alexflint comments on Our House, My Rules - Less Wrong

36 Post author: David_J_Balan 02 November 2009 12:44AM

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Comment author: JulianMorrison 02 November 2009 10:16:48AM 8 points [-]

Nope, a degeneration into politics would be marked by one or the other of us switching to "arguments are soldiers". I don't think we have.

I'll put my cards on the table here. I have a lot of respect for libertarian abstract pure capitalism. Its particular advantages that I don't think are equaled elsewhere are: a local update rule (making it embarrassingly parallel), by agents who are self-motivated (without external force) by monotonically increasing expected utility, producing coordinated activity without coordinated preferences, and typically producing compounding reinvestment that grows the technological and wealth base for everyone. I think capitalism is the fixed-point an economy will fall into if you have scarcity, enforce property, and don't do much else. It's the only system that can operate in the presence of scarcity without needing coercion.

I just don't necessarily think those advantages mean it's nice.

Comment author: alexflint 02 November 2009 10:46:12AM 3 points [-]

I agree with Julian completely but I would add the observation that there are no countries today with anything remotely resembling pure capitalism. Europe, the US, and the remainder of the traditional "west" are particularly far away from such an ideal.

Comment author: gworley 02 November 2009 08:53:04PM 1 point [-]

Agreed. Really free markets were regulated away in the early 20th century, it what has always felt to me like a case of trying to trade stability for growth by preventing whatever caused massive volatility in the past from happening again.