4 ms·

First of all, there's already much to be said on how encouraging private citizens to amass wealth at all costs is highly dangerous to society. Clearly, there ar

First of all, there's already much to be said on how encouraging private citizens to amass wealth at all costs is highly dangerous to society. Clearly, there are massive problems that our current model has. Second, we don't need to go for a utopia right now. Personally, I'm not a "communist" or whatever fan. I think that we can remove the negative impacts of capitalism without a crusade, through borrowing elements of those political theories. That doesn't sound half bad to me: likely feasible (if only the political will could be scrounged up), not hugely radical, and already a big boon.

FredPret 3y ago
No there isn't. What practical difference is there in your life now that Musk is worth 200B versus when he had 100B or 0B? Probably your life is actually better because there is now Starlink and Tesla and you have more options. Let's say we can push a button and grow the economy 10% in real terms, but some rich guy like Bill Gates gets his wealth not increased 10%, but 10x. Do we press it? Next time we press it, some other billionaire gets 10x-ed. The rational thing to do is to smash that button an infinite number of times. That button exists and is called economic growth.
- vacuity 3y ago
  If there was such a button that had no side effects, perhaps it would be best to press it infinitely, as you say. But clearly "economic growth" doesn't lift everyone up equally. Somehow, there are still many poor people even in the US. Or take the average person in the entire world. Are they better off because of Starlink. Can Starlink solve world hunger? Cancer? What world changing breakthrough does it accomplish that makes the likes of Elon Musk untouchable? On HN, the community is fairly insular to people who already have many means and opportunities.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    > But clearly "economic growth" doesn't lift everyone up equally That’s right there in my premise! So what? It lifts up everyone a little bit; most people a lot; and one or two get boosted to orbit for a generation or so. Your arguments against Starlink are so silly I struggle to believe someone typed them into this site. Don’t you think one more internet option for most of the globe is a good thing? And yes, it directly addresses both hunger and cancer through better internet, more research, a bigger economy, connected tractors. It’sneven helping Ukraine defend itself against another totalitarian state right now. None of which is relevant. It’s another internet option and therefore a good thing in and of itself. You don’t even have to like it or use it for it to make your life better.
    - vacuity 3y ago
      > It lifts up everyone a little bit; most people a lot; No, it doesn't. It helps the people who are lucky enough to already have one foot in the race. But that's not remotely everyone. > directly addresses both hunger and cancer through better internet, more research, a bigger economy, connected tractors. Perhaps, although that's not really "directly". But then you're saying that we need to allow multi-billionaires in order to have things like Starlink. How about we stop ISPs from being stingy with their money and suddenly we don't need to rely on one rich person to save us from the other rich people? You seem to think that if the government takes some control/wealth out of the hands of these people, we're suddenly going to have stagnation. I don't see why it has to be all-or-nothing; we don't have to implement scary, spooky communism. You know what I think is even better than having Starlink? If we had Starlink and we didn't have exploitative, ruthless businesses that led to needing to have Starlink as it is now. It would just be the new technology that Comcast or Verizon made, without the weird "Elon Musk will save us all" fanfare.
      - inemesitaffia 3y ago
        Please go back to Reddit. Apart from land, Inheritance and seizing power, individual and community wealth comes from what you create and invest in
- Draiken 3y ago
  > No there isn't. We simply don't know if a different system could produce the same, because the few attempts we had were either corrupted or actively sabotaged. I'd argue if we look at China we actually can see how something other than capitalism can improve people's lives: hundreds of millions raised out of poverty through basic planning. Another aspect is that many of the issues with previous attempts at something other than capitalism happened without the technology we have today. This would change everything. > The rational thing to do is to smash that button an infinite number of times. That button exists and is called economic growth. Of course it would be if there were zero bad consequences from it. But every time you press that button more people starve, the planet dies faster, workers conditions deteriorate, more people go homeless and so on. But the big issue with your entire premise is that growing the economy means we improve people's lives. That's exactly the issue with the wealth gap: it doesn't. The economy right now basically only grows for the rich, not for everyone else. It's always money being siphoned from the bottom into the top. It's very easy to pretend that everything is alright when you are in a privileged position, but the main reason 1st world countries like the US "grow" is by exploiting the poorer countries. You get access to better living standards at the cost of child labor in another country, deforestation, workers without a living wage or all the other nastiness that we don't want to know about. There's no free lunch. It's the same siphoning of wealth, at all levels.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    There is no free lunch, but intelligence comes damn close. Monkeys living in a cave could drastically improve their lives by banging rocks together and making simple tools. Another big improvement comes from fire. Again when the rocks are stacked into buildings. By having more rocks, and arranging them more intelligently, we can hugely improve life. This is economic growth. Your arguments against growth fail: first you say “other systems” (they all suck because they all have one thing in common - they are planned) can cause growth just as well as capitalism. Second you say growth is bad because the environment. Third you say that only rich people get the growth anyway. Fourth you say growth comes from siphoning wealth from the poor. Well, I have news for you. The people who benefit most from growth are the poor. In my native Africa, there are millions of babies who are currently not dead due to economic growth: - the state left the farmer alone for five whole minutes and it turns out he managed to grow some actual food when he didn’t have to pay so many bribes, taxes, and obey 1000 regulations - technology improved business and trade, so mom and dad can buy food now - some guy named Bill Gates donated mosquito nets and medicine and genetically modified crops that have all the vitamins. Your ideas are rooted in ancient, pre-growth economic models. Poor people simply aren’t a good source of wealth; otherwise why aren’t dictators who do seize their wealth from the poor indredibly rich & celebrated? Why are Bezos and Musk and Gates the richest? They are producers, not seizers.

FredPret 3y ago

No there isn't. What practical difference is there in your life now that Musk is worth 200B versus when he had 100B or 0B? Probably your life is actually better because there is now Starlink and Tesla and you have more options. Let's say we can push a button and grow the economy 10% in real terms, but some rich guy like Bill Gates gets his wealth not increased 10%, but 10x. Do we press it? Next time we press it, some other billionaire gets 10x-ed. The rational thing to do is to smash that button an infinite number of times. That button exists and is called economic growth.

vacuity 3y ago
If there was such a button that had no side effects, perhaps it would be best to press it infinitely, as you say. But clearly "economic growth" doesn't lift everyone up equally. Somehow, there are still many poor people even in the US. Or take the average person in the entire world. Are they better off because of Starlink. Can Starlink solve world hunger? Cancer? What world changing breakthrough does it accomplish that makes the likes of Elon Musk untouchable? On HN, the community is fairly insular to people who already have many means and opportunities.
- FredPret 3y ago
  > But clearly "economic growth" doesn't lift everyone up equally That’s right there in my premise! So what? It lifts up everyone a little bit; most people a lot; and one or two get boosted to orbit for a generation or so. Your arguments against Starlink are so silly I struggle to believe someone typed them into this site. Don’t you think one more internet option for most of the globe is a good thing? And yes, it directly addresses both hunger and cancer through better internet, more research, a bigger economy, connected tractors. It’sneven helping Ukraine defend itself against another totalitarian state right now. None of which is relevant. It’s another internet option and therefore a good thing in and of itself. You don’t even have to like it or use it for it to make your life better.
  - vacuity 3y ago
    > It lifts up everyone a little bit; most people a lot; No, it doesn't. It helps the people who are lucky enough to already have one foot in the race. But that's not remotely everyone. > directly addresses both hunger and cancer through better internet, more research, a bigger economy, connected tractors. Perhaps, although that's not really "directly". But then you're saying that we need to allow multi-billionaires in order to have things like Starlink. How about we stop ISPs from being stingy with their money and suddenly we don't need to rely on one rich person to save us from the other rich people? You seem to think that if the government takes some control/wealth out of the hands of these people, we're suddenly going to have stagnation. I don't see why it has to be all-or-nothing; we don't have to implement scary, spooky communism. You know what I think is even better than having Starlink? If we had Starlink and we didn't have exploitative, ruthless businesses that led to needing to have Starlink as it is now. It would just be the new technology that Comcast or Verizon made, without the weird "Elon Musk will save us all" fanfare.
    - inemesitaffia 3y ago
      Please go back to Reddit. Apart from land, Inheritance and seizing power, individual and community wealth comes from what you create and invest in
Draiken 3y ago
> No there isn't. We simply don't know if a different system could produce the same, because the few attempts we had were either corrupted or actively sabotaged. I'd argue if we look at China we actually can see how something other than capitalism can improve people's lives: hundreds of millions raised out of poverty through basic planning. Another aspect is that many of the issues with previous attempts at something other than capitalism happened without the technology we have today. This would change everything. > The rational thing to do is to smash that button an infinite number of times. That button exists and is called economic growth. Of course it would be if there were zero bad consequences from it. But every time you press that button more people starve, the planet dies faster, workers conditions deteriorate, more people go homeless and so on. But the big issue with your entire premise is that growing the economy means we improve people's lives. That's exactly the issue with the wealth gap: it doesn't. The economy right now basically only grows for the rich, not for everyone else. It's always money being siphoned from the bottom into the top. It's very easy to pretend that everything is alright when you are in a privileged position, but the main reason 1st world countries like the US "grow" is by exploiting the poorer countries. You get access to better living standards at the cost of child labor in another country, deforestation, workers without a living wage or all the other nastiness that we don't want to know about. There's no free lunch. It's the same siphoning of wealth, at all levels.
- FredPret 3y ago
  There is no free lunch, but intelligence comes damn close. Monkeys living in a cave could drastically improve their lives by banging rocks together and making simple tools. Another big improvement comes from fire. Again when the rocks are stacked into buildings. By having more rocks, and arranging them more intelligently, we can hugely improve life. This is economic growth. Your arguments against growth fail: first you say “other systems” (they all suck because they all have one thing in common - they are planned) can cause growth just as well as capitalism. Second you say growth is bad because the environment. Third you say that only rich people get the growth anyway. Fourth you say growth comes from siphoning wealth from the poor. Well, I have news for you. The people who benefit most from growth are the poor. In my native Africa, there are millions of babies who are currently not dead due to economic growth: - the state left the farmer alone for five whole minutes and it turns out he managed to grow some actual food when he didn’t have to pay so many bribes, taxes, and obey 1000 regulations - technology improved business and trade, so mom and dad can buy food now - some guy named Bill Gates donated mosquito nets and medicine and genetically modified crops that have all the vitamins. Your ideas are rooted in ancient, pre-growth economic models. Poor people simply aren’t a good source of wealth; otherwise why aren’t dictators who do seize their wealth from the poor indredibly rich & celebrated? Why are Bezos and Musk and Gates the richest? They are producers, not seizers.