You should define what you think is capitalism, cronyism, and meritocracy, because you seem to have an answer in your head that you don’t wish to divulge.
Capitalism is the idea that those that own the means of production own the profits from them.
Meritocracy is the idea that those with skill will prevail over those without.
I will argue that capitalism IS meritocratic, but the problem is that that which capitalism holds in high merits is that which generates capital at the fastest rate. Good products do not necessarily earn more money over bad products faster. Capitalism only cares about the fastest acquisition of capital through whatever barriers are present. This means it inherently does not care about labor that doesn’t generate profit (immediately).
Those that hold capital get to choose what merits we look for. Software developers or teachers, which can make more money? Childcare workers or lawyers, which can make more money? We pretend like the difference in these jobs and their pay is skill, but we treat various labor differently because we assign a higher capital interest to some labor, like the ability to write a contract or write a program, and a lower capital interest to other labor, like taking care of a child or teaching someone valuable skills. We pretend like physical, emotional, and reproductive labor is less skillful than intellectual labor because it doesn’t make as much money for capital, but the truth is that only capital gets to choose what is high-skilled and what gets to be paid like it’s high-skilled.
Thus, while capitalism is meritocratic in a sense, it is not meritocratic for workers, and will always devolve into a class-based system by design. I could argue that by choosing what is worth more money, they create their own cronyism, but that is really more of a moot point.
Capitalism is the idea that those that own the means of production own the profits from them.
Meritocracy is the idea that those with skill will prevail over those without.
I can agree on these definitions.
the problem is that that which capitalism holds in high merits is that which generates capital at the fastest rate
I tend to disagree with this, not that it’s entirely incorrect, but I think quality can’t be disregarded; can the product be made safely is another factor; then innovation plays a role allowing for higher quality products at faster rates. These aren’t smoke screens that some capitalist business man made up to trick you into thinking they are altruistic. These are things that might that effect bottom line.
Let’s switch back to the question, how would nepotism effect any of these things. Well, if the higher quality, safely produced, innovative product can’t come to market because it’s competing against people who have hoarded wealth though centuries long line of succession it’s not because capitalism has failed. Maybe it is, maybe this definition of capitalism would not prevent this type of stagnation. Would it be possible to expand the definition of capitalism, or even just build on the basic principle? I don’t know.
Bracing for downvotes here…
Capitalism is good when properly regulated. Capitalism is an incredible tool for raising living standards, which should be the ultimate goal of any aociety. Disfunctional capitalism produces inequity.
Now I know someone is going to say that capitalists tend to accrue power, to which I say that is EVERY system. They ALL need to be kept in check. Socialism, feudalism, anarchy, oligarchy, it doesn’t matter. Someone will try to accrue power. The economic system MUST be subordinate to the government, and ideally that government should represent the will (or at least the best interests) of the people.
I am FIRMLY in the “the system is broken and needs to be fixed” camp. Regulatory capture is a result of disfunctional capitalism. Monopolies are a result of disfunctional capitalism. Cronyism is a result of disfunctional capitalism. Capitalism as a system is not inherently bad except in the way that any system when allowed to run unchecked is bad.
A strong government hand, when wielded by empathetic and civic-minded people, is a requirement for any economic system. Given that, capitalism is the best economic model the world has ever seen.
Well said. I agree with you, but with one caveat. A big caveat.
Capitalism does not seem to be compatible with our ecological substrate. By now everyone should be familiar with the basic facts of what humans are doing to the natural world. All of those negative indicators are strongly correlated with economic growth. The only times the warning lights flicker off - momentarily - is in the aftermath of economic crashes. Then the graphs resume their downward trajectories.
Unlike doctrinaire leftists, I am ready to accept that capitalism has been generally good for humans as a species. But the evidence is clear: it’s been an absolute disaster for the environment. The very nature of capitalism is that it’s unsustainable. We’re running up a bill and one day soon it’s going to have to be paid.
No downvote. I 100% agree.
I will add. Saying a system is flawed because it can’t prevent any number of unintended outcomes only proves all systems are inherently flawed. Like it or not a robust system isn’t just one simplified into anarchy but has measures in place to minimize unintended results and maximize desired outcomes. This all happens in practice. A robust system accounts for the need to make measured adjustments that won’t eliminate the bad but reduce it to more acceptable levels.
Trying to achieve the perfect system will only drive you straight into the hands of a flawed one.
The problem is both. Certain people will always try to exploit regardless of the intent of the system. The problem then isn’t that there are people that exploit. We need to accept that those people will always exist because it’s just a part of humanity. We evolved to have a spectrum of personalities in our groups. And, we can’t get rid of them because they have every right to exists like everyone else. I think the best solution is to create system accepting who we are as a species that prevents the ability for anyone to hoard massive amounts of wealth and power.
Democratize everything. Democratize the government, democratize the economy, democratize neighborhoods, democratize work places, democratize the world. Spread power equally amongst everyone. No one should be powerful enough to control the government. No one should be wealthy enough to control the economy. And, if we experience democracy in our local groups with which we have direct interactions on a regular basis, democracy becomes a universal expectation. We learn how it works through experiential lessons everyday. We learn what it feels like, we learn its strengths, and we learn its weaknesses. Universal democracy is the solution because it prevents the ability for anyone person to accumulate power and control over others.
The downside is that democracy is slow and disorganized. It cannot compete against a unified group with a strong leader because it’s not as quick and decisive. Thus, to have democracy that is universal across all system levels, it must be universal across all of humanity as well. One place cant be democratic while another is not. Democracy is all-or-none, baby 😘
I’m not really into arguing any of your points but I remember watching some commune reality TV show. They decided everything by counsel it was interesting, not exactly fair though.
At some point you must accept that there is no silver bullet and start working with the tools you have available. At least, let others use those tools, responsibly.
Both. It’s kind of like asking if monarchy is the problem or if the problem is just evil kings. Theoretically even a dictatorship can work out well for the people given a benevolent dictator. The issue is with the vulnerabilities inherent in the system. For capitalism, it’s that those with more money have more influence and thus it creates a feedback loop where those with more money have more power to get themselves more money and therefore more power and so on.
Is it the same though? Monarchy are built around the idea that there will be kings. Is nepotism enshrined in the capitalist idea?
Is nepotism enshrined in the capitalist idea?
Unofficially. People start business for their benefit. Hiring family members is a good way to keep most of the money in the family. Similar with making deals with close freinds; like hiring your plumber buddy at the apartment you own and trying to pass the bill to the tenants or something. The thing is that nepotism just makes sense in a lot of places.
Right, only in the same way meritocracy manifests itself in a capitalist system. In this way a 1 to 1 comparison to a monarchy can’t be made.
King also needs a few competent officers, but the highest management needs to be loyal. A corporation works similarly. When is the last time a CEO reported their own pollution or other wrong doing as a company?
Capitalism isn’t about establishing monolithic corporations. We’ve made it that and maybe that’s a result but it’s not built into the system.
I mean we can talk about what it is or is not by some definition, but that is similar to tankies saying this or that is not real communism. The reality is that that is what we observe. A big part of capitalism is personal economic gain and nepotism, monopoly, and other un competitive practices are conducive to those goals; further it is powerless to stop them.
If we were to have an honest discussion we would certainly have to agree on a shared definition of capitalism. So I don’t really care what tankies do or don’t do.
The point of asking the question wasn’t to troubleshoot capitalism ad hoc. It was to develop discussion around these ideas and inspire critical thinking. Unfortunately, most would rather stroke their ego then explore alternative ways of thinking.
I think people are being extraordinarily polite for something that was clearly debatelord bait.
First off, this was an honest question. Second off, who the fuck have I debated? Maybe others want to debate me but not one person has the addressed the heart of the question. No one person has considered what I’m asking. They go off on diatribes about capitalism is the same as greed or try to posture some other argument.
I have not debated a single person in this thread nor would I waste my time.
You asked “is capitalism the problem” and everyone unambiguously said “yes”.
And even now, you’re saying, “nobody answered the question because they haven’t agreed with my assessment 😣”
lmao, get over yourself bud. Few here -if any- are on that ‘capitalism would work if that was what we had’ libertarian bent.
Did I disallow them their view?
I didn’t even ask them to explain their position.
Fucking gatekeepers. The worst.
Lmao are you trying to debate me about whether you were debating people?
wtf does ‘disallow them their view’ even mean lol? Do you have that power? Woah that’s crazy
This is a debate to you?
What else is a debate? Is the food ice-cream is a debate? Is a fedora a debate?
Let me know.
What else is a debate?
well certainly not where you ‘disallow’ someone of their view, whatever the fuck that even means.
Ok debate police. Thanks for stopping by.
To be fair, the sidebar says this is for open-ended and thought-provoking questions. But I can see this place becoming Debate Bro Central if the mods don’t add a rule like “Don’t ask a question if you just want to argue with people over it.”
It isn’t open ended if the person is asking a question they’ve already made up their mind on lol.
An open-ended question is more like “are hotdogs sandwhiches or tacos?”
Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production (there is a less marxist term about top level economic property I’m totally spacing on here so take some Marx and quit yer complaining, it’s the same thing) and has nothing to do with merit.
That has always been capitalist propaganda. The ability to participate in capital has nothing to do with merit.
It’s in the frame work of the capitalist idea. Like it or not. I’m trying to expose why it doesn’t manifest.
it’s a nice idea they use to sell capitalism, that’s why it doesn’t manifest, it’s false advertising.
Capitalism is designed to give power to the few at the top. Nothing about it is a meritocracy, its a funnel of money straight to whoever can exploit the system more than the rest. Has nothing to do with merit, but to “get yours” through whatever means necessary, including crushing those employees who actually do the hard labor that they then extract wealth from.
Capitalism is designed to give power to the few at the top
This rads like some communist propaganda.
Still not wrong though.
Say, the system was designed to prevent cheating. Could a meritocracy exist?
Define cheating. I doubt many CEOs would consider anything they’ve done to get to the position they are as “cheating”.
To “cheat”, one must break the rules. And the rules have been designed to not only allow for but encourage current behavior.
CEO’S are propped up by investors and guaranteed the money invested traces back to some sort of nepotism.
Which is the way it’s designed to work, so not cheating.
Also, the definition of nepotism involves favoring relatives. I get what you mean, but it’s not quite accurate. There’s certainly favoritism going on, just not between relatives generally.
Here’s a common definition of neoptism:
Undue attachment to relations; favoritism shown to members of one’s family; bestowal of patronage in consideration of relationship, rather than of merit or of legal claim.
Maybe I sprung the word “cheat” on you too soon, but ‘nepotism is cheating’ is a brief a summation of my argument.
-
What’s going on with overpaid CEOs and underpaid workers is not nepotism
-
cheating means breaking of rules, and they’re not
You can argue that we should change rules to disincentivize some of the behaviors we’re seeing and to make them “cheating”. And I would’t argue against you if we could somehow make those improvements. But if you’re framing “cheating” as against yours or my personal moral framework instead of law, that is not something you can expect everyone to agree with you on.
But if you’re framing “cheating” as against yours or my personal moral framework instead of law, that is not something you can expect everyone to agree with you on.
This is actually the supposition of my question.
But you’re not cracking the surface and it’s honestly really boring exchanging ideas with you. I don’t think I’ll carry on.
-
It can’t.
It’s a logistical nightmare. In order to be rewarded for your efforts, you need some system of evaluating the worth of every effort. Any societal system that exists is made by at least one person, and every person had biases and ambitions.
There’s no way to prevent cheating, because any rule to prevent cheating will be ignored, because that’s what cheating is. Any rules to make cheating harder only make it harder, not impossible.
Oh look, it seems the act of deciding a person’s worth to society is 100 times the worth of a labourer. And the worth of a writer for Batman is 20 times the worth of a writer for Spider Man. Oh, my physicist girlfriend just broke up with me… Looks like that’s practically worthless now!
Wait, what’s a youtuber? Is that a new thing? I made my value system back in 2002, so this is all new to me! You’re not on the list, so I guess you’re not worth anything? I guess we could make the list again, and while we’re there, my opinions on Batman have changed, so we can tweak some other things too.
Ah, the problem is that a person’s worth is entirely subjective… But what if we press it down into clear and objective statistics? What if we limit it to a single statistic, and a person’s value is entirely related to raising that statistic? We can call the statistic… Capital!
So a person’s value in society is entirely tied to their ability to obtain as much capital as possible, no matter what they do. Ah, meritocracy.
You said a lot of words but only convinced me that you think very highly of your own judgment.
I’m not convinced you actually read my comment before responding.
I don’t even think you wanted a discussion. I think you just want to say your belief and have it treated as fact.
I did. It was a whole lot of assumptions backed up with anecdotes all designed to come to one single conclusion.
Okay, you definitely didn’t read my comment if that’s what you think it was. Let me sum it up for you:
- A person’s merit is subjective.
- Judging merit based on subjective values will bring in biases and corruption.
- Judging merit based on objective values is impossible, and will need to be a simplification.
- In either case, people will game the system to raise their value, regardless of whether they actually contribute anything of merit.
- Any system will become outdated VERY quickly, as society is always changing.
- Capitalism only judges the acquisition of capital, which is not a merit.
- A person can cheat literally any system if they try hard enough.
I explained all of that without a single anecdote.
Yes yes, nothing can be done. All is futile. It’s always the same shit with you people.
From which semi-tautological contortions we can conclude that, uh, capitalism probably isn’t the problem, after all.
deleted by creator
I earn more than most medical doctors in my home country. They save lives, while I write software that could disappear tomorrow and no chaos would ensue. But I do earn my employers more money than the doctor does.
The only world in which this is right is a world where you only care about yourself and being rich. Meritocracy is inherently subjective and depends largely of what you value to give people merit, and in a lot of cases that’s “we fucked over two dozen tiny companies with patent troll lawsuits and made millions”.
They save lives, while I write software that could disappear tomorrow and no chaos would ensue. But I do earn my employers more money than the doctor does.
The only world in which this is right is a world where you only care about yourself and being rich.
Just regular supply and demand thing. Too many doctors, and not enough software engineers.
Pretending that salary depends on supply and demand is just plain wrong
There’s way too many software engineers and a constant shortage of doctors, at least in Canada.
constant shortage of doctors, at least in Canada.
Probably because they aren’t paid well enough
Nepotism obviously existed before capitalism, and it will surely exist at some level in the next economic system, but it’s not an either/or. There are many, many problems with capitalism that would probably still exhibit if nepotism somehow immediately ceased.
The implementation of US capitalism wasn’t intended to fend off nepotism, so of course it continued on.
I don’t think that speaks to my point. Capitalism is flawed with or without nepotism.
There can be more than one problem.
But would a capitalist society that puts in safe guards against nepotism have better results for more people?
Technically yes. But there would be a strong incentive to undo any safeguards. Basically you’d have to ban or limit inheritance completely.
The problem with relying on accumulation of money as a measure of success is that money == power. Once you have a critical mass of wealthy people it would be easy to change any laws to allow for nepotism again.
Saying, “nothings perfect” is an argument that could be used in any scenerio. It’s the definition of nit picking.
Quite the contrary if the flaw is built into the base of the system. If you base the economic system around the accumulation of property, you can’t expect people to do things out of abstract ideals. Your idea of capitalism requires selflessness and altruism which are not rewarded in that system.
You moved the words around but it doesnt change their meaning. Anyone could argue any system has flaws built into it.
Why do you think Capitalism has meritocracy as a core component?
Capitalism is a system where capital needs to be converted into more capital via economic action (reinvestment) rather than just sat upon.
Capital will always find ways to grow, if there are laws - they will be lobbied against. Or those with main market share will work together to stabilise the market and squash competition.
Meritocracy is built in. The better product; the greater amount of production; the higher efficiency; is supposed to be what drives capitalism.
The better product; the greater amount of production; the higher efficiency
Every economic system claims to be able to deliver those goals.
But what you’re describing is more a general free-market economy than capitalism proper. The former determines how companies interact with consumers and each other; the later determines how power and profits are distributed within a company.
It’s OK you don’t like capitalism but the industrial revolution did happen…
I haven’t yet expressed an opinion on capitalism, except to say that the features you’ve mentioned have little to do with it.
But to answer your original question: capitalism stricto sensu is when the profits and decision-making power in a firm are vested in those who put up the original financial capital. It incentivizes financial risk-taking, which (depending on economic conditions) can be useful or destructive. But the only merits it rewards are the possession of pre-existing wealth, the willingness to take risks with it, and luck. Nepotism and cronyism serve its ends by providing a source of wealth for new capitalists, and an outlet for successful capitalists to convert their gains into social rewards.
the only merit it rewards are the possession of pre-existing wealth, the willingness to take risks with it, and luck.
And I disagree
Dude, wtf? Someone’s put in effort in clarifying free market and capitalism for you and you just go on some tangent?
Lol, if you accept this as a definition of capitalism your are already cooked.
Built in to what? Make it cheaper, faster. The better product becomes a luxury.
Capitalism is a problem… along with a shitload of other problems.
Some people are always looking for a free ride. Amassing power/influence/status/assets is usually a way to do that - basically get others to do the hard work and take 5/10/50% of the credit. This appllies under all systems due, most probably, to the natural diversity of humans.
The job of the “system” (legal, political, economic, even cultural and religious) is to mitigate excesses and especially abuses of power before it comes to extremes of bloodshed; but as those also sometimes concentrate power, they themselves need something to regulate the systemic abuses or the non-sytemic abuses of empowered officials.
Humans are the problem, some of them. But greed is also motivational (and sloth), so you can’t get rid of it entirely.
If you can keep your society smal enough that basically everyone knows what most other people are up to, it doesn’t take much regulation, beyond trust and reputation. But as if your society grows to where some people are effectively faceless and unknown, then it becomes more problematic.
Everyone’s strongest argument seems to be, you’ll never have a perfect system. To me, this only shows they don’t understand any system and don’t appreciate their purpose.
The issue with pure capitalism is that it reduces people’s interactions to their economic value but some people do not have economic value, or have little economic value and no power to redress it. So capitalism can be efficient but can also be efficiently cold hearted.
Nepotism is only an issue where owners define it as an issue. Obviously the workforce at large stands to benefit from meritocracy but so do shareholders. In a free market, inadequate appointments due to nepotism should put a company at a disadvantage. But compare that with a family farm where the owners (shareholders) might prefer nepotism (appointment of a son/daughter to management) rather than opening the role to the job market. Few people object to this small scale nepotism, but should they object if shareholders of a large corporation wanted to do the same? Isn’t it their money after all? The chief issues with nepotism are when it’s done against the wishes of the owners of the company. But this is increasingly difficult with shareholder approval of board members and so on.
Obviously nepotism into monopolistic companies is a problem because of lack of competition but this only joins all the other problems already caused by monopolies.
In a healthy capitalism, competition is maintained. And if that’s done then the risks presented by nepotism are diminished because poor appointments ought to lead to poor results.
Ironically, it’s in extensive socialist state monopolies that nepotism is most dangerous primarily because of the decreased market competition.
You’re only thinking in terms of labor. Nepotism, inheritance, gives many a head start in terms of building capital. Removing these people from the market place would allow a more even playing field where actual ability would push people into higher levels of management and improve efficiencies for people who participate at lower levels of production.
Do you think family farms should not be passed to children? Or where would you draw the line?
I think inheritance should be allowed. I just think there should be restrictions on how they participate in the market.
I’m not talking about inheritance though. I’m talking about when a farm takes on a family member as the new management. Because that’s literally nepotism.
(Without getting too much into semantics, isn’t headhunting a new boss at a company a type of nepotism? As in, there wasn’t a competitive process, they were hand-picked by the board / CEO. Is “nepotism” only meant specifically where someone’s incompetence is overlooked because of family relationship? If they’re actually the best person for the job is that still nepotism?)
How about instead of trying to poke holes and narrowing your argument down to the exact exchange in a different implementation of capitalism that we see here in the US and consider the actual question.
Would have been nice if the question mentioned the US then…
sips tea
You got me. I’ve failed you. I will preforms the ceremonial sodoku.
If you think capitalism and greed go hand in hand, as I do, then it’s capitalism. Netflix, for one, was a great service and it’s been profitable for decades but the price hikes, account sharing crackdowns, and increasing promotion of own content really turned it into shit, all in the name of more profits.
Capitalism = greed is a very simplified take.
It’s also correct.
If only nuance had any sort of value to the lay person.
Oh, nuance definitely has value, but only where it exists. You can look for nuance in capitalism all you like, but you won’t find anything. It’s just greed.
