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After Capitalism?

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Re: After Capitalism?

#61

Post by tomp »

ersii wrote: post #58
tomp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

No, it's not the right of ownership it's the right of enforcing a monopoly. If I copy something you own, you still own it, I'm not taking anything away from you... It would be amazing! Basically what we have now, but (1) noone would go to jail for piracy, and (2) all research would be shared much sooner, and you wouldn't need to worry which spurious patents your original research is infringing.

Re: After Capitalism?

#62

Post by vlehto »

obrero wrote: post #14

A point made by Engels in Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State is that over the past 10000 years, the economic system has been completely upended several times. 10000 years ago hunter gatherers lived in primitive communism. Then slave empires arose in the fertile crescent. After Rome was sacked, decentralized feudalism became dominant. We still see its vestiges, England and Japan are ruled by royals,…

Hunter-gatherer primitive communism is alive and well. It's called "family". At that scale it's easy to do business without money.

Capitalism as in money, trade, loans and private property date back at least to ancient Babylon. If you wish to include "modern" banking in the mix with currency exchange rates, then you go to 1157 Venice or Genoa.

What happened hundred years ago was income tax.

Re: After Capitalism?

#63

Post by puredemo »

creshal wrote: post #22
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. That depends on your definition of "capitalism" and "economy". If you use "capitalism" in contrast to Mercantilism and feudalism – which seems to be a rather unpopular view in English-speaking countries for some reason –, then it makes perfectly sense. Although it would help to actually read it.

It would help to read... what exactly?

Re: After Capitalism?

#64

Post by puredemo »

bildung wrote: post #28
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. No, that's just a market. A necessary, but by no means sufficient condition to label an economy capitalist. That's why the new word "capitalism" has been introduced to describe the difference.

Point being, markets are inherently capitalistic. Would you disagree with that?

Re: After Capitalism?

#65

Post by puredemo »

bildung wrote: post #29
puredemo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But politics can’t get done by machines. Can't it? Democracy is simply voting, which can easily be handled by machines.

> Democracy is simply voting, which can easily be handled by machines. Voting is simply voting. If you insist on inventing a new definition, Democracy is a specific mode of a) gathering and representing the political will of the population; and b) a specific mode of forming that political will by the civil society. Voting is just the rather banal part of making the present aggregate political will visible and quantif…

I'm not sure b) is generally included in the definition of democracy. Could you reference something that implies that?

Re: After Capitalism?

#66

Post by puredemo »

aspec wrote: post #48
puredemo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But politics can’t get done by machines. Can't it? Democracy is simply voting, which can easily be handled by machines.

The legislative branch of the government cannot be replaced with machines. Think a little harder.

Ballot issues today can be passed directly by voters even when they are blatantly unconstitutional. Then the judicial branch sorts out the conflicts. That is essentially already a primitive example of democracy being run by voting machine.

Just because you are used to the current legislative system doesn't mean it isn't replaceable.

Re: After Capitalism?

#67

Post by JDDunn9 »

patrickaljord wrote: post #45
JDDunn9 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fair number of those lifted out of poverty were in China. Haiti is still the poorest country in the western hemisphere, despite having capitalism forced on them. A black-and-white view of the world misses a lot. Economies wouldn't function without public utilities, roads, militaries, etc.

Haiti is more of a crony capitalism as it's one of the most corrupted country http://www.heritage.org/index/country/haiti

Corruption is highly correlated with poverty. If you play the "no true Scotsman" fallacy with capitalism, where only the least corrupt countries are capitalistic, then by definition they will be wealthier as well.

Re: After Capitalism?

#68

Post by eevilspock »

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 take it as a given that capitalism was the savior. What if The Enlightenment, mathematics and science, egalitarian laws and democracy were actually greater contributors to lifting humans out of poverty? All the greatest advancements in law, mathematics and science don't appear to be profit driven, while exploitation of people has always been driven by profit.

And even if capitalism did deserve much of the credit, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be criticized or that we should stop looking for better. Feudalism may have lifted more humans out of poverty than any other system that came before it by leaps and bounds. It's a good thing we didn't decide to stop there.

Communism, oligarchy and dictatorships (the first really being a special case of the latter two) are supremely harmful and stupid. I wish people would stop using them as straw men to prove that capitalism is great.

Re: After Capitalism?

#69

Post by aninhumer »

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…

Basic income doesn't have to be set at post-work levels to provide benefits to an employment-starved population. Even a small amount will reduce the number of hours that people are willing to work.

Re: After Capitalism?

#70

Post by vlehto »

EliRivers wrote: post #53
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.

What portion of companies should be cooperatives of public for economy to be free market socialism?
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