Capitalists Who Fear Change 297
bill_mcgonigle writes "In his essay 'Capitalists Who Fear Change,' author Jeffrey Tucker takes on 'wimps who don't want to improve.' From DMCA take-downs on 3D printing files to the constant refrain that every new form of music recording will 'kill music,' Mr. Tucker observes, 'Through our long history of improvement, every upgrade and every shift from old to new inspired panic. The biggest panic typically comes from the producers themselves who resent the way the market process destabilizes their business model.' He analyzes how the markets move the march of technology ever forward. He takes on patents, copyrights, tariffs, and protectionism of entrenched interests in general, with guarded optimism: 'The promise of the future is nothing short of spectacular — provided that those who lack the imagination to see the potential here don't get their way.'"
Meanwhile back in the Neolithic... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Meanwhile back in the Neolithic... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Meanwhile back in the Neolithic... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Meanwhile back in the Neolithic... (Score:4, Funny)
Meh, the last installment showed Ug getting eaten by a tiger.
While I'm sure other cavemen may take that lesson to heart, Ug's business is already taken care of.
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Damn these kids and their new-fangled Wheels... some poor bugger's gonna git run over I tell ya! In my day you jus slung you kill over your shoulder and drug it home like a man... then a saber tooth et ya both!!! That's the way its supposed to be done, these young whipper snappers... and there new fangled wheels.
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Re:Meanwhile back in the Neolithic... (Score:5, Funny)
Home fucking is killing prostitution.
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Republicans are killing home fucking!
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so are feminists!
There is a fundamental error (Score:4, Insightful)
fearing change is contrary to the genuine intent of capitalism. So it is in error to say capitalist are fearful of change. But control freaks... that's different.
Re:There is a fundamental error (Score:5, Informative)
fearing change is contrary to the genuine intent of capitalism. So it is in error to say capitalist are fearful of change. But control freaks... that's different.
The title clearly says "Capitalists WHO fear change", not "Capitalists fear change".
Learn the difference.
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If I can continue to make lots of money by protecting the entrenched system, then the appropriate response is to put the brakes on change.
I think profit motive trumps progress, doesn't it? There isn't anything inherently profitable for all agents in allowing or encouraging change. Profit motive is the fundamental, wellspring value of the capitalist value system. Any other value is derived from that.
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If I can continue to make lots of money by protecting the entrenched system, then the appropriate response is to put the brakes on change.
That's the socialist way; 'we won't allow you to sell a car because it will put the buggy-whip workers out of a job'.
In a free market, there will be a bazillion people trying to create new products that compete with yours, and some will be successful. 'Patents, copyrights, tariffs, and protectionism' are all government-created restrictions on trade, and would not exist in a free market.
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"In a free market, there will be a bazillion people trying to create new products that compete with yours, and some will be successful"
No, there will be a bazillion that will try. That some will success (on top of those already in the place) is mere wishful thinking (even if from time to time it becomes true).
"'Patents, copyrights, tariffs, and protectionism' are all government-created restrictions on trade"
No, they aren't. They are means, as are market analysis, commercials, r+d... that some can use to g
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I see you've learned your economic theory, including definition of socialism, from solid and well-regarded sources like "Atlas Shrugged".
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"the original doctrines of capitalism proposed by Adam Smith"
I read the "On the wealth of Nations..." and I have yet to see any doctrine. I see a theory on movements of capitals and wealth but no doctrine.
"...were designed in principle to avoid organisations like the RIAA from existing"
By the number of times Smith mentions the Bank of England and how it was a good influence to avoid the excesses of, say, the Scotish private bankers, I would say he would dissent.
Re:There is a fundamental error (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. The goal of a capitalist is to make money. If you are successful and at the head of your market then fear of change is natural, as change is not likely to benefit you. If on the other hand you are new and not yet established then change is likely to provide opportunites for advancement and is less likely to be feared.
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If you are successful and at the head of your market then fear of change is natural
If you have a successful business you would be silly to abandon it unless you replace it with something better. The author's alternatives are better for the consumer who wants stuff for free, but not for the producers of that content who are in business to make a profit. It has nothing to do with fear.
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Recording industry has money invested in a business model and they are going to get as much money as possible from their investment as possible. It's dollars and cents, fear has nothing to do with it.
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Ah, so No True Capitalist fears change.
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Re:There is a fundamental error (Score:4, Insightful)
Nonsense. We've known for nearly a century that the true intent of capitalism was to put a nice cushion between the rich and the rest.
Even the most ardent capitalist apologists now admit that there are going to be a whole lot of people who just need to be cut loose. The only question left is how to keep the ones who miss the bus from cluttering up the view from the top.
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Perhaps, but capitalism is specifically designed to institutionalize and increase that divide. For capitalism, a growing inequality between rich and poor is a feature, not a bug
Only in the very short term. Nothing benefited capitalism more than the existence of the middle class -- without masses -able- to buy goods, industries wither.
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Except that it isn't.
Capitalism, by it's very nature, reduces and eliminates the divides between rich and poor. It wasn't until Capitalism was tried on a large scale that a Middle class even existed. Prior to that, in Feudalistic and Monarchic societies, you were either a ruler, or a serf. There was no in-between. This is similar to Socialistic societies, you are either a wealthy and powerful member of the Party, or you are
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Be more accurate: It wasn't until the organized labor movement that there was a large middle class. We had capitalism for more than a century with no growing middle class. There was barely anything you would call a "middle class" from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution up to the second decade of the 20th Century. It wasn't until the Labor Movement that you started to see a middle class in large numbers and with
yes (Score:2)
if you talk up the mythology enough, your mind's eye won't notice how the ideal has never been met by any living person
i'm not talking about your quote specifically. i'm talking about free market fundamentalist fools in general who attribute mythological qualities to capitalism and free markets that have never existed and never will. for example: that they self-regulate. that they are egalitarian. that they are fair. no, no, and no: they need a strong central government, to regulate them and keep them fair
Re:yes (Score:4, Interesting)
you're a moron
you believe the only choices are the extremes?
how about capitalism with social safety nets?
how about socialism with a capitalist engine?
moderation, the middle way, is true wisdom
but don't let that stop you from painting me as another extreme just because i stand against your extreme
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You have in your mind a noble mythical
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When you run a business, any change is either an opportunity, or a threat. When your business is small, most changes look like opportunities. When your business becomes big, all changes start to look like a threats. Capitalist who runs big business but doesn't fear any change he didn't cause himself must be insane.
Re:There is a fundamental error (Score:5, Informative)
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A more accurate definition of capitalism consists of two basic things:
- right to private property
- free market
The entire capitalist system is defined by these two aspects alone. If a state grants every citizen the right to own stuff, and also buy and sell to whoever they see fit not only their stuff but also the stuff they make and the services they provide then we have a capitalist system.
Some implementations of a capitalist system may have some limits and restrictions (i.e., only a selected few can sell
Re:There is a fundamental error (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, you are wrong. Those two things are required for capitalism to exist, but they do not equal capitalism. For example, they both existed in ancient Greece and Rome, but neither of those societies were capitalistic. By most historic definitions, capitalism came after feudalism, and was the fruit of the widespread adoption of a different set of behaviors towards property and investment. Wikipedia has a rather decent write-up [wikipedia.org] on this subject.
Re:There is a fundamental error (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not a coherent explanation, it's a list of things. What did you mean?
That's as coherent as it gets. Capitalism is an economic system wherein private interests own all capital, i.e. means of production. Means of production are things like tools, factories, etc., basically any durable good that is used to manufacture something else for profit. The definition doesn't get much simpler without losing some accuracy, so if you're having a hard time with it you might read a bit of basic economics.
Capitalism is based upon the selfish desire to make money.
Centrally-controlled socialist economies can also be based on the "selfish desire to make money." After all, they use the power of law and their ability to enforce laws with violence to remain the dominant (or only) economic actor. I always think it's funny that people see corporations as big, evil, monolithic robber-barons, but have no problem with an entire government controlling your access to resources with tanks and assault rifles. I mean, do you think your one vote has more impact on your happy smileville socialist government than my spending or not spending money on something has on a company?
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I mean, do you think your one vote has more impact on your happy smileville socialist government than my spending or not spending money on something has on a company?
The major difference here is one person one vote vs one dollar one vote.
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but policy is not determined by vote. that's where it breaks down.
policy is determined by who has the most influence on the policy-makers (who we vote for).
so it's the one with the "loudest voice", and dollars = decibels.
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To be fair, at least with government you have the hope (slim as it is) that some people are there genuinely to make things better for everyone (or as many as possible).
Corporations? Not so much.
Re:There is a fundamental error (Score:4, Insightful)
Well... it kind of happened. Only we called it feudalism. And, as far as we can see, it "ended" exactly where we are.
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If you replace soldiers with lawyers and bullets with dollars we really haven't changed all that much.
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this.
taxes are a good reminder to markets that there's more to life than profits :)
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No, because other economic systems exist which are decidedly not capitalist, but which have some forms of private property on things other than means of production - e.g. feudalism or Marxist socialism.
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Private ownership must be the critical part. Perhaps the entire capitalism can be derived from just private ownership. "Means of production" seems almost superficial.
Not really. There are systems with private ownership of consumer goods, but where most or all of the means of production are controlled by the state.
Of course, it's rare to have privately-owned capital goods without privately-owned consumer goods. However, there are systems with some private ownership which are not capitalistic.
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As a side note, "capital" is (roughly speaking) a shorter synonym for "means of production", hence the name "capitalism".
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Re:There is a fundamental error (Score:5, Interesting)
Communism works fine. Hutterite colonies all around here operate on communal ownership and have for decades.
What communism does not do is scale up worth a damn. Seemingly, once the population goes past Dunbar's number, it breaks down. A non-homogenous population probably would knock that limit down further.
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Re:Logical fallacy (Score:5, Informative)
No, actually, it's the "no true scotsman [logicalfallacies.info]" fallacy:
Assertion: No capitalist would fear change.
Counterexample: But these [examples listed] capitalists fear change.
Rebuttal: those are no true capitalists!
Re:Logical fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that the "No True Scotsman" fallacy doesn't exist; it does. But sometimes it turns out it really was an Englishman.
Re:Logical fallacy (Score:4)
Is it a NTS though if the alleged fallacy-rebuttal is in fact part of the definition of something? If by definition fear of change truly is contrary to the genuine nature of capitalism then it is not a fallacy to genuinely assault the legitimacy of claiming the title "capitalist" applies.
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Is it a NTS though if the alleged fallacy-rebuttal is in fact part of the definition of something? If by definition fear of change truly is contrary to the genuine nature of capitalism then it is not a fallacy to genuinely assault the legitimacy of claiming the title "capitalist" applies.
You can use logic & reason and arrive at this conclusion.
I can use logic & reason and arrive at this conclusion.
However, as reported here:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/06/19/1742236/us-students-struggle-with-reasoning-skills [slashdot.org]
"...most U.S. students struggle with the reasoning skills needed to investigate multiple variables, make strategic decisions, and explain experimental results."
Which, sadly, reduces the odds in favor of those in the largest /. demographic getting that far along in the crit
Re:Logical fallacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it a NTS though if the alleged fallacy-rebuttal is in fact part of the definition of something? If by definition fear of change truly is contrary to the genuine nature of capitalism then it is not a fallacy to genuinely assault the legitimacy of claiming the title "capitalist" applies.
That's what I call the "No True Scotsman Fallacy Fallacy". The fact is that a Scotsman is one by birth, and so there's an easily described definition of a Scotsman. You are or you aren't, and a simple birth certificate check will ell.
"Capitalist" also has a definition, but it's not as cut and dry as "Scotsman". Still, it's pretty obvious that while anyone can claim to be a capitalist, some people are so far outside the definition that they clearly aren't. That's not a fallacy.
Here's how I usually handle it. It seems that most people who use the NTSFF are lefties. Fine. If Joseph Hazelwood claims to be an environmentalist that means that some environmentalists like to get drunk and trash wildlife refuges by spilling millions of gallons of oil in them, right? No, it would mean that he's a crackpot.
Oddly, Nobody pulls out the NTSFF when you put it in those terms.
Re:Logical fallacy (Score:5, Informative)
This is true. Too many people on all sides of the ideological map don't understand there's a gigantic difference between capitalism and corporatism. In one, you actually have free markets, and inefficient businesses actually lose money and go under. But in the corporatist system we have, executives of giant corporations (which rely on limited liability that couldn't even exist in a real free market) cozy up to policy makers for mutual advantage. They're as different from each other as either is from socialism.
Re:Logical fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
By the same token, there are two types of communism - a pure type where all resources are shared by the people for the good of the people. The other is what we end up with, and is closer to fascism.
The dream market will never exist. It will always degrade into something else.
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Yup. But I brew my own, so hopefully I will still be drunk when the shit hits the fan.
Re:Logical fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
SteveFoerster opined:
Too many people on all sides of the ideological map don't understand there's a gigantic difference between capitalism and corporatism. In one, you actually have free markets, and inefficient businesses actually lose money and go under. But in the corporatist system we have, executives of giant corporations (which rely on limited liability that couldn't even exist in a real free market) cozy up to policy makers for mutual advantage. They're as different from each other as either is from socialism.
Man, am I sick of this argument.
"I fiercely defend free-market capitalism! But we don't actually HAVE free-market capitalism ... we have corporatism, instead. And, er, Ludwig Von Mises!"
Give to me a break.
We will NEVER have free-market capitalism. It's a mythical state of being, like pure communism. We will always have a tilted playing field, because human beings are not perfectable. People are crooked - or, at least, enough of them are that any economic system that depends on "fair play" to work WON'T.
Full stop.
The libertarian utopia is as much a pipe dream as the communist one, and for the same reason: both depend on humans to act in perfectly logical, reasonable, and predictable ways. They won't. They can't. Humans are irrational, short-sighted, emotional beings, not robots. Just as they're not content with "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need," they're not willing to compete without seeking an edge, literally by hook or by crook. YOU may be willing to compete on a level playing field - but it only takes a few scammers and con artists to upend that field to the point where EVERYONE starts scrambling for an unfair advantage.
That's why regulated markets exist. Because humans lie, steal, and cheat - predictably so. Regulators come into being in an attempt to address those problems. Do the regulators get coopted, or misidentify problems and therefore apply inappropriate strategies to correct them? Oh, hell yes. That's because those regulators are themselves human beings, for which see above.
And around and around and around it goes.
FUCK Ludwig Von Mises. He isn't talking about the real world. The real world is crooked, unfair, and messy - and it's never magically going to change into the ideal, free-market condition about which libertarians, Randroids, and other such shut-ins so endlessly hyperventilate. Pull your collective heads out of your determinedly-individualistic asses, and DEAL WITH IT. There IS no ideal free market economy. There never WILL be an ideal free-market economy. And any philosophy that depends on the existence of an ideal free-market economy is a PIPE DREAM.
Grow the fuck up.
no, it's not a strawman argument (Score:4, Informative)
LvM and other free market advocates depend upon human beings behaving like human beings have never behaved, in any time or culture before. and people never will behave in the way LvM and free market advocates requiring them to behave in order for their sophomoric fantasies to exist
ergo, the grandfather post to this hits the nail dead on the head: we need a strong central government and strongly regulated markets in order for them to be truly free. free as in fair and just, as in the big guys and the little guys acting with equal potential, as in the big guys not colluding and taking advantage of the little guys, which is what would actually transpire, and has always transpired, in truly "free", as in natural and unregulated, markets
3D printing = proles own the means of production (Score:5, Interesting)
Once the average home can contain everything needed to produce consumer items, there will be no more reason for big business.
Imagine a set of 3d printers, automated chemical labs, vapor-deposited chip fab in your garage. Maybe even a programmable genetic engineering machine and a computer controlled hydroponic garden to produce your food. You'd never go to the store again.
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Oh yeah, I can see mega-corporations just lining up for that future... trust me, if it come down to that, somebody will charge you the national debt for your data and your atomic feedstock. Just like they ream you now for oil. In fact the 3D printers will probably have some kind of draconian DRM ensuring you can only buy IP through the manufacturer so they get their slice every time you print. That or we put an end to corporate rule. Of course its a little late in the game for that move, and the corporation
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If you can build a car with a 3D printer you can also build a gun or a bomb, so they'll be banned.
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Yeah, the proles will run all those machines, keep them running too.
Wait a second, aren't these the same people who can't make 'crew chief' at McDonald's? Never mind.
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Serious protip: If you are 30 and don't own any means of production yet you are doing it wrong.
Never goto the store again (Score:2)
All that hardware must be fed with something..
Producers? (Score:4, Insightful)
So... all change is good? (Score:2)
And this is why federal government needs to shrink (Score:3, Insightful)
The larger the government is, the more is can be used as a cudgel to take down smaller competitors by big business.
Reduce regulation, reduce the power the federal government wields and inherently big business only has the power of whatever intellect they have multiplied by the money they have on hand.
The smaller government is the more small businesses will thrive.
Re:And this is why federal government needs to shr (Score:5, Insightful)
What regulations would you reduce? I hear that all the time but little to nothing in specifics except ways that put more power into corporate hands / push costs off on to the citizens of the country.
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Pick any industry, and look up the number of regulations. The sheer number of them keeps some businesses from doing anything because of the cost of keeping track of being compliant.
The number alone, never mind any one regulation in particular, can easily keep smaller players out of the game.
So basically just reduce them by half. Any regulations, it doesn't really matter which ones - because they are mostly selectively enforced anyway whenever someone gets uppity.
Re:And this is why federal government needs to shr (Score:4, Interesting)
Unsubstantiated vagaries. I wanted one example, can you not even provide that? If you are so concerned, obviously you have specific examples you have selected as evidence for your case.
Such as? Let's go at this another way, name a company that has been shut down or kept out of a market because of regulations?
It does matter. Suggesting that you can just arbitrarily drop half the regulations in existence implies that no one rule has any more value than another, which is totally disingenuous.
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The problem I have with people that just say we have to cut regulations is they don't fully explain the alternative. This is how I see it. Regulation is prior restraint. Take illegal drugs for instance. The argument you always hear from the drug warriors is that drugs are bad because people could do bad things on drugs. You don't want your bus driver on drugs do you? To me drugs can be legal and yet you can still sue a bus driver or company that causes an accident because the driver was high.
It's the same
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The only reason that banks are able to steal from people and wreak havoc on the economy is because of regulations regarding setting of interest rates. That has been the problem since day one. It caused frequent, shallow, recoverable recessions to become infrequent, devastating, potentially collapse-inducing depressions. They caused the Great Depression
Re:And this is why federal government needs to shr (Score:4, Interesting)
No, a handful of high level suggestions would be useful. I rarely even get that. Though I am not surprised to get an offhand dismissal from an AC. That said, when people scream about "reducing regulation" it rarely has anything to do with bills that benefit corporations.
And I expect better from /. as well, which is why I'm baffled that the GGP got modded +4 with such an empty post.
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I'd start by wrapping up business and closing down Freddy and Fanny. Just to know how deep the shit is. Of course they won't do that. It might allow a open secondary market for home loans to develop. There would be players. Capital is searching for safe harbor. Transition would be a bitch, but delay will only increase the pain.
Less ambitious then closing the fed, besides we don't want to destabilize the dollar. The euro is about to do us a favor. Last currency standing, capital flight etc.
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'remove legislation which serves only to provide an advantage to 'large corporations' and 'rich people,''
Are you kidding?! Those large corporations and rich people are job creators--they're what allow the other 99% to be able to eat and have a place to sleep! We have to protect them because, if we don't, we'll have widespread unemployment! If you don't support these people, you'll be out on the street living in a cardboard box!
Look at China! They don't have these pesky environmental regulations and everybody's doing great over there! If we're going to compete with them, we need to get rid of these namby-p
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+1
Most regulations are written by the megacorps to keep-out new upstarts.
Re:And this is why federal government needs to shr (Score:5, Insightful)
Reducing government regulation only leaves a power vacuum that big players in the private sector (transnational corporations, etc.) would gladly fill. These new overlords would gladly oppress the public if it meant a secured source of profit, and they wouldn't have to worry about the pesky constitutional limitations our government operates under.
Reducing government influence is the same as reducing public influence. I don't want to return to the Gilded Age just for promises of a more efficient capitalism.
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inherently big business only has the power of whatever intellect they have multiplied by the money they have on hand.
i.e. still much more than new players. Enough to erect nearly insurmountable barriers to entry, in fact.
The trick is rather to not let big business control the government, but to ensure that it works in the interest of society as a whole. Which is achieved by making it less corrupt and more transparent. Which may require downsizing it in some aspects, but certainly not for the sake of the mythical free market.
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"The larger the government is, the more is can be used as a cudgel to take down smaller competitors by big business."
Quite true.
And then, the shorter the government is, the easier is for big business to crush new competitors before they become a real menace.
"Reduce regulation, reduce the power the federal government wields and inherently big business only has the power of whatever intellect they have multiplied by the money they have on hand."
Which is still orders of magnitude bigger than the intellect mult
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And since Wal-Mart continues to do what they do, obviously regulations are not hurting them.
Let smaller competitors compete.
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Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
The incumbents prefer the status quo because that's where they make their money. If you're entrenched then change is bad.
Now apply this premise to fossil fuel companies.
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- Pols in DC
- Fat-cats in charge of *AA
- Leaders of N. Korea
- Saudi royals
- Owners of the successful local coffee shop
- Local school board president
- Football booster club president
- etc.
Oingo Boingo Says... (Score:2)
There's nothing wrong with Capitalism
There's nothing wrong with free enterprise
Don't try to make me feel guilty
I'm so tired of hearing you cry
There's nothing wrong with making some profit
If you ask me I'll say it's just fine
There's nothing wrong with wanting to live nice
I'm so tired of hearing you whine
About the revolution
Bringin' down the rich
When was the last time you dug a ditch, baby!
If it ain't one thing
Then it's the other
Any cause that crosses your path
Your heart bleeds for anyone's brother
I've got to
I wonder (Score:2)
This is firmly in the conspiracy theory territory (so go fetch your tinfoil hat), but I do wonder sometimes about how many promising scientists and engineers working in appropriate fields around the world "accidentally" die or have their lives ruined every year to ensure that the Universal Constructor is built later rather than sooner...
Makes sense to me (Score:3)
Folks like the RIAA and MPAA are at the top of the heap. The way things were 10 years ago, if you wanted music or movies you would likely obtain it from a RIAA/MPAA-approved source. Yes, there was indie stuff, but "nobody" bought from there. (Where "nobody" = a very tiny segment of the population... small enough to ignore.)
Then change came and threatened to shift the heap. Where would the RIAA/MPAA end up? Perhaps they wouldn't really move and would weather the change just fine. Perhaps they would find that the heap grew and they were even higher up (bigger profits). The more likely scenario, though, would be that they'd no longer be at the top of the heap. This scared them and they went to great lengths to prevent change from coming lest they lose their "King of the Heap" status.
Hidden behind the scenes... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hidden behind the scenes of this discussions is the inherent and unquestioned assumption that capitalism is good.
Note that I'm not saying it's not. I'm just saying that there is an entrenched belief here even stronger than religion. The arguments all seem to be "whose definition of capitalism" and "One True Scotsman" type of arguments. But under it all is the (again) unquestioned assumption that capitalism (appropriately defined, of course) is the One True Way of resource management.
Again, in this I'm not questioning capitalism, I'm questioning the degree to which it has become a base assumption.
So here's a bit of a progression...
1 - Democracy and elections are good - not because they generate the best government, but because when properly executed, they peacefully remove and replace the government. Sometimes the replacement is better, sometimes worse, but at the very least, the replacement process is less disruptive and wasteful than a bloody revolution. If democracy were really working well, principally if the electorate chose to educate themselves well, governance would get incrementally better, where "better" is defined by a majority of the people. Things may not be happening that way, currently.
2 - Capitalism is good - not because it does the best job of distributing resources, but because when properly executed, bad players in the system exit and others take their place. If the market were properly transparent, and properly policed, even if only by its participants, the job of distributing resources would get incrementally better. Things may not be happening that way, currently.
There is nothing sacrosanct about the "profit motive". It's a nod to human nature, recognizing that personal gain can be highly motivating. Other than that motivational factor, "profit" is simply inefficiency in moving goods from supplier to consumer. The real idea behind the "free market" is that it harnesses chaos - a sort of natural selection of a wide array of ideas. When incumbants are able to suppress emergents, the free market is failing.
It's amusing/astonishing/sad that people rail at the thought of economic central planning by a government, yet accept economic central planning by entrenched market incumbants. It's not the government that's the enemy, it's the central planning, by whatever party. Some amount of chaos must exist, some continual level of instability, or the system isn't really working.
Food for thought...
In a world with nuclear bombs, genetically engineered virii, and other results of high technology becoming widely available, "human nature" is no longer good enough. If we don't start doing better than "human nature", we'll probably stop doing. Thinking about it a little, we're more likely to crash our society, crash our population, lose our technology, and be lucky to work our way back to a feudal steam age. (The easy energy is gone. The easy resources are gone, perhaps accessible in landfills, perhaps locked up in alloys that need high energy and high-tech to get out.)
Re:Hidden behind the scenes... (Score:5, Insightful)
What the poster really meant to say was: "This post conflicts with my dearly held and totally unexamined assumptions and ideas about capitalism. I am incapable of addressing it in any coherent fashion so I will instead wave my hands and imply that the original poster is ignorant and a liar because he said things that make me uncomfortable."
Re:Hidden behind the scenes... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll give you a little "better" response on human nature. I have 2 sources, which no doubt are not original, but that doesn't matter. Think in terms of discussing philosophy with Bomb #20.
Point 1 - Mine - "I may be wrong." It's always important to admit that, and to adjust your actions accordingly. How much misery has been caused by "Acting with the courage or our convictions" or "Doing what we know is RIGHT"? That is not to say never act, but we often put our blinders on with our own ideas. Me included.
Point 2 - In the novel "Earth" David Brin at one point tried to distill "three culturally-neutral definitions for sanity". To be honest, I've forgotten his third, and wasn't sufficiently impressed by it at the time - perhaps my failing. But the first 2 were really good.
Culturally-Neutral Sanity
1 - The abilitiy to be satiated. The ability to recognize that you have enough, and quit seeking more. We generally recognize satiation in everything except money, power, and to a lesser extent, sex.
2 - The ability to adjust your plans to fit changing circumstances. Or as (I believe it was) Einstein put it, "Insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over, expecting different results."
So there, how about 3 meaningful prescriptions. Of course I may be wrong - perhaps the best way to run a world is unlimited exercise of personal greed by all. But I don't think so.
provided (Score:2)
"provided that those who lack the imagination to see the potential here don't get their way."
yea thats sort of the fucking problem now, douches patenting the color black and the idea of a icon, invent and be destroyed
Saving capitalism from capitalists (Score:2)
Is there any possibility (Score:3)
The problem with many advocates of capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
When confronted with this fact they either ignore it, minimize its threat, offer up irrelevant counter arguments or offer up solutions that make no sense whatsoever, such as eliminating government altogether.
Re:Iron Law of Oligarchy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
It wouldn't really matter that much.
Me (and a circle of friends) trade music via fedex. It's just not reasonable to download a 1.7TByte music collection.
Piracy is a 'killer app'. There is more then one way to drown a litter of kittens.
What I really need is a music librarian app designed to merge/manage multi TByte music collections. Every time we run into another collection it's been sorted into different arbitrary folders (it's kind of necessary). I should get started.
Re: (Score:2)
"The people he describes are rentseekers, mercantalists, fascists, protectionists, etc. They are not capitalists in any meaningful sense of the term."
No true Scotsman...
Re: (Score:2)
Would be nice. But no. Economist castes a much wider net. See 'labor economists' for a bunch of foaming at the mouth, gibbering Marxists.
Re: (Score:2)
Not everybody starts fearing change once they mature, but most of us stop thinking that change for its own sake is a good thing. I know that I wouldn't want to go back to the way computers worked when I was young. I have absolutely no desire whatsover to go back to punched cards and a specialized typewriter on the conso