> Is the problem capitalism? I’m with Nicholas Stern when he says that capitalism is how we take care of people we don’t know — all of these fields are highly lucrative already and should be prime stomping grounds for capitalist investment, good both for the investor and the customers who are served.
He argues that this is true, but then tries to make a central thesis that undercuts this declaration:
> The problem is desire. We need to want these things. The problem is inertia. We need to want these things more than we want to prevent these things. The problem is regulatory capture. We need to want new companies to build these things, even if incumbents don’t like it, even if only to force the incumbents to build these things. And the problem is will. We need to build these things.
This overlooks the fact that Marc is in fact one of these folks who has a profoundly outsized role in deciding what he wants. Like it or not, America follows in the moneyed aristocratic morals of the subjective theory of value. In some sense it is the function of concentrations of capital to assign value to things in America. Therefore, folks in control of lots of capital (e.g., Andreessen Horowitz and other venture firms) and their investors have a huge input into what "we want" as a nation. And yet here he is arguing that he feels like there isn't a national desire for these things.
We don't have it because building these things requires long term investments and folks like Marc and his investors are not interested in long term investments. America's corporate leadership has pursued elastic labor forces with minimal training (and therefore minimal flexibiity), outsourced manufacturing (and therefore long lead times on domestic production) and minimal redundancy in infrastructure because these rich folks think, plan and act on a quarterly calendar. We don't build new homes because homeowners like the value of their goods protected by intense scarcity. We don't compete with China because capital sees value in redundancy only with the framework of internal corporate prognostication, not as an actual net good when considered in a system
While many Americans like to pretend "capitalism" is synonymous with free market mechanics, that's actually false. Capitalism is a dominant force in America's future and the folks with all the power to assign value have been clear: their value lies in quarterly profits. Capitalism means that market competition is reduced and capital concentrates under a small number of collaborating actors.
I agree with Marc's core tenant that "we have to want these things." But I want these things. Hell, we're building grassroots infrastructure in my radio group because our capitalist-driven infrastructure is so antiquated we can't even do a software update to existing hardware without it taking 3 years and taking an entire flood warning system offline.
Marc and his investors have to want these things. They clearly don't. These things would have "taken care of strangers," perhaps, but folks like the people who invest in Marc's funds genuinely don't seem to believe they're worthwhile values. If you'll forgive the tired metaphor, the top 0.5% doesn't see value in these things so we don't have them. We even have some in that 0.5% paying incredible sums of money to run media org's who's entire purpose is to convince people they don't actually want their lives to be better!