Liberal capitalism has led to a society where most jobs are probably useless

submitted by casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter from self.debatealtright

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]EthnocratArcheofuturist 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Oh, and one more thing. *"Right-wing" economics has always been a scam. the entire field of neoclassical economics - which is the hegemonic theory within economics - is literally propaganda funded by Wall Street. John Bates Clark was the man who's mostly responsible for this. If you want to truly understand the history of economic thought I would recommend Michael Hudson's work. He's a Veblenite, and a brilliant writer as well.

*I put right-wing in sarcasm quotes because it's not really right-wing in any true sense of the word. It's fundamentally liberal. When it comes to economics however, the non-Marxist left has always been vastly superior to most other schools of thought. They also influenced fascists quite a lot.

[–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

What really set me on this track is the question: Prosperity is determined by how much goods you can consume. Money after all is just a means of putting a value stamp on goods so that they can be exchanged. Since the 1950s, technology has progressed to the point where industry using the available resources can produce more than enough basic goods, luxury needs, houses, food and electronics for everyone. There is a problem of overproduction.

So why do people still suffer from shortage of good when we can already produce vast surplus of it? Why can't we just give everyone their required products? We can make much more than what is needed, enough to the point where you can easily sustain a leasure class at the top and still give everyone more than what they need.

The answer to this question leads you down the rabbit hole of finance capitalism, wealth inequality and unnecessary competition. Capitalism is essentially an outdated economic system that has outlived its usefullness since the end of the industrial age. There's really no need for it in the information age. Even less so considering advances in computing and algorithms which can more efficiently allocate resources than the market.

Hell, even the great ''geniuses'' of wall street all rely on supercomputers to make their stock and bond investments.

[–]EthnocratArcheofuturist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There is a problem of overproduction.

There's an insane amount of overproduction on garbage we don't even need.

So why do people still suffer from shortage of good when we can already produce vast surplus of it? Why can't we just give everyone their required products?

It's called artificial scarcity. We're literally destroying food every year to keep prices up. The market isn't actually a distribution system, it's a system to make money.

The answer to this question leads you down the rabbit hole of finance capitalism, wealth inequality and unnecessary competition.

Yes, especially unnecessary competition. Market "efficiency" isn't efficient at all. What we need is technical efficiency.

Capitalism is essentially an outdated economic system that has outlived its usefullness since the end of the industrial age.

It isn't just capitalism. It's the price system in its entirety. Capitalism is just its latest iteration.

Even less so considering advances in computing and algorithms which can more efficiently allocate resources than the market.

Absolutely spot-on. Look up Project Cybersyn. Imagine what we could do with today's technology.