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There's no such thing as a free watch (2017)

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Re: There's no such thing as a free watch (2017)

#41

Post by zozbot123 »

claudiawerner wrote: post #35
edw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is irksome that people lay all of the horrors of the world at the door of “Capitalism” when people have been scamming, exploiting, and generally screwing each other over since the beginning of time. Capitalism is something that emerged in the Eighteen Century. The word means something and to ascribe every immoral or amoral act that aggrandizes someone to Capitalism is an act of intellectual vandalism. And to forst…

That's not a very charitable interpretation of the position, which I see to be along the lines of the fact that the economic mode of production in any given period reaches past mere individual transactions and into our whole mode of being, influencing everything from politics to art to religion. The criticisms of capitalism, at least from a scientific standpoint, are not that people under capitalism are doing bad thi…

> The second part of the criticism is that capitalism is a class society

The modern middle-class society of the present day would quite simply be utterly unrecognizable to 19th-c. theorists of "capitalism [as] a class society". In fact, they would find that most, if not all, of the policy goals that they originally set for themselves have been achieved, in a market economy! The Chinese leadership understands this quite well, BTW; the above consideration plays a significant role in their understanding of what a "socialism with Chinese characteristics" should look like.

Re: There's no such thing as a free watch (2017)

#43

Post by starbeast »

timr wrote: post #34
WalterBright wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Participants are assumed to share equal information. That is not a requirement for efficiency. Unknowns are factored into the price as "risk". For example, if I am selling you my car, I know its condition a lot better than you do. But, the more you are suspicious about its condition, the less you are willing to pay for it. If you're a crackerjack programmer, my interview process is inexact, so I'm going to discount…

"That is not a requirement for efficiency. Unknowns are factored into the price as "risk"." If someone is lying to you and you have no way of knowing it, there's no way to price the risk. Dishonesty can never be eliminated (that's software engineer pedantry) but it's always a drag on efficiency. People who don't trust each other don't engage in trade. "Risk is a perfectly normal characteristic of efficient markets, p…

>People who don't trust each other don't engage in trade.

You are going to need one hell of a citation for that claim, or you are using some new definition of 'trust' that I have not previously encountered.

Re: There's no such thing as a free watch (2017)

#44

Post by kwhitefoot »

mti27 wrote: post #16

>Instagram-savvy version of the fake watches one sees being hawked on the sidewalks of tourist cities. I bought a "Tagheuer" watch on the streets of NYC for five dollars. At a glance, it looked OK but by the end of a day's wear it had completely self destructed.

I bought a 'Cartier' ladies quartz watch on the street in Bangkok for my wife twenty years ago for five USD and it still works. The band has lost some of its black colour but apart from that it works perfectly, keeps good time, and looks pretty good.

Don't know it it is true but the movement inside claims to be Swiss.

Re: There's no such thing as a free watch (2017)

#45

Post by DenisM »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #4

See also this spoof guide from the "watches" subreddit, "How to create a unique/successful minimalist watchbrand": https://imgur.com/a/6CNO8

I wish it talked more about the actual logistics of manufacturing the watch. Is there a factory in china that will take your design and ship you a box of made watches?

I just might be tempted to make a limited run.

Re: There's no such thing as a free watch (2017)

#47

Post by dang »

csours wrote: post #6

TANSTAAFL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as... Also, people will pay more for a good story. --- > "25. Maybe this explains what’s so galling to people about the Folsom & Co. not-really-scam: It simply lays bare the categorical deception at the heart of all branding and retail. The different watch values are, in the strictest sense, speech acts: the watch is $29.99 because someone said it’s…

Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. They lead to generic ideological flamewars—just what we don't need here.

Re: There's no such thing as a free watch (2017)

#48

Post by claudiawerner »

zozbot123 wrote: post #41
claudiawerner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a very charitable interpretation of the position, which I see to be along the lines of the fact that the economic mode of production in any given period reaches past mere individual transactions and into our whole mode of being, influencing everything from politics to art to religion. The criticisms of capitalism, at least from a scientific standpoint, are not that people under capitalism are doing bad thi…

> The second part of the criticism is that capitalism is a class society The modern middle-class society of the present day would quite simply be utterly unrecognizable to 19th-c. theorists of "capitalism [as] a class society". In fact, they would find that most, if not all, of the policy goals that they originally set for themselves have been achieved, in a market economy! The Chinese leadership understands this qui…

On the other hand,

The fact that the class structure has been complicated does not mean it has disappeared, nor does the increase in class mobility mean that classes have disappeared. It's worth noting that it's not only the 19th century theorists who thought of capitalism as class society, but relatively recent ones too. The notion that the "concrete aims" of Marx and company (if you're referring to them) have been fulfilled is farcical - they didn't only call for an increase in living conditions for non-capitalists, they called for a society different in kind, not just degree. I'd be interested in how core ideas such as "abolition of the value-form" play into a system to which they are antagonistic (market economy).

A lovely quote from the 60s:

“If the worker and his boss enjoy the same television program and visit the same resort places, if the typist is as attractively made up as the daughter of her employer, if the Negro owns a Cadillac, if they all read the same newspaper, then this assimilation indicates not the disappearance of classes, but the extent to which the needs and satisfactions that serve the preservation of the Establishment are shared by the underlying population.” (Herbert Marcuse)

And from the same person:

“Not every problem someone has with his girlfriend is necessarily due to the capitalist mode of production.”

Re: There's no such thing as a free watch (2017)

#49

Post by zozbot123 »

claudiawerner wrote: post #48
zozbot123 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The second part of the criticism is that capitalism is a class society The modern middle-class society of the present day would quite simply be utterly unrecognizable to 19th-c. theorists of "capitalism [as] a class society". In fact, they would find that most, if not all, of the policy goals that they originally set for themselves have been achieved, in a market economy! The Chinese leadership understands this qui…

On the other hand, The fact that the class structure has been complicated does not mean it has disappeared, nor does the increase in class mobility mean that classes have disappeared. It's worth noting that it's not only the 19th century theorists who thought of capitalism as class society, but relatively recent ones too. The notion that the "concrete aims" of Marx and company (if you're referring to them) have been…

> "abolition of the value-form"

Isn't that a feature of only the final stage of social evolution according to Marx? The one that Marx calls "communism" (not to be confused with e.g. "communist countries" or "communist parties", as a reference to their politics). A close relative to the communist stage wrt. the theory of market economies would be what we call a "post-scarcity economy" - except that it's not really a 'core idea' in any sense. It might or might not happen at some point in the future, but a market theorist has no need for that hypothesis.

I'd love to comment about the remark you quote regarding the "preservation of the Establishment" and how ironic it sounds today, but to do that I'd have to mention some quite uncomfortable facts about present-day political dynamics, which would take us very far from the subject, and deep into partisan controversy. Sorry!

Re: There's no such thing as a free watch (2017)

#50

Post by simlevesque »

DenisM wrote: post #45
LeoPanthera wrote: post #4

See also this spoof guide from the "watches" subreddit, "How to create a unique/successful minimalist watchbrand": https://imgur.com/a/6CNO8

I wish it talked more about the actual logistics of manufacturing the watch. Is there a factory in china that will take your design and ship you a box of made watches? I just might be tempted to make a limited run.

Check on Alibaba for something similar and contact the seller.
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