Get Rid of Capitalism?

[Speaker to Animals]

A domestic dog is not a wolf, unless i guess you've been molly coddled by weak ideologies like socialism into playing fast and loose with definitions and always thinking your emotional intuitions represent truth.

Savage.

Who is this? Were you on DCF?

I guess, except for the fact that dogs and wolves are literally the same species.

Wolf: canine lupus
Dog: canine lupus familiaris

Grasilization does not change your species.

[apeman]

I'm running for office. (This time U.S. House.) I wrote a book that no one will read that states my ideology, and the solutions to these problems. For now, vested interests will ignore any change, but after The Collapse, maybe someone will read my book and say, yeah, let's do that.

p.s. I'll be posting my book for vicious attack by this forum before I make it available publically. Most of the ideas have already been savaged here, and changed thereof, but I'm willing to be challenged further so as to make further sophisticated adjustments.

Look forward to iit

[Speaker to Animals]

First of all, capitalism *is* crony capitalism. You don't get one without t'other, and it is working fine.

Second, we actually know exactly how to make it work even better for more people. It just takes the sort of vigorous anti-trust, and financial and industrial regulations you get from a lefty-wefty like Teddy Roosevelt. We can continue to abandon sensible policies and statecraft in pursuit of a 'pure,' laissez-faire, trickle-down fairy tale if we like, and then start wincing about how capitalism isn't working 'cause of cronyism... but that misunderstands the 'problems' and ignores the known solutions.

And, as we move closer and closer to a zero-cost production, 3D, nano-tech, Star Trek, post-scarcity, post-capital society, the problems just work themselves directly the fuck out, since I can just trade smiles and hugs for water and iPods.

(1) Anti-trust laws and regulations don't solve the problem of rising unemployment due to automation, or the deathblow to capitalism that will occur when the means of production are essentially also consumer goods.

(2) Our going from here to some future post-scarcity society is not like a gradual increase in our quality of life. Between here and there, you have conditions such as massive unemployment paired with the inability to produce everything one needs. It's not like things just keep getting better. Things will keep getting worse under our current system. This is not inherently a bad thing, since capitalism is doing it's job and producing technological advances that make human labor increasingly irrelevant. But the transitional state between where we are now (human work is critical) and where we want to be (human work is totally optional) won't really work under the auspices of capitalism. We need something else. Even if we keep capitalism as the primary driver of the economy, we still need to figure out what to do about the rising number of people without jobs, since under the capitalist system, your access to a house, food, etc., is correlated to your access to a job. The solutions we have to deal with the relatively modest amount of unemployment today are various forms of welfare. But that's untenable longterm, especially when unemployment at some point surpasses employment.


Additionally:

(3) Part of the solution was already upon us. The demographic winter is going to force us to automate faster than ever before. We won't have as many human beings as we do today unless we continue the immigration policy of letting everybody and their extended family through the front and back doors. So if we stop this particular madness now, we won't have to do deal with bankrupted welfare systems.

(4) UBI could solve the problem for a while, but it would weaken our ability to deal with crisis because our nation would depend upon that UBI to continue functioning, and we therefore would have less flexibility to levy capital for things like war expenditures, pandemics, and so on. It might work better to separate market-driven economic activity (capitalism) from economic activity that the market cannot or will not solve on its own (space colonization, curing diseases, hardening infrastructure against various kinds of attack, and so on). In the latter category, we could make a list of high impact threats, regardless of what we think their probability of occurring might be, and put people to work at mitigating those threats. If the threat never comes to pass, we still created a similar effect to the UBI while providing people with meaningful work. If the threat does come to pass, we already have the system and resources in place to mitigate it. So our additional expenditures will not somehow prevent us from responding as best as we possibly can.

(5) With respect to some of your other comments, I think we'd be better off making many of the regulations irrelevant. Instead of, for example, creating minimum wage laws to deal with poverty, why not deal with the fact that there do not exist enough jobs that pay a decent wage in the first place? It seems to me that we already are asking of capitalism to do things it cannot really handle, hence why we need things like minimum wage laws and so forth. Anti-trust laws and environmental regulations are fine and dandy, but you will need something like those regardless of what economic system we live under. I am not sure those really represent relevant points here at all.

[SilverEagle]

I'm running for office. (This time U.S. House.) I wrote a book that no one will read that states my ideology, and the solutions to these problems. For now, vested interests will ignore any change, but after The Collapse, maybe someone will read my book and say, yeah, let's do that.

p.s. I'll be posting my book for vicious attack by this forum before I make it available publically. Most of the ideas have already been savaged here, and changed thereof, but I'm willing to be challenged further so as to make further sophisticated adjustments.

Look forward to iit

Yep I'll read it.

[nmoore63]

Non-scarcity won't happen, but if it does it will automatically solve the scarcity problem. Not much planning necessary.

And of course the real issue being human envy. Americans have never had so much material luxury but have rarely been less happy.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

First of all, capitalism *is* crony capitalism. You don't get one without t'other, and it is working fine.

Second, we actually know exactly how to make it work even better for more people. It just takes the sort of vigorous anti-trust, and financial and industrial regulations you get from a lefty-wefty like Teddy Roosevelt. We can continue to abandon sensible policies and statecraft in pursuit of a 'pure,' laissez-faire, trickle-down fairy tale if we like, and then start wincing about how capitalism isn't working 'cause of cronyism... but that misunderstands the 'problems' and ignores the known solutions.

And, as we move closer and closer to a zero-cost production, 3D, nano-tech, Star Trek, post-scarcity, post-capital society, the problems just work themselves directly the fuck out, since I can just trade smiles and hugs for water and iPods.

(1) Anti-trust laws and regulations don't solve the problem of rising unemployment due to automation, or the deathblow to capitalism that will occur when the means of production are essentially also consumer goods.

(2) Our going from here to some future post-scarcity society is not like a gradual increase in our quality of life. Between here and there, you have conditions such as massive unemployment paired with the inability to produce everything one needs. It's not like things just keep getting better. Things will keep getting worse under our current system. This is not inherently a bad thing, since capitalism is doing it's job and producing technological advances that make human labor increasingly irrelevant. But the transitional state between where we are now (human work is critical) and where we want to be (human work is totally optional) won't really work under the auspices of capitalism. We need something else. Even if we keep capitalism as the primary driver of the economy, we still need to figure out what to do about the rising number of people without jobs, since under the capitalist system, your access to a house, food, etc., is correlated to your access to a job. The solutions we have to deal with the relatively modest amount of unemployment today are various forms of welfare. But that's untenable longterm, especially when unemployment at some point surpasses employment.


Additionally:

(3) Part of the solution was already upon us. The demographic winter is going to force us to automate faster than ever before. We won't have as many human beings as we do today unless we continue the immigration policy of letting everybody and their extended family through the front and back doors. So if we stop this particular madness now, we won't have to do deal with bankrupted welfare systems.

(4) UBI could solve the problem for a while, but it would weaken our ability to deal with crisis because our nation would depend upon that UBI to continue functioning, and we therefore would have less flexibility to levy capital for things like war expenditures, pandemics, and so on. It might work better to separate market-driven economic activity (capitalism) from economic activity that the market cannot or will not solve on its own (space colonization, curing diseases, hardening infrastructure against various kinds of attack, and so on). In the latter category, we could make a list of high impact threats, regardless of what we think their probability of occurring might be, and put people to work at mitigating those threats. If the threat never comes to pass, we still created a similar effect to the UBI while providing people with meaningful work. If the threat does come to pass, we already have the system and resources in place to mitigate it. So our additional expenditures will not somehow prevent us from responding as best as we possibly can.

(5) With respect to some of your other comments, I think we'd be better off making many of the regulations irrelevant. Instead of, for example, creating minimum wage laws to deal with poverty, why not deal with the fact that there do not exist enough jobs that pay a decent wage in the first place? It seems to me that we already are asking of capitalism to do things it cannot really handle, hence why we need things like minimum wage laws and so forth. Anti-trust laws and environmental regulations are fine and dandy, but you will need something like those regardless of what economic system we live under. I am not sure those really represent relevant points here at all.

Anti-trust is particularly important in a consumer driven capitalist market for a couple of reasons. The first is that it allows for consumer choice, helping to lubricate trade, and encourage innovation. Almost more importantly though, by breaking up massive companies into smaller ones, you create jobs and opportunities for upstarts.

As far as regulations go, we can decrease the work week and create jobs. You could, theoretically, help companies make up those operating costs by severely reducing, or even eliminating corporate taxes. Lefty as I am, I think the arguments for that tax policy are pretty solid, so if I am convinced, I am sure the case could be made to the country to support a change like that that would clearly assist in quality of life increases for your average, work-a-day dickheads.

In the arena of financial regulations, right now the easy credit encouraged through federal insurance is consumed by extending loans for home ownership. This isn't bad, exactly, but it is safe for the banks without really encouraging much economic activity, and puts too much money into one market. It wouldn't be hard to design some financial regulations and incentives for lenders to push riskier small business loans instead of home loans. Tax credits for renters who are starting small businesses and doing some work from home, coupled with some deregulation on commercial versus residential zoning, and a robust insurance against potential losses for the lenders could drum up job creation, economic activity, and help people live more edifying lives.

Command economies are not a great idea. Nationalizing the means of production or resources is also dodgy. Some sort of limited syndicalism might be a good way to keep people in the productive economy as their companies automate, but I don't think it should be required. (However, I think viewing minimum wage as a percentage of the profits of the business you are in, rather than a dollar amount, is potentially a way to protect workers without placing an onerous burden on employers. It also pegs wages to the success of the business, which might encourage quality work.)

This is just some spit balling off the top of my head, but the point is that we aren't 'asking capitalism to do things it can't.' We are trying to figure out ways to harness the amazing productive and innovative engine that is our brand of state capitalism.

The transition to a more automated economy really doesn't concern me all that much right now. I am not hugely fond of UBI, not out of some love for work ethic or fear of moral hazard, but because massive entitlements just aren't flexible or adaptable. Easier access to loans for people to use to try to make a living, paired with a safety net does the job better, as does public infrastructure spending. Even arts programs, museums, public parks, and other unprofitable but culturally enriching spending programs are good, edifying make-work.

I know the reflexive 'gub'ment is the villain' crowd will dislike all of that, but I don't really see why states and private industries have to have purely antagonistic relationships, or, where such conflicts exist, we have to view one as the villain and one as the hero.

This is a democracy, and as long as the authority of law flows from the people, the gub'ment isn't the enemy. As long as business continues to create the absurd levels of wealth and innovation we have seen, it isn't the enemy either. Surely, the wit of man is capable of divining ways to benefit from both, but the moralizing an Manichaean view of economics and government is for simpletons and dinks, and should be discarded post haste.

[tue4t]

A new King of Strawmanning has arrived. (Where's StA. Dude, hand over your crown.)

You should probably hand that crown to hanarchy btw, I'm not ancap in the commonly understood sense.

Read what he said again. He literally said that when anti trust destroys companies, separate from the workings of normal free market forces, it's somehow a commendable act of creative destruction that allows "better products or ideas" to enter the market. In context he,

a. brushed aside the laughably obvious 'anti-trust' rent seeking that took place against microsoft back in 2001

b. Claimed anti trust had credit for destroying tech companies before microsoft such as to allow the dominance of microsoft (putting aside that rather obvious irony).

See:

So what? That is the point of anti-trust. Creative destruction in order to create opportunities for better products or ideas that would be shut out by a monopoly.

If those products and ideas are truly better, why do you need anti trust?

And if those products and ideas aren't better, why do you need anti trust?

Anti-trust has no serious economic backing for it from the literature. It's practically impossible to reliably define breakpoints in whatever metric you want to use (price/market share) from which to determine "anti-competitive" behaviour. e.g. How much should people enjoy coke over pepsi? How much should coke cost relative to pepsi? These are organic problems for which optimal solutions cannot be defined outside of letting people express their desired values in a market place.

Putting Hanarchy aside, as far as i understand you're small government so I don't understand exactly understand why you're for anti trust. Would be interested to hear your position. I'm always open to different lines of thinking that aren't rooted in the same old marxist economic falsehoods.

[Martin Hash]

Capitalism is a game: real life is the strongest & most ruthless win. Games are defined by their rules, and since rules are artificial, they can be exploited. Every business, hell, every political Party, wants a monopoly. In fact, as a shareholder, that’s my goal, for my company to become a monopoly. Without anti-monopoly rules, there would be no market.

[Speaker to Animals]

First of all, capitalism *is* crony capitalism. You don't get one without t'other, and it is working fine.

Second, we actually know exactly how to make it work even better for more people. It just takes the sort of vigorous anti-trust, and financial and industrial regulations you get from a lefty-wefty like Teddy Roosevelt. We can continue to abandon sensible policies and statecraft in pursuit of a 'pure,' laissez-faire, trickle-down fairy tale if we like, and then start wincing about how capitalism isn't working 'cause of cronyism... but that misunderstands the 'problems' and ignores the known solutions.

And, as we move closer and closer to a zero-cost production, 3D, nano-tech, Star Trek, post-scarcity, post-capital society, the problems just work themselves directly the fuck out, since I can just trade smiles and hugs for water and iPods.

(1) Anti-trust laws and regulations don't solve the problem of rising unemployment due to automation, or the deathblow to capitalism that will occur when the means of production are essentially also consumer goods.

(2) Our going from here to some future post-scarcity society is not like a gradual increase in our quality of life. Between here and there, you have conditions such as massive unemployment paired with the inability to produce everything one needs. It's not like things just keep getting better. Things will keep getting worse under our current system. This is not inherently a bad thing, since capitalism is doing it's job and producing technological advances that make human labor increasingly irrelevant. But the transitional state between where we are now (human work is critical) and where we want to be (human work is totally optional) won't really work under the auspices of capitalism. We need something else. Even if we keep capitalism as the primary driver of the economy, we still need to figure out what to do about the rising number of people without jobs, since under the capitalist system, your access to a house, food, etc., is correlated to your access to a job. The solutions we have to deal with the relatively modest amount of unemployment today are various forms of welfare. But that's untenable longterm, especially when unemployment at some point surpasses employment.


Additionally:

(3) Part of the solution was already upon us. The demographic winter is going to force us to automate faster than ever before. We won't have as many human beings as we do today unless we continue the immigration policy of letting everybody and their extended family through the front and back doors. So if we stop this particular madness now, we won't have to do deal with bankrupted welfare systems.

(4) UBI could solve the problem for a while, but it would weaken our ability to deal with crisis because our nation would depend upon that UBI to continue functioning, and we therefore would have less flexibility to levy capital for things like war expenditures, pandemics, and so on. It might work better to separate market-driven economic activity (capitalism) from economic activity that the market cannot or will not solve on its own (space colonization, curing diseases, hardening infrastructure against various kinds of attack, and so on). In the latter category, we could make a list of high impact threats, regardless of what we think their probability of occurring might be, and put people to work at mitigating those threats. If the threat never comes to pass, we still created a similar effect to the UBI while providing people with meaningful work. If the threat does come to pass, we already have the system and resources in place to mitigate it. So our additional expenditures will not somehow prevent us from responding as best as we possibly can.

(5) With respect to some of your other comments, I think we'd be better off making many of the regulations irrelevant. Instead of, for example, creating minimum wage laws to deal with poverty, why not deal with the fact that there do not exist enough jobs that pay a decent wage in the first place? It seems to me that we already are asking of capitalism to do things it cannot really handle, hence why we need things like minimum wage laws and so forth. Anti-trust laws and environmental regulations are fine and dandy, but you will need something like those regardless of what economic system we live under. I am not sure those really represent relevant points here at all.

Anti-trust is particularly important in a consumer driven capitalist market for a couple of reasons. The first is that it allows for consumer choice, helping to lubricate trade, and encourage innovation. Almost more importantly though, by breaking up massive companies into smaller ones, you create jobs and opportunities for upstarts.

As far as regulations go, we can decrease the work week and create jobs. You could, theoretically, help companies make up those operating costs by severely reducing, or even eliminating corporate taxes. Lefty as I am, I think the arguments for that tax policy are pretty solid, so if I am convinced, I am sure the case could be made to the country to support a change like that that would clearly assist in quality of life increases for your average, work-a-day dickheads.

In the arena of financial regulations, right now the easy credit encouraged through federal insurance is consumed by extending loans for home ownership. This isn't bad, exactly, but it is safe for the banks without really encouraging much economic activity, and puts too much money into one market. It wouldn't be hard to design some financial regulations and incentives for lenders to push riskier small business loans instead of home loans. Tax credits for renters who are starting small businesses and doing some work from home, coupled with some deregulation on commercial versus residential zoning, and a robust insurance against potential losses for the lenders could drum up job creation, economic activity, and help people live more edifying lives.

Command economies are not a great idea. Nationalizing the means of production or resources is also dodgy. Some sort of limited syndicalism might be a good way to keep people in the productive economy as their companies automate, but I don't think it should be required. (However, I think viewing minimum wage as a percentage of the profits of the business you are in, rather than a dollar amount, is potentially a way to protect workers without placing an onerous burden on employers. It also pegs wages to the success of the business, which might encourage quality work.)

This is just some spit balling off the top of my head, but the point is that we aren't 'asking capitalism to do things it can't.' We are trying to figure out ways to harness the amazing productive and innovative engine that is our brand of state capitalism.

The transition to a more automated economy really doesn't concern me all that much right now. I am not hugely fond of UBI, not out of some love for work ethic or fear of moral hazard, but because massive entitlements just aren't flexible or adaptable. Easier access to loans for people to use to try to make a living, paired with a safety net does the job better, as does public infrastructure spending. Even arts programs, museums, public parks, and other unprofitable but culturally enriching spending programs are good, edifying make-work.

I know the reflexive 'gub'ment is the villain' crowd will dislike all of that, but I don't really see why states and private industries have to have purely antagonistic relationships, or, where such conflicts exist, we have to view one as the villain and one as the hero.

This is a democracy, and as long as the authority of law flows from the people, the gub'ment isn't the enemy. As long as business continues to create the absurd levels of wealth and innovation we have seen, it isn't the enemy either. Surely, the wit of man is capable of divining ways to benefit from both, but the moralizing an Manichaean view of economics and government is for simpletons and dinks, and should be discarded post haste.

You are not really responding to what people write. I agree that anti-trust legislation is important. But it's neither here nor there. We need that no matter what we do.

I agree with you that a UBI carries particular moral hazards, and I offered a way to deal with that.

I agree with you that the government is not the villain.

I agree with you that capitalism is not the villain and neither are the corporations.

But to say that this other stuff is not a problem is just silly. Of course it's a problem. It's not an immediately pressing problem, but it's still something that will have to be addressed.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

You are not really responding to what people write. I agree that anti-trust legislation is important. But it's neither here nor there. We need that no matter what we do.

I agree with you that a UBI carries particular moral hazards, and I offered a way to deal with that.

I agree with you that the government is not the villain.

I agree with you that capitalism is not the villain and neither are the corporations.

But to say that this other stuff is not a problem is just silly. Of course it's a problem. It's not an immediately pressing problem, but it's still something that will have to be addressed.

I'm not arguing with you. Just expanding on how anti-trust and regulation can be used to solve some of the more immediate problems we face without having to 'get rid of capitalism' since you didn't seem to think they were related issues.