Comment by lordnacho
4 years ago
> I was skeptical that any mechanism to create bullshit jobs could arise from a system as inherently Darwinian as capitalism
But if we take Darwinian evolution as our analogy, there are plenty of strategies that essentially piggy back on other organisms. Cuckoo birds, intestinal worms, a whole coterie of sexual behaviors.
It's also the everyday experience of just about everyone that they perceive certain others to not be contributing anything at all. The surprise is that some people are willing to admit they are one of those people as well. It's not hard to think of how this would work, either. Convince someone to hire you, and then don't contribute, while taking a salary. If it's hard or expensive to detect the non-contributor, there will be NCs in the organization.
Capitalism has very little in common with Darwinism because of the nature of the rules involved. Darwinism has a lot of physical rules which you can't circumvent. Capitalism deals far more in social or soft rules which can be circumvented and give you an advantage if you aren't caught. And if you are caught, the punishment might only be a percentage of the total profits.
I'm not going to stay alive because the universe forgot to enforce the dying part of me being mauled by a bear.
I hate when people refer to our regime of interest-rate intervention as capitalism. The primary feature of capitalism is price discovery, which we have intentionally given up.
EDIT: If there are any economists out there who can point me in the direction of a primary source that elucidates the relationship between price discovery and interest rates in a way that will help me understand contemporary monetary policy as something other than political expediency, I would greatly appreciate it.
The defining feature of capitalism is the private ownership of capital. You can have whatever pricing mechanisms you like as long as the profits go to the owner
> coterie of sexual behaviors
Are you saying we can witness that in people too?
Hmm I think I meant menagerie. But yes, evolution and especially sexual selection creates a lot of interesting behaviors, and some of them a purely win-lose, and yes in people as well. There's a reason cheating on your partner is a trope of soap operas.