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~~jwb~~ · 08-16-2019, 05:17 PM

Well if you want to be specific, industrialisation is about efficiency via the division of labor. Capitalism is about wealth creation. It seizes on the tools of industrialization in order to increase the amount of wealth that's created.

It's different from something like Marxism in that it wasn't some idea that somebody came up with and then appealed to revolutionaries to intentionally make it happen. It's just something that manifested on its own based on the circumstances at the time.

I see it as a fundamentally ammoral system. To the extent that people like Adam Smith talked about it bringing an end to inequality and things of that nature, I basically agree that that was a naive under estimation of the capacity for human greed.

It was also probably more of a rationalization after the fact than it was the primary reason for defending capitalism. He already saw the wealth that was being created. The incentives for pushing forward were tangibly obvious.

But as I said capitalism didn't come about based on some moral vision, it arose organically because it was more lucrative and more efficient at creating wealth.

Thus the people who adopted the methods described in the book by Adam Smith tended to be favored by the market inherently, and as such things trended in that direction because people were constantly competing for wealth.

So fundamentally the reason that capitalism came about has a lot more to do with the pragmatic efficacy of the system at creating wealth then it does with any specific moral vision.

You mentioned predictions like specialization reducing the work week. Maynard Keynes also predicted that the work week would be drastically reduced based on the efficiency of industrial techniques.

He was right to note the efficiency could in principle free us from a lot of toil, but his prediction didn't come true. The reason it didn't come true is not because we couldn't shorten the work week and enjoy the same standard of living that people had during his time, but because the richer we get the more demands we have on increasing our standard of living so that instead of working less we just consume more. This goes back to what you were saying about greed.

08-16-2019, 05:17 PM	#62663 (permalink)
~~jwb~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Jul 2019 Posts: 4,403	Well if you want to be specific, industrialisation is about efficiency via the division of labor. Capitalism is about wealth creation. It seizes on the tools of industrialization in order to increase the amount of wealth that's created. It's different from something like Marxism in that it wasn't some idea that somebody came up with and then appealed to revolutionaries to intentionally make it happen. It's just something that manifested on its own based on the circumstances at the time. I see it as a fundamentally ammoral system. To the extent that people like Adam Smith talked about it bringing an end to inequality and things of that nature, I basically agree that that was a naive under estimation of the capacity for human greed. It was also probably more of a rationalization after the fact than it was the primary reason for defending capitalism. He already saw the wealth that was being created. The incentives for pushing forward were tangibly obvious. But as I said capitalism didn't come about based on some moral vision, it arose organically because it was more lucrative and more efficient at creating wealth. Thus the people who adopted the methods described in the book by Adam Smith tended to be favored by the market inherently, and as such things trended in that direction because people were constantly competing for wealth. So fundamentally the reason that capitalism came about has a lot more to do with the pragmatic efficacy of the system at creating wealth then it does with any specific moral vision. You mentioned predictions like specialization reducing the work week. Maynard Keynes also predicted that the work week would be drastically reduced based on the efficiency of industrial techniques. He was right to note the efficiency could in principle free us from a lot of toil, but his prediction didn't come true. The reason it didn't come true is not because we couldn't shorten the work week and enjoy the same standard of living that people had during his time, but because the richer we get the more demands we have on increasing our standard of living so that instead of working less we just consume more. This goes back to what you were saying about greed.