Comments by "David H" (@DavidHalko) on "Steve Keen: Marxism, Capitalism, and Economics | Lex Fridman Podcast #303" video.

The guest tries to redefine & compartmentalize capitalism, in order to say it fails… while he communicates over infrastructure built by capitalism… real slippery electric eel
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“capitalists were forced to make concessions for fear of revolution” You don’t understand Capitalism. Capitalism is the free, non-compulsive, exchange of goods & labor between free agents. In the US, during WW2… the Americans discovered, through compulsory work conditions to produce weapons, that too many days / hours resulted in reduced efficiency & less reliable end product. Capitalists figured out, in America, that the workers have additional value via training & good health [in contrast to short term untrained replacements of a sickly variety] produce a better product & still produces a profit. Europeans, who did not go through the American Revolution [where absolute freedom was the starting point, vs Europeans wrestling away one right at a time from a monarch/dictator], seem to have gotten confused with pseudo-social science… while the Americans used straight science, with the guardian of God providing individuals innumerable individual rights, to promote the health & safety of humanity in the workplace.
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1:58:25 - “there is no money in really long term planning in capitalism” That is a dumb statement… it is called finance! “Can’t make a profit out of a catastrophe in Capitalism” Another foolish statement. Capitalism can change direction in a dime, with fiscal incentive.
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2:04:07 - “fire storm that hit… enormous temperature…” Many of these situations are being caused by humans starting fires, not by climate change. Once we start putting people in prison for burning down communities, and those people who are encouraging them to burn forests & towns down for self-fulfilling climate change prophecies… this will be placed under control.
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@stacyliddell5038 - Whirlpool is not really a monopoly, as this person said. In the US, there are also Electrolux & Haier / GE… and they compete with other international brands like Samsung, Philips, etc.
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Inflation… sux…
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1:50:40 - “fiber… cable to node, copper to house… dreadful” Actually, this is not a bad plan, because this is what the US did, to get fast internet in the beginning! When telco was socialized with a monopoly in the US, people had analog 56k modems and we had to spend super high $$$ for 128k digital ISDN. Once it was broken up, the US quickly killed it, moved to DSL where copper to the house was able to increase speed 100x & 1000x… which is basically what AU did. Moving to full fiber is an easy process, after that, change node to edge equipment later, which is simple in comparison to ripping up streets to run the significant initial fiber. This interview is the perfect reason why a philosopher does not understand technology enough and then looks like an idiot when criticizing a political group he does not like.
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24:54 - “how gold bugs think about money… money is an object… both willing to go to a mine somewhere… dig a few holes… get a few specs of gold out… no competition… no interaction between you and me if money is gold… money is not a commodity, it is a claim on someone else” What this man is fundamentally misunderstanding is that the gold is a claim on the person’s labor, who dug it out of the ground, so both individuals are in competition with each other to how much good either can produce with their labor. Labor saving machines will produce more gold from the same mines. Therefore, money is not the gold, but money is the perceived & aggregated labor of the value of the labor for the tools/machine and the use of the tools/machines to mine the gold. The scarcity of the gold & human labor to mine it gives it value. The fact that gold is a non-renewable resource (like a hydrocarbon or heap of wood) gives it value, as well. Monopolies on a renewable product like Chinese silk creates chaos with gold based object economies. So far, this thinker clearly has not thought through his own examples.
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24:54 - “how gold bugs think about money… money is an object… both willing to go to a mine somewhere… dig a few holes… get a few specs of gold out… no competition… no interaction between you and me if money is gold… money is not a commodity, it is a claim on someone else” What this man is fundamentally misunderstanding is that the gold is a claim on the person’s labor, who dug it out of the ground, so both individuals are in competition with each other to how much good either can produce with their labor. Labor saving machines will produce more gold from the same mines. Therefore, money is not the gold, but money is the perceived & aggregated labor of the value of the labor for the tools/machine and the use of the tools/machines to mine the gold. The scarcity of the gold & human labor to mine it gives it value. The fact that gold is a non-renewable resource (like a hydrocarbon or heap of wood) gives it value, as well. Monopolies on a renewable product like Chinese silk creates chaos with gold based object economies. So far, this thinker clearly has not thought through his own examples.
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50:38 - “workers are… treated as a commodity… workers will demand more than their value… subjective value… objective value numbers of hours” This person misunderstands that certain people are more efficient than other people and certain people provide a higher quality of work (lower failure rate of worker [injuries], lower failure rate of product [being produced].) Machines make people more productive & produce lower failure rates [lower failure rate of product], and lower failure rates of people [injuries]. Larger number of higher quality products demand a higher wage, otherwise the factory will suffer. We saw the result of this in the failure of the Soviet Union.
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2:25:40 - “the first thing humans must do is respect life” If he really meant that, he would be a pro-life advocate and not be so avant-garde regarding cracking a few eggs & looking for ways to compel people to doing what he wants.
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2:21:15 — “I don’t know how we went from Marxism to Stalinism to ecology… best form of government” These are all inter-related because those prone to coercive behavior on others use these 3x topics to force other people to obey them… there will be something else, tomorrow.
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