'Capitalism has to become more humane': a Stanford economist on big tech(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
'Capitalism has to become more humane': a Stanford economist on big tech
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/18/big-tech-monopolies-democracy-mordecai-kurz
62 comments
The problem is that, apparently, abusing people wholesale is profitable.
Drug dealing is profitable. Chattel slavery was exceptionally profitable.
To allow profitability to be our measure of permissibility is to sacrifice civil society at the altar of enterprising tyrants. Economics should never be a substitute for ethics.
To allow profitability to be our measure of permissibility is to sacrifice civil society at the altar of enterprising tyrants. Economics should never be a substitute for ethics.
> Chattel slavery was exceptionally profitable.
This isn't true on a societal scale even though a few slaveholders built a bunch of grandiose mansions. Enslaved people were less economically productive than free people. It also locked economies into less productive, lower sectors like agriculture. The South resisted industrialization despite it being more profitable because it was incompatible with an economy built on minimally skilled slaves.
It was not profit that kept slavery alive well into the 19th century in the Americas and Muslim countries. It was something more sinister and evil.
This isn't true on a societal scale even though a few slaveholders built a bunch of grandiose mansions. Enslaved people were less economically productive than free people. It also locked economies into less productive, lower sectors like agriculture. The South resisted industrialization despite it being more profitable because it was incompatible with an economy built on minimally skilled slaves.
It was not profit that kept slavery alive well into the 19th century in the Americas and Muslim countries. It was something more sinister and evil.
Lobbyists?
In early islamic texts you will find making slavery easier again (the Eastern Roman Empire was phasing it out and tightening the rules significantly, because Christianity) was a goal of the early muslims, and you will find exactly why it was such an explicit goal, ie. what they wanted those slaves for ...
https://sunnah.com/muslim%3A1438a
https://sunnah.com/abudawud%3A2172
https://sunnah.com/bukhari%3A6603
So to answer your question: why bring back slavery? Free prostitutes, or even better: getting paid to rape random women you just abduct.
Ie. Why? Some things are just not available for free in any other system.
... and this is still being done today in some societies for that same "reason". So you can say it succeeded.
https://archive.ph/JYcJg
https://sunnah.com/muslim%3A1438a
https://sunnah.com/abudawud%3A2172
https://sunnah.com/bukhari%3A6603
So to answer your question: why bring back slavery? Free prostitutes, or even better: getting paid to rape random women you just abduct.
Ie. Why? Some things are just not available for free in any other system.
... and this is still being done today in some societies for that same "reason". So you can say it succeeded.
https://archive.ph/JYcJg
The problem with capitalism is that it gives people what it wants, and some people want bad things, or are at least indifferent to getting what they want despite bad externalities.
The hard part is that I'm not sure any other system really fixes this flaw. Sure, you can be less democratic and give fewer people what they want, but for some reason few people want to live in autocracies of any stripe.
And it's not always clear that there is a solution when the things people want are too diametrically opposed, either. I'm not sure many people would be happy with any of the solutions from "Three Worlds Collide" for example (a short story you can go read online if you don't get the reference).
The hard part is that I'm not sure any other system really fixes this flaw. Sure, you can be less democratic and give fewer people what they want, but for some reason few people want to live in autocracies of any stripe.
And it's not always clear that there is a solution when the things people want are too diametrically opposed, either. I'm not sure many people would be happy with any of the solutions from "Three Worlds Collide" for example (a short story you can go read online if you don't get the reference).
Oh man. Don't google "sackler family" or "purdue pharma".
[EDIT: Added after that one person upvoted this comment.]
Slavery was big in the south because there wasn't enough low-skill labor to feel threatened. The north didn't care for it as much because a higher percentage of labor was what we would call semi-skilled or skilled today. That labor was FREAKED OUT about the idea of slaves taking over their jobs and they were able to organize before being eaten by the capitalist leviathan.
I'm pretty sure there were more abolitionists in the north than the south, I don't think your average northerner cared about the plight of southern slaves other than the institution being a threat to their livelihood if it moved north.
If you were making the assertion moral concerns or ethical behaviour eventually influenced american capitalism, I disagree. The capitalist monster acts "moral" or "ethical" because at the current time, to do otherwise is invite political dissolution. I fear the shadowy cabal of capitalist masters will move to reinstate chattel slavery. We did not respond with outrage when red-lining disenfranchised large portions of the populous or when usury was slipped back in with high credit card APRs and payday lending. We are asleep.
[EDIT: Added after that one person upvoted this comment.]
Slavery was big in the south because there wasn't enough low-skill labor to feel threatened. The north didn't care for it as much because a higher percentage of labor was what we would call semi-skilled or skilled today. That labor was FREAKED OUT about the idea of slaves taking over their jobs and they were able to organize before being eaten by the capitalist leviathan.
I'm pretty sure there were more abolitionists in the north than the south, I don't think your average northerner cared about the plight of southern slaves other than the institution being a threat to their livelihood if it moved north.
If you were making the assertion moral concerns or ethical behaviour eventually influenced american capitalism, I disagree. The capitalist monster acts "moral" or "ethical" because at the current time, to do otherwise is invite political dissolution. I fear the shadowy cabal of capitalist masters will move to reinstate chattel slavery. We did not respond with outrage when red-lining disenfranchised large portions of the populous or when usury was slipped back in with high credit card APRs and payday lending. We are asleep.
Did the Union have economic use for chattel slavery or “wage slavery” as some called it around that time?
I’ve never heard of mainstream economics serving people. Maybe Keynesianism did?
I’ve never heard of mainstream economics serving people. Maybe Keynesianism did?
The cotton picked by slaves processed by the North into textiles etc. was a large portion of the economy.
>Chattel slavery was exceptionally profitable.
it wasn't. Slave economies are exceptionally unprofitable and unproductive. To take the US as an example. Liquid wealth, i.e. capital, was vastly larger in the North than in the slave owning states, the industrial output of New York exceeded the entire Confederacy and it was that profitability, wealth and mechanized agricultural production that did them in.
Even Marx recognized this by the way, following feudalism capitalism was a progressive force, it was profit, productivity and surplus that enabled civil society, the north was more civil because it was rich and had unlocked modern forms of production. The problem of capitalism is not profit or lack of civil society.
it wasn't. Slave economies are exceptionally unprofitable and unproductive. To take the US as an example. Liquid wealth, i.e. capital, was vastly larger in the North than in the slave owning states, the industrial output of New York exceeded the entire Confederacy and it was that profitability, wealth and mechanized agricultural production that did them in.
Even Marx recognized this by the way, following feudalism capitalism was a progressive force, it was profit, productivity and surplus that enabled civil society, the north was more civil because it was rich and had unlocked modern forms of production. The problem of capitalism is not profit or lack of civil society.
It was profitable for the slave owners.
History is not a Paradox game where there is rational top down control.
History is not a Paradox game where there is rational top down control.
Profitable/unprofitable is the wrong way of looking at it, because it implicitly ignores opportunity costs. Putting your money in a savings account at a big bank might be "profitable" in the sense you're getting paid some meager interest rate (eg. 0.1%), but it's definitely not the best option, like a money market fund or equity ETF. What OP probably meant was that slavery was worse than the alternatives, like putting your money in a savings account with meager interest rate.
Then why didn't slave owners sell all their slaves and put the money in savings accounts?
I think you're missing the point OP was making. He's saying it's profitable but not optimal, those who recognised that quickly outstripped the slave owners in wealth.
I could ask you about your spending habits and why you don't pump all your money into an S&P 500 ETF, but that's ignoring time and consumption preferences you have, as well as perceived opportunity cost. It's not a useful observation to make at an individual level.
I could ask you about your spending habits and why you don't pump all your money into an S&P 500 ETF, but that's ignoring time and consumption preferences you have, as well as perceived opportunity cost. It's not a useful observation to make at an individual level.
None of that implies slavery was not profitable. You got richer by owning slaves. You got a lot of profit out of them.
True, but "better than slavery or feudalism" isn't a winning tagline. Nor should it be an excuse for letting capitalism tear down civil society as it has been doing in the US recently.
I'm going to start singing the Internationale here in a second.
(not snarky. I'm feeling pretty revolutionary after that last comment.)
(not snarky. I'm feeling pretty revolutionary after that last comment.)
a major source of the north's wealth was because of its trading relationship with the antebellum south
Contemporary anti-capitalists are way to influenced by the "king cotton" theory, which as you point out is completely wrong.
I feel like it would help a whole lot if the titan's couldn't keep gobbling their young.
Endless endless endless corporate consolidation. All creative energies and impulses just get swept back up into the very large companies. There's a vital energy that's just missing from the market, a competition for labor that's empty, a competition for serving the world well/competing on value that's all just... gone.
Endless endless endless corporate consolidation. All creative energies and impulses just get swept back up into the very large companies. There's a vital energy that's just missing from the market, a competition for labor that's empty, a competition for serving the world well/competing on value that's all just... gone.
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There are essentially three forces shaping society going forward:
1. Everything is great. You either own a lot of capital or you think you will one day. You're fully in support of the current system;
2. There are problems but they can be fixed with a nicer, kinder capitalism, more regulation and so on. This essentially makes you a social democrat. This is still a pro-capitalist position, ultimately. You might also call yourself progressive; and
3. You believe that capitalism is fundamentally flawed and the problems of the current system, such as ever-widening wealth inequality, are an inveitable consequence of capitalism. This is the anti-capitalist position and makes you a leftist. You can't be a leftist and not be anti-capitalist.
Last century and going back to even the 2000s, tech companies and their founders were upstarts, rebels and often counter-cultural. That era is long gone. Some here might decry how often politics creeps into HN but all that's happened is that tech companies have gotten so large that they have become tools of the state. You can't be a rebel and a trillion dollar company. To maintain your status, you end up moving in lockstep with US domestic and foreign policy.
My point is there is no making this system more humane without overthrowing the US government, essentially. Imperialism is the highest form of capitalism and there is no true opposition to American imperialism in the mainstream US political system. Like, at all.
1. Everything is great. You either own a lot of capital or you think you will one day. You're fully in support of the current system;
2. There are problems but they can be fixed with a nicer, kinder capitalism, more regulation and so on. This essentially makes you a social democrat. This is still a pro-capitalist position, ultimately. You might also call yourself progressive; and
3. You believe that capitalism is fundamentally flawed and the problems of the current system, such as ever-widening wealth inequality, are an inveitable consequence of capitalism. This is the anti-capitalist position and makes you a leftist. You can't be a leftist and not be anti-capitalist.
Last century and going back to even the 2000s, tech companies and their founders were upstarts, rebels and often counter-cultural. That era is long gone. Some here might decry how often politics creeps into HN but all that's happened is that tech companies have gotten so large that they have become tools of the state. You can't be a rebel and a trillion dollar company. To maintain your status, you end up moving in lockstep with US domestic and foreign policy.
My point is there is no making this system more humane without overthrowing the US government, essentially. Imperialism is the highest form of capitalism and there is no true opposition to American imperialism in the mainstream US political system. Like, at all.
Capitalism with a human face doesn't make sense. It's like talking about Ethical Theft. It might have served its purpose, but now it's time to move on.
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Any idea what would work comparably well instead?
There were many experiments; none seemed to be successful, unless you consider the current semi-capitalist China a social success.
There were many experiments; none seemed to be successful, unless you consider the current semi-capitalist China a social success.
Socialism yes indeed! But to say that China is semi capitalist is seeing the glass half empty; they are still in the preliminary stage of socialism. It's not perfect, but it doesn't have to be as long as it goes above and beyond what has been achieved by capitalism. I recommend The East is still red by Carlos Martinez about that. It deconstructs a lot of misconceptions about what China is and isn't.
I am becoming more convinced that it is not Capitalism itself that is toxic, but Big Business.
If (in some hypothetical way) businesses were capped at e.g. 15 staff - innovation would be slower, but it would be:
- More sustainable
- More locally adapted
- The supply chain ecosystem as a whole would be more resilient
- Damaging decisions by a few huge businesses would not outweigh good decisions from the other 99% of businesses, as happens today.
If (in some hypothetical way) businesses were capped at e.g. 15 staff - innovation would be slower, but it would be:
- More sustainable
- More locally adapted
- The supply chain ecosystem as a whole would be more resilient
- Damaging decisions by a few huge businesses would not outweigh good decisions from the other 99% of businesses, as happens today.
I sort of agree with you, but how would you run any kind of industry on 15 employees? I think my limit would be somewhere in the ballpark of 100-200. That feels "big" to me, but not "huge faceless corporation"
Small businesses would become hyperspecialized, and industries would be spread across networks of small businesses - not all internal to a single big one.
It can seem inefficient at first, but would like be much more resilient to supply chain and other disruptions.
It can seem inefficient at first, but would like be much more resilient to supply chain and other disruptions.
All revolutionary fervour aside, I'm a fan of Kurz. My bread is buttered more on the David Harvey side, but Kurz is no fool. I'm not sure the headline "Capitalism has to become more humane" is the best distillation of his message.
Every billionaire is a policy failure.
Every billionaire is a policy failure.
Also... Money is Theft and The Economy is a Lie. Education inoculates you against new facts. Our meritocratic democracy ensures government by the mediocre.
As Paul Virillo once quipped, "the invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck." And we appear to have shot the ensign who was looking out for icebergs.
"They Live" was a documentary. "Idiocracy" is far too optimistic to be accurate. Reflexive modernity has made Ballard's "High Rise" into a love story.
As Paul Virillo once quipped, "the invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck." And we appear to have shot the ensign who was looking out for icebergs.
"They Live" was a documentary. "Idiocracy" is far too optimistic to be accurate. Reflexive modernity has made Ballard's "High Rise" into a love story.
“Capitalism” isn’t a real thing; it’s sort of like using the term “transubstantiation”. For someone outside of the religion, it doesn’t mean much.
What we really mean when we say “capitalism” is just people freely engaging in agreements together. In such a free society, people will hurt and trample on each other. The right move is to rely on the Republic to represent our interests and prevent that trampling from crossing red lines that we all decide on.
You don’t need to stop people from freely making agreements and transacting together; you just need to have a functioning system of laws. Whether or not we have one is an exercise left to the reader.
What we really mean when we say “capitalism” is just people freely engaging in agreements together. In such a free society, people will hurt and trample on each other. The right move is to rely on the Republic to represent our interests and prevent that trampling from crossing red lines that we all decide on.
You don’t need to stop people from freely making agreements and transacting together; you just need to have a functioning system of laws. Whether or not we have one is an exercise left to the reader.
Capitalism is not the same as free trade, in fact it's quite often antithetical. Capitalism means something like an economic system that is controlled by capital, or by the people with the most capital. And of course they use their control to give themselves more capital, not to allow competition.
> What we really mean when we say “capitalism” is just people freely engaging in agreements together.
That is untrue.
Capitalism the private ownership of production. It's a set of behaviors and legal protections[state enforcement] that allow companies to be bought, sold, and owned. It's defined by a number of constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, and wage labor.
It is not synonymous with simple free association.
That is untrue.
Capitalism the private ownership of production. It's a set of behaviors and legal protections[state enforcement] that allow companies to be bought, sold, and owned. It's defined by a number of constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, and wage labor.
It is not synonymous with simple free association.
There is no oil left in the engine. “Slap a smiley face on the dashboard.” Many such cases.
There will never be a just-a-little-exploitation capitalism coming from the bougies or their academic henchmen. They have to chase profit, that’s the game. A just-a-little-exploitation capitalism can only come from the working class fighting back. Then when that happens the bougies try to win their fair-share back and again and so we go back and forth, but only a few times not that many because of ecological breakdown.
There will never be a just-a-little-exploitation capitalism coming from the bougies or their academic henchmen. They have to chase profit, that’s the game. A just-a-little-exploitation capitalism can only come from the working class fighting back. Then when that happens the bougies try to win their fair-share back and again and so we go back and forth, but only a few times not that many because of ecological breakdown.
"Capitalism" can't become more humane, by its nature. Money is a great technology for coordinating people and work, but capitalism (being the system in which the capital class is allowed to allocate resources without oversight, and to reap the vast majority of the rewards of everyone's labor and invention) systematically optimizes away anything that is not monetizable. And humanity is neither monetizable nor optimizable.
"More poems, faster, cheaper!"
"More poems, faster, cheaper!"
I think social democracy is, by its nature, trying to be a humane system while allowing a form of capitalism. The Nordics may not be a perfect example of social democracy, but a useful one. Looking closer to home, the progressive era in the US was all about making society more humane while still allowing capitalism. In the sense of capitalism of these examples, I definitely think it can be humane.
For a more recent example, listen to this podcast episode: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/vanguard
For a more recent example, listen to this podcast episode: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/vanguard
yes that's why it's inhumane and relies on unequal exchange/exploitation of the global south while still backsliding on domestic welfare appeasement policies
Global south is not exploited inhumanely. This ideology called "thirdworldism" or "decolonialism" is becoming popular but it ultimately fails on any scrutiny.
The west has not got rich at the expense of the global south. Both have gone up .
The west has not got rich at the expense of the global south. Both have gone up .
> The west has not got rich at the expense of the global south
What timeframe are you considering in this opinion?
What timeframe are you considering in this opinion?
The post-colonial time obviously, when much of the "Global South" has become independent states, thus peers, not colonies.
do you actually believe they became 'peers' on equal footing? does them being 'peers' somehow prevent extractive relationships in a capitalist global system?
Wow. Tell that to the cobalt miners in the DRC.
Did "The West" cause warlords in DRC to exist? Even if you ignore the efforts by western firms to not buy cobalt from the DRC, it's questionable whether the DRC would be better if they had no exploitable natural resources. Neighboring countries without natural resources aren't exactly paragons of good governance either.
The progressive era in the US had nothing to do with capitalism, it's a different axis. And also a very useful red herring for the people with capital. "They have you fighting a culture war so you aren't fighting a class war" and all that jazz.
"The Great Tax Wars" by Steven R. Weisman is about the debate about taxes during the progressive era. On p 123 [1] we read
[1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Great_Tax_Wars/kw-Q...
“Since 1860, federal taxation had increased sixfold, yet the tax burden was primarily borne by the poor. At the same time, corporate profits had increased tenfold, much of it untaxed. It cost rich Americans 8 to 10 percent of their earnings to finance the government, while the poor paid taxes equivalent to 75 to 80 percent of their savings.”
[1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Great_Tax_Wars/kw-Q...
> those who do have capital and earn their income from labor...
I meant "those who do NOT have capital ...
I meant "those who do NOT have capital ...
Isn't the point of modern capitalism that you don't have to be humane. Or that the best way to be humane is to do what's best for company management?
They are just trying to give the boat different paints and hope it never sinks.
This is an instant contradiction. It's in the very meaning of the word that capitalism is capitalizing. On others.
I think there will be less discrimination in Ai Agent era
"Voters turn towards fascist leaders when democracy no longer serves workers, Kurz says. “New Deal” reforms during the Great Depression limited monopoly power and provided benefits to the vulnerable. According to Private Power and Democracy’s Decline, these reforms precipitated a “half-century of sustained innovations, rapid economic growth and stable income distribution”. Reagan-era reversals of those reforms led to what Kurz calls the “second Gilded Age”, when technological firms could accumulate monopoly power and wealth while most Americans, especially blue-collar workers without college degrees, saw their wages stagnate as the cost of living rose. It was this economic disenfranchisement, rather than cultural forces, that led to the rise of Maga, according to Kurz."
The MSM has been pushing hard for establishment Rs and most Ds, and tech oligarchs were sinking money in D areas like Zuckerberg in WI in 2020. (A "maga" election, per the articles comment)
I agree that tech oligarchy shouldn't be influencing politics so much, but i dont think this makes Dems or anyone else 'fascist' necessarily.
The MSM has been pushing hard for establishment Rs and most Ds, and tech oligarchs were sinking money in D areas like Zuckerberg in WI in 2020. (A "maga" election, per the articles comment)
I agree that tech oligarchy shouldn't be influencing politics so much, but i dont think this makes Dems or anyone else 'fascist' necessarily.
Based on the recent NYT poll, a lot of rank-and-file Democrats think Democratic politicians aren't anti-fascist enough. One can sort of see the logic of the politicians who are focusing, correctly, on keeping independents on board. But it is weak sauce nevertheless.
wow!, holy fuck eh!
so what next, mass "involuntary uthenasia"
as starving to death on the street isn't "humane", the volunteer variety in Canada must be too slow and expensive
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new new deal type stuff
does more humane mean more taxes?
> Voters turn towards fascist leaders when democracy no longer serves workers, Kurz says.
And yet fascist leaders don't serve workers any better, they serve work. I suspect the descent into facism is not because of the workers' sentiment about democracy, but because of the forces that are severing the service too.
And yet fascist leaders don't serve workers any better, they serve work. I suspect the descent into facism is not because of the workers' sentiment about democracy, but because of the forces that are severing the service too.
I agree, but Capitalism is inherently an unequal system, one group of people own the capital and the rest doesn't. And nobody talks about where that initial capital came from (large-scale theft, wage theft, slavery, and so on).
That means this inherent inequality gives one group tremendous power over the other.
What we really need is a system that doesn't automatically promote psychopaths and sociopaths to the top, the more ruthless, the more money you make, despite the human cost. We need a system that doesn't value money/capital as much, but other outcomes.
And we especially don't need Billionaire Philanthropists. Pay the damn taxes. Yet, this is the site for the Temporary Embarrassed Billionaires, so I know how this will go over...
That means this inherent inequality gives one group tremendous power over the other.
What we really need is a system that doesn't automatically promote psychopaths and sociopaths to the top, the more ruthless, the more money you make, despite the human cost. We need a system that doesn't value money/capital as much, but other outcomes.
And we especially don't need Billionaire Philanthropists. Pay the damn taxes. Yet, this is the site for the Temporary Embarrassed Billionaires, so I know how this will go over...
What a bunch of bullshit. Like clockwork, another failed economist has crawled out of the woodwork to make a quick buck by blaming capitalism right at the top of an economic bubble. Turns out studying economics might pay off after all!
Wow, such insight. It was worth their parent's sacrifices to send them to study Economics.