“Freakonomics” Was Neoliberal Bullshit
currentaffairs.org
A look back at the bestselling book franchise that taught people to “think like economists,” by which it meant “think cynically and amorally.”
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A look back at the bestselling book franchise that taught people to “think like economists,” by which it meant “think cynically and amorally.”
What do you think socialism is?
I think it's stealing from people that worked really hard to get where they are to support people that don't work as hard. Sure there is nuance to it, and it's good to help people and society, but we shouldn't be forced to.
Idk I feel like there is an implication here that the people making less in a capitalistic society don't work as hard. Does that hold up though? Are the big execs at a wealthy company really working harder than teachers, EMTs, construction workers? Some of these people probably work a lot harder than the people in the 1% of a capitalistic society but the 1% are benefiting off their work
Elon is a pretty good example of this. most of his projects have been failures. he really does not do that much work (and what work he seemingly does do is exceptionally regressive). he rewarded for those two things by being one of the richest men alive. but how much do the people who build his rockets or make sure his cars don't kill pedestrians get paid?
I can only really speak from experience. I started out washing dishes at a restaurant and bottling beer at a factory. I saved up enough to buy a computer and learned to code. I woke up early every morning and studied hard to get where I am. now I make a really good living and am still working really hard because I am passionate about the work I do. I feel like I'm being robbed when I'm forced to take care of others that didn't work as hard as I did to get where I am today. I totally agree that there are some people that work hard and are not paid well while some people are over paid and that isn't cool. Capitalists should take care of the people that make them wealthy if they want to hold on to their wealth.
the other comment challenges one half of this, but i'll also challenge this bit since i get the sense this is a position you believe you hold but don't actually. i'll briefly illustrate why, and you can correct me if i'm assuming wrong of you here.
i am going to assume you support taxation. there are a lot of reasons to—it maintains your roads and allows your fellow citizens to survive, be housed, be clothed, and be fed. but you are compelled to pay taxes by legal sanction and even imprisonment. so if your issue is with being forced to help people and society, wouldn't it then be necessary to oppose taxation, since it's not voluntary?
I do not support taxation. Taxes are theft. I only pay taxes because if you don't they can throw you in jail. I am an anarchist.
okay so then i think your position is just really bad and not tenable for running society.
Well so I think it's first important to note that taxes are the positive right of our government to levy, per the 16th amendment, true really for every government, so we just aren't playing on the same legal basis as one another.
Second, if you are an anarchist, you are a leftist, because governments are the enforcers of private property rights. Personal property can exist under anarchy, because you can defend it, but as a matter of pure practicality private property can not, because you are not present to defend it, and are outnumbered by your workers, who have an incentive to not heed your claim to ownership. If you support private property, you support a government that protects private property, which requires police, which requires taxation, which kinda brings us back around to your first point that taxes are theft.
Since you need police, a system of violence in and of themselves, and taxation to make private property work, then at the very least private property is also violence.
I felt the same way as you do until I realized that actually socialism has very little to do with welfare, and more to do with other things. I will summarize a few that are important to me.
The workers owning the fruits of their labor: If you work for someone, and they get the fruits of your labor, what you have signed up for is tantamount to a slave contract. What capitalists say you get in favor of this system is investment capital, but why should the ability for someone to do something for work be derived from their ability to convince rich people to invest? All that amounts to is some people hoarding stuff, and then infinitely benefitting from their hoarding, gaining power over others due to their claim to ownership. Also there is no law of nature that says people should have the right to own infinitely. Obviously people have the right to own stuff they use, but stuff they never see, use, or touch, simply to infinitely extract value from it? That's up for debate. A better system is possible, one where you own your own labor and democracy (whether that's government or credit unions) decides what to invest in. Anecdotally, I think anyone who has worked for others can admit this is not only better for the worker, it's better for society. In my experience, CEO's and investors are literally the worst people to be making decisions for their workers. They are little more than leaches taking most of my salary, and offering BS opinions on how to do my job better. And for society, CEOs and other solely-profit-motive individuals are basically the reason for all society's ills, especially climate change. So the workers now own the fruits of their labor and are therefore, on average, richer and more free. Now what?
Equal Opportunity: One of the facts of life is that we are born randomly, to a random family, to a random set of circumstances. This requires a just society to provide equal opportunities to those born. This means that children need calories, education, and all the things children need to grow. We have pretty much already agreed to this in society, but we have failed to expand the definition of education to the market level, that of College level education. We also are failing about free school lunches, etc. We also are failing at the acceptance of people for who they are: trans, neurodivergent, racially, etc.
The elimination of unjust markets: Healthcare is an unjust market. Bad health implies you can not work. Your health is not an elastic good, so you will pay anything for it, which encourages doctors, hospitals, and drug companies to charge you for all you have. You cant price shop in the middle of an emergency. Lots of reasons make it an unjust market. These need to be socially owned, which is basically just a consumer union or monopoly insurance company, and is perfectly just to doctors just as much as any consumer union or insurance company already is. It's just the power of the people to unionize against unjust market forces. I'd say that any need is an unjust market, and that's why socialism tends to nationalize them. We already do this under capitalism too. We subsidize farming, medicine, water, sewer, and pretty much everything else. We just don't own the fruits after we have literally paid for them. That is true injustice, that the people can fund drug research, and then not own the drug. That's capitalism.
Environmentalism and the Tradgedy of the Commons: Let's face it, extracting all the oil from under the ground and burning it, literally all of it, would destroy the planet. Fishing all the fish would destroy the oceans. Etc. We live in a world of limits, and people who own, while they do tend to protect what they own, don't pay the full price for their downstream effects. We need to ration, and we need to maintain. But capitalism forces us to grow to our own destruction.