3 ms·

Even just capitalism with more regulation and safety nets (the ones most countries implement don't work very well) would suffice here.

• Brendinooo 4mo ago
  >the ones most countries implement don't work very well I guess this is the basis of my critique: the author seems to be writing as though capitalism is robbing him of some ideal that would otherwise exist: invoking the so-called "Protestant work ethic" to describe a system that took over the world and made us all worse off. That doesn't feel right to me because I don't think previous economic systems did better at protecting the vulnerable. (But I'm not sure, that's why I framed my comment the way I did!) Most replies to me are framed more as either "do what Europe does" (but the author lives in Europe!) or "we haven't gotten there yet" - which...sure! We shouldn't accept the status quo. But that's a different argument.
  • inigyou 4mo ago
    Why limit the discussion to the current system and past ones? That's like saying memory safety is bad because before C++ there was assembly code and that was even less safe.
    • Brendinooo 4mo ago
      > which...sure! We shouldn't accept the status quo. But that's a different argument.
      • inigyou 4mo ago
        It's literally the exact same argument.
        • Brendinooo 4mo ago
          Restoring something that was lost is very, very different than creating something that hasn't been done before.
          • inigyou 4mo ago
            Why?
            • Brendinooo 4mo ago
              Broadly speaking, anything that's been done once is doable again; anything that hasn't been done before might not be possible. Concretely: if the author's perception that a capitalist/calvinist fusion robbed us of/distorted something is true, that he could have existed in a society outside of this shadow in a way he'd find acceptable...that's a very different story than him longing for a world that has never existed. >Even just capitalism with more regulation and safety nets (the ones most countries implement don't work very well) would suffice here. You speak very matter-of-factly, and you might be right, but in reality this is only a hypothesis! Maybe more regulation has a tipping point at which it starts to do more harm than good. Maybe if safety nets are too strong they create perverse incentives.