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Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

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Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#171

Post by pseudo0 »

lwansbrough wrote: post #146
jkhdigital wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

538 (elected) people. Seems far more (rather than too few) than is necessary. If it were 10 elected people for example it becomes harder to hide in the crowd. Look how much scrutiny is applied to the supreme court.

I'd guess that the main issue they were highlighting was the "30% of GDP" part, which was actually more like 34% pre-covid (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=8fX). There has been a consistent upwards trend since the '50s, if not earlier, and there are people alive today who remember a time when we didn't even have a federal income tax.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#172

Post by jimbokun »

lbriner wrote: post #113
jklinger410 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very constructive because it points to the actual root of the problem so we can begin to solve it. Laws and regulation that prevent cronyism are the solution.

Except humans, business and politics are far too complex to encapsulate in laws, at least in their current format. Look at a "simple" case in the news today. Several men who were abused in the 1970s have lost their case against Manchester City Football club who they say were responsible for the "scout" who abused them. If it was really simple, there would be no case. However, the Judge rules that at the time of the a…

> It would be much easier in Court if a ruling is made not just on the letter of a law that might not have thought of the specific scenario, not on common law of something that was close enough to this case but on whether it violates the charter.

What do you mean by Charter for Society? A Constitution?

Doesn't this just devolve to the same problem? If the law doesn't address a specific scenario, what makes you think the charter will?

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#173

Post by rubyist5eva »

Miner49er wrote: post #87
rubyist5eva wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cronyism can plague any economic system, Klein explained, across the spectrum of free-market economies to governmentally controlled environments. Try reading the article?

Yeah, I agree, but I think there probably exists economic systems that are far more resilient to cronyism then capitalism. Whereas I think capitalism will always result in cronyism.

Such as?

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#174

Post by asow92 »

depaya wrote: post #166
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's "okay" (what isn't "okay" in this context?). But it's certainly not useful. So you've restated the problem - great. This is a good way to lead into a solution, which is the the more useful thing to discuss. So let's hear the solution.

I don't have a solution. I don't have much knowledge of such extremely complex systems and I have no hope of coming up with a solution myself. I can see that my car is sputtering black smoke when I drive it and correctly identify that it's a problem, but I bring it to an expert for a suggestion to fix it since I don't have much knowledge in this topic either.

Fine, don't contribute to the discussion in a constructive way, but our peer are in the thread above is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29876728

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#175

Post by asow92 »

usrbinbash wrote: post #170
asow92 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what is your solution? You can say something is flawed, but compared to what, and how would you improve it?

The solution already exists and is used, to varying degrees, by many western industrializted countries, especially in Europe. 1. Regulated Capitalism 2. State Funded Infrastructure. ad 1) Capitalism isn't a bad system per-se, but needs to be kept in check. States need to ensure that un-competitive behavior is kept in check, that too-large monopolies are reigned in, that consumers are protected, that fair taxes are pa…

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

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#176

Post by Miner49er »

jimbokun wrote: post #161
Miner49er wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism rewards owning capital heavily, so it naturally trends towards wealth concentrating. The argument against this is to regulate it, but overtime, you'll always end up trending towards capital becoming more powerful then the regulators. You'll always have Capital just buying the regulators, basically. You can have "resets" (like the Great Depression and WWII) that maybe fix this a little bit temporarily, but…

How do you create a society that limits positions of power? The US Constitution tries to do that by pitting different groups in power against each other, diffusing their power and forcing them to cooperate to achieve anything. And then adding a Bill of Rights specifically limiting the power government has over the individual. Do you have a better idea?

The US system isn't too bad, the main problem with it is capitalism. Under capitalism, you can't have a true democracy. The rich can always influence the public (Manufacturing Consent) or outright buy representatives. You have to keep wealth more distributed to avoid this, which means we need a system that doesn't so heavily reward and enable accumulation of wealth. I like many of the ideas of Mutualism [0]. Primarily the emphasis on credit unions, the limits on private property, and worker democracy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory)

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#177

Post by simonh »

goodlinks wrote: post #102
mrkentutbabi wrote: post #66

Is wealth inequality necessarily bad? Genuine question here.

if there was a lottery defined 99% of your life outcomes at birth would that be a bad thing? if it was possible for an accumulation of wealth within one group to essentially divide humanity in different groups that could never be changed despite skill level compitance or morals of the individuals in each group would that be bad? so someone whose great great granddaddy did something now has power for no reason. and th…

>AFAIK its not one person being paid more than another thats the issue.. its those that are paid because they were born with money and add nothing to society that i think bothers people.

Sure, but how many wealthy people inherited their wealth and contribute nothing? It's actually a tiny fraction. It is quite common for people from better off backgrounds to be more successful, but arguably that's result of the previous generation investing in their kids and benefiting society as a result. Most doctors come from above average wealth families for example, but we want good doctors, right? The solution to that problem is better public education, not taxing the rich into the ground.

I can't imagine anyone here thinks idle trust fund babies are a wonderful benefit to society, there's a good argument for steep inheritance taxes, but equally it's not actually a significant problem in our economy. It's just a hot button topic that upsets people, but it's really a distraction.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#178

Post by lexapro »

justinmchase wrote: post #127
goodlinks wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if there was a lottery defined 99% of your life outcomes at birth would that be a bad thing? if it was possible for an accumulation of wealth within one group to essentially divide humanity in different groups that could never be changed despite skill level compitance or morals of the individuals in each group would that be bad? so someone whose great great granddaddy did something now has power for no reason. and th…

The level of competition is such that you have to complete across multiple lifetimes. You happen to be in a large bucket with a lot of competition you have to be top 1% in that case to even go up to the next level, which includes successfully having children and putting them on a good path to be top 1% as well. Take risks and succeed. The game is incredibly competitive and challenging and just understanding that is d…

It's an impossible feat if the competition has a 10 generations head start and is not playing by any rules.

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#179

Post by frank_nitti »

dbsmith83 wrote: post #86
Zenst wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes way more complex as a recent article outlined regarding a very relevant story. "$35BN Match Group file multiple lawsuits against muzmatch following repeated failed acquisition offers" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29860034

shrug I'm sure you can find much more examples of companies not behaving this way. This kind of behavior can be lessened with laws and penalties against frivolous lawsuits. It's hardly an indictment against the system itself.

How would that play out? Company B lobbies Washington to legislate/prosecute frivolous lawsuits like those brought by Company A against its competitors? Seems to me any resources B can muster for such an endeavor would be dwarfed by A’s resources…

Re: Blame Cronyism, Not Capitalism

#180

Post by hnuser847 »

usrbinbash wrote: post #170
asow92 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what is your solution? You can say something is flawed, but compared to what, and how would you improve it?

The solution already exists and is used, to varying degrees, by many western industrializted countries, especially in Europe. 1. Regulated Capitalism 2. State Funded Infrastructure. ad 1) Capitalism isn't a bad system per-se, but needs to be kept in check. States need to ensure that un-competitive behavior is kept in check, that too-large monopolies are reigned in, that consumers are protected, that fair taxes are pa…

> 1. Regulated Capitalism

This is why we have cronyism in the first place. Who do you think is writing the regulations? Who's funding the think tanks and the "grassroots" organizations? Who's paying for the campaigns?

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