It seems I’ve been informally challenged to a debate. Robert from Making my Way is attempting to refute the points I raised in the needs of Capitalism.

There were various points raised which I will attempt to counter.

There can be no infinite goods.

Yes and no. While Robert took ‘infinite’ in the literal sense, I did not mean or require it that way. My first example was not of machines producing infinite food but quite enough food to feed everyone five times over, thus bringing the price of food to nearly zero.

Robert’s explanation of how such thing can never happen due to limited resources is simply skirting the issue. Not only that but we already have the capability to produce infinite goods (digital goods due to their nature are infinite, and yes, Copyrights are very much indeed a form of artificial scarcity) and enough food to feed the world population. The reason why we do not is exactly the problem I raised in misery and profit.

This is not strictly about self-generating goods. It is about having enough goods so that the price, due to supply, drops to (nearly) zero. Even when such thing would be overwhelmingly positive for the whole of humanity, as in the case of food or shelter, for capitalism this is negative.

The argument about trends is laughable. They do not apply to everything and people impoverished do not care about them. Honestly I don’t even know what you are replying with that.

Basic needs for free are not possible

Here I believe I need to clarify. Of course someone will have to do the work to produce the food people eat but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about having enough increased production from each food maker that the amount of food produced by very few people (or none as in the case of the theoretical incredible food machines) is enough to feed everyone in the earth. As these few people do not need to be paid a lot for the staggering amount of food they would provide, the relevant costs of this for each person would be close to zero.

Now you have to realise that we’re talking theoretically here. It may very well be the case that we may never reach this level of production (although the rising production per worker in the modern day points otherwise) but we’re talking that if it were possible, it would not be even feasible under capitalism.

It’s unclear why you conflate work with misery, when work is simply a fact of life. You might as well say life is misery.

You misunderstand, I do not say that work is misery. I say that misery is what Capitalism uses to make people do the unwanted work.

Capitalism is the best thing we have because of how the world is

This is actually false. Capitalism is not here because it’s the best thing. We can already feed and shelter everyone in the world, even without infinite resources (as humans are not infinite either) but that would mean that there would have to be a redistribution of wealth. The rich would have to become less rich in order for poverty to go away.

Because of Greed, these people do not allow that to happen. Because of misery, the endless brutal cycle continues.

The fact that Capitalism is what is in force now does not make it exempt from criticism. Shutting your eyes does not make it’s problems go away. There are indeed systems that can work better than Capitalism and even if there weren’t, it should be our duty as humans to invent them.

Things that were not addressed

While Robert attempted to refute or skirt what was generally easy, the basic issues were not addressed.

Capitalism requires misery and Capitalism requires greed.