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Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it

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Re: Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it

#41

Post by jjoonathan »

stuart78 wrote: post #15

The Amazon case in this article seems to fall flat in the same way the Apple as Monopoly argument does. It works only if you ignore the fact of categorical choice (Android in the case of Apple). No seller is forced to sell on Amazon, as demonstrated by the thousands of Shopify and Etsy-hosted sellers out there. Yes, within the world of Amazon, Amazon sets the rules, but if the users leave, so will the sellers. Shopif…

If competition is what's supposed to protect us from rentier nobility, we ought to police anticompetitive practices with more vigor than a frozen snail.

Re: Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it

#42

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

_oghd wrote: post #30
tracerbulletx wrote: post #19

This whole dichotomy stops us from having productive conversations. Organic price setting is better and more effective than central price setting, monetary coercion is the lesser of two evils compared to coercion by force, which as long as there are shit dangerous jobs like mining and being an electrical lineman to do will there WILL be some kind of coercion. These are good things about "capitalism". But capitalism i…

capitalism is private ownership of property and the exchange of labor for wage to produce commodities with said capital. capitalism is not just "free market economy," where the natural opposite as you supoose being "centrally planned economies" this is essential to understand what varoufakis presents as a new relation to production: technofeudalism.

> capitalism is private ownership of property

Not only is that not my personal definition of the term, but that isn't how it's defined in the linked article; nor is Yannis Varoufakis even remotely advocating eliminating the notion of private property ownership.

> capitalism is not just "free market economy," where the natural opposite as you supoose being "centrally planned economies"

That depends entirely on who you ask. You'll get very different, but equally sincere and well-justified, definitions from your local college's student socialist societ compared to the parents of the members of the lacrosse team.

Once anyone conversation starts using either C-word it inevitably turns into "Capitalism is anything I don't like" vs. "Communism is anything I don't like" and it's all downhill from there.

Re: Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it

#43

Post by kiba »

TapWaterBandit wrote: post #37
dangus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart.com is another seller marketplace that does big volumes and works similarly to Amazon. Still, I think Amazon is doing some pretty anticompetitive things, and the FTC lawsuit against them seems like it has merit in my layperson’s eyes. Nobody else besides Amazon can get a random product to my door in under 12 hours for any reasonable cost. If I buy the product direct from the manufacturer I often get charged s…

> Nobody else besides Amazon can get a random product to my door in under 12 hours. If I buy the product direct from the manufacturer I often get charged shipping. That situation could be easily argued to be a monopoly. Why do Amazon have a monopoly on this? Is it because they are engaging in anti-competitive practices preventing competitors from offering the same thing or do they just have the best logistics experti…

Nothing preclude from Amazon being good at shipping products while still engaging in anticompetitive behaviors.

Re: Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it

#45

Post by defrost »

jojobas wrote: post #7

Capitalism is dead, says a millionaire on track to become a billionaire.

He'll be lucky to hit a billion.

The million was media money, book returns, and he declared nearly half a million paid back in taxes. Near as I can tell the ire was generated due becoming rich from books describing the Greek plumment into very not rich, leading to calls of Yanis being a champagne socialist profiting from the misfortune of many.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/greeks-sneer-as-yanis-var...

The full wiki on this Greek - Australian (became a citizen of Oz in 1991) is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanis_Varoufakis

Re: Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it

#48

Post by jrflowers »

stuart78 wrote: post #15

The Amazon case in this article seems to fall flat in the same way the Apple as Monopoly argument does. It works only if you ignore the fact of categorical choice (Android in the case of Apple). No seller is forced to sell on Amazon, as demonstrated by the thousands of Shopify and Etsy-hosted sellers out there. Yes, within the world of Amazon, Amazon sets the rules, but if the users leave, so will the sellers. Shopif…

> It works only if you ignore the fact of categorical choice (Android in the case of Apple)

This is a good point because feudalism is when there is just one big fief. If another fief appears both cease to have the quality of feudalism, that’s what capitalism is.

Re: Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it

#49

Post by jrm4 »

Here's the thing I've come to realize; there's literally no point at all in mentioning Capitalism because it means SO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS to people.

Step 1. Let's define "commerce." You know, people buying and selling things, making favorable trades and such. Let's agree that we recognize that this is a thing that has happened for a long time and is likely to happen for a long time. You might say it's "good," or you might just sort of accept it -- and perhaps if you're not willing to accept it, you at least understand that you have a ton of work ahead of you if you're going to get rid of it.

Now, how is "capitalism" different from the above? And again, note that even if you have an elegant and clear answer, others don't. I'm literally asking this question because I don't think we've come remotely close to STARTING a good definition here, collectively.

Re: Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it

#50

Post by [deleted] »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #26
cvccvroomvroom wrote: post #12

He's indicting the Chicago school and rightly so because the academic priesthood condoning vampiric, unrestrained, hyperindividualist capitalism sleepwalking civilization into existential threats of collapse is broken. Strong regulation, collective bargaining, employee ownership, and more nonprofit social ventures in lieu of for-profit so-called "public private partnerships" are some of the paths that must replace un…

Don't forget that those who sit at the top of what capitalism has provided are also able to thoroughly define the narrative that's applied to the rest of society. For example, many of the paths you've rightfully pointed out are, have been, and will be tarred with the socialism brush which, in (too) many corners of the US, is a synonym for communism. and maybe I just don't have a good enough imagination, but I can't s…

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