Oh, they are absolutely capitalist. Capitalism is all about efficiency. Taking advantage of cheap labor and reduced construction costs in a distant country by offshoring because the reduction in costs to create more than offsets the costs to ship the finished goods is all efficiency. There are political issues at stake too, but the impetus is 100% capitalism.
Oh, they are absolutely capitalist. Capitalism is all about efficiency. Taking advantage of cheap labor and reduced construction costs in a distant country by offshoring because the reduction in costs to create more than offsets the costs to ship the finished goods is all efficiency. There are political issues at stake too, but the impetus is 100% capitalism.
Sure, and perhaps I worded poorly; my suggestion was that Capital Markets are subject to their governments; it's why we couldn't just "make" the USSR, or Vietnam, or Cuba, or China, or Venezuela adopt capitalist ideals, even through war, and more than we could just "make" Afghanistan and Iraq into democracies.
It's why food and tech companies can't do in the E.U. what they get away with in the U.S. Surely the capitalist impulses of Google make it want to operate the same way in Germany—to say nothing of China—as it does in the U.S., but the governments of those nations will not permit it. The globalist effects of capitalism *in the United States* are political, regulatory, and trade problems, not economic ones.
It's like nuclear power vs nuclear bombs. If you can place systems, constraints, and controls on the raw power of something, you can yield incredible results. If you don't, you get destruction. But that's not the fault of the power itself! It's a reckless failure to harness the incredible potential at hand.
Decisions about production made under politically-captured command economies are also all about efficiency - they're just optimizing for different types of efficiency. Capitalism solves for the largest delta between production cost and public demand. Political economy solves for the largest social benefit to the person making the decisions (e.g. benefits to clients, personal enrichment, etc.) You'll notice that the former depends on things continuing to get made in order for profits to keep coming in. The latter is entirely disconnected from production at all - in fact, it almost works better if the messy business of actually making things is entirely disconnected from the status-games. Hence, things getting run into the ground and shortages.
Oh, they are absolutely capitalist. Capitalism is all about efficiency. Taking advantage of cheap labor and reduced construction costs in a distant country by offshoring because the reduction in costs to create more than offsets the costs to ship the finished goods is all efficiency. There are political issues at stake too, but the impetus is 100% capitalism.
Sure, and perhaps I worded poorly; my suggestion was that Capital Markets are subject to their governments; it's why we couldn't just "make" the USSR, or Vietnam, or Cuba, or China, or Venezuela adopt capitalist ideals, even through war, and more than we could just "make" Afghanistan and Iraq into democracies.
It's why food and tech companies can't do in the E.U. what they get away with in the U.S. Surely the capitalist impulses of Google make it want to operate the same way in Germany—to say nothing of China—as it does in the U.S., but the governments of those nations will not permit it. The globalist effects of capitalism *in the United States* are political, regulatory, and trade problems, not economic ones.
It's like nuclear power vs nuclear bombs. If you can place systems, constraints, and controls on the raw power of something, you can yield incredible results. If you don't, you get destruction. But that's not the fault of the power itself! It's a reckless failure to harness the incredible potential at hand.
Decisions about production made under politically-captured command economies are also all about efficiency - they're just optimizing for different types of efficiency. Capitalism solves for the largest delta between production cost and public demand. Political economy solves for the largest social benefit to the person making the decisions (e.g. benefits to clients, personal enrichment, etc.) You'll notice that the former depends on things continuing to get made in order for profits to keep coming in. The latter is entirely disconnected from production at all - in fact, it almost works better if the messy business of actually making things is entirely disconnected from the status-games. Hence, things getting run into the ground and shortages.