Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge
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Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge
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Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge
#2Capitalism 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 incentives that include dysfunctional personal relationships”.
Since “socialism” seems ill-defined (or has several different definitions), seems difficult to say whether it would provide better outcomes. Authoritarian “people’s republic of X”-style didn’t provide good outcomes. Seems like that was due to authoritarian politics getting in the way of actual business.
I haven’t seen the show, but why would workers who own a stake in the viability of the company voting on management have not worked? If track records of management outcomes were available like sports statistics, there’d be something better than rhetoric to guide voting.
Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge
#3Capitalism 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…
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 offer product at cost vs cost*profit_margin so these businesses are always more competitive than western counterparts who have to pay for someone else's profit margin down the entire supply chain.
Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge
#4Capitalism 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…
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…
I'll take the vast improvement of living standards under capitalism over those found in socialist countries.
Are you arguing that the rapid decline in poverty in China due to capitalism is a bad thing?
Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge
#5Capitalism 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…
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?
Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge
#6Capitalism 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…
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…
> scraping the barrel of revenue
I believe the idea behind capitalism is exchanging value for value (private property and the ability to exchange it).
Someone sitting back and skimming a tax off the top of others property, without providing value, doesn’t seem to be compatible with the philosophy.
Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge
#7Earlier 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…
I'll take the vast improvement of living standards under capitalism over those found in socialist countries. Are you arguing that the rapid decline in poverty in China due to capitalism is a bad thing?
I'd like to add that there are different flavours of both capitalism and socialism. The kind of disaster capitalism practiced in Russia and other former Soviet Union countries in the 90s certainly didn't lead to an improvement of living standards for quite a long time, if even.
China also presents a case of state capitalism where companies are strictly controlled by the government as evidenced by the recent set of regulations published a few weeks ago and many companies are owned by the children of party members.
Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge
#8Capitalism 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.
Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge
#9> It is the capital that Marcus has to offer that makes business owners listen to him
It would be fun to take on the challenge of converting the author to socialism, but I'm not sure if the author is making the call at the end of the article in good faith.
Related to what I quoted-- many, perhaps the majority, of reality shows don't rely on offers of capital injections to improve the social problems that plague business owners. Gordon Ramsey usually breaks through because he's loudly yelling his credentials at some stubborn restaurant owner. Or the bar rescue guy is yelling to the entire staff that the bartenders were stealing drinks to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars (as well as yelling his credentials to them). I mean they obviously tie in ads for various products that they give away to the owners, but a) that's never central to the business and b) I don't think they do that on every single show like that.
Human credibility and peer pressure exist in a socialist setting. That in no way is an argument for socialism, but it is at least an argument that one of the author's premises is probably mistaken-- i.e., that the guru needs capital in order to convince a failing owner to turn their business around.
So, would the author care to refine the argument? If so I'd be willing to take the challenge further.
Re: Overcoming Bias: ‘The Profit’ Socialism Challenge
#10Capitalism 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.
China did well after adopting a capitalist economic model. Not so well after adopting a communist economic model. Over 50 million dying just from starvation is basically the worst you can possibly be. Insane top down command like killing all the sparrows or collectivizing farms, or pulling nails out of furniture so that little villages can make steel describes the insanity of that approach. It had a shelf life of about 40 years.
They still maintain the party dictatorship.
Really what matters for dominance is a disciplined party apparatus that seizes power in some kind of coup or revolution and then rules the country with an iron fist.
The party may use a justification of envy -- appealing to people's anger that others have more than they do -- or it may use religion, or moral arguments, or national pride arguments. But those are all instrumental to the underlying aim of power.
Once you are in power, you can impose capitalism or communism or some mix. If communism doesn't work, you can discard it and look for something better.
It's interesting that many on the left just dropped working class issues like a used shirt and refocused on race with extreme ease. For me personally, that's how I distinguish between a group that wants power as opposed to a group that is advocating for some policy profile. If they can switch out the policy profile and replace it with something different, then they were never that interested in policy to begin with.