cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/32435173
[yellow, shrugging]
Anticapitalists are silly idealists
[yellow, crossing their arms]
Communism can’t work in real life
[yellow, pointing smugly at us]
The theory behind socialism is broken
[yellow, looking wavy]
Anarchism makes no sense at all
[yellow, smiling annoyingly in front of a huge wall of text]
As opposed to my support for capitalism, which works because the market is free and open and has no state intervention, there are no monopolies or oligarchies, everyone has a perfect understanding of the things they consume, there are no patents and other government sanctioned ways to slow down competition, megacorps absolutely love supporting the free market, and billionaires get no say in political decisions. Prices also magically reflect real social costs, because pollution, burnout, and infrastructure decay are all naturally priced in. Labor markets are frictionless, so people can instantly quit abusive jobs and seamlessly transition into better ones without rent, visas, health insurance, or time being a factor. Infor mation asymmetry does not exist, advertising is purely informative and never manipulative, and planned obsolescence would be irrational because firms are driven by a deep moral commitment to long-term consumer welfare. Crises never happen, but when they do they are excellent learning opportunities that only affect those who made bad personal choices. Banks fail responsibly. Housing markets collapse politely. Of course, capital never concentrates, because returns definitely do not compound, network effects are a myth, and first-mover advantage is just something lazy people complain about. If someone becomes obscenely rich, it is merely a coincidence that they can now afford better lawyers, better lobbying, better media access, and better laws. This has no feedback effect whatsoever. Democracy also remains pristine, since money is famously speechless and campaign finance has no measurable impact on policy outcomes. Regulators are fearless, revolving doors are sealed shut, and every captured agency is just doing a long, ironic performance art piece. When the state intervenes, it is always against capitalism, never on its behalf, and certainly never to socialize losses after privatizing gains. And if any of this sounds unrealistic, that is only because capitalism has never really been tried properly, unlike all those other systems, which failed specifically because humans were involved. But why does this paragraph end with a mention of thebad.website ?
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When you start to actually look at what neoclassical economics teaches, it breaks down into absolute lunacy.
Debunking Economics by Steve Keen is an excellent read for being shown why all that stuff is bullshit.
After reading that, I started following post-Keynesian economics and found things that actually started describing reality instead of what some dude made up while sitting thinking in his armchair.
I found a free version online: http://digamo.free.fr/keen2011.pdf
I’ll give it a read at some point.
It can be a bit dry but I like his snark that ends up in places. Hope you find it interesting.
If you get through that and want more, I recommend the Macroeconomics book by William Mitchell, L. Randall Wray and Martin Watts. It’s written from the MMT perspective and sets out a lot of why neoclassical economics is bunk and insanity.
Calling marxists idealist.
