CORRECTAMUNDO! Extrapolate our political and economic path... and you end up where the former Soviet Union was before its collapse. Half of America couldn't care less.... they just want "something for nothing"... mostly because greedy, self-serving dumbass politicos promised same in exchange for votes.
This is wrong on so many levels I couldn't even get started. It is nearly 180 degrees out of sync with reality.
"Nope, monopolies and cartels are almost always the result of regulatory capture, not laissez faire capitalism. " A very interesting comment and thought. Is the same concept true for big unions? I note a serious political divide with one side 100% with one view and the other side 100% an opposite view. Yet the truth is in the middle like most things - grey not black and white. When I was younger I KNEW a whole lot more than I do now with much more experience and education!
Capitalism itself likely hasn't EVER failed. "Capitalism in America" (now an oxymoron, for sure) is a product of government intervention/manipulation/regulation. Resembles Communism more in its current form.
I do agree with you. Democracy doesn't work (IMO) because there is no voter tie to input and output and no consequences for individual voters (Tragedy of the commons again) for voting "wrong". Survival of the fittest works because there is. Some interesting ideas in this thread. Suppose the markets (kind of survival of the fittest) ran until there were winners that were too big. Would all of us vote for "let's all re-balance our trading accounts at the end of the year so that everybody started off equal again." Would we all vote for that? Or would we assert individual results for individual efforts? Why are government and general society views different? Would we take people to court for having a "Politically incorrect" view on a stock we think should be worth more? Would we be offended when a commentator said our position was stupid? Would we organize together to trade as a block - oops skip that one! Why are there no longer consequences for incorrect actions in the voting system?
"What people perceive as a failure of capitalism is nothing of the sort, rather it is a failure of science to hold the capitalists in check with their anti-gravity devices." There is a buried assumption that democracy can, over the long run, actually hold things in check. I do not accept that assumption - on the contrary, all the evidence tells us democracy is in fact incapable of doing so - primarily because individual people are quite willing to sell their souls, and sell their neighbors down the river, as long as they feel like they're getting a decent price. Since Capitalism (as we're talking about it here) is dependent on democracy for long term survival, then it is Capitalism itself that is fundamentally flawed. Either way, I think we are in broad agreement, and more or less splitting hairs at this point. The funny thing is, Adam Smith had it more or less figured out nearly a century and a half ago. "Wealth of Nations" is riddled with comments about"gov't" needing to restrain capitalists or things will inevitably go to shit. The guy was even pro-union...
Nice post, I have been feeling similarly. It seems to me the reason capitalism works is hope. People's brains are physically and emotionally structured to have hope and capitalism is built upon this foundation. Capitalism encourages conspicuous consumption because it knows this will strengthen hope in the masses. With a heighten sense of hope(call it hope, the dream, your personal fantasy world in your mind whatever) people will work very hard. They are not working for their survival they are working for the dream. Everyone believes they can achieve their personal dream because they have heard about someone else that did it and "if they can do it why can't I." The truth is 99% of the people can't and never will achieve their dream, but by the time they come to this realization if they ever do they have put in there 30 years of 9-5 and the system has got what it wanted out of them. The harsh truth is even if you do achieve your dream it never turns out like you envisioned it in your fantasy. The real world always comes with difficulties and complications. It might even be 'better' to not fully achieve your dream because you will always be able to mentally fall back into your fantasy world when times are tough and find comfort there. If you smash thru your goals and achieve your dreams and don't quickly create new ones you loose hope and that is a dangerous thing. A system based on technology seems like a good alternative and may have a way to foster hope and motivation. Communism is not an option because hope is the secret ingredient that communism did not have and the exact reason it failed. It's simply a fact that people will work harder for a dream in their head then carrots like money and security.
I would argue that there are. Historically, if voters made bad choices, the outcome of those choices was reflected within a typical human life span. IMO what happened in the 20th century is we got tons of nearly-free energy, which enabled the perception of perpetual growth, which enabled insane amounts of leverage, for insane periods of time (truly, a 30 year fixed rate mortgage is the walking talking definition of fiscal insanity!) So in the most recent decades, voters could kick the can far enough down the road that things looked "sustainable". A very simple way to get a tighter feedback loop between votes and outcomes is to move to a mandatory balanced budget. I'm not saying that's the *best* way - just *a* way that is very quick and easy to understand. But the problem is voters won't allow it...circumstances will have to force it onto them...
Mandatory balanced budget coupled with all taxes being on consumption would restore some sanity.. If voters could see that they have to pay for government excesses they would not vote for them, would not tolerate them, and would not allow them.
I think it has been shown to be true for both regulatory capture and a laissez faire business climate. The only alternative is to have some regulatory body, a referee, a court, etc., to step in and say "No, this is not allowed." It certainly would be true for big unions if they could control as much capital and use it to influence regulation. They do that to a degree, but they are outspent, and they have to live with a severe restraint, i.e., you can only take so much times a large number before there is no more to take. Whereas capital does not have the same restraint, they can take a gigantic amount because it is times a very small number. Because capital controls the media their message is more effective, and they are better marketers of propaganda overall. (It's interesting to me that in most of the world, and many other languages outside of English, the word "propaganda" simply means "advertising". As you say, the truth is in the middle. We need folks in government that can understand both sides of an argument.