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[rotting bones]

That assumes Malloc knows what sarcasm is. Based on past experiences, I cannot support that claim.

Sarcasm is hard to detect online.

[rotting bones]

Also, you young whippersnappers understandably, but wrongly, blame everything you don't like on "capitalism". Socialists in power are very very good at keeping up a "perpetual state of emergency", and no slouches at producing "nonsensical slop" either.

Chomsky says Leninism was considered right-wing at the time. He has the same problem with the vanguard party as me.

You all are about ten years too young to know that capitalism can work just fine. The big mistakes were a) letting a plutocratic class develop again, and b) MBAs. It's the MBA who loves AI slop, because it's what they're taught. The whole idea of an MBA is that you abstract out all the specifics and real-world knowledge in an industry, leaving only the bullshit. Then you put a bullshitter in charge.

Marxism doesn't say capitalism doesn't work. It says it works fine for a while. When Jordan Peterson debated Zizek, he noted with surprise how much the Communist Manifesto praises capitalism. Marxism says capitalism is unstable because its internal feedback loops destroy it.

[Raphael]

I don't see how anyone with a simplistic enough view of the world to take Marxism seriously has any business being a professor.

Capitalist competition keeps us in an perpetual state of emergency where producing nonsensical slop is better than nothing. There's no way people are going to stop using AI as long as these conditions persist.

On this, I agree with you.

Though that's basically taking a Marxist position!

I don't think you have to be a Marxist to critically analyze capitalism. In fact, one of my problems with Marxism is that I think you can criticize capitalism more effectively if you let go of the mental restrictions of the Marxist intellectual framework.

Personally I'm more of a Wildean socialist. It's a human right to produce nonsensical slop. Generally we call it "art" or "hobbies"; I don't want some central commissar deciding where the dividing line is.

Also, you young whippersnappers understandably, but wrongly, blame everything you don't like on "capitalism". Socialists in power are very very good at keeping up a "perpetual state of emergency", and no slouches at producing "nonsensical slop" either.

That might be true of rotting bones; I don't know. I only agree with rotting bones' statement to the extent to which I think that capitalism is one system which forces some people in some specific professions to produce a lot of nonsensical slop. I do not think that capitalism is either the only system producing nonsensical slop, or that voluntarily producing nonsensical slop is somehow a bad thing.

I quite like Wildean socialism myself.

And no, I don't blame capitalism for everything I don't like. Among my various political beliefs, one of the ones that I myself see as the most important ones is that bad things (and good things) happen for all kinds of different reasons, and might be caused, in different ways, by almost opposite ideas or factors.

You all are about ten years too young to know that capitalism can work just fine.

Possible, but I wouldn't be sure on that point. It's true that I'm young enough that for my entire life, what you might call the Thatcher/Reagan mindset has been ascendant. But I grew up in a time and place where that mindset, although already dominant in public discourse, was still far from complete triumph. In fact, now that I think about it, I kind of have the impression that really a lot of my political beliefs and opinions can be derived from a conviction that I think every human being should be able to enjoy the relatively sheltered life that I had growing up in the lower middle class of 1990s northwestern Germany. In that sense, I could be said to be a kind of small-c conservative socialist.

And even now, capitalism is still not nearly as extreme where I live as it is in some other places. Take, for instance, the incident I described in my most recent post in the Happy Things Thread. From what I've heard, in more thoroughly Friedman-Doctrine-soaked places, that might well be impossible. And I think part of the reason might be that a lot of EU regulations (yes, I'm not as much of a fan of the EU as some other people, but I still think it has done some good) were specifically designed to make sure that capitalism actually works the way its propagandists say it works automatically. For instance, all those rules about competitive and uncompetitive business practices.

One result is that, while there are a lot of people here who get treated like shit by capitalist businesses as employees, I can't really remember more than, perhaps, a handful occasions when a capitalist business treated me like shit as a customer. They can't really get away with that here the way they can get away with it in more extremely capitalist times and places. For instance, I can still use telephones as a perfectly fine method of communication because I only get spam calls every once in a while.

A second example: I have an additional, voluntary, market-based health insurance which is all about covering some dental treatments which aren't covered by my regular, semi-public health insurance. And the conditions of my policy are such that, as long as I always make use of all the options they offer me, it's mathematically impossible for them to make a profit from me. I can only assume that they stay in business by having a lot of customers who can't be bothered to make use of all the options included in their policies.

So, the still somewhat limited form of capitalism under which I live isn't working out that badly for me.

I do, however, think that limited capitalism is inherently unstable, because it has a lot of people who have a lot of money, but still a lot less money than they would have, or might imagine they would have, under unlimited capitalism - so they have both a strong psychological motive, and the wealth and power, to work towards moving things in the direction of unlimited capitalism.

[zompist]

You all are about ten years too young to know that capitalism can work just fine. The big mistakes were a) letting a plutocratic class develop again, and b) MBAs. It's the MBA who loves AI slop, because it's what they're taught. The whole idea of an MBA is that you abstract out all the specifics and real-world knowledge in an industry, leaving only the bullshit. Then you put a bullshitter in charge.

Marxism doesn't say capitalism doesn't work. It says it works fine for a while. When Jordan Peterson debated Zizek, he noted with surprise how much the Communist Manifesto praises capitalism. Marxism says capitalism is unstable because its internal feedback loops destroy it.

You seem to have the idea that the perfect human institution will just stay there unchanged for a thousand years. No human system has ever worked that way. Good things get corrupted. You can't even trust the bad things to stay unchanged.

I do, however, think that limited capitalism is inherently unstable, because it has a lot of people who have a lot of money, but still a lot less money than they would have, or might imagine they would have, under unlimited capitalism - so they have both a strong psychological motive, and the wealth and power, to work towards moving things in the direction of unlimited capitalism.

Sure, that's what happened to US capitalism in the 1980s. That doesn't mean that it always happens, or has to happen. I think it's worth thinking about what institutional or educational changes would be needed for it not to happen again.

[Ares Land]

Marxism doesn't say capitalism doesn't work. It says it works fine for a while. When Jordan Peterson debated Zizek, he noted with surprise how much the Communist Manifesto praises capitalism. Marxism says capitalism is unstable because its internal feedback loops destroy it.

It turned out to be quite a long while; more than a century after Marx there aren't any signs capitalism might be going away.

I think that limited capitalism is inherently unstable, because it has a lot of people who have a lot of money, but still a lot less money than they would have, or might imagine they would have, under unlimited capitalism - so they have both a strong psychological motive, and the wealth and power, to work towards moving things in the direction of unlimited capitalism.

I've heard it call 'the money wall'. There's only so much you can do under liberal democracy. That's at least partly by design -- the alternative is violent revolution, but how likely is it to turn out well?
I'd temper your pessimism a bit: European social democracy has not moved towards unlimited capitalism (and not for lack of trying on the wealthiest's part), far from it. What happens is that we mostly we can't fix social problems (which is bad enough) but there haven't been any significant regressions, either.

---

I'm actually working on an AI/LLM project at work, though still very much at the early concept stage.
(I actually used AI tools before, though not LLMs, which are what people think of when they say 'AI')
Interesting points: it took very long to get from the initial hype to actually doing something useful, close to five years, in fact.
Also, what we're trying to do is automate boring data entry. So it's not conceptually very different from any other IT project.

[rotting bones]

You seem to have the idea that the perfect human institution will just stay there unchanged for a thousand years. No human system has ever worked that way. Good things get corrupted. You can't even trust the bad things to stay unchanged.

Not really. I'm only criticizing one problematic social system and proposing a slight adjustment. The reason I'm focusing on it is because it's unstable and gives Elon Musk and others like him so much power over the rest of us.

Sure, that's what happened to US capitalism in the 1980s. That doesn't mean that it always happens, or has to happen. I think it's worth thinking about what institutional or educational changes would be needed for it not to happen again.

Have you studied the business cycles they teach in Management School? I have also given arguments about the exploitation of new markets and new technologies, etc.

[keenir]

You seem to have the idea that the perfect human institution will just stay there unchanged for a thousand years. No human system has ever worked that way. Good things get corrupted. You can't even trust the bad things to stay unchanged.

Not really. I'm only criticizing one problematic social system and proposing a slight adjustment. The reason I'm focusing on it is because it's unstable and gives Elon Musk and others like him so much power over the rest of us.

yeah, thank gods that socialist and communist countries don't give idiots like him and Lysenko obscene levels of power over regular citizens.

[rotting bones]

yeah, thank gods that socialist and communist countries don't give idiots like him and Lysenko obscene levels of power over regular citizens.

You have to be deliberately misunderstanding me at this point. I have told you so many times how the Vanguard Party creates an authoritarian structure. I have linked books which explain that structure to you.

[keenir]

yeah, thank gods that socialist and communist countries don't give idiots like him and Lysenko obscene levels of power over regular citizens.

You have to be deliberately misunderstanding me at this point. I have told you so many times how the Vanguard Party creates an authoritarian structure. I have linked books which explain that structure to you.

i'm not misunderstanding; i just didn't see anything about the Vanguard Party in your comment about Elon being able to screw everything up because he exists in a capitalist system.

[Raphael]

I think that limited capitalism is inherently unstable, because it has a lot of people who have a lot of money, but still a lot less money than they would have, or might imagine they would have, under unlimited capitalism - so they have both a strong psychological motive, and the wealth and power, to work towards moving things in the direction of unlimited capitalism.

I've heard it call 'the money wall'. There's only so much you can do under liberal democracy. That's at least partly by design -- the alternative is violent revolution, but how likely is it to turn out well?
I'd temper your pessimism a bit: European social democracy has not moved towards unlimited capitalism (and not for lack of trying on the wealthiest's part), far from it. What happens is that we mostly we can't fix social problems (which is bad enough) but there haven't been any significant regressions, either.

I'd say we're still a good deal closer to unlimited capitalism than we were when you or me were born.

[rotting bones]

If you start with less capitalism, the loops will be slower.

[Ares Land]

I'd say we're still a good deal closer to unlimited capitalism than we were when you or me were born.

I'm not sure about that.

Germany had public expenditures at 46.5% of GDP in 1991, 49.87% in 2025. The GINI index was 29.5 in 1991, 31.4 in 2025. (I have to start at 1991, I can't locate figures for the FRG)
France had public expenditures at 53.6% of GDP in 1984, 57.34% in 2025. The GINI index was 33.4 in 1984, 31.2 in 2025.

That's not to say there aren't problems or that the situation hasn't worsened in some ways. But the figures don't suggest that the economy is run in a drastically different way.
What would unlimited capitalism look like? The US has government expenditure around 36% GDP, GINI index at 41; Chile has 27% / GINI 43.

Granted, there are a lot of issues with the indicators I used. But as a first approximation, I think they give an idea of what a country is like.

[rotting bones]

Smart capitalists usually want the kind of government spending that doesn't threaten profitability. The power of unions is a better indicator.

[Raphael]

Smart capitalists usually want

Maybe, but how many of those are still around these days?

[rotting bones]

Maybe, but how many of those are still around these days?

My impression is that almost all old world nationalists want government spending. American businessmen are a special kind of crazy. Americans used to be the same as the rest of the world. After blacks got civil rights, they decided they didn't want any of their tax dollars to benefit welfare queens. The rich kept getting the same benefits through private membership programs. The differences in quality of life were then explained as racial, cultural and more recently, psychological differences in popular discourse.

[Raphael]

Maybe, but how many of those are still around these days?

My impression is that almost all old world nationalists want government spending. American businessmen are a special kind of crazy. Americans used to be the same as the rest of the world. After blacks got civil rights, they decided they didn't want any of their tax dollars to benefit welfare queens. The rich kept getting the same benefits through private membership programs. The differences in quality of life were then explained as racial, cultural and more recently, psychological differences in popular discourse.

(I replied to this in the US Politics Thread: https://www.verduria.org/viewtopic.php?p=100275#p100275)

[Ares Land]

Smart capitalists usually want the kind of government spending that doesn't threaten profitability. The power of unions is a better indicator.

You don't get to that much government spending without welfare, social measures and other expenses capitalists don't like. (Or either, you have very smart capitalism who figure out losing some of the profits is actually necessary, but how many of these are there?)

My impression is that almost all old world nationalists want government spending.

The European traditional right-wing does complain about government spending, but yes my impression is that they kind of accept, say, welfare or public healthcare. In their own way, sure, which is a problem, but they sort of accept the principle of the thing.
That is one way social democracy is more robust than you'd expect.

[rotting bones]

Smart capitalists usually want the kind of government spending that doesn't threaten profitability. The power of unions is a better indicator.

You don't get to that much government spending without welfare, social measures and other expenses capitalists don't like. (Or either, you have very smart capitalism who figure out losing some of the profits is actually necessary, but how many of these are there?)

My impression is that almost all old world nationalists want government spending.

The European traditional right-wing does complain about government spending, but yes my impression is that they kind of accept, say, welfare or public healthcare. In their own way, sure, which is a problem, but they sort of accept the principle of the thing.
That is one way social democracy is more robust than you'd expect.

The Indian government provides free healthcare, subsidized groceries and large scale bailouts of farmers that are basically routine. India is not socialist. It's a gig economy hellscape that's controlled by business owners. (Despite this, India wasn't able to create enough jobs to exploit the population boom that comes only once in the nation state's life cycle.)

[Ares Land]

The Indian government provides free healthcare, subsidized groceries and large scale bailouts of farmers that are basically routine. India is not socialist. It's a gig economy hellscape that's controlled by business owners. (Despite this, India wasn't able to create enough jobs to exploit the population boom that comes only once in the nation state's life cycle.)

And public expenses as part of GDP are at 29.12%, which is quite low and supports your report that India is far from socialist.
My improvised socialist-o-meter turns out to be working better than I expected (I picked that measurement because our conservatives are really bothered about it... so I guess it really measures something they don't like!)

[rotting bones]

And public expenses as part of GDP are at 29.12%, which is quite low and supports your report that India is far from socialist.
My improvised socialist-o-meter turns out to be working better than I expected (I picked that measurement because our conservatives are really bothered about it... so I guess it really measures something they don't like!)

The general capitalist critique of government spending is that it lowers opportunities for businesses to make money. India has additional problems in that GDP per capita is very low. When people don't get paid enough, they are easy to corrupt. It was reported that the rural right-to-work program MGNREGA had 85% of its funds stolen by middlemen. Under these conditions, it's hard to justify spending greater amounts on such programs.

Despite all this, the business hellscape of India is quite strident about supporting and even increasing certain carefully curated welfare programs. To me, this shows that government spending alone doesn't make a country socialist.

Historically, it has been common for capitalists to demand government spending that will make it easier for them to turn a profit, but which brings no benefit to the majority. E.g. Ripping out public transportation and subsidizing the infrastructure for cars.

At a time when unions are losing power, the claim that countries are becoming more socialist just because government spending is increasing is kind of dubious. Without unions to advocate for them, what makes you think the increased expenditure is intended to benefit workers? You might be underestimating the lengths to which capitalists will go to protect profits. E.g. The US healthcare system is the most expensive in the world and delivers worse outcomes than some cheaper alternatives. So much for efficiency. To watch out for such traps, you might want to break down the expenditure and see what it's being used for.