So here is my question: If I like to go fishing, and I want a boat, do I get a boat? It's not a necessity. Not everyone will have one. It's not the most efficient use of resources. How do I even tell someone that I want a boat? Will I go to a boat store like now? Who will work there? Will it be online, or computerized within the store? What if I want another boat? What about a sea plane? There is no work. We all have everything we need somehow. But what about the things we want? The glaring problem with this entire post-Capitalist economy is that there is no market force to direct the production and distribution of goods. Why would it be so wonderful to not work if I can't enjoy the time I have?
I think the point the article was trying to make is that capitalist institutions will still exist, they just won't be the focus of everything the way they are now. For most of human history, the focus was on feeding everybody. Right up until the start of the industrial revolution just about everybody worked the land to provide food. Now only 3% of the workforce are engaged in agriculture. Our need for food hasn't gone away, but it's a solved problem. We work on other problems instead. Now, imagine a world where running the factories, the distribution and all the other jobs which currently needed to supply all the consumer desires only takes up 3% of the workforce. If we add in the 3% that we still need to grow food, what will the other 94% do with our free time? That is thinking about post-capitalism. Capitalism won't have gone away, it's just advanced to same point as agriculture, where 90% of us can ignore it.
Are you going to be the only one who likes to go fishing on a boat? Are you going to be using that boat all the time? Do you need to own the boat in order to enjoy fishing from it?
Should we, as we are facing the rise of extreme poverty and people starving all over the world, really worry about people's "need" to fly around in sea planes? Can't we worry about sea planes once we've sorted the eating thing? And could we then maybe think about it in terms of how we're going to realize sea planes for those who want them without screwing over both humans and nature? Markets can't only exist as institutions framed by capitalist interests. A healthy market in a world I would like to live in exists to allocate ressources where they're needed. Needed, not wanted by the masters of "playing the system for generations".
I wouldn't call China's sweat shops, devastated environments and mass-suicides at chip factories a glowing example of economic development going right. But maybe that's just me. I don't believe that "raising all the boats" works. The water level has been rising so long. Somehow, it's still a few people in really fancy boats and a whole lot of people swimming for their lifes or simply drowning.The extreme poverty rise in the US is a policy problem, not an economics problem.
[citation needed]World wide extreme poverty has been plummeting over the last two decades, mainly as a result of more liberal trade policies in Asia.
Why would I need a citation? GDP has grown a lot, and yet there are more extremely poor people in the US. It is self-evident that were policy the same or similar now to the time before welfare "reform", that the proportion of people in extreme poverty would be similar. That's the thrust of your link, to boot. That's a policy problem if I've ever seen one. China has a lot of problems, for sure. But what's the alternative? Even Nick Kristof has acknowledged that sweat shops represent a step in the right direction when your only other means of survival is garbage picking. Growth pangs of a modern economy hurt. I don't envy anyone who has to work in those conditions, but I'm sure they do it because they feel like it will provide a better life for their families. I hope that going forward that labor standards and environmental protection become much more serious issues in Asia. I would love to see a day when goods cost the real cost, and not the highly externalized price that Walmart sells us shit for. But that's still a policy issue. Real economic development is a good thing for poor people. One doesn't have to be an adherent of trickle down economics to believe that.
Table 13. Number Below Poverty Level and Rate (XLS)Why would I need a citation?
Uh, so we don't have to take your word for it? So we can examine the evidence?there are more extremely poor people in the US
There are more people in the United States. Year - Number of poor families - Poverty rate for families
2013 - 9,130,000 - 11.2
2003 - 7,607,000 - 10
1993 - 8,393,000 - 12.3
1983 - 7,647,000 - 12.3
1973 - 4,828,000 - 8.8
1963 - 7,554,000 - 15.9
No way that could have anything to do with what GDP measures? Does it tell us how big the cake is or how it is distributed? Does the logic of a capitalist economy have anything to do with concentration of wealth at all in your oppinion? Does that mean sweat shops are a step in the right direction or does it mean the alternatives suck? Yeah, sure. So do the contraction pangs. There's a lot of hurt built into the system, it seems. But even then, it doesn't hurt for everyone involved, does it? Almost as if the quite uneven distribution of pain and gain was somehow baked into the system. Why does "policy" always sound like something that has nothing at all to do with the actual economic framework it has to operate in? Last time I checked, it had already become quite obvious that policy largely follows the interests of the most successful economic actors. "Money = Power" is not some kind of unfortunate coincidence in a capitalist society. No, but one can have very different ideas about what real economic development means.Why would I need a citation? GDP has grown a lot, and yet there are more extremely poor people in the US. It is self-evident that were policy the same or similar now to the time before welfare "reform", that the proportion of people in extreme poverty would be similar. That's the thrust of your link, to boot. That's a policy problem if I've ever seen one.
China has a lot of problems, for sure. But what's the alternative? Even Nick Kristof has acknowledged that sweat shops represent a step in the right direction when your only other means of survival is garbage picking.
Growth pangs of a modern economy hurt.
I don't envy anyone who has to work in those conditions, but I'm sure they do it because they feel like it will provide a better life for their families.
Not starving is a better life than starving, so, yeah, sure. I hope that going forward that labor standards and environmental protection become much more serious issues in Asia. I would love to see a day when goods cost the real cost, and not the highly externalized price that Walmart sells us shit for. But that's still a policy issue.
Real economic development is a good thing for poor people. One doesn't have to be an adherent of trickle down economics to believe that.
Hans Rosling makes a good case that, as the world gets richer, the poor are getting richer, too. This obviously doesn't solve the poverty issue, but it is good evidence that we are, in fact, making a difference.
Are there enough seeds for everyone who wants to grow trees? Enough soil? Or are you going to fence off an area and insist nobody else can plant a tree there? Will you actually grow the tree and build the boat yourself? Or will that be the job of some sucker who wasn't yet alive when everyone fenced off some land for trees? Who will do the fishing? You? Or some sucker who had damn well better be grateful that he gets to use your cool boat (while you sell the fish, pay him a fraction of the profits and call that a fair arrangement?) Will you stop at one boat? Or are you going to take the profits from the other guy's fishing and use those to buy other people's boats and fenced off tree growing areas? When will it be enough boats? Will there be any fish left by then? At which point do you offer people shares for your fishing empire? When will betting on tomorrow's catch become more important than fishing?
You know, I can appreciate the idea. A man, his tree and his boat. But it really isn't that simple, is it?So no boat in deepflows world. Got that.
Got that wrong. No personal yacht for your exclusive use, though. Not as long as the same ressources could go towards building shelter somewhere else. Tough?Next question: I have a maple seed. I grow maple trees for 25 years. I cut them down to make a boat. Do I get to keep the boat?
It seems like most people who have a hard on for the sharing economy seem to not notice that in order for something to be shared, it has to first be manufactured. And even if solar power gets to a point where capturing energy is vanishingly cheap, raw materials are still a thing, and someone has to extract them and turn them into finished goods. This author seems like a neo-Stalinist to me, and I wouldn't take him that seriously.
The article was a bit far fetched, but even accepting it on its face there are significant issues that aren't explored. Deciding what everyone 'gets' to share as part of a no-work system is a huge unresolved issue. Most would argue that you shouldn't be able to have cigarettes. But they would not argue against wine and beer. There's no difference eventually. Lands that could be used to grow crops to feed the hungry could be used to grow grapes and hops and tobacco. Choose one and lose the other. Even if a machine is doing all the work and we're just left to consume the approved list of shared goods, who decides what is on that list has all the power in the system.
Right, so you start bribing the decider with some of your allotted resources to get access to others, and OMG we have a black market. Who'd have thunk it? I actually agree with him (to some extent) here: However, I totally disagree with his prognosis. I think it basically means that FB, Twitter and the like have vastly inflated share prices, and eventually they will have a reckoning. But then, what the fuck have FB, Twitter and Instagram ever made? Nothing, to put it bluntly. They are easily replaceable compared to say, GE or even Apple. It's a big leap to say that because some internet companies have a shitty, unsustainable business model, that we're seeing the end of capitalism....who decides what is on that list has all the power in the system.
...information is corroding the market’s ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant. The system’s defence mechanism is to form monopolies – the giant tech companies – on a scale not seen in the past 200 years, yet they cannot last. By building business models and share valuations based on the capture and privatisation of all socially produced information, such firms are constructing a fragile corporate edifice at odds with the most basic need of humanity, which is to use ideas freely.
This is the point where I started skimming. It's obvious nonsense, unless you are talking about prices for information. The Information Age has indeed reduced the cost of getting data about, say, poverty rates, to a negligible level. Prices are information. More information means better, more uniform pricing. Remember renting a car at the airport without a reservation, or walking into a hotel to ask the rack rate? Ever checked a price on Amazon while standing in a Best Buy? Joy. They created joy. What did Shakespeare make? Bruce Lee? mk?information is corroding the market’s ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant
what the fuck have FB, Twitter and Instagram ever made?