# Is Capitalism the Only Game In Town for the Future?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 23, 2006, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714 "2006-02-23T01:12:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/21 "2006-02-23T09:23:45Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> Or should we just shrug and say that _if the passenger pigeon had been worth saving, the market would have hit upon a way to do it_?
That’s somewhat of a strawman.
What we do is accept the obvious. People only killed passenger pigeons because other people payed them to kill passenger pigeons. We don’t need for the market to ‘hit upon a way to do it’ as you put it. The way to do it already existed inherent in the market. If people had wanted to save the passenger pigeon they could have simply stopped buying. It really is that simple.
Of course this hinges on people having access to all the information required to make these decisions. But that isn’t at all relevant to a thread pertaining to the benefits of capitalism. All systems rely on information to make good decisions and capitalism is, if anything, better at disseminating information.
But if we assume that people were acting in an informed manner then it’s a sad truth that people didn’t consider the passenger pigeon worth saving. Just because you think it’s a tragedy today doesn’t mean that it was a tragedy. All resources will eventually be consumed, that’s a given. Passenger pigeons were always doomed to extinction. The question is whether we consume these resources wisely or squander them. We can never save them.
The people at that time made the decision that the wisest way to consume that particular resource was as a one shot, cheap and expendable resource to fuel growth. That is no more ridiculous than an alternative decision to harvest them carefully for a few hundred or million years and then have the species vanish anyway. They are simply alternative viewpoints.
The people of the time had the option of not consuming the resource as rapidly and they rejected that choice. Just as you personally right now are rejecting the choice of consuming fossil fuels more slowly by not using a computer. You pay for your computer and the electricity it uses and in that way you as part of the market control conservation. That is what prevents headlong exploitation of a finite resource. If people don’t like the rate of use of a resource they don’t have to use the resource at that rate.
You have decided that the pleasure you get from the SDMB is worth depleting the world’s fossil fuel reserves that much quicker. That’s your decision to make and nobody can tell you it is wrong. And in exactly the same way someone 150 years ago decided that the pleasure they got from pigeon pie was worth depleting the world’s pigeon reserves that much quicker That was their decision to make.
Where people so often go wrong in these matters is an implicit but unstated assumption that somehow conservation equals preservation. As though somehow if we don’t consume these resources as fast they won’t vanish when the sun expands and engulfs the Earth. When you accept the truth, that all resources will vanish ultimately and all we get to decide on is whether we squander them, utilise them wisely or leave them to rot, then the question becomes much clearer (and paradoxically harder to answer).
Perhaps the real question is “What does Mangetout think the pigeons should have been saved for?”. There are lots of good answers to that question but until you and all other members of our society agree on the answer we can’t say whether they were worth saving. Society at the time decided they weren’t worth saving and voted with their wallets. Who are you and I say they were wrong?
---
### Author:  [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/22 "2006-02-23T09:30:53Z")
**Blake** , I’m sure you’re a swell guy, but it’s driving me nuts: the past tense of “pay” is “paid.”
“payed” is only used when referring to letting out a rope line.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/23 "2006-02-23T09:34:37Z")
I think calling it a strawman is an unkind and unfair comment; exhaustive exploitation of resources at market level, while at individual level, we wish them conserved, or at least used more wisely, represents a (perhaps insoluble) failure of capitalism, or perhaps failure of humanity.
Yes, we can get all nihilistic and ask _what’s the point of anything?_, but _what’s the point of asking that?_.
Nowhere am I suggesting that we leave resources to rot.
---
### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/24 "2006-02-23T10:02:15Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> I think calling it a strawman is an unkind and unfair comment;
I don’t, that’s why I said it.
It is a misrepresentation of a position, not a position that I have ever heard anyone actually espouse. And you did italicise it, which I assumed meant thatit was intended to represent a position.
Of course if you can find a quote of where someone ever espoused such a position then I will withdraw the accusation that it is somewhat of a strawman.
> [@](#):
>
> exhaustive exploitation of resources at market level, while at individual level, we wish them conserved, or at least used more wisely, represents a (perhaps insoluble) failure of capitalism, or perhaps failure of humanity.
It is clearly _not_ a failure of capitalism. I demonstrated this at length in my post above.
Instead of adressing my actual post you have resorted to arguing fom assertion, You are attempting to argue that capitalism has no mechanism to prevent unwanted exploitatioin, and you support that by simply asserting that such exploitation is an inherent and insoluble feature of capitalism.
Can you present any actual evidence or reasoning that such a flaw exists? You seemed to believe that the extinction of the passenger pigeon is evidence but I demonstrated that such was not the case.
> [@](#):
>
> Yes, we can get all nihilistic and ask _what’s the point of anything?_, but _what’s the point of asking that?_.
That really is a strawman.
My argumentis in no way nihilistic. In fact quite the oppiste. I fervently hope and believ that humanity or our descendents will get off this rock long before it boils away into space.
One of the choices we have of course is to resort to HG or subsistence farming lifestyle at low population densities, zero economic growth and low technology. That will maximise conservation but it also guarantees that we are a doomed species. Another choice is social, economic and technological advancement through capitalism.
You can’t get much _less_ nihilistic than my actual position. Your statement is as blatant and obvious a stramwan as I have ever seen on these boards.
> [@](#):
>
> Nowhere am I suggesting that we leave resources to rot.
I’m not entirely sure what you are suggesting.
Any resource still on this Earth when the sun expands out to this orbit will have been left to rot. Not literally of course but in every other sense. Thatis what i meant. Had people conserved the passenger pigeons 150 years ago the species is still ultimately doomed. That is a given. Conservation for the sake of preservation is just leaving things to rot.
Now we can conserve things for aesthetic resons, and we can conserve them for the puposes of ecosystem servives or for their biopharmaceutical properties or a million other good reasons. But if we conserve them for the sake of preservation then we are just leaving the resoucre to rot.
People way back when faced a decision. They could preserve passenger pigeons because they are pretty and might one day be a source of a cure for scrofula or they could utilise the resource rapidly to fuel growth or they could preserve them and leave them to rot. They decided on the second option. That wasn’t an inherently bad choice, no matter how much you and I might lament it. It was at least as valid as the first exploitation option and emminently more sensible than leaving them to rot.
> [@](#):
>
> the past tense of “pay” is “paid.”
:o
---
### Author:  [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/25 "2006-02-23T10:50:58Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> If people had wanted to save the passenger pigeon they could have simply stopped buying. It really is that simple.
Why can’t the disappearance of the passenger pigeon due to the statistical unlikelihood of _all_ buyers agreeing to stop buying without any incentive or deterrent be reasonably labelled an example of capitalism failing to prevent exhaustion of a resource?
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/26 "2006-02-23T10:57:45Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> I don’t, that’s why I said it.
Whose position am I misrepresenting?
---
### Author:  [@Tabby\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabby_Cat)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/27 "2006-02-23T12:10:50Z")
Capitalism doesn’t take into account unvalueable costs, or assets which cannot be transfered. What is the value of free speech? What is the value of an old woman dying on the street? What is the value of your right to live? If it cannot be expressed in monetary terms, it cannot be dealt with by capitalism. Fundamentally, that is what is wrong with capitalism.
Laws, of course, can internalise these costs by arbitarily assigning rights that are enforceable and transferrable, such as copyright. But these are patches, and is only capitalism to the extent that the rights can be considered a true representation of the actual, unvalueable rights that we “feel” that all humans should have. Where do we draw the balance? Is the balance that is drawn the most efficient? An argument is made that if we did not have copyright, no one would ever produce art any more. Is that true? Is the aim for most people to produce art the right to exploit that art? Most famous painters were penniless. Most of the great composers died paupers. The internal reason for them producing the art is not properly expressed in copyright, because that is not what they produced for. And yet it is the only tradeable right, recognisable by capitalism, they would have in their work today. So even if the market operates perfectly to realise the greatest value in their tradeable right, is that the most efficient in relation to people’s desires? By definition, it will be the most efficient in terms of tradeable and valueable rights and resources, but is that what society desires?
For all the flak that socialism has gotten, I’m not so sure that it’s all that bad, for certain things that are unvaluable or difficult to value. Such as Fire Protection. There’s been a thread around, and most people are aghast. Why? Capitalism certainly has succeeded, and it has resulted in the most efficient allocation of resources. But yet we feel that the situation is not “right”, and (in our “hearts”) that the value of a man’s house not burning down, his losing his livelihood, the trauma and the percieved racism outweigh the cost of providing even a little help. But that’s not what capitalism says. There is no internalised value to racism in most people.
What about healthcare? How can you value the time left to a cancer patient, the death of an old granny, the spread of an epidemic? Many of you moan about the lack of public healthcare in the States, but why? Surely it is the most efficient way of doing things, that ensures the resources that are spent provide health for the ones who can most make use of their health (debatable), even if it means braces for a rich kid instead of anasthetic for a rotten tooth for a poor one. What economic value is there for anasthetic for a poor kid?
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/28 "2006-02-23T13:13:11Z")
Actually, I should know better than to get involved in these threads; this particular one is the most contentious and polarized of all possible topics on the SDMB, I’m certain of it.
---
### Author:  [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/29 "2006-02-23T14:25:40Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> Does it? I thought that capitalism was very good at anticipating, that’s why futures tarding works so well. Individual _capitalists_ of course are only human, and they have a less than perfect record of predicting, but what makes you belive that capitalism as a system has any trouble anticipating and responding to future conditions?
Hmmm. Part of what I mean could be summarized as - if markets are so damn good why do we need a government? I feel that there is enough evidence of market failures to indicate that markets can’t solve everything. I have to think some more to better articulate what my thoughts are here.
**Shagnasty** I think your definition of capitalism is somewhat vague and unlimited - I think there are a number of unstated and not-necessarily true assumptions embedded within it. There could be variants of capitalism that meet your stated criteria but bear little relationship to the current US system, for example. And as a poster noted earlier, what happens to the law of supply and demand when supply is much greater than demand?
---
### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/30 "2006-02-23T15:02:12Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> I’m not saying I have any better ideas, but in a capitalist market framework, what prevents the headlong and ever-accelerating exploitation of a finite resource to it’s eventual destruction; In a scenario where there are other resources anyway (such as, say, ducks and geese), what prevents the self-interest of the hunters from pursuing passenger pigeons to destruction, and to respond to the dwindling remainder by fighting to grab a bigger share of it?
>
> Or should we just shrug and say that _if the passenger pigeon had been worth saving, the market would have hit upon a way to do it_?
It’s really very simple. In a capitalist system, as a good becomes more scarce, its price goes up, which limits demand.
Capitalism doesn’t ensure that we’ll use up finite resources until they are gone - it ensures that we’ll use up finite resources in exact proportion to how important they are for us to use - which is how it should be. Take oil. We will never ‘run out’ of oil. What will happen is that oil will become increasingly expensive, until one day it is too expensive to use as fuel. Then we’ll stop using it as fuel. It won’t be ‘gone’, however. There will be lots left. If there are higher-value uses for the remaining oil, we’ll continue to use it for that, until the price rises to the point where it’s too expensive for _that_ use. And so on.
Cod used to be the common fish in inexpensive fish and chips. But as Cod stock diminished, the price of cod rose until it was too expensive to use for the cheap stuff, and we moved to a substitute. The demand for cod fell, allowing cod stocks to replenish. Eventually, an equilibrium results which represents exactly the supply of cod we need to match the real demand for it. That’s the way it works. It’s very efficient.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/31 "2006-02-23T15:13:43Z")
You appear to be saying that the cost of exploiting a dwindling resource increases in inverse proportion to the amount left to exploit; I’ll concede that for things like oil, this may be quite close to the truth, but for living resources, there’s no reason why it must be; the exploitation can easily drive the resource to extinction, because the viability/recoverability of a population of living organisms is not necessarily directly proportional to the population size; in some cases, such as the exploitation of tropical hardwoods, it’s not significantly more difficult or costly to cut down the last acre than it was to cut down the first.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/32 "2006-02-23T15:18:19Z")
And, of course, the aforementioned poor old passenger pigeon; there was a certain point where even total cessation of hunting would not have permitted the species to recover.
---
### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/33 "2006-02-23T15:22:46Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#):
>
> On the contrary, Capitalism is extremely efficient. And it’s becoming more so by the day, as new mechanisms for pricing goods and connecting producers and consumers together eliminate market failures and inefficiencies.
[Monty Python mode]A simple contradiction is not an argument![/Monty Python mode]
> [@](#):
>
> For example, consider the wastefulness of attics full of stuff that has value to someone, but not to the person who owns it. But it’s not valuable enough for the person to spend money to advertise for buyers in traditional ways. Enter eBay. Billions of dollars of otherwise unsalable goods now change hands, moving from low-value uses to high-value.
Actually you are kind of on the right track here. Imagine a human being of average intelligence and capabilities, working at a burger doodle asking “Would you like fries with that?” This human being has all kinds of capabilities which are not being used … perhaps they can play the guitar, dance a fine dance, analyze an electrical circuit or build fine furniture. But through the vagaries of life and fortune, none of these skills has manifested themselves in a commercially exploitable way. And of course, the marketplace values certain skills (singing, dancing, mime, etc.) so little that in almost all cases, even if one is very good at them, the marketplace tends to shove such people into “Would you like fries with that?” kind of jobs.
Human beings are like the house you speak of, their attics full of stuff that has value to someone (and also to the person who owns it) but the marketplace for a variety of reasons does not or cannot access them, so they are being wasted. I think that should a society come along that is better organized than ours in terms of fully exploiting people’s abilities – giving them the opportunity for full expression of their greatest abilities – it will totally eat American capitalism’s lunch, simply because out system of consigning people to service sector hell for years (or in some cases a lifetime) because we can’t figure out what they’re good at (and neither can they) is a huge waste of human potential.
> [@](#):
>
> This process is continuing. Capitalism, because it is nothing more than the end result of free people exercisign their own choices, evolves in the direction of more efficiency. Top-down economies like Socialism and Communism do the opposite - over time they become less efficient as they become sclerotic, the bureaucracy grows and calcifies, and the people more cynical and less likely to cooperate.
Well, if I were advocating socialism or communism, I would have to argue this point.
---
### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/34 "2006-02-23T15:34:29Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> I disagree entirely.
>
> If a free market deems that the most someone will be payed for is to ask “would you like fries with that?” then that human capital is being maximally exploited. Almost by definition. In what way is it ‘wasteful’ for a person to be producing as much as they can? If we assume that a person will be payed according to the value of what they produce, and that a person will work for the maximum pay then every person is producing as much as possible.
See my previous post. Just because someone is working at burger doodle, standing behind a sales counter or mowing lawns, it doesn’t mean that’s all they’re suited to. You sound very much as if you are saying, “Whatever the current state of capitalism is, it’s perfect. Because it has to be. A person working at burger doodle for crap wages is just a pair of hands and eyes and a tiny little microprocessor where their brain should be, we don’t have to worry that they’re being under-utilized, the fact that they’re doing such work means they’re suited for nothing more.”
> [@](#):
>
> I assume that your thinking here is that a person as an individual could be better utilised appreciating fine art or doing complex mathematics. The trouble is that such is a personal, subjective decision on your part. If the person were objectively better utilised in that manner then they would be payed more and thus work at that task.
You are assuming all sorts of efficiencies in the marketplace which I do not believe exists.
> [@](#):
>
> You can’t say that capitalism is wasteful of human reosurces simply because humans don’t always do high level, cerebral jobs. Humans are still the best machines we have for many menial tasks as well, from driving taxis to serving fries. And as such they are best utilised by doing those tasks whatever your subjective opinion on the matter is.
I haven’t said that the onlyalternative to burger doodle is high level cerebral work. Plenty of other work demands much more than burger doodlery/taxi driving. We’re wasting our people’s abilities having them do such menial work. We’re going to lose out to any society which exploits its people more effectively.
---
### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/35 "2006-02-23T15:53:43Z")
> [@sturmhauke](#):
>
> You can’t assume that all people will work in their best field and be paid appropriately. Women still make less than men on average, and I can’t say that I’ve noticed any difference in performance among women I’ve worked with.
This is what I mean by social organization. Our society places artificial barriers to success in front of many people in the form of sexism and racism. If we were real capitalists, we would want all the intelligence, enterprise, skills and knowledge of all of our people, whether they were black, white, brown, yellow, green or purple, male or female. But of course, the last place to see the end of sexism and racism has been the boardroom filled with all those ardent capitalists – see “the glass ceiling.” Still, we could be worse off. Saudi Arabia turns down the potential contributions of half its population in all but very few venues, simply because they are women.
> [@](#):
>
> When I worked at McDonald’s, there was a woman who had been a licensed pharmaicst in Mexico. She moved here looking for a better life, but discovered that her license was no good here and she couldn’t afford to go to a US pharmacy school. She became a shift manager at the McDonald’s. Although she seemed to have a somewhat better standard of living here than in Mexico, I believe with a bit of help she could be doing much better.
Excellent example. Not having access to her abilities as a pharmacist is our failure, not hers.
---
### Author:  [@mazinger\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazinger_z)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/36 "2006-02-23T17:48:52Z")
First off: to address that notion that we don’t need government if markets are so damn good: capitalism can survive without a market. However, having a democratic government and really strong property laws makes capitalism thrive (i.e. maximize its potential) so much better than any of the other economic or poli/soci/economic systems out there.
> [@Evil Captor](#):
>
> This is what I mean by social organization. Our society places artificial barriers to success in front of many people in the form of sexism and racism. If we were real capitalists, we would want all the intelligence, enterprise, skills and knowledge of all of our people, whether they were black, white, brown, yellow, green or purple, male or female. But of course, the last place to see the end of sexism and racism has been the boardroom filled with all those ardent capitalists – see “the glass ceiling.” Still, we could be worse off. Saudi Arabia turns down the potential contributions of half its population in all but very few venues, simply because they are women.
This much more a product of culture and upbringing that it is of learned behavior when ascertaining how to efficiently allocate resources.
> [@Evil Captor](#):
>
> Excellent example. Not having access to her abilities as a pharmacist is our failure, not hers.
Or it could be that, on average, we as a nation do not put as much faith in the training and education of other nations. In America, we can ensure accreditation and have at least some influence on how schools educate our children. We do not have the right to do so in another nation, like Mexico, Canada, the UK, etc. In law, we place a higher value in protecting the public rather than trying to promote the individual. This is the same in law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, etc. My uncle was a pharmacist back in his home country. When he came to America, he could only speak a smidgeon of English, and definitely did not know how to read it. Should he be able to work at Walgreen’s upon arriving in America? He worked as a janitor for 12 years while studying for the US pharma exams. His English is still terrible, but he can at least function in his job.
> [@Evil Captor](#):
>
> Actually you are kind of on the right track here. Imagine a human being of average intelligence and capabilities, working at a burger doodle asking “Would you like fries with that?” This human being has all kinds of capabilities which are not being used … perhaps they can play the guitar, dance a fine dance, analyze an electrical circuit or build fine furniture. But through the vagaries of life and fortune, none of these skills has manifested themselves in a commercially exploitable way. And of course, the marketplace values certain skills (singing, dancing, mime, etc.) so little that in almost all cases, even if one is very good at them, the marketplace tends to shove such people into “Would you like fries with that?” kind of jobs.
Can you read minds? Do you know of an invention like Dr. Hugo Strange invented that can read minds (sorry, I was watching Batman last night)? Are you suggesting that we divert resources to track and monitor every child to ascertain their potential? IQ tests aren’t given much credence, how much more are we going to know what a child is good at? How are we supposed to anticipate market demand? How do you know the Burger doodle employee is perfectly content with his station in life? He could very well be the free rider than ultimately causes the collapse of command economies.
---
### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/37 "2006-02-23T21:47:27Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#):
>
> Why can’t the disappearance of the passenger pigeon due to the statistical unlikelihood of _all_ buyers agreeing to stop buying without any incentive or deterrent be reasonably labelled an example of capitalism failing to prevent exhaustion of a resource?
For precisely the reasons I gave above. Which part of it don’t you understand?
> [@Tabby\_Cat](#):
>
> Capitalism doesn’t take into account unvalueable costs, or assets which cannot be transfered. What is the value of free speech? What is the value of an old woman dying on the street? What is the value of your right to live? If it cannot be expressed in monetary terms, it cannot be dealt with by capitalism.
That is completely untrue.
Your entire position hinges on a belief that there are things that can not be expressed in monetary terms. That assumption is incorrect.
What is the value of anything? Precisely what you can command for it.
What is the value of free speech? Precisely the amount of money people are prepared to pay for it. That payment come sin the form of political contributions, monetary support for court challenges, monetary support for militaries to prevent curtailing freedom of speech and so on. That is the _exact_ value of it.
What is the value of an old woman dying on the street? Precisely the amount that people donate t charities that prevent old women dying on the street.
In both cases you seem to be arguing that even if people don’t want to donate their money (and hence part of their lifespan) to those causes they should be forced to do so because you and your friends think those things are more valuable than they do.
> [@MMI](#):
>
> Hmmm. Part of what I mean could be summarized as - if markets are so damn good why do we need a government?
Because, without government imposing free trade, players within the market will very rapidly seek to enforce a monopoly and remove legitimate property rights, at gunpoint. That is the very antithesis of capitalism. Government is there to ensure that the free market continues to exist.
> [@](#):
>
> I feel that there is enough evidence of market failures to indicate that markets can’t solve everything.
I don’t think anyone has suggested that markets can solve everything. Despite the obvious economic benefits the market can not simply ‘invent’ cold fusion for example. The markets are constrained by the laws of physics, Jim.
**Shagnasty** I think your definition of capitalism is somewhat vague and unlimited - I think there are a number of unstated and not-necessarily true assumptions embedded within it. There could be variants of capitalism that meet your stated criteria but bear little relationship to the current US system, for example. And as a poster noted earlier, what happens to the law of supply and demand when supply is much greater than demand?
[/QUOTE]
> [@Evil Captor](#):
>
> See my previous post. Just because someone is working at burger doodle, standing behind a sales counter or mowing lawns, it doesn’t mean that’s all they’re suited to.
The problem is that you are attempting to argue to totally unrelated points. That is why you are having so much trouble comprehending what Sam Stone and I are saying.
You started out arguing that capitalism results in human resources being **under-utilised** and now you are arguing that it result in humans doing things that they are not mentally ideally **suited to**.
Those are two completely separate issues.
> [@](#):
>
> You sound very much as if you are saying, “Whatever the current state of capitalism is, it’s perfect. Because it has to be. A person working at burger doodle for crap wages is just a pair of hands and eyes and a tiny little microprocessor where their brain should be, we don’t have to worry that they’re being under-utilized, the fact that they’re doing such work means they’re suited for nothing more.”
Your argument here is self-referential.
You can’t use an assumption that “they’re being under-utilized” in an argument in which you are attempting too demonstrate that people are being under utilised. You are assuming your conclusion as the very premise of your argument. Totally invalid.
> [@](#):
>
> You are assuming all sorts of efficiencies in the marketplace which I do not believe exists.
To quote one of this board’s more eloquent posters:
[Monty Python mode]A simple contradiction is not an argument![/Monty Python mode]
I elaborated at length on why those things exist. Can you show us evidence or reasoning that they do not exist? Or does your position hinge entirely on a simple contradiction?
> [@](#):
>
> I haven’t said that the onlyalternative to burger doodle is high level cerebral work. Plenty of other work demands much more than burger doodlery/taxi driving.
Demands much more what?
If it doesn’t demand a higher level of cerebral involvement then I can only assume that you mean it involves much more physical involvement.
Why does increased physical involvement correlate to less waste of human resources? Given the ability to use machines or animals for almost any physical task these days I would have thought exactly the opposite was true.
> [@](#):
>
> We’re wasting our people’s abilities having them do such menial work. We’re going to lose out to any society which exploits its people more effectively.
Once again, your argument is entirely circular. You are trying to argue that people are a wasted resources and inefficiently utilised because some people do menial work by simply asserting that people doing menial work is a waste and inefficient.
You can’t do that. It’s totally logically invalid.
---
### Author:  [@Tabby\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabby_Cat)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/38 "2006-02-23T22:49:27Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> That is completely untrue.
> Your entire position hinges on a belief that there are things that can not be expressed in monetary terms. That assumption is incorrect.
>
> What is the value of anything? Precisely what you can command for it.
>
> What is the value of free speech? Precisely the amount of money people are prepared to pay for it. That payment come sin the form of political contributions, monetary support for court challenges, monetary support for militaries to prevent curtailing freedom of speech and so on. That is the _exact_ value of it.
Really? Who are we buying the right from, then? Is there a market in free speech? Can you sell your right to free speech? For a million dollars, perhaps? The point being that the right of free speech, being non-transferrable, can neither be sold on a market, nor bought from someone else. You can pay someone to forbear from infringing on that right, of course, but that does not mean you are paying for that right. On the contrary, you do not have to pay at all! You have the enforcement agency of the government (transaction costs in dealing with the government ignored).
If you cannot sell it, or exchange it for money, that any percieved value that can be assigned by persuading people to forbear trespass is meaningless, since you cannot, by definition, create a market in it to make it as economically efficient as possible.
> [@](#):
>
> What is the value of an old woman dying on the street? Precisely the amount that people donate t charities that prevent old women dying on the street.
>
> In both cases you seem to be arguing that even if people don’t want to donate their money (and hence part of their lifespan) to those causes they should be forced to do so because you and your friends think those things are more valuable than they do.
So, the fact that the old woman would pay whatever was needed, that her life was infinitely valueable to herself, is meaningless? Certainly, in capitalism, it is. Since no one will pay for her life, and she has no money, her life is valueless. But that is ignoring the fact that she values her own life. Indeed, a society governed by capitalist principles may indeed allow a valueless life to die in the street. But I’m not sure if that’s a society that I want to live in.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/39 "2006-02-23T23:17:17Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> …Your entire position hinges on a belief that there are things that can not be expressed in monetary terms. That assumption is incorrect.
>
> What is the value of anything? Precisely what you can command for it.
>
> What is the value of free speech? Precisely the amount of money people are prepared to pay for it. That payment come sin the form of political contributions, monetary support for court challenges, monetary support for militaries to prevent curtailing freedom of speech and so on. That is the _exact_ value of it…
Serious question; what is the value of an object that the owner determines not to part with, no matter the price?
---
### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2006, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714/40 "2006-02-23T23:26:21Z")
> [@Tabby\_Cat](#):
>
> Really? Who are we buying the right from, then?
The same people that you buy your secure house from: those who provide the service. Free speech is a service, not goods. You buy it as a service, not by the pound.
> [@](#):
>
> Is there a market in free speech?
Yes, just as there is a market in security.
> [@](#):
>
> Can you sell your right to free speech?
No, no more than you can sell your right to have a secure house. Nobody else wants it so you can’t sell it.
> [@](#):
>
> The point being that the right of free speech, being non-transferrable, can neither be sold on a market, nor bought from someone else.
Total nonsense. A great many things in this world are non-transferrable and can’t be bought from somone else yet are routinely sold on the market _as a service_.
Styled hair, a secure house or good health are also non-transferrable and can’t be bought from someone else. By applying your ‘logic’ there can be no market for hair styling or security services or health care.
> [@](#):
>
> You can pay someone to forbear from infringing on that right, of course, but that does not mean you are paying for that right. On the contrary, you do not have to pay at all! You have the enforcement agency of the government (transaction costs in dealing with the government ignored).
I have no idea what that even means.
> [@](#):
>
> If you cannot sell it, or exchange it for money, that any percieved value that can be assigned by persuading people to forbear trespass is meaningless…
Well it’s a good thing nobody is talking about paying people not to forebear trespass isn’t it?
What we are talking about of course is paying people to ensure that _others_ do not trespass. Just as I may pay a security guard to ensure that people do not trespass on my physical property, or I may pay a lawyer to ensure that people do not trespass upon my intellectual property.
> [@](#):
>
> …since you cannot, by definition, create a market in it to make it as economically efficient as possible.
Would you please provide the defintion that states that an inability to sell a state, or exchange it for money means that it is impossible to establish a market for services that create that state?
You do realise of course that this is utter nonsense?
Your “logic” suggests that you deny the existence markets in healthcare, security, law or cosmetics application. None of the states created by those services are able to be sold or exchanged for money. You can’t sell your freedom from cavities, you can’t exchange your freedom from smudged lipstick for money. Nonetheless thriving service industries exist that create exactly those states.
> [@](#):
>
> So, the fact that the old woman would pay whatever was needed, that her life was infinitely valueable to herself, is meaningless?
How could you possibly believe that?
> [@](#):
>
> Certainly, in capitalism, it is.
Unsupported nonsense
> [@](#):
>
> Since no one will pay for her life, and she has no money, her life is valueless.
Quite the opposite. If no one has the money needed to pay for her life, her life is _priceless_.
> [@](#):
>
> Indeed, a society governed by capitalist principles may indeed allow a valueless life to die in the street.
Please stop equivocating. You jump randomly betwen the individual’s valuation and society’s valuation as though the terms are interchangable. They are not the same thing.
If a life is valueless then it is vaueless. If it is valuable it is valuable. You can’t say that it is both simultaneously WRT the same evaluation mechanism.
This life you are discussing now is valueless, that means it can not be the life we were discussing previously which we agreed was valuable.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714.md?page=1)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-capitalism-the-only-game-in-town-for-the-future/345714.md?page=3)