'Capitalism has to become more humane': a Stanford economist on big tech (opens in new tab)

The problem is that, apparently, abusing people wholesale is profitable.

"Capitalism" can't become more humane, by its nature. Money is a great technology for coordinating people and work, but capitalism (being the system in which the capital class is allowed to allocate resources without oversight, and to reap the vast majority of the rewards of everyone's labor and invention) systematically optimizes away anything that is not monetizable. And humanity is neither monetizable nor optimizable.

"More poems, faster, cheaper!"

I think there will be less discrimination in Ai Agent era

They are just trying to give the boat different paints and hope it never sinks.

I think in Agent economy , there will be less discrimination

new new deal type stuff

Capitalism with a human face doesn't make sense. It's like talking about Ethical Theft. It might have served its purpose, but now it's time to move on.

There is no oil left in the engine. “Slap a smiley face on the dashboard.” Many such cases.

There will never be a just-a-little-exploitation capitalism coming from the bougies or their academic henchmen. They have to chase profit, that’s the game. A just-a-little-exploitation capitalism can only come from the working class fighting back. Then when that happens the bougies try to win their fair-share back and again and so we go back and forth, but only a few times not that many because of ecological breakdown.

does more humane mean more taxes?

"Voters turn towards fascist leaders when democracy no longer serves workers, Kurz says. “New Deal” reforms during the Great Depression limited monopoly power and provided benefits to the vulnerable. According to Private Power and Democracy’s Decline, these reforms precipitated a “half-century of sustained innovations, rapid economic growth and stable income distribution”. Reagan-era reversals of those reforms led to what Kurz calls the “second Gilded Age”, when technological firms could accumulate monopoly power and wealth while most Americans, especially blue-collar workers without college degrees, saw their wages stagnate as the cost of living rose. It was this economic disenfranchisement, rather than cultural forces, that led to the rise of Maga, according to Kurz."

The MSM has been pushing hard for establishment Rs and most Ds, and tech oligarchs were sinking money in D areas like Zuckerberg in WI in 2020. (A "maga" election, per the articles comment)

I agree that tech oligarchy shouldn't be influencing politics so much, but i dont think this makes Dems or anyone else 'fascist' necessarily.

wow!, holy fuck eh! so what next, mass "involuntary uthenasia" as starving to death on the street isn't "humane", the volunteer variety in Canada must be too slow and expensive

I agree, but Capitalism is inherently an unequal system, one group of people own the capital and the rest doesn't. And nobody talks about where that initial capital came from (large-scale theft, wage theft, slavery, and so on).

That means this inherent inequality gives one group tremendous power over the other.

What we really need is a system that doesn't automatically promote psychopaths and sociopaths to the top, the more ruthless, the more money you make, despite the human cost. We need a system that doesn't value money/capital as much, but other outcomes.

And we especially don't need Billionaire Philanthropists. Pay the damn taxes. Yet, this is the site for the Temporary Embarrassed Billionaires, so I know how this will go over...

Wow, such insight. It was worth their parent's sacrifices to send them to study Economics.