If you feel the need to take down capitalism then Tonight We Riot is out now

A system that's built upon eternal growth in an environment that only has limited resources doesn't sound very future proof to me.

That is not what capitalism is. When you boil it down, all capitalism means is you can own your own business and invest your money however you want. Even Richard Stallman had to make it clear he wasn't against capitalism as such on several occasions when capitalism was blamed for the problem of proprietary software.

That might not be what capitalism is, but it is how capitalism works. It's kind of like the distinction between life and evolution--evolution isn't what life is, but it is what will happen if there is life.
The basis of capitalism is investment and profit. Private individuals with money invest it in hopes of making a profit. If they do make a profit, they have more money ("capital", hence capitalism) and can invest more. Now at this point we can see a sort of evolution working within capitalism: Say you have various private individuals. Some of them invest money and make profit for a while, decide they have enough, and start just living on the surplus and continuing to reinvest the same amount, entering a steady state where their capital, and the bit of the economy they own, does not grow. Others continue to reinvest, growing their capital continually. Which group dominates the capitalist economy? Which group ends up buying the other group out? Yes, that's right, it's the ones who kept growing their investment.

Thus, growth is inevitable in a capitalist system. This is true no matter what Richard Stallman might believe on the topic.

Now up to a point, growth is not a bad thing. It is capitalism's spurring of dynamic growth that caused it to overtake various previous systems, to rapidly develop technology, and to generate a great deal of wealth. Right now, though, it's kind of a problem.

So, you are against people owning their own businesses and being free to invest their money and assets however they wish as long as it's legal and ethical?

I am not sure you or I understand each other. I think democracy works wonders... because it basically limits the aspect of "people problem" that I mentioned, because nobody is allowed to have too much power. The system is designed to limit, slowdown and prevent any radical changes.

Meanwhile with socialism, where you have strong government you get that problem, because you are governed by people that inherently have more power thanks to stronger standing of the state. People with too much power = abuse of power.

The other side of that coin is that when stuff happens and something needs to be done about it, democracy can be slow to react. Take the Covid situation here in EU. Essentially, Italy had to take the punch for most governments to stop just bickering about the issue and start doing something about it.

The whole Covid situation in Europe is often misconstructed as EU acting late or not doing anything. EU has its limited competency and countries healthcare systems are not part of it, critics often like to bash EU for not doing anything or the opposite accusing them of overstepping their competency. Solving the Covid situation is national problem, so EU really has no say in here. Problem of Italy is that they have oldest population in Europe and they have lower amount of ventilators per capita than other countries. Italy is not a victim that got left behind by bureaucrats in Brussels. Nobody knew what to expect and they were the first that got hit hard, but not the only one (Spain for example).

What EU did and did it well was rescuing citizen from abroad that got stuck thanks to travel bans. What EU can do is to prepare some more coordinated effort in the future, but till then it is up to the countries themselves and that is not EU fault. This whole situation is unprecedented and makes sense there was no master plan for it. No country in the world, democratic or not really knew what to expect and how to prepare themselves. If anybody claims they have the answer (if only they had the power) they are most likely lying, there is no simple solution here. Lot of countries in EU solved the Covid situation fine though.

If anything I would say the migration crisis in 2015 was more of an example where we saw problems of such nature, but even that is not that simple, because it was Germany that initiated that whole mess with invitation and then acted surprised when other countries refused to participate. That whole issue is more political than anything else, because the solutions are already on the table.

Honestly the migrant crisis of 2015 was less Germany's fault and more that of the US and Russia playing cold-war in Syria.

If anything I would say the migration crisis in 2015 was more of an example where we saw problems of such nature, but even that is not that simple, because it was Germany that initiated that whole mess with invitation and then acted surprised when other countries refused to participate. That whole issue is more political than anything else, because the solutions are already on the table.

Honestly the migrant crisis of 2015 was less Germany's fault and more that of the US and Russia playing cold-war in Syria.

Well, that did start it. But migration crisis wasn't just refugees pouring in (that's where the "Refugees welcome" slogan comes in), it transformed into basically anyone trying to enter EU (illegally). It sparked big movement of people from Africa and Asia, which definitely did not escape from warzones. It created discourse that certain people refused to admit that distinction (still labeling all as refugees) and in response to that certain countries flat out refused to accept a single refugee/migrant even if they were willing at first. The situation as a whole got mostly solved by the deal with Turkey and the fact that the bordering countries that were receiving the biggest hits just got fed up and had to solve it on their own (with maybe some financial help and resources, but nothing systematic), because there was no other solution presented. EU was capable, but not willing to solve it systematically.


Last edited by Solitary on 10 May 2020 at 6:33 pm UTC

This "Homo Economicus" is the basis of most capitalist economics. It obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with actual human nature or evolutionary psychology.

I read about a study where indeed some people acted like "Homo Economicus". However, this kind of actors "demonstrate psychopathic traits". So I, while being a noob when it comes to economics, agree that the market should not be based on this kind of model.

You can read it up here:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterubel/2014/12/15/is-homo-economicus-a-psychopath/

True. But at that, even if you have the psychopathy, other things don't match. For instance, real people aren't quantum supercomputers--we actually aren't that good at calculating our ideal course of action for maximum gain. And, people have a systematic bias when it comes to losses vs gains--we mostly dislike loss more than we like gain. In the real world there are strong rational reasons for this; only if you are quite wealthy do the two start to be equivalent. For normal people, a gain could make your life somewhat better but an equivalent loss could put you in the street, so there's no symmetry to the impact--but the math assumes that people treat them the same.

Socialism is a cancer to all who are motivated and self-sufficient.

(emphasis mine)
So, nobody.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 10 May 2020 at 6:38 pm UTC

So, you are against people owning their own businesses and being free to invest their money and assets however they wish as long as it's legal and ethical?

Take any given firm and I'd much rather see it as a worker-owned, worker-managed co-operative than owned and controlled by one guy exploiting all the others. Then they all collectively are free to make the decisions, instead of one person being free and everyone else being controlled.

You seem to be taking all of this quite personally.

Funny, I was thinking of saying that to you. No, I'm talking a lot but that's not the same thing. I spend a good deal of time studying and thinking about political economy, so I have things to say about it. But in responding to you I should note that I haven't been spending much time advocating for any particular system, rather clearing up misconceptions about what they are and how they work. Not sure why that's "taking it personally".

If you think a person can own their own business and invest their money and assets however they wish, then you don't have a problem with capitalism. Corporatism, sure.

As I say, I've just been giving some definitions. Incidentally, I don't think your distinction there holds water--if people can invest money and assets however they wish, how exactly do you stop that from being or becoming "corporatism"? I feel like you're trying to make some sort of small business/big business distinction, but to maintain such a distinction you would have to precisely stop people from investing their money however they wish.
But OK, what I think? I think that the notion of it being self-evident that someone should "own their own business" is a creation of a certain kind of social frame. From a different social perspective, it's not "their own" business. It depends on their social environment to exist. It depends on the physical infrastructure, created mainly by the state. It depends on the education they have received. It depends on the web of contacts their social situation (including class/status level) has allowed them to accumulate. It depends on the money they have inherited; the very poor rarely start businesses. It depends on a social environment that has customers well enough off to buy their product. It depends on the existence of a pool of people who lack self-sufficiency and so are forced to work for wages, and have themselves been educated in such a way that they will be useful employees. This pool of people was also largely created by the state.

I think that a more egalitarian, co-operative approach which unleashes everyone's talents instead of subordinating most people would be better for almost everyone than the approach of "This one person owns, everyone else obeys".

>there are no Socialist countries

Mhm, if you say so.

Well, there's Cuba. I can't think of any other country with significant restrictions on people "owning their own business", so by your definition they're all capitalist. Cuba incidentally has done amazingly well in dealing with the virus, and has also helped other countries a great deal considering what a small place it is. Well, medical care has always been a big schtick of theirs.

I am not sure you or I understand each other. I think democracy works wonders... because it basically limits the aspect of "people problem" that I mentioned, because nobody is allowed to have too much power. The system is designed to limit, slowdown and prevent any radical changes.

Meanwhile with socialism, where you have strong government you get that problem, because you are governed by people that inherently have more power thanks to stronger standing of the state. People with too much power = abuse of power.

The other side of that coin is that when stuff happens and something needs to be done about it, democracy can be slow to react. Take the Covid situation here in EU. Essentially, Italy had to take the punch for most governments to stop just bickering about the issue and start doing something about it.

The whole Covid situation in Europe is often misconstructed as EU acting late or not doing anything. EU has its limited competency and countries healthcare systems are not part of it, critics often like to bash EU for not doing anything or the opposite accusing them of overstepping their competency. Solving the Covid situation is national problem, so EU really has no say in here. Problem of Italy is that they have oldest population in Europe and they have lower amount of ventilators per capita than other countries. Italy is not a victim that got left behind by bureaucrats in Brussels. Nobody knew what to expect and they were the first that got hit hard, but not the only one (Spain for example).

What EU did and did it well was rescuing citizen from abroad that got stuck thanks to travel bans. What EU can do is to prepare some more coordinated effort in the future, but till then it is up to the countries themselves and that is not EU fault. This whole situation is unprecedented and makes sense there was no master plan for it. No country in the world, democratic or not really knew what to expect and how to prepare themselves. If anybody claims they have the answer (if only they had the power) they are most likely lying, there is no simple solution here. Lot of countries in EU solved the Covid situation fine though.

If anything I would say the migration crisis in 2015 was more of an example where we saw problems of such nature, but even that is not that simple, because it was Germany that initiated that whole mess with invitation and then acted surprised when other countries refused to participate. That whole issue is more political than anything else, because the solutions are already on the table.

I'd agree that the EU as such has a limited amount it can do in terms of the actual medical situation in the present time. The EU as an entity barely has a budget; it does not really act like a national government and cannot be expected to do what national governments do.
But it does bear some responsibility. The EU's impact is, and has for a long time been, mostly fiscal. It has damaged the economies (and health care systems) of Europe via the pernicious effects of the Euro plus the restrictive rules on deficits. The individual countries can't print money, devalue their currencies to encourage exports, do much to stimulate the economy, or build up important public sector things (such as health care, education, or infrastructure). This has caused economic stagnation and, relevant to the current crisis, weakened health care systems. Sooo, a Europe without the EU might actually be weathering Covid a bit better. And going forward, European countries without the EU and the Euro would have had much more leeway to restart their economies than they will unless the EU gets its shit together better to allow for stimulus than the EU track record suggests it is likely to.

You seem to be taking all of this quite personally.

Funny, I was thinking of saying that to you. No, I'm talking a lot but that's not the same thing. I spend a good deal of time studying and thinking about political economy, so I have things to say about it. But in responding to you I should note that I haven't been spending much time advocating for any particular system, rather clearing up misconceptions about what they are and how they work. Not sure why that's "taking it personally".

If you think a person can own their own business and invest their money and assets however they wish, then you don't have a problem with capitalism. Corporatism, sure.

As I say, I've just been giving some definitions. Incidentally, I don't think your distinction there holds water--if people can invest money and assets however they wish, how exactly do you stop that from being or becoming "corporatism"? I feel like you're trying to make some sort of small business/big business distinction, but to maintain such a distinction you would have to precisely stop people from investing their money however they wish.
But OK, what I think? I think that the notion of it being self-evident that someone should "own their own business" is a creation of a certain kind of social frame. From a different social perspective, it's not "their own" business. It depends on their social environment to exist. It depends on the physical infrastructure, created mainly by the state. It depends on the education they have received. It depends on the web of contacts their social situation (including class/status level) has allowed them to accumulate. It depends on the money they have inherited; the very poor rarely start businesses. It depends on a social environment that has customers well enough off to buy their product. It depends on the existence of a pool of people who lack self-sufficiency and so are forced to work for wages, and have themselves been educated in such a way that they will be useful employees. This pool of people was also largely created by the state.

I think that a more egalitarian, co-operative approach which unleashes everyone's talents instead of subordinating most people would be better for almost everyone than the approach of "This one person owns, everyone else obeys".

>there are no Socialist countries

Mhm, if you say so.

Well, there's Cuba. I can't think of any other country with significant restrictions on people "owning their own business", so by your definition they're all capitalist. Cuba incidentally has done amazingly well in dealing with the virus, and has also helped other countries a great deal considering what a small place it is. Well, medical care has always been a big schtick of theirs.

Ah, another wall of text. Why am I not surprised?

Ah, another wall of text. Why am I not surprised?

Yeah, apparently he has some knowledge about this subject and his pseudo contains "Library Guy", so not surprising at all. ^_^
But don't mind me, go on the discussion.

The whole Covid situation in Europe is often misconstructed as EU acting late or not doing anything. EU has its limited competency and countries healthcare systems are not part of it, critics often like to bash EU for not doing anything or the opposite accusing them of overstepping their competency. Solving the Covid situation is national problem, so EU really has no say in here. Problem of Italy is that they have oldest population in Europe and they have lower amount of ventilators per capita than other countries. Italy is not a victim that got left behind by bureaucrats in Brussels. Nobody knew what to expect and they were the first that got hit hard, but not the only one (Spain for example).

What EU did and did it well was rescuing citizen from abroad that got stuck thanks to travel bans. What EU can do is to prepare some more coordinated effort in the future, but till then it is up to the countries themselves and that is not EU fault. This whole situation is unprecedented and makes sense there was no master plan for it. No country in the world, democratic or not really knew what to expect and how to prepare themselves. If anybody claims they have the answer (if only they had the power) they are most likely lying, there is no simple solution here. Lot of countries in EU solved the Covid situation fine though.

If anything I would say the migration crisis in 2015 was more of an example where we saw problems of such nature, but even that is not that simple, because it was Germany that initiated that whole mess with invitation and then acted surprised when other countries refused to participate. That whole issue is more political than anything else, because the solutions are already on the table.

I'm aware this is not really an EU problem, I really should have said Europe instead of EU as I actually meant the geographic region rather than a political body. Anyhow, maybe I am biased but to me it was common sense that a virus outbreak was coming. Sure, there was no telling where it would spread next, in our day and age, everyone is traveling from everywhere to everywhere, but that doesn't mean we sit about doing nothing until it actually becomes a real big problem. That's where Italy (and Spain, as you said) came in. Only once the red numbers came from those did I noticed governments taking action. Until that, no one thought of stocking up on medical supplies for the coming crisis. In my country I would call it a debacle - first there were no supplies to speak of at all and then, with a hoorah, medical workers received equipment that a) came late, b) was not of sufficient quantity, and c) wasn't even of the right kind. To me, that's not a government answering a crisis, that's a government trying to placate its subjects with whatever they could scrounge up until they fix their hot mess.

But I digress, a dictatorship could've underestimated the situation just as badly as democracy did.

In my country I would call it a debacle - first there were no supplies to speak of at all and then, with a hoorah, medical workers received equipment that a) came late, b) was not of sufficient quantity, and c) wasn't even of the right kind. To me, that's not a government answering a crisis, that's a government trying to placate its subjects with whatever they could scrounge up until they fix their hot mess.

I don't know precisely for other EU countries but here in France, it is a fucking mess...

The whole Covid situation in Europe is often misconstructed as EU acting late or not doing anything. EU has its limited competency and countries healthcare systems are not part of it, critics often like to bash EU for not doing anything or the opposite accusing them of overstepping their competency. Solving the Covid situation is national problem, so EU really has no say in here. Problem of Italy is that they have oldest population in Europe and they have lower amount of ventilators per capita than other countries. Italy is not a victim that got left behind by bureaucrats in Brussels. Nobody knew what to expect and they were the first that got hit hard, but not the only one (Spain for example).

What EU did and did it well was rescuing citizen from abroad that got stuck thanks to travel bans. What EU can do is to prepare some more coordinated effort in the future, but till then it is up to the countries themselves and that is not EU fault. This whole situation is unprecedented and makes sense there was no master plan for it. No country in the world, democratic or not really knew what to expect and how to prepare themselves. If anybody claims they have the answer (if only they had the power) they are most likely lying, there is no simple solution here. Lot of countries in EU solved the Covid situation fine though.

If anything I would say the migration crisis in 2015 was more of an example where we saw problems of such nature, but even that is not that simple, because it was Germany that initiated that whole mess with invitation and then acted surprised when other countries refused to participate. That whole issue is more political than anything else, because the solutions are already on the table.

I'm aware this is not really an EU problem, I really should have said Europe instead of EU as I actually meant the geographic region rather than a political body. Anyhow, maybe I am biased but to me it was common sense that a virus outbreak was coming. Sure, there was no telling where it would spread next, in our day and age, everyone is traveling from everywhere to everywhere, but that doesn't mean we sit about doing nothing until it actually becomes a real big problem. That's where Italy (and Spain, as you said) came in. Only once the red numbers came from those did I noticed governments taking action. Until that, no one thought of stocking up on medical supplies for the coming crisis. In my country I would call it a debacle - first there were no supplies to speak of at all and then, with a hoorah, medical workers received equipment that a) came late, b) was not of sufficient quantity, and c) wasn't even of the right kind. To me, that's not a government answering a crisis, that's a government trying to placate its subjects with whatever they could scrounge up until they fix their hot mess.

But I digress, a dictatorship could've underestimated the situation just as badly as democracy did.

Definitely many mistakes and neglect were made by many parties involved, starting on national levels, but that should be no surprise. On the other hand, it is not really a political or systemic issue. Hindsight 20/20, lot of "Should have beens". Also let's not forget China did not help the situation, but that is beside the point and hopefully will be a lesson learned.

The whole Covid situation in Europe is often misconstructed as EU acting late or not doing anything. EU has its limited competency and countries healthcare systems are not part of it, critics often like to bash EU for not doing anything or the opposite accusing them of overstepping their competency. Solving the Covid situation is national problem, so EU really has no say in here. Problem of Italy is that they have oldest population in Europe and they have lower amount of ventilators per capita than other countries. Italy is not a victim that got left behind by bureaucrats in Brussels. Nobody knew what to expect and they were the first that got hit hard, but not the only one (Spain for example).

What EU did and did it well was rescuing citizen from abroad that got stuck thanks to travel bans. What EU can do is to prepare some more coordinated effort in the future, but till then it is up to the countries themselves and that is not EU fault. This whole situation is unprecedented and makes sense there was no master plan for it. No country in the world, democratic or not really knew what to expect and how to prepare themselves. If anybody claims they have the answer (if only they had the power) they are most likely lying, there is no simple solution here. Lot of countries in EU solved the Covid situation fine though.

If anything I would say the migration crisis in 2015 was more of an example where we saw problems of such nature, but even that is not that simple, because it was Germany that initiated that whole mess with invitation and then acted surprised when other countries refused to participate. That whole issue is more political than anything else, because the solutions are already on the table.

I'm aware this is not really an EU problem, I really should have said Europe instead of EU as I actually meant the geographic region rather than a political body. Anyhow, maybe I am biased but to me it was common sense that a virus outbreak was coming. Sure, there was no telling where it would spread next, in our day and age, everyone is traveling from everywhere to everywhere, but that doesn't mean we sit about doing nothing until it actually becomes a real big problem. That's where Italy (and Spain, as you said) came in. Only once the red numbers came from those did I noticed governments taking action. Until that, no one thought of stocking up on medical supplies for the coming crisis. In my country I would call it a debacle - first there were no supplies to speak of at all and then, with a hoorah, medical workers received equipment that a) came late, b) was not of sufficient quantity, and c) wasn't even of the right kind. To me, that's not a government answering a crisis, that's a government trying to placate its subjects with whatever they could scrounge up until they fix their hot mess.

But I digress, a dictatorship could've underestimated the situation just as badly as democracy did.

Don't know if the same happened in your country but here in Sweden we got into the "no supplies" situation in January when China closed their borders since they manufactured the vast majority of all the medical stuff that we use. Then when we begun to source it from other vendors, countries like Germany confiscated the supplies (which they later released when they realised that you cannot do that and have an open European market).

If anything I would say the migration crisis in 2015 was more of an example where we saw problems of such nature, but even that is not that simple, because it was Germany that initiated that whole mess with invitation and then acted surprised when other countries refused to participate. That whole issue is more political than anything else, because the solutions are already on the table.

Honestly the migrant crisis of 2015 was less Germany's fault and more that of the US and Russia playing cold-war in Syria.

Well, that did start it. But migration crisis wasn't just refugees pouring in (that's where the "Refugees welcome" slogan comes in), it transformed into basically anyone trying to enter EU (illegally). It sparked big movement of people from Africa and Asia, which definitely did not escape from warzones. It created discourse that certain people refused to admit that distinction (still labeling all as refugees) and in response to that certain countries flat out refused to accept a single refugee/migrant even if they were willing at first. The situation as a whole got mostly solved by the deal with Turkey and the fact that the bordering countries that were receiving the biggest hits just got fed up and had to solve it on their own (with maybe some financial help and resources, but nothing systematic), because there was no other solution presented. EU was capable, but not willing to solve it systematically.

But the "other countries not willing to help" is hardly Germany's fault, it's those other countries. Don't fall for the hype created by those non-willing countries, sorting out who came from a Warzone and who didn't isn't really a problem so "but but, large groups of immigrants from other parts of the world" is just an excuse.

Ah, another wall of text. Why am I not surprised?

Yeah, apparently he has some knowledge about this subject and his pseudo contains "Library Guy", so not surprising at all. ^_^
But don't mind me, go on the discussion.

There is a difference between having knowledge and being overly verbose. Eben Moglen comes to mind. The man could get his message across much more effectively with half the breath.


Last edited by Desum on 12 May 2020 at 10:14 pm UTC

Ah, another wall of text. Why am I not surprised?

Yeah, apparently he has some knowledge about this subject and his pseudo contains "Library Guy", so not surprising at all. ^_^
But don't mind me, go on the discussion.

There is a difference between having knowledge and being overly verbose. Eben Moglen comes to mind. The man could get his message across much more effectively with half the breath.

Maybe you should try reading and assimilating the words.

A system that's built upon eternal growth in an environment that only has limited resources doesn't sound very future proof to me.

The universe may have finite resources, but even if you give us a million years to strip it we won't even make it through 1% of it. What limited resources?

That's meaningless if the people who need those resources haven't got access to them.


Last edited by tuubi on 14 May 2020 at 10:01 am UTC

Ah, another wall of text. Why am I not surprised?

Yeah, apparently he has some knowledge about this subject and his pseudo contains "Library Guy", so not surprising at all. ^_^
But don't mind me, go on the discussion.

There is a difference between having knowledge and being overly verbose. Eben Moglen comes to mind. The man could get his message across much more effectively with half the breath.

Maybe you should try reading and assimilating the words.

You mean just listen and believe? Tio be okazos~

We'll see how European socialism fares when the United States goes into decline and ceases to be the friendly global hegemon. Y'know, when they'll have to pay for all of their own defense budget.

We'll see how European socialism fares when the United States goes into decline and ceases to be the friendly global hegemon. Y'know, when they'll have to pay for all of their own defense budget.

United States, friendly? OK now I know I really can't take you seriously, whathever you say about countries being socialist or not, this is top notch.
But you're right on one thing for sure, the United States are in decline, and when this day comes up it won't be a bad thing. So many countries are so tied, economically and politically, to the USA that's pretty slavery.

I won't reply on this thread again, at least I shouldn't.