Hi all,

I’m seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I’m wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I’m pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.

If this isn’t the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I’m happy to take this somewhere else.

Cheers!

  • o_oOPEnglish
    8•1 year ago

    Yes! I’m aware of externalities, and agree that these are a side-effect of capitalism. My belief is that externalities are failures of the governing bodies to correctly define the “rules of ownership”. Once that’s done, the externality is resolved. This is an ongoing effort that’s necessary to properly use capitalism.

    In my opinion, saying “capitalism is bad because of externalities” is like saying “I used an electric saw without installing the safties and it had bad side effects”.

    Quoting my response (link: https://programming.dev/comment/1167093) for how I believe that environmental concerns are an externality that can be addressed here:

    What is your general plan for what we should do when we can see that something we currently do and rely on will have to stop in the near future? Not that we will have to choose to stop it, but that it will stop because of something being depleted or no longer possible.

    This is an interesting question! I’m parsing it to mean “how can the current problems be solved within a capitalist system?”. It’s a good question, and I don’t have a 100% guaranteed answer. But I don’t see that any capitalism alternative has a good answer either, so still I don’t see how capitalism is the “bad guy”.

    In any case, my answer is this: A side effect of all of capitalist driven efficient production is that the environment is harmed. Here, I think the governing bodies have failed in their roles: their role is to define what “capital” means and rules of ownership. They haven’t done that for environmental concerns, which is why capitalism isn’t taking it into account properly. My desired solution is that the government could define a “total amount of carbon emissions” that would be allowed by the country as a whole, and then distribute transferrable carbon credits on the open market. This turns “rights to emit carbon” into a form of capital, and capitalism will do what it do and optimize for it.

    In essence, I believe that governments have done a bad job of using the tool of capitalism to solve the problem of pollution.

    • BarqsHasBiteEnglish
      27•1 year ago

      It’s not a side effect, it’s an effect. It’s a feature. If companies could, they would externalize everything they could. Including paying workers as little as they can (or not at all, see slavery), or externalizing the health problems with the work (see radium girls), etc, etc,

      What you place as failure of the governing body is actually a success of the lobbying industry. You know, capitalism.

      By the way capitalism wants no governing body. You are putting in a factor (govt) which unfettered capitalism does not want to have and (effectively) actively tries to get rid of. And the fun part is you ascribe the failures of capitalism to the government. Funny how that works, huh.

      • o_oOPEnglish
        4•1 year ago

        It’s not a side effect, it’s an effect. It’s a feature. If companies could, they would externalize everything they could. Including paying workers as little as they can (or not at all, see slavery), or externalizing the health problems with the work (see radium girls), etc, etc,

        Right, but they can’t! That’s the whole point of capitalism! Slavery is the pinnacle of anti-capitalism, because slaves don’t own their own capital! It’s explicitly not capitalist.

          • o_oOPEnglish
            3•1 year ago

            Please explain-- what gymnastics?

            Wikipedia definition of capitalism:

            Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.

            If slaves don’t have private ownership… then they’re not living under a capitalist system. Right? What am I missing?

            • brandonEnglish
              14•1 year ago

              Slaves don’t have private ownership of their capital (that is, their own labor)… because someone else does.

              Most “free” workers, in terms of capital, own only their own labor.

              Capitalists own the majority of the capital–land, equipment, intellectual property, etc.

              A system where the workers own the capital (aka the means of production) is socialism.

        • BarqsHasBiteEnglish
          9•1 year ago

          I think I see the problem: You think you have capitalism in the US. You do not have capitalism in the US (or Canada, or Europe). You have regulated capitalism.

          The more capitalism you have, the fewer rules and regulation.

          Capitalism in its true, unfettered form with no rules will give you everything I said: Externalize everything, low/no pay, unsafe conditions, poison your workers, etc, etc,

          But we have regulated some bad parts. This regulation is not the result of capitalism. It expressly goes against capitalism.

          Right, but they can’t! That’s the whole point of capitalism!

          They can’t because we (unions/govt) said hey we need rules on this capitalism, because look at the effects of capitalism.

          So we’re back to the funny part. Now you ascribe the success of unions/government to be the success of capitalism. Funny how that works huh. You’re full package:All the problems of capitalism, you ascribe to government. And all the success of unions/government, you ascribe to capitalism. You have now turned around everything to fit your narrative.

          Slavery is the pinnacle of anti-capitalism

          Slavery, child labor, killing your workers (I don’t think you’ve read about the radium girls) is literally the pinnacle of capitalism. It’s literally what capitalism resulted in, it’s all over history.

        • @mamotromico@lemmy.mlEnglish
          7•1 year ago

          they can’t

          Ah yes of course, that must be why no one ever finds people under working conditions analogous to slavery under capitalist states. Ever. Never happened.

          I’m trying to take this thread seriously, but my man you sound so naive it hursts. I live in a global south country and the ammount of damage done to my society due to both capitalism and imperialism (which benefit from each other, you can’t fully separate them) is revolting. You need to read more and travel more.

        • @jake_eric@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5•1 year ago

          The slaves don’t own capital because they are the capital!

          Nowhere in the definition of capitalism does it require that everyone owns capital; in fact it’s much more the opposite.

      • @galloog1@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        How would giving complete economic power to the government eliminate special interests? Sure, it lowers their economic power in dollar terms but it does not lower their influence or incentives.

        • BarqsHasBiteEnglish
          10•1 year ago

          It’s funny that people think it needs to be 100% one way government has “complete economic power”, or 100% the other way unfettered capitalism, absolutely no rules, no regulation, free for all.

          The short answer is: we need regulation. Businesses can run, but they shouldn’t decide the rules.

          • @galloog1@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2•1 year ago

            Regulation is still capitalism. People in the western left and right seem to have forgotten this. The means of production are owned by private individuals. That’s just laws. It’s an equal playing field. Government programs are where it starts to get muddied.

            • BarqsHasBiteEnglish
              5•1 year ago

              I would say you can have capitalism with regulation. But regulation itself is not capitalism. Rules that are not based on market forces are literally outside capital forces.

              • @galloog1@lemmy.worldEnglish
                0•1 year ago

                Sure but it does not change the system from a capitalist one so it is still capitalism regulated by market forces.

                • BarqsHasBiteEnglish
                  1•1 year ago

                  You are the one that said “complete economic power to the government” and I am the one that said “The short answer is: we need regulation. Businesses can run, but they shouldn’t decide the rules.” Do you see that? “Businesses can run”.

                  so it is still capitalism regulated by market forces.

                  No, it is not regulated only by market forces. We have introduced many, many non-market based regulations and rules. Absolute tons of rules and regulations are not market based. And like I said “Rules that are not based on market forces are literally outside capital forces.”

                  We have regulated capitalism, not “capitalism regulated by market forces”. If you want more see my reply https://lemmy.ca/comment/1421494

                  I predict you’re going to keep doing weird attempts to say “but capitalism” and we’re already at the point where I just point out what I’ve already said, so have fun.