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You write as if no one has ever tried different ways of allocating capital. The 20th century is replete with examples of such "better" ways of allocating capit
by rjdagost 12y ago
You write as if no one has ever tried different ways of allocating capital. The 20th century is replete with examples of such "better" ways of allocating capital that failed spectacularly (often with considerable bloodshed).
- vidarh 12y agoNo, it is full of examples of groups that established themselves as the new elites and continued maintaining the same type of semi-feudal systems they replaced. Many of them used rhetoric about redistribution to placate the masses, yes. But there was little different but names in the methods for allocating capital in Czarist Russia and the Soviet Union: The decisions were in both cases taken by a privileged elite insulated from the effects of their decisions.
- slowmovintarget 12y agoYet it is either astonishingly arrogant or astonishingly naïve to think that "if only we got a crack at it we'd do it right." Any mechanism of government can and will be abused. Some such mechanisms like those of centrally planned economies are not only more likely to be abused, but more easy to abuse. Worse, they are so very often employed by the same people who think on the matter and decide we're just going to have to kill the people who don't agree with us. The only thing that makes us better is if we take those lessons from history as a warning and prioritize liberty first. These mechanisms prioritize equal outcome, which is a fools errand. Doubly so in a leaky economy.
- eli_gottlieb 12y agoThe 20th century is also full of examples of better and worse ways of allocating capital that didn't go on in the Soviet bloc. Troll harder: there are more than two alternatives.