this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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Well it's similar to what Churchill said about democracy... it's a bad system but it's better than all the others.
If you can put ideology aside and think in terms of economics, in many industries capitalism offers an efficient way of determining the an optimal price and quantity to produce considering the costs and value something brings. And it's something that allows for industries to function without an excessive amount of centralized planning which will often get things wrong.
But it's like a machine in a many ways. And like any machine it requires maintenance. Things like trust-busting, progessive taxation, regulations, and occasional stimulus are necessary to keep it running smoothly.
But once you bring ideology into it, it all becomes a shitshow. Some will argue capitalism is a perfect machine and any kind of maintenance on the machine will ruin it's perfection. Others take any kind of maintenance on the machine as a sign the machine will inevitably fail and needs to be replaced entirely. But then we go back to the beginning where other systems have been tried and they're worse. Charlatans, grifters, ideologues abound pushing people in every direct except for simply taking reasonable measures to keep the machine running smoothly. There's an almost religious devotion towards arguing the either the machine is perfect or the machine is doomed to failure and not only should be replaced they should accelerate the failure so it can be replaced sooner.
Zealots from all sides demonize the mechanics that are simply keeping things running. A lot of emotional nonsense about this thing. But to an economist, it's just a machine with both strengths and weaknesses. The functioning of the machine is well understood, and the other machines that have been tried didn't really work.
I think decentralization of power is a nice feature too. Billionaires are power centers outside of the government, judiciary, or military. They exist as a result of lax control on the markets by the government. In countries without capitalism and property rights, the billionaires are the government and the judiciary and the military. So, even though it might seem like nationalizing their wealth would decrease inequality, if there aren't good safeguards for decentralizing government power, it would result in a less equal society.
Part of the existence of billionaires is the ability to actually determine which money is theirs. In autocratic governments, you can't really say who owns what because you never know what the government might decide to take.
I don't defend billionaires, I think power should be spread more fairly, but eliminating them via the government needs to be done wisely in order to maintain decentralization.
Maintaining decentralization just allows for more centralization as markets coalesce into monopolist syndicates, better to centralize, make public property, and democratize.
The main argument is that that would not less to democratic control. Are there any historical examples where you have both democracy and violation of private property rights?
Cuba, the PRC, USSR, etc. All had large democratization of the economy compared to the fascist slaver system under Batista, the Nationalist Kuomintang, and the brutal Tsarist regime. Centralization doesn't inherently mean democratic control, but you can't have meaningful democratic input without control, and thus democratic output.
Again, decentralized market systems naturally result in the "better" firms monopolizing and outcompeting, this isn't something that can be meaningfully fought.
AES states have by no means been perfect democratic wonderlands, of course, but they have brought large democratization with respect to the level of development of the productive forces. I highly recommend reading the essay Why do Marxists Fail to Bring the "Worker's Paradise?" It takes 20 minutes and contextualizes the benefits and struggles of AES states. Socialism is often judged through a false, idealist lens, rather than an analysis of the actual material conditions and structures.
It was an interesting read and reminded me that democratic socialists arguing for restricted capitalism and communists are often arguing for similar goals with differing language.
Sort of. Communists don't want restricted Capitalism, they want to progress from Capitalism to Socialism.
In the US, they just have solidified a really good means of controlling it… I mean, the amount we don’t tax them, the super PACs we let them contribute to, and the control they have over our media are definitely forms of control that may not be “as bad” as other systems (arguably) but it seems like it’s really similar.