I think your heart is in the right place, but your economics are off - by a lot.
It's hard to rectify that in a quick comment though, as it's a complicated, interesting and fascinating subject.
Just to pick one thing, you mention 'efficiency'. Capitalism is not very efficient in a lot of ways. However, it happens to be more efficient for large groups of people than all the other systems people have tried, if you don't mind me poaching Churchill's quote about democracy.
And another: money. Money is merely a means of trading scarce goods. Looking at it as a problem is a red herring. The actual problem is the availability and distribution of scarce resources like food and shelter and iphones and other things people want.
Here's a book I'm fond of - it's fairly mainstream economics.
> Just to pick one thing, you mention 'efficiency'. Capitalism is not very efficient in a lot of ways. However, it happens to be more efficient for large groups of people than all the other systems people have tried, if you don't mind me poaching Churchill's quote about democracy.
It's worth pointing out that even a lot of ideologists putting forward alternative future societies does not see their future societies as likely to be more efficient than capitalism.
A key aspect for Marx, for example, is that the efficiency of capitalism and industrialisation acts as an enabler for socialism by bringing society to a post-scarcity level (at least in terms of basic needs), where it is possible for society to redistribute without leaving everyone in poverty, and where it is possible to as a result leave people free to make more choices surrounding how and how much they work.
Capitalism is more efficient than older systems because of the level of competition, and more efficient than most proposed future systems because most of these future systems are not expecting to be subject to the same constraints and requirements.
In Marx case, one of his arguments for why he believed a socialist revolution will eventually happen is in fact that he believed that capitalism will necessarily become so efficient that the revenue base starts shrinking as unemployment increases, while production capacity keeps increasing. That level of efficiency would necessitate drastic societal changes, and you could, if we reach that point, afford substantial extra inefficiencies and still most people would be better off.
The problem is the ingrained definition of efficiency. If people are happy and the society is moving forward culturally and scientifically, I'd say that's an efficient society; but american capitalism has a built-in definition that isn't necessarily tied to those values. It so happens that because of dynamics of the markets and people, it's had a pretty good alignment with the former values (when coupled with western democracy) -- cruically, better than the comunism alternatives -- but it's becoming clear we can do better with a more engineered approach specially in low scarcity scenarios.
Capitalist culture is essentially a Darwinian zero-sum game. Winners win big, losers lose freedom, basic necessities, and ultimately their lives - directly through a life of quasi-slavery working for someone else's benefit, and also through drastically shortened lifespan.
Money is the game counter. Decisions about how much money is available, who has access to it under what circumstances, and how much freedom they get in return for that access, define the game. But they're not set democratically - they're declared by a fiat, by a priestly caste of economists and bankers who administer the game.
The big difference between a Star Trek economy and this one is that in Star Trek, the game doesn't exist. Nor does the priestly caste.
What happens instead is that individuals trust the culture to do everything it can to look after them, and in return the culture trusts individuals to contribute voluntarily without freeloading, or without having some kind of semi-psychotic 'use all the things' fit of pointless public consumption.
It's effectively a trust economy, instead of a top-down planned economy like the capitalist system.
Wait - capitalism is a planned economy? Uh huh. Didn't you notice? It's as planned as the Soviet economy was, but instead of the Politburo, the planning is coordinated by the priestly caste which sets the rules of commerce (e.g. 'corporations must maximise profits and growth at all costs, even at the expense of long-term social stability'.)
In Star Trek, the economists have been replaced by planners who treat individuals like adults. The individuals act like adults, because they understand that the social benefits of volunteering time and talent vastly outweigh the personal costs, even if it costs them their lives.
In capitalism individuals are forced to compete for essentials. This makes volunteering impossible for most of the population. It also turns the culture into a bear pit, and wastes a lot of energy on pointlessly damaging individual competition.
In fact, I'd suggest even beyond that... just think about that claim. Love it or hate it or anything in between, wealth of all kinds has absolutely exploded under capitalism since the Industrial Revolution. If individual transactions in the world of capitalism are intrinsically exploitative and there is always a winner and a loser and a net loss of societal wealth... how can you explain the modern world, in which the poorest residents of the industrialized countries consider their birthright many things that the Kings of old could literally not have gotten at any price? Don't just read the propaganda, think. This is self-evidently a ludicrous claim if you take it seriously. It is absurd that the net effect of multiple trillions (quadrillions?) of net-loss transactions could somehow sum to something so net positive. Bridge the gap between theory and reality... don't just let people babble on and on about economics without ever asking them to be correct, think about what it would actually produce in the real world if it were true.
Capitalism has its problems. There may be better economic organizations. Capitalism may yet have a long term flaw in it as technology progresses (a lot of chatter about that case on HN in the past couple of years, there's a lot of interesting questions there). There's all sorts of avenues of "attack", or, better yet, all sorts of ways to just think about where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. However, it's a sort of basic "you must be at least this tall to ride the ride" sort of thing that your theories must be able to explain how wealth has exploded under capitalism, and why it didn't explode under the older systems, and why it doesn't explode even more under any of the several attempts to use another system that have been really tried in the real world. (i.e., don't try to claim that many of the obvious "fixes" to capitalism have never been tried when in fact they've all been tried numerous times, and so far have not generated the best track records. Theories should include and explain real-world data, not ignore it when it is convenient to do so.)
And should you be tempted to explain away the wealth, or claim with varying degrees of obfuscation that its distribution negates the wealth explosion entirely because it isn't to your exact tastes (an obviously absurd claim when spelled out clearly but a popular dodge when slathered over with enough words to mask the logic), I strongly recommend spending some time with 18th century medical case notes, or reading about the opulence of 16th century royalty with an eye to what simple things we have today that they would (quite literally) kill for, or something else that will simply rub in your face how unbelievably wealthy we are today compared to the past. The past is poor. You can have theories about how it could be better, but if your theories become so powerful they explain why the wealth explosion didn't happen at all, it's time to throw the theory away and find a better one.
(Incidentally, I do have ways I'd improve things myself. If you're reading this as a paean to the status quo and anyone criticizing it should just shut up, you've probably got a bad case of the propagandas rendering you unable to understand different ideas. I've got my criticisms. However, my criticisms and yours still need to take the all of the above facts into account.)
Thanks for writing all that down. TheOtherHobbes' comments are another example of the bullshit asymmetry principle: refuting them takes a fair amount of time and energy, whereas it's easy to just write that kind of nonsense.
> how can you explain the modern world, in which the poorest residents of the industrialized countries consider their birthright many things that the Kings of old could literally not have gotten at any price?
Technology advances. I agree with the point you were trying to make (capitalism is not a zero sum game), but people expounding the benefits of capitalism tend to attribute to it the success of everything that it has touched. That's not necessarily correct. If an economic system controls 90% of the resources, we would expect it to have 90% of the success (even 90% of the growth!) under the null hypothesis that economic system doesn't matter.
> Don't just read the propaganda, think.
Oh no, the sheeple! Cut it out. Accusing your debate opponent of not thinking is beyond lazy.
> wealth has exploded under capitalism, and why it didn't explode under the older systems
Capitalism isn't an 18th century invention.
> why it doesn't explode even more under any of the several attempts to use another system that have been really tried in the real world
>how can you explain the modern world, in which the poorest residents of the industrialized countries consider their birthright many things that the Kings of old could literally not have gotten at any price?
You mean the world in which regulation and enforced redistribution of profits created a thriving middle class and spurred a boom in tech innovation? The world which started dying around 1980, when regulation began to be eroded?
The world which is now over, leaving a working population crippled by debt, unable to afford basic housing even on a way-above-average salary?
Tech is an exception. Kind of. Some of the time. For now. The important word there being 'exception.'
What made kings kings wasn't a pile of stuff, it was the ability to set policy.
How much influence do you have over national and international policy?
Do you think the question is ridiculous? It's not. It's the fundamental question that defines democracy.
How big is your area of interest? You? Your family? Your friends? Your company? Your country? The world?
How wide and detailed is your predictive horizon?
>Don't just read the propaganda, think.
Don't just think and persuade yourself that you're right - research, fact-check, and challenge your own beliefs.
Talk to people outside your comfort zone and usual circles. Go find out what's happening on the streets, in other countries, in the areas of the planet that are becoming increasingly inhospitable and difficult to live in.
Then we can talk about the modern world means to the people who live in it. You may find not everyone is as comfortable as you are.
Capitalism is a naive, wasteful way to run an economy. It explodes regularly in boom/bubble/bust cycles, it wastes human and natural resources with insane abandon, and it enforces a tacit caste system which puts a huge brake on social mobility.
My iPhone is nice. So is medical care. The Internet is definitely a win. Last time I looked science and engineering invented most of these things. Capitalism tried to sell them to me, not always in a good way. Sometimes it kept me from trying to find better alternatives. (Richard Gabriel is good on this.)
So I'm not yet convinced everyone couldn't have equivalent things - perhaps much better things - without having to pay a wrenchingly high price in avoidable economic instability, and questionable, sometimes corrupt, policy.
I don't believe "zero-sum" is the term you want, there. A better one might be "winner-take-all"; for more information, see the work of Robert Frank: http://www.robert-h-frank.com/
> In Star Trek, the economists have been replaced by planners who treat individuals like adults. The individuals act like adults, because they understand that the social benefits of volunteering time and talent vastly outweigh the personal costs, even if it costs them their lives.
You almost had me going here. And then you remember how desperate ensigns are in Star Trek. The explanation : a sense of duty ... That's supposedly the explanation for 8 years of "scrubbing conduits". The explanation for in group walking through a dominion minefield. The explanation for putting up with getting sent to a listening post, 2 months away from human contact, your function is to repair any circuit shorts ...
I don't buy it. No way.
> In Star Trek, the economists have been replaced by planners who treat individuals like adults. The individuals act like adults, because they understand that the social benefits of volunteering time and talent vastly outweigh the personal costs, even if it costs them their lives.
In one sentence you've stated that the entire premise of economics is wrong. Rational actors ? Pfew ! What do we need that for ?
> In capitalism individuals are forced to compete for essentials. This makes volunteering impossible for most of the population. It also turns the culture into a bear pit, and wastes a lot of energy on pointlessly damaging individual competition.
That's must be why there was such an explosion of volunteering in the Soviet union then. Or why there is such a rich and diverse volunteering tradition among the unemployed.
I'd say there's a few holes in this thinking. But don't get me wrong : I sincerely hope you, or anyone, will convincingly fill them. But I've never seen decent arguments here.
It's hard to rectify that in a quick comment though, as it's a complicated, interesting and fascinating subject.
Just to pick one thing, you mention 'efficiency'. Capitalism is not very efficient in a lot of ways. However, it happens to be more efficient for large groups of people than all the other systems people have tried, if you don't mind me poaching Churchill's quote about democracy.
And another: money. Money is merely a means of trading scarce goods. Looking at it as a problem is a red herring. The actual problem is the availability and distribution of scarce resources like food and shelter and iphones and other things people want.
Here's a book I'm fond of - it's fairly mainstream economics.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Undercover-Economist-Tim-Harford/d...
He's written another one lately about macroeconomics which is pretty good as well:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Undercover-Economist-Strikes-Back/...