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Poverty is the default state. We shouldn’t ask why we have poor people but rather how can more wealth be generated to have fewer poor people. Our system has red

Poverty is the default state. We shouldn’t ask why we have poor people but rather how can more wealth be generated to have fewer poor people. Our system has redefined what it means to be poor. So much that we’ve forgotten that abject poverty is the default state. We dont need less capitalism but rather more and faster.

hackerlight 3y ago
> We dont need less capitalism but rather more and faster. There is no clean spectrum. We need more good capitalism (free trade, free movement of labor, entrepreneurship) and less bad capitalism (negative externalities, money in politics). Just like we need more good regulations and less bad regulations. We shouldn't force heterogeneous things into a single conceptual basket (called "capitalism") and then conclude more is better, or less is better. Components of the system should be separated out and analyzed on their own merits.
- nemo44x 3y ago
  Sure can debate the minor points I guess but the overarching theme needs to be more capitalism (private ownership of things, production, etc), more productivity (automate more, more and better jobs, outsource), and more energy (extract more, better green solutions that are actually competitive and not forced on people). We should continue to do more of what has proven to pull more and more people out of poverty and to even redefine what it means to be poor compared to many years ago. The goal should be to make today's relatively poor comparatively rich to the poor of generations past.
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    Maybe. Some of what you're advocating for sounds more in the category of bad capitalism. The typical libertarian denial of the existence of second order effects and negative externalities. It's hard to tell whether "more private property" is really a euphemism for more inequality or if "better green solutions" is really a euphemism for cancelling renewable and accelerating climate change. Which would be a recipe for social unrest and millions of climate refugees fleeing the equator leading to authoritarianism and lower prosperity. That's bad. There are some interpretations of your words that I'd agree with, though.
gsk22 3y ago
There's plenty of wealth. The issue is the concentration of wealth at the top. Since the current system is deeply unfair, I'm not sure why adding additional wealth to the system would make it any more fair. The majority of every extra dollar goes to the ultra rich.
- jojobas 3y ago
  The possibility to attain wealth and pass it on to your offspring has been driven the humanity since before Homo Sapiens. Removing it brings about the outright terror seen every time it gets removed. Change my mind.
  - Sabinus 3y ago
    It doesn't need to be one or the other. People should be able to give a good start to their kids, but not to make them as rich as countries when their children didn't do anything to deserve those resources.
    - jojobas 3y ago
      Even then wealth mostly lasts 3 generations or so, either by dilution or squandering by the descendants. Trickle down economy of sorts. Exceptions like Rockefellers are rare and far between, and some might argue even they are net positive through their philanthropic efforts.
- nemo44x 3y ago
  > There's plenty of wealth. The issue is the concentration of wealth at the top. That's just an opinion. What we do know is that as more wealth has been generated via Capitalism more and more people globally (and nationally) have been brought out of poverty to the point where poverty has had to be redefined in certain areas. Capitalism has made starvation a thing of the past and diabetes the new, but better, problem of the poor for example. Poor people can afford to eat meat daily. Not even wealthy could do this in the not so distant past. So instead of fighting over probably wrong opinions we should look at the data and then continue to do more of the thing that has been generating better outcomes for more people. That means more capitalism because that leads to better outcomes.

hackerlight 3y ago

> We dont need less capitalism but rather more and faster. There is no clean spectrum. We need more good capitalism (free trade, free movement of labor, entrepreneurship) and less bad capitalism (negative externalities, money in politics). Just like we need more good regulations and less bad regulations. We shouldn't force heterogeneous things into a single conceptual basket (called "capitalism") and then conclude more is better, or less is better. Components of the system should be separated out and analyzed on their own merits.

nemo44x 3y ago
Sure can debate the minor points I guess but the overarching theme needs to be more capitalism (private ownership of things, production, etc), more productivity (automate more, more and better jobs, outsource), and more energy (extract more, better green solutions that are actually competitive and not forced on people). We should continue to do more of what has proven to pull more and more people out of poverty and to even redefine what it means to be poor compared to many years ago. The goal should be to make today's relatively poor comparatively rich to the poor of generations past.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  Maybe. Some of what you're advocating for sounds more in the category of bad capitalism. The typical libertarian denial of the existence of second order effects and negative externalities. It's hard to tell whether "more private property" is really a euphemism for more inequality or if "better green solutions" is really a euphemism for cancelling renewable and accelerating climate change. Which would be a recipe for social unrest and millions of climate refugees fleeing the equator leading to authoritarianism and lower prosperity. That's bad. There are some interpretations of your words that I'd agree with, though.

gsk22 3y ago

There's plenty of wealth. The issue is the concentration of wealth at the top. Since the current system is deeply unfair, I'm not sure why adding additional wealth to the system would make it any more fair. The majority of every extra dollar goes to the ultra rich.

jojobas 3y ago
The possibility to attain wealth and pass it on to your offspring has been driven the humanity since before Homo Sapiens. Removing it brings about the outright terror seen every time it gets removed. Change my mind.
- Sabinus 3y ago
  It doesn't need to be one or the other. People should be able to give a good start to their kids, but not to make them as rich as countries when their children didn't do anything to deserve those resources.
  - jojobas 3y ago
    Even then wealth mostly lasts 3 generations or so, either by dilution or squandering by the descendants. Trickle down economy of sorts. Exceptions like Rockefellers are rare and far between, and some might argue even they are net positive through their philanthropic efforts.
nemo44x 3y ago
> There's plenty of wealth. The issue is the concentration of wealth at the top. That's just an opinion. What we do know is that as more wealth has been generated via Capitalism more and more people globally (and nationally) have been brought out of poverty to the point where poverty has had to be redefined in certain areas. Capitalism has made starvation a thing of the past and diabetes the new, but better, problem of the poor for example. Poor people can afford to eat meat daily. Not even wealthy could do this in the not so distant past. So instead of fighting over probably wrong opinions we should look at the data and then continue to do more of the thing that has been generating better outcomes for more people. That means more capitalism because that leads to better outcomes.