The Trouble with Capitalism

This is the best write up I have seen on this topic. I started reading expecting to be offended but I don't think this will be anyone's response. Despite the title this is a balanced piece that leaves you thinking not raging.

Could we please not flag this? It’s quite substantive and the comments are thoughtful and engaging.

Not to be too meta, but I kinda like that this just has [flagged] in the title, without much else changed. Hopefully it serves as a challenge to discuss the topic while following the "interpret each other generously" rule, and discussing reasonably. Ever since I got called on being less than charitable in a past comment thread, I've really come to love that rule here.

Number 9 (not The Beatles thing) is supported by the Texas Senate and Abbott will sign it: criminalizing homelessness.

&gt; <i>“Socialism in the strict sense, which would centralize the most fundamental economic decision-making, is intrinsically evil.”</i><p>What do they think socialism is? Even the most radical Marxists define it as “democratic worker ownership of the means of production.”<p>And fwiw the USSR did not even consider itself a socialist state. That’s why it decided on using the term <i>communism</i> instead, and Marxists tend to agree it was not deserving of that name either, deeming it <i>state capitalist.</i>

For me, the biggest issue with capitalism is that it narrowly tries to optimize &quot;profit&quot; above all and at all cost.<p>The problem with that is there are essential human needs that should be taken care of without trying to optimize profits but currently it doesn&#x27;t work and people suffer needlessly.<p>I&#x27;m not necessarily advocating for completely getting rid of capitalism or switching to socialism, but the capitalism model certainly needs some adjustments to account for essential human needs (health, food, shelter etc), the environment and so forth.

&gt; The institution of private property, including private ownership of the basic means of production<p>Property is never really wholly private or wholly public. Deeds, titles, freeholds, leaseholds, etc all generally come with some form of public obligations to a sovereign. And in a republic the sovereign is a general government which uses its authority on behalf of the people as a whole to maximize their happiness.<p>&gt; A doctrinaire laissez-faire mentality that is reflexively hostile to all governmental economic intervention<p>Laissez-faire was originally a progressive ideology advocated by the French physiocrats which opposed the internal tariffs and private privileges which the king, nobility, and church enjoyed under the Ancien Régime. Part of laissez-faire was the idea that governments should collect a large direct tax on landed property and raise 100% of tax revenues from the most privileged classes of society.<p>These capitalism vs socialism debates are never really worth having.<p>There&#x27;s many types of capitalism and really only a subset of what is commonly referred to as capital has a material basis. These debates always oversimplify things, under-estimate the degree to which western economies are central planned by private banks, and ignore the problem of fictitious capital.

&gt; In defense of the first claim, I would simply refer to the standard arguments made by libertarians, free market conservatives, and liberals like Steven Pinker, which I regard as unanswerable.<p>Um, try <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jasonhickel.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2019&#x2F;2&#x2F;3&#x2F;pinker-and-global-poverty" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jasonhickel.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2019&#x2F;2&#x2F;3&#x2F;pinker-and-global-...</a> ? I would like to think modernity is better globally in strict utilitarian sense, but Hickel raises some serious issues so I&#x27;d say it&#x27;s unclear.<p>This professor thinks he weighing in on culture war issues above the fray, but for this and many other reasons his analysis of worldly matters is quite pitifully weak. I&#x27;m in no position to critique his theology but I doubt it&#x27;s much better.

&gt;” Again, the problem is not riches per se, but the fixation on riches”<p>Is this really a problem with capitalism or with human nature?

This is a great article, and does not deserve the flagging. It is a well-written, and -linked, dispassionate treatment of important material.<p>That said, let me respond to:<p>&gt; II. Capitalism has made us spiritually much worse off.<p>Not Capitalism&#x27;s task. Economics is an external, aggregate concept. The notion that it is somehow responsible for internal, personal results is novel. Capitalism is a system, and as such is amoral. It is frequently and perhaps accurately attacked for bringing out the ugly carnivore in humans. But that seems like attacking the street for the drunk driver.<p>These attacks are often delivered by those favoring Socialism. I would suggest that perhaps the difficulty stems from the tendency toward aggregation, externalization, and materialism in human thinking, at the expense of the individual, internal, and the spiritual.

&gt; Now, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with any of those things. Indeed, some of them (such as private property [...]) are required as a matter of natural law.<p>This part is understandable but disappointing. The concept of “private” property in this context is conflated with common usage but has a jargon meaning that’s been used to malign or misunderstand socialism and doesn’t help this article make its case.<p>Here, “private property” is being used to reference physical things owned by private individuals. But in the Marxist context in which it was used to describe&#x2F;critique capitalism that’s not what it means.<p>“Private property” as used here refers to profit-driving ownership, i.e. the reference to “means of production”. It doesn’t refer to what would be called “personal ownership”, property which belongs to individuals for their personal disposal and discretion.<p>There is nothing in “natural law” which suggests that for people to be free some people should be protected to own things which allow them to extract competitive value. That’s a decision society makes, at whatever granularity.