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Hey guys, how is capitalism going? It's going great! Thanks to profit motive based innovation and hard work, the ransomware industry has grown to a $250 Billion(!) industry, with "Ransomware As A Service" (RaaS) now being a very real business service offered by actual companies and resulting in probably multiple times more in costs in down time, and other costs.

Where do we get this incredible boost to productivity and efficiency from?

It's as if by an invisible hand!

crowdstrike.com/cybersecurity-

crowdstrike.comWhat is Ransomware as a Service (RaaS)? - CrowdStrikeRansomware as a Service (RaaS) is a business model in which developers sell or lease their ransomware variants. Learn how RaaS works here.
John Refior

Not sure how much rogue states (Russia), criminals (in Russia), and cryptocurrency (implied money laundering and currency for criminal activity, so kinda back to criminals) have to do with capitalism, but they sure do suck

@jrefior

Nothing you mention is outside of the paradigms of:
Profit motive.
Innovation driven by profit motive.
Labour resources being justified by profit.
Aggressive behavior being justified by profit.

Doesn't matter who is doing it or which country they are in.

The profit motive is driving economic resource allocation!

Yay capitalism!

@selzero
Ok. More expansive definition of capitalism than most I've seen (especially by including criminal activity).

Gets harder for me to think of places/times/things that haven't been dominated by capitalism, by that definition. Are there any you like to point to?

E.g. in Communist Russia, much of the economy ran on the black market, so maybe that was capitalism by your definition too?

@jrefior

Ok nice let's discuss this nicely.

Markets are based on supply and demand right?

So you agree that the fundamental factor for both of these is consent?

So, if you are selling apples for $1 each, but I threaten to shoot you unless you sell for 50 cents, and you agree, money and goods changed hands, but was it really still a market? Or a crime?

I assume we agree it was not a market because a crime was involved, and it was actually theft. Ergo consent is fundamental (Continued)

@jrefior

So, is there a difference between shooting someone to death quickly, or starving them to death slowly? I guess we agree not?

Labour is supposed to be a "market". But if we don't contribute to the labour market under capitalism we starve to death. Is it really a market then?

What we just accepted as "theft not markets" is right there in the core dynamics of the labour market that has us under a Stockholm Syndrome accepting that humans are economic machines as default (Continued)

@jrefior

Under proper markets, value in Labour should come through consent. IE, the guy that is willing to go down the sewer should be the one that gets the private jet.

Instead consent is ripped away, and "skills" are exaggerated, so if your dad can afford an Ivy League education for you, you walk into a 6 figure desk job.

This is because we live in "capitalism" the value of capital above everything, not a "market economy" that is an important distinction. (Continued)

@jrefior

Neither capitalism NOR market economics dismisses legal issues.

Show me where on the demand and supply curve, or the Philips curve, or the expenditure curve, legal or illegal activities are factored in?

Law is separate to market dynamics. Just as democracy etc is. The maths of the allocation of scarce resources doesn't take law into account, particularly the version lead by "an invisible hand" (Continued)

@jrefior

So basically, if you want to remove these kinds of bad actors, you have to take away the motive and bake consent back into the system.

A system of UBI to remove the motivation of crime, and put consent into labour markets, is not just right in a humanitarian angle. It is smart economically.

The worship of capital above labour is what justifies malicious actions. All corporations engage in malicious action. The maliciousness is right there baked into the core of its "markets" (End)

@selzero @jrefior
Capitalists, not under the thrall of the 4-wall propaganda most of us have been bombarded with for our entire lives, are capitalists not because they think it's best for humanity - regardless of what they say publicly - but because they want to be the New Aristocracy.
Their actions demonstrate what they value.

@TessRants @jrefior

This is true. The rhetoric is just a continuation of feudalism.

The line that meritocracy is an "escape" is a lie.

Firstly, why do we need to "escape".

Secondly, "meritocracy" is gauged in terms of attractiveness to corporations. The more you can offer, the more we will save you.

"Nice human life you've got there, be a shame if something happened to it, ssseeeee"

@selzero @jrefior
Hit the nail on the head with:
"Why do we need to escape?"
And yeah, 'meritocracy' isn't even a fig leaf anymore. It's just a straight-up lie. Has been my entire life (late model Gen-Xer here) and probably was since the beginning.
People with power always come up with some 'reason' why they *should* have & keep the power.
It was always ad hoc bullshit and always will be.
Divine right, The Elect, Social Darwinism, now Meritocracy...
Different masks, hiding the same face.

@TessRants @selzero @jrefior

I think I'd at least prefer it if they just stuck with Divine Right, because at least at that point they aren't insulting me by pretending it is anything other than just direct face stomping at that point.

@CrypticMirror @TessRants @selzero @jrefior

"Just Because" is less insulting than "because you deserve it."

@selzero
I appreciate you explaining your thinking; I don’t agree with all of the reasoning presented, though I do agree with some of the values.

Participants have not all had the same power in nearly every market I’ve known or studied. If those are not markets because of that, I don’t see what meaning the word has. In theory if the power disparity is too great an agreement may be illegal in many jurisdictions, e.g. the adhesion defense to contract enforcement,

1/x

or the US FTC suing a company, or slavery being a crime. These principles may not be enforced as much as they should be, especially when government is most corrupt, but sometimes they are enforced, and in general they have some effect even if it doesn’t approach the ideal.

We certainly don’t live in meritocracies. I understand where you’re coming from with the labor market in particular. Arguably there is another option: you can start your own business or organization

2/x

(by yourself or with others), as I’m currently trying to do, in large part to opt out of being a servant to the malevolent rich, but it’s certainly not easy and may not always even be possible.

Conceptually capitalism doesn’t *have* to value capital above all else. In theory you could have a capitalist system in a well-regulated economy in a functioning political system that seriously investigates/punishes wrongs, taxes wealth (including of course capital), taxes pollution, pays the poor,

3/x

and invests in public goods. How you get there, however, is an incredibly difficult challenge.

Rousseau said law was a trick played by the rich upon the poor. Maybe he was right, but pretending law doesn’t exist or doesn’t affect behavior does not yield a better understanding of the world around us. There are also many instances where large social movements or persistent, organized groups changed laws, eventually.

4/4