I think the question is applicable to more than just engineers. Our economy is a paperclip maximizer of sorts - in the sense that its maximization target is far removed from the target of building the best possible world that we can imagine building. And the costs and risks are running away from us. How far removed is it? Seeing how we're "slowly" but surely killing the biosphere I think paperclip maximizer is not a bad analogy.
> I think the question is applicable to more than just engineers. Our economy is a paperclip maximizer of sorts - in the sense that its maximization target is far removed from the target of building the best possible world that we can imagine building.
My impression was that the maximization target is the building of the best possible world that can be imagined _for the owners of capital, in proportion_.
A farm in any time period is built to maximize the success, convenience, and happiness of the humans who own and operate the farm, right? Not the happiness or convenience of the chickens or pigs. If making the livestock happier and better fed helps the farm's goals, it will be done, and if not, not.
This frame of reference helps explain a lot more about the world than imagining that anyone with any relevance actually cares about the world being good for most of the people in it. Most of us are just livestock, a means to an end for the proprietors.
Irrelevant. Many who have read Marx (and peers like Ricardo, Smith) would agree his description of the problem was a lot better than his guess at a possible solution, and that's okay. Considering Marx was describing a very new phenomenon, it's not surprising the first attempt to guess at a solution turned out hare-brained. The detailed description of the problem still is very valuable and shockingly apt today. And now we have a lot more data.
Don't comment on Marx if all you know is "lol communism didn't work in russia". That's a borderline non sequitur that just reveals you don't know what Marx said at all. It's like British people meeting Mormons and saying "Oh you're a real mormon? What like from South Park?" You don't have to read Marx in the original, just spend half an hour on a Wikipedia or cliffsnotes summary at least beforehand. Maybe do the same for Smith and Ricardo, too, so you can have a good overview.
A nitpick about country names, really? These are really low-effort comments. And you keep trying to derail the conversation back to communism even though you're the only one fascinated by it here.
Do you also refuse to learn basic physics because Isaac Newton was imperfect and despite coming up with some great physical laws, also believed some nonsense about alchemy that later was shown to be nonsense?
Do you bring up the craziness of alchemy every time newtonian mechanics comes up, and refuse to believe in momentum, mass, and kinetic energy?
Having to argue about this crap every time Marx comes up is tiring and intellectually ineffecient.
At this point I wish we could blame just the smart things Marx said on someone else like say, Mark Twain, just so the adults in the room can discuss the workings, benefits, and problems of capitalism without constantly getting interrupted by irrelevant low-effort arguing.
I would normally agree with you but I'm bored with both of these takes. Communism bad, no communism actually not bad. Whatever. Can we move past this already?
What I want is a good faith argument for something that works as a solution for Marx stated problem. What can we propose? What can we learn?
>> Communism has a worse track record with environmentalism.
That doesn't have any relevance to a critique of capitalism. They both have problems. Also, even if we compare them on "environmentalism", that's only one criteria.
> That doesn't have any relevance to a critique of capitalism.
Pedantically, you are correct. But pragmatically, the people who write "capitalism is bad because of X" are usually interested in replacing it with leftism.
> only one criteria
Your post would be more interesting if you pointed out one criteria where Marxism is better.
These alleged people aren't here though. This is the definition of strawman arguing. Sorry, but you need to engage with the actual positions of the people who you are actually responding to, not the positions of some other people you once met somewhere else but that remind you of us. That kind of discussion is a total waste of time.
>people who write "capitalism is bad because of X" are usually interested in replacing it with leftism
This sounds like looking for a fight that has been fought thousands of times before rather than looking to learn something interesting though.
To me a more interesting question would be, if we steel man the public conception of the problems of capitalism, and we accept that the public conception of communism is problematic to implement to say the least, what remains? How can we move forward without endlessly getting stuck in the same tired argument about communism? How can intelligent people discuss solutions to these issues? What are our alternatives?
What is your point?
A Marxian analysis doesn't inherently mean the person you're replying to is endorsing communism.
They're just saying that Marx correctly understood this particular issue with capitalism.
