this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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You just mentioned a number of ways that capitalism could be "fettered" to work more for the benefit of all. But the person you responded to said "unfettered capitalism" (unless they changed it later). :-)
They probably meant “unchecked capitalism” and it would have worked had we continued to keep it in check. The inequality is so excessive now that correction would be criticized as demotivating to industry and innovation. At this point, I think they’re just trying to run out the clock so we don’t collapse before the world burns.
Sadly it does kinda look that way, but even more devastatingly sad than that is the near certainty that we are giving them far too much credit for forethought there. To think that the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg has that level of strategic capabilities, rather than simply "gimme monay, now puh-lease", is rather generous. More likely they will be shocked that the leopards (themselves in this case!!?!!?!!) have eaten their faces off too, and as the move Don't Look Up perfectly illustrates, they too will be more surprised than anyone else as the world ends. But hey, at least they got theirs while the getting was good, right? :-(
i.e. Business Intelligence (acumen) is not the same thing as actual intelligence (IQ), and definitely not the same as emotional ability to empathize, with others and even one's future self (EQ?). If these people could understand something, but it is to their financial detriment to do so hence they won't, then it is no longer a matter of helping them understand (IQ), but rather of motivating them to care (EQ) and thereby actually do something about it (business).
I assumed they were using hyperbole as no country has unfettered capitalism. All our restrictions on it in some form. My suggestions would be one way we could do this. There are others.
One problem is that most of your solutions have been attempted before and they failed to stick - e.g. a majority of people who are alive today were present when the top marginal tax rate in the USA was 90% (I am focusing on that b/c the OP referred to MIT), and when that was true, government programs were so well & sufficiently funded that we literally went to the moon! (but how often have we been back there since? granted, there isn't much real reason to go...:-P)
e.g. people started hiding their wealth in offshore tax havens, only bringing in what they need in the short term to get by at any given moment. This relates to globalism as in how much is a wealthy person even a resident of any one country, despite them living in it 100% of the time and getting 100% of their income from it? If you open up a broom closet and maybe assign 0-1 employees to it, but file the paperwork for thus you can make anything into your "global headquarters" even for a multi-national, multi-billion dollar corporation - Amazon does this all the time, and moreoever keeps shifting it around to take advantage of tax incentives offered to them to move it there (for awhile).
Another way that people hide their wealth - Donald Trump is famous for this (among other things:-) - is to keep the actual financials low while still having the full quality of life experience. So he and his family may not "earn" much, yet still live in a fantabulous apartment that they value in the millions if not billions of dollars. Their cars, helicopters, private jets etc. also may not be directly "owned" by them, but rather by their corporate entity, which is subject to all the tax burdens and benefits of such - so even though he gets the exclusive use of all of his "stuff", does he truly "own" it, at least as far as tax reporting purposes go?
Even UBIs have been tried before - e.g. slaves might be given their rations regardless of output, so that their families could eat even while taking care of the next and present generation of workers rather than produce work product directly.
So it is not that nobody has ever heard of these things before, it is just that they do not "stick". e.g. Donald Trump, after taking advantage of that whole financial system, when he gets into power decides to defund the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), essentially the police who monitor for such excesses and abuses as he and others like him are exactly likely to try to get away with. (And yes, the IRS - the general taxation services & enforcement division - got its funding reduced as well, but that gets off into a whole HUGE tangent where it is not just its funding level, but direct mandates to specifically not go after the most wealthy offenders, or rather the particular style of crimes that they are able to abuse, which are more complex and can be held up in court for years and thereby take up a disproportionate amount of resources to enforce) And then on top of that, Donald Trump also lowered the wealth taxes - so both by making things legal, and also by reducing the ability to enforce certain particular styles of crimes that are illegal, he steadily moved the notch more towards “unfettered capitalism” and away from "placing restrictions on it in some form". Nothing ofc is 0% or 100%, but there is a spectrum, and we do move along somewhere on it.
So, extremely unfortunately, it is not hyperbole at all - the most narrow interpretation of it as meaning equal to precisely 0% restrictions would be, but the common interpretation is to look at the spectrum and see the direction we are moving along it towards that particular extreme end, as in "more unfettered now than it was in the past". You may actually therefore be in agreement with the person you are arguing with, but missing out on that b/c you keep talking about how to "solve" the crisis, as if the solution could be to simply pass a handful of laws and the problem would be over. However, pass those laws how - through Congress? And with the Supreme Court now having been stacked with judges that each day are revealed to be even more corrupt than we suspected in the past, ready to strike down any law that may cause their own personal quality of life to degrade i.e. they might receive fewer free rides on private jets if they displease the billionaires that they have befriended?
Well, anyway if you are speaking on purely theoretical grounds, or perhaps in Aussie land it may even be possible on practical ones, but in America we do tend to feel that we are well and truly and even royally fucked by the system, and any such "solution" seems unlikely to ever be possible to implement, for the simple fact that our overlords do not wish it. We may have come too far down this road, to the point where even the entire federal government cannot fight against them any longer, except in perhaps specific areas, but not overall, not anymore:-(. Ironically this illustrates the dangers of unfettered capitalism: I get that capitalism isn't so much "good" as it is the lesser of other competing evils (socialism being demotivating etc.), but it really is like harnessing the power of this giant behemoth beast, whereas if you let the beast take over control then you can become well and truly and royally fucked...:-(. When riding a mount, one must always remain in control, or else... well, we are about to find out I suppose.
i.e. capitalism may be good, but only if properly restrained.
Capitalism is neither good or bad. It's a tool. It's the people that design the system that hold ultimate responsibility.
All the things you say about things having been tried previously applies just as much to socialism, Marxism and other forms of non capitalism economies.
Slow incremental improvements pay off dividends in just the same way that slow incremental worsening has made things worse.
I think faster broader changes would help more, but that doesn't make them easier to implement.
Yes, there is a despair with how the world is worsening. We have a lot of things to blame for it. Facebook, trump tax laws, tax havens etc. Yet people continue to use facebook and continue to vote for Trump.
What needs to be done is fight and push for better candidates and better policies. Many are doing that but not at the level that is required. When was the last time you went to a political meeting? Or a rally or march? Those questions are rhetorical. I know I haven't been in a long time. We have become complacent and despondent as a society. Things are harder, but also easier. We have lots of conveniences now that were unthinkable at the times you mentioned where things were subjectively better in the past.
Things were not better for women and minorities. Things were not better for child workers. Things were not better for lgbtqi people. Slaves were not better off by having a UBI. Please be aware that ubi means you have no obligation to work. Any income from work would be on top of the UBI. With advancement in productivity. I don't see how society will function without UBI or cutting hours significantly. Jobs in transport, logistics etc will all go. AI will kill many more in communication.
Exactly - bad implementations of communism, bad implementations of capitalism, bad implementations of whatever utopian form of government we can dream up in theory, all suffer b/c they are bad implementations, even if in theory they are perfect. Beyond that, some theories may themselves just be "bad" overall, if the theory is too far removed from reality.
One problem that the USA has found for itself is having allowed itself to devolve to become a 2-party system, where no other parties matter. This is a fundamental phase shift b/c at that point the parties no longer try to accomplish positive aims, and instead merely try to "not" be the other side. Biden won b/c he wasn't Trump, Trump won b/c he wasn't Hilary Clinton, Obama won b/c he wasn't Romney, or McCain, Bush won b/c... well it goes back many, many decades. Afaik, no democracy has ever survived that.
Nor does it seem to matter even, b/c regardless of who wins, the wealthy are in charge. School shootings are a perfect example of that - our CHILDREN are being MURDERED... and nobody gives a damn. I recall one poll result where 80% of the American people were for some form of gun control, and that rose to >90% of responsible, registered gun owners! Also that was a decade ago, so surely after all that we've seen since, it could be even higher? There is nothing that engenders bipartisan efforts in Congress these days - but 80-90% agreement among the American populace is astounding!!?!! However, it does not matter one bit what we want - b/c the lobbies want something else there, and they are willing to pay 10-fold more than the counter-lobby, hence children continue to be murdered all across the nation (typically in poorer schools though).
In addition to being horrific, that example also reveals that our democracy is beyond broken, it is no longer "democracy" at all, but a plutocracy where regardless of whoever votes for whatever goal to be done, the rich control what actually gets done, regardless.
So to fix something like that... assuming that it even could be fixed, would take... I have no idea. But going to a political rally will not begin to cover it. We may literally have a civil war coming up, or at least it is highly expected (among experts, it is said) to have some kind of "constitutional crisis event", much like the January 6 protests where Donald Trump attempted the most ineffective coup that I have ever heard of, yet still was solidly an attempt.
And one potential reason for all that is that whereas the wealthy previous wanted to use middle-class workers to be the underpinnings of society - doctors, researchers, lawyers, engineers, etc. - now they gloves are coming off, and they would have divide the world into the haves vs. have-nots. That CPG Grey Rules for Rulers really helped me see this clearly, though also depresses me:-).
Yes, that's a great response. I would disagree on some points but agree overall.
What people fail to see is that all these systems are just that, systems we use as a tool. Its up to us to design the system such that it benefits more people. However, those that design the systems have an incentive to design them to be reelected rather than what's best. We need to overcome that. One way that can help is sunset clauses on bills. They expire after a set time and need to be devoted on. It should reduce the effect of interest groups, or at least require more funding for them to be able to intervene multiple tines over multiple years with more and more politicians and beurocrats. Basically, reduces their investment. Next one is term limits.
Its a great video, by the way, I hadn't seen it before. It does emphasize why democracy is better, but what might be missed is capitalism as part of democracy is what also provides that extra wealth that mininoses the risk of revolt and increases number of stakeholders or power brokers.
Those whonarguse socialism or communism forget that there is still a ruling class working in their own interest and that ruling by committee is slow and inefficient. Just ask anyone on a committee.
I agree, the wealthy have an outsize influence. The wealthy is not one person. It is a constant rotation of power brokers coming in and our of power. Take the USA, the 1% is 3 million people. Sure, there are a large number who stay at the top and corrupt society with their interestd, but they don't control all the levers. They focus their efforts on controlling the interests that will benefit them most, usually taxation.
Gun law is a great example of people wanting change but not having consensus on that change. However, much ofnthst change was thwarted nut the NRA using membership moneybfron the same people that claim to want change. We now know they also took money from Russia, in an effort to destabilise. Russia understands that a large mass of people effects vhsbge. They have weaponised it. Those seeking to stabilise and improve the world need to do the same.
The fact that Trump, who staged a shitty coup, is a horrible person and has clear mental instability is on line to be reelected is a shitty endorsement of current politics. That's not the fault of democracy as a concept, that's the fault of bad rules, like the electoral college, like campaign finance rules, like citizens first etc. All of which the democrats have not touched, ever.
I don't see a civil war coming. Society is too comfortable(even if financially very tough) for people to revolt violently end masse. I do expect some form of constitutional crisis. I'm surprised it hasn't happened after the coup. Many of the problems identified by that, remain uncorrected. If something is tradition and not codified, it is useless as a protector of democracy.
I think the complexity of society and the intersecting interests of so many people and groups is what makes civil war so much less likely in developed countries. I can't think of the last time it has happened. The closest thing is middle east or eastern Europe, but that was fallout from global power struggles more than general unrest.
You bring up some points I did not say... but to confirm, yes totally agree with. Capitalism isn't the only evil, and may in fact be the least evil of them all, yet it does have a tendency towards slavery, doesn't it? :-( Ofc, so too does socialism, in part b/c just as pure capitalism has never once been tried in the world (afaik?), neither has communism. Everything is just a blend - I mean no judgement there, just that it is what it is.
Yet looking back, democracy+capitalism did some wonderful things in the so-called "Western world" (ironically including Australia that is located in the East, but you know what I mean:-), but in the USA at least, it looks like we are ready to end it. Not the capitalism part, but democracy. Or at least that is what the people - like Majorie Taylor Greene, a literal sitting congresswoman - are calling for, and Donald Trump too, who says he wants to be emperor "for a day". If these people get their way - and the likelihood looks to be something along the lines of just shy of 50%? - then the ability (/burden/responsibility) to vote will be removed. But either way, as I mentioned, the consequences of voting has long since been taken away from us, in certain main aspects - importantly, not all, but many.
Btw you are off on your numbers: try the numeral three. Not 3 million, but literally three as in one person more than two and one shy of four. THREE people have as much wealth as the entire bottom HALF of America - and that was 5 years ago, before billionaires doubled their portfolios just last year alone. More recently, I see titles like "The bottom half of American families hold just 2% of the country's wealth — while the top 1% of families have a third". That is beyond "outsized influence", they have it ALL (almost). Tbf, there is still a very healthy middle class it seems, but the wheels definitely seem to have come off of this ride i.e. the trends are not good, and the "outsized influence" of those at the very top who can literally purchase Supreme Court Justices with their enormous wealth is a problem that seems like it will only solidify the issues.
Also, don't glaze over the percentage of Americans that have only 2% of its wealth: to state it again, it is HALF. Granted, some are children, but many/most are GenZ to Millenials - those who have started families and are looking to purchase a home, but find out that not only can they not, but it looks likely that they never will. Is that an exaggeration? Only time will tell, but neither Trump nor Biden look to be fixing anything, and Congress only recently passed its budget for the 2024 year (which started on October 1) here a couple of weeks ago - we very nearly started into the 7th month of the year before it got passed. This is routine, now. And don't even get me started on the corruption of the Supreme Court Justices. Or our for-profit, click-bait media. So if help will not come from the Presidency, Congress, Judiciary, or Media, and it certainly will not come from corporations, then from whence will it come?
Rather, we will see a slide - sometimes steady, sometimes rapidly falling - into anarchy as people find themselves not vested in the system anymore; or alternatively the healthiest people will be those who simply give up and accept their new station in life, at the very bottom, as peasants, making up part of that HALF of all members of society who control <2% of the nation's wealth, and who cannot afford a home or advanced medical care. In short, America won't be what it used to be - the dream has died.
So, you are correct that Trump is an example of enshittification of politics but that it does not mean that the entire concept is invalid, however I am relying on that one singular point to make that claim. Also, I am not stating that it is entirely invalid - a glance at the European Union is enough to dispel that. Rather, I am stating that the current state in America is not good, and only looks to be worse. Btw if you have any counter-examples I would love to hear them, but I have heard that no country that has ever devolved to become a 2-party system has ever managed to survive, and that worries me. So even if we managed to fix literally everything else, so long as that foundational flaw remains we may still be doomed, even if the deadline would have been pushed back? In that sense then, therein may lie some glimmer of hope: Donald Trump was so bad, that he may have woken up this sleeping giant to realize its predicament, so we might finally be more open to tinkering with this democratic system that could be done better? e.g. replace first-past-the-post voting with something else, which would force politicians to actually offer something positive merely than claiming that they are not the other side.
Also, note that I am not advocating for a civil war, nor a coup. I am only stating that some people are, and the fact that a coup has already been attempted is proof enough that it could happen again, by the end of this very year even. "Cvil unrest" is present, and I am only trying to open my eyes to acknowledge that. Also, I agree that it is likely to be some kind of boring "constitutional crisis event", rather than a full-scale shooting one, though the latter is not beyond the realm of possibility either? The people who Putin has working for him are quite good at what they do... and they may yet find another way, like the January 6 attack, to turn a handful of people into a force for a much larger change. "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."