Topic: Capitalism (continued from How do you deal with the thought about taxes) - page 9. (Read 12620 times)

Happens when a thread goes on for pages without anyone bothering to to say exactly what's being discussed (explaining what they mean by capitalism).
People start cherry picking -- suddenly, the Soviet space program's an example of capitalism in action , though slavery isn't.  Pretty soon, you get bored with pointing out absurdities & quit.  The nature of all interwebz debates.

Edit: Buying diamonds is also possible outside of capitalism.  It was possible to buy diamonds in Soviet Russia.  Buying slaves, OTOH, is capitalism.  Slaves, like beasts of burden & factories, *are* a means of production.

True. Had the feeling I was going out on a limb there.
I was attempting to point at the overlooked value imbued into an object by the people who suffered under an employer to build it, and the complicity a seller of such an object has in that suffering.

It's a stretch to find something strictly capitalist in such a simple deal. Diamonds make for a clearer example.

That's simply wrong. Buying & selling a fridge built by "toilers," buying & selling, private property -- these things are in no way exclusive to capitalism. 

What you have there is not a definition, but an example, an illustration -- similar to defining math with "2+2."  Unless you literally mean that selling a fridge for a hundred bucks is exactly what capitalism means to you, so that selling a fridge for $95.50 becomes *not* capitalism, you really should define your terms.  Otherwise it's impossible to carry on a conversation -- you'll simply say "that's capitalism too!" when shown that your reasoning leads to a contradiction.  You've already claimed that that Soviet  space program was also capitalism. *

Here's a commonly accepted definition of Capitalism:
"Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market." --wikip

*I'll stipulate that for a decent debate, a definition must describe the necessary & sufficient qualities of the term being defined.  Which loosely means that given a definition of the word "weasel," you will be able to both recognise a weasel & know when something is *not* a weasel. Yeah, elliptical, but whach'a gonna do?

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."

Delete "creative."

I've offered several versions of my definition already, so I'll just defer to wikipedia this time.
It's very important to understand that your economists were selling you something that is not accurate. What you describe is free trade, if you actually own and built the fridge yourself, ect.
It's capitalism when toilers built it for you.

Perhaps my rarer perspective gives me more experience in how noncapitalist frameworks function. You don't need to be a surgeon to know why getting stabbed is bad.

I didn't.  Personal gain just happens to be a major motivation.  It's not the only one, and I never claimed otherwise.  But we don't get from horses to aircraft without that particular motivating factor.  Necessity may be the mother of invention, but greed is the baby-daddy, no matter where it's born.

My personal definition of capitalism, as well as that of those arguing on my side, and that of the economists that taught me classes on it, is that capitalism is the voluntary exchange of personal property and services. If you have an old fridge to sell, and I am in need of a fridge and have $100 burning in my pocket (or some computer monitors I don't need that you want), we can meet, and trade, and that would be capitalism. The trade was voluntary, and we both came off better from it. Can you explain to be where government or state fits into this trade?

Or if that's not it explain what is your specific definition of capitalism is, that apparently isn't at all the same definition that the rest of us use?

So why is it that one must be a physicist, a biologist, a psychologist, a tax accountant, or a mechanic to give sound advice on those topics, but anyone living under a bridge with $0 to their name and no experience in the field can give authoritative statements on economics and capitalism? Your "under bridges, $0 net worth" claim only shows you have little to no experience in the very thing you are arguing against.

Oh, why not?


No, it's both.  You don't "do" into a wealthy family, you don't "do" brilliant if you're born stupid, you don't "do" hawt if you look like a bag of ...  Sorry, it don't work like that.  Sure, you can inherit everything & squander it all on hookers & blow, but you'll have to *really try*.  You may be born into a trailer trash alcoholic family and work your way to the top, but you'd have to be one in a billion.  Are you?


Of course.  If Einstein didn't come up with special relativity, half a dozen Germans were waiting in the wings -- no argument from me.  BUT THEY TOO were exceptional.  You certainly don't think your Joe Sixpack would ever do it?  Sheet, his F150's running on 7 out of eight, he don't know how to fix the damn thing and he'll be damned if he cares.
Please.
 

Of course Joe sixpack matters, though not in the way you think -- he's just more grist for the mill, he matters like the pigs matter to old Chicago stock yards. And just like in those stockyards, there's a use for everything about Joe, except for his squeal. 


No, no, first, i'm not artfagging on you -- i just picked some examples of obvious not-for-profit creativity.  I could have said build some big block American monstrosity, or design an ultralight, but people associate that stuff with profit instead of goofiness.  As far as motivations being impure?  Duh.  Try ego, lust, one-upmanship -- all the standards are always there, you don't need to add "stuff gain" in the equation

Yes, difference.  Much difference.  Off topic difference, not going there right now.


Dude, it's what they do that makes them exceptional, even by your standard; not who they are.  Still, that doesn't change my point; capitalism provides the economic incentive for such exceptional people to create things.  You can choose any notablely excectional historical figure you like, and without fail the things that they may have invented would still have been invented.  No one is special, not even the special people.  Without Thomas Edison, we might not have General Electric Corporation, but we would still have electricity.  Joe sixpack might not matter in your worldview, but he (and his many other non0mattering fleshbag citizens) matter a great deal, economicly speaking, more than your average Bill Gates or Albert Enstein.  Do you doubt that, if Al had kept his job as a patent clerk, we wouldn't have the General Relativity Theory (or someting very much like it) within a decade of when we actually did have it?


Something more than 'creativity' motivates those people, and you know it.  Still, such creativity doesn't do more than contribute to the quality of life for the artist, which is all that it's intended to do anyway.

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.

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.

There's probably difference in definition of "capitalism".

Are you saying that Joe Wageslave somehow gets more than Boris Wageslave?  This is nonsense.  The Russians tossed down some cheap vodka to to toast Gagarin, Americans cracked their cheap brewskis for Armstrong.  Difference?


Statistical aberrations don't drive economics or advance societies.  It's Joe Average that lead, invents, sets out across oceans to discover new worlds.  Let me guess here, when someone spoke "You can be anything you want to be, you're as good as anyone" into your young ear, you took them seriously?  I hate to break this to you so late in the game, but those words weren't meant to be taken literally!  Listen, you might as well know, the cat's pretty much out of the bag anyhow:  EXCEPTIONAL people make all the important things happen.  They may be exceptional by family ties, being born into a fantabulously wealthy or well-connected family, they may be naturally clever, they may be outrageously hawt or strong, but make no mistake -- they're special.  They are the ones who matter.  Everyman Joe & Plain Jane will ante up a bit of sweat, blood and toil to the game, but trust me as much as you can trust:  they matter no more than a pair of tube socks.  I hope we're clear on that.


I meant the widest sense of the word create -- cause constructive change.  With nothing motivating you but what lefties call "creativity."  Compose a masterpiece that you won't have to peddle to the clergy or syphilitic royals, write a poem that's drek to everyone but the mute mulatto chick who lives down the block -- that sort-a thing.

by forcing those same dirt farmers to work to feed those who wanted to put a man in orbit.  Capitalism isn't the only way things happen, it's just the only way things happen for everyone.


Some people, sure.  Those people are statitisical aberations.  Statisitical aberations don't drive economies nor advance socities.


Create what?  As you pointed out value is subjective.  American indians once entertained themselves by creating sand paintings on the ground.  They must have valued the joy of creating them, otherwise they wouldn't have done so.  They are certainly valueless to me, since they were created as an artform more temporary than sidewalk chalk art.  We can only measure value based upon those willing to create for themselves and those willing to create for others for pay.  Generally, price is what something costs, but value is what it's worth to the person paying that price.