/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>950957
The main flaw in communist/anti-capitalist thinking is they believe the amount of wealth in the world is fixed. All they see is "well he has more wealth than me so that must mean I'm an oppressed poor person." When you come up with a great idea like assembly lines for automobiles or an incredibly useful phone app yeah you become fabulously wealthy but that wealth is generated and added to the world as a whole. Consider that the poorest people today are significantly more wealthy than the richest people a few hundred years ago, especially in countries with freer markets more conducive to capitalist entrepreneurship. Go to any trailer park in the USA and you'll see everyone with electricity, running water, TVs, cars, computers, etc. Another hundred years from now the poorest people will be even wealthier, with even better luxuries and technology in their homes.

>>950978
Ok, so if the sjws come up with "muh childruns in africa" how do you counter that?

Communism, and all liberal ideologies for that matter, are based solely on the belief of there being a victim-oppressor relationship.

You counter communists and socialists by just telling them to get a fucking job.

Engaging them in serious debate is a waste of time. They always resort back to circular logic, ad homs, and strawmen.

>>950978
Not disagreeing with you, just want to see if someone can put everything it in well-formulated sentences so i can use it too (im stem not much of an economics guy)
>>950988
well you can help fighting the good fight by answering the question

>>950957
I recommend posting on /pol/ if you want a discussion on this, it's got plenty of retards.

>>950985
What do you mean? It's the same. You don't have to take wealth from muh childruns in africa to become wealthy yourself because the amount of wealth in the world is not fixed.

>>950957
Nevermind then, looks like you already found some

>>950991
thats the reason why i wont go on /pol/ because the discussion will turn into typical nonsensical nigger-fags-jews-turd-flinging.
I dont see how a question on economical theory doesnt fit here.
Ps: saging doesnt works
>>950992
like how do childruns in africa have absolutely nothing, while the poorest american redneck still got at least electricity, running water and and

>>951009
What are they trying to argue exactly? Yeah it sucks to be a child in Africa but that doesn't have anything to do with capitalism or communism. Their countries are overrun with insane warlords that murder everyone and steal everything, everyone knows that system of government (if you can call it that) is bad lol.

When we can trade with them generally speaking international trade benefits the poorer country more than the richer one and helps them become rich too much more quickly as they can fast-track their technological advancements using what's already been done by someone else.

>>951026
Basically the argument is: "We hold Africas riches, there is no way they can make money themselves by producing stuff, they need to get it back from us"

Even thou its true, that a lot of african recources are sold abroad and the general populace has nothing from it, it doenst mean the population itself cant produce goods, that will make money for them.

>>951032
But that's not true, the people producing and selling goods internationally are not giving them away for free. Wealth and new technologies are still entering those countries. Yeah there's a lot of starvation and disease but their populations are fucking exploding and outpacing their development. There's still more food, medicine, and other resources as a whole in those countries than there used to be. Even those terrible warlords used to have to use spears to do their murdering, now they've got nice toyota tacomas and kalashnikovs.

watch some videos by this guy - living standards are improving across the world, the portion of people in absolute poverty is falling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31c444CZPT4

>>950985
Most African nations don't follow capitalism, so it's a point for you. Saying that we fucked them in the 1600-1800s is absurd, we absolutely fucked Germany from 1940 to 1980 and they're the strongest in the EU now. America was fucked in the 1930s and they're the strongest financial/militaristic nation in the world now. England fucked China to shit and they're a powerhouse, Germany raped Russia and they're the biggest threat the west has.

If Africa isn't fixed yet, it's because of Africans.

>>950957
>I'm pro capitalism because it's meme within our culture and it hurts to use my brain
>Can anyone spoonfeed me some arguments to defend my herd tendencies?

Very nice. Sums up this board quite nicely.

>>950978
>The main flaw in communist/anti-capitalist thinking is they believe the amount of wealth in the world is fixed.
There is. The amount of resources and energy production potential of Earth is not infinite, therefore, the possible amount of wealth is fixed.

>>950988
>Communism, and all liberal ideologies for that matter, are based solely on the belief of there being a victim-oppressor relationship.
There is, since people can be brainwashed into acting against their own self-interest. That also happens in "communism", but they are a bit more honest about that (the premise is to put the "common good" above your own, after all).

>>951026
>When we can trade with them generally speaking international trade benefits the poorer country more than the richer one
If by country, you mean, the general population, you are terribly wrong, and history is there to prove that.
I hope that I have to talk about imperialism, but even today, what you have is corrupt politics in poor countries taking bribes and making concessions to oversea interests.

>>951032
No, the argument is that you forced primitive tribes to act like modern civilizations, enabling monkeys to turn their shitty territories into hellholes, and then bailed after it was no longer profitable to stay there.
At least in the Americas the Europeans had the decency to do some ethnic cleansing (either by genocide in the USA or by turning the purebred native majority into a mixed race in Central and South America).

>>951074
The rise of living standards don't take into account sustainability and long term predictions.

>>951090
>we absolutely fucked Germany from 1940 to 1980 and they're the strongest in the EU now
Actually, the Russians did most of the job, stop trying to steal their thunder, murrica.

>>951150
>Russia fucked Germany
You're right, of course, and it still fits to my theory that only Africa is still being a bitch about its hardship.

>>951155
They are not being a bitch, Europeans and their descendants did make things worse for them, and when you take the time to study Africa current situation, you understand that there is no way of predicting when the rape party is ever ending.
The thing is, and don't get confused about it, Africa was already pretty terrible (even if better than today), and there is no way of predicting if they would ever evolve.
What they really needed was for some horny Portuguese and Spaniards to start raping their girls and killing their men centuries ago, but that ship has sailed. t

>>950957
>>950985

You can't counter that because it's the truth. You are just coping with it to sleep at night.

Even after technology develops up to a point where most jobs are automated and everyone would be able to live a great life if resources were distributed evenly, this posibility will be denied by the monopoly of people that own the machines further proves the system is incrementally backwards.

Capitalism will be an huge contradiction in the next century. It was the best we ever had for progress (and this progress meant exploitation, from slaves building the pyramids to 9-5's on offices), but once technology deprecates capitalism, it will be a hell of a show (already happening, but too gradual for morons to realize, too busy chasing their suburban house + golden retriever lifestyle).

>>951168
I CAN COUNTER ANYTHING!!!1

>>950957
>Partisanship
>In economics

That's your problem, m8. The true true of the world is that both sides of the political spectrum practice extremely poor economic policy and most prominent economic theory favors a mostly free market with important caveats.

>>950957
>you have two piss bottles sitting on your desk, I offer to buy them for $1. You have no use for the piss bottles, and I want the piss bottles for $1. Who is being exploited in this situation?
That's literally all capitalism is though, voluntary exchange of goods and services.

>>951264
That is utopic, since it don't take in consideration government corruption, propaganda and general coercion.
If you think that capitalism is just voluntary exchange, you need to study history AND economy.

>>951264
>What are externalities
>What are market failures
>What is deadweight loss

What you're oversimplifying is a perfectly efficient market with perfect information. Such a market does not exist.

>>951131
pic related its you. didnt expect a simple post to create so much asspain, but i love it.
>>951168
how can you know that? do you what kind of technology will be produced? do you what kind of society we will have in 100 years?
>already happening, but too gradual for morons to realize, too busy chasing their suburban house + golden retriever lifestyle
EVERYTHING IS BURNING WUAH WUAH
nah, man, right now we have one of the best living standard ever.

>>950957

Check out the work of Pareto.

Particularly Pareto Efficiency.

>>951150
>The amount of resources and energy production potential of Earth is not infinite, therefore, the possible amount of wealth is fixed
What are renewable resources, recycling, and value added products for 200 please?

>>950957

Marxism is actually a incredibly smart system and on a theoretical base it absoloutley smashes capitalism.

People have problem in its application to real life though, some things do not cross over from theory to the real world easy, they try to contend that the sociology and economic problems that in the past have been associated with communism and Marxism are based in its ideology and ideas as opposed to flaws in common sociology and economics that are non-Marxist specific (aka, they affect both systems equally).

Marxists counter this argument by saying although there are problems in the general system, Marxism as opposed to capitalism seeks to actively fix these problems when they come up through ideological revision (So the Marxist ideological progression, aka Orthodox Marxism > Leninism > Maoism > Hoxhaism > Juche > 5th Int) as opposed to capitalists that see the problems as not only unsolvable, but in their interests to make sure that the problem remains unsolved.

Aka, People tend to scapegoat Marxism for generic economic and social problems, the main difference is that Marxism aims to try and solve these problems for the common good, where is in capitalism they tend to be self perpetuating as its in the financial interests of a few people to keep it that way.

If you actually find someone that is educated in Marxist economics and sociology they would be able to explain and counter almost everything down to very fine detail (Marxism is one of the most heavily studied areas in politics, economics, sociology and philosophy, there are literally entire organisations that argue Marxist interpretation in academic senses), problem is that there are very few of these people in the west (for cultural reasons) so people tend to get away with thinking Marxists know little about economics and real life.

I'm not one of them, i just take a personal interest to it, i can give good overviews but tend to fall short in the detail.

>>951453
>What are renewable resources, recycling,
As I said, the energy production potential is finite, and that shit, as all production, takes energy.

>>951456
Your picture is wrong, the only way for marxism to function is if no one/very few work. You need a post-scarcity economy for marxism to be practical.

>>951456
Answer the calculation problem then. Every single socialist system mis-plans and mis-allocates resources. Every socialist system of food production has breadlines, every socialist healthcare system has waiting lists for simple therapies. These queues can be explained with the calculation problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

>>951501

Your implying that this can not be done correctly, as it states in the article the entire problem is based on the fact that human calculation is not perfect and that it is hard to allocate a rational value to everything as subjective valuation tends to be used instead (as its human) and the fact that there are so many variables that it makes it hard for a human to calculate the number of different circumstances.

However, this was written in the 20's and is very outdated, im sure if you looked hard enough there would be many more updated theories about this when it comes to modern day non market based trading systems.

1. It implies imperfection in the system, thus what if perfection is reached?
2. What level of near perfection is needed if the system is to be 'adequate' in the allocation of resources, 90% efficiency, 95% efficiency? These goals are easy reachable with the correct planing, and this is ultimately what socialists aim to reach, they know that perfection may be too ambitious of a target but a system of high efficiency can be used to get very close to optimal efficiency (think of a graph getting closer and closer to its asymptote, it never reaches it but it can be close).
3. The argument that accuracy, human calculation, and the impossibility of ration valuation in today's sense is false, because we can now calculate incredibly complex problems with many variables completely rationally with computers. To add to this, we can now simulate economic situations on computers, although it hasn't really been tried, people say its completely viable that a centralized economy could be simulated and if it can be simulated its proof that such a system could work.

Now i got no idea why they haven't simulated anything like it yet, id put it down to the complexity of designing such a thing vs the educational benefit.

>>951150
>The rise of living standards don't take into account sustainability and long term predictions.

yes they do in this case, have you seen the guy's stuff - he's a statistician who looks at long term trends

>>951150
>The amount of resources and energy production potential of Earth is not infinite, therefore, the possible amount of wealth is fixed.

wealth isn't dependent on natural resources - someone could create a painting that is worth a minimal amount one day and at another point in time is worth several million - the owner of that painting would be said to be 'wealthy' yet the increase in value of the painting hasn't required the use of any resources

>>951520
Three statisticians went out hunting, and came across a large deer. The first statistician fired, but missed, by a meter to the left. The second statistician fired, but also missed, by a meter to the right. The third statistician didn't fire, but shouted in triumph, "On the average we got it!"

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Logic is a systematic method for getting the wrong conclusion with confidence.

Statistics is a systematic method for getting the wrong conclusion with 95% confidence.

A statistics major was completely hung over the day of his final exam. It was a True/False test, so he decided to flip a coin for the answers. The stats professor watched the student the entire two hours as he was flipping the coin...writing the answer...flipping the coin...writing the answer. At the end of the two hours, everyone else had left the final except for the one student. The professor walks up to his desk and interrupts the student, saying:
"Listen, I have seen that you did not study for this statistics test, you didn't even open the exam. If you are just flipping a coin for your answer, what is taking you so long?"
The student replies bitterly, as he is still flipping the coin: "Shhh! I am checking my answers!"


There was this statistics student who, when driving his car, would always accelerate hard before coming to any junction, whizz straight over it , then slow down again once he'd got over it. One day, he took a passenger, who was understandably unnerved by his driving style, and asked him why he went so fast over junctions. The statistics student replied, "Well, statistically speaking, you are far more likely to have an accident at a junction, so I just make sure that I spend less time there."

>>951520
No, they do not.

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2008-08-18/our-american-way-life-unsustainable-evidence
http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/3_times_sustainable
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/124/1/
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/there-are-not-enough-resources-to-support-the-world's-population/5511900
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/population-and-sustainability/

>>951521
Wealth is perceived from human eyes, and humans depend on natural resources. When basic goods and services offer dwindle, the majority of others goods and services lose their value. You might have a suberb dragon dildo able to do all sort of tricks valued at one million butt coins, but when batteries disappear from the market for years, it will barely be worthy more than a sturdy oak cock.

>>951533
Three professors (a physicist, a chemist, and a statistician) are called in to see their dean. Just as they arrive the dean is called out of his office, leaving the three professors there. The professors see with alarm that there is a fire in the wastebasket.
The physicist says, "I know what to do! We must cool down the materials until their temperature is lower than the ignition temperature and then the fire will go out."

The chemist says, "No! No! I know what to do! We must cut off the supply of oxygen so that the fire will go out due to lack of one of the reactants."

While the physicist and chemist debate what course to take, they both are alarmed to see the statistician running around the room starting other fires. They both scream, "What are you doing?"

To which the statistician replies, "Trying to get an adequate sample size."

I asked a statistician for her phone number... and she gave me an estimate.

Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.

"Give us a copper Guv," said the beggar to the Treasury statistician when he waylaid him in Parliament square. "I haven't eaten for three days."
"Ah," said the statistician, "And how does that compare with the same period last year?"

"Why are you moving? You have arrived to this lovely neighborhood just a few weeks ago."
"Yes, but I read in the local paper a bit of statistics that said, 'most auto accidents happen within eight miles of your home'."

Patient: "Will I survive this risky operation?"
Surgeon: "Yes, I'm absolutely sure that you will survive the operation."
Patient: "How can you be so sure?"
Surgeon: "9 out of 10 patients die in this operation, and yesterday died my ninth patient."

A statistician's wife had twins. He was delighted. He rang the minister who was also delighted.
"Bring them to church on Sunday and we'll baptize them," said the minister.
"No," replied the statistician. "Baptize one. We'll keep the other as a control."

>>951536
Top ten reasons to be a statistician
1. Estimating parameters is easier than dealing with real life.
2. Statisticians are significant
3. I always wanted to learn the entire Greek alphabet.
4. The probability a statistician major will get a job is > .9999.
6. If I flunk out I can always transfer to Engineering.
7. We do it with confidence, frequency, and variability.
8. You never have to be right - only close.
9. We're normal and everyone else is skewed.
10. The regression line looks better than the unemployment line.
Within error. No one knows what we do so we are always right.

How many statisticians does it take to change a light bulb? "With what degree of certainty do you need to know?"

Once two statistician of height 4 feet and 5 feet have to cross a river of AVERAGE depth 3 feet. Meanwhile, a third statistician come and said "what are you waiting for? you can easily cross the river"

George Burns said that "If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age."

Two statisticians were traveling in an airplane from LA to New York. About an hour into the flight, the pilot announced that they had lost an engine, but don’t worry, there are three left. However, instead of 5 hours it would take 7 hours to get to New York.

A little later, he announced that a second engine failed, and they still had two left, but it would take 10 hours to get to New York.

Somewhat later, the pilot again came on the intercom and announced that a third engine had died. Never fear, he announced, because the plane could fly on a single engine. However, it would now take 18 hours to get to New York.

At this point, one statistician turned to the other and said, “Gee, I hope we don’t lose that last engine, or we’ll be up here forever!”

>>951536
We do it better than everyone else, because we are everyone else thrown into the crucible of freedom.

>>951534
you seem to be conflating resources and living standards

the previous post was correct, you're just arguing the wrong point

>>951150
>The amount of resources and energy production potential of Earth is not infinite, therefore, the possible amount of wealth is fixed.
True in the absolute sense of the word. However, the proportion of the resources we use relative to the total accessible resources, is orders of magnitude more marginal. The crust of the earth has generated 100% of the resources of humanity. it makes up less than 1% of the material on earth. A discussion on resources without a discussion on scale is a terrible waste of time.

>common good above all
what if the "common good" forces me to make ineffectual, inefficient, decisions. who is to decide the common good? You don't have to be the best and the brightest to make good enough decisions to come out way ahead.

> Corruption thrives in the imaginary lines drawn in international law. At a high enough level where the overwhelming majority of hearts and minds can be bought at a discount because power is isolated in a small group of individuals.

> The rise of living standards don't take into account sustainability and long term predictions.
These things take care of themselves.

>>951456
I can give good overview but fall short on the details.
Marxism in a nutshell.

The only valid argument against Marxism is the loss of competitive market forces driving competition and innovation, however the current state of affairs with regulatory capture, massive corporate mergers, and nonexistent R&D spending are working to make competition a negligible force in our economy. So it all becomes a moot point then.

>>951624
What about genericc communist human rights violations? Also poor economic planning.

>>951449
>muh living standards
You have no notions.
Look at the perpetual unemployment rates that are only getting worse and look at how they try to make up those unemployment rates with scams such as minijobs (basically diving existing jobs then paying less for less time so they can say "see, the unemployment is down" when elections come), look at all the stupid ass bubble of "new jobs" like social media managers and powerpoint drones.
There will not be enough new jobs for everyone, the pace technology deprecates jobs is higher than whatever new jobs can arise. This is 2+2=4, not agreeing is a cope.

>>951629
Vidya gaems gunna save the US economy.

>>951628
>What about genericc communist human rights violations?
But we do that too. Hell, did you see that hidden police torture and questioning facility they just found in Chicago?

>Also poor economic planning.
That was more attributable to China and Russia both being shitholes in the first place even before they changed economic systems. Their respective standards of living and technological ability both improved greatly, but they still had a lot of catching up to do.

>>951608
>However, the proportion of the resources we use relative to the total accessible resources, is orders of magnitude more marginal
The proportion of resources that we use is growing fast, so it might not take long until Earth is exhausted.
Deep core mining brings a truckload of nasty and potentially apocalyptic problems.
We don't know if some shit that we use can be found at the mantle.

>what if the "common good" forces me to make ineffectual, inefficient, decisions. who is to decide the common good? You don't have to be the best and the brightest to make good enough decisions to come out way ahead.
I never said that the perceived common good was worthy pursuing, I was just pointing that it is the purpose of marxism.

>These things take care of themselves.
They do not.
You don't buy a majority, you buy those with the power to coerce the majority into doing their (and in this case, your) bidding.
Sustainability is not going to take care of itself, and every independent researcher found that the exact opposite.

>>951629
Unemployment is not a problem, scarcity is.

>>951638
Asians tend to like their own games, Central and South Americans pirate everything, the gaming community in Africa is negligible, and Europe gotta deal with massives SJWs and the pirate party.
In other words, no.

>>951642
>That was more attributable to China and Russia both being shitholes in the first place even before they changed economic systems. Their respective standards of living and technological ability both improved greatly, but they still had a lot of catching up to do.
Once you got your basic needs met, you will lust after more, and will end resenting a system that can't provide that. Which is why communism can only work in a post-scarcity economy (or when every other country on Earth is shittier than the communist one).

>>951150
>There is. The amount of resources and energy production potential of Earth is not infinite, therefore, the possible amount of wealth is fixed.
Wat? No. Did you read the thread at all? That's so fucking obviously wrong.

>>950957
>The system (capitalism) only works, because of exploitation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

A jewelry store can sell blood diamonds or diamonds mined legally by worker cooperatives, the only difference is the price. If being forced to mine diamonds for a warlord instead of being paid a wage is deemed anticapitalist and blood diamonds are made illegal, profits might drop and a few stores might close, but not all of them.

>>950957
>How can i counter this? Is prosperity for everyone on this planet possible in this day and age?
No, but free markets make the most amount of people happy in the most efficient way possible.

>>950957
>How can i counter this? Is prosperity for everyone on this planet possible in this day and age?
If capital and labour compromise then yes. If you let capital dominate labour (like now) then now.

Capitalism can be good or bad.
Socialism can be good or bad.
Determinism is bullshit.

>>950957

>>951613

Do you have any idea how much information there is on Marxism?
Do you have any idea how much time it would take for someone to read and get a good understanding of all various aspects and minuscule detail of Marxist economic and social policy?

There are literally thousands of books and even more journal articles that debate the methodology and problem solving of every single Marxist theory from every ideological revision of Marxism. There isn't one person that knows everything about Marxist economic theory, people specialize in certain areas.

Like i said before, im not actually 'educated' in Marxist economics and sociology, i know a fair bit but its only because im interested on a personal level, if you wanted someone to explain things in detail, go to your school of economy and find someone there that studies Marxist economics (there will be lots of people, its a really big area in postgraduate study) and ask them.

And although its obvious, very few people who are educated to a high level on Marxism would come on 4chan, hence why you wont get the best information here, so if you want the information you need to go out and find it yourself instead of asking strangers on the internet to do it for you.

>>950957
Robots. just exploit robots.

>>952057
I'm not educated in astrology either, but that doesn't mean I can't tell you with 100% certainty that it's horseshit.

Marxism doesn't work. How many more failed communist states do we need to prove this?

>>952057
>very few people who are educated to a high level on Marxism would come on 4chan
>implying that the KGB did not invent Paquistani Jigsaw Boxes as tools of subversion
>implying that Moot was not Putin agent
When are you going to open your eyes?

>>951999
Really well actually. Not my fault you're a lazy fuck who can't make any money.

>>950957
glad i found this thread. you see, i was thinking about why things are usually priced to the 99th cent, then it hit me... its to ensure that the company gets the most out of a dollar without actually making another full dollar, thus, making it more likely that the product in question will be sold. would you rather buy a burger for 4.99 or 5.00?


idk i lost it, but it made perfect sense in my head. its the little jewy schemes that give the small amount of people the most about of power, when someone begins to realize that (aka Trump) then the more likely they are to take power over a society.

>>952196
Marxism can work, Soviet and modern day communism doesn't because absolute power corrupts absolutely. the day we as a species leave our jewish ways behind is the day we can start to fix the world and everyone can live in prosperity

TL;DR jews ruin everything

>>952282
>the day we as a species leave our jewish ways behind is the day we can start to fix the world and everyone can live in prosperity
But that's not how people work. Also, that's not the only reason. Marxism requires a central authority to determine the proper price of goods and services and the amount and methods of production. This is inefficient and almost guaranteed to get so many things wrong it would be hilarious if it wasn't so deadly. Spreading out the calculation of proper value and production among all the people collectively is the most efficient method. Letting people choose their own industries, prices, work, and profit from their innovations (AKA: capitalism) doesn't prevent market failures entirely, there will always be imbalanced information and human sloth, ignorance, and vice to muck it up, but it gets it right more often than not.

>>951277
>>What are externalities
>>What are market failures
>>What is deadweight loss
Symptoms of government intervention, and lack of a true free market.

This thread is hilarious. All threads like this are. Not sure where the commie threads are coming from, but let me lay something down here.

The people who will be successful - the richest and the most powerful - will thrive under any economic system. They'll be rich under Capitalism and crucial parts of leadership under Communism. Ultimately, all of these debates mean nothing because nobody in their position is sitting around shitposting on an internet forum.

Your time is better spent reading books, learning, becoming more charismatic and likeable because at the end of the day any economic or governmental framework is just going to be a reflection of how humans interact with one another. So if you're shit now, you're always going to be shit.

>>950988
>Communism, and all liberal ideologies

Stopped reading there. You're full of shit.

Liberal refers to the political movement which emphasized personal autonomy and economic freedom.

Just because your shit is acceptable in American circles doesn't mean it stands up to the test of political discourse.

>You counter communists and socialists by just telling them to get a fucking job.

> They always resort back to circular logic, ad homs, and strawmen.

Oh the irony.

>>950957
>How can i counter this?

You don't. The nature of capitalism means that capital owners will exploit surplus value from the workers.

Although I disagree with your aim (to counter a point which is strictly true) you can "justify" this exploitation by saying it's economically necessary (not true ever unless you're living in 1776) or beneficial (if you consider sponging off productive people beneficial) or that the capitalists deserve to extract such surplus value (which one could well make a good argument for).

>Is prosperity for everyone on this planet possible in this day and age?

It's all relative. As this anon says: >>950978
the western poor live better than 15th century kings. The world's poor don't as they still starve.

It is possible to prevent absolute poverty. I believe it was Peter Singer who claimed that if every westerner gave £200 on a one off payment, absolute poverty would be solved.

>>950978
>The main flaw in communist/anti-capitalist thinking is they believe the amount of wealth in the world is fixed. All they see is "well he has more wealth than me so that must mean I'm an oppressed poor person."

Don't misrepresent your opponents. It makes you look silly.

The anti-capitalists see people working in Indonesia for £0.15 an hour and western workers earning £5 an hour (let alone the thousands an hour some are paid in stocks/wages) and see this is anti-meritocratic.

An unskilled worker in both places (purely because of luck) earns vastly different sums due to the inherited advantages from citizenship of a certain state.

> When you come up with a great idea like assembly lines for automobiles or an incredibly useful phone app yeah you become fabulously wealthy but that wealth is generated and added to the world as a whole.

indeed, and most left-wingers besides the most dedicated Communist would agree that innovators deserve more money than others for their dedication and hard work. However, Bill Gates having over a million times the wealth of the average citizen most would agree is too far.

You see in principle we may agree on many things but the extent to which we will take them principles may be vividly different.

>>951090
>Saying that we fucked them in the 1600-1800s is absurd

We all know that we did fuck them so that's not controvertible. What you're trying to make controvertible is that Germany recovered after a war (after 70 years of peace) whilst Africa didn't recover from colonization.

Your history lets you down. Africa has been in constant territorial disputes and is never a prosperous place for business (neighbors are poor as fuck, so no trade). Conversly, post WW2 Germany had most of the Marshall Plan's aid package which re-built the economy with high-technology capital. Africa never had any reporations of comparable size.

> America was fucked in the 1930s and they're the strongest financial/militaristic nation in the world now

No, it wasn't "fucked" it was in a depression. It was still one of the largest economies in the world even in a depression so it had loads of GDP, they didn't recover in the way that africa or germany did because they was damaged not as much as your other examples.

>If Africa isn't fixed yet, it's because of Africans.

Look at a perfect historical example. North and South Korea. South has huge FDI and direct subsidy from the US gov. Because of this, it became a business friendly enviroment and is a hugely rich country now. The north on the other hand has none of that and is a shithole.

By your logic: "If North Korea isn't fixed yet, it's because of the North Koreans" despite it being foreign intervention which made the differential so massive, not the individual Koreans.

>>950957
Wealth (distribution) is fixed, and beyond having your immediate material needs (food & shelter, clothing) satisfied people only care about their social rank when it comes to wealth.

As an aside, I'm not totally convinced capitalism is a more betterer economic system - or at least the eventual defeat of the USSR and co. doesn't necessarily prove it like people claim; since the capitalist bloc industrialised a few centuries before the communist ones they were off to a roaring head-start, and occupied better strategic positions, effectively controlling all the world's oceans from the get-go.

Yes, if Africa tried to go to economic war with the US and European Union they would lose, regardless of the policies each were using at the time.

>>951853
>No, but free markets make the most amount of people happy in the most efficient way possible.

You seriously cannot think of one example to counter your own point?

So, producing equipment which is specifically designed to break/degrade after a certain amount of time is the most efficient way to allocate resources? Get real mate.
Not that that is a hugely widespread problem with capitalism but a problem none the less.

>>952717
>externalities
>sympton of government intervention

You know nothing.

If a company in Somalia (leaze faire paradise, no gov intervention) pollutes, this leaves externalities on the population of Somalia and the world.

Nothing to do with gov intervention. Do you even know what the word externalities mean?

>>952719
>They'll be rich under Capitalism and crucial parts of leadership under Communism. Ultimately, all of these debates mean nothing because nobody in their position is sitting around shitposting on an internet forum.

Speak for yourself. You may be intentionally shitposting but others actually enjoy engaging with others on an intellectual level or at least, finding genuine answers to poorly worded yet quite common questions by the average person. As someone who wants to go into politics, this contact and response to questioning, I believe, is beneficial to rhetoric.

>>951009
>economic theory

The first thing one learns when one goes to school for economics is that every topic about the economy =/= a topic on economic theory.

>>952717
>lack of a true free market.
Muh Scotsmen.

>>951155
>Africa is being a bitch about its hardship

You're right, guess they should just man up and get over all that trauma and war they've had, idk, somewhat recently seeing as how the Rwandan Civil War was in the 90s, and the DRC has only existed in its current form since 97, and both have highly deficient capital markets and pitiable levels of foreign investment.

But they should just man up, and get some money from the magic hole where money comes from, amirite?

>>951711
>why communism can only work in a post-scarcity economy

Communism works on the basis of a post-scarcity model you dolt. Plus, post-scarcity economics is an oxymoron.

>>952196
>thousands of academics devote their lives to studying it
>they publish papers, have them peer-reviewed, write books
>the early-stage of their ideas made a poor country full of uneducated serfs into the world's second superpower in a couple decades
>they are all proven wrong because some anon who buys into a lot of Cold War era narratives that are mostly irrelevant today says so

>>952717
>externalities
>government intervention

lmao

>>952719
Yup, guess those charismatic noblemen in Russia sure had it made under socialism, just like say, Anton Lavoisier had it made under the French Revolutionary system.

Wait.

>>951456
I hate sharing things. I hate teamwork. It is not my responsibility to look after other people's happiness.

>>952869
>The anti-capitalists see people working in Indonesia for £0.15 an hour and western workers earning £5 an hour (let alone the thousands an hour some are paid in stocks/wages) and see this is anti-meritocratic.
>An unskilled worker in both places (purely because of luck) earns vastly different sums due to the inherited advantages from citizenship of a certain state.
Horse shit. Less developed countries can't demand the same wages for the same jobs as first world countries because of the increased competition for workers in first world countries. As poorly as America's schools serve its youth an American high school graduate is a far better educated and hard working than a similarly aged person in rural China. The American graduate has valuable interpersonal skills and speaks an in-demand language as his first language. He's also probably got a lot more employers competing for his work than a person in rural China, who is often choosing between a rice paddy or a sweatshop.

Now, this isn't trying to say that Americans are exceptional workers or anything, the difference is mostly the same for any developed country. This also doesn't mean that hiring first world workers is always a fair trade. If a populace has a high percentage of highly educated people who are being groomed for creativity and leadership from birth (first world cultures all promote these things highly, compare to places like India or China) and your business really just needs someone to glue two widgets together in a factory it makes no sense to hire someone in the first world. Build that factory in China and hire rural Chinese people to do it for pennies on the dollar. You can sell your widgets for a fraction of the price you could otherwise meaning you can sell more of them and increase the value in more people's lives through them.

Capitalism isn't about extracting value from workers, it's about allowing people to keep a portion of the value they create.

>>952872
Yeah, it absolutely is North Korea's fault. South Korea saw a good trade partner and took it, North Korea saw a bad trade partner and took it (Russia). That's capitalism, they made a bad investment and partnership.

And your bullshit about Africa's problems being due to constant war: they're at war with fellow Africans. It's absolutely their fault.

>China is a command economy

Do people actually believe this?

>>953889
This is a fucking /pol/ invasion thread, what do you expect from retards who haven't even taken economics 101?

>>951150
>If by country, you mean, the general population, you are terribly wrong, and history is there to prove that.

>wat is consumer's or producer's surplus

>>951456

It's interesting you mention Marxism because an economist I really admire (Thomas Sowell) was a Marxist in his 20's.

If you know anything about him and how he effortlessly blows apart arguments on inequality (be it racial, gender, economic, etc), then you'd find that very surprising.

>>951026

Our countries are overrun if big kleptocratic governments full of political elite interested in enriching themselves with backwards socialist policies.

They know that by keeping large governments they get a large degree of control and they use this to steal wealth from the public, working with oligarchs they create.

>>951456

You've said absolutely nothing.

>>953007
>Capitalism isn't about extracting value from workers

Then how are profits made? From a Marxist perspective (that what the workers make, they own), profits are Revenue-costs and from their perspective all revenue should go to the workers (workers should pay the costs too).

>it's about allowing people to keep a portion of the value they create

Yes, and the argument goes that it's their whole portion to keep. The capitalists don't get to take part of the worker's revenue.

The problem with capitalistic systems is that it has led to this Laissez Faire (at least in the 80's) attitude towards the financial system. The 80's 'Reaganomics' allowed for the creation of volatile financial instruments and the breakdown between commercial and investment wings of banks. In turn the breakdown of capital mobility barriers and mentioned above makes bank systems, governments and the general public all interlinked. This means that we can all be damaged by financial shocks that may not originate in your country. By the end of the 80's and beginning of the 90's. banks were already 'too big to fail'. Governments should have intervened a lot sooner in terms of strong financial regulation and encouraging sustainable lending. Plus rein in the sociopathic nature of many traders and investors.

>>950957

>paying someone is exploitation
They just keep moving goalposts for their agenda. They and their opinion is garbage

>>953984
>how he effortlessly blows apart arguments on inequality

And how he's blown back equally effortlessly by Paul Krugman? Or how Sowell deliberately only picks weak arguments to dismantle so that he can disparage whoever made them and pretend that's the best the left has to offer?

Sowell is a hack anyway, the only reason people read his bizarre thoughts on race that he has very little business expressing is because he's black.

>>954143
>Yes, and the argument goes that it's their whole portion to keep. The capitalists don't get to take part of the worker's revenue.
Ohhhhh, suddenly I understand! The problem isn't with people making profit. You just have a problem certain types of people making profit. Wait a minute, at what point does someone stop being a "worker" deserving of the fruits of their own labor and become a hated "capitalist"? When they employ someone? When they get "too rich" (as defined by who?)? This seems to require an arbitrary and almost by necessity terribly unfair power structure to define who is and is not deserving of the money they have earned.

>>954228

>Krugman

One predicted the economic crash of 2008 and one said everything was fine right before the crash.

I wonder who the laureate was.

>all these people implying economics is anything more than baseless opinions
>taking economists seriously
>2016 - .1478
Economists' theories can only be replicated a third of the time without their direct help, and even with the orginal economist's assistance, their findings can only be replicated half the time.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2015/files/2015083pap.pdf

>>950985
The starving africans was due to wars and communist dictators.
Nowadays poverty in africa is STILL due to anti capitalis governments.
>price control
>wealth redistribution
>trade blocks

China was the same, and then they went towards capitalism. Thousands, millions of chinese people got horrible shitty jobs instead of no jobs and went into poverty instead of being so poor they don't go on the radar and eat, literally, water bugs.

>>954512
This man knows what's up.

>>954512
>price control
>wealth redistribution
>trade blocks

Not to say I back your competitor's argument but the US has all of those things

>>954527
And it is going down, not as fast as it should because of momentum and influence, but it is going down.

>>954183
Governments interfered before and caused the interlinking and the housing bubble.

>>952717

You know those precious econ 101 models you love so much are based on the assumption of perfect information, right?

>>954512
Oversimplifying as shit.

A major reason why Africa can't feed itself is because the US and Europe literally dump their excess crops into African markets and make it impossible for domestic growers to sell. Our subsidizing our precious farmers (mostly for purely political reasons) is actually making it impossible for African farming to be economically viable.

But yeah. Shitty governments are also a huge factor to why the continent is so shit. But "communism" is hardly the reason for this. Not that it would help.

>>954512
>communist dictators

Oh, you mean kleptocrats. See, when you talk about high-level topics, it's important to get the terminology right.

>>954305
Yes, Krugman is the laureate, and he's the relevant one.

Sowell had his contributions to neo-Keynesian economics, specifically his insights onto the loss incurred by price controls not being offset by perceived social well-being. But to hold him up as a voice that somehow cuts through leftist and keynesian arguments like they're made of butter is stupid. There's a reason he doesn't try to go head-on against first-line economic thinkers like Krugman.

>>954586
Please, "communist dictators" don't exist in Africa. If at least he were talking about say, Cambodia, that could make sense.

What they have are robbers-in-chief, that steal all the aid money and then complain their capital markets are insolvent because of international banking conspiracies.

>>954527
sure it has,but it has them to a much lesser degree than most other countries

>>954322
you didnt even read more than abstract, the most common reason they couldnt replicate the reuslts is because they did not have the data. Their sucess rate, if they had files and instructions was 78%

>>954633
>humongous corn subsidies, and hybrid car subsidies
>Great Society programs and their modern iterations
>auto safety regulations that prevented most French cars from being sold in the US since the sixties, food regulations more restrictive even than the EU's, among dozens of others

By the price control/trade barrier metric, around 50% of the world's nations are freer than the USA.

>>951449
Oh look, I struck a chord. How unexpected.

Just kidding, I knew you'd get upset because I absolutely nailed my assesment of your post. Truth hurts, I know.

>>951150
>There is. The amount of resources and energy production potential of Earth is not infinite, therefore, the possible amount of wealth is fixed.

Actually, although counter intuitive, the amount of 'resources' is not meaningfully finite, resources are created by humans ingenuity, not nature, that's why they have been increasing for so long.

>>951009
>like how do childruns in africa have absolutely nothing, while the poorest american redneck still got at least electricity, running water and and


You are asking the wrong question, humans are naturally 'poor', no explanation is needed for that. For 99% of human history humans lived in a state of poverty worse than even most Africans deal with. The question is 'why are countries rich?' or maybe; you want to make an Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. That *is* a hard question, and no one knows *exactly* but we have a pretty good idea these days, what kind of things are important in generating wealth. Basically a mostly culturally similar country, with strong institutions and rule of law.

COMMON FALLACY. the rich do not get rich at the expense of the poor, unless they are literally robbing them. The rich get rich by fulfilling desires and selling things people want

>>955160
The rich do. The ultra rich, hit or miss.

>>950957
>How can i counter this

You can't and you don't. Capitalism is 'unfair' and power accumulates in some groups or individuals... just like in any economic/political system ever applied or conceived by any hominid or ape society ever.

>>950978
>Wealth can neither be created not destroyed
>Can only be transferred from poor fag to rich fag