Is It Capitalism or High Trust Society?
I could have put socialism / communism in that question too, however, we have seen all of those fail, because those govern-cement types breed a low trust society.
What is a high trust society? One where an average person expects another average person to honor their bargain, both explicit and implicit.
So, when you have trust in the person you are dealing with to not just rip you off, then you can make better deals. More win-win transactions. And as more of these are made, the entire economy does better.
Like, one of our bloggers constantly keeps pointing out, if we trusted everyone to continue providing what we need to survive, we could all stop paying, and just do the jobs that need doing. Money wouldn't be needed.
Money is, of course, an instrument we use in place of trust. A trust crutch, so to say. Where we trust in the system of money and not any individuals.
So, is it Capitalism, or a high trust society, that has made the improvements that we currently apply to "Capitalism"?
An honest day's work for an honest day's pay
One of the reasons America did so well is our motto. "An honest day's work for an honest day's pay". So, when we hired someone, we didn't expect them to laze off, and we also expected the person hiring to have our money when we did what was asked.
This went a long way in building America.
Today, we see quite the opposite. Corporations being cheap on pay. And so, we see a lot of people "Silently quitting" (doing the least you can do and not get fired) And we see what effect that is having on our economy.
People are getting paid less, and people are working less. The trust has been lost.
When we started, a person worked for a company all their life, and then they would be supported in retirement. But, we got rid of that. Now we have retirement accounts. But what is really missing is the idea that you would work for the same company your whole life. That the workers were there to support the company, and the company was there to support the workers.
Now, the corporation will just fire people for stupid reasons like making their stock price go up. And on the other side, workers responded with learning that the corporations do not have any loyalty, so do not give them any loyalty. Or, you are going to change employers multiple times in your life.
The way communist govern-cements destroy trust
We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us. - Russian Idiom
When the govern-cement forces you to work, but often makes it harder or impossible for you to do your work (see the throwing seed onto snow fiasco), and then, there isn't much for you to spend the script they give you on. And often food is scarce. And you hear of people dying of starvation. Then your trust in the system is very low.
When you can be shot for not working hard enough, or get your friends shot by working too hard, you learn to put in just the right amount of effort. And this is usually way lower than if you were incentivized to do the best you could. And this snowballs into not enough goods being available, and so the script they give is worthless… then down and down
If you can scam someone, scam someone. - Chinese Idiom
When trust is low, it is everyone for themselves. There is no support after the sale.
Chinese made electric cars are often bursting into flames. Recently made Chinese ghost cities are that way because they are not reliably built. They are already falling apart. The entire system is corrupt. The company making the product and the bureaucrats who are supposed to be making sure that things are done correctly. They are both on the take.
In this kind of environment, the economy goes down and down.
(It is one of the reasons many American companies are on-shoring their operations)
Is it high trust or Capitalism?
Well, it his high trust, because we see what can happen with low trust, and Crony Capitalism. But what pieces does Capitalism bring inherently?
One is property ownership. The one who takes care of property the most is the person who owns it. The rental car is driven like you will never see it again. Not at all like your car.
Another is making independent agreements. It is not all people interacting with govern-cement. It is often people dealing with other people. Like if you want work done on your house, it is you and the contractor. (although the govern-cement has to stick their nose in it by "licensing" (taking a cut and saying who can and who can't). Most agreements are done without the govern-cement being involved.
One more is entrepreneurship exists. You can start your own company. You can make your own products. And you can sell them for whatever you can get for them. Of course, this has been highly curtailed by multi-national corporations taking over the manufacturing of any big item and pushing all others out of the market.
So, Capitalism does inherently have many attributes that push towards a high trust society. However, as we have seen examples of, when corporations use "Capitalism" as a shield to hide their monopolistic ways, and their destructive ways, then we see the degradation of the society.
What we really need is a high trust society. Or maybe we need a trustless society?
Like bitcoin allows person to person payments, and the system makes sure that you can trust the transaction. Many call bitcoin a trustless system. (because you do not need to trust the other person. You do not need to be on edge expecting phoney money, or a quick switcheroo)
I believe as we go forward we will create more trustless systems. Like feedback databases (that are part of the transaction of purchasing the product. So, no one but people who have actually got the product can leave feedback, and there will probably be other filters to exclude other dirty tricks)
I also believe that as we become more self-sufficient (each of us growing much of our own food) that we will be able to trust more. It is so much easier to step back and look at a transaction when your life isn't on the line.
And, after that, we will see a movement towards making win-win negotiations to be the minimum we will accept. If everyone isn't getting better from this interaction, than it shouldn't exist at all. (And so, modern corporations are going to turn to dust.)