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I think that something inherent but generally unacknowledged is how Socialism and Anti capitalist ideologies rob creativity of any and all usefulness. Exploring

by dkopi 12y ago

I think that something inherent but generally unacknowledged is how Socialism and Anti capitalist ideologies rob creativity of any and all usefulness. Exploring ideas for the sake of solving real world problems, making people's lives better, is a wonderful and incomparable thing.

skidoo 12y ago
Do that without expecting financial reward, and your soapbox would hold some meaning. "Usefulness" is not synonymous for monetization. Making the world better is not synonymous for making a few people that much richer.
- dkopi 12y ago
  That's not how Human nature works. The world is filled with failed experiments of "Just do good without expecting anything in return". "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" has failed utterly, at every scale. Be it the soviet union, or small bankrupt "kibbutzim" in Israel. Capitalism is much more than "expecting a financial reward". It's a complex system of signals which let producers determine what is the most valuable and efficient use for their resources. What Should I build in my basement? A sous vide cooker? A drone with a camera? A computer game or a new social network? Capitalism and profit give the correct signals - what is it that the market demands. What do people truly feel they need?
  - jeremysmyth 12y ago
    Agree with everything you say, but would like to comment on this: Capitalism and profit give the correct signals - what is it that the market demands. What do people truly feel they need? Art is the big gap here. Few could argue successfully that the world is not a better place for the creations of JS Bach, Kafka, Keats, Van Gogh, yet these people did not make their fortune from their life's passion and work. Only after their death were they appreciated for what they did in their figurative basements. Capitalism provides one set of signals, an overpoweringly large one at that, but it does not provide a complete picture of value to humanity.
    - xerophyte12932 12y ago
      I think economic theory explains that case as well. Simply put, the value of "making art" was worth more to those artists than the value of whatever money they could have made doing other things. So of course, they weren't trying to satisfy some latent global need of art, they were just doing what they preferred. Just as a farmer is not trying to satisfy the world's demand for food, monitoring which crop is most needed. All the farmer does is he prefers a certain amount of money over a certain amount of labour and grows crops that maximize that amount of money. The world signals their demand by price.
      - barrkel 12y ago
        Beware of economic theory's ability to tell stories. It's a similar danger to evolutionary biology. It's also at risk of the Is/Ought problem; the stories are not justifications.
    - lmm 12y ago
      > Art is the big gap here. Few could argue successfully that the world is not a better place for the creations of JS Bach, Kafka, Keats, Van Gogh, yet these people did not make their fortune from their life's passion and work. Only after their death were they appreciated for what they did in their figurative basements. You're taking the exceptions (and actually Bach earnt quite well from music). Van Gogh was almost unique among his painting contemporaries, partly because his paintings were, by the standards of the time, weird (I suspect this applies to Kafka as well). And what vindicates him now is an ultimately capitalist consideration - his works are popular, people pay for copies of them. Nowadays there are capitalistic art speculators who will buy the work of underappreciated artists if they like it themselves - see the recent https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8829277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8829277 - which would solve that problem. As for Kafka, he had a famously... weird approach to his work. IIRC he wanted his works destroyed; it's only the capitalism of his descendants that means we're able to appreciate them.
    - ad_hominem 12y ago
      Art isn't the only place where people can be ahead of their time. Xerox PARC had a lot of good ideas, for example, but were only appreciated after some folks reappropriated them. Gov't incentives meanwhile often create unintended effects. For example, incentivizing investment in the arts leading to rich people creating their own private museums, often inaccessible to the public, and using them as convenient funnels for tax deductions while still enriching themselves.[1] [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/business/art-collectors-gain-tax-benefits-from-private-museums.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/business/art-collectors-ga...
jacquesm 12y ago
> I think that something inherent but generally unacknowledged is how Socialism and Anti capitalist ideologies rob creativity of any and all usefulness. Socialism? I think you meant 'communism' as practiced by those countries that have hi-jacked an otherwise pretty good idea to serve the interests of a select few fat cats.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  So far all that has worked is Socialism with Capitalist ideologies. Is there some example of Socialism and Anti-Capitalist ideologies that has worked?
chriscool 12y ago
People working on open source projects often solve real problems and make other people's life better, yet some of them consider themselves anti-capitalist or even socialist.
- dkopi 12y ago
  Many successful open source projects have a corporate backing to them, driving resources and energy into them. Open source isn't anti capitalist. It's capitalism at it's best form. People join at their own free will, the rule of contracts (open source licensing) are strictly enforced, and there are lots of ways people can profit from open source.
forgottenpass 12y ago
I think you're reading too much into the parent poster. It's possible to point out negative properties of something without advocating for a radical shift, or any shift. Business incentives stifle creativity; even in creative products. It may wax and wane depending on context, but it's a pretty uncontroversial idea. From the high end of LA creativity-through-the-sausage-machine film and tv, all the way through to the low end, where nobody wants to attend my one man show. But the parent poster used the HN tigger word "capitalism" when discussing the idea, so lets down-vote the shit out of him! /s

by dkopi 12y ago

skidoo 12y ago

Do that without expecting financial reward, and your soapbox would hold some meaning. "Usefulness" is not synonymous for monetization. Making the world better is not synonymous for making a few people that much richer.

dkopi 12y ago
That's not how Human nature works. The world is filled with failed experiments of "Just do good without expecting anything in return". "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" has failed utterly, at every scale. Be it the soviet union, or small bankrupt "kibbutzim" in Israel. Capitalism is much more than "expecting a financial reward". It's a complex system of signals which let producers determine what is the most valuable and efficient use for their resources. What Should I build in my basement? A sous vide cooker? A drone with a camera? A computer game or a new social network? Capitalism and profit give the correct signals - what is it that the market demands. What do people truly feel they need?
- jeremysmyth 12y ago
  Agree with everything you say, but would like to comment on this: Capitalism and profit give the correct signals - what is it that the market demands. What do people truly feel they need? Art is the big gap here. Few could argue successfully that the world is not a better place for the creations of JS Bach, Kafka, Keats, Van Gogh, yet these people did not make their fortune from their life's passion and work. Only after their death were they appreciated for what they did in their figurative basements. Capitalism provides one set of signals, an overpoweringly large one at that, but it does not provide a complete picture of value to humanity.
  - xerophyte12932 12y ago
    I think economic theory explains that case as well. Simply put, the value of "making art" was worth more to those artists than the value of whatever money they could have made doing other things. So of course, they weren't trying to satisfy some latent global need of art, they were just doing what they preferred. Just as a farmer is not trying to satisfy the world's demand for food, monitoring which crop is most needed. All the farmer does is he prefers a certain amount of money over a certain amount of labour and grows crops that maximize that amount of money. The world signals their demand by price.
    - barrkel 12y ago
      Beware of economic theory's ability to tell stories. It's a similar danger to evolutionary biology. It's also at risk of the Is/Ought problem; the stories are not justifications.
  - lmm 12y ago
    > Art is the big gap here. Few could argue successfully that the world is not a better place for the creations of JS Bach, Kafka, Keats, Van Gogh, yet these people did not make their fortune from their life's passion and work. Only after their death were they appreciated for what they did in their figurative basements. You're taking the exceptions (and actually Bach earnt quite well from music). Van Gogh was almost unique among his painting contemporaries, partly because his paintings were, by the standards of the time, weird (I suspect this applies to Kafka as well). And what vindicates him now is an ultimately capitalist consideration - his works are popular, people pay for copies of them. Nowadays there are capitalistic art speculators who will buy the work of underappreciated artists if they like it themselves - see the recent https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8829277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8829277 - which would solve that problem. As for Kafka, he had a famously... weird approach to his work. IIRC he wanted his works destroyed; it's only the capitalism of his descendants that means we're able to appreciate them.
  - ad_hominem 12y ago
    Art isn't the only place where people can be ahead of their time. Xerox PARC had a lot of good ideas, for example, but were only appreciated after some folks reappropriated them. Gov't incentives meanwhile often create unintended effects. For example, incentivizing investment in the arts leading to rich people creating their own private museums, often inaccessible to the public, and using them as convenient funnels for tax deductions while still enriching themselves.[1] [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/business/art-collectors-gain-tax-benefits-from-private-museums.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/business/art-collectors-ga...

jacquesm 12y ago

> I think that something inherent but generally unacknowledged is how Socialism and Anti capitalist ideologies rob creativity of any and all usefulness. Socialism? I think you meant 'communism' as practiced by those countries that have hi-jacked an otherwise pretty good idea to serve the interests of a select few fat cats.

happyscrappy 12y ago
So far all that has worked is Socialism with Capitalist ideologies. Is there some example of Socialism and Anti-Capitalist ideologies that has worked?

chriscool 12y ago

People working on open source projects often solve real problems and make other people's life better, yet some of them consider themselves anti-capitalist or even socialist.

dkopi 12y ago
Many successful open source projects have a corporate backing to them, driving resources and energy into them. Open source isn't anti capitalist. It's capitalism at it's best form. People join at their own free will, the rule of contracts (open source licensing) are strictly enforced, and there are lots of ways people can profit from open source.

forgottenpass 12y ago

I think you're reading too much into the parent poster. It's possible to point out negative properties of something without advocating for a radical shift, or any shift. Business incentives stifle creativity; even in creative products. It may wax and wane depending on context, but it's a pretty uncontroversial idea. From the high end of LA creativity-through-the-sausage-machine film and tv, all the way through to the low end, where nobody wants to attend my one man show. But the parent poster used the HN tigger word "capitalism" when discussing the idea, so lets down-vote the shit out of him! /s