Comment by p_v_doom
2 days ago
Human nature is not greed though. Human nature is very very varied and adaptive. And the historical norm of human nature is one of sharing, community and support, as much as such a claim can even be made. And human nature is subject to the whole bigger system in which it lives.
Capitalism is in many ways such a system, one that is built around driving the worst parts of human nature. And the thing is the profit motive becoming pathological is not a bug. This is the key defining feature of the system. Capitalism really isnt even about markets. Its about consumption, and producing things specifically to sell them in order to make some markup. The goal is specifically to find ways to make money, and stuff like fulfilling peoples needs, quality, workers rights, and regulations are clearly things that are getting in the way.
Exactly. I can't express the degree to which people thinking we can fix it with just one more surgical precision law drive me up the wall. They've clearly never tried to do anything regulated.
The second, third and Nth order consequences of the sum of the shortsighted quick fixes these people have peddled result in a world where only sociopathic corporate entities can do anything, and of course those entities are incredibly "greedy", they wouldn't be able to remain profitable if they weren't.
Those vacant main street store fronts (metaphorical or literal, your pick) are only half vacant because the PE fueled megacorp that owns them doesn't deem it worthwhile to rent them. The other half are vacant because the cost of jumping through the regulatory hoops to rent them in a lawful manner is unjustifiable for the small time owner.
> I can't express the degree to which people thinking we can fix it with just one more surgical precision law drive me up the wall.
I think there is misattribution here. Us neoliberals do not believe that things can be easily improved through incrementalism. We believe that the alternative methods proposed by other political/economic systems lack credibility, and so we are stuck with the least bad option that reality has forced upon us. We also believe that things can get much, much worse, which is not a belief that's emotionally salient to other camps, who we see as assuming that things can only get better, when what usually happens is some tinpot authoritarian takes over and everything gets worse despite the naive ideals of the political entrepreneurs who tried to cause change. We also perceive a deep ignorance of basic economic facts to be commonplace in other camps; people who push for proven bad ideas like rent control, and this is discrediting.
Iterating on less bad still goes bad with time. The fact that you've boiled the frog slowly doesn't mean the frog is any less boiled than if some extremist shows up and sticks their dick in various sectors of the economy in a short time period.
If anything the slow boil is worse because it more thoroughly cements the dysfunction as people eek out various niches within it.
The "neoliberal" approach that you are advocating for has been done for the past 50-100yr depending on were you want to measure the start and the results are all around us. Just because things can get worse doesn't mean the current approach and it's peddlers aren't all some combination of wrong and/or evil.
Fractional central planning, which is basically what the current approach aims for with it's carrot and stick policy solution to literally everything, is still central planning. It just gets co-opted and fails slower so instead of the 2nd or 3rd iteration of decision makers sending it all to hell it's the 12th or 13th or whatever. Whatever the level of sustainable central planning is is clearly less than we have now.
You're a victim of capitalist realism (we all are tbh).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism
Neoliberalism is unable to address the growing inequalities of our societies (in fact, it is often to blame for them). This, in turn, is driving us toward right-wing authoritarianism as populists are taking advantage of the growing frustration of the middle class.
Fascism is the logical end point of neoliberalism. It is the time when things are so bad you need to find scapegoats to prevent the rise of class consciousness and continue financial liberalization.
My view is that neoliberalism is not the "least bad" ideology, it is a slow and sinister destruction of our society for the benefit of the capital owners, hiding behind a mask of humanism that slips off the minute it becomes inconvenient to keep wear it.