The question is: How do you prevent people from exploiting power in their own interest? The best way is to build a system where the amount of power in any one person's hands is limited -- one where the people who monopolize force don't also have authority to distribute wealth or control enterprise as they please.
And, a system where peop…
The question is: How do you prevent people from exploiting power in their own interest? The best way is to build a system where the amount of power in any one person's hands is limited -- one where the people who monopolize force don't also have authority to distribute wealth or control enterprise as they please.
And, a system where people get personal benefit from doing things that are beneficial to other people.
That sort of system has been more successful in bringing widespread prosperity than any other, to date.
It's true that people who are able to amass great economic power can often buy favors from those with political power. That's crony capitalism -- which isn't synonymous with free market capitalism.
The political structure should provide a way for the public to hold politicians accountable for such betrayals of the public trust -- and a way for the public to mitigate gross economic disparities -- without consolidating economic and political power in the same hands, which has tended to result in more oppression than free market capitalism does.
Government (despite high sounding words to the contrary) rests on a foundation of naked force. Well, not naked in our culture, but nonetheless real for all that.
Without force there is no government. This may well work in a smaller more homogenous society but won't work in one the size of most modern nation states. Sooner or later, the people with the force are the people distributing wealth and controlling enterprises. At least until they get co-opted.
Free market capitalism is a philosophy not at thing. It has never really been an actual thing and will never be an actual thing. It always end up mixed and controlled and /or becomes crony capitalism when those with sufficient wealth (again) so-opt the system. It is merely a question of how corrupt, not if it is corrupt. Free market capitalism is only a tad less impossible than communism, though for different reasons.
Our political structure DOES provide a way for the public to hold politicians accountable for betrayals of public trust. They are called elections. Doesn't seem to be fulfilling the intended purpose.
Capitalism in its various iterations has tended to do better by the mass of people than, say, a command economy (mostly for providing for wants moreso than needs--it tends to not do as well with needs). It seems to be the lesser of the evils when you maintain some control/oversight. In the larger scheme, how much is that actually saying?
I don't have a solution, only lots of questions--and a good understanding of how people will corrupt any mechanism that is put into place to regulate things.
Maybe when our AI masters come into being things will improve... but they probably more likely yo be just as bad, if not worse, since we made and programmed them.
The question is: How do you prevent people from exploiting power in their own interest? The best way is to build a system where the amount of power in any one person's hands is limited -- one where the people who monopolize force don't also have authority to distribute wealth or control enterprise as they please.
And, a system where people get personal benefit from doing things that are beneficial to other people.
That sort of system has been more successful in bringing widespread prosperity than any other, to date.
It's true that people who are able to amass great economic power can often buy favors from those with political power. That's crony capitalism -- which isn't synonymous with free market capitalism.
The political structure should provide a way for the public to hold politicians accountable for such betrayals of the public trust -- and a way for the public to mitigate gross economic disparities -- without consolidating economic and political power in the same hands, which has tended to result in more oppression than free market capitalism does.
Government (despite high sounding words to the contrary) rests on a foundation of naked force. Well, not naked in our culture, but nonetheless real for all that.
Without force there is no government. This may well work in a smaller more homogenous society but won't work in one the size of most modern nation states. Sooner or later, the people with the force are the people distributing wealth and controlling enterprises. At least until they get co-opted.
Free market capitalism is a philosophy not at thing. It has never really been an actual thing and will never be an actual thing. It always end up mixed and controlled and /or becomes crony capitalism when those with sufficient wealth (again) so-opt the system. It is merely a question of how corrupt, not if it is corrupt. Free market capitalism is only a tad less impossible than communism, though for different reasons.
Our political structure DOES provide a way for the public to hold politicians accountable for betrayals of public trust. They are called elections. Doesn't seem to be fulfilling the intended purpose.
Capitalism in its various iterations has tended to do better by the mass of people than, say, a command economy (mostly for providing for wants moreso than needs--it tends to not do as well with needs). It seems to be the lesser of the evils when you maintain some control/oversight. In the larger scheme, how much is that actually saying?
I don't have a solution, only lots of questions--and a good understanding of how people will corrupt any mechanism that is put into place to regulate things.
Maybe when our AI masters come into being things will improve... but they probably more likely yo be just as bad, if not worse, since we made and programmed them.