I don’t know—do you think the rate of blowing up your competitors in, say, XIX century USA was much different from the rate of poisoning your enemies in e.g. XVII century Persia?
Without restricting the method of murder to poisoning, yes, quite significantly.
Yep, and there were incentive structures to deal with that in the pre-capitalist societies as well. Polities where everyone is free to poison anyone don’t last long...
Polities where everyone is at least plotting to murder everyone else (in the aristocracy) were largely the norm throughout most of history.
I have some data on the enemies-murdered column in 17th century Persia. A particularly nasty case is the shah Abbas I having all three of his surviving sons executed, blinded (a custom which translates more or less to disinheritance), or left to die in prison. The heirs in question were only three of a series of executions of potential rivals that would have made Ivan the Terrible feel like a bit of an underachiever; it began with a mass-execution after a rebellion by two puppet rulers installed by the shah in question, although we can’t count their numbers, since they weren’t, for our purposes, political enemies. Then there was Shah Safi’s reign, who made Abbas I look pleasant by comparison.
How many people murdered business rivals in the 1800′s in the US? Hell, the US didn’t even execute confederate generals and politicians.
How many people murdered business rivals in the 1800′s in the US?
The comparison isn’t to murder—you only need to drive the competitors out of business. How many people set fire to a competing business? Hire gangs to intimidate competitor’s employees? Arrange some industrial “accidents”?
We’re not debating moral equivalency, we’re talking about whether sociopaths under capitalism are significantly more law-abiding (“bind themselves by the rules of the game”) than under non-capitalist systems. The only reason that I can come up for that is that under capitalism, generally speaking, the rule of law is stronger, often much stronger, and so it’s harder to go against it. I’m not sure it’s sufficient for the conclusion we’re talking about, though—the risks are higher, but there’s less competition for the rewards :-/
One can probably make an interesting argument that modern societies are more totalitarian in that avoiding “the system” is much harder than in the Middle Ages, for example, but I don’t know if that can be laid at the feet of capitalism...
The comparison isn’t to murder—you only need to drive the competitors out of business. How many people set fire to a competing business? Hire gangs to intimidate competitor’s employees? Arrange some industrial “accidents”?
Alright. So… how many times did this happen? And if you’re not sure, would you expect this to happen frequently, given the dangers of retaliation? (Your rival losing his factory is a slight gain for you, as you don’t gain all of his market share. His retaliatory strike burning -your- factory down is a -major- loss for you.)
We’re not debating moral equivalency, we’re talking about whether sociopaths under capitalism are significantly more law-abiding (“bind themselves by the rules of the game”) than under non-capitalist systems. The only reason that I can come up for that is that under capitalism, generally speaking, the rule of law is stronger, often much stronger, and so it’s harder to go against it.
The long and short of it is this: In capitalism, “Cooperate” has a higher average long-term rate of return. In other economic systems, “Defect” has a higher average long-term rate of return.
Quibbling about law and “the rules of the game”: At this point, the economic system in the US isn’t capitalism, but a capitalism-like metagame (crony capitalism) revolving around redefining the law (the rules of the game) to advantage yourself, all the while pretending the rule changes have some noble purpose, such as helping the poor.
I don’t know, but I expect that some data exists—there were enough books and studies of the robber-baron capitalism and such.
And if you’re not sure, would you expect this to happen frequently, given the dangers of retaliation?
The dangers of retaliation are the same in every era.
In capitalism, “Cooperate” has a higher average long-term rate of return. In other economic systems, “Defect” has a higher average long-term rate of return.
I am quite unconvinced of that. Note that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is NOT cooperation. And take, say, socialism of the USSR and Mao’s China variety—do you think it encourages to cooperate or defect? Or how about the Roman Empire?
At this point, the economic system in the US isn’t capitalism
That’s a different topic, but it seems to me to be mostly about the definition of “capitalism”. I don’t think “pure” capitalism ever existed anywhere.
The dangers of retaliation are the same in every era.
Dead enemies don’t retaliate.
I am quite unconvinced of that. Note that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is NOT cooperation.
For the limited purposes I am discussing, yes it is. Just because the payoff matrix favors cooperation doesn’t make it not-cooperation.
And take, say, socialism of the USSR and Mao’s China variety—do you think it encourages to cooperate or defect? Or how about the Roman Empire?
The USSR encouraged defection; just look at how, whenever food production was particularly problematic, the USSR would briefly swap over to a semi-capitalist system for a few years, and miraculously food production would increase. The farmers routinely defected under the soviet economic system, hiding whatever they could to sell on the black market, and meeting the bare minimum for the quotas, where they didn’t get the quotas reduced for hardships which were always somehow worse when they didn’t own the product of their labors.
Same thing with Mao’s China.
Can’t say much regarding the Roman Empire, as I haven’t studied its economic system to any degree.
That’s a different topic, but it seems to me to be mostly about the definition of “capitalism”. I don’t think “pure” capitalism ever existed anywhere.
I am heading off a common line of debate before it happens, because I’ve had this particular argument many, many times before, albeit never in quite these terms.
For the limited purposes I am discussing, yes it is.
At which point I no longer understand what do you mean by “cooperation”.
just look at how, whenever food production was particularly problematic, the USSR would briefly swap over to a semi-capitalist system for a few years
Huh? That, um, never happened except for once in the 1920s. I have no idea what are you talking about.
The farmers routinely defected under the soviet economic system, hiding whatever they could to sell on the black market
I don’t think that was as routine as you seem to think. If your farmers collective grows wheat, who do you sell it to? It’s not like there were any millers to whom one could come with a sack of grain...
At which point I no longer understand what do you mean by “cooperation”.
“Not defecting.” I imagine defection is a clearer distinction in your mind?
Huh? That, um, never happened except for once in the 1920s. I have no idea what are you talking about.
It happened multiple times. The 1920 were the initial collectivization period, which led to a famine. The mid 1930′s had the first semi-capitalistic change, allowing privately-held sections of farmland. The Soviet government largely ignored the fact that most effort was concentrated on the privately-held sections initially, but gradually cracked down, causing harvests to decline again. In the 1950′s, some of the privately-held sections were collectivized in a renewed collectivization effort (which also combined many of the farms), and immediately harvests started falling, so the Soviet government switched from “national” ownership of the farmers’ products to a system in which the government paid the farmers for the harvests. Harvests went up again. The government, however, gradually reduced payments, which again, caused harvests to plummet. In the late 60′s the privately held sections of farmland were expanded, and harvests increased again. In the 70′s, a new system which was supposed to guarantee farmers a higher share of the profits for their work was instituted.
Yeah, this happened constantly. Every new Party Leader wanted to make communism work, and would roll out a new communistic farming approach. This approach would fail, and they’d put some kind of capitalism back in place, and farming output would increase again.
I don’t think that was as routine as you seem to think. If your farmers collective grows wheat, who do you sell it to? It’s not like there were any millers to whom one could come with a sack of grain...
What makes you think there weren’t? The black market in the Soviet States was all-encompassing. The millers you came to were millers for the state, even, who didn’t mind getting a little bit of money on the side. Corruption, in the Soviet, was not merely a way of life, it was often necessary to survive.
That implies the Prisoner’s Dilemma context. I don’t see how large and complex socioeconomic systems (e.g. capitalism) are—or can be reduced to—a Prisoner’s Dilemma.
It happened multiple times. The 1920 were the initial collectivization period, which led to a famine. The mid 1930′s had the first semi-capitalistic change, allowing privately-held sections of farmland.
Nope. The 1920′s were a kinda-retreat from communism because Russia was uncertain it could survive—see NEP. The forced collectivization came afterwards, at the very end of 1920s.
I don’t see any retreat from the collectivization in the mid-30s. In fact, mid-1930s is the time of the Stalin’s regime going into the full-paranoia mode and tightening the screws.
In the 1950′s, some of the privately-held sections were collectivized in a renewed collectivization effort
Links, please. There was “re-collectivization” on the territories temporarily lost to the Germans, but I don’t think that’s what we are talking about.
In the late 60′s the privately held sections of farmland were expanded, and harvests increased again.
Again, links, please.
What makes you think there weren’t?
And more links, please :-)
There are enough Russians on LW, what are their memories and opinions on “privately held sections of farmland” and being able to find a miller to mill your sack of grain..?
In fact, mid-1930s is the time of the Stalin’s regime going into the full-paranoia mode and tightening the screws.
That’s not inconsistent with implementing a semi-capitalistic approach, it fact one theory I’ve herd is that the point of “tightening the screws” was to arrest any party official, how was indiscreet enough to point out that the new policy wasn’t exactly communist.
There are enough Russians on LW, what are their memories and opinions on “privately held sections of farmland” and being able to find a miller to mill your sack of grain..?
I don’t know much about farm policy, my family lived in a big city. But the general “barter black market” certainly existed.
That’s not inconsistent with implementing a semi-capitalistic approach
It is because the freedom-control axis is very important to capitalism.
was to arrest any party official, how was indiscreet enough to point out that the new policy wasn’t exactly communist.
Kinda, but it has nothing to do with capitalism. One of the traditional explanations for the purges of the 1930s was the necessity to get rid of “old bolsheviks” who were too idealistic and insufficiently obedient to fit into Stalin’s Russia. That wasn’t because Stalin was becoming a capitalist, that was because Stalin was becoming a dictator.
http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/science/collective-farm-in-soviet-union.html is the most comprehensive of the sources I used to refresh my memory of my studies of Russian History; it doesn’t discuss the size of harvests or the tendency of new Party Leaders to repeat the same mistakes of their predecessors, nor the widespread black markets that underpinned the Soviet economy. I will try to find the five or six textbooks I studied from, however.
The link doesn’t support your claims. There was no “renewed collectivization effort” in the 1950s, what happened was that small kolkhozes were merged into big ones. And the increase in “private plots” is the increase of the size of personal gardens, basically—don’t think they can be properly called “privately held sections of farmland”. People certainly used them to grow and partially sell produce, but everyone had to have a day job anyway. These private plots, as far as I know, always existed and post-WW2 only expanded. I don’t think they were ever rolled back—there was no back-and-forth waves.
Is is true that the USSR gradually relaxed its grip on the peasants compared to mid-1930s, but, again, it was a continuous trend, there was no back-and-forth. Once the peasants got internal passports, they were not taken back. Once they started to be paid in money for the harvest, that continued and did not roll back, etc.
No. It doesn’t. Because, as mentioned, my primary source is study on the material using textbooks, which I am going to have to locate to reference for you, including some firsthand accounts of the era. I used the link, among others, as a refresher to remind me of the exact time periods things happened.
Is is true that the USSR gradually relaxed its grip on the peasants compared to mid-1930s, but, again, it was a continuous trend, there was no back-and-forth.
Given your previous assertion that it didn’t happen at all, I think you’re generally taking a position much stronger than your evidence supports, which is to say, you’re treating all of my claims as false until proven true. Consider updating on the possibility that I do have some idea what I’m talking about, in addition to updating on the specific points.
Google “size of private kolkhoz plot”, however, for a variety of sources. Yes, there was -considerable- back-and-forth. And yes, once they started paying money, they continued—but the amount of money -did- vary, and it frequently didn’t cover the cost of production.
Given your previous assertion that it didn’t happen at all
Quote, please. I think you’re misreading me.
Consider updating on the possibility that I do have some idea what I’m talking about,
Actually, the relevant possibility is that you know more than me, “some idea” is from the same ballpark as “know enough to get yourself in trouble” :-P
“I don’t see any retreat from the collectivization in the mid-30s. In fact, mid-1930s is the time of the Stalin’s regime going into the full-paranoia mode and tightening the screws.”
The ambiguous wording doesn’t erase the fact that this is your rejection of the assertion you later accepted.
Actually, the relevant possibility is that you know more than me, “some idea” is from the same ballpark as “know enough to get yourself in trouble” :-P
I avoid any internal framing of my knowledge as being in competition with somebody else’s, because then I might feel the need to try to “win”, which is pretty much the only way to lose.
The ambiguous wording doesn’t erase the fact that this is your rejection of the assertion you later accepted.
Huh? There is no ambiguity.
I am saying (emphasis mine): “”I don’t see any retreat from the collectivization in the mid-30s”. Note: “in”. What you are implying I said is that I don’t see any retreat from the collectivization after the mid-30s. These are different sentences with different meaning.
as being in competition
It’s not a competition, but if you want to claim some authority (“I do have some idea what I’m talking about”), it would help to not bounce between claims that are wrong (“The mid 1930′s had the first semi-capitalistic change”) and claims that are not even wrong (“the USSR would briefly swap over to a semi-capitalist system for a few years”).
Without restricting the method of murder to poisoning, yes, quite significantly.
Polities where everyone is at least plotting to murder everyone else (in the aristocracy) were largely the norm throughout most of history.
Do you have data?
I have some data on the enemies-murdered column in 17th century Persia. A particularly nasty case is the shah Abbas I having all three of his surviving sons executed, blinded (a custom which translates more or less to disinheritance), or left to die in prison. The heirs in question were only three of a series of executions of potential rivals that would have made Ivan the Terrible feel like a bit of an underachiever; it began with a mass-execution after a rebellion by two puppet rulers installed by the shah in question, although we can’t count their numbers, since they weren’t, for our purposes, political enemies. Then there was Shah Safi’s reign, who made Abbas I look pleasant by comparison.
How many people murdered business rivals in the 1800′s in the US? Hell, the US didn’t even execute confederate generals and politicians.
The comparison isn’t to murder—you only need to drive the competitors out of business. How many people set fire to a competing business? Hire gangs to intimidate competitor’s employees? Arrange some industrial “accidents”?
We’re not debating moral equivalency, we’re talking about whether sociopaths under capitalism are significantly more law-abiding (“bind themselves by the rules of the game”) than under non-capitalist systems. The only reason that I can come up for that is that under capitalism, generally speaking, the rule of law is stronger, often much stronger, and so it’s harder to go against it. I’m not sure it’s sufficient for the conclusion we’re talking about, though—the risks are higher, but there’s less competition for the rewards :-/
One can probably make an interesting argument that modern societies are more totalitarian in that avoiding “the system” is much harder than in the Middle Ages, for example, but I don’t know if that can be laid at the feet of capitalism...
Alright. So… how many times did this happen? And if you’re not sure, would you expect this to happen frequently, given the dangers of retaliation? (Your rival losing his factory is a slight gain for you, as you don’t gain all of his market share. His retaliatory strike burning -your- factory down is a -major- loss for you.)
The long and short of it is this: In capitalism, “Cooperate” has a higher average long-term rate of return. In other economic systems, “Defect” has a higher average long-term rate of return.
Quibbling about law and “the rules of the game”: At this point, the economic system in the US isn’t capitalism, but a capitalism-like metagame (crony capitalism) revolving around redefining the law (the rules of the game) to advantage yourself, all the while pretending the rule changes have some noble purpose, such as helping the poor.
I don’t know, but I expect that some data exists—there were enough books and studies of the robber-baron capitalism and such.
The dangers of retaliation are the same in every era.
I am quite unconvinced of that. Note that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is NOT cooperation. And take, say, socialism of the USSR and Mao’s China variety—do you think it encourages to cooperate or defect? Or how about the Roman Empire?
That’s a different topic, but it seems to me to be mostly about the definition of “capitalism”. I don’t think “pure” capitalism ever existed anywhere.
Dead enemies don’t retaliate.
For the limited purposes I am discussing, yes it is. Just because the payoff matrix favors cooperation doesn’t make it not-cooperation.
The USSR encouraged defection; just look at how, whenever food production was particularly problematic, the USSR would briefly swap over to a semi-capitalist system for a few years, and miraculously food production would increase. The farmers routinely defected under the soviet economic system, hiding whatever they could to sell on the black market, and meeting the bare minimum for the quotas, where they didn’t get the quotas reduced for hardships which were always somehow worse when they didn’t own the product of their labors.
Same thing with Mao’s China.
Can’t say much regarding the Roman Empire, as I haven’t studied its economic system to any degree.
I am heading off a common line of debate before it happens, because I’ve had this particular argument many, many times before, albeit never in quite these terms.
At which point I no longer understand what do you mean by “cooperation”.
Huh? That, um, never happened except for once in the 1920s. I have no idea what are you talking about.
I don’t think that was as routine as you seem to think. If your farmers collective grows wheat, who do you sell it to? It’s not like there were any millers to whom one could come with a sack of grain...
“Not defecting.” I imagine defection is a clearer distinction in your mind?
It happened multiple times. The 1920 were the initial collectivization period, which led to a famine. The mid 1930′s had the first semi-capitalistic change, allowing privately-held sections of farmland. The Soviet government largely ignored the fact that most effort was concentrated on the privately-held sections initially, but gradually cracked down, causing harvests to decline again. In the 1950′s, some of the privately-held sections were collectivized in a renewed collectivization effort (which also combined many of the farms), and immediately harvests started falling, so the Soviet government switched from “national” ownership of the farmers’ products to a system in which the government paid the farmers for the harvests. Harvests went up again. The government, however, gradually reduced payments, which again, caused harvests to plummet. In the late 60′s the privately held sections of farmland were expanded, and harvests increased again. In the 70′s, a new system which was supposed to guarantee farmers a higher share of the profits for their work was instituted.
Yeah, this happened constantly. Every new Party Leader wanted to make communism work, and would roll out a new communistic farming approach. This approach would fail, and they’d put some kind of capitalism back in place, and farming output would increase again.
What makes you think there weren’t? The black market in the Soviet States was all-encompassing. The millers you came to were millers for the state, even, who didn’t mind getting a little bit of money on the side. Corruption, in the Soviet, was not merely a way of life, it was often necessary to survive.
That implies the Prisoner’s Dilemma context. I don’t see how large and complex socioeconomic systems (e.g. capitalism) are—or can be reduced to—a Prisoner’s Dilemma.
Nope. The 1920′s were a kinda-retreat from communism because Russia was uncertain it could survive—see NEP. The forced collectivization came afterwards, at the very end of 1920s.
I don’t see any retreat from the collectivization in the mid-30s. In fact, mid-1930s is the time of the Stalin’s regime going into the full-paranoia mode and tightening the screws.
Links, please. There was “re-collectivization” on the territories temporarily lost to the Germans, but I don’t think that’s what we are talking about.
Again, links, please.
And more links, please :-)
There are enough Russians on LW, what are their memories and opinions on “privately held sections of farmland” and being able to find a miller to mill your sack of grain..?
That’s not inconsistent with implementing a semi-capitalistic approach, it fact one theory I’ve herd is that the point of “tightening the screws” was to arrest any party official, how was indiscreet enough to point out that the new policy wasn’t exactly communist.
I don’t know much about farm policy, my family lived in a big city. But the general “barter black market” certainly existed.
It is because the freedom-control axis is very important to capitalism.
Kinda, but it has nothing to do with capitalism. One of the traditional explanations for the purges of the 1930s was the necessity to get rid of “old bolsheviks” who were too idealistic and insufficiently obedient to fit into Stalin’s Russia. That wasn’t because Stalin was becoming a capitalist, that was because Stalin was becoming a dictator.
http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/science/collective-farm-in-soviet-union.html is the most comprehensive of the sources I used to refresh my memory of my studies of Russian History; it doesn’t discuss the size of harvests or the tendency of new Party Leaders to repeat the same mistakes of their predecessors, nor the widespread black markets that underpinned the Soviet economy. I will try to find the five or six textbooks I studied from, however.
The link doesn’t support your claims. There was no “renewed collectivization effort” in the 1950s, what happened was that small kolkhozes were merged into big ones. And the increase in “private plots” is the increase of the size of personal gardens, basically—don’t think they can be properly called “privately held sections of farmland”. People certainly used them to grow and partially sell produce, but everyone had to have a day job anyway. These private plots, as far as I know, always existed and post-WW2 only expanded. I don’t think they were ever rolled back—there was no back-and-forth waves.
Is is true that the USSR gradually relaxed its grip on the peasants compared to mid-1930s, but, again, it was a continuous trend, there was no back-and-forth. Once the peasants got internal passports, they were not taken back. Once they started to be paid in money for the harvest, that continued and did not roll back, etc.
No. It doesn’t. Because, as mentioned, my primary source is study on the material using textbooks, which I am going to have to locate to reference for you, including some firsthand accounts of the era. I used the link, among others, as a refresher to remind me of the exact time periods things happened.
Given your previous assertion that it didn’t happen at all, I think you’re generally taking a position much stronger than your evidence supports, which is to say, you’re treating all of my claims as false until proven true. Consider updating on the possibility that I do have some idea what I’m talking about, in addition to updating on the specific points.
Google “size of private kolkhoz plot”, however, for a variety of sources. Yes, there was -considerable- back-and-forth. And yes, once they started paying money, they continued—but the amount of money -did- vary, and it frequently didn’t cover the cost of production.
Quote, please. I think you’re misreading me.
Actually, the relevant possibility is that you know more than me, “some idea” is from the same ballpark as “know enough to get yourself in trouble” :-P
“I don’t see any retreat from the collectivization in the mid-30s. In fact, mid-1930s is the time of the Stalin’s regime going into the full-paranoia mode and tightening the screws.”
The ambiguous wording doesn’t erase the fact that this is your rejection of the assertion you later accepted.
I avoid any internal framing of my knowledge as being in competition with somebody else’s, because then I might feel the need to try to “win”, which is pretty much the only way to lose.
Huh? There is no ambiguity.
I am saying (emphasis mine): “”I don’t see any retreat from the collectivization in the mid-30s”. Note: “in”. What you are implying I said is that I don’t see any retreat from the collectivization after the mid-30s. These are different sentences with different meaning.
It’s not a competition, but if you want to claim some authority (“I do have some idea what I’m talking about”), it would help to not bounce between claims that are wrong (“The mid 1930′s had the first semi-capitalistic change”) and claims that are not even wrong (“the USSR would briefly swap over to a semi-capitalist system for a few years”).