A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows • Hacker News Board

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#61

Post by Clubber » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 4:04 AM UTC

thinkpad20 wrote: post #39

dnautics wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

alright. I'll bite. I have made almost no money in the past year, and my bank account is nearly zero. I had a relatively middle class upbringing (but for reasons I'd rather not go into) my family is currently bankrupt. Capitalism (in the free markets sense) is great. The problem is that gobs of money are stolen from poor people like me by the government through various processes, the biggest of which is inflation. Th…

> Capitalism (in the free markets sense) is great. The problem is that gobs of money are stolen from poor people like me by the government How much can the government be stealing from you if you have no money? The government is in a position to help you, by providing you with social services, with financial benefits, by providing police to protect you, not to mention debt forgiveness (you mentioned your family is in…

>How much can the government be stealing from you if you have no money?

John Oliver did a good breakdown of how municipalities do pretty nasty things when you can't pay your tickets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjpmT5noto

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#62

Post by jstewartmobile » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 4:06 AM UTC

I think the rub is that the public debate confuses the triumph of the old British system of aristocracy and privilege with "capitalism". Just as they had the "corn laws" in the early 19th century, we have pharmaceutical import bans, region coding, the "dutch sandwich" and many many other privileges to keep the winners winning with a minimum of effort.

If that's what passes for capitalism, who wouldn't reject it?

People spend too much time debating economic systems when the fundamental problem is a public neglect of equal justice under the law.

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#63

Post by ChuckMcM » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 4:07 AM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #13

_m8fo wrote: post #4

In my experience, people who criticize this article are probably benefiting from "capitalism" (the majority of people on here, I reckon, do), meanwhile those struggling from inequality, not being here, will fail to have their voice heard. And so the echo chamber ensues. That being said, capitalism and having things like free healthcare and education are hardly mutually exclusive. So I think the article's conclusion,…

alright. I'll bite. I have made almost no money in the past year, and my bank account is nearly zero. I had a relatively middle class upbringing (but for reasons I'd rather not go into) my family is currently bankrupt. Capitalism (in the free markets sense) is great. The problem is that gobs of money are stolen from poor people like me by the government through various processes, the biggest of which is inflation. Th…

This is a sentiment I hear often; "I'm a hard worker, I used to have a job that paid my bills and left a bit over for vacations but now I'm out of work and broke and everyone wants a piece of me and I have nothing left to give."

And it is a puzzling thing. Where did those jobs go? How is personal income so stagnant? And one of the things I note that is different now than was different before, was that by accumulating capital, large companies remove from circulation large chunks of money. It gets trapped by companies demanding it be 'cash or cash equivalents' so you aren't seeing it invested in long term projects. What you see are lots and lots of T-bills and other dollar denominated investments which can be liquidated on short notice. In January of last year the New York Times reported at $1.9T![1] and that has only gotten worse over the last 12 months. Nearly a $1.4T of this held by 50 US companies[2]. It is hard to get a handle on a trillion dollars, but if you take $60,000 a year as a "nice" middle income job in most of the country, half that $1.4T or $700B dollars circulating around in the economy is nearly 12 MILLION jobs!

I assert that because those trillions are sitting there in T-bills they have taken all of the oxygen out of the middle class. Many people when they have a bit more money in their pocket month to month spend at least some of that on things they wouldn't have spent on otherwise. Whether its a new car, or eating out, or vacations, or new furniture, or repainting the house. All of that spending then is going to companies that are hiring people to paint or sell you stuff or serve you stuff or make stuff for you to buy. And those people who doing all this stuff are also spending money and buying stuff etc.

I believe it is entirely possible that this has nothing to do with socialism or capitalism and everything to do with economic capital becoming trapped and stripped of its agency by companies who hoard it for no reason.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/magazine/why-are-corporat...

[2] http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/14/news/tax-us-companies-offsho...

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#64

Post by Clubber » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 4:08 AM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #60

Gustomaximus wrote: post #34

The cold war branding of anything communism/socialism as evil is being seen through as rhetoric, and more people are seeing merit of using blends of governance than pure free market. People 50 years ago had to support one system of face real consequences. We can now debate the merit of concepts like "privatise luxury, socialise necessity" without being a 'commie bastard'. With the irony being socialist policy was far…

"The cold war branding of anything communism/socialism as evil is being seen through as rhetoric" I can hardly believe that anyone who was alive during the 'cold war' would ever say that. I grew up in an immigrant community in Canada, and most of my friends fled those disastrous, oppressive and totalitarian 'communist paradises' all over E. Europe, China, Vietnam, Cuba - and also - Sweden, by the way. Nordic countrie…

The problem with the theory of communism economics is we've only seen it implemented a few times, and they've all been terrible.

Communism, I believe, was to be implemented in a post industrial country. When Russia implemented it, they were pre-industrial, and during a massive war.

As an aside, Germany actually shipped, by train, an exiled Lenin to Russia to destabilize it during WWI.

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#65

Post by Clubber » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 4:12 AM UTC

salesguy222 wrote: post #7

Any political/economic system will have individual actors that destroy the lives and wellbeings of others. if your system can prevent these people from wielding such power, i'd like to hear how!

Term limits to check-and-balance power is a pretty good solution. The trick is to make them long enough so good people can do good things, but short enough so that bad people can't do permanent damage.

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#66

Post by Clubber » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 4:14 AM UTC

perseusprime11 wrote: post #18

Did we not learn that Capitalism failed a long time ago? Why else will we have an Insurance system that is deeply incentivized to not cover your conditions? Why else will we have an Education system that is deeply incentivized to profit off your education and put you in debt for your life?

Not every industry has to be capitalist to have a capitalist economy, just like having a pure democracy isn't the only way to have a democratic political system. The trick is finding the bugs and fixing them.

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#67

Post by mc32 » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 4:19 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #53

mc32 wrote: post #6

So, what they really mean is that they want less globalization... rather then less capitalism... and we know many older voters also voted for less globalization... so it's like both young and old, stung by globalization and financial crises want to retrench?

That doesn't follow from the article. What it said, explicitly, was they want less crony capitalism . Globalization itself isn't bad. Globalization where the playing field is rigged so that you need to be a billion-dollar corporation to participate in the spoils is.

On the one hand globalization is good --despite cries of "imperialism" globalization has done more to deliver people from abject poverty than anything else --I'd argue much better than if native socialism had taken place and disallowed "imperialistic" global companies from setting foot. Even the Doles and Chiquitas, much maligned for making banana republics out of countries, had a positive impact on those countries... See the alternatives, Bolivia, Paraguay, Myanmar, Nepal, etc. countries where these imperialistic global companies did not set foot and "exploit" the locals.

On the other hand, it does take away from the poor people in developed countries like the US, Japan, the UK, Australia, South Korea, etc. when their economies seek out cheaper labor to make their economies work. If we didn't have imported labor for farm workers for example, we might pay more for grocery goods, etc but we'd have people who are currently out of a job making some money working on farms --working on farms _isn't that much worse_ than working at a McD or Walmart. It's be kind of like grocery goods are in Japan --good quality, but expensive picked by their own farm workers -with the aid of automation.

In addition to that, Globalization has not only enabled seeking cheap labor but also seeking "cheap" regulation and government through globalization. And these kids of things either enable or exacerbate things like the financial crises.

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#68

Post by snowwrestler » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 4:24 AM UTC

friedman23 wrote: post #57

Retric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you mean before written history then no. Governments have been mediating property disputes at least as far as the written word and likely though the last 100,000+ years.

Do you believe that when we all lived in huts that the feudal lord would send out knights to defend you if your neighbor decided to take your property?

Under a medieval feudal system, most people did not own property the way we think of it today; the feudal lord did. If the lord wanted to take all your clothes and throw you off their land, they could, with impunity.

That said, yes, the feudal lord's band of merry thugs would keep the peace, because peasants can work harder if they're not squabbling with each other.

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#69

Post by squarefoot » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 4:29 AM UTC

Capitalism per se isn't wrong, but becomes extremely dangerous if left uncontrolled as it is today. What is very wrong and dangerous with capitalism is the lack of a line dictating when an entity should stop amassing power and wealth, especially when limited resources are involved. You can print infinite money but you can't create infinite land as the planet surface isn't infinite, which one day will lead us to the point when a few extremely rich people will own the entire Earth surface.

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#70

Post by WillPostForFood » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 4:32 AM UTC

oconnore wrote: post #28

rocky1138 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the prices of everything rise every year.

Blaming wage stickiness relative to prices is different than blaming inflation. And, outside unions and jobs with competitive labor markets, the best advocate for wage un-stickiness many workers have is government involvement via the minimum wage.

96% of hourly workers already earn more than minimum wage, so it shouldn't be the first place to look at improving wage stickiness. Start with the cost of employment, primarily health care, which has sucked up a lot of money that should have gone to wage increases.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2015/home.htm