Comment by codetrotter
4 years ago
My dream is to one day go to a garage sale and to find an original Apple Computer 1 for like $5. Not that that would ever happen ofc. But it’s fun to have unrealistic dreams too sometimes.
4 years ago
My dream is to one day go to a garage sale and to find an original Apple Computer 1 for like $5. Not that that would ever happen ofc. But it’s fun to have unrealistic dreams too sometimes.
A lot of people wish to stumble across something valuable without the original owner knowing the actual value of it. This is the underpinning of modern capitalism.
I view capitalism differently. I picture a neighborhood of elderly people who aren't able to shovel their driveways and walkways when it snows. And an industrious young person nearby who shovels their driveways and walkways for them for a modest fee.
He does such a good job that word of his good service spreads and he wants to expand by buying a truck with a plow. But he doesn't have the money so he goes to a bank and borrows the money. He's able to expand his enterprise dramatically.
He's happy. His customers are happy. The bank is happy. Society is better off, isn't it? There are of course problems with capitalism which is where regulation comes in. But it isn't rotten to the core.
It's a beautiful story but it's just the beginning. When he expands his enterprise by buying more and more trucks and hiring more people he then squashes all competition with price dumping, lobbying or just buys competing companies/individuals.
At the latest when he has a monopoly the company's services will deteriorate and the prices will rise. The customers won't be happy anymore. Also he will scatter so much salt on the roads that the ground water gets polluted. You see where I am going?
Of course it doesn't need to go this way but usually it does.
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The young man then goes on to buy a politician for a paltry sum so the laws allow him to employ people for a pittance or in dangerous conditions.
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Another story involves people living in a community, well connected, aware of one another, mutually respectful and considerate.
Younger people shovel ways so the older people do not fall and get hurt.
One day, a few of those younger people have an idea and get their start from that community, who helps fund, perhaps some members sharing space, equipment, etc...
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As a teen I would scour local thrift stores for old 8 and 16-bit computers, play with them for a bit, then sell them off for two or three times the price. That would allow me to plow more money into old computers, either to build up savings or justify the few models I wanted to keep.
People would inevitably offer me more because they were worth more (examples: a very old TRS-80 or musicians who still used the Atari ST). More often than not, I declined. I was more interested in seeing them used and not interested in turning my hobby into a business. For the most part, everyone was happy.
The entrepreneur in your example is a wage-laborer. Thats really not what people mean when they talk about "capitalism"
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> This is the underpinning of modern capitalism.
How so?
Crudely I'm guessing, information asymmetry. Which is usually considered a market failure, but is very common, perhaps even an "underpinning".
Value extraction.
Probably a good portion of all Apple I ever made ended up in landfills.
IIRC most were traded into to Apple for a discount on an Apple II and Apple just destroyed them.
Sounds like a good premise for a treasure hunt of sorts.
Remember the video of a group hunting a stash of ET Atari video games cartridges, that was an interesting video.
I think you mean the rumored Atari cartridges in the landfill documentary. That was pretty fun. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari:_Game_Over
Sometimes when I’ve lost something and am looking for it, I think “what if it’s simply not here?”. Then I think, “it still likely exists, where is it?”