I'm pretty cynical about the outcomes of capitalism in general. But I can buy a new 10TB HD for $300. Or a gigabit internet connection for $100/mo. Think back 10 or 20 years. How is this not a radical price-per-bit decrease for consumers?
I'm almost cynically happy about Moore's law ending and hardware getting expensive if this is what it takes to improve software in the long term.
I'm sure some storage servers or storage appliances were built with many TB even then but it wasn't really something I saw a lot.
“I can't eat an iPad.”
> Best not to cite the price of the new iPad as an example of why inflation isn't a problem when you head into a working-class neighborhood. In Queens, New York, on Friday, New York Fed President William Dudley did just that. He got an earful. After being bombarded with questions about food inflation, Dudley attempted to reassure his audience by putting rising commodity prices into a broader economic context -- but that only made matters worse. "When was the last time, sir, that you went grocery shopping?" one audience member asked. Dudley tried to explain how the Fed sees things: Yes, food and energy prices may be rising, but at the same time, other prices are declining. He then stretched for a real world example. The only problem was he chose the Apple's latest tablet computer that hit stores on Friday, which may be more popular at the New York Fed's headquarters near Wall Street than it is on the gritty streets of Queens. "Today you can buy an iPad 2 that costs the same as an iPad 1 that is twice as powerful," he said."You have to look at the prices of all things." This prompted guffaws and widespread murmuring from the audience, with one audience member calling the comment "tone deaf." "I can't eat an iPad," another said.
https://awealthofcommonsense.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/...
The prices of all those things continue to skyrocket.
Of course, competition leading to near-zero profits means most competitors collapse, and the remnants get bought up by monopolists or oligopolists who then become rent extractors.
The technology was fundamentally developed with government grants to universities, or corporate labs like Bell Labs that were funded by a legal mandate on its parent corporation. Capitalists can only develop products that are basically ready for market, their margins are thin and planning horizons can only survive about 5 years usually. Their main power is throwing oodles of money at something ready to go and scaling it.
Edit: I will be slightly more charitable and note that capitalist companies can also do incremental research if there is a gentle and obvious hill to climb. Sometimes people do make crazy bets and they pay off, but that's more the exception, in America the dominant driver of technological innovation is government funded research supplied by capitalist scaled technologies (i.e. you research the next paradigm in the lab and purchase e.g. pre-existing computing resources from a company).
I find it funny when capitalism is blamed for rent extraction.
First off, extracting profit is not unique to capitalism. It happen in the Soviet Union as well, just on the black market. Even in the legal market workers would "sell" things they had control over for personal benefit. It's not like this disappears with other economic systems - it's a core human behavior to do things that benefit yourself.
Second, almost all of the things you listed - housing, medicine, education - are rent extractions not because of capitalism, but because of government regulations that allowed rent extraction. If people could build as many houses as they want, treat patients without jumping through the AMA quota hoops or charge a tuition that students can actually afford (and not backstopped by the government), none of this rent extraction would happen. We have plenty of examples of those economic sectors where prices are much more reasonable.
That's an assertion often made without evidence. Humans are one of the most cooperative species in existence.
Sure humans are cooperative, but but it's not an either/or scenario. Humans are often incredibly selfish at times, and even if not selfish are often focused on benefit for themselves.
And my point is that it's not unique to capitalism. Even prior to capitalism and under communism, humans are highly focused on benefit for themselves, even at the expense of others.
You are cherry-picking to come to that conclusion. Humans are constantly navigating the pull in either direction. On the one hand, they are pulled toward what benefits them, and on the other, to what benefits their group and to what gains them acceptance from said group. Often this means putting the group's needs on equal footing to the individuals.
You are correct that the pull towards the individuals' needs is not unique to capitalism. You are not correct that humans are "highly focused" on benefit for themselves at the expense of others.
I would say that some humans act as you say; but in the court of a king, your "group" reinforces behavior that is selfish on a societal level, so long as tribute is paid to the king.
Most people do not live in the court of a king. I live with a family. I put the needs of my family on equal footing with my own. I maintain that this arrangement is more common than not. For every ambitious individual there are countless thousands who want only to love and be loved.
You put your family’s needs on the same footing as your own. And you put those two needs far above people outside your family.
That’s exactly my point.
People sometimes act in the good of everyone, usually when the cost isn’t high. But otherwise they act in benefit of themselves or their group, often at the expense of the out group.
You don’t need capitalism for that to happen.
Agreed. I understand what you are saying. You don't need capitalism for absurdly selfish behavior. However, I don't know that a capitalist system, in its current, relatively unregulated form, is making humans less selfish.
The form of capitalism now gnawing away at US society is essentially shouting "the virtue of selfishness" from the rooftops. People respond to leadership, including moral leadership. There are better forms of capitalism that involve regulation and fairer taxation, such as we have had in the past, but no longer have now.
For a lot of people criticizing capitalism, the goal is not socialism but rather better capitalism.
A colleague of mine that went to an Ivy League school in America told me her friends in Poland, not a wealthy country by any means, laughed at her for "buying her degree".
Can you? I assume you mean spinning platter, but even then.
Computer parts are unaffordable this year.