After Capitalism? • Hacker News Board

Re: After Capitalism?

#51

Post by aspec » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 1:25 PM UTC

vixen99 wrote: post #18

Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years - Economist Magazine. Harnessing the energy of people across the planet by letting them trade with each other has so clearly been a disaster for everyone, has it? Essentially, isn't this capitalism with all its fault lines? One way or another it can be got to work for everyone's advantage.

> Harnessing the energy of people across the planet by letting them trade with each other has so clearly been a disaster for everyone, has it?

Yes. Mining and drilling have obliterated the natural resources of hundreds of millions of people around the world. That's why oil spillage in Nigeria is called an environmental disaster.

> Essentially, isn't this capitalism with all its fault lines? One way or another it can be got to work for everyone's advantage.

Not when capital is turned into a commodity that has necessarily less value, which are then still traded on the market as securities with no regulation. Then you end up with scenarios in which political intervention is the only method for preventing the entire global economy from collapsing. That's already happened once, which is evidence that this article's fairly milque-toast thesis is correct.

Re: After Capitalism?

#52

Post by OJFord » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

aspec wrote: post #51

vixen99 wrote: post #18

Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years - Economist Magazine. Harnessing the energy of people across the planet by letting them trade with each other has so clearly been a disaster for everyone, has it? Essentially, isn't this capitalism with all its fault lines? One way or another it can be got to work for everyone's advantage.

> Harnessing the energy of people across the planet by letting them trade with each other has so clearly been a disaster for everyone, has it? Yes. Mining and drilling have obliterated the natural resources of hundreds of millions of people around the world. That's why oil spillage in Nigeria is called an environmental disaster. > Essentially, isn't this capitalism with all its fault lines? One way or another it can…

Why would we not have mined and drilled without capitalism?

Indeed, there are present day countries serving as examples. Unless I've misunderstood your point?

Re: After Capitalism?

#53

Post by EliRivers » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 1:58 PM UTC

vixen99 wrote: post #18

Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years - Economist Magazine. Harnessing the energy of people across the planet by letting them trade with each other has so clearly been a disaster for everyone, has it? Essentially, isn't this capitalism with all its fault lines? One way or another it can be got to work for everyone's advantage.

You're equating "capitalism" with "exactly what we have now". They're not the same. Capitalism is a small subset of what we have now. It's quite possible, for example, to have free market socialism; everyone trading with everyone else isn't exclusive to capitalism.

Re: After Capitalism?

#54

Post by adventured » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 1:58 PM UTC

aspec wrote: post #51

vixen99 wrote: post #18

Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years - Economist Magazine. Harnessing the energy of people across the planet by letting them trade with each other has so clearly been a disaster for everyone, has it? Essentially, isn't this capitalism with all its fault lines? One way or another it can be got to work for everyone's advantage.

> Harnessing the energy of people across the planet by letting them trade with each other has so clearly been a disaster for everyone, has it? Yes. Mining and drilling have obliterated the natural resources of hundreds of millions of people around the world. That's why oil spillage in Nigeria is called an environmental disaster. > Essentially, isn't this capitalism with all its fault lines? One way or another it can…

What does Capitalism have to do with your example?

Capital has always and will always be a traded good. Nothing about that can ever change. Unless you plan to return humanity to the most basic of existence, living day to day, scrounging, trying not to starve without reserves.

No regulation? Please point me to the industrial economy without financial regulations on any major specific thing.

What happened with the global financial meltdown was very obviously not due to lack of regulation. It was caused by the Fed encouraging reckless behavior by intentionally inflating asset bubbles as an attempt to accelerate recovery from the 2000/2001 recessionary economy. Hint: they're doing the exact same thing all over again right now, they're doing it on purpose and have been for over half a decade, and they're openly admitting it.

Re: After Capitalism?

#55

Post by Turing_Machine » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 2:08 PM UTC

1stop wrote: post #33

vixen99 wrote: post #18

Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years - Economist Magazine. Harnessing the energy of people across the planet by letting them trade with each other has so clearly been a disaster for everyone, has it? Essentially, isn't this capitalism with all its fault lines? One way or another it can be got to work for everyone's advantage.

I think you're missing the point. If I could summarise: Capitalism generates capital. Yay for us, we now have lots of capital. But once you've generated all the capital, and maximised all the profits to the point of driving surplus value to 0. What then? * Also a major nitpick, most of that billion were brought out of poverty in China in the 1950s at the peak of Maoism/Communism... so you're point is kind ironic, no?…

"Also a major nitpick, most of that billion were brought out of poverty in China in the 1950s at the peak of Maoism/Communism."

If you're talking about the "Great Leap Forward" years (late 50s-early 60s), somewhere between 18 and 45 million Chinese people died, most of them by starving to death. The Chinese economy did not grow during that period. It shrank.

That's an odd definition of "brought out of poverty".

Re: After Capitalism?

#56

Post by adventured » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 2:08 PM UTC

1stop wrote: post #42

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the profits? like in a zero-sum game? Wealth creation through creativity, like we do every time, that's what we do next. This article was wasted time

The article is echoing a pretty well trodden train of thought on the ultimate conclusion of capitalism. Which no one has seriously been able to refute. Wasted time is a bit harsh. Catchy one liners "Wealth creation through creativity" might help you sleep at night, but seriously, our creative endeavours have never produced anywhere near the amount of capital the resource sector has... What happens when we either get…

It's trivially easy to refute the conclusion in fact. Fortunately history has already provided the refutation, dozens of times, and history will continue to prove that Capitalism is the only system that works long-term. All other systems rot and collapse, requiring constant reform back towards Capitalism (see eg: Sweden since the 1980s, UK since 1970s). There isn't a single example in world history of Socialism, Fascism, or Communism working. Every example of heavy welfare state systems has resulted in eventual stagnation and decline.

There is no ultimate conclusion to Capitalism, the system continues to create more prosperity, and capital continues to seek higher forms of productivity and profit, which perpetually raises the standard of living for any nation that deploys Capitalism with its well understood requirements (which include a strong judicial system, property rights, et al). New innovations and breakthroughs perpetually lead to new industry and expansion, creating perpetually greater numbers of jobs (which is why America doesn't only have 500,000 jobs available today; and America isn't even a properly functioning Capitalist nation, it's a poorly functioning highly regulated mixed economy).

Re: After Capitalism?

#57

Post by Turing_Machine » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 2:12 PM UTC

creshal wrote: post #43

Zirro wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you've already brought it up as "blabbing" - why do you dismiss basic income as a solution?

Because it seems to imply a post-work, not a post-full-employment society. We're still going to have a lot of jobs in the mid-term, probably even long-term. 70%, 60% of the working populace in the mid-term maybe, and not too few of those in menial/blue collar jobs. We still need to fill these jobs, and a generous basic income would make these jobs highly unpopular. So we can either set a basic income that is not high…

"We still need to fill these jobs, and a generous basic income would make these jobs highly unpopular. So we can either set a basic income that is not high enough to solve the problem it was trying to solve, or we create a situation like in Saudi Arabia – where all the undesirable jobs are taken by foreign jobbers "

Or we could just let the wage for those undesirable jobs rise to a level that someone will take them, even though they're getting the basic income.

Why shouldn't someone get paid a lot of money for (e.g.) trimming my toenails? Someone else would have to pay me a lot of money to do that.

Re: After Capitalism?

#58

Post by ersii » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 2:12 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #25

puredemo wrote: post #7

Such drivel. There is no "after capitalism," unless the concept of economics disappears completely. Capitalism is simply the codification of a monetary transaction to which both parties agree. As long as there is supply and demand (finite resources) there is capitalism. We have democratic socialism to make capitalism less brutal (read: less efficient but more humanizing) but demand is too fickle for most economies to…

> Capitalism is simply the codification of a monetary transaction to which both parties agree Not really. A lot of today's capitalism is based on concepts such as copyright, patents and trade secrets, which are definitely not "natural" - in fact, they are directly opposite of "free market". Personally, I believe that a capitalistic system where these three are eliminated or at least severely restricted would be much…

All three are basically the right of ownership, isn't that practically exactly what capitalism is?

Could you please elaborate on how the world would look like without these three concepts?

Re: After Capitalism?

#59

Post by Turing_Machine » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 2:27 PM UTC

1stop wrote: post #42

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the profits? like in a zero-sum game? Wealth creation through creativity, like we do every time, that's what we do next. This article was wasted time

The article is echoing a pretty well trodden train of thought on the ultimate conclusion of capitalism. Which no one has seriously been able to refute. Wasted time is a bit harsh. Catchy one liners "Wealth creation through creativity" might help you sleep at night, but seriously, our creative endeavours have never produced anywhere near the amount of capital the resource sector has... What happens when we either get…

"our creative endeavours have never produced anywhere near the amount of capital the resource sector has..."

http://www.forbes.com/global2000/

Only four of the top 20 could reasonably be described as "resource" companies (oil companies, in every case).

Re: After Capitalism?

#60

Post by brownbat » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 2:28 PM UTC

creshal wrote: post #26

vixen99 wrote: post #18

Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years - Economist Magazine. Harnessing the energy of people across the planet by letting them trade with each other has so clearly been a disaster for everyone, has it? Essentially, isn't this capitalism with all its fault lines? One way or another it can be got to work for everyone's advantage.

The article isn't lamenting capitalism, it's lamenting that we're leaving it behind and have no idea what to do next. > Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years But it has been done without generating the sort of full-time blue collar employment that is implied behind all sorts of economic policies around the globe. China has gone from feudalism to post-industrial robotization in one…

There are two popular models to predict long term employment trends.

Model 1) There's a finite amount of work out there. Computers will replace mental jobs just like robots killed physical jobs. We're all heading towards unemployment.

Model 2) Employment is determined by the value of an employee. Technology makes employees more valuable, not less. Employees will get more bargaining power as technology improves, not less.

The economic consensus is with #2, because feedback systems appear to drive down high unemployment over time (though bad governance can definitely interfere). One feedback system might be: idle people will eventually conspire to discover and meet the wants of others.

That's abstract though, it might be helpful to look closer to home.

Consider the fear that software will take over everyone's work. It's easy to forget that programmers know exactly how this goes. They have already cannibalized a lot of their work with software. The last fifty years of programming language (IDE, engine, ...) development has been a steady progress of finding ways to get software to write software, to do all the annoying grunt work of the job.

As programmers became more efficient, and crank out more and more complex tools over time, has the demand for code steadily decreased? Have we now solved all the world's problems that can be solved through code? Or has the problem space expanded to meet our capacity? Has the demand for programmers increased because their time is now much more valuable than it was in the era of punch cards?

Note more broadly, jobs are picking up right now as part of the recovery, despite continual technological improvement.

I think the economic consensus is with #2 because so much of the available data so consistently points that way, so it's easy to dismiss the other model as just natural human pessimism about the future. Maybe the pessimistic model is right and we just don't know it yet, but I think it currently has the weaker case.