The Batlord

If it's just a pixel then you can't prove it's a dick.

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jwb

It's a long boring read tbh, I'm not that eager to revisit it, but the main thrust of the entire first portion of the book is in explaining what was happening in the industrial revolution through the increased efficiency that division of labor and specialization bring to the table.

He was reacting to the rise of modern capitalism, first and foremost. It was not something that he came up with and proposed, and so we adopted it. It was already manifesting itself organically. He was just one of the first people to spell out conceptually exactly how and why it works.

That's not to say he got everything right. Nor did he only say positive things about industrialization. He talked about how the division of labor makes jobs more simple and menial which makes them more meaningless and turns the worker into cogs in the machine, for example.

jwb

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.

The Batlord

And yet the more capitalism progresses the more we move toward democratic socialism or some form of it. Capitalism is indeed efficiency writ large on industrial society, so why is it not the clear end result of capitalist influence when perfect efficiency should seem to be the natural end result?

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jwb

Because it depends what you're being efficient at. That's why I don't appeal to capitalism as a necessary evil if another system emerged that had better results, that would be great. In fact if it doesn't happen we're ****ed.

But for the time being it's the only game in town

The Batlord

You don't think that capitalism's deafness to human morality, that thing that allows humans to cohabit together, means that something else is necessary? I mean I think that socialism is essentially capitalism meeting human morality.

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jwb

I think I just said that I think it will need to be replaced.

I'm only skepitcal about revolutionary zeal leading people blindly into thinking they can accomplish something they might not be able to. I'd say I have a fair amount of reasons for that.

The Batlord

I'd agree. You call me a communist but I don't believe in any of that revolutionary zeal. I believe that humanity is being culturally molded slowly but surely into something other than the cavemen we still kinda sorta are, but I don't think that our caveman instincts are being erased. We're still poo flinging apes at our very core. But capitalism is what destroyed the idea of formal birth hierarchies and socialism will be what destroys meritocratic hierarchies. Eventually.

I'm really not a revolutionary. I'm a watcher who would like the human race to be farther along than they currently are and can't help but be pissed off at seeing all these bull**** hierarchies still in force when I simply can't stand to still see them in existence because I have to live in this world where I'm subjected to them.

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The Batlord

Whether or not it was meant to be about wealth creation and hoarding that is what capitalism is in reality. Private vs. public? Whether or not the person ruling my existence is a public servant or a private boss means little. They are both indifferent, cruel autocrats who I'll be happy to see hung from a street lamp.

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The Batlord

The power of capitalists kinda always meant that this was how it would play out. Talking about public meaning everyone vs. just some new age feudalists is kinda pointless.

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