Just sat in a lecture that made me rethink capitalism

[Phokus]

Pure capitalism would absolutely have mega-corps, especially for commodity production. Capital gains reinvested into production leads to more acquisitions leads to economies of scale, leads to the ability to out-price competitors.

Wealth begets wealth.

Yup, i work in a fortune 200 firm and we have had a lot of acquisitions of small/medium businesses/startups. We've had trouble growing organically but many of the acquisitions have worked out extremely well. We've been able to sell the acquired firm's products into large enterprise customers that they've never been able to sell before because we have established sales channels with them and their product compliments ours very nicely and the enterprise customers TRUST our quality control. Of course, this has come at a high cost to the middle class - we've cut the headcount of the acquired companies drastically - we got rid of their shitty small business/medium business ERP systems and integrated them into SAP, which has led to a LOT of job losses.

I've heard libertarians say they're against big corporations and they're only possible because of government, boy howdy are they fucking retarded.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

Uhhh...Capitalism is not a form of government.

Don't be obtuse, you know what I mean.

And I didn't invent the saying anyway.

 

[sandorski]

Capitalism the worst form of government besides all the others tried.

Capitalism is an Economic System, not a form of Government.

 

[HendrixFan]

Pure capitalism would absolutely have mega-corps, especially for commodity production. Capital gains reinvested into production leads to more acquisitions leads to economies of scale, leads to the ability to out-price competitors.

Wealth begets wealth.

The ability to out-price competitors dwindles away competition (see Blockbuster vs Mom and Pop rental stores) until you have a handful of players left, or just one in the market. Capitalism breaks down at that point as companies cannot compete, and the buyer/seller relationship has no balance at all. The individual buyer cannot purchase from a competitor (none exist), nor can it leverage any power against the seller.

I guess it is still capitalism, but it loses most of its free market aspects.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

Capitalism is an Economic System, not a form of Government.

Yes, yes. For the 100th time I know. I just did a quick copy paste out of google.

 

[sandorski]

Don't be obtuse, you know what I mean.

And I didn't invent the saying anyway.

Actually, you very well may have invented that saying.

What you meant to say: "[FONT=Arial, Geneva]Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" Winston Churchill[/FONT]

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

Actually, you very well may have invented that saying.

What you meant to say: "[FONT=Arial, Geneva]Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" Winston Churchill[/FONT]

I couldn't remember the exact words so I googed "government besides all the others tried."

First result is "Is capitalism the worst form of government besides all the others tried?"

I copy pasted without thinking.

I think my point still stands. The OP can bitch about capitalism all he wants, but what the fuck are we gonna do about it? It's the best system we've found so far.

 

[sandorski]

I couldn't remember the exact words so I googed "government besides all the others tried."

First result is "Is capitalism the worst form of government besides all the others tried?"

I copy pasted without thinking.

I think my point still stands. The OP can bitch about capitalism all he wants, but what the fuck are we gonna do about it? It's the best system we've found so far.

I agree, but there's quite a variation within Capitalism. There's a lot of room for tweaking, perhaps making unused Patents part of the Public Domain after x years would make the OP happy, for eg.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

I agree, but there's quite a variation within Capitalism. There's a lot of room for tweaking, perhaps making unused Patents part of the Public Domain after x years would make the OP happy, for eg.

No doubt.

OP sounded like he thought the whole system was fucked. It just needs tweaking.

 

[Craig234]

Problem is the company probably patented it.

Bit of a public policy problem, isn't it, when an important discovery isn't profitable for a big company discovering it to produce, but it in their interests to lock up the rights from any competitor profiting from it. Turns the intent of the law to increase the public's access to inventions on its head, instead preventing access.

Perhaps we should have a law requiring inventions to be produced or licensed.

 

[monovillage]

Medical discoveries shouldn't really be handled by private corporations anyway - those should be handled by universities with public grants. Pharma companies already use vast amounts of public money for their profits because they use lots of publicly funded studies that saves on their own R&D. There's also a perverse incentive to discover medicine that relieves symptoms rather than produce cures because that gives the companies a recurring revenue stream well into the future, rather than a one time shot.

The public Universities are already failing miserably in their primary function with skyrocketing costs due to inappropriate use of funds. Why would you think they'd do a better job at this ? Drug patents run out after 15 years iirc, then anyone can make or use the once patented drug.

 

[Craig234]

I couldn't remember the exact words so I googed "government besides all the others tried."

First result is "Is capitalism the worst form of government besides all the others tried?"

I copy pasted without thinking.

I think my point still stands. The OP can bitch about capitalism all he wants, but what the fuck are we gonna do about it? It's the best system we've found so far.

That's little different than saying 'economics is the best system tried', because 'capitalism' is such a vague, multi-faceted thing.

Communist countries are practicing 'capitalist' things, and we do things from public education to public libraries to big industry bailouts that are not 'capitalist'.

It's become pretty meaningless, really - this is not the USSR vs. the US anymore, and most of what the US did in the cold war today's right-wing nuts call socialist.

Need me to dig up the old Eisenhower quotes about things, including his 'cross of iron' speech about military spending denying the social needs of the country?

The ones that anyone who thought of touching social security or Medicare was a nut?

 

[exdeath]

It's not making money because people wouldn't pay for it, thus can't be that amazing. Maybe it is amazing from a technology nerd perspective, but people don't need or want it, in which case it serves no useful purpose to a society comprised of those people.

The true capitalist method is to find a way to apply that amazing technology to something people can and will want, need, and use, and retire a billionaire; you wouldn't be allowed to do this without capitalism.

 

[BoberFett]

Problem is the company probably patented it.

That's a problem of government, not capitalism.

 

[Patranus]

Just think, without capitalism, you wouldn't have access to the most advanced medical care on the planet.

There is a reason that heads of state from every other country come to America for medical procedures.

 

[charrison]

So I was sitting in my technology commercialization class and the speaker, a former technology commercialization officer at a major bio medical researcher, said: "we had to turn down many discoveries that came out of our basic research; If it wasn't going to return 250million in the first 3 years we just didn't produce it"

Can you imagine the number of amazing discoveries this company simply didn't bring to market because it wasn't profitable enough to them?

Disgusting.

So you would rather 250 million dollars be invested to help FEWER people? Do you want to do the most good, or do you want to help fewer people?

 

[charrison]

The ability to out-price competitors dwindles away competition (see Blockbuster vs Mom and Pop rental stores) until you have a handful of players left, or just one in the market. Capitalism breaks down at that point as companies cannot compete, and the buyer/seller relationship has no balance at all. The individual buyer cannot purchase from a competitor (none exist), nor can it leverage any power against the seller.

I guess it is still capitalism, but it loses most of its free market aspects.

Care to name a market where a monopoly exists and preferably one that is not govt supported.

Mom and pops died, because they lacked economy of scale. The little shops got beat. And now blockbuster will soon be dead because new competitors killed them.

 

[Steeplerot]

Another impressionable mind warped by a leftist lecture.

Isn't college fun kids!?


Why don't people realize that if you are presented only one side of a situation/debate, your mind will generally tend to find ways to agree with what is being said?

Who has more credibility, a alcoholic dropout spouting conspiracy theories? A partisan rich drug addict on the radio out for a buck or a actual professor?

Typical anti-intellectual mental midgets.

 

[Brigandier]

Who has more credibility, a alcoholic dropout spouting conspiracy theories? A partisan rich drug addict on the radio out for a buck or a actual professor?

Typical anti-intellectual mental midgets.

Listen to all three and cross reference with reality. The only people that are correct are the people that are correct, everyone has biases, everyone has facts, listen to everyone and see the big picture.

 

[Steeplerot]

Just think, without capitalism, you wouldn't have access to the most advanced medical care on the planet if you are the top 2% elites.
Everyone else gets almost third world treatment that will ruin you for life financially.

fixed

 

[Steeplerot]

Listen to all three and cross reference with reality. The only people that are correct are the people that are correct, everyone has biases, everyone has facts, listen to everyone and see the big picture.

I will take the college educated person who has learned college level critical thinking skills and how to actually research over some drug addict dropout anytime. But yeah, keep your head in the sand with your false equivalence.

 

[Steeplerot]

Remember, these folks consider capitalism/free market fairy-world a religious aspect, actually pointing out flaws of their diety will make their brains go numb and for them to go into siege mode. Surprised they haven't started throwing terms they dont even understand yet around like socialist/commie for daring to use your brain as a American instead of a corporate flunky.

 

[Brigandier]

I will take the college educated person who has learned college level critical thinking skills and how to actually research over some drug addict dropout anytime. But yeah, keep your head in the sand with your false equivalence.

Nah, I'd still listen to all three. The college man knows the math, the addicts know the social reality of a situation. It's why I stipulated you cross reference it with reality, yeah, a lot of what the college prof says will be reality, a lot of what a drunk says is bull shit, a lot of what a suburban drug addict says is what they wished. If you listen to one, your knowledge is incomplete, if you believe all you're ignorant. Listen to everyone and take the real things good fact and the others as supporting evidence(what it supports, I don't know, reality is anarchy and we only try to apply reason), and just try to live your life in the meantime.

Quit making the world bigger than it is, we're kinda small but give away our smallness for power on a large scale. Sometimes it is needed, more times it's convenient, look at that and judge. What power do people have, and why are they willing to give it up?

 

[Steeplerot]

Listen to everyone and take the real things good fact and the others as supporting evidence(what it supports, I don't know, reality is anarchy and we only try to apply reason), and just try to live your life in the meantime.

Those people have shown to be not only wrong consistently but wrong knowingly for a agenda. They have 0 credibility and the concept of them being socially aware when in reality they are rich white sheltered folks living in a ivory tower of wealth and their own hubris does not lend them any credibility either with the common man.

You have a bunch of beaten down losers looking to jump on the rich old guys bandwagon in some hopes that those folks will let you into their "club". Sad thing is they wouldnt have anything to do with your serf asses in reality.

 

[Brigandier]

Those people have shown to be not only wrong consistently but wrong knowingly for a agenda. They have 0 credibility and the concept of them being socially aware when in reality they are rich white sheltered folks does not lend them any credibility either with the common man.

I agree, balance that with your facts.

People that have their parents pay for shit(by money or welfare) are pretty bad sources.