I agree with this article but am not entirely comfortable with it. I fear that it might act as applause lights for those of us who already agree with its premise. In order to fully appreciate many of the points made, I think a more abstract discussion of absolute and comparative advantage might have been useful first, or perhaps discussion of a historical example.
“Capitalism” is a polarizing term, and it doesn’t help when you say—indeed, start the article off with—such things as:
The vast majority of the world’s wealth has been produced under capitalism.
I’m considered pro-capitalist, and even I have problems with a simplistic framing like this. Among my concerns:
Capitalism means different things to different people, especially its supporters vs. (nominal) opponents. A characteristic example might be government-business entanglement (GBE). Supporters would call that “not capitalism”, while many opponents would say it’s typical capitalism. Yet they agree on the substance of what policies should exist.
Then there are complicated intermediate conflicts about what counts as government-business entanglement: Does it count as GBE when the government sets liability caps on nuclear plants, given that it’s the anti-nuclear social taboo in the first place that mostly accounts for why they’re uninsurable? Is respect for (strong) property rights a moral obligation, or a concession people are expected to be rewarded for? (See also Kevin Carson’s “free market anti-capitalism”.)
If the world had, to date, persisted under a poor political / economic system with only a few similarities to the ideal one, you would be able to say the same thing. But that doesn’t remotely support the conclusion you want: is the wealth because of its similarities to capitalism? Or to the ideal system? Or simply because of the current system in toto? Is the wealth even being tabulated correctly? Are you accounting for the destruction of informal sources of wealth that didn’t perfectly align with capitaism? (like the enclosure of commons systems that actually had mechanisms to prevent “tragedy of the commons” situations)
And yes I read the rest of the article, and I don’t think it recovered from this error. Also, a lot of the unwise reaction to free trade is because of (imho, legitimate) concern for the displaced workers. Since there’s some kind of taboo against simply asking for assistance in re-adjustment (as it’s viewed as too much of a handout), people typically push for the policy of “protecting jobs” ad infinitum.
If the world had, to date, persisted under a poor political / economic system with only a few similarities to the ideal one, you would be able to say the same thing.
It’s reasonable to imagine that there was some sort of “natural selection” of economic systems and that the one that emerged is relatively close to ideal.
The anthropic principle is relevant here.
And yes I read the rest of the article, and I don’t think it recovered from this error.
I’m open to suggestions for how I might improve the introduction to the article to make the article more palatable.
It’s reasonable to imagine that there was some sort of “natural selection” of economic systems and that the one that emerged is relatively close to ideal.
That doesn’t follow: the crucial thing about natural selection is that, given path-dependence and local optima, it doesn’t matter which particular feature causes the “fitness”; only the fact of its total fitness matters, and any given feature could just be a “hanger-on”.
Now, if you had numerous worlds (or merely societies) to compare, and a rigorous, well-accpeted definition of what counts as capitalism, and strong selection pressures and “mutuation”, then the present content of a system would be strong evidence of the superiority of all of its parts. But that’s not the case.
I’m open to suggestions for how I might improve the introduction to the article to make the article more palatable.
You should have dropped the whole pro-capitalist cheerleading and simply discussed the belief that jobs are zero-sum, the evidence that people generally hold this belief, and its errors. (And then discussed how people can be made to change this belief, given their general cognitive structure.)
I’m open to suggestions for how I might improve the introduction to the article to make the article more palatable.
I was going to suggest this, but I see you’ve already added it: thanks for editing in your definition of capitalism at the top of the post. When I first read the post, that was something I thought would improve it. Like SilasBarta I thought it was a bad idea to leave unclear what you were counting as capitalism.
I agree with this article but am not entirely comfortable with it. I fear that it might act as applause lights for those of us who already agree with its premise. In order to fully appreciate many of the points made, I think a more abstract discussion of absolute and comparative advantage might have been useful first, or perhaps discussion of a historical example.
This, this, this, this, THIS!
“Capitalism” is a polarizing term, and it doesn’t help when you say—indeed, start the article off with—such things as:
I’m considered pro-capitalist, and even I have problems with a simplistic framing like this. Among my concerns:
Capitalism means different things to different people, especially its supporters vs. (nominal) opponents. A characteristic example might be government-business entanglement (GBE). Supporters would call that “not capitalism”, while many opponents would say it’s typical capitalism. Yet they agree on the substance of what policies should exist.
Then there are complicated intermediate conflicts about what counts as government-business entanglement: Does it count as GBE when the government sets liability caps on nuclear plants, given that it’s the anti-nuclear social taboo in the first place that mostly accounts for why they’re uninsurable? Is respect for (strong) property rights a moral obligation, or a concession people are expected to be rewarded for? (See also Kevin Carson’s “free market anti-capitalism”.)
If the world had, to date, persisted under a poor political / economic system with only a few similarities to the ideal one, you would be able to say the same thing. But that doesn’t remotely support the conclusion you want: is the wealth because of its similarities to capitalism? Or to the ideal system? Or simply because of the current system in toto? Is the wealth even being tabulated correctly? Are you accounting for the destruction of informal sources of wealth that didn’t perfectly align with capitaism? (like the enclosure of commons systems that actually had mechanisms to prevent “tragedy of the commons” situations)
And yes I read the rest of the article, and I don’t think it recovered from this error. Also, a lot of the unwise reaction to free trade is because of (imho, legitimate) concern for the displaced workers. Since there’s some kind of taboo against simply asking for assistance in re-adjustment (as it’s viewed as too much of a handout), people typically push for the policy of “protecting jobs” ad infinitum.
Strongly seconded—political polarization on this site would suck, and adding vague and disputed terminology doesn’t help.
It’s reasonable to imagine that there was some sort of “natural selection” of economic systems and that the one that emerged is relatively close to ideal.
The anthropic principle is relevant here.
I’m open to suggestions for how I might improve the introduction to the article to make the article more palatable.
That doesn’t follow: the crucial thing about natural selection is that, given path-dependence and local optima, it doesn’t matter which particular feature causes the “fitness”; only the fact of its total fitness matters, and any given feature could just be a “hanger-on”.
Now, if you had numerous worlds (or merely societies) to compare, and a rigorous, well-accpeted definition of what counts as capitalism, and strong selection pressures and “mutuation”, then the present content of a system would be strong evidence of the superiority of all of its parts. But that’s not the case.
You should have dropped the whole pro-capitalist cheerleading and simply discussed the belief that jobs are zero-sum, the evidence that people generally hold this belief, and its errors. (And then discussed how people can be made to change this belief, given their general cognitive structure.)
I was going to suggest this, but I see you’ve already added it: thanks for editing in your definition of capitalism at the top of the post. When I first read the post, that was something I thought would improve it. Like SilasBarta I thought it was a bad idea to leave unclear what you were counting as capitalism.