Oh you mean system in which richest 2% own half the world's wealth. That's such a great system.
Elon Musk's epic bacon adventures
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Oh you mean system in which richest 2% own half the world's wealth. That's such a great system.
If Bezos was just rich in a more normal way we wouldn't have this issue.
Self-improving? Could you give some examples? I don't see continually increasing inequality and runaway climate change as improvements but rather deterioration. What improvement do you see?
@Revan I am going to guess you work in silicon valley, as the only people who love capitalism more than wallstreet are silicon valley folk with lots of shares.
I don’t (though I did for a bit). I returned to academia in Europe.
People today live better, and owe more than people did 100 years ago, and people 100 years ago lived better and owed more than those who lived 100 years before them.
Name a better system than has ever existed.
Why do you care how much the top 2% own? The point is how live the majority/all of society, and despite the increasing wealth inequality, the standard of living has improved over the years.
It's ok though, they're only hoarding influence in their companies, not wealth, and it's too complicated trying to tax them so we shouldn't bother. We've peaked already as a human race.
That has absolutely nothing to do with how rich people are and everything to do with societal reforms to make the world a little bit more fairer. People live better today than they did before currency and an economy even existed and it's because of societal evolution. Such a strawman argument; just because (most) people have a better quality of life now than they did 100 years ago, that doesn't mean it can't be improved.
Because it's an unsustainable practice that will see an elite few rule the masses either directly, or indirectly through financial 'incentive' provided to governments. We already see how rich conservatives in the states dictate gun laws purely by being such a large lobby, or even the tobacco industry which has lasted so long despite clearly being an endemic scourge on public health.
I care that the top 2% own so much more than everyone else because they could be doing so much more to be helping those that don't, with zero consequences on their own quality of life. If society is in a place where you are not able to generate wealth through hard work without already having wealth, what incentive is there to try?
Was that not largely true under the feudal system as well? Or ancient republics? Plenty of advancement of living standards happened in, for example, the Roman or Persian empires. Albeit the rate of change was a lot slower since the pace of technological progress was a lot slower. When you say "owe" I assume you mean own by the way or have I misunderstood?
It depends. It is unclear if people lived better in 1400 compared to 400 for example. Depending on historians, the standard of living and the society progression barely changed for around 1500 years.
The technological progress and the standard of living (be it in the US, China, Europe, Africa, you name it) has been significantly increasing. The vast majority of people live better now than their parents did.
Of course, this does not mean that we should not aim at making further progression and changing the system for the better. The fact that many people live in poverty, and many others in extreme poverty clearly shows that there is something very wrong with the current system. Just that I do not think that the solution is making CEOs sell their own companies.
No system in the history of the human race has improved the quality of life in such a short amount of time as capitalism has done.
I don't care how rich are the rich, and neither think that making them less rich should be the goal. The goal should be to make the other parts of the society wealthier and have more prosperity for them. Considering that this is not necessarily a zero-sum game, I do not think that these go against each other.
For example, if the median salary (after inflation) goes up 5%, I would take Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or whoever increasing their wealth by 50%, without blinking an eye. Who cares how much is their share in their own companies?
I think you will find democracy and the social responsibilities that come with it has improved lives. Mercantilism and colonialism did very well for the people (mostly hereditary rich) in England, not so much for the colonies.
whatever man, if you don’t see an equitable redistribution of wealth as the most logical way to improve lives at the bottom of the ladder I can’t help you. It just means you’ve got your head up your arse and only care about yourself
If you don’t think it’s obscene that someone can literally throw away 99% of their wealth and still be richer that most people on this planet, there aren’t really words in my vocabulary to express the disdain I have for your naïveté
Do you think any of that will happen as long as Bezos and his ilk are "forcing" workers to work under lethal conditions, are up to their union busting shenanigans and a lot of the world's production is on the back of slave labour in developing nations? They're quite literally a huge, huge part of the problem in terms of whether things will get better for normal people.
Tell that to the average Chinese person, who has seen the most extraordinary improvement in living standards in just a few years, well on the way to the elimination of poverty in that country, thanks to a form of capitalism. Wave that one away if you can.
So strengthen unions. Force companies to raise pay. Raise taxes at the top end and fix various tax dodges. There's a ton that can (and must) be done, but do things that will actually work.
Are you arguing for or against? Why is there a war on unions?
As I said earlier, part of the reason for this abnormality is the external environment is more favourable to this kind of extreme company valuation that it was in the past - internet addressable global markets, software enabled high margins, network effects and very low interest rates pumping up asset values (and speculative activity).
That's all a much bigger influence on Bezos wealth than whether Bezos is a cnut or not.
There is always different kinds capitalism. Like welfare capitalism vs laize faire capitalism. I do agree though to some extent.
Or to average Westerner who lives far better than the average Westerner did just 100 years ago.
Exactly.
Not as populist as "tax the baddies, who are 'hoarding' the wealth away from the society", whatever 'hoarding' means in this context.
I am against dumb slogan driven solutions that pretend to address real problems, but won't.
Continues to ignore the fact his 'but 100 years ago people were more poor' argument is totally incorrect.
In what aspect is totally incorrect?
Before capitalism, pretty much everyone, except a few people, was poor. Then the capitalism happened and the lives of everyone improved significantly. Then in the last century, around half of the world tried different versions of a doomed system and they starved. Then they changed to capitalism, and the lives of those people improved significantly.
So yeah, no system has benefited human's society more than capitalism. A few centuries of capitalism has created more wealth (to the normal people, forget the billionaires) and prosperity than the entire time before that.
So yup, I fully support capitalism and love it. It definitely needs improving cause it could be better for the majority. Saying that, it is not easy to improve the best system we have ever come with, and we have seen how its alternatives work.
This is just absurdly bad history.
Where and when the average person lived better than people do in capitalist systems?
That's not what you said, though. You said (nearly) everyone was poor before capitalism, and that the lives of everyone improved significantly as soon as "capitalism happened". The most basic knowledge of the industrial revolution will tell you that wasn't the case. Whatever you want to say about the long-term effects of it, it's clear that it immediately changed many lives for the worse, for the profit of the few (the capitalists).
For that matter, it's not exactly an auspicious time to be praising the long-term effects of capitalism, given capitalism is running the world straight into a climate change disaster which at the very least will lead to a massive increase in famine, war, mass migration and the political radicalization which will follow (not to mention a species extinction event to rival any of the others). It might feasibly lead to the functional end of global modern civilization, depending on how slow capitalism is to change.
As always when it comes to this topic, you dodge a direct question and say nothing. Since capitalism existed, it has improved the lives of the majority of people who lived under that system.
I tend to agree that climate change has come as a byproduct of it. To significantly improve the lives of people, you need more energy, which in turn caused climate change. If there is gonna come to a solution to this problem that won't include a total disaster, it is gonna come from capitalism.
To be fair, people who pretend that they care about climate change and also hate Elon Musk are an interesting species. You probably should have his bust near your bed, considering that no person since Genghis Khan has done more to solve that problem than him.
You’re the one dodging and inventing history to suit your argument.
Edit: I'd also like to point out you are talking about 'improving lives' from a purely modern viewpoint. While I don't doubt that ancient lives were very difficult, the adversity in the vast majority of peoples' lives in the modern world is a direct result of capitalism, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and if you don't start with money you are incredibly unlikely to achieve it.
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You're joking, right? I was directly addressing your original post, i.e. the one I first quoted and called bad history.
I'm actually not convinced you're not just a brilliant parody/satire account.
The poor are not getting poorer though. There is an argument that the poor (and the middle class) are not getting richer for the last 50 years, which is the biggest flaw of capitalism IMO. I fully think that such a thing needs to be revisited and eventually improve.
I obviously made a joke with regards to Genghis Khan, knowing that there are scientists who say that the amount of CO2 during his years decreased (mostly cause he killed a shitload of people).
In. case of Musk, yes, changing the car industry to potentially renewable energy is the biggest thing any human being has done to address the climate change issue. Much more than the useless populist politicians made together.
People's views of Musk are informed by the idiotic things he says during difficult times for many, not because he sells electric cars. When you're the richest person ever and say extremely childish things in public, you will be rightfully criticized.
I'm all for electric cars, but the world-wide effect is negligible. Freight transport is a vastly larger contributor than personal vehicles. And in any case, Tesla is a luxury car company. He's not going to solve climate change by selling expensive electric cars to wealthy people, cars that have their own, independent charging hubs that other, more affordable, electric cars can't use.
The poor are getting poorer in real terms due to stagnant wages and and rising inflation rates. The gap between the rich and the poor is also widening.
These are alternative facts. People are getting richer because £5 50 years ago would be worth £5k now.
He changed the entire industry, not only Tesla. It is possible, that in the grand scheme of things, Tesla will mean nothing. However, there is nothing to suggest, in fact there is a lot to suggest the exact opposite, that the big brands like Toyota, WV, Daimler etc would have switched if Tesla didn't essentially force them to switch. Also, the work on batteries has been immense, which will eventually force the other industries (like airplanes) to switch.
There is more stagnation, rather than getting poorer, from all I know. The gap is widening, true. I personally don't care about that too. As I said in a previous post, if everyone gets 5% richer, I would take the top x% getting 500% richer without a shadow of the doubt. The point, to me, is that the lives of people should improve, not that everyone should have the same wealth, or no inequality to exist.
No one is suggesting everyone should have the same wealth or that inequality will be completely wiped out. The idea is to make the current system work better for more, instead of fighting to keep it lopsidedly imbalanced for the very few.
Producing cars for the rich isn’t really going to change anything. Tesla’s aren’t affordable nor are they accessible to the majority of the population. The entire “he changed the game” schtick is mostly pr for his weird fanboys.