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> but who decides how those resources are deployed The current system selects people that have allocated resources effectively in the past by providing them mo

by vmg12 1y ago

> but who decides how those resources are deployed The current system selects people that have allocated resources effectively in the past by providing them more resources to allocate. > We've ran high-risk R&D projects successfully before as public projects And what is stopping countries from doing this today? This isn't an either or thing, public projects can still exist, there is no law of nature saying that massive companies are the sole source of innovations but for some reason people treat it like they are mutually exclusive. You bring up projects from decades ago but are there any modern examples? Since when has throwing money at systems that haven't shown success worked? And you are suggesting that we take money from others to throw it at a system that doesn't work.

Daishiman 1y ago
> The current system selects people that have allocated resources effectively in the past by providing them more resources to allocate. The current system selected people that have maximized shareholder value and financially engineered it into other financial assets that provide power under the capitalist system. This includes private equity services that have simply squeezed money out of consumers for no increase in quality of life, or companies that managed to avoid the consequences of the externalities of their economic activity. > And what is stopping countries from doing this today? This isn't an either or thing, public projects can still exist, there is no law of nature saying that massive companies are the sole source of innovations but for some reason people treat it like they are mutually exclusive. You bring up projects from decades ago but are there any modern examples? Regulatory capture and lobbying that attempts to force a profit motive behind every large government initiative when the profit motive substracts value away from society at large.
hansvm 1y ago
"Allocated resources effectively" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your description. The current system also rewards large-scale cons and rent extraction with the political power to do more of the same.
- jongjong 1y ago
  Yes exactly. Also, we should stop pretending that the money supply is fixed and that everyone exists on the same monetary playing field. Arguments about efficient allocation are laughable when you consider that someone who is socially 6 steps removed from an institutional 'money printer' lives in a monetary environment where money is 10 times more scarce than it is at the source (due to taxation between each hop). Few people are so far removed in practice but the effects are still very powerful even with less distance. Taxation brings all economic activities closer to the government and banking sector. In competitive industries were profits are paper thin, monetary asymmetry can fully determine business outcomes. The company receiving government contracts on the side has a massive upper hand over its competitors during a monetary contraction. Same can be said about companies which operate in environments where their customers have access to large amounts of credit by virtue of their highly valued collateral. Their success has little to do with optimal allocation and a lot to do with socio-economic positioning and monetary system design.
- bluecheese452 1y ago
  It is classic circular reasoning. Why should they have all money? Well because they are the best ones at allocating the resources. How do we know they are best at allocating resources? Because they have all the money.
  - detreatsie 1y ago
    This reminds me of the old dusty adage: "To him that hath, more shall be given and to him that hath not, more shall be taken away" I suppose it was more popular in seemingly simpler times when the playing field was more even and the players more evenly matched and distributed. But here we are in the future, and that game seems to have been concluded. I myself rather preferred the view from the shoulders of giants than the undersides of their feet.
    - Gravityloss 1y ago
      There is a agent simulation paradigm where a large amount ofagents engage in one-on-one transactions and wealth is transferred. I haven't followed but decades ago there was a simulation where with rather simpler rules, in the end all the wealth concentrated to one agent. In this model, it's the rules of the game, not the morality of the players that causes the effects.
Aeolun 1y ago
> The current system selects people that have allocated resources effectively in the past by providing them more resources to allocate. The current system rather heavily optimizes the ability to make resources into more resources for the shareholders. See e.g. Uber.
indigo945 1y ago
> You bring up projects from decades ago but are there any modern examples? There are no modern examples in the USA precisely because there is no political will to fund them. That political will is undermined because private companies are large and strong enough that they can influence politicians and prevent projects they they would have to compete with. Your argument has the implication the wrong way around. Meanwhile, look at China. The vast majority of China's cometlike economic success can be directly attributed to state funding, and many of its successful projects are directly state-run. That's because China still plays industrial politics that are concerned with economic growth and public welfare instead of rent-seeking.
Gravityloss 1y ago
To be concrete, I guess in a different time and society someone like Sam Altman would have been a successful politician or perhaps like Hyman Rickover or Marcel Boiteux working within the government to cause colossal steps in progress.

by vmg12 1y ago

Daishiman 1y ago

> The current system selects people that have allocated resources effectively in the past by providing them more resources to allocate. The current system selected people that have maximized shareholder value and financially engineered it into other financial assets that provide power under the capitalist system. This includes private equity services that have simply squeezed money out of consumers for no increase in quality of life, or companies that managed to avoid the consequences of the externalities of their economic activity. > And what is stopping countries from doing this today? This isn't an either or thing, public projects can still exist, there is no law of nature saying that massive companies are the sole source of innovations but for some reason people treat it like they are mutually exclusive. You bring up projects from decades ago but are there any modern examples? Regulatory capture and lobbying that attempts to force a profit motive behind every large government initiative when the profit motive substracts value away from society at large.

hansvm 1y ago

"Allocated resources effectively" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your description. The current system also rewards large-scale cons and rent extraction with the political power to do more of the same.

jongjong 1y ago
Yes exactly. Also, we should stop pretending that the money supply is fixed and that everyone exists on the same monetary playing field. Arguments about efficient allocation are laughable when you consider that someone who is socially 6 steps removed from an institutional 'money printer' lives in a monetary environment where money is 10 times more scarce than it is at the source (due to taxation between each hop). Few people are so far removed in practice but the effects are still very powerful even with less distance. Taxation brings all economic activities closer to the government and banking sector. In competitive industries were profits are paper thin, monetary asymmetry can fully determine business outcomes. The company receiving government contracts on the side has a massive upper hand over its competitors during a monetary contraction. Same can be said about companies which operate in environments where their customers have access to large amounts of credit by virtue of their highly valued collateral. Their success has little to do with optimal allocation and a lot to do with socio-economic positioning and monetary system design.
bluecheese452 1y ago
It is classic circular reasoning. Why should they have all money? Well because they are the best ones at allocating the resources. How do we know they are best at allocating resources? Because they have all the money.
- detreatsie 1y ago
  This reminds me of the old dusty adage: "To him that hath, more shall be given and to him that hath not, more shall be taken away" I suppose it was more popular in seemingly simpler times when the playing field was more even and the players more evenly matched and distributed. But here we are in the future, and that game seems to have been concluded. I myself rather preferred the view from the shoulders of giants than the undersides of their feet.
  - Gravityloss 1y ago
    There is a agent simulation paradigm where a large amount ofagents engage in one-on-one transactions and wealth is transferred. I haven't followed but decades ago there was a simulation where with rather simpler rules, in the end all the wealth concentrated to one agent. In this model, it's the rules of the game, not the morality of the players that causes the effects.

Aeolun 1y ago

> The current system selects people that have allocated resources effectively in the past by providing them more resources to allocate. The current system rather heavily optimizes the ability to make resources into more resources for the shareholders. See e.g. Uber.

indigo945 1y ago

> You bring up projects from decades ago but are there any modern examples? There are no modern examples in the USA precisely because there is no political will to fund them. That political will is undermined because private companies are large and strong enough that they can influence politicians and prevent projects they they would have to compete with. Your argument has the implication the wrong way around. Meanwhile, look at China. The vast majority of China's cometlike economic success can be directly attributed to state funding, and many of its successful projects are directly state-run. That's because China still plays industrial politics that are concerned with economic growth and public welfare instead of rent-seeking.

Gravityloss 1y ago

To be concrete, I guess in a different time and society someone like Sam Altman would have been a successful politician or perhaps like Hyman Rickover or Marcel Boiteux working within the government to cause colossal steps in progress.