16 ms·

David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

323 points by patrickk 13y ago

danso 13y ago
It's hard to talk about David Simon without immediately thinking of The Wire, and I'm glad he mentioned it (he's infamously annoyed that people see it as compelling drama more than its attack against institutions, including the capitalist system): > So I'm astonished that at this late date I'm standing here and saying we might want to go back for this guy Marx that we were laughing at, if not for his prescriptions, then at least for his depiction of what is possible if you don't mitigate the authority of capitalism, if you don't embrace some other values for human endeavour. And that's what The Wire was about basically, it was about people who were worth less and who were no longer necessary, as maybe 10 or 15% of my country is no longer necessary to the operation of the economy. It was about them trying to solve, for lack of a better term, an existential crisis. In their irrelevance, their economic irrelevance, they were nonetheless still on the ground occupying this place called Baltimore and they were going to have to endure somehow. That's the great horror show. What are we going to do with all these people that we've managed to marginalise? It was kind of interesting when it was only race, when you could do this on the basis of people's racial fears and it was just the black and brown people in American cities who had the higher rates of unemployment and the higher rates of addiction and were marginalised and had the shitty school systems and the lack of opportunity. I still think The Wire is the best TV drama yet made, and that includes Breaking Bad, though I haven't watched Sopranos yet. One of the most amazing things about its achievements is how so un-cop-show-like it is...besides cops being of mixed character, they almost never draw their guns on the show...and yet it's still an addictively entertaining show. Simon and his co-writers were so good at creating characters (and drawing from his deep reporting experience) that even as his show has a strong anti-capitalistic tone, the Wire keeps your attention no matter what your political beliefs. Perhaps Simon could eke out one more grand show...beliefs and opinions can be affected by popular culture as they are by political discourse.
- jotm 13y ago
  Maybe it's time to start thinking global, move to other countries where we're needed. That would be one solution (though not for many)...
  - tlarkworthy 13y ago
    That was tried with Northern Ireland and Israel. Didn't go well. The settling of the America's and Australia went really well ... for the non-indigenous people. I don't think moving people around the world to solve problems is a good idea.
    - mercurial 13y ago
      Heh. If you went to Sunday Musk-worshiping, you'd know Mars is the new frontier.
    - jotm 13y ago
      Someone's always gonna get shafted. Doesn't mean everyone has to suffer.
- xradionut 13y ago
  The chilling thing is the answers you get when you ask some of the more frank of the upper class in a moment of candor what should happen to the people that are no longer necessary or left behind. Some of outliers of their solutions range from literal slavery via prison/slums, to starvation, to genocide. Worst of all answers is indifference or "God will provide". They got theirs, go fuck off and die.
  - cdash 13y ago
    This fuck you got mine attitude is very prevalent on this site actually even if wrapped up in some absurd justifications.
- mercurial 13y ago
  Yes, The Wire is basically flawless, in the way it is both a character drama and a social commentary. Commentary not being the best word here, as it feels that through his characters, he is proposing solutions to some of the social issues the show exposes.
gum_ina_package 13y ago
When I see arguments like this one, I always remember the little known fact that Adam Smith was a moral philosopher before he wrote about economics. A fundamental principle for capitalism is that people will behave morally and be compassionate. Without a moral society, no matter what system you're talking about, that society will always collapse. I think David Simon, and many other modern critics of capitalism, have forgotten this and/or are too afraid of sounding "preachy" if they were to advocate for a more moral society. I'd also like to point out that Simon seems to be making an emotional argument when he says there's a whole portion of people in our society who are useless when it comes to making the economy work. Perhaps it's because their skills don't match the needs of the workforce today. It's simply supply and demand.
- patrickmay 13y ago
  As well as Smith, I am reminded of Bastiat: “Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.” -- Frédéric Bastiat, The Law The problem in the US isn't capitalism, it's that the government interferes extensively in the economy. It is rational, if not moral, for the wealthy to expend effort and resources to gain political power rather than spending the same effort and resources on providing goods and services. Building a society is the responsibility of each individual who values it. Using government force in pursuit of that goal leads only to the co-option and disenfranchisement Simon complains about.
  - johnchristopher 13y ago
    > The problem in the US isn't capitalism, it's that the government interferes extensively in the economy. Well... maybe the problem is that the economy interferes extensively in the government. > Building a society is the responsibility of each individual who values it. Using government force in pursuit of that goal leads only to the co-option and disenfranchisement Simon complains about. Individuals have to band together to accomplish things because at some point one individual isn't enough. In democratic society such a banding, supported by the people and for the people, is called a government.
andyl 13y ago
Capitalism as we know it is unsustainable.
- gum_ina_package 13y ago
  How so? If anything, we've seen how people can corrupt and ruin any system/society. When many people say "capitalism has failed us" they really mean our politicians have failed us by allowing corporations to run the government. That's not a failure of capitalism, that's our failure because we've let our elected representatives do this to us.
  - VLM 13y ago
    I think you missed words 2,3,4,5 in his post.
    - spagina09 13y ago
      He isn't describing capitalism. Capitalism may exist loosely at a local level, but on the national level it doesn't exist anymore.
  - chongli 13y ago
    Because it's based on the idea of exponential growth. Exponential growth is not sustainable without exponential growing access to resources.
    - RamiK 13y ago
      Instead of regurgitating an old chestnut: "thermodynamic limits impose a cap to energy growth lest we cook ourselves. I’m not talking about global warming, CO2 build-up, etc. I’m talking about radiating the spent energy into space."("Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist", http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-...) Essentially, even if we have exponential growing access to resources, we'll still be facing earth BBQ circa 2400.
majika 13y ago
This is a remarkably sensible speech. The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing; the idea that the market is going to heed all of the human concerns and still maximise profit is juvenile. It's a juvenile notion and it's still being argued in my country passionately and we're going down the tubes. And it terrifies me because I'm astonished at how comfortable we are in absolving ourselves of what is basically a moral choice. Are we all in this together or are we all not? I see a lot of libertarian and anti-government sentiments expressed on HN. People like to construct arguments like "more government vs. less", "higher taxes vs. lower", "less regulation vs. more", but those debates are missing the forest for the trees. The question - and only question - should be what David Simon asks: are we all in this together or are we not? To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's demonstrated by what societies are flourishing - with high economic and social equality, healthy democratic government, protected personal liberties, well-cared-for populaces, and resilient economies - and what societies aren't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model
- mchusma 13y ago
  I think it was a good speech, but because it was so emotional, and not rational. In fact, he was dismissive of any arguments as anything other than his own. To call all other forms of thought juvenile, and simply say "we are either together or not" sounds like the content of a great political speech, not a well articulated debate.
  - thenmar 13y ago
    O, if only he had linked to the Mises Institute a few more times!
    - sanderjd 13y ago
      I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make, but for what it's worth, while agreeing with lots of the speech, I found myself thinking that it was pretty good opinion, but not a great argument.
bsirkia 13y ago
The hardest thing for me is that I'm super aware of how fucked up things are, but not totally sure what can done so just say "this sucks" and go back to work and whining about healthcare and listening to Slate podcasts. If I learned anything from the Wire, it's that these problems Simon brings up are so institutionalized that there's almost no way to fix them without some massive change, but I'm too small and irrelevant to make that change and our society is set up to resist change anyway. So I'll probably just share this on Facebook, get some likes, and be proud of myself for "building awareness".
- bluedino 13y ago
  The thing people that write these articles don't acknowledge was how fucked up things were in the USA, even in the 'great' times. The 50's and 60's were a booming time for the economy and middle class. But black people still had their lines to wait in, had to sit in the back of the bus, and we had 'colored' drinking fountains. Things have came a long, long way since then. Things might not be perfect and there are bits of racism but we are so far ahead of where we were.
  - bsirkia 13y ago
    Right, it's easy to look back at the good 'ol days and talk about how great they were, but really overall quality of life on aggregate is empirically improving.
  - xradionut 13y ago
    But the US population as a whole has slid backwards in power and monetary means over the last thirty years. The shenanigans that allowed the elite to walk over the working class had their roots in the late 70's and 80's with the shift to the right and the "Greed is Good" era.
    - bluedino 13y ago
      Of course - the rest of the world has 'caught up' to the USA. We aren't the powerhouse we once were. Even if you distributed CEO pay to minimum wage workers they'd only be getting a thousand bucks or so each.
VLM 13y ago
The speech appears flawless at first read. It comes from the FODI about a month ago which summarizes to (sorry if this offends) a more interesting TED than TED. http://fodi.sydneyoperahouse.com/ http://fodi.sydneyoperahouse.com/ If only I could subscribe to a RSS feed of FODI speeches...
7Figures2Commas 13y ago
It's astonishing that, in a nearly 3,000 word speech calling the United States a "horror show", the word debt is used not once.
- onebaddude 13y ago
  Perhaps because sensible people don't consider debt, in and of itself, a serious problem.
  - 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
    That's fascinating. I'd love to meet the "sensible people" who believe that debt, both personal and national, is not at all implicated in the economic divide between rich and poor that David Simon speaks of.
    - xradionut 13y ago
      Consumer debt and the increase of public lotteries are the schemes that allow inequality to exist as long as it has. Take them away and you take away hope.
    - beachstartup 13y ago
      > I'd love to meet the "sensible people" uh, okay. it would be better if you simply just stated your case and/or evidence because that is what HN is for.
      - 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
        > it would be better if you simply just stated your case and/or evidence because that is what HN is for. I think you have it backwards. The OP suggested that "sensible people" (all of them, apparently!) don't believe that debt ("in and of itself", whatever that means) is "a serious problem." That is an extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But I'll indulge you: 1. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has stated "I've said many times that I believe the single, biggest threat to our national security is our debt, so I also believe we have every responsibility to help eliminate that threat." 2. David Walker, former Comptroller General and head of the GAO, has been sounding the alarm about the tens of trillions of dollars in debt and unfunded liabilities the United States has racked up for years. He has warned that unless something is done, the US will plunge into a "fiscal abyss." 3. Barack Obama, as a Senator, stated, "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies... Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better." Are Mullen, Walker and Obama not "serious people"?
mooreds 13y ago
"...because you know when people get to the end there's always the brick." Chilling.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  I find it chilling that the left still get away with their implicit threats of violence unchallenged. Can you imagine someone saying that about immigration? They would almost certainly be locked up in the UK. There is a double standard where saying "X will lead to violence, but I am just warning you, I don't want to see it happen" is allowed for some, but not others.
  - mooreds 13y ago
    Well, it happens on both sides in the USA all the time. Plenty of violence to go around over here.
sz4kerto 13y ago
The tragedy of the successful capitalistic societies like the USA is the lack of first hand experience with socialism (and communism) will eventually result in the masses wanting to try it out. Believe me, it's the worst thing what can happen with your country. It happened around here, and it takes generations to recover. Don't try it, even if it looks morally right.
- wrongc0ntinent 13y ago
  Some degree of socialism has always been a part of the system here, despite it being a dirty word. If you are from an ex-communist country, you might have had the opposite experience, where (before 89) Marx's solutions were gospel, and even if implemented to the letter, you still had the problems of corruption and major outside political influence from the U.S.S.R.. "Socialism" and "communism" are inextricably linked in those parts of Europe, and now toxic ideas because of their painful history. The speech is partly about degrees and dropping the hypocrisy, not advocating Marxist solutions.
- agilebyte 13y ago
  Where is "around here" please?
  - sz4kerto 13y ago
    Eastern Europe.
    - agilebyte 13y ago
      Hmm, I am sorry you have had a bad experience. I hail from over there too and am actually glad that the social state has not been completely dismantled.
      - ahomescu1 13y ago
        Maybe it would have been better if it had been dismantled, instead of it becoming a Petri dish for corruption and abuse (speaking as a Romanian).
jl6 13y ago
> Are we all in this together or are we all not? Who is "we all"? I'm sure he's thinking of "all Americans", but if the idea is to help people you don't know who are less fortunate than you, what is the moral basis on which we restrict that generosity to just Americans? Nations and citizenship are arbitrary divisions. If someone is in need, help them, regardless of what their passport says. That's not socialism, it's charity. And charity is capitalism's solution to suffering: aid, given freely. Edit: though when it comes to the environment, capitalism has no answer, as the environment is fundamentally socialised.
- dkuntz2 13y ago
  Considering that the article was a transcription of a speech given in Sydney, I would think "we all" is humanity in general.
steveklabnik 13y ago
It's really a shame that more people don't actually read 'Capital,' or at least the first three chapters of Capital I. While I ultimately disagree with Marx, I think he does a much, much better job of analyzing the problems we have than most people. Hence Simon's distinction between 'diagnostician' and 'clinician.' It was Lenin and Mao that really tried to be the clinicians, anyway. It's a Sunday, if you've got some time today, check out "Value, Price, and Profit," which is sort of the beginning of Capital I but in a little bit easier language, and much shorter. It's only about 40 pages. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-...
- kungfooguru 13y ago
  I don't agree with Simon's claim that because Marx provided no clear clinical treatment it should cause one to not call themselves a Marxist. Marxism is the science of analyzing socioeconomic relations.
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    Agreed. I read it as defensive comments designed to appear more reasonable to a broad audience, since Marxism is such a dirty word here. (I play a Marxist often, but really, I part ways with Hegel, so I can't really truly be a Marxist.)
- patrickaljord 13y ago
  People like to say that Lenin and Mao were bad clinicians, if only there was a messiah smart enough to implement communism. In spite of the fact that plenty of other governments gave it a try too. Truth is, Lenin and even Stalin were pretty smart guys and they implemented communism the way it was meant to be . Actually, a guy predicted the Lenin/Stalin way would be the end-result for any communism implementation. The guy who predicted was an anarchist so not particularly right wing: "First, then, State Socialism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government, regardless of individual choice. Marx, its founder, concluded that the only way to abolish the class monopolies was to centralize and consolidate all industrial and commercial interests, all productive and distributive agencies, in one vast monopoly in the hands of the State. The government must become banker, manufacturer, farmer, carrier, and merchant, and in these capacities must suffer no competition. Land, tools, and all instruments of production must be wrested from individual hands, and made the property of the collectivity. To the individual can belong only the products to be consumed, not the means of producing them. A man may own his clothes and his food, but not the sewing-machine which makes his shirts or the spade which digs his potatoes. Product and capital are essentially different things; the former belongs to individuals, the latter to society. Society must seize the capital which belongs to it, by the ballot if it can, by revolution if it must. Once in possession of it, it must administer it on the majority principle, though its organ, the State, utilize it in production and distribution, fix all prices by the amount of labor involved, and employ the whole people in its workshops, farms, stores, etc. The nation must be transformed into a vast bureaucracy, and every individual into a State official. Everything must be done on the cost principle, the people having no motive to make a profit out of themselves. Individuals not being allowed to own capital, no one can employ another, or even himself. Every man will be a wage-receiver, and the State the only wage-payer. He who will not work for the State must starve, or, more likely, go to prison. All freedom of trade must disappear. Competition must be utterly wiped out. All industrial and commercial activity must be centered in one vast, enormous, all-inclusive monopoly. The remedy for monopolies is monopoly. Such is the economic programme of State Socialism as adopted from Karl Marx." Benjamin Tucker, State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888) Sounds familiar? Second point, the labor theories of value described in the Capital you enjoyed so much has been proven wrong. The argument that the value of a commodity is only related to the labor needed to produce or obtain that commodity and not to other factors is now well known to be wrong. Running out of time here so here's a quick explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Criticisms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Criticism...
pfraze 13y ago
Here's the video of his speech and following Q&A: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNttT7hDKsk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNttT7hDKsk
abalone 13y ago
Very good speech and an important national dialog to spark. I'd like to call attention to one thing though: "I don't believe that a state-run economy can be as viable as market capitalism in producing mass wealth." This demonstrates a basic confusion that we Americans have about ourselves, even most "lefties" and "libertarians": The false belief that we live in a free market economy. The truth is, the state plays a massive role in our economy. This is especially true for us Silicon Valley entrepreneurial Americans. Because the government's hand is especially strong in high tech. The Internet. Microcomputers. Lasers. Jets. Robots. Siri. You name a major high-tech innovation, and it's probably got DARPA or NASA behind it in the earliest, highest-risk, most capital-intensive stages. Look again and you'll probably find lots more government support in bringing the technology to market through procurement. This is all the more damning for our system's poverty. The rich and powerful are fully in favor of a strong, powerful state-run economy that serves their needs. That's why it's done under the rubric of military spending -- "we have to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars on this because we have to defend ourselves" sounds better than "because we need it to produce the Silicon Valley economic miracle." Because the latter would suggest it's fair to direct major taxpayer support for other economic investments like education, health care and housing. Instead, the state-supported rich and powerful can claim we live in a "free market economy" that just happens to have trillions of state-sponsored investment, for them.
- jerf 13y ago
  The 2012 US GDP was 15.68 trillion. The 2012 Federal government expenditures were 3.54 trillion. Right off the top, the Federal government accounts for 22.6% of the economic activity in the country. Depending on how you measure, you can quibble with this exact choice of numbers, but no matter how you fiddle you're not getting out of the Federal government being a huge part of the economy directly. State and local governments still not counted in that number. The Federal government also controls the Federal interest rate and its centralized currency directly. It extensively regulates every major financial industry; to the extent that this fails to produce sufficient "regulation" for a liberal's purposes, it is, generally speaking, not for lack of statutory power, and a concerned liberal should probably be looking at the (almost always) liberals exercising the statutory power, rather than complaining about the few people whose meager voices suggest that perhaps the power shouldn't exist at all, lost in the sea of those screaming for more. Indeed, it extensively regulates every major industry. It produces thousands of pages of new regulations every year. It taxes nearly every economic transaction. You can't hardly do anything without the government being involved. It already engages in huge wealth transfers every which way (even some really crazy stupid ones, like Obamacare's transfers from the young and healthy to the on-average wealthier older crowd). This is not necessarily and automatically a bad thing. I'm just mentioning this stuff to show that the idea that we live in some sort of libertarian nightmare is ludicrous nonsense. The state has the power already, today. It's not theoretical, it's a done deal. If you don't like the outcome we're experiencing, take it up with the State. Personally I can't help but observe that we keep giving more power to fewer people under the rubric of "better government", and, lo and behold, our society has ever more power and wealth concentrating in fewer and fewer hands. Why, oh why ever could it be? Somehow some people manage to convince themselves this is all the libertarian's fault. I'd suggest looking at the people who keep putting more and more power in fewer and fewer people's hands and then acting all confused about the outcome where more power ends up in fewer people's hands. There might be a connection there. We might want to consider, you know, not doing that more if we don't like the outcome we're getting. Much of the reason why I am a libertarian is that I actually think it's a good thing for society, in precisely the ways that David Simon is complaining about. With the bloated Federal government taking all the power, the government not only doesn't solve "the problem", for whatever problem we're talking about, but it also often prevents you from solving the problem. It can do this either legally, where it claims for itself exclusively the power to solve the problem, followed by it either doing nothing or doing the wrong thing, or perhaps more poisonously, it convinces you that it is its responsibility to solve the problem, followed again by not doing so or doing the wrong thing. A couple of days ago I happened to flip by the Canadian Broadcasting Channel's news hour, and there was this guy standing in front of a children's playground, complaining that the city wasn't taking care of it. Scattered on the playground were about 30-40 bagged piles of doggy-doo-doo. It otherwise appeared to be a fine playground; it was modern, the paint was cared for, the swings were all there, it did not show obvious wear. He's standing there talking to the reporter and complaining that their part of the city needs more money. My crazy, socially-evil, society-hating, collective-despising libertarian anwser was "Dude, in the amount of time you spent complaining to the reporter, you could have just cleaned up the playground." Seriously, all that was wrong with it appeared to be scattered piles of, and again I emphasize, bagged doggie-doo. This is how the government can corrode away the very social consciousness that people so desparately try to use governments to create. Yeah, it's a small example, but it happens everywhere, for all kinds of things. (Yes, I realize that cleaning it would then mean the guy couldn't complain, so he's putting on a show. I further realize that it's really quite likely that the doggie-doo receptable probably had all the doggie doo piled up in an somewhat unsanitary pile, and the guy probably deliberately scattered it before the video shoot, because really, scattered bagged doggie poo is a rather unlikely scenario. However, I'd suggest this just further emphasizes the point I was trying to make here. You can't create "social responsibility" by telling everyone that somebody in $GOVERNMENT is going to take care of "it". You create the exact opposite. If you want more social responsibility you need less government.)
badman_ting 13y ago
> I think Marx was a much better diagnostician than he was a clinician. That is a hell of a way to put it, and I totally agree. His basic framework of social relations (I am probably butchering terms here, please forgive me) seems basically right to me the older I get, though like Simon, I don't necessarily agree with his proposed solutions.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  You're not butchering it at all, that's exactly correct.
sologoub 13y ago
The arguments about the divide in America often misses an important point - personal choice or rather the sum of many personal choices that lead one to be on either side of the divide. The fact that we have so many people in prison is driven by the fact that people break laws in the first place. Some laws might be unjust, but the vast majority are just. If you commit what society has deemed unwanted, you must be punished. This is the basic concept of social organization. Recently, I went to see a movie "20 blocks" down the street (as the author puts it) not thinking one bit that it might be a bad idea. I won't bore you with details, but in the end, I was assaulted just for asking someone not to speak loudly during the movie... How is this normal? Am I to blame for this anyway, just because I am white and of upper-middle income?! This is the reason I cannot buy in to the fact that capital is to blame for all evils. Personal choice and degradation of moral values is what is the tragedy of the West and the world. In all facets of our society, we have chosen to ignore the basics that we understand to be good. These moral principles have nothing to do with wealth. If we remember these and act on them, the balance will be restored.
- hacknat 13y ago
  Some laws might be unjust, but the vast majority are just. It doesn't really seem like you're examining this assumption too closely. The vast majority are just? Really, the vast majority or laws are immaterial to criminal behavior. The vast majority of law is definition, e.g. Telecom companies are only allowed to use such-and-such a frequency band, utility companies must implement such-and-such safety measures, banks must have such-and-such leverage ratios. When it comes to criminal laws, though, are the vast majority of them just? Do you really think the application of the law is just in this country? I think very smart men and women have made fantastic arguments disagreeing with the basic assumption you glossed over, don't insult our intelligence by not seriously engaging with that assumption before ripping off some anecdotal tale of being assaulted in da 'hood.
  - sologoub 13y ago
    I'm not intending to insult your intelligence. I simply disagree with your sentiment. Having the benefit of knowing exactly what life is like in less fortunate society than US, it's a matter of perspective. Compare the state of law and law enforcement in US, say to Russia, and you will see that by this standard things aren't that bad here. No doubt they can be better, but at least I have some recourse under the law here, whereas bribes and political connections mean everything here. Also, that is no anecdote, but very real personal experience and not in the "hood", but a relatively modest part of Los Angeles.
johnohara 13y ago
And that's what The Wire was about basically, it was about people who were worth less and who were no longer necessary, as maybe 10 or 15% of my country is no longer necessary to the operation of the economy. I wish more people would write about the so-called employment to population ratio as opposed to the new claims for unemployment model. Not as a metric of who's freeloading but as a metric of who's able to have skin in the game. His 10 to 15% number may well be conservative.
platz 13y ago
There is no such thing as society - Thatcher
- gd1 13y ago
  It reads slightly different in context, but then you probably know that: "There is no such thing as society. There is a living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."
  - platz 13y ago
    That's fair. Although I would suggest her view encourages you to take care of yourself first, and only then pay attention to others.
apsec112 13y ago
The US as it exists today simply is not capitalist. The Great Depression and 19th-century industrial slums can reasonably be blamed on capitalism. American problems today cannot. This isn't the fallacy of "no true Scotsman". It's just simple arithmetic. Look at a pie chart of GDP. About 40% of it is outright owned by the government (public spending). Another 40% of it is nominally private, but is extremely heavily regulated License-Raj-style, like real estate and medicine. For example, if you want to build a new apartment tower, this is almost everywhere illegal because of zoning codes. The government has to give you permission to build anything, and then once you get permission, they dictate what you can build, how high you can build, what the building can be used for, how much parking there will be, how much of the land has to be building vs. landscaping, how far your building is away from the street, etc. etc. etc. It's literal central planning - a government committee takes out a map and draws lines, and then dictates at each spot exactly what kind of buildings there will be. None of this existed prior to the mid 20th century.
- hacknat 13y ago
  I accept your beef about zoning codes, but the government should have some say on safety standards, don't you think?
  - saraid216 13y ago
    Nah, if people die due to "accidents", there's no initiation of force so it's okay. And of course, everyone will hear about it since there's absolutely no incentive for the property owner to cover it up when his reputation, and thus livelihood, is at stake.
    - hacknat 13y ago
      People can and do make a lot of money in this world, long before their reputation gets destroyed, making really shitty stuff.
mcphilip 13y ago
For those interested, there's a great Bill Moyers Journal segment with David Simon as the guest. It uses themes brought up in The Wire as a launching point for discussion of topics related to this speech. In particular, Simon explaining how the War on Drugs has transformed into a War on Inner City Poverty was particularly interesting. David Simon is incredibly articulate off the cuff, and that really shows through in this interview: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04172009/profile.html http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04172009/profile.html BTW, this interview does contain The Wire spoilers since it aired after the conclusion of the series.
DickingAround 13y ago
Already, there's deeply untrue parts of this: We don't really know why the US emerged on top after WWII. There wasn't an A/B test that proves it. An argument can easily be made that the US came out ahead because it was the largest country which hadn't been substantially bombed and/or invaded. It's not well founded to say it was because the US was a mix of capitalism and socialism. There's not enough evidence for that.
- erichocean 13y ago
  An argument can easily be made that the US came out ahead because it was the largest country which hadn't been substantially bombed and/or invaded. Until this guy's speech, it hadn't occurred to me that anyone made any argument but that one. Despite the lack of A/B testing, it's seemed obvious to me, although I'd lump in reserve status for the dollar, and a couple of other political things that—again—the US were able to force through thanks to being last man standing after WWII is a huge force in US prosperity since WWII.
  - bane 13y ago
    It doesn't hurt to have jacked up the taxes to astronomical levels to raise funds and then use those funds to make substantial public infrastructure (Highways, Rail etc.), manufacturing (Tanks, Planes and Ships) and education (engineering, management science, logistics and planning) investments with that money resulting in an economy with a massive manufacturing base, the logistics and infrastructure to support it and the people to run it -- followed by huge numbers of men returning back home needing jobs (and getting free or heavily subsidized education if they wanted it as it was needed by this new industrial machine). It was virtually a second industrial revolution, but now instead of tanks, cars were churned out. It's no mistake that other countries (Germany, Japan) that made similar investments came to dominate the economies of their respective regions. It's only now as other countries (China, South Korea, etc.) make the same style of public investments that they're realizing the tremendous economic gains.
kenster07 13y ago
In computer science or math terms, the market economy is incredibly simple to understand: 1) People are encouraged to locally optimize -- i.e. optimize their own happiness. But as any psychologist would point out, lots of people have no idea how to do that. Kind of a problem. 2) Local optimization rarely achieves the global optimum.
Thiz 13y ago
Capitalism isn't bad. Statism is. There is no single argument against capitalism that doesn't involve government intervention fucking up everything and everybody.
siliconc0w 13y ago
The article mentions Marx as useful for diagnosis but not for prescription and then seems to make the same mistake. The problem with political science is that it isn't a science. It has certain language to express complex social systems but it sucks at prescription. We can look at the ravaged path produced by a complex dynamic system and attribute some apparent motivations and maybe we're kinda right but it's still very difficult to then start making causative statements. And still more difficult to endeavor to engineer such a system to a certain end. It isn't just answering, "what are we really trying to solve"? Or "how are we going to solve it"? The problem is that there isn't just one question or one answer. There are hundreds of possible questions, and then you have to agree on a answer in theory, and then you have to agree on a implementation, and then you have to have a system that is capable of the implementation. It's madness and there is no evidence we have a political system that is capable of such feats.
moss 13y ago
There are so many things to love about this speech, but I think my favorite part is this: "the only thing that actually works is not ideological, it is impure, has elements of both arguments and never actually achieves any kind of partisan or philosophical perfection." That's an extremely cogent observation about capitalism, but it would be just as relevant in a discussion about FP and OO, or about team social dynamics. Across the board, I see people doing better work when they spend less time seeking philosophical consistency and purity, and more time responding to real observed situations.
PythonicAlpha 13y ago
Capitalism: Lemmings running towards the verge of the abyss and the priests of capitalism are yelling: Faster, Faster!
fkssaa 13y ago
This is in maryland... I'm pretty sure the wealth in that area isn't due to "capitalism". Try beltway bandits. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_bandits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_bandits
dmfdmf 13y ago
Like a lot of people, Simon seems sincere in his concerns about America and our future. Unfortunately, most people's sincerity isn't deep enough for them to question their fundamental moral premises. I won't argue the case for Capitalism here but to say that there are answers but most people do not want to hear them. People are realizing that we as a society are faced with a horrible moral and political dilemma. The moral ideal is Socialism and yet where ever it is tried consistently it fails. Our moral evil is Capitalism and yet where ever it is tried it leads to material success but moral decay. So the dilemma of our age is a moral-practical dichotomy that no one seems to be able to resolve. It is understandable that people like Simon issue a call to double down on the moral ideal of Socialism, that's what morality is for, to tell us what we should do. But his "solution" is that maybe we can make it work this time if we don't impose Marx's dictum too consistently. Maybe this time "need" won't expand beyond all bound and "ability" won't vanish. This time. This approach will fail too. To escape our dilemma we need to question our morality instead of imposing another Socialist failure in America. I hope we can avoid this fate but I am not optimistic. If you are sincerely interested in these issues then I urge you to read two books by Ayn Rand; Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and The Virtue of Selfishness.
return0 13y ago
> Right now capital has effectively purchased the government Which is the reason people no longer trust any government, which is why libertarianism seems the way forward, and any thoughts like these sound like 'reactionary' voices from the past. It seems to me that the linear progression towards absolute personal freedom which started with the Enlightenment is only going to go forward, which will realize many of the fears expressed in the article. The newer generations seem to be very comfortable with the idea of the oncoming law of the jungle, and seem very comfortable with their nationally neutral, atomic, unassociated social network identities. I doubt there will be a shift towards socialist ideals any time soon. The empowerment of the poor is already considered a technical problem to be solved by the startup ecosystem.
auggierose 13y ago
This has right now 239 points and is 4 hours old, with 237 comments. How can this article not be Nr. 1 on HN right now? It is time to assess your algorithms, Mr. Graham.
michaelochurch 13y ago
Excellent speech. I think we should view market capitalism as like an AI algorithm in a very convoluted space. Start everyone off with the same amount of resources, and then let market capitalism go. For the first few iterations, inequality is forming but everyone is better off; even the poor are making absolute gains. You'll conclude that the algorithm (market capitalism) works. Untended, though, it starts to diverge after some time. The parameters go to infinity, the model gets ridiculous and ceases to represent real information (which institutions are worthy and add value, which do not) and goes into the self-perpetuation of early, parochial advantage (like overtraining, in ML, where noise in the data is misinterpreted as genuine signal). What we want is to have the growth of that initial training arc, not the degeneracy as the algorithm diverges, and you want to keep having that growth and increasing general prosperity indefinitely. So we need continuous regularization. The welfare state is supposed to do that, but the increasing ability for those with wealth to convert it into power has rendered our government severely dysfunctional, so the normalization has stopped. The problem with poverty in capitalism is that there's no real solution. Divergence and perpetuation of poverty is exactly what you'd expect. Markets are all about trade, but a person with nothing-- no social capital, no cultural capital, no wealth-- has nothing to trade, except for when terms for labor are extremely favorable-- like, skilled labor is in such shortage that even the out-of-touch rich see value in training the poor, for free-- and that's something we haven't seen since the 1960s.
penguindev 13y ago
His comments about health insurance were quite interesting. "And ... you know when you say, OK, we're going to do what we're doing for your law firm but we're going to do it for 300 million Americans and we're going to make it affordable for everybody that way. And yes, it means that you're going to be paying for the other guys in the society, the same way you pay for the other guys in the law firm … Their eyes glaze. You know they don't want to hear it. It's too much. Too much to contemplate the idea that the whole country might be actually connected." I never thought about it that way. That said, I still think obamacare has some serious problems, and is basically corporate welfare and sick care. If you want to make people healthy, stop subsidizing unhealthy carbohydrates and GMO toxic shit, and perhaps gasp think about stabilizing population.

323 points by patrickk 13y ago

danso 13y ago

It's hard to talk about David Simon without immediately thinking of The Wire, and I'm glad he mentioned it (he's infamously annoyed that people see it as compelling drama more than its attack against institutions, including the capitalist system): > So I'm astonished that at this late date I'm standing here and saying we might want to go back for this guy Marx that we were laughing at, if not for his prescriptions, then at least for his depiction of what is possible if you don't mitigate the authority of capitalism, if you don't embrace some other values for human endeavour. And that's what The Wire was about basically, it was about people who were worth less and who were no longer necessary, as maybe 10 or 15% of my country is no longer necessary to the operation of the economy. It was about them trying to solve, for lack of a better term, an existential crisis. In their irrelevance, their economic irrelevance, they were nonetheless still on the ground occupying this place called Baltimore and they were going to have to endure somehow. That's the great horror show. What are we going to do with all these people that we've managed to marginalise? It was kind of interesting when it was only race, when you could do this on the basis of people's racial fears and it was just the black and brown people in American cities who had the higher rates of unemployment and the higher rates of addiction and were marginalised and had the shitty school systems and the lack of opportunity. I still think The Wire is the best TV drama yet made, and that includes Breaking Bad, though I haven't watched Sopranos yet. One of the most amazing things about its achievements is how so un-cop-show-like it is...besides cops being of mixed character, they almost never draw their guns on the show...and yet it's still an addictively entertaining show. Simon and his co-writers were so good at creating characters (and drawing from his deep reporting experience) that even as his show has a strong anti-capitalistic tone, the Wire keeps your attention no matter what your political beliefs. Perhaps Simon could eke out one more grand show...beliefs and opinions can be affected by popular culture as they are by political discourse.

jotm 13y ago
Maybe it's time to start thinking global, move to other countries where we're needed. That would be one solution (though not for many)...
- tlarkworthy 13y ago
  That was tried with Northern Ireland and Israel. Didn't go well. The settling of the America's and Australia went really well ... for the non-indigenous people. I don't think moving people around the world to solve problems is a good idea.
  - mercurial 13y ago
    Heh. If you went to Sunday Musk-worshiping, you'd know Mars is the new frontier.
  - jotm 13y ago
    Someone's always gonna get shafted. Doesn't mean everyone has to suffer.
xradionut 13y ago
The chilling thing is the answers you get when you ask some of the more frank of the upper class in a moment of candor what should happen to the people that are no longer necessary or left behind. Some of outliers of their solutions range from literal slavery via prison/slums, to starvation, to genocide. Worst of all answers is indifference or "God will provide". They got theirs, go fuck off and die.
- cdash 13y ago
  This fuck you got mine attitude is very prevalent on this site actually even if wrapped up in some absurd justifications.
mercurial 13y ago
Yes, The Wire is basically flawless, in the way it is both a character drama and a social commentary. Commentary not being the best word here, as it feels that through his characters, he is proposing solutions to some of the social issues the show exposes.

gum_ina_package 13y ago

When I see arguments like this one, I always remember the little known fact that Adam Smith was a moral philosopher before he wrote about economics. A fundamental principle for capitalism is that people will behave morally and be compassionate. Without a moral society, no matter what system you're talking about, that society will always collapse. I think David Simon, and many other modern critics of capitalism, have forgotten this and/or are too afraid of sounding "preachy" if they were to advocate for a more moral society. I'd also like to point out that Simon seems to be making an emotional argument when he says there's a whole portion of people in our society who are useless when it comes to making the economy work. Perhaps it's because their skills don't match the needs of the workforce today. It's simply supply and demand.

patrickmay 13y ago
As well as Smith, I am reminded of Bastiat: “Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.” -- Frédéric Bastiat, The Law The problem in the US isn't capitalism, it's that the government interferes extensively in the economy. It is rational, if not moral, for the wealthy to expend effort and resources to gain political power rather than spending the same effort and resources on providing goods and services. Building a society is the responsibility of each individual who values it. Using government force in pursuit of that goal leads only to the co-option and disenfranchisement Simon complains about.
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  > The problem in the US isn't capitalism, it's that the government interferes extensively in the economy. Well... maybe the problem is that the economy interferes extensively in the government. > Building a society is the responsibility of each individual who values it. Using government force in pursuit of that goal leads only to the co-option and disenfranchisement Simon complains about. Individuals have to band together to accomplish things because at some point one individual isn't enough. In democratic society such a banding, supported by the people and for the people, is called a government.

andyl 13y ago

Capitalism as we know it is unsustainable.

gum_ina_package 13y ago
How so? If anything, we've seen how people can corrupt and ruin any system/society. When many people say "capitalism has failed us" they really mean our politicians have failed us by allowing corporations to run the government. That's not a failure of capitalism, that's our failure because we've let our elected representatives do this to us.
- VLM 13y ago
  I think you missed words 2,3,4,5 in his post.
  - spagina09 13y ago
    He isn't describing capitalism. Capitalism may exist loosely at a local level, but on the national level it doesn't exist anymore.
- chongli 13y ago
  Because it's based on the idea of exponential growth. Exponential growth is not sustainable without exponential growing access to resources.
  - RamiK 13y ago
    Instead of regurgitating an old chestnut: "thermodynamic limits impose a cap to energy growth lest we cook ourselves. I’m not talking about global warming, CO2 build-up, etc. I’m talking about radiating the spent energy into space."("Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist", http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-...) Essentially, even if we have exponential growing access to resources, we'll still be facing earth BBQ circa 2400.

majika 13y ago

This is a remarkably sensible speech. The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing; the idea that the market is going to heed all of the human concerns and still maximise profit is juvenile. It's a juvenile notion and it's still being argued in my country passionately and we're going down the tubes. And it terrifies me because I'm astonished at how comfortable we are in absolving ourselves of what is basically a moral choice. Are we all in this together or are we all not? I see a lot of libertarian and anti-government sentiments expressed on HN. People like to construct arguments like "more government vs. less", "higher taxes vs. lower", "less regulation vs. more", but those debates are missing the forest for the trees. The question - and only question - should be what David Simon asks: are we all in this together or are we not? To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's demonstrated by what societies are flourishing - with high economic and social equality, healthy democratic government, protected personal liberties, well-cared-for populaces, and resilient economies - and what societies aren't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model

mchusma 13y ago
I think it was a good speech, but because it was so emotional, and not rational. In fact, he was dismissive of any arguments as anything other than his own. To call all other forms of thought juvenile, and simply say "we are either together or not" sounds like the content of a great political speech, not a well articulated debate.
- thenmar 13y ago
  O, if only he had linked to the Mises Institute a few more times!
  - sanderjd 13y ago
    I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make, but for what it's worth, while agreeing with lots of the speech, I found myself thinking that it was pretty good opinion, but not a great argument.

bsirkia 13y ago

The hardest thing for me is that I'm super aware of how fucked up things are, but not totally sure what can done so just say "this sucks" and go back to work and whining about healthcare and listening to Slate podcasts. If I learned anything from the Wire, it's that these problems Simon brings up are so institutionalized that there's almost no way to fix them without some massive change, but I'm too small and irrelevant to make that change and our society is set up to resist change anyway. So I'll probably just share this on Facebook, get some likes, and be proud of myself for "building awareness".

bluedino 13y ago
The thing people that write these articles don't acknowledge was how fucked up things were in the USA, even in the 'great' times. The 50's and 60's were a booming time for the economy and middle class. But black people still had their lines to wait in, had to sit in the back of the bus, and we had 'colored' drinking fountains. Things have came a long, long way since then. Things might not be perfect and there are bits of racism but we are so far ahead of where we were.
- bsirkia 13y ago
  Right, it's easy to look back at the good 'ol days and talk about how great they were, but really overall quality of life on aggregate is empirically improving.
- xradionut 13y ago
  But the US population as a whole has slid backwards in power and monetary means over the last thirty years. The shenanigans that allowed the elite to walk over the working class had their roots in the late 70's and 80's with the shift to the right and the "Greed is Good" era.
  - bluedino 13y ago
    Of course - the rest of the world has 'caught up' to the USA. We aren't the powerhouse we once were. Even if you distributed CEO pay to minimum wage workers they'd only be getting a thousand bucks or so each.

VLM 13y ago

The speech appears flawless at first read. It comes from the FODI about a month ago which summarizes to (sorry if this offends) a more interesting TED than TED. http://fodi.sydneyoperahouse.com/ http://fodi.sydneyoperahouse.com/ If only I could subscribe to a RSS feed of FODI speeches...

7Figures2Commas 13y ago

It's astonishing that, in a nearly 3,000 word speech calling the United States a "horror show", the word debt is used not once.

onebaddude 13y ago
Perhaps because sensible people don't consider debt, in and of itself, a serious problem.
- 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
  That's fascinating. I'd love to meet the "sensible people" who believe that debt, both personal and national, is not at all implicated in the economic divide between rich and poor that David Simon speaks of.
  - xradionut 13y ago
    Consumer debt and the increase of public lotteries are the schemes that allow inequality to exist as long as it has. Take them away and you take away hope.
  - beachstartup 13y ago
    > I'd love to meet the "sensible people" uh, okay. it would be better if you simply just stated your case and/or evidence because that is what HN is for.
    - 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
      > it would be better if you simply just stated your case and/or evidence because that is what HN is for. I think you have it backwards. The OP suggested that "sensible people" (all of them, apparently!) don't believe that debt ("in and of itself", whatever that means) is "a serious problem." That is an extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But I'll indulge you: 1. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has stated "I've said many times that I believe the single, biggest threat to our national security is our debt, so I also believe we have every responsibility to help eliminate that threat." 2. David Walker, former Comptroller General and head of the GAO, has been sounding the alarm about the tens of trillions of dollars in debt and unfunded liabilities the United States has racked up for years. He has warned that unless something is done, the US will plunge into a "fiscal abyss." 3. Barack Obama, as a Senator, stated, "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies... Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better." Are Mullen, Walker and Obama not "serious people"?

mooreds 13y ago

"...because you know when people get to the end there's always the brick." Chilling.

yetanotherphd 13y ago
I find it chilling that the left still get away with their implicit threats of violence unchallenged. Can you imagine someone saying that about immigration? They would almost certainly be locked up in the UK. There is a double standard where saying "X will lead to violence, but I am just warning you, I don't want to see it happen" is allowed for some, but not others.
- mooreds 13y ago
  Well, it happens on both sides in the USA all the time. Plenty of violence to go around over here.

sz4kerto 13y ago

The tragedy of the successful capitalistic societies like the USA is the lack of first hand experience with socialism (and communism) will eventually result in the masses wanting to try it out. Believe me, it's the worst thing what can happen with your country. It happened around here, and it takes generations to recover. Don't try it, even if it looks morally right.

wrongc0ntinent 13y ago
Some degree of socialism has always been a part of the system here, despite it being a dirty word. If you are from an ex-communist country, you might have had the opposite experience, where (before 89) Marx's solutions were gospel, and even if implemented to the letter, you still had the problems of corruption and major outside political influence from the U.S.S.R.. "Socialism" and "communism" are inextricably linked in those parts of Europe, and now toxic ideas because of their painful history. The speech is partly about degrees and dropping the hypocrisy, not advocating Marxist solutions.
agilebyte 13y ago
Where is "around here" please?
- sz4kerto 13y ago
  Eastern Europe.
  - agilebyte 13y ago
    Hmm, I am sorry you have had a bad experience. I hail from over there too and am actually glad that the social state has not been completely dismantled.
    - ahomescu1 13y ago
      Maybe it would have been better if it had been dismantled, instead of it becoming a Petri dish for corruption and abuse (speaking as a Romanian).

jl6 13y ago

> Are we all in this together or are we all not? Who is "we all"? I'm sure he's thinking of "all Americans", but if the idea is to help people you don't know who are less fortunate than you, what is the moral basis on which we restrict that generosity to just Americans? Nations and citizenship are arbitrary divisions. If someone is in need, help them, regardless of what their passport says. That's not socialism, it's charity. And charity is capitalism's solution to suffering: aid, given freely. Edit: though when it comes to the environment, capitalism has no answer, as the environment is fundamentally socialised.

dkuntz2 13y ago
Considering that the article was a transcription of a speech given in Sydney, I would think "we all" is humanity in general.

steveklabnik 13y ago

It's really a shame that more people don't actually read 'Capital,' or at least the first three chapters of Capital I. While I ultimately disagree with Marx, I think he does a much, much better job of analyzing the problems we have than most people. Hence Simon's distinction between 'diagnostician' and 'clinician.' It was Lenin and Mao that really tried to be the clinicians, anyway. It's a Sunday, if you've got some time today, check out "Value, Price, and Profit," which is sort of the beginning of Capital I but in a little bit easier language, and much shorter. It's only about 40 pages. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-...

kungfooguru 13y ago
I don't agree with Simon's claim that because Marx provided no clear clinical treatment it should cause one to not call themselves a Marxist. Marxism is the science of analyzing socioeconomic relations.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  Agreed. I read it as defensive comments designed to appear more reasonable to a broad audience, since Marxism is such a dirty word here. (I play a Marxist often, but really, I part ways with Hegel, so I can't really truly be a Marxist.)
patrickaljord 13y ago
People like to say that Lenin and Mao were bad clinicians, if only there was a messiah smart enough to implement communism. In spite of the fact that plenty of other governments gave it a try too. Truth is, Lenin and even Stalin were pretty smart guys and they implemented communism the way it was meant to be . Actually, a guy predicted the Lenin/Stalin way would be the end-result for any communism implementation. The guy who predicted was an anarchist so not particularly right wing: "First, then, State Socialism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government, regardless of individual choice. Marx, its founder, concluded that the only way to abolish the class monopolies was to centralize and consolidate all industrial and commercial interests, all productive and distributive agencies, in one vast monopoly in the hands of the State. The government must become banker, manufacturer, farmer, carrier, and merchant, and in these capacities must suffer no competition. Land, tools, and all instruments of production must be wrested from individual hands, and made the property of the collectivity. To the individual can belong only the products to be consumed, not the means of producing them. A man may own his clothes and his food, but not the sewing-machine which makes his shirts or the spade which digs his potatoes. Product and capital are essentially different things; the former belongs to individuals, the latter to society. Society must seize the capital which belongs to it, by the ballot if it can, by revolution if it must. Once in possession of it, it must administer it on the majority principle, though its organ, the State, utilize it in production and distribution, fix all prices by the amount of labor involved, and employ the whole people in its workshops, farms, stores, etc. The nation must be transformed into a vast bureaucracy, and every individual into a State official. Everything must be done on the cost principle, the people having no motive to make a profit out of themselves. Individuals not being allowed to own capital, no one can employ another, or even himself. Every man will be a wage-receiver, and the State the only wage-payer. He who will not work for the State must starve, or, more likely, go to prison. All freedom of trade must disappear. Competition must be utterly wiped out. All industrial and commercial activity must be centered in one vast, enormous, all-inclusive monopoly. The remedy for monopolies is monopoly. Such is the economic programme of State Socialism as adopted from Karl Marx." Benjamin Tucker, State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888) Sounds familiar? Second point, the labor theories of value described in the Capital you enjoyed so much has been proven wrong. The argument that the value of a commodity is only related to the labor needed to produce or obtain that commodity and not to other factors is now well known to be wrong. Running out of time here so here's a quick explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Criticisms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Criticism...

pfraze 13y ago

Here's the video of his speech and following Q&A: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNttT7hDKsk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNttT7hDKsk

abalone 13y ago

Very good speech and an important national dialog to spark. I'd like to call attention to one thing though: "I don't believe that a state-run economy can be as viable as market capitalism in producing mass wealth." This demonstrates a basic confusion that we Americans have about ourselves, even most "lefties" and "libertarians": The false belief that we live in a free market economy. The truth is, the state plays a massive role in our economy. This is especially true for us Silicon Valley entrepreneurial Americans. Because the government's hand is especially strong in high tech. The Internet. Microcomputers. Lasers. Jets. Robots. Siri. You name a major high-tech innovation, and it's probably got DARPA or NASA behind it in the earliest, highest-risk, most capital-intensive stages. Look again and you'll probably find lots more government support in bringing the technology to market through procurement. This is all the more damning for our system's poverty. The rich and powerful are fully in favor of a strong, powerful state-run economy that serves their needs. That's why it's done under the rubric of military spending -- "we have to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars on this because we have to defend ourselves" sounds better than "because we need it to produce the Silicon Valley economic miracle." Because the latter would suggest it's fair to direct major taxpayer support for other economic investments like education, health care and housing. Instead, the state-supported rich and powerful can claim we live in a "free market economy" that just happens to have trillions of state-sponsored investment, for them.

jerf 13y ago
The 2012 US GDP was 15.68 trillion. The 2012 Federal government expenditures were 3.54 trillion. Right off the top, the Federal government accounts for 22.6% of the economic activity in the country. Depending on how you measure, you can quibble with this exact choice of numbers, but no matter how you fiddle you're not getting out of the Federal government being a huge part of the economy directly. State and local governments still not counted in that number. The Federal government also controls the Federal interest rate and its centralized currency directly. It extensively regulates every major financial industry; to the extent that this fails to produce sufficient "regulation" for a liberal's purposes, it is, generally speaking, not for lack of statutory power, and a concerned liberal should probably be looking at the (almost always) liberals exercising the statutory power, rather than complaining about the few people whose meager voices suggest that perhaps the power shouldn't exist at all, lost in the sea of those screaming for more. Indeed, it extensively regulates every major industry. It produces thousands of pages of new regulations every year. It taxes nearly every economic transaction. You can't hardly do anything without the government being involved. It already engages in huge wealth transfers every which way (even some really crazy stupid ones, like Obamacare's transfers from the young and healthy to the on-average wealthier older crowd). This is not necessarily and automatically a bad thing. I'm just mentioning this stuff to show that the idea that we live in some sort of libertarian nightmare is ludicrous nonsense. The state has the power already, today. It's not theoretical, it's a done deal. If you don't like the outcome we're experiencing, take it up with the State. Personally I can't help but observe that we keep giving more power to fewer people under the rubric of "better government", and, lo and behold, our society has ever more power and wealth concentrating in fewer and fewer hands. Why, oh why ever could it be? Somehow some people manage to convince themselves this is all the libertarian's fault. I'd suggest looking at the people who keep putting more and more power in fewer and fewer people's hands and then acting all confused about the outcome where more power ends up in fewer people's hands. There might be a connection there. We might want to consider, you know, not doing that more if we don't like the outcome we're getting. Much of the reason why I am a libertarian is that I actually think it's a good thing for society, in precisely the ways that David Simon is complaining about. With the bloated Federal government taking all the power, the government not only doesn't solve "the problem", for whatever problem we're talking about, but it also often prevents you from solving the problem. It can do this either legally, where it claims for itself exclusively the power to solve the problem, followed by it either doing nothing or doing the wrong thing, or perhaps more poisonously, it convinces you that it is its responsibility to solve the problem, followed again by not doing so or doing the wrong thing. A couple of days ago I happened to flip by the Canadian Broadcasting Channel's news hour, and there was this guy standing in front of a children's playground, complaining that the city wasn't taking care of it. Scattered on the playground were about 30-40 bagged piles of doggy-doo-doo. It otherwise appeared to be a fine playground; it was modern, the paint was cared for, the swings were all there, it did not show obvious wear. He's standing there talking to the reporter and complaining that their part of the city needs more money. My crazy, socially-evil, society-hating, collective-despising libertarian anwser was "Dude, in the amount of time you spent complaining to the reporter, you could have just cleaned up the playground." Seriously, all that was wrong with it appeared to be scattered piles of, and again I emphasize, bagged doggie-doo. This is how the government can corrode away the very social consciousness that people so desparately try to use governments to create. Yeah, it's a small example, but it happens everywhere, for all kinds of things. (Yes, I realize that cleaning it would then mean the guy couldn't complain, so he's putting on a show. I further realize that it's really quite likely that the doggie-doo receptable probably had all the doggie doo piled up in an somewhat unsanitary pile, and the guy probably deliberately scattered it before the video shoot, because really, scattered bagged doggie poo is a rather unlikely scenario. However, I'd suggest this just further emphasizes the point I was trying to make here. You can't create "social responsibility" by telling everyone that somebody in $GOVERNMENT is going to take care of "it". You create the exact opposite. If you want more social responsibility you need less government.)

badman_ting 13y ago

> I think Marx was a much better diagnostician than he was a clinician. That is a hell of a way to put it, and I totally agree. His basic framework of social relations (I am probably butchering terms here, please forgive me) seems basically right to me the older I get, though like Simon, I don't necessarily agree with his proposed solutions.

steveklabnik 13y ago
You're not butchering it at all, that's exactly correct.

sologoub 13y ago

The arguments about the divide in America often misses an important point - personal choice or rather the sum of many personal choices that lead one to be on either side of the divide. The fact that we have so many people in prison is driven by the fact that people break laws in the first place. Some laws might be unjust, but the vast majority are just. If you commit what society has deemed unwanted, you must be punished. This is the basic concept of social organization. Recently, I went to see a movie "20 blocks" down the street (as the author puts it) not thinking one bit that it might be a bad idea. I won't bore you with details, but in the end, I was assaulted just for asking someone not to speak loudly during the movie... How is this normal? Am I to blame for this anyway, just because I am white and of upper-middle income?! This is the reason I cannot buy in to the fact that capital is to blame for all evils. Personal choice and degradation of moral values is what is the tragedy of the West and the world. In all facets of our society, we have chosen to ignore the basics that we understand to be good. These moral principles have nothing to do with wealth. If we remember these and act on them, the balance will be restored.

hacknat 13y ago
Some laws might be unjust, but the vast majority are just. It doesn't really seem like you're examining this assumption too closely. The vast majority are just? Really, the vast majority or laws are immaterial to criminal behavior. The vast majority of law is definition, e.g. Telecom companies are only allowed to use such-and-such a frequency band, utility companies must implement such-and-such safety measures, banks must have such-and-such leverage ratios. When it comes to criminal laws, though, are the vast majority of them just? Do you really think the application of the law is just in this country? I think very smart men and women have made fantastic arguments disagreeing with the basic assumption you glossed over, don't insult our intelligence by not seriously engaging with that assumption before ripping off some anecdotal tale of being assaulted in da 'hood.
- sologoub 13y ago
  I'm not intending to insult your intelligence. I simply disagree with your sentiment. Having the benefit of knowing exactly what life is like in less fortunate society than US, it's a matter of perspective. Compare the state of law and law enforcement in US, say to Russia, and you will see that by this standard things aren't that bad here. No doubt they can be better, but at least I have some recourse under the law here, whereas bribes and political connections mean everything here. Also, that is no anecdote, but very real personal experience and not in the "hood", but a relatively modest part of Los Angeles.

johnohara 13y ago

And that's what The Wire was about basically, it was about people who were worth less and who were no longer necessary, as maybe 10 or 15% of my country is no longer necessary to the operation of the economy. I wish more people would write about the so-called employment to population ratio as opposed to the new claims for unemployment model. Not as a metric of who's freeloading but as a metric of who's able to have skin in the game. His 10 to 15% number may well be conservative.

platz 13y ago

There is no such thing as society - Thatcher

gd1 13y ago
It reads slightly different in context, but then you probably know that: "There is no such thing as society. There is a living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."
- platz 13y ago
  That's fair. Although I would suggest her view encourages you to take care of yourself first, and only then pay attention to others.

apsec112 13y ago

The US as it exists today simply is not capitalist. The Great Depression and 19th-century industrial slums can reasonably be blamed on capitalism. American problems today cannot. This isn't the fallacy of "no true Scotsman". It's just simple arithmetic. Look at a pie chart of GDP. About 40% of it is outright owned by the government (public spending). Another 40% of it is nominally private, but is extremely heavily regulated License-Raj-style, like real estate and medicine. For example, if you want to build a new apartment tower, this is almost everywhere illegal because of zoning codes. The government has to give you permission to build anything, and then once you get permission, they dictate what you can build, how high you can build, what the building can be used for, how much parking there will be, how much of the land has to be building vs. landscaping, how far your building is away from the street, etc. etc. etc. It's literal central planning - a government committee takes out a map and draws lines, and then dictates at each spot exactly what kind of buildings there will be. None of this existed prior to the mid 20th century.

hacknat 13y ago
I accept your beef about zoning codes, but the government should have some say on safety standards, don't you think?
- saraid216 13y ago
  Nah, if people die due to "accidents", there's no initiation of force so it's okay. And of course, everyone will hear about it since there's absolutely no incentive for the property owner to cover it up when his reputation, and thus livelihood, is at stake.
  - hacknat 13y ago
    People can and do make a lot of money in this world, long before their reputation gets destroyed, making really shitty stuff.

mcphilip 13y ago

For those interested, there's a great Bill Moyers Journal segment with David Simon as the guest. It uses themes brought up in The Wire as a launching point for discussion of topics related to this speech. In particular, Simon explaining how the War on Drugs has transformed into a War on Inner City Poverty was particularly interesting. David Simon is incredibly articulate off the cuff, and that really shows through in this interview: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04172009/profile.html http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04172009/profile.html BTW, this interview does contain The Wire spoilers since it aired after the conclusion of the series.

DickingAround 13y ago

Already, there's deeply untrue parts of this: We don't really know why the US emerged on top after WWII. There wasn't an A/B test that proves it. An argument can easily be made that the US came out ahead because it was the largest country which hadn't been substantially bombed and/or invaded. It's not well founded to say it was because the US was a mix of capitalism and socialism. There's not enough evidence for that.

erichocean 13y ago
An argument can easily be made that the US came out ahead because it was the largest country which hadn't been substantially bombed and/or invaded. Until this guy's speech, it hadn't occurred to me that anyone made any argument but that one. Despite the lack of A/B testing, it's seemed obvious to me, although I'd lump in reserve status for the dollar, and a couple of other political things that—again—the US were able to force through thanks to being last man standing after WWII is a huge force in US prosperity since WWII.
- bane 13y ago
  It doesn't hurt to have jacked up the taxes to astronomical levels to raise funds and then use those funds to make substantial public infrastructure (Highways, Rail etc.), manufacturing (Tanks, Planes and Ships) and education (engineering, management science, logistics and planning) investments with that money resulting in an economy with a massive manufacturing base, the logistics and infrastructure to support it and the people to run it -- followed by huge numbers of men returning back home needing jobs (and getting free or heavily subsidized education if they wanted it as it was needed by this new industrial machine). It was virtually a second industrial revolution, but now instead of tanks, cars were churned out. It's no mistake that other countries (Germany, Japan) that made similar investments came to dominate the economies of their respective regions. It's only now as other countries (China, South Korea, etc.) make the same style of public investments that they're realizing the tremendous economic gains.

kenster07 13y ago

In computer science or math terms, the market economy is incredibly simple to understand: 1) People are encouraged to locally optimize -- i.e. optimize their own happiness. But as any psychologist would point out, lots of people have no idea how to do that. Kind of a problem. 2) Local optimization rarely achieves the global optimum.

Thiz 13y ago

Capitalism isn't bad. Statism is. There is no single argument against capitalism that doesn't involve government intervention fucking up everything and everybody.

siliconc0w 13y ago

The article mentions Marx as useful for diagnosis but not for prescription and then seems to make the same mistake. The problem with political science is that it isn't a science. It has certain language to express complex social systems but it sucks at prescription. We can look at the ravaged path produced by a complex dynamic system and attribute some apparent motivations and maybe we're kinda right but it's still very difficult to then start making causative statements. And still more difficult to endeavor to engineer such a system to a certain end. It isn't just answering, "what are we really trying to solve"? Or "how are we going to solve it"? The problem is that there isn't just one question or one answer. There are hundreds of possible questions, and then you have to agree on a answer in theory, and then you have to agree on a implementation, and then you have to have a system that is capable of the implementation. It's madness and there is no evidence we have a political system that is capable of such feats.

moss 13y ago

There are so many things to love about this speech, but I think my favorite part is this: "the only thing that actually works is not ideological, it is impure, has elements of both arguments and never actually achieves any kind of partisan or philosophical perfection." That's an extremely cogent observation about capitalism, but it would be just as relevant in a discussion about FP and OO, or about team social dynamics. Across the board, I see people doing better work when they spend less time seeking philosophical consistency and purity, and more time responding to real observed situations.

PythonicAlpha 13y ago

Capitalism: Lemmings running towards the verge of the abyss and the priests of capitalism are yelling: Faster, Faster!

fkssaa 13y ago

This is in maryland... I'm pretty sure the wealth in that area isn't due to "capitalism". Try beltway bandits. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_bandits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_bandits

dmfdmf 13y ago

Like a lot of people, Simon seems sincere in his concerns about America and our future. Unfortunately, most people's sincerity isn't deep enough for them to question their fundamental moral premises. I won't argue the case for Capitalism here but to say that there are answers but most people do not want to hear them. People are realizing that we as a society are faced with a horrible moral and political dilemma. The moral ideal is Socialism and yet where ever it is tried consistently it fails. Our moral evil is Capitalism and yet where ever it is tried it leads to material success but moral decay. So the dilemma of our age is a moral-practical dichotomy that no one seems to be able to resolve. It is understandable that people like Simon issue a call to double down on the moral ideal of Socialism, that's what morality is for, to tell us what we should do. But his "solution" is that maybe we can make it work this time if we don't impose Marx's dictum too consistently. Maybe this time "need" won't expand beyond all bound and "ability" won't vanish. This time. This approach will fail too. To escape our dilemma we need to question our morality instead of imposing another Socialist failure in America. I hope we can avoid this fate but I am not optimistic. If you are sincerely interested in these issues then I urge you to read two books by Ayn Rand; Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and The Virtue of Selfishness.

return0 13y ago

> Right now capital has effectively purchased the government Which is the reason people no longer trust any government, which is why libertarianism seems the way forward, and any thoughts like these sound like 'reactionary' voices from the past. It seems to me that the linear progression towards absolute personal freedom which started with the Enlightenment is only going to go forward, which will realize many of the fears expressed in the article. The newer generations seem to be very comfortable with the idea of the oncoming law of the jungle, and seem very comfortable with their nationally neutral, atomic, unassociated social network identities. I doubt there will be a shift towards socialist ideals any time soon. The empowerment of the poor is already considered a technical problem to be solved by the startup ecosystem.

auggierose 13y ago

This has right now 239 points and is 4 hours old, with 237 comments. How can this article not be Nr. 1 on HN right now? It is time to assess your algorithms, Mr. Graham.

michaelochurch 13y ago

Excellent speech. I think we should view market capitalism as like an AI algorithm in a very convoluted space. Start everyone off with the same amount of resources, and then let market capitalism go. For the first few iterations, inequality is forming but everyone is better off; even the poor are making absolute gains. You'll conclude that the algorithm (market capitalism) works. Untended, though, it starts to diverge after some time. The parameters go to infinity, the model gets ridiculous and ceases to represent real information (which institutions are worthy and add value, which do not) and goes into the self-perpetuation of early, parochial advantage (like overtraining, in ML, where noise in the data is misinterpreted as genuine signal). What we want is to have the growth of that initial training arc, not the degeneracy as the algorithm diverges, and you want to keep having that growth and increasing general prosperity indefinitely. So we need continuous regularization. The welfare state is supposed to do that, but the increasing ability for those with wealth to convert it into power has rendered our government severely dysfunctional, so the normalization has stopped. The problem with poverty in capitalism is that there's no real solution. Divergence and perpetuation of poverty is exactly what you'd expect. Markets are all about trade, but a person with nothing-- no social capital, no cultural capital, no wealth-- has nothing to trade, except for when terms for labor are extremely favorable-- like, skilled labor is in such shortage that even the out-of-touch rich see value in training the poor, for free-- and that's something we haven't seen since the 1960s.

penguindev 13y ago

His comments about health insurance were quite interesting. "And ... you know when you say, OK, we're going to do what we're doing for your law firm but we're going to do it for 300 million Americans and we're going to make it affordable for everybody that way. And yes, it means that you're going to be paying for the other guys in the society, the same way you pay for the other guys in the law firm … Their eyes glaze. You know they don't want to hear it. It's too much. Too much to contemplate the idea that the whole country might be actually connected." I never thought about it that way. That said, I still think obamacare has some serious problems, and is basically corporate welfare and sick care. If you want to make people healthy, stop subsidizing unhealthy carbohydrates and GMO toxic shit, and perhaps gasp think about stabilizing population.