What is it that the left should actually care about? The core of what it means to be progressive?
I think it is that we should be striving to make the world a better place for more people.
That means, broadly speaking,
Less poverty worldwide and locally
Better access to education and better actual delivered education
More political equality and freedom
Better health for everyone
Taking better care of the environment
More peace/less war and violence
In the post-WW2 era until now, we have seen a *profound* betterment in all of these measures. Like....an amazing improvement in raw numbers in all of these categories.
At the same time, the post-WW2 market economies of the west have seen an explosion in productivity and actual production of the "stuff". Like an astounding increase in the total amount of crap that human produce - food, electronics, media, etc., etc. etc.
Those two things are not incidental to each other. We have slashed global poverty BECAUSE the free market has created a amazing glut of "stuff" like freaking food, and that has resulted in the poor living a better life in nearly every way globally. There is more work to be done of course, but the way to do that additional work is to continue to leverage what has has an amazingly effective tool to combatting the historically terrible quality of life of the poorest humans across the globe - the embrace of free market/capitalist economic principles that have driven global productivity.
Listening to the Bernie Sanders and Robery Reichs bitch and moan about how terrible capitalism is and how it screws the poor drives me nuts. The poor are a hell of a lot less poor now then every BECAUSE of free market capitalism, not in spite of it.
Distribution of resources will become (already is?) a problem IMHO, esp. with increasing effects of climate change and continuing urbanization. Drinking water, arable land, food, ... and as long as companies rather destroy e.g. unsold food than giving it to charity I think there's room for improvement.
Speaking of distribution: I think it would be beneficial to move "idle" money from the owning strata to people who will actually spend it, to stimulate the economy. And find ways to ensure people of more modest means can set money aside for future larger purchases or emergencies.
I don't think acknowledging the contribution of the market would further Bernie's political career. He supplies something that is in quite high demand.
This doesn't sound like anything most people on the mainstream left complain about.
Capitalism is like fire. Properly harassed it can be a useful tool that can really make the difference between life and death.
But left uncontrolled it will burn the fuck out of you.
When people over the age of 16 complain about capitalism it's not the core concept of buying things with money that they mean. It's pretty obviously unfettered neo liberalism.
I don't think "you are not as poor as a dirt-farming peasant in the Middle Ages" is a useful metric. Sure, everyone has become mathematically less poor in the last couple of centuries. On the other hand, current poverty, as in "you have to decide whether to eat or pay rent this month, and you cannot get sick", is also a result of free market capitalism.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 11:52:32 AM
I don't think "you are not as poor as a dirt-farming peasant in the Middle Ages" is a useful metric. Sure, everyone has become mathematically less poor in the last couple of centuries. On the other hand, current poverty, as in "you have to decide whether to eat or pay rent this month, and you cannot get sick", is also a result of free market capitalism.
Except that is simply not true.
Free market capitalism has resulted in the eradication (or at worst the radical reduction) in the number of people globally who have to decide whether to pay rent or eat - that kind of abject poverty you are talking about is a tiny fraction of what it used to be - the metric is not "are you a dirt faming peasant". The metric is the UN sponsored definitions around extreme poverty has shown that the percentage of the world population living in that state has declined from about 50% in 1950 to about 10 percent today.
That is the exact same time that world productivity has sky rocketed, and the one is BECAUSE of the other. Income distribution since 1975 has dramatically shifted such that the majority of people no longer live under the poverty line defined in real, adjusted dollars. Worldwide per capita GDP has gone from something like $2000/year in 1950 to over $11,000 per year in constant dollars.
You are simply wrong.
Quote from: Tyr on June 07, 2021, 11:52:03 AM
This doesn't sound like anything most people on the mainstream left complain about.
Capitalism is like fire. Properly harassed it can be a useful tool that can really make the difference between life and death.
But left uncontrolled it will burn the fuck out of you.
When people over the age of 16 complain about capitalism it's not the core concept of buying things with money that they mean. It's pretty obviously unfettered neo liberalism.
That is not what I see in the rehtoric of the Sanders left. It is constant attacks on the basic value of capitalism and the free market.
What do you mean by the Free Market?
Food production (the example you used) is subsidized by government. I think there is very little that is produced by something that is a Free Market in the sense that it is completely independent of government involvement. But perhaps you meant something different when using that phrase.
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 07, 2021, 12:54:03 PM
What do you mean by the Free Market?
Food production (the example you used) is subsidized by government. I think there is very little that is produced by something that is a Free Market in the sense that it is completely independent of government involvement. But perhaps you meant something different when using that phrase.
I don't know anyone who uses "free market" in the manner of "completely independent of government involvement". So yeah, pretty safe bet that isn't what I mean. I think you knew that though.
What annoys me about the left and the economics is a general mindset that what matters is the intention and not the actual outcome. If you had good intentions but (predictably) terrible outcomes, it's the fault of the awful people who took advantage of the misaligned incentives you put out there. The real costs that your good intentions inflicted on real people is not on you, what matters is that you meant well.
The classic example is rent control, which even Paul Krugman decried as an example of economic idiocy, before his intellectual honesty waned. Study after study shows what a terrible policy it is and how in entrenches corruption and hostile tenant/landlord relationship, and yet what matters is that the intention is to help people out who can't afford rent. The fact that young people in rent-controlled cities have to get two roommates to afford to live in the apartments they can actually get? Just more proof how necessary it is to have rent control.
Quote from: DGuller on June 07, 2021, 01:01:55 PM
What annoys me about the left and the economics is a general mindset that what matters is the intention and not the actual outcome. If you had good intentions but (predictably) terrible outcomes, it's the fault of the awful people who took advantage of the misaligned incentives you put out there. The real costs that your good intentions inflicted on real people is not on you, what matters is that you meant well.
The classic example is rent control, which even Paul Krugman decried as an example of economic idiocy, before his intellectual honesty waned. Study after study shows what a terrible policy it is and how in entrenches corruption and hostile tenant/landlord relationship, and yet what matters is that the intention is to help people out who can't afford rent. The fact that young people in rent-controlled cities have to get two roommates to afford to live in the apartments they can actually get? Just more proof how necessary it is to have rent control.
Indeed. It is a good example of what I mean by the problems of the left when it comes to economics. It is driven by what they want to be true, and if the data shows something completely different, then it is just ignored.
I've never heard Sanders attack the free market itself, do you have a link?
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 01:00:31 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 07, 2021, 12:54:03 PM
What do you mean by the Free Market?
Food production (the example you used) is subsidized by government. I think there is very little that is produced by something that is a Free Market in the sense that it is completely independent of government involvement. But perhaps you meant something different when using that phrase.
I don't know anyone who uses "free market" in the manner of "completely independent of government involvement". So yeah, pretty safe bet that isn't what I mean. I think you knew that though.
No, I don't know what you mean by Free Market. I actually think it is a big problem with American political discourse. So much emphasis is put on safeguarding whatever that is, but it does not actually exist. All markets exist within governmental regulatory and taxation policy. It is impossible to think of an example where that is not so, except for a failed state. The reason for raising this point is to illustrate that you are drawing a false dichotomy in these two threads. The US does have government intervention in its economy. The interesting political question is how government should best intervene to obtain the best outcomes and how that should be assessed.
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 07, 2021, 01:06:43 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 01:00:31 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 07, 2021, 12:54:03 PM
What do you mean by the Free Market?
Food production (the example you used) is subsidized by government. I think there is very little that is produced by something that is a Free Market in the sense that it is completely independent of government involvement. But perhaps you meant something different when using that phrase.
I don't know anyone who uses "free market" in the manner of "completely independent of government involvement". So yeah, pretty safe bet that isn't what I mean. I think you knew that though.
No, I don't know what you mean by Free Market. I actually think it is a big problem with American political discourse. So much emphasis is put on safeguarding whatever that is, but it does not actually exist. All markets exist within governmental regulatory and taxation policy. It is impossible to think of an example where that is not so, except for a failed state. The reason for raising this point is to illustrate that you are drawing a false dichotomy in these two threads. The US does have government intervention in its economy. The interesting political question is how government should best intervene to obtain the best outcomes and how that should be assessed.
I don't disagree that that is what the interesting discussion should be around.
And yes, that is a huge problem in American political discourse.
And I think that right now, there is a generation on the left that appears, to me, to be wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater - they are beginning to identify free market capitalism as the problem. Not only is it not the problem, it is actually the solution. See the previous post in this very thread, in fact.
Part of this manifests itself in the perception among the left that in fact poverty (as an example) is actually getting WORSE. Which is simply not only untrue, it is badly untrue.
Quote from: DGuller on June 07, 2021, 01:01:55 PM
What annoys me about the left and the economics is a general mindset that what matters is the intention and not the actual outcome. If you had good intentions but (predictably) terrible outcomes, it's the fault of the awful people who took advantage of the misaligned incentives you put out there. The real costs that your good intentions inflicted on real people is not on you, what matters is that you meant well.
Amen. If you push for $15 minimum wage and millions are pushed into unemployment, that's YOUR policy causing that. It's not (the Jews) gaming the system.
Second order effects and elasticity, two blind spots of the left.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 01:35:50 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 07, 2021, 01:06:43 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 01:00:31 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 07, 2021, 12:54:03 PM
What do you mean by the Free Market?
Food production (the example you used) is subsidized by government. I think there is very little that is produced by something that is a Free Market in the sense that it is completely independent of government involvement. But perhaps you meant something different when using that phrase.
I don't know anyone who uses "free market" in the manner of "completely independent of government involvement". So yeah, pretty safe bet that isn't what I mean. I think you knew that though.
No, I don't know what you mean by Free Market. I actually think it is a big problem with American political discourse. So much emphasis is put on safeguarding whatever that is, but it does not actually exist. All markets exist within governmental regulatory and taxation policy. It is impossible to think of an example where that is not so, except for a failed state. The reason for raising this point is to illustrate that you are drawing a false dichotomy in these two threads. The US does have government intervention in its economy. The interesting political question is how government should best intervene to obtain the best outcomes and how that should be assessed.
I don't disagree that that is what the interesting discussion should be around.
And yes, that is a huge problem in American political discourse.
And I think that right now, there is a generation on the left that appears, to me, to be wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater - they are beginning to identify free market capitalism as the problem. Not only is it not the problem, it is actually the solution. See the previous post in this very thread, in fact.
Part of this manifests itself in the perception among the left that in fact poverty (as an example) is actually getting WORSE. Which is simply not only untrue, it is badly untrue.
But we run into a problem with what you mean by free market capitalism. What is it? If you are talking about a market that is properly (however, one might decide that to optimally be) regulated by the state then you are no longer talking about free market capitalism but something else. That something else can be the solution - but I think the left is correct, whatever the solution is, it is not free market capitalism. Mainly because there is no such thing.
Not interested in your semantics debate. "There is no such thing" as free market capitalism. OK.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 01:57:57 PM
Not interested in your semantics debate. "There is no such thing" as free market capitalism. OK.
If you can't explain what you mean by that term, and yet assert it is the solution. There is a bit of a problem.
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 07, 2021, 02:13:15 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 01:57:57 PM
Not interested in your semantics debate. "There is no such thing" as free market capitalism. OK.
If you can't explain what you mean by that term, and yet assert it is the solution. There is a bit of a problem.
Your right. You win. I am definitely completely wrong. Well done.
THere is no such thing as free market capitalism. Got it.
A "free market" is said to exist in the US and in economics generally (but not, apparently, in Canada) when the government is not involved in the setting of prices or the manipulation of supply or demand. Government in the US definition of a free market (but maybe not the Canadian one) still has a role in the provision of currency, in maximizing the accuracy of the buyers' information about the products being marketed and the seller's information about the ability of the buyer to pay, and the provision of mechanisms to resolve disputes between and among buyers and sellers, and so forth.
Some Canadians, apparently, don't understand the concept at all and think that it does not exist. They are the flat-earthers of economics.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 02:15:33 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 07, 2021, 02:13:15 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 01:57:57 PM
Not interested in your semantics debate. "There is no such thing" as free market capitalism. OK.
If you can't explain what you mean by that term, and yet assert it is the solution. There is a bit of a problem.
Your right. You win. I am definitely completely wrong. Well done.
THere is no such thing as free market capitalism. Got it.
That's how to do it. Congrats. I'm still learning to properly bail on fools.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 12:40:51 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 11:52:32 AM
I don't think "you are not as poor as a dirt-farming peasant in the Middle Ages" is a useful metric. Sure, everyone has become mathematically less poor in the last couple of centuries. On the other hand, current poverty, as in "you have to decide whether to eat or pay rent this month, and you cannot get sick", is also a result of free market capitalism.
Except that is simply not true.
Free market capitalism has resulted in the eradication (or at worst the radical reduction) in the number of people globally who have to decide whether to pay rent or eat - that kind of abject poverty you are talking about is a tiny fraction of what it used to be - the metric is not "are you a dirt faming peasant". The metric is the UN sponsored definitions around extreme poverty has shown that the percentage of the world population living in that state has declined from about 50% in 1950 to about 10 percent today.
That is the exact same time that world productivity has sky rocketed, and the one is BECAUSE of the other. Income distribution since 1975 has dramatically shifted such that the majority of people no longer live under the poverty line defined in real, adjusted dollars. Worldwide per capita GDP has gone from something like $2000/year in 1950 to over $11,000 per year in constant dollars.
You are simply wrong.
Worldwide per capita GDP is a useless measure when you have a world with people standing in line for free leftover food and Jeff Bezos buying a yacht for his yacht. That GDP is not distributed fairly in any way.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 07, 2021, 01:39:57 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 07, 2021, 01:01:55 PM
What annoys me about the left and the economics is a general mindset that what matters is the intention and not the actual outcome. If you had good intentions but (predictably) terrible outcomes, it's the fault of the awful people who took advantage of the misaligned incentives you put out there. The real costs that your good intentions inflicted on real people is not on you, what matters is that you meant well.
Amen. If you push for $15 minimum wage and millions are pushed into unemployment, that's YOUR policy causing that. It's not (the Jews) gaming the system.
Second order effects and elasticity, two blind spots of the left.
When employers don't want to pay a minimum wage a person can live on, that's totally capitalism causing that.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 07, 2021, 01:39:57 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 07, 2021, 01:01:55 PM
What annoys me about the left and the economics is a general mindset that what matters is the intention and not the actual outcome. If you had good intentions but (predictably) terrible outcomes, it's the fault of the awful people who took advantage of the misaligned incentives you put out there. The real costs that your good intentions inflicted on real people is not on you, what matters is that you meant well.
Amen. If you push for $15 minimum wage and millions are pushed into unemployment, that's YOUR policy causing that. It's not (the Jews) gaming the system.
Second order effects and elasticity, two blind spots of the left.
Wut?
This is the rights major blind spot. They're all about immediate cause and effect.
Close some loss making industries to save a few million? Pure common sense logic! Let's do it!... That the damage this brings about costs in the billions not to mention the massive human impact.... Well that's not to be considered.
The left meanwhile are all about not particularly obvious links between on the surface seemingly disconnected issues. For instance invest invest in society to reduce the crime rate.
This of course is a key advantage of the right. Their stuff is a lot more hit the nail with the hammer and easier to sell.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 03:03:28 PM
When employers don't want to pay a minimum wage a person can live on, that's totally capitalism causing that.
No one is working 40 hours a week and starving. The discussion has moved on. Now we're talking about supporting a family on 40 hours a week.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 07, 2021, 03:16:23 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 03:03:28 PM
When employers don't want to pay a minimum wage a person can live on, that's totally capitalism causing that.
No one is working 40 hours a week and starving. The discussion has moved on. Now we're talking about supporting a family on 40 hours a week.
The idea is "living wage" which means more than just not starving to death. Plenty of people who work full time are on federal benefits or homeless. I find that rather annoying.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 03:02:58 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 12:40:51 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 11:52:32 AM
I don't think "you are not as poor as a dirt-farming peasant in the Middle Ages" is a useful metric. Sure, everyone has become mathematically less poor in the last couple of centuries. On the other hand, current poverty, as in "you have to decide whether to eat or pay rent this month, and you cannot get sick", is also a result of free market capitalism.
Except that is simply not true.
Free market capitalism has resulted in the eradication (or at worst the radical reduction) in the number of people globally who have to decide whether to pay rent or eat - that kind of abject poverty you are talking about is a tiny fraction of what it used to be - the metric is not "are you a dirt faming peasant". The metric is the UN sponsored definitions around extreme poverty has shown that the percentage of the world population living in that state has declined from about 50% in 1950 to about 10 percent today.
That is the exact same time that world productivity has sky rocketed, and the one is BECAUSE of the other. Income distribution since 1975 has dramatically shifted such that the majority of people no longer live under the poverty line defined in real, adjusted dollars. Worldwide per capita GDP has gone from something like $2000/year in 1950 to over $11,000 per year in constant dollars.
You are simply wrong.
Worldwide per capita GDP is a useless measure when you have a world with people standing in line for free leftover food and Jeff Bezos buying a yacht for his yacht. That GDP is not distributed fairly in any way.
It is certainly relevant unless you are arguing that the unfairness (and that is a useless term anyway) is so bad that in fact ALL of the 6X increase in GDP was consumed by the non-poor. However, this is not the case.
Again, there is data on this.
https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$mountain$encoding$frame$value=1878;;;;;&chart-type=mountain&url=v1
This has an amazing visiualization of how the income distribution has shifted over time.
You are, again, simply wrong.
In 1870 86% of the world population lived in extreme poverty.
By 1950 it was 57%
In 1975 it was 50%
In 2000 it was 20 %
And in 2018 it is just over 10%
Since 1950 world average GDP has gone up 6X.
There are problems with inequality to be sure, but the incredible explosion of productivity we have seen in the last 50 years has lifted most of the poorest people in the world out of abject poverty. Maybe it should have lifted more, and maybe it should have lifted them further. Those are good and important arguments to be made.
But the argument that this has not happened, and in fact that free market capitalism has somehow worked against the eradication of poverty is simply not true.
Quote from: Tyr on June 07, 2021, 03:08:06 PM
Wut?
This is the rights major blind spot. They're all about immediate cause and effect.
Close some loss making industries to save a few million? Pure common sense logic! Let's do it!... That the damage this brings about costs in the billions not to mention the massive human impact.... Well that's not to be considered.
The left meanwhile are all about not particularly obvious links between on the surface seemingly disconnected issues. For instance invest invest in society to reduce the crime rate.
This of course is a key advantage of the right. Their stuff is a lot more hit the nail with the hammer and easier to sell.
I'll hold you to your word: what are the second order effects of "investing investing in society to reduce the crime rate?"
Quote from: Valmy on June 07, 2021, 03:18:06 PM
The idea is "living wage" which means more than just not starving to death. Plenty of people who work full time are on federal benefits or homeless. I find that rather annoying.
I'm familiar with this euphemism. I was responding to Solymr who used different language.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 02:15:33 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 07, 2021, 02:13:15 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 01:57:57 PM
Not interested in your semantics debate. "There is no such thing" as free market capitalism. OK.
If you can't explain what you mean by that term, and yet assert it is the solution. There is a bit of a problem.
Your right. You win. I am definitely completely wrong. Well done.
THere is no such thing as free market capitalism. Got it.
Not sure why you have swung to that extreme. I am not sure what your point is, so I am also not sure if you are right or wrong. If for example what you mean by free market capitalism is an economy in which there is competition amongst potential providers of goods and services then there is something there to form the basis for agreement. We could then go on to discuss the amount of government intervention and regulation needed to ensure a competitive environment. However, if you think free market means government should not be involved in that sort of regulation then we would likely have a lively disagreement that your vision for the future is in fact the solution.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 03:20:11 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 03:02:58 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 12:40:51 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 11:52:32 AM
I don't think "you are not as poor as a dirt-farming peasant in the Middle Ages" is a useful metric. Sure, everyone has become mathematically less poor in the last couple of centuries. On the other hand, current poverty, as in "you have to decide whether to eat or pay rent this month, and you cannot get sick", is also a result of free market capitalism.
Except that is simply not true.
Free market capitalism has resulted in the eradication (or at worst the radical reduction) in the number of people globally who have to decide whether to pay rent or eat - that kind of abject poverty you are talking about is a tiny fraction of what it used to be - the metric is not "are you a dirt faming peasant". The metric is the UN sponsored definitions around extreme poverty has shown that the percentage of the world population living in that state has declined from about 50% in 1950 to about 10 percent today.
That is the exact same time that world productivity has sky rocketed, and the one is BECAUSE of the other. Income distribution since 1975 has dramatically shifted such that the majority of people no longer live under the poverty line defined in real, adjusted dollars. Worldwide per capita GDP has gone from something like $2000/year in 1950 to over $11,000 per year in constant dollars.
You are simply wrong.
Worldwide per capita GDP is a useless measure when you have a world with people standing in line for free leftover food and Jeff Bezos buying a yacht for his yacht. That GDP is not distributed fairly in any way.
It is certainly relevant unless you are arguing that the unfairness (and that is a useless term anyway) is so bad that in fact ALL of the 6X increase in GDP was consumed by the non-poor. However, this is not the case.
Again, there is data on this.
https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$mountain$encoding$frame$value=1878;;;;;&chart-type=mountain&url=v1
This has an amazing visiualization of how the income distribution has shifted over time.
You are, again, simply wrong.
In 1870 86% of the world population lived in extreme poverty.
By 1950 it was 57%
In 1975 it was 50%
In 2000 it was 20 %
And in 2018 it is just over 10%
Since 1950 world average GDP has gone up 6X.
There are problems with inequality to be sure, but the incredible explosion of productivity we have seen in the last 50 years has lifted most of the poorest people in the world out of abject poverty. Maybe it should have lifted more, and maybe it should have lifted them further. Those are good and important arguments to be made.
But the argument that this has not happened, and in fact that free market capitalism has somehow worked against the eradication of poverty is simply not true.
But is there actual proof of your claim that the explosion of productivity you cite is caused by free market capitalism? I mean, places like China have also had their productivity explode while not having a free market.
Quote from: Valmy on June 07, 2021, 03:18:06 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 07, 2021, 03:16:23 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 03:03:28 PM
When employers don't want to pay a minimum wage a person can live on, that's totally capitalism causing that.
No one is working 40 hours a week and starving. The discussion has moved on. Now we're talking about supporting a family on 40 hours a week.
The idea is "living wage" which means more than just not starving to death. Plenty of people who work full time are on federal benefits or homeless. I find that rather annoying.
Again, a very good argument to be had.
However, the fact that you need to start from is that free market capitalism has meant we are arguing about whether the least wealthy should have it even better, not whether or not they should have enough to eat or an education.
I am just baffled at this attitude. Liberalism at the macro scale works, and works really really fucking well! We have brought literally billions of people out of abject poverty. Educated billions. Given them more freedom, more lifespan, more health.
I mean....this is GOOD news, right?
Liberal capitalism has managed to increase the total output of human production something like 10X over the last 100 years, and that means we have the resources to nearly eradicate abject poverty in the world. We aren't done, and there is more to be done, but the way to drive those numbers even lower is to do what has already worked, and that means we have to recognize
A) That the reality is that the human condition for billions has radically improved, and
B) That the engine of that improvement is not just liberal ideals around equality of opportunity and political representation, and the other "soft" ideas of liberalism, but the "hard" reality of actual dollars and production and producing a lot more stuff so that a lot more stuff can be shared with the least fortunate.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 07, 2021, 03:21:48 PM
Quote from: Valmy on June 07, 2021, 03:18:06 PM
The idea is "living wage" which means more than just not starving to death. Plenty of people who work full time are on federal benefits or homeless. I find that rather annoying.
I'm familiar with this euphemism. I was responding to Solymr who used different language.
He said to live on. You simply didn't understand his post.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 03:24:38 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 03:20:11 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 03:02:58 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 12:40:51 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 11:52:32 AM
I don't think "you are not as poor as a dirt-farming peasant in the Middle Ages" is a useful metric. Sure, everyone has become mathematically less poor in the last couple of centuries. On the other hand, current poverty, as in "you have to decide whether to eat or pay rent this month, and you cannot get sick", is also a result of free market capitalism.
Except that is simply not true.
Free market capitalism has resulted in the eradication (or at worst the radical reduction) in the number of people globally who have to decide whether to pay rent or eat - that kind of abject poverty you are talking about is a tiny fraction of what it used to be - the metric is not "are you a dirt faming peasant". The metric is the UN sponsored definitions around extreme poverty has shown that the percentage of the world population living in that state has declined from about 50% in 1950 to about 10 percent today.
That is the exact same time that world productivity has sky rocketed, and the one is BECAUSE of the other. Income distribution since 1975 has dramatically shifted such that the majority of people no longer live under the poverty line defined in real, adjusted dollars. Worldwide per capita GDP has gone from something like $2000/year in 1950 to over $11,000 per year in constant dollars.
You are simply wrong.
Worldwide per capita GDP is a useless measure when you have a world with people standing in line for free leftover food and Jeff Bezos buying a yacht for his yacht. That GDP is not distributed fairly in any way.
It is certainly relevant unless you are arguing that the unfairness (and that is a useless term anyway) is so bad that in fact ALL of the 6X increase in GDP was consumed by the non-poor. However, this is not the case.
Again, there is data on this.
https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$mountain$encoding$frame$value=1878;;;;;&chart-type=mountain&url=v1
This has an amazing visiualization of how the income distribution has shifted over time.
You are, again, simply wrong.
In 1870 86% of the world population lived in extreme poverty.
By 1950 it was 57%
In 1975 it was 50%
In 2000 it was 20 %
And in 2018 it is just over 10%
Since 1950 world average GDP has gone up 6X.
There are problems with inequality to be sure, but the incredible explosion of productivity we have seen in the last 50 years has lifted most of the poorest people in the world out of abject poverty. Maybe it should have lifted more, and maybe it should have lifted them further. Those are good and important arguments to be made.
But the argument that this has not happened, and in fact that free market capitalism has somehow worked against the eradication of poverty is simply not true.
But is there actual proof of your claim that the explosion of productivity you cite is caused by free market capitalism? I mean, places like China have also had their productivity explode while not having a free market.
China's productivty has exploded once they began to actually implement free market policies, in fact. Their productivity lagged the rest of the world until just recently (relatively). They are actually evidence for the opposite of what you are saying.
You are seriously going to argue that the massive explosion in human productive output in the last century is caused by something other then free market capitalism? What might that be?
I mean, we have pretty obvious data points to compare - the USSR was kind enough to run the counter experiment for some 40 years or so, and China as well...
I really, really honestly ask everyone involved here to go look at this:
https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$mountain$encoding$frame$value=1800;;;;;&chart-type=mountain&url=v1
It really is fascinating to start that graph back around 1800 and watch it through today.
The world didn't just produce a lot more shit, we also shared a lot more of that shit. It is not, as some would claim, just a lot more stuff being produced and consumed by the wealthiest.
There is plenty of inequality to be sure, but there is also an amazing success story being told.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 03:26:15 PM
I mean....this is GOOD news, right?
To many people it is not.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 03:26:15 PM
Quote from: Valmy on June 07, 2021, 03:18:06 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 07, 2021, 03:16:23 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 03:03:28 PM
When employers don't want to pay a minimum wage a person can live on, that's totally capitalism causing that.
No one is working 40 hours a week and starving. The discussion has moved on. Now we're talking about supporting a family on 40 hours a week.
The idea is "living wage" which means more than just not starving to death. Plenty of people who work full time are on federal benefits or homeless. I find that rather annoying.
Again, a very good argument to be had.
However, the fact that you need to start from is that free market capitalism has meant we are arguing about whether the least wealthy should have it even better, not whether or not they should have enough to eat or an education.
I am just baffled at this attitude. Liberalism at the macro scale works, and works really really fucking well! We have brought literally billions of people out of abject poverty. Educated billions. Given them more freedom, more lifespan, more health.
I mean....this is GOOD news, right?
Liberal capitalism has managed to increase the total output of human production something like 10X over the last 100 years, and that means we have the resources to nearly eradicate abject poverty in the world. We aren't done, and there is more to be done, but the way to drive those numbers even lower is to do what has already worked, and that means we have to recognize
A) That the reality is that the human condition for billions has radically improved, and
B) That the engine of that improvement is not just liberal ideals around equality of opportunity and political representation, and the other "soft" ideas of liberalism, but the "hard" reality of actual dollars and production and producing a lot more stuff so that a lot more stuff can be shared with the least fortunate.
Hey I am all in favor of free market capitalism as an economic system, regulated to benefit society by the ever virtuous protectors of the public good as us state bureaucrats are. :goodboy:
It is one of the reasons I like the idea of a UBI to subsidize wages and enable people to live on a full time job, or even survive without one. That strikes me as an efficient way, if expensive, to deal with the problems of low wages without creating big market distortions. But it is a problem.
Feels like Berkypoo is having an argument with himself. Nobody is arguing to collectivize the means of production. Progressives are just asking for a fair(er) piece of the pie for everybody.
Why don't you head down to the nearest food bank with your charts and yell at those people that they should be thankful they're not starving.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 03:28:58 PM
China's productivty has exploded once they began to actually implement free market policies, in fact. Their productivity lagged the rest of the world until just recently (relatively). They are actually evidence for the opposite of what you are saying.
You are seriously going to argue that the massive explosion in human productive output in the last century is caused by something other then free market capitalism? What might that be?
Technological advancement, maybe? Now, you might argue that that's caused by free market capitalism, and sure, that may be partly so, but I wouldn't put all this advancement and increase in productivity as solely caused by capitalism. I would say that social development, in particular towards freer society, is a bigger cause. After all, Russia moved towards free market, insanely uncontrolled capitalism in the 1990s, yet that did not help their productivity explode. In the recent years, there are also increasingly many indicators that allowing capitalism to freely control the terms and conditions of work is not good for productivity - it has been found that shorter work hours increase productivity, for example.
Quote from: Zoupa on June 07, 2021, 04:34:20 PM
Feels like Berkypoo is having an argument with himself. Nobody is arguing to collectivize the means of production. Progressives are just asking for a fair(er) piece of the pie for everybody.
Why don't you head down to the nearest food bank with your charts and yell at those people that they should be thankful they're not starving.
I tried to engage but whatever he has in his mind about what it is progressives want and how that differs from what he says the solution is remains opaque to me.
Social Democracy works pretty well. I am not not sure what his argument is.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 04:57:47 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 03:28:58 PM
China's productivty has exploded once they began to actually implement free market policies, in fact. Their productivity lagged the rest of the world until just recently (relatively). They are actually evidence for the opposite of what you are saying.
You are seriously going to argue that the massive explosion in human productive output in the last century is caused by something other then free market capitalism? What might that be?
Technological advancement, maybe? Now, you might argue that that's caused by free market capitalism, and sure, that may be partly so, but I wouldn't put all this advancement and increase in productivity as solely caused by capitalism. I would say that social development, in particular towards freer society, is a bigger cause. After all, Russia moved towards free market, insanely uncontrolled capitalism in the 1990s, yet that did not help their productivity explode. In the recent years, there are also increasingly many indicators that allowing capitalism to freely control the terms and conditions of work is not good for productivity - it has been found that shorter work hours increase productivity, for example.
One would have to ignore the significant funding governments give to scientific endeavors to suggest that something called the free market is solely responsible for innovation.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 04:57:47 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 03:28:58 PM
China's productivty has exploded once they began to actually implement free market policies, in fact. Their productivity lagged the rest of the world until just recently (relatively). They are actually evidence for the opposite of what you are saying.
You are seriously going to argue that the massive explosion in human productive output in the last century is caused by something other then free market capitalism? What might that be?
Technological advancement, maybe? Now, you might argue that that's caused by free market capitalism, and sure, that may be partly so, but I wouldn't put all this advancement and increase in productivity as solely caused by capitalism. I would say that social development, in particular towards freer society, is a bigger cause. After all, Russia moved towards free market, insanely uncontrolled capitalism in the 1990s, yet that did not help their productivity explode. In the recent years, there are also increasingly many indicators that allowing capitalism to freely control the terms and conditions of work is not good for productivity - it has been found that shorter work hours increase productivity, for example.
No argument from me - I don't think the free market alone has done this by any means. It is the free market combined with liberal ideals, and a hell of a lot of technology.
But that free market is absolutely a necessary condition. I did not claim it was "solely" caused by capitalism. Why do you guys insist on adding in extra bullshit to argue against, instead of what I did say?
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 07, 2021, 05:03:47 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 04:57:47 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 03:28:58 PM
China's productivty has exploded once they began to actually implement free market policies, in fact. Their productivity lagged the rest of the world until just recently (relatively). They are actually evidence for the opposite of what you are saying.
You are seriously going to argue that the massive explosion in human productive output in the last century is caused by something other then free market capitalism? What might that be?
Technological advancement, maybe? Now, you might argue that that's caused by free market capitalism, and sure, that may be partly so, but I wouldn't put all this advancement and increase in productivity as solely caused by capitalism. I would say that social development, in particular towards freer society, is a bigger cause. After all, Russia moved towards free market, insanely uncontrolled capitalism in the 1990s, yet that did not help their productivity explode. In the recent years, there are also increasingly many indicators that allowing capitalism to freely control the terms and conditions of work is not good for productivity - it has been found that shorter work hours increase productivity, for example.
One would have to ignore the significant funding governments give to scientific endeavors to suggest that something called the free market is solely responsible for innovation.
This is why it is such a waste of time to bother engaging with you. Nobody said anything about the free market being solely responsible - you just make shit up, constantly. It is just dishonest.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 04:57:47 PM
After all, Russia moved towards free market, insanely uncontrolled capitalism in the 1990s, yet that did not help their productivity explode.
Huh? I don't think any reasonable person is going to argue that Russian transition to capitalism was an example for others to copy, but seriously? You're going to argue that Russian transition to capitalism did not lead to incredible gains in productivity? Obviously there was a painful transition from communism for a while, not helped by incredible corruption and gangsterism, but it's really not that hard to improve dramatically from this:
(https://cdn.greatlifepublishing.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2019/12/27180000/rf3-728x462.jpg)
Quote from: Zoupa on June 07, 2021, 04:34:20 PM
Feels like Berkypoo is having an argument with himself. Nobody is arguing to collectivize the means of production. Progressives are just asking for a fair(er) piece of the pie for everybody.
Uhh, I am a progressive.
And plenty of people argue against free markets and capitalism. Not all progressives by any means - but look at the rhetoric out of Robert Reich and the continual cries about the evils of capitalism in general.
"Progressives" are a large group. Broadly speaking, they do in fact just ask for a fairer piece of the pie. Obviously I consider myselves one of them, and am not talking about all progressives. Is that not obvious?
QuoteWhy don't you head down to the nearest food bank with your charts and yell at those people that they should be thankful they're not starving.
Why would I do that?
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 05:26:20 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 07, 2021, 05:03:47 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 04:57:47 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 03:28:58 PM
China's productivty has exploded once they began to actually implement free market policies, in fact. Their productivity lagged the rest of the world until just recently (relatively). They are actually evidence for the opposite of what you are saying.
You are seriously going to argue that the massive explosion in human productive output in the last century is caused by something other then free market capitalism? What might that be?
Technological advancement, maybe? Now, you might argue that that's caused by free market capitalism, and sure, that may be partly so, but I wouldn't put all this advancement and increase in productivity as solely caused by capitalism. I would say that social development, in particular towards freer society, is a bigger cause. After all, Russia moved towards free market, insanely uncontrolled capitalism in the 1990s, yet that did not help their productivity explode. In the recent years, there are also increasingly many indicators that allowing capitalism to freely control the terms and conditions of work is not good for productivity - it has been found that shorter work hours increase productivity, for example.
One would have to ignore the significant funding governments give to scientific endeavors to suggest that something called the free market is solely responsible for innovation.
This is why it is such a waste of time to bother engaging with you. Nobody said anything about the free market being solely responsible - you just make shit up, constantly. It is just dishonest.
I was responding Solmyr's post that one might argue that tech advancement is caused by free market capitalism. Please take more time to read what others are posting.
edit: and dare I ask what you think the word progressive means, now that you claim to be one. I am surprised someone who argues free market capitalism is the answer would make such a claim. But maybe we have completely different understandings of those concepts.
I think you have to really read my posts very, very selectively to get the idea that I am not progressive, even in the context of this thread.
Which makes me wonder if for some people, the very idea that someone could be arguing in favor of the the power of the free market to drive productivity defines them as not being progressive?
I don't know who Robert Reich is. As you've probably noticed over the last 20 years, I'm pretty well versed in American politics/culture. So you might be overstating that dude's influence/importance.
I've yet to hear Sanders say "Capitalism is the problem". I'm sure he said something like "unfettered capitalism is the problem". His main proposals boil down to a living wage and universal healthcare, stuff that every other western democracy has achieved (with varying successes depending on your metrics).
So in conclusion, I think you're inventing a strawman to argue against. You of course have the right to be "annoyed the shit out of me" about what you think the "left" gets wrong about economics, but might I suggest focusing your energies instead on preventing your country from becoming a fascist failed state.
Just a thought.
Clinton's sec Labor I think.
So a Secretary of Labor from 6 administrations ago...
Quote from: Zoupa on June 07, 2021, 05:53:55 PM
I don't know who Robert Reich is. As you've probably noticed over the last 20 years, I'm pretty well versed in American politics/culture. So you might be overstating that dude's influence/importance.
I would certainly dispute the idea that you are at all well versed in American politics. You are well versed in this kind of narrative of American politics that most Americans have very little recognition of - comments like telling me I should focus on preventing the US from becoming a "failed fascist state" are a fine example of that in fact. In any case...
QuoteRobert Bernard Reich (/raɪʃ/;[2] born June 24, 1946) is an American economist, professor, author, and political commentator.[3] He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, as well as serving as the United States Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 under President Bill Clinton.[4][5] He was a member of President Barack Obama's economic transition advisory board.[6]
Reich has been the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley since January 2006.[7] He was formerly a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government[8] and professor of social and economic policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management of Brandeis University. He has also been a contributing editor of The New Republic, The American Prospect (also chairman and founding editor), Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
If you don't know who he is, I suggest perhaps that is more evidence that you are not particulary as "well versed" as you imagine.
Quote
I've yet to hear Sanders say "Capitalism is the problem". I'm sure he said something like "unfettered capitalism is the problem".
Unfettered capitalism is *a* problem, but it is not THE problem.
Capitalism and the free market have been shown to be the solution to the historic problem of "A lot of people live in abject poverty, what should we do about that?". Not the only part of the solution of course - technology, liberal democratic ideals, lots of other things go into it as well. But the simple reality is that if you want people to have more food and clothes and education, *producing* more of all those things is almost certainly the most important part of achieving those goals.
And the world has in fact achieved a lot of those goals, and to pretend that the data that shows a consistent rise in human overall quality of life right along with that rise in human production driven by the engine of the free market is somehow not real....well that is EXACTLY the problem I am talking about.
Quote
His main proposals boil down to a living wage and universal healthcare, stuff that every other western democracy has achieved (with varying successes depending on your metrics).
And those are good proposals. Mostly.
But he should couch them in terms of what the market can bear, not on some polyanna view on how the world ought to be. We should have universal health care because we are the beneficiaries of a free market economy that has been spectacularly successful at increasing the GDP such that we can afford to have universal healthcare.
Just like we didn't have universal education for most of human history - because we could not afford it. Just like we didn't have universal not starving to death for most of human history - because we could not afford it.
Quote
So in conclusion, I think you're inventing a strawman to argue against. You of course have the right to be "annoyed the shit out of me" about what you think the "left" gets wrong about economics, but might I suggest focusing your energies instead on preventing your country from becoming a fascist failed state.
Just a thought.
Thanks. I will keep that in mind.
Funny how mad the crazy left gets if you even hint that maybe they should look at data and facts. Odd, that.
In regards to Reich, I actually will walk back a little bit - I actually like the guy. I think his basic ideas are sound.
But his presence in the media is this constant attacks on capitalism without much nuance. I've read his pieces and his books, and his basic policy positions are fine, he is basically concerned about wealth inequality and the powers of corporations to pervert politics. All good stuff.
My intention was to use his rhetoric as an example of how the left seems to forget that not only have things improved radically (IE, we are actually winning and should be proud of that), but that the best way to get the poor to have more stuff is to in fact produce more stuff. That isn't the end of the fix of course, but I can pretty much guarantee that it is, by far, the most effective start of the solution.
Quote from: Zoupa on June 07, 2021, 06:00:18 PM
So a Secretary of Labor from 6 administrations ago...
Yes but he's famous for being a talking head. Wrote lots of books, on TV all the time. Sort of the left answer to Larry Kudlow, although smarter than Kudlow and without the drug problem.
Quote from: Zoupa on June 07, 2021, 06:00:18 PM
So a Secretary of Labor from 6 administrations ago...
He writes for the Guardian and has been a prof at Berkeley for a number of years.
Not completely surprised you have not heard of him, he is not one of the usual talking heads on US channels although he does get some air time. I follow the guy on social media platforms. I think he makes a lot of good points.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 05:41:26 PM
I think you have to really read my posts very, very selectively to get the idea that I am not progressive, even in the context of this thread.
Which makes me wonder if for some people, the very idea that someone could be arguing in favor of the the power of the free market to drive productivity defines them as not being progressive?
Ok, rather than assertion, explain to me how someone who believes in something called free market capitalism, which by definition is a proponent of no or limited government intervention can also be a progressive who by definition believes government intervention of some sort is necessary and good.
This must be another of those terms that changes meaning after it hits the American border.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 04:57:47 PM
Technological advancement, maybe? Now, you might argue that that's caused by free market capitalism, and sure, that may be partly so, but I wouldn't put all this advancement and increase in productivity as solely caused by capitalism. I would say that social development, in particular towards freer society, is a bigger cause. After all, Russia moved towards free market, insanely uncontrolled capitalism in the 1990s, yet that did not help their productivity explode. In the recent years, there are also increasingly many indicators that allowing capitalism to freely control the terms and conditions of work is not good for productivity - it has been found that shorter work hours increase productivity, for example.
Russia didn't move towards a free market economy, and that was why their economy didn't take off. They moved towards crony capitalism, which is the opposite of market capitalism.
I have no idea what social development, in particular towards freer society means in economic terms. Markets provide freedom in economics.
Companies that employ working conditions that reduce productivity go out of business in a market economy. Lately, many have been able to stay afloat through vertical and horizontal expansion (like, say, Amazon) but Amazon can't keep drivers and warehouse workers while treating them like that, in a growth economy. Economic stagnation (like that in countries that eschewed market economics) is what allows firms to treat workers like shit. Soviet firms were not employee-friendly, for instance.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 06:07:54 PM
Funny how mad the crazy left gets if you even hint that maybe they should look at data and facts. Odd, that.
Sorry, just trying to understand your little bubble here, but are you calling me crazy and saying I'm acting all mad? :mellow:
Sigh...
Quote from: Zoupa on June 07, 2021, 09:15:04 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 06:07:54 PM
Funny how mad the crazy left gets if you even hint that maybe they should look at data and facts. Odd, that.
Sorry, just trying to understand your little bubble here, but are you calling me crazy and saying I'm acting all mad? :mellow:
Sigh...
I really wish I knew how to post a meme of Homer Simpson saying - Free Market Capitalism - the cause of and solution to all society's problems.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 05:29:08 PM
QuoteWhy don't you head down to the nearest food bank with your charts and yell at those people that they should be thankful they're not starving.
Why would I do that?
Because Zoupipoo loves red herrings?
Quote from: grumbler on June 07, 2021, 10:57:05 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 05:29:08 PM
QuoteWhy don't you head down to the nearest food bank with your charts and yell at those people that they should be thankful they're not starving.
Why would I do that?
Because Zoupipoo loves red herrings?
I wonder if Zoupa has ever actually been at a food bank because he actually needs food from one?
I have. I grew up in poverty. I remember eating dinner at the church because we had no food in the house. I remember being mortified in elementary school because I had to go in shoes that had holes in them, or clothes that we got from the donated clothing places.
I sure do love getting a sanctimonious lecture about food banks and welfare and charity. They have so much to teach me!
Glad to know you voted for Sanders twice then :)
Why do we now have two threads about your views on what different sides of the political spectrum get wrong on economics? What was the goal here?
QuoteIn regards to Reich, I actually will walk back a little bit - I actually like the guy. I think his basic ideas are sound.
But his presence in the media is this constant attacks on capitalism without much nuance. I've read his pieces and his books, and his basic policy positions are fine, he is basically concerned about wealth inequality and the powers of corporations to pervert politics. All good stuff.
My intention was to use his rhetoric as an example of how the left seems to forget that not only have things improved radically (IE, we are actually winning and should be proud of that), but that the best way to get the poor to have more stuff is to in fact produce more stuff. That isn't the end of the fix of course, but I can pretty much guarantee that it is, by far, the most effective start of the solution.
And then you melt the ice caps and fuck up the planet and everyone is substantially worse off.
The more production = better quality of life stuff is the old consensus since god knows how long. Pretty sure even Marx was on board with this.
Now things are changing as we recognise this might have unforeseen side effects.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 07, 2021, 03:20:44 PM
Quote from: Tyr on June 07, 2021, 03:08:06 PM
Wut?
This is the rights major blind spot. They're all about immediate cause and effect.
Close some loss making industries to save a few million? Pure common sense logic! Let's do it!... That the damage this brings about costs in the billions not to mention the massive human impact.... Well that's not to be considered.
The left meanwhile are all about not particularly obvious links between on the surface seemingly disconnected issues. For instance invest invest in society to reduce the crime rate.
This of course is a key advantage of the right. Their stuff is a lot more hit the nail with the hammer and easier to sell.
I'll hold you to your word: what are the second order effects of "investing investing in society to reduce the crime rate?"
The correlation between higher education levels, employment rates, etc... are well observed.
Quote from: Tyr on June 08, 2021, 03:14:21 AM
The correlation between higher education levels, employment rates, etc... are well observed.
Can you conceive of any negative second order effects?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 08, 2021, 03:19:15 AM
Quote from: Tyr on June 08, 2021, 03:14:21 AM
The correlation between higher education levels, employment rates, etc... are well observed.
Can you conceive of any negative second order effects?
Not beyond it costing money. Though cut backs in this sphere is one area where the typical conservative motto of penny wise pound foolish tends to really come into play.
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 05:29:08 PM
And plenty of people argue against free markets and capitalism. Not all progressives by any means - but look at the rhetoric out of Robert Reich and the continual cries about the evils of capitalism in general.
Free markets and capitalism are not the same thing, incidentally. I don't think anyone is arguing against (regulated) free markets, but capitalism clearly has a bunch of problems that have been especially visible in the recent couple of decades (e.g. placing shareholder value above any other considerations, ignoring climate change, etc.), and it's perfectly valid to argue against it.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 08, 2021, 03:35:21 AM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 05:29:08 PM
And plenty of people argue against free markets and capitalism. Not all progressives by any means - but look at the rhetoric out of Robert Reich and the continual cries about the evils of capitalism in general.
Free markets and capitalism are not the same thing, incidentally. I don't think anyone is arguing against (regulated) free markets, but capitalism clearly has a bunch of problems that have been especially visible in the recent couple of decades (e.g. placing shareholder value above any other considerations, ignoring climate change, etc.), and it's perfectly valid to argue against it.
Companies are (by nature, I'd argue) always keen on internalizing profits and externalizing costs. If they don't have to pay for long term effects of their business (e.g. environmental damage or climate change), there's no reason for them to work towards minimizing those effects beyond token efforts for positive PR.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 08, 2021, 03:35:21 AM
Free markets and capitalism are not the same thing, incidentally. I don't think anyone is arguing against (regulated) free markets, but capitalism clearly has a bunch of problems that have been especially visible in the recent couple of decades (e.g. placing shareholder value above any other considerations, ignoring climate change, etc.), and it's perfectly valid to argue against it.
Is it also a problem with capitalism when employees and consumers look out for their own interests?
Quote from: Syt on June 08, 2021, 03:44:26 AM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 08, 2021, 03:35:21 AM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 05:29:08 PM
And plenty of people argue against free markets and capitalism. Not all progressives by any means - but look at the rhetoric out of Robert Reich and the continual cries about the evils of capitalism in general.
Free markets and capitalism are not the same thing, incidentally. I don't think anyone is arguing against (regulated) free markets, but capitalism clearly has a bunch of problems that have been especially visible in the recent couple of decades (e.g. placing shareholder value above any other considerations, ignoring climate change, etc.), and it's perfectly valid to argue against it.
Companies are (by nature, I'd argue) always keen on internalizing profits and externalizing costs. If they don't have to pay for long term effects of their business (e.g. environmental damage or climate change), there's no reason for them to work towards minimizing those effects beyond token efforts for positive PR.
True, and that's why such things should be criticized more and companies made to pay for damaging things they do. :)
Problematic when some companies have such market power at this point and the financial means to heavily influence political decision processes.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 08, 2021, 03:50:18 AM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 08, 2021, 03:35:21 AM
Free markets and capitalism are not the same thing, incidentally. I don't think anyone is arguing against (regulated) free markets, but capitalism clearly has a bunch of problems that have been especially visible in the recent couple of decades (e.g. placing shareholder value above any other considerations, ignoring climate change, etc.), and it's perfectly valid to argue against it.
Is it also a problem with capitalism when employees and consumers look out for their own interests?
Employees, no. Consumers, yes.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 08, 2021, 03:35:21 AM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 05:29:08 PM
And plenty of people argue against free markets and capitalism. Not all progressives by any means - but look at the rhetoric out of Robert Reich and the continual cries about the evils of capitalism in general.
Free markets and capitalism are not the same thing, incidentally. I don't think anyone is arguing against (regulated) free markets, but capitalism clearly has a bunch of problems that have been especially visible in the recent couple of decades (e.g. placing shareholder value above any other considerations, ignoring climate change, etc.), and it's perfectly valid to argue against it.
It's perfectly valid to argue against the things about capitalism that you mention, and one can even argue that doing so is actually arguing IN FAVOR of better capitalism - a capitalism that actually captures and considers all the costs of doing business, rather then just some of them.
But arguing that capitalism itself is the problem is, well....idiotic. It is the very thing that has gotten us to a place where so many of the defining problems of humanity that the left is supposed to be motivated to improve are in fact at their very lowest points, and dramatically so.
Your argument, to me anyway, is like saying "Cars are the worst ever! We should get rid of them and we would all be better off!" in like 1950. Then when someone points out how great cars are, and wonders what alternative to them you are proposing, you say "Well, people get killed all the time when they crash and the brakes don't work well!". Well, lets get seatbelts and better testing and crumple zones and better designed highways. All of which we did, and now people dying in cars is certainly still a problem, but it happens at somethiing like 1/20th the rate it did then.
Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2021, 07:28:46 AM
Your argument, to me anyway, is like saying "Cars are the worst ever! We should get rid of them and we would all be better off!" in like 1950.
Well we have people saying that now in 2021 on our forum. :D
Quote from: Tyr on June 08, 2021, 03:14:21 AM
QuoteIn regards to Reich, I actually will walk back a little bit - I actually like the guy. I think his basic ideas are sound.
But his presence in the media is this constant attacks on capitalism without much nuance. I've read his pieces and his books, and his basic policy positions are fine, he is basically concerned about wealth inequality and the powers of corporations to pervert politics. All good stuff.
My intention was to use his rhetoric as an example of how the left seems to forget that not only have things improved radically (IE, we are actually winning and should be proud of that), but that the best way to get the poor to have more stuff is to in fact produce more stuff. That isn't the end of the fix of course, but I can pretty much guarantee that it is, by far, the most effective start of the solution.
And then you melt the ice caps and fuck up the planet and everyone is substantially worse off.
So fix that problem as well.
But I can guarantee you that the solution to climate change is not going to be "produce less stuff". I promise you that is the case. We will either destroy the planet and end human civilization, or we will have to come up with a better solution.
And we know what that better solution is going to look like. In fact, we can see the outlines of it in the data right now.
Richer countries have more space to pollute less per capita, and the wealth to better internalize and deal with the costs of pollution and climate damage. Once again, the answer is not wishing the world and humans were somehow different then they are, but actually leveraging the very things we are good at.
Quote
The more production = better quality of life stuff is the old consensus since god knows how long. Pretty sure even Marx was on board with this.
Now things are changing as we recognise this might have unforeseen side effects.
The existence of unforeseen side effects has always been foreseen. :)
More production of stuff does equate to better quality of life. THis is not going to change. And in fact has been directly responsible for literally saving hundreds of millions of lives. Children's lives. People who would have died horribly, literally hundreds of millions of them, are alive today because of that entire "more production is better" idea.
That doesn't mean we ignore the externalities, but it does mean that the solution to those externalities is never, ever going to be "produce less stuff".
And therein lies the core of my issues with what I see as the crazy left. If we want Brazil to stop burning down their rain forests, then the answer to that problem is not rallies and demands that people not eat beef or sternly worded notes to Brazil. None of that is going to work.
You know what WOULD work? More technology. Figure out how to make it so we can make beef without needing to clear burn rain forests (for example).
Or if the rich nations find this a problem, then pony the fuck up - make it financially more lucrative for Brazil to not burn them down. Buy them. Lease them. Make the market work in our favor - align the incentives of the humans involved.
The historical data is clear. Make the world richer, and the world will spend more of that wealth on the poor. Richer countries spend more on social spending then poor companies. Rich countries are more willing to allocate resources towards clean energy then poor countries. The examples go on and on and on and on.
I can guarantee you that the solution to climate change is at least partly going to be "consume less stuff" which likely leads to producing less stuff as well.
And you seem to have a lot of faith in trickle down (if rich people get more then poor people also get more), and in a country's wealth correlating to the quality of its social spending. As it happens, the wealthiest countries like the US or China have significantly worse social programs than comparatively poorer European countries.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 08, 2021, 08:08:56 AM
I can guarantee you that the solution to climate change is at least partly going to be "consume less stuff" which likely leads to producing less stuff as well.
And you seem to have a lot of faith in trickle down (if rich people get more then poor people also get more), and in a country's wealth correlating to the quality of its social spending. As it happens, the wealthiest countries like the US or China have significantly worse social programs than comparatively poorer European countries.
This is not "trickle down", at least not in the iditioc way the right thinks about it. It is the case that if we produce more stuff, more of that stuff makes it way through society. That is not theory - it is a fact, and not one that is in dispute, so far as I am aware.
Obviously there are various level of social spending among like wealthy countries, again - not in dispute.
Two countries that both have roughly equivalent per capita GDP can of course choose to spend differing amount on social spending. And that means that there will be cases where some countries simply choose to spend less. But that doesn't mean that increasing GDP even for those that choose to spend less, will not increase wealth for the poor - it will just increase less.
And this is a good argument to have, and one we SHOULD have! It is, I contend, the very fundamental argument liberal free market economies ought to be having. Should we spend 23% like the US, or 30%, like France?
In either case, the argument should not be "Lets produce less!" or to forget that whether we dedicate 22% or 30%, increasing the total amount will in fact increase amount in actual spend spent for those who need help, AND increasing the amount per capita will do the same.
That is not faith in "trickle down" that is just basic freaking math.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 08, 2021, 08:08:56 AM
I can guarantee you that the solution to climate change is at least partly going to be "consume less stuff" which likely leads to producing less stuff as well.
I think the solution will include producing less particular stuff. Like coal power. But it will be because we transition to producing some other stuff to replace it.
I would be willing to bet my entire salary that the only way actual human production in aggregate ever declines is some catastrophe. It will never happen voluntarily. That catastrophe could very well be mis-managing the climate crisis.
Define stuff.
Producing less stuff is definitely the way to fix climate change and the way to becoming richer- the knowledge economy being far more profitable than churning out tonnes of plastic tat.
The big problem in the world today that again wasn't foreseen by Marx and co with the idea that produce more=be richer is that our capacity to manufacture has drastically outstripped our capacity to consume.
No longer is manufacturing capacity the limiting factor in growth, rather its consumption capacity.
With the rise in increased automation, 3D printing, etc... I really can see 'making more stuff' in the physical sense completely falling off the radar of things countries aim for. Having raw materials is still important, designing is more important than ever, the actual manufacturing....ever more less so.
Hell. There are many circumstances in which producing less makes perfect business sense. The Chinese method of mass cheap manufacture is only one way, there's also for instance the Swiss watch industry which makes a fortune producing in very limited qualities.
I really do hope we move away from our current system which is leaning heavily towards the Chinese way of buying a £5 t-shirt every year and throwing it away and more towards paying more for better quality stuff that lasts you longer. Its win-win-win all round.
And lets not even consider the sheer amount of stuff produced in vain which is never sold and is simply thrown away as waste. Cutting back on waste is a area where environmentalists and kaizen obsessed capitalists are really in alignment. This too comes down to make less stuff.
For your point on the crazy left and Brazil burning down the forest- eh? Aren't the left proposing exactly what you're talking about, putting in place incentives for Brazil to keep the forest? One proposal I recall hearing not too long ago was very literally to just pay Brazil to rent the forest and leave it intact.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 08, 2021, 08:08:56 AM
I can guarantee you that the solution to climate change is at least partly going to be "consume less stuff" which likely leads to producing less stuff as well.
There are a lot of potential solutions to human driven climate change. I suppose the only true sure-fired guaranteed way is to eradicate all humans. That would definitely put an end to human-cause climate change.
Of course there are many ways short of total eradication of human presence on earth that can be effective. For example, altering modes of production of energy, transportation, goods and services such that there is no net input of carbon into the atmosphere. That does not require or imply an overall reduction in the quantity of goods and services produced.
Quote from: Tyr on June 08, 2021, 08:49:17 AM
Define stuff.
Producing less stuff is definitely the way to fix climate change and the way to becoming richer- the knowledge economy being far more profitable than churning out tonnes of plastic tat.
The big problem in the world today that again wasn't foreseen by Marx and co with the idea that produce more=be richer is that our capacity to manufacture has drastically outstripped our capacity to consume.
No longer is manufacturing capacity the limiting factor in growth, rather its consumption capacity.
With the rise in increased automation, 3D printing, etc... I really can see 'making more stuff' in the physical sense completely falling off the radar of things countries aim for. Having raw materials is still important, designing is more important than ever, the actual manufacturing....ever more less so.
Hell. There are many circumstances in which producing less makes perfect business sense. The Chinese method of mass cheap manufacture is only one way, there's also for instance the Swiss watch industry which makes loads producing in very limited qualities.
I really do hope we move away from our current system which is leaning heavily towards the Chinese way of buying a £5 t-shirt every year and throwing it away and more towards paying more for better quality stuff that lasts you longer. Its win-win-win all round.
And lets not even consider the sheer amount of stuff produced in vain which is never sold and is simply thrown away as waste. Cutting back on waste is a area where environmentalists and kaizen obsessed capitalists are really in alignment. This too comes down to make less stuff.
For your point on the crazy left and Brazil burning down the forest- eh? Aren't the left proposing exactly what you're talking about, putting in place incentives for Brazil to keep the forest? One proposal I recall hearing not too long ago was very literally to just pay Brazil to rent the forest and leave it intact.
Gross product.
Yes, we certainly can produce less specific items. Some items we used to produce we do not produce at all anymore.
And yes, in the specific, it makes perfect sense to get out of the horseshoe making business.
And in fact, the "thing" that has the key effect on efficiently deciding what specific items ought to be produced, and what ought not be produced, is that ever despised free market that determines how the stuff is priced, and hence what stuff ought to be made.
Stuff is not necessarily physical. I don't produce anything physical myself in my job, I manage software creation. It is still stuff.
Quote from: Tyr on June 08, 2021, 08:49:17 AM
For your point on the crazy left and Brazil burning down the forest- eh? Aren't the left proposing exactly what you're talking about, putting in place incentives for Brazil to keep the forest? One proposal I recall hearing not too long ago was very literally to just pay Brazil to rent the forest and leave it intact.
Perhaps my meaning overall was not clear.
This is not things that every person on the left gets wrong by any means - it is things that SOME people on the left get wrong.
It's like talking about identity politics and cancel culture. Obviously not everyone is all for allowing the mob to shout down opinions it doesn't like. But some are...and when we talk about that being a problem in the left, it is talking about those who promote that particular attitude.
More broadly speaking (and I think this thread illustrates it well) there are plenty on the left who really seem to hate data and facts, because it gets in the way of their narrative of the Evil Corporations and Capitalists ruining the world and exploiting the downtrodden who cannot catch a break.
Look at Zoupa - his response to being shown data that shows what he thought was true was wrong was to tell me I should go hang out in a soup kitchen. It's funny, if I told garbon to go learn something about black people, I would be rightly vilified and ostracized. But Zoupa can lecture someone who almost certainly has experienced much, much worse poverty then he has* and it goes without comment. But that is a different problem.
*Of course I don't know if he has or not, since I don't know his background. But statistically, it is pretty damn unlikely he has - of course, I would never condescend to lecture him on it either way, since I don't know his personal experience.
Quote
Stuff is not necessarily physical. I don't produce anything physical myself in my job, I manage software creation. It is still stuff.
Fair enough if thats how you're defining it. You won't find many on the left who are opposed to producing more in this sense though. When you see talk of cutting back and producing left it tends to be very much with an eye on the physical.
QuoteAnd in fact, the "thing" that has the key effect on efficiently deciding what specific items ought to be produced, and what ought not be produced, is that ever despised free market that determines how the stuff is priced, and hence what stuff ought to be made.
Yes. However it is flawed. By nature of the free market you'll get loads of companies chasing the lucrative widget market and churning out 10,000 widgets for a possible market of only 1,000.
With time will the market adjust to eliminate this over production, but the less talented manufacturers out of business, etc....? Sure.
But in the meantime there's so many resources that have just gone to waste in pursuing this goal that the market has dictated is the most lucrative.
Meanwhile there might be a far less lucrative market in producing gizmos which is poorly served as the maths just don't make business sense (and it has already hit the upper limit of what prices could feasibly rise to) despite the fact that these gizmos could be necessary for e.g. disabled people to have a decent quality of life. This is where government might come in with various incentives to guide the market in a useful direction.
This is particularly useful in the modern world in the digital sphere where a few people with an idea really can come up with something big. In a land where the market is left to itself however few will be brave enough to try this even if they think they have a decent idea. Only the rich can innovate whilst somebody who is really smart but from a working class background might decide to keep working his high paying 9 to 5 in the code-mill is the best option. Create a decent social safety net however and you can maximise the innovative potential of your population. People won't feel quite so scared of striking out and trying to start a business.
Hell. At the core level even just getting this smart working class kid into a position where he learns these skills can be tough in a libertarian wonderland. He wouldn't have gone to a good school. He wouldn't have been able to concentrate in class. He might never even realise the thing he becomes a genius in exists.
Yes yes there are plenty of exceptions out there of people from crap backgrounds who overcame adversity to succeed. But these are vastly outnumbered, especially in proportion to the population as a whole, by those from wealthy backgrounds doing the same. This 'Digital is overwhelmingly dominated by rich white guys' thing is a genuine problem in the industry that means a lot of talent is lost.
The market as fire analogy is strong.
QuoteMore broadly speaking (and I think this thread illustrates it well) there are plenty on the left who really seem to hate data and facts, because it gets in the way of their narrative of the Evil Corporations and Capitalists ruining the world and exploiting the downtrodden who cannot catch a break.
Again... wut?
This is far more common on the right I find.
The left is the politics of data, of science. The right is the politics of emotion.
This has long been a key criticism the right has aimed at the left in fact. That amidst their devotion to rationality they can forget the human.
QuoteLook at Zoupa - his response to being shown data that shows what he thought was true was wrong was to tell me I should go hang out in a soup kitchen. It's funny, if I told garbon to go learn something about black people, I would be rightly vilified and ostracized. But Zoupa can lecture someone who almost certainly has experienced much, much worse poverty then he has* and it goes without comment. But that is a different problem.
I don't think its the fact that poverty is less of an issue than it has been in other times and places that he found objectionable. Rather the insinuation that this somehow matters.
Is poverty in the US lower than in the past? Sure. I believe it.
But could it be lower with a more empathetic government that actually paid attention to the situation and did something to try and fix it? Almost certainly. Just compare the data with other countries.
Quote from: Tyr on June 08, 2021, 09:24:54 AM
Quote
Stuff is not necessarily physical. I don't produce anything physical myself in my job, I manage software creation. It is still stuff.
Fair enough if thats how you're defining it. You won't find many on the left who are opposed to producing more in this sense though. When you see talk of cutting back and producing left it tends to be very much with an eye on the physical.
QuoteAnd in fact, the "thing" that has the key effect on efficiently deciding what specific items ought to be produced, and what ought not be produced, is that ever despised free market that determines how the stuff is priced, and hence what stuff ought to be made.
Yes. However it is flawed. By nature of the free market you'll get loads of companies chasing the lucrative widget market and churning out 10,000 widgets for a possible market of only 1,000.
With time will the market adjust to eliminate this over production, but the less talented manufacturers out of business, etc....? Sure.
But in the meantime there's so many resources that have just gone to waste in pursuing this goal that the market has dictated is the most lucrative.
That....that is not how a market works.
The nature of the free market does NOT gets loads of companies chasing a "lucrative" market that then magically turns out to not be lucrative.
It just...I don't even know where to begin on how you either don't understand how a market works, or maybe are just articulating it poorly.
Quote from: Tyr on June 08, 2021, 09:24:54 AM
I don't think its the fact that poverty is less of an issue than it has been in other times and places that he found objectionable. Rather the insinuation that this somehow matters.
Is poverty in the US lower than in the past? Sure. I believe it.
But could it be lower with a more empathetic government that actually paid attention to the situation and did something to try and fix it? Almost certainly. Just compare the data with other countries.
The insinuation that it doesn't matter IS the problem!
If you concede that poverty is a much, much, MUCH smaller problem (and it is) but you want to make it even smaller....then wouldn't it be pretty damn critical to
A) Recognize that the problem has declined massively, and
B) Understand WHY it has done that, so
C) You can best figure out how to continue doing what is working already so as to make the problem even smaller?
Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2021, 09:30:29 AM
That....that is not how a market works.
The nature of the free market does NOT gets loads of companies chasing a "lucrative" market that then magically turns out to not be lucrative.
It just...I don't even know where to begin on how you either don't understand how a market works, or maybe are just articulating it poorly.
Sure it is. It happens all the time.
Its pretty standard with new markets that you tend to have a bunch of companies challenging to be the one dominating it at first and steadily some fail.
Its not so much that the market which seems lucrative turns out not to be (though this happens too), rather that there's only a certain size of market available and far more stuff produced to fill it than there are slots. This isn't a static number of course, it can rise and fall based on various factors, but that companies can fail to get a significant slice of a market is pretty standard.
QuoteThe insinuation that it doesn't matter IS the problem!
If you concede that poverty is a much, much, MUCH smaller problem (and it is) but you want to make it even smaller....then wouldn't it be pretty damn critical to
A) Recognize that the problem has declined massively, and
B) Understand WHY it has done that, so
C) You can best figure out how to continue doing what is working already so as to make the problem even smaller?
The problem here is correlation doesn't equal causation.
Until Obama the US had always had white guys for president. The US had risen from a peripheral part of the world to a global superpower. Does that mean voting for someone who isn't a white guy is an error?
A silly example of course but this can be seen even in data points where there might be more believable links. Sticking on the race thing here for some reason but one I have seen is right wingers boasting about how the cities in the US with the highest crime rate also tend to have the highest black population.
Nobody is doubting that this is a fact.
But their insinuation that this is definitely due to black people being natural criminals.... well no.
Also important to consider when analysing data is that even where you can be sure there is a correlation between two factors this doesn't necessarily mean that this factor is definitely the best way to go. For instance if you're designing an application and you notice making the menu button bigger definitely leads to more people clicking the menu button and ultimately to an uptick in conversions.... This doesn't necessarily mean doing away with the menu and having search functionality might not be an even better way to get better results for your goal.
The thing is with this poverty example we see pretty striking evidence that countries with effective social systems have far less of an issue with this than do countries where liberalism runs rampant.
Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2021, 07:28:46 AM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 08, 2021, 03:35:21 AM
Quote from: Berkut on June 07, 2021, 05:29:08 PM
And plenty of people argue against free markets and capitalism. Not all progressives by any means - but look at the rhetoric out of Robert Reich and the continual cries about the evils of capitalism in general.
Free markets and capitalism are not the same thing, incidentally. I don't think anyone is arguing against (regulated) free markets, but capitalism clearly has a bunch of problems that have been especially visible in the recent couple of decades (e.g. placing shareholder value above any other considerations, ignoring climate change, etc.), and it's perfectly valid to argue against it.
It's perfectly valid to argue against the things about capitalism that you mention, and one can even argue that doing so is actually arguing IN FAVOR of better capitalism - a capitalism that actually captures and considers all the costs of doing business, rather then just some of them.
But arguing that capitalism itself is the problem is, well....idiotic. It is the very thing that has gotten us to a place where so many of the defining problems of humanity that the left is supposed to be motivated to improve are in fact at their very lowest points, and dramatically so.
Your argument, to me anyway, is like saying "Cars are the worst ever! We should get rid of them and we would all be better off!" in like 1950. Then when someone points out how great cars are, and wonders what alternative to them you are proposing, you say "Well, people get killed all the time when they crash and the brakes don't work well!". Well, lets get seatbelts and better testing and crumple zones and better designed highways. All of which we did, and now people dying in cars is certainly still a problem, but it happens at somethiing like 1/20th the rate it did then.
Capitalism is not the very thing that has improved the human condition. You have gone from data which says the human condition has improved, to a very problematic conclusion for the cause of that happening.
Without the New Deal capitalism in the US would have imploded on itself. You delude yourself when you ignore all the benefits of government intervention, support and regulation along the way.
Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2021, 09:30:29 AM
Quote from: Tyr on June 08, 2021, 09:24:54 AM
Quote
Stuff is not necessarily physical. I don't produce anything physical myself in my job, I manage software creation. It is still stuff.
Fair enough if thats how you're defining it. You won't find many on the left who are opposed to producing more in this sense though. When you see talk of cutting back and producing left it tends to be very much with an eye on the physical.
QuoteAnd in fact, the "thing" that has the key effect on efficiently deciding what specific items ought to be produced, and what ought not be produced, is that ever despised free market that determines how the stuff is priced, and hence what stuff ought to be made.
Yes. However it is flawed. By nature of the free market you'll get loads of companies chasing the lucrative widget market and churning out 10,000 widgets for a possible market of only 1,000.
With time will the market adjust to eliminate this over production, but the less talented manufacturers out of business, etc....? Sure.
But in the meantime there's so many resources that have just gone to waste in pursuing this goal that the market has dictated is the most lucrative.
That....that is not how a market works.
The nature of the free market does NOT gets loads of companies chasing a "lucrative" market that then magically turns out to not be lucrative.
It just...I don't even know where to begin on how you either don't understand how a market works, or maybe are just articulating it poorly.
And you have an overly simplistic view bred by years of absorbing the rhetoric of the US right.
Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2021, 08:42:23 AM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 08, 2021, 08:08:56 AM
I can guarantee you that the solution to climate change is at least partly going to be "consume less stuff" which likely leads to producing less stuff as well.
I think the solution will include producing less particular stuff. Like coal power. But it will be because we transition to producing some other stuff to replace it.
I would be willing to bet my entire salary that the only way actual human production in aggregate ever declines is some catastrophe. It will never happen voluntarily. That catastrophe could very well be mis-managing the climate crisis.
I agree. The change will be "consume different stuff" but Solmyr's guarantee that the solution will be "consume less stuff" will bankrupt him if he puts money behind his "guarantees."
Quote from: Tyr on June 08, 2021, 09:48:43 AM
Sure it is. It happens all the time.
Its pretty standard with new markets that you tend to have a bunch of companies challenging to be the one dominating it at first and steadily some fail.
Its not so much that the market which seems lucrative turns out not to be (though this happens too), rather that there's only a certain size of market available and far more stuff produced to fill it than there are slots. This isn't a static number of course, it can rise and fall based on various factors, but that companies can fail to get a significant slice of a market is pretty standard.
The size of the market depends on the price of the good. If there are more goods than can be sold at a given price, firms will lower prices to get rid of inventory. This is basic economics, which some extremists on the left and the right appear to reject because it ruins their absurd theories. Companies can tinker a bit with market-clearing price on the edges by advertising and the like, but price overwhelmingly dominates demand.
Companies fail to get a slice of the market when their costs are too high compared to the market-clearing price.
Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2021, 09:19:59 AM
Quote from: Tyr on June 08, 2021, 08:49:17 AM
For your point on the crazy left and Brazil burning down the forest- eh? Aren't the left proposing exactly what you're talking about, putting in place incentives for Brazil to keep the forest? One proposal I recall hearing not too long ago was very literally to just pay Brazil to rent the forest and leave it intact.
Perhaps my meaning overall was not clear.
This is not things that every person on the left gets wrong by any means - it is things that SOME people on the left get wrong.
It's like talking about identity politics and cancel culture. Obviously not everyone is all for allowing the mob to shout down opinions it doesn't like. But some are...and when we talk about that being a problem in the left, it is talking about those who promote that particular attitude.
More broadly speaking (and I think this thread illustrates it well) there are plenty on the left who really seem to hate data and facts, because it gets in the way of their narrative of the Evil Corporations and Capitalists ruining the world and exploiting the downtrodden who cannot catch a break.
Look at Zoupa - his response to being shown data that shows what he thought was true was wrong was to tell me I should go hang out in a soup kitchen. It's funny, if I told garbon to go learn something about black people, I would be rightly vilified and ostracized. But Zoupa can lecture someone who almost certainly has experienced much, much worse poverty then he has* and it goes without comment. But that is a different problem.
*Of course I don't know if he has or not, since I don't know his background. But statistically, it is pretty damn unlikely he has - of course, I would never condescend to lecture him on it either way, since I don't know his personal experience.
You have not taught me anything in this thread. Can you point to the data that I thought was true, and that your post demonstrated was false?
You keep putting words in people's mouths and deciding what they know/feel/think, especially when someone pushes back on your wise words.
Please point to a poster or a prominent influence of the "left" that actually said the stuff you said they said, like "abolish capitalism" or "ban cars". Take your time.
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 11:52:32 AM
Sure, everyone has become mathematically less poor in the last couple of centuries. On the other hand, current poverty, as in "you have to decide whether to eat or pay rent this month, and you cannot get sick", is also a result of free market capitalism.
Here you go Zoupa.
That doesn't say to abolish capitalism :huh:
Zoupiepoo does love to move the goalposts, doesn't he? :lol:
Quote from: garbon on June 08, 2021, 01:40:11 AM
Why do we now have two threads about your views on what different sides of the political spectrum get wrong on economics? What was the goal here?
(https://dreamingbig.rocks/wp-content/uploads/argument.gif)
I think the goal was to kill time at work. Success!
Quote from: grumbler on June 08, 2021, 12:48:39 PM
Zoupiepoo does love to move the goalposts, doesn't he? :lol:
How so?
Quote from: Jacob on June 08, 2021, 01:16:19 PM
Quote from: garbon on June 08, 2021, 01:40:11 AM
Why do we now have two threads about your views on what different sides of the political spectrum get wrong on economics? What was the goal here?
*snip*
No, I think this is the *left* room. :P
Quote from: Grey Fox on June 08, 2021, 06:12:23 AM
Employees, no. Consumers, yes.
Employees don't look out for their own self interest? :huh:
Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2021, 08:42:23 AM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 08, 2021, 08:08:56 AM
I can guarantee you that the solution to climate change is at least partly going to be "consume less stuff" which likely leads to producing less stuff as well.
I think the solution will include producing less particular stuff. Like coal power. But it will be because we transition to producing some other stuff to replace it.
I would be willing to bet my entire salary that the only way actual human production in aggregate ever declines is some catastrophe. It will never happen voluntarily. That catastrophe could very well be mis-managing the climate crisis.
Well, probably we would also need to produce less stuff like plastic crap made in China and the like. Which will probably never happen, at least fast enough to avert the climate crisis. So you are probably right that it will be the catastrophe that will cause human production to decline.
Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2021, 10:55:24 AM
Quote from: Solmyr on June 07, 2021, 11:52:32 AM
Sure, everyone has become mathematically less poor in the last couple of centuries. On the other hand, current poverty, as in "you have to decide whether to eat or pay rent this month, and you cannot get sick", is also a result of free market capitalism.
Here you go Zoupa.
Everyone is saying they are in favour of properly regulated capitalism. Somehow you keep missing the distinction.
Quote from: Jacob on June 08, 2021, 01:16:19 PM
Quote from: garbon on June 08, 2021, 01:40:11 AM
Why do we now have two threads about your views on what different sides of the political spectrum get wrong on economics? What was the goal here?
(https://dreamingbig.rocks/wp-content/uploads/argument.gif)
You get the choose - left or right room.
Quote from: Syt on June 08, 2021, 01:38:33 PM
Quote from: Jacob on June 08, 2021, 01:16:19 PM
Quote from: garbon on June 08, 2021, 01:40:11 AM
Why do we now have two threads about your views on what different sides of the political spectrum get wrong on economics? What was the goal here?
*snip*
No, I think this is the *left* room. :P
:lol:
Markets are just a metaphor - borrowing the image of the agora to conceptualize an otherwise unimaginable flow of activity. It's an obvious point that everyone knows and yet at some points everyone makes the mistake of blurring the metaphor into reality (I include myself).
Capitalism and the state are not antithetical; they go hand in hand. The "night watchman" state of libertarian fantasy is that just; it has never existed and never will. If you want to get an idea of what "anarcho-capitalism" might look like, see Somalia c. mid-1990s.
Capitalism does not merely need the state; it needs, wants and creates strong and effective states. It needs strong state authority to suppress political competition from old landed elites - to smash up traditional forms of land tenure and create the strange concept of freely tradable complex bundles of rights relating to land. It needs strong state authority to create a vast and complex legal and social infrastructure to support complex commercial transactions and the complex forms of organizations used to engage in them. It needs the state to foster and where needed build the physical infrastructure to link hinterlands to cities and cities to the outside world. It needs armies and security forces and diplomats. It needs national currencies and a banking system to circulate it. And once the system is up and running and experiences the unavoidable boom-bust cycles, it needs the state to safeguard credit, which inevitably and unavoidable leads to the the growth of a welfare state and the fiscal stabilization that follows. The welfare state is not the anthesis of capitalism; it is the handmaiden of capitalism and necessary as the system reaches for maturity. EVERY successful capitalist system follows this pattern. there are no exceptions.
If we can say that the state has evolved from the 18th century to the present to become vastly larger, more complex, more intrusive, more effective, more insightful (in the seeing as a state sense), these are all byproducts of capitalist driven imperatives. Not communism, not Marx. Capitalism.
I've just been waiting for an opportunity to change the subject to the American Civil War.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 08, 2021, 06:18:29 PM
I've just been waiting for an opportunity to change the subject to the American Civil War.
Oh so you think the Civil War started because of economic systems rather than slavery eh? Typical pro-Confederate propaganda from Missouri. Send in the Jayhawks!
Quote from: Valmy on June 08, 2021, 07:05:09 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 08, 2021, 06:18:29 PM
I've just been waiting for an opportunity to change the subject to the American Civil War.
Oh so you think the Civil War started because of economic systems rather than slavery eh? Typical pro-Confederate propaganda from Missouri. Send in the Jayhawks!
The Antebellum South supported slavery because it was the system that allowed the elites to control their society. Slaves were too expensive by the 19th Century to allow for "start-ups" in any numbers: wealth came from inheriting the land and the slaves that worked it. That's why the South had 9and still has) the worst schools in the country, because the elites want it that way. The elites se private schooling (far more so in the South than the North). Inherited wealth allowed the elites to absolutely dominate the political system of the South. Industrialization threatened a non-inherited source of wealth, anathema to the landed elites of the South.
So, yeah, the ACW was fought to preserve the political-economic system that only slavery allowed. :lol:
QuoteIf we can say that the state has evolved from the 18th century to the present to become vastly larger, more complex, more intrusive, more effective, more insightful (in the seeing as a state sense), these are all byproducts of capitalist driven imperatives. Not communism, not Marx. Capitalism.
There's a lot of ground between communism and marx, and capitalism.
Sure. You could argue most change comes about because the elites figure better for profits to give the people what they want than to face unrest.
However the people demanding better working conditions and effective social systems was very definitely coming from a socialist direction.
Again here it's the same old problem of seeing the two as an absolute binary rather than the real world situation where practically every nation going, bar as mentioned (didn't I mention it earlier too?) Somalia, is some mix of the two.
Quote from: Tyr on June 09, 2021, 01:44:46 AM
QuoteIf we can say that the state has evolved from the 18th century to the present to become vastly larger, more complex, more intrusive, more effective, more insightful (in the seeing as a state sense), these are all byproducts of capitalist driven imperatives. Not communism, not Marx. Capitalism.
There's a lot of ground between communism and marx, and capitalism.
Sure. You could argue most change comes about because the elites figure better for profits to give the people what they want than to face unrest.
However the people demanding better working conditions and effective social systems was very definitely coming from a socialist direction.
Again here it's the same old problem of seeing the two as an absolute binary rather than the real world situation where practically every nation going, bar as mentioned (didn't I mention it earlier too?) Somalia, is some mix of the two.
That's why the term is completely useless. It doesn't tell you anything to say "America is not socialist, and France is". To the extent you can argue that statement is true can only be in relation to one another, and you can then say "Turkey is not socialist, but America is".
The left that annoys me is making the same error the right makes, but in the other direction. I often wonder if their "error" is as cynical as I suspect it is on the right.
The joke meme on this hits this perfectly:
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/49/f8/34/49f8342464861d4c52df99ef6542617f.png)
Sure. Labels don't mean much. Yet still we persist with them as it is useful to have handy short hands rather than explaining your stance on every single issue all the time.
I'm a socialist, that's where my beliefs generally lie, I'm all about equality and uplifting the disadvantaged.
This doesn't mean I agree with every single thing any socialist has ever stood for. But I am more likely to see things their way than I am a conservative.
Everything is relative really. As mentioned much of the world today is vastly more socialist than the world of 150 years ago and I have no doubt that 150 years hence we'll be saying the same thing. Despite the set backs things are steadily moving in a leftwards direction.
I would totally agree to say as an absolute that one country is socialist and another not doesn't literally work. But I think from context its pretty clear that when an American says Norway is socialist they mean its substantially to the left of America rather than it is 100% socialist.
Quote from: Tyr on June 09, 2021, 01:44:46 AM
QuoteIf we can say that the state has evolved from the 18th century to the present to become vastly larger, more complex, more intrusive, more effective, more insightful (in the seeing as a state sense), these are all byproducts of capitalist driven imperatives. Not communism, not Marx. Capitalism.
There's a lot of ground between communism and marx, and capitalism.
Because Marx was first and foremost a theorist of capitalism; he didn't really have much to say about communism.
As I see it - he made two major errors stemming from two basic frameworks he adopted. One was his his over-reliance on the Ricardian model which assumes constantly decreasing returns to capital - thus his conclusion of the tendency of profit rates to fall and the inevitability of immiseration. T. The second is Hegel's historical schema proceeding with thesis, anthesis, and synthesis. Marx was pretty astute in assessing the challenges facing capitalism but missed the mark is seeing them as "contradictions" that could be resolved only through revolutionary change and replacement rather than inherent characteristics of early capitalist development as it proceeded to later stages of development. Can't really blame him to harshly for that as one can't really know the future until it happens.
Yeah, to be fair to Marx, it would have been difficult to predict the rise of democratic socialism at that time.
Or the fact people still think democratic socialism is free market capitalism...
Quote from: Tyr on June 09, 2021, 09:29:02 AM
But I think from context its pretty clear that when an American says Norway is socialist they mean its substantially to the left of America rather than it is 100% socialist.
The only problem here is that from data that probably isn't even true. If we define "socialist" as a relative term describing how much a country spend on social spending on a per capita basis....the US is MORE socialist then the Netherlands!
This is why the entire term is just dumb.
For one, the way it is used in the way you are using it is just describing being a progressive. So it has no utility in that it definitionally has near perfect overlap with a common term already used and well understood, and one that is eplicitly relative.
And secondly, it is actually incorrect when used most of the time anyway! If you look at total net public spending on social programs, the USA is actually MORE socialist then Norway! In fact, the only country that spends more per capita on net public expenditures on social programs is France. According to that metric, the USA is the second most socialist country in the entire world!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_welfare_spending
I think what is so frustrating about all this (to me, it doesn't appear to bother others) is that there is perfectly adequate, much more clear, and vastly more neutral language to discuss all this in, and yet....people insist on using terms that lead to bullshit and ambiguity and the meme posted above.
Seriously, we laugh about it, but that meme is fucking spot on on how this debate works in America today. All because of the insistence on both sides to use language that they both know is open to being interpreted badly.
From Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program
Quote[A]ccording to II, the German Workers' party strives for "the free state"...what is this?
It is by no means the aim of the workers, who have got rid of the narrow mentality of humble subjects, to set the state free . . . Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it; and today, too, the forms of state are more free or less free to the extent that they restrict the "freedom of the state".
The German Workers' party — at least if it adopts the program — shows that its socialist ideas are not even skin-deep; in that, instead of treating existing society (and this holds good for any future one) as the basis of the existing state (or of the future state in the case of future society), it treats the state rather as an independent entity that possesses its own intellectual, ethical, and libertarian bases.
. . . [T]he different states of the different civilized countries, in spite or their motley diversity of form, all have this in common: that they are based on modern bourgeois society, only one more or less capitalistically developed. They have, therefore, also certain essential characteristics in common. In this sense, it is possible to speak of the "present-day state" in contrast with the future, in which its present root, bourgeois society, will have died off.
The question then arises: What transformation will the state undergo in communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain in existence there that are analogous to present state functions? This question can only be answered scientifically . . .Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
The [Gotha] program does not deal with this nor with the future state of communist society.
Its political demands contain nothing beyond the old democratic litany familiar to all: universal suffrage, direct legislation, popular rights, a people's militia, etc. They are a mere echo of the bourgeois People's party, of the League of Peace and Freedom. They are all demands which, insofar as they are not exaggerated in fantastic presentation, have already been realized. ...
That, in fact, by the word "state" is meant the government machine, or the state insofar as it forms a special organism separated from society through division of labor, is shown by the words "the German Workers' party demands as the economic basis of the state: a single progressive income tax", etc. Taxes are the economic basis of the government machinery and of nothing else. In the state of the future, existing in Switzerland, this demand has been pretty well fulfilled. Income tax presupposes various sources of income of the various social classes, and hence capitalist society. It is, therefore, nothing remarkable that the Liverpool financial reformers — bourgeois headed by Gladstone's brother — are putting forward the same demand as the program.
The argument is that a reformist program based on getting existing states to provide public goods and benefits funded from progressive taxation is not a socialist program because it maintains and reinforces the existing state of relations. A Socialist state is something that comes into being only after existing state structures are overthrown in their entirety and replaced with something completely new, after a transitional phase of "dictatorship of the proletariat". Marx here as always is cagey about what that socialist state would look like, but his comments about a state being completely subordinate to society does not seem to accord with the centralized administrative states that we today associate with the concept of "socialism"
One can respond to Marx by arguing that he was simply wrong about the progress the socialism and that the true future of socialism was not his vaguely conceived utopian endpoint following the scouring of the proletarian dictatorship but rather Bernstein's Revisionism. But that response misses the real power of Marx's critique here - that reformism isn't really about concessions wrested from reluctant capitalists through ballots rather than bullets, but part-and-parcel of the bourgeois program itself.
For example, take the spread of universal primary public education beginning in the 19th century. Is this socialism? Or is it a response to the voracious needs of capitalist producers in the countries on the then technological frontier for literate workers that have been formed and prepared from a young age with habits of diligence and respect to authority? Yes that is a rhetorical question.
By the 1930s, leaders in the advanced capitalist countries are coming to grips with the severe periodic crises and panics of the system, which is diagnosed by many as a problem of "under-consumption". After a period of "war capitalism" that appears to confirm that theory, what follows are packages of income and wage support legislation designed to stabilize consumption across time. These measures may be termed socialistic and in some places sponsored by political parties that use that name, but they are enacted because they also draw support from powerful institutions of the capitalist society and state that see them as needed adjuncts to make capitalism work better, under the control of the traditional state structures.
I absolutely disagree that "way you are using [socialism] is just describing being a progressive. So it has no utility in that it definitionally has near perfect overlap with a common term already used and well understood, and one that is eplicitly relative." The term "progressive" is probably fraught with more controversy over its meaning than "socialist" is. Bernie Sanders and AOC uses it to describe their far-left policies, while Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg use it to describe their center-left policies. Teddy Roosevelt, a mainstream republican, considered himself a progressive.
I would argue that the real difference between a socialist and a progressive is that the socialist believes that the government should actually control the means of production in one or more significant sectors, while a progressive would pursue the same goal but using government as another participant in the market.
Quote from: grumbler on June 09, 2021, 11:07:02 AM
I absolutely disagree that "way you are using [socialism] is just describing being a progressive. So it has no utility in that it definitionally has near perfect overlap with a common term already used and well understood, and one that is eplicitly relative." The term "progressive" is probably fraught with more controversy over its meaning than "socialist" is. Bernie Sanders and AOC uses it to describe their far-left policies, while Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg use it to describe their center-left policies. Teddy Roosevelt, a mainstream republican, considered himself a progressive.
I would argue that the real difference between a socialist and a progressive is that the socialist believes that the government should actually control the means of production in one or more significant sectors, while a progressive would pursue the same goal but using government as another participant in the market.
I think the things you don't like about the term progressive is exactly what I DO like about the term!
It encapsulates what unites the modern left, and the fact that former mainstream Republicans can reasonably be described as progressive illuminates just how fucked up current "mainstream" Republicans are that they consider the term an insult. I do think there is a difference between the Sanders/AOC wing of the left and the Biden/Buttigieg center, but it isn't that they are not both progressive. I do think it is around the idea of actual socialism, meaning more then just a debate about whether to spend 26% of 29% on social programs.
The "real difference" you cite I agree with, but nobody else seems to think so - they insist that socialism practically has nothing to do with the productive side of the equation. If you go back to my very first post, this is just the argument that I made. If socialist means anything real, it has to mean some kind of actual government role in managing production beyond just regulation (since, again, regulation is ubiquitous so does not differentiate).
Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2021, 11:13:52 AM
Quote from: grumbler on June 09, 2021, 11:07:02 AM
I absolutely disagree that "way you are using [socialism] is just describing being a progressive. So it has no utility in that it definitionally has near perfect overlap with a common term already used and well understood, and one that is eplicitly relative." The term "progressive" is probably fraught with more controversy over its meaning than "socialist" is. Bernie Sanders and AOC uses it to describe their far-left policies, while Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg use it to describe their center-left policies. Teddy Roosevelt, a mainstream republican, considered himself a progressive.
I would argue that the real difference between a socialist and a progressive is that the socialist believes that the government should actually control the means of production in one or more significant sectors, while a progressive would pursue the same goal but using government as another participant in the market.
I think the things you don't like about the term progressive is exactly what I DO like about the term!
It encapsulates what unites the modern left, and the fact that former mainstream Republicans can reasonably be described as progressive illuminates just how fucked up current "mainstream" Republicans are that they consider the term an insult. I do think there is a difference between the Sanders/AOC wing of the left and the Biden/Buttigieg center, but it isn't that they are not both progressive. I do think it is around the idea of actual socialism, meaning more then just a debate about whether to spend 26% of 29% on social programs.
The "real difference" you cite I agree with, but nobody else seems to think so - they insist that socialism practically has nothing to do with the productive side of the equation. If you go back to my very first post, this is just the argument that I made. If socialist means anything real, it has to mean some kind of actual government role in managing production beyond just regulation (since, again, regulation is ubiquitous so does not differentiate).
The term you are looking for is "Democrat," not progressive. If "progressive" just means people that want to make things better, then it applies to current Republicans as well, though their methods and desired end states differ as much from Biden as Biden's do from Sanders.
I don't think progressive means simply that people want things to be better, I think it means the belief that the human condition can be made better by organized, active, and society level changes to how we do things - that progress is something that we can make a decision to push for actively, not just something that we hope to happen but have no control over.
It also encapsulates the idea that the future is and ought to be better then the past - this (to me) is the real difference in practical terms that goes beyond Republican/Democrat. Progressives believe that the best years for humans are still to come, while conservatives believe they have already passed.
And no, I don't think "Democrat" ecompasses that at all. I think once could be a conservative Democrat, and once could be a progressive Republican. They are not right now, for sure, but they could be.
I think the delta between the GOP and Biden is not just much larger then the delta between Biden and Sanders, it is of a entirely different outlook entirely.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 09, 2021, 10:42:10 AMBut that response misses the real power of Marx's critique here - that reformism isn't really about concessions wrested from reluctant capitalists through ballots rather than bullets, but part-and-parcel of the bourgeois program itself.
Why, yes. The opposition of reformist vs revolutionary has somewhat of a long history...
That people are looking for labels to either identify with, or villify, is more indicative of a prolonged malaise than any command of Marxist (or Chicago school) theory. People who denounce "capitalism" are trying to issue a global diagnosis of today's ills, and trying to find some connector. Amongst those ills are some that we can link to what Marx identified long ago (commodity fetichism, alienation, etc.). Others are problems identified through very simple comparisons with a past that continues to exist in collective memory - about wealth transfers, access to property, etc. And others still are directly linked with environmentalism.
Given that, whatever the definition of capitalism that one operates under has wide-ranging, systemic components - from wealth accumulation, to work organization, to production and consumption - and that the last 30-40 years of political discourse have made economic concerns the prevalent organizing principles of our political and personal lives, it's not entirely surprising that "capitalism" becomes both the cause, and the disease.
I read denunciation of capitalism as a call for radical transformation as the only possible solution to the kinds of challenge we are confronted with. It is not fueled by a coherent alternative replacement ideology. It doesn't really have a good sense of what could replace it. How could it? Imagining possible future worlds is famously challenging, and we don't have any good sense of the future right now, including for the proponents of the status quo, who are basically arguing there is nothing wrong with the way the world is set up, and that the challenges of the future are the future's problems. The world I live in has many features I like. It also has many features I dislike. To say they are the product of capitalism is simply to say the world we live in is a product of capitalism. It's not false, but it's not super helpful either.
Denunciations of capitalism are fumbling in trying to assemble a critique of collective forces while being the product of a very individualistic world. Meanwhile, the ancient counter-argument of the reformists remains the same: it goes too far. Surely there must be some incremental transformation we can enact? And, of course, there always is. But it never truly addresses the sense of general malaise that fuels both the right and the left.
Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2021, 12:54:40 PM
I don't think progressive means simply that people want things to be better, I think it means the belief that the human condition can be made better by organized, active, and society level changes to how we do things - that progress is something that we can make a decision to push for actively, not just something that we hope to happen but have no control over.
It also encapsulates the idea that the future is and ought to be better then the past - this (to me) is the real difference in practical terms that goes beyond Republican/Democrat. Progressives believe that the best years for humans are still to come, while conservatives believe they have already passed.
And no, I don't think "Democrat" ecompasses that at all. I think once could be a conservative Democrat, and once could be a progressive Republican. They are not right now, for sure, but they could be.
I think the delta between the GOP and Biden is not just much larger then the delta between Biden and Sanders, it is of a entirely different outlook entirely.
The problem is that there is no real serious intellectual movement known as progressivism, no body of thought behind it. That's not to say that "progressive" is a bad label, or people are wrong to use it - it just has meant very different things to different people .
And I disagree that a conservative is someone who says that humanity's best days are behind it. Rather, conservatism (intellectually speaking at least) rather believes that today's society rests on the shoulders of our past, and while it is possible to make things even better, we must be careful not to make them worse.
Quote from: Barrister on June 09, 2021, 01:19:28 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2021, 12:54:40 PM
I don't think progressive means simply that people want things to be better, I think it means the belief that the human condition can be made better by organized, active, and society level changes to how we do things - that progress is something that we can make a decision to push for actively, not just something that we hope to happen but have no control over.
It also encapsulates the idea that the future is and ought to be better then the past - this (to me) is the real difference in practical terms that goes beyond Republican/Democrat. Progressives believe that the best years for humans are still to come, while conservatives believe they have already passed.
And no, I don't think "Democrat" ecompasses that at all. I think once could be a conservative Democrat, and once could be a progressive Republican. They are not right now, for sure, but they could be.
I think the delta between the GOP and Biden is not just much larger then the delta between Biden and Sanders, it is of a entirely different outlook entirely.
The problem is that there is no real serious intellectual movement known as progressivism, no body of thought behind it. That's not to say that "progressive" is a bad label, or people are wrong to use it - it just has meant very different things to different people .
And I disagree that a conservative is someone who says that humanity's best days are behind it. Rather, conservatism (intellectually speaking at least) rather believes that today's society rests on the shoulders of our past, and while it is possible to make things even better, we must be careful not to make them worse.
Yes, that is why they are all aligned behind Donald Trump. Because they are so concerned about making things worse.
I am not going to even bother responded to the claim that there is no body of thought behind the progressive movement. That is just...well, not true.
Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2021, 02:02:06 PM
Yes, that is why they are all aligned behind Donald Trump. Because they are so concerned about making things worse.
I'm not sure what the people arrayed behind Trump are but I doubt they're conservatives. But then again, the word seems to be mean something else in the US, just like liberal.
At least, that's how it looks like as seen from this side of the pond.
Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on June 09, 2021, 04:03:34 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2021, 02:02:06 PM
Yes, that is why they are all aligned behind Donald Trump. Because they are so concerned about making things worse.
I'm not sure what the people arrayed behind Trump are but I doubt they're conservatives. But then again, the word seems to be mean something else in the US, just like liberal.
At least, that's how it looks like as seen from this side of the pond.
I did try to specify "intellectually speaking at least", but it doesn't seem like Berkut's interested in a debate on the topic.
Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on June 09, 2021, 04:03:34 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2021, 02:02:06 PM
Yes, that is why they are all aligned behind Donald Trump. Because they are so concerned about making things worse.
I'm not sure what the people arrayed behind Trump are but I doubt they're conservatives. But then again, the word seems to be mean something else in the US, just like liberal.
At least, that's how it looks like as seen from this side of the pond.
If "conservatives" cared about not making things worse, they would have aligned behind the Dems, and Trump would have lost by 25 million votes.
They don't care about that at all of course - they care about keeping their positions of privilege in society.
And yeah Beebs, I don't think there is much interesting debate around how "conservatives" care so much about "not making things worse". That story has been rather decisively disproven over the last 20-30 years overall, and most emphatically over the last 4 years.
They care about keeping the social structure where they have ingrained advantages over minorities and immigrants in place.
Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2021, 07:51:20 PM
Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on June 09, 2021, 04:03:34 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2021, 02:02:06 PM
Yes, that is why they are all aligned behind Donald Trump. Because they are so concerned about making things worse.
I'm not sure what the people arrayed behind Trump are but I doubt they're conservatives. But then again, the word seems to be mean something else in the US, just like liberal.
At least, that's how it looks like as seen from this side of the pond.
If "conservatives" cared about not making things worse, they would have aligned behind the Dems, and Trump would have lost by 25 million votes.
They don't care about that at all of course - they care about keeping their positions of privilege in society.
And yeah Beebs, I don't think there is much interesting debate around how "conservatives" care so much about "not making things worse". That story has been rather decisively disproven over the last 20-30 years overall, and most emphatically over the last 4 years.
They care about keeping the social structure where they have ingrained advantages over minorities and immigrants in place.
Fuck off Berkut. I don't even live in your country. I'm not her to be some kind of strawman for you to dunk on my positions that you attribute to me.
Quote from: Barrister on June 09, 2021, 08:43:56 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2021, 07:51:20 PM
Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on June 09, 2021, 04:03:34 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2021, 02:02:06 PM
Yes, that is why they are all aligned behind Donald Trump. Because they are so concerned about making things worse.
I'm not sure what the people arrayed behind Trump are but I doubt they're conservatives. But then again, the word seems to be mean something else in the US, just like liberal.
At least, that's how it looks like as seen from this side of the pond.
If "conservatives" cared about not making things worse, they would have aligned behind the Dems, and Trump would have lost by 25 million votes.
They don't care about that at all of course - they care about keeping their positions of privilege in society.
And yeah Beebs, I don't think there is much interesting debate around how "conservatives" care so much about "not making things worse". That story has been rather decisively disproven over the last 20-30 years overall, and most emphatically over the last 4 years.
They care about keeping the social structure where they have ingrained advantages over minorities and immigrants in place.
Fuck off Berkut. I don't even live in your country. I'm not her to be some kind of strawman for you to dunk on my positions that you attribute to me.
I did not attribute any positions to you at all.
You said something about what Conservatives stand for. I said that it is pretty clear that the vast vast bulk of self proclaimed conservatives clearly do not in fact care about that.
I did not say anything at all about what YOU believe. Only about what it is clear that most people who have, in the US, claimed to be "conservative" actually believe.
There is no way you can reconcile the idea that your core ideology is "avoid making things worse" with supporting Donald Trump. And the vast majority of people who call themselves "conservative" do just that.
I like how discussions of different ideologies here are pretty much the same as the ones in Disco Elysium. :D
The use of "some of the ..." be it right or left, might have helped the debate get along; the using a blanket "the left" or "the right" is accusative and doesn't give people not in the exact centre an honourable place to stand.
Quote from: mongers on June 10, 2021, 06:14:49 AM
The use of "some of the ..." be it right or left, might have helped the debate get along; the using a blanket "the left" or "the right" is accusative and doesn't give people not in the exact centre an honourable place to stand.
Indeed.
Then again centrists do love their tribe.
Quote from: grumbler on June 09, 2021, 12:43:58 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2021, 11:13:52 AM
Quote from: grumbler on June 09, 2021, 11:07:02 AM
I absolutely disagree that "way you are using [socialism] is just describing being a progressive. So it has no utility in that it definitionally has near perfect overlap with a common term already used and well understood, and one that is eplicitly relative." The term "progressive" is probably fraught with more controversy over its meaning than "socialist" is. Bernie Sanders and AOC uses it to describe their far-left policies, while Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg use it to describe their center-left policies. Teddy Roosevelt, a mainstream republican, considered himself a progressive.
I would argue that the real difference between a socialist and a progressive is that the socialist believes that the government should actually control the means of production in one or more significant sectors, while a progressive would pursue the same goal but using government as another participant in the market.
I think the things you don't like about the term progressive is exactly what I DO like about the term!
It encapsulates what unites the modern left, and the fact that former mainstream Republicans can reasonably be described as progressive illuminates just how fucked up current "mainstream" Republicans are that they consider the term an insult. I do think there is a difference between the Sanders/AOC wing of the left and the Biden/Buttigieg center, but it isn't that they are not both progressive. I do think it is around the idea of actual socialism, meaning more then just a debate about whether to spend 26% of 29% on social programs.
The "real difference" you cite I agree with, but nobody else seems to think so - they insist that socialism practically has nothing to do with the productive side of the equation. If you go back to my very first post, this is just the argument that I made. If socialist means anything real, it has to mean some kind of actual government role in managing production beyond just regulation (since, again, regulation is ubiquitous so does not differentiate).
The term you are looking for is "Democrat," not progressive. If "progressive" just means people that want to make things better, then it applies to current Republicans as well, though their methods and desired end states differ as much from Biden as Biden's do from Sanders.
I would be more cynical then either of you. I think many times "progressive" is used simply in place of "my ideas/beliefs are better (progressive) than your (regressive) ideas/beliefs".
Quote from: Zoupa on June 10, 2021, 08:46:15 AM
Quote from: mongers on June 10, 2021, 06:14:49 AM
The use of "some of the ..." be it right or left, might have helped the debate get along; the using a blanket "the left" or "the right" is accusative and doesn't give people not in the exact centre an honourable place to stand.
Indeed.
Then again centrists do love their tribe.
:lol:
Quote from: Zoupa on June 10, 2021, 08:46:15 AM
Quote from: mongers on June 10, 2021, 06:14:49 AM
The use of "some of the ..." be it right or left, might have helped the debate get along; the using a blanket "the left" or "the right" is accusative and doesn't give people not in the exact centre an honourable place to stand.
Indeed.
Then again centrists do love their tribe.
Nonsense. The Centrist People's Front would never associate with the People's Front of the Center.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 10, 2021, 01:56:14 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on June 10, 2021, 08:46:15 AM
Quote from: mongers on June 10, 2021, 06:14:49 AM
The use of "some of the ..." be it right or left, might have helped the debate get along; the using a blanket "the left" or "the right" is accusative and doesn't give people not in the exact centre an honourable place to stand.
Indeed.
Then again centrists do love their tribe.
:lol:
I think Zoupa has been using the Tucker Carlson Guide to Political Arguments.
Definitely the case in the other thread...
Shoe, meet other foot.
The foot is in the other mouth now.
Quote from: Zoupa on June 10, 2021, 02:59:30 PM
Shoe, meet other foot.
Your entire argument has devolved to "I know you are, but what am I?" dude.
Quote from: Habbaku on June 10, 2021, 03:02:09 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on June 10, 2021, 02:59:30 PM
Shoe, meet other foot.
Your entire argument has devolved to "I know you are, but what am I?" dude.
My argument and other peoples' are clearly posted in this thread, in non-inflammatory language. Berkut chose to respond by repeatedly characterizing, strawman arguing and putting words in people's mouths. I don't feel bad about responding in kind. :mellow:
Quote from: DGuller on June 10, 2021, 03:01:17 PM
The foot is in the other mouth now.
Metric please.
Quote from: Zoupa on June 10, 2021, 03:06:10 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on June 10, 2021, 03:02:09 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on June 10, 2021, 02:59:30 PM
Shoe, meet other foot.
Your entire argument has devolved to "I know you are, but what am I?" dude.
My argument and other peoples' are clearly posted in this thread, in non-inflammatory language. Berkut chose to respond by repeatedly characterizing, strawman arguing and putting words in people's mouths. I don't feel bad about responding in kind. :mellow:
Your very first post in this thread is inflammatory. Do you really lack all sense of self-awareness? Are you unaware I can actually go look at your first post?
Quote from: Habbaku on June 10, 2021, 03:18:34 PM
Your very first post in this thread is inflammatory. Do you really lack all sense of self-awareness? Are you unaware I can actually go look at your first post?
If an inflammatory post justifies strawmanning and mischaracterizing non-inflammatory posts then that ship has sailed a long long time ago for languish.
That isn't what I am saying at all, Jacob.
Quote from: Habbaku on June 10, 2021, 03:30:24 PM
That isn't what I am saying at all, Jacob.
I misunderstood, then.
Quote from: Zoupa on June 07, 2021, 04:34:20 PM
Feels like Berkypoo is having an argument with himself. Nobody is arguing to collectivize the means of production. Progressives are just asking for a fair(er) piece of the pie for everybody.
Why don't you head down to the nearest food bank with your charts and yell at those people that they should be thankful they're not starving.
Ok sure, I sprinkled some snark in there. The meat and potatoes of the post is still:"Nobody is arguing to collectivize the means of production. Progressives are just asking for a fair(er) piece of the pie for everybody."
To which Berkut responded "Funny how mad the crazy left gets if you even hint that maybe they should look at data and facts. Odd, that."
Positioning himself as the cool, collected and smart centrist ready to educate/condescend to the mad crazy leftist.
Kinda of going around in circles at this point.
Quote from: Zoupa on June 10, 2021, 04:25:26 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on June 07, 2021, 04:34:20 PM
Feels like Berkypoo is having an argument with himself. Nobody is arguing to collectivize the means of production. Progressives are just asking for a fair(er) piece of the pie for everybody.
Why don't you head down to the nearest food bank with your charts and yell at those people that they should be thankful they're not starving.
Ok sure, I sprinkled some snark in there. The meat and potatoes of the post is still:"Nobody is arguing to collectivize the means of production. Progressives are just asking for a fair(er) piece of the pie for everybody."
Oh yes, you "sprinkled some snark" in there, built a strawman, then where so kind as to lecture me about my own experience with poverty and acted like some privileged asshole telling some supposed elitist about the travails of the poor.
And you are the one acting like the mad crazy leftist, responding to simple facts and data with "GO TO THE SOUP KITCHEN AND TELL THEM ABOUT IT!".
I've been to a soup kitchen. I've eaten at a soup kitchen because we had no other food. I've worked in a soup kitchen.
Have you done any of those things yourself?
Actually, don't even bother - it's not like it matters either way. You and CC and the usual crowd have, as always succeeded at turning the discussion into a pissing match rather then having the guts to actually debate facts and data.
Quote from: Oexmelin on June 09, 2021, 01:13:41 PM
I read denunciation of capitalism as a call for radical transformation as the only possible solution to the kinds of challenge we are confronted with. It is not fueled by a coherent alternative replacement ideology. It doesn't really have a good sense of what could replace it. How could it? Imagining possible future worlds is famously challenging, and we don't have any good sense of the future right now, including for the proponents of the status quo, who are basically arguing there is nothing wrong with the way the world is set up, and that the challenges of the future are the future's problems. The world I live in has many features I like. It also has many features I dislike. To say they are the product of capitalism is simply to say the world we live in is a product of capitalism. It's not false, but it's not super helpful either.
I agree with this. It says something about the dominance of capitalist paradigm that critiques of the system are mostly phrased in economic terms - stagnant wages, inequalities of income and wealth, sectors with monopolistic profits, and the seamy underbelly of finance. These are all real problems and in theory could be remedied through legislation and technical fixes. But they are symptoms of a more fundamental political problem, which is inequality in effective power and influence.
Quote from: Oexmelin on June 09, 2021, 01:13:41 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 09, 2021, 10:42:10 AMBut that response misses the real power of Marx's critique here - that reformism isn't really about concessions wrested from reluctant capitalists through ballots rather than bullets, but part-and-parcel of the bourgeois program itself.
Why, yes. The opposition of reformist vs revolutionary has somewhat of a long history...
That people are looking for labels to either identify with, or villify, is more indicative of a prolonged malaise than any command of Marxist (or Chicago school) theory. People who denounce "capitalism" are trying to issue a global diagnosis of today's ills, and trying to find some connector. Amongst those ills are some that we can link to what Marx identified long ago (commodity fetichism, alienation, etc.). Others are problems identified through very simple comparisons with a past that continues to exist in collective memory - about wealth transfers, access to property, etc. And others still are directly linked with environmentalism.
Given that, whatever the definition of capitalism that one operates under has wide-ranging, systemic components - from wealth accumulation, to work organization, to production and consumption - and that the last 30-40 years of political discourse have made economic concerns the prevalent organizing principles of our political and personal lives, it's not entirely surprising that "capitalism" becomes both the cause, and the disease.
I read denunciation of capitalism as a call for radical transformation as the only possible solution to the kinds of challenge we are confronted with. It is not fueled by a coherent alternative replacement ideology. It doesn't really have a good sense of what could replace it. How could it? Imagining possible future worlds is famously challenging, and we don't have any good sense of the future right now, including for the proponents of the status quo, who are basically arguing there is nothing wrong with the way the world is set up, and that the challenges of the future are the future's problems. The world I live in has many features I like. It also has many features I dislike. To say they are the product of capitalism is simply to say the world we live in is a product of capitalism. It's not false, but it's not super helpful either.
Denunciations of capitalism are fumbling in trying to assemble a critique of collective forces while being the product of a very individualistic world. Meanwhile, the ancient counter-argument of the reformists remains the same: it goes too far. Surely there must be some incremental transformation we can enact? And, of course, there always is. But it never truly addresses the sense of general malaise that fuels both the right and the left.
This is a great response to my post.
I am not sure what I have to add, except that..."general malaise" isn't necessarily evidence of an actual problem that is serious enough to warrant radical transformation.
I am not a reactionary - I am all for change. But I want that change to start from a place that at least acknowledges that there has in fact been a radical transformation in actual *outcomes* for the human condition in just the last 50 years or so.
I think that malaise you speak of is driven, at least in part, in a weird sort of perception that seems to have missed a lot of objective data around how the actual human condition has improved. This has been remarked upon before - the fact that the USA, as an example, saw a truly amazing decrease in violent crime from the 1970s until the 2010s - like an *amazing* decline in violent crime! This should be celebrated! We should be patting each other on the back and asking ourselves "Hey, that is freaking awesome! Uhhh.....what exactly was it that made that happen? Because lets do more of whatever that is!"
But during that time, the public perception in each year was that crime was a *greater* problem then in the past! Exactly the opposite of the reality.
That is alarming to me. I believe in outcomes. I want the human condition to improve for the greatest number of people. If that is straight out Leninist Communism, then sign me up. If that is Ayn Randian "let them eat cake" libertarian dreamworld Robber Barons, then by god bring it on.
But my worry is that we cannot possibly choose the right approach if we don't even know what success looks like. And it looks like we have been pretty astoundingly successful in real terms. If our "malaise" means that we throw out the very thing that has been so successful in an effort to treat how we feel, well...that would be bad, right?
I don't think it would come as a great surprise that one of the major issue is the definition of what "success" is, and whether the cost of such success if too much. If success is material prosperity for the greater number, then you run into the problem that such material prosperity might actually be achieved today by a totalitarian regime such as China, and then you get somewhat robbed of the argument by apologists for totalitarianism like Mono. It may also be suggested that such material prosperity comes at the cost of terrible waste of natural resources, alongside worries that it may not be sustainable in the long run. Or perhaps success is crime decreasing - at the cost of overpolicing and state surveillance. Or perhaps success in the sentiment of personal validation and usefulness, and the cost is the sort of material luxury we have been brought up with.
That's the essence of the political struggle. The issue with capitalism is that it proposes - or perhaps imposes - a materialist view of the world. That view will indeed be concerned with levels of material comfort - but has very little to say (and often is quite dismissive) about feelings of dignity, emancipation, or identity. I don't think it is a big, controversial idea to say that capitalism eventually structured the sort of material abundance that the West has come to enjoy, and that - in the West, and increasingly, everywhere, it has succeeded in banishing the spectre of famine which plagued agricultural societies. This is no small feat. What is more controversial is, for example, whether or not this came at a cost for nomadic or pastoralist societies, or whether or not the accompanying political transformations were an inevitable byproduct of capitalism "in the long term".
But capitalism wasn't a political revolution, with founders, and declarations of intent. It didn't come with a manifesto, or with a clear set of ideas enshrined in a constitution. It was a long process in the making, one that isn't that great at generating ideas for the future. It continuously generates ideas for the past, and sometimes for the present.
You are talking about tradeoffs between benefits - tradeoffs between crime decreasing and overpolicing, for example.
Clearly these need to be addressed in the specific - but if someone notes (for example) that material wealth has increased dramatically for the poor, and shows specifically that that is true, then it *could* be the case that that benefit came at a cost to something else that makes it less attractive then you might expect, or even potentially actually a negative. But observing that that *might* be the case is inadequate. You have to show that it actually is the case, when weighed against an objective measure that shows it is in fact true.
I think the essence of the political struggle should include actual data and actual results. I contend that taken as a whole, the aggregate measures of the things we ought to consider objectively desirable are broadly radically better on nearly every measure. Note I say nearly every measure - not all. The damage being done to the environment is a massive problem - large enough that in the long run it could swamp all this progress I am pleased with.
I don't know what the complaint about capitalism lack in regards to "generating ideas for the future" weighs against several hundred million lives saved.
Quote from: Berkut on June 11, 2021, 03:10:51 PMI don't know what the complaint about capitalism lack in regards to "generating ideas for the future" weighs against several hundred million lives saved.
I am not saying it's a complaint. I am saying it's what it does.
"Capitalism" isn't a single agent. It's not a recipe that was applied deliberately and with care to an ailing, single "feudal world". You can't really evaluate it like some drug. It's basically a way to describe our world.
We can ascribe to it the transformations that "saved several hundred million lives", these lives were "saved" over the course of centuries. It says nothing about present conditions, nor about what it means today, nor if it would "save several hundred million lives" today - or indeed, how it would. The policy components of "capitalism" that one could even reasonably ascribe to those desirable effects were frequently not even data-driven. They were driven by political desires, articles of faith, protection of property...
In short: the people who "built" the foundations of capitalism were never motivated by capitalism. They were motivated by a certain vision of the future that relied on values, principles, and half-baked asumptions about human behavior. When capitalism became theorized, it was assessed as the already existing mode of economic organization.
Quote from: Oexmelin on June 11, 2021, 03:37:48 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 11, 2021, 03:10:51 PMI don't know what the complaint about capitalism lack in regards to "generating ideas for the future" weighs against several hundred million lives saved.
I am not saying it's a complaint. I am saying it's what it does.
"Capitalism" isn't a single agent. It's not a recipe that was applied deliberately and with care to an ailing, single "feudal world". You can't really evaluate it like some drug. It's basically a way to describe our world.
We can ascribe to it the transformations that "saved several hundred million lives", these lives were "saved" over the course of centuries. It says nothing about present conditions, nor about what it means today, nor if it would "save several hundred million lives" today - or indeed, how it would. The policy components of "capitalism" that one could even reasonably ascribe to those desirable effects were frequently not even data-driven. They were driven by political desires, articles of faith, protection of property...
In short: the people who "built" the foundations of capitalism were never motivated by capitalism. They were motivated by a certain vision of the future that relied on values, principles, and half-baked asumptions about human behavior. When capitalism became theorized, it was assessed as the already existing mode of economic organization.
OK. But however it came about, that "existing mode of economic operation" has resulted (or it along with a bunch of other things coming out the Enlightenment) in an incredible outcome. You can say "Oh, that just describes the world!" but I don't know how that changes what I am saying. It's like we are running a car races, and the car we are in is winning by 5 laps and I say "Wow, this is a pretty great car!" and you respond with "The car is simply the thing we are in". I mean...yeah, ok - but if you are suggesting we should consider getting another car (or replacing the transmission or whatever) I would kind of hope you would also be making a compelling argument, with data, that shows that the new and better car would actually BE better.
And I am not a conservative - I am not arguing that we should not change just because change is bad. Just that we should recognize the things that are in fact working. I think the things that have worked, in fact, have been very much in spite of the efforts of conservatives of the world and history who have largely fought tooth and nail against the very things that have resulted in the incredible progress we have seen in the human condition.
I think, largely, that the forces of progressivism have mostly won. So much so that modern progressives don't even recognize them as progress at all anymore.
Quote from: Berkut on June 11, 2021, 03:48:41 PM
I think, largely, that the forces of progressivism have mostly won. So much so that modern progressives don't even recognize them as progress at all anymore.
I am going to use this analogy to help convey what I am saying.
We are wondering if the car we are in, that we have inherited, and that we've been repeatedly told used to win the Indianapolis 500, is still appropriate for winning the race we currently are in - especially as it's not quite clear whether we are still within the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Its past performance aren't at stake. It's whether or not it will continue to carry us in the present circumstances that is under question.
Quote from: Oexmelin on June 11, 2021, 04:05:57 PM
Quote from: Berkut on June 11, 2021, 03:48:41 PM
I think, largely, that the forces of progressivism have mostly won. So much so that modern progressives don't even recognize them as progress at all anymore.
I am going to use this analogy to help convey what I am saying.
We are wondering if the car we are in, that we have inherited, and that we've been repeatedly told used to win the Indianapolis 500, is still appropriate for winning the race we currently are in - especially as it's not quite clear whether we are still within the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Its past performance aren't at stake. It's whether or not it will continue to carry us in the present circumstances that is under question.
That is a perfectly fair question.
I will note that for this to work, part of my point is that all of us riding in the car who claim to want to win races, need to start acknowledging that we actually DID win races already.
Many seem to want to insist that no such race has even been won, and indeed, the public perception when you ask people, suggests that not only have we not won, we never have and in fact are considerably further behind then we were previously. When in fact you can point to a trophy case and see that there are a crapload of trophies in their for winning races.
In fact, sometimes this seems so obvious, it makes one wonder if perhaps the goal isn't actually to win races - the goal is to change the car regardless.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 11, 2021, 12:50:34 PM
I agree with this. It says something about the dominance of capitalist paradigm that critiques of the system are mostly phrased in economic terms - stagnant wages, inequalities of income and wealth, sectors with monopolistic profits, and the seamy underbelly of finance. These are all real problems and in theory could be remedied through legislation and technical fixes. But they are symptoms of a more fundamental political problem, which is inequality in effective power and influence.
Inequality in effective power and influence is a feature of every political system man has ever attempted, regardless of economic system. Those inequalities allow the powerful to corrupt any economic system.
Quote from: Oexmelin on June 11, 2021, 04:05:57 PM
I am going to use this analogy to help convey what I am saying.
We are wondering if the car we are in, that we have inherited, and that we've been repeatedly told used to win the Indianapolis 500, is still appropriate for winning the race we currently are in - especially as it's not quite clear whether we are still within the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Its past performance aren't at stake. It's whether or not it will continue to carry us in the present circumstances that is under question.
That analogy could be applied to virtually anything: marriage, democracy, the internet, cities... anything that we don't know is best-suited for the future.
The analogy only helps supply understanding if there is some real-world issue that provides evidence that capitalism isn't an Indy Car on a F1 course, and there is a real-world F1 car equivalent.
Quote from: grumbler on June 11, 2021, 06:06:54 PMThat analogy could be applied to virtually anything: marriage, democracy, the internet, cities... anything that we don't know is best-suited for the future.
Yes. Anything can potentially be made into a political slogan, or be the object of political struggles. But not everything holds the central place that capitalism does in our understanding of the world, and of our place in it.
My analogy was simply to answer Berkut's concern that past performance really should be acknowledged whenever we discuss capitalism - because he seems to think current critics of capitalism don't acknowledge it enough. My analogy was to convey that whatever we assume the past performances were doesn't actually say much about the current challenges, especially as we don't even seem to agree, or to know what the challenges are, or even what the challenges were.
It's not a perfect analogy. It wasn't intended to be. It was intended to foster good faith dialogue with Berkut. Perhaps it has succeeded in that regard.
Quote from: Oexmelin on June 11, 2021, 06:37:02 PM
Yes. Anything can potentially be made into a political slogan, or be the object of political struggles. But not everything holds the central place that capitalism does in our understanding of the world, and of our place in it.
My analogy was simply to answer Berkut's concern that past performance really should be acknowledged whenever we discuss capitalism - because he seems to think current critics of capitalism don't acknowledge it enough. My analogy was to convey that whatever we assume the past performances were doesn't actually say much about the current challenges, especially as we don't even seem to agree, or to know what the challenges are, or even what the challenges were.
It's not a perfect analogy. It wasn't intended to be. It was intended to foster good faith dialogue with Berkut. Perhaps it has succeeded in that regard.
I'd certainly argue that there are many things that hold an even more central place in our understanding of the world than capitalism does.
And I think that you are too blithe in dismissing past performance as an indicator of future performance; the entire science of physics, for instance, is built on the assumption that this cannot be dismissed. Ditto for, say, economics, political science, anthropology... I could go on forever. In order to assert that you believe that future performance will be different than past performance, you have to show that either past performance is heavily influenced by chance factors, or that the non-chance factors have changed (or will change).
If your point was only directed at Berkut and not intended as a general statement, then I will simply note that i certainly don't agree but that my agreement isn't a factor in a private conversation between you and Berkut.
Quote from: grumbler on June 11, 2021, 09:06:47 PM
And I think that you are too blithe in dismissing past performance as an indicator of future performance; the entire science of physics, for instance, is built on the assumption that this cannot be dismissed.
True and yet the past also teaches us that every form of social and political organization is eventually supplanted. The questions are exactly when, how, and what?
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 11, 2021, 09:37:17 PM
Quote from: grumbler on June 11, 2021, 09:06:47 PM
And I think that you are too blithe in dismissing past performance as an indicator of future performance; the entire science of physics, for instance, is built on the assumption that this cannot be dismissed.
True and yet the past also teaches us that every form of social and political organization is eventually supplanted. The questions are exactly when, how, and what?
Agreed, and yet we have to study the past to see the patterns that indicate how and when a given form of social and political organization fails and must be replaced. Otherwise such failures will come upon us unawares.
I don't agree with everything here, but this overall is good stuff. I actually like Robert Reich when he goes into some detail.
https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/videos/2085738621720886
I really like his point 1.5 - that the way we need to address inequality of wealth not AFTER the wealth has been distributed by the economic system, but in the initial distribution of wealth as an outcome of market activity.