HeavenlyPossumAug 3, 2023

Capitalism must always grow. It can never stop.

Capitalists must always seek to maximize differential profits—they have to collect *more* profits than their competitors.

Because you can reinvest those profits in buying up more revenue generating assets, you can expand your business and grab more market share. Or, like when Microsoft bought Nokia to grab the patents Nokia held, you can invest in blocking your competitors from expanding.

If your share of the market falls so far that you can’t make payroll or pay your creditors, you go out of business. Your capital is seized and sold off, and you become just another worker, subject to the whims and commands of capital owners.

So capital owners in competitive markets must always try to grow at a rate faster than their competitors. If they stop, if they take a break, if the global ecosystem collapses, then so does capitalism.

Show threadAlexander_Anotherskip_DavisAug 3, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum Cute, but no.
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 3, 2023

@Alexander_Anotherskip_Davis

Wow thanks

Show threadAlexander_Anotherskip_DavisAug 3, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum Sure, i mean if you can cite research to prove your point I'll look at it but really. its a pretty poor theory that only has minimal observational support. If you can prove it I'll happily use it to smush other tweets I have seen in my thread today so win-win.
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 3, 2023

@Alexander_Anotherskip_Davis

I’m trying and failing to figure out what it is you’re trying to accomplish here

Show threadPyperkubAug 3, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum @Alexander_Anotherskip_Davis IMHO. mostly that you are conflating monopolists with capitalists and what passes for capitalism today is NOT capitalism, it is the opposite of what Adam Smith meant by free markets in capital and labor, and most your issues appear to be with what monopolists are doing to corrupt free markets and perform rent-seeking. Capitalism with good rules and referees is what's needed, but both have been corrupted by monopolists (and not for the first time).
Show threadPyperkubAug 3, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum @Alexander_Anotherskip_Davis See @pluralistic 's examination of Private Equity and the Carried Interest Loophole: https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest
Pluralistic: 29 Apr 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadPyperkubAug 3, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum @Alexander_Anotherskip_Davis @pluralistic And then realize even **THAT** scam isn't enough, and needs more scams: https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/20/continuation-fraud/
Pluralistic: Private equity ghouls have a new way to steal from their investors (20 July 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 4, 2023

@pluralistic @[email protected] @pyperkub

Why would the existence of “scams” be antithetical to profit-seeking in competitive markets by capital owners?

Show threadPyperkubAug 4, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum @pluralistic See above- "Capitalism with good rules and referees is what's needed"
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 4, 2023

@pyperkub @pluralistic

Capitalism *is* the result of rules—it is inescapably the product of state violence and cannot exist without massive state interference. This *is* capitalism acting according to the rules; there is no “good” capitalism but only degrees of violence and exploitation.

Show threadPyperkubAug 4, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum @pluralistic and socialism/communism isn't?

Hmmm... might need to come up with some way to differentiate here...

Show threadRDAug 5, 2023

@pyperkub @HeavenlyPossum @pluralistic

It's quite simple really: if it involves a state, it's not socialism or communism.

If it involves a state existing from, let's say around 1900 or so on, it's either a private capitalist state (like the US, or even "Nordic Socialist" states) or state capitalism (like USSR, China, Cuba, DPRK, Vietnam, etc).

Hope this is helpful.

Show threadPyperkubAug 7, 2023
@RD4Anarchy @HeavenlyPossum @pluralistic From Britannica - you are still conflating "monopoly/oligopoly" with "capitalism". The point being that what we have is NOT a free market based economy (Defn of Capitalism here), based on market principles, but rather an oligopoly based on monopolistic principles. That is what #enshittification is all about - Rent Seeking through Monopoly.
Show threadPKMKIIAug 7, 2023
@pyperkub @RD4Anarchy @HeavenlyPossum @pluralistic An absolute free market economy can be talked about in the abstract but can’t exist in the real world as there’s always state involvement due to the state being the one that enforces private property claims. The current oligarchy/#enshittification regime is the natural result of the capitalist class using economic pressure on the state to protect its profits.
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 7, 2023

@pyperkub @PKMKII @RD4Anarchy @pluralistic

No state, no capitalism.

Capitalism? No free market.

Show threadPyperkubAug 7, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum @PKMKII @RD4Anarchy @pluralistic Again - this isn't correct. There were markets long before there were States, and they were all about haggling for goods and services and being capitalists. And also there were bad actors who, if they didn't like the price, would take stuff. Just like now. Modern States are actually a market *reaction* to that use of violence/force to take what isn't yours. See the Magna Carta again.
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 7, 2023

@pluralistic @pyperkub @RD4Anarchy @PKMKII

There were markers before states. There was no capitalism before states and, indeed, before the early modern state. Capitalism is, at most, a few centuries old and is not a synonym for “trade” or “commerce.”

Show threadPyperkubAug 7, 2023
You are WAY too invested in "the STATE" as the reason for Capitalism here. Not completely sure why.
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 7, 2023

@pyperkub

Because the state brought capitalism into existence and exists to serve capital owners.

Let’s try this: all that private property owned by capitalists—all the land, farms, mines, all those natural resource—how do you think it came to be owned by the capitalists who own it today?

Once upon a time, nobody owned it, but now someone owns it. What was that process like?

Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 7, 2023

@pyperkub

I’m also really befuddled by your argument that the Magna Carta, of all things, was somehow a product of *market* forces. What exactly do you think the Magna Carta was?

Show threadPyperkubAug 7, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum From a markets/economic perspective, the King was using his power to take rather than pay for them, throwing the market out of equilibrium as well as bankrupting the monarchy and the barons, and the barons forced the market into a new equilibrium from that monopoly abuse is kind of how I argue it. Markets aren't only economic is the idea, and the Magna Carta can be seen as an example of an implicit Market Failing and the Barons taking collective action: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketfailure.asp
Market Failure: What It Is in Economics, Common Types, and Causes

Market failure is a situation in which there is an inefficient allocation of goods and services in the free market.

Investopedia
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 7, 2023

@pyperkub

This is such an atrocious reading of history that I don’t know where to start, but I’ll give it a go anyway:

- John’s relationship to his barons was feudal, not market based.

- his barons rebelled against him in a war, not a market transaction.

- the resulting document helped define relations between different categories of feudal landowners, not capitalists and certainly not anyone engaged in market exchange.

- the charter was explicitly and specifically about relations between feudal lords who inherited their status.

Show threadPyperkubAug 7, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum The point is that POWER is a currency too. and as soon as you see that, then you can treat it as a question of supply and demand, monopolies and market forces (and you can also see that power as a currency in the Soviet Union notion)
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 7, 2023

@pyperkub

These analogies might sound nice to you, but they don’t really serve as the basis for any useful analysis.

Show threadPyperkubAug 7, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum Really? What I said was that I can make the argument. However, here's a Scientific Paper evaluating the Magna Carta from an Economics perspective - which is VERY useful analysis: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144818816300175#sec0005
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 7, 2023

@pyperkub

Ok.

Show threadPyperkubAug 7, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum And, part of my perspective is that as an undergrad, I started Chemical Engineering, then changed to English, then Economics, and finally graduated History (I also failed out, earned my way back in, and paid my own way as I could afford to..). I took classes in just about every single subject offered at UCLA and drew parallels from different disciplines... when I wasn't out partying too much ;) ) I finally showed up at Administration and said - I think I graduated...
Show threadPyperkubAug 7, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum They said - yup, but you need to fill out this paperwork that says you took too many units!
Show threadPyperkub
@HeavenlyPossum And, in hindsight, I kind of have the same problem with Grad school - I've taken Masters classes in Education, Public Administration and Instructional Technology... maybe one of these days I'll figure out what I want to do with my life! /shrug.
Aug 8, 2023 at 12:00amWeb