Topic: Capitalism and immorality - page 4. (Read 10678 times)

Exactly.

But to elaborate to cbeast why  
Animals do use money. Male chimpanzee trade fruit with females, so they repay later with sex. Money is basically just information, which tells the traders the relative scarcity of the goods at THAT moment, and also tries to predict the future scarcity of the given resource. Also, check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value, as long as value is subjective, and lacks any determinism, you MUST have a tool to communicate this information about demand-supply. Because people change their minds. Because resources gets depleted/new sources found/new technologies found etc. Or just shit happens none expected http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory

The economy is never and can not be in a state of equilibrium! And at the same time, it is always in it, because for that moment, the moment you pay - voluntary trade -, you just set a new equilibrium!

I hate this notion, you said
"Perhaps intelligent machines will take care of our needs and allow us to provide adequate resources to build a Type 1 civilization one day"
Every collectivist thinker starts from the failed Platonic logic of "philosopher kings" type of society, where someone or something will force us to do good, for our own sake.
Free will exists. Get over it. Be self reliant, spend energy, adapt, adopt, improve   Now, you see why people long for socialism, where everything gets handed to them, and they do not have to think and risk, and choose.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMNZQVyabiM

So... instead of capitalism we just need almost all humans to be very patient and careful, extremely smart, and treat all strangers like family?  You have a problem with a theoretical consequence of capitalism based on questionable logic and supported by crony-capitalistic examples so you counter-propose a system of social order in which several of the axioms are blatantly false, two of them by your own admission!  Even without calling out many of the dubious claims in your argument, and paying no heed to the bias, you still quickly begin to consider the necessity of intelligent machines just to make your proposal tractable.

Fail.

Economics is a science that have axioms predicated on established social norms. I personally favor behavior sciences because they study animal behavior and extrapolate primate behavior to sociological scales. In the interest of furthering science, I prefer the disciplines with the greater latitudes. Economics is still going through the "new schools of thought" stage that was popular with psychology even through the 1990s. Now neuroscience is taking behavior sciences to higher levels. Behavior science has become empirical.

But really, it's much simpler than that. Treat others like they are your family and don't profiteer. Animals don't use money. Humans don't need money either. It's a choice. We need science and technology to promote progress. We can do it together by aggregating resources smartly. Unfortunately, most of us aren't smart enough to agree upon the best use of resources. We need tools that will assure us that our needs are met and that we have fulfilling lives. That takes a great deal of patience and care. Most humans are incapable of that. Perhaps intelligent machines will take care of our needs and allow us to provide adequate resources to build a Type 1 civilization one day.

I think I was rather clear. Money is only the catalyst, or moisture to the machinery. It has no real value. That means also that the goal of acquiring money does not exhaust resources in any way. It is a question of having the opportunity to consume later, leaving everyone else to consume or invest now. This has always been the case with money. Bitcoin is just a better form of money.

It is not science in the sense that it can be measured exactly and retested. That is for the econometrists, which are wrong. Some of them, you could call econosadists (war is prosperity). Economy is science in the sense that there are some axioms, then conclusions that logically build on those axioms.

Yeah see, finance isn't science. Aggregating resources are part of the scientific method, but how you aggregate them is not. Using terms like producer and consumer, marketing and investing, these are all technician terms that only useful within arbitrary sociological conditions. Science is useful in every sociological condition. Therefore your business terminology is meaningless to me. We cannot have a discussion because we cannot find common ground since I don't accept your paradigm where Bitcoin is concerned. From Bitcoin will emerge a whole new system of resource allocation. You may call it "free market" if you want, but the goal of acquiring unnecessary monies will one day be as quaint as sun worship.

I agree, it is about information. In theory, you could have a great ledger where every service or good is noted when it is added, and everything you consume is subtracted, for every person. But, in practise this would not work, because someone, who is not you, helpfully will set a value for each thing different from your values. We also need the market to signal to you as a consumer, and you as a producer, what to produce and what to consume, how much you want to produce, consume, save as money or invest. Money is perfect for that. It does not add real value, in fact it consumes a small amount of value, but essentially, it is there as a catalyzer, and you can take it out of the wealth equation when it has done its job.

What we want are not different. I just realized long ago that you cannot get from point A to point B using an abstract reification such as money. It is a low tech invention. Sure Bitcoin creates an abstraction that mechanizes the functions of money that was once done by people, but it is still merely a practical technology. It doesn't do anything except transmit a very limited form of information. Electronic money has gone from the telegraph age to the telephone age. When smart contracts are possible and autonomous agents are able to transact indepently and intelligently, then we may see something that bridges what you believe and I believe. What you call the Free Market, I call Love, and money doesn't bring that.

I agree. People are not generally like that. Not using violence is a natural thing, and almost everybody I know would never use violence. Thinking otherwise is part of the mind control that is going on. A society could easily exist nonviolently even if a certain amount of people in fact do have a tendency to violence. It doesn't have to be a collection of saints. And don't forget the balance - which is non violent but forceful self defense.

To accept his basic premise you have to believe that all people are predatory and immoral at their base and the only thing that can protect us from ourselves is government intervention.

You think that a free market can not exist. Fair enough. I happen to think that it can exist. The monopolies, in my world view, are always conducted by violence, directly or by proxy. You could read Henry Ford about monopolies, and what would happen if you tried to get a monopoly in the free market, by underselling your competition until they are gone, then raise prices. It is not possible. All monopolies are kept by violence, that is, by government.

Good companies can have a high market share, but only in a limited part of the market, and if they have, it is by merit.

Ah the old straw man. Nice!

You sound like those creationists that try to disprove evolution by quoting the Second Law of Thermodynamics about Entropy. What they overlook is that these laws only occur in a closed Universe of experimental conditions. You think that a Free Market exists everywhere and exerts itself like natural law. That is not science. Your hypothesis is easily falsified under conditions of monopoly. You are simply Begging the Question.

Exactly. The exchange of value benefits both parties. Free trade is not a zero sum game no matter how much he wants that to fit into his belief system.

This is completely false for the free market. A trade in the free market is always a win-win. It is the definition of the free market. If a trade is not win-win, it will not be completed.

Nothing stops a society from creating a court system which pays for itself via court fees. That is how our own court system started. And punishment for break of contract (as in missing payment) does not have to be jail. Exclusion from trading with the specific merchant (the opponent) may be enough, or exclusion from trading with a free association of merchants. The unlucky non-receiver of payment could have an insurance against such loss through another free association, if deemed beneficial by the market.

There are many places in the world that are life and death struggles due to monopolistic cartels, government graft, and collusion. Some are not to that point yet and if they are lucky enough to have a McDonalds, then they do have armed guards. I know of no currently operating free market system that doesn't ultimately resort to violence.

No, the point is not valid.  cbeast is assuming that the competition in capitalism is between all parties, and that such competition is a life and death struggle.  Such reasoning would lead to the conclusion, for example, that in a purely capitalistic system, McDonalds would not delay in mounting machine-gun turrets on its stores to gun down as many customers and employees as it can.

In a free-market system, the competition comes from rival businesses, not from suppliers, workers, or customers.  If one party has complete or near complete control of one resource, and it works to distribute this resource to others in a fair and efficient manner, then it may be able to resist competition and maintain its advantage.  If said party tries to push its advantage too far it will find competition working AGAINST it, and ferociously so.

If he is talking about monopoly on essential resources, then yes, the point is valid.

Evolution and market based competition are not pretty. Some species/people need to die to make room for other, that is how the system improve itself. Otherwise, dinosaur sill still be ruling the world right now.

Wow I am not even sure how to respond so such an absurd statement. You are clearly an extremist so there is no point in trying to reason with you.