Why statists hate capitalism

1st let's define the term statist.
A statist is one who believes that government is the best and fairest means to distribute wealth. They support in whole or in part the idea that government should regulate almost every aspect of human behavior to a greater or lesser extent. Scratch a statist and you'll find lurking judt under the skin a totalitarian.

2. So what is their problem with capitalism? Capitalism pays people according to what they do not who they are. How much you get paid depends on your skill set and it's rarity. A rare skill set commands more money than a common one. Most rare skill sets are more difficult to acquire as well. This stratification of the labor pool strikes statist as unfair. Precisely why they believe this is unclear. They certainly don't seem to believe that a GS 4 should make the same money as a GS 12. Why they think it should be different in the private sector makes know sense.

3 Statist seem to also be of the opinion that capitalism generates poverty. It does reveal poverty, however, it does so by creating wealth where none had previously existed.

 

Adam Smith talked about having to deal with the problems capitalism caused.

More to the point, capitalism and government have worked together since the beginning.

Business has needs, and government has tried to help, again, since the beginning.

In the 1800s, governments got involved in education, health care, R&D, transportation. What has happened since are simply extensions of what they were doing way back then.

Your writing seems pre-capitalist. Might be mercantilism, but it might something even older.

 

Capitalists pay those at the 6op the most they can legally get away with while paying the vast majority of those who actually do the work the company offers the least they can legally get away with. A prime example would be DISNEY that paid the CEO tens of millions while paying their actual working employees peanuts.

 

Not hardly. In the early days government tried to invest in various things and often produced giant bubbles that collapsed and ruined hundreds of people in no small part because government is no better at playing the stock market or telling real from flim flam than anyone else. than anyone else and us often worse for a whole host of reasons. Actually mercantilism was well after Adam Smith. And it caused a lot of wars, slaughter of indigenous peoples and a host of other evils. To top it all off it never really produced the wealth that trade between developed countries does. China right now is trying to be the Great Britain of the 21st century. It will be a disaster if it is allowed. Education wasn't a problem. Involvement in medicine was largely to try to make sure that medicines worked as advertised. The real problems if government interference don't really show up until the early 20th century when the world spanning empires were first set in concrete and the trade wars began in earnest. Those led to almost a total shut down of world trade resulting in the world spanning Great Depression.

 

Of course a person who thinks that way is invariably grossly incapable of doing the job of the person they criticize- and could often be replaced with a trained monkey in his job.
They just assume that 8 hours is 8 hours, and the rest is preferential treatment.
Kind of like comparing the guy shoveling coal into the boiler on a steam ship, and the navigator.

You only need hot air to criticize. You need knowledge, skill, ambition and drive to be successful.

"When you can do my job better than I can, then and only then do you have a right to criticize how I do it or what I'm paid"

 

Have you ever watched Undercover Boss??? Quite often the Boss cannot perform the tasks they are supposedly hired for as a rank and file employee. It is the rank and file employee the public meets, and creates the general perception of the public for the company, not the CEO or Executive staff

 

Funny how we don't see any monkeys on the job in the US..

 

The dudes at the top are worth every penny or there gone. Often the guy at the top is the guy that owns the joint. If he screws up and the place goes belly up, not only is he broke he takes a lot if others with him. His employes can find another job that pays what they were making in a few days, he may not be so lucky. It's one of the risks that come with being a boss.

 

Holy crap, and I do mean crap.

One of the early bubbles was the Tulip Mania, that was in the 1600s, and the government had nothing to do with it.

Speaking of nothing to do with it, your comment (whatever it actually referred to, if anything) had nothing to do with what I said, which was:
"In the 1800s, governments got involved in education, health care, R&D, transportation. What has happened since are simply extensions of what they were doing way back then."

"Mercantilism was dominant in modernized parts of Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism

"On March 9, 1776, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations"—commonly referred to simply as "The Wealth of Nations"—was first published.1 Smith, a Scottish moral philosopher by trade, wrote the book to describe the industrialized capitalist system that was upending the mercantilist system."
https://www.investopedia.com/updates/adam-smith-wealth-of-nations/

Adam Smith played a role in killing mercantilism...

You said "the early 20th century when the world spanning empires were first set in concrete and the trade wars began in earnest." WW1 happened in the early 20th and killed off a few empires, leaving just one. That was England, and it was so badly mauled by the war, it was just a matter of time before it's empire collapsed.

However, the trade wars of that era were disruptive, and prob did play a role in creating conflict.

 

Because it's illegal; the PETA people would be all over it too. We do however, have parallels in skill levels working here.
Makes more sense to use robots. You may not have noticed, but there are vast numbers of them and it's growing daily.
Always on time, ready to do their job well instead of whining half their day away.

 

And his unemployment benefits suck.

 

Actually governments only involved themselves in RD when it came to weapons of war and out side if the British Navy scarcely at all. Please note the Flintlock musket was the standard infantry weapon for nearly 300 years in all European armies. About the only time governments did anything in the way of R&D in Europe was when his or her royal highness got personally involved, and that wasn't often since real game changers were potentially dangerous to monarchies.

 

Name one.

 

Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer.

 

A history book came out, I think last year, but recently, making the connection between the British military, and the evolution of capitalism, much closer than we had previously thought.

So you have a point.

But... when England was breaking away from the Catholic church, that wasn't enough. Their belief was nature abhors a vacuum. So the Brits developed the first vacuum, which lead to the development of thermometers. Actually, a vacuum was one of the enabling technologies. Liquid rockets are a huge thermos, with a vacuum for insulation.

"Science took off in Britain with the Restoration of the monarchy. In late 1660, John Wilkins (1614-72), former Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, with a group of talented young experimental scientists and some gentlemen 'virtuosi' (amateur enthusiasts), founded the Royal Society, and persuaded the new king to be its patron. A driving force behind state encouragement for applied science was a dire cash shortage in the public purse. From its inception, the Royal Society was pledged to research and innovation in all areas of trade and technology.

Long-term, however, 17th-century advances in microscopy, medicine, chemistry and biology have probably been as important as Newton's laws of motion, and the development of precision instruments placed Britain in the forefront of specialist equipment-making (a field in which Wren and Hooke were particularly active). This kind of mass-produced new technology looked set to make the fortune of the inventor and patent-holder..."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/jardineih_01.shtml

I digress.

After the Civil War, the American government started putting R&D money into projects. The McCormick Reaper was one of the projects they invested in. Since then, investing in R&D has grown immensely.

 

Bear in mind the US government had only two ways to raise money prior to 1912 import duties and bonds.

 

Statists hate the freedom capitalism brings. They need the people do be dependent on them.

 

Incorrect.

But, feel free to prove it.

 

That is often true, but what's your point????

 

A great manager can take a company whose product he cannot make himself or even knows anything about, and make the company fly.
That is a truly rare ability, and that is why such a person is valued and paid highly.

When you go to a movie, what you see is the actors playing their part- what you don't see is the director that is orchestrating all the roles and conduct of the actors, so that the movie creates the image and continuity that makes the movie great. This is so relevant to success that you can pretty well determine which movie is worth seeing simply by who directed it.

I would invest in a new company without any information at all- IF the right person was starting it, because I know that the persons skill will make it work, regardless of the product or service involved.

You think the beauty and value of fine art is in the paint you see smeared on the canvas? Or- from the talent of the artist who put it there?

That is the limitation of left-think.

 

Automation has been goin on for thousands of years.

 

At least there is left think.
Right think consists of nothing or limited to binary.

 

Warren Buffett is a loose but apt example. He buys into companies based on their record, his analysis of their prospects, and his assessment of top management. He never assesses the skill set of the workers. He seldom replaces top management on his theory that you cannot teach a young dog old tricks and they were smart enough to hire and keep good essential workers.

 

Most likely few CEO's would be able to make it through the probation period in the maintenance department, or even for a week, but why should they? There's no point in it. The maintenance people need the CEO much more than the CEO needs them. They are much more easily replaceable, like cubicle people are easily replaceable.

 

Yeah, just the other day they dug up a giant robotic stonecutter in the valley of the kings in Egypt.
I can see where the confusion is coming from now.