Comments by "MarcosElMalo2" (@MarcosElMalo2) on "The Bulwark"
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I hope Kamala Harris spells out what she’s talking about a little more, because it’s not clear what her proposed solution is. You don’t know for certain that she doesn’t mean government fixing prices, or prosecuting collusion by businesses that are fixing prices artificially high, or something else. I hope she isn’t talking about price caps, but I don’t know.
I’m also suspicious with the “$25,000 for down payments”. She hasn’t spelled out how it’s going to work, but it just seems like a bad idea in general.
But I’ll tell you what. I’m still voting for her, and if she doesn’t go into detail until after she’s inaugurated, I’m still voting for her. If she does go into detail, and I don’t like the details, I’m still voting for her. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like her policies, but, you got it, I’m still voting for her. We can wrangle over the policies once she’s in office.
I do think it’s a good thing that she is broadly staking out her policies, though. That gives me confidence that she’s upfront and not a weasel.
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Which system? Our society is a system of systems. Can you pinpoint where it’s going wrong? When you say people, do you mean everyone or a subset (for example, politicians)?
I see capitalism as a social technology. It’s a method or framework for creating value and for distributing goods and services. This is why it can be integrated into a variety of political systems. We go wrong when we think that there is an ideal capitalism end sate if we strictly adhere to laissez-faire capitalism. This is religion and/or ideology.
If you accept my premise that capitalism is a technology, you might ask how does it fulfill its role as a value generator and distributor of goods/services? Put another way, what is it? It’s an engine. Engines do work.
More questions arise: How can it be harnessed? Who should benefit from the work that it does?
In a democracy, we can answer these questions and determine how to make it work for the benefit of the greatest number while rewarding those individuals who take risks. In this motor analogy, we can tweak the engine to suit our purpose. If society is some sort of car or motor vehicle, is it a race car? A bus? Or is it a luxury sedan? Does it have safety features to protect the passengers? Now we’re talking about the design of the vehicle itself.
In a democracy, we get to answer these questions. We get to negotiate between differences of opinion on the purpose and design of both the vehicle and the motor and all the other vehicle stuff (seating, drive train, steering, suspension, safety features, etc.). In non democracies, we do not. The design is imposed on us to benefit a very few.
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@joex24b I think the first step to becoming a “reform conservative” is recognizing that capitalism isn’t a religion. It’s a way of structuring the economic system of a society to create value. I like to think of it as an engine, which would make society the vehicle. In a democracy, we get to decide about the vehicle: who it should carry, what safety features it has, where we want it to take us, etc.
Another thing that has modified my thinking is recognizing that the open, transparent, and free market is an abstract ideal. The level playing field is an ideal. It’s something we are moving towards and it’s worth moving towards, even if perfection is unattainable. This doesn’t mean we should tilt it in the other way, but it does mean nudging it and reassessing to see if it needs more nudging or less.
You said something important. Flexibility is key. We will not be flexible if we cling to political dogmas. Example: Supply side economics was a useful tweak under certain circumstances. But it should never have become an article of faith for conservatives because under other economic conditions it is too much of a good thing. In different economic conditions, temporarily increasing government spending might get us out of a hole.
If we let go of our dogmas, we will find that we have the same goals and want the same things, we just have different approaches to reach those goals. We can negotiate a viable path based on our shared values and respect for our different values. Knocking down our dearly held dogmas is the real challenge in our current political climate of division and tribalism.
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