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I applaud this evidently self-made man. I only wish I could tell him that there is a place in the world where his exceptionalism can soar and he can live his laissez-faire dream: Somalia. Let’s help this man emigrate.
I don't see him advocating anarchy, let alone one dominated by Al Capones. Somalia is not laissez faire..
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Paying someone less than the value they provide is what makes capitalism work. Not even CEOs or founders are exempt from this law, though I'm sure more than one skates awfully close. But who says what the value you provide as a worker is, if not the job market? The original complaint from Marx and pals as I understand it, is that the profit generated by the company represents the stolen labour value. So does that m…
>>So does that mean that as long as a company takes no profit (or presumably just doesn't pay dividends, Dividends come out of profits. According to Marxist gobbledygook, any profit, meaning return to the shareholders, is theft from the workers, which implies investors should get nothing for investing. This sham of an ideology is responsible for tens of millions of deaths.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see him advocating anarchy, let alone one dominated by Al Capones. Somalia is not laissez faire..
A failed state is as laissez-faire as one can get! The state got so small it drowned in the bathtub, isn’t that the dream?
Laissez-faire is an anarchic ideology.
Let's dispell another popular myth: Demand and Supply isn't nessecarily an indicator of value. It only follows value, if the power balance is close to equilibrium. Otherwise, Power picks and shapes the demand it wants. How much value has been lost to superior marketing?
there are flaws in supply and demand sure, but it's mostly working. Is there a more effective model? The labour theory of value is clearly inferior given high levels of automation and serves much better as a yardstick in Marx' analyses of capitalism than as a fundamental basis of value.
In any case, that's not the point I'm trying to litigate.
What I'm trying to get at: Given the obvious flaws in pure capitalism (as there would be in any "pure" ideology), how can we reject the need for checks and balances?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
there are flaws in supply and demand sure, but it's mostly working. Is there a more effective model? The labour theory of value is clearly inferior given high levels of automation and serves much better as a yardstick in Marx' analyses of capitalism than as a fundamental basis of value.
I'm certain, that there is a more effective model. It might or might not be known at this point in time and it might even be closer to social constructivism than to mechanistic pragmatism. Can you tell for sure? In any case, that's not the point I'm trying to litigate. What I'm trying to get at: Given the obvious flaws in pure capitalism (as there would be in any "pure" ideology), how can we reject the need for check…
Of course pure capitalism is a silly idea, assuming everyone is homo economicus you'd end up looping back round to feudalistic stratification via the Matthew effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect). Of course everyone is not homo economicus so it'd likely be less bad than that, but there are still plenty of sociopaths who would achieve much more success when the restraints are lifted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A failed socialist state that actually saw many improvements during its collapse into anarchy doesn't seem to help your point.
Oh right, the author in the article isn’t advocating laissez-faire at all. He’s advocating that the underclasses pay the taxes for the state services (such as police) that would keep the state from descending into anarchy. He wants socialism for the rich.
I'd be interested to read his opinions on top managers getting huge leaves after bringing companies belly up, or those who happily decimate their workforce without thinking of the consequences. In the old times one could claim a piece of land then cultivate it, mine it or use it as he/she wanted; surely not easy at all, but bureaucracy was next to not existent. Today one needs to own a land, then get permits, etc. My…
I can't bring myself to categorically disagree with either of those positions, because big business, fundamentally, is about setting common goals for absurdly large groups of people and to operate within even (much) larger groups of people in the real world. Complicated situations are bound to arise, and even if a manager failed to save a company, their contract entitles them to bonuses for whatever business goals they did achieve. If they managed to get that agreement signed beforehand, it needs to be honored, because binding contracts are a really fundamental building block of society, that needs to stay intact.
It's legitimate, though, to question the payment amounts and business goals they were bound on, as well as whether payments were made, that they were not entitled to. That's where our taxes need to fund a strong justice system, that can bring corruption suits to such cases.
Also, I'm sympathetic to situations and feelings of people being ground up in corrupt systems and I think we really need to understand how capitalism-apologists insulate themselves against those feelings by focussing on the guilt of weak people for not taking care of themselves. It's a coping mechanism, that helps when one has been of the receiving end of things before, but on the way up. It also protects from the guilt of not being able to help everybody, that one would like to.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh right, the author in the article isn’t advocating laissez-faire at all. He’s advocating that the underclasses pay the taxes for the state services (such as police) that would keep the state from descending into anarchy. He wants socialism for the rich.
So what does that have to do with Somalia
Instead, the author is a hypocrite who just wants rich people left alone, but others very much not left alone. This worldview is typically accompanied by an astonishingly naive accounting of the benefits that one must enjoy from society to attain their position. Objectivism, as espoused by this article’s author and Ayn Rand alike, is a childish and cruel ideology.