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Cassian

Argumentation- Capitalism does not work to ensure the well-being of society as it is run by private individuals seeking self-enrichment. Since capitalism does not serve to provide well-being for the populace, it is thus unreliable for the citizenry.

**READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING**: I will only reply to comments which are 1-3 sentences in length and I will reply in the same manner. This is to keep the debate dialogue from getting swamped. Thanks in advance.

MayCaesar

Well, let us get started. You mentioned that capitalism is run by private individuals seeking self-enrichment - meaning, private individuals work in a way that benefits them.

What is the alternative here? Private individuals working in a way that does not benefit them. Please explain to us how this ensures societal well-being.

Cassian

@MayCaesar The capitalists who make successful enterprises are generally ensured well-being, but that leaves out the countless amounts of people who are merely workers and not business owners. Their well-being is not ensured by the capitalist system.

MayCaesar

@Cassian

But the workers seek self-enrichment just as well as the enterpreneurs do. They themselves ensure their well-being by their actions. 

When this is not the case, then the workers and the enterpreneurs do not work towards their well-being. How does that ensure societal well-being better?

sear

Primum Disputandum: Capitalism Doesn't Ensure Societal Well-Being

Our modern society would be impossible without currency.

Before currency there was barter. How would a modern society operate on a barter system?

If a chicken farmer wants a bus ride across town what shall he do? Negotiate the bus fare in eggs? The what is the bus driver supposed to do? There's no refrigerator on such bus.

And even if that worked for the chicken farmer, what about the hog farmer, or cattle rancher? Here's a nice thick porterhouse steak, now take me to 64th & Lex ?!

The U.S. $dollar makes all that go away. It's a fantastic invention.

Medic

What, precisely, do we mean by societal well-being? Compared to what? At what time? Without metrics, this is just meaningless ideological wrangling.

sear

"What, precisely, do we mean by societal well-being? Compared to what? At what time? Without metrics, this is just meaningless ideological wrangling." M

Understood.

 BUT !!

We can at least put it in context of absolutes.

Spectra are defined by their termini.

What's the worst possible scenario?

What's the best possible scenario?

By those standards, my life is going pretty well.

I go where I want,

when I want,

how I want.

Eat what I want

when I want,

read & speak as I choose.

What more do you want?

 

Medic

You’re a looney

sear

Only one?

sear

M,

I appreciate your perspective.

But let's practice a little ancient wisdom: reductio ad absurdum

A few scant centuries ago kings couldn't live as well as I do.

Hank8 didn't have central heat, or air conditioning.

He didn't have a flush toilet, or Beefaroni.

My computer has multiple screens, my aerial drones have UHD cameras.

And in my subjective opinion, the life of an ingrate is not worth living.

Even my car is air conditioned.

Here's the view out my kitchen window:

 

From my hilltop perch I can watch raptors soaring the ridge looking for a snack. Migrating geese stop by and splash in my pond. I want for nothing.

For most of Earth history most sentients have had to battle to survive. The big fish eat the little fish.

It is a spectacular pleasure and privilege to be at the top of the food-chain.

We are blessed manifold.

Only a fool would deny it.

Medic

Mate you are absolutely mental. Take meds 

sear

"

Medic 172 Pts

5:30AM Flag

Mate you are absolutely mental. Take meds " M

Contentedness is not a disease.

Extreme well-being does not require a cure.

Less than 1% of Earth's population has lived as well as I do.

What medication would you prescribe to "cure" my benady? Kidney stones?

Primum Disputandum: Capitalism Doesn't Ensure Societal Well-Being

Got a better idea?

AmericanFurryBoy

What are we supposed to do? Wait in bread lines as poor people as our all controlling government constantly wars with other nations? While that same government resides in palaces with everything they could ever want? Or should their be more people with money with a less controlling government. You see, capitalism serves us very well. There are poor and homeless people, but at least not all of us are poor and our government serves us rather than the other way around.

Cassian

@MayCaesar ;Sure, both workers and business owners seek enrichment, but the business owner is the only one that can be ensured enrichment as they have the means to attain it. This is not the case for workers.

Cassian

@sear Please read the "READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING" section of my post.

Cassian

@Medic ;Firstly, please read the "READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING" part of my post. Second, I mean well-being in terms of finances.

Cassian

@AmericanFurryBoy ;Please read the "READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING" section of my post.

Cassian

Cassian said:

@MayCaesar ;Sure, both workers and business owners seek enrichment, but the business owner is the only one that can be ensured enrichment as they have the means to attain it. This is not the case for workers.

Additionally, just to make sure there isn't confusion, I'm not saying that workers absolutely cannot attain well-being, but that it is only ensured for the capitalists who are owners of enterprise as they are the ones with the advantage and power to easily possess it.

MayCaesar

@Cassian

How do you think those capitalists have gained the ownership of that enterprise? That enterprise has not always existed; someone had to start from the point zero to create it. The workers are in the same position, and they have the exact same means and resources to attain their well-being as those who have done so before them.

I am also not confident that owners of enterprise can easily possess well-being. The business world in capitalist countries is extremely competitive and unforgiving, and the price of one mistake can be as high as going bankrupt.

sear

"The workers are in the same position, and they have the exact same means and resources to attain their well-being as those who have done so before them." MC

We can approximate that they have equality of opportunity. But not everyone can invent the light-bulb, or the Salk vaccine.

Risk and reward tend to be proportional. Work at McDonald's and you're quite sure to get a regular paycheck. But you're not going to be able to buy a Lear Jet on an entry-level salary.

It's those with entrepreneurial spirit, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, took risks, and were rewarded for it.

AmericanFurryBoy

@Cassian
I did read your stupid requirement and I only went about two or three sentences over the limit. It’s not that hard to read a comment. If you cant catch the ball thats thrown then why are you playing the game?

Cassian

@MayCaesar Remember I'll only respond to comments which are 1-3 sentences long.

Cassian

@sear Are you going to make a response that is 1-3 sentences in length?

Cassian

@AmericanFurryBoy The fault is on you, as my original post gave you notice ahead of time that I'd only respond to sentences 1-3 in length, so you can't be sour that I'm not playing on your terms when you voluntarily made a longer response on my debate post despite knowing the prerequisites I established. So, either make a reply that is 1-3 sentences in length or simply expect me to not give your points the time of day.

MayCaesar

@Cassian

You made two comments in response to mine. Hence I put two comments into one, each being no longer than 3 sentences in length, addressing both of your comments.

If you really prefer to see two separate comments instead of one dual one, then let me know, and I will repost these.

Cassian

@MayCaesar Doing one part at a time would be preferable. Thanks for the compliance.

MayCaesar

Cassian said:

@MayCaesar ;Sure, both workers and business owners seek enrichment, but the business owner is the only one that can be ensured enrichment as they have the means to attain it. This is not the case for workers.

Cassian said:
Additionally, just to make sure there isn't confusion, I'm not saying that workers absolutely cannot attain well-being, but that it is only ensured for the capitalists who are owners of enterprise as they are the ones with the advantage and power to easily possess it.

But the enterprise did not always exist, and its establishment involved a lot of work from its future owner(s), with the purpose being ensuring self-enrichment. It was not ensured at the beginning, but it became ensured as a result of their effort.

The worker also can put in a lot of hard work in order to ensure self-enrichment in the future, can they not?

Cassian

@MayCaesar ;Sorry for the late response, so, with that aside, of course enterprise is not inherently ensured and is dependent upon the actions of the capitalist owners, and never have I said otherwise. To your second point, you seem to me to be speaking in absolution. Do you believe that the worker’s labor will end with this necessitated outcome of self-enrichment or do you realize that the picture is far less predictable in a capitalist economy composed of and operated by self-serving capitalists?

MayCaesar

@Cassian No, there are many possible outcomes - but then, I do not see the necessity of the outcome of self-enrichment as a part of the societal well-being insurance. A societal well-being can exist without all of its individuals having achieved individual well-being. I do know, however, that when everyone works towards their personal well-being, then chances are many more people will achieve well-being, than when nobody does that - do you disagree? 

Cassian

@MayCaesar ;I wasn’t stating that well-being is the same as self-enrichment, but instead pointing out that not everyone can or will reach the point of enrichment, thus meaning that only a select portion can be truly ensured well-being. Of course, nothing can guarantee that literally every single living person in society will be able to possess well-being, though it is logical to maximize it amongst the populace as much as possible since well-being is in the interests of everyone. In terms of chance, chance is highly relative to the systems and structures in place, and an economy revolving around self-serving individuals simply isn’t designed for the intent of securing well-being for the entirety of the citizenry but rather those who manage to be successful capitalists. 

MayCaesar

@Cassian

Well, what is a society if not a group of individuals, and what is the societal well-being if not the well-being of its individual members? If the individual members work towards their personal well-being, they are more likely to achieve it, than if they do not - hence making the societal well-being more likely to be achieved as well.

Your argument seems to be based on the fact that not everyone is going to achieve their personal well-being by their own means, which is correct - but then, I cannot think of any system that would 100% guarantee everyone's well-being, since the world by its very nature is chaotic and unpredictable.

Cassian

@MayCaesar ;Societal well-being can only be achieved when most of the populace is able to attain well-being, yet, if the economy is ran by profit-driven capitalists, it is then an economy driven by people to look out for themselves and there is no apparatus of assistance in such a capitalist system to prevent others from falling behind—meaning capitalism is unable to stabilize well-being amongst the citizenry. And, yes, there is no guarantee of literally everyone attaining well-being due to the chaos and unpredictability of the world, but order comes from trying to inhibit as much of this chaos and unpredictability as possible.

sear

"Societal well-being can only be achieved when most of the populace is able to attain well-being, yet, if the economy is ran by profit-driven capitalists," C

That might matter, in democracies.

Let's not overlook what happened in Vietnam this week.

NK's Kim Jong Un, a totalitarian dictator turned down the opportunity to pull his entire nation out of the cesspool of grinding poverty at the mere cost of terminating his nuclear weapons.

The porcine KJU thinks he lives well. And the rest of the nation pays the price.

MayCaesar

@Cassian

First of all, this is not entirely true: there are still charity organisations, voluntary cooperatives, etc. created by people exactly with the purpose of looking out for each other. Second, lack of manual stabilisation mechanisms established by the society does not mean stabilisation mechanisms do not arise spontaneously: enterprise owners are interested in people prospering so they can afford to buy more of their goods, creating incentives for them to help other people prosper. Finally, why cannot people's drive for self-enrichment be considered a stabilising element in itself, urging everyone to do their best at attaining that self-enrichment?

Cassian

@MayCaesar ;True, there can exist charity organizations and other similar things, but they are entirely voluntary and not mandated, and capitalism itself still lacks a means of providing assistance. To your second sentence, they can arise, but have to rely on both the voluntary will of the people as well as a non-mandated financial capacity, so voluntary and “spontaneous” stabilization efforts and organizations are simply nowhere near as reliable in comparison to such measures mandated and enforced by law. To your final point, the reason why striving for self-enrichment is not a stabilizing effect in of itself is because such strives don’t ensure anything; there is no security that your efforts will pay off in the end because capitalism is an economic struggle for existence and there is no mechanic in capitalism to help those who are not it’s beneficiaries. 

Cassian

@sear ;Can you elaborate on why you’ve brought Vietnam and Kim Jong Un into the conversation of societal well-being in relation to capitalism?

Cassian

@sear Also, please keep in mind to watch your sentence count.

sear

";True, there can exist charity organizations and other similar things, but they are entirely voluntary and not mandated, and capitalism itself still lacks a means of providing assistance." C

Non-voluntary "charity" include but not limited to:

 - food stamps

 - VA medical care

 - Medicare

 - Medicaid

 - etc

"and capitalism itself still lacks a means of providing assistance." C

Orphanages, emergency rescues, etc.

Cassian

@sear ;Those “non-voluntary charity” programs you listed are instituted by the United States government and are not the result of capitalism, so that is a null and void point. To your second point, I’ll be somewhat considering because I can see how it was vague- I meant assistance in terms of ensuring economic well-being to the citizenry. Also, orphanages and emergency rescuing apparatuses are not exclusive to capitalism, for they can very well be run by the government, so that’s not necessarily a defense of capitalism.

MayCaesar

@Cassian

But why do you think that mandated entities are better ensurers of the desired outcome, than voluntary entities? In some of the older societies, for example, the group/commune you belonged in, or your extended family, etc. made a lot of life decisions for you; in India until very recently your parents even chose who you would marry. A lot of things in your life were mandated and you were given no choice, yet do you think you would have been likely to achieve a worse outcome otherwise?

sear

"Those “non-voluntary charity” programs you listed are instituted by the United States government and are not the result of capitalism, so that is a null and void point." C

 a) Yours is an amusing opinion. But it clashes with reality.

United States governments exist within a capitalist system.

 - U.S. employees in both private and public sector are paid in $Dollars.

 - U.S. governments are financed by taxation, collected in $Dollars.

 - We run stock markets (on Wall Street). And such markets are government regulated against such things as "insider trading". Can you say "Martha Stewart"? I knew you could.

 - The quanta of shareholder ownership may be one share of stock. BUT !! Each share has a monetized value. Even Berkshire Hathaway does.

 - We run businesses, but such businesses have to meet fire code, OSHA requirements, etc etc.

 - Take away the U.S. $dollar (& all other currency / monetary unit) and the fundamental nature of United States government is transformed or destroyed.

b) It is capitalism that defines poverty in our system. Among hut-dwelling aborigines a share of the clan meal is guaranteed by clan membership. It doesn't work that way in all of the U.S. Thus the criterion for food stamps eligibility is minimum income.

"Also, orphanages and emergency rescuing apparatuses are not exclusive to capitalism" C

 1) I didn't assert they were.

 2) They needn't be. I merely refuted the false assertion that: "capitalism itself still lacks a means of providing assistance." C

 That's utter nonsense.

" for they can very well be run by the government, so that’s not necessarily a defense of capitalism." C

 It may seem I'm defending capitalism. I'm defending truth, by refuting falsehoods about capitalism. If you'll stop posting falsehoods, I'll stop correcting them.

Cassian

@sear I won't respond if you don't cooperate with my debate stipulation. I'm more than happy to address your points but you must meet this end.

Cassian

@MayCaesar ;Because if it is voluntary, then there is no means of assuring that said outcome will indeed happen, or, at the very least, to the extent desired or needed. Your point on older societies presumes that introducing governmental oversight means absolutely no control or representation by the people. Demonstrate how this is so if you do indeed believe this.

MayCaesar

@Cassian

Whether it is voluntary or not, it is impossible to provide a 100% guarantee that it will happen - but in my view, if people work towards it out of their own will, as opposed to being forced to work towards it, then they will succeed more at it, because people do better things that they like, than things that they dislike and are forced to do.

I did not presume absolutely no control or representation by the people, but the reduction of that control is obvious, and that will necessarily have strong negative effects, as people are forced to live the way they do not want to live and become miserable, disempowered and unenthusiastic about their future. Private charity organisations consistently have demonstrated much higher efficiency at helping people, than public-funded ones, and I would think we should shift the balance as much towards favoring the former over the latter as possible - meaning making the system as capitalist as possible.

sear

"because people do better things that they like," MC

And the tops in their field corroborate that:

 - Bill Gates

 - Taylor Swift

 - Warren Buffet

 - Jeff Bezos

 - Zuckerberg

Each of these very $wealthy people sincerely enjoy what they do, and would probably do it anyway, even if they couldn't earn a living at it.

Cassian

@MayCaesar ;Of course it is impossible to provide a 100% guarantee of anything at all in society, but a mandated entity is far superior to create desired outcomes versus a voluntary one because there is foundational reliability in an entity which has to produce outcomes by answering to the ordinances of law due to legal consequences, whereas a voluntary entity doesn’t have to worry about answering to any sort of authority to produce certain outcomes or degrees of outcomes. Why does voluntary will inherently create better outcomes than mandated will? To your final point, you branched off on a lot of different sub-topics so I’m going to do my best to create a summarized response for my third and last sentence: how will the introduction of oversight create this necessary effect of people being miserable and not having secure future prospects, and, also, what empirical proof can you cite that demonstrates that private charity has been more efficient than public assistance overall?

MayCaesar

@Cassian

I see it the other way around: a mandated entity, just as any other entity, bases its actions on its self-interest and, hence, will interpret its duties in a way that benefits its members, rather than regular people - while a person doing, say, charity voluntarily does it exactly because they genuinely want to help, hence their actions will be much more effective. You cannot force people to help each other, it does not work and leads to economical abominations; but you can create the environment in which people themselves will want to help each other, and nothing does it better than a system on which they can help others by helping themselves - which is capitalism, where you can earn a lot of money by manufacturing and selling a product in high demand, and benefit other people by giving them access to that product.

I need but to compare slavers' plantations or communist kolkhozes to regular modern free work spaces to demonstrate that people work better and happier when they do it for themselves, rather than for someone else; as for the private vs public assistance effectiveness, there have been countless studies unanimously agreeing on this on the examples of real assistance programs, and even the most pro-statist economists admit that the public sector is less efficient than the private sector in general, and by far so.

sear

"I see it the other way around: a mandated entity, just as any other entity, bases its actions on its self-interest and, hence, will interpret its duties in a way that benefits its members, rather than regular people - while a person doing, say, charity voluntarily does it exactly because they genuinely want to help, hence their actions will be much more effective. You cannot force people to help each other" MC

 a) I take your point. BUT !!

 b) There is a counter-point.

U.S. Navy S.E.A.L's may risk their own lives for others, in ways they might not do for themselves.

A horse might literally run itself to death with a human rider on its back, where otherwise it may not *.

 Some members of the clergy sacrifice for others, some in poverty; Mother Theresa comes to mind.

Thus, not that you haven't made a valid point, only that it may not always be that cut-&-dried.

 * There is a form of hunting known as "marathon hunting". The human hunter simply gets his prey on the run, and chases it until it collapses. I gather it's a rare hunting style, mainly for Savannah.

Ampersand

Well of course it doesn't ensure societal well-being. While people can quibble about what qualifies as societal well-being when a child starves to death or someone dies of a preventable disease, it's obvious that societal well-being isn't ensured.

The bigger follow on question is then "Can we do better than Capitalism or keep Capitalism but improve it?" for me the answer is "Yes and yes" but I'm not sure if you want to get into that in this topic.

MayCaesar

@sear

It is true, it is possible to force someone to work harder than they would do out of their own volition - but such actions are fundamentally unsustainable. You can accomplish a certain narrow task this way, but you cannot bring a global prosperity this way.

For example, consider a Roman legion. People in the legion are forced to work extremely hard, and they often die - but as a result, their fighting efficiency is unbelievably high, and they can easily crush any opposition equal in size and technology, but inferior in training.
Now take that legion and try to get it to build a self-sustainable town. Chances are it will fail miserably, and the town will resemble a military prison more than a liveable place.

Soviet Union managed to get the first person to fly around Earth in space by employing Gulags. It failed to build a decent quality of life for its people, however. Achieving a particular narrow goal, and building something well-rounded and spectacular and suitable for living, are two very different things.

sear

"It is true, it is possible to force someone to work harder than they would do out of their own volition - but such actions are fundamentally unsustainable. You can accomplish a certain narrow task this way, but you cannot bring a global prosperity this way." MC

Well stated.

Uri Gregarin