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Comment by closeparen | Hacker News Reader

I trust a rational, profit motivated actor much more than one intended to promote an ideology, a personality cult, family and friends of insiders, etc. Personal relationships depend on complicated and fickle social systems such as liking, jealousy, status, piety, taste, sexual attraction, gender roles, etc. Keep that shit out of the food supply. You eat because you provide value to your neighbors, not because the right people on your local committee get good vibes from hanging out. Economic systems should not resemble college fraternities. That’s been tried, and it’s a thousand times worse.

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>I trust a rational, profit motivated actor much more than one intended to promote an ideology, a personality cult, family and friends of insiders...

You shouldn't.

Many "rational, profit motivated actor" absolutely promote the use of "family and friends of insiders" all the time. And they are obviously promoting an ideology. Maybe you have an affinity with that particular ideology, and that's fine. Just saying that those motivated by profit or power, are the same as those motivated by ideology and religion.

Any one of them would sell you, or your grandmother out in a nanosecond if they could get what they wanted out of that exchange.

You're probably right and this is a total 100% dichotomy between naked, machine like capitalism and Soviet style central planning with Gulags etc.

When you think about it, it's perhaps less certain. Consider a supercapitalist company like Amazon, where engineers are fired when they have outlived their usefulness, and Soviet Russia under Stalin, where the constant purges ensured loyalty and provided new blood in the administrative ranks.

Both Bezos and Stalin had no patience for timewasters, Bezos is known to run tight meetings.

Central planning works on the level of the Firm.

When you get fired from Amazon you find another job. When you get purged by Stalin you get shot. These things are not comparable.

Blacklists have certainly existed in the US.

> These things are not comparable

That's just true on your single characterization, which is not relevant to making a equivalency. The ultimate outcomes of those resources are irrelevant and it's a disingenuous comment to re-frame a situation and claim someone is wrong within your frame of reference.

*did not mod your comment either way

Modern welfare states make unconditional and impersonal transfer payments. Neither your neighbors nor your social worker get to adjust your assistance based on how much they like you, they just cut a check.

There are good alternatives, but they aren’t based on relationships either.

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