RE: Atheists: What if Trump addressed your issues in America. Would you vote for him?
March 30, 2020 at 8:15 pm
(This post was last modified: March 30, 2020 at 8:36 pm by Anomalocaris.)
If trump addressed all my concerns, there wouldn’t be a trump to vote for.
You are mistaking what you think ought to happen under capitalism with what capitalism is.
But what you think ought to happen is in absolutely no way an intrinsically likely outcome under capitalism. The goal of capitalist is to be monopolistic, anti-competitive, and oligarchical. No one ever said capitalism thrives on noble goals. And least no one who could be attempted to be respected. That is not capitalism. Capitalism is a system where means of production are privately owned and managed for profit.
The strength that capitalism is it facilitates the ability to utilize societal resources more efficiently, effectively, and innovative at a time when the society itself is at the leading edge of social, economic and technological development and have to one else’s path to follow.
If a society is backwards and has the benefit of being able to tread in the foot steps of others, highly capitalist system often is not as effectively to enabling the society to catch up. Statism often works better. Hence communism starting from relatively backward social base often are able to achieve an period of impressive growth rate hard to match by more orthodox capitalist societies.
But if the society is near the cutting edge of technological and economic development, and must feel its way forward, some capitalist societies are able to handily pull ahead of all non-capitalist systems. This maight be said to be what brought down soviet communism after it had achieved the Herculean task of pulling russia from agrarian backwardness to a industrially and technological developed superpower.
You might say if you are already advanced, who cares if someone else is a little more advanced. The problem is the threat of winner taking all is very real. At the end of the Cold War, the winner came close to taking all. The Russians took 25 years to gather their wits and finally, more or less, stopped being further reduced to poverty and geopolitical irrelevancy.
In a strongly regulated economy, competition is likely half hearted. Winner taking all, or nearly all, is what makes competition earnest.
(March 30, 2020 at 10:19 am)Chad32 Wrote:(March 30, 2020 at 8:46 am)Nomad Wrote: This. And there's lots of other stuff to consider too, like whether something like UBI should be phased in, what to do about climate change and how best to replace capitalism (because frankly given what we've seen over the last twelve years that system of economics is broken beyond repair).
This isn't even capitalism anymore. If it were, the failing banks and companies would just downsize or disappear. Rather this is corporatism, which is basically socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.
You are mistaking what you think ought to happen under capitalism with what capitalism is.
But what you think ought to happen is in absolutely no way an intrinsically likely outcome under capitalism. The goal of capitalist is to be monopolistic, anti-competitive, and oligarchical. No one ever said capitalism thrives on noble goals. And least no one who could be attempted to be respected. That is not capitalism. Capitalism is a system where means of production are privately owned and managed for profit.
The strength that capitalism is it facilitates the ability to utilize societal resources more efficiently, effectively, and innovative at a time when the society itself is at the leading edge of social, economic and technological development and have to one else’s path to follow.
If a society is backwards and has the benefit of being able to tread in the foot steps of others, highly capitalist system often is not as effectively to enabling the society to catch up. Statism often works better. Hence communism starting from relatively backward social base often are able to achieve an period of impressive growth rate hard to match by more orthodox capitalist societies.
But if the society is near the cutting edge of technological and economic development, and must feel its way forward, some capitalist societies are able to handily pull ahead of all non-capitalist systems. This maight be said to be what brought down soviet communism after it had achieved the Herculean task of pulling russia from agrarian backwardness to a industrially and technological developed superpower.
You might say if you are already advanced, who cares if someone else is a little more advanced. The problem is the threat of winner taking all is very real. At the end of the Cold War, the winner came close to taking all. The Russians took 25 years to gather their wits and finally, more or less, stopped being further reduced to poverty and geopolitical irrelevancy.
(March 30, 2020 at 4:11 pm)Nomad Wrote:(March 30, 2020 at 10:55 am)Chad32 Wrote: Is it? I thought it was supposed to be better than that. There's supposed to be an air of competition, and if you fail, then good luck next time.
Not really, no. There's lots of talk about how that under capitalism there would be lots of competition. But the only real rule in capitalism is that no external body can tell you what to do with your capital. And when there are no rules limiting what the big boys can do, the best result ends up being a cartel. As best evidenced in the way the US economy worked in the "roaring" 20's, or what happened with mergers and acquisitions in the 90's and noughties.
Hence why, if you really want competition you want a strongly regulated economy.
In a strongly regulated economy, competition is likely half hearted. Winner taking all, or nearly all, is what makes competition earnest.
