Does the game of capatalism only have one winner?

[WhoWee]

It could be, but there are reasons why it doesn't work out that way. Consider dividing people into two teams: 1) the Scrooges; who consume and spend very little and end up with lots of savings to show for it and 2) the Live-it-ups; who want to use their economic means to enjoy themselves instead of conserving and saving all the time. Theoretically, competition between the two types of consumers would result in the Live-it-ups being forced to conserve and save to avoid bankruptcy since the Scrooges would obviously not be spending much money on them when they ran out. However, the Live-it-ups may figure out ways to convince the Scrooges that they should invest in businesses that Live-it-ups spend their money in, so as to make more money. By doing this, the Live-it-ups could maintain their high-spending lifestyles while getting the Scrooges to perpetually fund them. Of course, this would be risky because the Scrooges might eventually get tired of investing in enterprises that cater to Live-it-ups, and then what would the Live-it-ups be able to do except adopt the conservative lifestyles of the Scrooges?

Wouldn't competition on the supply side increase production to meet the consumption needs of the Live-it-ups?

 

[brainstorm]

Wouldn't competition on the supply side increase production to meet the consumption needs of the Live-it-ups?

It should, if resources are sufficiently abundant and demand sufficiently low to be relatively non-competitive. Once the Live-it-ups reach a standard of consumption high enough to generate scarcity and competition for access to that consumption, price would rise until a sufficient number of Live-it-ups are excluded from consumption to ensure a balance between resource-availability and total amount produced/consumed.

However, seeing prices rise due to competitive consumption, the Scrooges would invest in the profit-industries that service the Live-it-ups and save the money they make. This would gradually result in the flow of money decreasing, at which point the Scrooges would have to decide whether they wanted to keep investing in the consumerism of the Live-it-ups for a lower profit. They might decide that the lower levels of profit were not worth the resource-waste and decide to invest in more resource-conservative industries.

Of course, the Live-it-ups would resist and try to bolster their shrinking lifestyle industries by making them profitable again, perhaps by distributing fiscal stimulus money and otherwise trying to drive up revenues and income to levels that would sustain lots of jobs and consumer spending.

 

[WhoWee]

It should, if resources are sufficiently abundant and demand sufficiently low to be relatively non-competitive. Once the Live-it-ups reach a standard of consumption high enough to generate scarcity and competition for access to that consumption, price would rise until a sufficient number of Live-it-ups are excluded from consumption to ensure a balance between resource-availability and total amount produced/consumed.

However, seeing prices rise due to competitive consumption, the Scrooges would invest in the profit-industries that service the Live-it-ups and save the money they make. This would gradually result in the flow of money decreasing, at which point the Scrooges would have to decide whether they wanted to keep investing in the consumerism of the Live-it-ups for a lower profit. They might decide that the lower levels of profit were not worth the resource-waste and decide to invest in more resource-conservative industries.

Of course, the Live-it-ups would resist and try to bolster their shrinking lifestyle industries by making them profitable again, perhaps by distributing fiscal stimulus money and otherwise trying to drive up revenues and income to levels that would sustain lots of jobs and consumer spending.

It's not logical that Live-it-ups would want to pay higher taxes - to enable stimulus funding - is it?

 

[brainstorm]

It's not logical that Live-it-ups would want to pay higher taxes - to enable stimulus funding - is it?

They would if they got to the point of believing that "living it up" was more important than money itself and if they had faith that the economic machine they created by doing so would never hurt them in any way. They might, like during fascism before WWII blame a certain religion/class/race of people for being Scrooges and believe that if they just eliminated or intimidated them into investing all their money into the high-consumption economy, that it would continue working forever. Of course, by doing this they would set a fascist precedent that would result in periodic eliminations and/or other population control to ensure that a high standard of consumption was available to all. If they didn't want to get their hands that dirty, though, they could just exclude a certain class of people from their standard of living and prevent them from saving and otherwise acquiring greater economic power.

 

[WhoWee]

They would if they got to the point of believing that "living it up" was more important than money itself and if they had faith that the economic machine they created by doing so would never hurt them in any way. They might, like during fascism before WWII blame a certain religion/class/race of people for being Scrooges and believe that if they just eliminated or intimidated them into investing all their money into the high-consumption economy, that it would continue working forever. Of course, by doing this they would set a fascist precedent that would result in periodic eliminations and/or other population control to ensure that a high standard of consumption was available to all. If they didn't want to get their hands that dirty, though, they could just exclude a certain class of people from their standard of living and prevent them from saving and otherwise acquiring greater economic power.

I guess the Live-it-ups would need to guarantee their power (ability to maintain their machine) - the class warfare aspect might enable the trend - is this what you mean? Basically, a majority of people on the receiving end will guarantee the re-distribution machine never breaks down?

 

[brainstorm]

I guess the Live-it-ups would need to guarantee their power (ability to maintain their machine) - the class warfare aspect might enable the trend - is this what you mean? Basically, a majority of people on the receiving end will guarantee the re-distribution machine never breaks down?

They would try, but problems would keep arising for various reasons. For one, they would have trouble maintaining capitalism as a basic mechanism for economic exchange, because they would simultaneously be undermining the rationality of saving through conservation. Second, they would run into various forms of scarcity that would cause bubble-formation and bursting that would leave numerous people excluded from the means of consumption and thus disenchanted with "the machine." Eventually, (I would hope), reason would prevail over desire to live lavishly and the spirit of conservation would become more widespread, relieving the pressure on the economy to perpetually increase and expand high-consumption materialism as far as possible. But as this happened, there would probably be shrinking numbers of die-hard Live-it-ups that would argue for re-expansion of a lavish consumption economy, thinking that they could this time beat scarcity and create unlimited material abundance of everything for everyone. Of course, they WILL beat scarcity when they shift their tastes/lifestyles to non-material or low-material goods and services over more resource-costly ones.

 

[WhoWee]

Hmmm - what happens if the Live-it-ups expect the machine to save for them?

 

[brainstorm]

Hmmm - what happens if the Live-it-ups expect the machine to save for them?

Why would they do that?

 

[WhoWee]

Why would they do that?

Why would they design their machine to tax Scrooge to guarantee money for their future - why wouldn't they? I understand your point - they would not call for "saving" per se.

 

[brainstorm]

Why would they design their machine to tax Scrooge to guarantee money for their future - why wouldn't they? I understand your point - they would not call for "saving" per se.

Now I see what you mean. Yes, they would probably do that. Saving really would have the same function as poverty, i.e. to reduce consumption and resource-usage by some people in order to maximize it for others. The Scrooges would be foregoing consumption voluntarily, in the hope of saving money to get ahead while the poor would be doing so because they were excluded from the means of consumption. Ultimately, there would probably be a stratified meritocracy where levels of consumption would be tiered to maximize the means of consumption for the most privileged classes of Live-it-ups.

The problem is that some of the Scrooges might get tempted to change teams when they see that they are just being used, and that would result in more competition for consumption and thus more scarcity, which would generate a larger class of poor people, who basically do the same saving as the Scrooges anyway, only they don't get sufficient income to actually build up any savings to show for their saving (i.e. foregone spending).

 

[WhoWee]

Now I see what you mean. Yes, they would probably do that. Saving really would have the same function as poverty, i.e. to reduce consumption and resource-usage by some people in order to maximize it for others. The Scrooges would be foregoing consumption voluntarily, in the hope of saving money to get ahead while the poor would be doing so because they were excluded from the means of consumption. Ultimately, there would probably be a stratified meritocracy where levels of consumption would be tiered to maximize the means of consumption for the most privileged classes of Live-it-ups.

The problem is that some of the Scrooges might get tempted to change teams when they see that they are just being used, and that would result in more competition for consumption and thus more scarcity, which would generate a larger class of poor people, who basically do the same saving as the Scrooges anyway, only they don't get sufficient income to actually build up any savings to show for their saving (i.e. foregone spending).

my bold
That might depend upon the scope of the class warfare activity.

 

[Polymathiah]

As immortals, the people would probably not be concerned with making money because they would have no need to ensure their own survival. I would argue that an immortal would have no need for social interaction of any kind. Assuming he did, though, trade would probably occur for a while in goods for leisure activities until the time that technology advanced to the point that scarcity ceased to exist. Without scarcity, there is no need to trade.

 

[WhoWee]

As immortals, the people would probably not be concerned with making money because they would have no need to ensure their own survival. I would argue that an immortal would have no need for social interaction of any kind. Assuming he did, though, trade would probably occur for a while in goods for leisure activities until the time that technology advanced to the point that scarcity ceased to exist. Without scarcity, there is no need to trade.

At some point boredom may create a need for entertainment?