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Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

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Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#131

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

hnuser847 wrote: post #120
usrbinbash wrote: post #26

[flagged]

> Company A, having been dominant on the market for a long time, can simply tap into their savings and lower its prices, to the point where X is more attractive to consumers than X'. B, new to the market and wo. such substantial savings, cannot compete and goes bankrupt. If it was this simple, why have so many gigantic corporations gone out of business over the years? Sears was once the world's largest retailer and b…

But if Sears or others are replaced with other monopolies then the point stands. For example if you imagine a market where every 20 years the old monopoly firm gets beat out by a competitive new entrant which very quickly establishes it's own monopoly, becomes sclerotic over 20 years and then itself loses, it doesn't really matter to consumers that there is turnover, they are almost always existing in a monopolized market.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#132

Post by brink »

hypersoar wrote: post #103
vlunkr wrote: post #81

For the political experts out there, what would happen if we stopped allowing lobbying? That seems to me like the most obvious source of corruption. Edit: ok, I should have worded better. What if we stopped allowing corporate lobbying through donations to elected officials? I understand there would be loopholes to close, but isn't this the obvious source of government corruption?

The broad concept of "lobbying" is really just people bringing their concerns to elected representatives. I don't really see how you would ban it entirely.

I think they wanted to talk about getting money out of politics.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#133

Post by newsclues »

refurb wrote: post #108
vlunkr wrote: post #81

For the political experts out there, what would happen if we stopped allowing lobbying? That seems to me like the most obvious source of corruption. Edit: ok, I should have worded better. What if we stopped allowing corporate lobbying through donations to elected officials? I understand there would be loopholes to close, but isn't this the obvious source of government corruption?

Lobbying is just communicating your desires to your elected representative. If we stopped it, we stop democracy?

If that were true(lobbying is just communicating), people and corporations would write a letter rather than hire a lobbyist.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#134

Post by thereddaikon »

olalonde wrote: post #36
mcv wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism quite clearly requires strong regulation. At least, any sort of positive capitalism that doesn't immediately succumb to monopolies, cartels and corruption. The problem is that the loudest voices arguing for capitalism, also tend to argue against regulation, accountability, and that sort of thing.

Regulations is what largely enables cronyism.

The world isn't black and white. There is good and bad regulation. Effective and ineffective regulation. For example car safety regulations are pretty effective. Cars are more safe now than they ever have been and its rare for there to be a problem with the safety systems in cars. Financial market regulation has been mostly a disaster and is in large part due to capture by the industry and serious conflict of interests at all levels of government.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#135

Post by cafard »

jkhdigital wrote: post #130
vlunkr wrote: post #81

For the political experts out there, what would happen if we stopped allowing lobbying? That seems to me like the most obvious source of corruption. Edit: ok, I should have worded better. What if we stopped allowing corporate lobbying through donations to elected officials? I understand there would be loopholes to close, but isn't this the obvious source of government corruption?

Lobbying, as it manifests in our (the United States, in my case) current form of governance, is a direct consequence of the fact that 538 people control how 30% of GDP is spent.

It has been pointed out that Daniel Webster was on retainer from various business interests while he was a senator. I don't know the figures for federal share of GDP in those days, but think it must have been much smaller.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#136

Post by vannevar »

Why is cronyism bad? Because it distributes opportunity based on relationships rather than merit.

Why is unregulated capitalism bad? Because it distributes opportunity based on capital rather than merit.

But cronyism by definition operates at a human scale---a person can only have so many friends, after all---while the scale of capital is unlimited. in principle, one person can deprive millions of people of opportunities that might otherwise be available to them. So unregulated capitalism is a much, much bigger problem than cronyism.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#137

Post by thrwn_frthr_awy »

refurb wrote: post #108
vlunkr wrote: post #81

For the political experts out there, what would happen if we stopped allowing lobbying? That seems to me like the most obvious source of corruption. Edit: ok, I should have worded better. What if we stopped allowing corporate lobbying through donations to elected officials? I understand there would be loopholes to close, but isn't this the obvious source of government corruption?

Lobbying is just communicating your desires to your elected representative. If we stopped it, we stop democracy?

Lobbing in the US at least I’d typically referring to large institutions , not citizens. The elimination of lobbying in the US is most often reference to the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#140

Post by vannevar »

pram wrote: post #126
netcan wrote: post #95

OK so... the "no true scotsman" game between warring ideologies is what it is. Marx more or less invents "capitalism" in his critique of it. Pro capitalists then came in with their own definitions of capitalism. Later anti-communists insist(ed) that socialism=stalin, and capitalism means liberalism. Whatever. Capitalism means different things. I'm not going to unknot that mess. But... I will say that etymologically (…

I've also long been perturbed by the definition of capitalism largely focusing on markets, private property, and even entrepreneurship. Since those are like, as old as human civilization probably.

Why does the idea that capitalism has co-existed with civilization perturb you? Not criticizing, just honestly curious.
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