Capitalism is the most efficient system possible for concentrating the wealth in hands of as few people as possible.

@yogthos Scandinavian one, really?

@kravietz Sweden is an interesting case study https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/08/the-social-democratic-road-to-socialism

I think capitalism has a fundamental problem that it accumulates the wealth in the upper class. Then this class starts using this wealth to influence policy in their favor creating a downward spiral. So the setup seems like it's inherently fragile.

@yogthos If both USA and Sweden have capitalist economy, and in one the accumulation happens, and in the other it doesn't, then the capitalist economy isn't the root cause. Let's just apply some scientific thinking here.

@kravietz the article shows that the more capitalist Sweden gets the worse life becomes for the average person though. Socialism and democracy keep capitalism in check, but the capitalists continuously work to undermine socialist policies. And it's an inherently asymmetric relationship because capitalists are the ones with the wealth.

@yogthos Because market economy generates wealth in general. Then it's only matter of redistribution. US does it poorly, Scandinavian countries - much better.

Marxian economy is economics of shortages, for everyone and arbitrary redistribution by the ruling party.

@kravietz the distribution of wealth is precisely the problem, and I think it's an inherent problem. Scandinavian countries are in a fragile balance right now, and Sweden example that I linked shows that the balance is eroding.

And I don't really understand what you mean by this to be honest:

Marxian economy is economics of shortages, for everyone and arbitrary redistribution by the ruling party.

@kravietz another issue that you have to take into account is that ALL capitalist countries, including Scandinavia, are built on top of exploitation of third world countries where majority of the goods are manufactured. That has to be considered as part of the overall system.

@yogthos And the notion that outsourcing production to poor countries is "exploitation" is quite absurd. In 80's in Poland you could buy a pair of shoes for maybe month's salary. In France - for two hours salary. When joint ventures started to open in late 80's everyone dreamed of working there (eg IKEA) because this guaranteed not only high salary but also reasonable working hours and that the salary will be actually paid on time.

@kravietz it's not just "outsourcing" work to poor countries. It's active subjugation of poor countries at the barrel of a gun. Take a look at all the wars, coups, and dictatorships that US is responsible for around the world. All of that traces back to capitalist economics of needing a large cheap labor force.

Capitalism is a system that works on gradients. You need to produce goods cheaper than what you sell them for. This creates an inherent incentive to exploit.

@kravietz furthermore, capitalism requires growth to function. This translates into consumerism which is what's killing our biosphere right now. There is a very real possibility that capitalism will make us go extinct as a species.

@yogthos Somehow it were capitalist economies that reduced emissions of ozone-depleting gases and saved Earth's ozone layer. USSR at the same time caused the largest nuclear disaster so far in 1986 and hundreds of smaller yet catastrophic environment pollution incidents.

@kravietz look up how many people died total in Chernobyl disaster and compare it to oil industry disasters in the West.

@yogthos Look how much it costs today to clean up and put safety cover on Chernobyl and who pays for it: Ukraine and... the West. Not USSR.

@kravietz well yeah since USSR doesn't exist anymore, who's paying for all the damage US fossil fuel industry is causing? Who's going to pay for the fucking climate disaster capitalism is responsible for that might well kill us all.

How does the free market solve this problem please do explain?

@yogthos In market economy BP had an insurance and paid for cleaning up Deep Water Horizon from their operational profit and reserves. And we knew about the disaster from the first minute. USSR denied Chernobyl disaster for a week, just as it covered Kyshtym, Andreev Bay and other nuclear incidents you never heard of.

@kravietz also since you keep bringing up Poland as an example, I don't see how the situation was improved by capitalism myself https://borgenproject.org/top-10-facts-about-poverty-in-poland/

@yogthos So, to summarise, Poland is still recovering from the poverty left by real socialism, but on the right track.

At least in terms of economy, because the current national-populist government is a separate topic...

@kravietz that's not what the numbers show at all though. The numbers are showing that the upper class in Poland is actively exploiting the poor to get ahead.

I guess if you're ok with having a comfy lifestyle at the expense of exploiting those who were unlucky to be born into poverty then it's a pretty fantastic system though.

@yogthos It's not true. Here's the graph of Poland's Gini index (higher=more inequality) from 1800 till 2019. As you can see inequality has fallen significantly in the beginning of 20th century (II Rzeczpospolita), then inequality started rising (!) after Soviet occupation and communist Poland, further increased during 90's and then started falling again after 2000. You can play with the graph here https://bit.ly/2lOgFLn

@kravietz that seems quite different from the numbers here that show a huge increase in poverty after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and around 18% of the population being below the poverty line today. That's a staggering percentage of the population.

https://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=pl&v=69

@yogthos Again you post something that actually disproves your point.

At the end of real socialism in 1990 there were 24% people living below the poverty line. This 24% is the socialist Poland's closing balance (not to mention collapsed pension system and 48 billion dollars of foreign debt).

Even your graph shows that it never returned to the "socialist" levels of poverty.

If you more detailed data you can see it's falling down all the time (green=changes in law)

@kravietz this is a more detailed analysis that's more meanignful btw http://www.roiw.org/2006/2006-21.pdf

@yogthos It briefly rises to 28% in 1995 but quickly falls to 17% in 1999 and then continues to decrease.

Also note that people losing income from collapsing enterprises in 90's is not the "fault" of market economy. It was direct consequence of their often absurd ineficiency resulting from applying Marxian economy. They were only able to function as long as the party was receiving Western loans.

@kravietz I don't think what Poland or USSR had was anything even remotely like Marxist economy though.

Marxist economy would be running worker owned coops as opposed to state level planning which is clearly Leninist.

@yogthos "When society, by taking possession of all means of production and using them on a planned basis, has freed itself and all its members from the bondage in which they are now held by these means of production which they themselves have produced but which confront them as an irresistible alien force." — Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dühring

There was a lot more details on LTV and planning in the "Capital"

@kravietz I'm not seeing a problem there. Are you seriously suggesting that the idea of planning is bad?

When you build a city, would you not plan things like public transit, schools, hospitals, and so on?

Workers owning their workplaces and working together to plan a common future seems like a good way to run a society to me.

The alternative is having an oligarchy that the rest of the society serves.

@yogthos I'm not saying "planning is bad". I actually said every enterprise and state *does* planning. What you mentioned - the spatial planning - is very important.

But no country except for USSR planned the production of toilet paper or wheat for the next five-year cycle with fixed prices.

It just doesn't work.

@yogthos You seem to attribute many reasonable things to Marx, who never proposed them.

Public schools and "moral economy" was proposed by Adam Smith half century before Marx. Trade unions, labour laws etc - by Liebknecht and other social-democrats, whom Marx called "renegades"

Regulation of free market in order to prevent oligarchy and monopolies - that's Friderich von Hayek.

Marx's plan was in essence to first destroy everything and then rule with the iron hand of the Party.

@kravietz I feel like you're doing the same though since you're attributing a lot of Leninism to Marx. And sure, a lot of these ideas are fairly obvious and they're not unique to Marx. However, they are present in Marxist view.

I recommend reading this essay contrasting Smith and Marx incidentally. I happen to very much agree with the conclusions it draws https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/Anderson%20manuscript.pdf

@kravietz I'd still like to discuss the original problem I outlined with capitalism that started this whole thread though. :)

I don't see how you prevent accumulation of resources at the top in a capitalist economy. Even in systems such as Scandinavia this is an ever present problem.

A system that's asymmetric in nature seems to be fundamentally unfair to me. It ends up being a birth lottery where you have to be born into the upper crust to have a good life.

@yogthos It's a multivariate equation. You can prevent excessive accumulation by progressive taxation, property tax and inheritance tax. To prevent capital flow and informal sector economy however you need to create a system that is attractive to investors at the same time. This requires good infrastructure, citizen-friendly regulation, science-based decision making and effective administration.

@kravietz but these are all mitigation strategies, they don't solve the root problem of wealth being accumulated in the hands of a small number of individuals. All this does is slow down the process.

And people who are at the top will always push for policy that benefits them. The bigger the gap between the rich and the poor the worse the problem becomes.

@yogthos What "process" do you mean? Are you talking about Marx's "inevitability of revolution" here? But Marx predicted - and called for - "inevitable global revolution" for over 50 years and it never happened. It's because Marx's historical and economic determinism always was a pseudo-science and it failed.

When SPD called for evolutionary change (rather than violent revolution), Marx called them traitors and reactionaries. But it was SPD who was right and Marx was wrong.