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@freemo
Which Communism are you talking about? The one where everybody shares everything or the one where there's a dictator making them share nothing?
Maybe, but if communism converges to these two cases with the same result, it seems to be from the same error in thinking.
The root error comes from the assumption people will cooperate with the principle willingly. Once you assume most people will exploit any system for personal gain when they can it becomes evident communism is not a workable system without a totalitarian government. Even then people will generally do the bare minimum so you get poverty.
Capitalism exploits the inherent selfishness of individuals for the greater good of society.
@freemo
I wondered if that was the angle. It is an unfortunate but realistic view.
While not probable I still hold out that there is a possibility, however minuscule, that we can break that cycle.
Oh we absolutely can, but that is just capitalism with compassion at that point. It isnt communism if people do it willingly rather than a totalitarian government.
We have it in capitalism all the tine, its called a commune.
@freemo
I had a long reply but I realized it was this..
John Lennon: Imagine
Right but what im sayi g is,john lenon was describing capitalism, a capitalism filled with altruistic people.
@freemo
Altruistic Capitalism seems to be an oxymoron.. but I suppose that's the point. That it can't exist. That we are in fact doomed and destined to deal with the greed of humanity... Which is another unfortunate but realistic view.
@avlcharlie How is it a oxymoron. All capitalism is is any system which includes free market trade, that is, trade in which natural supply-demand pressures dominate the markets pricing.
Nothing about that implies greed or altruism, it only implies everyone is trying to maximize their own fitness function (get the most utility for their resources). Its about effiency not greed.
@freemo @avlcharlie well, unless people attempt to develop some level of sophistication, efficiency turns into greed, because thoughtless accumulation is the easiest thing to do. This is reinforced by a social environment where chronic accumulators are considered successful by chronically accumulating media.
Bow ya figure that makes no sense. Accumulating resources in a vault untouched is the least effecient form, you literally have negative effiency as inflation devalues assets. A person would achieve effiency by investing thrir mo ey wisely and ensuring other people are using those resources to effectively increase the total resources in the market.
You are getting stuck in the fallacy that someone havibg authority (ownership) over those resources means that other people cant use it for their own gains as well which is entierly contrary to the reality. Those resources will be in others hands and used by them in some agreement to use them for mutual gain (investment in others).
@freemo @avlcharlie maximisers would invest for profitability and not for sustainability. Clearly this conversation is way too abstract and way too generalising, but rich people investing in cheap resources is a real problem in times of pressing change.
Optimising is by definition deprived of vision, ask effective altruists ;)
Who said anything about sustainability. We said utility, that may or may not line up with sustainability. They will pick sustai able when it has the most utility.
Similarly thry dont buy cheap if cheap is less utility. Somethi g at half the price that breaks in 1/10th the time is a bad investment, so no thry dont just go with what is cheapest. Rich people dont invest in cheap resource they invest in what gets them the most utility, which is what prfitability is.
Optimising has vision, for the thing you are optimising for.
@freemo @avlcharlie the problem is that environmental cost are not part of the final price. Instead they are internalised by those with weaker negotiation power.
Examples:
- miners from poor countries pay with their lives to extract resources that unaccountable mine owners then can sell at competitive prices
- wildlife gets pushed away from investment-grade land
I can go on with Amazonian rainforest, Russian taiga, Australian Coral reefs, African rhinos, l Mediterranean fish, orangutans, polar bears,...
@mapto I think what you're illustrating is NOT that the costs aren't included, but that you personally don't agree with the costs.
You want those people to place higher value on their resources than they do. Their valuation doesn't match your own, and you're insisting that you're right, wanting to impose your personal values on them.
Let's be clear about what you're doing here, including the way it has associations with colonialism.
The people in those poor countries need to be fixed in their valuation of their resources?
@volkris @freemo @avlcharlie I agree with your other comment.
My diagreement is not with the current calculation of the costs. I claim that any explicit calculation by default (due to the complexity of the real world) excludes some implicit aspect that optimisers then readily ignore.
Also, utility is not only contextual, but subjective. To someone a million dollars might be enough to secure a lifetime, to someone else it could be enough to buy a house, to a third person, it might mean buying some nice nice stuff to show off.
Also, utility is not only contextual, but subjective.
Half-true.. the utility of a single transaction is subjective. But you are maximizing for the aggregate utility, that is objective.
To someone a million dollars might be enough to secure a lifetime, to someone else it could be enough to buy a house, to a third person, it might mean buying some nice nice stuff to show off
That statement isnt describing utility.
On a re read i think i see now where you got it all wrong. You are assuming, incorrectly, that money and utility mean the same thing. They dont. Moneybis the resource, not the utility. Utility only exists when money is in motion. Utility is how much you can accomplish with the money, not the money itself.
Okay so I'm not so self-absorbed that I can't say I guess I was wrong and I misunderstood what capitalism was. This has been relatively enlightening.
My question then is what's the one where greedy people hoard up all of the money and resources, abuse the working class and create a system of poverty?
That woukd be an oligarchy. And any government can be an oligarchy, including a capitlist country.
Now that is a complicated question. But usually the main way its accomplished with what we call antitrust laws. When enforced (and the usa has enforced thrm but not as strongly as it should) they effectively make monopolies illegal.
Of course the other key is keeping corruption in check and money out of politics, which isnlikewise a difficult task to do, but critical to a healthy capitalism
@icedquinn @avlcharlie @mapto @volkris
I totally agree with you there. I woukd not describe the USA as an ideal capitalism, in part due to lack of enforcement on antitrust laws.
