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Comment by Timon3 | Hacker News Reader

After that opener I'm guessing this will be a waste of effort... yes, it might be a real thinker, because AFAICS the two statements don't form a tautology. Is this based on actual findings by research in game theory, or did you just decide that this must be the case?

Funnily enough, in my eyes it's obvious that capitalism in a globalized world must inevitably lead to unfettered capitalism, since the gravity effect of money along with competition between countries for their investments (with tax breaks etc. ) inevitably allows the capitalists to change the laws in their favor more and more. So I would ask for an objective measure of "how much in control humans are". I don't think it's a single dimension like you're implying, and I don't think capitalism is near any optimum due to the aforementioned effect.

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Governments have power, not private companies. Private companies can influence the powerful, of course (as can you or I) but you're complaining about second order or third order power without caring about first order power.

Unfortunately this naive view breaks down as soon as lobbying is introduced, since it is a direct channel for private companies to influence governments.

Is the alternative is to give the power directly to the powerful? Not only will they hold the guns, but they decide what the markets will bear - often-enough with food for the poor becoming optional, if history has any lessons.

Which non-capitalist system does not ultimately concentrate wealth and power even further? And, if nation-states are organisms, and survival of the fittest is a law, which of those systems can survive in the real world? Excepting perhaps those propped up by a disproportionate natural wealth and homogeneous culture, where it is easier for people to continue to believe in "our good" when hard times come.

Capitalism is the only system that pretends to respect human nature - gives us a lever that says, "want more stuff? provide more value." It gives the self-interested a healthy outlet that the other systems lack. It must be managed, though, by power, and when the two collude you get fascism. So, I guess maybe I share your view, that lobbying breaks the system.

Globally active/influential social systems are still very young. In the couple hundred years such systems have been able to form, we've only attempted a minority of realistically possible systems, and most of this data was collected under very specific sets of circumstances which most likely only cover a tiny subset of realistically possible circumstances.

IMO it's not possible to justify your claims without taking a whole tower of (IMO likely false) assumptions for granted. I'd love to go into detail on each assumption I see, but I've had similar comments regarding flaws of capitalist systems get derailed too many times by very angry commenters who insist that such thoughts are not worth discussing and MUST NOT be discussed.

> Unfortunately this naive view breaks down as soon as lobbying is introduced, since it is a direct channel for private companies to influence governments.

The naive view is to think that lobbying is automatically bad. Policymakers can choose who they talk to. If you're worried about corrupt policymakers, you've correctly identified where power resides: in government.

I didn't say a word about lobbying being automatically bad, what does that have to do with anything?

All I did was disprove your theory that private companies have no power, and that you or I have the same options to influence the government.

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