Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Prospects for a Post-Capitalist Economic Transition

The Actual Prospects for Some Economic System Other Than Capitalism Being Instituted, and Being More Successful Than Capitalism

A consistent topic explored here is how the tired and corrupt capitalist economic system that is currently the only truly innovative, highly productive, and motivational economic system on the planet will inevitably be replaced by some imagined number of causes - technological progress, transhumanism, as well as many other supposed reasons.

Capitalism is not the 'best' of several viable economic systems that can be considered truly successful. It is the ONLY economic system that can be considered successful in a way that is independent of luck, as in having ridiculous amounts of oil under your soil, things like that.

Why is that? Why is capitalism the only truly successful economic system that man has figured out? Because, especially and most effectively when combined with personal freedom, it reflects the motivation of human psychology. It aligns with our true nature like nothing else yet devised.

This is fundamental - capitalism is not some externally divined system pulled from thin air, that has stayed too long or something. Marx was deeply incorrect on that point. Rather, capitalism's success reflects a deep alignment and synergy of economics with the fundamental nature of the human mind.

The id wants what it wants - irrationally, everything (although of course it often settles for less). Capitalism, especially when contrasted against the egregious failure of Communism, accommodates the will of the id to own, to have one or more things it can call 'mine'. Whether that's ownership of a company, or a little tract home makes little difference. When a person has something they can call their own, not communally owned, that satisfies a deep tenet of our animal nature.

When something is owned by everyone, as in Communism, pride of ownership and its concomitant motivational power are missing. Even if Communist leaders didn't tend to annihilate their own citizens, usually near the beginning of a Communist regime, this fundamental nature of the misalignment of communal ownership with human nature would doom it to failure.

And of course, support for my point is painted over a hundred years of human history. That I can discern that after history has occurred is not a big deal. That Freud knew what would happen before it happened, that's amazing.

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