Ah, sorry yeah I think it was a mistake on my part to mostly make the post a verbatim Discord reply. Lots of high-context stuff that I didn’t explain well.
This specific part is (in my usage/interpretation; if you click the link, the initial context was an Emmett Shear tweet) basically a shorthand for one or more “basic” leftist views, along the lines of these similar-but-somewhat-distinct claims:
Capitalism more-reliably rewards power-maximizers than social-utility-maximizers.
Under capitalism and similar incentive-structures, we’d expect conflict theory to predict entities’ wealth better than mistake theory.
General outcomes, under capitalism and similar incentive-structures, are downstream of “brute power” (from guns to monopolies) far more than the things we’d “want” to reward (innovation, good service, helping people, etc).
I think it was correct to ask the question, because, no, sorry, I don’t think you can equate that specific understanding of “property is downstream of power” with the same level of consensus/reasonableness as “prices are downstream of supply and demand”, whereas the understanding given by Viliam is pretty much inside of what I would expect to be as consensual as “prices are downstream to supply and demand”.
For example, regarding your second point : I think most economists would reply that that distinction is fallacious when considering creative destruction, both mistake (having a more correct view of the market and business organization) and conflict (and thereby driving your competitors bankrupt, forcing the reallocation of their resources elsewhere) as the two sides of the same coin.
And “innovation” not being a strong path to successful outcomes in capitalism ? Do you really think it is going to be consensual outside of leftist spheres ? Because that’s what the overall quote/tweet is about, right, creating a common understanding across political chasms under some reasonable assumptions ?
First point is really interesting tho. It’s one my libertarian self is screaming to reject, but the rationalist me readily accepts. With a caveat : I don’t think “Capitalism” does a lot of work here. Almost all (and all known ?) societal organizations do that. Which, conceded, does not it makes less problematic.
Ah, sorry yeah I think it was a mistake on my part to mostly make the post a verbatim Discord reply. Lots of high-context stuff that I didn’t explain well.
This specific part is (in my usage/interpretation; if you click the link, the initial context was an Emmett Shear tweet) basically a shorthand for one or more “basic” leftist views, along the lines of these similar-but-somewhat-distinct claims:
Capitalism more-reliably rewards power-maximizers than social-utility-maximizers.
Under capitalism and similar incentive-structures, we’d expect conflict theory to predict entities’ wealth better than mistake theory.
General outcomes, under capitalism and similar incentive-structures, are downstream of “brute power” (from guns to monopolies) far more than the things we’d “want” to reward (innovation, good service, helping people, etc).
I think it was correct to ask the question, because, no, sorry, I don’t think you can equate that specific understanding of “property is downstream of power” with the same level of consensus/reasonableness as “prices are downstream of supply and demand”, whereas the understanding given by Viliam is pretty much inside of what I would expect to be as consensual as “prices are downstream to supply and demand”.
For example, regarding your second point : I think most economists would reply that that distinction is fallacious when considering creative destruction, both mistake (having a more correct view of the market and business organization) and conflict (and thereby driving your competitors bankrupt, forcing the reallocation of their resources elsewhere) as the two sides of the same coin.
And “innovation” not being a strong path to successful outcomes in capitalism ? Do you really think it is going to be consensual outside of leftist spheres ? Because that’s what the overall quote/tweet is about, right, creating a common understanding across political chasms under some reasonable assumptions ?
First point is really interesting tho. It’s one my libertarian self is screaming to reject, but the rationalist me readily accepts. With a caveat : I don’t think “Capitalism” does a lot of work here. Almost all (and all known ?) societal organizations do that. Which, conceded, does not it makes less problematic.