Current Events > Capitalism sounds good on paper, the problem is human nature

(+) Yeah! (+)

Capitalism is based on trust and rewards good actors. If someone messes up or rips someone off, they lose customers. The system seeks efficiency and accounts for bad actors, self correcting and improving at all times.

Our current issue since 2008's "fundamental transformation" of the economy is that the government has put us down the path of mass spending, socialist handouts and subsidies that award personal connections among elites rather than achievement. High taxes and massive debt spending have been very harmful to the economy.

ATeamsCourier posted...

Capitalism is based on trust and rewards good actors.

That's a good joke

ATeamsCourier posted...

Capitalism is based on trust and rewards good actors.

Capitalism rewards doing illegal things the most actually. Good actors get swallowed up and bought out.

XBoner posted...

what? why can't he say things like that?

Because it's not based on anything factual. It's just something conservatives say as if it's a self-evident truth, even though many psychologists would disagree with them.

Prismsblade posted...

Rome was a thing 2000 years ago, even if Capitalism as a word wasn't.

Capitalism isn't just when people make and sell stuff for money. How many times do I need to explain this?

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Because it's not based on anything factual. It's just something conservatives say as if it's a self-evident truth, even though many psychologists would disagree with them.

You shouldn't ask a psychologist. Ask a historian.

Webmaster4531 posted...

You shouldn't ask a psychologist. Ask a historian.

A psychologist would have a better grasp on how the human brain works, independent of any external pressures or conditions

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

A psychologist would have a better grasp on how the human brain works, independent of any external pressures or conditions

What makes you think that?

Webmaster4531 posted...

What makes you think that?

Because that's literally their field?

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Because that's literally their field?

It's also a historian's.

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

They can't make claims about what human nature "innately" is.

What makes you say that?

You know Jordan Peterson is a professor of psychology?

ellis123 posted...

It is not, no. Average wealth has decreased year by year which means that the average person is less wealthy. Similarly those that make money have a disproportionate boost from posterity, making it so the average person who actually is poor as a % of the population is essentially never breaking out.

I dont dispute your supporting arguments but they do not lead to your conclusion. If you had said that its getting harder to go from being poor to moderately wealthy, I would agree with you. Thats not the same as claiming that its mostly impossible.

the_pika posted...

True capitalism is good.

you know even Adam Smith said capitalism needs a middle class, competition and things like that.

what we have now is a rigged system, an oligarchy with no competition and an open war on the middle class.

what u described IS true capitalism

what you seem to be defending is some half assed socialized democracy

Webmaster4531 posted...

It's also a historian's.

It's literally not.

True capitalism is unregulated capitalism and when its unregulated its bad. You need more regulations to fix capitalism, but apparently regulations arent conservative/American enough and too left-wing so theres no movement to get more regulations implemented

at the end of the day, America will never have good capitalism because true capitalism is more important to the 1%

Human nature doesn't exist. Stop this enlightenment propaganda.

Glob posted...

I dont dispute your supporting arguments but they do not lead to your conclusion. If you had said that its getting harder to go from being poor to moderately wealthy, I would agree with you. Thats not the same as claiming that its mostly impossible.

So if a 92% failure rate doesn't qualify as "mostly impossible," what number does? 95%? 99%?

Because if that's all you're worried about, good news! The success rate is shrinking year on year. So just give it a minute, and it'll satisfy you before too long.

Personally, I feel like it's splitting hairs, and that any failure rate in the 90% range should easily meet the "mostly impossible" criteria, but hey. You do you.

ATeamsCourier posted...

Capitalism is based on trust and rewards good actors. If someone messes up or rips someone off, they lose customers. The system seeks efficiency and accounts for bad actors, self correcting and improving at all times.

Which is of course why price gouging, climate change and long running collusion schemes have never occured.

I hate the way profit maximization is defended and described as "amoral" when it seems to inherently lead to immoral practices in the pursuit of maximizing profits as much as possible. Anything they give to employees in way of benefits and income hurts their profits, thus they are incentivized to offer as little as possible. We have to have so many regulations because of profit maximization; if that company could save even a single $1 by dumping toxic sludge into a lake and destroying an entire ecosystem they absolutely will.

Profiting is obviously ok and the desired outcome, the pursuit of unlimited profits and always seeking more is what has been so detrimental to society.

Kradek posted...

if that company could save even a single $1 by dumping toxic sludge into a lake and destroying an entire ecosystem they absolutely will.

And because the first duty of a corporation under capitalism is to maximize shareholder value, to not dump that sludge into the lake in order to save that dollar would be unethical.

Capitalism is human nature.
That's why it works so well.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Capitalism is human nature.

Hence why there is a constant state of people making media in which humans are the problem.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Capitalism is human nature.

Absolutely not lol.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Capitalism is human nature.
That's why it works so well.

What is human nature to you?

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

What is human nature to you?

Accumulate stuff, keep that other guy from taking your stuff.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Accumulate stuff, keep that other guy from taking your stuff.

The relevant Ayn Rand quote:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/6/7/AAEv3mAAEyHr.jpg

Questionmarktarius posted...

Accumulate stuff, keep that other guy from taking your stuff.

Based on what?

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Based on what?

We always organize ourselves into feudalistic systems, and capitalism is a variant that accepts being about who accumulated the most, instead of pretending there's some 'divine providence' to kings and lords.

Questionmarktarius posted...

We always organize ourselves into feudalistic systems, and capitalism is a variant that accepts being about who accumulated the most, instead of pretending there's some 'divine providence' to kings and lords.

You are confusing religion and power. Both a monarchy and capitalistic society is based on the same principle of the accumulation of wealth dictating who has the power. In both scenarios the disruption of such power comes from the same abnormalities and in the same extremely unlikely ways.

Questionmarktarius posted...

We always organize ourselves into feudalistic systems, and capitalism is a variant that accepts being about who accumulated the most, instead of pretending there's some 'divine providence' to kings and lords.

The primary reason we always organize ourselves into feudalistic systems isn't because of human nature but because of resource scarcity. Obviously, if you operate under the belief that there isn't enough to go around for everyone, you not only get protective over your shit, you might go out to take other people's shit.

But the thing is...that doesn't really apply to the modern world anymore. We produce way faster than we consume, so much so that we can reasonably provide the basic needs for most people, if not everyone, on the planet. The problem is capitalism is continuing to perpetuate the myth that there's not enough to go around and so we still think in terms of a feudalistic mindset. But that's not human nature, that's just social conditioning.

ellis123 posted...

The relevant Ayn Rand quote:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/6/7/AAEv3mAAEyHr.jpg

what is rand talking about in that quote? she considers altruism evil? do most of you guys think positively of ayn rand, i've heard of her before

XBoner posted...

what is rand talking about in that quote? she considers altruism evil? do most of you guys think positively of ayn rand, i've heard of her before

Nah, fuck that lady

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Nah, fuck that lady

why do you dislike her though? i know very little about rand. Have met at least one guy who was a huge fan of hers

IIRC Ayn Rand was a gigantic Libertarian and hated poor people.

wanderingshade posted...

IIRC Ayn Rand was a gigantic Libertarian and hated poor people.

Who was also on welfare.

wanderingshade posted...

IIRC Ayn Rand was a gigantic Libertarian and hated poor people.

Not even. She hated libertarians, and thought they were wishy washy pseudo anarchists.

She was so fuck8ng pro-free-market that she thought REAGAN was too socialist.

She was so individualist that she frequently wrote about altruism being a moral failing, even if done on an individual level.

She opposed end8ng segregation, because she thought it was morally repugnant for the government to tell businesses to do anything.

She thought the abolition of slavery was wrong for the same reason. If it was to end, the free market should have decided it.

She genuinely believed in "great man theory," which means that every successful enterprise owes itself to its CEO, "men of the mind," who deserved everything, and that if anyb9ne of them left, their entire enterprise would crumvle without their leadership. This is a core plot point of her magnum opus, Atlus Shrugged.

She was a raging egomaniac who refused to take questions from people she deemed "intellectually inferior" (read: "anyone who disagrees with her"), and ran a legit cult with herself as it's head for most of her life.

She also railed against the push to quit smoking, deeming the science to be bunk. She died due to throat cancer or something similar, iirc.

She also spent the last decade of her life living off of government welfare/health care, so there's that

Fuck ayn Rand. It's unsurprising she's so popular with the right. She encapsulates everything they believe, right down to the blind, self destructive hypocrisy.

DarkBuster22904 posted...

She also spent the last decade of her life living off of government welfare/health care, so there's that

Yeah, this is the part that really shows she was just a "fuck you, got mine" person as opposed to being someone with principles

Libertarian goddess: zombie ayn rand

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hsspXHADa4c

Kradek posted...

I hate the way profit maximization is defended and described as "amoral" when it seems to inherently lead to immoral practices in the pursuit of maximizing profits as much as possible. Anything they give to employees in way of benefits and income hurts their profits, thus they are incentivized to offer as little as possible. We have to have so many regulations because of profit maximization; if that company could save even a single $1 by dumping toxic sludge into a lake and destroying an entire ecosystem they absolutely will.

Profiting is obviously ok and the desired outcome, the pursuit of unlimited profits and always seeking more is what has been so detrimental to society.

They tell themselves "It's nothing personal, it's just business." And then do the most immoral or greedy things.

capitalism sounds horrible no matter how you twist and turn it

Socialism sounds good on paper, the problem is human nature.

ftfy

Notti posted...

They tell themselves "It's nothing personal, it's just business." And then do the most immoral or greedy things.

Capitalism pretty much always requires the implied threat of violence to function.

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Capitalism pretty much always requires the implied threat of violence to function.

Nope. That would be socialism.

Mike_Stanton posted...

Socialism sounds good on paper, the problem is human nature.

ftfy

Care to elaborate? Is that all you got?

ModernPost posted...

Care to elaborate? Is that all you got?

I'll save you the trouble.

"Stalin and North Korea are bad, and that proves socialism doesn't work.

ModernPost posted...

Care to elaborate? Is that all you got?

With pleasure. Socialism is based on the extremely naive assumption that human nature is malleable and can be altered to make people altruistic. Capitalism on the other hand is more or less based on the idea that human nature will always be greedy and selfish, and that we can't depend on people acting out of the common good like socialism naively does. Instead risky decisions such as opening a business without knowing if it will be successful or not must be incentivized by allowing entrepreneurs to reap the financial benefits of their decisions. Not doing so would be dependent on people taking personal financial risks just to benefit the whole of society, which of course would be dependent on people not being greedy or selfish. So in a nutshell, Capitalism puts human nature to good use, socialism does not. Of course, there's more to why socialism sucks than just human nature , but I (Butters) wouldn't want to put too much on your plate at once.

DarkBuster22904 posted...

I'll save you the trouble.

"Stalin and North Korea are bad, and that proves socialism doesn't work.

Don't forget Cuba, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, Albania, Poland, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, China, Tanzania, Laos, South Yemen, Somalia, the Congo, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, and every other failed socialist experiment.

Dark_Arbron posted...

It would be mostly fine if we could apply the following fixes.

1. The rich start paying their share of tax.
2. Tax funds are allocated more to social services.
3. Workers are given more protections and better pay.
4. People stop believing the propaganda about "hard work" and accept their caste.

Billionaires would still exist, but we wouldn't be as critical of them. As long as they contribute.

What do you consider a fair share of tax? I'll use rounded low numbers to keep it simple.

Lets say everyone pays 5% tax, regardless of income. If someone makes 100 dollars, they pay 5 dollars of taxes. If someone makes 1.000 dollars, they pay 50 dollars of taxes. So you earn 10 times as much, but also pay 10 times as much taxes.

Basically, the higher the income, the higher the taxes. Seems like a fair enough system to me?

Nazanir posted...

What do you consider a fair share of tax? I'll use rounded low numbers to keep it simple.

Lets say everyone pays 5% tax, regardless of income. If someone makes 100 dollars, they pay 5 dollars of taxes. If someone makes 1.000 dollars, they pay 50 dollars of taxes. So you earn 10 times as much, but also pay 10 times as much taxes.

Basically, the higher the income, the higher the taxes. Seems like a fair enough system to me?

It depends on your goal. If it is to have everything be proportional, then yes that is fair. If your goal is a functioning society, then it is not.

Mike_Stanton posted...

Socialism is based on the extremely naive assumption that human nature is malleable and can be altered to make people altruistic.

You don't actually know that this isn't true (and most data suggests that it is). Simple calling something naive isn't an argument.

Also "human nature" isn't real.

ellis123 posted...

It depends on your goal. If it is to have everything be proportional, then yes that is fair. If your goal is a functioning society, then it is not.

But why not? More income means more taxes for the state.

Nazanir posted...

But why not? More income means more taxes for the state.

It would be less than under current systems. In addition it makes no attempts at stopping the hoarding of wealth causing a slide upwards in prices of staple goods thar everyone would inherently need.