Current Events > Why do 90% of pro-capitalism arguments

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Squall28 posted...

Do you know what "typically" means?

Capital

And I see you chose to ignore the point in favor of arguing semantics. The point is you have to work to create value. Either you don't take advantage of economy of scale and work your ass off for a lower quality of life, or you decide to get a job so you can buy these things doing less work than you would have to doing it yourself.

Did you not know the natives believed no one could own the land and shared things made among their tribes?

You are literally looking at what is essentially a socialized government and claiming they easily made capital.
But then you claim that someone would be a problem to new system of government based on socialism.

But no, it is not Capital.

Squall28 posted...

And I see you chose to ignore the point in favor of arguing semantics. The point is you have to work to create value. Either you don't take advantage of economy of scale and work your ass off for a lower quality of life, or you decide to get a job so you can buy these things doing less work than you would have to doing it yourself.

What point are you trying to make? Do you not understand Socialism or something?

Perhaps this will better explain to you since you are confused:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_(economics)

In economics, capital goods or capital consists of "those durable produced goods that are in turn used as productive inputs for further production" of goods and services.[1] At the macroeconomic level, "the nation's capital stock includes buildings, equipment, software, and inventories during a given year."[2]

When you cook yourself a meal, you did not create Capital.

When you cook a meal to sell to someone else, you did.

I don't see why the Natives are being compared to capitalist systems.

Capitalism isn't just a system where you perform work to receive a reward. It's a system where you get rewarded simply for owning things, even if you don't contribute anything besides your own money.

Do you know who that system inherently favors and grants advantages to? People with the ability to invest aka the wealthy.

WingsOfGood posted...

Did you not know the natives believed no one could own the land and shared things made among their tribes?

You are literally looking at what is essentially a socialized government and claiming they easily made capital.
But then you claim that someone would be a problem to new system of government based on socialism.

But no, it is not Capital.

Why are you making it out that being a tribesman is some special pinnacle of wealth? If you grab an average person from a capitalistic country, they'll have much more wealth than them.

And no, they did not "easily" make wealth. They made stuff, but did so at drastically worse efficiency than an industrialized nation. That's why their standard of living is thousands of years old.

What point are you trying to make? Do you not understand Socialism or something?

Value needs to be created.

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

I don't see why the Natives are being compared to capitalist systems.

Capitalism isn't just a system where you perform work to receive a reward. It's a system where you get rewarded simply for owning things, even if you don't contribute anything besides your own money.

Do you know who that system inherently favors and grants advantages to? People with the ability to invest aka the wealthy.

This is why:

Squall28 posted... That's not how the world works. Poverty is the natural state of the world. Say you guys want to start a new country from scratch with your desired systems. You know what you are going to need to do? Raise capital. Value and wealth is the thing that needs to be created

He believes poverty is the natural state of the world.
Yet when you look at how people existed in the natural state, they were able to feed themselves and their families and provide shelter.

So now he is struggling to try and claim they were making Capital because that destroys his argument that Capital must needs exist or there is poverty.

Squall28 posted...

Why are you making it out that being a tribesman is some special pinnacle of wealth? If you grab an average person from a capitalistic country, they'll have much more wealth than them.

I never said they were wealthy, I said they were rich.
Wealth implies you have exploited other to be above them and such as your comment even explains:

If you grab an average person from a capitalistic country, they'll have much more wealth than them.

So what you desire is not to have all your needs fulfilled and freedom to find happiness....

What you desire is to compare yourself to others and feel they are below you.

Correct?

Squall28 posted...

If you grab an average person from a capitalistic country, they'll have much more wealth than them.

The "capitalist country" in question here matters a lot more than you are giving credit for?

The average person in the U.S.? Sure.

The average person in Brazil is probably struggling to feed their family.

WingsOfGood posted...

He believes poverty is the natural state of the world.
Yet when you look at how people existed in the natural state, they were able to feed themselves and their families and provide shelter.

They were able to do these things because they WORKED to CREATE it. Without the work, you have nothing. You have poverty. Wealth is the thing that needs to be created.

Squall28 posted...

They were able to do these things because they WORKED to CREATE it. Without the work, you have nothing. You have poverty. Wealth is the thing that needs to be created.

Capital owners do not work or create, they pay others to do so.

In addition, you keep acting like Socialism implies you sit around doing nothing. Their society was essentially Socialism. That is, private ownership basically did not exist and what they created was shared with each other.

Also, they did not create wealth.
Wealth is defined as abundance or more than is needed which infact was against their cultural mindset as it would anger entities in their religion.

So how did they who created no Capital and shared their possessions and had no wealth not live in poverty?

Squall28 posted...

Without the work, you have nothing. You have poverty. Wealth is the thing that needs to be created.

Care to explain what landlords create?

capitalist boot lickers gettin their clocks cleaned in here

WingsOfGood posted...

I never said they were wealthy, I said they were rich.

Yeah I'm done here. Can't even comprehend the delusion you have at this point

Squall28 posted...

Yeah I'm done here. Can't even comprehend the delusion you have at this point

you dont understand the difference between wealthy and rich?

Squall28 posted...

Yeah I'm done here. Can't even comprehend the delusion you have at this point

So @Squall28 could not answer:

1. What do landlord create?
2. How a society that was fundamentally against wealth (abundance) and shared their possessions with the community functioned well and provided their life needs?
3. Why he keeps suggesting Socialism means no work and no creation.

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Capitalism isn't just a system where you perform work to receive a reward. It's a system where you get rewarded simply for owning things, even if you don't contribute anything besides your own money.

Do you know who that system inherently favors and grants advantages to? People with the ability to invest aka the wealthy.

Essentially there is no society that favors sitting on your butt getting fat and doing nothing more than Capitalism.
It is infact what everyone in a Capitalist society aspires for.
The reward of being a good Capitalist is that you can NOT work and laugh at everyone else who has to.

Can I just say I'm really not getting this argument?

Yes, at one point, it may have been true that poverty was a natural state. But how does that apply to today?

Our current societies produce far more than we can ever hope to consume (which is why we have so much waste). It's reasonable to say it's no longer a natural state because every person born into a developed nation like the U.S. shouldn't have to worry about food or shelter.

Therefore, when a system fails to provide for its people despite producing in abundance, is it not accurate to say that the system does indeed perpetuate poverty?

Poverty would have been a natural state for the Native Americans because they'd have nothing to eat if they didn't work. But that's definitely not true for the United States, or at least it shouldn't be.

While it's true that most people will need to work to keep production going, it does not mean that it's natural for kids to be born into poverty in wealthy nations like the U.S.

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

I don't see why the Natives are being compared to capitalist systems.

Yeah that's one of the strangest takes I've seen on CE in quite awhile

Using modern definitions of terms like capital and ascribing it to a culture that predates those definitions doesn't seem like the best idea to me. I wouldn't call indigenous people growing food and making clothing "building capital"

To answer TC's initial question, it's because bad faith arguments are required to be able to write off some of the unintentional side effects of a "mature" capitalistic system. They fixate on the more "pure" applications of it that clearly don't exist in practice. They argue that corporations ought to do the right thing by paying fair wages, by not putting profit above the harm of others, the environment, etc. This has repeatedly been shown to not be the way it is practiced because the exercise of capitalism kind of takes a life of its own. Much like biological systems compete with one another for resources so too do actors in a capitalistic system. There is an eventual "winner" of capitalism at which being it ceases to be capitalism at that point anymore.

To that extent it's my opinion we're not a purely capitalistic society. Even the US is currently some degree of socialism, albeit an ineffectual and weak one. We do have systems in place to take care of the less fortunate. It's not entirely a "fend for yourself." Look at social security, medicare, public school, fire departments, police forces, and a whole host of regulatory agencies.

The arguments therefore then end up being that people "against capitalism" are advocating for a more aggressive social safety net still under the base of capitalism. And proponents for capitalism advocate for a lessening of these systems under the belief that the bigger actors in said system (namely larger corporations) will do the irrational thing of "doing the right thing."

The thing is--an early society does benefit from a more open capitalistic society as that drives innovation, allows mobility in socioeconomic class, and rapidly advances said society. That's because even "bad faith actors" with their tactics aren't necessarily preventing others from taking their own maximum amount of the pie they can hold. Because there is still so much unclaimed pie left.

Once a capitalistic system begins to mature, however, there is less and less of the pie available and the "leaders" of said system then turn to reducing the proportion of the pie to those holding less of it to begin with. That's the more exploitative form of it that on a long enough time line will collapse itself. So the observation that most western societies employing capitalism have some "degree of socialism" is really meant as a compensatory mechanism to slow down the exploitation of large sums of wealth and to "even out the footing." That being said, like biological systems, the "leaders" will work to undermine said efforts. Competition becomes less about the "pure application" of capitalism that proponents like about it (the thing which drives innovation, lower prices, etc) but instead becomes a mechanism for the greatest holder of wealth to continue to siphon other sources of wealth without having to lower said costs or drive innovation. It's parasitic.

Of course I don't have an economics background, but this is how I view it having more of a biological background. I think capitalism is a flawed, but arguably the "best" system we've had thus far. I don't think socialism is inherently different, it's simply a different flavor of capitalism that nevertheless slows down the exploitation of a "mature" capitalistic system. While proponents of "capitalism" argue for it's merits in isolation of observed reality (and those merits are real in theory), it's more of a spectrum that needs constant adjustment to maintain said merits. Otherwise we're in for a world of hurt.

WingsOfGood posted...

So give an example of what you consider a GOOD social program.

I am waiting.

Oh yeah

He literally never answered this, lol.

Well said BlameAnesthesia

Socialized Healthcare paid for by taxing the super wealthy does not make us a socialized country, but a capitalist one with protections.

And the people arguing bad faith arguments of capitalism like Squall claim this kind of safety net is bad and pretend they are ok with safety nets...

yet when asked what they are ok with they have 0 answers because they are infact against safety nets lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder

Another relevant concept

WingsOfGood posted...

When you have billions, you are able to monopolize the market as Bezos had done in many aspects. This CREATES poverty as Bezos has worked to bust unions and stagnate wages. In addition, the employed at his company are treated poorly.

Odd that I can easily explain my viewpoint but you cannot offer and explanation.
Tell me, poverty is an issue, what do you propose to do about it? My proposal is wealth tax allows healthcare to become socialized which decreases the stress on the poor and allows people to freely leave jobs they hate since they don't need to stay to live (due to healthcare).

what monopolies does amazon have?

i support more social programs, though I'd prefer we focus on early childhood development/supporting low income parents as the top priority. I don't support wealth taxes, but I am open to raising income taxes in most scenarios.

You know that your proposal is completely compatible with capitalism though right?

also you haven't even come remotely close to addressing how anything i said was in "bad faith"

g980 posted...

I don't support wealth taxes, but I am open to raising income taxes in most scenarios.

The problem with income tax is that most of the very wealthy are going to be "immune" to such hikes and you're really only hurting the upper middle class. The reason being is someone with multimillion dollar net worth likely has their net worth in a combination of assets, equity, stocks, etc such that it's not exactly tangible how much they "make per year." Especially with clever ways of accounting for that money. To that extent, the ultra wealthy often pay lower in income taxes than most low income earners specifically because they don't tend have high incomes. They're asset-rich. Not liquid-rich.

But your higher income taxes will absolutely hurt those six figure income earners in tech, medicine, law, and finance that aren't entrepreneurs but are earning incomes (albeit high ones). But even someone earning 250k a year investing 20% over a 30 year career might end up in the ballpark of a 5 million dollar retirement portfolio when all is said and done. Someone who makes a start up and sells for 20 million and then diversifies their wealth in a variety of areas that continue to grow that wealth at a certain %, but otherwise aren't "wage workers" will have low income tax. They'll pay less than the person making the 250k and will end up with far greater net worth in the end. Because until they exercise or realize those gains, they won't get hit with those taxes.

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Usually involve arguing in bad faith?

You'll have to forgive them, being disingenuous is the only thing they can afford on minimum wage.

BlameAnesthesia posted...

Because until they exercise or realize those gains, they won't get hit with those taxes.

Yes thats the idea.

BlameAnesthesia posted...

Someone who makes a start up and sells for 20 million and then diversifies their wealth in a variety of areas that continue to grow that wealth at a certain %, but otherwise aren't "wage workers" will have low income tax

I feel like you are misunderstanding how taxes work.

That start up guy will have to pay taxes up front on that $20mil. In that year he will pay far more than any wage worker will.

If he pays his $4mil or whatever in taxes that year and decides to live off $30k/yr for the rest of his life, that shouldnt be a problem. He already paid taxes on the rest.

The real bullshit would be if you had a wealth tax that forced the business owner to give up his stake in the company when he didnt want to sell, because someone in the government valued his start-up at $40mil and now he has to come up with $400k/year on an illiquid asset he built himself

Aaaand last thought for now:

BlameAnesthesia posted...

But your higher income taxes will absolutely hurt those six figure income earners in tech, medicine, law, and finance that aren't entrepreneurs but are earning incomes (albeit high ones).

As someone making six figures in tech, i can assure you we can shoulder a bit of a tax increase too.

Do all the anti capitalists on CE still live with there parents lol?

Gwynevere posted...

Yeah that's one of the strangest takes I've seen on CE in quite awhile

Using modern definitions of terms like capital and ascribing it to a culture that predates those definitions doesn't seem like the best idea to me. I wouldn't call indigenous people growing food and making clothing "building capital"

You can thank Wings for side-tracking into that bullshit. When I made my initial comment about starting a nation in response to him saying "poverty is created", I was thinking along the lines of needing to raise resources so you have a reasonable starting point. Building factories to make clothes and other needs at good efficiency. Farms to feed people. The starting point is poverty, nothing, and you have to build things to get going. You don't create poverty. It's nonsense. It's like saying you create empty space.

But this guy makes an argument that tribesmen have food and clothes so they are rich. Somehow people who need to hunt animals to eat and skin them for clothes are better off than living in a society where you can do less hours of work and get better quality food, shelter, and clothes.

Squall28 posted...

But this guy makes an argument that tribesmen have food and clothes so they are rich. Somehow people who need to hunt animals to eat and skin them for clothes are better off than living in a society where you can do less hours of work and get better quality food, shelter, and clothes.

Many studies suggest that hunter-gatherers only had to "work" about 15-20 hours a week to get the food they needed (not including the time necessary to prep the food).

There's also this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Many studies suggest that hunter-gatherers only had to "work" about 15-20 hours a week to get the food they needed (not including the time necessary to prep the food).

Meanwhile today we have hustle culture people bragging about 60+ hours of work... that still can't meet all their needs.

anyone here have a look at the book "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity"? Just came out a few months ago, it's amazing, everyone should read it

Also as a side note, even Medieval peasants only worked 8 hours a day for 150 days a year:

https://historycollection.com/medieval-peasants-worked-fewer-hours-than-modern-americans/

What's the alternative to capitalism?

CasualGuy posted...

What's the alternative to capitalism?

we have to figure that out together

by we, i mean the people whose brains are functioning well enough to recognize that capitalism is incompatible with continued human survival on this planet

so, maybe not you

Omnislasher posted...

we have to figure that out together

by we, i mean the people whose brains are functioning well enough to recognize that capitalism is incompatible with continued human survival on this planet

so, maybe not you

Problem, friend? Do I know you?

capitalism blowsssss

no problem at all, and no we don't know each other

hence why i said "maybe"

CasualGuy posted...

What's the alternative to capitalism?

The few that greatly benefit from capitalism will never let us attempt an alternative. I dont know what the alternative is but I know the flaws of capitalism we could start by fixing those.

The folks complaining that the other side are arguing in bad faith are implying life was better as a hunter/gatherer or feudal serf

Yikes

g980 posted...

The folks complaining that the other side are arguing in bad faith are implying life was better as a hunter/gatherer or feudal serf

Yikes

Except nobody argued that.

Squall said that hunter-gatherers worked more for food and there's been research to suggest that that isn't true. Actual quality of life is a whole different discussion.

What you're doing right now is arguing in bad faith, considering how often you seem to misinterpret arguments. Thanks for proving my point tho

Hunter gatherers aren't bringing human civilization to an end, that's modern capitalism.

Omnislasher posted...

no problem at all, and no we don't know each other

hence why i said "maybe"

Why include that part at all?

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Except nobody argued that.

Squall said that hunter-gatherers worked more for food and there's been research to suggest that that isn't true. Actual quality of life is a whole different discussion.

What you're doing right now is arguing in bad faith, considering how often you seem to misinterpret arguments. Thanks for proving my point tho

You posted it in response to this:Squall28 posted...

But this guy makes an argument that tribesmen have food and clothes so they are rich. Somehow people who need to hunt animals to eat and skin them for clothes are better off than living in a society where you can do less hours of work and get better quality food, shelter, and clothes.

If its intended as a counterpoint then you are absolutely implying that they were better off. If not, then why bother post it?

Btw if you want to live in a cave and eat with the same nutritional variety as a caveman, you can do that in modern times working less than 20 hours per week.

g980 posted...

Btw if you want to live in a cave and eat with the same nutritional variety as a caveman, you can do that in modern times working less than 20 hours per week.

lol no you can't

Femputer posted...

lol no you can't

20*$7 = $140 to cover food for a week

g980 posted...

You posted it in response to this:

If its intended as a counterpoint then you are absolutely implying that they were better off. If not, then why bother post it?

There was no implication. You read what you wanted to read, simple as that.

And it's obvious to everyone there are more factors involved with quality of life than how much work you have to do. But it's worth asking why, in this day and age where producing everything has become significantly easier, did we end up working more than previous civilizations? Certainly our technological advancements should have resulted in a decreased workload and we have research showing that we could reduce the average work week by at least 10 hours and still keep up our level of production.

everything is bad faith to the economically illiterate

Delirious_Beard posted...

economically illiterate

Ah man we got great value Broseph Stalin weighing in