Capitalism, Communism and the Socrates Club
I recently discovered through one of my adult students that there is an English language philosophy discussion club that meet every Sunday at 11am at a Starbucks in Seomyeon (central Busan). It sounded like my thing, and as the rest of the family usually sleeps in on a Sunday it doesn't conflict with anything else I have to go to.
At the start of each session a theme is voted on. Last weekend the theme was 'if we could end ageing, should we do so', which you won't be surprised to learn was my suggestion. The week before was 'Communism'.
I recently read 'In Defense of Capitalism' by Rainer Zitelmann. I'm no economist, but I'll say that he backs up his arguements well and I broadly agreed with most of it. Obviously, you don't go into a book of that title expecting an even handed weighing up of the pros and cons of both, so I should probably read at least an article arguing the opposite at some point.
A couple of key takeaways:
Surveys reveal that people often have more of a negative reaction to the word 'capitalism' than they do to statements that describe what that word stands for (a free market with minimal state intervention).
'Capitalism is destroying the Earth' is a popular mantra, but do communist countries have a better environmental record? In short, no. He goes into a range of metrics to argue why, but for a couple of examples the former USSR's Dzerzhinsk was widely regarded as the most polluted place on Earth, and just take a look at what happened to the Aral Sea!
I once got into a facebook arguement over the old capitalism/communism debate (why did I do it, it's time consuming and no one ever changes their mind online) and was accused of not reading up on communist political theory. And that's kind of true. From the small bit of communist theory I have read up on I can at least see the appeal of it. But I care more about political results than political theory, and the results have been not great. People can argue over the theory of it for hours, but at the end of the day, the Berlin wall was put up to prevent people escaping from communist Germany, not into it. I've seen it succinctly put as 'communism looks good on paper, unless that paper is in a history book'.
Anytime I come across communist apologetics on social media it is always by someone who's never actually had to live under it themselves. The few times I've talked to people who have (from China, Cuba and Eastern Europe) they've been a lot more critical of it.
There are many factors that contribute to how successful a nation is, but checking the economic freedom index, there's a strong correlation between a country having economic freedom and it being the sort of place you'd want to live.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom
The North and South Korean divide is another example, which marks one the largest difference in living standards between any two nations with a land border on the planet. Though even I'd be willing to concede that the old cliche 'that's not real communism' has some truth there, as it functions more like an absolutist monarchy than anything based on socialist principles.
Not that pure unregulated capitalism is the way to go either. Unions, minimum wage and environmetal and safety restrictions all exist for good reason. As much as the Brits like to whine about it, I'd much rather have the NHS over the American system. I'm still trying to understand exactly how the Korean system works, I googled and got the following.
'The health security system in Korea has two components: mandatory social health insurance and medical aid. The National Health Insurance (NHI) system provides healthcare coverage to all citizens. The major sources of NHI funding include contributions from those who are insured and government subsidies.'
In practice healthcare here is not completely free but is very heavily subsidised and won't break the bank.
As I said at the Socrates Club, "free markets and a social safety net work as best as anything else that's ever been tried."
And there's no better way to end this than with Mark Corrigan's rant on the miracle of consumer capitalism, because there's never a bad time to share Peep Show.
Though have you got time for one more vaguely capitalism related musing? Three months ago I read through several articles about Governor Ron DeSantis banning the production and sale of lab grown meat in Florida.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68947766
We all read plenty of news stories about terrible politics, but this one struck me as especially dumb. "Florida is fighting back against the global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs." Because if I was one of the global elite (which DeSantis is actually part of) my biggest concern would be finding ways to force the common folk to eat bugs!
How can you be a free market conservative who's all about the 'Frrrrreeeeedum' and then ban people from being able to produce or buy what they choose? If American beef farmers get outcompeted by someone selling a newer better product then that's just the market at work. I can't imagine the manufacturers of candles were too keen on those newly fangled electric lights, but here we are.
The comments sections (on similar articles, not the BBC one) were also hilariously bad.
'No one will ever eat that lab grown slop!" Well, if no one's going to eat it, how the hell is it a threat to American beef farmers?
"I won't be forced to eat lab grown meat!" No one's forcing you to eat it, you absolute muppets, but by banning it you take away the chance for other poeple to choose what they'd like to eat.
If you think the inside of a food factory is a grim environment, then just wait until you see the inside of a slaughterhouse! I, for one, will be happy to try the lab based alternative to killing animals to make meat.
At the start of each session a theme is voted on. Last weekend the theme was 'if we could end ageing, should we do so', which you won't be surprised to learn was my suggestion. The week before was 'Communism'.
I recently read 'In Defense of Capitalism' by Rainer Zitelmann. I'm no economist, but I'll say that he backs up his arguements well and I broadly agreed with most of it. Obviously, you don't go into a book of that title expecting an even handed weighing up of the pros and cons of both, so I should probably read at least an article arguing the opposite at some point.
A couple of key takeaways:
Surveys reveal that people often have more of a negative reaction to the word 'capitalism' than they do to statements that describe what that word stands for (a free market with minimal state intervention).
'Capitalism is destroying the Earth' is a popular mantra, but do communist countries have a better environmental record? In short, no. He goes into a range of metrics to argue why, but for a couple of examples the former USSR's Dzerzhinsk was widely regarded as the most polluted place on Earth, and just take a look at what happened to the Aral Sea!
I once got into a facebook arguement over the old capitalism/communism debate (why did I do it, it's time consuming and no one ever changes their mind online) and was accused of not reading up on communist political theory. And that's kind of true. From the small bit of communist theory I have read up on I can at least see the appeal of it. But I care more about political results than political theory, and the results have been not great. People can argue over the theory of it for hours, but at the end of the day, the Berlin wall was put up to prevent people escaping from communist Germany, not into it. I've seen it succinctly put as 'communism looks good on paper, unless that paper is in a history book'.
Anytime I come across communist apologetics on social media it is always by someone who's never actually had to live under it themselves. The few times I've talked to people who have (from China, Cuba and Eastern Europe) they've been a lot more critical of it.
There are many factors that contribute to how successful a nation is, but checking the economic freedom index, there's a strong correlation between a country having economic freedom and it being the sort of place you'd want to live.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom
The North and South Korean divide is another example, which marks one the largest difference in living standards between any two nations with a land border on the planet. Though even I'd be willing to concede that the old cliche 'that's not real communism' has some truth there, as it functions more like an absolutist monarchy than anything based on socialist principles.
Not that pure unregulated capitalism is the way to go either. Unions, minimum wage and environmetal and safety restrictions all exist for good reason. As much as the Brits like to whine about it, I'd much rather have the NHS over the American system. I'm still trying to understand exactly how the Korean system works, I googled and got the following.
'The health security system in Korea has two components: mandatory social health insurance and medical aid. The National Health Insurance (NHI) system provides healthcare coverage to all citizens. The major sources of NHI funding include contributions from those who are insured and government subsidies.'
In practice healthcare here is not completely free but is very heavily subsidised and won't break the bank.
As I said at the Socrates Club, "free markets and a social safety net work as best as anything else that's ever been tried."
And there's no better way to end this than with Mark Corrigan's rant on the miracle of consumer capitalism, because there's never a bad time to share Peep Show.
Click to viewThough have you got time for one more vaguely capitalism related musing? Three months ago I read through several articles about Governor Ron DeSantis banning the production and sale of lab grown meat in Florida.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68947766
We all read plenty of news stories about terrible politics, but this one struck me as especially dumb. "Florida is fighting back against the global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs." Because if I was one of the global elite (which DeSantis is actually part of) my biggest concern would be finding ways to force the common folk to eat bugs!
How can you be a free market conservative who's all about the 'Frrrrreeeeedum' and then ban people from being able to produce or buy what they choose? If American beef farmers get outcompeted by someone selling a newer better product then that's just the market at work. I can't imagine the manufacturers of candles were too keen on those newly fangled electric lights, but here we are.
The comments sections (on similar articles, not the BBC one) were also hilariously bad.
'No one will ever eat that lab grown slop!" Well, if no one's going to eat it, how the hell is it a threat to American beef farmers?
"I won't be forced to eat lab grown meat!" No one's forcing you to eat it, you absolute muppets, but by banning it you take away the chance for other poeple to choose what they'd like to eat.
If you think the inside of a food factory is a grim environment, then just wait until you see the inside of a slaughterhouse! I, for one, will be happy to try the lab based alternative to killing animals to make meat.