"Capitalism made your iPhone"

[Lexicus]

League of Legends? Riot games is an american company.

Owned by a Chinese company, though.

 

[Zelig]

League of Legends? Riot games is an american company.

Motorola was founded in the US.

Volvo is from Sweden.

They're all Chinese-owned.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Off the top of my head; Huawei, Kaspersky, Lenovo, Motorola, Thinkpad, Anker, Volvo, League of Legends, Tsingtao, TCL, Stoli, Russian Standard, Montecristo, Cohiba.

Kaspersky has just been banned from US government entities for fear that it provides access to Russian intelligence. Lenovo (thinkpad), Volvo, and Motorola were all developed by others in the west and bought. Anker was founded by two guys from Google who set up shop in china to manufacture for the US market. Russian Standard & Stoli: a great, innovative additions to world markets: Other brands of vodka. Cohiba sells cigars.
Buying successful brands and moving them hardly counts as innovative development.

The fact that non capitalist nations can sell their products in capitalist markets doesn't speak to their innovation or contribution to improving life. That just says that there is demand. Huawei phones comes closer to the mark, but those while built in China by a Chinese company, the company business model is a capitalistic one and approved by the government.

 

[Narz]

Of course we do. How many Russian, Chinese, North Korean or Cuban cars, cell phones, or computers are sold outside of their respective countries?

Wait are you serious? Almost everything we use is made is China. If you want quality at a low price Chinese products are the way to go.

The value of capitalism is not that you are endlessly encouraged to buy newer crap

Lol, yes it is. IPhone what # now?

but that it produces an ongoing array of improved products. The wheat is separated from the chaff over time and life improves.

Life doesn't improve, quality of life has been in decline for decades and the average product is as crap as ever, offices have malfunctioning systems, people are dissatisfied.

You've been sold a dream that you would see is false if you opened your eyes.

Look at automobile effeciency, no one cares so it stagnates (mpg better 40 years old). Electronics get faster with more features because it's very profitable to sell them (just make sure you release the new model after maximizing profits on the old one). If you think CEOs give a damn about "life improving" you are... well the ideal consumer.

 

[Zelig]

You didn't ask for innovation, just for brands.

That banning of Kaspersky is political nonsense, there's no real merit to it.

Huawei is really bigger as a telecom equipment manufacturer than as a phone manufacturer. They're tech leaders for 5G, and network rollouts worldwide.

I'm comfortable calling brands as being from wherever their ownership is currently based. Goes both ways - DeepMind, Waze, Skype, Minecraft are all effectively American now.

 

[Narz]

Market driven capitalism has tons of problems, but improving the world standard of living isn't one of them.

Market driven capitalism depends on poor standard of living of much of the world so it can rape places like Congo for raw materials to maximize profit for phones.

Also, it's happy to sell us all SUV's, climate change and it's devastation be damned.

Claiming capItalism is the only system that can deliver is simply a failure of imagination from atop the privledge of the brief moment and place in history where you are riding high on it.

The prosperity sucked from humans beings and the natural world via modern industrial market capitalism is the bubble to end all bubbles, and perhaps most of life on Earth as well.

 

[Zelig]

That really seems more like a solvable side effect than an actual dependency.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Wait are you serious? Almost everything we use is made is China. If you want quality at a low price Chinese products are the way to go.

China and the rest of Asia are the manufacturing center of the world. They do not design or market most the products they make for export. Is an iPhone a Chines product? It is made there, but Apple is a US company and they designed it. they are the ones adding to the innovation.

Lol, yes it is. IPhone what # now?

Life doesn't improve, quality of life has been in decline for decades and the average product is as crap as ever, offices have malfunctioning systems, people are dissatisfied.

While there are always individuals who see less change than others, life all across the globe has improved enormously over the past few decades. How are you measuring quality of life?

You've been sold a dream that you would see is false if you opened your eyes.

What dream have I been sold? Money buys happiness? Air travel is fun? Shopping at WalMart is one of life's joys? Buying a new car will get the the young girls to flock my way? My eyes are pretty wide open. What am I missing?

Look at automobile effeciency, no one cares so it stagnates (mpg better 40 years old). Electronics get faster with more features because it's very profitable to sell them (just make sure you release the new model after maximizing profits on the old one). If you think CEOs give a damn about "life improving" you are... well the ideal consumer.

I remember when 20 mpg was new and different. 40 is a big improvement. Cars in the past had no seat belts or air bags. Those are pretty nice. Electronic have more features because people want them (useful or not is not the issue). Some features go away as they become less and less useful (disk drives) and are replaced by others (flash drives and streaming). Companies add features to try and make their products more appealing in a competitive market. Apple likes to sell premium products at high prices for those who can afford them. Android products are sold for less for those who don't want or can't afford premium ones.

i am actually a terrible consumer. I don't buy much at all; neither does my wife. When we do buy, we try to buy the best quality I can. I buy a new computer every 4-5 years. I bought my first smart phone in 2015; it was an iPhone 6. The last brand new car we bought was in 1983. We moved up from a two door to a four door to more easily accommodate a car seat. Could I afford to plunk down $40,000 today for a new something? Sure.No reason to though.

As I said, capitalism has problems, but most of those are people problems on both sides of the purchase equation and those problems are not likely to be fixed.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Market driven capitalism depends on poor standard of living of much of the world so it can rape places like Congo for raw materials to maximize profit for phones.

Also, it's happy to sell us all SUV's, climate change and it's devastation be damned.

Claiming capItalism is the only system that can deliver is simply a failure of imagination from atop the privledge of the brief moment and place in history where you are riding high on it.

The prosperity sucked from humans beings and the natural world via modern industrial market capitalism is the bubble to end all bubbles, and perhaps most of life on Earth as well.

Capitalism is driven by sales and it uses marketing to drive those sales. Is it exploitative? Sure. People are often that way. Have you ever exploited a woman (her emotional weakness, sobriety, or other vulnerability) so you can have sex with her? Capitalism works the same way, but on a larger scale.

I never said capitalism is the only way. I did say that a centralized governmental control was not a good way to allow innovation to improve the QoL for people in general. Perhaps capitalism will bring about the collapse of modern human culture, but I doubt it. In any case it will not end life on earth. We have had enough mass extinctions already to know that life will move along just fine.

 

[warpus]

While there are always individuals who see less change than others, life all across the globe has improved enormously over the past few decades

Consumerism and unchecked capitalism have lead to so much waste and pollution.. So.. In many was yes, but in many ways not exactly.

I'm a bit of a minimalist myself, I don't go out the latest and greatest. Give me something that works well and I'll be happy. I don't need 58125 different types of fork. Consumers have been conditioned to think that this is progress, but it's just exploitation, really. I mean, the consumers do benefit, but at what cost? And is so much variety of product really necessary? Eventually we're going to run out of materials to build all these consumer goods out of you know..

 

[Kozmos]

We'll just make them out of excess people then, like the old pre-Scythian tribes did.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Consumerism and unchecked capitalism have lead to so much waste and pollution.. So.. In many was yes, but in many ways not exactly.

I'm a bit of a minimalist myself, I don't go out the latest and greatest. Give me something that works well and I'll be happy. I don't need 58125 different types of fork. Consumers have been conditioned to think that this is progress, but it's just exploitation, really. I mean, the consumers do benefit, but at what cost? And is so much variety of product really necessary? Eventually we're going to run out of materials to build all these consumer goods out of you know..

An excess of variety is a product of two things: our imagination and our ability to make things easily. People do like choices. The advent of localized 3D printing of consumer goods will only increase our choices going forward. It will disperse the manufacturing waste issue as it reduces the waste from excess inventory.

In 1998 I hosted a young Georgian (old soviet Georgia) artist on his first visit to the west. What impressed him the most was the blue jean store in a mall where he could choose from hundreds of styles and sizes of jeans. He spent almost all of his "gift" money for friends and family on jeans from that store. He was totally overwhelmed/mesmerized by the variety of what could be bought in every store he went into.

Yes capitalism contributes big time to waste and pollution, but it did not start us down the path of waste and pollution. Industrialization just expanded its scope and impact. Hunter gatherers herded animals over cliffs to harvest only a few of what they killed. Ancient lead, mercury coal mines were pretty terrible. Everything we do now carries a much larger footprint.

 

[warpus]

All these things you explain aren't false, but what I said isn't false either.

I think capitalism is the way to go as far as economic models go FWIW. Just not at the expense of the consumer or the environment

 

[Birdjaguar]

I agree.

 

[Narz]

While there are always individuals who see less change than others, life all across the globe has improved enormously over the past few decades. How are you measuring quality of life?

Happiness studies in the US and other first world countries generally tend to be pretty flat or slightly declining

Capitalism is driven by sales and it uses marketing to drive those sales. Is it exploitative? Sure. People are often that way. Have you ever exploited a woman (her emotional weakness, sobriety, or other vulnerability) so you can have sex with her?

Usually they do it to me.

Capitalism works the same way, but on a larger scale.

At least some sex is pure, no marketing is pure.

I never said capitalism is the only way. I did say that a centralized governmental control was not a good way to allow innovation to improve the QoL for people in general. Perhaps capitalism will bring about the collapse of modern human culture, but I doubt it. In any case it will not end life on earth. We have had enough mass extinctions already to know that life will move along just fine.

I don't care if bacteria & roaches survive, I want ancestors.

 

[Perfection]

You are not talking about capitalism here, you are talking about a market economy. And market economies are as old as history. Back in the ancient world you had market economies, and we don't agree on a name have a name for the economic systems they used. In the middle ages you had market economies and we called it feudalism. In the modern age you had market economies before people even used the term capitalism.

Truth is, capitalism is an older beast than most people believe. In that I agree with Fernand Braudel's opinion (Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800), capitalism has always been an "upper layer" engaged in the big business and monopolies, with little interest to spare for the lower margin level (what we'd call retail now). They will invest in an Amazon, or Alibaba, or some other big business. Even where venture capitalists invest in "start-ups", the goal is growing to grab monopoly power in some market. IF you're not playing in that league, you're not a capitalist... Smaller fish can handle niche production, and be appropriately squeezed by those who control the market platforms, the big consumers/distributors or their production. If any one of those particular businesses looks good enough, the capitalists will jump in, of ten the distributor with market power will copy the product and push the original producer out of the market before it gets big enough. That is capitalism at work.

Communism was not at all incompatible with a market economy, it was the political choices of the governents of communist countries that associated it with widespread state monopolies. Some of those communist countries even made very shy experiments with market-oriented organization, but political blocks prevented further experimentation. Arguably the chinese picket it up and then ran overboard with the idea... but if you think that they are capitalists like the [US, EU. whatever], you'll be in for quite a shock in the future. They are still keeping private capitalist (as in big and state-protected) business under state control to a degree that the "capitalist countries" do not.

Your critique of anticapitalists is a strawman if you assume that anticapitalist means anti-market. My view is that trashing capitalism is essential to allowing markets to function as Adam Smith envisioned, and that capitalism is actually an impediment to the proper working of a free market.

I try to avoid getting suckered into too much discussion about what constitutes "capitalism" or "communism" or "socialism". To me they mostly seem like vague labels and a recipe for people talking past each other in pointless irritating debates. I much prefer to debate actual policy proposals, that is much more tangible.

There are two reasons I consider myself "capitalist".

The first is basically a certain level of economic conservatism. I believe in the importance of market forces on economic progress and the importance of allowing people to easily enter the market (that is, people should have broad freedoms to create businesses as they see fit). I think that some of the problems that communist countries had (in particular diminished commercial innovation and decreased economic opportunity) are reasonable fears to have when people start talking heavily about the need for socialist change. That is to say that I don't demand change, but I'm much more into the slow incremental changes being careful not to undermine economic engines and economic freedoms.

The second reason is identity politics. Right now, a large amount of innovation is being driven by people in charge of companies (I'm definitely not trying to discount the work of academics - I believe strongly in a robust and well-funded academia). These are the people I work with to develop technology solutions. To label myself as anticapitalist would drive a wedge between me and those innovators. By describing oneself as"anticapitlist" you're singling them out as a sort of enemy. In my mind, these are people who do a lot of good, wield a lot of power, and have a lot of wisdom to offer society (Donald Trump is a glaring exception). It seems smart to have them as much our side as feasible as we try to reform society to be more egalitarian. In general I try not to be anti-things if I can at all avoid it.

I refuse to call stuff like fruit loops "cereal". It's candy.

Froot Loops

 

[Lexicus]

I think that some of the problems that communist countries had (in particular diminished commercial innovation and decreased economic opportunity) are reasonable fears to have when people start talking heavily about the need for socialist change.

That doesn't make much sense to me considering that there is no coherent theory under which 'communist' countries were actually communist (which is why I prefer to call them Marxist-Leninist or Maoist countries, rather than 'communist'). Simply calling yourself a communist doesn't make you one. And the irony is that some of the same political-economic dynamics which inhibited innovation and opportunity in those countries are affecting the political economy of the West, preventing Western economies from reaching their potential.

The second reason is identity politics. Right now, a large amount of innovation is being driven by people in charge of companies (I'm definitely not trying to discount the work of academics - I believe strongly in a robust and well-funded academia). These are the people I work with to develop technology solutions. To label myself as anticapitalist would drive a wedge between me and those innovators. By describing oneself as"anticapitlist" you're singling them out as a sort of enemy. In my mind, these are people who do a lot of good, wield a lot of power, and have a lot of wisdom to offer society (Donald Trump is a glaring exception). It seems smart to have them as much our side as feasible as we try to reform society to be more egalitarian. In general I try not to be anti-things if I can at all avoid it.

This is interesting as I view "people in charge of companies" as, almost without exception, criminals. I have no problem referring to these people as enemies because that is precisely what they are to the majority of people. They are not going to be on your side because they don't believe in egalitarianism, they believe that some people are inherently better than others and that these better people deserve to be rich. I mean, I admire the impulses behind this stance of yours but I think it is essentially based on a fantasy

 

[Birdjaguar]

This is interesting as I view "people in charge of companies" as, almost without exception, criminals. I have no problem referring to these people as enemies because that is precisely what they are to the majority of people. They are not going to be on your side because they don't believe in egalitarianism, they believe that some people are inherently better than others and that these better people deserve to be rich. I mean, I admire the impulses behind this stance of yours but I think it is essentially based on a fantasy

You need to get out more and meet people who own and run businesses. Not only do businesses vary greatly in size, scope and the way they treat customers and staff, but the people who run them are all very different too. they each have their own motivations for doing what they do. What do you do for a living?

 

[warpus]

Froot Loops

In the universe from which I originate, it's spelled Fruit Loops.

As for businesses, does anyone know why more co-operative businesses don't exist? REI and MEC are two great examples of successful co-operatives. Why isn't this sort of thing more common?

 

[Broken_Erika]

In the universe from which I originate, it's spelled Fruit Loops.

As for businesses, does anyone know why more co-operative businesses don't exist? REI and MEC are two great examples of successful co-operatives. Why isn't this sort of thing more common?

Because Co-operation is the first step towards communism!