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Nah. "Capitalism" is simply losing its original meaning amid more lower quality comments. If you look closely, the earlier comment is really about the apparent

by 9rx 1y ago

Nah. "Capitalism" is simply losing its original meaning amid more lower quality comments. If you look closely, the earlier comment is really about the apparent failing of intellectual property laws (which are antithetical to capitalism!), not capitalism. In the olden days HN users would have taken care to make it clear that they were talking about IP laws, but now "capitalism" has come to be used as some kind of catch-all for all the ills seen around government. Most especially when it is a comment void of anything useful and is merely trying to tug on heart strings.

mlinhares 1y ago
Capitalism suffers from the same problem as communism, its either everything is capitalism or nothing is capitalism. The frequent pattern is if it is good, its capitalism, if it is bad it isn't.
- 9rx 1y ago
  That makes sense. Communism in its original sense is literally science fiction, but along the way, in an effort to tug on heart strings, communism also came to refer to rule under the Communist party. Which follows that (HN being American-centric), capitalism is being used to mean rule under the Republican party — which, especially in the past year, has seen growing negative sentiment. Another commenter basically said the same thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44651323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44651323 But I maintain that is still a product of lower quality comments. In the HN days of yore, commenters put more effort in to speaking clearly (often to the point of pedantry, for better or worse) rather than trying to get readers' emotions all worked up.
mashygpig 1y ago
I’m looking closely and I’m not seeing IP laws being relevant. Maybe regarding windows 11 keys? Can you elaborate? I think the claim isn’t totally inaccurate. Claiming that companies prioritize making products last just beyond return windows because that maximizes profits is a critique of capitalism IMO. Since capitalism is about profit (capital) being the dominant signal as far as I understand it. In my opinion, a lot of frustration about capitalism nowadays can be tied to Goodhart’s law. Profit being the measure and companies getting so efficient at optimizing it, that we’re starting to harm the things that profit is a proxy for.
- 9rx 1y ago
  > Since capitalism is about profit (capital) Capitalism is about private ownership of the means of production. There is nothing about the private ownership of the means of production that inherently leads to the situation described earlier. You could end up in the exact same place if the means of production was community owned. What leads us there is intellectual property laws, which create artificial monopolies. Go on, just try and copy that shitty product that only lasts 35 days, but modify it slightly to last longer to the glee of the customers, and see how long you last before lawyers are breathing down your neck...
  - panarky 1y ago
    > Capitalism is about private ownership of the means of production That's part of the definition but not the whole definition. Other parts of of the definition include: Capitalism is about free markets. Capitalism is about competition. Capitalism is about converting the commons to private ownership. Capitalism is about the more wealthy and powerful exploiting those with less wealth and power. Capitalism is about mystifying how the system works so it's hard for people to imagine that it could work any other way.
    - 9rx 1y ago
      > Capitalism is about free markets. [...] Capitalism is about competition. Okay, sure. But IP laws prevent all that. As before, IP laws are antithetical to capitalism — and the source of breakdown witnessed earlier.
  - goatlover 1y ago
    Problem with that is wealthy capitalists lobby politicians to pass or rescind laws favoring their industries. They also figured out how to manipulate consumer demand on mass scale with modern advertising. Just look at how the fossil fuel industry has behaved despite their own research showing in the 70s that climate change was going to become a serious problem in the next century. Or they use their influence to pass tax cuts primarily for the super wealthy that increase the wealth gap and erode existing social safety nets as we see with the "Big Beautiful Bill". It's never just about the classic definition anymore than communism is, because there are always humans looking to look the cheat the system.
johnecheck 1y ago
Which original meaning? I mostly try to avoid the two capital Cs: Capitalism and Communism. These two terms mean so many different things to so many different people, I'd argue no other words have quite so much baggage or derail conversations quite so effectively. Taking a side in that conflict means you'll be expected to answer for whatever evil people have gotten up to while paying lip service to your preferred ideology. I'd rather discuss how to improve our world using terms not arguably stained with the blood of millions.
mindslight 1y ago
> apparent failing of intellectual property laws (which are antithetical to capitalism!) This is exactly wrong. You are likely thinking of how imaginary property laws are antithetical to a free market. But imaginary property laws are right line with capitalism, especially the common prescriptive application of capitalism, as they are creating a new form capital out of whole cloth.
- 9rx 1y ago
  > as they are creating a new form capital out of whole cloth. Not really. Capitalism was born from the need to manage real scarcity. Artificial scarcity does not fit into that model whatsoever. Trying to treat it as capital is how you get all these bizarre (and, to many, horrible) outcomes.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    > Trying to treat it as capital is how you get all these bizarre (and, to many, horrible) outcomes. Yes, it seems like you're trying to deny that this is exactly what capitalism has become. It started off as a descriptive model for real scarcity. Then once that stopped being exciting, capital owners and their intellectual supplicants came up with rationalizations to create new forms of capital to be owned and controlled. For every person trying to no true Scotsman like you're doing, there's another arguing how imaginary property, or water rights, or Chicago parking meters, or hyperfinancialization in general makes sense under a whole host of assumptions like the efficient market fallacy. The side of entrenching interests inevitably wins, and we get the perverse outcomes everybody hates from late stage capitalism. The only sensible thing to do is regroup at a different metric/term besides capitalism.
    - 9rx 1y ago
      > it seems like you're trying to deny that this is exactly what capitalism has become. How so? Yes, that's what capitalism has become. That idea serves as the entire basis of the discussion. If it were denied as you now suggest, what on earth are we talking about? > The only sensible thing to do is regroup at a different metric/term besides capitalism. Right. As before, this is what HN in the olden days would have done. Instead of redefining a word (and without even offering a new word to reference back to previous connotations), it would have created or found a non-conflicting word to fit the different scenario (to the point of pedantry). ...But that doesn't tug at the heartstrings in the new era of low value, appealing to emotion, slop. As was said at the onset, the changing definition of capitalism is what has brought on the apparent change in sentiment towards capitalism. You must have forgotten to read the thread before replying (or were blinded by your own irrational emotional connection to the word capitalism)?
grafmax 1y ago
It’s a bit of a mirage to appeal to capitalism against IP laws. Markets exacerbate wealth inequality (a well-established phenomenon). And consolidated wealth is consolidated power. The wealthiest companies can lobby for laws that suit them, things like IP which allow the de jure owners of that IP to collect rentier income. Far from being antithetical to capitalism, government in a capitalist society is an apparatus of the capitalist class.
- 9rx 1y ago
  > Markets exacerbate wealth inequality IP laws puts things into overdrive. It makes it impossible to compete. If you had a normally functioning environment, any time someone tried to capture excessive wealth, someone would just straight up copy them and that would be the end of it. But since the law prevents copying others, contrary to the idea of capitalism, certain people are able to build moats. That's how you get the Bill Gates and Elon Musk's of the world. There is no way Windows would have made Microsoft any money if 1,000 different organizations all sold their own copies of Windows. But as the law gilded Gates to act exclusively... Land eventually suffers a similar problem, to be fair. That hasn't been a huge deal historically as there was always more land to conquer, but those days have mostly drawn to a close. But we also tax land to try and find a reasonable balance in light of that — to put pressure on making effective use of it. IP, on the other hand, is generally not taxed at all.
  - grafmax 1y ago
    My point is that there is no motivation for balance since you have the people with the wealth and power determining the laws. You allude to a “normal functioning” capitalist environment but as counterintuitive as it might seem, that’s what we have.
    - 9rx 1y ago
      > My point is that there is no motivation for balance There is motivation, though! The wealthy don't want another wealthy guy to have it — they want it for themselves. That's why we have property tax, so that the owner actually has to find a good use for it, else be compelled to give it up to other other wealthy guy who wants it even more. > since you have the people with the wealth and power determining the laws. The problem is the opposite, really. The average Joe makes the laws, and Average Joe doesn't want to risk their job that depends on intellectual property. Musk wouldn't bat an eye at squashing Gates like a little bug if he could, but Joe working at Microsoft is deathly afraid of what happens to him if Gates is challenged. > You allude to a “normal functioning” capitalist environment but as counterintuitive as it might seem, that’s what we have. You're right that it is basic human nature. But capitalism emerged to try and work around the limitations of human nature. That's its whole purpose. However, it largely predates the concept of intellectual property, so it doesn't really have that idea woven into its fabric. Hence why IP is bolted onto the side, with all kinds of bizarre effects because of it.
GolfPopper 1y ago
Not just government, "abusive practices in pursuit of profit by very large businesses" is how I would translate what most people mean when they're cursing out "capitalism". It feels as though English-language skills among the general public are becoming weaker, less capable of dealing with nuance and complexity.
- BrenBarn 1y ago
  It's natural for people to use the word "capitalism" to mean "how capitalism appears to an average person in the world today". I think many people who complain about "capitalism" would acknowledge that there are things that are "technically" capitalism that are okay and even exist, it's just that they think what capitalism is by and large is the form of bad capitalism you mention. Just like nowadays what someone means by "a phone" is different from what people meant by that 20 or 50 or 100 years ago.

by 9rx 1y ago

mlinhares 1y ago

Capitalism suffers from the same problem as communism, its either everything is capitalism or nothing is capitalism. The frequent pattern is if it is good, its capitalism, if it is bad it isn't.

9rx 1y ago
That makes sense. Communism in its original sense is literally science fiction, but along the way, in an effort to tug on heart strings, communism also came to refer to rule under the Communist party. Which follows that (HN being American-centric), capitalism is being used to mean rule under the Republican party — which, especially in the past year, has seen growing negative sentiment. Another commenter basically said the same thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44651323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44651323 But I maintain that is still a product of lower quality comments. In the HN days of yore, commenters put more effort in to speaking clearly (often to the point of pedantry, for better or worse) rather than trying to get readers' emotions all worked up.

mashygpig 1y ago

I’m looking closely and I’m not seeing IP laws being relevant. Maybe regarding windows 11 keys? Can you elaborate? I think the claim isn’t totally inaccurate. Claiming that companies prioritize making products last just beyond return windows because that maximizes profits is a critique of capitalism IMO. Since capitalism is about profit (capital) being the dominant signal as far as I understand it. In my opinion, a lot of frustration about capitalism nowadays can be tied to Goodhart’s law. Profit being the measure and companies getting so efficient at optimizing it, that we’re starting to harm the things that profit is a proxy for.

9rx 1y ago
> Since capitalism is about profit (capital) Capitalism is about private ownership of the means of production. There is nothing about the private ownership of the means of production that inherently leads to the situation described earlier. You could end up in the exact same place if the means of production was community owned. What leads us there is intellectual property laws, which create artificial monopolies. Go on, just try and copy that shitty product that only lasts 35 days, but modify it slightly to last longer to the glee of the customers, and see how long you last before lawyers are breathing down your neck...
- panarky 1y ago
  > Capitalism is about private ownership of the means of production That's part of the definition but not the whole definition. Other parts of of the definition include: Capitalism is about free markets. Capitalism is about competition. Capitalism is about converting the commons to private ownership. Capitalism is about the more wealthy and powerful exploiting those with less wealth and power. Capitalism is about mystifying how the system works so it's hard for people to imagine that it could work any other way.
  - 9rx 1y ago
    > Capitalism is about free markets. [...] Capitalism is about competition. Okay, sure. But IP laws prevent all that. As before, IP laws are antithetical to capitalism — and the source of breakdown witnessed earlier.
- goatlover 1y ago
  Problem with that is wealthy capitalists lobby politicians to pass or rescind laws favoring their industries. They also figured out how to manipulate consumer demand on mass scale with modern advertising. Just look at how the fossil fuel industry has behaved despite their own research showing in the 70s that climate change was going to become a serious problem in the next century. Or they use their influence to pass tax cuts primarily for the super wealthy that increase the wealth gap and erode existing social safety nets as we see with the "Big Beautiful Bill". It's never just about the classic definition anymore than communism is, because there are always humans looking to look the cheat the system.

johnecheck 1y ago

Which original meaning? I mostly try to avoid the two capital Cs: Capitalism and Communism. These two terms mean so many different things to so many different people, I'd argue no other words have quite so much baggage or derail conversations quite so effectively. Taking a side in that conflict means you'll be expected to answer for whatever evil people have gotten up to while paying lip service to your preferred ideology. I'd rather discuss how to improve our world using terms not arguably stained with the blood of millions.

mindslight 1y ago

> apparent failing of intellectual property laws (which are antithetical to capitalism!) This is exactly wrong. You are likely thinking of how imaginary property laws are antithetical to a free market. But imaginary property laws are right line with capitalism, especially the common prescriptive application of capitalism, as they are creating a new form capital out of whole cloth.

9rx 1y ago
> as they are creating a new form capital out of whole cloth. Not really. Capitalism was born from the need to manage real scarcity. Artificial scarcity does not fit into that model whatsoever. Trying to treat it as capital is how you get all these bizarre (and, to many, horrible) outcomes.
- mindslight 1y ago
  > Trying to treat it as capital is how you get all these bizarre (and, to many, horrible) outcomes. Yes, it seems like you're trying to deny that this is exactly what capitalism has become. It started off as a descriptive model for real scarcity. Then once that stopped being exciting, capital owners and their intellectual supplicants came up with rationalizations to create new forms of capital to be owned and controlled. For every person trying to no true Scotsman like you're doing, there's another arguing how imaginary property, or water rights, or Chicago parking meters, or hyperfinancialization in general makes sense under a whole host of assumptions like the efficient market fallacy. The side of entrenching interests inevitably wins, and we get the perverse outcomes everybody hates from late stage capitalism. The only sensible thing to do is regroup at a different metric/term besides capitalism.
  - 9rx 1y ago
    > it seems like you're trying to deny that this is exactly what capitalism has become. How so? Yes, that's what capitalism has become. That idea serves as the entire basis of the discussion. If it were denied as you now suggest, what on earth are we talking about? > The only sensible thing to do is regroup at a different metric/term besides capitalism. Right. As before, this is what HN in the olden days would have done. Instead of redefining a word (and without even offering a new word to reference back to previous connotations), it would have created or found a non-conflicting word to fit the different scenario (to the point of pedantry). ...But that doesn't tug at the heartstrings in the new era of low value, appealing to emotion, slop. As was said at the onset, the changing definition of capitalism is what has brought on the apparent change in sentiment towards capitalism. You must have forgotten to read the thread before replying (or were blinded by your own irrational emotional connection to the word capitalism)?

grafmax 1y ago

It’s a bit of a mirage to appeal to capitalism against IP laws. Markets exacerbate wealth inequality (a well-established phenomenon). And consolidated wealth is consolidated power. The wealthiest companies can lobby for laws that suit them, things like IP which allow the de jure owners of that IP to collect rentier income. Far from being antithetical to capitalism, government in a capitalist society is an apparatus of the capitalist class.

9rx 1y ago
> Markets exacerbate wealth inequality IP laws puts things into overdrive. It makes it impossible to compete. If you had a normally functioning environment, any time someone tried to capture excessive wealth, someone would just straight up copy them and that would be the end of it. But since the law prevents copying others, contrary to the idea of capitalism, certain people are able to build moats. That's how you get the Bill Gates and Elon Musk's of the world. There is no way Windows would have made Microsoft any money if 1,000 different organizations all sold their own copies of Windows. But as the law gilded Gates to act exclusively... Land eventually suffers a similar problem, to be fair. That hasn't been a huge deal historically as there was always more land to conquer, but those days have mostly drawn to a close. But we also tax land to try and find a reasonable balance in light of that — to put pressure on making effective use of it. IP, on the other hand, is generally not taxed at all.
- grafmax 1y ago
  My point is that there is no motivation for balance since you have the people with the wealth and power determining the laws. You allude to a “normal functioning” capitalist environment but as counterintuitive as it might seem, that’s what we have.
  - 9rx 1y ago
    > My point is that there is no motivation for balance There is motivation, though! The wealthy don't want another wealthy guy to have it — they want it for themselves. That's why we have property tax, so that the owner actually has to find a good use for it, else be compelled to give it up to other other wealthy guy who wants it even more. > since you have the people with the wealth and power determining the laws. The problem is the opposite, really. The average Joe makes the laws, and Average Joe doesn't want to risk their job that depends on intellectual property. Musk wouldn't bat an eye at squashing Gates like a little bug if he could, but Joe working at Microsoft is deathly afraid of what happens to him if Gates is challenged. > You allude to a “normal functioning” capitalist environment but as counterintuitive as it might seem, that’s what we have. You're right that it is basic human nature. But capitalism emerged to try and work around the limitations of human nature. That's its whole purpose. However, it largely predates the concept of intellectual property, so it doesn't really have that idea woven into its fabric. Hence why IP is bolted onto the side, with all kinds of bizarre effects because of it.

GolfPopper 1y ago

Not just government, "abusive practices in pursuit of profit by very large businesses" is how I would translate what most people mean when they're cursing out "capitalism". It feels as though English-language skills among the general public are becoming weaker, less capable of dealing with nuance and complexity.

BrenBarn 1y ago
It's natural for people to use the word "capitalism" to mean "how capitalism appears to an average person in the world today". I think many people who complain about "capitalism" would acknowledge that there are things that are "technically" capitalism that are okay and even exist, it's just that they think what capitalism is by and large is the form of bad capitalism you mention. Just like nowadays what someone means by "a phone" is different from what people meant by that 20 or 50 or 100 years ago.