myrmepropagandist
I don't like saying "the problem is capitalism" even though I think I often agree with what I assume people mean when they say this.
Capitalism is this huge concept and to some people it means shopping and lemonade stands, to others it means human slavery and the indentured servitude of debt.
The problem is the imbalance of power, monopolies of control and the systems that enable control. Extreme wealth and the recognition of the legitimacy of that wealth can function in this way.
Quinn Norton
@futurebird The American problem is laissez faire plantation capitalism. Other forms can be fairly effective counter balances to centralized governmental power, and restrained by regulations and culture. America, on the other has been trying to figure out how to defeat the 13th amendment since it past and balked at any democratic restraints on money.
Rich Felker
@futurebird I agree with some of your qualms about saying it that way, but it is more specific and accurate. The concept that ownership of the means of production entitles owners to that kind of power, and that ownership can be financialized and made into an instrument for speculation, is really the core rot.
Quinn Norton
@paddyduke @futurebird I don't think you understood my post, because nothing you're saying makes sense to me. not in a confrontational way but in a you thought i was talking about something else kind of way
Paddy Duke
@quinn @futurebird I’m sceptical of this.
If you need a second problematic system of exploitation and oppression to somewhat counteract your first one (and as a non-American I don’t really recognise the counterbalancing effect you’re referring to), it seems to me that you should probably try to get rid of both systems.
The “old woman who swallowed a fly” approach of increasingly compromised kludges feels like it’s been pretty conclusively debunked by now.
Paddy Duke
@quinn Sorry, I guess I missed your meaning.
I thought you were saying that certain forms of capitalism could somehow act as a bulwark against the excesses of a large centralised government. I don’t see a lot of evidence for that, especially given capitalists’ frequent tendency to subsume and dominate governments for their own ends.
Quinn Norton
@paddyduke i'm using capitalism in the expansive sense; as in there is a form for small and regional businesses, "firms" as it were, in local contexts, and under regulation. I'm not happy with American capitalism, but I'm also old enough to remember how badly soviet communism went down. it's good to have parts of society that aren't the government.
Quinn Norton
@paddyduke yeah at that point there's a lot to be said about definitions of capitalism and centralization. Like, I just don't have a huge problem with a group of people investing in shares to, say, get a local business up and running, and technically that's capitalism. And I definitely like my decentralized systems to have some centralized monitoring with regulation, because I never want to see a headline that includes "rogue container ship hits/sink/is captured..." etc.
Paddy Duke
@quinn No disagreement on the last point. I just don’t see the long-term need to hold on to any capitalist structures for those goals. We could have the commerce without the capitalism and local governance without centralised power.
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