It's hard to say if the article is tautological, or if there's a fundamental (and common) confusion here about what the state is in relation to capitalism. The modern state co-evolved with capitalism, and as a result, it's institutions are generally what capitalism needs to survive and prosper. The point about a welfare state is not really whether or not one is necessary for capitalism; the point is more that it is necessary for a specific type of capitalism.
For instance, Toyota wouldn't work without a welfare state, because you need the kind of social stability a welfare state creates to preserve and shepherd a really skilled workforce. Ford, on the other hand, neither needs nor desires a particularly skilled workforce, but rather leans more heavily on intense capital investment (automation) - so an expanded welfare state, necessitating higher taxes, is a net loss for Ford, since they aren't all that interested in stability, but they are interested in low taxes.
Making arguments about whether or not people like or support free markets is kind of missing the point. The point is, certain business models are predicated on certain forms of social organization. That's why Google is based in Silicon Valley, not in Shanghai, and why Foxconn is in China, not Japan.
> The modern state co-evolved with capitalism, and as a result, it's institutions are generally what capitalism needs to survive and prosper.
This is either tautological or empirically wrong, depending on what exactly is meant by "the modern state". In many ways, the problem with our current welfare states stems from the fact that they evolved under the material constraints of mid-20th-c. capitalism, when, for example, even the unskilled could easily find lucrative manufacturing jobs, and a welfare state simply had to fill in a limited amount of income gaps resulting from unemployment (generally due to short-term business crises), medical conditions, retirement and the like. Back in the mid-20th century, a baseline UBI wouldn't have made much sense, for example. The situation today is vastly different, since incomes are skill-biased to an extreme extent. Welfare states should be reformed to provide a baseline subsidy even to those who are currently working (assuming a low income, of course), while at the same time leaving them with the right incentives to improve their skills, productivity and income, perhaps in unconventional ways such as "bootcamps", MOOCs or "gig" work, that governments can't easily track or manage. Something like UBI, or Milton Friedman's proposed NIT, would seem to be highly appropriate.
Even pretty staunch libertarians are willing to entertain the value of the state when it comes to the transition into post-scarcity markets, and even this transition into markets that net diminishing value from many human endeavors (as we are already seeing). I just think that most libertarian types, myself included, don't want that to mean an overbearing bureaucratic system that necessarily creates perverse incentives and rations resources along politically contentious dimensions. Let us keep our markets, just help balance them. Universal basic income to keep the bottom in check, anti-monopoly, anti-collusion to keep the top in check, and then please fuck off. No affordable housing, no welfare, no social security, no food stamps, no shelters. Just give everyone cash and fuck off. If they want to create an authoritarian sub-state, or sibling-state, for the people that just cannot take care of themselves, despite all the necessary resources literally being deposited in their bank accounts, so be it, but don't rope the rest of functional society into the moral authoritarian nightmare we're currently already sinking into.
What checks would be in place to insure that the UBI was sufficient to substitute for eliminating affordable housing, social security, and food stamps?
The problem I see with everything you said is that people are going to vote in their best interest.
No one is going to vote for a system that if you can't cut it because of a disability, health problem, or just plain life circumstance then you are basically screwed.
I mean UBI should ensure that nobody is screwed, but notice that I didn't mention disability or healthcare in the systems to cut.
I think that health is one of the things that is such an unfair distribution of misery that a universal system isn't enough to mitigate it equitably. So I think there should/could be a system dedicated specifically to managing that problem that exists independently of the UBI.
> Even pretty staunch libertarians are willing to entertain the value of the state when it comes to the transition into post-scarcity markets
A post-scarcity situation means there is no value and there are no markets. Scarcity creates value and cost, and value and cost are necessary for markets. (Markets, to frame it slightly differently, are a tool for managing the limitations imposed by scarcity.)
Of course, the clear importance of relative prosperity and deprivation in human utility and disutility combined with the fact that, however productive we become, resources are finite, means you aren't going to have a post-scarcity situation with anything like the humans we know, it's a fantasy that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
I agree with you, but I mean post-scarcity in the sense that humans aren't really providing much value to the market in an objective sense, and all of their needs can mostly be met with very little cost to society at large. I also mean this as a gradient process.
In regards to the scarcity of labor, we're clearly pretty well on our way to transitioning past human utility for many physical tasks, right? The value contributed by being physically capable of carrying a given capacity is something that previously gave one the capability to add value to countless endeavors, and now that is effectively adding no value at all. This will continue along this trajectory. And what we're seeing now is the same thing happening for tasks requiring mental proficiency. Most rote tasks regarding formatting data, inputting data, basic analysis, etc, are all thoroughly being replaced by software and ML. What is effectively happening now is that the bar for the minimum necessary cognitive capabilities is slowly being raised, and more and more of the population will become fully incapable of providing any objective value to the majority of the market.
People act like this is a process that necessarily results in a 1:1 replacement of jobs, like "oh but who will build those machines? who will replace them?" As though there's some magical symmetry that keeps the process balanced, but no such force exists.
In regards to the other side of the scarcity problem, the scarcity of resources, we're well on our way to being past that problem. Markets continue to drive the cost of goods down, and the actual cost of sustaining a basic human existence with food and shelter is well short of the theoretical point of absolute removal of scarcity in this regard.
So it's not impossible to imagine that we're well on our way to a point where most humans are capable of adding very little objective value that cannot be solved better by available technology, and available technology is capable of providing humans with what is necessary to live a comfortable life with very little net cost to society at large. What will happen at this point, I would imagine, is that new markets will simply emerge with a much heavier emphasis on subjective preferences and desires. Scarcity of physical space will be magnified, arbitrary scarcity like explicitly limiting attendance to events, things like this. I think that the "artisanal" side of the market that you're already seeing emerge will probably continue to grow, where the product itself is not valued necessarily because of its objective utility, but rather because it was made by a person.
So that's what I mean by post-scarcity. I don't mean it in the Marxist sense where we've eradicated the possibility for markets to exist. And I think that in the future I've described, something that looks like UBI will probably be a necessary instrument to ensure that we can maintain the existence of markets while recognizing that we have the capability to provide humans a comfortable existence at very little cost to society, in a time where they are very unlikely to be able to add any real value back.
Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy… These organisations do not negate, but supplement each other. They are not antipodes, they are twins.
I am troubled by the lack of rational discussion of "capitalism" and "socialism" in the society today. Partially, this comes from the complete failure of modern academic philosophy to make cultural contributions. Part of it is from the weakness of a two party system that both seem to advocate for necessary and insufficient social functions.
The terms capitalism and socialism, on their own, are virtually meaningless, being shorthand for any number of specific policies. For instance: Are monolopolies a failure of capitalism or an inevitable outcome? Is capitalism stronger with or without monopolies? On the socialist side, is social ownership of the means of production necessary for maximizing the distribution of goods? Or are free markets and profit motives appropriate strategies for promoting social value?
Instead, you have the wall street journal treating socialism like idiocy and millennials treating capitalism as an obvious evil.
This is rather practical philosophy... So I'm disappointed things aren't further developed in our polical discourse.
This is, of course, not a problem with “people”, but it is a problem with people in our current capitalist society.
Capitalism inspires culture. The abstraction Marx provided for this is the base/superstructure spiral. It is simple and, well, abstract, but it is abstract to a degree that it remains applicable through the ages and more detailed conceptions map onto it, like critical theory and the like. Even post-structural critique really fail to counter Marx on this.
I think Frederic Jameson succinctly described the experience of spiraling inevitabilities to result from capitalist/commercial culture with this phrase:
There are few topics that provide a better intellectual Rorschach test than the economy.
Communism is the most appealing if only because it's the natural system of families and of hunter gatherers. Sadly, the 20th century emphatically demonstrated that this system doesn't scale into anything other than a complete disaster.
On the other hand, capitalism is brutally horrible. But it's one saving grace is that it does scale. You can run a 2 billion person economy on it and things will work out overall and through time. That is, if you overlook the long time constant, positive feedback loop of the concentration of capital. Eventually just a few guys own all the stuff which is sub optimal.
Raw capitalism guarantees winners and losers, and a whole spectrum of outcomes in between. This can be fixed up a bit by first, having government regulation of clear market failure zones, like food, construction and finance etc. And second, having the government collect a reasonable percentage off the top of the economy to subsidize those being squished to death at the bottom.
Scandinavia does this best. Sure, they're not perfect, there is no actual perfect solution.
The result is an elephant of a system that few people can view in its entirety but most people think they can.
Given such a messy, devisive, inscrutable system you have to believe there must be a better way.
But there's probably not.
Unfortunately, The Economist has metamorphosed into The Globalist Statist. The article is junk and confuses fascism and socialism with capitalism.
> Everyone needs enough to live on.
Everyone needs a lot of things. That does not ENTITLE them to any of those things.
Also, please note the qualifier "to live on"; how much of what exactly that is should presumably be decided by central planners, just so that experts (ie The Economist's readership) can hold onto their lucrative positions, or else we would end up with communism, where everyone would simply take a different amount of resources according to their needs.
People interested in economics may proceed to http://mises.org, there you may actually learn something genuinely good and useful.
17 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 58.0 ms ] threadFor instance, Toyota wouldn't work without a welfare state, because you need the kind of social stability a welfare state creates to preserve and shepherd a really skilled workforce. Ford, on the other hand, neither needs nor desires a particularly skilled workforce, but rather leans more heavily on intense capital investment (automation) - so an expanded welfare state, necessitating higher taxes, is a net loss for Ford, since they aren't all that interested in stability, but they are interested in low taxes.
Making arguments about whether or not people like or support free markets is kind of missing the point. The point is, certain business models are predicated on certain forms of social organization. That's why Google is based in Silicon Valley, not in Shanghai, and why Foxconn is in China, not Japan.
This is either tautological or empirically wrong, depending on what exactly is meant by "the modern state". In many ways, the problem with our current welfare states stems from the fact that they evolved under the material constraints of mid-20th-c. capitalism, when, for example, even the unskilled could easily find lucrative manufacturing jobs, and a welfare state simply had to fill in a limited amount of income gaps resulting from unemployment (generally due to short-term business crises), medical conditions, retirement and the like. Back in the mid-20th century, a baseline UBI wouldn't have made much sense, for example. The situation today is vastly different, since incomes are skill-biased to an extreme extent. Welfare states should be reformed to provide a baseline subsidy even to those who are currently working (assuming a low income, of course), while at the same time leaving them with the right incentives to improve their skills, productivity and income, perhaps in unconventional ways such as "bootcamps", MOOCs or "gig" work, that governments can't easily track or manage. Something like UBI, or Milton Friedman's proposed NIT, would seem to be highly appropriate.
No one is going to vote for a system that if you can't cut it because of a disability, health problem, or just plain life circumstance then you are basically screwed.
I think that health is one of the things that is such an unfair distribution of misery that a universal system isn't enough to mitigate it equitably. So I think there should/could be a system dedicated specifically to managing that problem that exists independently of the UBI.
A post-scarcity situation means there is no value and there are no markets. Scarcity creates value and cost, and value and cost are necessary for markets. (Markets, to frame it slightly differently, are a tool for managing the limitations imposed by scarcity.)
Of course, the clear importance of relative prosperity and deprivation in human utility and disutility combined with the fact that, however productive we become, resources are finite, means you aren't going to have a post-scarcity situation with anything like the humans we know, it's a fantasy that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
In regards to the scarcity of labor, we're clearly pretty well on our way to transitioning past human utility for many physical tasks, right? The value contributed by being physically capable of carrying a given capacity is something that previously gave one the capability to add value to countless endeavors, and now that is effectively adding no value at all. This will continue along this trajectory. And what we're seeing now is the same thing happening for tasks requiring mental proficiency. Most rote tasks regarding formatting data, inputting data, basic analysis, etc, are all thoroughly being replaced by software and ML. What is effectively happening now is that the bar for the minimum necessary cognitive capabilities is slowly being raised, and more and more of the population will become fully incapable of providing any objective value to the majority of the market.
People act like this is a process that necessarily results in a 1:1 replacement of jobs, like "oh but who will build those machines? who will replace them?" As though there's some magical symmetry that keeps the process balanced, but no such force exists.
In regards to the other side of the scarcity problem, the scarcity of resources, we're well on our way to being past that problem. Markets continue to drive the cost of goods down, and the actual cost of sustaining a basic human existence with food and shelter is well short of the theoretical point of absolute removal of scarcity in this regard.
So it's not impossible to imagine that we're well on our way to a point where most humans are capable of adding very little objective value that cannot be solved better by available technology, and available technology is capable of providing humans with what is necessary to live a comfortable life with very little net cost to society at large. What will happen at this point, I would imagine, is that new markets will simply emerge with a much heavier emphasis on subjective preferences and desires. Scarcity of physical space will be magnified, arbitrary scarcity like explicitly limiting attendance to events, things like this. I think that the "artisanal" side of the market that you're already seeing emerge will probably continue to grow, where the product itself is not valued necessarily because of its objective utility, but rather because it was made by a person.
So that's what I mean by post-scarcity. I don't mean it in the Marxist sense where we've eradicated the possibility for markets to exist. And I think that in the future I've described, something that looks like UBI will probably be a necessary instrument to ensure that we can maintain the existence of markets while recognizing that we have the capability to provide humans a comfortable existence at very little cost to society, in a time where they are very unlikely to be able to add any real value back.
The terms capitalism and socialism, on their own, are virtually meaningless, being shorthand for any number of specific policies. For instance: Are monolopolies a failure of capitalism or an inevitable outcome? Is capitalism stronger with or without monopolies? On the socialist side, is social ownership of the means of production necessary for maximizing the distribution of goods? Or are free markets and profit motives appropriate strategies for promoting social value?
Instead, you have the wall street journal treating socialism like idiocy and millennials treating capitalism as an obvious evil.
This is rather practical philosophy... So I'm disappointed things aren't further developed in our polical discourse.
Capitalism inspires culture. The abstraction Marx provided for this is the base/superstructure spiral. It is simple and, well, abstract, but it is abstract to a degree that it remains applicable through the ages and more detailed conceptions map onto it, like critical theory and the like. Even post-structural critique really fail to counter Marx on this.
I think Frederic Jameson succinctly described the experience of spiraling inevitabilities to result from capitalist/commercial culture with this phrase:
All that is solid melts into air.
Communism is the most appealing if only because it's the natural system of families and of hunter gatherers. Sadly, the 20th century emphatically demonstrated that this system doesn't scale into anything other than a complete disaster.
On the other hand, capitalism is brutally horrible. But it's one saving grace is that it does scale. You can run a 2 billion person economy on it and things will work out overall and through time. That is, if you overlook the long time constant, positive feedback loop of the concentration of capital. Eventually just a few guys own all the stuff which is sub optimal.
Raw capitalism guarantees winners and losers, and a whole spectrum of outcomes in between. This can be fixed up a bit by first, having government regulation of clear market failure zones, like food, construction and finance etc. And second, having the government collect a reasonable percentage off the top of the economy to subsidize those being squished to death at the bottom.
Scandinavia does this best. Sure, they're not perfect, there is no actual perfect solution.
The result is an elephant of a system that few people can view in its entirety but most people think they can.
Given such a messy, devisive, inscrutable system you have to believe there must be a better way. But there's probably not.
> Everyone needs enough to live on.
Everyone needs a lot of things. That does not ENTITLE them to any of those things.
Also, please note the qualifier "to live on"; how much of what exactly that is should presumably be decided by central planners, just so that experts (ie The Economist's readership) can hold onto their lucrative positions, or else we would end up with communism, where everyone would simply take a different amount of resources according to their needs.
People interested in economics may proceed to http://mises.org, there you may actually learn something genuinely good and useful.