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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)

#51

Post by AnimalMuppet »

coldtea wrote: post #24
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…

> Capitalism is something that emerged in the Eighteen Century More like 15th century, is the widely accepted chronology. And it did bring with it a totally different kind of horror, including colonialism...

Here is one definition of capitalism: Reinvesting the profits in the enterprise, to make it more efficient, larger, or better in some other way. That started in 12th Century Italy, and perhaps also in China's 11th Century Industrial Revolution.

(China could have had an iron-based industrial revolution long before Europe. But the mandarins saw that some lower-class people were getting rich, and so they shut it down by force.)

Also: Colonialism is an evil of capitalism? The Roman Empire did something very like colonialism. The Spanish in the 1500s weren't exactly capitalists, either.

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

#52

Post by TomMckenny »

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…

That's arbitrage.

Capitalism is where the gatekeepers on what can be produced and by whom, control through (typically hereditary) wealth and then use that position to capture the majority of and wealth produced (or wealth harvested in the case of unproductive business such as rent seeking). Dishonesty is not a necessary part but certainly occurs in any market where it is favored.

Incidentally, notions of supply and demand are part of a free market which does not necessarily have to be run by capital.

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

#53

Post by AnimalMuppet »

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…

> ... capitalism is a class society

So? What came before capitalism? Feudalism. That was a class society at least as much as capitalism is.

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

#55

Post by WalterBright »

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.

They do all the time. It's just that the level of distrust is factored into the price. For example, you'll pay more money to buy a used car from a dealer than from a random person, and you'll pay more to buy from a reputable dealer. And it's why there are such things as cashier's checks, wire transfers, and escrow services.

> Deception is not normal.

It is normal, and it is factored into the price as "risk".

> It's why "capitalism" as practiced in countries where there are no stable legal systems tends to have lower levels of growth.

Of course. An unstable legal system means high risk, high risk means adverse prices, and as such lower levels of growth.

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

#56

Post by Empact »

CapacitorSet wrote: post #54

We really do live in a dystopia.

If scammy, semi-fraudulent watch sites constitute our dystopia, I’m relieved.

These scams are as old as commerce. Just more easily propagated using modern tools. They’re the reason Consumer Reports and reveiw publications exist. Caveat emptor.

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

#57

Post by claudiawerner »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #53
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…

> ... capitalism is a class society So? What came before capitalism? Feudalism. That was a class society at least as much as capitalism is.

That was what I was trying to say; capitalism isn't distinguished by the fact of contradictions, it is distinguished by a new set of contradictions.

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

#59

Post by redial »

This companies are no different than any other company in the history of business.

The only thing I can think of is the fact that in this case you can easily track the supplier and find out the "original price" of the item in a way that is very hard to do for let's say a pair of Nike shoes, but that's about it. Walmart is also full of these watches and you can believe they don't sell them for $5.

Or do you really think it costs Dell exactly $679,95 to build a laptop on one of their entirely owned factories where they manufacture and store every single component that goes into it? And, if you call them now they even give you a $200 discount because wouldn't you know it they just happened to have a "promotion" just for you?

There is no such thing as a free anything, yet when Apple offers FREE BEATS WITH EVERY MAC PURCHASE no magazine would dare to call them out on the obvious fact that both of these items are so "overpriced" that they can even afford to give one away "for free" and still come out ahead. They instead run "articles" praising what a great value the offer is and also you should act now before the sale is over.

This "article" could be written about any company, literally any company.

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