Anti-Capitalist Sentiment (with some morality)

[boost]

I was taking some notes as I read through the thread and tried to keep up. Not going to quote everything, just going to try to touch on some themes I picked up on.

Wuf, you have put forth this veiled equating of economics to physics several times itt. Economics is a science, sure-- but attempting to hold it up next to physics is intellectually dishonest, and you know it.

Renton, I forget in which post, but I felt you were using a pro business vs pro labor false dichotomy. I think this is a big problem in our society, these two forces are needlessly pitted against each other to reach political ends. Costco is a great example of how pro business and pro labor go hand in hand. Henry Ford also recognized this. Sure you can pay bottom dollar for your labor pool, have high turn over, and a weak corporate culture, or you can pay top dollar and have your pick of the best labor, who will stick around and ensure stability in your business. Both can be viable strategies, but the idea that a busboy is a busboy is a busboy ridiculous. Sure, labor acts like a commodity in some ways, but it also resembles business's infrastructure in other ways. Labor is far to dynamic to simply slot into the "commodity" column and forget about it. Your models will not be representative of reality if you do so.

On morality vs legality, from the top of the thread:

Regulations, laws, rules, what have you, needn't be in opposition to potential immoral acts. Their purpose is to prop up and strengthen the system. The initial five or so questions in the OP are, on the surface, simple moral exercises, but let's be honest, Renton, they're seeking approval of a societal system, comprised of regulations, laws, rules, and so on. I.E., you're questions mislead, intentionally or not, the reader to conflate legality and morality. By answering the questions a certain way, I would seemingly be embracing your preferred free market system-- yet the answers only really give an insight to how I weigh morality in such scenarios, but doesn't get at the utility of our current system or any proposed system.

Wuf, you gave a critique of communism in the last dozen posts or so. I felt it was lacking, in that communism, on a large scale, has not been achieved to any greater extent than a modern free market system has. All communist states have been rigid economies with assigned work. Of course productivity incentive will be lower when jobs are assigned, and mobility (both physical and social) is limited. I'm not really arguing for communism here, but just trying to illustrate that a argument, similar to one favored by Libertarians, can be made for communism: it hasn't ever really successfully been implemented.

Renton, "The milk is going ot taste better and better"

Actually, no, the milk, and most mass produced food we eat tastes worse and worse. Yield and visual aesthetics come far before any consideration of flavor in much of the food industry. The exception is when the goal is to engineer foods which trigger our evolved cravings for things rare in nature, like fatty, salty, sweet, etc. The concentrated triggers are often given a cheap filler delivery method, such as the puffed corn which carries the salty "cheese" coating in a Cheeto. These taste "better and better" only in the sense that they work on a very base level to encourage the consumption of stuff which should not be consumed in any quantity. They're essentially lacing Styrofoam with crack. Mmmm, better and better.

[wufwugy]

Wuf, you have put forth this veiled equating of economics to physics several times itt. Economics is a science, sure-- but attempting to hold it up next to physics is intellectually dishonest, and you know it.

I wouldn't say I did this, and if I did do it I would take it back. Our understanding of physics is far greater than of economics. The analogy I was making was for the purpose why what we do know about physics should be treated as "what we do know" like the same is in physics. I'm not an economics academic so I don't know the details, but some econ professors I've seen discuss this issue claim that the profession has forgotten some of the principles they were taught in the most well established econ textbooks, like Mishkin's. As an outsider, this makes loads of sense since the profession is all over the place on interpretation, but it makes no sense that econ academia would be all over the place. As it turns out, econ academia knows a lot of true stuff, but the econ profession lets their political and moral views cloud their judgement

[wufwugy]

Wuf, you gave a critique of communism in the last dozen posts or so. I felt it was lacking, in that communism, on a large scale, has not been achieved to any greater extent than a modern free market system has. All communist states have been rigid economies with assigned work. Of course productivity incentive will be lower when jobs are assigned, and mobility (both physical and social) is limited. I'm not really arguing for communism here, but just trying to illustrate that a argument, similar to one favored by Libertarians, can be made for communism: it hasn't ever really successfully been implemented.

Why don't you think it has been implemented? Everything I've learned about Russia shows that it was super implemented in the USSR. The foundation of communism is an economy based on communal need, and everything in the USSR was based on this. Factories were put in the worst possible places just because they were "needed" there. Products were manufactured at costs that exceeded their value because it was "needed". Everybody worked because everybody needed to work, and everybody reaped the benefits of the work. I bet if you asked any Soviet Russians about it, they'd tell you they did what they were supposed to and they tried hard. For decades, the USSR went gangbusters on growing their economy, but they eventually realized it was a house of cards. Supply and demand had not been adhered to. Gorbachev tried to save it by gradually reverting to a more market oriented model, but the damage had already been done. The foundation of the Russian economy was communal need, and it had starved them of innovation for half a century. The country is now suffering incredibly.

China was similar, but it was able to drop its communism for state capitalism, and since then upward mobility has been increasing at a phenomenal pace

[boost]

Why don't you think it has been implemented? Everything I've learned about Russia shows that it was super implemented in the USSR. The foundation of communism is an economy based on communal need, and everything in the USSR was based on this. Factories were put in the worst possible places just because they were "needed" there. Products were manufactured at costs that exceeded their value because it was "needed". Everybody worked because everybody needed to work, and everybody reaped the benefits of the work. I bet if you asked any Soviet Russians about it, they'd tell you they did what they were supposed to and they tried hard. For decades, the USSR went gangbusters on growing their economy, but they eventually realized it was a house of cards. Supply and demand had not been adhered to. Gorbachev tried to save it by gradually reverting to a more market oriented model, but the damage had already been done. The foundation of the Russian economy was communal need, and it had starved them of innovation for half a century. The country is now suffering incredibly.

China was similar, but it was able to drop its communism for state capitalism, and since then upward mobility has been increasing at a phenomenal pace

This is all patently wrong. Millions of Russians died due to an avoidable famine caused by Stalin's enthusiasm for a misguided botanist who couldn't have reversed his position if he realized his error, because it wouldn't only mean his fall from the grace of the inner party, but likely his death. This was repeated over and over. Innovation was not stymied because of communism, it was squashed because there were megalomaniacs running the show, there was a culture of suspicion, and disagreeing with the states opinion on nearly anything meant a vacation in the gulag, if not death.

It was indeed doomed to failure at the time, you're 100% right. But that's because there was no possible way to transition from a system which dependent on vast bureaucracies and a powerful inner party.

For a further rebuttal, see #72

[wufwugy]

This is all patently wrong. Millions of Russians died due to an avoidable famine caused by Stalin's enthusiasm for a misguided botanist who couldn't have reversed his position if he realized his error, because it wouldn't only mean his fall from the grace of the inner party, but likely his death. This was repeated over and over. Innovation was not stymied because of communism, it was squashed because there were megalomaniacs running the show, there was a culture of suspicion, and disagreeing with the states opinion on nearly anything meant a vacation in the gulag, if not death.

It was indeed doomed to failure at the time, you're 100% right. But that's because there was no possible way to transition from a system which dependent on vast bureaucracies and a powerful inner party.

For a further rebuttal, see #72

The famines were certainly tragic, but I'm not sure what the relevance is. Sovkhoz made up to 45% of USSR farming, and they did not do well. Stalin was a terrible guy, but he implemented some srsbsns communist reforms. But none of them worked well

[Renton]

Costco is a great example of how pro business and pro labor go hand in hand. Henry Ford also recognized this. Sure you can pay bottom dollar for your labor pool, have high turn over, and a weak corporate culture, or you can pay top dollar and have your pick of the best labor, who will stick around and ensure stability in your business. Both can be viable strategies, but the idea that a busboy is a busboy is a busboy ridiculous. Sure, labor acts like a commodity in some ways, but it also resembles business's infrastructure in other ways. Labor is far to dynamic to simply slot into the "commodity" column and forget about it. Your models will not be representative of reality if you do so.

1) If the costco business model is so much better than the wal-mart one, then we can expect other businesses to copy it. Seems fine/optimal. No one is stopping companies from taking what they feel are more proactive measures than the standard minimize costs at any costs model. There is no need to mess with a system that is already working.

2) I never said that a busboy is a busboy. Labor can be a commodity and still be dynamic. A fresh, plump, and juicy apple from the fruit stand is worth more and should cost more than the withered wormy apple in the adjacent basket. A busboy that is far more productive than the average should have an easier time finding a job and be paid more than average to do that job. And if he isn't, he reserves the right to demand that pay, and the company reserves the right to reject, and another restaurant in dire need of a quality busboy can take him on at a wage he'd be happier with. Nothing in capitalism inherently disallows or even discourages this kind of activity from happening. And a busboy's union only serves to punish the quality people by strongarming companies into paying an arbitrary wage to any busboy regardless of quality.

Renton, "The milk is going ot taste better and better"


Actually, no, the milk, and most mass produced food we eat tastes worse and worse. Yield and visual aesthetics come far before any consideration of flavor in much of the food industry. The exception is when the goal is to engineer foods which trigger our evolved cravings for things rare in nature, like fatty, salty, sweet, etc. The concentrated triggers are often given a cheap filler delivery method, such as the puffed corn which carries the salty "cheese" coating in a Cheeto. These taste "better and better" only in the sense that they work on a very base level to encourage the consumption of stuff which should not be consumed in any quantity. They're essentially lacing Styrofoam with crack. Mmmm, better and better.

I know better than to go head to head with j-dawd on food but I will refute as best I can.

For one, what I said is true and what you said is true as well. The point is that where theres a market for something, the market will become better and better at providing that something. Something being whatever people see value in and are willing to buy.

Staying with the milk example, yes I'm sure theres a market for delicious organic milk and suppliers are competing over that market by innovating in various ways, either by reducing their costs (and thus the price) or increasing the quality. There's also probably a market for cheap but bare-minimum quality milk, and respective suppliers making respective innovations to that product as well.

The point of my milk rant was that a state-based milk industry has far less incentive to innovate in any way, thats all.