Outside of the US

Some people who advocate for technological progress believe that we strictly need capitalism for the time being, until we reach a certain stage of technological development before turning towards socialism, because by making the transition with current tech, socialism is destined to fail due to destabilization and inefficiencies.

Why must it be black or white? Competition is not the one and only driver of innovation. Many people volunteer in open-source projects and scientific reseach/collaboration. These people are driven towards said persuits because they can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling even without the financial incentive.

With higher education currently being more of a business model reserved for the privileged than a public service, where many can't afford to enter, capitalism is actively inhibiting the progress of the real practical innovations that humanity needs by severely reducing opportunities, limiting the number of potential geniuses from self actualization to make great contributions to society.

Many in the working class in capitalistic societies are too busy working to ensure their survival, naturally resulting in their primary focus being accumulating capital over personal development through higher education, which will allow them to contribute to society in more meaningful ways, even if they deeply desire to.

Lower education is also rigged, designed to produce loyal, obedient workers rather than critical thinkers but that's a topic for another time.

In reality, free market unfettered capitalism's primary motive is neverending profit with "innovation" being an auxilary function that serves the money hungry. In this economy, technology is developed for the sake of extracting as much profit from the population as possible rather than innovations that benefit society.

Here are some things that everyone (or at least the vast majority) can agree on wanting:

• Technological advancement
• Economic prosperity
• Freedom and democracy
• Peace and security
• Environmental sustainability
• Individual and collective growth
• Happiness and well-being

If this sounds like you, your desires align with the agendas and policies of liberal socialism.

Liberal socialism combines elements of both liberalism and socialism, which advocates for individual freedoms and rights, social welfare programs and regulations to address inequality and social injustice.

It's a mixed economy where both private and public ownership of the means of production coexist, and where the government intervenes to ensure fairness and provide essential services. The goal is to combine the qualities of liberism (freedom and democracy), with the qualities of socialism (economic equality and collective well-being)

Sorry if this breaks rules somehow, I'm not a frequent browser here.

I consider myself economically left, and am decently well read on economic topics considered left wing. Recently I've been trying to understand opposing viewpoints, and I think it'd be a good idea to ask people who agree, so here I am.

I need a book that lays out the theory of capitalism, why it works, and why it's better than other systems. Bonus points if it's popular among capitalists, but if it's still good I don't mind.

I'm concerned that workers in America are going to continue to be abused by corporate overlords for the foreseeable future. Does anyone have any opposing views? Anyone watching overall economic trends?

I can see that progress made in the last 30 years has resulted in a backlash. But I can't tell if this is just a hurdle or if we will face more regression.

I have heard that during deflation of a currency, that debt increases in value and due to this this can have negative effects, do any of you have a solution to this?

https://www.academia.edu/109012627/Apprehending_Mars_influence_on_Stock_Market_Crashes_and_Terror_Attacks

The overall hypothesis is that Mars influences human behavior in a very negative way, not just on investors, but people in general. I have been demonstrating how that same Mars/lunar node alignment also affects military conflict. Data going back to 1896 shows that as of April 2020, percentage-wise, the Dow Jones rose 857%. When Mars was within 30 degrees of the lunar node since 1896, the Dow rose 136%. When Mars was not within 30 degrees of the lunar node, the Dow rose 721%. Mars retrograde phases during the time Mars was within 30 degrees of the lunar node was not counted in that data as Mars being within 30 degrees of the lunar node.

My idea is simple.

1. Divide Palestine (or other problematic regions/failed state/poor regions/war zones) into smaller pieces/provinces/mullets/autonomous regions/cities.
2. Convert voters into shareholders. So people in city A are shareholders of city A. People in city B are shareholders of city B.
3. Each piece picks investors that will stick their money for "for-profit private cities". Running the cities like a business. Preferably the cities should have low taxes like Dubai, high social freedom, legalize polyamory, sugar relationship, sex outside marriage, drugs, porn, and prostitution. But that depends on the cities. Let each city choose. Dubai is good enough actually.
4. Investors put money but also have shares and can vote too. So not one guy one vote, more like one share one vote. Shares can be bought and sold with some few restrictions.
5. Only shareholders can live in their respective cities. People who want to live in different cities just have to find productive work and buy shares in other cities too. Other arrangements can be made. Dubai's head taxes system works well too.
6. Shares are like normal company shares. It pays dividends. It can be bought or sold. Can be bequeathed to children. Shareholders' children do not automatically get shares. Shareholders have to buy more shares for their children. So people have to get rich first before they can have more than 2 children. Otherwise, they got kicked out. No cradle-to-grave welfare recipients.
7. Watch which model that will lead to the most prosperity, the rest copy.
8. Copy whichever works to all poor regions/warzones. Effectively eliminating poverty all over the world

Why I think that way?

I am a libertarian.

For many years I believed that the sole purpose of government is to prevent aggression from other humans. The market sort of takes care of most stuff anyway. Well, at least for financially prudent economically productive guys like me and other capitalists, that's pretty much all we need. Oh and a bunch of autonomy. To send rockets? No. To legalize weed. And some security guarantee.

Later, my understanding of those tend to be more nuanced. For example, even for security, I am counting on private sector entities. If I don't want burglars to enter my home, I use locks and buy houses in gated communities. If I don't want to be scammed, I use a private marketplace. If I want to ensure paternity, I use paternity tests. If I want to bequeath money to my children, I just transfer Bitcoin. If I want good healthcare, I just make a lot of money far away from government regulation and pay doctors.

Most government courts, policies, marriages, banks, and contracts are very ineffective and are just in the way of freedom and securities

Many digital nomads are willing to go and pay a little tax as long as the land is free from draconian laws and secure from thieves, bombings, terrorism, and so on. We don't ask a lot. All we need is tolerance and we'll pay for protection.

And it's working. If we look around, the richest countries in the world are the ones most capitalistic. Dubai, Singapore, Monaco are some of the most capitalist countries in the world.

So I think everything should be privatized. There are 2 branches of this idea. One idea is to eliminate government so everything is done by the private sector. Another is to privatize the government. I like the second one.

Proponents of the second idea are guys like David Friedman, Herman Hoppe, Titus Gebel, Moldbug, and many others.

Privatization for government means governments have proper owners like private companies. Then the government is run for profit like private companies. It's job is to make taxpayers happy like businesses make customers happy. No excessive moral or compassion is necessary. Just greed, selfishness, and profit. Some compassion may work fine but it's foolish to count mainly on others' morality.

Recently I heard about October 7th. I heard that Hamas said they don't care about the prosperity of the Palestinian people. That's UNWRA's business. I have also heard that Hamas is popular and would have won the election.

Imagine Elon Musk saying he doesn't care about the share price of Tesla or imagine if Tesla shareholders pick some idiot like Hamas as CEO.

But it didn't happen in private joint stock companies. Why does it happen in a democracy? Because collectively, people do not act rationally. Democratic countries do not have proper shareholders. The interests of voters diverge.

If you look carefully, the Arab nations that want to befriend Israel are rich non democratic nations. Yes there are plenty of democracies that are pro Israel. Those democracies used to be hostile to jews when jews don't have a country to escape too.

I wasn't surprised. This is the same problem in pretty much most democracies. People vote for leaders or rulers whose interests are not properly aligned with people's prosperity. The people and the leaders tend to hate the best and brightest people.

For example, most poverty in rich countries would have been gone easily and tax rate could have been dropped by 10 times. How? Just let rich people have 100 children easily. Billionaires create jobs, pay taxes, and improve the economy. But democracy has voters who envy the rich and want to exterminate economically productive people.

Drug users, sugar daddies, chinese, jews, whites, often have higher IQ and make more money than the rest.

I've heard that drug users, like jews, have higher IQ and tend to win nobel prizes. Yet they are often prosecuted for the victimless crime of being jewish or doing drugs.

Yet democracy makes it difficult for richer smarter people to have more children with various absurd rules too long to mention here. Higher IQ minorities often face discrimination in anything the government touches. That ranges from affirmative action to holocaust. Those government-sponsored discrimination always aim at higher IQ minorities.

Show me one sample of affirmative action that benefits higher IQ minorities. Know any?

So what's the solution?

Just privatize the government.

How?

Many ways. The fact that Palestinians are technically stateless may have made this easier. Convert voters into shareholders. Then the shareholders' voters hybrid look for competent colonizers, ugh, I mean investors, to invest, buy shares, and govern. Arrangements can be negotiated.

Tada. Instant private cities.

Both the shareholders and CEO, unlike Hamas, would care a lot about the value of shareholders and the happiness of the people who live there. People who live there can be taxed for revenue increasing shareholder profit. If they're happy, people would be willing to come there and pay tax.

Shareholders then get a return in the form of dividends or increased valuation of shares. Any shareholders that don't like the idea can just move to other private cities and sell their shares, at a higher value.

Recently I read that Netanyahu wanted to split Gaza into pieces.

https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-plans-divide-gaza-emirates-ruled-tribes

Great. So we can try many ideas. I've heard the Israeli government is in talk with Dubai and Saudi government to "govern" Palestinian. Cool. I like Dubai. Low taxes. Legalized polygamy. Unlike in the West, rich guys can have many children cost-effectively.

However, it's too Islamic. What about the non muslim population? Those are great solutions. But given that Gaza will be divided into many emirates/fiefdom/principalities, why not try a bunch of different solutions, and see what's working?

Is it a good idea?

Well. In general, I always like competition among governments. When shops compete we have good products and good prices. When governments compete we get lower tax and good infrastructure and security.

Or do we?

Splitting a state into smaller pieces makes the state weak. But after October 7th, I don't care. It seems that the Palestinian nonexistent military might is not the one that preserves their life. Perhaps Israel's desire to maintain good support from their European allies and American allies is the main thing that keep those Palestinians alive. And if Palestinians can be turned into capitalists, they'll live and be rich.

If Palestinians are divided, and rockets go to Israel from one section, Israel doesn't have to fight every one of them. Just bomb the exact section that's launching rockets, or turn off electricity.

The other city that's spared can see that not sending rockets is the way to go. Blockage can be lifted from other places.

Will Israel tolerate prosperous Palestinians?

Will Israel attack anyway if it thinks that Palestinians are too prosperous?

The reason I ask is 2. Private cities can defend themselves from many small aggressions. Prospera is pretty secure and has low crimes.

However, it can't fight Israel, and unlike Hamas, private investors certainly don't want to. War and bombing lower land tax and tax revenue. That's bad for share value. So if Israel can be a friend, yes it'll work. If not, then it wouldn't work. So it's important to ensure that the cities, when behaving reasonably peacefully don't get attacked. Yes, jews will be welcomed there too eventually. That should address the main concern the zionists are bitching about.

Another reason is that the idea has been tried before. A small city without invaders can be very prosperous. Usually, it raises envy from surrounding people which then destroys the cities.

Another sample is Prospera in Honduras. Honduras would choose to withdraw from free trade agreements instead of letting Prospera prosper. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/honduras-moves-exit-world-bank-arbitration-body-2024-03-01/

A few Zedes like in Honduras would do well to turn many countries rich. Will it be tolerated?

My understanding is that jews are usually industrious productive people. It's other people that are envious of them, not the other way around.

And yea the Jews like real estate in that area a lot. It seems that making people who live there suffer and then slowly moving them out is a very reasonable strategy.

In general, I do not trust any government, not just Israeli. In my country, for example, a prisoner can be released early if he "behaves well". That's of course in theory. In practice, the ones that behave well are those who bribe to be declared "behaving well". So I wonder if there's any hypocrisy here.

Many Jews say they want peace. I wonder if what Israeli people say is what's real and correctly predicts their behavior? As far as I know, no body is that honest.

For example, most people say they want to eliminate poverty and yet they vote for policies that financially reward single mothers with welfare. So maybe situation is like that. Jews say they want peace but then vote for policies that lead to war without them knowing it.

On the other hand, I've heard there are talks between Israel government and Dubai government or Arab government. They can "govern" Palestinians to peace. I wonder if that works.

Is peace with Palestinians a "Carthagian Peace"?

I mean, I heard that more and more land is being seized by Israel. Are those done to deliberately provoke Palestinians so the war can continue?

Of course, territories are not zero-sum game. The amount of land probably won't change much. But the value of the land can. Arrangements where those who are better at making money buying it from those who make less money will solve this issue. Will this be acceptable to both sides? One side? Or none?

Should Palestinians accept Jewish residents or citizens?

I don't know the answer to that one for the short term. I think for the long term, when peace is already happening, yes. After all, Israel is home to many Arabs. It's not symmetric if no Jews can live in West Bank or Gaza. If Palestinians do that, will the Jews be treated equally? Will that be problematic? What about if one Jew got kidnapped and Israel start bombing again like in Lebanon war? Then every jew in the area is a ticking bomb.

What about non Jews or non Arabs? You know, chinese, whites? Palestinians only have 84 IQ average. Looks like they gonna need much wiser immigrants if they want to be successful at anything.

Should Palestinians govern themselves?

It seems that Palestinians have been governing themselves extremely badly. Irrelevant of who is right or who is wrong, why aren't they as rich as their neighbor. Do they want to be rich or just want to exterminate the Jews? Again, dividing palestines into smaller pieces will solve the issue well. The one that want to get rich can get rich, the rest can enjoy the bombing.

But if Palestinians behave like shareholders, will they govern well?

So the alternative is 3.

1. Let the adults govern Palestinians. Dubai or other rich countries. Government with better experience.
2. Let Palestinians govern themselves but turn voters into shareholders first. Otherwise, the city won't even have utility function and behave irrationally again like Gaza.
3. Let Palestinians govern themselves and use "normal" democracy.

I just think #3 sucks.

This is a recurring problem in many democracies. Should all people govern themselves? Is democracy good? Even well-established democracies in US have lots of problems. The birth rate is very low. The people are self-exterminating.

The reason why is obvious but hidden behind rhetoric and pointing out the obvious will just get you canceled for hate speech. Too long to explain here.

Lets say tomorrow everyone wakes up to discover that all of the money on earth is gone. When I mean money, I mean everything such as as stocks, electronic money, bank back ups, and physical cash. Total worlds wealth is now zero. How could capitalist societies adapt? Total collapse of civilization is unlikely.

Is it possible to give and take welfare based on the average amount of hours laborers work? For example; as welfare is given, the average work week will fall well under 40 hours, and as welfare is cut, the average work week will approach a full 40 hours.

In this manner, a government can be more prepared for the future of AI and loss of employment. Furthermore, governments will be able to avoid antisocial behavior due to the lack of jobs in an ever changing economy.

Welfare is always a touchy subject in a capitalist subreddit. However, given that technological advances occur exponentially, is it really avoidable? Is the average work week our only gauge when establishing welfare?

So, I think it's pretty clear that at the moment we are seeing corporations getting bigger and wealthier, which is concerning considering that corporations rarely compete with eachother and can impact smaller businesses

So my question is, how do we prevent and stop it from getting worse

Just wanted some thoughts on this really

Hey, so a while back I asked for books that would similar to "Communist Manifesto"(but for Liberalism) or just books that are good starting point in understanding ideologies etc.

The list:

• Economics in one lesson
• Wealth of Nations
• Liberalism by Mises
• Anatomy of the state
• The Market of Liberty
• Anthology of Henry George Thought
• The Law by Bastiat
• Road to Serfdom revised

I decided to start with The Law by Bastiat but I quickly ran into a problem of having a hard time understanding his points/arguements, mostly me having a language barrier(I am Ukrainian) and rarely seeing some of the words used

Is there a way to bypass that or should I start out with a different book as a beginner ?