What most of you do not get about pure capitalism is that it's not just about the money or titles. It's not driven primarily by greed.
It's about building things.
Discussion
It's about creating property that wasn't there before, thereby expanding the amount of property in existence or increasing the value of a particular property.
Real builders don't build for the money. They build because they want something to exist or be improved. You pay them so that they can concentrate better on building or so that they are inclined to share what they built, or adapt what they built a bit, so that it's also useful to you.
100%. And far enough into the future, status will not come from money or having nice things, but by being competent and building impactful things
That's why it's counterproductive to give money to people who are not obsessed with a topic and driven to build something at their own cost.
You are paying people to build things they don't actually care about using.
This thread goes straight to my bookmarks.
Well, it's logical, right?
Do you want to hire the architect who just makes house plans because it's his day job and he'd rather be golfing?
Or do you want the one who is trying to create quality houses because he is obsessed with houses and each iteration of building gives him a chance to build a better house and he is proud of the houses he has built?
Who suddenly jumps out of the bathtub, all excited, because he's thought up a novel way to run the wiring in a narrow space?
He's excited because he gives a damn about houses. He thinks about houses every day.
I know that excellence can only come out from obsession, even though the percentage of excellent professionals is a small subset of the total of obsessed professionals.
I agree on the role of capitalism in that: if things are not given, someone is going to work for them. As a wise man said: if you don't build the stuff, there is no stuff.
It makes a lot of sense, once you internalize the fact that capitalism predates money. Money had to be invented as a tool by a capitalist.
Bullshit. Someone made this up and it doesn't even make sense, why would you believe it?
You don't need to "believe in money" to be subject to its relevance. Money is a recommendation system, it's just as simple as that. You can avoid it, what's the result? Usually where's money allocated, there's also tangible value created at the roots of the business. Exceptions do not eliminate this fact.
Exceptions do eliminate this fact (by outnumbering examples), and all the evidence indicates capitalism started with the invention of currency
So what? I don't get your point.
If something has been invented, it probably was needed at leas once. The consistency of the presence of money throughout time and space testifies that **allegedly** human beings value that tool a lot.
Humans also tend to value death a lot, under the pretense of hoping there's an afterlife (not even having proof of one).
You cannot trust your fellow humans as judges of value. If you could, there would be no financial speculation, the gamblers would have no bets to place, all just agreeing
I'm referring to time and space as statistical proofs that something is valuable across culture, time and societies. Just a matter of sampling: if you sample long enough from a distribution, you're going to create a sampling distribution that has the mean of the original one. If you sample long enough from all the civilizations and societies, you're going to find out that there's an underlying common ground they all are rooted into.
The fact that basically every civilization created a similar structure of beliefs around death; the fact that almost every civilization has a slightly different (but not fundamentally different) structure of religious beliefs.
The fact that almost every civilization that created complex networks of people and division of labour also created some sort of recommendation system in order to sort professionals by the value they bring to the civilization.
These facts testify that what I'm trusting is not my fellow humans, but the deterministic need for certainty, indexing and resource allocation criterias that mankind has. Then, you can choose to "believe" that it's a scam or not, but I guarantee you that anyone that tried to deviate from that tendency ended to:
a) recreate the same kind of system
b) didn't develop such a complex civilization and society than the one we have
I'm not arrogant enough to state that thousands of years of civilization and of humans inventing stuff based on these criterias is all garbage.
Skimmed this and you have no point, you're just butthurt my brain works and I'm asking you to improve yours. Have fun with continued climate change, human.
Ahahaha, the fact that you skim and not actually read already gave me enough information. You didn't elaborate anything, just answering with annoyance to a matter you raised. If you criticize something, you shall be the one coming up with points.
Have a good life.
From what I skimmed, I know nothing you said validates the previous points I deemed invalid, nor invalidates the statements I made where you're replying.
Money is not essential to capitalism. It's just a way to delay the purchase of capital or inputs to capital, until a later date, making commercial interaction more efficient by abstracting away the pressure of time. That is why hard money is more valuable; it keeps its worth better over time.
Capitalism started with humans. "Those durable produced goods that are in turn used as productive inputs for further production" are what keeps us alive, even in unfriendly climates and when food has become scarce. It is part of the natural state of humans and that is why (primarily) the male/father of the species is preoccupied with building useful things that are used over and over without being consumed, like shovels, digging sticks, slings, knives, or storage sheds and containers. That is ingrained behavior, not something that arises out of the environment. Other animals also do this, but nobody does it like humans do.
Communism was an attempt to sever valuable capital from the producers who knew how to use it most efficiently, and redirect it at consumers, with the idea that the consumers would all magically turn into equally-efficient producers because they were only being held-back by lack of capital. Instead, everyone starved and the machines rusted. Like in Zimbabwe, after the land grabs.
Much more effective has been the post-communist focus on education and training, to create more producers, and those producers then seem to find a way to get the capital that they need because they have the lever that other people want them to produce and will pay them money for it and ensure they get the capital that they need to get the production done.
Bitcoin and other digital monetary transactions have lowered the "pay them money for it" friction down to "tap the screen of your cell phone", but only Bitcoin can resurrect capitalism in the medium term because it's the only money that is both digital and extremely hard.
I think your genius is blinded by how painful this topic is.
1. To call building stuff and having a concept of possession "capitalism" makes the word "capitalism" totally pointless, robbing it of any definition worthy of a prominent word in a language.
2. Because of point 1, there's no way you actually consistently use the word "capitalism" in congruence with how you're using it here. You must not really uphold this definition of "capitalism." I mean, don't you consider "capitalism" conflicting with "communism," even though in communism people also build and possess things?
3. "Post-communist" sounds like a reference to national actions in the post-soviet region, where no countries have avoided marching towards climate extinction, and countries like Ukraine have ended up first on the chopping block. Human organization has not really been effective at all in the long run so far, except for the few people who actively chose to have it go in the direction of mass death.
Communism is when people eventually lose interest in building things because they have no resulting ownership of the thing or tangible personal reward for building the thing. That reward doesn't have to be money, but it should be money or something more valuable than money, like social status, personal comfort and luxury, or attractive mates. But communism never results in rising social status for producers. Quite the opposite.
Communists don't get to define what capital is or capitalism is. Adam Smith predated Marx and Smith was drawing upon historical sources with his description of the different kinds of capital.
All communists did was declare that there isn't any reason to connect the capital with the capitalist. That you could sever the capital and redistribute it, with net-positive results for the wider society. This is simply not true. Communism is painfully inefficient, so capital becomes a consumption good or is left unused and rots. Communism destroys the capital.
You're not getting it's not communism that's inefficient, it's humans.
A good country would work fine under a capitalist or communist system because it's just a bunch of good people who happen to prefer one system over the other.
Real countries are into killing and dying and being delusional about fossil fuel.
It also just so happens that communism was the original system and is the only one we've ever had where humans were sorta properly functional. We still all died, but we coped better with it and we weren't finding ways to wipe out the planet (including ourselves). It remains to be seen whether experimenting with other systems leads to more survival or less.
Side point - it definitely seems like since communism was the only system we had sociological health in so far, maybe it's the most stable system and the healthy state for us to inevitably return to, but it's clearly not completely stable since we aren't in it anymore.
You are confusing communism with lower forms of communitarianism, like the transactions within a family of blood relatives and mates, or within an ethnic tribe. A system that scales decreasingly well, the less sexually or genetically-related the participants are. Communitarianism doesn't sever producers from capital, it just changes the incentive structure for production.
Communism is not a system run on selfish genes advancing their own promotion. It's a bunch of randoms taking other people's stuff.
The humans in this world are more into tribalism than any non-tribalist form of capitalism or communism.
A tribe of humans who are into working together and being as chill as possible towards enemies can exist - in fact I see an example: most of the devs building nostr as capitalists, including you. The same could be done without currency or capitalism, assuming we still had computers and people who are into working together.
And either way, it would be great if the people building nostr weren't outnumbered by people who are so naturally tribalistic, they have a hard time understanding the issue with censorship... those people don't let communism scale, and they don't let capitalism price oil high enough, among many other good things they don't allow.
Also, any argument that begins with the axiom that human nature is the problem is going to be a non-starter with me, as I believe that humans are made in God's image.
Humans are the common link between separate examples of any other problem you could cite.
Like, you could blame technology, but nobody does technology like humans.
If you're sure humans are made in God's image, how has that process lead to these results? That's not meant to be like "you can't answer this question so you're wrong," I'm sure you can find an answer, it's an actual question.
Hurumphππ½ππ½ππ½π
Look at this as a 2x2 matrix of possibilities:
A1 - A world with good humans that stays in communism forever wouldn't have our problems. In context of something important to you: there could still be religions called "Judaism" and "Christianity" and "Islam" full of people like you who foster community and philosophical discussion.
A2 - A world with good humans that invents currency and capitalism must have better reasoning and intent behind it than the humans in our world, and thus wouldn't have our problems. Again, the big religions wouldn't have holy crusades.
B1 - if you have a world full of humans with RNG-based hatred in their hearts - so powerful they're willing to sacrifice themselves and their loved ones to also kill their randomly-selected enemies - and those people never invent capitalism, they can still use "Judaism" and "Christianity" and "Islam" as names for religions dedicated to killing each other. They can still refuse to look at any numbers related to crude oil. You could still be born with the same name and DNA you have, to parents with the same names and DNA, with the same birth dates, and all the same death dates. A doctor who tells someone they don't have good enough health insurance might be forced to use harsher words like "I don't personally care enough to help you instead of this other person based on your social status," but if we assume doctors save everyone they can, this wouldn't magically change how many they can save.
B2 - And if you take a world of such hateful violent people and they invent currency and capitalism, that's the world we're in, basically the same as B1 with communism.
The painful thing is being the type of human that could live on side A of the matrix, stuck on side B of the matrix, outnumbered by such humans
Wise girlππ½π
Agreed!
I think we also should discount how important the non-excellent obsessed professionals are to the productivity of the excellent one. Building can be lonely and isolating, so it's nice if there are people around you, keeping you on your toes, evaluating your increments, supporting your labor, telling people about the cool stuff you're building, low-key name-dropping you everywhere.
The non-excellent are just as enthusiastic and that's really important because it gives you an audience to build for and it makes it clear how rare you are.
Would you rather perform in front of a cheering audience of people who think your music is great, but who can't sing as well, or in front of an empty theater?
That's a very good point in favour of obsession. Appreciation by people that we know are able to grasp the relevance of our sufferings and efforts is very valuable, that's somehow the gasoline that makes you keep pushing even when things are dark around you. I'd rather be an obsessed but mildly competent professional than a normie that is casually competent but not bothered.
Its why I Bitcoin. So in the future I can build a legacy.
Pure capitalism starts with actually having something of value to trade with.
Capitalism is a system in which the natural human greed is being utilized in a positive way to the benefit of everyone - the greedy individual and society at large.
This is the "own the insult" sort of statement that I find just reconfirms the other person's argument.
Them: Capitalists are all greedy! π
You: Yes, but we use our greed for good. π
How about just saying, "No, fuck you. Get a job."
Capitalists don't use their greed for good, they use it for profit. The more their products and services benefit their (greedy) customers, the more profit they have.
And if you're denying that we're greedy, you're just pushing that trait into the "undesirable" bin, a personal shadow, from which it comes back in subversive, sinister ways.
Greed (avarice, covetousness, excessive desire for goods or power, or love of money) is always bad. It breaks one of the Ten Commandments.
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2536.htm
Someone who cannot engage in capitalistic endeavors without falling into greed, should abstain, to avoid the occasion to sin.
How is it to the benefit of everyone? Can you explain it please?
The incentive to the (greedy) capitalist is to create a product which best serves his (greedy) customers. The better the product, the more customers. It's a win-win situation.
What we usually have though, to give an example, is an "army" that works in advertisement and marketing, to convince us that we need a product, while at the same time the product is designed in a way that it breaks after some time and it needs maintenance, so that the producer gains more money from after sales or from the purchase of a new product. And that's also a huge waste of resources etc. Let's face it. Capitalism benefits whoever is privileged in the private sector and it's all about the profits of the private sector. There is no benefit for all... That's a wishful thinking.
You are confusing individual morality with a some major flaw in an economic system. I am convinced that capitalists can be morally-upright and honest actors.
Every system benefits the already-privileged because the world is not a Utopia, but capitalism results in more benefits for more people than any other system.
no, i'm just responding to the presence of extortion in your expression there, which was not material really, but i just wanted to point out that criminal activity reduces market efficiency
I can't tell who that was in response to.
I am not at all convinced about the second paragraph. I will argue the opposite. There are indeed capitalists that are morally upright etc but the capitalist system pushes them the other side.
Also, consumer have consistently refused to buy longer-lasting products at a higher price, so it's disingenuous to make it seem like anyone is being sneaky here.
When someone invents a longer-lasting product at the same or lower price, the consumers will buy their product. And not a moment sooner.
in the case of UHT milk it lasts longer but the processing destroys the value of the food entirely
Yes, but I was thinking more about cars and computers and clothes.
A lot of things have simply become lifestyle items and most people don't want to wear the same shoes for 15 years. They wouldn't pay three times the price to get the shoes to last 3 times as long. Same thing with cell-phones. They like getting a new phone every 2 years. They get upset, if you suggest they keep using the old one, since it's paid off.
Could this change? Probably not, in the near-term, as everyone is poorer now, so they can't afford the longer-lasting version, even if they wanted it.
yeah, unfortunately i precisely want the boots that last 15 years but probably never gonna happen until i either become a leatherworker or i live near one who is happy to make them for me and keep them nice
also the same for the tailor, that would be nice
we live in a situation where the main costs of providing such custom clothing services are cheap due to automation on small scales but still waiting for the penny to drop to people that we don't need to live in an industrial society anymore, with its standardisation and one size fits all mentality
I think redwings apparently last this long or longer. With resoling obviously.
*assuming they are still made how they used to be made. Which is very often not the case, sadly
Red wing? Didn't know them. Thanks. I like very much MEINDL. CRISPI also...
I have my computer since 2013. Use linux π
That depends on the customer, the case etc.
But yes, not everyone is sneaky. Good that you mentioned that π
Capitalism is about acculation of capital, with present sacrifice(consume less in the present) to produce more in the future.
Itβs about serving others and being accordingly appreciated.
It is only measured by money or wealth/capital accumulation. So is socialism, but there simply isnβt much to show for it.
i am studying collectivist systems, corporate systems, limited government systems, and recently agorist libertarian systems. i like the agorist best. not a fan of klaus schwabs "stakeholder capitalism". You seem to have in mind a innovator / entrepreneur mindset like ayn rand type of thought. human creativity.
Ayn was crazy as a bedbug.