
Eric Weinstein on the crisis of late capitalism - lgregg
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/25/15998002/eric-weinstein-capitalism-socialism-revolution
======
classichasclass
I think it's interesting, but limiting, how he focuses on the creative arts as
a solution: "to remind ourselves that the hotel maid who makes up our bed may
in fact be an amateur painter? The accountant who does our taxes may well have
a screenplay that he works on after the midnight hour?"

I'll submit that many, maybe even most, folks do not have these levels of
creative aptitude. Moreover, the majority of creative output is crap to the
majority of its consumers. I agree that the educational system is primarily
ill-equipped to get people out of the current mentalities of employment, but I
also think that there will be a certain, possibly large, subpopulation that
doesn't have the aptitude or interest to do these sorts of things, even if
there were such "magical training" to generate creative output that was
valuable and desirable to most other people.

Even for the other fields he cited, like engineers, hedge-fund managers, etc.,
these currently require a high level of education and experience. No amount of
training will reach the non-academically-inclined.

I think the future of people in the jobs that technology replaces is either to
move to the direct service industry, which is much more difficult to automate
and becomes more difficult to automate as the service level becomes higher, or
abjectly falling out of the economy. Not everyone can paint or write a
screenplay, and not everyone wants to.

~~~
smadge
You are mentioning retraining people who have already been through the
education system. Weinstein is advocating restructuring the education system
from one that creates docile workers who perform repetitive tasks for a wage
to one that encourages creativity and initiative. I also think you
underestimate how many people have given up their passion to the reality that
they need to plug themselves into capitalism to survive. If given an
opportunity to pursue that passion instead of living paycheck to paycheck I
think we might see a intellectual and cultural golden age.

~~~
classichasclass
No, I think you overestimate it. There's this belief that circulates that
people's occupations or pursuits are determined by their circumstances;
they're bricklayers or plumbers or whatever due to a combination of factors
beyond their control, and given the right magical combination of
UBI/education/retraining/pixie dust, they'll move to some other job.

Meanwhile, my father-in-law was a tradie since he was a kid and even in
retirement, supposedly freed of any occupational needs or financial necessity,
he still does it because he likes to. I don't see him writing a screenplay or
orchestrating a symphony. It's not his bag.

I agree that re-education and first education are certainly two different
things, and I even agree that we would get more people interested in the
creative pursuits if they were inculcated in them at an early age, but I
disagree that this is the entire solution or even a substantial part of it
because not everyone has that inclination.

~~~
sewercake
I think you're conflating trades, which often provide solid incomes, and lots
of room for creativity, learning, and skill-development, with mind-numbing
service jobs like being a cashier, delivery drivers, or call-center employees.

There is also some conflation between 'creativity', and 'artistic
inclinations'. Lots of things require creativity, artistic practices only
being one of them.

~~~
codebje
My brother-in-law prefers a mind-numbing job. He was a cashier for many years,
until they promoted him to management and he had to have his mind "in the job"
even outside of work hours, then switched to being a delivery driver, which is
working out as his dream job - he can listen to sports broadcasts while
driving, and when the deliveries are done, so is the job. No part of it comes
home.

He has a degree in sports journalism, so he can be creative, and learn, and
develop skills, it's that he doesn't want to do that for a job.

~~~
aninhumer
I suspect the reason he doesn't want that job is that he doesn't want the
stress and responsibilities associated with that job, not that he doesn't like
being creative.

------
bhouston
It is not a coincidence that upon the reduction of taxes on the rich in the us
we get a widening gap between the rich and the poor.

There is a straight forward way to address this (estate taxes and high taxes
on the wealthy) but for some reason this is never the solution.

Instead many go out of their way to say that this gap may persist (and of
course many ultra rich would like this) and that we need to come up with a way
that the non-rich will not rise up.

I have to say that seems self-interested.

~~~
jeremiep
Its not like the poor is going down, they're also going up but not nearly as
fast. Almost all of our poor people are rich by global standards is an
argument I hear often. Most poor also end up middle class as they grow up,
take responsibility and contribute to society is another I hear.

I lived in poverty for years after dropping out of college, sometimes with
roommates that were way beyond toxic, worked multiple jobs 70 hours a week
just to pay rent and food and still ended up middle class with a job I love;
I've been through hell to find heaven. What I learned on the way I now use
every day, its made me a stronger and better person and I can now help others
do the same.

If someone had given me what I have today, just for the sake of equality, I
would not have learned responsibility, discipline, I would hardly have
developed most of the skills I now have and probably would've lost all of it
by now. I would basically still be an angsty teen in an adult's body, which is
what kept me poor in the first place.

~~~
bhouston
Notice I didn't argue for basic income or any other specific redistribution
scheme (I like cost effective schools and low cost health care though) rather
i argued for things that end rich dynasties that purpetuate inequality across
generations.

I think each generation should earn their riches rather than rich dynasties
persisting across generations. I favor capitalism and inequality of outcome
but earned capitalism from at least a relative equal start.

~~~
jeremiep
I see your point, thanks for the precision. I can agree perpetuated inequality
does give kids a huge head start.

Taxation is already high for the rich, but the top bracket is usually quite
low. I don't think the solution is more taxes, but more tax brackets; they
should scale to accommodate the extra rich.

~~~
bhouston
The very rich also tend to hide their money offshore or play games with
multiple residencies to find the best tax rates.

------
nannotequalnan
In my humble opinion, wealth inequality is the root of the issue -- to the
point where a hedge fund MD can write, not ironically, and I actually thought
the article was good, about how much richer people above them are.

That and an increasing lack of socioeconomic mobility. I remember as an
adolescent, thinking that professional careers (generally) were a meritocracy,
and then slowly realizing they were, for the most part, far from that,
although cleverly disguised as such to outsiders.

~~~
debacle
I think the right and the left recognize that wealth inequality is the issue.
The problem seems to be the degree to which we correct that inequality.

In the general sense, some want an extreme (do nothing) or another (full
economic equality). I think that really frames the discussion difficulty.

What it seems like is starting to arise is a sort of moral justification for a
change in society. Rand's objectivism was a staunch endorsement of a brutal
form of capitalism that saw a large divide between the wealthy and the common
man. You might argue that objectivism is the philosophical opposite of
Marxism. Weinstein and his peers are seemly exploring the moral territory
between the two and focusing on what is right, rather than what is pragmatic.

This might be a useful progression from what's being called late capitalism to
another system which has most or all of the benefits of capitalism, without
the difficult cyclical problems.

~~~
nannotequalnan
i think (it's always hard to know for certain, because this is a pretty deep
subject) that I agree with everything you said.

on difficulty in framing discussion: I agree that there can be two extremes,
and discussions always seem to get bogged down in labeling due to these
ingrained notion of what is good and bad. Is communism bad? most americans
would probably say yes because that's what we learned in school. but i would
argue (and I think based on what you said you'd agree) that there's no system
inherently good or bad (within reason), it's just execution, implementation,
situation etc that causes certain systems to be good or bad. I would argue the
scandinavians, from what little I know, have done quite well, whereas most
wealthy americans would take up pitchforks at that level of taxation.

and to be honest, i never was a big fan of ayn rand. it seemed to take too
strong of a stance, as if there was no room to even consider if, in fact,
greed (I guess they would call it something like individualism or great men or
something like that) might actually be bad in some cases, or if the invisible
hand might be leaving a large portion of the population in generational
poverty (and simultaneously ensuring the top stay on top). my 2c is that
nothing is 100% good or bad, it's situational, and there's a lot of gray
areas.

lastly, at the risk of babbling on, it would be great if you are right, that
there is some aspect of morality (along with, to weinstein's point, self-
preservation) to the discussion. is it wrong for bezos to be worth $X billion,
while a large portion of his workers live paycheck to paycheck? is it wrong
that larry, sergei and the other tech elite live in an area that also suffers
from rampant homelessness? at the least, I absolutely think it's a valid moral
question to ask.

To your last point, I agree. I think capitalism worked pretty well for a long
time when a rising tide lifted all boats, but that it's time to evolve with
the times.

~~~
debacle
I think the critics of Rand ignore the speculative nature of her works and
focus too much on the ad hominem.

Anthem was a really good work about the dangers to an individual of a
collectivist utilitarian society. I think it should be regarded up there with
1984 and Brave New World. Atlas Shrugged was a bad work of art with a keen
idea. In a lot of ways, I don't think Rand had any idea what she was writing
about and fetishized her own works into this strange hypercapitalist ideal.
The idea that society could be abandoned by "the one percent" and left to
languish has become a common theme of modern science fiction, especially in
young adult fiction and anime.

Capitalism will still work from the perspective of human progress, but the
progress is becoming less and less shared. Spreading out the wealth curve will
logically increase human development as those with potential receive more
opportunity.

------
lumberjack
One "problem" with western liberal democracies is that the billionaires are
not tied to the land. This means that they are less concerned about the future
of any one particular country. They can just relocate with ease. It also makes
them less likely to invest considerable time and effort in trying to shape any
one particular country because some other faction might take over power in a
few years and all their work will be lost.

This is in contrast with countries like China where the CCP oligarchs are more
or less tied to their country. That is the so called technocracy. It is not
that they are any better than western billionaires. They just have no choice
but to ensure the future stability of the only country in which the can retain
their high status.

Now, I say "problem" because do we really want to recreate a new aristocracy?

~~~
analog31
If they aren't creating jobs or otherwise stimulating prosperity, would it be
a great loss if they relocated to somewhere else? Due to their political
influence, their net impact on society may be negative.

~~~
lumberjack
What I am saying is that because they do not care, they stop society from
dealing with these problems until it is too late. Climate change is the
obvious example.

~~~
codebje
Climate change is a global problem, so you cannot move countries to escape it.
The best you can plan for is to move to minimise its impact on you personally
for as long as possible, which is fine if you only expect to live another
30-50 years and don't give a crap about the next generations.

------
Animats
This is an important subject, but a marginal article. Now I have to read more
of Weinstein's writings.

There are some key points there. A crucial one is "why did capitalism work"?
Some preconditions were required. One seems to be growth. Piketty makes that
point at length of course, as have others. Capitalism did not create growth;
technology did. Before the Industrial Revolution, GDP in Europe increased by a
few percent per _century_.

Weinstein makes a less common point: the capitalist working and middle class
depended on "the ability to train briefly in one's youth so as to acquire a
reliable skill that can be repeated consistently with small variance
throughout a lifetime, leading to what we've typically called a career or
profession". That's broken down. Few people now have the same job for a
lifetime. Or even a few years, now. For most people, the return on investment
for higher education has gone negative. And, as he points out, any repetitive
job is likely to be automated.

Weinstein makes the usual mistake of jumping from trying to identify the
problem to proposing solutions. One of Piketty's strengths is that he admits
he doesn't have a solution. Proposing solutions too soon turns the problem
political too soon.

Weinstein has an incredible resume.[1]

[1]
[https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/experts/eweinstein](https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/experts/eweinstein)

~~~
thraway180306
_Now I have to read more of Weinstein 's writings_

Start with the one on how currencies and stocks behave like elementary
particles in gauge fields. I stopped there, it was not just bad thinking, but
torturous and clumsy twisting of physics bordering on crackpottery, just to
jump on the bandwagon while the mainstream economics suffered acute physics
envy. Now that mainstream narrative has changed he suddenly discovers
philosophical issues and himself an inner philosopher.

I find it disgraceful that as per the linked bio "He delivered the Special
Simonyi Lectures at Oxford University in 2013 putting forth a theory he termed
“Geometric Unity” to unify the twin geometries (Riemannian and Ehresmannian)
thought to ground the two most fundamental physical theories". These are
outreach lecutres to lay public. To my knowledge "twin geometries" aren't
"thought to ground" anything by anyone else than Eric Weinstein so that's
misleading at best. Especially that he apparently didn't bother to write up
what he means, even clumsily, much less to publish.

In fact he didn't publish anything in a physics venue ever at all. MathSciNet
indexing math journals also returns zilch.

~~~
Animats
Ouch. Thanks.

------
discreteevent
It has been said before in many ways but I think it's still true that it's
really hard for any human (or system) to change their actions without feedback
(sometimes even painful feedback). The richer your are the further you are
away from that. Some people of course, will change, but on average it just
won't happen.

------
svantana
> Certain fields will need to undergo a process of radical deregulation in
> order to give the minority of minds that are capable of our greatest feats
> of creation the leeway to experiment and to play, as they deliver us the
> wonders on which our future economy will be based

Wow, that's some top-shelf Ayn Randian bullshit. Our only salvation is to let
the super-entrepreneurs do whatever they want! No mention of which regulations
are so inhibitory, environmental maybe? If only we could dump toxic waste into
rivers, then we could turn profits and be happy. /s

~~~
bokonon12
It would works amazingly when the goals of self-interest and greed are aligned
with what's in the best interest of everyone... And we all know how often that
turns out to be true

------
Upvoter33
As an educator, I'm always quite puzzled by comments such as Weinstein's. He
states that "we have an educational system that's based on taking our natural
penchant for exploration and fashioning it into a willingness to take on mind-
numbing routine." But there's a problem: to really learn something deeply, you
have to do hard work; it's not all just fun + creativity to grok the inner-
workings of a microprocessor (or whatever you're into). So you get forced to
go down these paths, with lots of work along the way, so you can finally
understand something deep. Only then can you innovate, because you have a
solid understanding of the state of the art.

Imagine if he wrote this line instead: "to remind ourselves that the hotel
maid who makes up our bed may in fact be a microprocessor designer? The
accountant who does our taxes may well have a new surgical procedure that he
works on after the midnight hour?" It would just sound ridiculous.

The reality is that study and hard work, all part of the current educational
system (esp. at the high end), all are needed to move society forward, not
people writing screenplays.

------
adamnemecek
I can’t wait for the current educational system to die. It’s funny, quite a
bit of current educational system is based on ideas of Comenius, however he
himself would be appalled by the current state.

------
matell
here is one project which is trying to solve the welth distribution
inequality: [https://merit.world/](https://merit.world/)

they claim that root cause of inequality comes from the fact that signalling
and exchange value of money is nowadays coupled together (i.e. dollar is used
for exchange of goods as well as to signal to the public that you a rich
person).

they try to separate this two ingredients, so that there will be sort of two
currencies, one for exchange, and the other for signalling (kind of likes in
facebook world).

------
drallison
Certainly a must read by anyone concerned about our society, politics, and the
future. Eric is deep thinker with traditional intellectual roots and a
mathematician's disciplined mind.

------
jgalt212
The problems of late stage capitalism can be attributed in roughly equal
portions to ZIRP, cronyism and unfettered globalization. None of the above are
endemic to capitalism.

e.g. I saw a brand name 55" TV in Best Buy for $279. That's roughly two day's
wages at the new proposed $15/hr minimum wage. Something is deeply busted
here. Tariffs are not gonna make dent in consumer demand for a product that is
already way too cheap.

ZIRP, it's been shown greatly benefits the 0.1% and has marginal benefits for
others. This is basically was Piketty has been decrying, but he seems to miss
the dependence on the level of interest rates to the outsized return on
capital over the last 40 years.

Cronyism basically explains why Obama put no bankers in jail and AIG was
bailed out so they could pay off their end of the world puts to Goldman. And
now Trump has his own cronies. However, it's hard to easily prove cronyism has
been increasing over the long term, pretty easy to prove over the short term.

~~~
abecedarius
Why are cheap TVs a problem? I don't understand that part of what you're
saying.

FWIW, I think the biggest missing piece in this discussion is to directly
address the lower productivity growth. I think _technologically_ there's
plenty of runway still for higher productivity, if we weren't collectively
sabotaging ourselves in poorly-understood ways. (Not that I claim to
understand just how we're doing it. Only that we're nowhere near the limits of
the possible with technology.)

------
almostdeadguy
Infuriating interview for almost any socialist today, by which I mean the
majority of people who identify with the marxist or (real, actually non-
hierarchical and anti-statist) anarchist conception of the word.

Not to mention an embarrassingly bad and mystical account of the beliefs of
the "enlightened billionaire class" and an astoundingly ahistorical account of
how any rights for the marginalized were won in the 20th century. This is the
same "englightened billionaire class" whose extractivist industries are
pushing the planet ever closer ecological collapse, massive numbers of climate
refugees, increasing militarization over resource control, etc.

~~~
smadge
To be fair to Weinstein, he is saying that the enlightened self interest of
the billionaire class to find a solution to capitalism arises from the threat
of insurrection and the collapse their power. He describes Occupy as a
peaceful warning shot to the ruling class. Next time they might not get off so
easy.

~~~
almostdeadguy
It superficially resembles the Marxist account of the bourgeoisie as
responsible for their own downfall ("what the Bourgeoisie therefore produces,
above all, are its own grave diggers"), but he ascribes it more to a
philanthropic change of heart or concern about their legacy.

> I think it's a combination of both embarrassment and enlightened self-
> interest that this class — several rungs above my own — is trying to make
> sure it does not sow the seeds of a highly destructive societal collapse,
> and I believe I have seen an actual personal transformation in many of the
> leading thinkers among the technologists, where they have come to care
> deeply about the effects of their work. Few of them want to be remembered as
> job killers who destroyed the gains that have accumulated since the
> Industrial Revolution.

> So I think that in terms of wanting to leave a socially positive legacy,
> many of them are motivated to innovate through concepts like universal basic
> income, finding that Washington is as bereft of new ideas in social terms as
> it is of new technological ones.

I mean the entire idea is bullshit to me. UBI is not socialist and Elon Musk
talking about UBI is poor evidence of any sensitivity to the plight of workers
or even recognition that things will end badly for them if we stay on course
by the bourgeoisie at large.

Fighting the UAW yet talking about UBI isn't being a "woke billionaire" or
something, that's absurd.

~~~
Thriptic
It plays better than saying that at least some portion of the rich recognize
that the current course is unsustainable and will result in violent revolution
or asset seizure, and so they are willing to work towards finding some sort of
solution out of self interest.

------
dmfdmf
> Why capitalism won’t survive without socialism.

This is nothing new. In the last century there was a movement for a "third
way" which meant some kind of compromise between Capitalism and Socialism. The
goal was to combine Capitalism and Socialism to somehow create a hybrid with
all the advantages and wealth creation of Capitalism combined with the
socialist goals of the welfare state and other boondoggles. This is an
impossible goal and the two systems cannot be combined, mixed or grafted
together. They really are opposites and any hybrid is unstable.

You (you, specifically) either have the right to live your life as you see fit
or you are fodder for the state's goals and plans, regardless of the
rationalization or your agreement with such plans. The end point and most
consistent form of Socialism is Communism which is an evil system of sacrifice
of all to all. Fascism is also a type of Socialism and also based on
sacrificing the individual to state, nation or race and equally deadly.
Explain to me; what does Capitalism, historically the freest and most
productive and pro-life political/economic system have to gain by combining
with any variant of Socialism, systems that have a track record of mass death
and destruction?

What makes these debates impossible to resolve is that the current system is
not Capitalism but a mixed system of freedoms and controls which, by the logic
of events, is driven toward some variant of Socialism as the dominant ethics
demands.

Saving Capitalism requires a new ethical system that holds individual rights
as an absolute and that a major evil is the sacrifice of the individual to the
state, regardless of its form. Weinstein needs to get out of politics or
economics or technology and start thinking very hard about ethics.

~~~
almostdeadguy
> The end point and most consistent form of Socialism is Communism which is an
> evil system of sacrifice of all to all.

Almost every "communist" state perceived themselves as a state in the
socialist mode of production for which communism had not been reached yet.
There were "communist parties" in these states that were seen as overseers of
the task of transitioning to communism and "communist" became a convenient
shorthand in the west for the governments of second world nations. "USSR"
means "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics".

Furthermore, the organization of society under ML(M) countries was not
perceived to be socialist by theorists from the left communist, trotskyist,
syndicalist, and anarchist traditions of socialism who developed ideas like
state capitalism, the degenerated workers state, and bureaucratic collectivism
to characterize the USSR and their satellites. For many of these theorists,
the fact that the USSR had commodity production and waged labor made them non-
socialist (libertarian communists go further and suggest that the punitive
state apparatus is incompatible with socialism as well).

> Fascism is also a type of Socialism and also based on sacrificing the
> individual to state, nation or race and equally deadly. Explain to me; what
> does Capitalism, historically the freest and most productive and pro-life
> political/economic system have to gain by combining with any variant of
> Socialism, systems that have a track record of mass death and destruction?

This is Hayek's characterization in "The Road To Serfdom", which has been
strongly rebuked by almost every socialist and expert historian on fascism I'm
aware of including Robert Paxton, Ernesto Laclau, and Umberto Eco.

It can't account for the fact that fascisms "anti-capitalist" threats were
almost always tied to a kind of national chauvinism that attacked "rootless
cosmopolitans" and other anti-semitic and nationalist imagined boogiemen
(Nazism for instance went to great lengths to distinguish between "Jewish
capital" and "productive capital"). To the extent that industries were
expropriated, it was to consolidate a national identity and dispossess
perceived national enemies, however the fascists also pumped millions into the
national bourgeoisie and arms manufacturers with no interest in collectivizing
them. Oskar Schindler is only comprehensible with this understanding, as a
German national who was well integrated into the nazi party and saw fascist
Germany as an opportunity to extract greater profits with the fascist laws
setting wages for Jewish people.

Fascists greatly deemphasized class conflict, killed socialists in the
earliest days of their rule, purged or killed the Strasserist third-
positionist members from their ranks (don't mistake that for sympathy with
Strasserists, they were just as bad, even if they're sometimes characterized
as "the left wing of the Nazis"), outlawed unions, lowered the wages of
workers, and waged battles in pursuit of imperialist conquest. A large part of
fascism's success must be traced to collaboration with the national
bourgeoisie and urban petty bourgeoisie as a reaction to the enormous growth
of socialist parties in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Russia. A socialism that
allied with the bourgeoisie and preserved private property rights and their
accumulation of capital is an absolutely baffling idea.

In almost no sense are they legible as "socialist" and it's telling that Hayak
was quick to characterize them as such yet worked for his mentor von Mises
while he was an economic advisor to Austrian fascists (von Mises also went on
to characterize fascism as a movement which "for the moment, saved European
Culture").

That's not even getting into the attitudes of every socialist of the time,
which you can read about in almost every work published by a socialist after
1922 (and especially in the works of socialists under fascist regimes such as
Antonio Gramsci).

Socialism is not "government centralization" and to say this is to basically
ignore the entire body of works of socialists informed by the Marxist
tradition (which is to say, basically every socialist of the past 150 years
even if they don't call themselves a "Marxist"). Socialism and capitalism are
completely irreconcilable modes of production, and the only people who claim
otherwise are generally social democrats and third-positionist fascists (for
both of whom, socialism means partial nationalization of industries).

Socialism and capitalism as opposite poles on a gradient of "anti-statism" is
a convenient characterization for right libertarians who are happy to use the
former USSR as a boogieman and completely brush over the coercive state
apparatuses in every capitalist state (what are Angola, San Quentin, Rikers,
etc. if not gulags?) that has ever existed and the fact that property rights
and commercial exchange are features of a society that requires a state to
enforce them. The "freest and most pro-life economic system" which was built
on the transatlantic slave trade and genocide and dispossession of indigenous
people from their lands (and which has been at continuous war with countries
from the global south since after WW2).

~~~
almostdeadguy
One thing I meant to add before the edit window closed - this is the most
baffling part of your argument to me:

> Explain to me; what does Capitalism, historically the freest and most
> productive and pro-life political/economic system have to gain by combining
> with any variant of Socialism, systems that have a track record of mass
> death and destruction?

> What makes these debates impossible to resolve is that the current system is
> not Capitalism but a mixed system of freedoms and controls which, by the
> logic of events, is driven toward some variant of Socialism as the dominant
> ethics demands.

In this incoherent account of history, you believe capitalism to have the most
historical successes of any economic system, yet current systems to be
unrepresentative of capitalism? No doubt there's a delta, capitalist economies
are not transhistorically invariant, but (entertaining your understanding of
what it means to be capitalist) do you really think post-feudal nations (for
instance, 17th-18th century England or 19th century Germany) had small or
weakly coercive states? When did "capitalism" begin and end in your opinion?

The irony is heightened because the delta between now and post-feudal
societies is largely a result of workers agitating for additional rights and
welfare reforms, something you'd think a supporter of "individual liberties"
would support.

I don't consider the soviet bloc states to be socialist so I don't find this
to be a good argument in any case, but I always find it interesting that
proponents of capitalism have a slippery account of what is capitalist that
rejects or embraces societies as capitalist to fit a narrative of the system's
success when its convenient (while often accusing libertarian socialists of
advocating something "impossible" or without historical precedent).

~~~
dmfdmf
I identified the basic principle by which to judge societies, i.e. individual
rights, regardless of what the social/political/economic system is called by
their advocates or detractors nor the details of their legal manifestation.
Does the society sacrifice individuals to the collective? That is the
essential and though there are many variants I don't think it is complicated
to understand, though you may disagree.

I think your whole approach is flawed because you are viewing these questions
from a political or economic angle whereas I claim the Capitalism versus
Socialism debate is really about ethics. I think it is telling that you
ignored my last paragraph where I made that important point. Nobody has
consistently defended or implemented Capitalism because it rests on the ethic
of selfishness which is in conflict with the predominant ethic of today. In
earlier times one was taught to sacrifice to the King or God and the only
modern contribution to ethics has been to substitute Society for God or King.
Capitalism was born of that past era and its moral foundation of selfishness
was implicit from the beginning. The advocates of Socialism, in all its
variants, have attempted to either destroy Capitalism outright or to somehow
leash it to serve so-called "social good". There is nothing incoherent about
that argument unless you fail to see that these two political/economic systems
derive from fundamentally different and incompatible ethical systems.

Finally, I have read almost all of what von Mises wrote and I think your are
misrepresenting or misunderstanding him when you claim he advocated fascism.
This is factually wrong and an insult to a consistent advocate of individual
rights and freedom and staunch opponent of socialism. Moreover, if you know
the works of Mises you must know that he proved that Socialism cannot work
economically. Without free markets to develop a meaningful price system
Socialism cannot solve the problem of economic calculation. This fact is
demonstrated historically where the socialists countries had to use prices
determined out side their system in freer countries so that bureaucrats could
make some semblance of rational plans. Without those prices socialist
countries would have collapse much sooner than they did, and it demonstrates
that Socialism is in fact a parasite on free societies and not a viable social
system.

~~~
almostdeadguy
> I identified the basic principle by which to judge societies, i.e.
> individual rights, regardless of what the social/political/economic system
> is called by their advocates or detractors nor the details of their legal
> manifestation. Does the society sacrifice individuals to the collective?
> That is the essential and though there are many variants I don't think it is
> complicated to understand, though you may disagree.

Advocates of capitalism argue that it's lead to the greatest increase in
prosperity and decrease in poverty in the history of the world, yet also argue
that extreme poverty faced by some is an acceptable cost for these benefits.
Is this an argument in service of the collective against the individual?
Furthermore, which individuals does capitalism preserve the rights of?
Enslaved peoples? Those who have been dispossessed of their lands? Those who
have been strong-armed into the expropriation of their natural resources and
had their governments deposed by capitalist states?

It's not even clear what "individual" and "collective" mean as these are not
necessarily opposite poles or even coherently separable things. Individual
health and wellbeing have social effects and vice versa. Except for nomadic
and extremely rare instances of people isolated from society, the wellbeing of
a society has extremely tangible and obvious effects on individuals and their
rights. If the USSR was socialist, what do the NKVD and work camps have to do
with benefitting the collective?

If capitalists are great advocates of the rights of individuals, do they
venerate the right to steal? The right to squat in vacant homes? This entire
framing is incoherent without an agreement on what the rights of individuals
are, which will _necessarily_ privilege the rights of certain individuals over
others, as the valid expression of individuals in a system of ethics are
demarcations of where society says their agency as individuals begins and
ends.

> I think your whole approach is flawed because you are viewing these
> questions from a political or economic angle whereas I claim the Capitalism
> versus Socialism debate is really about ethics. I think it is telling that
> you ignored my last paragraph where I made that important point. Nobody has
> consistently defended or implemented Capitalism because it rests on the
> ethic of selfishness which is in conflict with the predominant ethic of
> today. In earlier times one was taught to sacrifice to the King or God and
> the only modern contribution to ethics has been to substitute Society for
> God or King. Capitalism was born of that past era and its moral foundation
> of selfishness was implicit from the beginning. The advocates of Socialism,
> in all its variants, have attempted to either destroy Capitalism outright or
> to somehow leash it to serve so-called "social good". There is nothing
> incoherent about that argument unless you fail to see that these two
> political/economic systems derive from fundamentally different and
> incompatible ethical systems.

Again, what does this even mean? There is no definition of an individual's
rights in a system of ethics that does not simultaneously circumscribe the
agency of other individuals. "Selfishness" is a hand-wavy term used to
heighten the sense that individuals will enjoy great autonomy and agency under
your system of ethics (if also requiring them to orient their thinking towards
their immediate prosperity and enrichment), yet that autonomy can only be
guaranteed by its protection from interference by other individuals.

Socialism and capitalism are modes of production, they're not ethical systems.
Socialism was developed as an idea in response to the relations of power in a
classed, capitalist society, and while various socialists have denounced
things like greed, egotism, etc. Marx also emphasized the possibilities for
individuals to pursue a fulfilling life under socialism. Even if I were to buy
into your notion of the individual and collective as coherently separable
entities, your account of this as essential to the difference between
socialism and capitalism has to be tied to the ways in which people use these
words. Fascism has always declared itself to be an enemy of socialism (and
vice versa) so clearly there's problems with your understanding of the
socially constructed meaning of these words (and therefore the weird
conception of their ethical foundations you borrow from von Mises).

The ethical dichotomy you're referencing is from von Mises where he's
basically trying to copy Max Weber's sociological investigation into
protestant work ethic as informing capitalism, but his argument is so clumsy
and incoherent (especially conceptually) and he doesn't have a convincing
historical account like Weber to bolster his argument.

> Finally, I have read almost all of what von Mises wrote and I think your are
> misrepresenting or misunderstanding him when you claim he advocated fascism.
> This is factually wrong and an insult to a consistent advocate of individual
> rights and freedom and staunch opponent of socialism.

Look up Engelbert Dollfuss, the guy who von Mises literally provided economic
guidance to. Von Mises preferred liberal capitalism, no doubt, but he was more
than happy to make an alliance with fascists when labor militancy was high and
socialists were gaining broad public support in Europe. This was mirrored by
capitalist countries supporting authoritarian semi-fascist regimes like
Pinochet, Marcos, Batista, the Brazilian military government of 1964, etc.

Yet another example of the ethics of capitalism that ostensibly prioritizes
"the rights of individuals".

> Moreover, if you know the works of Mises you must know that he proved that
> Socialism cannot work economically. Without free markets to develop a
> meaningful price system Socialism cannot solve the problem of economic
> calculation.

von Mises did not "prove" anything. He makes a lazy argument that money as a
unit of accounts is necessary to make informed decisions about the production
of goods in an economy because he can't conceive of any other way an economy
might incorporate value judgements. Then he basically underplays how woefully
inadequate and irrational price signaling is in practice under capitalist
economies. You would basically get laughed at by any economist today for
making this argument because of it's hand-wavy account of money being "flawed
but good enough" and a failure to engage with any of the ideas about
production planning under socialism.

It doesn't even say socialism is flawed or inefficient, it says it's
_impossible_ because an economy without money would involve judgements about
production that would essentially be blind leaps, which is basically closing
his imagination to any of the myriad ways that have been proposed for
valuation and planning under socialism.

I assume he thinks that because Marx doesn't go into this (because Marx is
mostly concerned with the relations of production, the alienation of the
worker from their labor, and class antagonisms in society, not a specific
method of economic calculation) that there are no socialists with answers to
this question.

He doesn't even understand Marx's understanding of private property (aka
ownership of means of production by which the owner or owners retain exclusive
rights of the profits generated via labor by others) and thinks it has
something to do with unitary control by a single body of economic planning.
Ironically many industries in capitalist states meet the criteria for his
definition of socialist firms.

> This fact is demonstrated historically where the socialists countries had to
> use prices determined out side their system in freer countries so that
> bureaucrats could make some semblance of rational plans. Without those
> prices socialist countries would have collapse much sooner than they did,
> and it demonstrates that Socialism is in fact a parasite on free societies
> and not a viable social system.

I don't agree that the USSR was socialist nor do I think their method of
economic planning was worth copying, but Russia transformed from a backwoods
feudal and partially capitalist society to an industrialized developed nation
and the second largest economy in the world under their system. If that's
socialist to you, it certainly debunks von Mises notion of it being
"impossible".

~~~
dmfdmf
> Socialism and capitalism are modes of production, they're not ethical
> systems.

I never said they were ethical systems. I said they rest on incompatible
ethical systems or theories. This is where the debate lies, not in politics
nor economics (i.e., production) where the question cannot be answered.

Politics and economics presuppose an answer to what is the good. Socialism, in
all its variants, holds that sacrificing individuals for the benefit of
"society" is the good. Since "society" is just a collection of individuals it
has to mean in practice the sacrificing of some individuals for the benefit of
others. This is its present and historical track record and an unavoidable
consequence of that premise which can't be dismissed as an accident of
history, errors, personalities or bad men but by design.

On the other hand, Capitalism rests on the opposite view that the individual
is paramount and the purpose of the government (i.e. legal and political
system) is to protect the individual from others violating his rights. The
individual's right essentially amounts to the freedom to take action and the
right to property. The govt's role is to protect the rights and property of
its citizens from predation of others, including the govt itself. 51% of the
people voting to expropriate the property of the other 49% does not make it
moral, i.e., democratic socialism is an oxymoron. If the individual is
paramount and his rights are protected by law, police and social norms, i.e.
he is free, then capitalism is the economic system of production that
develops.

Finally, every single one of your replies on this thread are long, overly-
complicated, convoluted rationalizations for socialism that are not meant to
illuminate the discussion but obfuscate it. Perhaps you don't even know it but
you use the exact same arguments that were used last century to spread
socialism across the globe and the death of millions. These arguments won't
work in this century and last century, for various reasons, people fell for
socialism and accepted it voluntarily. That won't happen this time around so
you are wasting your time with intellectual arguments, socialism will have to
be imposed by force. Do you have the stomach for that battle?

~~~
almostdeadguy
> Politics and economics presuppose an answer to what is the good. Socialism,
> in all its variants, holds that sacrificing individuals for the benefit of
> "society" is the good. Since "society" is just a collection of individuals
> it has to mean in practice the sacrificing of some individuals for the
> benefit of others.

Again, re-read what I said. Capitalism is also based on judgements that
prioritize the benefit of some versus others. "Individual" vs "society" is an
incoherent framing of rights because people exist as both individuals and
members of a society. "Individual rights" are rights conferred to the
collective, and are also rights that necessarily circumscribe what other
people are allowed to do. Pretending like this isn't the case is just letting
your ideology cloud your perception of what rights are "natural" or whatever.

> This is its present and historical track record and an unavoidable
> consequence of that premise which can't be dismissed as an accident of
> history, errors, personalities or bad men but by design.

Your knowledge of history is absolutely garbage and you've just ignored every
reference to history I've brought up WRT capitalism and fascism, so why should
anyone care what you think about this?

> On the other hand, Capitalism rests on the opposite view that the individual
> is paramount and the purpose of the government (i.e. legal and political
> system) is to protect the individual from others violating his rights. The
> individual's right essentially amounts to the freedom to take action and the
> right to property. The govt's role is to protect the rights and property of
> its citizens from predation of others, including the govt itself.

Even the framing of "positive" vs "negative" rights admits that all rights
confer duties on people and circumscribe their agency, and any philosopher
worth listening to will admit that _all_ rights have both positive and
negative duties. "Individual" vs "collective" rights are absolutely
meaningless. This is the slight of hand in the liberal tradition that
ultimately reduces to rights that are perceived to be axiomatic and "natural"
in some way and therefore "individual" because it fits your weak ass
ideology's account of what it represents.

> 51% of the people voting to expropriate the property of the other 49% does
> not make it moral, i.e., democratic socialism is an oxymoron. If the
> individual is paramount and his rights are protected by law, police and
> social norms, i.e. he is free, then capitalism is the economic system of
> production that develops.

You even admit here that the police and law have to enforce your "individual
rights", which is an implicit acknowledgement that they circumscribe the
agency of others. But I'll take the acknowledgement (finally) that capitalism
requires a statist carceral system. That's a start.

> Finally, every single one of your replies on this thread are long, overly-
> complicated, convoluted rationalizations for socialism that are not meant to
> illuminate the discussion but obfuscate it.

Learn to read pal, this is pretty minuscule in comparison to the political
pamphlets and treatises that defined the ideas we're discussing. And stop
using this cop out to ignore what I've said.

> Perhaps you don't even know it but you use the exact same arguments that
> were used last century to spread socialism across the globe and the death of
> millions. These arguments won't work in this century and last century, for
> various reasons, people fell for socialism and accepted it voluntarily. That
> won't happen this time around so you are wasting your time with intellectual
> arguments, socialism will have to be imposed by force. Do you have the
> stomach for that battle?

lol if the only socialist movements you're willing to acknowledge are ML(M)
ones that almost uniformly happened in feudalist states under immense social
upheaval, you're going to have this incredibly dumb and skewed perception of
what socialism means. Expropriation doesn't require violence, and there's
historical examples of socialists who have expropriated without violence
beyond self-defense. Furthermore it's ironic that you internalize the same
bullshit "dialectical materialism" ideas about the deterministic nature of
history that some of the socialists you use as a boogieman also liked quite a
bit.

Hell even capitalist revolutions had expropriation and violence. What do you
think happened in the American Revolution? Whose property rights were
protected and which individual rights were preserved against "the collective"?
You're just going to ignore this like every other reference to history I've
brought up, so I dunno why I bother.

If you're going to actually respond to my points, I'm happy to continue the
conversation, but otherwise stop wasting my time.

~~~
dmfdmf
> so why should anyone care what you think about this?

> because it fits your weak ass ideology's account of what it represents.

> Learn to read pal

> And stop using this cop out to ignore what I've said.

Looks like I hit a nerve. Set aside all the BS and answer the question. On
what moral grounds does Socialism justify confiscating property and
sacrificing lives? We can certainly disagree about what is or is not
Capitalism but this is what Socialism does and you know it. BTW, this is my
original point; the Capitalism -vs- Socialism debate cannot be answered in
politics or economics, your efforts notwithstanding. It is an ethical question
that you are evading and ultimately will lose.

> Expropriation doesn't require violence, and there's historical examples of
> socialists who have expropriated without violence beyond self-defense.

I selected this out of all of what you wrote because it perfectly illustrates
the (poor) level of your thinking. This claim is a clear self-contradiction.
The opposite of expropriation is a voluntary trade or donation. To say that
property or lives can be expropriated without violence is complete non-sense.
The fact that socialism disarms the victims and controls the legal system so
as to threaten violence if the expropriation is opposed is a massive evasion
of the facts. Moreover, the rest of your thoughts on this are a mish-mash of
equivocations, false analogies, contradictions, irrelevancies,
misrepresentation and other errors.

No, I have no interest in identifying all these errors in your essay because
that (should be) your responsibility. I will only give one example regarding
rights. You equivocate on its meaning by claiming that societies or collective
have "rights". Only individuals have rights because only individuals need them
to live in society free of interference from others. In modern parlance it is
called freedom. Moreover, joining a collective does not grant you extra power
to expropriate other people's property, i.e, the power to violate THEIR
rights. That is mob rule even if you vote on it or do it under the cover of
the law.

>If you're going to actually respond to my points, I'm happy to continue the
conversation, but otherwise stop wasting my time.

I am not going to respond to your points because I refuse to get sucked into a
pointless discussion of politics or economics. It is pointless to discuss
these topics until you explicitly state your ethics and justification for
expropriation under Socialism. Moreover, as is typical of a socialist, you put
the blame on me for wasting your time but that is entirely your choice, not
mine.

~~~
almostdeadguy
> Looks like I hit a nerve. Set aside all the BS and answer the question. On
> what moral grounds does Socialism justify confiscating property and
> sacrificing lives? We can certainly disagree about what is or is not
> Capitalism but this is what Socialism does and you know it. BTW, this is my
> original point; the Capitalism -vs- Socialism debate cannot be answered in
> politics or economics, your efforts notwithstanding. It is an ethical
> question that you are evading and ultimately will lose.

This is weak ass "u mad" stuff because you can't respond to anything I've
said. Rapidly alternating between referencing history and refusing to respond
to points in return that also reference history makes your argument look weak
and makes you sound like an ass.

> I selected this out of all of what you wrote because it perfectly
> illustrates the (poor) level of your thinking. This claim is a clear self-
> contradiction. The opposite of expropriation is a voluntary trade or
> donation. To say that property or lives can be expropriated without violence
> is complete non-sense.

lol most people would not consider taxation or squatting or repossessing
capital assets "violence". Ask I dunno, anyone if they'd think that

> The fact that socialism disarms the victims and controls the legal system so
> as to threaten violence if the expropriation is opposed is a massive evasion
> of the facts. Moreover, the rest of your thoughts on this are a mish-mash of
> equivocations, false analogies, contradictions, irrelevancies,
> misrepresentation and other errors.

This is not what socialism is. Please stop referencing history if you flatly
refuse to engage with any of my references to history, and especially if you
don't even understand what you're talking about. lol the "this is flim flam
fiddle faddle" remark at the end is convincing to nobody if you don't actually
engage w/ the arguments in a concrete way.

~~~
dmfdmf
> Ask I dunno, anyone if they'd think that

LOL, talk about weak. So now your argument is "everyone agrees with ME". That
is not an argument and is a logical fallacy.

>This is not what socialism is. Please stop referencing history if you flatly
refuse to engage with any of my references to history

I think you know this is exactly what socialism is but you refuse to admit it.
It is impossible to have a discussion in a vacuum without any reference to
history, that is a strawman representation of my position. My position, and my
original post comment, was that the Capitalism -vs- Socialism debate can't be
resolved with discussions about politics, economics or technology and that it
is essentially an ethical debate not that history in these fields is
irrelevant. Moreover, the fact is (and you are proof of this) that one cannot
even comprehend historical facts or even economic systems without first
identifying the ethical system that underlie them. Your ignorance on these
issues is a direct result of your ignorance of the ethical issues.

Like Weinstein, you need to get out of politics and economics and study ethics
if you are sincere about understanding Capitalism -vs- Socialism debate. If
you disagree with me on that point then feel free to move on.

~~~
almostdeadguy
lol buddy you've patently ignored every reference to history I've made, you're
not entitled to a captive audience. Engage in the discourse or don't. If you
want to go back and actually address all the points I've made thus far instead
of disregarding it as nonsense that's below you, I'll wait and I'll address
the history you're bringing up after you're done. Otherwise fuck off.

~~~
dmfdmf
>Otherwise fuck off.

Where does the hostility come from? Let us not forget the context -- you
posted on MY sub-thread comment where I claimed that the Socialism -vs-
Capitalism debate is an ethical question not about economics nor political. If
the tables were turned and you posted your long drivel on the economics and
politics of Socialism and Capitalism (according to you) and I tried to hijack
the thread and demand that you argue ethics, well, I think you would be bit
perplexed and perhaps a little angry for the unfair imposition.

I have been clear from the beginning on my view (you are free to disagree) and
that I am not interested in getting sucked into the details and minutia of
politics and economics nor pointless discussions on what is or is not
Socialism without defining the ethical premises. Both Socialism and Capitalism
rest on different ethical systems and if you are a _serious_ advocate of
Socialism I highly recommend that you study ethics. If you want to spout non-
sense unopposed with many "upvotes" perhaps you should take this discussion to
reddit.com/r/latestagecapitalism, you will be at home there or on reddit in
general because everyone agrees with you.

~~~
almostdeadguy
Yeah I gave you a lot of criticism about your framing of the "ethical systems"
underlying these two modes of production from a philosophical perspective and
you refused to discuss those as well. And this isn't "your thread" like its
your living room or some shit, that's not how discussion has ever worked
online. Engage in the discourse or don't.

~~~
dmfdmf
I will give you a hint in your foray into ethics; Men are not ants or bees.

