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xoralkindi | 7 months ago

> Someday, people will have to realize we live in a society. What will it take?

Anarchism, socialism and communism can work perfect in a small village where everyone knows and trusts each other. But if you scale it up it does not work well because people can be corrupt. If you want to scale up to a Geo Global level that is trust-less the best way we know is to use Capitalism, but Capitalism ends up becoming more and more centralized.

Because Capitalism is inherently competitive there will always be winners and losers and these are not just businesses it's everyone in the system because capital is required to partake in the system. This competitiveness is also what leads to the lack of "morality".

What will it take?

I think you cannot have the benefits of capitalism without these side-effects.

discuss

order

TFYS|7 months ago

I think we now have the technology to make decision-making and resource allocation systems that do not need to centralize power. If we can do that, then it wouldn't matter that people can be corrupt, because there would be no positions of power that people can abuse.

xoralkindi|7 months ago

I also believe that technology is the solution. But all the key technology is centralized Chips, AI, Batteries, Cryptography, Email, Internet access, Radio Waves

sothatsit|7 months ago

Most people aren't looking to eliminate capitalism. They just want constraints to be put on it. Higher taxes on wealth, stricter antitrust enforcement, investing in social infrastructure, or passing laws that protect consumers don't prevent capitalism from working.

Australia has social healthcare and massive mining companies. They coexist just fine. There really is a lot of wiggle room between fully embracing socialism and going full anarcho-capitalist, and maybe the tradeoffs of shifting towards the socialism side of things are worth considering.

Although, George seems to just want to flip the table out of the belief that real reform that would impact most people positively will never get passed in a democracy. It would require too much change.

xoralkindi|7 months ago

> Most people aren't looking to eliminate capitalism. They want sensible constraints to be put on it. Things like higher taxes on wealth, stricter antitrust enforcement, or investing in social infrastructure don't prevent capitalism from working.

In capitalism the capitalists end up being the government. They can choose who gets elected, the laws, they even start political parties.

boudin|7 months ago

What are the benefits of capitalism?

Ray20|7 months ago

With it, you don't have to die from hunger. Not much, but compared to the alternatives, it is one of the strongest arguments in favor of capitalism.

xoralkindi|7 months ago

It can scale economies and can run on the global level, it also brings about rapid advances in Science and Technology. It also provides more options for individuals than in Socialism, in this regard Capitalism is more decentralized than Socialism.