Capitalism is good. Let me explain.
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- Опубліковано 31 тра 2024
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This video comes with a quiz quizwithit.com/start_thequiz/...
Is capitalism the reason the world is going to hell in a hand basket? Or is it going to save us? What is capitalism anyway? How does money work and when do free markets fail? This video is a brief summary of a dip I did into microeconomics literature in a dark hour of my life.
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00:00 Intro
00:24 Money
03:17 Capitalism
08:26 Microeconomics
10:33 Externalities
12:35 Consumers and the Social Cost of Carbon
14:10 Summary
14:36 Learn Science with Brilliant
#quizwithit - Наука та технологія
A lot of people here confuse capitalism with deregulation. I did not anticipate this point to be so widely misunderstood. If I had, I would have stressed it more. I am sorry in case I caused confusion.
You're confusing capitalism and markets, which are not related in any way.
I think the negative feedback is a little deeper than that, but that’s a story for another time…
(L + Ratio 💀)
What I find surprising is that you use the same argument that many communists do: "it was just never applied right!", when there's no need for such an argument, since capitalism is not an ideology, but a system that emerged and was later described by economists.
You still don't seem to get the criticism. People are telling you that you are the one who doesn't fully grasp what capitalism is. 'Free markets + rules' is a gross oversimplification and the way you portray money as an alternative to barter has been thoroughly debunked. You attempt to vindicate capitalism, but you do so by just handwaving away all of its problems (which are not only caused by deregulation). You're out of your depth here and you should admit it.
You can't do this in 16min. 16 one-hour lectures would perhaps make for a decent introduction. Confusion, or rather irritation, is caused by this fairy tale-version of capitalism, for it being utterly superficial & uncritical to the point of negligence.
I remember when Dr Sabine scolded and other scientists for stepping out of their expertise and talked nonsense.
good times.
She's actually pretty spot on, from an economic perspective.
@dschwalm7 no, she's not. Like, not even at all
this isn't really controversial or up for debate. Capitalism has done wonders for humanity.
@@xGaLoSx Let me fix that comment for you: "capitalism has done wonders for some"
I remember my economics professor saying that most people think that the job of economists is to advise governments, when instead it is more common for governments to hire economists to justify their policies.
Usually it's the oligarchy who trained and insert economists into think tanks and universities to help sell legislation they paid for.
That works for scientists now, too.
Same here
@@rcmrcm3370 Russia's economy isn't really capitalist in the Western sense of the word; due to the fact that capitalism has been proven to be more of a technology than a choice the ex-Communist states decided to develop their own forms of capitalism. Otherwise it's not easy to know what you're talking about since most countries don't have oligarchs. Unless you're talking about that false assessment that the US is an oligarchy? We're closer than not which is scary enough, but we're not an oligarchy. The likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg hate each other enough to not conspire.
@@rcmrcm3370 accurate
"This is why we have laws against that"
... and the people avoiding those laws are either paying the people enforcing the laws, or optimizing how close to the sun they can fly before they fall, some can do it, some fall, and some get away with flying too close.
"Capitalism is good, except for when it isn't, but that's another story."
Phenomenal.
on the other hand, communism isn't good for anything
Sabine 600 years ago: "But for today, feudalism has been incredibly successful in advancing society. To the extent that it has caused us problems, it's because we haven't properly used it."
This is a logical fallacy known as a red herring. The counterfactual of what Sabine would have said 600 is not relevant to the arguments presented in the video about the pros and cons of capitalism
that's a story for another time...
@@dj_laundry_list You may want to look up feudalism. Spoiler: It is a form of government and an economic system.
@@dj_laundry_listHaha. You don't need mathematical models for something to be economics. Just like you don't need to know how gravity works for it to exist.
@@tobiasc4559 just as capitalism is. Separating politics from the economy is just liberal fantasy
I like how in her view capitalism is trusted and cant be corrupted because its illegal
I mean, that's why nobody at all is getting murdered in lots of countries anymore. Cuz it's illegal.
I heard they were roasting her in the comments and I came here to laugh. So worth it.😂
Sabine should be ashamed. Yet again, she proves she has no freaking clue what she's talking about. I'm so sick of scientists - like Sabine H. - using their platform and degree to discuss things they have ZERO knowledge about. They take away credibility from every other legitimate scientist and researcher.
@@crimson4066 You typed 3 sentences and said absolutely nothing. You should be proud, most people have to try to be as useless as you.
Ok well that wasn’t exactly the point shes making, in the same way every other law works you investigate change and punish law breakers, literally no one is saying that if it becomes illegal companies wont do it
Im not here to defend capitalism its just that she mentioned punishments enforce laws, so I don’t think this is the strongest point
Maybe criticize her for saying capitalism can help get people medicine by sick people being a market, she didn’t mention how in areas heavily affected by disease tend to be poor and people might not be able to afford medicine or get exploited paying, and the historical element
Here's a list of all the parts in which she says "but that's another story":
2:35 - Fiat money / cryptocurrencies
7:23 - Marx
8:01 - Different ways of governing a capitalist state
9:37 - Microeconomics shortcomings
11:46 - Water pollution (here she used “different” story, rather than “another" story)
13:50 - Social cost of carbon
@@first-last-null It's actually only really good for the top 0.01%. The other part of that 5% would still have it better if people could kick out the capitalist class from government permanently.
Can't be spouting opinions on topics you don't understand. That would be disingenuous@@first-last-null
Yeah, I thought they were only two. This video is really low-brow.
Are you thinking of savage capitalism? Regulated capitalism as that in effect in the Scandinavian countries seems to work pretty well.@@5Gazto
Scandinavian countries use a mixed-market economy combining elements of both socialism and capitalism. I believe that the capitalist part is (mainly) their free market. They also have a generous welfare system (the socialist part). Calling them capitalist would be innacurate, as a mixed-market economy is an economic system in itslef.@@appleturnover519
You can compare this video with Albert Einstein's article "Why Socialism?" and understand that physicists also can have a profound view of economy and politics, if they are Albert Einstein.
1. socialism, communism and politics alike aren't something that u can exhert nor talk about in a vacuum. because it's a WORLD view. not an asolated form of government.
2. the only thing CLOSE to communism was URSS during a small period of time and cuba which ... are US blocated until today btw...
3. it *sounds* (correct me if im wrong), that since he's einstein he cant be wrong bout a matter of things... sure he's an expert in his field of study and is an intelegent person, on the other hand he's also known for being abusive to women. and those kind of ppl cant empathize nor care bout common people well being...
@@criticalrevel Just because the USSR wasn't successful, it doesn't mean it wasn't communist.
@@criticalrevel "known for being abusive to women" ...So you use hearsay as some sort of argument of discourse?!!
Einstein was also a terrible person, but you socialists seem to completely disregard that
This is the best diss I read in a long time, THANK YOU 🙏
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair
Very good quote!
Let's understand why Sabine is wrong here: ua-cam.com/video/p4qKjijP99c/v-deo.html
Ooh.
That applies to socialists too
@@achinthmurali5207explain.
"We just need to use capitalism the right way" is the same argument as "just one more lane, that will fix traffic I promise"
Adam Something fan?
😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@marcocappelli5124Doesn't matter. Cars need to die anyways. They're a waste of space.
@@MUZUKUN-YT I'm an Adam Something fan myself. I'd say that cars and other individual vehicles are useful in areas where mass transportation can't be developed. In high density areas, of course, they should be discarded.
No, it's not. Adding government regulations solves the issue. Adding one more lane can paradoxically worsen traffic. I can't think of any economic system that doesn't have issues that have to be addressed by the government in the chaotic environment of the real world. It's just how the economy works.
This is like the meme of "if somebody is trying to rob you, just say no, its illegal to take your things without your consent"
This also illustrates why regulations can't save capitalism, by the way.
Companies when they're fined $10 million for breaking a law and making $100 million:
"Oh no! So anyway..."
@@VeteranVandal Except LOTS of regulations have worked exactly how they should.
Is making $100,000 a crime in itself? I would really like to see some examples of a company being able to pay $10 million in order to acquire $100 million.
If true, they should do that all day long, every day, and tell me how can participate.
I cant wait to hear you say you wouldnt sign up for such a deal. You could start small, sau $10,000 for $100,000. @@MagDrag123
@@DaDARKPass ... Only temporarily.
As somebody who studied economics (micro and macro) and business administration, I should now make a video about loop quantum gravity.
LOL. Good point
That's probably not how it works. A person who studies Quantum physics is more likely to understand economics than the other way round.
@@djgroopz4952maybe that is the case…she definitely isn’t a good example though
@@djgroopz4952That's clearly not true though, as this video proves
LMAO
"That's why we have laws against that" is doing a Herculean amount of work here lol
Isn't that still free market?
@@LuisRomeroLopez Now what do you do when people start paying for laws they want or at least to alter laws in their favor, or outright buy the ability to make the laws?
Yeah let's jus make slavery illegal. Problem solved. Do we need to support people or change systems? Nope, we wrote words down on paper, yay us!
@@andiralosh2173 I don't know; slavery seems very profitable. In fact, it is so profitable that maybe I should take a risk and bribe some people and see if we can make it legal again. Then I can let the apple farmer sell his son for an apple juicer. After which, I make the son work on the apple orchard I got when my folks died, and as I force the son to pick the apples for free, I can charge less for my own apple products, which will in time put the father out of business and force him to sell his orchard to me and maybe even have him throw in the juicer too. After which, since the father won't have the orchard, he won't be able to make money as quickly. So he also won't be able to fully repay his loan. In a way, he will also become my slave, as from then on he will have to work just to pay off the interest on his loan.
@@asdf30111 That's illegal in all normal countries, I don't see your point? OLAF does some amazing work. Would be great if western EU countries also had anti-corruption orgs, and not just rely on OLAF, but even so it's mostly fine.
If economists claimed that capitalists shit golden bricks I think Sabine might have said "shitting golden bricks can cause constipation.... but that's another story".
Maybe next time read the critics of capitalism, not just their fanboys.
👍🏾
She clearly didn't even read the fanboys. The video comes across like a summary of Smith's and Mises' Simple Wiki pages, with a little bit of Prager U sprinkled in there for good measure.
Its an intro to capitalism in a short video. This isn't just their "fanboys," it's talking about the history and motivations behind capitalism. She also educated people about the importance of the government in regulating the economy, something a lot of conservatives don't understand. That's a good thing in my opinion.
@@vitulus_ The history was fake. Anthropologists know that the story of barter being inefficient so currency was invented is BS. That's just not what happened. The "history" was invented by economists and is a myth. Honestly a lot of economics is bunk. It's not a scientific field. She should have read the critics of capitalism and not just the fanboys.
I highly value Sabine's physics videos, and view her as an excellent science communicator. But even putting aside one's opinions about capitalism, the foundational explanation here about how and why money was created is demonstrably incorrect, and grievously so. It's well known - and has been pointed out repeatedly by Sabine herself - that scholarly expertise tends to be as narrow as it is deep, and this video seems to be a great example of that truism. From the initial "don't believe Greta Thunberg and don't believe RFK Jr" statement, it seems Sabine feels like she's taking a reasonable middle ground here - but reason, as Sabine always reminds us, can't be reasonable unless it's based on good evidence. And the evidence in this video is quite poor.
Huh, why was money created?
@@ericomfg I'd recommend researching, or just doing a quick Google search, as it will provide some helpful info. Briefly, my understanding is that systems of credit and debt existed long before money, and that there's pretty strong anthropological/archaeological evidence that money existed before barter. So money was not created out of barter systems. I'm persuaded by David Graeber's argument that money was created with the rise of states, in order to fund large-scale armies. In other words, money is a political form created to enable state expenditures on a large scale.
@@ericomfg Debt: the first 5000 years - David Graeber. Despite centuries of archeologists desperately trying to prove this "bartering chickens and eggs and bananas is too hard so we invented money"-theory, and they failed. In the history of mankind there has never been a civilization that we know of where people traded chickens for fish. There have been gift economies, palace economies, maybe other types that I don't remember, but no barter economies. Money was created to keep track of debts and punishments.
Her likening capitalism to market economics is like me making a science video likening an electron to a planetary system. It’s a fundamentally incorrect analogy that the science has completely rejected.
@@nothingissimplewithlloyd capitalism is all about markets.....??
So fun when all problems are answered with "but that's another story"
Also nothing about capitalism itself can be understood by audience. Why capitalists tend to create monopolies in their respective markets? What differs capitalism from feudalism or socialism? Socialist countries mentioned by Sabina have markets, too and they are regulated, too. Socialist countries also had debt and credit.
The theme of ownership of the means of production is essential to capitalism, as well as the theme of capital and profit.
@@user-cc2it7ix5q It's very easy to Google definitions of terms, people just don't tend to do that. By their broadest definitions, capitalism is private (individuals/businesses) ownership of means of production, socialism is public (state) ownership of means of production. Of course these terms have subdivisions like under capitalism there's laizzes faire, keynesianism etc and under socialism there's communism, nazism etc.
@@paavoilves5416NAZISM A FORM OF SOCIALISM?!?! SUDDENDLY THE RIGHT IS LEFT?!? Wow, just wow.
@@Someone..................... Maybe you should check out what the National Socialists (nazis) advocated for and how similar their economic system was to the USSR and Marx's ideas. They called themselves socialists for a reason.
@@Someone.....................You know that economics and society policies are 2 different issues, right ?
Einstein really should have called in on this video and said some words.
Yeah mate ! Einstein did promote SILVIO GESELL ! Go and look for that guy . . .
A socialist. And for good reason.
💕👌👍🌎🇨🇳
Can't she just stick to physics? Every other topic she delves into reveals her complete ignorance or is completely boring.
Fortunately his classic 1949 essay "Why Socialism?" Is freely available and easy to google!
This comments section is golden. Sabine, you have scolded other creators before for making fools of themselves by stepping out of their field of expertise. I think that boomerang has come back around.
Did it ever. And it came back like one of those big ol' Australian ones, too. The one's that'll send a mf to the emergency room for a week.
@@lobotomizedamericans I'm pretty sure they're all Australian.
@@shraka Talkin' about genu-ine made in Australia baby. Not some cheap Chinese plastic shit.
@@lobotomizedamericans I see. Sinophobia is a bit on the nose though mate.
@@shraka 0% Sinophobia, 100% factophilia.
Didnt you make a video about how your dreams in academia died because schools have become money-making institutions?! Do you not see the connection here?
She is obviously hiding the truth . For more sponsor from the capitalist. Why will a physicist discuss an economic issue
One of the often unstated problems of free markets is that every agent in that free market is trying to make it as un-free as possible for the other agents.
And the solution is to deny the power to politicians to grant un-free advantages to the big corporations who want to bribe them to gain those un-free advantages.
This is just wrong. It is much more effective to cooperate than to make everybody body else your enemy. And most companies know that.
A significant problem for anarcho capitalism!
Government is usually the worst example
And that should be one of government's very FEW responsibilities. Making sure that agents get beaten down to size when they get too big for their britches.
This video was a shock. I watch every video Sabine releases. This is the first time I've seen her do many things... such as:
1) abandon topics she actually knows about
2) make a video without doing any relevant research
3) blindly spew an almost religious level of dogmatic propaganda
4) just be so blatantly wrong on virtually every asserted fact, both historical and present-day.
Feels a lot more like a PragerU disinformation course than a Sabine video. Is it April fools or something?
right? is like some billionare put a gun on her head "either die or make a video defending capitalism TODAY, no, there is not time for you to research, if you do I'll finance the rest of your research career".
this is far from the first time for her. Many people noticed the same things about the videos she made about other social groups. Basically, if you don't belong to those groups, you could accidentally not notice her doing same things before.
@@BatLunette - fair, I can't say I've seen them all, nor am I necessarily knowledgeable enough on every subject to notice it. - but on this one I am and ... ugh. just ugh.
Yea, the way she explains capitalism is like hearing a homeopathic practitioner explains medicine. It is like explaining why things float in water by saying that thing is lighter than water, so therefore wood floats and steel sinks. She is right on some very narrow aspects of capitalism that makes it a good economic, while ignoring (deliberately or by ignorance) everything else about capitalism that makes it a terribly cruel economic system.
As a chemist, it reminds me of hearing people denouncing something as bad because it has chemicals with long names in it.
Who pays you Sabine, to make this stupid video? The US government's disinformation warfare unit? Koch foundation? Milton Friedman's ghost?
Im gonna be real, probably paid off to make this video. I wouldn't be shocked if some of her other videoes were too, but she is at least informed on those topics and interested in exploring it genuinely. But this one feels like shes just a mouthpiece for investors
How to defend capitalism in 16 minutes: say all the good things about it; and about the bad things, just say: "That is another story."
"can't we just hold hands and sing around the campfire" vibes but in attempted technical speak
Depends on what's burning in the campfire.
That's a pretty good summary of "Das Kapital".
Yes, and what happens if capitalists capture the organizations that are supposed to regulate them?
Then it is not capitalism anymore
@@philippfrogel9355 In that case there has never been capitalism according to you.
Capitalist economies are just as susceptible to corruption as socialist economies. That's just human nature. Your responsibility as a voter and a citizen to ensure that it doesn't happen.
I'd also just like to add that this could only happen in a capitalist society...
You'd be surprised, but they initiated and installed these organizations to produce an impression they are under some control. In fact, they are not.
This is a self-fulfilling argument. Of course capitalism is good for "progress" when "progress" is defined by the constraints of capitalism.
Could you elaborate?
@vitulus_ Just look at how capitalism relates to water, for example. Capitalism encourages the production of bottled water. Then we say that bottled water is a godsend because there are places that rely on bottled water as their only safe source of drinking water. While in reality it was the economic forces that led to the creation of bottled water that also led to this dependency because of the pollution or depletion of natural water sources. This is not a lack of regulation. The exploitation of natural resources for the means of production is an inherent aspect of capitalism. Imagine a world where water has implicit value or rights. We would not be able to produce any of the common goods that we now rely on to operate on a daily basis. This is largely because of the way capitalism relies on scaling of value i.e., hierarchy.
@@HominidPetro Wouldn't the depletion of natural water reserves be because of the demand of water -- something that is always the case? The problems with capitalism is normally the resources wasted that weren't harvested. E.g., a water plant burns coal which contributes to climate change.
Nonetheless, I mean to ask you to elaborate on how "progress" is defined by the constraints of capitalism? I should've been more clear, sorry.
@@vitulus_ What does capitalism actualy do? You get born, and it is imposed upon you ( unless you want to go and hunt ofc ). This makes it the GOAL of life now. You have to succeed in this system that is being imposed on you since birth, or else you die. So, in order to succeed in "life" you have to succeed in capitalism. All of a sudden, capitalism is like a force of nature. If you look at socialism on the other hand, it IS STILL being imposed upon you, but it OFFERS safety nets in case you can't adapt to it as well as other people. Capitalism is TRANSGRESSING over your human rights, by not offering an alternative. Socialism is PROMOTING life by giving you a safety net, because some people are more gifted than others or even if they aren't, some people get motivated more easily, and can become better faster and so on. Capitalism is LITERALLY unethical and immoral, because of its transgressions over human life. Eusocial species are the most successful ones in nature, and we have the advantage of being intelligent beings, so we can make it even better than that.
@vitulus_ in the bottled water example, the invention and distribution of a product whose reliance on is necessitated by the power that created it is defined as "progress." This is a self-fulfilling argument.
USA big companies using cheap labor here in my country in the PH. And the wages are not liveable. How is that good?
Exactly
How much did the wages increase in the last 10 and 20 years because of these companies?
@@Eleku I rather take my chances unemployed than work for shit salary.
@@jadbizmay I ask in which country you live?
How would you fund your life if you were unemployed?
What would be your advice to a worker in Vietnam? Just stop working. Be unemployed, because you can't have a high salary?
The world would descend into mass poverty and starvation.
@@Gogolade The world has already descended into mass poverty and starvation, it all depends on your threshold.
Informal work is much more common in the third world for the reason that decent paying jobs are scarce and heavily competed and poor paying jobs are sometimes not even worth it and ppl would rather have a bunch of side gigs.
The advice is the same, do whats best for you. Multinational companies don't go to the third world offering sick benefits and good salaries, thats why they go there because they know they can get away with offering so little.
This video has the same vibes that a presentation I gave on cybersecurity before I spent years learning it. A lot of my ideas around it back then were logical, but not correct, and some were based on out of date information that has since been revised, but I still didn't know that because I hadn't done any real research. David Graeber's work on debt, governmental systems and trade before capitalism, and before recorded history disproves some of your early points. It doesn't do so by glossing over critiques, criticisms, and ignoring valid arguments intentionally or just to shorten a video.
I don't think your point on penicillin holds any water. Penicillin research was funded by governmental research to aid wounded soldiers. There was no capitalist innovation in that. The ability for mass production isn't uniquely capitalist, just the motivations to do so for fulfilling a hole in a market and making profit.
Finally, I don't think that listening to economists is going to fix capitalism. There is no incentive to listen to them (unless it means short term profit). Using economist's ideas to fix global warming will not happen as long as economic power can be used to get political power. Using the political power granted by vast amounts of capital to prevent any real regulations is the most efficient solution. This isn't doing capitalism incorrectly, this is doing it optimally. Any change done to fix this system through official means will not happen in time to save us from global warming because capitalism deems it most efficient not to have any changes at all.
This video was an INTRODUCTION to capitalism and not intended to FIX capitalism. If you want to FIX capitalism, find a way to feed the brains of all those Trumpsters out there.
Isn't it ironic that this is the video coming right after one titled "Do your own research, but do it right"?
No. She and her team did, and they made a good job out of it.
@@matteogirelli1023 She didn't put in even minimal effort. She literally recited a bunch of capitalist propaganda talking points and easily debunked myths (e.g. the "barter to money" myth) while insulting victims of capitalism like North Korea with her ahistorical takes that are ignorant of the responsibility of the US for the destruction of Korea... and at no point has she even defined capitalism and its most fundamental aspects (e.g. private property) nor in any way looked at the overwhelming criticism against capitalism.
This entire video is badly researched, unscientific, ahistorical nonsense and severely discredits her.
@@lynth what's that rant about Korea man... And she's not defending the US.
I disagree entirely.
@@matteogirelli1023 She is promoting US propaganda and denigrating the DPRK (a victim of US imperialism). What exactly do you disagree with? Your unscientific and pointless comment is as good as Sabine's video.
@@lynth with everything you just said and for that matter everything you're going to say ever ahah. Bye spam
and this episode was sponsored by PragerU and ReasonTV....and Briliant
😂😂
You forgot the Mont Pelerin Society.
And epoch news
The ideas are supported by the majority of people who spend their lives studying these things. Capitalism is a good economic system, and it has been shown to be the case time and time again through scientific study.
Sabine likes the Wealthy so much.
Please be nice. Sabine is doing a spectacular job showing us how effective capitalist propoganda is. Keep up the good work!
Lol, unintentionally informative after all ;P
What exactly is your suggestion if capitalism is so bad? Socialism? Communism? What? Some mixed bag of others. All of that has been tried to many times to count. Seriously, what is your suggestion to replace capitalism?
@@johndoe-sh6bisocialism and eventually communism. Of course you probably don't even know the difference between these two.
@@emiliopenayo4738 openly calling for communism? wtf is wrong with you.
You've accidentally exposed the fact that you have an inability to decide what is propaganda.
the idea that trade started with only bartering is a myth
This is absolutely right. Anthropology and History mostly concur by now. You'd expect more from her. Sad.
There are some excellent YT vids by Michael Hudson and David Graeber about the history of money. The barter economy never existed and was an assumption by 18th century economists.
@@lambd01d I vaguely remember anthropology and history journals as well.
the channel andrewism also has an fantastic video on bartering specifically
@@danbylee6129 ==How The Barter Myth Harms Us== ua-cam.com/video/W-gdHrINyMU/v-deo.htmlv
What kind of externality is it when companies pay government representatives not to pass laws against negative externalities?
Or when the government use tax payers money to "rescue" bankrupting corporations? Free market? Invisible hand?
Liberals are inherently idealists, they reject the notion that there is a material origin for political power and see political power as just something arbitrary that sways back and forth depending on the ideas of the time, hence why they always stress that all that really matters is "the free marketplace of ideas." It's also why they don't get why capitalism is flawed, because they don't see a connection between giving control over production to a small handful of people, and those small handful of people then controlling the political system. Most either just deny this happens, saying it's a conspiracy theory or something, or they say it's "corporatism" and that tRuE cApItALiSm hAs nEvEr bEeN tRiEd and we can get it right this time as long as we can win in the free marketplace of ideas and get others on our side with logic and reason. lol
Damage control, PR, fake philantropy and lobby. I believe corps already have that considered on their balances.
Sabine, I really love your physics videos. That's why I come here. I don't care to listen to you talk about politics, economics or anything else besides physics. Because how can i know that you know anything more about these subjects than i do? Or John Smith who lives next door? Or anyone actually. You're not a political scientist or an economist. It's strange that you seem to be "branching out" into other areas that are not your field of expertise when your fans are just here for the physics. Watch out or you may begin losing those fans.
She makes this video because she wants to lose those smelly socialist fans ;-)
This is just a PragerU video. It's all here:
the misdirections ("sure it has its criticisms but that's another story")
the historical innacuraccy (money didn't show up because people were tired of trading goods all the time lol, also, people were lending money with interest for various reasons waaaaaaaaaaay before capitalism)
the false equivalences (markets, economy, capitalism, these are all related but different concepts)
overall lack of critical thinking (So the University developed penicillin because of capitalism? The university predates capitalism, c'mon thats an easy one; or like "The market didnt know the water had value" sure the people benefiting from the market understand water is good - what happened there?).
Words not meaning anything ("Free market is capitalism + rules"? so marketed socialism is free market? or not because too many rules? what?)
We even have the vague reference to Marx as "the guy who thought capitalism was bad because of the - _ew_ - wOrKeRs"
You could sum up all the parts she brushes off whenever there's a criticism of capitalism and come out with an actual more productive video about how capitalism is bad...
1. Capitalism requires rules and governing bodies to enforce contracts. Capitalism in it's purest since must have a governing body.
capitalism by default, after that, technically has no restrictions, you can write contracts with any number of stipulations as long as both parties agree.
Socialism comes from a different perspective:
By default socialism has prescriptions on how different people can organize, , IE what type of contreacts that you are allowed to go into, it requires democratic control of the workplace, in some form, as it by defalt moralizes the employee/employer relationship.
Capitalism by default does not do this.
Obviously every human organization in the real world is regulated, and always has been and always will be. But capitalism has different sets of prescription inherent in its philosophy. Specifically democratic control of the workplace is more or less a requirement in socialism while in capitalism it is not. You in a capitalist system could technically have contracts that allow socialist organizations, but socialism can not allow a non democratic workplace to truly exist.
Capitalism, by and large is good, and anyone who disagrees is frankly a historical, Much socialism that many people advocate for in the real world is entirely compatible with capitalism.
Also words like socialism/capitalism/communism are kind of muddled words. Capitalism is actually kind of a nebulous term. Property rights and the ability for anyone to freely own capital are some of the primary differences compared to socialism/communism/markets. Back in the day some people were straight up restricted by law to have no property rights, as well as no freedom of association.
Umbrella terms politics arguing is always a bitch though.... so i get your frustrations.
"But that's another story" is the new hand-wave.
Yup. When the argues are running out . . .
"Capitalism is good! Now here's everything that's wrong with it. But that's another story!"
Indeed, an honest critique of capitalism is a very different story than the one you just told.
🙌 👏 🙏 🤝 👍 you b e t it is . . .
💥👌👍♥️
It was pretty incomplete indeed, but well, that's the average UA-cam title to gather attention. She just talked about the evolution of society with it and the ambiental problems.
Capitalism is good when its good and when it isn't thats another topic for another day.
Truuuuuue-uhhhh
Socialism is good when we will have it for real, and all the times it was a failure it just wasn't done right.
Yah I have great respect for Sabine's science perspectives, but I wish she would stay away from civics and social/political issues, she's really shoved her foot in her mouth a few different times already and I much rather she stop providing fuel for political pundits. These "educational" videos are not in-depth or nuanced enough to give people a fair perspective, and Sabine's lack of knowledge in American culture and politics really shows when she tries.
Capitalist countries like Irak or Lybia are countries you don't want to live in but that's another story
I find her physics videos to be among the best, but she fails to recognize her biases on social/political topics by trying to take a "both sides" approach that ends up lending credibility to bigoted or otherwise harmful viewpoints. Just like its not possible to be without scientific bias, the same is true for politics and social matters and its intellectually dishonest to pretend that's not the case.
You skipped the step of money where the paper money was an IOU, that you could always exchange for the same amount of gold that was deposited in a bank. Fiat money, that is based on nothing but air and trust is only 50 years old, extremely new in comparison, and inflation has skyrocketed ever since. Fiat money will eventually collapse and tear this economy down with it.
It's this simple: Capitalism requires surplus production to generate profit. It incentivizes over-consumption. No carbon capture methods can keep up with our production and consumption economically. It is not sustainable to expect endless profit going to the few. We much share our limited resources more fairly and responsibly.
Ah, an excellent hypothesis. I wonder how an esteemed scientist failed to consider such a simple concept.
It’s crazy to gloss over the most holistic and relevant critique of capitalism as “a story for another time.” Marx’s critiques were also not purely on moral grounds, there are many works including his own which investigate the unstable nature of capitalist economies and how the “rules” which stabilize them enforce vast wealth inequity and imperialist violence.
The book “One-Dimensional Man” discusses how the technological rationality of industrial societies (including but not limited to Western capitalist societies) results in analysis of this sort, in which capitalism is discussed within the framework of capitalism and is self-fulfilling in nature. It is a mistake to see technological progress under capitalism as only possible under capitalism; and in this age it’s a mistake to even unequivocally attribute moral goodness to technological “progress.”
edit: to add some critique more specific to this video - even if you want to defend capitalism, you don’t do a great job defining it or addressing the myriad problems people have with it. If your point is “capitalism isn’t incompatible with environmentalism,” you may have a reasonable start to a video here, but you’d still be ignoring how globalization and colonialism has led to environmental devastation in the global south or how governments are poorly equipped to regulate rapid technological advancement.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. People justify capitalism using this simplistic nonsense "framework" about farmers (who just happen to have farms, who knows how they got them) trading with eachother as individuals as if no prior systems existed (like feudalism) and everyone is equally rich. The whole point is that you have an underclass of people who have no "stuff" to trade and thus must sell their labor to capitalists in order to survive, and capitalists then in turn ensure that they stay poor. While you could theoretically have environmentally sound capitalism, so far it seems unlikely to occur. Of course, a global eco-socialist revolution also seems unlikely to occur so seems like we're all f'd, tbh.
@@takanara7 In fact, the majority of people living in feudal societies were disenfranchised (ripped off) during the transition to capitalistic private ownership, just as the people of the USSR were. They were then given the choice between starvation and property-less landless "wage slavery," as it was called by no less a figure than Abraham Lincoln.
Damn so now it's not "explain me like I'm five" anymore but "explain me like you're five"
Yes, she tried this with biology once, too and it was as if she forgot how to read scientific papers. It's fine to have an opinion, but she's pulling a JBP and assuming she's an expert in literally everything. I am not sure why she thought making this video was a good idea; it's frankly misinformation.
🤣😂 I did laugh at this comment. too true.
lol!
Spoiler: she hardly addresses capitalism and doesn’t defend it basically at all. Indeed, what she does do is points out a bunch of the excesses of capitalism and argues that we need government to reign in capitalism. If anything this is a video about how capitalism is problematic. The primary innovations of capitalism that uniquely define it are free enterprises whose existence is determined by their struggle for the aggregate of surplus value, wage labor and middle managers. Free enterprises and capital investments, which she does discuss, existed in mercantilism. At least, that’s my understanding and would be happy to be corrected. But, at any rate, wage labor, the aggregate of surplus value and middle managers weren’t discussed. Even her comments on the value of competition generated under capitalism is ultimately a criticism about how capitalists won’t compete fairly if left to their own devices. It’s almost as if she thinks government regulation is a part of capitalism. 😂 then there’s the penicillin example, which basically demonstrates how capitalism is parasitic and unnecessary because all the capitalist did was exploit publicly funded research and then made a profit exploiting sick people who needed that medicine-I guess I’m not smart enough to understand why we need a capitalist for that and the government couldn’t have just distributed it to those who needed it at cost. 🤷♂️
I check back in every couple of weeks to see if this video is still up and somehow it still is...
Yes, she's convinced, that she's right (and she even is in a way, cause the major problem is not what she says, but what she's ommitting). I like her very much, she's a brilliant mathematician, thinker and communicator and this is the only of nearly 400 videos, I think that is failed, so I can live with it. I don't need a channel, that's parroting my beliefs. I'm a little bit sad, because I see, that this is harmful for her work. But she's not only brilliant, she's stubborn too. So I'm afraid, we have to wait for a deletion.
@@Thomas-gk42 I would never want her to delete this. Idc how wrong it is, it shows her understanding of capitalism. And this is really how some people think about this stuff. I wouldn't want flat earthers deleting their videos either. It's important to know who the idiots are.
@@MultiChrisjb If you mean she's an idiot like the flat earthers, she's not of course.
This video follows the math of micro economics, without using that math, which surely is too complicated for a vid like this.
But the simplification makes it boring, different to physics stuff, that's just one mistake, she made, besides all the propaganda like statements, that aren't that funny, as she normally can be. The use of the term 'capitalism' already is a failure, since she just explains free markets and financial systems while 'capitalism' has a negative notion in itself, it's a political battleterm, something that she perhaps didn't notice. As I said, no one is flawless and I can live with that.
@@MultiChrisjbMy answer faded, try it once more. If you mena.,she´s an idiot like flat earthersyou´re wrong of course. This video has alot of problems though. no one is flawless.
@@Thomas-gk42 This was a simple OUTLINE to capitalism, with the inherent rough edges, not a course in micro- and macro-economics.
There are a few too many "that's another story"s in this one for my taste. Those are real problems that need more than a throwaway formula - at the very least, a short description of the topic and how it relates to the current one. Because there are a number of dragons hidden behind those throwaways.
Anybody remember the Nestlé leader board member arguing for why drinking water shouldn't be free?
Water is free in your country? I get a bill every month here in Balkans and water is polluted by bad maintenance. My sister and her family only buys water from shop, 2$ for 6 litres.
@@1GTX1in my country, depending on the place, we can pick water for free. You have to go there and transport the water, but it's possible to do it.
He argued that water actually shouldn't be a human right. If it were, then Nestle wouldn't be able to privately own water reserves in dozens of countries around the world.
@@1GTX1usually the fee is a distribution, treatment and waste management fee, not a price on the water. Like, I'm not the defending the way it works or anything, and in practice it does put a price on the access to water, just saying, the theory is usually that this is not a price put on the water itself.
Of course this is a lot harder to defend when the distribution system is made private and for profit.
Privatization has jeopardized distribution in many places in my country because the distribution just isnt profitable. Yay capitalism🎉
As an economist I am happy that this is an actually a pretty unbiased vision, But still too simplistic of a view of economy. Capitalism cant be seem as the reason of progress, just because you dont have anything to compare it, and marx pretty much agrees you need a really advanced capitalist society to make socialism work( why Cuba and thing like that dont work). But the reason the system Didnt collapse is because the exploration was moved to the “South”. Is so Nice to say in germany capitalism is good, when everthing you buy and wear is made by cheap children labor and slave labor in Asia , África, and latin América. And in Didnt even start with the changes made after the 80s, that basically made capitalism a Gamble speculation game instead of economic and social Growth.
Dr. Hossenfelder, do you know of the general trend of physicists speaking well outside their domain of expertise, assuming they understand it, and then saying a bunch of stuff that doesn't really work or hold up to scrutiny, leading to their later years being less about breakthroughs in their field and more about being cranks in other fields?
...Yeahhhhhh... This is not your area of expertise, and it really shows. I recommend the book "Capitalist Realism" by Mark Fischer, as it very closely describes exactly what you're doing here - presenting examples of the past that fit capitalism as we know it, rather than what the past before capitalism was actually like.
As an economist myself, I have to say, I really like your physics videos. Maybe keep making those
Excellent point, mate! But I guess being a grifter pays bettee than doing research. Funny, I heard capitalism encourages innovation. 😂
It's interesting that she engaged in an ideologic defense of capitalism, being a physicist, you'd expect a more materialist analysis.
@@VeteranVandal well, noone's immune to propoganda. especially as someone currently enrolled in a computer science program, most of the stemlords i've personally met are most bought into the same
Maybe you should find a better way to criticize videos. What exactly are you doing here but saying look at me I got a degree and i disagree.That is not useful to anyone.
@@princeofexcessmaybe you should read what people who want to waste their time arguing wrote rather than the dude with better things to do (sadly that’s not me, i should be sleeping rn). also not an invitation to debate, just calling you silly, silly billy ❤
I think you also misunderstood that capitalism IS deregulation. Commodifying publicly owned wealth, resources and labor for the benefit of private entities is a form of deregulation. That's why we don't run the workplace as a democracy, because we're alienated from our labor, we don't own the resources, we don't own the outcomes, we don't participate in the philosophy and politics behind our places of work. And if you think workplaces are apolotical, Maybe think again.
Why run a company as a democracy? The purpose of a company is to make money, not to implement social experiments. You're free to build your own company and rule as you wish if you don't like following the rules your company's bosses have set up.
@@fondueeundof3351 The same reason you want to join a union for your job. Also look up cooperatives, they're mostly run by a workers union and workers can actually own a percentage of the business relative to their contributions. There are way more options than the arbitrary rules that are enforced upon us.
"Company's only responsibility is to make money for shareholders" mentality is the reason why climate change is accelerating, one of many disasters caused by this line of thinking.
@@NaderNabilart The purpose of a union is not to make a profit, but to protect and enforce the employee's rights. Completely different purpose compared to a production company. Cooperatives are typically small enterprises that are nowhere as efficient as the "normal" companies. If the world was running on cooperatives, we'd probably still be hunter-gatherers. At any rate, employees are free to buy shares of their companies and take part in the democratic decision taking process during general assembly. That's how employees can "own a percentage of the business" already now. But it makes no sense to implement democracy on all levels of the hierarchy, it would hamper business, the company would become non-competitive and ultimately non-profitable, entailing a probable lay-off of a large part of the staff. You could try to get an official product label "Democratic company", akin to the bio labels that we already know, and since the products would be more expensive than a "normal" company's, I wonder how many consumers would be willing to pay more for democracy-labelled products. Would you?
@@fondueeundof3351 Hunter-gatherers? That escalated quickly. If you aren't familliar with cooperatives, a third of Spain's economy is basically cooperatives of high-value businesses, same with Italy and France. New-Zealand's whole agri business is one huge co-op. Even in the US you would be surprised how much essential goods & services are based on the cooperative model. Also they are actually pretty effecient money-wise, no huge executive bonuses, no bribes for politicians, no tax evading schemes and off-shore accounts in tax havens. There's a lot of bullshit expenses in the great capitalist story about financial viability. There's a lot of market crashes, a lot of austerity, bailouts for the rich, indebtedness for all others and unnecessary suffering. Correlation doesn't mean causation if you think capitalism was the only possible way to organise a modern civilization. There's a lot of conscious effort in shaping the public perception & markets for capitalism to even be considered mildly functional. It is not the best we can do collectively. Don't buy into that story especially if the capitalists themselves are being self-critical right now.
@@fondueeundof3351 Not sure where you're located but your view on co-operatives is, pardon my wording, elementary at best.
I live in Europe, in a country with several agricultural co-operatives, vertically integrated and on par with large companies, in said country.
Admittedly, I don't see semiconductor co-operatives anywhere but don't be so quick to dismiss what already works.
New title
"Capitalism is Good: Anything to the contrary Is Another Story"
Drinking game: take a drink every time she says "but that's another story"
Saying "Capitalism Is Efficient" when Capitalism will literally be less efficient on purpose if it means more profit is insane.
We literally produce enough food to feed billions of people, and that just for a surplus of food companies produce. The only reason we still have hunger in the world is because it isn't profitable to feed everyone.
Companies would rather throw the barely "expired" food to the trash then feed the hungry, or pour milk down the sewers in order to keep the price up, This is the system Sabine defends. For shame.
Capitalism is much more efficient than socialism.
Yeah. That's it. It baffles me how super smart people like herself don't get it.
@@nixboaski it's more economically tenable not to understand
9.2% of people in the entire world are undernourished. This is a complex issue. I recommend that you do not make sweeping statements.
1. There are logistical challenges with transporting food to remote areas. For example: not all of the world has areas accessible by vehicles.
2. Governments may restrict foreign aid.
3. Precarious nature of aid. Need to give aid without making local agriculture development suffer. This isn't just chucking $$$ at the problem, or more specifically at food.
4. Cultural factors, other systematic issues, conflict, etc.
Ideally the goal is to allow these impoverished areas to sustainably nourish themselves. And it's _hard._ It's not even about capitalism, it's about the fact that in any economic system, a foreign government isn't necessarily going to expend all it's resources when the benefit to cost ratio is sometimes incredibly low. No economic system is going to magically fix this problem.
Hopefully, this comment helped you learn something.
Capitalism is not about efficiently allocating resources to meet people's needs, but rather to meet private interests, which do not always align with the people's needs.
Yes! I love she's getting a lot of thoughtful pushback. She's so conservative in regards to science even, there is dogma there too.
Capitalism has nothing to do with meeting peoples needs, it's about meeting people's wants. Which is all anyone should want from an economic system, I will decide what I need.
Without Capitalism, we would not have the progress and the wealth we have today. You may not like it, but you benefit from it every day. It's not perfect. But it's the best we have by far. Please reply using your computer or iphone, both end products of capitalism, which you purchased with your hard-earned money.
Without Communism, we would not have the progress and the wealth we have today. You may not like it, but you benefit from it every day. It's not perfect. But it's the best we have by far. Please reply using your computer or iphone, both end products of communism, which you purchased with your hard-earned money.
- Xi Jinping
@@scienceontheright workers developed and produced every part of your computer or iphone. capitalists don't even organize the labor for modern electronics anymore. and don't forget how much of an impact NASA had on computers in the early stages. speaking of NASA, nice profile pic!
Dear Sabine, consider that I speak as a fan. I really like your videos on physics and specially enjoy your sense of humor.
I am not an economist either (I am a lawyer), but the amount of wrong information here is beyond field specialization. History proves the origin of coin has nothing to do with what has been said, for example. I urge you to refrain from stepping out of where you are great.
In my experience in helping disperse treats between hopeless nerds in video games, it's less about the system and more about how you maintain a sense of fairness. For example, most systems adapt some sort of moderate tax to prevent a former raider from coming back from a year hiatus and taking all the goodies from the team.
TBH, suicide DKP always seemed to work the best. The person at the top of the list has priority, but when they exercise it they fall to the bottom of the list. It tends to prevent the newbies from hoarding all their points for a specific shiny object, and it lets the more well geared members jockey for position on the rarer stuff. Someone smarter than me can go ahead and figure out how to translate that into a workable economic system.
Sabine's channel is on such a weird arc. These non-physics videos are so much less objective, yet she acts as authority. I hate when experts in one area act like a know-it-all in topics they only have surface knowledge of.
actually that's exactly what capitalism does: she is launching a new product line because the profits from the old one just don't cut it no mo.
Exactly. She needs to read Chomsky. You don't want to live in Cuba? FFS. Does she know about the blockade?
@@hoochygucci9432 isn't chomsky fairly tankie lol
@@hoochygucci9432 nobody needs to read Chomsky and his extreme anti-US anti-capitalist bias, especially not now when Russian propaganda is everywhere anyways.
She is a tool for the dollar war economy and acts like she is expert on the subjects she talks about many times when she is not many times.
Your example is penicillin? I think you might be a bit off on your history there: The mass-production research was done by two groups. One in the UK, one in the US. Neither of which was done using investor money in expectation of a return. It was 1940-1943 when this happened, and a drug that would stop soldiers dying in field hospitals was of obvious application - both groups were government funded, in the belief that the research would be of value to the military.
Everything in this video is a joke. Sabinne should be smarter than this.
I agree with you, and your argument remind me of Technics and Civilization by Lewis Mumford. If I recall correctly, one of the main ideas in Technics and Civilization is analyzing across different ages the relation between technology (or technique) and the development of human civilization:
Power: to acquire and control more resources through warfare.
Warfare seeks for improvement in weapons, communications, infrastructure through Technique (Technology)
New technology is discovered by scientific discoveries
And technology shapes power structures within societies.
Isn't it also capitalism? The government funded the research believing it will bring value to the military.The way you described it sounds to me it's capitalism.
@@yuuyahiguchi7235 Only if you stretch the definition to the point it loses any meaning.
@@vylbird8014 I see, but who gets to decide its limitations of definition? Also what is it then if it is not capitalism? Looks to me there were people that were willing to trade their labour for monetary gains here.
Little problem: wealth = political power.
little problem: representatives are _voted_ in by the people.
@@vitulus_ Little problem: wealth = cultural power = voting influence
@@vitulus_really? Really? You’re telling me that the us is free in voting? Like you guys have 2 old puppets every single 4 years and 2 parties every single time and you don’t acknowledge that y’all are not really free in voting?
@@thienthien7765 I didn't mention the US specifically nor do I live there. You don't describe the situation in the democratic country I live in. By definition, a representative democracy means the people vote the representatives in. If you're telling me the US doesn't have that, then I guess it's not a representative democracy.
I think the problem with replacing capitalism is that there isn't a lot of models that are not capitalistic in nature that has proven themselves to be successful. The closest functional model that can replace Capitalism is social democracy (like the sort practiced in Scandinavian countries), but those are still based on capitalism. I think what we really need is a system for which basic needs like healthcare, housing, and food are provided for / heavily subsidized by the state but production and innovation is driven by market demand.
Are you deliberately ignoring the success of communism in Asia and Europe?
@@thatguyyouhatealot in Europe, there are no more communist states after the collapse of the USSR. There was also this experiment they did with Germany after WWII, where the communist side in the East was plagued with poverty, while the west prospered. If communism was viable, why did the whole Eastern bloc abandon it?
China was not successful under Mao and only became successful after they opened their economy and embraced capitalism (all while insisting they are a socialist state with Chinese values).
Of the remaining communist countries now, China is the only thriving nation (though they have a debt crisis and a worsening economy), and it's not because of communism why they progressed. Vietnam and Laos are only moderately successful. Then there's Cuba and North Korea.
@@jerkysans The Soviet Union and China were some of the poorest nations in the world before their communist revolutions and became global powers afterwards. That's an overwhelming success. Cuba has made amazing strides in healthcare. Many argue these economies could have never been built under capitalism.
Communism is 100% a viable alternative to capitalism
@@thatguyyouhatealot Mao literally drove millions of Chinese to death from hunger due to poor planning. Russia was highly dependent on oil for its economy.
I don't 100% believe capitalism is sustainable in its current form. There are things that should be regulated more heavily, and the distribution of wealth / resources needs a lot of optimization.
@@jerkysans Famines happen in every economy though? Especially when there is a transfer in power
I believe I counted 5 times you saying "but that's a different story."
6.
@@costrat probably because 5 of the 6 times were in reference to things that veer off track from what the video is meant to do, which is to explain what capitalism is and why it works
the one single part she dismissed actually concerning the topic of the video, being marx's criticisms of capitalism, was dismissed because the criticism sucked. it was a blanket statement criticizing a phenomenon that occurs in a fraction of cases, that of which not actually being a criticism without juxtaposing it to his system of governing of which makes no sense and doesnt work, and a phenomenon of which not always being caused as a result of capitalism. its less of an actual criticism and more of just an emotionally driven virtue signal for propagandizing. his actual solution to the """problem""" of capitalism is blithering nonsense which is barely even worth the time it takes explaining why it makes zero sense
@@cynicalefy that's a whole lot of nothing
@@thetrungtran5068 k
@@cynicalefy She didn't explain a damn thing, all she did was get on a soapbox and proudly vomit propaganda all over
Big corporations *love* regulation when it works in their favour. (e.g. extending copyrights on IP)
Exactly what should and should not be private property is very important to the success of an economic system. Right now big business has too much power and influences governments to make decisions that are bad for the majority of us.
Regulation does not work when the big players of industry write the regulation and capture the regulatory bodies of government. And that seems to be widespread resulting in the opposite of what was intended with regulation in the first place: To eliminate the negative effects of power asymmetry between companies and consumers.
And who does the regulation? It’s the friends of people who own the companies or future friends of theirs. It’s not indigenous people or the common people. It’s usually the rich and powerful.
There is no magical objective ”government” it’s rich people voted by the middle class (because they think they can too become rich).
No matter who or which "invented" something, the IP of a product should never be beyond 50 years. Coca-Cola, Mickey Mouse or any other kind of product that has more than 50 years making money, should be already in the public domain.
I'm pro-free-market but practical implementations of it have one big shortcomming: 3rd party liability.
Enterprise manager should:
* collect big chunk of profits and they does
* pay capitalists shares of income and they does
* should pay employees fair (according to contract and negotiation position) salary and they does
* should cover effects of improper or invalid good delivered to customer and they does.
Should cover loses of 3rd parties affected by enterprise and they almost don't (except extremely obvious cases).
I think you have summarized economics in a nutshell! But 'capitalism' was very much the basis on which the Dutch 'Golden Age' built its prosperity during the early 17th century. The Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602 by rich merchants in order to create a joint-stock charter company to trade in Asia. This was well before the 'industrial revolution' which is generally reckoned to be heralded by harnessing the steam engine in 1712, which led to the creation of semi-automated factories during the 1800s.
Looking forward to Sabines next video "The Great Benefits of Beeing Eaten Alive by Fire Ants"
or the latest idea from the right "how slavery taught valuable new skills"
"A Solution to the Problem of Ingrowing Toenails - the Science of Kitchen Table Amputation"
Or, 'How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Being Homeless and Destitute'.
We are so lucky the channel's content is unbiased, sckeptical, objective and scientific. I hope I can buy those ants online.
"Overall scientific gains of having your face ripped off by the wild dog I continue to allow inhabiting my living room"
All the problems with Capitalism arise out of "but that's another story."
as it does for any version of any system you try to explain in 15 minutes lol
@@DrTheRich if you are going to expect people to accept your position, you shouldn't be leaving multiple essential points unexplained. if 16 minutes isn't enough, you can always make the video longer.
@@yamiyomizuki She never claims to expect people to accept her position. She just presents the subject, if don't you want to believe it then don't.
Besides youtube is filled to the BRIM with more expansive videos on the subject
If she made the video longer than 15 mins, people would get bored after 15 and still complain she didn't explain enough. Heck people often only watch 1 minute and then already comment about stuff that would be explained the next minute after...
uhhhhhhhhhhh@@yamiyomizuki
@@yamiyomizukithis increases watch time anyway
It's funny how the comments here say much more about people's emotions towards capitalism than about the problems of the system itself.
Strawman argument
The video doesn't mention the issue of social inequalities and wealth concentration created by capitalism. That's a pitty. I wonder if again the excuse would be that "we are not using capitalism correctly".
“Capitalists only want a small return on their investment” is such a naive thing to say after mocking a teenager.
Yeah where does the return come from? At what cost? Does it stay the same or does it grow or shrink? How can that keep on going forever? What about going forever if profits need to grow forever? So many questions just left open
Capitalism doesn't create anything. It isn't tech focused, it's profit focused. Tech comes from the government. Corporations then repackage it and sell it to you at an upcharge.
@@karigrandiiThe profits will grow only until it gets _profitable_ for a competitor to emerge and step into the given market.
A sentence said often by people who don't understand compund interest. And I am confused that an acclaimed scientist like mrs Hossfelder falls for this notion.
Right. The entire point of everything else she said, is that the capitalist would want the maximum possible return on their investment. Or else be out-competed by someone else who did.
One of the great examples of survivorship bias is: We praise companies performing investigations, but we never know what investigations are never published because of inconvenient results. Like Coca Cola and nutrition papers.
Like ExxonMobil and its 1977 global warming study
@@MichaelSmith-ij2ut i would recommend listening to an episode of the "skeptoid" podcast about this topic. you may find it by searching for the terms you used. it is rather interesting. i just give the short version. the studies were not cleaar on saying what we know now. the exxon leaders could not be sure about what we know now.
Coca-Cola has way more problems in their past than nutrition. You know they own Faygo? Do you know how and where that started?? Dig deeper I beg you.
Yeah, capitalism has only been great because it spread out the power more than feudalism, but capitalism as it's fully grown has reconsolidated the power, and disconnected it from geographic location, a king must care about his kingdom, if he loses it he loses everything, a guy with 200+ billion in multinational assets, can extract all the value out of a country and leave it dead, while only increase his power, not losing it like a king draining his own kingdom. In the end it wasn't capitalism but the deconsolidating power that has benefited the people. Note that many places she listed as places you don't want to go, don't have democracy. It's also worth noting that many places listen as capitalist, say America, don't truly have a free market, thus aren't real capitalism. Real socialism, and real capitalism are seldom found anywhere, and instead some combination of the two are present, and capitalists like to pick all the best economies and call them capitalist, while also themselves complaining that they aren't capitalist enough.
Rapists investigating why they rape us 🤯
Thanks for your work Sabine!
… it’s ‘adaptation’, not ‘adaption’ 🤓
is not the special sciences that teach man to think; it is philosophy that lays down the epistemological criteria of all special sciences.
'capitalism is good because it is the driver of all progress, science, etc. that allows efficient allocation of resources, including human resource ...Capitalist is a personal institution who provide capital to others who want to launch a business.... '
In all her praise of the system she tries to acquit there's no mention of sounce of what she calls "Capital", and how is it in what she praise as the "efficient allocation of resources, including human resources" that billions of people who work all their lives and create all the wealth never get to enjoy fruits of their labor; and all the wealth they create is constantly and consistently stolen from then (through that same "efficient allocation" of resources) And that's how billions of working poor keep getting poorer all the while the Trillions of dollars of wealth they create is siphoned off to pockets of owners of the system making them obscenely rich.
Sabine glosses over the fact that only source of all the wealth of Capitalism is profit, and profit is the difference between how much any capitalist sell products of his company and how much those products cost him. Along with what he pays for raw material, part of this cost is what he pays to the laborers who are the creators of those products.
There is a clear link between profit, as the souce and only value in capitalism, and social, economic, and environmental catastropheis unfolding infront of our eyes in 3rd decade of 21st century, "but that's another story for another time"
We are to believe that like her other videos this is a "scientific" and "unbiased" presentation. Yet her clear omissions of harsh realities of system she praises, realities that even capitalist promoters admit to, points to her biases and thar this is not a scientific presentation of the subject master, but an opinion piece based on her prejudiced views against working class and in love with Capitalist class.
This episode is a good demonstration of how even a scientifically trained person cannot exist in a bubble devoid of class interest and class conflicts.
Biggest ratio Sabine has ever experienced probably
she confronts many pseudo-intellectuals like Michio Kaku all the time, Marxists are a different side of the same coin.
She'll be fine.
Bruh the like/dislike ratio is 2:1 what in the absolute fuck are you talking about
It's amazing. I don't want to know who and how told you to make a material about capitalism, but the way you evaded making capitalist propaganda by creating such a parody is absolutely brilliant.
"but thats a different story"... Thats a good way to declutter, keep coherence and maintain emphasis..
This is a level of analysis more akin to a PragerU video than your usual work. What the hell is this?
April joke in september. The fact that it comes in september is part of the joke, I suppose.
This my friend, is called "Selling out for a sponsorship.".
ive heard that she's a hack from radical physics guys I know, idk what to think lol
Yeah that is spot on. Disquieting.
She saw how her trans video blew up, now she's doing stuff like this
I can identify a couple sections where a modicum of additional nuance could have led to very different conclusions, but that's another story
I'd like to hear what you have to say!
@@nooneinparticular3370but thats another story tho.
@@nooneinparticular3370 Me too.
@@nooneinparticular3370Wealth is accumulative: the more capital you have the more capital you are able to gain and at a faster rate. Money is required for basic necessities like food, shelter, and water. Food, shelter, and water are controlled by capital and can be leveraged by capitalists to charge maximums. As capitalism develops, a middle class develops. The middle class then splits into an upper and lower class: the upper class experiences an upward trend of wealth increase, a better ability to buy goods, the lower class experiences a trend of wealth decrease, losing buying power. The same happens with rich and poor demographics. Inflation, caused primarily due to wealth accumulation, leads to a constant increase in the price of basic goods and services. Do you understand what this indicates?
like?
Primary property of capitalism is production is done for profits and not for needs of society.
Kind of unfair with Cuba, the country had to survive a naval blockade and total economic boycott led by the most powerful nation in the world. But curiously enough, they still have a better health care then said powerful nation...
Like Horses channel said: "If you think there's nothing wrong with capitalism it's because you clearly are in a privileged position in it."
...and then ideologically make the privilege ok by demonizing the less privileged as something they deserve, bc they are envious, lazy, stupid and irresponsible, others humblebraggingly excuse for their privilege but of course both ignoring how privilege equals violence.
Or maybe because you have experienced living a miserable life under the rule of those who claim having a better alternative....
@@mobinmotaharifar As long as the poor buy into coaching/self-improvement culture ideology that they just need to learn the secret to get rich, nothing will structurally change, the power structures remain the same and the elite is happy.
@@mobinmotaharifar Has there even been a country since the end of WWII that claimed to have a better alternative that the US didn't destroy because they made that claim?
Yeah? What's my privileged position? Take a wild guess.
Capitalism works 😂😂😂 if you are rich or a bank it works
Capitalism is ANARCHY i dont see how anyone can fail to understand this at this point. Nearly every single law we create in the 1st world is a law designed to CURB some aspect of natural capitalism. so basically every law we write is a socialist law. Anti monopoly, Regulatory laws, welfare, soc sec, health care, etc etc etc. its ALL ANTI CAPITALISM. BECAUSE CAPITALISM SUCKS AND ITS OBVIOUS AND SO WE KEEP WRITING LAWS TO WHITTLE IT DOWN INTO NOTHING. because there is only one aspect of capitalism that we actually care about: individual poor average citizens having Choices. coincidentally the Capitalists have been aware of this for centuries, WHICH IS WHY THEIR PROPAGANDA BULLSHIT ALWAYS HAS TO MAKE UP LIES ABOUT HOW "Socialist will rob you of your choices! Everything will be colorless and boring!" ITS . BULLSHIT. PURE. BULLSHIT. Socialism is just DEMOCRACY. which is ANTI ANARCHY. Under DEMOCRACY the majority of people WRITE LAWS THAT ENSURE WE CAN STILL HAVE CHOICES. SO OBVIOUSLY IF WE HAVE DEMOCRACY CONTROLLED SOCIALISM, THEN WE WILL STILL HAVE CHOICES. COME ON HUMANS> TIME TO TURN ON THOSE DAMN BRAINS. YOU NEED MORE THAN 100 IQ TO RIDE
...he said while typing on the internet with a miraculously complex device that he was able to afford, much like the vast majority of the working class in his country. He hadn't gone a day without food (save for by choice) in years, if ever.
You should try Communism. I heard it works wonderfully. Just ignore the death cam... I mean work camps over there.
Ofc you can be critical of capitalism even though you would be a white guy with an iphone. The white guy just also happens to care about people working as slavws in mineral mines. He can also have depression from this alienation that we have created while having a burnout from working too much. You argument is not real it makes no sense
and if you refuse to use your brain, you can keep your opinion forever.
A problem with free markets that didn’t seem to be addressed (even as “another story”) is that “agents” can use financial power to influence regulation. If capitalism will fail without proper rules, and proper rules will not exist so long as capitalism has the power and motivation to prevent them, then capitalism is a system that will always start to fail after a certain amount of growth. (Specifically the point at which agents grow enough to influence regulation) That seems like an intrinsic flaw, or at the very least a natural “lifespan” to the system.
This isn’t to promote an alternative system. It just seems like an important point that got left out. You can’t say that capitalism and corruption are separate issues and therefore do not need to be discussed together, because capitalism both requires a lack of corruption to function, while encouraging the existence of corruption as it functions.
"A problem with free markets that didn’t seem to be addressed (even as “another story”) is that “agents” can use financial power to influence regulation."
Free markets do not have regulation. We do not have completely free markets. No, I don't advocate for anarchocapitalism, but I'll just remind that the government is the one that's corrupt and making regulations. More government will not solve this issue.
That is a complete contradiction
The sad thing about economics is its extremely low predictive power.
Even if we agree, that most politicians ignore economics to a lesser or higher extent, all those arguments between politicians about the economy come exactly because the economy's predictability is just low.
So politicians always try to invent the economy anew and try tricks and acrobatics to satisfy their political desires and delay the possibility of the destruction of the country.
As a result, of course, the debt of countries increases, increases, increases. Sometimes we wonder - how didn't all this debt blow up yet?
Well, that's one thing that we can certainly thank the ingeniousness of our politicians (and a lot of luck ;) )
2 weeks ago Sabine made a video called " Do your own research. But do it right." WOW! Hypocrisy + Irony = THIS VIDEO! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
By having a job and taking money from a company revenue is basic capitalism.
Important part that is missing from this point of view is the corporate lobbying of governments. We cannot talk about setting rules that will benefit majority, if a minority can just buy access to politicians. Without that we can single out kids in headlines for not ‘getting it’ but we can do as little as them about the issue.
Lobbying of government exist regardless of any system. We need to agree on the first part first.
@@chronoshin8597 No one said it was a problem exclusive to capitalism so no idea why you're trying to make that point.
"Kids" shes TWENTY YEARS OLD 😂😂😂😂 pls think before appealing to emotions
@@chronoshin8597 Sure, but the effects of that lobbying are very disparate. Scandanavia has managed to temper the influence of corporate lobbying in a way that America, for example, does not even attempt to do.
@@-Devy- Yes, is not exclusive to capitalism so the OP comment is irrelevant to the topic of this video.
I don’t think the problem lies with capitalism, but more with human crookedness. Our inherently power thirsty nature can cause problems within any economic framework, which is why we need a central authority to check against that. But what happens if the central authority gets corrupted too?
Adam Smith's vision of capitalism was based on the idea of free markets and limited government intervention. He believed that when individuals were free to pursue their own self-interest, it would lead to the greatest good for society as a whole.
In his book The Wealth of Nations, Smith argued that the invisible hand of the market would lead to competition and innovation, which would benefit everyone. He also believed that government intervention was often harmful to the economy, and that it should be limited to protecting property rights and enforcing contracts.
The current form of capitalism in the US, on the other hand, is much more concentrated and regulated than Smith envisioned. A small number of corporations control a large share of the economy, and the government often intervenes to protect their interests.
For example, the US government provides billions of dollars in subsidies to corporations each year. This gives them an unfair advantage over smaller businesses and makes it more difficult for new businesses to enter the market.
The US government also has a number of regulations that favor large corporations over small businesses. For example, the Jones Act requires that all goods shipped between US ports be transported on US-flagged ships. This law raises the cost of shipping for small businesses and makes it more difficult for them to compete.
The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few corporations has led to a number of problems in the US economy, including:
Wage stagnation: Real wages have been stagnant for decades, while corporate profits have soared. This is because corporations have been able to use their market power to suppress wages.
Inequality: The gap between the rich and the poor has been widening in recent decades. This is because corporations have been able to extract more wealth from the economy, while workers have seen their wages stagnate.
Monopoly power: A small number of corporations control a large share of the economy in many industries. This gives them the power to raise prices and stifle innovation.
Adam Smith would likely be appalled by the current state of capitalism in the US. He believed that competition was essential to a healthy economy, and he would have seen the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few corporations as a threat to competition.
Here are some specific examples from The Wealth of Nations that illustrate Adam Smith's vision of capitalism:
Smith argued that the government should not interfere in the free market, except to protect property rights and enforce contracts. He believed that the government should not subsidize businesses or try to pick winners and losers in the market.
Smith believed that competition was essential to a healthy economy. He argued that competition would lead to lower prices, higher quality goods and services, and innovation.
Smith was a strong advocate for free trade. He believed that countries should be able to trade goods and services freely with each other.
The current form of capitalism in the US is in many ways a departure from Adam Smith's vision. The government provides billions of dollars in subsidies to corporations, regulates the economy in favor of large corporations, and allows a small number of corporations to control a large share of the economy in many industries.
It is crucial to recognize that the intrinsic nature of hierarchical systems does not automatically guarantee their inherent benevolence. In fact, these structures can be regarded as malevolent or even fiendish. Capitalism, on the other hand, can be perceived as an ideology influenced by militaristic principles, which prioritizes profit maximization as the zenithal aim while justifying collateral loss of life as an unavoidable outcome in business pursuits.
The individuals who have the potential to misrepresent socialism are currently wielding control in the realm of capitalism. The crux of the matter revolves not around socialism, but rather around specific actors and their deeds. Simultaneously, the tenacity of humanity challenges the idea that competition fueled evolution. In truth, competition appears more as a byproduct of civilization than an innate characteristic of human essence.
It is imperative to note that capitalism can perpetuate and intensify avaricious behavioral tendencies and that an unquestioning belief in its faultlessness could denote a dogmatic affinity. Indeed, one can find striking resemblances between capitalism and religious organizations. Wealthy individuals frequently depend on less advantaged members of society in order to exploit susceptible populations; this dependency raises ethical questions regarding accountability and whether collective action is necessary to intervene in these abusive practices.
Affluent individuals are often shielded from hardships endured by those belonging to lower socioeconomic groups. When confronted with financial adversity, they might be lifted up by a bespoke social safety net designed exclusively for their echelon. It is important to emphasize that wealth accumulation often arises from inheritance or fortuitous circumstances rather than pure meritocracy alone; indeed, good fortune has a pivotal role in deciding wealth distribution outcomes.
Both communism and capitalism (along with feudalism) display inherent imperfections marked by a fortunate minority exerting control over the majority. The assumption that one's prosperity relies solely on hard work disregards the ubiquitous influence of luck in determining socioeconomic standing.
Contemporary society reflects consumerism more accurately than capitalism, as initially envisioned by Adam Smith in his monumental publication, "The Wealth of Nations." Today's economic framework mirrors communism under a different guise, capitalizing on the disadvantaged through unique methods.
One might contemplate how capitalism coalesces with the teachings of Jesus Christ and religious principles. In essence, economic systems consistently fall short in addressing the varied requirements of human communities. A society devoid of currency can still survive, liberated from the materialistic competition epitomized by rampant consumerism.
Lastly, scriptural excerpts from the Gospel (Matthew 19:21, Luke 12:33, Luke 18:22, Luke 14:33, Matthew 6:19-21, and Mark 10:21) underscore the significance of renouncing material possessions and prioritizing spiritual virtues. By engaging readers through positive reinforcement and appealing to their higher sensibilities, we can inspire change in behavior that transcends engrained socio-economic paradigms.
I am the smartest man in the world. Some disagree with me, but that's another story...
Two very crucial things you didn't really cover:
1. Markets are almost never free. Governments and other entities get involved to skew markets one way or another.
2. Monopolies and patents. As a company grows in size the best strategy to make money changes from 'compete with others to make the best product at the best price' to 'get rid of the competition by any means necessary' this includes buying out the competition, using patent law and other laws to prevent competition or influencing government to prevent competition. Many large companies spend more effort and resources on lawyers etc than on their 'core product'.
Yeah monopolies especially ones maintained by government force is called FASCISM!
@@godseed7984
I would say it depends on what sort of government and what sort of commodity we're talking about.
People can actually make democratic elections if they want to maintain some government "monopoly". In this case you may call it _socialism_ instead. Because it's the will of the people and not some authoritarian leader.
- Also, the term _monopoly_ wouldn't necessarily apply in this case, because collective ownership really isn't like having just one company dictating all the conditions. It's democratic, you see. Not fascist.
Then there's the case for what sort of commodity we're talking about.
- It's shown that private enterprise really aren't that good at handling basic stuff that need to be ubiquitous to everyone on fair terms. Like railways, energy grids, some types of medicine and telephony.
- In Sweden for example, this last principle also apply for alcohol (yeah, it's kind of funny how alcohol plays into this category for swedes).
The society and culture we're living in are driven by the worst of values to achieve anything that'd get us any closer to one where truth, equality and morality could prevail.
The existence of poverty and deprivation in a world that can create an abundance to meet everyone’s needs is nothing more than structural oppression coming from a failed and elitist social system.
We now need to think beyond the whole current anti-economy. Anyone with only half a brain understands that we have now arrived at a time when the methods of science and technology can provide abundance for all. It is no longer necessary to consciously withhold efficiency through planned obsolescence or to utilize an old and obsolete monetary system.
@@godseed7984
The Corporate State is one where all private industry exists to serve the State. The State does not need to own anything, just control the owners. This was Fascism in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
She did mention monopolies ("we have rules against that"). Also she explicitly mentioned markets+rules. Which explicitly makes them not free.
Because in a "free", aka, unconstrained market, the only constraint is the price, right? So to function on Earth without destroying the environment overtime, you have to put a price tag on everything, including rivers, oceans, and the air, otherwise the "invisible hand" has no power to optimize its use. In other words, for the market to work without additional rules, unpriced externalities can't be alowed to exist. If you want to take the government out of pricing the commons, *there can be no commons* -- every river, stone, ocean, and gas molecule or absence thereof in air has to be outright owned by somebody who can set the price.
At which point the only thing left on the planet that is in any way "free" is the market.
I know I'm 7 months late here, but in reading several dozen (granted a small %, but given their homogeneity, it's enough to be statistically significant sample), there is a common theme that Sabine does not know what she's talking about and should stick to physics videos. None of the comments I read cited any actual economic theory in conflict with anything Sabine has said.
That's not surprising, because the economic model that Sabine described is correct. It's not overly complete (e.g., she doesn't get into the econometrics or math of market clearing prices for supply and demand curves), but that's fine in a 15 minute summary. More important is that her video is correct for what's in it. Her explanation of money and externalities are excellent summaries.
I would add that an important missing piece that she referenced briefly, but didn't explain, is how Adam Smith's invisible hand drives societal good as a result of each party pursuing profit and cost savings for themselves. This is the most important factor and the least generally understood benefit to capitalism established under economic theory. This is how all of us as customers, from our purchase preferences, drive companies to behave the way we want -- currently a bigger driver for the green movement among manufacturers than any legislation. Conversely, each of us as a provider of labor, is influenced by those who would purchase our labor. To the extent it fits with our respective strengths, we study the subjects that employers will pay for and move to live in areas where employment is more readily available.
I learned something this week by reading Nicola Nassim Taleb ("Fooled by randomness")
"I trust the science, but I don't trust the scientist."
What does it cost to buy the rules ?
What does it cost to break the rules ?
What does it cost to hire someone who do it for you ?
... these rules are not like the rules of physics - they can be broken, and they are - that's part of the game !
No, markets are my religion! My professor said free markets are real and good and I believe him!
Right. That's sortof the "Oh shit!" in a system that relies on governments to stop businesses from completely fucking us. When everything has it's price. You can exploit the law with lawyers and accountants, simple bribery, or simple bribery (but you call it "lobbying"). Everything's for sale and that includes people and power.
And that's why you may have seen evidence that businesses are completely fucking us.
Rules of engagement, not rule of outcome
I don't think Sabine ever thought about the short end of the capitalism stick. Must be nice.
"Wage Labor" not said once in a video about capitalism. Just pathetic, really.@@VeteranVandal
Hi Sabine, I love your channel for your approachable coverage of science, but there are a few glaring errors in this video, both logically and factually. 1) Let's start with the notion that currency emerged as a workaround for the inefficiencies of barter-trade relationships. The narrative you outline is a common one, popularized by Adam Smith's work "The Wealth of Nations" as you said. The problem here is that Smith's account of currency being "invented" to facilitate barter was purely speculative. The historical record shows *zero* cases of currency arising in this way. In fact, there is not even evidence of a society in which barter is the primary mode of exchange. The evidence shows that tribal societies operate(d) on the basis of a "gift economy." Instead of strictly accounting for debts, these economies function on a loose basis of credit. This is in part because hording surplus is A) difficult to do when you're producing perishable goods in a society without refrigerators and B) unhelpful in facilitating the long term survival of your tribe. If you have extra milk, you would be happy to give it away to a neighbor who needs it because you trust that she is likely to have your back when you need something. Furthermore, this type of cooperation fosters strong social bonds between tribe members. In most tribal societies, it is actually taboo to give someone a gift equal to what they gave you, because it implies the debt is equalized and your gift exchange is over. If you gave me a bucket of milk, I might give you something more valuable, like a chicken, so that you give me something back and we keep the gift economy going. Even if it is difficult to imagine cooperating with other people in this way from the vantage point of our alienated society, these are the types of social structures we find in reality. Many currencies emerged independently around the world, often starting out as tokens of religious importance, or later as a way to more efficiently extract taxes from colonized populations. I'd recommend checking out the book "Debt: The First 5000 Years" for more on this topic. It would make for a great topic for a video.
2) The next point you make takes a huge leap from primitive economies to society where there are already capitalists ready to invest in your individual enterprise. I cannot stress enough that the "juice press example" you gave in the video did not happen in tribal society. You are already working off faulty premises you laid out in the previous point, so my main contention would be that Sue couldn't/wouldn't have accumulated so much more surplus from here chickens than apple juice guy got from his apples because both of these enterprises would require *private* ownership of land, because if the land is public, than anyone could take the chicken's eggs or pick apples and both businesses would collapse. Tribal societies did not enforce individual ownership of private lands, but lets assume they did. This begs the question then, how did each person acquire the land for themselves? Did they buy it from someone else? If so how did that person get the land? Did they just tell everybody a certain plot of land was their's? If so how do they prevent other people from trespassing? This line of questioning shows that we are assuming a level of societal development that upholds and enforces regimes of private land ownership (i.e. with some sort of police force). I'll repeat again, this did not emerge as the natural product of barter relationships in tribal societies, but instead out of the individual expropriation and hording of surplus from private plots of land, and the exclusion of other people from using that land. For sake of keeping this comment under 10000 words, the wiki for "primitive accumulation" explains this concept in more detail. The main point is that this example is a gross simplification of how societies develop and shows a projection of our current social structure onto those of the past.
3) The last few segments of this video are really what drove me to write this comment. The idea that it was not the industrial revolution, but capitalism itself that drove the last 150 years of progress is ridiculous on its face. For one, the birth of capitalism was a gradual process starting back at least since the protestant reformation. It seems a bit too convenient that you mark the beginning of capitalism at the same time that the industrial revolution took off, and even more ridiculous you claim that capitalism caused the industrial revolution and all the progress that came with it. I'm sorry, did market forces create the disproportionate concentration of coal in the British Isles that made the industrial revolution possible? Was it the free market that built all the train lines across Europe and the Americas? Even more, you say later that Marx gave capitalism a bad reputation, and that "there was an element of truth to his fears because some things went badly wrong during the industrial revolution." Funny how capitalism gets all the credit and the industrial revolution gets all the blame.
Next you claim that capitalism is an efficient system to distribute resources. That's not true. In the united states grocery stores throw away anything that doesn't sell because giving it away to people who need it would drag down the price of food. Same with tech companies. They would rather destroy what they create instead of giving it away. Same with landlords, who keep their units empty instead of housing the homeless. Nothing against the landlords or grocery stores or tech companies btw, they're making the rational choice in a system that favors profits over utility. But it doesn't sound very efficient to me.
I'm not familiar with the penicillin example you gave, but I do know that there were scientists who could have patented it (making a lot of money like a good market actor), but specifically did not because of ethical concerns. Or take Jonas Salk, who invented the polio vaccine and chose to not patent the it or seek any profit from it in order to maximize its global distribution, saving millions of lives in the process. Or take the internet, or highways, or libraries, or hospitals, or NASA, or the myriad of innovations funded by, created by, and used by working people, not because they want a profit, but because they want to make a better world for other people. If the greatest inventors and scientist of our time were looking for money, they wouldn't have become scientists, they would have worked in the insurance industry.
Finally you talk about capitalism causing environmental problems. I agree. However, you can't just brush off everything bad about capitalism as an externality. Companies are just trying to make a profit in the market, any unintended consequences are necessarily a product of that original impetus. As far as your bit on taxing carbon as a means of fighting climate change, that's probably a step in the right direction, but the idea that the climate is the only downside of capitalism, and that we would've avoided the problem if only we listened to economists is silly. The reason oil giants didn't listen to economists is because they couldn't hear them over the "cha-ching" of the potential profits they could make by lying about the risks of climate change. Same story with big tobacco lying about the carcinogenic risks of smoking or DuPont dumping PFAs into the Ohio River. These aren't externalities, they are results people making the conscious choice to trade human wellbeing for surplus value.
In summary, this video presents misinformation about to the origins of currency, the nature of investment relationships, the driving force of the last 150 years of human progress, and potential solutions we can use to get out of this mess. And I haven't even scratched the surface on the exploitative relationships between workers and capital owners or the devastating effect capitalism has on democracy. I understand you're not a big social-science person, but I really hope you make a more thought-out video soon.
Edit - My favorite part is when she says "capitalism will kill us all"
THANK YOU so much for pointing out some of the issues I had with this video and going beyond and explaining many things I did not know. This video of Sabine's was a huge disappointment, in my personal opinion, as it was purely based on commonsense and did not seem studied through. This channel should understand that the viewership it seeks to attract is not usually satisfied with long minutes of simple explanations of basic commonsense ideas that we could've understood in a couple of words as we are acquainted with most of the basic concepts.
Thanks for the comment. Thank god for capitalism!
Salk didn't patent the vaccine cause he and the insitution couldn't patent it easily, it wasn't altruistic
Thank you for taking the time to write all this down.
Thanks for this really clear and comprehensive and detailed breakdown. Good comment 👍
Lol Albert Einstein, and like all the scientists we love from the past, roll in their graves.
I guess if you completely misrepresent history and ignore all the bad stuff, yeah capitalism is great. This is a big time swing and a miss.
Were you paid by Russia to spout that nonsense or what? It's not capitalists who "ignore all the bad stuff". You know that. Come on now. It's communists and socialists who ignore the genocides of hundreds of millions of people.
"The exploitation of animal and human life for the sole purpose of piling up more riches is good, actually"
Nah, let's become communists instead. That's way better for human life. 👍
Exactly
"If somebody believes we could grow indefinitely inside a finite space, it must be either a crazy man or an economist
I have not seen any major leftist thinkers argue against the exploitation of animal life, so this is a bit of a non-point
It is really dishonest to say North Korea, Cuba, and Laos are "places you don't want to live" (8:20), to then chalk that up to their lack of capitalism while completely ignoring the broader historical context.
I agree. This is probably the worst video I have ever watched
The "broader historical context" is that deranged commies took those places over a long time ago, and are only concerned with maintaining their dynastic power. If they have to perpetually demonise the great evil capitalists to keep their would be challengers at bay and placated, then that's a deal they are willing to make.
For a moment I really thought I had accidentally tuned into "FOX", I was just waiting for the bit where she says "The poor should just stop being poor."
Very revealing. What a shame.
Yes, this was by far her most poorly-informed claim in this video. And for the record, I wouldn't mind living in Vietnam (if I could speak the language), I wouldn't mind living in Cuba. I probably could not live in Laos, and I would definitely never want to live in North Korea, but that has nothing to do with their economic systems.
"If you are homeless - just buy a house!" - never gets old
Just for context for people who don't use the Dislike Counter browser extension: As of posting this comment, this video has 25k likes and 20475 dislikes. This is not an exact count, but an approximation.
Ben Carson award for this video. I love your stuff on physics though.
love how she says “things went wrong during the industrial revolution” and chooses to ignore the incentives which led to conditions becoming so rapacious and cruel
I dont think she ignored it, she said there was a grain of truth in Marx's criticisms and was very correct in her assessment of state socialist/planned economies.
She also didn't say "things went wrong in other political /market systems at the same that killed magnitude more"
People like to frame roses views of history. Sure. I don't think the was malignant in her assessment. Just brief. It's a speed run in a 16 min video.
Yeah, we should go to socialism since it’s worked out so well for so many places.
@@anakidesNobody said that, and it isn't "either-or" between capitalism and socialism.
She almost had it lmfao