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Persuasion through status rather than argument

robkhenderson.com

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Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#221

Post by iinnPP »

lapcat wrote: post #215
iinnPP wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odd. None of my private conversations are racist or sexist. Turns out I grew up in the short period where all racism is bad. I'm thankful for that.

> Turns out I grew up in the short period where all racism is bad. There was no such period. Like I said, it depends on which circles you spend time in (e.g. your family). Sounds like you were just sheltered from it.

The message is what I'm talking about. I sure as hell wasn't sheltered either, I was as far from sheltered as it gets.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#222

Post by Geee »

atmavatar wrote: post #131
Geee wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very good thing, and the reason why capitalism works. The idea of pure meritocratic capitalism is that capital is allowed to accumulate to those who use capital most efficiently. There are fewer of those, naturally. Increasing capital efficiency benefits everyone; it means less work and more production, i.e. there's more of everything and everything is cheaper. The actual issues of our current world happen…

I feel like you're missing an important detail: in an unregulated market, it is often times far more efficient from an individual corporation's perspective to buy up or merge with competitors than to actually compete, whereas the societal-level efficiencies you're lauding come from competition itself. Without some form of regulation, capitalism trends towards monopoly, which is the antithesis of efficiency.

I don't think this is generally true. There are exceptions, such as a monopoly on some scarce natural resource. However, there's a quite limited market for such opportunities. It's extremely difficult if not impossible to completely corner some market, even without regulations.

In general, it's not true that companies would merge without regulation. Why would Apple merge with Samsung? It doesn't make any sense.

Usually, regulation causes monopolies to form. A prime example is the patent system, which literally grants a monopoly to an idea. There would be much more competition without IP protection laws, which in my opinion doesn't belong in capitalism. For example, if all Apple's patents and copyrights were openly licensed, there would be much more competition with higher quality, but cheaper products.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#223

Post by Tainnor »

Geee wrote: post #124
Tainnor wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an unregulated market, capital very naturally tends to accumulate more capital - while, if you have nothing, it's very hard to build up capital in the first place. Which means that, if this continues indefinitely, more and more things belong to fewer and fewer people - which is exactly what we've been seeing over the last couple of decades.

This is a very good thing, and the reason why capitalism works. The idea of pure meritocratic capitalism is that capital is allowed to accumulate to those who use capital most efficiently. There are fewer of those, naturally. Increasing capital efficiency benefits everyone; it means less work and more production, i.e. there's more of everything and everything is cheaper. The actual issues of our current world happen…

> there's more of everything and everything is cheaper

And I don't believe that this is what we should optimise for. "More of everything, for cheaper" somehow doesn't seem to make people happier. I think that more shared ownership is more important, especially if you consider the effects of increased inequality on intangible goods such as democracy (e.g. how currently a few tech companies can influence global political discourse).

But even if I was willing to concede your point, somehow most people who argue for "pure meritocratic capitalism" never seem to suggest that we should have a 100% inheritance tax. Because people being born into wealth is exactly one of the reasons why "non-efficient people" (a problematic term in and of itself, btw) end up accumulating a lot of capital.

(I don't personally believe we should have a 100% inheritance tax, although I think it should be higher than it is right now in most places, but I think that this would be an almost inevitable conclusion of a "purely meritocratic" conception of economics.)

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#224

Post by Tainnor »

Geee wrote: post #222
atmavatar wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you're missing an important detail: in an unregulated market, it is often times far more efficient from an individual corporation's perspective to buy up or merge with competitors than to actually compete, whereas the societal-level efficiencies you're lauding come from competition itself. Without some form of regulation, capitalism trends towards monopoly, which is the antithesis of efficiency.

I don't think this is generally true. There are exceptions, such as a monopoly on some scarce natural resource. However, there's a quite limited market for such opportunities. It's extremely difficult if not impossible to completely corner some market, even without regulations. In general, it's not true that companies would merge without regulation. Why would Apple merge with Samsung? It doesn't make any sense. Usual…

> It's extremely difficult if not impossible to completely corner some market

Are we forgetting how Microsoft absolutely dominated the PC market in the 90s and early 2000s? How today, there's basically two mobile operating systems that can determine much of today's mobile experience?

I agree that IP laws serve to entrench monopolies (although they also have the effect of encouraging development (e.g. of expensive drugs) in the first place - so it's a double edged sword). But so do a lot of other, much more "natural" mechanisms such as network effects, brand recognition, etc.

I feel like the libertarian, "pure capitalism" world view only makes sense if you think that consumers are omniscient and perfectly rational, but we know fully well how neither of these things are true.

I used to work for a company that would just buy up a bunch of smaller companies and then drive them into the ground. The smaller companies had the better tech, but the large company had a user base, a brand and money.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#225

Post by Tainnor »

J_Shelby_J wrote: post #110
Tainnor wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an unregulated market, capital very naturally tends to accumulate more capital - while, if you have nothing, it's very hard to build up capital in the first place. Which means that, if this continues indefinitely, more and more things belong to fewer and fewer people - which is exactly what we've been seeing over the last couple of decades.

This was described in adam smith’s original writings about “capitalism” and he was clear for the need in government intervention to maintain a free market long term.

Do you have a specific reference by any chance?

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#226

Post by marssaxman »

hasoleju wrote: post #53

A better title could maybe be: "Smart and successful people don't express their true opinion because they fear a loss of status" The author explains, that the more status people gained in their life, the more they try to stick to the common sense of opinions people of their status hold. This behavior really stabilizes the status quo. For me this also explains why the consequent climate change protests are mainly supp…

It strikes me oddly that you describe climate change protest as a "new opinion". From my gen-x view of the world, it has been a big deal through my entire adult life - we're up to COP 28 now, after all!

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#227

Post by Geee »

Tainnor wrote: post #224
Geee wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is generally true. There are exceptions, such as a monopoly on some scarce natural resource. However, there's a quite limited market for such opportunities. It's extremely difficult if not impossible to completely corner some market, even without regulations. In general, it's not true that companies would merge without regulation. Why would Apple merge with Samsung? It doesn't make any sense. Usual…

> It's extremely difficult if not impossible to completely corner some market Are we forgetting how Microsoft absolutely dominated the PC market in the 90s and early 2000s? How today, there's basically two mobile operating systems that can determine much of today's mobile experience? I agree that IP laws serve to entrench monopolies (although they also have the effect of encouraging development (e.g. of expensive dru…

The point about operating systems is that these are new technologies. Free markets require time to resolve. It's natural that an inventor (especially with IP protections) has an market advantage for a period of time. It's important, that at longer time scales, the market evolves towards decentralization.

It's true that there are a lot of natural centralizing forces, such as network effects. Not sure how to resolve those.

However, getting back to the original point, no matter how you think about it, capital efficiency requires that 'a few' manage the capital, because naturally there are 'a few' who manage capital better than the rest. The problem is selecting those few. I think it's a misconception to argue that capital shouldn't centralize in principle, or that it's a morally bad thing.

Also, efficiency in a free market is really about fulfilling the needs of people according to their free will in the most efficient way possible. There's no forcing function to produce more if people don't want to consume more. In Soviet Union, they were very efficient at producing some stuff, but they made stuff that no one needed (they made lots of cheap shoes in big factories, which no one wanted). I.e. there's a difference in being efficient in isolation, and efficient at fulfilling needs of the market.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#228

Post by lern_too_spel »

h2odragon wrote: post #197
lapcat wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crucially, MLK said "I have a dream" about "one day" in the future. But MLK wasn't dumb enough to think that people could just magically declare racism to be over now without doing anything to address the social inequities and inequalities caused by centuries of historical racism.

Moving the "colored" seats from the back of the bus to the front, is not doing anything to address the inequities, either.

Moving seats obviously doesn't address the economic inequalities. That's why nobody (except maybe some conservatives arguing in bad faith) has ever proposed it.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#229

Post by hasoleju »

marssaxman wrote: post #226
hasoleju wrote: post #53

A better title could maybe be: "Smart and successful people don't express their true opinion because they fear a loss of status" The author explains, that the more status people gained in their life, the more they try to stick to the common sense of opinions people of their status hold. This behavior really stabilizes the status quo. For me this also explains why the consequent climate change protests are mainly supp…

It strikes me oddly that you describe climate change protest as a "new opinion". From my gen-x view of the world, it has been a big deal through my entire adult life - we're up to COP 28 now, after all!

I agree with you, that phrase is misleading. What I tried to express is: The sense of urgency to act upon the climate catastrophe even if it decreases your own quality of life in the short term is somehow “new” or at least only really felt and pointed out strongly by a minority.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#230

Post by pauldenton »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #228
h2odragon wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving the "colored" seats from the back of the bus to the front, is not doing anything to address the inequities, either.

Moving seats obviously doesn't address the economic inequalities. That's why nobody (except maybe some conservatives arguing in bad faith) has ever proposed it.

Punishing people who were never victimizers and promoting people who were never victims for the sake of equity doesn't address the problems of a single parent household and the consequences it has for children, but that is proposed for the sake of Equity all the time
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