The following is long, rambling, only tangentally related to the article, and I don't agree with all of it. But for whatever reason these are the words that my hands decided to type this morning/late evening in response to inspiration from this article. Some of you might find it interesting so I figure that I might as well share. Each of these "long cycle upswings" involve increased automation and the average human getting pushed upwards into a job that involves more intellectual expertise. This is clearly what has happened in the past, in spite of the preventative measures placed on society by that time period's privileged class. However, as the author points out, this process appears to be stalling this time. The author claims that this is because the current privileged class is too powerful, but I think that it's more likely that there is another force at work. I don't see the current elite being any more powerful than the robber barons of old. Bill Gates's wealth is small compared with John D Rockefeller (adjusted for inflation), and the people of today have more information and more of an ability to organize than ever. Instead, I hypothesize that we may have reached the limit of intellectualization of the average human in our society. Not every human can survive this most recent wave of automation, because in order to do so, they must possess an intelligence and education that allows them to reach this next set of opportunities. I believe that as humanity in western societies stands today, either due to our nature or our culture (although my money is on culture), we are unable to take that next intellectual step and truly embrace this wave of automation. You need not look past the average high school, or the average media served towards school children to see the anti-intellectualism that is rampant in our culture. Many of the protagonists in television today and in the past have held a contempt for math, science, and schooling. Many of the cultures in highschools across the nation shame the "nerds" in favor of those with outdated physical prowess. This has been true of our nation since the last long cycle upswing that the author discussed. The author is also correct that there are barriers to entry in place, and until the general public has the time and resources to pursue this higher education instead of clamouring to fulfill the lower rungs on their hierarchy of needs, we will continue to stagnate. If we want to escape this current rut and truly join the future society that we are starting to see sparks of on the internet, and that this author wishes to be a reality, we must enact social policies that enable lower class individuals to seek higher education without the risk of crushing debt and without having to sacrifice feeding themselves or keeping themselves healthy. But that will only enable people to reach higher, it will not convince them to. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make them drink. Indeed, similar barriers of education and lack of free time existed for the previous upswings, but we were able to overcome them. Until we fix our society and culture's antiintellectual tendencies, these opportunities will not be seized and we will continue to stall. The following quote from the passage supports my contention: Instead of pursuing an education while they are young, our privileged children (those that have free time) are instead pursuing gossip and fashion and other trivialities that thrive in the types of businesses that they eventually are employed by. And unfortunately, these human proclivities towards gossip are made easier to indulge in thanks to the very technology that we should be trying to master. We must be sure to master our technology, or else the few that have will make slaves of the rest. This upswing is stalled by the powers that be, just like every upswing before it, however it is also being stalled by our culture, and human culture and behavior is a hard thing to change. But fortunately, it appears that this change is coming. We are beginning to see more and more the celebration of the nerd and the cool things that nerds can do with computers, technology, math, and science. This progress, however, is slow. If we are to continue advancing our society, we must embrace this trend on top of enacting the social programs that will allow us to act on it.Faced with the possibility of creating gene-sequencing labs, they instead start coffee shops, nail bars and contract cleaning firms
Thank-you for posting this.
You have managed to articulate - much more eloquently than I could ever hope to - what has been running through my mind for what seems like forever.
My cultural background is European, not American, but its culture is characterized by exactly the same anti-intellectualism you describe. I remember my first trip to India when I was high-school age. All my (Euro) friends and I were interested in was wallowing in pop culture. But in India, every kid I met was desperately striving for intellectual betterment (I have since met kids from India's super elite and learned that this is not the case amongst them). The moment of insight came when I was sitting at a roadside cafe in the evening drinking an underage beer, and watching a group of kids my age huddle around a streetlamp with a math textbook.
It suddenly hit me: the Indian kids knew what they had to do for humanity to progress. My friends and I in the west didn't have a clue - we were just wasting time and space.
I'd like to say that that realization made me seize the day and start living my life to the full (via an inspirational montage sequence). It didn't, sadly.
But I did notice a marked change in my attitude to acquiring knowledge. Whereas I'd always tried to hide my bookishness in the past, I began to be unembarrassed to be seen reading, or caught using a long word.
Because we need to get past this anti-intellectual thing in the west, or we'll lose all we've worked for.
OK, my tangent was infinitely more rambling than yours! I guess all I really wanted to say was: thank you for sharing your thoughts. They really resonate :)
Great point. The privatization of higher education and profit incentives create a toxic environment where people feel like they have to do something which will get them a job, putting the economic incentives ahead of the educational ones. And who can blame them? 100k of debt is a huge mountain to overcome and severely limits the abilities of a young generation. A good first step would be providing a cheap (or free) education/healthcare system which would incentivize education and economic advancement (with no debt). Only then would we see more people pursuing careers and educations that interested them. As for the anti-intellectualism perpetuating youth culture, I feel that it is a problem that cannot be overcome quickly. It is a longterm game where change is slow and meticulous. This does not mean that there cannot be change in the broad social spectrum. We don't need everyone to be an engineer, or mathematician to move forward as a society. The issues just have to be brought to the forefront so people can become aware of change and the future. If more people become aware and conscious of the world around them, change is bound to happen, it is just a matter of getting the ideas out there and acting upon them.
If we want to escape this current rut and truly join the future society that we are starting to see sparks of on the internet, and that this author wishes to be a reality, we must enact social policies that enable lower class individuals to seek higher education without the risk of crushing debt and without having to sacrifice feeding themselves or keeping themselves healthy.
Yes. It's been an issue for a while now. Arguably it's been ingrained in this country since the beginning.As for the anti-intellectualism perpetuating youth culture, I feel that it is a problem that cannot be overcome quickly. It is a longterm game where change is slow and meticulous.
As an 18 year old who just graduated high school, I have noticed this: Where people used to hate on the nerds, my age is beginning to appreciate the intellect that nerds have. People from lower income have a culture that is aimed away from intellectual values and more toward the gossip and fashion that you talked about. I am not saying this applies to the whole of my generation, (and I will note that I come from a city where most everybody's parents are engineers or have careers that require an advanced education) but it has at least started to take a rise and I can't wait to see what we have to offer to the world.
Good post. Question: you mentioned that in today's schooling, there's a marked increase in anti-intellectualism. Do you have any sources about this? Not arguing with you, am curious instead. I'd also like to see if there are any Hubskiers in their teens and early twenties reading this thread, and what they'd have to say about this. I'm a bit older, so am out of touch with whatever kids in school are facing in this regards.
This is an interesting idea. I've been thinking a lot about the ongoing battle between classical economists and behavioral economists. I think, and this is one of my broken record topics, the transition will come as economists start to look at more than financial capital as the constant prime motivator. As they start to apply their mathematical models to emotional currency social currency, currencies I haven't even thought of, the capital of capitalism will shift and move away from a money motivated system. As for the loss of jobs and the rise of free time, I like the work of Shoshana Zuboff. Where most are saying that the rise of machines will result in the loss of service work and that nothing will take its place, she theorizes that the loss in service work will give rise to a support economy. I hear bits and pieces of it in this article, and articles like it, where people are finding value not in simply providing a service but in providing actual support to another human being. The difference being in a service economy a service worker could show you where the clothes are. In a support economy a support worker could listen to you and your life story to learn about your style and preferences and support you as a person. It might be a pipe dream, but a lot of the predictions of her first book, rise of the smart machine, came true and I like to think the support economy is equally as likely.
http://www.summary.com/book-reviews/_/The-Support-Economy/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshana_Zuboff#The_Support_Economy It really is worth a read though. It's a long book but she's a good story teller and simplifier of complicated ideas. Sometimes she gets bogged down in providing every, single, number, but you get used to it and pick up on what you can skim over and what's new information.
So here is my question: If I like to go fishing, and I want a boat, do I get a boat? It's not a necessity. Not everyone will have one. It's not the most efficient use of resources. How do I even tell someone that I want a boat? Will I go to a boat store like now? Who will work there? Will it be online, or computerized within the store? What if I want another boat? What about a sea plane? There is no work. We all have everything we need somehow. But what about the things we want? The glaring problem with this entire post-Capitalist economy is that there is no market force to direct the production and distribution of goods. Why would it be so wonderful to not work if I can't enjoy the time I have?
I think the point the article was trying to make is that capitalist institutions will still exist, they just won't be the focus of everything the way they are now. For most of human history, the focus was on feeding everybody. Right up until the start of the industrial revolution just about everybody worked the land to provide food. Now only 3% of the workforce are engaged in agriculture. Our need for food hasn't gone away, but it's a solved problem. We work on other problems instead. Now, imagine a world where running the factories, the distribution and all the other jobs which currently needed to supply all the consumer desires only takes up 3% of the workforce. If we add in the 3% that we still need to grow food, what will the other 94% do with our free time? That is thinking about post-capitalism. Capitalism won't have gone away, it's just advanced to same point as agriculture, where 90% of us can ignore it.
Are you going to be the only one who likes to go fishing on a boat? Are you going to be using that boat all the time? Do you need to own the boat in order to enjoy fishing from it?
Should we, as we are facing the rise of extreme poverty and people starving all over the world, really worry about people's "need" to fly around in sea planes? Can't we worry about sea planes once we've sorted the eating thing? And could we then maybe think about it in terms of how we're going to realize sea planes for those who want them without screwing over both humans and nature? Markets can't only exist as institutions framed by capitalist interests. A healthy market in a world I would like to live in exists to allocate ressources where they're needed. Needed, not wanted by the masters of "playing the system for generations".
I wouldn't call China's sweat shops, devastated environments and mass-suicides at chip factories a glowing example of economic development going right. But maybe that's just me. I don't believe that "raising all the boats" works. The water level has been rising so long. Somehow, it's still a few people in really fancy boats and a whole lot of people swimming for their lifes or simply drowning.The extreme poverty rise in the US is a policy problem, not an economics problem.
[citation needed]World wide extreme poverty has been plummeting over the last two decades, mainly as a result of more liberal trade policies in Asia.
Why would I need a citation? GDP has grown a lot, and yet there are more extremely poor people in the US. It is self-evident that were policy the same or similar now to the time before welfare "reform", that the proportion of people in extreme poverty would be similar. That's the thrust of your link, to boot. That's a policy problem if I've ever seen one. China has a lot of problems, for sure. But what's the alternative? Even Nick Kristof has acknowledged that sweat shops represent a step in the right direction when your only other means of survival is garbage picking. Growth pangs of a modern economy hurt. I don't envy anyone who has to work in those conditions, but I'm sure they do it because they feel like it will provide a better life for their families. I hope that going forward that labor standards and environmental protection become much more serious issues in Asia. I would love to see a day when goods cost the real cost, and not the highly externalized price that Walmart sells us shit for. But that's still a policy issue. Real economic development is a good thing for poor people. One doesn't have to be an adherent of trickle down economics to believe that.
Table 13. Number Below Poverty Level and Rate (XLS)Why would I need a citation?
Uh, so we don't have to take your word for it? So we can examine the evidence?there are more extremely poor people in the US
There are more people in the United States. Year - Number of poor families - Poverty rate for families
2013 - 9,130,000 - 11.2
2003 - 7,607,000 - 10
1993 - 8,393,000 - 12.3
1983 - 7,647,000 - 12.3
1973 - 4,828,000 - 8.8
1963 - 7,554,000 - 15.9
No way that could have anything to do with what GDP measures? Does it tell us how big the cake is or how it is distributed? Does the logic of a capitalist economy have anything to do with concentration of wealth at all in your oppinion? Does that mean sweat shops are a step in the right direction or does it mean the alternatives suck? Yeah, sure. So do the contraction pangs. There's a lot of hurt built into the system, it seems. But even then, it doesn't hurt for everyone involved, does it? Almost as if the quite uneven distribution of pain and gain was somehow baked into the system. Why does "policy" always sound like something that has nothing at all to do with the actual economic framework it has to operate in? Last time I checked, it had already become quite obvious that policy largely follows the interests of the most successful economic actors. "Money = Power" is not some kind of unfortunate coincidence in a capitalist society. No, but one can have very different ideas about what real economic development means.Why would I need a citation? GDP has grown a lot, and yet there are more extremely poor people in the US. It is self-evident that were policy the same or similar now to the time before welfare "reform", that the proportion of people in extreme poverty would be similar. That's the thrust of your link, to boot. That's a policy problem if I've ever seen one.
China has a lot of problems, for sure. But what's the alternative? Even Nick Kristof has acknowledged that sweat shops represent a step in the right direction when your only other means of survival is garbage picking.
Growth pangs of a modern economy hurt.
I don't envy anyone who has to work in those conditions, but I'm sure they do it because they feel like it will provide a better life for their families.
Not starving is a better life than starving, so, yeah, sure. I hope that going forward that labor standards and environmental protection become much more serious issues in Asia. I would love to see a day when goods cost the real cost, and not the highly externalized price that Walmart sells us shit for. But that's still a policy issue.
Real economic development is a good thing for poor people. One doesn't have to be an adherent of trickle down economics to believe that.
Hans Rosling makes a good case that, as the world gets richer, the poor are getting richer, too. This obviously doesn't solve the poverty issue, but it is good evidence that we are, in fact, making a difference.
Are there enough seeds for everyone who wants to grow trees? Enough soil? Or are you going to fence off an area and insist nobody else can plant a tree there? Will you actually grow the tree and build the boat yourself? Or will that be the job of some sucker who wasn't yet alive when everyone fenced off some land for trees? Who will do the fishing? You? Or some sucker who had damn well better be grateful that he gets to use your cool boat (while you sell the fish, pay him a fraction of the profits and call that a fair arrangement?) Will you stop at one boat? Or are you going to take the profits from the other guy's fishing and use those to buy other people's boats and fenced off tree growing areas? When will it be enough boats? Will there be any fish left by then? At which point do you offer people shares for your fishing empire? When will betting on tomorrow's catch become more important than fishing?
You know, I can appreciate the idea. A man, his tree and his boat. But it really isn't that simple, is it?So no boat in deepflows world. Got that.
Got that wrong. No personal yacht for your exclusive use, though. Not as long as the same ressources could go towards building shelter somewhere else. Tough?Next question: I have a maple seed. I grow maple trees for 25 years. I cut them down to make a boat. Do I get to keep the boat?
It seems like most people who have a hard on for the sharing economy seem to not notice that in order for something to be shared, it has to first be manufactured. And even if solar power gets to a point where capturing energy is vanishingly cheap, raw materials are still a thing, and someone has to extract them and turn them into finished goods. This author seems like a neo-Stalinist to me, and I wouldn't take him that seriously.
The article was a bit far fetched, but even accepting it on its face there are significant issues that aren't explored. Deciding what everyone 'gets' to share as part of a no-work system is a huge unresolved issue. Most would argue that you shouldn't be able to have cigarettes. But they would not argue against wine and beer. There's no difference eventually. Lands that could be used to grow crops to feed the hungry could be used to grow grapes and hops and tobacco. Choose one and lose the other. Even if a machine is doing all the work and we're just left to consume the approved list of shared goods, who decides what is on that list has all the power in the system.
Right, so you start bribing the decider with some of your allotted resources to get access to others, and OMG we have a black market. Who'd have thunk it? I actually agree with him (to some extent) here: However, I totally disagree with his prognosis. I think it basically means that FB, Twitter and the like have vastly inflated share prices, and eventually they will have a reckoning. But then, what the fuck have FB, Twitter and Instagram ever made? Nothing, to put it bluntly. They are easily replaceable compared to say, GE or even Apple. It's a big leap to say that because some internet companies have a shitty, unsustainable business model, that we're seeing the end of capitalism....who decides what is on that list has all the power in the system.
...information is corroding the market’s ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant. The system’s defence mechanism is to form monopolies – the giant tech companies – on a scale not seen in the past 200 years, yet they cannot last. By building business models and share valuations based on the capture and privatisation of all socially produced information, such firms are constructing a fragile corporate edifice at odds with the most basic need of humanity, which is to use ideas freely.
This is the point where I started skimming. It's obvious nonsense, unless you are talking about prices for information. The Information Age has indeed reduced the cost of getting data about, say, poverty rates, to a negligible level. Prices are information. More information means better, more uniform pricing. Remember renting a car at the airport without a reservation, or walking into a hotel to ask the rack rate? Ever checked a price on Amazon while standing in a Best Buy? Joy. They created joy. What did Shakespeare make? Bruce Lee? mk?information is corroding the market’s ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant
what the fuck have FB, Twitter and Instagram ever made?
This is nonsense. People see the word "Capitalism" and imagine something like evil corporations oppressing us little worker peons. In reality, Capitalism is just people producing goods and services and engaging in trades and investments. You'll see this if you think about what people do to make money, but take political power completely out of the picture. Why are Internet connections so expensive? -Because there's no competition because ISPs are a state-maintained cartel everywhere. Why are taxis so expensive, and why is Uber being banned all over the West? -Because taxis are a state-maintained monopoly/cartel everywhere. Why was the Obamacare website such a disaster? -Because the job was handed to a bunch of stooges who have bribed the government to keep handing them other people's money to fuck up projects so that they can charge more for "fixing" things. Somehow the same IT-shops keep getting more and more of those lucrative gigs from the government, even though the results they produce are shit (and everyone knows it). There are countless examples. So yeah, what's wrong with "Capitalism" is that it's Crony-Capitalism, where politicians are bribed to hand our money to their cronies. Then again, that's a big part of why they went into office to begin with.
Bringing up the ownership of the means of production makes you sound like a Marxist. It's pointless to talk about "the means of production" in this context because even an iPad is one. Crony-Capitalism is Capitalism + Political Power, and with much less Capitalism than would happen without political power in the picture (because there would be no obstacles to producing, exchanging and investing).
An IPad (or any old Laptop) qualifying as means of production in a certain sense is pretty much a prerequisite for the point the article was making. But unless we manage to directly convert bits and bytes and ideas into material goods, the question of who owns the non-informational means of production remains highly relevant. Is sounding like a Marxist supposed to be bad? Marx may not have been right with all his predictions, but as far as analysis of the problems with capitalism goes, I'd say one could do a lot worse than listen to what Marx had to say.
Feel free to list the alleged problems then. If you think he made sense, it should be easy to come up with some good examples.as far as analysis of the problems with capitalism goes, I'd say one could do a lot worse than listen to what Marx had to say
What you're describing is a market, not capitalism. Markets aren't exclusive to capitalism. There are various types of leftist market economies. Capitalism is distinct in that the means of production are privately owned, as dublinben said. As such, "crony capitalism" is capitalism even if some see it as distinct from laissez-faire capitalism. Really though, crony capitalism is all that has ever existed to my knowledge. The "robber barons" of the late 19th century - early 20th century were all well connected politically and used their wealth and power to benefit themselves and their ventures. I'd argue that a society built around class hierarchies and a strong state will always lead to such relations as those with wealth and power seek to further their interests.Capitalism is just people producing goods and services and engaging in trades and investments.
Kind of. Capitalism is just short-hand for what people do in an economy (without anyone intervening in their activities). And as I said to him, there's no point in bringing up "the means of production" in this context, because even an iPad is one, and that could be in anyone's hands. Besides, even in Uncle Karl's times, a factory could be owned by well-meaning investors, not only filthy slave-driver oppressor pigs. "Some" see it as distinct? Well, the distinction is political power. Take out a tiny minority's ability to (forcefully) benefit at everyone else's expense, and what you're left with is Capitalism, i.e. what people do in an economy (without intervention), as I said in the beginning, and there is no problem whatsoever with that. In fact, the relative freedom enjoyed by the early United States is exactly what brought them all their prosperity. Freedom brings prosperity whenever and where ever it happens. Dig up historical examples (other than America) if you insist, but you don't really need to. Anyone with half a brain can see that people will produce goods and services if you just get out of the way and let them (without intervening with taxes, regulations, tariffs, licences, junk fees, state-maintained monopolies & cartels etc). You've got that right. But it's because we've always had rulers. Therein lies the problem. Get rid of rulers (i.e. political power), and there will be unimaginable prosperity.What you're describing is a market, not capitalism. Markets aren't exclusive to capitalism.
Capitalism is distinct in that the means of production are privately owned, as dublinben said.
As such, "crony capitalism" is capitalism even if some see it as distinct from laissez-faire capitalism.
Really though, crony capitalism is all that has ever existed to my knowledge.
Yeah. That and slavery. And vast, previously unexploited amounts of resources. But it is a good point. When you think about the early days of capitalism, you see growth and prosperity. When I think about those early days, I think about slavery, hellish factories burning through child labor... Pretty much people with monocles and top hats climbing to the top on ladders made out of human misery and broken existences. It's kind of hard to really find a consensus given these slightly different perceptions of what "pure capitalism" means.In fact, the relative freedom enjoyed by the early United States is exactly what brought them all their prosperity.
You're looking increasingly dishonest there. Lots and lots of people immigrated into America, by making a 1-month boat trip that could potentially kill them. Do you think they went through that so that they could be horribly exploited by evil capitalists? Or do you think they came in looking for a better life because that's what they were told was available, because that was exactly what people who came before them had achieved in America?When I think about those early days, I think about slavery, hellish factories burning through child labor... Pretty much people with monocles and top hats climbing to the top on ladders made out of human misery and broken existences
I'm sorry you feel that way. I didn't intend to come over as dishonest. At this point, I get the feeling that we are just going to continue arguing back and forth about Marx, early capitalism, the role of early immigrants and so on. Since you already doubt that my points are made in good faith, I predict the conversation only going downhill from here. So I suggest we simply stop. I thought you made some interesting points and enjoyed our exchange so far.
Every system appears to be prone to rulers (capitalist, socialist, royal, whatever) eventually accumulating enough power and being removed so far from ordinary people that they can get away with all kinds of corruption. I'm not actually sure that there is any real solution to this. Anarcho-syndicalism so far looks most promising to me - but then again, I fear that if Noam Chomsky explained how the solution is "more cheese", I'd probably find the argument compelling enough.
I still don't get how, in Anarcho-capitalism, people would have any chance against corporations exploiting both environment and population - especially since corporations, looking at things from an empirical point of view, seem to be quite happy to crony it up with each other whenever regulators aren't looking. Last time you (jokingly, I suppose) suggested assassination of the CEO as a solution to the problem of "The people" vs "Blackwater/Xe" in a purely capitalistic society. I'm still not quite convinced that assassination is the kind of balancing mechanism that my kind of utopia would rely on. I suspect neither would you consider this seriously - if only because everyone knows CEOs live on Mt. Doom and one does not simply walk there. So, again - who or what would keep corporations from screwing over land and people in a capitalist "do whatever the hell you want" scenario?
Look into the idea of DROs, which I brought up earlier. You do understand that right now it's supposed to be our benevolent slave-masters' job to prevent "corporations" from doing that? How's that working out for us so far? Not that well, and that means we wouldn't be any worse off in that regard without rulers, which means the idea doesn't work as an argument against.. freedom.. :D (see the absurdity?) So if you want to compare our current societies to what might happen without rulers (i.e. in AnCap), imagine all the differences between enslavement and freedom and try to figure out which would be preferrable to us - the ones that are currently being enslaved. If people woke up to seeing that they should not have rulers, do you think they'd figure out a way to resist would-be rulers if necessary?I still don't get how, in Anarcho-capitalism, people would have any chance against corporations exploiting both environment and population
I get that. I hope. My scepticism does not really stem from any delusions about the current state of affairs. I just find it incredibly hard to envision a scenario where getting rid of politicians wouldn't just mean replacing them with different, more openly corporate rulers in anarcho capitalism. "People will figure something out" may just be true, but on the other hand, corporations consist of people, too. People who aren't dumb either and who would be in quite the advantaged position. I really don't want to argue how you're wrong and I'm right (I think I do that too often). I just suspect that I won't be able to be convinced that more capitalism is the solution any more than I could convince you that we need to leave capitalistic principles behind as much as possible.
It's like you didn't even read my message. What part of people resisting would-be rulers because they don't accept rulers anymore do you find incredibly hard to envision?I just find it incredibly hard to envision a scenario where getting rid of politicians wouldn't just mean replacing them with different, more openly corporate rulers in anarcho capitalism
For all the people talking about Capitalism in this subthread, as it relates to corporations and mega-accruals of power, you might be interested in Continuum. It's a tv show from Canada on the Showcase channel. Terrifying portrayal of corporations assuming absolute control. 'Continuum' Season One: SyFy Series Critiques Both Government Overreach and Corporate Malfeance (sic) - http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2013/03/29/continuum-season-one-review/
It's probably just propaganda suggesting that rulers are necessary and beneficial to us, because without them we'd be oppressed by evul corporations!! (.. which would be.. worse than being oppressed by Hitler or Stalin?)Terrifying portrayal of corporations assuming absolute control.
Look, not everyone who doubts that "more capitalism" is the solution to the world's problems is Hitler, wants Hitler or thinks rulers are a good and necessary thing in general. Rulers have a pretty crappy track record when it comes to being beneficial. The thing is, so do corporations as soon as being beneficial isn't an immediate part of making a profit.
How the hell did you get there from what I said?Look, not everyone who doubts that "more capitalism" is the solution to the world's problems is Hitler
I find this idea of post-capitalism fascinating. We can already see early stages of this taking place, especially with the explosion of the Internet. Automation is practically inevitable, we just have to overcome the social/political obstacles that will result from not having to work for a living. Anyone else eager to see such change happening? It's small steps, but at least its there.
Postcapitalism is possible because of three major changes information technology has brought about in the past 25 years. First, it has reduced the need for work, blurred the edges between work and free time and loosened the relationship between work and wages. The coming wave of automation, currently stalled because our social infrastructure cannot bear the consequences, will hugely diminish the amount of work needed – not just to subsist but to provide a decent life for all.
It will definitely be interesting when all the mcjobs (which, correct me if I'm wrong, have been the main area of job growth since 2008) start to be automized. On one hand, it might give people incentive to get more technical educations, since people will still have to take care of the machines. But there will definitely be some growing pains in the next 10-20 years.
Then again, if one machine does the work which used to be done by twenty people, one guy maintaining it is probably not going to make that much of a difference. The way I see it, the solution will be: - dystopian police state full of poor and broken people and a few rich overlords,
or
- basic income for a significant portion of the population, with additional rights of ressource consumption earned through work
or
- a significant reduction of the population. I do have a clear favorite. The other two are the reason I tend to get nervous when I learn about things like the militarization of police, total surveillance or all the recent sabre rattling.
We have a hard enough time as it is to get people to appreciate the purposes that our current social welfare programs have. Something like basic universal income would be a very hard sell.basic income for a significant portion of the population, with additional rights of ressource consumption earned through work
I don't know much about economics, if anything at all, but if I had to guess I'd say it's gonna suck being stuck in the muck during this transition. The way I imagine it, the people on top are probably going to try to make a lot of weird and unfair policies to try to keep things the way they are, slowing down the process of change and hurting a lot of people along the way. I think the biggest thing we'll have to overcome is a lot more people are going to be staring down the barrel of the unemployment gun and feel like there's nowhere to go. Without good, strong safety nets put in place early, this could lead to a lot of unhappy people.
Yes, indeed yes. Been seeing the signs of capitalism run amok in this country (America) for a while now, how it's gotten so power heavy, out of control, and I'm seeing more and more signs that the population is starting to rebel. Very curious to see what this leads to. This is the awesome thing about spending 40-70 years on this planet: in your own lifetime, you get to see patterns, cycles, history repeating itself.
Just read @paulmasonnews article on The Guardian. It's official, he actually doesn't seem to know what freemarket capitalism is.
Actually @paulmasonnews predicts the fall of corporativism (or what he and lefties call neoliberalism) and the rise of free market capitalism.
Free market capitalism is against intellectual property rights. Just see the works of Stephan Kinsella about the subject. That's why it's called the free market. Leftists always confuse free market capitalism with corporativism, which is a the sum of socialism and merchantilism. By this point, it's imposible they don't know the difference, so his text is at least misleading and disingenuous.
This article perfectly put into words things I've been ruminating about for quite awhile now. The system as it is cannot live once the price of paying a human becomes more than the price of maintaining a robot. Of course, for a long time where will be industrial jobs where humans will simply outclass robots for their versatility, like construction or gardening. But by and large it is easy to imagine a world, in just maybe a decade, where factory workers are obsolete. It is inevitable that the capitlistic system will eat itself this way, and the way I see it there are two possible outcomes: 1) We cling to the old ways and fall into a very very deep depression, once everyone loses their factory jobs to automation. I really don't want to see this happen, and it seems like it just might happen, at least in the US. It should be obvious to anyone that if wecontinue to focus on the "having a job is everything" mentality, the old system will continue to crumble until we're forced into a socialist revolution of sorts. I don't want to imagine the outcome of that. 2) We embrace the need for increased openness and education. Europe is doing this very well, much better than the US at least. This way we'll have an educated populace capable of coping with this new world and really using it to our benefit, and the working class will all but cease to exist(I expect the unions for the exceptions to be extremely powerful once the transition is complete... almost like guilds). The transition in this case will be mich smoother, in my opinion. I can't guess how developing economies like India and China will fare from this, since their economies are lagging so far behind the West. I suspect there will be severe political and cultural upheavals no matter what happens.
Warning: the above was written at 1 AM while on pain meds.