Comments by "Barry On" (@barryon8706) on "Capitalism is good. Let me explain." video.

  1. Are you one of those "real communism has never been tried" types?
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  2. It isn't smart to discard capitalism unless you have something better. Unless you just want to stop all economic activity?
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  3. "how scientific magazines charging significant fee for access to the newest discoveries move the innovation forward" You don't need to go through a magazine to utilize a discovery. Do you think Edison wrote a paper on the light bulb? " how the patent system allows to spread innovation" It helps generate innovation by giving people an incentive to innovate. Innovations spread because people want to use them. And patents expire after a couple decades. "the invisible hand of global IT corporations shoots down startups that may somehow theoretically decrease profits" How so? Anyone can create a new startu-up. Often the big guys buy up the little guys and try to make use of the. "Don’t stop showing us samples of the innovation built on top of cheap African/Asian labor. " And why do they work for that money? Because it's better than their alternatives, yes? "Please also mention countries that are not so happy, though they were never non-capitalistic, e.g. Mexico or any South American country. How come? " Where did anyone say that capitalism was a guarantee of paradise? "Better than the alternatives" doesn't mean "works every time for everybody." Your comment is cheese.
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  4. You might look up the tradition of the potlatch.
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  5. You're assuming a conspiracy among those with capital. You're also assuming that those without the means of production cannot collectively gather some. And there's nothing in capitalism that requires unlimited resources.
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  6.  @pedrosso0  How many people escape from America to Cuba or North Korea?
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  7.  @zezia333 No, because cutting socialism off from money derived from capitalism shouldn't cause socialism to fail if socialism is better.
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  8. Actually, the super-rich tend to be workaholics.Look at Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, etc.
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  9. sigh Look at the environmental record of socialist countries. Real capitalism or real socialism can be environmentally friendly or not depending on the regulations they operate under. It doesn't make either not "real" capitalism in the sense of "real socialism has never been tried" types, it just means that the solution must come from outside capitalism.4
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  10.  @Mandragara  It's not that you can't criticize. It's just that the criticisms don't mean anything unless you can show something better.
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  11.  @gabri41200  It was socialist, though.
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  12. Corporations don't own all the land. So... mission accomplished?
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  13. Because regulations are literally another story. Capitalism is an economic system, as is socialism, and you can run either one with any degree of environmental concern you want according to the laws they operate under.
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  14. Also, all the alternatives so far tried have been crap.
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  15.  @kviknayt  That's fair. Now I have a question for you that I think is fair, but which I think I won't get a straight answer to: why not try it somewhere else first? People flee to America and Europe, sometimes at risk of their lives. Since (1) real communism has never been tried and (2) the track record of replacing capitalism has been rather poor, why not try it in countries people are fleeing from? I realize that ideally communism has to be everywhere and without nations any more, but I think it would be a fair test.
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  16.  @HundredPercentLuck  So try real communism somewhere else first.
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  17.  @kerycktotebag8164 Of course we put up with capitalism. It's less awful than anything else tried so far.
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  18.  @NathanielLapointe  Socialism encourages exploitation as well. It gives more power to the politically connected (even more than in typical capitalist countries). The people high up in the Party usually live a lot better than the common prole. I would say that capitlism assumed greed as a motive, whereas socialism does not.
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  19.  @CrniWuk No, it's like responding to "casts are itchy" with "it's the best we have." If capitalism is better than the alternatives tried, doesn't it make sense to be cautious in getting rid of it?
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  20. How do you calculate the true value of your labor?
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  21. Historically, capitalism, at least in the west, is especially good for the top 20% (of course), but it's been better for the middle class as well. That may be thrown off by having only a few socialist countries having existed in modern times, but look at the wealth of the PRC after they re-introduced market features.
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  22.  @rainbowkrampus  The problem with that is that you'd need powerful people to ensure that nobody gathered much power. You wouldn't if most everybody were saints, but almost any system would work with saints.
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  23.  @ajr993  I cannot disagree. Checks nd balances are probably the best we can do.
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  24.  @rainbowkrampus  Question for you: who makes the decisions for who gets paid how much?
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  25.  @rainbowkrampus  so all the business decisions are done by vote?
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  26. Hens, sorry, hence, currency.
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  27. Anti-monopoly and anti-collusion regulations. Because all those companies would have to agree to destroy good to keep its price high. If one producer sold food cheaper (equally good food), consumers would buy their food there, and that producer would get more profit.
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  28.  @ericmacrae6871 That's.. fair, I have to admit. But do you really think all trade from Cuba has been cut off? Why is trade from one particular capitalist economy so vital to a socialist paradise?
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  29.  @rakha8812  Did I say that? Go back and read what I said, and then ask me an honest question.
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  30.  @saisyuumaho  I'm not saying that alone should get you more money, but there should be a benefit of setting up a system and organizing it.
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  31.  @damunzy  And the alternatives to capitalism tried so far have been worse than capitalism.
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  32.  @ericmacrae6871 Capitlist countries also fix ecological problems domestically, so no. You lied. Secondly, we are also doing something about our environmental issues, as is western Europe. So?
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  33.  @damunzy  If they offered people in Haiti free tickets to move to North Korea, and allowed people in North Korea to move to Haiti, which country do you think would get more emigration and which would get more immigration?
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  34. If the broken system is better than anything else that's been tried, then I think you may confuse "broken" with "imperfect."
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  35. Create an alternative in one of the countries people flee from rather than where people flee to, and then we can have a fair discussion.
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  36.  @buzhichun  To the first, if a capitalist can make money by selling you capital, he has an economic incentive, yes? People sell land. people sell 3d printers and lots of tools. My point to the second is that people aren't locked out of buying the means of production if they can purchase it collectively.
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  37. How seriously have you considered moving to a country that doesn't use capitalism?
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  38.  @kerycktotebag8164  Such the Holodomor? Decades of ruthless suppression of political dissent? Internal exile camps? Forbidding unlicensed mimeograph machines? The abuse of psychotherapeutics? Killing people because they wear eyeglasses? You compare the worst things allowed under capitalism with some of the most venial problems in socialism. Next time, try honesty.
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  39.  @TML0677  I have no objection to Africa, Asia, S. America, or Antarctica doing their own thing economically. Though you mighjt ask the PRC to get rid of the market-oriented measures they've taken and see what they say.
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  40.  @absolutalles  Actually, capitalism is about getting by selling. What you're talking about is greed, and that's been a constant under any economic system.
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  41. Can you point out where she said that?
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  42.  @NathanielLapointe I think that would work splendidly, if everyone just nautrally shared everything and nobody loved power. But then so would any other economic and political system. I'd say, try it somewhere else first. In the real world when we've seen governments collapse or just not control an area, new systems of power arise.
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  43. Fleming discovered that a mold was exuding an antibiotic substance, and that subtance was later developed into penicillin. Florey and others turned it into medication. That's completely different from Edison, who stole all of Tesla's inventions, suppressed Tesla's free energy generators, stole Tesla's death ray ideas, and conquered the innocent and defenseless Squeeb people of Luna 5, leaving Tesla with no alternative but to make electric cars.
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  44. Just do "what we could have" in countries people flee from rather than the ones people flee to. That way you can show it works and if it fails again, what's lost?
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  45.  @Mandragara That's totally a fair comparison because nobody has ever tried another way to make eggs.
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  46.  @Mandragara  It's perfectly valid to point out the problems of microwaving eggs. It isn't valid to say that microwaving eggs is a failure if you have never had a better way of cookiing eggs. If you do find something you swear is a better way to cook eggs, you have to show people that it's a better method. If you insist on forbidding people from microwaving eggs in favor of Method X without that, people are going to call you cracked.
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  47. Capitalism is the worst system -- except for all the others that have been tried. As far as environmental effects go, socialist nations have a rather poor track record. In practice, socialism has led to more authoritarianism, less innovation, and lower overall economic performance than capitalism. People seem to fall in love with the idea of socialism through hatred of the inequalities of outcome in capitalism rather than the actual performance of socialism. Exhibit A: A lot of people want socialism, but very few want to move somewhere socialist. And, no, the Nordic countries aren't socialist. Exhibit B: Try to make the PRC socialist again.
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  48. Compare the economy of the PRC before and after it introduced more free market mechanisms. It's still authoritarian, but it's a much, much richer authoritarianism now. Look at kibbutzes. Look at communes in the U.S. Time and again, human nature has show that people will work harder for the good of their own selves and families than for "everyone," that there will be freeloaders, and that people don't like freeloaders. It's not rational to say that capitalism has failed when all the alternatives have done worse or have ceased to be socialist.
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  49.  @jarnomon1 My requirement is: try the new system somewhere else first. The west is were people flee to, so try it where people flee from. Because it's rational to be leery of "this is better than capitalism" at the point, but a positive track record will do wonders.
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  50.  @jarnomon1  1. If the new system improves the country from which people fled, even if it doesn't turn it around completely, wouldn't that be evidence for the new system? 2. If the new system improves the country from which people fled, that in itself is a counter-point which reasonable people can argue to. Either way, if the alternative is to overhaul the best economies in the world in favor of something untested, shouldn't you expect resistance? Look at the track record of socialism, for instance.
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  51. @vinski_ Why not? Because, frankly, if the idea is that we have to give up the economic system with the best track record to try another alternative after a long string of those alternatives performing worse, I'd just as soon stick with what we have.
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  52.  @lor3122  Average wealth, economic freedom, individual liberty, CO2 emissions per capita. Whadya need?
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  53. @vinski_ "Socialism is not the alternative to capitalism." Um... could you tell that to the socialists? And you didn't answer my point.
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