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Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

theweek.com

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Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#141

Post by devsag »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #109
Double_a_92 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a relationship like this: All wealthy countries are capitalist. Some capitalist countries are wealthy.

I am not sure that's accurate. UAE and Saudi are monarchies. Singapore is very socialist, if you look at their housing policy, it's entirely run by the state. They even allocate apartment to ensure that different ethnic groups mix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cjPgNBNeLU Also, I would not consider China poor today, and certainly even less so in the future.

Singapore has 0% GDP growth and even need a loan from IMF to invest in infrastructure that's laughable for a developed country.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#142

Post by sol_remmy2 »

KirinDave wrote: post #126
sol_remmy2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is immigration tied to lower wages? Obviously this can greatly vary. In America, immigration is tied to lower wages for lower tier jobs like chefs, construction workers, factory workers. I don't know enough to state immigration's effects on high tier white collar jobs like software engineering.

> Obviously this can greatly vary. In America, immigration is tied to lower wages for lower tier jobs like chefs, construction workers, factory workers. I don't know enough to state immigration's effects on high tier white collar jobs like software engineering. Can you show evidence this really happens even within lower wage jobs? Folks point out that not only are immigrants much less expensive labor for communities…

> This is a surprisingly common take on the literature, with an unlikely consensus among both the conservative and radical left, libertarians and conservative libertarians, and even many on the conservative side.

I hate asking but mind citing some sources?

Economic consensus is that labor pool operates on supply/demand, so greatly increase the supply through immigration will reduce demand and therefore reduce salaries. This part of the reason for why doctors have such high salaries: their supply is limited because only X number of people can become doctors each year and demand is very high.

Saying that an increased supply of workers does not affect highly commoditized jobs like cooks and construction works is an unusual claim and I would appreciate a source so i can review their arguments.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#143

Post by lotsofpulp »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #107
douglaswlance wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you earning capital gains with that million, specifically?

Mostly by buying stocks and it works: the SP500 doubled in the past 10 years, and I did far better than that. You can consider my investment as contributions, because I most certainly bought stocks from other rich persons and the stock markets is growing fast mostly thanks to the bank central policies (note that my free money never directly helped the company of which I bought stocks). I purchased an apartment too, a…

SP500 tripled in the last 10 years.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#144

Post by wayoutthere »

Will_Parker wrote: post #94
golf3 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occupy Wallstreet did happen but it was torpedoed by identity politics, the establishment only permits fervent discussion about gender and skin color.

> the establishment only permits fervent discussion about gender and skin color. Do they? Try making a case that we don't need more than two sets of gendered pronouns in your tech job.

So the pronouns thing is literally about being nice to people and respecting their ability to define their own identity. It's less "we need more than two sets of gendered pronouns" and more "people use pronouns other than he or she and we want to make space for that".

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#145

Post by raxxorrax »

douglaswlance wrote: post #91
KirinDave wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To even have such a conversation you'd have to define value, and I think you'll have a tough time doing this. You're also essentially defining an economic aristocracy. Folks with more resources can contribute more value, which in common worldviews associated with what you said suggests they deserve more profit. That's the crassest form of economic attachment, and it's silly to pretend that it's efficient or fair.

Software engineers contribute more value to society than do McDonald's fry cooks. A McDonald's fry cook could be a software engineer, but they choose not to. McDonald's fry cooks protest for $15 minimum wage; instead of spending that time studying programming. If we protested about not fully utilizing our lower contributing members of society, instead of condemning the highest contributing mebers; we'd have a healthi…

Yeah, protesting against inequality is pretty dumb. He could just solve it by frying the software engineer if he just tried and put in a little effort.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#146

Post by khuey »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #25
perceptronas wrote: post #10

>After the 2008 recession, President Obama and the Democrats effectively saved capitalism from itself; a more radical leadership would fight to replace it with a better system. This time around there may be far more pressure from below to do just that, especially with a more organized left and more class conscious young people. As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to ove…

>Its what makes the west so prosperous And destroy our habitat.

Concerns about rampant pollution were a significant contributor to the fall of communism in East Germany.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#147

Post by NTDF9 »

The proponents of current form of capitalism miss a big big aspect of free-market capitalism. That is: taking losses.

Every capitalism proponent is so tied up to the stock market that they don't want to see losses. Thus they resort to policies that would somehow socialize losses.

If you are really free market, you need to accept losses.

- Let the FED not print money which causes inflation which is driving a regular life out of the young's reach

- Let students declare bankruptcy on student loans

- Let your social security go bankrupt, it is market driven

- Let your house prices go underwater. Whoever said it should always go up and that the young should burn their lives to buy it from old geezers at elevated prices.

But no, the boomers don't want those losses. This is where cries for socialism is coming from.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#148

Post by zzzcpan »

40acres wrote: post #102

If you were born in an advanced economy in 2000 you've lived through at least two recessions, weak growth, rising inequality and asset prices, and high cost of schooling. Yes, capitalism isn't really looking great right now.

Capitalism never looked great for most people, it didn't start in 2000, it's a system for the rich to exploit the rest after all. The difference today is that internet is not a top down propaganda machine and people are not as easily persuaded to accept the system. On the internet people have access to plenty of opinions pointing out the problems of capitalism.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#149

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

cryoshon wrote: post #108
bluedino wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> We have absolutely no incentive to work hard when doing so doesn't materially affect income. Pride? Character? Respect from colleagues?

pride, character, and respect from colleagues are things that don't pay the bills, even though they're nice to have. i know this is sounds like a snarky and low-effort response, but it is not intentional. it's just the way things are, and there isn't really a diplomatic way of saying it.

> "pride, character, and respect from colleagues are things that don't pay the bill"

I can name several dozen colleagues I've worked for over the years who will vouch for me and help me get a job if I should ever need it and that does pay the bills.

People who say things like the above quote, can't.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#150

Post by alasdair_ »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #111
goldstone26 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a free-market proponent who isn't 100% sold on all of the democratic socialism stuff, I don't understand how anyone can deny that having your literal physical well-being tied to your employment is not an enormous problem for anyone who values the efficient allocation of labor/capital (which should hopefully be everyone?) It's literally just a cash-equivalent (in that nearly every employer is going to provide a pla…

What is your definition of a free market? I see this so often but few people seem to understand the inherent contradiction. If a market is truly free it will naturally tend toward monopoly thereby extinguishing itself. If it is regulated to prevent it's own destruction, it ceases to be truly free. In either case it is a transient condition. A brief glorious moment in time that cannot, by its own definition, be anythi…

It’s possible to have laws that increase freedom overall. For example: a law against murder restricts some people (the murderer) but frees many more people from (their victims).

Markets can be regulated to make them more free as well - if we pass a law to enforce mutually agreed upon contracts, some people (those that would go against the contract) have their freedom restricted but the market as a whole now has a trust mechanism allowing them to actually hold others accountable and thus overall it improves society.

“Free market” still implies certain restrictions, like “no stealing the other person’s stuff”.

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