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Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

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Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#41

Post by quantified »

phonypc wrote: post #5
asdff wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrespective of flavor of socialism, just logically capitalism does not make any lick of sense unless you are among the capital class already who benefits from scraping the barrel of revenue to collect an amount as profit. The fact that there exists a profit margin and businesses cannot operate at cost is why manufacturing in China is used in the west vs western manufacturing, since businesses operating at cost can o…

Sorry, what? You think Chinese manufacturing businesses aren't making a profit?

And there is no contradiction between socialism and making a profit. Any enterprise owned under any organization, directed by any structure, could make a profit. What you do with those profits becomes interesting, if they exist.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#42

Post by artificialLimbs »

malwarebytess wrote: post #8
quantified wrote: post #2

Capitalism vs socialism isn’t about the existence of that capital, just who owns and how decisions are made. In all the cases of the mismanaged businesses, they were being mismanaged under capitalism and a new manager came in, was competent and was heeded. I guess the premise here is that “capitalism better because competent managers rarer than incompetent managers” and “incentives of money alone are better than ince…

> Authoritarian “people’s republic of X”-style didn’t provide good outcomes. Except, you know, China.

Do you have any idea that China has slaughtered thousands of Muslims and Tibetans?Bet they don’t think China has had a ‘good’ outcome.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#43

Post by quantified »

7sidedmarble wrote: post #37
quantified wrote: post #2

Capitalism vs socialism isn’t about the existence of that capital, just who owns and how decisions are made. In all the cases of the mismanaged businesses, they were being mismanaged under capitalism and a new manager came in, was competent and was heeded. I guess the premise here is that “capitalism better because competent managers rarer than incompetent managers” and “incentives of money alone are better than ince…

Remember not a single of the Communist experiments of the 20th century started as already democratic, Western style societies. Russia and China were not developed countries prior to communism. They didn't have what we would consider the rule of unarbitrary law. Marx and Engels saw socialism as the next step a society would move into after capitalism. They predicted this had to rest on the foundation of a society whic…

Probably greed and sociopathy doom those collectivist experiments. Economic and political systems need to work with humans as we are, not as we idealize them.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#44

Post by malermeister »

g42gregory wrote: post #36
7sidedmarble wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could just as easily say 'under capitalism, you are presented with the illusion of democratic choice at the ballot, but in reality the constituency of our elected officials is mainly the capital-owning class' But that's not really engaging with the concepts of capitalism anymore. Sometimes that's perfectly fine. But it's a little lazy to fall back on instead of defending the merits of capitalism as an ideology.

Yes, there is corruption in capitalist society, no question. And corruption can reach the point where it's no longer a free capitalist society. But I think what people do not understand is the Socialism is a totalitarian society to begin with. You can't have one without the other. All of our leaders were "democratically" elected. We have one choice at the ballot and you can vote Yes or No. You place your "secret" bal…

Versus in the capitalist US where you have two parties to choose from, both of which are owned by the same lobbyists and neither of which ever changes anything meaningful.

You have the grotesquely evil option and the controlled opposition getting voted in on the platform of not being grotesquely evil. Neither of them gets anything useful done. Meanwhile what little choice is left is getting undermined by gerrymandering and voter suppression.

Yay capitalist democracy?

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#45

Post by 7sidedmarble »

quantified wrote: post #43
7sidedmarble wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember not a single of the Communist experiments of the 20th century started as already democratic, Western style societies. Russia and China were not developed countries prior to communism. They didn't have what we would consider the rule of unarbitrary law. Marx and Engels saw socialism as the next step a society would move into after capitalism. They predicted this had to rest on the foundation of a society whic…

Probably greed and sociopathy doom those collectivist experiments. Economic and political systems need to work with humans as we are, not as we idealize them.

What if we are already living in a time where rich Western countries could experience post-scarcity if we just allocated resources and priorities differently?

If we're not there yet, what do we do when we are?

To me socialism is just an inevitability. We will eventually reach post-scarcity. I think if we can examine the current system and find so many ethical problems... It's worth asking ourselves what we could do to get to that ideal star trek society faster.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#46

Post by 7sidedmarble »

g42gregory wrote: post #36
7sidedmarble wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could just as easily say 'under capitalism, you are presented with the illusion of democratic choice at the ballot, but in reality the constituency of our elected officials is mainly the capital-owning class' But that's not really engaging with the concepts of capitalism anymore. Sometimes that's perfectly fine. But it's a little lazy to fall back on instead of defending the merits of capitalism as an ideology.

Yes, there is corruption in capitalist society, no question. And corruption can reach the point where it's no longer a free capitalist society. But I think what people do not understand is the Socialism is a totalitarian society to begin with. You can't have one without the other. All of our leaders were "democratically" elected. We have one choice at the ballot and you can vote Yes or No. You place your "secret" bal…

I'm not sure what you mean, but I think it's intellectually dishonest to claim we can't engage with the ideas of Marx because of the history of the 20th century communist revolutions. Revolutions themselves tend towards things like military juntas or communist ruling parties. I think incremental change is possible and if you read Marx he very much saw socialism as a continuum.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#47

Post by bccdee »

g42gregory wrote: post #36
7sidedmarble wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could just as easily say 'under capitalism, you are presented with the illusion of democratic choice at the ballot, but in reality the constituency of our elected officials is mainly the capital-owning class' But that's not really engaging with the concepts of capitalism anymore. Sometimes that's perfectly fine. But it's a little lazy to fall back on instead of defending the merits of capitalism as an ideology.

Yes, there is corruption in capitalist society, no question. And corruption can reach the point where it's no longer a free capitalist society. But I think what people do not understand is the Socialism is a totalitarian society to begin with. You can't have one without the other. All of our leaders were "democratically" elected. We have one choice at the ballot and you can vote Yes or No. You place your "secret" bal…

A socialist would argue that socialism is by definition democratic, and the fact that (eg) the USSR was totalitarian from the get-go means that it was never socialist. After all, a socialist society is definitionally one where power rests in the hands of the working class, and that was certainly not the case in the USSR.

Now, you could argue that, per this definition, no socialist society is possible. But that's not the argument you're making. You're arguing that what socialists actually want, despite whatever they say, is Soviet-style totalitarianism, because the USSR called itself socialist. Which is not a sound argument.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#48

Post by bccdee »

> In fact, I’m so impressed with how well The Profit scenarios illustrate the value of capitalism that I now build upon it a challenge to socialists: please describe in detail how The Profit style enterprise reform would happen under socialism.

It probably wouldn't. So what? Is the argument here really "an economic system is only viable if it can accommodate CNBC's The Profit?" A society with a different economic system would have different structures in place for reforming failing businesses. For instance — off the top of my head — conditional grant or loan programs that oblige the recipient to seek professional management counselling, perhaps. They might work better, or they might work worse. But they wouldn't be The Profit.

That said, I don't think that this sort of enterprise reform happens much under capitalism, either. Sure, it happens on one reality TV show, but that's not a real data point. Consider this claim made in the article:

> Another lesson from The Profit is that firm problems are personal problems. The son who can’t step out from the shadow of the father and the father who can’t let go. The two brothers who haven’t gotten over the death of their father and the problems this creates in the firm they have inherited. The siblings who are still fighting to get their parent’s attention.

This is reality TV! The episode where the problem arose from zoning laws or product/market fit didn't get produced. You can't draw conclusions from something which is designed primarily to be dramatic and entertaining, rather than to provide a realistic survey of the problems faced by small businesses. If this kind of investment were especially profitable, lots of people would be doing it, and we'd be able to point at the statistical impact it has on small businesses instead of appealing to a TV narrative about it.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#49

Post by bccdee »

quantified wrote: post #43
7sidedmarble wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember not a single of the Communist experiments of the 20th century started as already democratic, Western style societies. Russia and China were not developed countries prior to communism. They didn't have what we would consider the rule of unarbitrary law. Marx and Engels saw socialism as the next step a society would move into after capitalism. They predicted this had to rest on the foundation of a society whic…

Probably greed and sociopathy doom those collectivist experiments. Economic and political systems need to work with humans as we are, not as we idealize them.

Probably the fact that these societies arose from violent revolutions doomed them. Revolutions tend to lead to authoritarian governments, because if you can take over the whole country with your army, you don't really need democracy to legitimize you.

I could easily cite Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, EL Salvador, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and countless other 20th century totalitarian regimes as instances where "capitalist experiments were doomed by greed and sociopathy." Very easily, given that these regimes were backed by American capitalist business interests. But realistically? When you're strong enough and ruthless enough to take over an entire country, you're probably more interested in power than in ideology, one way or another.

Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge

#50

Post by sharemywin »

malermeister wrote: post #44
g42gregory wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there is corruption in capitalist society, no question. And corruption can reach the point where it's no longer a free capitalist society. But I think what people do not understand is the Socialism is a totalitarian society to begin with. You can't have one without the other. All of our leaders were "democratically" elected. We have one choice at the ballot and you can vote Yes or No. You place your "secret" bal…

Versus in the capitalist US where you have two parties to choose from, both of which are owned by the same lobbyists and neither of which ever changes anything meaningful. You have the grotesquely evil option and the controlled opposition getting voted in on the platform of not being grotesquely evil. Neither of them gets anything useful done. Meanwhile what little choice is left is getting undermined by gerrymanderi…

In all fairness I read an article that said about 60% of the time the wealth get congress to act in their favor versus about 30% of the time for the majority.
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