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Comment by jmyeet

2 years ago

> When I work for someone else, I am offloading some of the risk to that person/owner.

Workers generally risk their lives or simply injury. Owners "risk" capital. I put that in quotes because our government is typically set up to rescue failing businesses and by that I mean bailing out the owners. If the business fails, the owner simply has less money or they have to become a worker.

So who is really taking a risk here?

> When I rent from someone else, I am offloading the risk of owning a property to someone else.

We shouldn't treat housing as an investment vehicle. It is shelter and necessary to live. Every level of government is subordinate to the cause of increasing property prices as society increasingly views housing as a vehicle to build generational wealth.

The majority of housing in vienna is state-owned (so-called "social housing"). Any kind of state housing has been successfuly propagandized as a "slum" ("project") but there's no need for that to happen. The UK, prior to Thatcher coming along and dismantling the whole thing, almost completely got rid of landlords simply by being the buyer of last resort for owners that wante dto sell.

> None of this justifies people making insane amounts of money while others are starving

Our economic system is predicated on withholding basic needs for profit.

15 comments

jmyeet

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RHSeeger  2 years ago

> If the business fails, the owner simply has less money or they have to become a worker.

The fact that you consider "losing everything you've saved up for your entire life, plus what you've borrowed, and destroyed your ability to borrow more" as "simply" is... mind boggling to me. I would rather work for someone else than risk losing everything by starting my own business (plus I prefer to develop software rather than run a business); that risk is _way_ beyond what I'm comfortable with.

WalterBright  2 years ago

Companies go bankrupt all the time.

> Our economic system is predicated on withholding basic needs for profit.

An economic system based on "to each according to his need" has been tried many times. It fails to deliver.

  • fragmede  2 years ago

    > An economic system based on "to each according to his need" has been tried many times.

    Have there been any attempts since the rise of the smartphone and the Internet? I'm only aware of attempts that predate them and those two things have changed capitalistic societies dramatically, for better or worse.

gengwyn  2 years ago

There is risk to capital. The government does not bail out every business that fails. That's ludicrous. Investors like VCs can and do lose their investments all the time with no government intervention whatsoever. An owner is also risking in terms of opportunity cost - time lost to starting a business and failing is inherently riskier than working with similar talents and investing in safer assets like index funds for the potential upside of higher returns if the business succeeds.

Bootstrapped companies also come with risks to the founder's own capital and credit risk if loans are taken and the business fails to generate revenue to service them.

vladms  2 years ago

Depends on the field what you risk. Many white collar jobs will not risk their lives or injury, plus nowadays regulations should reduce these extreme risks.

Saying "owner simply has less money" can have many implications on their life. If they choose to put money in a company rather than have a bigger apartment/TV/car/whatever, I find it fair for that to be rewarded a bit.

I think it is disingenuous to think "basic needs" is simple to define, considering that there is no cheap and free energy source (and other resources). For someone living in a warm climate, the basic need for heating in north of Europe will look like a waste.

My opinion is that tax systems are completely outdated and they should use more "asymptotic/exponential/complex formulas". Sure a tax of x % on profit worked 100 years ago when most people were "closer" but with today's growth (of many things), you get too much concentration. But of course that would imply that people understand both tax and math, so most will not demand it.

bboygravity  2 years ago

What are you suggesting as a better system?

To withold basic needs for profit, you need to be able to provide basic needs in the first place.

All of the alternatives I know of can't even reach that point.

  • max_hoffmann  2 years ago

    A free market of cooperatives is an alternative. One might call it „cooperatism“, if it needs a term.

  • toyg  2 years ago

    After some initial mistakes, the Soviet system did provide basic needs. It was inefficient, badly led, conservative, repressive, ultimately undemocratic, and often produced very mediocre output (crappy houses, etc), but it ensured that everyone had food, shelter, work, healthcare, and education.

    Neither full-collectivism nor full-capitalism are the final answer.

    • WalterBright  2 years ago

      The Soviet system only was able to provide basic needs when it decided to overlook the black market. It also allowed farmers to farm owned plots of land and sell their produce as they saw fit. This was the only way to stop the mass starvation.