
Capitalism is failing America, says a conservative Republican - howard941
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/capitalism-is-failing-america-says-a-conservative-republican-2019-05-20
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qntty
Weird title, most people know who Marco Rubio is.

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gipp
I find these discussions impossible because on capitalism, like so many
issues, there's really no agreement on what's even under discussion. Depending
on who you're talking to, "capitalism" can mean anything from the capture of
political power by economic power, to just the basic existence of markets,
trade, and private property. Every such discussion inevitably becomes two
people talking past each other about completely different things. Same
spectrum exists for "socialism".

~~~
jimbob45
Rubio's not up for re-election until 2022, so he can push these left-leaning
ideas to try and pull fringe leftists into the party. Later on near election
season, he'll take the hard party line every time.

On that note, I'm not sure this belongs on HN. I don't want this site to
devolve into political editorial discussion every day. There are other sites
for that.

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mfatica
Hopefully you flagged the post and others will as well. I always flag posts
like these because I also hope this site does not devolve into political
editorial discussions every day.

~~~
Maarten88
I read this article just before it got flagged away, and I'm glad to have read
this. I liked this article because it brought me a new insight, or rather it
put into words a feeling I have about the economy: that companies have turned
traditional capitalism around by effectively providing loans to consumers, and
returning capital to shareholders. A very intriguing insight.

As a European I'm not into US politics, it's too bad it has become so divisive
that a discussion is no longer possible, even if it contains relevant insights
that may lead to opportunities for startups.

~~~
mfatica
The article was informative, and I don't believe " it has become so divisive
that a discussion is no longer possible" but simply that hacker news is not
the place for these types of articles.

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legitster
Ignoring the sensationalized headline:

> Over the last four decades, the financial sector of the U.S. economy saw its
> share of corporate profits increase from about 10% to nearly 40% before the
> 2008 financial crisis, and nearly 30% in 2018. During this period, the
> capital that corporations returned to their shareholders tripled, while
> business investment decreased by 20%.

> The report argues that since the 1970s, changes made by American businesses
> and policymakers began prioritizing high returns to investors in the short
> term, rather than investment in long-term capabilities.

You can completely believe in big c "Capitalism" and also believe that we are
doing it badly. And I think blame going on everyone, the MBA class and
lawmakers alike, is pretty fair.

~~~
syn0byte
What a funny coincidence! Lawyer and MBAs are the 2 highest paid careers by an
order of magnitude according to another link on HN[0]

[0][https://www.zippia.com/research/dead-end-
careers/](https://www.zippia.com/research/dead-end-careers/)

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lorriman
A healthy capitalism is expressed by G K Chesterton, and is an argument
against liberal capitalism,which even Thatcher did not support:

“Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few
capitalists.”

Like anything, capitalism must be humanised with restraint and constraint, the
application of intelligent regulations and actively fighting the private
monopolist (Hayek, The Road to Serfdom). For example, to avoid race-to-the-
bottom competition by mandating certain features as non-optional. Or for
safety. Obvious stuff really. And not burdensome regulations to please a Media
campaign or emotional blackmail from the Left.

Liberal capitalism, totally free market capitalism, ends with monopolies as
beast eats beast. It's what Marx criticised though he made no distinction
between capitalism and capitalism.

And this is what has happened, with monopolies so large that their power to
blackmail and bribe is undermining government, threatening free speech and
disenfranchising.

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ppeetteerr
Capitalism says nothing about how to govern a society. The idea that you can
trust a system of exchange with social welfare is lazy governing.

~~~
lorriman
...or trust the government with the education of your children. As much as the
Left sneer at it, a voucher system would give people the liberty to choose the
schools they want and not what they are forced to accept.

Meanwhile, governments support doctrines that have turned out to be false,
even just basic things like diet. Animal fat and dietary cholesterol for
instance, is no longer believed to be the cause of heart disease. And can aid
weight loss.

Social doctrines also are arguably causing widespread misery for people
trapped by government welfare systems at such a high cost that it depresses
local economic activity.

Self-help rather than government help is the conservative way. And a healthy
capitalism is part of that.

The problem here is that modern capitalism is quite evidently not healthy.
With the historical profit margin on goods of 3% now at a mad 11% due to
monopoly power.

~~~
gremlinsinc
> ...or trust the government with the education of your children. As much as
> the Left sneer at it, a voucher system would give people the liberty to
> choose the schools they want and not what they are forced to accept.

As long as everyone gets the same voucher, same amount for voucher, and has
guaranteed public transportation to the same schools as others, with no regard
for race, ethnicity, background, then sure go for vouchers.... if you can't
guarantee those things then it's just another system that can be gamed.

> Meanwhile, governments support doctrines that have turned out to be false,
> even just basic things like diet. Animal fat and dietary cholesterol for
> instance, is no longer believed to be the cause of heart disease. And can
> aid weight loss.

I agree on this because government can be bought and the sugar industry has
done a snap job at turning diet industries upside down blaming fat instead of
themselves.

> Social doctrines also are arguably causing widespread misery for people
> trapped by government welfare systems at such a high cost that it depresses
> local economic activity.

What about welfare that walmart gets? They not only get HUGE tax cuts, they
ALSO get to pay their employees dirt wages because the U.S. government will
pick up the slack.

Guaranteed basic income could stop that or alleviate it at least by giving
them a guaranteed living wage. Another issue is runaway spending on executives
who really aren't worth a damn in (many instances), and those who are still
are NOT worth what they're paid.

Also how does welfare depress local economic activity more than taking money
from the bottom, and funneling it to an offshore account? If A. makes $25k,
and gets government help to raise that to $35k, that's $10k more they have to
spend yearly. 60%+ will be spent locally propping up the local economy. If B.
earns > 10 million annually and gets a huge tax cut that saves them an extra
100k, that 100k is just going to sit in the bank in the Caymen's -- it might
be earning interest for the rich guy but that's about it.

> The problem here is that modern capitalism is quite evidently not healthy.
> With the historical profit margin on goods of 3% now at a mad 11% due to
> monopoly power

Pegging CEO pay to average of ALL employees including outsourced, freelance,
and contractors (even janitorial staff), would go a long way towards making
capitalism more fair.

~~~
lorriman
"As long as everyone gets the same voucher, same amount for voucher, and has
guaranteed public transportation to the same schools as others, with no regard
for race, ethnicity, background, then sure go for vouchers.... if you can't
guarantee those things then it's just another system that can be gamed."

Anything can be gamed if you are adequately cunning. That's the problem of the
"public parasite". And your conditions are arbitrary and ride roughshod over
private liberty and the choices of the parents.

A voucher system would induce the creation of local schools, so the
transportation thing is irrelevent (and in anycase the responsiblity of
parents not the State).

"Pegging CEO pay to average of ALL employees including outsourced, freelance,
and contractors (even janitorial staff), would go a long way towards making
capitalism more fair."

That would result in socialism. A healthy system looks for liberty based
solutions, not coercions. More liberty intelligently applied (as with
vouchers) requires politicans with backbone and brains. Able to withstand
emotional blackmail and do the right thing for the long term instead of
pretending to solve problems by banning stuff and throwing money around.

~~~
gremlinsinc
I don't think you understand what socialism means. It means government
controls and OWNS (thereby we all own) all corporations collectively. My
proposal is not socialism, it's reigned in capitalism.

I mean whether the CEO earns 50 million or is capped at only earning 5 million
is up to him.

All he needs to do is raise wages across the board. Multipliers could be given
also for increased employee#s year to year. --- CEO could still earn plenty,
say it's pegged at 200 * average worker and average worker earns 60k - that's
STILL 12 million per year, hardly anything to scoff at.

Then say you also get an extra 10% bonus allowance for every 1% increase in
employees (you also get docked 10% per 1% decrease), and you increased
employment by 2% over last year, so you get 220* average worker salary or an
extra 1.2 million. Furthermore we could add bonuses based on u.s. to offshore
worker ratio, more U.S. employees = higher CEO pay.

If I'm a CEO earning $10 million, but I want to earn $15 million, I'm going to
have to get creative about increasing the average from 50k to 75k. When all
companies are in this same boat -- wages across America will go up
organically. There almost won't be a need for a minimum wage even.

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KorematsuFred
Conservatives use to be supportive of free market capitalism. But since the
rise of Trump I increasingly see that their main platform is white nativism
and weirdly argued protectionism.

It is worth noting that Trump's protectionism and views on immigration are
nearly same as that of Bernie Sanders. (Motivation might be different but
Trump and Bernie are likely to support exact same actions).

Marco Rubio's statement does not surprise me, it is the general direction in
which Republican party is headed.

~~~
mfatica
What is "white nativism"

~~~
tzs
Nativism [1] pitched specifically to appeal to whites?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_(politics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_\(politics\))

