The thread about Capitalism

[Schmidty]

Since the Presidential thread is obviously completely mistitled, and is essentially a left-leaning encouragement thread showing how evil certain things are to their Team (mostly a religion without the whole “God” thing) and jumping in to get some moral support from their buddies who prop up the way they feel, would it be cool to start a new thread discussing capitalism?

I hope so because I just did.

I want to learn from this thread. I don’t want it to become about politics, although it will. I want to listen to rational thought and not deal with the horrible screeching of partisan bullshit. “Biden old. Bad”. “Trump evil. Bad”. “Libs = Evil”. “MAGA Cult. Must die.” I read those things from people I know are brilliant and it just pisses me off and bums me out.

So that’s the end of politics.

I’ve always been very much a capitalist, because in West Michigan where I grew up, that’s all I knew. I still believe that way mostly. But I want to challenge myself.

I love history and consume it more than I do food. I have been reading about the Byzantine Empire/Eastern Roman Empire a lot. Since it was based on trade, I just assumed “Well, capitalism…Yeah!”…but then I read further, and they taxed the daylights out of the trade. So was it truly a capitalistic society? It lasted for about a thousand years too, so it wasn’t just a flash in the pan either.

So I’ll stop now. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[albionmoonlight]

I've always thought that "I, Pencil" is a great and simple defense of capitalism.

[albionmoonlight]

I think capitalism works best with a safety net. I had a friend who started her own business once she could get ACA insurance. Before then, she felt she had to stay in a "normal" job to afford health insurance.

If people have the basics covered (shelter, health care, food, education through high school) at an acceptable level, then they will be more likely to take the chances that let economies thrive.

Also, UBI experiments have shown (to my satisfaction) that it is more efficient to give money to people than to have a big state bureaucracy try and provide them directly.

[albionmoonlight]

double dola:

For example, every few years, we hear horror stories about the VA. So maybe instead of a big government run VA, we get rid of it and we instead give qualified veterans free health insurance from one of the providers to federal employees. Then they can get their health care on the free market.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

I think capitalism works best with a safety net. I had a friend who started her own business once she could get ACA insurance. Before then, she felt she had to stay in a "normal" job to afford health insurance.

If people have the basics covered (shelter, health care, food, education through high school) at an acceptable level, then they will be more likely to take the chances that let economies thrive.

Also, UBI experiments have shown (to my satisfaction) that it is more efficient to give money to people than to have a big state bureaucracy try and provide them directly.

I think this would probably help culture thrive, too.

Capitalism is great, as long as companies have some level of accountability. Safety and well-being of workers, of consumers, of the environment. There has to be balance. Capitalism isn't good if a company can have 100 of its workers die in a fire and shrug it off because who cares. It's not good when consumers can get electrocuted/poisoned/sucked out of airplanes and companies continue to do business as usual. It's not good when companies dump toxins into waterways day after day after day. "BUT REGULATIONS BAD!" No, we need regulations because companies are no longer mom-and-pop outfits who care about their place in the community; markets are dominated by huge conglomerates that are not people (despite what the SC may tell you). There needs to be a level of responsibility and not just the bottom line.

[miked]

We have capitalism where we've allowed the big business making billions to not pay any corporate taxes merely by the fact we allow them to incorporate into places that have different rules. If I start my business here in GA, then I have to play by a different set of rules and that is the part that seems unfair. We say corporations are people when they spend money on politics, but in fact they are offshore corporations when it comes to paying taxes.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

double dola:

For example, every few years, we hear horror stories about the VA. So maybe instead of a big government run VA, we get rid of it and we instead give qualified veterans free health insurance from one of the providers to federal employees. Then they can get their health care on the free market.

But VA hospitals do well with patient satisfaction overall.

Based on patient surveys between July 2021 and June 2022, 72% of VA hospitals received four or five stars for Overall hospital rating compared to 48% of reporting non-VA hospitals. Additionally, VA hospitals received a higher percentage of four or five star ratings than non-VA hospitals for Communication with doctors (87% vs. 48%), Communication with nurses (59% vs. 35%), Responsiveness of hospital staff (63% vs. 34%), Communication about medicines (80% vs. 38%), Cleanliness of the hospital environment (69% vs. 52%), Quietness of the hospital environment (49% vs. 38%), Discharge information (65% vs. 55%), Care transition (76% vs. 35%), and Willingness to recommend the hospital (76% vs. 52%).

[cuervo72]

Yeah, health care is one area where I'm not sure capitalism is currently working. Maybe at the top end, but not everywhere.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-new-m...reed-to-blame/

Rashid's death is now the subject of a state investigation. Haque says doctors told him they wanted to use a device called an embolization coil to stop the bleeding from his wife's liver. He said when St. Elizabeth's didn't have the coil, she was transferred to the second hospital.

"An hour later, she had another cardiac arrest," Haque said. "They couldn't revive her. It was shocking. I said, 'Well, what exactly happened?'"

In a complaint filed to Massachusetts' health department obtained by CBS News, health care workers at St. Elizabeth's said the manufacturer had come to "retrieve any coils at the hospital" weeks before because Steward hadn't paid its bills. According to a lawsuit filed last October by the manufacturer, Steward owed about $2.5 million in unpaid bills.

I mean, it's tricky. I don't know if capitalism works as well with items that are for the "common good" rather than for non-essential or luxury items. Not dying after birth shouldn't be a luxury, IMO. (I mean, in others opinions it probably is, if everything is EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF. And there is certainly a line where the level of healthcare does venture into non-essential territory. I am not a good enough bioethicist to know where that is.) Public health generally should be seen as a common good. But, it's commoditized, run by corporations and increasingly private equity firms that don't really specialize in medicine. But, there's a buck to be had.

We're going down this road with schools, too. Obviously not everyone agrees that education is a common good either, though.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

But VA hospitals do well with patient satisfaction overall.

I probably have some blinders here. My job puts me in contact with the bad side of the VA more than most.

[JPhillips]

I think everyone complains about their hospital experience. I can't say VA is good, but it's no worse and maybe better than other hospitals.

[Schmidty]

This has been great so far. Thanks.

Something that I am taking from it is the concept of moderation. Moderation gets a bad rap, but for me moderation is simply common sense.

Yes, even with capitalism, we need a way to help those truly in need. There needs to be a baseline. Everything doesn’t have to be balls-to-the-wall 24/7. People who disagree with you don’t have to be the enemy.

There have to be safety nets, because if there are not, you get more crime and drugs. The laziness of those accepting help shouldn’t be the main concern: The main concern should be about those that have no way to survive on their own and to also balance the rights and concerns of those financially contributing and growing society.

Moderation, kindness, ambition, and development can go hand in hand. It doesn’t even seem like a system. It is simple common sense and perhaps some humility.

[thesloppy]

I'd like to believe it's not that hard to have a capitalist system that simply places the highest value on people, rather than money, but clearly that's not what we have.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by miked

We have capitalism where we've allowed the big business making billions to not pay any corporate taxes merely by the fact we allow them to incorporate into places that have different rules. If I start my business here in GA, then I have to play by a different set of rules and that is the part that seems unfair. We say corporations are people when they spend money on politics, but in fact they are offshore corporations when it comes to paying taxes.

Also if those corporations fail, they get bailouts while everyone else doesn't.

I'd say America has a sort of pseudo-capitalist economy (more corporatism). If you're "too big to fail", that's not capitalism. Same with bailouts during the pandemic. Same with interfering in strikes. And the same for allowing legalized embezzlement (most private equity) and anti-capitalist things like rent and stock buybacks.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I think everyone complains about their hospital experience. I can't say VA is good, but it's no worse and maybe better than other hospitals.

I think it's solid. It has some unique challenges that are very difficult to address.

The average person going to the VA is going to have more issues than the average person being seen at a community based hospital or clinic. Additionally for many people receiving VA benefits, they need to continue to receive care for their issue to maintain those benefits. It allows rhe VA to stay on top of the issue before it potentially gets worse but the vast majority of people in our communities aren't forced to do the same so those hospitals don't see stress to their systems in the same way.

The VA also has a tendency to try to lowball people with their initial disability ratings. This isn't an issue with their hospitals, but it does create a lot of extra appointments for people appealing their initial ratings. Both of these issues, IMO, lead to some of the long waits for VA appointments that are usually the biggest complaint.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Schmidty

This has been great so far. Thanks.

Something that I am taking from it is the concept of moderation. Moderation gets a bad rap, but for me moderation is simply common sense.

Yes, even with capitalism, we need a way to help those truly in need. There needs to be a baseline. Everything doesn’t have to be balls-to-the-wall 24/7. People who disagree with you don’t have to be the enemy.

There have to be safety nets, because if there are not, you get more crime and drugs. The laziness of those accepting help shouldn’t be the main concern: The main concern should be about those that have no way to survive on their own and to also balance the rights and concerns of those financially contributing and growing society.

Moderation, kindness, ambition, and development can go hand in hand. It doesn’t even seem like a system. It is simple common sense and perhaps some humility.

Even though I grew up in a very (politically) conservative family (my parents were never not religious, but after 9/11 and my mom returning to Catholicism, they became very religious years after I left home), I was always moderate. To this day, I'm the mediator between my parents and my brother, and I tend not to jump to one side or another on a lot of things. So I was never a hard-line "one way or the highway" thinker, and going to law school taught me how to view complex issues from both sides, and it was inevitable for that to seep into my personal life. Nothing is black and white, no one truly has all of the answers.

That's not to say there's not clear right and wrong (or what I believe as right and wrong), and absolute facts and all of that, but people's perspectives matter, even if they do not align with your own. But that doesn't mean truth is whatever you want it to be, or that any perspective is ultimately valid as an actionable belief system.

Once I entered my 30s, I definitely became more aware of life as it is being lived, as opposed to life as theories and philosophies suggesting how life should work. And the rational/logical part of me started to see the juxtaposition between what seemed like valid philosophies and what I was witnessing people going through with my own eyes. There's obviously a logical element to that, some of which directly contradicts theory and philosophy (especially when you attempt to allow humans to administer a theory and it becomes an imperfect reality).

So, without getting into anything specifically political, that's my perspective these days. I still consider myself a moderate personality, in an increasingly extreme society. And I know for some people, that's a dirty word. But I'd just say "moderate" is an all-encompassing word that means more than just what you think of as a political term. It's like saying you listened to alternative rock in the 90s - that term covered way more than just some sub-genre of rock.

As it relates to capitalism specifically, I've had a 25+ year career as an attorney, working in a heavily regulated industry for the government, for a law firm, for a multinational corporation, and for a small, privately held company. In no way do I think most industries should just be free from regulation; nor do I think governments should be given the authority to abuse their power. I believe there should be a balance that encourages responsible behavior, incentivizes innovation and making money, but also has a regulatory framework that establishes baseline practices and punishes wrongdoers.

I wish more people took the position that they don't know everything and that their way is not the only way to look at an issue. We'd be better off as a society.

[Schmidty]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Even though I grew up in a very (politically) conservative family (my parents were never not religious, but after 9/11 and my mom returning to Catholicism, they became very religious years after I left home), I was always moderate. To this day, I'm the mediator between my parents and my brother, and I tend not to jump to one side or another on a lot of things. So I was never a hard-line "one way or the highway" thinker, and going to law school taught me how to view complex issues from both sides, and it was inevitable for that to seep into my personal life. Nothing is black and white, no one truly has all of the answers.

That's not to say there's not clear right and wrong (or what I believe as right and wrong), and absolute facts and all of that, but people's perspectives matter, even if they do not align with not your own. But that doesn't mean truth is whatever you want it to be, or that any perspective is ultimately valid as an actionable belief system.

Once I entered my 30s, I definitely became more aware of life as it is being lived, as opposed to life as theories and philosophies suggesting how life should work. And the rational/logical part of me started to see the juxtaposition between what seemed like valid philosophies and what I was witnessing people going through with my own eyes. There's obviously a logical element to that, some of which directly contradicts theory and philosophy (especially when you attempt to allow humans to administer a theory and it becomes an imperfect reality).

So, without getting into anything specifically political, that's my perspective these days. I still consider myself a moderate personality, in an increasingly extreme society. And I know for some people, that's a dirty word. But I'd just say "moderate" is an all-encompassing word that means more than just what you think of as a political term. It's like saying you listened to alternative rock in the 90s - that term covered way more than just some sub-genre of rock.

As it relates to capitalism specifically, I've had a 25+ year career as an attorney, working in a heavily regulated industry for the government, for a law firm, for a multinational corporation, and for a small, privately held company. In no way do I think most industries should just be free from regulation; nor do I think governments should be given the authority to abuse their power. I believe there should be a balance that encourages responsible behavior, incentivizes innovation and making money, but also has a regulatory framework that establishes baseline practices and punishes wrongdoers.

I wish more people took the position that they don't know everything and that their way is not the only way to look at an issue. We'd be better off as a society.

I read, then re-read again. Such a great post.

Your final paragraph is how I view human intellect, devices, schemes, methods, ‘ologies, et cetera. I will say that my view of life is based on my faith. That’s not the point here though.

My little blurb under my name on Facebook is: “ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat”. It is Latin for “I know that I know nothing”. Attributed to Socrates. As far as I can tell, that is the true path to wisdom, knowledge, and character on a human level. When you understand that you aren’t Divinely anything, but are just one of us, you are on the path to true enlightenment. And you are likely better equipped to help this rock we live on, and the creatures on it, prosper.