I don’t expect that anyone at my supermarket, or at a corner gas station, or in the local Starbucks is “more sensitive” to the desires of the rich.
There are a couple of things going on here. First, someone rich has the resources to, let’s say, exert an economic force. She can use that force to make things happen. Phrasing such events as “more sensitive to” is bad framing: we don’t say that a weight is “more sensitive” to a greater force.
Second, as has been pointed out, in free markets a producer cares only about the demand supported by purchasing power. Some producers make expensive things and they are certainly more sensitive to the desires of the rich because the rich are their only customers. However a lot of other producers make common, inexpensive things—bread, gasoline, jeans, etc. -- and they don’t care much about the rich because the rich are a very small fraction of their customers and so a source of only a small fraction of their profit.
First, someone rich has the resources to, let’s say, exert an economic force. She can use that force to make things happen. Phrasing such events as “more sensitive to” is bad framing: we don’t say that a weight is “more sensitive” to a greater force.
The desires aren’t the force, the money is. Being rich means the same amount of desire gets translated into a larger amount of money. Framing this as people being more sensitive to the desires seems natural to me. A physical analogy might be levers: a weight is more sensitive to force being applied at one end of a lever than the other end.
But I don’t think we disagree about anything real.
People with money (or in other systems, people with birth rank or status or strength) definitely have more power than people without. So, what’s the alternative to the individual freedom to choose to serve the powerful over the powerless?
I guess we can make all humans into serfs for the great AI. Not terribly appealing to me.
To clarify, I think capitalism is pretty great (applause light). I’m pointing at something that I think is a not-great feature of capitalism, but I don’t have any better ideas.
I get that. From my standpoint, this isn’t a not-great feature of capitalism, it’s a not-great feature of human choices, or maybe of a universe that contains limited resources and independent-goal actors. Capitalism is neither great nor problematic, in fact it’s not a thing at all. It’s a side-effect of individual agency and individual decisions about resources.
(edited to add) you can argue that it’s also a side-effect of our particular consensual popular conception of “property”. Ok, stipulated. But there’s not much hope in having ANY system of persistent ownership that doesn’t include lots of elements of capitalism. And without the idea of property ownership, everything goes to hell (well, to the strongest/cruelest/luckiest risk-taker).
In real life? I don’t think so.
I don’t expect that anyone at my supermarket, or at a corner gas station, or in the local Starbucks is “more sensitive” to the desires of the rich.
There are a couple of things going on here. First, someone rich has the resources to, let’s say, exert an economic force. She can use that force to make things happen. Phrasing such events as “more sensitive to” is bad framing: we don’t say that a weight is “more sensitive” to a greater force.
Second, as has been pointed out, in free markets a producer cares only about the demand supported by purchasing power. Some producers make expensive things and they are certainly more sensitive to the desires of the rich because the rich are their only customers. However a lot of other producers make common, inexpensive things—bread, gasoline, jeans, etc. -- and they don’t care much about the rich because the rich are a very small fraction of their customers and so a source of only a small fraction of their profit.
The desires aren’t the force, the money is. Being rich means the same amount of desire gets translated into a larger amount of money. Framing this as people being more sensitive to the desires seems natural to me. A physical analogy might be levers: a weight is more sensitive to force being applied at one end of a lever than the other end.
But I don’t think we disagree about anything real.
People with money (or in other systems, people with birth rank or status or strength) definitely have more power than people without. So, what’s the alternative to the individual freedom to choose to serve the powerful over the powerless?
I guess we can make all humans into serfs for the great AI. Not terribly appealing to me.
To clarify, I think capitalism is pretty great (applause light). I’m pointing at something that I think is a not-great feature of capitalism, but I don’t have any better ideas.
I get that. From my standpoint, this isn’t a not-great feature of capitalism, it’s a not-great feature of human choices, or maybe of a universe that contains limited resources and independent-goal actors. Capitalism is neither great nor problematic, in fact it’s not a thing at all. It’s a side-effect of individual agency and individual decisions about resources.
(edited to add) you can argue that it’s also a side-effect of our particular consensual popular conception of “property”. Ok, stipulated. But there’s not much hope in having ANY system of persistent ownership that doesn’t include lots of elements of capitalism. And without the idea of property ownership, everything goes to hell (well, to the strongest/cruelest/luckiest risk-taker).
Yes, I agree with that too.