Article Was capitalism responsible for invigorating science & progress? (Sabine Hossenfelder)

[C C]

Capitalism is good. Let me explain.
https://youtu.be/CRPHp2EjNR8

VIDEO EXCERPT: Today, we grow up with money and banks and all, and we tend to take them for granted. And while money lending and a basic notion of financial debt date back thousands of years, capitalism and all the elaborate financial instruments that come with it, is a surprisingly recent innovation. It didn’t really take off until the industrial revolution 150 years ago and it’s dramatically changed the world.

Scientists tend to associate the stunning societal progress we’ve seen since then to science and technology, but I think that’s having it backwards. The driver of all this progress was the capitalist system that allowed an efficient allocation of resources. By resources, I don’t just mean raw materials, but also goods and human resources. Capitalism is a system that distributes these resources without anyone needing to have an overview, just by interactions between traders.

It’s pure genius if you think about it. And that’s why science took off, not the other way round...

Capitalism is good. Let me explain.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/CRPHp2EjNR8

[confused2]

Yes and no. If you invent a way to vacuum pack chickens using a vacuum and a chicken then you don't owe anything to the chickens. If you get rich using the resources of a country then maybe you do owe something back to the country. The 'something back' takes the form of taxation which can be distributed by some form of administration to generally 'improve the quality of life'. The Large Hadron Collider is an example of generally improving the quality of life in a way that doesn't directly (further) enrich any of the contributors. You can't take money from the poor (they're poor) so the main source of income for fun projects has to come from the rich. Just exchanging goods doesn't create wealth for a society nor does relying on the rich who are generally concerned with getting richer (often) at the expense of the society they live in.

[Syne]

There is very little "at the expense of society." Unless you're in a communist or authoritarian country, you can only get rich by providing value people are willing to exchange money for. Those people might be shortsighted in their willingness and desire for what you provide, but that demand would exist without any one particular provider. So if one guy doesn't get rich from it, the next guy would.

The resources of a country are very often squandered by their governments, not the rich. For example, Biden sold off much of the US strategic oil reserves, including to China. Now, he may be in someone's pocket, but that is the crime of bribery or blackmail, not free capitalist enterprise. Crony capitalism is not capitalism, no matter how much the left wants to conflate the two.

[stryder]

The problem with capitalism in science is it can lead to corner cutting and ignoring ethical concerns while expounding the pretense of fulfilling "the greater good" (But actually its usually more related to filling a wallet or ramping up someones prestige.)

Say for instance the patent system, it's not their to protect individual rights, it's there for companies to corner markets and patent troll any competitors out of the business. That being said the concept of a patent system is only suppose to lock exclusiveness up for a duration of time before allowing the larger market to apply whatever it is in their own way. (eventually allowing others to learn from it so as to not stifle progress)

It's just it doesn't take much for someone to keep reinventing the wheel by adding an extra dohicky that increases the effiency by 0.01% and create a new patent for it. So a company can theoretically keep exclusivity by making micro-adjustments over time, since they won't be infringing their own original patent by patenting similar designs.

[confused2]

There is very little "at the expense of society."

Assuming you're talking about the US - I think you'll find the US is defended by an army, navy and air force. The country is (mostly) policed and the prison population is the highest on the planet. Within the safe zone provided by the state you can make money with the reasonable expectation it won't be stolen, you won't become a victim of a protection racket and your factories (if any) won't be burnt to the ground by anyone who takes a dislike to you. There is a cost associated with maintaining the infrastructure within which businesses operate.

[Syne]

Capitalism isn't a problem for science, as most science innovation funding just wouldn't happen without it. Just look at how China has to steal technology instead of independently developing it themselves. Market forces are not allowed to drive innovation in such economies. Science that purports to be for "the greater good" is often funded directly by wasteful and corruptible government to begin with. This is the real problem for corner cutting and ignoring ethics, in fields like pharmaceuticals, that are often rubber-stamped by the same agencies tasked with protecting the public.

Whining about patents not becoming public domain just seems like someone who hasn't invented anything.

The cost of maintaining a safer society directly benefits the members of that society. That cost is not incurred due to business, the rich, or capitalism. It's incurred due to criminals. That's why protection rackets (extortion under threat of violence), arson, etc. are illegal. It's criminal activity. If your society doesn't protect you from these, what the hell is your government for? Just to keep you docile on the dole?