@Orathaic: I don’t have you muted. Look you raise some fair points, but I don’t see capitalism as a governmental body that creates policy like I see for communism. Yes, financiers (private organizations) may lend money to create infrastructure. Sometimes there may even be private sector and public sector partnerships to create things. Sometimes the finance sector under capitalism may become involved with the public sector. That is a point towards the whole, ‘capitalism’ kills people arguement. I still contend though that the reasons for why capitalism can be blamed for ‘killing people’ has its roots in the government. The government itself did not pass enough regulations (for pollution or safety, etc). Private companies do not create policy, but in a government like the US it would fall under the legislative and executive branches to create policy to promote public health or safety, etc. Thus, it isn’t the economic model that kills as a ‘whole’ it’s the failure of governments to create policy and its the failure of individual private companies to protect their workforce. Does this make sense? Also, you claim that China had a fast increase in life expectancy, but you have to remember that China has also shifted to a model of communism that incorporates portions of capitalism. Hence the reason for an increase in quality of life. Communism in China today is much different than it was under Mao. Also, you are correct in pointing out things like Imperialism. Imperialism and even Mercantilism were economic models that are different than Capitalism. They are arguably offshoots of capitalism like say socialism, communism, social democracies are offshoots of Marx and other Socialist thinkers. I am not going to defend Imperialism or Mercantilism as I do believe that those systems are more than just economic models and did lead to death. @Orathaic: “We clearly state that Capitalism has resulted in far more deaths.” That is what I am disputing.

@Condescension: I said that I know more about communism then you do. I never said I wrote a thesis on it. Also, no I am not posting something (to you) in which I could be identified. I did go to two public universities in Virginia (VCU and CNU) and achieved a M.A. in History (VCU) and M.A. Teaching (CNU). Oh no, a conservative with post-graduate experience! Yeah, we exist, deal with it.

@"i don't enjoy our current agricultural system: government price controls, paying farmers not to produce, and massive subsidies, has created this terrible system with 40% of all food not making it to market."

I was also under the impression the corn subsidies meant really cheap corn syrup in every processed food in America, no? And yes, subsidies can make your claim of 'some of the cheapest food in the world' a reality.

Not sure whether the cheapness comes from greater efficiencies (of labour, industrialisation, or availability of land or other?) or is it comes from subsidy.

Though my impression is that farm subsidies are much much higher in the EU.

But yeah, if the result of cheap food is an obesity epidemic, i'm not convinced this is something to be proud of.

So if under free market conditions, you would get more efficient and therefore cheaper food production, and then to maximise profits you would see overconsumption among the population and obesity. I fear your free markets require some mechanism for putting the cost of treating obesity back on the food producers....

And i don't know how ideal free markets address this kind of hypothetical.

@bo

"Farmers are paid not to produce because we took 200 years to realize what everyone living here before us had known for forever: soil isn't an infinite god that can grow all the food we want whenever we want. It needs time to be replenished and renewed with the nutrients that come through rains, burns, wind, erosion, etc. If you farm every inch of your property every year as hard as you can, you're gonna have a bunch of shit soil in a decade. That's why soil gets turned over so often and why seeding the same ground year after year instead of breaking your farm into quadrants or whatever you prefer is just a dumb idea."

um... that's not at all what that is. the original plan of paying farmers not to produce was an FDR plan to reduce the supply of grains and foodstuffs so that the market price would go up. It sounds counterproductive given the recession, but FDR also believed we had to make sure farms didn't fail. only, he gave braces to the worst most inefficient farms, and hurt the everyday consumer.

also, the idea of crop rotation had been around since the dark ages, in France as early as the 9th century. it was a profitable technique in the long run, and soon only the smartest farmers could stay in businesses: sustenance farming included.

so i have no idea where you got that



@Condescension Online (38 D)

"That's not free market capitalism at work"

"James, that's like me trying to say that the cultural revolution wasn't real communism... under capitalism, special interests seize control of everything, including the government."

that's what i call "corporatism," but if you want to move terms around, then fine, under FREE MARKETS. if the government is limited (as it was intended in the USA) then there is no corruption that could have significant bearings on markets.



@bo

"The reason we pay massive subsidies is because of free market capitalism. The pay for farmers is shit and the cost of doing business is too high. The government gives out subsidies because otherwise the free market would drive people away from farming."

you don't understand economics.

if people are driven away from farming, then the supply will be depleted. as supply is depleted, the few farms left in business are left with an inelastic demand base: people NEED food. thus with rising relative demand, prices will go up, and farming will be more profitable. then more people will invest in farming, and we'll continue along this cycle until we hit an equilibrium point.

as long as people need to eat food, there is a functioning demand for food, and as much food is demanded (demand being the amount someone is able and willing to pay for a product at a certain price), there will be a supply. only government controls can create the amount of waste we've seen recently, so much excess planting is being payed for by taxpayers who never reap the benefits of the crop (literally!)

@orathaic

you're assuming that obesity isn't a market force.

if EVERYTHING were cost based as you see it, many fresh food markets will go out of stock. we've seen a massive rise on "healthy food" being selected for in the market. most commercial and advertisements focus on the food's quality: not just in taste, but in health as well.

it's a market force, but there is a basic trade off we see: if we try to eliminate cheap bad foods, the alternative is usually overly expensive foods. starving for obesity is not a good choice, but there's also a lot of social scientists who believe it's not a financial problem for most families, but it's actually one of convenience.

it's easier to by a burger for your kids than cook a meal, even if the home cooked meal is cheaper. people are selecting economically poorly and health wise poorly, simply as a time-tradeoff.

"you don't understand economics."

Thanks. You obviously don't understand that "economics" doesn't put food in your mouth.

There is a functioning demand for food, you're exactly right. You're also exactly right that if the free market simply drove farmers away from farming, those few that kept with it despite making nothing or even losing money would end up profiting in the long run due to the lack of supply. Then, the supply would come back up. And down. And up. And down. And on and on. Fantastic.

In the mean time, there would be food shortages because nobody's growing food. The price of food would go up and people would be unable to afford food. There would be disarray and chaos. There would be famine. Perhaps people in the government understand that if you have no farmers, even if only for a short period of time, then you have no food, and don't want that to happen.

"the original plan of paying farmers not to produce was an FDR plan to reduce the supply of grains and foodstuffs so that the market price would go up."

Sounds like you think FDR was some sort of power hungry leader that would have made a great tyrant had he rose to power somewhere else. No argument there. That might be where that plan came from.

"the idea of crop rotation had been around since the dark ages"

Dude, the idea of crop rotation has been around since hunter-gatherers became agricultural. They didn't do it here because they felt like they were too good to take care of the soils. Haven't you heard of the Dust Bowl?

@ND, ok fair points, on China and life expectacy, i'd suggest Hans Rosling, his data and TED talks are where i got my info.

On Capitalism and Imperialism. I suspect you'll find i'm using to term Imperialism is a looser way, which would include American Economic Imperialism.

But i'm going to argue more generally. Capitalism doesn't require Imperialistic government, and vica versa, but since Capitalism is about profiting from people (what i have termed exploitation and oppression, but you can't deny it is profitting), then it can do very well under an Imperialistic form of government.

Basically capitalists can more easily exploit and oppress people in a colony, where the state allows them enslave or otherwise extract wealth from people. Taking the Congo as an example of the worst excesses.

That means corporations have a bested interest in pushing their governments into Imperialistic endeavours even if it isn't in the national interest (though i guess that raises the question of what even is the national interest... If it is defined as the interests of the wealthy elite, then this kind of conflict of interest is impossible by definition).

Now you could take the example of the US invasion of Iraq (which had nothing to do with terrorism of 9/11). Whose interests were being served? Was the US trying to create a client state (ie a modern economic colony)?

Maybe in the ideal free market system this wouldn't happen. But as has been pointed out, in real capitalist states the power accumulates to the corporations, which then ise it to affect government policy.

I don't think they want an ideal free market system, because that would mean ending corporate subsidies. It is not in the interest of powerful corporate entities to do so. Is that not reason enough to believe that starting from the 'ideal' purely economic system of free market capitalism, coporate power would pressure the government to start providing subsidies and to invade other countries?

@"it's easier to by a burger for your kids than cook a meal, even if the home cooked meal is cheaper. people are selecting economically poorly and health wise poorly, simply as a time-tradeoff."

I think you're saying freedom of choice for the people can be inhealthy for them.

Is that fair? And in that case does it undermine on of the principle idea of Adam Smith, that more choice for consumers is good for them?

Or are you saying that Obesity is a cost consumers are willing to pay?
Because i think humans are terrible at making ling term decisions like this. It is easy to compare two food items with a single measure, like cost today. It become much harder to even compare one item today, or the same item but cheaper in six months, because you suddenly have two variables, cost and time of delayed getting the item...

So for even more complex decisions like health, which are hard to quantify in monetRy terms, you're even more screwed...

Yeah, you can claim obesity is an incentive, but that doesn't make human rational decision makers with super-predictive powers and the analysis capabilities of an insurance firm.

@bo

"you don't understand economics."

"Thanks. You obviously don't understand that "economics" doesn't put food in your mouth."

cute, but economics observes human behavior, and is the best mathematics representation of sociology. it has the best predictive results in determine changes and trends in agriculture, and the way people use their money 100% determines whether or not food goes in their mouth


"There is a functioning demand for food, you're exactly right. You're also exactly right that if the free market simply drove farmers away from farming, those few that kept with it despite making nothing or even losing money would end up profiting in the long run due to the lack of supply. Then, the supply would come back up. And down. And up. And down. And on and on. Fantastic."

except this is NOT what happens

https://ideas.repec.org/b/mtp/titles/0262582384.html

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01753236?LI=true

https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2016/09/economist-explains-economics

equilibriums are NOT always oscillating ranges, but even if they were, this would still provide a stead supply of food to the population. i'm sorry but that's a REALLY bad argument. Even Keynes understood this much about economics.


"In the mean time, there would be food shortages because nobody's growing food. The price of food would go up and people would be unable to afford food. There would be disarray and chaos. There would be famine. Perhaps people in the government understand that if you have no farmers, even if only for a short period of time, then you have no food, and don't want that to happen."

you're working off of a false premise. your understand of equilibrium prices and shifts in supply and demand are entirely messed up. Read the links i provided above, they're actually studies into how human behavior operates and how an economy shifts.

also, i think you don't understand how agriculture works in america currently. our problem isn't lack of food production, it's difficulty finding a market for the food geographically and fiscally.



""the original plan of paying farmers not to produce was an FDR plan to reduce the supply of grains and foodstuffs so that the market price would go up."

Sounds like you think FDR was some sort of power hungry leader that would have made a great tyrant had he rose to power somewhere else. No argument there. That might be where that plan came from."

agree with you there



""the idea of crop rotation had been around since the dark ages"

Dude, the idea of crop rotation has been around since hunter-gatherers became agricultural. They didn't do it here because they felt like they were too good to take care of the soils. Haven't you heard of the Dust Bowl?"

yes, i live where it occurred, the dust bowl bowl was not just overproduction, it's that the soil was entirely different from surrounding areas. we had seen overcropping down in many other breadbasket states, but the dirt of oklahoma is fine and course, and it picked up with the wind. the problem with oklahoma was that farmers took out bad loans with banks, and were never able to pay them off. they were driven for profit and screwed up. this is not the bad part though, because the banks would foreclose on the land, but they didn't want some shit land in oklahoma. it was such a massive clusterfuck, especially since it had been ever since the FED was formally created by Wilson... as soon as the FED was created we saw a massive over extension of credit the roaring 20s were based off of bad monetary policy, that accumulated in the 29' crash. but for farmers, the bad loans and interest rate manipulation wasn't the only thing that screwed us over.

the simple fact is the farmers in many cases weren't allowed to fail. many smaller ones did, but some of the larger conglomerates stayed in businesses thanks to government propping them up. bad decisions continued to be made and the taxpayer bore the burden



@orathaic

"@"it's easier to by a burger for your kids than cook a meal, even if the home cooked meal is cheaper. people are selecting economically poorly and health wise poorly, simply as a time-tradeoff."

I think you're saying freedom of choice for the people can be inhealthy for them.

Is that fair? And in that case does it undermine on of the principle idea of Adam Smith, that more choice for consumers is good for them?

Or are you saying that Obesity is a cost consumers are willing to pay?
Because i think humans are terrible at making ling term decisions like this. It is easy to compare two food items with a single measure, like cost today. It become much harder to even compare one item today, or the same item but cheaper in six months, because you suddenly have two variables, cost and time of delayed getting the item..."

step 1 is transparency, people need to know what's bad for them. nowadays, most people know sugar and saturated fat is not good in large amounts.

if that's what they want to eat, that's fine by them. their life, i don't care. if they get more pleasure a few fewer years, that's their decision. i don't get to control them

the BIIIIIGGG problem with obesity (no pun intended) is what to do with children. this is where the debate get complicated, because the child doesn't have a choice of what food he or she eats, but does the government get to step in and demand parents feed them specifically what THEY say? remember that the FDA released a report saying the old food pyramid wasn't valid anymore, as the massive amount of bread put at the bottom in "grains" was actually fueling health problems. the simple fact is i don't trust the government, and the best way to go about this is to try to evoke a cultural trend.

if you can think of legislation that could be non-interfering and still help i'd be open to suggestions: public school recess and lunch requirements are an obvious first step, but it's another interesting entangled debate


"So for even more complex decisions like health, which are hard to quantify in monetRy terms, you're even more screwed...

Yeah, you can claim obesity is an incentive, but that doesn't make human rational decision makers with super-predictive powers and the analysis capabilities of an insurance firm."

back in the 1970s there were price ceilings, so that no gas station owner could charge above a certain amount. this caused a massive shortage in gasoline, and so you ended up with large lines at gas stations and overall shortages.

in some parts of north california and oregon, some people started selling gasoline at a higher price, but in much larger quantities. obviously there was large demand for this.

a group of economists at a university in california decided to do a quick experiment, and tried to predict how much they were charging for gasoline: they calculated the human risk factor of committing a crime, the extra cost of the drive to get the gasoline, the benefits of (basically) unrestricted quantities of gasoline, the incentives of no lines vs the deterrent of a higher price.

after all these factors were controlled for, they got an expected price, and they were confused. the price before the controls had been on a trend expected to reach 40 cents by 1972 (i believe), while the price controls capped them at 36 cents.

people demanded the gasoline illegally, at a market value of 40 cents, and their predicted price (something like 40.5 or 41) was correct, but the deterrents brought down the market value of the interaction to 40 cents

the economist hadn't worked backwards and found this number, rather they observed the natural supply and demand model work... what i'm trying to say is that even WITH government influencing an economy massively... that doesn't change actual supply and demand curves

my economics professor showed me that data last year and it was quite impressive. i think i have it buried in my google doc notes somewhere, but i'm going to try to link you the study if i can, but it was extraordinary fascinating... people, on average, were making a PERFECTLY rational analysis that took economist WEEKS to figure out.

this is why the free market is naturally more efficient, day to day variations between individual consumers and businesses naturally affect price extraordinarily quickly, while critical analysis takes weeks to get the correct price. there is a legitimate concern about "Sticky wages" and "Stick prices" from the new Keynesian crowd, but every new Keynesian i've talked to really does appreciate the raw effectiveness and natural flow of free markets

@JY, i like to pretend the government is simply an agent in the economy also trying to minimise their costs, and this having some impact on things would be normal.

Say you socialised to cost of treating obesity, then it would be something the government would try to minimise (like the NHS in the UK); contrast that with privatised medicine in the US where the profit incentive works to maximise services and this demand for obesity treatments.

All things being equal, i'd prefer to see the incentives working to minimise suffering/maximise human health.

Now of course that results in the quesion of what the state *should* do to minimise obesity. First, i agree with you, the govt is really bad a adapting to new information, so it is highly like that they will be slow to respond to changing understanding of dietary needs, and that makes any government intervention questionable.

But lets assume they have some thinks right. You could propose a sugar tax, or a fast food tax, which would change the calculations for consumers. Or you could propose an education drive. Now i think education tends to work pretty well, bu is also competing with corporate propoganda, and changing attitudes (once formed) is fairly hard. So then you worry about government propoganda influencing vulnerable children...

McDonalds already knows to target children and get them hooked on the idea of a McMeal being exciting and fun (see the happy meal); they specifically target young children to try and get them as new consumers when they are young. Generally i think this is not in the best interests of children.

I'm not sure what the govt can effectively do, but my claim is that this is a negative effect of capitalism (maybe ending corn subsidies would help, at least increasing the cost of refined sugars in food).

Just on your issue of oil prices in a situation where people are making instantaneous decisions. The fact that the economists can accurately predict the prices doesn't tell me that these consumers were factoring in costs accurately.

If you took climate change as an unseen cost, or local air pollution (which can trigger respirator illness, thoug more usually from coal burning than petrol/gas). The economists are studying the empirical data and ising it to inform their modelling, i don't think it is a surprise that they managed to come up with a decent answer.

So far as the wisdom of markets, or crowds goes, yes i think there is some merit in the claim that they can come to price points faster and make decisions better than individuals (and faster than economists, though maybe they've gotten faster at doing this modelling since the 70s, i don't know).

But that doesn't mean these price points are 'good' for society in general, and people in particular.

I know there has been a lot of behavioural econimics research in recent decades showing how bad humans are at making certain types of decisions about their future.

Investments in pension funds, being a big example (except maybe in China, where i've seen claims differences in grammatical structures results in different assumptions being made).

Now individual choices and collective market forces are different, the latter isn't just the sum of the parts of the former, you must grt all kinds of interesting interactions between consumers which changes how decisions are made. And generally i think markets are the best mechanism (can i call it a technology? Social technology) for deciding what price something should be.

But with unseen prices (future obesity costs which are hard to factor in at the time of purchase - and we're already bad at evaluating the value of things in the future - even when they are strictly financial rewards/costs like with pension investment) that doesn't mean the state should try to make those costs more upfront.

Just as you wouldn't expect corporations to not try to hide downsides of their product (making these costs as unseen as the possibly can). So why not have someone incentivised to do the opposite? Both will act upon the market to change how it functions, and you'll still have a market mechanism (i must be the only person who self-identifies as a socialist but advocates for marke mechanisms... At least the only one i know).

@ ND, it's not disinformation, I was right. I'll stop myself before I say something un-modly to you though.

It is disinformation to call someone out for "not understanding" when they've studied a thing in depth and simply don't agree with you.

I click on a thread about punching nazis and what I find is actually a discussion about agricultural subsidies.

Oh internet, you so funny.

Wait is that surprising? Do these conversations usually go in a different direction?

@CroakandDagger: Exactly!

I'll respond to these walls of texts later. Sigh.

It's a shame, Helen, but a slight improvement from people defending Nazis (although they can't help themselves but defend other reprehensible things)

Ugh nobody should defend nazis. Yuck.

@orathaic

my point about the gas prices was that if the Government DOES want to change prices, they need to know what the current demand and supply of the item is, so that they can know what their policies will do. if the government wants to do such price setting, they need toe estimate market price based off of plenty of factors. the simple fact is if you set prices at whatever you want with no regard for market forces, you're going to run into trouble. the free market quickly adjusts market prices, while an outside observer would take weeks to work FORWARD and predict a future market trend.

There's more than one way to skin a Nazi cat.

how dare you

@JY, ah, i get you now. I was looking at what you said wrong...

it's a doozy

@JY So i think price settings is a fairly obnoxious mechanism for trying to modify supply/demand. Adding a percentage tax to be paid modifies the cost without stopping the market mechanism from adjusting to whatever level it naturally does, so by comparison i don't think those two types of state intervention are equivalent.

That said, if you want to talk about gas/petrol prices, there have been many governments worried about reliance on foreign oil who have wanted to affects demand, and thus have implemented policies like minimum standards for efficiency, higher taxes on larger engines, and various other methods to reduce demand - which in turn reduces prices (never mind the geostrategic results of altering the power balance between oil producers and oil consumers).

Now the US has been reluctant to take this kind of action, presumably because large oil US companies would be hurt by this reduction in demand. But in general, it seems like this is a better approach than fixing prives - and in particular efficiency savings, which save on things like electricity usage make things better for all consumers (even ignoring the effects of climate change, decreasing demand for electricity should make everything in the economy cheaper).

Now the downside of under-pricing is pretty signifigant (and reduces efficiency). For gas/petrol prices, you can look at the hidden costs of more cars on the roads. The three mains costs are travel times (it takes longer to get to your destination if the infrastructure can't handle the total number of cars), which reduces the utility of owning a car for every individual; increased rate of car accidents/collisions, which is a cost to drivers; and increased environmental impact (whether climate change or pollution).

All of these costs can be estimated and added onto the price of gas/oil, which will reduce the use of cars and thus the benefit everyone. Freakanonics discuss this if you're interested.

Of course consumers don't see the advantages to having high prices, because the benefits to them are vague and the costs are upfront and in their faces. So doing this is politically unpopular. But then your talking politics again... And how we make decisions about things on a political level rather than a market level... Which would include whether to build more roads or implement tougher emmissions standards. And this is much more difficult.

@"that's what i call "corporatism," but if you want to move terms around, then fine, under FREE MARKETS. if the government is limited (as it was intended in the USA) then there is no corruption that could have significant bearings on markets."

Ok, so in the US you see political parties talking about small government, placing limits on what can be done, but you also see powerful interests pushing the government to act. You see Corporatism from the Conservative party which claims to want free markets. Which results in less government intervention in the public's interest and more in the private interests of accumulated capital.

Overall this probsbly accounts for a signifigant contribution to the increasing wealth gap in the US. And i believe that is your most pressing social problem.

I don't think you'd have angry white men shouting about their neo-nazi feelings if you didn't have an entire class of workers whose living standards have been hurt and who are either going to turn to nationalism or socialism to solve their problems.

The comparison with the weimar republic is apt. They communists and nazis engaged in violence on the streets of germany were angry because of the economic realities. Their solutions may not have helped, but their anger was justified. And i think corporatism in the US is driving this anger with the current political system - which is what hurt Clinton's campaign the most.

Despite running against an openly racist opponent, Clinton represente something more important, the status quo. Many people voted for Trump because they feared the status quo more than they feared racist nationalism. Probably not because the are racist, but because they don't suffer from racism as much as they have suffered economically from Corporatism.

"Openly racist"

Of course, by any rational standard voting Republican in order to deal with corporate power is very much like a chicken voting for colonel sanders. Given the tremendous number of anti-corporate candidates other than Trump, it is telling they went for Trump in a big way. The "economic anxieties" argument doesn't really capture it as an explanation.

Who said they were voting anti-corporatism?

Voting anti-status quo, against whatever came before... Look at Germany in the 20s and early 30s, nobody wante to go back to have a Kaiser. Nobody wanted what they had at the time. The rise of Nazi-ism was coorelated strongly with a weak economy.

One fairly natural responce to that is moving towards a strong nationalism, to 'make the country great again'. A xenophobic nationalism which blames any outsiders it can find (or make) will win over the hearts and minds or those who don't feel like taking responcibility for themseves.

The Communists in Germany presumably oreached an internationalism. Not nationalism. They wanted to join Russia's example and follow the worldwide socialist revolution? Didn't get as much traction.

Trump represents that nationalist option, rejecting the status quo, and establishment politics which got America going 'in the wrong direction'. It doesn't matter what your beliefs are, it is pretty easy to get behind a statement as vague as 'in the wrong direction'; no specific new direction to solve all the bad stuff, no specific details about what things are wrong.

And let's just skip over the fact that voting for Hillary if you're against corporate, big oil, big business, big bank appeasement policies would be like refusing to vote at all, eating a gun and leaving all your assets to a multinational bank in your will.

The way McDonald's indoctrinates children is a wonderful example of how to create "consumers for life". I was with a mate and he had his children in the car with us, and rather than behave, we had a constantly noisy " child riot" going on in the back of the station wagon. Then he tips me a wink and says watch this. He drives into a McDonald's & instantly the kids are shouting their orders at him, eagerly, pleading....and he drives slowly through the carpark of the McDonald's.. and out onto the main road again. Punishment by denial. Glorious.