Reread post #13.
And keep in mind that you’ve never seen “human nature” except in a specific context, most likely the specific context of a social system whose workings depend on adversarial competition. (OK that’s redundant. There’s no such thing as nonadversarial competition, I guess).
People will seek that which is a social benefit to them personally. THAT, I think, would never change. But it can sure be organized and structured differently. Once more, reread the post.
Hey guess what guys? General reciprocity doesn’t work because no one would clean shit for a living in such a system.
Do you mean “ideologies” instead of “systems”? Because economies are sufficiently complex that they need to be frameworked within organized structures (IOW “systems”).
And how do you define “works”? Our current health care system works. It doesn’t work for everyone though. And it could certainly work better.
Also, to make one thing work, what are you willing to allow to not work? Economics is about decision making. People can’t have everything they want. But they still want it. And they often pressure politicians to force others to give them what they want.
Who ever said Capitalism wasn’t viable?
I was just point out the flaw in the thinking that under capitalism the most productive get the most money, that’s not true. Under capitalism the person with the most clever financial instrument gets the most money, often to the detriment of production, which is why in the US we have lost our national productivity along with gains in the financial sector. Precisely because we can get people in other countries to produce things more cheaply than we can get our own people to. The ultimate beneficiaries are not the people in the third world who take over production, but the people managing the finances.
You are aware that I am the original poster in this thread right?
I don’t know where you got the idea that I prefer communism. Especially inside of a thread I started entitled “The problem with communism.”
Actually, I’ve spent the last five decades living among humans.
I have a hard time accepting any proposed system that, as one of its premises, claims that its implementation will result in a fundamental and unprecedented change in human nature that will make the system work.
All money is, is reciprocity. You do a service for me, and I (via fiat) do a service back of equal value. Handing over a piece of paper instead of going over and fixing someone else’s fence is just because not everyone needs a fence fixed, and frankly its wasting the time of someone who’s an astrophysicist to be out mending fences. Money lets us each give our personal talent to society in equal value to what it is worth to be out there every day doing it.
I don’t think you’ve suggested anything that isn’t exactly what we have in a Capitalistic market, you just don’t understand the philosophical underpinnings of what we have.
Yes. Specific reciprocity. Not general. General = no money system.
I know a handful of astrophysicists, actually. Not one of them would refuse to mend a fence were it to need mending.
No it doesn’t. I know lots of talented people whose talent is not available for society to profit from because they can’t get hired in that capacity. I know a decent number of people who are being paid to do nothing, or next to nothing, or to do things considerably worse than nothing. I even know salespeople and they pay them to do what they’re doing. 'nuff said.
Which is still a waste of their time. How do you suggest for your astrophysicist friend to pay for his water bill? Every time he takes a bath, he has to go out and run around to the 500 people who helped to dig the well, lay the pipe, and those who manage the filtration and pump plant, and do 1 second worth of work for each of them?
Money allows us to quantify the value of your work. If you want to be an astrophysicist by day and mend fences by night, you have every freedom to do that, so it’s not like Capitalism is stopping you from doing anything, it’s just arranging a way for you to share your personal service to society in a way that doesn’t necessitate you running around to 500 people every time you use a service. Money serves in lieu of that, but it is the same thing as running around and doing personal tasks.
Here’s a mini-example. There’s three people named Alfred, Bob, and Cindy. Alfred repairs cars, Bob repairs refrigerators, and Cindy repairs roofs.
Alfred needs his refrigerator fixed, so he goes to Bob and asks Bob to fix it. Bob does so, but wants something in exchange. However, Bob’s car isn’t broken and there’s nothing Alfred can do for him of similar value as getting a refrigerator fixed except for that his roof is broken. Alfred, unfortunately, has no idea how to fix a roof. So what he does is give a certificate that says, “I’m good for one basic repair”. Bob takes that certificate over to Cindy, and hands it to her. She accepts it as payment, since eventually she’ll need something repaired herself and this is worth about the same as her own work. And so she fixes Bob’s roof.
Later, her car might break down, or her refrigerator might break, either way she can take the certificate to Bob or Alfred and cash it in, for one item of repair.
Money is a marker for the odd-man-out. He wants to give a service, but the other person doesn’t need it, so it gets passed around until someone does need it and it all equalizes again.
Since not all services are equal in value (for instance, it takes a lot less to repair a car than make a car), the little certificates each have a ranking. You can even combine them.
I know a little old lady who smoked two packets of cigarettes a day since she was 18 and is still healthy and active at 93.
You don’t make any sense. The US is losing its industrial base because it is no longer competetive. That business is going to countries like China and India. Except, thanks to the miracle of “clever financial instruments”, you can also take advantage of that wealth by buying into those markets.
If anything the flaw in Capitalism is that people don’t really want to compete. They want to be handed things or they want to enact regulations or tarriffs or other trade barriers to protect their interests.
Another flaw (if you want to call it that) is that people get upset when they get priced out of the market. Some services like school or fire departments, we have decided as a society that everyone should have equal access. However, when housing prices or fuel or anything else gets too high, people demand someone step in and “fix” things. Problem is that there is no free lunch so all that fixing will come at a price.
Yeah it’s baffling why my simple comments don’t make sense. I’ve found that to be common to capitalist ideologues, but it’s still strange. The US is losing jobs because it isn’t competitive, that’s true, but that competition has nothing to do with being more productive. It has to do with other countries being able to produce things far cheaper due to the way they treat their labor.
I guess it’s time to steal myself for yet another round of, “I’m not going to argue with what you say, I am going to argue with the stereotype of my opposition and argue with what I am PROJECTING UPON YOU instead.”
Yes, some clever financial instruments benefit us, and some are just meant to bleed pensions. Regardless, even if I invest in China and reap the rewards, I am not reaping the reward of being more productive I am reaping the reward of having superior financial leverage due to being born into a wealthy nation. My reward has nothing to do with my ability to produce, I am rewarded by a closer proximity to a leisure class lifestyle by being one of the wealthiest people on the planet by the sheer dumb luck of being born a white American.
The flaw with capitalism is that not everyone buys into unregulated capitalism? It’s nice when the flaw with a system is, “Everyone else.”
Yes, but that’s socialism, not capitalism. It’s kind of pat and even a little silly to say that the problem with capitalism is people’s desire for socialism.
It’s interesting that you downplay market corruption as being even relevant when it is so widespread and endemic from the Bernie Madoff’s to the Florida Secretaries flipping quarter million dollar properties on a $ 35k per year salary. Eventually in these Ponzi schemes someone is left holding the bag. In this case it was the American tax payer and the primary beneficiaries were Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase.
So just to clarify, is the basis of your argument going to be, “You criticized capitalism, therefore you must be some kind of crypto-commie!”, because I’ve had that argument a millions times before, and if you’re going to put your brain on autopilot with this one then I hope you don’t mind if I do too.
Maybe the problem is that you started a thread that was a critique of communism and then some pages later turned it into a critique of capitalism?
I responded to another poster.