Well rest assured both religion, science, and history reach a single conclusion that cannot be avoided. The planet, society, or "the world" can end in a moment's notice. All three state this as fact. Religion via God, science via a multitude of ways (climate change, gamma ray bursts, death of the Sun, too many to name really), and history in obvious ways such as politics, war, invasion, plague, etc.

Probably seems more doom and gloom than I claim to try and be but, none of it's happened yet! One could even say it's unlikely. Point being it shouldn't be "this debate" that suddenly gives what was always possible a "zing", though it may bring things from the back of the burner for a few minutes. Be prepared. I guess enough to be confident you have no reason to live in fear (or to be fair less reason than the next guy) as a result. Ignorance is bliss I suppose. But you wouldn't be here if that was your style.

Be prepared. I guess enough to be confident you have no reason to live in fear — Outlander

Should I say this? I find it quite exciting to be alive at this freakishly balanced moment in creation where we can both look back to see how the whole cosmic shebang originated and how our own part in its journey its going to pan out.

I should still be around in 2050 (just) when all the critical trend lines intersect. If you ever wanted to pick a time in the past million years, now is good in terms of what we will make of ourselves.

Is it a bad choice to privilege intelligence in a generalised sense? — apokrisis

That privileging seems to be a "natural" outcome of symbolic culture; that coupled with the fact that all social species seem to cleave to their own. But then it is the symbolically mediated intelligence that makes it possible that we might transcend that instinctive "own cleaving".

But in regard to my preference I'm also motivated by what I think would be the richest kind of future for humanity as a whole. I just can't imagine humans being satisfied with a life devoid of the wild, all I see there is a profound alienation. I'm not motivated by any thought of transcendent spirituality; I think that is something we cannot have sensible opinions about, so it's down to this earthly life as far as I am concerned.

But the probable end of human civilisation while my own children are still growing up gives this debate a certain zing. — apokrisis

I consider myself lucky in never having, or wanting to have, children; but I have good friends who do and I can empathize with their concern (and yours).

If you ever wanted to pick a time in the past million years, now is good in terms of what we will make of ourselves. — apokrisis

Eh I'd wager they say that every millennia. :grin:

This is the Singularity argument (of which I am always skeptical — apokrisis

Weren't you of the opinion before that mind was a biological phenomenon? I recall in one thread you gave reasons for it citing some bio-physics.

I'd myself add the importance of income distribution, the fact that prosperity comes when employees, not just the shareholders, do get their share of the income profit. — ssu

I fixed that for you.

If you get rid of the consideration of capital, then you’re not even talking about capitalism anymore, but (probably) just about a free market, which is not the same thing. A free market where capital distribution is at most a negligible factor is market socialism, which is decidedly not capitalist. — Pfhorrest

You can't distribute capital if you don't differentiate between capital and property.

I think you misread: I didn't mean "capital distribution" as in the act of distributing capital, but rather the state of affairs regarding who has what capital. "where capital distribution is at most a negligible factor" means that how much capital people have doesn't significantly differ, or else doesn't make a significant difference (i.e. lacking capital doesn't impose costs, having capital isn't a source of profit).

Capital is a kind of property, in any case, and the only kind that really matters for macroeconomic purposes. Nobody cares about the distribution of toothbrushes or toys. It's the distribution of the things needed to live and work -- that's what capital is -- that matters. The distribution of the rest of it can sort itself out easily enough so long as everyone has access to the things they need to live and work.

In summary, the thesis is that neoliberal economic theory is objectively false, and that we can do better.. — Banno

Howard Bloom reached a similar conclusion in his 2010 book, The Genius Of The Beast : A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism. In contrast to pure Capitalism, he refers to an impure mixed economy as the "Western System". :smile:

Benkei, profit comes after paying your employees.

Profit describes the financial benefit realized when revenue generated from a business activity exceeds the expenses, costs, and taxes involved in sustaining the activity in question.

Labour costs I think are in the category of expenses and costs.

Yes, and capital without labour generates no profit so it's only fair labourers get the fair share of the profit they generate.

And if the company posts losses should the workers forfeit their pay?

We should note that “Capitalism” was initially a snarl word used by socialists to disparage a sort of bogeyman. So I think a name change would be appropriate.

human beings as highly cooperative, reciprocal and intuitively moral creatures — Banno

I wish I could agree with this. But then I look at today's headlines (or any history book for that matter) and find overwhelming evidence that this is not so.

What that fair share is, is crux of the problem. Always has been.

And if the company posts losses should the workers forfeit their pay? — BitconnectCarlos

Bankruptcy laws and procedures are a result of a long historical learning, just as is limited liability.

In Antiquity there wasn't limited liability, hence if you couldn't pay up to your financiers, they literally owned you. Hence the risk of possible slavery didn't incite people to invest. This of course was a problem in a time when shipping was a hazardous enterprise, so it's no wonder that the commenda, a passive partner, who's risk was limited emerged in 11th century Italy.

They already do; they get fired.

When you get fired your compensation stops. Sure, that sucks but you're not actually in the hole for anything. An example of employees having a direct stake in the company would be stock options: When times are good portfolios grow, but when times are bad that portfolio doesn't just pause - it hemorrhages money.

That’s right if we are talking about the Kurzweil argument that AI will actually become the conscious super intelligent machines that replace us.

But people now talk of the Singularity in terms of its more modest promise of exponential tech trends driving the cost of everything to zero. So it is AI as we know it - Siri and Alexa. Aids to life. The kind of useful singularity that is now preached by the Singularity University.

What is true:
human beings as highly cooperative, reciprocal and intuitively moral creatures — Banno

This seems a linchpin to your theory, and it's false at least in numbers high enough to matter. If it were true, the economic or political theory we chose would hardly matter.

If we assume that people are highly self interested, first to their families and then to those most similar to themselves, we end up with something like we have now.

Singularity in terms of its more modest promise of exponential tech trends — apokrisis

Wasn't this Kurzweil's original argument? His law of accelerating returns which was a counter to the standard law of diminishing returns.

driving the cost of everything to zero — apokrisis

Would this not require a fully functioning mind though? If cost is down to zero for everything then what would be left of a human mind? Fwiw, the writer of the link you provided seems to agree with Kurzweil that a singularity will result.

Kurzweil reserves the term "singularity" for a rapid increase in artificial intelligence (as opposed to other technologies), writing for example that "The Singularity will allow us to transcend these limitations of our biological bodies and brains ... There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine".[40] He also defines his predicted date of the singularity (2045) in terms of when he expects computer-based intelligences to significantly exceed the sum total of human brainpower, writing that advances in computing before that date "will not represent the Singularity" because they do "not yet correspond to a profound expansion of our intelligence."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Bankruptcy laws and procedures are a result of a long historical learning, just as is limited liability.

In Antiquity there wasn't limited liability, hence if you couldn't pay up to your financiers, they literally owned you. Hence the risk of possible slavery didn't incite people to invest. This of course was a problem in a time when shipping was a hazardous enterprise, so it's no wonder that the commenda, a passive partner, who's risk was limited emerged in 11th century Italy. — ssu

I'd be interested in learning more about bankruptcy laws.

With Benkei, I was more responding to his idea that the employee ought to have more of share in the profit of their business. I was just saying this is all fine and good until the company finds itself in the red and instead of profit to be shared it's debt to be carried.

This seems a linchpin to your theory, and it's false at least in numbers high enough to matter. If it were true, the economic or political theory we chose would hardly matter. — Hanover

Human society is based on the dynamic of global co-operation in interaction with local competition. The two are a mutually reinforcing deal. They go together by necessity. And good economic or political theory gets that.

We have to cooperate to form the marketplaces we then compete in. There have to be collective protections for property rights for individuals to compete over those rights, for instance.

So the mistake is to try to build a theory around just one side of the dichotomy. The goal would be to design a system which maximises the expression of both - both the cooperation and the competition.

As humans, we are nicely evolved to flip between aggressive and empathetic behaviour. We are neurally equipped for the dynamic that has always been the driver of our complex sociality.

We should note that “Capitalism” was initially a snarl word used by socialists to disparage a sort of bogeyman. So I think a name change would be appropriate. — NOS4A2

I wanted to say something like this, minus the name change. Socialists are the ones who define certain types of property as capital because it gives them one more reason to believe people with wealth did not earn it. It was the "capital."

Capital is a kind of property, in any case, and the only kind that really matters for macroeconomic purposes. Nobody cares about the distribution of toothbrushes or toys. It's the distribution of the things needed to live and work -- that's what capital is -- that matters. — Pfhorrest

Anything can be capital, and all capital can cease to be capital. One of Rothbard's examples was a chair in a hotel; if it were in your home it wouldn't be capital. Except now that you can rent your home out with Airbnb.

Are there degrees of capital? If some capital is 10x as productive as some other capital, is the former controlled 10x more by the state? Do see how arbitrary this is?

If some capital is 10x as productive as some other capital, is the former controlled 10x more by the state? — Kev

Who said anything about the state?

Socialism isn't all state socialism.

So the mistake is to try to build a theory around just one side of the dichotomy. The goal would be to design a system which maximises the expression of both - both the cooperation and the competition. — apokrisis

This is an interesting way of putting it. I think I agree. I think cooperation often comes down to rational self-interest, and actors within a free market can make use of this very nicely. If you can produce something well and I can move and sell that product well then we can cooperate. Cooperation is just generally a good thing, I just wonder if the notion of cooperation is inherently limited to an in-group.

Even as someone who considers himself a free market capitalism, I still regard competition with a little hesitation. Competition can get out of hand quickly, and it's often just an unfortunate reality thrown upon humanity by nature (for instance, with dating/marriage/social status) or over scarce resources, especially in the past where there often wasn't enough to go around. In business competition can turn bloody or leave some business owners broke, but it's ultimately better for the consumer to have options and not be at the mercy of one supply chain. I wouldn't call it a "necessary evil" but it is something to be careful of.

Socialism isn't all state socialism. — Pfhorrest

Oh, you're a socialist.

It'd be true even if I wasn't.

Statism-libertarianism and capitalism-socialism are nominally orthogonal axes, and if they do correlate, it's along the lines of libertarian socialism (the original left, the original kind of libertarianism and the original kind of socialism) vs state capitalism (the original right).

I just wonder if the notion of cooperation is inherently limited to an in-group. — BitconnectCarlos

If a system - such as a social system - is working properly, then competition~cooperation is a dynamic that will be in full effect over all its scales of operation. This would be a measurable prediction of a systems model of the situation. (See Adrian Bejan's constructal theory approach to social economics for instance.)

So "in-grouping" would be found on every scale. The smallest in-group would be just you. You would say to your left and right hand, don't squabble guys. Let's all be friends and work towards the greater good. Dr Strangelove ring a bell? :wink:

Then your family or friends or sports team are larger scale ingroups. The sports league you play in is full of rival in-groups that can have useful fun only because the teams all accept a shared framework of rules.

Nations are in-groups, religions are in-groups, the United Nations is an in-group.

So cooperation defines the general framework that constitutes an in-group as even a thing. And by the same token, defines what is legitimate in terms of displaying some competitive fire within that generally agreed set-up.

That was what democracy was all about. Paving the ground for a scale-free expression of interest groups - the basic unit of society according to a classic like Arthur Bentley’s The Process of Goverment: A Study of Social Pressures, 1908.

Communism and Fascism fail - when in competition with better balanced democratic politics - because they don't implement the basic social dynamic, except sometimes weakly and accidentally.

Competition can get out of hand quickly ... I wouldn't call it a "necessary evil" but it is something to be careful of. — BitconnectCarlos

But is that a result of experiencing the US system which leans too far in that direction? Or a reflection of how neoliberalism as a philosophy has tried to take the whole globalised financial system in that direction?

Sure, what should be balanced can also be unbalanced.

But we should celebrate competition - in its most creative sense - as much as we would celebrate cooperation (which can lean just as far in the direction of unnecessarily stultifying regementation without competition to balance its constraining tendencies).

The same debate lies behind Darwinian evolution.

Victorian Britain felt that the emphasis on "red in tooth and claw" competition in evolutionary theory was a justification for the very unequal capitalist empire it was running at the time. And since then, any biologist understands that nature only thrives because evolution is actually about an ecosystem of "interest groups". There is plenty of cooperation going on once you start looking for it.