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Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

spiegel.de

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Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#111

Post by jasonisalive »

rayiner wrote: post #13
jasonisalive wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of any major countries unfortunately.

So the richest and most technologically advanced societies in the world, consisting of the most educated and most productive free people in the world, people who through democratic institutions can shape their societies as they see fit, are converging to the same basic model, and you want me to believe that this isn't a ringing endorsement of that model?

In a word, yes. Although:

1) I don't necessarily agree with your claim "through democratic institutions can shape their societies as they see it" - democracies are quite a bit messier than that.

2) I wouldn't use the word "converging" - I would probably say becoming stuck in similar states of sub-optimal social organisation.

And to touch on your other suggestions, I would say that, while these are certainly the richest and most educated people in the world, I don't believe that they are as a whole either: a) particularly self-aware of their own desires and values b) particularly conscious of how they might achieve said desires and values or c) particularly cognisant of how contemporary norm of policies and political strategies actually affect and shape society.

My argument would be that if people satisfied a, b, and c, we would see very different policy arrangements in Western societies. Speaking crudely, people would accept that even if it were possible to coerce market outcomes, it would not be desirable. Politics would become extremely boring, because it would no longer hold pretensions about its capacity to "manage" or "shape" the market.

I would assert that these are the policies that an enlightened society would recognise as most contributing and enabling the greatest good to the greatest number, and would therefore pursue.

Fundamentally, I don't think modern societies are as enlightened as you would like to portray them. That's really not meant to be a critique, I don't think it would be fair to expect much more at this stage of history.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#112

Post by jasonisalive »

RangerScience wrote: post #28
jasonisalive wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of any major countries unfortunately.

So, you don't actually have any data to back up your claim that your proposed fix would fix anything. Here, let me edit your first statement to include your data: > All of the countries [have] growing inequality [and] heavy-handed socialist policies in place.

Sorry, but I'm not the person who made the original claim, just someone who is in agreement with them.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#113

Post by tsotha »

Capitalism works just fine. The problem is throughout Europe and the US we have this weird kind of corporate socialism where governments are more and more involved in their respective economies and then blame "capitalism" when things don't work out. You can't call it capitalism if companies aren't allowed to fail.

And banks are so heavily regulated they're de facto agents of the state. The banking crisis isn't an indictment of capitalism at all - quite the opposite.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#114

Post by ende »

antimagic wrote: post #78
ende wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nor has any political force yet emerged built on that premise of social power structures. Perhaps classial liberalism, georgism, distributism, and good old fashioned anarchy. Every existing political force along the spectrum simply tries to subvert the pyramid to its own purpose.

Interestingly enough, the US Constitution's much-abused 2nd amendment was targetted at precisely this problem - the founders were at least aware of the problem. It's still too early to know if this is a sufficient safeguard. But things must be getting close - those Occupy Wall Street protests only needed to have a few hotter heads leading things, and we may have seen impromptu armies numbering in the thousands taking…

Yes and no. While it's true that a purpose of the second amendment was to preserve the right to armed revolt, another purpose, articulated in the Federalist Papers, was to share (distribute and balance) the state's natural monopoly on the use of force with the people.

However, I had more in mind an ideological revolution transcending the tired left-right paradigm. In this matter, the right sees a centralized concentration of power in the government as a problem but fails to see the role that concentrated capital plays in controlling that political power, while the left sees a centralized concentration of power in the economy as a problem but fails to see the role that concentrated government plays in concentrating wealth. Little do both sides realize that both concentrations of power are one in the same.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#115

Post by dublinclontarf »

atmosx wrote: post #93
cmdkeen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't a zero sum game at all. China, India and Brazil have contributed to the global middle classes growing from 1.8 billion people in 2009 to an estimated 3.2 billion in 2020. That the USA has failed to adopt sufficiently sensible policies to deal with these changes is not the fault of capitalism per se, and indeed in the case of things like a shockingly unequal education system is often driven by left wing peopl…

Sorry but until I see absolute numbers on a paper where the statistical analysis is detailed enough I'll keep my view. Also, note that Europe (richest content) is undergoing a never-ending crisis which has broadened extremely the poor class, especially in South Europe and Ireland. But things in Britain and France are not looking good either.

The crisis in Europe is caused by the continued use of the Euro and all the policies being applied in an attempt to ensure it's existence.

Economics, and capitalism in particular are not a zero-sum game http://www.povertycure.org/issues/the-zero-sum-fallacy/

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#116

Post by amirouche »

woodpanel wrote: post #95
mattmcknight wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an important article, it is a rant against people with "tacky mansions", a turn of phrase that is more indicative of the author's point of view than the other conventional points about not understanding creative destruction. I think it is this overly nationalist view of economics that needs to die, not "capitalism". There is not less productive work to go around, it's just not being done in the US. We are…

"turn of phrase that is more indicative of the author's point of view" - this point of view is what 'Der Spiegel" is known for. In their defense: German school curriculums lack a fundamental economic education. IMHO this non-education is one reason that everyone who has read "Economics in One Lesson" knows more about economics than 99% of German journalists.

Journalists are not meant to know deeply every thing about every subject. Micheal Sauga seem to be a economic specialist which doesn't mean he knows Thruth either. In France at least there is something called economy course in the curriculum but it's far from allowing you to juggle with the different theories and build new ones. It only allows to find out what's happening by reading and gathering data and point of views. Which is what Micheal Sauga did, only 6000 words article focusing on what some people in the economic industry think about the today economy. What about the inclusivness of economy, that the point of it all and it's not only a word that made up by people who were interviewed.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#117

Post by yummyfajitas »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #110
wooter wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> subpar foodstuffs because fruits and vegetables cost way more than dollar menu cheeseburgers per calorie. what? not even remotely true. i frequently buy 6 lb bags of frozen broccoli/cauliflower/carrot for 8 bucks. There is cheap, healthy food out there, some people just aren't buying it.

> 6 lb bags of frozen broccoli/cauliflower/carrot for 8 bucks That implies access to a working freezer, electricity, and transportation to drive out to Costco or wherever; things that are nowhere near granted for everyone.

The freezer and electricity are available to at least 97% of poor Americans. One or more cars is available to 73%.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf

For comparison, India and Bangladesh are likely to have electricity percentages around 50% (no good data is available) and car ownership rates in the single digits.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#118

Post by kokey »

mqsiuser wrote: post #79
jvm wrote: post #21

There's a lot of conflation in this article between distribution and economic growth, which I think arises from the Spiegel's European perspective. Going back to the start of the DAX tracking (mid-2011), we see okay performance in German DAX index, stagnation for the French CAC and British FTSE, and strong performance in the US S&P 500 and Japanese Nikkei. [1] Eurozone unemployment has soared into double digits of la…

A German here, I probably read Spiegel for >10 years (from ~2000 to beginning of 2014): They are kind of "left" which reflects in their articles "raises a second narrative about inequality". They'd support basic income any time. The Spiegel has turned into yellow press lately, I am surprised to see a (english) article on HN. Thank you HN for unveiling that there are some spots in Europe that are doing fine and that t…

One of the problems with the open borders is that the younger people are moving, leaving countries with an already stagnant economy with an even greater aging population issue.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#119

Post by amirouche »

chii wrote: post #49
psychometry wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A third of the population in the richest nation on earth lives in poverty. According to you, that's not a problem because even poorer people in Bangladesh are slightly less poor than they would be if American companies had never employed them. What kind of callous person could look around at all the suffering and think this system's working great? Or do you not look around at all, holed up in a tacky mansion of your…

> look around at all the suffering and think this system's working great? i dont think anyone is saying the system is working great. Capitalism the worst system, except for every other system tried. What do you suggest?

There is parecon http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Participatory_economics

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#120

Post by brc »

atmosx wrote: post #66
mattmcknight wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an important article, it is a rant against people with "tacky mansions", a turn of phrase that is more indicative of the author's point of view than the other conventional points about not understanding creative destruction. I think it is this overly nationalist view of economics that needs to die, not "capitalism". There is not less productive work to go around, it's just not being done in the US. We are…

[...] the number of rich people in the world is growing . Thats because many more people become poor. I'm not saying they are directly exploited but indirectly they are, because it is a zero-sum game.

It most certainly is not a zero sum game. Any reading or thinking that led you to that conclusion is wrong.
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