How long will capitalism last?

[Baruch]

It's like an episode of hoarders except it's playing out on a global scale.

Better, if everything is monetized, and all money digitized, their hoard takes up no space, produces no clutter.

[The Skeletal Atheist]

Isn't that what wars are for?

When we get to the super duper big ones, yes. Right now we have small wars, which are nothing more than a sick game of cards between world powers. Eventually someone is gonna flip the table.

[Unbeliever]

Maybe I'll get lucky and die first...

[Baruch]

Maybe I'll get lucky and die first...

You need to ask the admin to fix your avatar.

[Unbeliever]

Wow, just saw that. I'll see what I can do...

[Baruch]

Wow, just saw that. I'll see what I can do...

You are a day late and a dollar short ... but I like the new avatar.  If I were to follow suit ... I would put up Uncle Fester ;-)

[Jason Harvestdancer]

As I've come to understand, capitalism requires a few key things to work properly. These things are as follows:

1. Scarcity of resources, but not too much scarcity. The idea being that if a resource is too scarce, it may very well be a luxury resource but its share in the larger market will be limited by its scarcity. On the other hand if a resource is too abundant, like air, one can't possibly trade for it at any price.

2: Growth. A capitalist system requires some sort of growth. The focus on profits assumes growth in a market, without that there are no profits to free the system. I give you x for y, and from the difference I make z. Without x or y, there is no z.

3: Semiscarcity of labor. For capitalism to work for almost everyone except for the most elite, there must be a bit, but not too much, of a scarcity. Barring artificial measures like a minimum wage, a scarcity of labor is what keeps wages high enough that the average worker can live off of it. When there is an abundance of labor the average worker is forced into a race to the bottom when it comes to wages.

I feel like if any of these three pillars fall, then the viability of capitalism is done. Consequently, with the rise of technology I feel like all three pillars are weakened, if not outright broken and merely propped up by the state. In one way or another technology has sawed away at very least scarcity and labor. It's an undeniable fact that technology is taking jobs. How long is it until only about 20% of the population is doing 100% of the actual labor? What do we do to the 80% who aren't actually doing labor? How should a postjob, postcapitalism society work?

1.  All resources are considered scarce, in that their supply is finite.  Only an infinite resource isn't scarce.
2.  Capitalist theory (from the inside) doesn't demand constant growth.
3.  Labor is a resource, so it is by definition scarce because all resources are scarce.

Do you have more to add to this definition of Capitalism?

[Baruch]

Infinite growth is required by usury.  As long as you don't finance capitalism, particularly the rolling over of huge public loans from generation to generation .... capitalism is finite math.  But humans never understand the exponential function.  They also fail to understand what negative interest rate would mean (as being currently attempted by our genius leaders).

Basically 2% per annum doesn't sound like much, but if you actually never pay back the loan, but continually refinance, the net growth of this, in paper money would actually require a ball of paper money bigger than the solar system, whose radius would be expanding faster than light ... of course before we reached that point, the paper money would implode into a black hole.

[Unbeliever]

You are a day late and a dollar short ... but I like the new avatar.  If I were to follow suit ... I would put up Uncle Fester ;-)

I like cousin It, as well, but he's not nearly as pretty as Morticia.

[Baruch]

I like cousin It, as well, but he's not nearly as pretty as Morticia.

Are you prejudiced toward the follicle challenged?

Uncle Fester once lit a light bulb in his mouth, with no other connection.  Had to have been an electrical engineer ;-)

[Unbeliever]

Oh, Fester's fine, I just laugh more at It. I also liked Uncle Arthur, but that's another story...

[Baruch]

Oh, Fester's fine, I just laugh more at It. I also liked Uncle Arthur, but that's another story...

Paul Lynde on the original Bewitched?  Paul had the most interesting way to speak sarcastically.

[The Skeletal Atheist]

1. How scarce? Would you like to buy some air from me? Nothing is infinite, but some things are so abundant that it's useless to try and sell them. I can sell you an air compressor, or compressed air, but if I tried to sell you just air you'd rightfully tell me to fuck off.

At the same time some things are so rare that they are horrendously expensive, but not really useful in the slightest. Not talking the usual expensive luxury item here, but The type of things there are only one of. People do buy these things, but on the whole it doesn't affect society that much.

For commodities that consistently affect the economy as a whole, they have to be not so abundant that it's useless to sell them, but not so rare that only the .01% can buy them.

2. So stagnation in the market would be a good thing?

3. This is the most important one to me really. What I meant to say is a shortage of jobs rather than labor. In particular what I meant are the actually productive jobs and the logistical jobs that support those. I feel that, with current research in robotics, that such jobs will ultimately be eliminated. Hell, most have. Then you have your office jobs that can be replaced by an algorithm. Unskilled service jobs? Humanoid robotics.

The mechanization I'm talking about is being researched now.

In general though, my question once again was this: how can a capitalist system work when only a small, the number I said was 20% but it can be any minority, percentage of the population can even work due to a technologically caused shortage of jobs? Do we just let the majority starve even if we have the means to provide for them?

[Baruch]

Capitalism is a means, not an end.  The point is power, power to be the Raja and make you pull big stones using early technology.

Economy isn't separate from politics, nor does it even require money.  Money helps liquidity, but in early societies, liquidity wasn't an issue.  Right now, India is going on a forced liquidity diet ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx74SEinnp4

Farm laborers are being paid in grain, but they are unable to trade grain for other goods.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

1. How scarce? Would you like to buy some air from me? Nothing is infinite, but some things are so abundant that it's useless to try and sell them. I can sell you an air compressor, or compressed air, but if I tried to sell you just air you'd rightfully tell me to fuck off.

At the same time some things are so rare that they are horrendously expensive, but not really useful in the slightest. Not talking the usual expensive luxury item here, but The type of things there are only one of. People do buy these things, but on the whole it doesn't affect society that much.

For commodities that consistently affect the economy as a whole, they have to be not so abundant that it's useless to sell them, but not so rare that only the .01% can buy them.

2. So stagnation in the market would be a good thing?

3. This is the most important one to me really. What I meant to say is a shortage of jobs rather than labor. In particular what I meant are the actually productive jobs and the logistical jobs that support those. I feel that, with current research in robotics, that such jobs will ultimately be eliminated. Hell, most have. Then you have your office jobs that can be replaced by an algorithm. Unskilled service jobs? Humanoid robotics.

The mechanization I'm talking about is being researched now.

In general though, my question once again was this: how can a capitalist system work when only a small, the number I said was 20% but it can be any minority, percentage of the population can even work due to a technologically caused shortage of jobs? Do we just let the majority starve even if we have the means to provide for them?

1. Okay, air is basically the exception that tests the rule.  But people do buy and sell even air.  I bought a can for the purpose of cleaning my keyboard.
2. I'm arguing neither for stagnation nor growth, but that Capitalism isn't built on stagnation or growth but on something else.
3. I'm not talking about mechanization when I say that labor is a commodity too.  I'm talking about how, even with mechanization, there is still a finite amount of labor to go around.  For some tasks, the finite amount of labor is smaller than others, which is why some jobs pay more than others.

Start with a different premise.  Start with "people have different wants, people have different skill sets, therefore people can optimize their productivity through exchange" and you are on the path towards discussing capitalism.