'We're in trouble.' Business says it's time to put social compact aside and disrupt economy

[Paulsie]

It has nothing to do with that.

There is a reason businesses are pleading with the government. The government is the problem. The government is killing the economy with stupid laws. They have no idea about how to run an economy and they ran one ever in their history. They refuse to listen to those who did, those who have experience.

What we are seeing today happened in Zim too. There are news articles in older newspapers where businesses pleaded the exact same thing to their government. This is the end for South Africa. There is no turning back. There is no more saving the economy.

It is now just a matter of time.

I agree with you, but regulation (or unworkable laws) are mushrooming everywhere. Small and medium businesses are virtually becoming nonexistent.

 

[Mystic Twilight]

All life, literally all of it evolved and made progress due to survival of the fittest.
All life on this planet are hard wired to exploit loop holes and take advantage to get ahead.

Communism fundamentally cannot work because it doesn't incentivise someone to want to rise to the top to become the fittest instead the idea of communism is, be happy with where you are and do your best.
Well why should I do the best I cannot change my circumstances.

It is similar to cooperation strategies in game theory
There is no strategy better than tit for tat when you have potentially malevolent actors (ie. someone who wants to take advantage).
Meaning the strategy of you do something then you get something else GTFO.
All other strategies they attempt to use for AIs fail dismally because trying to trust someone that can at any time decide to opt-out and abuse your generosity turns out worse.

Democracy and free market are the closest model to how nature behaves and thus the one that matches life's hard wired behaviours

That's not entirely true when you refer to all life in nature, in the animal kingdom socialism/communism does work in nature, every single insect colony social structure (bees, ants, etc) is basically based on socialism and works perfectly fine. The problem with a human based socialist society is that 1) individuals value their choice over the needs of society (they would rather do nothing than be a sewer cleaner unless their survival was threatened), and 2) the major one being corruption, people put in charge in an administrative position or position of power frequently tend to abuse their position to gain self enrichment (self enrichment is completely opposite of socialist values).

Everyone keeps referring to communism nowadays, but those constructs have long died everywhere except for dreamy eyed naive college students, what people call communism in terms of politics is actually authoritarian. Excluding north korea as it's an information black hole, nowhere do you find these "communist" countries practice actual textbook communism, sure there are elements of it like state owned land or welfare programs, but you don't see doctors earning the same wage as street sweepers, or the price of meat is the same as the price of bread, or the next leader being chosen because they are fit for the leadership job.

Capitalism for economics and democracy for governance so far is the system with the least amount of problems compared to the rest for human society (benevolent dictator is an arguable alternative), but it isn't a silver bullet and if a company can operate and generate 100% revenue and profit with no or minimal staff then they would do it, companies extremely seldom hire people out of sheer goodwill. And ironically companies are basically authoritarian entities, it's practically impossible for employees to vote and become the next ceo/leader.

 

[rvZA]

I agree with you, but regulation (or unworkable laws) are mushrooming everywhere. Small and medium businesses are virtually becoming nonexistent.

This is how a Socialist / Communist regime stays in power.

 

[Gyre]

That's not entirely true when you refer to all life in nature, in the animal kingdom socialism/communism does work in nature, every single insect colony social structure (bees, ants, etc) is basically based on socialism and works perfectly fine. The problem with a human based socialist society is that 1) individuals value their choice over the needs of society (they would rather do nothing than be a sewer cleaner unless their survival was threatened), and 2) the major one being corruption, people put in charge in an administrative position or position of power frequently tend to abuse their position to gain self enrichment (self enrichment is completely opposite of socialist values).

Everyone keeps referring socialism and communism nowadays, but those constructs have long died everywhere except for dreamy eyed naive college students, what people call communism in terms of politics is actually authoritarian. Excluding north korea as it's an information black hole, nowhere do you find these "communist" countries practice actual textbook communism, sure there are elements of it like state owned land or welfare programs, but you don't see doctors earning the same wage as street sweepers, or the price of meat is not the same as the price of bread, or the next leader being chosen because they are fit for the leadership job.

Capitalism so far is the system with the least amount of problems compared to the rest for human society, but it isn't a silver bullet and if a company can operate and generate 100% revenue and profit with no or minimal staff then they would do it, companies extremely seldom hire people out of sheer goodwill.

I agree, nobody wants to be a sewer cleaner until you're paying $1m a year for the job role, then people will line up to do it, as reality tv has shown us, people will literally eat insects, do dangerous obstacles and even get filthy to make large sums of money.

To extremely simplify the process, the way the job is structured is the boss who gets the business, the guy who services the truck and the guy who does the dirty work. The boss, owning the business will take 65%, give 25% to the mechanic of the truck and 10% to the guy who do the labour.

This isn't to say the boss does nothing, but the incentive and reward alone will make everyone want to be the boss instead of the schmuck that earns nothing and gets dirty - we see self-enrichment. The world can't run on there only being bosses however - a better ideal would be to have the boss, mechanic and labourer all the same person and making 100% of the profit until they cannot fulfill one of those roles any more.

There are different incentives for taking the crap job, you can either pay highly for it or you can make work so scarce that people will literally take any pay to have some kind of work at all, so they take it.

 

[ForceFate]

Businesses operating in the US and China are surviving on mountains of debt they can never repay. Raise interest rates just a tad and they all disappear as they cannot afford to repay their bonds that they've been rolling over for decades.

Many large businesses survive on debt and accounting wizardry. However, from the surface, they seem to be doing well.

 

[Gnome]

That's not entirely true when you refer to all life in nature, in the animal kingdom socialism/communism does work in nature, every single insect colony social structure (bees, ants, etc) is basically based on socialism and works perfectly fine.

Bees and ant colonies are a single organism. The "queen" for example cannot do anything but birth young, her carers will raise a new queen and kill her if she doesn't. They are an extension of the will of the entire organism driven by pheromones. The cells in your body has the same mechanism of "cooperation".

There is no concept of free will there and any member not behaving a certain way is killed immediately.
In your body for example, your immune system will aggressively target any cell behaving abnormally, because it has likely to become cancerous.

 

[ForceFate]

This is how a Socialist / Communist regime stays in power.

Small businesses disappearing is due to powerful capitalists lobbying politicians to make it difficult for new entrants to survive.

 

[rvZA]

Small businesses disappearing is due to powerful capitalists lobbying politicians to make it difficult for new entrants to survive.

Nope. Why would the powerful capitalists be complaining to government for change if this was the case? This is squarely on the shoulders of the government. No one else.

 

[ForceFate]

Nope. Why would the powerful capitalists be complaining to government for change if this was the case? This is squarely on the shoulders of the government. No one else.

Complaining? Powerful businesses have powerful lobby groups working for them. Why is Mantashe against renewables?

 

[rvZA]

Why is Mantashe against renewables?

Because renewables are a mess. The time is not ready for it. It is not working anywhere in the world. Where it has been top priority and being used, the economies are faltering today. This is probably one of the best decisions made by Mantashe not to pursue this avenue, irrelevant of what anyone thinks or say.

 

[Herr der Verboten]

'We're in trouble.' Business says it's time to put social compact aside and disrupt economy | Business

Business leaders say SA's economy isn't growing because of the consensus-seeking way of making decisions. They say it's time to put the "social compact" aside.

www.news24.com

queue the front page special of clever comrade contersplaning posts

 

[ForceFate]

Because renewables are a mess. The time is not ready for it. It is not working anywhere in the world. Where it has been top priority and being used, the economies are faltering today. This is probably one of the best decisions made by Mantashe not to pursue this avenue, irrelevant of what anyone thinks or say.

It's working in Japan amongst other countries.

 

[WizardOfAges]

Rembrandt Group - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hey Howdy, how's it going? Well you prove my point. Johann Rupert continued his father's business and became even richer.

 

[Howdy]

Hey Howdy, how's it going? Well you prove my point. Johann Rupert continued his father's business and became even richer.

Hey Incipim.

Actually not. Johan - yes. His father - no. Yet in two generations, from a zero, even less than most kids these days, to billionaires.

 

[WizardOfAges]

Yet in two generations, from a zero, even less than most kids these days, to billionaires.

That's true. That is quite an achievement, unfortunately, I doubt it is as easily replicated in today's current environment and conditions.

 

[RonSwanson]

When socialism creates poverty, it's seen as a failure.

When capitalism causes poverty, it's working as intended.

It's fundamental.

 

[RonSwanson]

No it is definitely not. Money creates more money. People who start with more, end up making more.

I don't believe that, because firstly it isn't a race to see who dies with the most toys. Secondly, you make it sound like an absolute. But even if true, people who start with more create more opportunities for people who have less, and the people who have less don't exactly starve.

 

[RonSwanson]

Hey Howdy, how's it going? Well you prove my point. Johann Rupert continued his father's business and became even richer.

And yet how many people does he employ today, that if he didn't exist, would not have jobs?
How many of his employees have had homes given to them?
How many beneficiaries of his altruism?

Your "point" proves absolutely nothing.

 

[rietrot]

Small businesses disappearing is due to powerful capitalists lobbying politicians to make it difficult for new entrants to survive.

This assumes absolutely no moral values or principles on the side of the politicians like they are not even people. Lobbyists should lobby for their own best interests. Politicians should have a strong enough caracter to say no. People should vote better.

This is also why a constitutional republic is better than democracy. If democracy fails and people vote badly a constitution limits how badly the politicians can fsckup. Why we still have a semi functional country after 13 years of the failed democracy.

 

[Gyre]

This assumes absolutely no moral values or principles on the side of the politicians like they are not even people. Lobbyists should lobby for their own best interests. Politicians should have a strong enough caracter to say no. People should vote better.

This is also why a constitutional republic is better than democracy. If democracy fails and people vote badly a constitution limits how badly the politicians can fsckup. Why we still have a semi functional country after 13 years of the failed democracy.

"Free-market"