A must-read on technology and capitalism

[anonymouse1]

I may say this a bit too often: this one really is a must read. Superb economic and political analysis.

Mods, if the discussion gets too fraught, feel free to move to the other side.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/

Here’s a taste:

To understand where Varoufakis is coming from, you need to go beyond the colloquial meanings of "capitalism" and "feudalism." Capitalism isn't just "a system where we buy and sell things." It's a system where capital rules the roost: the richest, most powerful people are those who coerce workers into using their capital (factories, tools, vehicles, etc) to create income in the form of profits.

By contrast, a feudal society is one organized around people who own things, charging others to use them to produce goods and services. In a feudal society, the most important form of income isn't profit, it's rent. To quote Varoufakis: "rent flows from privileged access to things in fixed supply" (land, fossil fuels, etc). Profit comes from "entrepreneurial people who have invested in things that wouldn't have otherwise existed."

This distinction is subtle, but important: "Profit is vulnerable to market competition, rent is not."

[jdc]

thanks for the link... I havent clicked or read it yet ... but based on your short excerpt: "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" ?

[anonymouse1]

It's even mores than that-it's the chokepoint owners who get richer.

jdc wrote:
thanks for the link... I havent clicked or read it yet ... but based on your short excerpt: "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" ?

[gabester]

anonymouse1 wrote:
This distinction is subtle, but important: "Profit is vulnerable to market competition, rent is not."

And this is why all these tech companies trying to move from a "sale for profit" model to "rent a service" model are moving us back towards a feudal society.