Is this the end of the Reagan/Rove right?
- Thread starter Gabba Flamenco Crossover
- Start date
D
droid
Guest
And the opposite may also hold true ala Stakeholder theory and shared ownership schemes.
Give people a genuine stake in something and they tend to care more...
Give people a genuine stake in something and they tend to care more...
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Yeah, it always seems a bit odd that free market people aren't all over workers cooperatives, since on one level they embody the idea of giving everyone a profit incentive.
D
droid
Guest
And of course, some of the major innovations in the web/internet technology sector have come from 'garage' companies that have had similar approaches to ownership.
vimothy
yurp
'Slack' is perhaps too glib. But I think you can easily see this all over the collectivist enterprise: for instance, the massive rise of total factor productivity on Chinese farms after DXP allowed farmers to keep the profits of their own labour.
vimothy
yurp
Easier to do when you're talking about the whole of society, though.
matt b
Indexing all opinion
two examples from one country? within a totalitarian society? 'all over collectivist enterprise'?
come on vim...
vimothy
yurp
Isn't it one example? Anyway, what I mean is just that, where private property has been collectivised, productivity has fallen off. Can you find counter-examples? Counter-examples from a non-totalitarian country? I don't think that any non-totalitarian countries have collectivsed private-property. Perhaps the USSR was productive for a time, but it seemed to fall off pretty sharp-ish.
matt b
Indexing all opinion
yes, one.
are you specifically interested in the move from PP to collectivism?
i can think of lots of examples of workers co-ops etc that are collectives and successful.
you have a very negative (economist's) take on human nature
matt b
Indexing all opinion
what's that got to do with your co-ownership=slackerdom point?
vimothy
yurp
Sure, but there's a big difference, I would argue, between abolishing private property and running a worker's cooperative. There's a political economy issue, isn't there, if you are talking about abolishing private property on behalf of the whole of society? Who gets to 'run' the farm/society? Not trying to disparage socialists/socialism and if I am then I apologise -- it's not intentional. But there is a basic problem of political economy that can't be escaped. On a personal level, sure you can go and run a farm or factory and share the profits between the group and there's nothing wrong with that and I agree that you'll probably create a successful and efficient enterprise given that everyone will be highly motivated and a stakeholder in the outcome. But on a molar/macro/national level it becomes much more difficult. There are, I think, lots of reasons, but one of the most important is the political economy of such an arrangement.
You might say that I have a very negative view of human nature. Perhaps I do. But I don't see how anyone can have any doubts about that given our history. And simply wishing away this issue of power, the incentives it creates and the institutional structure it works through won't make it go away.
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vimothy
yurp
Well, they're co-owned, aren't they, in a sense, and so might appear to disprove my theory slightly...
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Who gets to "run" capitalism? Exxon and Haliburton? Microsoft? GM? AIG? Lehman Brothers?
Oh I forgot we "elect" our corporate officials.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Droid I got my info on registrations from I think a rep of Zogby or something on CNN...I'll try to dig something up...
this one is from a pretty reliable source:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/111310/Young-Voters-Favor-Obama-How-Many-Will-Vote.aspx
this one is from a pretty reliable source:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/111310/Young-Voters-Favor-Obama-How-Many-Will-Vote.aspx
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I don't think history is as unequivocal as all that. Many historians would suggest that the story about private vs. collective ownership is more complicated than one system just working better than the other. The evidence that privatization of collective enterprise (which is what often happened in rural economies) made it more productive is actually not so clear. Especially because privatization often leads to an undercounting of social and environmental harms (which come back to bite you later)
I would suggest that the existence of social institutions other than specific property rights is at least as important as whether individuals or groups own things. Social institutions are what make people want to work together or split off. I don't think it's necessarily more human nature to go it alone than it is to work together.
people are also bringing up differences in scale - collectivism on various levels is often what keeps things going - even if the overall system is called capitalist. And individual self-interest also has a place in collectivized economies, and if it is ignored it can lead to terrible results.
add into that the fact that different systems can INCULCATE different attitudes (i.e. changing so-called "human nature") and it becomes difficult to make sweeping statements about what works. Context matters a lot.
I agree that the political economy questions on a larger scale are different - but one of the problems with a privatized economy is that certain social costs seem to fall out of the picture, whereas in in a more collectivized economy they are counted more clearly.
vimothy
yurp
"History" refers to not private vs public property but to the unfortunate propensity humans have to do unpleasant things to one another. People aren't all bad. But they are occasionally, and those occasions are significant. People might be nice to you your entire life, but you only need to get killed once to really bring your averages down.
Dunno about enclosure of common land leading to reduction in productivity. Do you have data? Seems pretty positively correlated, though obviously that doesn't prove causation. I'll try to dig up some data as well.
Also not sure as to whether theoretically it makes more sense that social and environmental costs are higher under private property systems. Certainly non-democratic regimes have been large polluters. Ostensibly collectivist ones too. And what about the tragedy of the commons type problems?
Think I've already conceded that collectivist entities exist successfully within capitalist systems. Hell, we've just witnessed the largest nationalisation in history right in what many consider to be the heart of global capitalism.
The market is also a collectivist entity, in the sense that it is just another institution or set of institutions supported by society. And of course culture matters. Norms matter. Institutions matter. It's all one and the same thing.
I only wanted to say that Hernando de Soto is a very talented economist with a very important idea. Read his book. It's good. Furthermore, it's short and plainly written. If you are a liberal who believes in that the government can and should intervene to positively affect the lives of the poor/marginalised or even the whole of society, then... Well, I think you'll largely approve. As de Soto says, it's not about whether capitalism is God's vehicle on earth, it's just about what works. Maybe it's a sweeping statement, but keeping the poor outside the legal system seems unlikely to bring them many advantages any time soon.
Dunno about enclosure of common land leading to reduction in productivity. Do you have data? Seems pretty positively correlated, though obviously that doesn't prove causation. I'll try to dig up some data as well.
Also not sure as to whether theoretically it makes more sense that social and environmental costs are higher under private property systems. Certainly non-democratic regimes have been large polluters. Ostensibly collectivist ones too. And what about the tragedy of the commons type problems?
Think I've already conceded that collectivist entities exist successfully within capitalist systems. Hell, we've just witnessed the largest nationalisation in history right in what many consider to be the heart of global capitalism.
The market is also a collectivist entity, in the sense that it is just another institution or set of institutions supported by society. And of course culture matters. Norms matter. Institutions matter. It's all one and the same thing.
I only wanted to say that Hernando de Soto is a very talented economist with a very important idea. Read his book. It's good. Furthermore, it's short and plainly written. If you are a liberal who believes in that the government can and should intervene to positively affect the lives of the poor/marginalised or even the whole of society, then... Well, I think you'll largely approve. As de Soto says, it's not about whether capitalism is God's vehicle on earth, it's just about what works. Maybe it's a sweeping statement, but keeping the poor outside the legal system seems unlikely to bring them many advantages any time soon.
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matt b
Indexing all opinion
the problem is, economics focusses on 'productivity' (because it can be measured, no matter how crudely)- what about all the other stuff that is externalised, as ripley rightly mentions?
destroy all governments. seriously.
vimothy
yurp
But I'm not sure that anything really changes in that sense. Let's be specific -- in what sense would extending property rights and reducing the barriers to entry into the legal system in the developing world actually lead to a discounting of social costs? What do you mean exactly "the other stuff that is externalised"? Alternatively, did feudal England... what? Price social costs more accurately? I guess I'm not sure what Ripley means either.
Well, I'd love to go for that. But I don't think it's at all realistic. Even if we did destroy the government, we'd end up with another one. Death and taxes: they won't go away.