Running economies

The article Does Capitalism Beat Charity? by Scott Alexander (Astral Codex Ten) does some decent analysis on the efficacy of the market mechanism for distributing societal benefits versus that of charity.

“[…] it doesn’t seem obvious that Instacart “causes” jobs. Suppose Instacart had never been founded. Then people would spend whatever money they now spend on Instacart on something else (let’s say booze and porn), which would also create jobs (for brewers, bartenders, and porn stars). There’s no particular reason to think spending the money on Instacart creates more jobs than spending it on those other things would. So how many jobs does Instacart create over replacement? I’m not sure but I think it must be much less than the official number of employees.”

“Instacart pays its employees, who then go on to stimulate the economy somewhere else. And it saves its customers time, which they can spend on productive economic activity. On the other hand, saving people’s lives allows them to engage in productive activity too. Fewer diseases mean families can spend more money on things other than medical care, and fewer childhood infections potentially means higher IQ and potential as an adult. I don’t think Instacart trivially wins this one either.”

“There are some charities that send economists (or other professionals) to developing countries and advise them on how to do more capitalism. This kind of development aid has been roundly criticized and did especially badly in Russia.”

Because it’s poorly concealed plunder FFS. Stop talking about Russia like it went wrong despite our best intentions. What happened in Russia was exactly according to plan. Extract, extract, extract. Plunder, plunder, plunder. Weaken, weaken, weaken. The only thing that “went wrong” is that Yeltsin couldn’t be replaced with an equally pliant successor when Yeltsin’s obviously plastered and exceedingly corrupt ass could no longer viably continue. Putin sticks in the deep state’s craw—much like Castro, although their ethics and politics are quite different—because he got in the way of their final plunder. The goal is, and has always been, to weaken Russia so much that it explodes into its constituent oblasts, which could then be ruled by U.S.-appointed viceroys.

“[…] I’m concerned that even though rich countries got rich because of capitalism, it’s no longer that easy for poor countries to get rich with the same type of capitalism − existing rich countries will outcompete them − and we’re not entirely sure how to help poor countries get rich now, although probably good institutions are always better than bad institutions)”

We know how the currently rich countries got rich, but we choose instead to kick away the ladder, to facilitate plundering them, because that’s how Empire got rich and how Empire stays rich. The Empire is the Mafia. It is not unable to figure out how to help poor countries become rich; it is uninterested in doing so, as that largely interferes with its own success. Scott suggesting otherwise is a fairy tale that Empire tells about itself that he chooses to believe.

“Finally, you could invest in developing-world projects and companies that seem unusually likely to make an overall economic difference there. I’m nervous about this because of China’s Belt and Road initiative, which did this at huge scale for infrastructure, but doesn’t seem to have done much good (and might have done some bad).”

Maybe you should find out what people in those countries have to say about BRI rather than what the NYT has to say about it. Your sources are most likely quite biased against it because Empire demands it. I’m sure it’s not all good, but I’ve seen a handful of interviews with leaders of countries in Africa who sing a completely different tune.

“[…] if there’s a company that can’t raise enough money to build a dam in Kenya and needs your charity dollar to make the budget work, why hasn’t Wall Street come through for them?”

Crazy right? It’s almost like financial success isn’t at all contingent on doing useful things for society.