this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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fuck off with that neoliberal bullshit.
Governments already do "investing". Elon Musk is the wealthiest man in the world thanks to the US government subsidizing Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink. Your tax money is already going into allocating and managing capital in society, so how about instead of letting wealthy individuals choose how capital gets invested we let the government decide that? It's neoliberal brainrot that wealthy capitalists, without any real oversight, should be the ones to dictate how capital is used.
And let them go. The wealthy can go wherever they want but most their wealth is tied to their businesses and moving those businesses elsewhere is extremely expensive. The can take their wealth with them only if they spend an insane amount to transfer all their businesses out of the country or if they cash out their businesses. Both come with a significant drop in wealth, so they're not going to do that. You've been fed bullshit propaganda.
Governments invest in some things, but they can't effectively manage the entire economy. It is too complex, and markets provide information that will simply not be available under central planning.
Hell, even now government investments are highly inefficient for many reasons. The government is getting ripped of by private contractors, as they can't control the complexities of production, have nearly unlimited resources, so they do not optimise, and a lot of asinine decisions are made because nobody cares enough. Look at how bloated the military funding is in the US for example.
I don't feel like writing an essay so I'll approach it a bit differently.
I'm not sure why you brought up central planning. That didn't even cross my mind when I made my comment. I don't think there's anything else to address here because most of what you said seems to be in the context of central planning.
Why do you think the wealthy aren't getting ripped off? What are they doing that the government cannot do?
And the wealthy can? And by wealthy I mean the wealthy individual, not the companies they own.
unlimited resources is clearly hyperbolic because if they did have unlimited resources then who cares if they're getting ripped or and are extremely inefficient, as long as the things get done. As for "optimizing", optimizing for what? Should the government optimize for profit the same way companies do?
Do you think companies don't make asinine decisions? COVID showed that work from home is perfectly viable. It's also an obvious cost cutting method because you don't need to rent or own a huge office space, you get to downsize and save money. Most companies chose the more expensive option. For what?
How do you think the military industrial complex came to be? Modern MIL came into existence during and after WW2 when private enterprises saw a huge market in war. The very people you claim should be making the decisions about capital allocation are the people who played an integral role in bloating the US military funding.
You said the govenment ahould decide how capital is allocated, and not capitalists. What is it if not central planning?
You are talking about wealthy individuals, how they are not special and can get ripped off, do not know more than other people, etc. But this is not the point. The competency of the individual matters, but less than the incentive structures that exist around them.
Competition and profit motive create incentives to decrease production costs, increase production, look for new markets and lower the price(not always, do not tell me about when this is not the case, I know).
And both capitalists and upper management exist in a very pressured environment. Capitalists have to allocate resources correctly, because they own them. For that reason, they are careful when investing, and only do economically sensible things(if they themselves are sensible, and if they are not they will see their capital diminish). The organisations that manage finances and corporations are held accountable by that: they have to make sure they are making correct decisions to attract capital.
Corporate structure in America is characterised by a prominence of markets in management. High publicity of company actions and results, coupled with a structure that holds management accountable to the shareholders creates a system where both good and bad decisions are reflected in the capitalisation and management is, as I said, under great pressure to perform because the will have to pack their bags and leave otherwise.
This is the system that made America the largest economy in the world.
The same can not be said about government owned firms. I said nearly unlimited, and this is more or less the case. Governments throw money at the problem until it is solved, since there is no profit motive, no pressure to perform, costs are higher, performance is worse, etc. Of course, they try to optimise, but history shows that they are almost always less efficient than private firms.
They should still be employed in certain parts of the economy, like social services, infrastructure, etc. But probably only when there are good reasons for that.
I assume it's implied we're talking about investment capital considering you said taxing the rich would reduce their ability to invest and I talked exclusively about investing.
None of those things have anything to do with the existence of wealthy people.
Maybe 50-100 years ago. Do you really think Google, Amazon, Meta and anything Elon Musk touches exists in a pressured environment? Google has so much money they can create new tech for a new product and then 2-3 years later throw the tech with the product into the dumpster. Amazon has deliberately attritioned out an entire market (by undercutting everyone) to create a monopolistic empire. Meta "expansions" into other markets have been exclusively through buying out a potential competitor, because they just have that much money. And Musk blew away 42 billion to run one of the biggest social media sites into the ground. They don't feel pressure. They don't need to allocate resources correctly. Mega corporations have so much capital they don't even know what to do with it. They probably could torch half their market value and their closest competitor still wouldn't be competition to them.
Or did you mean the time wall street literally crashed the economy so hard the government had to bail them out? When it comes to the wealthy there are no risks.
And for what purpose? Who benefits from having the largest economy in the world? It's clearly not the American people.
You're trying to say China isn't on the verge of beating the US in the economic game? It has nothing to do with who controls the company, it's about how much you make your employees slave away. The more they slave the more profitable you'll be. Government entities tend to be "less efficient" because there's higher scrutiny towards slaving away (they can still end up slaving away because they're usually underfunded so one person has to fulfill multiple roles, but that's because there's not enough taxation coming in due to us not properly taxing the rich).
So you think there is a distinction between investment capital and some other capital I do not know about?
Yes it does. If there is not an expectation of profit, private property, etc this does not work at all. If there are, it will lead to capital accumulation.
Yes they do. Creating a monopoly is not an example of unreasonable decitions. What? Google has a lot of money, and experimenting with possible products is not what I would call an example of stupid decisions. The point is, they have those resources, their market cap crows by the day(well, until recently), they are effective. Bying a competitor is a terrific idea. Why do you say this is an example of unreasonable behaviour if it benefits the owners of these companies?
The wall street did not crash because of individual mistake of investors, but because of market tendencies. This is completely unrelated.
"The more they slave the more profitable they will be" is, of course, true in a sense that paying less can increase profit margins amd you can force the workers to work more, but this is not always possible as there are usually regulations that protect workers, unions, and some positions are highly competitive. I do not know what is the case in America, but here government jobs pay less than private sector. Often a lot less. Goverment workers are as likely to overwork because they are understaffed. They are still less efficient. There is no research that reflects what you are saying. This is just your opinion.
Ookay... So what's the issue with taxing them? It's not like the office chair they own suddenly becomes useless if they get taxed. Their capital in the most general sense will stay the same.
Ah yes, we were all hunter gatherers until capitalism was invented. We didn't improve our production methods, we didn't improve our tools, we didn't educate ourselves. No offense but that's an absolutely moronic argument.
So we don't need a market economy? Because a monopoly destroys the market.
I never said it was a stupid decision. You said they need to allocate resources correctly, they don't because because they're probably making more money they can spend. They don't feel any pressure to make correct decisions.
I'm sorry, I thought competition in the market is the reason companies make great decisions. So it's a terrific idea to get rid of the very thing that forces you to make great decisions?
Well, you're not wrong. Capitalism loves when it can just buy itself into a monopoly and churn out shitty products because people have no other option.
Those market tendencies were all reckless financial actions from orders that came top to bottom. The capital owners were squeezing everything they could out of the people, until it all came crashing down. And then they got bailed out by the government.
So capitalism is okay because the non-capitalist things are supposed to keep it in check?
Okay, so provide sources proving otherwise you saying the government is less efficient is also JUST YOUR OPINION.
Yeah if you talk to this reaganbot for a while or starts to offload responsibilities upon the institutions the ultra wealthy commandeer. Is happening in real time in the US.
"Ookay... So what's the issue with taxing them? It's not like the office chair they own suddenly becomes useless if they get taxed. Their capital in the most general sense will stay the same."
No, it will not stay the same. That's the point of taxation.
"Ah yes, we were all hunter gatherers until capitalism was invented. We didn't improve our production methods, we didn't improve our tools, we didn't educate ourselves. No offense but that's an absolutely moronic argument."
This just shows how bad faith all of your arguments are. I clearly do not mean competition and profit are necessary, just that they lead to capital accumulation, which is what you denied.
Next we have, honestly, an incredibly wrong understanding of what I said. I will try to explain.
A market compels economic agents to act a certain way, as they are driven by profit, and markets provide information on what is in demand/profitable. Within a market framework, establishing a monopoly is highly profitable and makes a lot of sense. Which is why your accusation of incompetence you made in a previous comment falls apart, since while that, which is profitable is not the same as that which is good for society(governments should try to make sure the markets exist in contexts that make them beneficial) this is irrelevant and they did act rationally.
If you do not accept this, I see no point in talking to you any longer. You are thinking in one line slogans and do not see the context of what I, or you for that matter, are saying.
If you own a chair today how does that change when tomorrow some tax is applied to your "capital"?
I guess it depends on how you define capital accumulation. If we take the standard capitalist understanding of capital, then yes it leads to capital accumulation and I'm not denying that because adding labor power inevitably leads to an increase of capital.
However, you argued that the profit motive and competition lead to production efficiencies and then added that without " an expectation of profit, private property, etc" this doesn't work at all. I denied that you need a profit motive or competition to reach better efficiency. We've had at least 2 millenia of increasing production efficiency a real need for profit or competition. Capitalism is not a necessity for production efficiency. Believing we couldn't be efficient without capitalism is just capitalist propaganda.
Do you even understand what you're saying? You pretty much just said that capitalism is not good for society. And your original argument about the wealthy needing their wealth is one that wants to perpetuate capitalism. You're pretty much arguing against yourself here.
And just as an FYI, markets are not unique to capitalism. Market socialism is also a thing.
What am I supposed to accept? That we should put profits over what is good for the society? If you want me to accept that then I also don't see a point in talking with you. If you want me to accept that capital accumulation is something that happens, I can accept that (though I definitely have a different option on what should be done with that "capital" we keep producing).
That's an interesting point. The government tends to get ripped off because of negotiation issues. Private orgs can hire and retain the best negotiators, whereas govt can't afford that and if they can, they'd still be vulnerable to accusations of cronyism to have the best of the private sector's negotiators negotiating with the companies they've probably dealt with privately before and who they will likely be back with in the future.
This is one reason why competitive procurement is such a big deal and so complicated and time consuming.
We know from bitter historical experience that privatising public operations, especially natural monopolies like utilities, results in worse service and higher prices, coupled with sub-par investment. A private company can be bailed out if it goes bankrupt sending all its profits out to shareholders. A public org has an incentive not to waste taxpayer money.
That is true, some things should stay public. But you can surely see why making the government run everything is inefficent amd stupid(ignoring all the other problems with that).