Capitalism Redefined? .. Not Really

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)



Two capitalists list capitalism's flaws ... can't make any plausible suggestions

For Democracy's Sake! Can't these guys just use ANY previously existing chemical system as a precedent model?

How about the trillions of biochemical model systems already existing?

Or the billions of physiological models?

Or even mathematical models of closed-loop, ecological systems?

Only naive, hopelessly anthropomorphic capitalists would say that capitalism is the greatest problem-solving system in history.

Capitalism is simply a crude, and very partial, VIRTUAL ACCOUNTING SYSTEM used in some human cultures. It's an accounting system that we're currently using as a crutch until better system instrumentation methods evolve, to allow more agile, real-time sensing, discussion, exploring and assessment behaviors among human aggregates. Capitalist accounting is simply a hack we use, AFTER THE FACT, to divvy up - productively or not - the spoils of group endeavors. There's a reason no army uses capitalism to manage it's operations. It doesn't work as a guide for group operations. Only as a hack for maintaining some some arbitrary degree of honour among a mob of thieves.

If any amoeba had to depend only upon capitalistic behavior among it's trillions of molecules to survive .... it wouldn't! Not for a minute. 

The highly regulated, coordination METHODS which are deeply programmed into the characteristics of ANY functioning aggregate, are those which are painstakingly selected through trial and error. It is NEVER every man for himself, which is what most people assume capitalism means. 

Bottom line is that cultural attributes are how we survive. Capitalism is just an arbitrary accounting methods which cultures use to track SOME, but not all, of their transactions. For example, we don't (always) overtly buy/sell citizenship, spouses, or babies - or even friends, or countless similar examples.

These guys must have been raised in an MBA or Finance school. They don't seem to know anything else.  As usual, they completely leave out any mention of the return-on-coordination, which is a given in the very definition of a social species, but isn't even mentioned in "capitalism."