We should be careful to condemn too quickly a current system.
It reminds me of when a new developer comes to a code base and says it needs to be thrown out and rewritten completely.
Rewrites and revolutions are costly and shortsighted.
Let's first try to figure out what is right with what's here because usually it's like it is for a reason.
Corporate structure: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
Electoral system:
What we have now - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
Range voting - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig
Alternative vote - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE
Single transferrable vote - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI
Marx wrote about the theory of societal evolution; That there are certain phases civilization must pass through. The communism he wrote about would have to be very far down the road, 100+ years (IMO). This does not mean people sit back and do nothing, we still would have to work towards it. (Most) Capitalists profit from the status quo, and work to keep in place systems to maintain their spot in the hierarchy. Thus the antiquated electoral system in the USA, and the top heavy power/pay structures of business.
TL;DR: give the average person more of a say/choice in the world they live in (politics/workplace), and they will find their way forward. (IMO)
2. “Socialism” is present and a fundamental part of (probably) every government on earth, in terms of public education, healthcare, and countless other public services.
3. The US could use some public services it is lacking right now, like national healthcare—our private costs are obscene.
You can frame socialism in terms of reduced shared costs. In my experience, this is an effective pitch to otherwise politically apathetic people.
> on the same issues the major alternatives attempted in the 20th century were actually far, far worse
Actually, I’d take national health care over the current situation in the US any day.
I’d hazard a guess that there are multiple places where most americans could appreciate socialist approaches to running public services.
I’m curious as to what specifically you’re talking about when saying capitalism did far better in every regard in every problem in the 20th century, because you seem emphatic.
The main alternatives to the system originally described as “capitalism” that was tried in states which already had developed capitalist economies in the 20th century were blends of elements of democratic socialism with capitalism that have since been dubbed the “modern mixed economy”; they were so successful compared to actual capitalism that they have essentially completely replaced it in the West, while there are persistent efforts (which sometimes succeed in driving some policy) from the capitalist class to drag the West back to (or at least toward) 19th Century capitalism.
(The only other alternative tried in any significt way in the developed West in the 20th Century was autocratic fascist corporatism, which, yes, is far, far worse than liberal capitalism.)
And the main alternative to that regressive pro-capitalist drive proposed in the modern West (aside from simply preserving the status quo design of the mixed economy) is simply progressively implementing more elements of democratic socialism, not adopting Leninism or any of the other attempts made in the 20th century outside of the developed West that attempt to bypass rather than advance from capitalism.
Though, I guess, it's worth noting that autocratic fascist corporatism still seems to have some adherents.
With this, right of return for anyone living in diaspora.
We can transition from capitalism to that via an intermediate stage of anarcho-syndicalism with syndicates that own property and pay taxes.
Capitalism isn’t “evil” or “useless” it’s just a temporary stage in our development.
This sounds like democratic socialism with some arbitrary restriction on polity scope.
> With this, right of return for anyone living in diaspora.
How do you concretely define this? This would be a big deal with existing scale polities, but it with your implied smaller polities, it becomes an even hotter issue.
> Capitalism isn’t “evil” or “useless” it’s just a temporary stage in our development.
Agreed.
There's no implication of socialism, but yes I expect some form of democrasy could be involved.
All laws are "arbitrary restrictions on policy scope".
> How do you concretely define [right of return]?
I don't have any strong expectations about the details. In my head as a straw man is something like:
If you (A) were born in a place, or (B) lived there for 4 years before the age of 20, you can claim it as your homeland. You may claim up to two homelands. Half of every 10,000 hectare region on earth must be reserved to be split equally among indigenous people.
I agree it'd be a hot sell. I see it more as a guiding principle than a practical global policy proposal. I believe we will end up in a world that approximates that policy, through gradual embrace of caring policies in all locales.
He became seriously disillusioned with socialist ideals later on in his life. And famously said "Socialists don't care about the poor, they just hate the rich"
EDIT: Found this quora question: https://www.quora.com/What-s-the-full-Orwell-quote-that-is-o... The quote you provided is a summary by a person that is definitely right or at least alt-right leaning, so he is definitely heavily biased. In any case, as you can read in the quoted passage (this time the real thing), Orwell criticizes the "book socialist" or the orthodox marxist, which he already did in Homage to Catalonia. He's criticizing the soviet union's socialism, not the CNT-FAI's one.
How about a system which:
1. Acknowledges the realities of automation and globalization
2. Does not have maximum employment and perpetual growth as primary goals
3. Does not create artificial scarcity
4. Understands the broken window fallacy
The first phase of the systems development life cycle requires you to define (and agree upon) high level goals/requirements/parameters, which is what I was doing.
Yes, but when people ask for a system, you can't just give them that list of goals as an answer. Not only is it not a system, but agreeing on goals doesn't make a system meeting all of them logically possible much less practical.
When someone asks for a satisfactory alternative that doesn't yet exist, intelligent creative people think about ways to make a new one. Are you suggesting we don't do that?
>agreeing on goals doesn't make a system meeting all of them logically possible much less practical.
False. Making sure users values align with the system goals is crucial for a successful, practical system that people want to use.
I think you'd have got a better response if you were clearer that that's what you were trying to do. "I don't know of a system but if we're to try and come up with one, [...]" or similar.
> >agreeing on goals doesn't make a system meeting all of them logically possible much less practical.
> False. Making sure users values align with the system goals is crucial for a successful, practical system that people want to use.
Making sure goals align with values is worthwhile, but it doesn't answer the question of whether a system that achieves all of those goals is possible.
In a different context, we can have as many meetings as we want where we all agree that maintaining complete consistency and availability while being robust to partitioning is very important and aligned with what we want out of our distributed system; that doesn't mean we're going to get a system that reaches those goals.
Of course, it's fair to say that the discussion of what goals to trade away against others should be a separate process from getting everything we might want on the table - but again, you should make it clear that that's what you're doing up front.
Perhaps you're right, though I'm sure the responses would also have been better if the system in question was an actual objective, technical system and not an ideological system. Decades of propaganda has caused many to automatically attack anyone who dares question the status quo economic aparatus.
Also, there's a huge difference between pointing out problems and pointing out solutions.
Climate change says the cost of not switching is far greater. Also, that's what phased roll outs are for.
>there's a huge difference between pointing out problems and pointing out solutions.
Obviously... But we can't find a solution without first defining and understanding the problem.
The biggest reason for reduction in extreme poverty over the last decades is the responsibility of the Chinese state. The fastest drop in family size ever was overseen by the totalitarian Iranian government.
Beware easy one line explanations.
1. More people now live in a market economy which produces more goods and services for everyone, even poor people
2. Better leadership. Eg. In 1976 Mao in a single act greatly improved the trajectory of most of the world's poor - he died.
3. End of cold war meant end of US and Soviet support for many civil wars and ugly dictatorships.
4. Globalization and industrialization
5. Science and technology
But the toxicity of capitalism often stems from the polarized debate, I don't actually think many wants capitalism without regulation, or communism without free property rights... but it's hard to argue for the sane middle ground when you're attacked from both sides.
However those reserves of labour are largely getting tapped out. Wages for factory workers in China have been rising dramatically for a while now. There are other challenges coming , such as increased automation, but again that's not really directly the fault of capitalism. Meanwhile while wage growth has slowed, we've all benefited hugely from the cheap goods and services enabled by these changes. I really think it's much more about technological and demographic changes rather than capitalism per se. If anything, we've suffered from too much economic development, technological advances and global growth.
It's rarely as simple as supply and demand, but there seems to me to be a correlation between stagnant wages and large increases in the labor pool.
According to BLS-generated compensation cost indices,
total benefit costs for all civilian workers have risen
an inflation-adjusted 22.5% since 2001 (when the data
series began), versus 5.3% for wage and salary costs.The non-capitalist moves that stopped that nonsense were union moves, not socialistic or communistic.
> ... we'd still have voting as a reserved right for rich landowners. That's capitalism.
That's feudalism, not capitalism. It was democracy that undid that nonsense, not socialism or communism.
The rest of your rant shows that you are very bitter, but it does nothing to either enlighten or persuade.
Also capitalism is in no way in opposition to other individual freedoms such as unionism, liberal democracy, etc. You can have capitalism without them, just look at China, but I would argue that as a freedom, capitalism is most naturally aligned with other such personal freedoms.
As you point out rubber baron and oligarchic systems are based on suppressing freedoms, including often individual rights over capital. Corporate scrip isn’t capital, so clearly it’s iuse is actually anti-capitalist by restricting individual rights over capital.
The distribution of resources according to what will make the rich richer is not the best way. The private ownership of means of production is simply theft, there's no need for it and no moral justification.
Ultimately we're greedy by nature; capitalism rewards that greed, feeds it and deifies it.
I haven't set out to persuade you; if you seek to persuade yourself of what is just I have no doubt you will reject capitalism.
If I have some money, and you have some money, and I buy a tool and you buy some beer, I have a tool and you don't - so I'm stealing from you? [Edit: Note that the "means of production" can be as simple as a wrench, or a sewing machine, or a welder.] Step away from the marxist koolaid, you've had a bit much...
And you're only a half step away from theft yourself. Stating that "the private ownership of means of production is theft" leads almost inevitably to "therefore the public need to take back the means of production from those who have them". That's theft.
> I haven't set out to persuade you
You sure haven't. Stating as fact things that are completely outrageous from the other person's perspective is not a very good tactic of persuasion.
> ... if you seek to persuade yourself of what is just I have no doubt you will reject capitalism.
You should doubt. You should also find a better line; "if you really seek truth and justice you'll agree with me" is a manipulative cop-out. You want me to be persuaded? Make a convincing argument that makes sense to someone who doesn't already agree with you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
I think it's disingenuous to think the only way workers can own the means of production is to take them from someone else.
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
I think it's disingenuous to think the only way workers can own the means of production is to take them from someone else.
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
This was in part natural advancement as it is exponential and we eventually just hit explosive growth, but the environment was helped along with capitalism, free markets, and major world wars which encouraged the spread of information and trade.
I hear people blame "deregulation" for the financial crisis, when in reality government regulations and policies misaligning incentives hold a majority of the responsibility.
I think the better view of capitalism allows to both appreciate it for the unprecedented age of prosperity it brought to this world, as well as identify it as the major factor in the biggest problems of present day, from climate change to inequality-related social tensions. It's an extremely powerful tool that let us grow to where we are, but needs fine-tuning so that it won't shake our societies apart.
Keep in mind most of this extreme poverty was eliminated in Asia, and in particular China. Unfortunately China began to liberalize its markets and realize its demographic dividend in the early 80s, at the same time, so I'm not sure about that case.
Again in India, liberalization and falling birthrates happened together in the 1990s.
25 years ago was 1993, two years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It's an arbitrary time frame, perhaps conveniently selected. That said, market economies spread rapidly throughout the second world during the 90s, and the Soviet subsidies that had kept a number of command economy-leaning third world countries were cut off, forcing liberalization.
The most powerful effect of this was the widespread loss of belief in the effectiveness of command economies. With the end of the USSR the major ideological opponent of capitalism collapsed. World historical event -> world-wide change in outcomes is too big a correlation to dismiss.
That said it's tough to tease out what is driving what, economics or demographics. I do think that human flourishing occurs when ideology gets out of the way of individuals pursuing their own interests, whether their interests include opening a small business or not birthing children for the motherland.
So I am not able to say, "it's because of capitalism," or, "it's because of contraception and female education." I am confident that we can say, "ideology and authoritarianism make things worse."
The way new capital reaches the third world can be attributed to globalization of market circuits, for instance, China is currently investing into Africa much like the first world did to China in the past.
Of course, if you define the terminology differently, say you’re an Austrian Economist, the above explanation might appear unintelligable.
If you're just going to debate a strawman instead of the actual poster and their actual comment, why bother showing up?
That liberalism is associated with progressivism seems to take away from progressive right-wingers which may believe in the inherent inequality of certain inevitable social structures, but work to abolish or reform broken regulation.
I do not intend to imply my political beliefs here. I'm simply saying perhaps you meant progressive.
No. Not in either of the sensed “liberalism” is currently used. Equality, yes, in a manner particularly opposed to the structural inequities of capitalism, but not liberalism, which is either about capitalism or a viewpoint which seeks to maintain capitalism a while moderating certain inequities within it, depending on which of th current usages of “liberalism” you refer to.
> I believe what you meant was as a radical progressive
“Radical progressive” is a phrase used in US politics go refer to a certain range of left-wing positions.
> That liberalism is associated with progressivism
It's not, though one of the senses of liberalism is adjacent to progressivism.
> seems to take away from progressive right-wingers
While the term “progressive right-wingers” may not be nonsensical in some historical usages of “progressive”, it is simply oxymoronic in the current usage.
> which may believe in the inherent inequality of certain inevitable social structures, but work to abolish or reform broken regulation.
You seem to be using “progressive” as simply anyone who seeks change from the status quo to realize their political values, which is a novel use.
The grandparent used “radical leftist” correctly.
Asssuming the wiki you are referring to is Wikipedia, you seem to have paid attention only to the first sentence of each article.
This is a tricky question. Easily the biggest factor is china. China being the most populous nation was the largest source of poverty a few decades ago and now is the largest source of reduction of poverty. They lifted 680 million people out of poverty by 2010. Today, that number is probably approaching 800 or 900 million due to their economic growth.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end...
So do we credit the "communism" of the chinese communist party? Do we credit capitalism? Do we credit chinese communism management of capitalism? Do we credit foreign investment? Chinese entrepreneurship? It all depends on your political bias. Success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan.
Also, poverty is a very political/strange concept. A poor city dweller struggling to make ends but who has a smartphone and nice sneakers will not be in poverty. But a farmer who owns his land, is independent and grows enough food to live comfortably but has no smartphones or sneakers would be seen as being in exreme poverty. Ultimately, reduction of poverty is simply a result of moving farmers and stuffing them into large cities and how dependent they are on the "state". The less poverty you are in, the more you are dependent on society for life's essentials.
Also, poverty decreasing is great, but in the same time period, wealth inequality has increased drastically. Imagine poverty of weapons. Both of us are in extreme weapons poverty ( we have no weapons ). You get a nerf gun and I get a shotgun. Weapons poverty is wiped out. We should celebrate right? It's "great" that poverty decreased, but the differential in power between me and you skyrocketed.
Look at china. Their poverty has decreased dramatically. But the power differential between the powerful and everyone else has increased dramatically as wealth inequality skyrocketed. Is this really a good thing? The wealth inequality funding "digital dictatorship" and tyranny?
This is the same diversion tactic some people use about wealth not being a zero sum game. In purely terms of wealth, it is not a zero sum game. But wealth translates into power. And power certainly is a zero sum game. So if you got $10 and I got $10,000,000, in terms of wealth, both of us are doing better. But in terms of power, my power increased drastically while yours barely budged.
> I really feel like it's a shame that word is almost toxic in intellectual circles.
It is because it's opinions based on political biases. But economists and political "scientists" do a great job lying to us that their field is a "science" with the same credibility of physics. It is not. There is no objective truth because it's not in the realm of the empirical but societal/political. You'd have less toxicity in a debate between a christian, jew and muslim on who is the one true god.
We've seen that before. The Thousand-year Reich lasted 12 years. Communism in Russia was untouchable... until it wasn't. Right now the government of North Korea looks unchangeable, and China and Iran look close. But I predict that, in a generation, at least two out of the three will be gone.
Say there's mass economic strife, and people want to revolt. Ten people suddenly get the idea to overthrow the government. They organize a get together in the woods, with no technology allowed. Facial recognition can tell the ten of them joined as a group, logs showed they all did not use any technology for a period of hours, they weren't seen in any camera or microphone database for hours... Hmm, very suspicious. An automated system can and will recognize these factors and the group will be quickly sent for reeducation.
Once the technology passes a tipping point, there's simply no way back. The technology enables the existing power structure to be maintained forever.
And that's assuming human soldiers are involved. At some point - maybe 50 or maybe 150 years from now - robotics will be advanced enough that you won't even need cooperation of soldiers, and at that point the entire population can be controlled with the push of a button.
The question of what actually precipitates, maintains, spreads, or limits growth has in fact been a central question of numerous economic schools of thought and/or ideology; the Physiocrats, Adam Smith, free-market fundamentalists, J.S. Mill's steady-state, Ricardo & George on rents, Schumpeter's creative destruction, Kondratieff's technological waves, North's institutionalsism.
Jevons, Adams, Lotke, Soddy, Boulding, Georgescu-Roegen, Meadows et al, Daly, Ayres, Klitgaard & Hall, Smil, and Keen all point to an overwhelmingly dominant role for energy, especially fossil fuels.
The full answer has multiple components. Simply chalking "capitalism fixed it" is beyond facile. Particularly when aggreement as to what that term even encompasses is at best exceptionally limited.
But sure, lets praise capitalism!
This is demonstrably false. Extreme poverty was simply the state of the world until a few centuries back. In 1820 more than 90% of the world was living in extreme poverty.
It's absurd to claim a single diffuse concept like capitalism was responsible for lifting people out of poverty, it's just as absurd to claim it was responsible for putting them there.
Alternate systems have not worked out so well, as you know. Communist planned economies led to the starvation of tens of millions, and that number increases to hundreds of millions when you add the persecution, jailing, and sometimes immediate execution of citizens of Communists states that had a history of political activity of the wrong sort. Recall that in Soviet Russia it was beneficial for each individual to "inform" on their neighbours to the KGB, so that they could claim their apartment. And it's suspected that Vladmir Putin is actually the richest person in the world.
Colonialism and slavery are pretty rough, but they are not a product of capitalism as much as a product of human malevolence and brutality. I'm sure you would find evidence of colonialism and slavery in pre-civilization times and in non-capitalist societies, so that argument falls flat.
Also, regarding the 8 richest individuals - If the rest of the world is getting on OK, why should we not have a couple of super rich people around? Why is that inherently bad? Why do _you_ think you should have a say of where that money belongs, exactly?
Why is that not a product of human malevolence and brutality?
I'm sure you would find evidence of persecution, jailing and sometimes execution of citizens in pre-civilization.
Imagine I want to send a rocket to Mars. And then I go and check the prices and see these companies want hundreds of millions of dollars to launch one. That makes me confused. The materials to make that rocket cost at most on the order of tens of millions of dollars, and labor certainly doesn't explain the rest. I bet I could make one for less. And it turns out I can. Then a couple of decades later, I'm the biggest rocket supplier on the planet. In a communist system your only option there would be to try to appeal to the bureaucracy, and if you're lucky you might eventually, some years later, get a reply to your filing of form FNE-34821.43-z: 'We disagree. Thanks for your input, comrade.' Of course this probably isn't a fair comparison. In a communist system nobody would ever have the resources to even dream of being able to do something like launch rockets to Mars. Instead you'd have to beg old entrenched government bureaucrats to do it. I'm wouldn't hold my breath.
This notion of an economic system being driven by the people instead of being driven by the government is why in a capitalist system you're generally free to argue for a communist system - with some unfortunate exceptions, yet in a communist system arguing for capitalism is often enough to get you 'disappeared' - with some fortunate exceptions. Maybe even more visibly in a capitalist system you could even start a communistic system. Want to buy 5000 acres of land and start communitopia? Feel free to! Want to buy 5,000 acres of land and start capitalitopia in a communist nation? It's simply not possible.
And we also saw this exact scenario play out in space. We never really managed to bring space to into the capitalist system. And once the government 'won' the space race, their interests shifted from space. Not only did progress halt but we technologically regressed. We put a man on the moon in 1969. Today, half a century later, we're struggling just to try to send a man around the moon - let alone land on it. No human has left low earth orbit since 1972! But at the same time space has now been genuinely introduced into the capitalist system and so long as the people have a desire for more, the odds of us entering into another 50 year regression are rapidly approaching 0.