What Happens to Downtown?

[theprestige]

Even without corruption -- everybody obeying the laws and nobody bribing anybody so the laws are sensible & fair instead of a financial positive feedback loop -- the primary motivation for businesses makes them worse anyway. Defenders of capitalism prefer to ignore or deny this, but it's a basic fact that businesses seek to minimize their costs of doing business, which means providing customers not the best products & services the customers can afford but the worst the businesses can get away with providing.

Still beats anti-capitalism, which doesn't conceive of things like customers (people whose satisfaction you depend on) or private property (which is all capital really is).

 

[Suddenly]

I think differing levels of government will not attract the same style of folks just in it to enrich themselves, populace be damned, though.

At the level of city governments (what we're discussing in this thread), unless we're talking big time cities like NYC or the like, there just isn't enough money in it to tempt those prone to that line of thinking. They're going to be more attracted to business because that's where there's a lot more money to be made, and a whole lot less oversight.

It's the same business though. The same corruption.

Governmental corruption almost by definition is due to some external interest that itself is almost always business related. Big or small. It isn't like a government is corrupt just for the heck of it.

Businesses aim to reduce costs and getting government to do their bidding is cheaper than doing it themselves. Nothing gives a business more bang for it's buck than buying a politician. When businesses complain about corruption they are just mad because they can't buy the influence they want and because of that their business suffered.

 

[wareyin]

Still beats anti-capitalism, which doesn't conceive of things like customers (people whose satisfaction you depend on) or private property (which is all capital really is).

Oh dear, do you really think businesses depend on customer satisfaction? Have you dealt with, say, a cable company ever in your life?

 

[theprestige]

It's the same business though. The same corruption.

Governmental corruption almost by definition is due to some external interest that itself is almost always business related. Big or small. It isn't like a government is corrupt just for the heck of it.

Businesses aim to reduce costs and getting government to do their bidding is cheaper than doing it themselves. Nothing gives a business more bang for it's buck than buying a politician. When businesses complain about corruption they are just mad because they can't buy the influence they want and because of that their business suffered.

Right, right. People freely doing business with each other are inherently evil, and the only reason politicians become corrupt is because all that evil business creates a moral hazard for public servants.

When the mafioso makes the shopkeeper an offer he can't refuse, it's the shopkeeper's fault for daring to sell his wares at a price above cost. If he wasn't turning a profit, the mafioso wouldn't be so irresistibly tempted to charge "protection" money.

/s

 

[Donal]

ah, the mafia. family-owned business is the heart of free enterprise.

 

[Delvo]

customers (people whose satisfaction you depend on)

If businesses actually thought that, they would behave accordingly. But they actually behave the opposite of that way, so their actions demonstrate that they think the opposite of that way. Their actions demonstrate that they see customers as sources of money to be squeezed for as much money as possible for as little in return as possible, from which making them as miserable as possible is an automatic side-effect which their behavior shows no interest in avoiding.

 

[Hercules56]

Still beats anti-capitalism, which doesn't conceive of things like customers (people whose satisfaction you depend on) or private property (which is all capital really is).

But, but, anti-capitalism makes people sooo happy !! (China, North Korea, USSR, East Germany, Venezuela, etc)

 

[Delvo]

That choice of what to compare with is a lie.

 

[Hercules56]

That choice of what to compare with is a lie.

That's not much of a rebuttal.

 

[wareyin]

Right, right. People freely doing business with each other are inherently evil, and the only reason politicians become corrupt is because all that evil business creates a moral hazard for public servants.

When the mafioso makes the shopkeeper an offer he can't refuse, it's the shopkeeper's fault for daring to sell his wares at a price above cost. If he wasn't turning a profit, the mafioso wouldn't be so irresistibly tempted to charge "protection" money.

/s

Just to be clear, here, you're using the mafia (which is not a government and is actually born out of capitalism) to prove that governments are corrupt and capitalism is inherently altruistic? Are you quite sure you got that the right way up?

 

[Suddenly]

Right, right. People freely doing business with each other are inherently evil, and the only reason politicians become corrupt is because all that evil business creates a moral hazard for public servants.

Buying public influence is great value. You can characterize that as evil if you want. It's more an issue of amorality than immorality IMO, but you be you.

When the mafioso makes the shopkeeper an offer he can't refuse, it's the shopkeeper's fault for daring to sell his wares at a price above cost. If he wasn't turning a profit, the mafioso wouldn't be so irresistibly tempted to charge "protection" money.

/s

Meanwhile, in an entirely different universe....

 

[Suddenly]

If businesses actually thought that, they would behave accordingly. But they actually behave the opposite of that way, so their actions demonstrate that they think the opposite of that way. Their actions demonstrate that they see customers as sources of money to be squeezed for as much money as possible for as little in return as possible, from which making them as miserable as possible is an automatic side-effect which their behavior shows no interest in avoiding.

The do try to avoid liability for causing harm. The amount of money business interests have spent (mostly insurance companies) to cripple the average person to seek redress from harm from the courts has shown great returns.

 

[JoeMorgue]

There's no economic model (worth talking about here) that can get around "People have to actually USE things, not just like their ambiance or the idea of them, for them to be sustainable" problem.

 

[Donal]

But, but, anti-capitalism makes people sooo happy !! (China, North Korea, USSR, East Germany, Venezuela, etc)

Do you think the people in those places were well taken care of before they went communist? I'm no tankie who is going to try and sell you on the idea of the Soviet Union being some kind of paradise, but happy people don't over throw their government and embrace a completely different social and economic structure.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The difference between communism and Nazism and is you can mention Nazism without a liberal going "But real Nazism just hasn't been tried yet!"

I don't know how many more time communism has to fail before we stop thinking we need to try it again.

I also don't know what any of this has to do with my city pumping money into trying to revitalize a downtown that nobody is asking for.

 

[Donal]

The difference between communism and Nazism and is you can mention Nazism without a liberal going "But real Nazism just hasn't been tried yet!"

I don't know anyone outside of some people talking on social media actually defending communism.

I don't know how many more time communism has to fail before we stop thinking we need to try it again.

OK, but can we at least point why people in certain countries thought it would be an upgrade from their circumstances?

I also don't know what any of this has to do with my city pumping money into trying to revitalize a downtown that nobody is asking for.

Apparently the government doing anything that doesn't involve killing uppity brown folks is communism.

 

[theprestige]

Clark County officials are considering spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a fence around their public campus near downtown Vancouver.

Downtown Vancouver is immediately adjacent to my own fair city, where many things are getting fenced off for the same stated reason: Rising property crime.

One does eagerly anticipate being prog-splained about how this is clearly a case of a mismanaged business making excuses for its failure to perform.

 

[Darat]

The difference between communism and Nazism and is you can mention Nazism without a liberal going "But real Nazism just hasn't been tried yet!"

I don't know how many more time communism has to fail before we stop thinking we need to try it again.

I also don't know what any of this has to do with my city pumping money into trying to revitalize a downtown that nobody is asking for.

There is a difference between the two. The murdering, well lawful executions, the oppression and so on are a success of Nazism. The lawful executions, the oppression and so on are a failure of communism.

 

[catsmate]

If I read you correctly, you are blaming Capitalism for Covid.

Prove it.
And Covid will never go away complety. No virus ever does. But it has been reduced to managable levels.
I do not agree with Brainster a lot but he is right, you are clinging to Covid because you think it furthers your polieical agenda.

Oh good grief. You have a problem.

 

[theprestige]

There is a difference between the two. The murdering, well lawful executions, the oppression and so on are a success of Nazism. The lawful executions, the oppression and so on are a failure of communism.

Totalitarian statism will always find it necessary to carry out political executions and ethnic cleansing, as a means of ensuring the success (or at least the perpetuation) of their regime. Communism is no different from fascism in this regard.