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by asgard1024 3884 days ago
I wouldn't have big problem with the free market (as you describe), if the following big feedback loop of investing would be limited:

People can "cheat" (for example give incomplete information, or mislead about how much stuff they have really done, etc.) and then for that, they get more votes about what is socially useful activity? Of course they will reinvest those points into more what they are doing, and at the end of the day, you will end up with people like that controlling the economy.

And that's what actually happens - owners of capital decide by huge margin where to invest, because accumulation of capital gives you a leverage which just doing normal work doesn't. It also happens to a lesser extent between other social groups.

Now, I see two realistic solutions to this loophole:

- Limit personal wealth to some amount (say 100x average) and redistribute the rest.

- Limit amount of overall wealth (let's say GDP) than can be subject of competition to a certain percentage (say 50%) and redistribute the rest.

These are essentially proposals for having a mixed economy.

> any centrally planned system will be inefficient

Is democracy central planning or not? I don't think "central planning" is particularly useful category, to be honest. All larger-scale human activities have to be done by cooperation of many people, and this cooperation can be always viewed as central planning, or at least as place where individual values are suppressed.

1 comments

Yes, those are some of the issues with 'Laissez Faire'. There are always winners and losers in any system and I feel that some redistribution to "take the edge of" is a good thing. (But perhaps not your specific policy suggestions).

Democracy isn't central planning. It has a similar basis to capitalism actually.

If you believe that morals are subjective then it makes sense to give everyone a say in what morals are codified as law. If on the other hand you believe in a single objective moral code, a dictator's for example' then you don't need to make any decisions.

Capitalism is the same but with morals switched with values/desires. It may not be the best "type 2" system, but in a subjective values universe any system that replaces it would need to be "type 2" as well.

> Democracy has a similar basis to capitalism actually.

I absolutely disagree with this statement. In democracy, you cannot trade or accumulate votes, and it is one of its tenets. In capitalism, you can trade and accumulate "votes".

This means, at the very least, what family you were born into influences your life. It's better than feudalism, for sure, but it's still far from the ideal of equal opportunities.

What I mean is that they're both consensus mechanisms to deal with subjectivity. For democracy, its subjective morality while for capitalism its subjective desires.

Its an interesting thought experiment to switch the mechanisms and predict the effects.