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[EuchreJack]

Oh, there may still be blackjack and hookers, but yeah he's a businessman as well.

[heydude6]

I think the fact capitalism allows skills which have no real value to society to achieve that level of fortune is a significant point against it.

That's always been an interesting thing to talk about, people have said the same thing about authors. The reason why these types of millionaires exist is because they provide a small amount of value to a LOT of people at relatively low cost. Someone like a heart surgeon though, provides a lot of value to only a few people. The heart surgeon clearly does a more important job, and though they are well compensated, it is not even close to the amount of money a celebrity receives. I don't think anyone would be sad if celebrities received a smaller paycheck and the price of their products fell, but our market isn't equipped to make that happen

Economists have a term for this actually. They counter-intuitively call these types of individuals "land", and the economics of "land" differ greatly from traditional economics leading to the market perversions you see. What makes something "land" is the fact that it is unique. There is only one of it.

Take J.K Rowling for example. There may be multiple editions of harry potter books, multiple translations, multiple other stories about magical kids in wizard school, but at the end of the day there is only a single Harry Potter story, making it "land". Once a bookseller acquires the publishing rights, they have a monopoly on it and can dictate the price. That price ends up being the highest price consumers are willing to pay for.

In a healthy market, there'd be a downwards pressure on the price from other producers ready to sell the exact same thing, but cheaper, and eventually competition drives the market to an equilibrium where producers only make slightly more than the printing costs, but since we are talking about "land" here, that doesn't happen. The only way other companies can compete with Harry Potter is in quality, by trying to usurp Harry Potter with their own unique superior IP. This is already pretty messy since quality is subjective, but even if another author were to utterly "beat" Harry Potter and steal its fans, they would just be in the same position of power J.K Rowling was in and charge the highest price the audience is willing to pay for, since no one is allowed to make a cheaper version.

I don't think anyone will be impressed by another lecture on why IP laws are pretty fucked, but the concept of "land" goes far beyond that. It covers athletes, it covers singers, it covers paintings by long dead artists, it even covers honest-to-god real estate. The free market was only designed around goods that were easily manufactured, whose production could be scaled up as demand grew. This is as "round peg to square hole" as they come and as a result, I believe that it is our duty to create a new system to cover this class of goods.

[EuchreJack]

I think the fact capitalism allows skills which have no real value to society to achieve that level of fortune is a significant point against it.

That's always been an interesting thing to talk about, people have said the same thing about authors. The reason why these types of millionaires exist is because they provide a small amount of value to a LOT of people at relatively low cost. Someone like a heart surgeon though, provides a lot of value to only a few people. The heart surgeon clearly does a more important job, and though they are well compensated, it is not even close to the amount of money a celebrity receives. I don't think anyone would be sad if celebrities received a smaller paycheck and the price of their products fell, but our market isn't equipped to make that happen

Economists have a term for this actually. They counter-intuitively call these types of individuals "land", and the economics of "land" differ greatly from traditional economics leading to the market perversions you see. What makes something "land" is the fact that it is unique. There is only one of it.

Take J.K Rowling for example. There may be multiple editions of harry potter books, multiple translations, multiple other stories about magical kids in wizard school, but at the end of the day there is only a single Harry Potter story, making it "land". Once a bookseller acquires the publishing rights, they have a monopoly on it and can dictate the price. That price ends up being the highest price consumers are willing to pay for.

In a healthy market, there'd be a downwards pressure on the price from other producers ready to sell the exact same thing, but cheaper, and eventually competition drives the market to an equilibrium where producers only make slightly more than the printing costs, but since we are talking about "land" here, that doesn't happen. The only way other companies can compete with Harry Potter is in quality, by trying to usurp Harry Potter with their own unique superior IP. This is already pretty messy since quality is subjective, but even if another author were to utterly "beat" Harry Potter and steal its fans, they would just be in the same position of power J.K Rowling was in and charge the highest price the audience is willing to pay for, since no one is allowed to make a cheaper version.

I don't think anyone will be impressed by another lecture on why IP laws are pretty fucked, but the concept of "land" goes far beyond that. It covers athletes, it covers singers, it covers paintings by long dead artists, it even covers honest-to-god real estate. The free market was only designed around goods that were easily manufactured, whose production could be scaled up as demand grew. This is as "round peg to square hole" as they come and as a result, I believe that it is our duty to create a new system to cover this class of goods.

Slavery is illegal. And unethical.
But good points up into the end.

[EuchreJack]

Since I know everyone hates Capitalism, I'll make my final point and depart from this thread (on this topic).

Capitalism isn't perfect.  But its greatest advantage, I would argue, is that it has an ability to self-correct that all other economic systems lack.  Nobody has to "fix" current economic conditions, Capitalism fixes them itself.  We don't often like HOW it fixes them, so Capitalism is the bad guy.  All other economic systems rely upon some less efficient mechanism to "fix" things.  Can socialism self-correct? NO.  Can autocracy self-correct? NO.  Those are the only other options.

Now, why do I support Capitalism:
In my heart of hearts, I still believe someday that I will be filthy rich.  I haven't given up on that belief.  So I'll be damned if I got exploited by Capitalism all those years, just to have it ripped away from me when I might be able to turn the tables.  Capitalism gives me a goal that Socialism never could.  I'm not gonna sit home and do what my government tells me to do with the money they're giving me.  I deserve more, and I will fight for more.

[Criptfeind]

That's some of the most selfaware wolves shit I've ever heard someone say unironically

[martinuzz]

In a system of finite rescources, like our planet, your getting filthy rich will inevitably lead to someone else, or many others not being filthy rich.
Capitalism begets conflict.
Being filthy rich is not a very noble goal to strive for.

[Naturegirl1999]

I remember in an economics class we were told to assume resources are infinite, despite us being in a universe and a planet with finite resources, treating things as infinite when in fact they are finite is how we deplete things and cause extinctions, unfortunately sustainability isn’t rewarded as much as profits in the short term

[Frumple]

Slavery is illegal. And unethical.
But good points up into the end.

Slavery has an explicit carveout in the US for certain sorts of it, actually. So not entirely illegal stateside, nor in other places.

Definitely unethical, though :V

[EuchreJack]

I like how nobody corrected me on the fact that I got the basketball player wrong.
It was Magic Johnson that made headlines in HIV advocacy by admitting he had it, surviving it, then recovering from it.

[hector13]

Shaq retired from basketball in ‘91 ‘cause of AIDS-related issues. no he didn’t the internet lied to me!

Capitalism can’t self-correct btw. Remember the the financial crisis in ‘08, and how the banks were all like “lol, too big to fail” and asked for fuck tons of government money? What was self-correcting about that?

[EuchreJack]

Shaq retired from basketball in ‘91 ‘cause of AIDS-related issues. no he didn’t the internet lied to me!

Capitalism can’t self-correct btw. Remember the the financial crisis in ‘08, and how the banks were all like “lol, too big to fail” and asked for fuck tons of government money? What was self-correcting about that?

...that was socialism.
Capitalism would have been to let the banks fail.
Thank you for proving my point.

[hector13]

Shaq retired from basketball in ‘91 ‘cause of AIDS-related issues. no he didn’t the internet lied to me!

Capitalism can’t self-correct btw. Remember the the financial crisis in ‘08, and how the banks were all like “lol, too big to fail” and asked for fuck tons of government money? What was self-correcting about that?

...that was socialism.
Capitalism would have been to let the banks fail.
Thank you for proving my point.

What point was that exactly? That the better system, capitalism, would have allowed the banks to fail, meaning that - unless you have a mattress full of money somewhere - you effectively lose the ability to function in society: you can’t get paid unless it’s cash in hand, you can’t pay for anything unless it’s cash in hand.

This would have happened in at least every major nation in the world. Catastrophic global depression, at minimum.

So, to amend my question, what has been self-corrected in this specific example?

[MaxTheFox]

I was basically just thinking how great Shaq was, realized he was a good argument for capitalism, so I brought it to Max's attention.
Then was afraid Max would counterattack prior to looking Shaq up.
Thankfully, Max has already looked Max up, so sorry about that.

@Hector: STFU. 

Ah yes I looked myself up.

And I really don't think he's a good argument for capitalism...

[hector13]

Apparently a good argument for capitalism is economic collapse.

[scriver]

Yeah I don't want you to be dogpiled again but thst self-correcting thing... that's the thing capitalism is the worst at. Because capitalism works better the more equal everyone is in capital, yet capitalism have the explicit function of enabling people to accrue capital more and faster the more capital they've already got (while on the other hand people with very little capital -- people whose only capital is their labour -- are robbed of any decent chance to collect capital by not being paid what their capital is worth), meaning the spread of capital becomes less and less equal over time and the systems functions less and less. Capitalism is functionally a self-sabotaging system that doesn't self-correct at all.