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Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

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Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#21

Post by thomasec »

simplecomplex wrote: post #13

Anti-trust isn’t equipped to deal with anything because it’s arbitrary and vague. “You’re too big because some bureaucrats said so” is not law. That’s not justice. It’s totalitarian. How can a company avoid breaking the law if they don’t know they’re breaking it?

I think the ambiguity is kind of the point. If things were written out ("doing X is monopolistic"), then it would be easy for companies to operate in an noncompetitive manner, so long as they don't violate specific laws. Plus, the definitions of things like monopolies vary so much across industries, that it would be impossible to come up with specifics that cover every instance of anti-trust violations. I don't think it's perfect, but I do think it's more effective than the alternatives.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#22

Post by jimmy1 »

clavalle wrote: post #19
joshuaheard wrote: post #10

The title implies Capitalism is broken. It's not. Capitalism has provided more benefits to more people than any other economic system in history. American Capitalism has produced the telephone, the automobile, the personal computer, the cell phone, the internet, and made us one of the richest countries in the world. A better title would be, Tweaks that can make American Capitalism Better.

Ok. We found a good move. But did we find the best move? Or, somewhat more weakly, can we find a better move? Don't let the good be the enemy of the better.

Don't let someone's opinion or conceptualization of "better" be the enemy of what's good.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#23

Post by francisofascii »

standardUser wrote: post #16
joshuaheard wrote: post #10

The title implies Capitalism is broken. It's not. Capitalism has provided more benefits to more people than any other economic system in history. American Capitalism has produced the telephone, the automobile, the personal computer, the cell phone, the internet, and made us one of the richest countries in the world. A better title would be, Tweaks that can make American Capitalism Better.

How many people need to be working for sub-poverty wages before we can say American capitalism isn't perfect? How many inches do the oceans need to rise? How many people need to file bankruptcy due to medical bills? No wonder we can't fix our problems if people insist on pretending their aren't any.

"The first step in solving a problem is recognizing there is one" — Will Mcavoy

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#24

Post by merpnderp »

kadendogthing wrote: post #17
joshuaheard wrote: post #10

The title implies Capitalism is broken. It's not. Capitalism has provided more benefits to more people than any other economic system in history. American Capitalism has produced the telephone, the automobile, the personal computer, the cell phone, the internet, and made us one of the richest countries in the world. A better title would be, Tweaks that can make American Capitalism Better.

Why does capitalism get the credit for industrial and scientific breakthroughs? That's begging the question, no? There is absolutely zero proof that these things are inclusive of one another, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. Especially when the current capitalistic system is not reasonably sharing the benefits of these breakthroughs?

What is reasonable? And more to the point, what non-capitalist system has ever been more reasonable?

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#25

Post by m000z0rz »

clavalle wrote: post #19
joshuaheard wrote: post #10

The title implies Capitalism is broken. It's not. Capitalism has provided more benefits to more people than any other economic system in history. American Capitalism has produced the telephone, the automobile, the personal computer, the cell phone, the internet, and made us one of the richest countries in the world. A better title would be, Tweaks that can make American Capitalism Better.

Ok. We found a good move. But did we find the best move? Or, somewhat more weakly, can we find a better move? Don't let the good be the enemy of the better.

Isn't that exactly what joshuaheard said, though?

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#26

Post by grecy »

joshuaheard wrote: post #10

The title implies Capitalism is broken. It's not. Capitalism has provided more benefits to more people than any other economic system in history. American Capitalism has produced the telephone, the automobile, the personal computer, the cell phone, the internet, and made us one of the richest countries in the world. A better title would be, Tweaks that can make American Capitalism Better.

For a long time America has been by far the richest country in the world, without a credible second place (though maybe China is that now)

And yet for decades the quality of life of hundreds of millions of Americans is lower than that of people in other, poorer developed countries.

Why is that? What's the point in having the richest country if it doesn't have the best conditions for those living in it?

Is it worthwhile just being rich for the sake of being rich, even if you get no benefit from it?

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#27

Post by pranjalv123 »

joshuaheard wrote: post #10

The title implies Capitalism is broken. It's not. Capitalism has provided more benefits to more people than any other economic system in history. American Capitalism has produced the telephone, the automobile, the personal computer, the cell phone, the internet, and made us one of the richest countries in the world. A better title would be, Tweaks that can make American Capitalism Better.

Capitalism provides more benefits than feudalism, which in turn provided more benefits than a pre-feudal barter economy. But that doesn't mean that there is no economic system that would provide still more benefits than capitalism.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#28

Post by abfan1127 »

entropicdrifter wrote: post #12
perfmode wrote: post #2

> “I don’t even think stasis is compatible with liberty,” he told the Washington audience. - Bezos Suppose one were to attempt to steelman Jeff’s statement. Is there any credible basis for this statement? Or is it just one of those things that powerful people say because it makes them sound profound and they don’t have to follow it up with substantive supporting evidence.

If he's talking about economic stasis, let's give it a go: 1) Economics are the monetary interactions of a given society, subgroup, population, etc 2) stasis refers to not just stagnation, but a complete lack of change 3) total lack of change at a meta-scale like a society only exists in totalitarian societies 4) in the case of total economic stasis, you would need a command economy/controlled economy 5) in the scena…

Laws against murder don't violate Liberty assuming private property rights which include ownership of self. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_liberty

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#29

Post by dsjoerg »

swebs wrote: post #7
perfmode wrote: post #2

> “I don’t even think stasis is compatible with liberty,” he told the Washington audience. - Bezos Suppose one were to attempt to steelman Jeff’s statement. Is there any credible basis for this statement? Or is it just one of those things that powerful people say because it makes them sound profound and they don’t have to follow it up with substantive supporting evidence.

Here's his full speech with context if that helps. The quote in question is on page 25. https://www.economicclub.org/sites/default/files/transcripts...

Thanks. Reading all of page 25, the quote makes more sense. It's a throwaway remark, the discussion is about the implications of energy use, and how capping our energy use ("stasis") would be a big change for all of us.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#30

Post by fallingfrog »

You can buy and sell almost anything under capitalism. You can buy or sell property. You can buy or sell pieces of a company (stocks). You can buy or sell human labor. And the way that businesses make money is by essentially arbitraging some market, for example by buying something in one place and selling it somewhere where it is more expensive, or by buying labor and selling the products of that labor at a profit.

But there are certain things you already cannot buy and sell in our current system, and this is key to seeing the way forward. You can't buy and sell people, for instance. That would be slavery. The purest form of capitalism would include slavery also. You can buy labor, but no more than 40 hours per week without paying overtime.

The socialist point of view on this is that it isn't just buying the life of a person that is morally wrong; buying their lives piecemeal 8 hours at a time and then arbitraging the value of their labor is wrong as well. So under socialism when people work, they work always and only for themselves or as part of a cooperative that they are an equal owner of. So they are taking part in a voluntary activity, not selling themselves. Ultimately that's the only way to fix our economic system; allowing the arbitrage of labor leads to fundamental instabilities and inequalities that cannot be resolved. Otherwise the pressures within society will continue to grow until the society tears itself apart or relieves the pressure by going to war.

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