3 ms·

I smile with glee when these people fail. The fundamental issue of modern capitalism is that its a coerce and exploitative system, true believers (who are in ch

I smile with glee when these people fail. The fundamental issue of modern capitalism is that its a coerce and exploitative system, true believers (who are in charge unfortunately) ignore this, and think money and value are the same thing. Let me show you what I mean: Let's someone runs a grocery, and they want to make it more profitable. After looking at the value chain, they conclude the person growing the lettuces makes 10% of the profit, logistics makes 40%, and retail 50%. So they conclude that the best way to improve the business, is to optimize the retail side. Then you walk into the store and see the tiny withered lettuce on the gleaming fancy shelves. If they decided to focus on where the value is created, and helped the farmer grow better groceries, everybody would've been happy.

mrkramer 1y ago
In capitalism everybody specializes in something, retailers in trading, logistics in storage and transport and producers in producing. The most efficient way to improve all that is to have vertically integrated business where you do all of the above. In my country we had one big retailer like that but it became so huge and in the end it imploded. And yes I agree that capitalism is exploitive and I think that instead of working for salary people should work for equity. I would certainly be more motivated if I own piece of the business instead of merely getting a salary.
- torginus 1y ago
  > In capitalism everybody specializes in something, retailers in trading, logistics in storage and transport and producers in producing. The most efficient way to improve all that is to have vertically integrated business where you do all of the above. I don't agree with this, merging completely unrelated activities into one company isn't good or efficient - it's only a good idea because the perverse incentives disappear, which exist, because the big powerful fish (the retailers who monopolize access to markets) can dictate the terms for small and divided fish (the producers who produce the goods). This is endemic in the system, and very hard to fight against. It's also incredibly prevalent in the field of software engineering as well - if I create a best-in-class open-source tool, I won't see a dime of return on it (maybe very little), even if a huge cloud provider build a product on top of it that makes billions (this has happened too many times to count). If I do the same thing in the confines of a big company, the end result wouldn't look like capitalism at all - lets say I do the same good work, but someone has an even better idea or executes better on it - in a free-market system if somebody were to come up with a better tool, they would just announce it, and people would be free to move to it - in a corporate setting, it would be seen as redundant, a waste of money, and an organizational red flag to run 2 separate parallel teams. It'd be great if there existed a system that rewarded individuals and organizations according the value they bring to the table. However at the very mention of 'intrinsic value', capitalists break out in hives and call you a Marxist.

mrkramer 1y ago

In capitalism everybody specializes in something, retailers in trading, logistics in storage and transport and producers in producing. The most efficient way to improve all that is to have vertically integrated business where you do all of the above. In my country we had one big retailer like that but it became so huge and in the end it imploded. And yes I agree that capitalism is exploitive and I think that instead of working for salary people should work for equity. I would certainly be more motivated if I own piece of the business instead of merely getting a salary.

torginus 1y ago
> In capitalism everybody specializes in something, retailers in trading, logistics in storage and transport and producers in producing. The most efficient way to improve all that is to have vertically integrated business where you do all of the above. I don't agree with this, merging completely unrelated activities into one company isn't good or efficient - it's only a good idea because the perverse incentives disappear, which exist, because the big powerful fish (the retailers who monopolize access to markets) can dictate the terms for small and divided fish (the producers who produce the goods). This is endemic in the system, and very hard to fight against. It's also incredibly prevalent in the field of software engineering as well - if I create a best-in-class open-source tool, I won't see a dime of return on it (maybe very little), even if a huge cloud provider build a product on top of it that makes billions (this has happened too many times to count). If I do the same thing in the confines of a big company, the end result wouldn't look like capitalism at all - lets say I do the same good work, but someone has an even better idea or executes better on it - in a free-market system if somebody were to come up with a better tool, they would just announce it, and people would be free to move to it - in a corporate setting, it would be seen as redundant, a waste of money, and an organizational red flag to run 2 separate parallel teams. It'd be great if there existed a system that rewarded individuals and organizations according the value they bring to the table. However at the very mention of 'intrinsic value', capitalists break out in hives and call you a Marxist.