Anti-Capitalist Sentiment (with some morality)

[Renton]

I believe societies are incredibly resilient. Economic forces are generally stronger than even fairly strong and oppressive states. Most of what states do merely retards advancement. I wouldn't claim that many of the governments of the world are actually regressing their societies through policy, though that could change pretty soon. Markets will solve problems where people value the solutions, and that's all. States tend to make up phantom problems, or attempt to solve problems that aren't high priorities for enough people for market-based solutions to gain traction.

Re: the corporate sociopaths, their fallout is generally limited to a smaller area than the political system would have allowed, and they're accountable, unlike politicians. And most importantly it would be nice if they didn't have so much facility to lobby the state to leverage their harm.

[a500lbgorilla]

I believe societies are incredibly resilient. Economic forces are generally stronger than even fairly strong and oppressive states. Most of what states do merely retards advancement. I wouldn't claim that many of the governments of the world are actually regressing their societies through policy, though that could change pretty soon. Markets will solve problems where people value the solutions, and that's all. States tend to make up phantom problems, or attempt to solve problems that aren't high priorities for enough people for market-based solutions to gain traction.

Re: the corporate sociopaths, their fallout is generally limited to a smaller area than the political system would have allowed, and they're accountable, unlike politicians. And most importantly it would be nice if they didn't have so much facility to lobby the state to leverage their harm.

Yes, but it'll also value anti-solutions where anti-solutions are valued. You can't pretend to know how the market will behave. It could literally move in any direction. I saw that John Oliver piece about chicken farmers and I still ate chicken today and will tomorrow. How many people know the iPhone is manufactured by blood but still snatch it up every year? There have been reports about how many workers are dying to make the next big soccer tourny happen, and the world will still gobble it up. And I'm super jazzed for this year's college football season.

To the second bold, ENRON though. The global financial crisis, though.

And yeah, a better form of gov't would omit this kind of lobbying I agree. I don't think we've seen the best mix of public and private institutions. I suspect there will be a gov't and it will have a regulatory force in industry on behalf of the consumer and then the companies will compete under those rules. There's no reason to believe human society can ever achieve any better than, "well, this is crap but it's good enough."

[a500lbgorilla]

Yes, but it'll also value anti-solutions where anti-solutions are valued.

And if I'm remembering correctly, even in Hong Kong with a gov't that could not give a shit about the chinese population in the colony, they were still forced to intervene because of conditions in the cities during one of the boom times. I'm really scratching the back of my memory, but I remember the wealthy businessmen had set up some sort of public service hospital and community center and I can't remember if it was in response to the British governor or a separate thing entirely... I need to read that book again.