
Is capitalism worth saving? - clumsysmurf
https://www.vox.com/2019/1/2/18130630/american-capitalism-neoliberalism-steven-pearlstein
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ethiclub
>Another recent poll shows that only 42 percent of millennials support
capitalism.

This statistic means something very different in context. The same poll showed
33% of people supported Socialism.

There are major noise factors here, including disillusionment and the fact
that 'Capitalism' and 'Socialism' carry much cultural baggage and mean very
different things to different people. Further, the statistics would arguably
be very different if the poll sample was meritocratic rather than democratic.

Presumably, the cross-over (people that reject both Socialism & Capitalism)
support a charity based or non-profit economy.

A prediction: Capitalism will 'prevail', and non-profits will remain 'niche'.
Claim: 'Capitalism has a more survivable structure'. Consumer demand will
mature over time, forcing for-profit organizations to respond by addressing
all externalities, being self-accountable & transparent, and being externally
audited. Wage spread will decrease. Shareholder dividends will dwindle.
Socialism will not grow significantly beyond Scandinavian style investment
(shared infra, healthcare etc.). Government will continue to 'lag behind' in
legislation and action. Capitalism will continue to force Government to
innovate and legislate. Government will not be able to provide the services
that capitalism does, to the same cost-effectiveness and quality standard.

Arguably in an ideal world, government would 'take over' mature industry, if
there were appropriate internal controls and no future innovation was
necessary.

~~~
wahern
I think the full quote is better:

> "A decade ago, 80 percent of Americans believed that a free market economy
> was the best economic system. Today, that number is 60 percent. Another
> recent poll shows that only 42 percent of millennials support capitalism."

Note how the author equivocates capitalism with free market economies. Almost
all of us do this, including, presumably, the surveyed millennials.

But capitalism is not the same as free markets, and strictly speaking there's
no way to get away from free markets. Market dynamics are natural phenomena
like gravity--you can't opt out of markets--and the qualifier "free" simply
begs the question of how free. As we all know there's no such thing as a
perfectly free market.

In the really long term, whether "Capitalism" or "Socialism" wins out will be
precisely because one or the other maximizes social wealth for some poorly
understood cost function. You sort of hint at that when saying that "in an
ideal world, government would 'take over' mature industry".

I say poorly understood cost function because we don't even have solid working
definitions for concepts like "equality" or "equity", let alone an ability to
quantitively assess them, even though we all nominally claim we strongly value
them (and as social animals undoubtedly do). But whatever the objective
definition of those things, maximizing them may superficially appear socialist
but in truth be necessary for maximizing other kinds of wealth like widget
output or capital liquidity. Would that make it Socialist or Capitalist?

~~~
geezerjay
I would also add that "socialism" means completely different things to
different people. To some, a mild social democracy is socialism, while to
others it's a full blown proletariat dictatorship.

Conversely, to some a mild social democracy is socialism. Case in point: the
US's debate on establishing an european style national health service.

Therefore, not only are these polls heavily biased, they are meaningless as
they aren't based on objective definitions of those concepts.

