Capitalism (continued from How do you deal with the thought about taxes)

[Anon136]

i already conceded this point in my post. "granted with out capitalism some people will experiment for curiosities sake" it is not sufficient to counter my argument because my argument was not that people would not invent, it was that people would invent less. from 100,000 bc to 1bc people still invented things, just not as many things as from 1700 to 2013.

Now we're heading into really wacky territory.
To begin, i never said that "people will still invent" -- i said that fear & greed are not primary motivators of great people.  You'll find little correlation in great Scientists /composers/ painters/etc. & great ... whatever you call guys who are spectacularly wealthy.  This is doubly strange, since society tends to reward its exceptional members the only way it knows how -- with $$$.  When i read about my heroes from *every field but finance*, they're ... what's the polite phrase?  "Financially undistinguished."  Why?

Now for your timeline breakdown.  You'll dig this.
World population in 10,000 BC : 4 million
World population in 0 AD         : 170 million   (x42.5)
World population in 1700         : 610 million   (x152.5)
World population NOW            : 7,100 million (x1775.0)

People love numbers, +1 for exponential growth.  If people were put on this earth fully developed, and knew just as much in 0AD as they do today (in other words, be on par with the modern man in every way), they would invent 1,775 times fewer things in one year.  Because there are only ((today's population) / 1,775) people to do the inventing.  See?
Then there's all that mess about "information thresholds."  Let's say you're learning to play guitar.  For a while, you're doing nothing but learning chords, scales, hand positions -- it takes you awhile just to tune the thing.  You're making nothing but noise 'till ... oh, joy! 145 chord progression!  Hey, a pentatonic goes over that real well!  And suddenly you've figured out not just one tune, but nearly every blues & half of the rock tunes.  That's a the moment the bright people call "epiphany," the time to reap all that you've already planted.  There are times like that in history, too. Classic Greece, Renaissance, Industrialisation.  The fact that many things you know today were invented in the last 300 years is part simple math (x1775 more people to do the inventing) & part timing.  Capitalism?  It's been with mankind all along, it's what happens to mankind when grownups stop paying attention.

this discussion is so effing stupid, who cares about statistics, just follow through the logic.

capitalism is the system where inventors get to keep their inventions. when inventors are allowed to keep their inventions they are more likely to invent things. more invention leads to more wealth. ergo capitalism leads to more wealth.

if you are arguing about something else than you are not arguing against the point i was trying to make. i apologize if i mislead you into believing that i was arguing something other than this.

Allowed by who? Keep?
Any inventor who keeps her invention may as well have skipped inventing it.

Before capitalism if you invented something sweet your feudal lord would say YOINK thanks for the sweet invention. after capitalism the person who invented it could chose to use it for his own purposes or to trade it with someone else for something else. this is what i mean by keep, i should have been more explicit though, this was admittedly a communication failure on my part.

[ktttn]

i already conceded this point in my post. "granted with out capitalism some people will experiment for curiosities sake" it is not sufficient to counter my argument because my argument was not that people would not invent, it was that people would invent less. from 100,000 bc to 1bc people still invented things, just not as many things as from 1700 to 2013.

Now we're heading into really wacky territory.
To begin, i never said that "people will still invent" -- i said that fear & greed are not primary motivators of great people.  You'll find little correlation in great Scientists /composers/ painters/etc. & great ... whatever you call guys who are spectacularly wealthy.  This is doubly strange, since society tends to reward its exceptional members the only way it knows how -- with $$$.  When i read about my heroes from *every field but finance*, they're ... what's the polite phrase?  "Financially undistinguished."  Why?

Now for your timeline breakdown.  You'll dig this.
World population in 10,000 BC : 4 million
World population in 0 AD         : 170 million   (x42.5)
World population in 1700         : 610 million   (x152.5)
World population NOW            : 7,100 million (x1775.0)

People love numbers, +1 for exponential growth.  If people were put on this earth fully developed, and knew just as much in 0AD as they do today (in other words, be on par with the modern man in every way), they would invent 1,775 times fewer things in one year.  Because there are only ((today's population) / 1,775) people to do the inventing.  See?
Then there's all that mess about "information thresholds."  Let's say you're learning to play guitar.  For a while, you're doing nothing but learning chords, scales, hand positions -- it takes you awhile just to tune the thing.  You're making nothing but noise 'till ... oh, joy! 145 chord progression!  Hey, a pentatonic goes over that real well!  And suddenly you've figured out not just one tune, but nearly every blues & half of the rock tunes.  That's a the moment the bright people call "epiphany," the time to reap all that you've already planted.  There are times like that in history, too. Classic Greece, Renaissance, Industrialisation.  The fact that many things you know today were invented in the last 300 years is part simple math (x1775 more people to do the inventing) & part timing.  Capitalism?  It's been with mankind all along, it's what happens to mankind when grownups stop paying attention.

this discussion is so effing stupid, who cares about statistics, just follow through the logic.

capitalism is the system where inventors get to keep their inventions. when inventors are allowed to keep their inventions they are more likely to invent things. more invention leads to more wealth. ergo capitalism leads to more wealth.

if you are arguing about something else than you are not arguing against the point i was trying to make. i apologize if i mislead you into believing that i was arguing something other than this.

Allowed by who? Keep?
Any inventor who keeps her invention may as well have skipped inventing it.

Before capitalism if you invented something sweet your feudal lord would say YOINK thanks for the sweet invention. after capitalism the person who invented it could chose to use it for his own purposes or to trade it with someone else for something else. this is what i mean by keep, i should have been more explicit though, this was admittedly a communication failure on my part.

Are you sure? Do you have an example of that?
Inventions are invented to improve the world.
The first video game was invented on an oscilloscope for a fair.
Then pong happened and the industry crashed.
Nowadays you have either endless mindless Call of Duty clones or free indie games and the Oclulus Rift.

[MoonShadow]

Before capitalism if you invented something sweet your feudal lord would say YOINK thanks for the sweet invention. after capitalism the person who invented it could chose to use it for his own purposes or to trade it with someone else for something else. this is what i mean by keep, i should have been more explicit though, this was admittedly a communication failure on my part.

Are you sure? Do you have an example of that?
Inventions are invented to improve the world.
The first video game was invented on an oscilloscope for a fair.
Then pong happened and the industry crashed.
Nowadays you have either endless mindless Call of Duty clones or free indie games and the Oclulus Rift.

Is the whole of your worldview about your own personal opinions?

[NewLiberty]

Capitalism isn't just "whatever works well."
My one and only gripe is the insistence that everything good is "Capitalist"
Why not abandon the word-and its ideological shortcomings? Its connotations are worse than "greed."

The "Anarcho-Capitalists" have done this abandonment, though conjoining with another often misunderstood notion may not have been the best selection for the purpose of philosophical marketing.
Your claim that "capitalism" requires state power, would suggest that they are advocating something entirely different from the capitalism-as-is-commonly-understood.

[Rassah]

You don't need to be a surgeon to know why getting stabbed is bad.

And yet, that's what surgery actually is  

Perhaps you got stabbed by capitalism which was a bit reckless, and perhaps tinged with malice and corruption, and are now over-reacting by claiming all stabbings are bad, even when used to remove economic tumors, so to speak.

It's capitalism when toilers built it for you.

You keep saying "toilers" as if it's a bad thing. People sell their trade (product/skills). If their trade doesn't sell for much, they can improve their trade, or do something else. It's either toil, or live off of discarded scraps of other toilers who actually did improve their trade. I wouldn't say being that way is parasitic, but it's certainly not beneficial to the rest of society in any way.

Capitalism isn't just "whatever works well."

Of course not. Its mutual trade and recognition or property and all that.

My one and only gripe is the insistence that everything good is "Capitalist"

Why is willingly trading something you have for something you want bad?

Why not abandon the word-and its ideological shortcomings? Its connotations are worse than "greed."

Because we are using the word as what it actually means. Why abandon it because some others are trying to redefine it or give it bad connotations?

[ktttn]

You don't need to be a surgeon to know why getting stabbed is bad.

And yet, that's what surgery actually is  

Perhaps you got stabbed by capitalism which was a bit reckless, and perhaps tinged with malice and corruption, and are now over-reacting by claiming all stabbings are bad, even when used to remove economic tumors, so to speak.

It's capitalism when toilers built it for you.

You keep saying "toilers" as if it's a bad thing. People sell their trade (product/skills). If their trade doesn't sell for much, they can improve their trade, or do something else. It's either toil, or live off of discarded scraps of other toilers who actually did improve their trade. I wouldn't say being that way is parasitic, but it's certainly not beneficial to the rest of society in any way.

Capitalism isn't just "whatever works well."

Of course not. Its mutual trade and recognition or property and all that.

My one and only gripe is the insistence that everything good is "Capitalist"

Why is willingly trading something you have for something you want bad?

Why not abandon the word-and its ideological shortcomings? Its connotations are worse than "greed."

Because we are using the word as what it actually means. Why abandon it because some others are trying to redefine it or give it bad connotations?

I'm all for reclaiming words, but when the word's near universal application is unethical, popular, and appropriate, the reclaiming is going to take some uglyand backwards revisionism, as well as resistence from longtime anticapitalists. Nothing "actually" means anything, you know. Ideology is a conversation with arguably justifiable conclusions, not an emperical fact, that determine meaning

Before capitalism if you invented something sweet your feudal lord would say YOINK thanks for the sweet invention. after capitalism the person who invented it could chose to use it for his own purposes or to trade it with someone else for something else. this is what i mean by keep, i should have been more explicit though, this was admittedly a communication failure on my part.

Are you sure? Do you have an example of that?
Inventions are invented to improve the world.
The first video game was invented on an oscilloscope for a fair.
Then pong happened and the industry crashed.
Nowadays you have either endless mindless Call of Duty clones or free indie games and the Oclulus Rift.

Is the whole of your worldview about your own personal opinions?

Hail Satan.

[Rassah]

Sure, if you want to offer a trade, it's because it would make you better off. But why do you (and other pro-capitalists) keep insisting that it makes all parties better off when you don't know that? The parties may think they're better off at the instant when the trade occurs, but you don't know whether their calculations will pan out.

This sounds way too close to "abortion is bad, because even though the parents can't afford their baby, there is a chance that baby eventually grows up to be an Einstein or a president?"
Regardless, it doesn't matter what may or may not have been, unless and until something happens. People trade for what each person believes is their best price, based on whatever information they have. In this system, it is in each person's interest to have as much information as possible. Do you propose to reward those who have made a bad decision, and punish those who have done their homework and have made a good one?

It seems more likely that trades that happen to be "mutually beneficial" are partly cosmic accident, partly bias/discrimination

They are almost all bias/discrimination. People discriminate against things they find less valuable, and are biased towards things they want and need.

-- the 'losers' of all the one-sided trades fall under the radar because they end up in a weaker position and are unable to complain.

One-sided? Were they forced into the trade? Were they forced to give up something for less than they knew it was worth?

You guys smugly write these people off as socialists asking for government hand-outs, but what about all those offers they accepted, which turned out to be bad trades and made them poorer?

What's wrong with a little education and life experience? Should we have government hold everyone's hand and make all their decisions for them, just to make sure no one makes a bad trade? And what about the people who have actually put their own time and energy into learning about and picking the good trades? What do we do with them?

To me it seems that many poster-children of capitalism (e.g.: Apple) rely on emotional buyers to buy their consumer shite. How many people buy stuff because it seemed like a great idea at that instant when they handed over the cash (aka: the "mutual gain" propaganda), but end up disappointed later?

So why not just put up PSAs that doing so and so is bad? You're free to volunteer your time to do so. And why do you believe that your opinion of what is good or bad is the same for everyone else? How will you keep from making mistakes due to not noticing that what may be a bad trade for almost everyone out there, may be a good trade for some specific people?

Also, why do you guys keep persevering with the narrow mindset that there are only TWO parties for every transaction? I've mentioned "the community at large" as an unwitting party a number of times already. They have a rational incentive to have some kind of watchdog a la government to represent them. You guys plainly "don't like" that view because it doesn't fit in with your neat little theory about how things ought to work.

No one discounts externalities. And the parties can be two people, two corporations, or one corporation and the society it serves. No one is disputing that. The question is, why should that watchdog be a government? Especially since governments both can set laws AND be bought. Personally, I have been arguing that it is WAY more effective to have a private body fighting negative externalities, be it boycott organizers, private courts, or even privately funded guerilla warfare (I mentioned earlier, "imagine what Greenpeace could do if they had a small fleet of privately funded warships). In contrast, government enforces regulations that are actually written by the companies they are regulating. Everywhere. No exceptions. Why? Because government employees are not working in the business they are regulating, so they are not experts on the business, AND because government employees are people, just like the employees of those companies and its customers, and thus can also be bought, bribed, or otherwise incentivised to act based on their personal gain. And once government passes regulations, everyone else is screwed. In a private system, you can at least opt out of supporting the private regulators.

[ktttn]

You don't need to be a surgeon to know why getting stabbed is bad.

And yet, that's what surgery actually is  

Perhaps you got stabbed by capitalism which was a bit reckless, and perhaps tinged with malice and corruption, and are now over-reacting by claiming all stabbings are bad, even when used to remove economic tumors, so to speak.

If capitalism is a knife, anticapitalism is holistic medicine and nanobots

It's capitalism when toilers built it for you.

You keep saying "toilers" as if it's a bad thing. People sell their trade (product/skills). If their trade doesn't sell for much, they can improve their trade, or do something else. It's either toil, or live off of discarded scraps of other toilers who actually did improve their trade. I wouldn't say being that way is parasitic, but it's certainly not beneficial to the rest of society in any way.

Toil is by definition bad. Toil must be automated.
What you say is true if you do not acknowledge that classical economics is a malignant lie and that capitalism itself is dying.

Capitalism isn't just "whatever works well."

Of course not. Its mutual trade and recognition or property and all that.

One cannot buy back one's labor and time. The state is in the buisiness of 'recognizing' property.

My one and only gripe is the insistence that everything good is "Capitalist"

Why is willingly trading something you have for something you want bad?

You best be trollin'...

Why not abandon the word-and its ideological shortcomings? Its connotations are worse than "greed."

Because we are using the word as what it actually means. Why abandon it because some others are trying to redefine it or give it bad connotations?

Responding twice because of too cool for school.

[Rassah]

I'm all for reclaiming words, but when the word's near universal application is unethical, popular, and appropriate, the reclaiming is going to take some uglyand backwards revisionism, as well as resistence from longtime anticapitalists. Nothing "actually" means anything, you know. Ideology is a conversation with arguably justifiable conclusions, not an emperical fact, that determine meaning

The problem is that we are arguing for the original "idea" or capitalism, while you are arguing for something that is not exactly capitalism, while arguing against something you call capitalism, which isn't capitalism, either. So, essentially, we are trying to argue for A, while you are arguing for B while arguing against C. We're not arguing against C.

Is the whole of your worldview about your own personal opinions?

Hail Satan.

Ugh. I read that as Hail Stalin at first. Too much Soviet talk in here.

[MoonShadow]

Hail Satan.

Yeah, I'm done with you.  You're just a troll, although a particularly thoughtful one.

[NewLiberty]

To me it seems that many poster-children of capitalism (e.g.: Apple) rely on emotional buyers to buy their consumer shite. How many people buy stuff because it seemed like a great idea at that instant when they handed over the cash (aka: the "mutual gain" propaganda), but end up disappointed later?

So why not just put up PSAs that doing so and so is bad? You're free to volunteer your time to do so. And why do you believe that your opinion of what is good or bad is the same for everyone else? How will you keep from making mistakes due to not noticing that what may be a bad trade for almost everyone out there, may be a good trade for some specific people?

Interesting example.
And Why not?  Many do.  This one had over 16 million views last I looked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg

[Zarathustra]

Before capitalism if you invented something sweet your feudal lord would say YOINK thanks for the sweet invention. after capitalism the person who invented it could chose to use it for his own purposes or to trade it with someone else for something else. this is what i mean by keep, i should have been more explicit though, this was admittedly a communication failure on my part.

Capitalism is a collectivist period within a cycle. It's ending now.

http://thevelvetrocket.com/2010/04/21/paintings-of-the-day-the-course-of-empire-by-thomas-cole/

[NewLiberty]

Before capitalism if you invented something sweet your feudal lord would say YOINK thanks for the sweet invention. after capitalism the person who invented it could chose to use it for his own purposes or to trade it with someone else for something else. this is what i mean by keep, i should have been more explicit though, this was admittedly a communication failure on my part.

Capitalism is a collectivist period within a cycle. It's ending now.

http://thevelvetrocket.com/2010/04/21/paintings-of-the-day-the-course-of-empire-by-thomas-cole/

By "cycle" and "now" do we mean, "this epoch" or "this week"?

We all look forward to something better, and must have curiosity as to what that might be in order to meaningfully contribute.  Bitcoin being an example of something better.

[crumbs]

People start cherry picking -- suddenly, the Soviet space program's an example of capitalism in action , though slavery isn't.

Seriously? People who worked for the Soviet space program spent their lives pursuing a passion at universities and research institutes, were offered positions to work on a space program for a large amount of money, recognition, and access to inner political circles, and voluntarily (obviously) chose to work on the program. Slaves were taken against their will, and forced to work on stuff they may or may not wanted to work on, under threat of whipping or death. How the hell are you even comparing the two?

I'm simply pointing out the untenability of your position.  By claiming that Soviet space program exemplifies capitalism in action, your make it blatantly obvious that your notions about capitalism are ... what's the euphemism i'm looking for?  "Unique."  Most people tend to associate Soviet Russia of the 50s and 60s with ... not capitalism.
Slavery, on the other hand, fits seamlessly within the scope of conventional capitalism definition.  Like factories & tractors, slaves are "means of production."  Don't you agree?  Slave ownership is not only a sound capitalist concept, but was [and, arguably, remains] an integral part of many capitalist societies.  

[Zarathustra]

I'm all for reclaiming words, but when the word's near universal application is unethical, popular, and appropriate, the reclaiming is going to take some uglyand backwards revisionism, as well as resistence from longtime anticapitalists. Nothing "actually" means anything, you know. Ideology is a conversation with arguably justifiable conclusions, not an emperical fact, that determine meaning

The problem is that we are arguing for the original "idea" or capitalism, while you are arguing for something that is not exactly capitalism, while arguing against something you call capitalism, which isn't capitalism, either. So, essentially, we are trying to argue for A, while you are arguing for B while arguing against C. We're not arguing against C.

Capitalism is not an idea. Capitalism is Debitism (Paul C. Martin). Or read the Anarchist, David Graeber: "Debt". The Barter Story is Science Fiction. Capitalism is not about Barter, it is about Debt.

[NewLiberty]

Slavery, being involuntary, is in no way essential, nor even included in what the anarchocapitalists advocate.  So outside even the broadest definitions of integral.

I am finding that folks attempting to reclaim both anarchy and capitalism as useful words in discourse are going to end up wasting more time than they need to.
They might do better with ¨voluntarism¨ or something similar.

Let the anti capitalists fight paper tigers and straw men and move on...

[crumbs]

Slavery, being involuntary, is in no way essential, nor even included in what the anarchocapitalists advocate.  So outside even the broadest definitions of integral.

I am finding that folks attempting to reclaim both anarchy and capitalism as useful words in discourse are going to end up wasting more time than they need to.
They might do better with ¨voluntarism¨ or something similar.

Let the anti capitalists fight paper tigers and straw men and move on...

Please read slowly & carefully.  I never said that slavery was voluntary.  Nor did i claim it was essential.  Nor did i ever put it into context with "anarchocapitalis[m]."  
No paper tigers.  No straw men.  I rely on a common definition of capitalism, let's say wikip.  Yourself?

Edit:  There's also no need to coin more words like "debitism" & "voluntarism."  Pointless jargon annoys & confuses.  
Edit2: typo

[Zarathustra]

Before capitalism if you invented something sweet your feudal lord would say YOINK thanks for the sweet invention. after capitalism the person who invented it could chose to use it for his own purposes or to trade it with someone else for something else. this is what i mean by keep, i should have been more explicit though, this was admittedly a communication failure on my part.

Capitalism is a collectivist period within a cycle. It's ending now.

http://thevelvetrocket.com/2010/04/21/paintings-of-the-day-the-course-of-empire-by-thomas-cole/

By "cycle" and "now" do we mean, "this epoch" or "this week"?

We all look forward to something better, and must have curiosity as to what that might be in order to meaningfully contribute.  Bitcoin being an example of something better.

That's simple: No gods, no masters! Don't accept them, and Anarchism will return, which has been replaced by feudalist, capitalist and socialist collectivism within the last 10'000 years. I support Bitcoin as one of the tools which have the potential to destroy the economy.

[Rassah]

If capitalism is a knife, anticapitalism is holistic medicine and nanobots

I would say capitalism is a knife or nanobots, targeting very specific areas, while anticapitalism is holistic medicine and a huge mallet, i.e. something that doesn't work and just tries to fix a problem with a single, giant, unwieldy tool.

Toil is by definition bad. Toil must be automated.
What you say is true if you do not acknowledge that classical economics is a malignant lie and that capitalism itself is dying.

Toil is often better than the alternative, since if they didn't have to toil, toilers wouldn't put up with it. And is is being automated, but not by social or "mutual benefit" programs, but by capitalism, which recognizes that it's cheaper to use a robot that works 24x7 and never makes mistakes, than a person who can wear out after a few hours. Better yet, capitalism recognizes that toilers are much more valuable than thinkers, so, in every single economy, modern and present, the natural capitalism progression has been from toilers working on farms, workshops, and factories, to people working in offices, designing new products and inventing new ideas, leaving the farming and toiling to machines. I could write a book listing examples of this.

As for the idea that capitalism is dying, I have some horrible news. Since about early 2000's, we've had globalization really take off, which resulted in global corporations that do not answer to any specific country. They are as pure capitalism as you can get, picking and choosing where they want to work and which laws they want to follow. We also had this new invention called Bitcoin, which makes restricting or regulating capitalism difficult, if not impossible. Also, we have had very strong anti-capitalist states in Europe, Middle East, and South America experience a lot of turmoil and rioting, because their respective anti-capitalist governments have blown their banks with "mutual benefit" promises they can't keep any more. People there are either demanding for more socialist programs that are not impossible to provide, or for freedom to trade without interference from anti-capitalist government.

Of course not. Its mutual trade and recognition or property and all that.

One cannot buy back one's labor and time. The state is in the buisiness of 'recognizing' property.

Of course one can. I am trading my labor and time for currency, putting that currency into investments and property, and will within a few years trade it back for someone else's labor and time. I'll have all the free time I want, and will be able to do all the labor I need, without actually doing any of the laboring myself. That's how retirement, and investing for it, works. Also, I don't need the state to recognize this property. A chunk of my property is in Bitcoin. Which state is recognizing that property? Another chunk of my wealth is invested in companies, based on our mutual agreement, with the company wishing to maintain it's reputation. What state forces citizens to feel a company is reputable? Even my house is jointly owned by myself and my bank. I don't trust the bank because the government forces recognition of property on them. Over the last few years we've found that you can't trust the government to do anything at all about banks. I only trust them because I hope they themselves wish to do good business. If they break my trust, I'll go to another bank.

My one and only gripe is the insistence that everything good is "Capitalist"

Why is willingly trading something you have for something you want bad?

You best be trollin'...

Nope. Serious. Why is trading something you have for something you want, bad? Unless that's not capitalism in your opinion.

[Zarathustra]

Nope. Serious. Why is trading something you have for something you want, bad? Unless that's not capitalism in your opinion.

Trading is not bad. The cause of trading is bad: DEBT. The first debt is debt ex nihilo: the tribute (census) to the state mafia; it is driven by organised violence of the Church and State. All of the following debts are derivatives of this first debt.