[komali2]

Capitalism already is a poor allocator of human effort, resources, and energy, why lock in on this specifically? There's entire professions that are essentially worthless to society that exist only to perpetuate the inherent contradictions of this system, why not focus more on all that wasted human effort? Or the fact that everyone has to do some arbitrary sellable labor in order to justify their existence, rather than something they might truly enjoy or might make the world better?

[mattclarkdotnet]

You might enjoy the book "Red Plenty" by Francis Spufford, which traces the consequences of this thesis ("Capitalism already is a poor allocator") through the Khrushchev years of the USSR, seen through the eyes of the economists, mathematicians and planners who tried to do better than capitalism.

Of course there are in-between approaches like industrial policy in mixed economies, for example the South Korean shipbuilding industry. But those tend to work with the grain of capitalism, not against it.

[azan_]

> Capitalism already is a poor allocator of human effort, resources, and energy, why lock in on this specifically?

It's absolutely best allocator of human effort there is. It has some problems but compared to alternatives it's almost perfect.

[komali2]

Looking around, the evidence doesn't seem to support this conclusion. 50% of food thrown away, yet people go hungry. Every privatized industry diminishes in quality and reach. Selects and optimizes for profit rather than for human need.

[mattclarkdotnet]

We throw away food because we are so good at making it cheaply that the problem has shifted to distribution costs and fair wages. Also high productivity economies need to deal effectively with the Baumol effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect). If they don't then even people in the USA can be food poor despite huge GDP per capita.

[komali2]

> distribution costs and fair wages

Yes, precisely, because capitalism can't select for things that are useful for people, but unprofitable for capital owners.

[azan_]

> Looking around, the evidence doesn't seem to support this conclusion.

It absolutely does if you look at facts and not "vibes". There are less people starving now than ever now and it's a giant, giant difference. We are tackling more and more diseases thanks to big pharma. Even semi-socialist countries such as China have opened markets. Basically the only countries that do not implement capitalist solutions are the ones you'd never want to live in such as North Korea or Cuba (funny thing - even China urged Cuba to free their markets).

[komali2]

> There are less people starving now than ever now

I see no reason to attribute that to capitalism. Capitalist and non capitalist societies had famines, and capitalist and non capitalist societies industrialized and improved people's material conditions - by raw number of people, non capitalist societies did this for more people.

The PRC indeed has opened their markets, and now has capital allocation issues - their initial chip development programs failed because of market viability issues, and for whatever reason their government didn't put the communism hat on and just nationalize the entire industry like it's done for other ones. More evidence against the supposed increase efficiency and outcomes of privatization and market based R&D and incentives.

North Korea seems to be failing less because of its economic system and more because the entire nation is a cult with a horrifying political system.

It seems quite literally all economic strife in Cuba is due to American sanctions - and in spite of these they still have a lower infant mortality rate than the Americans and make breakthroug medical discoveries.

So again, given the evidence, it seems capitalism is, at best, equally viable to whatever the Soviets and PRC did, in terms of allocating resources and lifting people out of poverty.

Given that we probably all will run out of ways to justify our existence under capitalism through selling our labor within our lifetimes, it seems like a very good time to start considering alternatives. Capitalism has no answer to the question, "what do you do with people when you have an 80% unemployment rate?"

[azan_]

> by raw number of people, non capitalist societies did this for more people.

That's completely false. Please take your time to verify it, I hope that getting your facts straight will make you reconsider your position (and not get mad at facts).

> The PRC indeed has opened their markets, and now has capital allocation issues - their initial chip development programs failed because of market viability issues, and for whatever reason their government didn't put the communism hat on and just nationalize the entire industry like it's done for other ones.

Don't you think that this argument does not make much sense? If the solution is that easy and has been done numerous times, why would they not do it again? Maybe the real answer is that it's just hard problem, and hard problems take time and serendipity.

> It seems quite literally all economic strife in Cuba is due to American sanctions - and in spite of these they still have a lower infant mortality rate than the Americans and make breakthroug medical discoveries.

But why would they need global trade? Isn't that one of inventions and consequences of capitalism? I don't think global trade is possible without free markets at all, so if global trade is necessary for prosperity, then so is capitalism. Also note that Cuba has approximately 25% higher infant mortality rate (I ask you again to look at the data; note that Cuba has higher infant mortality even though it has been criticized for artificially reducing their stats, e.g. by reclassifying part of infant deaths to fetal deaths) and their medical breakthroughs are nowhere near what US (or China, which now beats US because they... made market for pharma more free) is doing.

> So again, given the evidence, it seems capitalism is, at best, equally viable to whatever the Soviets and PRC did, in terms of allocating resources and lifting people out of poverty.

Again, that's completely false and PRC has seen biggest reductions of poverty AFTER implementing market reforms!

[komali2]

There's not much point in us each accusing the other of misrepresenting facts, as I'm about to do you.

So instead, how about trying to answer the question that capitalism can't, within the confines of capitalist incentives - what do you do with people when your unemployment hits 26%? 50%?

Dogmatism towards the current system blinds perspective. One could easily grant that capitalism was the best industrializing mechanism, it still wouldn't presuppose it as the most humane framework for an industrialized world.

[yfee]

No it is the best of what we know.

There’s something else out there that nobody has the imagination to personally figure it out and get alignment toward it.

It can also be true that capitalism is transitory to get to a place where much of the capital one needs is invented.

[azan_]

Well of course the discussion is only about systems that actually exist, not ones that not only not exist, but also can't be imagined by anyone.