher coordination costs and management overhead, and will tend to increase average entity size leading to market consolidation which is very bad. So you get a certain regulatory budget before your regulations induce the regulated entity to increase the size of the team. At which point your regulation that was contributing +1 cost to achieve +2 benefit would then contribute +25001 cost to achieve +2 benefit. (This is especially true for regulations that apply to small entities, because the cost of increasing the number of workers from 1 to 2 is drastic, often to the point of destroying the business.) Which means you have to start throwing out regulations that in isolation have +1 cost and +2 benefit so you have the budget left for the regulations that have +1 cost and +10 benefit.
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  > Prohibiting leaded gasoline is good and prohibiting housing construction Leaded gasoline an issue when govt bans density leading to sprawl.
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  > Prohibiting leaded gasoline is good and prohibiting housing construction Leaded gasoline an issue when govt prohibits housing construction leading to sprawl.

cscurmudgeon 3y ago

> Meanwhile I will head to the market and barter some of my guns for butter. vs > Meanwhile I will head to the local apparatchik and request permission to barter some of my guns for butter while paying homage to dear leader. Those are two distinct experiences.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

The problem with these terms is not that they have no meaning, it's that they have no context-free virtue. Prohibiting leaded gasoline is good and prohibiting housing construction is bad, even if they're both government regulations. Competitive markets are good and concentrated markets are bad, even if they're both markets. But people want to assign a label to the category instead of the instance, and then they fight with people whose instance doesn't fit the label -- or whose instance does fit the label but they refuse to accept it because they assigned a different label to the category.

jxramos 3y ago
that's a pretty deep meta level observation, the wrestling with a category to sully it with bad associations.
satvikpendem 3y ago
Indeed, or put another way, nuance doesn't exist on the internet. I've seen this time and time again, where one party will blame something on capitalism or government regulation as some blanket statement, without saying which policies they're even talking about. At that point, it's a tribal opinion that was arrived at through emotional means, not logical means.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  Better yet, sometimes that is what it is. For example, it's plausible that cost disease is largely a result of government regulation, but it's not a result of a specific government regulation, it's a result of the total number of regulations increasing over time like a ratchet when each one adds another tick to the cost of doing business.
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    > it's plausible that cost disease is largely a result of government regulation, but it's not a result of a specific government regulation Yes, but each individual regulation that is contributing to this aggregate cost disease has varying degrees of value. Even if a specific regulation contributes +1 to the overall cost disease, it may also contribute +2 of positive value elsewhere that makes it net worthwhile, all things considered. So we're back to where we started. Each distinct thing needs to be considered on its own merits without trying to automatically judge it based on what category it belongs to. Aside from that, I could not agree more with your overall view. It's a good distillation of the broader concept of thinking things through from first principles. I don't want more or less regulations. I want more good regulations, and less bad regulations. In some areas (e.g. carbon emissions), I only want more regulations. In other areas (e.g. housing construction), I only want less regulations. I think these conclusions come from starting with the desired end goal (e.g. less pollution) and working backwards. Many people wrongly start with an ideology (e.g. regulations are good) and work forwards from that.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > Even if a specific regulation contributes +1 to the overall cost disease, it may also contribute +2 of positive value elsewhere that makes it net worthwhile, all things considered. That's assuming they're not in competition for scarce resources, which they are. For example, it's more efficient to do something with fewer people than to do the same thing with more people. Not just for the directly proportional efficiency reason, but because larger teams have higher coordination costs and management overhead, and will tend to increase average entity size leading to market consolidation which is very bad. So you get a certain regulatory budget before your regulations induce the regulated entity to increase the size of the team. At which point your regulation that was contributing +1 cost to achieve +2 benefit would then contribute +25001 cost to achieve +2 benefit. (This is especially true for regulations that apply to small entities, because the cost of increasing the number of workers from 1 to 2 is drastic, often to the point of destroying the business.) Which means you have to start throwing out regulations that in isolation have +1 cost and +2 benefit so you have the budget left for the regulations that have +1 cost and +10 benefit.
cscurmudgeon 3y ago
> Prohibiting leaded gasoline is good and prohibiting housing construction Leaded gasoline an issue when govt bans density leading to sprawl.
cscurmudgeon 3y ago
> Prohibiting leaded gasoline is good and prohibiting housing construction Leaded gasoline an issue when govt prohibits housing construction leading to sprawl.