That's not what's happening in practice however. Your iphone example is frankly nonsense because the discussion is about wealth accumulation. And wealth is being accumulated with a small percentage of the population at the expense of everyone else. Average American has less savings than they did in the past decades, and they're forced to work more. Rich accumulate wealth at the expense of the rest.
Millennial in US have only 3% of the wealth while a handful of people own more wealth than the rest of the country. Thinking this isn't a zero sum game is height of stupidity.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/millennials-have-just-3-of-us-w...
>This may be true if only currency was measured, but wealth is measured with assets and services as well (expenses), and in the USSR there was a ruling class, and those close to it, and they enjoyed much better lives than the common man in the USSR.
I lived in USSR, and that's completely false, and shows that you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. First, there was no ruling class the way you have in capitalist societies because there was no generational wealth. The party consisted of regular people, and many of party leaders, like Khrushchev, came from villages. This was possible because social services like healthcare and education were evenly distributed. This is what meritocracy actually looks like. Second, the gap in quality of life was much smaller than it is in the west, and politicians and administrators were not the highest earners.
>All of these talk about either (1) Cronyism is bad or (2) Capitalism inevitably leads to Cronyism. (1) is something I agree with. (2) You've yet to demonstrate that is _unique_ to capitalism. Can you give me an example of a single country where there isn't a ruling class that enjoys better quality of life and government favors?
I don't have to demonstrate that this is something that's unique to capitalism. I only have to demonstrate that capitalism facilitates this problem. The fact that other systems aren't perfect is completely irrelevant to the question. Furthermore, you're making a false equivalence once again here. And your previous comment clearly shows that you're also deeply ignorant regarding how USSR actually functioned.
However, even if you were right that other systems failed to address the problem that is not defense of capitalism. It just means that we need to continue experimenting and trying new things.
>That is Cronyism. Could you stop giving the Cronyisnt aspects of the US as examples of Capitalism? Capitalism calls for Non-aggression, and uses an Army in self-defense only.
Cronyism is byproduct of capitalism. I'm not sure how many times I have to repeat this. The who are inseparable, and I've already explained why numerous times. If you still aren't able to wrap your head around this, I don't think there's anything else I can tell you here.
>Well, we look differently at the role of government. To me, government isn't some tool to force other people.
It appears that you don't understand what a democratic government is then.
>I don't care if it's the few rich forcing the majority middle class, or if it's the majority middle class forcing a rich minority. I am against forcing (using or threatening the use of physical force) other people.
And in your Mad Max world without government who prevents rich people from forcing poor people to do what they want again?
>This eliminates the "path to Cronyism" you described. When some rich people (not every rich person is bad) will go and ask for artificially low interest rates or for favoring regulation that limits competition, the government will be limited and could not give it to them.
It obviously does not. If you don't have a government that's answerable to the people, then all you're left with is Darwinism where strong abuse and exploit the weak.
>Again -- if you believe some Communist or Socialist heaven is better suited to supply everyone's needs, no one is stopping you from building such a thing, as Capitalism lets you live as you wish. If it's as good as you say, most citizens will probably join you anyway. I'm not sure how democratic it'll be, but as long as it's voluntary, enjoy yourselves.
Again, I've already explained that US has in fact been actively waging wars against every socialist and communist country out there. US currently forces sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela, it's done countless coups and regime changes in Latin America, it has installed brutal dictators like Pinochet, and killed millions of people to stomp out communism and socialism. You are deeply ignorant of history and geopolitics making your arguments naive and infantile.
You ignore other countries falling the exact same faults as you say Capitalism
You seem to support a democracy where a majority could vote to oppress a minority
You blame me for suggesting a world "without government" which is extreme intellectual dishonesty, especially when I mention limited _government_.
Then you, once again, point at the problems with the US that are Cronyism, not Capitalism.
Living in the USSR is nothing more than an anecdote, the same way Mainland Chinese claim wrongs about China, probably without even knowing[0].
I'm sorry, but this is the point where I leave this discussion, as it seems to go nowhere. I suggest you read a little about the quality of life in the 1950s in the US, before Cronyism caught up to it, and compare it to the quality of life in the USSR at the time.
[0]: Warning, difficult to watch. https://youtu.be/rbHxeOQA1Mc?t=933
The concrete numbers do not support your example. You just keep repeating nonsense over and over, but it's still nonsense. 3 richest people own more wealth than bottom 50% of the population, while millenials own 3% of the overall wealth. If you don't understand that there's a vertical wealth transfer happening to the capital owner class, then I really don't know what else to tell you.
>You ignore other countries falling the exact same faults as you say Capitalism
Regardless of what faults other systems have, it's clear that capitalism causes the problems I've outlined. The discussion is about capitalism and its impact on society.
>You seem to support a democracy where a majority could vote to oppress a minority
That's literally how democracy works, people vote and then we enact policies that are in the interest of the majority. Sounds like you're promoting authoritarianism here.
>You blame me for suggesting a world "without government" which is extreme intellectual dishonesty, especially when I mention limited _government_.
I'm not blaming you, I'm pointing out the absurdity of your argument.
>Then you, once again, point at the problems with the US that are Cronyism, not Capitalism.
Once again I'll repeat that cronyism is a byproduct of capitalism. I've explained this to you repeatedly, yet you keep on ignoring that and pretending that these things are separate. Now that's what I call intellectual dishonesty.
>Living in the USSR is nothing more than an anecdote, the same way Mainland Chinese claim wrongs about China, probably without even knowing[0].
Again, you ignore the concrete points I made about how USSR function. You're intellectually dishonest.
>I'm sorry, but this is the point where I leave this discussion, as it seems to go nowhere.
And here I thought I'd never see the end of your drivel. Meanwhile, you might want to watch some footage from Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. US killed over half a million people in Iraq alone buddy.
So, my stance is that money directly translates into increased opportunity in a capitalist society. Meanwhile, the relationship between capital owners and works is asymmetric where the capital owner keeps majority of the profit from the value that the workers create.
"at the expense of everyone else" implies a zero-sum game. Wealth gap, however, can widen even in a positive-sum game. As demonstrated by my iPhone example. I can also create a simplified game that does this. Every turn, player A gets 10 points, and player B gets 1 point. Gap widens, yet all gain.
> In practice, some systems are much more unequal than others. For example, people like Gates or Bezos simply didn't exist in USSR, there was no generational wealth, and the highest gap in pay was around 10x. Saying that there is no difference between that and what happens in capitalist countries is simply false equivalence.
This may be true if only currency was measured, but wealth is measured with assets and services as well (expenses), and in the USSR there was a ruling class, and those close to it, and they enjoyed much better lives than the common man in the USSR. They had better goods, better services, and they, yes, enjoyed Cronyism. Communism is a very poor example, as there is literally a ruling class the controls other people's lives, which is something I gathered you want to avoid.
> And cronyism is a direct byproduct of capitalism and inequality.
> And here's a breakdown of prison population by wealth in US. The prisons are predominantly filled with poor people, and you'll be hard pressed to find a CEO going to prison for any crime. Just recently Boeing killed two plane loads full of people due to criminal negligence, nobody's going to jail for that. The CEO got a golden parachute instead. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/income.html
> And why is the government going hand in hand with the private sector? It's as if, and bear with me here, the private sector bought the government with all that wealth capitalists have accumulated. It amazes me to no end that you're unable to make this connection.
> Capitalism is the engine that creates a system of cronyism because it allows wealth to accumulate in the hands of the few. Again, this is not a complex concept that a fully grown adult should be struggling with.
All of these talk about either (1) Cronyism is bad or (2) Capitalism inevitably leads to Cronyism. (1) is something I agree with. (2) You've yet to demonstrate that is _unique_ to capitalism. Can you give me an example of a single country where there isn't a ruling class that enjoys better quality of life and government favors?
> Capitalism was the cause of the revolutions since it's been around. Meanwhile, you might want to read up on what USA does to communist and socialist countries around the world. Go read some history of South Asia, and Latin America for starters. No single socialist regime has been left unmolested in the past century.
That is Cronyism. Could you stop giving the Cronyisnt aspects of the US as examples of Capitalism? Capitalism calls for Non-aggression, and uses an Army in self-defense only.
> No, I'm saying that capitalism is a mechanism that allows wealth to be accumulated with a small percentage of the population, and these people end up running the country as an oligarchy as is the case with US, and other Western regimes right now. I don't think any system that allows large scale inequality is compatible with democracy.
> Meanwhile, limiting the power of the government achieves the complete opposite of what you're proposing. A democratic government answers to its citizens, while private interests only answer to their owners. Wealth inequality is the root cause for the corruption of the government, and that's what needs to be eliminated to have actual democracy and representation of the people by the government.
Well, we look differently at the role of government. To me, government isn't some tool to force other people. I don't care if it's the few rich forcing the majority middle class, or if it's the majority middle class forcing a rich minority. I am against forcing (using or threatening the use of physical force) other people.
This eliminates the "path to Cronyism" you described. When some rich people (not every rich person is bad) will go and ask for artificially low interest rates or for favoring regulation that limits competition, the government will be limited and could not give it to them.
Again -- if you believe some Communist or Socialist heaven is better suited to supply everyone's needs, no one is stopping you from building such a thing, as Capitalism lets you live as you wish. If it's as good as you say, most citizens will probably join you anyway. I'm not sure how democratic it'll be, but as long as it's voluntary, enjoy yourselves.