[danudey]

Saw an interesting discussion on how capitalism has existed for as long as markets have existed, including ancient Greece, and how it inevitably leads to wealth inequality, monopolistic behavior, unsustainable resource extraction, and all the other negatives we see today. The only difference is that in Greece, all of these negatives would have been applied locally but now they're all being applied globally. Instead of one super-wealthy man being a pain in the ass for the local Athens economy, he can now ruin things for everyone everywhere.

[wredcoll]

I would more simply define that as "wealth inequality" rather than capitalism (or more broadly, power inequality) and perhaps go on to say that the real problem is that, while you can't realistically prevent/remove all inquality, most systems do a poor job of preventing the people with more money/power from using that to consistently increase their own share.

[idiotsecant]

TIL: The bad parts of a system are some other isim, the good parts are the system.

[bit-anarchist]

The problem is defining what is the system.

[inigyou]

The system is only the good parts of the system.

[bit-anarchist]

Thanks for restating what OP said.

[runarberg]

No need to do that, Capitalism—just like feudalism and mercantilism before it—is about how power is distributed. Both feudalism and mercantilism also had extreme wealth (and power) inequality (feudalism arguably had more), as did communism for that matter.

What makes capitalism different is that the power is distributed along capital (as opposed to handpicked by the king under feudalism; or embedded in government monopoly under mercantilism).

In other words, in capitalism, the owners of capital (or the owners of the means of production; i.e the rich; the aristocracy; etc.) are the ones who get to dictate the living conditions of the rest of society. The rulers (be it democratically elected government; an absolute monarch; a military dictatorship) will legislate in order to maintain the interest of the owners of capital. The police (or military) will fight for the interest of the owners of capital, and will suppress any resistance against the interest of the rich, etc.

[atmosx]

Nah, Ancient Greece has nothing to do with today’s capitalism. It’s a dumb example and the parallels will fall down to a close inspection. Different world.

[alistairSH]

Pretty sure Adam Smith captured that in his writings.

Full laissez-faire, free market capitalism generally leads to wealth (and power) imbalance. Regulation is necessary to prevent that (assuming you want to maintain a "fair" democracy of sorts and not regress to oligarchy).

[scottyah]

I can't see any system where people are treated fairly (equally and able to reap benefits of their labor aka not slaves) that won't lead to inequality. People are just different, and will have different production rates.

[alistairSH]

Sure, and that's mostly ok. I earn more than many people, some people earn more than me.

The problem is that extreme wealth imbalance leads to a power imbalance that tends to throw society into turmoil. The French Revolution being a canonical example.

[wredcoll]

Broadly speaking, I think most people would agree that Maria Hernandez the world renowned neurosurgeon who does 200 surgeries a year makes dozens or perhaps even hundred of times the amount Joe Smith the housr cleaner makes.

Even if they perhaps work the same number of hours a year, Maria has more training and (maybe) some kind of rarer aptitude and as a result we have a lot more house cleaners than neurosurgeons (in america and other places there a whole bunch of other factors like who gets access to the training and so on that causes some of these imbalances, but that's a whole 'nother comment).

The people, in general, are probably considerably less happy with the idea that jk rowling the ultrarich author gets to use her money to try to pass laws taking rights away from people she doesn't like.

Look at the difference between Ellison and Musk. Ellison is probably has similar levels of power to Musk, but he (afaik) mostly uses it to buy giant yachts and annoy other fortune 500 companies, and as a result most people don't really care that he's a billionaire.

Musk, on the other hand, tries to use his power to screw with government services and publically attack minorities and so on.