The Financialization of the American Elite
americanaffairsjournal.org
The Financialization of the American Elite
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Re: The Financialization of the American Elite
#2Capitalism is a system that sounds great on paper, but doesn't work in practice.
Re: The Financialization of the American Elite
#3Capitalism is a system that sounds great on paper, but doesn't work in practice.
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.
Especially not generic ideological comments, which tend to lead to generic ideological flamewars, which we want to avoid because they're so predictable.
Re: The Financialization of the American Elite
#4He's missing a big change since 1949 or 1974 - the demise of communism. It's not that communism was all that successful, but it was competition for capitalism. Capitalism had to do better for the voters than communism.
From about 1920 to 1980, American business was scared of communism as an alternative system. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the USSR looked to be surging ahead, there was heavy PR about how capitalism delivered a better life for workers. (Some period cheerleading from when the USA really was #1: [1][2]) Businesses were in fear of being broken up, having executives arrested for price-fixing, or even being taken over by the government. The British government took over and ran big parts of the steel and railroad industries. British telecom was government-owned already. US businesses feared that might come to the US.
This fear, and fear of unions, kept wages going up, and prices stable. It wasn't perfect, but there was a major force pushing back against corporate greed. With that threat removed, capitalism has a monopoly, and now acts like one.
[1] https://archive.org/details/4050_Meet_King_Joe_01_19_26_08
Re: The Financialization of the American Elite
#5Capitalism is a system that sounds great on paper, but doesn't work in practice.
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN. Especially not generic ideological comments, which tend to lead to generic ideological flamewars, which we want to avoid because they're so predictable. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I felt it was substantive; lots of people worship the market blindly and this article is an excellent deep-dive into exactly what's wrong with that mentality. I was also drawing an analogy to the common refrain about communism, which is true in that case as well. The world's most prosperous societies know how to strike a balance.
Re: The Financialization of the American Elite
#6He's missing a big change since 1949 or 1974 - the demise of communism. It's not that communism was all that successful, but it was competition for capitalism. Capitalism had to do better for the voters than communism. From about 1920 to 1980, American business was scared of communism as an alternative system. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the USSR looked to be surging ahead, there was heavy PR about how capitalism de…
British Telecom was spun out of the Post Office, it wasn't a formerly private business that had been taken over by the Government.
Re: The Financialization of the American Elite
#7I rarely buy the "deeply flawed messenger" argument. Here, he's basically criticizing short-term business thinking, which he also took advantage of as an investor. Should we therefore put him in a hippo crate?
Few people in the tech community say "This guy exploited a security bug. Therefore, we shouldn't listen to his bug reports."
In fact, you can't really understand a bug except by trying to exploit it. I suspect the same is true in business. Everyone agrees vaguely that there's some kind of short-term thinking problem in big American business. But this guy understood the problem deeply enough to exploit it, while everyone else just is just waving their hands.
I think PoC||GTFO applies to business advice too.
Re: The Financialization of the American Elite
#8He's missing a big change since 1949 or 1974 - the demise of communism. It's not that communism was all that successful, but it was competition for capitalism. Capitalism had to do better for the voters than communism. From about 1920 to 1980, American business was scared of communism as an alternative system. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the USSR looked to be surging ahead, there was heavy PR about how capitalism de…
Suppose you could create a system to compete with capitalism. What would it be like?
Re: The Financialization of the American Elite
#9I rarely buy the "deeply flawed messenger" argument. Here, he's basically criticizing short-term business thinking, which he also took advantage of as an investor. Should we therefore put him in a hippo crate? Few people in the tech community say "This guy exploited a security bug. Therefore, we shouldn't listen to his bug reports." In fact, you can't really understand a bug except by trying to exploit it. I suspect…
I agree. It seems like this dude is coming to terms with his mortality and is realizing he's spent his life exploiting the system without trying to make it better and is trying to do something to make it better.
Re: The Financialization of the American Elite
#10He's missing a big change since 1949 or 1974 - the demise of communism. It's not that communism was all that successful, but it was competition for capitalism. Capitalism had to do better for the voters than communism. From about 1920 to 1980, American business was scared of communism as an alternative system. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the USSR looked to be surging ahead, there was heavy PR about how capitalism de…
I think you've raised an interesting idea, although I'd say its less that communism died in the 80's; its more that the nation state competing directly with the US using a divergent economic ideology fell behind for the last time. The US becoming the sole superpower does seem to align with some of the issues we see today, and the lack of an existential "threat" makes for a much less unified nation.
Regardless, its an interesting thought, and I think I'll see if I can find some additional reading on it.