Benjamin Cain
1 min readOct 28, 2021

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Lots of valuable corrections to the common perception of Marx here. The fact that most economies are mixed counts against the neoliberal ideologues and libertarians who say a pure "free" or "deregulated" market would work best. A more technocratic approach would be to use the right tool for the right job.

You don't address, though, the common complaint with socialism, which is that it doesn't incentivize us to work hard: we're selfish by nature so capitalism exploits those greedy impulses and is therefore supposedly more productive than socialist enterprises.

Of course, there's been another change in production, too, beyond the shift from cottage to industrial capitalism. Machines are replacing human workers in the factories. This seems to be another dire instability. Acceleration of production by the automation of work leaves legions with no good jobs. So who or what exactly is the economy supposed to serve?

The gig economy likewise doesn't generate a middle class of consumers. For every one superstar influencer there are thousands earning no more than poverty wages as content creators on social media.

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Benjamin Cain
Benjamin Cain

Written by Benjamin Cain

Ph.D. in philosophy / Knowledge condemns. Art redeems. / https://benjamincain.substack.com / https://ko-fi.com/benjamincain / benjamincain8@gmailDOTcom

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