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Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

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Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#11

Post by sudosysgen »

briefcomment wrote: post #8

What about this alternative: Capitalism where you can't amass more personal wealth than $100M. The only reason I would think you would need more money than that is if you wanted to push ideas that the population would not vote for. I have much more faith in people closer to issues solving them with more good faith and efficiency than unelected billionaires being effectively philanthropic. I would rather see more rich…

How do you distribute personal wealth after that 100 million? If you distribute it to the workers that create it and make it 20 million instead of 100 I think you'd be on to something.

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#12

Post by briefcomment »

sudosysgen wrote: post #11
briefcomment wrote: post #8

What about this alternative: Capitalism where you can't amass more personal wealth than $100M. The only reason I would think you would need more money than that is if you wanted to push ideas that the population would not vote for. I have much more faith in people closer to issues solving them with more good faith and efficiency than unelected billionaires being effectively philanthropic. I would rather see more rich…

How do you distribute personal wealth after that 100 million? If you distribute it to the workers that create it and make it 20 million instead of 100 I think you'd be on to something.

Something like that. Obviously the specifics are important, but I think the main advantage from this is the limiting of amassed wealth.

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#13

Post by sudosysgen »

briefcomment wrote: post #12
sudosysgen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you distribute personal wealth after that 100 million? If you distribute it to the workers that create it and make it 20 million instead of 100 I think you'd be on to something.

Something like that. Obviously the specifics are important, but I think the main advantage from this is the limiting of amassed wealth.

In that case can I interest you to market socialism? It is almost exactly that, except that you immediately start sharing your wealth as soon as you have a employees, in different amounts.

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#14

Post by jay_kyburz »

It's not Capitalism that is failing. It's Democracy and Government. We can't effectively identify problems and pass laws that fix them.

Our society is like a runaway train and we can try and apply the brakes here and there, but everyday people don't have the power to say, "This is wrong, lets do something different."

If it was just a case of rich getting richer and poor getting poorer then, yes perhaps the problem is Capitalism, but there are a lot of other problems in society that we seem unable to fix.

Police brutality, Medical Insurance, College Loans. Guns. The worlds on fire and we are not moving quick enough to reduce CO2 emissions.

update: To clarify, what I was trying to say is that, if we had a functioning Democracy, we would identify that there is a problem where some people are very rich, and some very poor, and we would be able to make new laws that solve the problem. (Like taxing rich people for example.)

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#15

Post by disparate_dan »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #14

It's not Capitalism that is failing. It's Democracy and Government. We can't effectively identify problems and pass laws that fix them. Our society is like a runaway train and we can try and apply the brakes here and there, but everyday people don't have the power to say, "This is wrong, lets do something different." If it was just a case of rich getting richer and poor getting poorer then, yes perhaps the problem is…

You had me at 100% agreement until you said “mussel” :). But you hit the nail on the head when you said “runaway train”, and no one is in control. These problems definitely exist in other western counties, but there is something about US society that seems to amplify the process massively, where European counties for example seem to apply a dampening effect on the worst extremes.

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#16

Post by briefcomment »

sudosysgen wrote: post #13
briefcomment wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like that. Obviously the specifics are important, but I think the main advantage from this is the limiting of amassed wealth.

In that case can I interest you to market socialism? It is almost exactly that, except that you immediately start sharing your wealth as soon as you have a employees, in different amounts.

Market socialism sounds like what China does rather than preventing amassed wealth, but sure any system that accomplishes the goal of not letting individuals unreasonably impose their will on anyone else sounds good. Votes are powerful, but uber rich people can undermine voting.

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#18

Post by danemorgan »

briefcomment wrote: post #16
sudosysgen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case can I interest you to market socialism? It is almost exactly that, except that you immediately start sharing your wealth as soon as you have a employees, in different amounts.

Market socialism sounds like what China does rather than preventing amassed wealth, but sure any system that accomplishes the goal of not letting individuals unreasonably impose their will on anyone else sounds good. Votes are powerful, but uber rich people can undermine voting.

China has "social markets", but this really just means capitalism with a communist party oversite. They allow billionaires and will soon have more of them than the US.

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#19

Post by briefcomment »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #14

It's not Capitalism that is failing. It's Democracy and Government. We can't effectively identify problems and pass laws that fix them. Our society is like a runaway train and we can try and apply the brakes here and there, but everyday people don't have the power to say, "This is wrong, lets do something different." If it was just a case of rich getting richer and poor getting poorer then, yes perhaps the problem is…

I would say the rich getting richer allows the people who the politicians want to suck up to escape from most of the problems in the country, and therefore allows them to haggle with politics and policies instead of really focus on pressing issues. Easy fix would be to limit how much wealth you can amass. Who really needs more than $50million?

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#20

Post by jay_kyburz »

disparate_dan wrote: post #15
jay_kyburz wrote: post #14

It's not Capitalism that is failing. It's Democracy and Government. We can't effectively identify problems and pass laws that fix them. Our society is like a runaway train and we can try and apply the brakes here and there, but everyday people don't have the power to say, "This is wrong, lets do something different." If it was just a case of rich getting richer and poor getting poorer then, yes perhaps the problem is…

You had me at 100% agreement until you said “mussel” :). But you hit the nail on the head when you said “runaway train”, and no one is in control. These problems definitely exist in other western counties, but there is something about US society that seems to amplify the process massively, where European counties for example seem to apply a dampening effect on the worst extremes.

haha, sorry. I deleted that line. Now it sounds like there was some seafood angle in my first draft.
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