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'Capitalism has to become more humane': a Stanford economist on big tech

theguardian.com

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Re: 'Capitalism has to become more humane': a Stanford economist on big tech

#61

Post by soundworlds »

retatop wrote: post #57
soundworlds wrote: post #55

I am becoming more convinced that it is not Capitalism itself that is toxic, but Big Business. If (in some hypothetical way) businesses were capped at e.g. 15 staff - innovation would be slower, but it would be: - More sustainable - More locally adapted - The supply chain ecosystem as a whole would be more resilient - Damaging decisions by a few huge businesses would not outweigh good decisions from the other 99% of…

I sort of agree with you, but how would you run any kind of industry on 15 employees? I think my limit would be somewhere in the ballpark of 100-200. That feels "big" to me, but not "huge faceless corporation"

Small businesses would become hyperspecialized, and industries would be spread across networks of small businesses - not all internal to a single big one.

It can seem inefficient at first, but would like be much more resilient to supply chain and other disruptions.

Re: 'Capitalism has to become more humane': a Stanford economist on big tech

#62

Post by throawayonthe »

nine_k wrote: post #32
tao_oat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The west has not got rich at the expense of the global south What timeframe are you considering in this opinion?

The post-colonial time obviously, when much of the "Global South" has become independent states, thus peers, not colonies.

do you actually believe they became 'peers' on equal footing? does them being 'peers' somehow prevent extractive relationships in a capitalist global system?

Re: 'Capitalism has to become more humane': a Stanford economist on big tech

#63

Post by greenie_beans »

Barrin92 wrote: post #21
NietzscheanNull wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drug dealing is profitable. Chattel slavery was exceptionally profitable. To allow profitability to be our measure of permissibility is to sacrifice civil society at the altar of enterprising tyrants. Economics should never be a substitute for ethics.

>Chattel slavery was exceptionally profitable. it wasn't. Slave economies are exceptionally unprofitable and unproductive. To take the US as an example. Liquid wealth, i.e. capital, was vastly larger in the North than in the slave owning states, the industrial output of New York exceeded the entire Confederacy and it was that profitability, wealth and mechanized agricultural production that did them in. Even Marx rec…

a major source of the north's wealth was because of its trading relationship with the antebellum south
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