How to Make Trillions of Dollars • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#111

Post by thret » Fri, Jan 28, 2011, 9:07 AM UTC

jacoblyles wrote: post #35

mmaunder wrote: post #11

Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits, in the classic formulation. Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy i…

>"Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. Bullshit. A society based on the principles of the free market will create unprecedented human health and prosperity[1]. Anti-capitalists are anti-human. I wonder if the billion or so people that climbed out of poverty over the last decade thanks to global capitalism would change Chomsky's mind a…

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo

Concisely sums up everything good about free-market capitalism.

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#112

Post by hessenwolf » Fri, Jan 28, 2011, 9:40 AM UTC

martinkallstrom wrote: post #55

corin_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, assuming a profit of $500 does make the maths make sense. But $500 profit a year from a single customer is way above the average for the majority of businesses.

So it follows that the majority of businesses does not make trillions of dollars either. :) Still, there are several businesses that are making on average over $100-500/year profits on me. More or less my bank, car maker, gas station, energy company, furniture store, favorite soda brand, supermarket, fast food chain... what else? Scary thought.

Your bank might not be. They are often just acting as a middle man and lending money to you that they borrowed from the bond market, taking the spread as their admin expenses.

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#113

Post by hessenwolf » Fri, Jan 28, 2011, 9:43 AM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #81

borism wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but have you seen the effects of "rational social planning" by the unenlightened?

They said they were enlightened, but I admit to having my doubts.

I grew up in a socially-planned town. The problem is in the practicalities of the execution of a large project, by people who just consider it a day job, competing against the corrupting influence of local personal interest. The product of the planning wasn't exactly a macbook pro.

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#114

Post by gritzko » Fri, Jan 28, 2011, 10:00 AM UTC

radu_floricica wrote: post #106

davidhollander wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> part of the argument is that the modern culture is designed by marketers to keep you unhealthy and consuming. Welcome to the field of Applied Psychology and Cognitive Science. Once you have reverse engineered the mind, the only practical application is manipulating it. > just as likely that modern marketers are just doing what people want For a TRILLION dollars we are not talking about "marketers" in the Mad Men, I…

> the only practical application is manipulating it Or improve it?

Manipulation is simpler and pays better.

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#115

Post by anthonyb » Fri, Jan 28, 2011, 10:24 AM UTC

jacoblyles wrote: post #107

anthonyb wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a society based on the principles of the free market - Victorian England. It wasn't so great for most of the population there - pitiful wages, child labour, pollution, poor houses, squalour and misery. Free market? Sure, it's a great idea, but minimum wage laws, workplace safety, pollution control and so forth have all done just as much for our health and prosperity.

You couldn't pass a minimum wage law in Victorian Britain that would raise the Victorians' living standards to that of today. Labor simply wasn't productive enough to sustain living standards like ours. People were poor because society as a whole was poor. All a minimum wage law does is allow a society to shift its chosen point on an unemployment/wage tradeoff curve. However, increases in labor productivity shift tha…

Nobody said anything about raising living standards to that of today. I'm not sure exactly how you got there, and I'm also not sure how you or the overcoming bias article you linked got to free markets causing the reduction in poverty. The free market's been around for a bit longer than six years, so I'd say it's more likely to be a rise in technology (particularly mobile phones and solar power) rather than global capitalism.

And never mind a minimum wage law - Victorian England would've been a much more pleasant place with some sort of health and safety law, restrictions on child labour or a functioning welfare system other than slave labour in the poor house. Did you read the People of the Abyss link that I posted earlier? There's some scary stuff in there:

I worked at Sullivan's place in Widnes, better known as the British Alkali Chemical Works. I was working in a shed, and I had to cross the yard. It was ten o'clock at night, and there was no light about. While crossing the yard I felt something take hold of my leg and screw it off. I became unconscious; I didn't know what became of me for a day or two. On the following Sunday night I came to my senses, and found myself in the hospital. I asked the nurse what was to do with my legs, and she told me both legs were off.

There was a stationary crank in the yard, let into the ground; the hole was 18 inches long, 15 inches deep, and 15 inches wide. The crank revolved in the hole three revolutions a minute. There was no fence or covering over the hole. Since my accident they have stopped it altogether, and have covered the hole up with a piece of sheet iron . . . . They gave me £25. They didn't reckon that as compensation; they said it was only for charity's sake. Out of that I paid £9 for a machine by which to wheel myself about.

(from http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/PeopleOfTheAbyss/chapter17...)

25 pounds is about 6 months wages for the loss of both legs, and he has to buy his own wheelchair! How much productivity was lost to society because that factory and others like it didn't take enough care of its workforce? And yet you and the rest of the HN libertarian echo chamber are trying to convince us that the only thing necessary for happiness is a free market?

Give me a break.

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#116

Post by drstrangevibes » Fri, Jan 28, 2011, 11:51 AM UTC

jacoblyles wrote: post #35

mmaunder wrote: post #11

Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits, in the classic formulation. Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy i…

>"Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. Bullshit. A society based on the principles of the free market will create unprecedented human health and prosperity[1]. Anti-capitalists are anti-human. I wonder if the billion or so people that climbed out of poverty over the last decade thanks to global capitalism would change Chomsky's mind a…

>A society based on the principles of the free market will >create unprecedented human health and prosperity agreed , but only for 0.005% of the population

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#117

Post by jasonkester » Fri, Jan 28, 2011, 12:02 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #68

This was long-winded and flawed in many ways. To point just one flaw out: part of the argument is that the modern culture is designed by marketers to keep you unhealthy and consuming. That's confusing, yet again, correlation with causation. It's just as likely that modern marketers are just doing what people want. That the current system of distraction, consumption, and unhealthiness is evolutionary and not some mast…

It doesn't really matter whether the current system was designed by Evil Overlords or not. The author's description of the current state of things was reasonably accurate, so the question at hand is "what, as an individual, should I do about it?"

The first step in working the system is knowing that it's a system that can be worked.

Knowing that advertising, consumerism, competitiveness, worries about job security, etc. can be safely ignored is a good start. It then follows that you can wiggle yourself some extra disposable income and a healthy disinterest in your "career". From there, you quickly get to a state of perceived freedom. Keep going and maybe you'll figure out how to be happy. (hint: it doesn't require the addition of any new "stuff" to what you already have.)

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#118

Post by zeteo » Fri, Jan 28, 2011, 2:00 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #104

zeteo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the poor were much more worse off than the poor in rural areas." Do you have any support for that assertion? The poor themselves decided en masse to move from village to city at the time, which seems to indicate the contrary. Yes, in the city they were also much more visible to literate observers who would write about their misery, but who knows what those same observers might have exposed if they had lived in a vil…

> The poor themselves decided en masse to move from village to city at the time In many cases they hardly "decided"; they were en masse kicked off the land, so had no real choice. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclosure_Acts

That's the standard Marxist analysis, but it's been refuted since, by Armstrong and others. The Enclosure Acts "kicked" very few people off the land. What they did mostly was to transform poorly utilized common land (marginal pasture, forests, and even some "tragedy of the commons"-style arable land) into extremely productive privately owned plots. The food production increased immensely as a result, which allowed bustling cities and industries to be well supplied. The general prosperity of society increased immensely, while previously starving peasants moved into the cities to become well-fed, but poorly-housed, poorly-clothed etc. workers (at least in the first generation). Even these deficiencies were remedied quite fast, and by the end of the Victorian period, manual laborers would commonly go around town dressed in what today we'd call a business suit.

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#119

Post by fgbadiu » Fri, Jan 28, 2011, 2:04 PM UTC

jacoblyles wrote: post #35

mmaunder wrote: post #11

Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits, in the classic formulation. Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy i…

>"Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. Bullshit. A society based on the principles of the free market will create unprecedented human health and prosperity[1]. Anti-capitalists are anti-human. I wonder if the billion or so people that climbed out of poverty over the last decade thanks to global capitalism would change Chomsky's mind a…

>A society based on the principles of the free market will create unprecedented human health and prosperity

The living standards of black slaves in the Americas increased over time as well.

I wonder if the millions whose standard of living increased under slavery would change your mind that slavery is bad? It seems to me that anti-slavery is a symptom of simple ignorance of basic facts about world economic development.

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#120

Post by _delirium » Fri, Jan 28, 2011, 2:14 PM UTC

zeteo wrote: post #118

_delirium wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The poor themselves decided en masse to move from village to city at the time In many cases they hardly "decided"; they were en masse kicked off the land, so had no real choice. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclosure_Acts

That's the standard Marxist analysis, but it's been refuted since, by Armstrong and others. The Enclosure Acts "kicked" very few people off the land. What they did mostly was to transform poorly utilized common land (marginal pasture, forests, and even some "tragedy of the commons"-style arable land) into extremely productive privately owned plots. The food production increased immensely as a result, which allowed bu…

I'm not arguing that the Enclosure Acts reduced the prosperity of society in aggregate, merely that one of their direct results was that "previously starving peasants moved into the cities" wasn't a free choice on the part of the peasants in many cases. They may have even ended up better off in doing so, but that's different from whether it was voluntary. I don't think you need a Marxist analysis to come to the conclusion that the Enclosure Acts didn't have a neutral effect on the pace of urbanization; it's what you find in standard mainstream histories from folks like Spielvogel as well.

Mostly I don't think it's at all clear that "being poor in the city working in a factory" would actually be preferred over "being a peasant farmer" given conditions of the time, if it were truly a free choice. In the United States at around the same time, you find many people choosing to leave cities to become subsistence farmers on the frontiers, because the Homestead Acts made it a viable option. If the UK had taken the enclosed land and distributed it via a Homestead-Act style process, would British peasants have chosen that option?