Is discourse on capitalism and it's alternatives possible without bias/dogma?

[moe091]

I'm not the smartest nor the most educated, but I will at least brag about being pretty unbiased(at least politically), and I find it frustrating how hard it is to discuss these topics CONSTRUCTIVELY as opposed to having a kind of debate where each persons goal is to win by (consciously or unconsciously) using unfair/untrue/misleading means.

This applies to basically any political topic, but to focus on one I'd like to ask about capitalism/socialism/communism/etc. More generally: about realistic possibilities for a system that minimizes often catastrophic downsides of such systems that is also implementable in reality.

Can we just admit each system has its downsides and talk about what can be done to minimize them in the real world? Not trying to change the world here, but hoping some people here can offer insights that might help me form my own opinion.

Under capitalism corporations are driven by profit motive and will do unethical things to achieve profits. Regulation can help, but in a capitalist society these same corporations can affect legislation - this is one example of a form/source of corruption that I think is inherit in any one of these systems and which I think is the fundamental reason why none of them can be perfect.

In theory, communism solves this by having workers control the means of production - the PEOPLE are the ones making the decisions. The proletariat isn't infallible but it's at least better to have them in control since their motives aren't at odds with the wellbeing of the population - they ARE the population. Afaik the downside of this is that it also leads to corruption, as some body(government) needs to oversee and enforce such a system, which necessarily means that a large amount of power will be concentrated in this body. To be honest, I don't fully understand this dynamic, but mostly trust it since the historical outcomes of communism seem to reflect this - if anyone can explain the inner mechanics of why/how power needs to be concentrated in this way under communism I'd love to hear. Another downside is that such a system leads to lack of motivation among workers, this criticism I don't trust as much and suspect it comes from people who think communism = no PERSONAL(not private) property and that everyone is paid the same amount, however I'm sure there are people with a real understanding who can explain this pitfall in a more sensible way and I'd love to hear it.

From what I can tell, "socialist" countries like Denmark and Sweden have at least done a better job than communism/capitalism, based purely on the subjective satisfaction of it's people and it's(relative) lack of human rights/climate/political/etc atrocities. However I'm not very familiar with the political systems in these countries - many tell me they're not even actually socialist, and others tell me it's actually nowhere as good as many people claim. This is kind of where I'm at now, wanting to learn more about these countries and their systems, but I'd love it if people could provide fair and constructive input about any potential systems, both in terms of the efficacy and their realistic potential to be implemented

[manofmanysmiles]

I think it’s almost impossible to do, because our worldviews are based on so many assumptions. Even the language(s) we use are ambiguous.

For me to have this conversation, I’d have to start defining what consciousness is, what free will is, what we consider moral action, whether externalized authority is moral.

The idea of value and subjectivity come into play.

Also what is the desired outcome of such a discussion?

Where and what are we? What do I desire in my life?

If we (the hypothetical people having this discussion) are open to discussing these questions, than maybe there is hope.

[gardenfelder]

I believe that the answer is YES!

The trick seems to lie in the space where ego-centric participation transitions to eco-centric participation.

The late Douglas Engelbart - famous for the mouse and related technology - argued that "human systems and tool systems" must co-evolve. What that translates - in my view - is to evolve tool systems (IT, web portals, etc) way beyond global chat rooms like Facebook, Twitter, and so forth in such a way that the human system has an opportunity to evolve away from its basic instincts of greed, identity politics, and so forth.

A prospective solution for that lies in the metaphoric marriage of World of Warcraft and global sensemaking. As John Seely Brown said in a 6 minute youtube:

"I would rather hire a high-level World of Warcraft player than an MBA from Harvard".

In those words, he spoke volumes about how the right kind of IT could go a long way towards the improved human capabilities about which Engelbart spoke.

My tiny non-profit is exploring that space; we have a really rough engineering prototype now online - it is just an engineering prototype, with a lot of work left in UX, but it can be viewed at https://sensecraft.garden/ . Don't expect any public quests of value until maybe early next year. Tons of work left to do on it.

[obpe]

Imo, part of the problem with these discussions is the terms, capitalism and socialism, have been stretched to mean much broader things than "private" vs "public" ownership. If you use the original definitions, than Denmark/Sweden are not very socialist at all; at least compared to China/Venezuela where the state (ie the public) owns a lot (this has nothing to do with whether the actual governments are democratic or not).

In theory, there is no government in a purely Communist state. In theory, since everyone has everything they need, there should be no conflict. This has never actually worked in practice (see any study about hippie communes, aside from the fact no nation has every gone that far).

For those Northern European countries, having high taxes and many more decommodified markets (like health care and education) are more about the "Welfare" state than capitalism vs socialism. Tho many people take about this as "socializing" the cost, it doesn't really have anything to do with socialism the economic model.

[anm89]

First define capitalism and socialism. I would argue an attempt to do this methodically and holistically in the context of how modern governments actually run quickly shows that this is just a broken and useless paradigm for thinking about the world.

So the people who argue about this stuff are the ones who want to play team sports political arguing because the underlying concept is worse than useless.

For example, there is not a single truly capatilist, socialist, or communist country in the world. In fact just try to define what that would even look like and it's almost immediately apparent that the question itself makes no sense because it hinges on definitions of words with no meanings.

Every economy in the world has elements of capitalism and socialism. Including North Korea. But in almost every case besides North Korea, there is not really a meaningful distinction at all. Some policies feel more socialistic or capitalistic but they are just attributes of individual policy decisions on a spectrum

At least in a command economy like North Korea you can try to come up with a definition of what communism or socialism means in practice but the day to day reality is those systems would implode immediately without global trade denominated in international currencies. Also its worth noting that it's not a coincidence that the only country that tries to violate this paradigm is a semi failed state

The US has a stock market and mega corporations but also social security and food stamps. So which one are we? Like everywhere else , the question is meaningless and there is no answer

[kwere → anm89]

North Korea has a class of Entrepreneurs, companies are state owned in nature, but can be rented for "private purposes" after them reach mandated quotas[0].

[0] https://www.goisc.org/englishblog/2015/09/30/red-hat-entrepr...

[jfengel]

The difficulty is that you're taking a spherical-cow approach to a complex question. Or more like a zero-dimensional point-cow.

Setting aside the metaphysical question of what it means to have a discussion without bias, at the very least what you're after implies ingesting amount of objective facts. Given what you've shown so far, the beginning of any discussion would have to be "sit down and listen to the equivalent of many months of basic economics lectures".

The question you're asking is very broad. If you actually want answers, you might begin with a serious investigation of the social-democratic countries you mention. People are right: they're not in any sense "socialist", and they're not all paradise. But they are interesting case studies in a fairly successful regime that provides both an advanced economy and a social safety net.

Knowing what they do, and why, and how, would mean a serious deep dive into those countries: their history, their resources, their geography, their government, even their literature. That would actually be a worthwhile investment of time.

[LazarWolf_]

Aren’t all arguments in favor of Denmark and Sweden invalidated immediately because of the lack of isolation testing?

I find it hard to believe that Swedens progress isn’t measured by advancements made from capitalistic contributions. For example Apple iPhones.

I tend to find most folks inherently throw out these arguments out through their own biases and refuse, at every level, to acknowledge the hard working capitalistic people who got us this far.

Sweden is much better off because of the contributions coming from capitalists.

[avmich → LazarWolf_]

I find it hard to believe that USA progress isn't measured by advancements made from socialistic contributions. For example 40 hours work week.

[nwah1]

Loud ideological people monopolize a lot of the discussion, and the nature of the media landscape ensures that only the most sensationalistic and emotive content goes viral.

But certainly, it is possible to have a constructive problem-solving approach.

The purported socialism of Scandinavian countries is exaggerated greatly, and they would be the first to say so. But clearly, there are a range of "mixed economy" models, and not all types of government intervention are equally damaging to overall production, and some kinds are greatly beneficial.

There are a lot of false dichotomies. People regularly try to talk big government vs small government, when the real question is whether government is appropriate for a given problem. Likewise, people talk about high taxes vs low taxes, but in fact taxes are just incentives and the question should be whether they provide good incentives or bad incentives.

And, of course, the original classical liberal view from the philosophical fathers of modern market economies would differ greatly from contemporary views. One of the key differences is that they saw land as its own distinct category, separate from labor and capital, and understood that it had special properties that changes its moral status.

Land is not a product of human effort, and varies in quality, and is limited in supply, but is necessary for all life and all production. As such, claiming exclusive property rights over land is unjustifiable from the normal arguments of where just ownership comes from. And such claims come at the expense of others.

For this reason, the third of the economy that is tied up in land and natural resources could be seen as a commons that ought to be democratically used for common benefit. Even if that just means leasing it out to private interests, and using the proceeds for common purposes.

[aristofun]

Your post is full of unproved, unprovable, arguable and not obvious statements. Which means they have a bias, the bias of your own subjective opinion.

I guess when you talk on such a high level of abstraction about a topic way out of a human mind capacity in terms of complexity — you have no choice but to cut many corners and thus introduce inherent bias to cover those millions hidden variables.

> and will do unethical things to achieve profits

How to you prove this statement? Another question — how do you prove the tendency to do unethical things is related to capitalism (and not just inherent to human nature)?

> their motives aren't at odds with the wellbeing of the population

Another statement that is not self-evident.

Etc. etc.

[egberts1]

How you like to buy my apples?

[_448]

If you want to experience amalgam of socialism and capitalism then there is no better country than the UK.

UK is socialist when it comes to healthcare, education and media. But it is epitome of capitalism when it comes to finance/banking, housing, transportation and energy. And the results of that are for everyone to see.

[djbebs → _448]

I find it quite telling how you consider heavily regulated industries to be "examples of capitalism"...

[_448 → djbebs]

That "heavy regulation" seems only on paper. If that was not the case then we would not have seen the casino banking and its bailout for which the people are still paying, we would have not seen the housing crisis where young people are not able to afford to own a house, and we would not have seen the calls to make the energy and transport companies private.

[matt_s]

All of these systems involve humans and humans are susceptible to corruption via power/money. Corruption exists in all of these models, right? Anyone discussing this grew up in one of them and will have biases of some kind so I don't know that there can be constructive dialogue. All of these models also produce billionaires right: oligarchs, tech ceo's, old school business people, oil tycoons from middle eastern countries, etc. What is the point of having as many billionaires as we (humans) have?

If we constrain the problem down to say startups/businesses (especially on this site) I think (I'm biased and/or ignorant) there really isn't a startup movement elsewhere on the planet like there is in capitalist US. One could argue that the startup boom has many downsides though (data privacy, wage imbalances, societal problems, etc.) and brings about new people that are corrupted/corruptible or at the very least strongly influence laws that benefit their companies well being. Growth and profits at all costs within (or without) regulation.

The only model I've read about that sounds like it has potential to avoid some of these downsides is workers cooperatives [0] instead of corporations. From the little I've read it sounds like same organizational structure but worker owned/managed and there are limits so there aren't things like excessive CEO pay. I heard about this concept watching some professor talk about it and he did mention this really isn't taught in business schools. I really think its an interesting concept for how a company could work.

An interesting bit about taxes, the corporate tax rates in the US were at their highest just after WWII when we had high growth rates. [1] Its counter-intuitive.

> The economy grew at an annual average rate of 3.9 percent between 1950 and 1960, when the statutory corporate tax rate was over 50 percent. Between 2000 and 2010, the statutory corporate tax rate was 35 percent (over 15 percentage points lower than the rate in the 1950s), and annual economic growth averaged 1.8 percent (less than half of the growth rate in the 1950s)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative

[1] https://www.epi.org/publication/ib364-corporate-tax-rates-an...