# Is Capitalism destined to fail? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 21, 2000, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023 "2000-09-21T17:50:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![kabbes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e99b99/32.png) [@kabbes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kabbes)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/161 "2000-09-27T16:30:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kesagiri \* > \*\*Kabbes, nice comment. I was making a similar point above without the x’s and r’s. I hope you aren’t holding your breath here as the “marxists” here don’t seem to want to consider such views. My guess is that they are inconvenient for them and so they ignore the concept of risk. This also explains their whacky views on insurance. What they have against real estate agents is beyond me. I suppose if we conclude that the services they provide are valueless then all service industry jobs are valueless > \*\* Thankyou kesagiri. But we all know that those working in shops are just the goons of the Capitalists, and should be first against the wall come the revolution, don’t we? regards, pan ---
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/162 "2000-09-27T16:32:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \* > But that is not because of capitalism. It is because there are no other alternatives FOR THEM. Capitalism would work just fine with nothing but automated factories and white collar workers. More utopia again. You really don’t think they couldn’t make machines that did nearly all of this work? Of course they could. And why don’t they? Because it is cheaper this way. > [@](#): > > Capitalism doesn’t require that people work for low wages. It’s just that capitalists won’t pay people more than they have to to get them to work. If people won’t work for the wages the capitalists offer, then they either have to raise wages, shut down, or automate. You really think these people can go on strike without being imprisoned or getting a bullet in the bad of their heads from a corporate thug? You are very naive. > [@](#): > > I didn’t cause their misery. But you are buying the goods they make. If you didn’t, they wouldn’t have to make them. > [@](#): > > Were the people in Thailand rich until the corporations came and herded people into sweatshops? No, they were poor subsistence farmers who worked all day every day trying to scratch a living out of the soil and hoping that some aristocrat or bandit (same thing, really) didn’t steal so much from them that they would starve. Oh, baloney. This is the ongoing myth that farming is hard work. You throw some seeds in the ground and come back in a few months. Sure, they paid some of their crops in taxes to the kingdom, which then prevented bandits from stealing more. They are any richer now. They just work more. > [@](#): > > as a consequence of my greedy materialistic pursuit of obscene wealth, these farmers get a job. They already had jobs. Farming. > [@](#): > > And since they aren’t farming, then the supply of food drops so the price increases so the people still farming increase production and make some money selling food. You are saying with less farmers, there is less food. So now it costs more. So the people working at the factory have to pay even more. So much for their dreams of wealth. And if the remaining farmers are getting rich… . Well, I’d like just one rich Third World farmer to show up here to support your claim. Or any statistics to back that up. Yes, a few people do get rich out of this whole scheme but only at the expense of others. > [@](#): > > The economy starts to diversify. As a consequence of my pursuit of material wealth, I have inadvertantly created material wealth for others. Please provide an example of a third world nation in which this has occured – where the means of production are almost completely owned by overseas corporations, yet society has flourished. > [@](#): > > Does the fact that I buy a t-shirt mean that some third world person has to do without a t-shirt? **You are just ceaseless in your dancing bait-and-switch routine. First you are talking about money, then goods, then labor, then freedom, and you just switch to whichever one works for you at the right point in your “logic” stream.** Oh, and when this fails you, you just appeal to the great non-Zero-sum in the sky, as if anything I’m talking about has anything to do with a zero sum theory of economics. So if you didn’t buy sweatshop made goods, you insist you’d be causing the starvation of the employees: > [@](#): > > No, they do not still consume X. They consume X-y. If X-y is small enough, then they die. How could they consume the same amount if they have no money and no job? No, they must consume less, unless you are imagining that we will simply give them the things they need. Even if we give them minimal aid, enough to keep them from starving, they are still worse off than before. Sentence one: no labor and freedom, no goods. Sentence two: less goods because less money. Sentence three: no goods = death. Sentence four: no goods if no money. Sentence five: less goods if no more money. Sentence six: if more money, still less goods and less goods bad. Although you are forgetting they aren’t laboring in a sweatshop by the time you reach sentence six, having magically made that fact disappear in the course of your (completely zero-sum) argument. Can’t they just go get jobs somewhere else? > [@](#): > > If they cannot make widgets, who will sell them the food, shelter and clothing they need? If we must give them food, clothing and shelter, then we must pay for it from taxes. So other people are forced to work harder to keep the former sweatshop workers from dying. Can’t they just grow their own food, make their own shelter? If they can learn new technologies and improve their lives to our standards, fine. It is the imperialist who comes in and won’t let them support themselves: that is how they get them to work in the factory in the first place. Once again, by trying to insist taxes are somehow required, you are baiting and switching out “freedom” for “money and less freedom” from some mysterious others, and again making a zero sum argument that for these people to have the freedom to provide for themselve somehow makes others less free, because they could never be allowed to have the freedom to provide for themselves, only the “freedom” to pay “money” for “goods” which others control. Freedom is apparently slavery, in your opinion. The British in India would have made the same argument back in the days when it was a colony. The British controlled all the salt production, without which no one can live. So, I guess if an Indian quit his job at the cotton plantation, or the plantation went bust, that would be terrible. Taxpayers of the Empire would have to pay more taxes in order to buy the salt this guy needed to live. Of course, never mind there was a law on the books which prevented him from going to the ocean and making his own salt, that law is a requirement of social control. Eventually, a leader arose, named Ghandi, who realized your whole argument was silly. I agree with him. > [@](#): > > Or perhaps the sweatshop workers will eventually become skilled enough and wealthy enough to provide those things for themselves. LOL. ---
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/163 "2000-09-27T17:03:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kesagiri \* > > > [@](#): > > > > And I don’t see why everyone is being hard on oldscratch – the financial, insurance, and real estate industries don’t contribute any real value outside of capital redistribution. > > This is just not true. There are a variety of insurance coverages that are totally voluntary and people do indeed avail themselves of these services. This fact alone, puts the lie to your statement above. **These industries don’t create goods.** Yes, again, they are “valuable” to capitalism, otherwise they would not exist. You might think they _allow_ for the creation of goods, and they do, but that is not the same thing as actually creating a good. > [@](#): > > Also stop being sloppy in your terminology. Capital refers to the various machinery used in production (drills, computers, hammers, lathes, etc.), your comment above is for money not capital. I was just cutting out the middle man. Company burns down, has insurance, gets money, buys capital. Insurance is thus allowing for the redistribution of the capital. ---
**Author:** ![kesagiri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ba0ec/32.png) [@kesagiri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kesagiri)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/164 "2000-09-27T17:09:14Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Kabbes_: **Money solves the problem that money created? I think you’ll find that for many forms of insurance, money solves the problem nature created. We’re talking, storms, floods, subsidence, tidal waves, earthquakes etc etc.** Now dammit kabbes, there you go again being rational and logical. Sheesh stop it will ya’? Your giving Capitalists and Capitalist economists a bad name. Pretty soon people are going to think we might actually be able of doing high school algebra. I mean we can’t let people know that we actually do know the hidden secret in the quadratic formula. Oh damn, I have said too much already…. **jmullaney** , > [@](#): > > You really think these people can go on strike without being imprisoned or getting a bullet in the bad of their heads from a corporate thug? You are very naive. Well I think you should point to a modern example of this type of behavior. I don’t remember any UPS employees getting shot or imprisoned when they went on strike. Further, nobody is advocating this kind of activity. A person who favors a market based economy usually also favors freedom of choice and would abhor the use of violence and coercion you mention above. Do try to refrain from using the Strawman Fallacy. I imagine most people see it for the load of crap that it is. > [@](#): > > Sure, they paid some of their crops in taxes to the kingdom, which then prevented bandits from stealing more. Sounds like the appropriation of the surplus-value of their labor to me. > [@](#): > > You are saying with less farmers, there is less food. So now it costs more. No, what he is saying is more complex than that. Initially the production decreases so the price increases which induces farmers to invest in such things as machinery to help them farm and increase their yield. This will eventually bring prices down. A casual perusal of history will show that there is not an ever increasing spiral in the price of food stuffs. What you do see is that the increasing demands for food are provided by fewer and fewer people. Similarly for manufacturing. The number of people working in manufacturing jobs is declining, but the amount of output has actually stayed pretty constant as a share of GDP. > [@](#): > > Please provide an example of a third world nation in which this has occured – where the means of production are almost completely owned by overseas corporations, yet society has flourished. South Korea. > [@](#): > > So if you didn’t buy sweatshop made goods, you insist you’d be causing the starvation of the employees: Ever hear of Smokey Mountain in Manila jmullaney? It is a trash heap that people live on. They make their living off of picking through the garbage. I imagine for these people a sweatshop job might look real good and would gladly take it. The point is that we shouldn’t think sweatshops are great or wonderful, but they are better than the alternative and who the hell are you to relegate them to living on a trash heap. Why not let them decide what they want to do. Once they have the sweatshop job they might be able to move off the trash heap, eat better food, and maybe even cosume other goods. Creating new jobs for others. This begining could lead to something much much better in the years to come, but I wonder what your solution is for this situation? Shall we just give them money? What? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/165 "2000-09-27T17:16:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > Capitalism doesn’t require that people work for low wages. It’s just that capitalists won’t pay people more than they have to to get them to work. If people won’t work for the wages the capitalists offer, then they either have to raise wages, shut down, or automate. > > You really think these people can go on strike without being imprisoned or getting a bullet in the bad of their heads from a corporate thug? You are very naive. \*\* Sure they can go on strike. But the company would simply find other people to take their place. > [@](#): > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > I didn’t cause their misery. > > But you are buying the goods they make. If you didn’t, they wouldn’t have to make them. \*\* It appears as though they actually want these jobs. Otherwise they wouldn’t be there. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Oh, baloney. This is the ongoing myth that farming is hard work. You throw some seeds in the ground and come back in a few months. Sure, they paid some of their crops in taxes to the kingdom, which then prevented bandits from stealing more. \*\* Actually to begin with you have to prepare the field depending on the crop you will be planting. For rice that involves detailed irrigation designed to keep the water at a certain level at all times. Then you get around to planting the crop. If you’re lucky you have a machine to help you out if not you’re in for some backbreaking labor. You don’t simply toss a seed on the ground and hope it will grow. You plant the seen inside the soil. We’re talking about a farm here not a garden so you’re planting a few acres at a time. Now before harvest time you’ve got to maintain the farm. That includes fences, equipment, your home, the barn, and even the field itself from time to time. It isn’t as if you sit there doing nothing until harvest time rolls around. Ah, so here we are at harvest time. Now you’ve got to go pick whatever your grew. But since you don’t have any mechanical aids this will take longer then you thought. Do me a favor. In the United States there are still places where one can find farmers picking cotton, watermelon, and various other farm goods by hand. Go pick cotton all day with your bare hands. When your bloody fingers scab over come back and let us know how easy it is to farm. > [@](#): > > \*\* > They are any richer now. They just work more. [/q] Apparantly a lot of people would rather work in a Nike factory then farm. Hmmm…I wonder why? > [@](#): > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > as a consequence of my greedy materialistic pursuit of obscene wealth, these farmers get a job. > > They already had jobs. Farming. \*\* Which they obviously did not want if they’re going to a factory to work. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Can’t they just grow their own food, make their own shelter? If they can learn new technologies and improve their lives to our standards, fine. It is the imperialist who comes in and won’t let them support themselves: that is how they get them to work in the factory in the first place. \*\* Uh huh. All those nasty capitalist are forcing them to work in those horrible factories. Marc ---
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/166 "2000-09-27T17:21:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kesagiri \* > I suppose if we conclude that the services they provide are valueless then all service industry jobs are valueless No. Because when you flip a hamburger, you are actually doing something. When you flip real estate, nothing “real” happens. Some pieces of paper change hands, etc. I know these pieces of paper are important in capitalism, and maybe just as real _to you_ as a hamburger, but they don’t matter in the same way in other systems. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kabbes \* > Without insurance and without some method of reserving for such catastrophe, what is your utopia going to do the first time nature wipes out the productive capacity of a city? Try asking Bangladesh. Plan B! Move the entire town 5 miles west 😛 OK, I don’t know what happened in Bangladesh. Explain. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/167 "2000-09-27T17:24:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > **These industries don’t create goods.** Yes, again, they are “valuable” to capitalism, otherwise they would not exist. You might think they _allow_ for the creation of goods, and they do, but that is not the same thing as actually creating a good. \*\* A plumber doesn’t produce any goods, a music teacher does not produce any goods, nor does a circus performer produce any goods. And yet people seem to value their services enough to pay for them. And insurance company provides a service. That service means that for a small fee a company, or individual, will be covered in case of some sort of disaster. This leaves the company or individual free to invest their money in other ventures rather then saving it all for a rainy day. So they don’t actually produce anything. So what? That doesn’t mean they provide nothing of value. Marc ---
**Author:** ![kesagiri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ba0ec/32.png) [@kesagiri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kesagiri)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/168 "2000-09-27T17:25:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jmullaney \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by kesagiri \* > > > > > [@](#): > > > > > > And I don’t see why everyone is being hard on oldscratch – the financial, insurance, and real estate industries don’t contribute any real value outside of capital redistribution. > > > > This is just not true. There are a variety of insurance coverages that are totally voluntary and people do indeed avail themselves of these services. This fact alone, puts the lie to your statement above. > > **These industries don’t create goods.** Yes, again, they are “valuable” to capitalism, otherwise they would not exist. You might think they _allow_ for the creation of goods, and they do, but that is not the same thing as actually creating a good. > > > [@](#): > > > > Also stop being sloppy in your terminology. Capital refers to the various machinery used in production (drills, computers, hammers, lathes, etc.), your comment above is for money not capital. > > I was just cutting out the middle man. Company burns down, has insurance, gets money, buys capital. Insurance is thus allowing for the redistribution of the capital. \*\* First, if your definition of something that is valuable is only something that creates a tangible commodity then I guess jobs like travel agents, waiters and waitresses, telephone operators, a mechanic (he doesn’t create anything he merely fixes the broken equipment), a doctor creates no goods now do they, etc. do not provide anything of value. Stop being dense. Services _are_ of value otherwise people wouldn’t pay for them. This is another flaw in the labor theory of value. As for you cutting out the middle man you are not understanding the concept of capital, risk and insurance. Let me walk you through it. We have a good state (your house doesn’t burn down) and a bad state (your house burns down). Now in the bad state you suffer a loss of $50,000, and in the good state you suffer a loss of 0. Now suppose the probability of your house burning down is x and it not burning down is 1-x. Now, do you want to buy insurance? Or are you willing to take the risk of loosing $50,000? What if the risk is 1%? How about 2%? How about 5%? Insurance payments come from the other people who buy insurance. That is you get 200 people who want to buy insurance for their house burning down. They determine the amount of the premium by the expected number of insurance payments, then divide the number by the number of people purchasing insurance. And since I bet you still don’t get it, lets try this really brain dead simple approach. Suppose I come to your door and tell you I am going to cover out of my pocket any losses you suffer from your house burning down? Now, are you better or worse off? Insurance is similar. However, instead of covering the loss out their pocket they get a bunch of people similar to yourself together and have you each chip in a small amount so that those of you that do have bad luck are made better off. ---
**Author:** ![kesagiri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ba0ec/32.png) [@kesagiri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kesagiri)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/169 "2000-09-27T17:30:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Plan B! Move the entire town 5 miles west This is a time inconsistent policy. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/170 "2000-09-27T17:44:47Z")
> [@](#): > > This is just not true. There are a variety of insurance coverages that are totally voluntary and people do indeed avail themselves of these services. This fact alone, puts the lie to your statement above. **These industries don’t create goods.** Yes, again, they are “valuable” to capitalism, otherwise they would not exist. You might think they _allow_ for the creation of goods, and they do, but that is not the same thing as actually creating a good. [/QUOTE] They most certainly do create a good, which is your central error. They create security - or peace of mind, or financial flexibility, or whatever you’d like to call it. You’re operating on the assumption that “goods” constitute only physical, material things. That’s a completely incorrect belief. Anything that people place a value on is a “good” in an economic sense. If someone cuts my hair for $15, that’s a good worth $15 to me. They’re creating nothing material; it’s a pure service and I walk out with nothing I didn’t walk in with (in fact, I walk out with less.) But if I value it enough to fork over $15 for it, than the haircut is worth every bit as much as a $15 CD, or $15 worth of food, or $15 towards a new car. If you define economic goods as comprising only material goods, you’re completely missing the point of… well, of all economics. Something worth $X to subject A is worth $X to subject A, whether it’s a physical good or a service. You buy stuff all the time for which you receive no material thing in return; you must place value on those things or you wouldn’t buy them. They’re “goods” in every way that matters, economically speaking. You missed the point quoted above; if insurance wasn’t a good, nobody would pay for it. The fact they do pay for it proves they’re a good. They’re valuable to consumers, people, not just “Capitalism.” I’m an ordinary Joe and I buy insurance. I have house insurance. I’ve got medical insurance for my cats (yes, really.) I belong to CAA, the Canadian version of AAA, which is really just an insurance plan. I was not forced to get those things; I chose to because they were worth it to me. They must have economic value to me or else I would not have purchased them. An economic model that fails to recognize this is flawed at its core. Your decision that my furniture, which I paid money for, are “Goods” but the insurance on my furniture is not a “good” has no basis in logic and is contradicted by my behaviour (and the behaviour of million of others.) Something’s wrong with your model. ---
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/171 "2000-09-27T17:47:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kesagiri \* > Well I think you should point to a modern example of this type of behavior. I don’t remember any UPS employees getting shot or imprisoned when they went on strike. I didn’t know UPS went on strike in the third world. Um, let’s see. Shell Oil in Africa. Freeport MacMoRan in Indonesia. Just to name a few off the top of my head. Maybe no workers were shot _today_. And maybe no reporters were imprisoned illegally for try to report workers being shot _today_. I think people are starting to learn their lesson and not step out of line. That doesn’t mean those workers are not still working out of fear. > [@](#): > > Further, nobody is advocating this kind of activity. A person who favors a market based economy usually also favors freedom of choice and would abhor the use of violence and coercion you mention above. So, if you think the right to unionize is so important, don’t buy any good that come from countries where people don’t have that right. And don’t buy goods from someone who buys good from those countries, then you are just a collaborator. Oh, but it is third world labor’s problem right? Gee, the money used to buy the bullets that go into the back of the heads of people who step out of line had to come from somewhere, right? > [@](#): > > Sounds like the appropriation of the surplus-value of their labor to me. It that some sort of Marxist thing? You are confusing me with oldscratch. > [@](#): > > which induces farmers to invest in such things as machinery to help them farm and increase their yield There are other ways to improve a farmer’s available technology than imperialism. > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Please provide an example of a third world nation in which this has occured – where the means of production are almost completely owned by overseas corporations, yet society has flourished. > > South Korea. South Korea doesn’t own its own corporations? Could have fooled me. > [@](#): > > Smokey Mountain in Manila jmullaney? It is a trash heap that people live on. They make their living off of picking through the garbage. I imagine for these people a sweatshop job might look real good and would gladly take it. So, Manila has no jobs, yet these people don’t have the right to self-determination. That sounds like a problem with capitalism to me. If capitalism wants to force these people to pick through trash for a living, maybe capitalism has a few flaws, no? > [@](#): > > who the hell are you to relegate them to living on a trash heap[?] Um… Well, OK, I guess I am a participant in the economy – but don’t make this out to be entirely my fault. You are relegating them too. > [@](#): > > I wonder what your solution is for this situation? Shall we just give them money? What? My solution would be… well, you’d just say it was impossible. Oldscratch’s solution would be collective farming, though, and that is a good start. ---
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/172 "2000-09-27T18:17:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MGibson \* > A plumber doesn’t produce any goods, a music teacher does not produce any goods, nor does a circus performer produce any goods. A plumber produces fixed pipes. A music teacher produces musicians. A clown entertains. Those are all different than shuffling pieces of paper around. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kesagiri \* > First, if your definition of something that is valuable is only something that creates a tangible commodity then I guess jobs like travel agents, waiters and waitresses, telephone operators, a mechanic (he doesn’t create anything he merely fixes the broken equipment), a doctor creates no goods now do they, etc. do not provide anything of value. Stop being dense. I really don’t think I’m the dense one. You seem to be misunderstanding me on purpose at this point. Travel agents, beyond their role of travel planners, are just petty bankers/brokers again. Dub-dubs carry food from point a to point b, which is something productive. Mechanics fix cars, doctors heal patients. These services are all valuable in any society. > [@](#): > > This is another flaw in the labor theory of value. You just can’t imagine a world where insurance, etc. are not needed. The Amish, not a perfect example I know, don’t have house insurance. If someone’s house burns down, they just get together a build a new one. > [@](#): > > Now in the bad state you suffer a loss of $50,000, and in the good state you suffer a loss of 0. Now suppose the probability of your house burning down is x and it not burning down is 1-x. Now, do you want to buy insurance? Or are you willing to take the risk of loosing $50,000? What if the risk is 1%? How about 2%? How about 5%? Tell it to the Amish. Those dolts just go and rebuild the house. Someone get those folks some abacuses, stat! > [@](#): > > lets try this really brain dead simple approach. Suppose I come to your door and tell you I am going to cover out of my pocket any losses you suffer from your house burning down? Now, are you better or worse off? Losses? Like timber, etc.? You carry roofing supplies around in your pocket? A miracle! OK, so I’m better off. Thank you for your kind offer of help in my future time of need. > [@](#): > > Insurance is similar. However, instead of covering the loss out their pocket they get a bunch of people similar to yourself together and have you each chip in a small amount so that those of you that do have bad luck are made better off. Yeah… and that is what the Amish do without buying insurance. Apparently, they are creating “value” out of nothing (without, I might add, the benefit of demon electricity). ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/173 "2000-09-27T18:24:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > A plumber produces fixed pipes. A music teacher produces musicians. A clown entertains. > > Those are all different than shuffling pieces of paper around. \*\* And an insurance company produces security. Whew! I feel really good that we’ve got that out of the way. > [@](#): > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > This is another flaw in the labor theory of value. > > You just can’t imagine a world where insurance, etc. are not needed. \*\* Isn’t that a John Lennon song? > [@](#): > > \*\* > The Amish, not a perfect example I know, don’t have house insurance. If someone’s house burns down, they just get together a build a new one. \*\* None of us here are Amish. They’re system works out just great for them. But of course I’d rather free myself from the responsibility of being available to raise a barn or two every year. Thank goodness for insurance. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/174 "2000-09-27T18:31:14Z")
This conversation is simply going off the wall. The Marxists and their defenders are becoming more and more irrational. Now the claim is that there are legions of corporate thugs threatening people who want to quit, services that offer no value to society, farming is trivially easy, etc. I don’t think I can say much more on this topic, but I want to specifically take exception to this: > [@](#): > > Oh, baloney. This is the ongoing myth that farming is hard work. You throw some seeds in the ground and come back in a few months. Sure, they paid some of their crops in taxes to the kingdom, which then prevented bandits from stealing more. > > They are any richer now. They just work more. Spoken, I’m guessing, by someone who has never been within 100 miles of a farm. I grew up on a poor farm. We didn’t have a lot of automation. And I’m here to tell you it was backbreaking labor 16 hours a day. Even so, we had the advantage of a lot of things not available to REALLY poor farmers. Good roads, an old tractor, hammers, nails, good lumber, galvanized pots, modern fertilizers, etc. Before you plant a crop you have to till the soil. If you don’t have a tractor, that means hooking up a plow to a draft animal, or being one yourself. Dragging yourself up and down your field all day for days on end, with your jury-rigged harness cutting your flesh and your legs turning to rubber. Then you get to seed your crop. On poor farms, that means walking in the sun with a bag of seed and ‘spraying’ it with your hands. That might take days. Then, while the crop is growing you’ll be out there on your hands and knees pulling weeds. In the meantime, the shelter needs repairs, tools break and have to be fixed, clothing wears out and has to be mended, food has to be gathered or purchased from the proceeds of last year’s crops, etc. If you’re lucky enough to be able to buy some fertilizer, you’ll be out in the fields every day hand-spraying your fertilizer. If you get vermin infestations, you’ll be out dealing with them as well. In the meantime, you’ll be digging irrigation ditches, removing diseased plants, pulling weeds from between your crop plants, etc. Sunup to sundown, every day. After your crop has matured, the really fun part comes in - you get to harvest it. Even on our farm, harvest time was an intense period of sunup-to-sundown heavy labor, for weeks on end. I can’t imagine the grueling job a harvest must be on a truly poor farm. After you’ve harvested your crop, it’s time to get it to market. Break out your makeshift buckets and bags, fill them with your product, and start the five or ten mile walk to the nearest marketplace, carrying perhaps 50-100 lbs of stuff. Repeat day in, day out for weeks, until you’ve sold all your crop or it has spoiled. For all this, you might earn $500 per YEAR. In some countries, you’ll make far less. You might even starve to death in the attempt. And while you’re working yourself to death on your crop, you’ll go to bed every night praying for rain, or praying that the rain stop, or praying that the locusts stay away, or that it doesn’t hail… any number of natural disasters can wipe out a year’s labor in the blink of an eye. Now, compare that with sitting on a bench in a factory, stitching clothing. You are wearing a clean uniform, you’ve gone through the hot shower (need clean employees to keep from soiling the product), and you get a company lunch (got to keep the employees’ health up for productivity). You get paid 50 cents an hour, which is $1200 per year, perhaps twice what your family makes in the fields. And at the end of the day, the company lets you take some cloth scraps home, which you use to clothe your family. You may choose not to believe it, but many of these sweat shops are considered dream jobs, and there are huge waiting lists of people waiting to get into them. The same thing happened at the start of the industrial revolution. There was a huge social upheaval as people fled the farms and moved into the cities to work in factories, which offered much more wealth, more leisure, and overall an improved standard of living. ---
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/175 "2000-09-27T18:35:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MGibson \* > **I’d rather free myself from the responsibility of being available to raise a barn or two every year. Thank goodness for insurance.** It’s the magically money actually getting up and doing work like the brooms in the sorcerer’s apprentice again! Yep, thank goodness for insurance, no one actually has to do the work of rebuilding the house that burns down. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![kesagiri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ba0ec/32.png) [@kesagiri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kesagiri)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/176 "2000-09-27T18:45:45Z")
> [@](#): > > I really don’t think I’m the dense one. You seem to be misunderstanding me on purpose at this point. Travel agents, beyond their role of travel planners, are just petty bankers/brokers again. Dub-dubs carry food from point a to point b, which is something productive. Mechanics fix cars, doctors heal patients. These services are all valuable in any society. Oh such wonderful backpedalling. Your definition of a productive job is one that creates a good, not something that has value. Congratulations you have just become so dense you could deflect a 120mm sabot round. None the jobs above produce a good, a thing, something you can hold. So by _your_ definition they produce nothing of value. Instead of sticking to your definition you have co-opted mine and kabbes and pretend it is your own. As for the South Korea example, it is an example of a once third world country that is now quite modern and doing quite well. > [@](#): > > So, if you think the right to unionize is so important, don’t buy any good that come from countries where people don’t have that right. And don’t buy goods from someone who buys good from those countries, then you are just a collaborator. Oh, but it is third world labor’s problem right? Gee, the money used to buy the bullets that go into the back of the heads of people who step out of line had to come from somewhere, right? I see you can’t continue discussing this without resort to emotionally charged language. I got bad news for you, I bet you buy stuff that is made in these places you are protesting about. To avoid all such goods would take a level of information that I doubt you possess. > [@](#): > > There are other ways to improve a farmer’s available technology than imperialism. There is that Strawman fallacy again. Hmmm, I don’t remember saying imperialism is the only way this can happen or that imperialism is how it should happen. > [@](#): > > So, Manila has no jobs, yet these people don’t have the right to self-determination. That sounds like a problem with capitalism to me. If capitalism wants to force these people to pick through trash for a living, maybe capitalism has a few flaws, no? Strawman again. I don’t seem to recall saying that Manila has no jobs, or that the people have a right to self-determination. In fact, I was saying the opposite, that they should have a right to choose to work in a sweatshop or not. I also don’t think capitalism forces people to pick through trash try other problems like corruption, cronyism, etc. Perhaps a class in reading comprehension would help. Also, how do you explain the fact that in the late 50’s and early 60’s Korea and the Philippines were in about the same position, economically speaking, and now Korea is doing well and the Philippines is still struggling? > [@](#): > > My solution would be… well, you’d just say it was impossible. Oldscratch’s solution would be collective farming, though, and that is a good start. Oh what a wonderful idea? It doesn’t occur to you that perhaps the people there might not want to do that, eh Pol Pot? Maybe some of them want something other than being a farmer. And you have the gall to say that I am relegating them to some form of lifestyle when you want to herd them up and put them to work on communal farms. Of course you side step the issue that communal farms are by and large a dismal failure. ---
**Author:** ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/177 "2000-09-27T18:54:05Z")
**kesagiri** : > [@](#): > > Congratulations you have just become so dense you could deflect a 120mm sabot round. [Moderator Hat ON] Nice metaphor, but here in Great Debates we try to keep personal insults out of the threads. If you want to insult, please take it to The BBQ Pit. Thanks. [Moderator Hat OFF] ---
**Author:** ![kesagiri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ba0ec/32.png) [@kesagiri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kesagiri)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/178 "2000-09-27T18:54:40Z")
> [@](#): > > The Amish, not a perfect example I know, don’t have house insurance. If someone’s house burns down, they just get together a build a new one. Oh for crying out loud. This is a type of insurance. Instead of putting in money the other families donate their labor, timber, tools, etc. Sheesh if you are so blind not to see the obvious perhaps you should bow out of this discussion. > [@](#): > > Yeah… and that is what the Amish do without buying insurance. Apparently, they are creating “value” out of nothing (without, I might add, the benefit of demon electricity). See you even admit that the scheme used by the Amish is similar, yet you consider insurance companies as having now value. Oh, and stop using demon electricity jmullaney…before you become posessed. **Sam Stone** , Stop bothering these caring folks with annoying facts about your actual experiences on a farm. Clearly you wroked so hard because a capitalist was there with a gun and he would shoot you otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/179 "2000-09-27T20:49:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kesagiri \* > \*\*None the jobs above produce a good, a thing, something you can hold. So by _your_ definition they produce nothing of value. > > Instead of sticking to your definition you have co-opted mine and kabbes and pretend it is your own.\*\* I apologize if I’ve been confusing. If a waitress shows up at my table and produces a hamburger (tah-dah) she’s still put labor into getting me the hamburger, which is the important thing. I didn’t ever mean to imply that the only worthwhile labor is done in a factory somewhere. > [@](#): > > As for the South Korea example, it is an example of a once third world country that is now quite modern and doing quite well. Well, so is the U.S. > [@](#): > > I see you can’t continue discussing this without resort to emotionally charged language. Yeah, you’re right. Labor exploitation is no big deal. Move along, nothing to see here. :wally > [@](#): > > I got bad news for you, I bet you buy stuff that is made in these places you are protesting about. To avoid all such goods would take a level of information that I doubt you possess. Not only that, but I’d have to not buy goods if my money went to others who bought those goods, nor could I work for others to make them a profit in order for them to buy those goods. Nor should I sell to anyone anything they can use to enable them to do any of that themselves. Anything less than that and I’m just a collaborator. I doesn’t do me much good to cease collaboration when no one believes it is a bad thing. Nor do I have the authority to call for a general strike the way Ghandi could. I mean, if Ghandi had gone to the ocean to make salt, he would have gone to jail. But he went with a few hundred thousand of his close friends. I don’t think anyone in America really cares about the plight of others, but I might start again. But, not today. > [@](#): > > Hmmm, I don’t remember saying imperialism is the only way this can happen or that imperialism is how it should happen. So you admit advances in farming technology can occur without capitalism. Now we are getting somewhere. > [@](#): > > I don’t seem to recall saying that Manila has no jobs, or that the people have a right to self-determination. In fact, I was saying the opposite, that they should have a right to choose to work in a sweatshop or not. I also don’t think capitalism forces people to pick through trash try other problems like corruption, cronyism, etc. Perhaps a class in reading comprehension would help. Also, how do you explain the fact that in the late 50’s and early 60’s Korea and the Philippines were in about the same position, economically speaking, and now Korea is doing well and the Philippines is still struggling? Koreans owned their own factories. The Philippines’s factories were/are owned by people overseas. > [@](#): > > Maybe some of them want something other than being a farmer. And you have the gall to say that I am relegating them to some form of lifestyle when you want to herd them up and put them to work on communal farms. I’m sorry. I thought maybe these people would prefer having the ability to provide for themselves in a manner more humane than having to pick through trash heaps (I wonder also where this trach heap comes from). > [@](#): > > Of course you side step the issue that communal farms are by and large a dismal failure. Really? I thought most farms today are a communal farms. I guess I won’t buy that stock in Archers/Daniels/Midland after all. ---
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2000, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023/180 "2000-09-27T21:13:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > I grew up on a poor farm. We didn’t have a lot of automation. OK. And you couldn’t get the latest in automation why? Capitalism. But, that not with standing… > [@](#): > > After you’ve harvested your crop, it’s time to get it to market. Break out your makeshift buckets and bags, fill them with your product, and start the five or ten mile walk to the nearest marketplace, carrying perhaps 50-100 lbs of stuff. Repeat day in, day out for weeks, until you’ve sold all your crop or it has spoiled. > > For all this, you might earn $500 per YEAR. I don’t know Sam – your numbers just don’t add up, although your last number might not be adjusted for inflation. I probably spend $5 on food per day. So in fifteen weeks, I’ve eaten all the extra food your farm produced in a year (burp, thanks). Or in other words, you’ve produced enough food in a year to feed 15 people for a week. So if all the farms were like yours, there would be 52 of them for every 15 people who weren’t farmers (52 weeks in a year.) Now I don’t know how many full time workers you had on your farm – but I’m guessing 4 as a rough guess. So, that would be 208 farmers for every 15 people who weren’t farmers. So, to feed the city I grew up (not quite 100 miles from the nearest farm, but city folk can be ignorant) which had a million people, that must have taken 13,866,666 and 2/3s farmers. And your farm was more productive than a lot of others that were even poorer and had less advantages. Maybe I’m wrong, but if it takes 14 million farmers to feed every million people, I’ll eat my strawman’s hat! I’m fairly sure, even in the middle ages in Europe, there weren’t ever more than 10 farmers to every 1 non-farmer. Otherwise everyone everyone would have starved to death somewhere between the church tithes and the feudal taxes. > [@](#): > > You may choose not to believe it, but many of these sweat shops are considered dream jobs, and there are huge waiting lists of people waiting to get into them. Well, you probably are right. I still think it is wrong to exploit these people’s situations. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-destined-to-fail/34023.md?page=10)