Will AI Spell the End of Capitalism?

[roamer_1]

I'm calm and I have read economic history far more extensively than you obviously.

What you, and my friend @roamer_1 are trying to get at is Mercantilism which is largely what rules these days.

Oh don't think I am defending Mercantilism any further than the bare fact of it's existence in the American system since its inception... And it's benign aspect of fueling a middle class here, nearly from inception. Unfortunately, its more cancerous aspect - turning robber barons into royalty - outweighs its benefits. I am no fan of it.

[Absalom]

Roamer, your wise & supportive comments/thoughts are much appreciated.

[roamer_1]

Opposition to Mercantilism is what helped fuel our Revolution.  The UK prohibited the manufacture of finished goods in its colonies, utilizing them exclusively as sources of raw materials.  They also utilized tariffs as a way to punish/reward certain industries - an affront to a level playing field and the free exercise of the individual to improve his/her lot.  It would be several decades after the publication of Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations that these practices would be abandoned and the Industrial Revolution could take hold.

You'll have to go back a few years to see what I am pointing to... While the Magna Carta created the possibility of upward mobility, the facts on the ground were somewhat different. Since all the land was owned by the lords, rural life remained agrarian and still dependent upon feudal lords for a very long time. Where it mattered was in the cities and particularly at sea. As a matter of no other choice, those souls that wished to better themselves necessarily had to lean into mercantilism in order to profit - Since the government and the lords owned and regulated literally everything, that was the only way forward... Property ownership caught wind in ships, city parcels and roadside taverns and was a hard scrabble. until the shipping magnates funded banks and those banks started loaning the money needed to expand startups into going concerns. Until then the lords still owned it all, and loaned it all. When that happened - Magnates raised up a parallel to that feudal system, and bought out lands of failing lords... Eventually that nascent capitalist strain won over.

But do not think for a minute that it did not start in the bad habits of Mercantilism. As I said, it was the only springboard...

[roamer_1]

In word, the communists talk up a big game about agrarianism as the chief cornerstone of the collective, elevating the farmer above your typical bourgeois intellectual.  But in actual practice, not so much.

More or less. But all the same, Agrarianism (while it was not called that) was an attempt to capture the historical norm of the good life in the face of a burgeoning industrialism. And it is still true - Country life is still considered a bucolic alternative to what industrialization brought... However, calls to put it back in the box are asking the impossible.

[DefiantMassRINO]

Chi-com AI will be the end of capitalism ... because it's devleoped, maintained, and implemented by commies.

The antithesis of Artificial Intelligence must be Organic Stupidity, of which the US has an infinite supply.

Artificial Intelligence only works in paradigm where all decisions and actions by all participants strictly adhere to logic.  Such systems are always susceptible to divide by zero errors.

It only takes one bi-polar paranoid schizophrenic off his meds, and just out of rehab, to throw the whole system to hell.

"That's just crazy enough, it might work!"

[Fishrrman]

Hoodat wrote:
"Again, Capitalism is focused exclusively on the self-interest of the individual while socialism is based on confiscating the production of that individual by an outside entity.  Capitalism exists solely because of human nature (see "self-interest of the individual" above) while socialism seeks to defy it."


"When you consider socialism, do not fool yourself about its nature. Remember, that there is no such dichotomy as ‘human rights’ versus ‘property rights.’ No human rights can exist without property rights. Since material goods are produced by the mind and effort of individual men, and are needed to sustain their lives, if the producer does not own the result of his effort, he does not own his life. To deny property rights means to turn men into property owned by the state. Whoever claims the ‘right’ to ‘redistribute’ the wealth produced by others is claiming the ‘right’ to treat human beings as chattel."

- Ayn Rand

[dfwgator]

A just machine
To make big decisions

Programmed by fellas
With compassion and vision

We'll be clean
When their work is done

We'll be eternally free
Yes, and eternally young

What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free


-Donald Fagen