RoR: Forum

Steve, it is at once complicated and fuzzy.

I agree with your point about North Korea, but what you described applied to Sumeria in the days of Hamurabi. Merchants certainly were held in relatively high regard, but it was not capitalism. Commercial society is not capitalism without key elements.

The Enlightenment idea of inherent (natural, innate) individual rights is one of them, but so is the calculability of risk. That artithmetic came before the ideas of rights that we assign to capitalism, and it was important, also, for structural-functional reasons. A society of perfect property rights as you understand it would not be "capitalistic" if the future were unknowable, the realm of random chance and the whim of the gods, perhaps divined by mystical seers, but not rationally calculated with methods that were empirically verified.

Post 61

Friday, December 7, 2012 - 7:09pm

Dean: Trade-based, commercial urban, societies tend not to go to war against each other. Genoa versus Venice and Holland versus England (and then the UK), are interesting exceptions. The US versus Japan would be another case. Within the USA (despite the New Deal) we were basically capitalistic, trading within the nation and among ourselves by the rules of commerce. However, we were attacked by Japan for multiple reasons - our sidling up to China, for instance, but also our impediment to their imperialism in the Philippines - and we went to war. You can say that Japan was not capitalist then, and I would agree, but Japan certainly was in the 1980s and 1990s when America totally freaked out because Datsuns were no longer orange and Japan was perceived as a threat, not as a valuable trade partner.

Post 62

Friday, December 7, 2012 - 7:11pm

Steve, so the USSR really was communist, but the USA is not really capitalist? You cannot have it both ways.

Post 63

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 5:24am

Steve,

You are arguing over the definition of capitalism. I am just trying to describe relationships between members and non-members of groups.

A set of organisms (set A) trade and retaliate with members within the set. Set A members trade and retaliate with members of other sets of organisms (A', A'', A''', etc). Set A members are predators/parasites on members of other sets of organisms (B, B', B'', etc). Set A members are pacifist victims of members of other sets of organisms' predation/parasitism (C, C', C'', etc). Set A members have practically no relationship with members of other sets of organisms (D, D', D''', etc).

From the perspective of every organism, they can consider themselves as part of set A, and they have the relationships as described above with members of other sets of organisms: A:A*, A:B*, A:C*, A:D*. There is no implication that a set is an entire species, but such is possible.

Sets of organisms that do not have the A:C* relationship have the most control over an ecosystem. They are the "top of the food web".

For example, in the US in 2012: I can label the group I am in as A (Americans who have net tax liabilities and vote against redistribution of wealth and regulations on private relationships). There are Chinese businessmen A'. There are American citizens C and C' who vote for redistributing resources from A to C and C' members. C are lazy/inept people. C' are ambitious people who work their way into powerful places in the government. B are grassfed cows. B' are spinach. B'' are zucchini squash.

Post 64

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 5:44am

Multicellular organisms (such as a human) have cells. A healthy organism that lives in the USA can be labeled as a set of cells "A". Members of A can consume other cells from other organisms such as plants and other organisms C and C'. Members of A can be consumed by other multicellular animal cells B. Members of A can also be consumed by single cell organisms (bacteria) B'. Members of A can also be consumed by defecting cancerous cells (once A, but now B''). Members of A can have practically no relation with single cell organisms D that live in a lake in the South Pole of the Earth.

Post 65

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 6:33am

Ed:

"Another smoke-n-mirrors bait-n-switch by anti-man statists is this garbage about European austerity."

You are dead-nuts right-on about that; the left has been in a panic about burying Germany/Agenda 2010, etc. They are whitewashing over it with every brush in their Soviet Era propaganda arsenal, including this latest from The New Yorker about the UK:

It's official: Austerity Doesn't Work

regards,
Fred

Post 66

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 7:43am

Fred,

Here is the formula:

1) become evil
2) obtain a position as a politician or a talking-head, preferably on the political Left (because that provides you the most insulation from critics questioning your "outwardly-altruistic" motives)
3) centralize wealth and power toward yourself and away from hard-working individuals, via heavy taxes and regulation
4) when the widespread suffering comes, and it will come, incorporate propaganda to blame the people who want to decentralize wealth and power (e.g., libertarian, small-government types) for the suffering you are causing
5) repeat cycle as needed (for you to be able to perpetuate this kind of terrible, terrible evil)

Ed

Post 67

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 7:56am

Mike and Dean,

I'm warning you not to gang-up and pile-on Steve like that. His understanding of this issue is panoramic. He not only understands the issue, he understands the positions that you can take -- the interpretations of sense data -- with regard to the issue. He pegged me exactly, for instance (explained to me how it is that I would get into the position to be thinking a certain way about this issue). So ... if you try to push him around too much ...

... then -- if you ask me -- then "you-all" are going to get your clocks cleaned.

:-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 12/08, 7:57am)

Post 68

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 10:24am

Michael,

A society of perfect property rights as you understand it would not be "capitalistic" if the future were unknowable, the realm of random chance and the whim of the gods, perhaps divined by mystical seers, but not rationally calculated with methods that were empirically verified.

Primitive evaluation of the risks in the future, as you mentioned, predates the explicit statement of property rights. And, capitalism also requires some ability to reason, and choice, of course.... But it is capitalism if people are free to trade, even if they will do a poor job because of the low levels of reason and science in assessing risk, or low levels of technology, or low levels of understanding the world around them. People can freely trade to the best of their ability, and within their level of understanding and they will grow and their knowledge is going to improve - knowledge of risks and the nature of reality in general. [However, it is unlikely that a solid set of structures would exist to protect property rights in a society that is as primitive as you describe.]

Post 69

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 10:36am

Michael,

Steve, so the USSR really was communist, but the USA is not really capitalist? You cannot have it both ways.

Which post of mine are you referring to?

I know that one would work from a good definition of capitalism and determine when a country crossed the point from being mostly capitalist into being mostly something else. Clearly we were mostly capitalistic in the past, but not totally.

And now we are clearly less capitalistic then before. Have we crossed that line? Has it ceased to be meaningful to say we are mostly capitalistic, but partially socialistic? I don't think so. But I'm not sure that the exact position of line is of much importance.

Capitalism is a statement about both politics and economics, and it might be that our laws and political culture have in a short time gone radically towards totalitarianism, and the economies haven't 'caught up' yet. Like the walking dead, we may still be doing trades... not fully integrating the recent loss of political freedom. Maybe that integration has to happen to some degree before one can say that degree of capitalism has been lost.

Post 70

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 10:48am

Dean,

You are arguing over the definition of capitalism. I am just trying to describe relationships between members and non-members of groups.

That makes perfect sense... as long as one part or the whole isn't labeled "capitalism." If that label is attached, then the entity it is attached to has to be understood to be consistent with a good definition of capitalism.
-----------

So, let's drop capitalism from the question. Then the issue becomes this. Can there be any validity to a 'game theory' outcome if the agents of the game are divorced from their actual natures - divorced from that which is the cause of their actions and reactions? If so, that is a statement that some of the rules in the software that drives this simulation are totally consistent with the natures of whatever entities are involved even if the entities can vary totally - cells, people, nations, mice, etc.

If this is not the case, what we are seeing is an attempt to generalize behaviors such that the actual nature of the agents is immaterial, when in fact there is no evidence that is so, and it becomes a make-believe science/heuristic in those cases. It becomes an illusion that outcomes can be reasonably attributed in circumstances where the real natures of the entities wouldn't allow such outcomes.

Post 71

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 10:53am

Ed,

I'm warning you not to gang-up and pile-on Steve...

Thanks for having my back (but I don't think they are ganging up on me, and I also think you overstate my prowess :-)

Post 72

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 1:06pm

Dean,

So far, I've found the following 9 studies. Only a couple involved game theory, and several involved the neuropeptide ("nerve protein") oxytocin:

1) Globalization and human cooperation.

2) What motivates participation in violent political action: selective incentives or parochial altruism?

3) The neuropeptide oxytocin regulates parochial altruism in intergroup conflict among humans.

4) War as a moral imperative (not just practical politics by other means).

5) The mentalizing network orchestrates the impact of parochial altruism on social norm enforcement.

6) Global social identity and global cooperation.

7) Oxytocin modulates cooperation within and competition between groups: an integrative review and research agenda.

8) The cultural contagion of conflict.

9) Oxytocin, but not vasopressin, increases both parochial and universal altruism.

I'll comment on some of them later ...

Ed

Post 73

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 1:35pm

I clicked on one of the studies Ed found, "The cultural contagion of conflict" and looked at the abstract, which says,

We advance a cultural transmission model of intergroup conflict where conflict contagion is seen as a consequence of universal human traits (ingroup preference, outgroup hostility; i.e. parochial altruism)

Notice that they have already locked in the following assumptions: That they know what human traits are universal, that these include ingroup preference, outgroup hostility, and parochial altruism. No mention of values, education, individual motivational psychology, philosophy, political or economic systems, or choice. Nope, the abstract calls this to the attention of future neuroscientists!

This would mean that fundamentalist Islamists, as a group, were unable to resist a cultural call to violence against all members of 'outgroups' - and it is because of traits they share with all other humans. Nothing to do with philosophy.

Post 74

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 6:15pm

Great point, Steve.

It's ironic, but the problem with these guys is that they believe they are philosophically-sufficient -- and the culture around them reinforces that ignorance. Having gone farther than they have, you and I understand them to be philosophically-deficient (if not philosophically-bankrupt). Imagine philosophical advancement as a journey through a forest. Imagine a guy yelling back to others: "Hey, I've gone farther than any other has into these woods!" Only to be surprised by a voice calling out from even deeper into the forest:

"No you haven't!"

:-)

When you surpass someone else's limitations, it is obvious to you, but not to them -- because they cannot currently see beyond their own, often self-imposed, limitations. That's why it takes a genius to differentiate a genius from a group of people who are merely really smart. Other people will think the whole group is all just really smart, or that they are all geniuses. It's like measuring a meter with a yardstick.

Steve, if what you are saying is true -- if many current professionals in this field are philosophically-challenged -- then there is no need for worry, because there is a fix for that: People like you and me can bring them up to speed. These "soft-sciences" can be "fixed" if the right people take notice, and then take action. You'll have to forgive this uptick in an in-group/out-group mentality I've been recently displaying (Steve and Ed vs. Mike and Dean; Steve and Ed vs. postmodern-existentialist social scientists, etc.). I think my oxytocin is surging, or something.

:-)

Ed

Post 75

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 9:53pm

Ed,

....they believe they are philosophically-sufficient -- and the culture around them reinforces that ignorance.

Very well put!

Post 76

Saturday, December 8, 2012 - 11:23pm

Great posts by both Ed and Steve. Analytical deep thinking at it's finest!

Post 77

Sunday, December 9, 2012 - 7:32am

To me, capitalism is free association applied to commerce and industry.

To some, capitalism is someone wearing wingtips near a smoke stack. For them, both the USSR and Hitler's Germany were 'capitalistic.'

For me, it is a stretch to find any hint of free association in either example... and getting harder to find in America over time.

Post 78

Sunday, December 9, 2012 - 8:07am

I agree with Fred. The genus of the definition of capitalism is free association, and the species/differentia is that it is specifically applied to the production and exchange of value.

Under this concept, so defined, it is possible to evaluate and re-create models of capitalism -- just as it is possible to evaluate and create models of forced association with reference to value production and trade. Freedom of association is an easy thing to adjust in a computer model or a laboratory game. Forced association is even easier to tinker with (because free association is merely the effect of an exclusion -- it is the lack of all forced association). This makes it possible for us to model capitalism and evaluate the effects of our models through time. Here is a quick-n-dirty example of forced association:

Lab tech: Hi, Billy and Sally, have you been following the parameters given you?

Sally: Yes, we have been independently picking and performing tasks that allow us to create and trade transferable utility with each other and with 3rd-parties. Are we really going to get actual money to take home -- depending on how well we do at this "game"?

Lab tech: Yes, you will be rewarded with actual, in-your-pocket money in proportion to your "success" here.

Sally: Cool!

Billly: Alright!

Lab tech: Okay, there is just one more thing before I let you both "cash out" and leave; notably richer than you were before you entered the lab today.

Billy/Sally: [eagerly awaiting ...]

Lab tech: Billy, how much have you got, there?

Billy: I've got 2500 lab-dollars.

Lab tech: Okay, now Billy, I want you to give 70% of all of your money to Sally.

Billy: [disappointingly dumbfounded] What the ...?

:-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 12/09, 8:21am)

Post 79

Sunday, December 9, 2012 - 9:33am