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Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

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Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#221

Post by jjk166 »

dudzik wrote: post #148
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?

One of the arguments I heard around corruption caused by lobbying is that centralization of power makes it worse. It kind of boils down to persuading one person is easier than convincing many people.

Maybe in theory but in practice even in less centralized systems there is still generally just one person you need to persuade, and that one person is generally easier to persuade than if they were more central. If you compare local governments to state governments to the federal government, there is substantially more graft in the smaller governments. Local officials are cheaper to influence, have less of a spotlight on them (both from criminal investigators and the electorate), and have fewer competing interests to worry about.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#222

Post by thewarrior »

blululu wrote: post #38
thewarrior wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who regulates the regulator ? If it is the government then it goes back to the people being aware of their interests and not allowing themselves to be manipulated. Which is never going to be the case.

The answer to this question has always been ideology. Establishing a deep an sincere belief in the purpose of an undertaking on the part of its functionaries is the most durable way to run a community of any sort. Successful anarchist programs require some degree of ideological commitment to a greater cause. Switzerland is probably the most decentralized society on earth and you will notice the incredibly tight sense…

The people at the top are deeply cynical of ideology. They fill the ranks of middle management with true believers and play their own games.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#223

Post by drewcoo »

Insight: There is a single source of all harmful side-effects.

Insight: It's not capitalism. It's something else.

Perhaps the actual problem for the author is education because any moderate amount of reading comprehension coupled with a little skepticism should keep "insights" like this from spreading.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#224

Post by asow92 »

usrbinbash wrote: post #183
asow92 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These sound like reasonable improvements, and maybe not without their own potential vectors for cronyism. I am genuinely interested to read more.

Of course they create vectors for cronyism, massively. All these improvements require constant vigil by regulatory bodies, the justice system and the public itself. They also rely heavily on the public being educated enough, interested enough and participatory enough to reflect bad behavior in their voting decisions. None of this however is an argument for less regulation. It is an argument for education and politica…

Do you think that kind of vigil is sustainable? Surely there will be some ebb and flow there, and that's what concerns me: what if it flows too far into one extreme or the other and some new, unforeseen scourge worse than what we have today shows itself.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#225

Post by pram »

vannevar wrote: post #201
pram wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not what I said at all lol

It looks like what you said: >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. It seems like you want another definition of capitalism that would reflect a more recent development of it. Again, I'm not criticizing at all, just wondering what the perturbing aspect is.

Human civilization goes back further than the 18th century jfyi

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#226

Post by flavius29663 »

ajuc wrote: post #219
flavius29663 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is this: in communism you always end up with authoritarianism, while in capitalism it happens less and less frequently. For this reason you can associate communism with authoritarianism. The corruption is NOT typical to capitalism, both capitalism and communism have plenty of corruption. As a citizen of a former communist state, I can say that communism has even more corruption in general. I think this…

What actually happens - you get communism and capitalism and both are equally evil when applied 100%. But you can get make them less concentrated, add less or more regulation and get to some sane compromies. You end up with some kind of social welfare state with mostly free market economy. At that point it doesn't matter where you started off, it's just branding.

> equally evil

That is a very hard to defend statement...mass deportations, famine, misery and all the other staples of communism are not nearly as bad in capitalism. And if capitalist countries do this to each other, it's not capitalism per se to blame, it's other aspects of politics (imperialism, colonialism, Neo-colonialism etc.) that can be separated from capitalism. Whereas communism on its own cannot separate from its worse tenets.

Being that they're not equally evil, IMO the middle ground is better to be closer to capitalism rather than in the middle.

I personally believe in UBI, but I consider myself a liberal right winger. I believe UBI is good because it makes the bureaucracy and the government mostly obsolete except for the places it really matters: infrastructure, military, education etc. The UBI will be more transparent and automatic, people will know they live off other people's money, not "the government". And the government cannot keep robbing Paul to pay Peter with each and every bill. This should over time reduce the amount we spend on social programs, which is in line with what I believe as a liberal that wants less taxes.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#227

Post by vannevar »

pram wrote: post #225
vannevar wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like what you said: >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. It seems like you want another definition of capitalism that would reflect a more recent development of it. Again, I'm not criticizing at all, just wondering what the perturbing aspect is.

Human civilization goes back further than the 18th century jfyi

Of course. How is that related to the point you're trying to make?

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#228

Post by pram »

vannevar wrote: post #227
pram wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human civilization goes back further than the 18th century jfyi

Of course. How is that related to the point you're trying to make?

The point being the things I listed are pre-capitalist sociological and economic structures.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#229

Post by vannevar »

netcan wrote: post #203
vannevar wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

(I'm the GP, not P) .. It perturbs me because it's usually a (imo) dirty rhetorical trick. The argument never really sticks to a "just markets & property" definition of capitalism. The way it usually works is: (step 1) define capitalism in a way that applies to most societies at most times; (step 2) proceed with the rest of the argument with a much more specific definition. In this case, what the paper actually means…

The dictionary definition is pretty straightforward:

"An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state." But wasn't that true in many ancient civilizations? Haven't individual merchants and property owners been around for a long time?

I think the significance of industrialization for capitalism was that it marked the first time that an individual could rapidly amass a large fortune within their own lifetime. Prior to that era, you had to be affiliated with the government in some way, able to raise taxes from a large number of subjects, to pull in that kind of money so quickly. The gap between the royals and the serfs began to fill with a middle class. Once capital became disentangled from government, people started talking about it more as an independent entity. It wasn't so much that capitalism emerged as phenomenon in the 18th century so much as it emerged into the public consciousness then.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#230

Post by vannevar »

vannevar wrote: post #227
pram wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human civilization goes back further than the 18th century jfyi

Of course. How is that related to the point you're trying to make?

Thanks. I guess that goes along with the discussion in the thread above about just when capitalism emerged. I would argue that it was essentially there at the beginning of private property, but that it was overshadowed by government until the 18th century, when it became relevant to talk about capital apart from government because it was now capable of creating change in society at a scale formerly only associated with the state.
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