Snow Mite

From Mylegokingdom

that, I feel you would enjoy a response to your comnemt that is bourn from a deeply considered and thoughtful avenue. Please don't think my response is argumentative or gospel, but rather a view point from a fellow ponderer.In my view, capitalism is great, it has served humanity extremely well. Modern societies have experienced prosperity beyond anything our forefathers could ever imagined. Only 100 years ago, the life expectancy of citizens of the most developed nations hovered around 30 years old. Plumbing, sewerage, refrigeration, personal transportation, even literacy were either non existent or considered a luxury. The marvellous aspect of capitalism was not that it, in itself, produces technology. Nor that it created an environment of innovation, but rather that it has a magical property of selecting those technologies that are relevant and beneficial to society, and distributing the benefits of technology to any an all, provided they were willing to labour for it (or that they recieved benefits from the ownership of wealth).This effect of the capitalist markets to self-optimise is known as spontaneous order. Imagine a large Wal Mart, on a busy month end Saturday. If there are, say 10, cash registers, but more than 50, shoppers who wish to pay up and leave with their goods, then queues will form at each cash register. If you look across the store you will notice that all the queues are approximately the same length. But who is responsible for ensuring that the queues are the same? Well of course, it is obvious, that because each individual seeks his own selfish interests, in this case his interest to leave as soon as possible, that the interests of the group, are served. All shoppers can expect an orderly, fair, and optimised opportunity to cash out and leave Wal Mart.Who is responsible in the national ( or global even ) marketplace that enough saxophones are manufactured, or that enough shoelaces are made for the sneaker manufacturers, or that there isn't too much paper produced? Well, no one person is responsible, but all of us together as a market, will apply our own individual economic forces upon the market, buying shoes, to wear, while playing the music on a sheet of paper, with our xylophone, and the market itself will self-optimise and we all can enjoy the benefits of said spontaneous order.The reason I felt the need to illustrate this specific aspect of capitalism, is to make it clear, the distinction between central planning ( which I should add does not have the property of spontaneous order, and is largely why to the best intentions, communism simply and fundamentally cannot work as a mechanism to distribute the benefits of technology to society) and capitalistic market forces.Much of what, today, is considered to be the problems with capitalism, is in fact (well in my opinion at least) some form of central control or central planning. The central control and planning of money supply, and money scarcity ( or value ) I.E. the Federal Reserve, the disbursement of government subsidies to certain industries, the planned availability and supply of encumbered monies (loans) for tertiary education, or homes, or retail credit card binges, even theoretically the the centrally planned taxation system and one-size-fits-all mandatory health insurance, centrally regulated retirement funds, 401k, even the centrally operated legislation of society in congress or the senates, are all examples of non-capitalism. They, and many other examples, are essentially communism. They are the worst part of communism too, as all these initiatives work against the magic of spontaneous order. And should you be interested, if you examined much of what went wrong in communist states, you will probably discover many similarities with what is now going wrong with capitalist nations.I am soon approaching my point, I promise.Till this point, I may sound like Dr. Ron Paul, but I assure you I hold none of his beliefs ( except perhaps that of personal liberty.) The primary reason I wrote this article, was that I fear that all efforts to address our current economic woes, in essence attempt to improve or correct problems with the current state of our quasi-capitalism. Since there are arguably many issues, flaws, problems with it, my fear is that no thought or effort is made to a wholly new phenomenon that is emerging due to the increase in technology as a capital of production.Just as our forefathers may have tried to address the problems of industrialisation and urbanism by suggesting a retreat back to a rural and subsistence way of life, it is perfectly understandable that you and many other ( notably Luis CK, just google Luis C K Lizard and you can hear his similar views on an Opie and Anthony podcast) people will suggest a solution to technological production of goods and services in a reduction in efficiency an increase in labour in a local less corporate business.NB NB NBWhat is evident, and becoming more obvious, is that the technologies we have and will produce, will ultimately be cable of providing nearly all the products and services currently provided by the economic system we have today. What this means is that it will, and probably already is to a larger extent than we realise, REPLACE the capitalist system. It will not alter it, or affect it, but replace it altogether. All this poppycock about how to fix capitalism will, whether we like it or not, be replaced by a technological system. Therefore, any solution, or vision of the future that REQUIRES or DEMANDS that individuals perform labour, is not taking into account that humans are able, less and less, to compete with technology, and therefore the only role that humans will play in the economy will be those of building the technologies, and the role of benefiting from the production of our technology. To use an analogy, since the invention of delivery trucks, freight trains, boats and aircraft, it would be ridiculous to employ humans in a salt mine. No human can compete in any way with the ability if technology to excavate, culminate and distribute mountains of salt. The humans are only able now, to enjoy a salty pretzel, and build salt delivering technology.I need to say that I have not mentioned the human desire and enjoyment of fruitful labour. But even if most things are provided for us, there should hopefully always be a need for human efforts in the arts, social, and media facets of life.There should be no question of human purpose or fear of such an economy. Because if one considers the wealthy members of society today, members to whom our lives may more resemble, they essentially, as a result of their wealth, do not NEED to labour. But that seems only to provide an opportunity to partake in fulfilling and inspired work. Take Bill Gates, Buffett, Soros, and innumerable other wealthy philanthropists as example. I doubt the cashier at Wal Mart works as hard as them, or receives as much fulfilment.Stephen Is