How is that a problem? Those $10 go towards something don't they? You're just making an arbitrary decision that anything over the cost of labor+materials is waste. It's not waste. It goes into all sorts of things, like say R&D, expanding, hiring more people, etc etc... Surely you don't think those things are all a problem do you?
You have a very specific problem in mind, and you're dancing around the issue. The problem in your mind is materials+labor costing $120, and the owner selling the product for $130, and pockets the extra $10 for his own selfish wallet. He then goes on to live like a king, while the people he took the $10 from are essentially $10-poorer.
Why dance around that? Just say you don't like the notion of people making more money than they "should".
It's not unearned. You just call it that because you don't like it. This is where some more than basic knowledge of economics would help you.
See, money does more than just let you know how much to pay for things. Among its many functions, it's also a way for people to vote with their wallets. When you buy something, by definition you didn't buy something else.
You may think that Apple sells iPhones for ridiculous amounts of money. But the fact of the matter is that the public voted. And they voted that they like iPhones better than Motorolla's Razor.
The part that you call "unearned", that's the part that someone previously invested in stuff like R&D. Just like how your time is worth money, so does his when he develops something new that everyone likes.
Of course reality doesn't work like that. But I'm talking about an ideal situation, as you're arguing about the merits of capitalism.
Again, I'm going to have to go back to economics here. This is a bit beyond basics, but still pretty simple. Interest isn't "nothing". That you think it's nothing, just like you think money is just a number that tells you how rich you are, you're showing your lack of understanding here.
Interest represents the risk involved with giving someone else your money. You may think that your business idea is awesome. But if I'm not careful and I lend you money, and your business actually sucks, guess what? I lost all my money.
Interest represents a counter-balance to that risk.
Yeah, I have money, but why should I lend it to you so that you can start a business and get rich? Because you pay me interest, and it makes sense to do it.
Again, reality isn't like this. This is an idealized situation. In reality, people (banks) take ridiculous risks with artificially low interest, then when that risk doesn't pan out, the government bails them out. If it does pan out, they keep the money. That's a win-win situation.
Capitalism doesn't do that. In a free-market, if you take a bad gamble, you go bankrupt.
"Interest represents a counter-balance to that risk."
That statement is a lie that has been fed to you by those that want to maintain the system. You obviously don't know where money comes from. There is no risk in a loan that justifies interest. The only risk that is taken is by the borrower who puts up their real property as collateral for the loan. The bank creates money out of nothing. They make a hole and make you promise to fill it with your real wealth and labor, calling it a "loan". What you're describing is not how it actually works and you are the one lacking the understanding.
Interest is how they keep the debt as money system afloat. All money is backed by debt. They need interest to keep the debt greater than the money supply. If the money supply ever becomes greater than the total debt owed to the banks, the whole thing falls apart like the giant Ponzi scheme it is. Interest is not a balance for the cost of "risk" it's a profiting tool to keep the rich wealthy and powerful and to keep the system going.
When loans go south, the defaults are paid off by the taxes paid by the people. That goes directly to the central bank. There is no risk for the bankers, only us.
"The part that you call "unearned", that's the part that someone previously invested in stuff like R&D. Just like how your time is worth money, so does his when he develops something new that everyone likes."
That's not profit, that's costs. If it costs $1,000,000 to develop a good, then dividing that amongst the goods produced would be part of the value of the good. If you're putting revenue back into the company to pay for that which helps it succeed in the market, that's not profit.
"You have a very specific problem in mind, and you're dancing around the issue. The problem in your mind is materials+labor costing $120, and the owner selling the product for $130, and pockets the extra $10 for his own selfish wallet. He then goes on to live like a king, while the people he took the $10 from are essentially $10-poorer."
I'm not dancing around the issue. The owner is taking more than the value of the collective resources put into producing the good. If R&D adds $10 of value per good, then $130 is a justifiable price (actually the R&D would be part of that initial $100 I mentioned). I'm talking about the extra money that owners add to the price that is not part of the labor, R&D, and other finite resources that go into producing goods. That profit that comes from nothing but the owner's sense of entitlement to the money "because it's my company and that's what I deserve".
Somehow a person who puts in about the same amount of time into the company as the rest of the employees is entitled to a percentage of the revenue each worker generates for the company resulting in many times the amount of wages the rest of the workers get without doing as much work to meet that scale of income? For example, why should the owner get a 10% cut of the revenue each employee generates without doing the same amount of work equal to 10% of the labor they all collectively put in? If you think that's the way it should be, then you're nuts. If there's $130 worth of labor and materials put into the production of a good (including R&D and anything else that gets the product to market), then $130 is the value of the good. Anything more is not fair value.
"See, money does more than just let you know how much to pay for things. Among its many functions, it's also a way for people to vote with their wallets. When you buy something, by definition you didn't buy something else."
To quote Jen Luc Picard, "That kind of control is an illusion".
"You're just making an arbitrary decision that anything over the cost of labor+materials is waste. It's not waste. It goes into all sorts of things, like say R&D, expanding, hiring more people, etc etc... Surely you don't think those things are all a problem do you?"
You keep bringing things up that are costs, labeling them as things that are paid for with profits. Those things should be included into material costs (space, raw materials, equipment, etc.) and would be part of the price. Profit is the money that goes directly to the owner for no other reason than that he has the power to control the flow of goods between the workers and the consumers. It isn't arbitrary either. It takes into account the reality of finite resources. Money is the basis of exchange for resources. So if you're taking in more money than you're putting into what you sell (i.e. profit), you're following a path that is unsustainable because you're deplete resources eventually by centralizing them. Profit is can't be sustained in a world of finite resources.
I'm sorry, but what knowledge of economics and banking you're exhibiting here is actually falsehoods that you've been fed ever since you first asked about how money works and only appears to be how things work because you've never been told the truth. What you know comes from a very indoctrinated view of economic theory, one that has been drilled into your head since childhood. You think I'm wrong because you're looking at it from a set of ideas that are actually deceptive in themselves. You think interest is just the cost of risk? You've been deceived. You think that your money gives you power to control your life? You've been deceived.
People cling to this idea that profit is a natural economic concept, but it's not. It takes natural resources to produce goods. It takes raw material and manual labor that is fueled by the energy we get from foods (another raw material and a finite resource) we produce. If you're taking profit on the goods you sell, you're taking more back in resources from the market than you're giving to it in the goods you sell. Profit relies on this idea that resources will grow forever and everyone who produces something of value can take in profit. That's just not a sustainable model. It demand endless and constant growth. The earth only has a finite carrying capacity for life here. We haven't truly tapped in to that potential because we're still burning stuff for energy, but we are raping good resources from the earth and then wasting them.
The whole system (interest loans, profits, non-renewable energy) is completely wrong, but as long as it puts a few powerful people in to very comfortable positions, they're going to run this whole planet into the ground.
If humanity is ever to continue to move forward and survive, we have to do away with the ideas of profit and interest. In fact, we have to do away with money altogether. This whole system of trade and market is not conducive to a world that exists on finite natural resources. We have to get past the petty wants of a materialistic life and work collaboratively rather than competitively to do what is good for everyone and not to simply "take care of me and my own". It's going to take everybody to exercise self-discipline, restraint, and cooperation to build the science, art, and technology to keep us alive on this planet. It's going to take a brand new human paradigm because we are at the point that our own competitiveness will serve to destroy humanity.
There is so much technology that's sitting "on the shelf" or tied up in patents because it either costs too much money or would poach the profitability of a particular industry. Things that could end world hunger, renewable energy, cure disease. These things don't get done because they don't bring profit for those that would sell them, but if you just made them based on what natural resources are available to us, they could make life here a lot better. Geothermal power for example. Expensive to implement, but very cheap to operate. It would provide huge amounts of energy 2000 Zeta Joules per year actually (we currently use .5 ZJ). But that would put Big Oil and Nuclear power out of business. Curing disease wouldn't be as profitable as just treating the disease indefinitely, so cures to many drugs are probably not even know outside of the pharmaceutical labs because curing disease is antithetical to drawing endless profit.
You'll probably denounce everything I just said as fantasy and impractical (in fact, I expect it), but I'll know it's only because you've been trained to think within a certain set of parameters, that humanity can't live without money and trade, which is a lie. I personally never fully accepted those parameters and always found the idea of money an unrealistic concept. After all, we are the only species on this planet that pays to live here. So go ahead, dismiss me as some whack-job, utopian idealist, ignorant, fool if that's what you think of me. I really don't care what you think, I care what people will do about this mess. If I'm right and we do nothing, then we are in some deep shit in the next few decades. If I'm wrong, then all of this concern about the environment and the wholesale slavery of the people through debt and profit is just an illusion.
agreed with greevar, now the next question. what would be a better way to run things ? i dont think there is any economic or governmental model currently in the world that fits.
Greevar, you and John are simply arguing semantics, everything John says is correct, but he's talking about how capitalism should work in theory. You're talking about the reality of the corrupt political/banking system. Something John is clearly not in favor of.
Again, reality isn't like this. This is an idealized situation. In reality, people (banks) take ridiculous risks with artificially low interest, then when that risk doesn't pan out, the government bails them out. If it does pan out, they keep the money. That's a win-win situation.
You just wrote a 2 page argumentative essay to agree with the guy. Sure, there is a lot of fluff in there that seems argumentative, but the majority of it John has never said he's in favor of. So you're just arguing against a brick wall. You throw in a lot of feel-good shit like save the planet yada yada, to make it look like you've got the high ground, but all you're doing is throwing out a massive strawman.
His main point is that conceptually, capitalism isn't really the problem, the problem is greed and corruption. You can say that capitalism breeds greed and corruption, but every monetary system does, so this isn't a problem that is exclusive to capitalism. Now if you agree or disagree with that is another issue, but please at-least take the time to try and understand his point.
You've completely glossed over what he's saying, simply so you can rant off on your little soap box and push your agenda, even when he's essentially agreeing with you. But hey, you've gotta feel good about yourself somehow eh?
Profit is the money that goes directly to the owner for no other reason than that he has the power to control the flow of goods between the workers and the consumers.
What, profit is any excess money earned over costs of production. There is a very simply fucking definition for profit.
What you guys are talking about is a mix of profit/greed/etc.
Profit via Websters: the excess of returns over expenditure in a transaction or series of transactions; especially: the excess of the selling price of goods over their cost
Stop trying to redefine words to suit your own retarded notions and agendas.
Stop trying to redefine words to suit your own retarded notions and agendas.
This is the accepted definition as defined by Marx. Whatever you think of him, he sure as hell has more legitimacy (and education and respect) than you do. And as one of the foremost critics of Capitalism, in a thread discussing a movement upset with the current outcome of our capitalist system, his definitions are highly relevant.
Profit within the bounds of capitalism is specifically that value kept by the owner of the company in excess to manufacturing cost and labor. This is basic 101 Economics, but I'm pretty sure you haven't taken that class, so your patronizing tone pretty much backfires.
And the reason that sentence is so good I quoted it, is because it shows exactly the problem with capitalism. Because this is how the system works (someone owning the company keeping all the excess value) they benefit from actively shitting up the system for everyone else. You are trying to imply one can run a capitalist company without succombing to greed. This is impossible. It is the number one goal of capitalism, to increase the return of profits, and as we can clearly see, companies will do it through lessening take home pay of employees, destroying benefits, union busting AND bribing the government to lesson worker protections, increase corporate handouts, make the taxation system more regressive, etc etc etc.
The fact you are arguing with any of this when we have countless real world examples of it playing out *exactly* how Greevar and I are explaining is simply mind boggling.
I don't want to step into the interesting discussion because I like the ideas being bantered about by both of you. but I did want to interject something into what Greevar said:
Geothermal power for example. Expensive to implement, but very cheap to operate. It would provide huge amounts of energy 2000 Zeta Joules per year actually (we currently use .5 ZJ)
While this is considered a greener technology it is not sustainable or renewable. It leaches off the heat in the earths core which might be a vast resource but is not limitless. As heat is transferred out you have to go deeper to get the same level of heat. which means you'll have heat wells that go cold, they've already run into this already, so far they shrug and say things like "we'll just go deeper or build more stations"
We also don't know what kind of impact that will have on the planet. Everyone thought burning oil was cleaner than coal. Co2 and water? Are you kidding me people breath out Co2 and trees use it, we're doing the planet a favor! Besides no more dirty coal smog! Sweet!
100yrs later, oh that's why...
The Geothermal idea, is the same kind of thinking that lead to people using trees, natural gas, coal and oil. "You just gotta tap into it, there's a lot of it so we'll call it limitless. Lets not ask questions like side effects because that would cost money and raise more questions. We'll just deal with the problems as they pop up instead of avoid them, like Fracking!".
We have a chance to invent truly sustainable, renewable, solutions instead of just turning our current rape and reap method on a new pocket of resources.
Honestly you won't get rid of 90% of the worlds problems until we work out a reliable renewable source of energy. You won't get to stability if your only method of generating energy is to bleed an "unlimited resource" dry. A lot of the hurt we're in today is because of resource scarcity and our fight to keep those resources flowing in our favor.
The scary thing is that even if the US and EU could solve their energy problems places like China and India are blazing ahead and building their future on the same old unsustainable practices. China is eating coal at an incredible rate and its only growing more and more hungry.
The fact you are arguing with any of this when we have countless real world examples of it playing out *exactly* how Greevar and I are explaining is simply mind boggling.
The fact that you guys are both making up imaginary arguments so you can rant is even more mind boggling(well not really, its just what you do), you both just want soap boxes to rant, and will pull out all your best strawmen to do it. You're giving me an imaginary viewpoint so you can argue against it.
Profit, as a word, has a clearly defined meaning from Webster's, generally regarded as the authority on word definitions. This is all I have said.
I also attempted to sum up John's opinion, as Greevar completely missed his point.
Certainly, this is grounds for you to be a total cunt. Makes sense.
I really don't understand why videogame artists aren't marxist.
Within capitalism, Publishers start out with all the capital. They put up some money they already have (or use credit only they have access to), fund our studios long enough for the games to be made, then they get all the profit. Right now there is basically zero method for one of us as a 3d artist to ever move to the position of gaining that huge profit pool, so why the fuck are we in favor of this system? It doesn't even have the mythical promise of "one day that will be me!" that most careers subscribe to.
In a socialist game studio, each of us who has worked on a shipped title or two could already retire, as even a shitty game's sales would have been enough to give all the actual artists/programmers/designers at least a 6 figure salary for a couple years. Instead, we're the ones that slave away, hone our craft on our own dime beforehand, get near zero input on what the game is going to be about or the themes, and are the first to get let go if the studio underperforms.
Is the wealth worship and propaganda so ingrained that despite the fact none of us will ever move from labor into the oligarchy that we will literally ignore or outright demonize the system that would benefit us most directly?
I really don't understand why videogame artists aren't marxist.
Within capitalism, Publishers start out with all the capital. They put up some money they already have (or use credit only they have access to), fund our studios long enough for the games to be made, then they get all the profit. Right now there is basically zero method for one of us as a 3d artist to ever move to the position of gaining that huge profit pool, so why the fuck are we in favor of this system? It doesn't even have the mythical promise of "one day that will be me!" that most careers subscribe to.
In a socialist game studio, each of us who has worked on a shipped title or two could already retire, as even a shitty game's sales would have been enough to give all the actual artists/programmers/designers at least a 6 figure salary for a couple years. Instead, we're the ones that slave away, hone our craft on our own dime beforehand, get near zero input on what the game is going to be about or the themes, and are the first to get let go if the studio underperforms.
Is the wealth worship and propaganda so ingrained that despite the fact none of us will ever move from labor into the oligarchy that we will literally ignore or outright demonize the system that would benefit us most directly?
Again, more wild rampant assumption and baseless accusations. Who are you to say i'm not Marxist? What have I ever said that would allow you to form such conclusions? A few sentences on an internet forum and you've got all of my philosophical ideals figured out? Really? Get over yourself.
You're making hysterical conclusions to serve your agenda and allow you a platform to rant. Nothing more.
The fact that you guys are both making up imaginary arguments so you can rant is even more mind boggling(well not really, its just what you do), you both just want soap boxes to rant, and will pull out all your best strawmen to do it. You're giving me an imaginary viewpoint so you can argue against it.
Profit, as a word, has a clearly defined meaning from Webster's, generally regarded as the authority on word definitions. This is all I have said.
I also attempted to sum up John's opinion, as Greevar completely missed his point.
This is the functional equivalent of one of our mom's coming into a conversation on 3d art and saying "normal maps are a made up word, what are you crazy people saying?". Of course if you have a beginners understanding of economics you're going to be confused when trying to jump into a grown ups conversation.
In a socialist model, workers keep the "profit". In a capitalist model, the owner keeps the profit. This is not a complex idea (in fact it's been defined since the 1800s) and this difference is exactly what most OWS protesters are upset about, even if they can't say it clearly. They are the working class, doing the work, but they are reaping none of the rewards. A select incestuous group of pseudo oligarchs who control all money/power/social mobility have been gaining all increases in wealth since the 60s and 70s.
You can belittle the definitions all you want, but you're the one that is confused and posting in ignorance. The reason we have the corruption we do now, is exactly because a small group of people gets to arbitrarily keep all the excess value, giving them the power to destroy the quality of life of the rest of the population through direct and indirect methods.
What's your opinion of why things are so fucked? just some random confluence of factors that just happens to have affected nearly every country on earth at the same time?
What, profit is any excess money earned over costs of production. There is a very simply fucking definition for profit.
What you guys are talking about is a mix of profit/greed/etc.
Profit via Websters: the excess of returns over expenditure in a transaction or series of transactions; especially: the excess of the selling price of goods over their cost
Stop trying to redefine words to suit your own retarded notions and agendas.
Here is your original post trying to imply we are making up terms. This post of yours, it is bullshit.
We are talking about Profit (capital P) within the realm of Capitalism. Since we don't have any socialist companies within the west at a ratio that even matters (I can think of only 2 that employ more than 50 people) Profit in terms of craftsmen, co-ops, etc doesn't really matter does it? So your simplified websters quote is a ridiculous semantic argument that does nothing but give you an opportunity to try to belittle people.
Profit within CAPITALISM (which is what we've been talking about for the last 5 pages before your nanny bullshit came in) Is excess value (above labor and material costs) kept by the owners of capital (ie the business owners). This is a very basic, very widely accepted (at least among educated people) definition of profit.
I figured it'd be clear within the scope of the conversation, but obviously not. You're welcome for clearing up your obvious confusion.
Profit is not exclusive to capitalism
Greed is not exclusive to capitalism
Abuse of workforce is not exclusive to capitalism
You can't define profit in relation to capitalism along these terms, if none of these factors are actually exclusive to capitalism. In context or out of context, its the same made up bullshit. These are social problems, not problems exclusive to capitalism. You swap capitalism for socialism and you still have the same problems, to a lesser/different extent, sure. But still the same problems.
For the record I am heavily in favor of socialism.
I really don't understand why videogame artists aren't marxist.
Within capitalism, Publishers start out with all the capital. They put up some money they already have (or use credit only they have access to), fund our studios long enough for the games to be made, then they get all the profit. Right now there is basically zero method for one of us as a 3d artist to ever move to the position of gaining that huge profit pool, so why the fuck are we in favor of this system? It doesn't even have the mythical promise of "one day that will be me!" that most careers subscribe to.
In a socialist game studio, each of us who has worked on a shipped title or two could already retire, as even a shitty game's sales would have been enough to give all the actual artists/programmers/designers at least a 6 figure salary for a couple years. Instead, we're the ones that slave away, hone our craft on our own dime beforehand, get near zero input on what the game is going to be about or the themes, and are the first to get let go if the studio underperforms.
Is the wealth worship and propaganda so ingrained that despite the fact none of us will ever move from labor into the oligarchy that we will literally ignore or outright demonize the system that would benefit us most directly?
Hallelujah brother! Go tell it one the mountain!
Sorry, had to do it, but well said nevertheless. If we can't find a better way to do it, I'd love to be part of a group that makes games and gets to keep 100% of the value of their work instead of handing it over to a publisher that sucks up all the value for themselves.
Is the wealth worship and propaganda so ingrained that despite the fact none of us will ever move from labor into the oligarchy that we will literally ignore or outright demonize the system that would benefit us most directly?
I think there is a pretty substantial push by studios not to fall into that trap. I can think of a few studios that are much more egalitarian and open with their employees. A lot of the new studios popping up tend to be groups of former employees looking to band together and stake their collective future on a shared vision. Instead of one business wonk looking to get rich.
I see the tide of business in the industry shifting to a much more egalitarian style mostly out of passion and necessity, but because it also works. I've worked for one of them for the past 5 years. We're all in this together from the bottom to the top and everyone shares in the pain when it rolls around. We had a rough spot a while back and got through it by cutting at the top instead of the bottom. Those at the top understand what those on the bottom do to make the company successful.
It works, I've had a stable job and above average pay for 5 years. I can walk into our CEO or COO's office and lay down a handful of improvements or ideas and if they are good they will go into effect. There isn't a bureaucracy that separates everyone even though our corporate structure isn't much different than other companies. What is different is how people use that system and interact with it. That is what is so important to figure out in interviews.
Normally you get what you chase the hardest. If that's money then exploitation of labor normally is the easiest way to make that happen. If you're goal is to sustain your business while fulfilling your passion then you will more than likely hit a wider range of goals and will probably produce a better product than the guy working his people to death.
Profit is not exclusive to capitalism
Greed is not exclusive to capitalism
Abuse of workforce is not exclusive to capitalism
You can't define profit in relation to capitalism along these terms, if none of these factors are actually exclusive to capitalism. In context or out of context, its the same made up bullshit.
"Profit is not exclusive to capitalism"
Explain please.
"Greed is not exclusive to capitalism"
Perhaps not, but it is power and power corrupts, which leads people to be greedy.
"Abuse of workforce is not exclusive to capitalism"
Example?
Profit is quite simply the excess money gained beyond the costs of labor, materials, and infrastructure needed to produce goods. Only capitalists follow this pattern that I know of. Please show us an example of non-capitalist business that takes in money beyond the resource value of the goods it produces.
Sorry, let me clarify that with "desire to profit". Which is just greed I guess, So i'll give you that. However, your definition above is basically the same as the webster's definition, so we agree there.
"Abuse of workforce is not exclusive to capitalism"
Example?
China? Russia? There are far greater examples of abuse in socialism than there are "Utopian Socialism" examples.
Power is also not exclusive to capitalism, that is just silly and nonsensical.
Sorry, let me clarify that with "desire to profit".
"Abuse of workforce is not exclusive to capitalism"
Example?
China?
Power is also not exclusive to capitalism, that is just silly and nonsensical.
Who said power was exclusive to capitalism? Not me.
China is a non-capitalist system? I beg to differ. Most of the corporations produce their goods there under a capitalist system. It's specifically because they are so amenable to capitalist ideals.
Yeah, I agree 100%. Trying to pin it all on the specific monetary system we use is just scapegoating.
Are you implying that every system ever has exactly the same exploitable weaknesses as every other?
Capitalism *explicitly* as part of the founding principle, appeals to greed. Whether it's part of human nature or not (and that's debatable itself and far too easy of an "answer"), There exist systems that make exploiting others harder than other systems. Capitalism makes it extremely easy for greed (regardless of whether it is present through nature or nurture) to destroy the system for everyone else by putting the power in the hands of the few, and insulating them from any and all consequences.
Also the fact that you imply China's abuse of the workforce is separate from capitalism is both laughably ignorant and just hilarious on it's face. While the top level central planning is done at the government level, the companies that have been destroying the environment and worker's rights the most are purely arms of a capitalist model. (and ironically most of them do work for US companies, imagine that!)
Who said power was exclusive to capitalism? Not me.
China is a non-capitalist system? I beg to differ. Most of the corporations produce their goods there under a capitalist system. It's specifically because they are so amenable to capitalist ideals.
Which is fairly recent from my understanding, and conditions have actually improved since China went to a more capitalistic system as far as production goes.
Are you implying that every system ever has exactly the same exploitable weaknesses as every other?
Capitalism *explicitly* as part of the founding principle, appeals to greed. Whether it's part of human nature or not (and that's debatable itself and far too easy of an "answer"), There exist systems that make exploiting others harder than other systems. Capitalism makes it extremely easy for greed (regardless of whether it is present through nature or nurture) to destroy the system for everyone else by putting the power in the hands of the few, and insulating them from any and all consequences.
No, simply that the driving force, greed, curroption, desire to abuse a system/workers/people is not a trait exlusive to any form of government, monetray system etc, these are social/education/moral problems
The more I read this the more it appears to be devolving to a level of crazed conspiracies. I find the "you've been lied to your entire life about economics" and all that jazz to be extremely laughable. You're all making your arguments less and less believable as this thread goes on.
I think EQ hits the nail on the head here.
This is something that really bothers me, the vitriolic way some people go about expressing their opinions makes it so hard to listen to them, even if you fundamentally agree with what they are saying.
I agree with most things Ben says, but I somehow always manage to argue with him. Its certainly an interesting phenomenon. Even Greevar makes a lot of reasonable, well though out points, though it pains me to admit it.
There exist systems that make exploiting others harder than other systems. Capitalism makes it extremely easy for greed (regardless of whether it is present through nature or nurture) to destroy the system for everyone else by putting the power in the hands of the few, and insulating them from any and all consequences.
Here I'll even outline for you a relevant example for us as videogame artists.
Company A is capitalist, 3 people own the deed to the company and have the highest salaries and most stock shares, but have a team of 47 more to do code/art/design. While profitable they gain the majority of all profit, and stand the most to gain by keeping the other 47 people's salaries low, or the medical plan not great, or the hours long, as long as they are just fractionally less abusive as the other game studios the employees have to eat it up. At some point they are not competent enough to make a profit with a 50+ person company the way the managed through either luck or abilities when they started it with 10 people. They need money to keep going. They sell to a publisher, getting fat checks, continue to mismanage the company, company goes belly up, all actual workers are laid off with little or no severance pay, the end.
Company B is socialist. Their profit is shared equally based on tenure and hours put in. When the game sell well, they all make out like bandits, and if they sell too poorly for too long, and not enough people leave to make it profitable with what little income they have, and are all forced to find new jobs, well they at least gained the income equally while it was there, and they all face the consequences of the company ceasing to exist equally.
At no point in time will the owners of Company A be held accountable for their actions. At worst they will lose their company after accumulating huge chunks of the profit for however many years it was profitable, while all the actual workers got some minor fraction of the pay they did. Equally those 3 owners of company A are most likely to go and get a job making another inflated salary at a publisher or new startup than any of the people from Company B.
In both models there could of course be jerks making things worse for the rest of the employees, but within the capitalist model it not only makes it easier, through lack of accountability, but also encourages it, since the owners benefit immediately by keeping a larger slice of the pie. Even if you argue that theoretically every person has the same desire to fuck over his peers, capitalism makes it far easier to accomplish.
Ben, I've never argued that capitalism is a better(or worse for that matter) system, so please stop making arguments based on opinions I've never expressed. My argument was that various social problems are inherent regardless as to which system you're using, which I think we can all comfortably agree on.
The more I read this the more it appears to be devolving to a level of crazed conspiracies. I find the "you've been lied to your entire life about economics" and all that jazz to be extremely laughable. You're all making your arguments less and less believable as this thread goes on.
I agree. I think the "scrap the current system for a new different system" argument falls apart because all systems have weaknesses and a new system would just bring new problems along with most of the old ones you already tamed years ago.
It's probably more stable and sustainable to reform the current system whatever that is, so things are fair and equal, or toss it out and get ready to slay all the dragons you already dealt with? Not to mention there are more people who would rather fix the broken car rather than try and build a new one out of twigs and berries.
Its the systems put in place to deal with natural imbalances as well as new ones that pop up in the process that will create stability and prosperity. That is where America has lost its way, it fired its engineers and mechanics and stripped out all the safe guards so it could go even faster. Which you can do in any system at any time.
Whatever the system, you need a way to reform and modernize it while putting in power the people who thoughtfully consider the ramifications of those actions instead of doing whats popular or what will net them more money or win their party the most seats.
I see the "scrap the current system" a lot with people who instead of learning how things are done and possibly improve them, they want to reinvent everything from scratch and even if it comes out worse, is less friendly and takes 10x longer, its their system and they love it, they often don't weather criticism of their system well tend to view it as a personal attack rather than an opportunity to improve. Ultimately these people isolate themselves and earn the badge of "does not play well with others". They start to become pretty narcissistic, egotistical and even a bit megalomaniac as things progress.
You get a select few people who try to force their crazy system on the rest of the population that is perfectly fine with the current system, tinkering and making changes as needed.
Is see the toss it all out crowd as doing more harm than good. I don't think communism or socialism have failed, but that people scrapped the current system in favor of those new system and the growing pains of switching systems where too great to bare so they said fuck it again and started over. Instead of reforming those new systems they scrapped them for something else and now those same growing pains are manifesting again. The systems themselves aren't bad, they would work but governments are a work in progress not a strict set of guidelines that someone sketched out on a cocktail napkin one weekend that can never be altered. That's a dipshit cult mentality and leads to nothing but problems.
There are great examples of socialist countries that haven't said fuck it and started over. Is socialism the answer? Or is stability and determination to fix what breaks the answer?
Can Capitalism in a democracy or republic work? That depends if you want to toss it out and start over.
It's a bit like Dreamers thread about finishing projects, if all you ever do is say fuck it and start over, you get really good at saying fuck it and never get to the valuable parts where you really need to practice and hone your craft.
Incorporate some of those idea? DEFINITELY! Say fuck it and screw yourself all over again?
Which is fairly recent from my understanding, and conditions have actually improved since China went to a more capitalistic system as far as production goes.
This is incorrect unless you are looking at the conditions of China's 1%. Yes there are now business men with gorgeous trophy wives who buy purebred panda-chihuahuas and decorate them with diamond dog-collars. But the corollary is that there is a huge swath of people with no access to education or medical care, can no longer sustenance farm because the rivers are fluorescent pink from chemical runoff, and work for near slave level wages.
Historically there is a lot of factors going for the quality of life in China based on their moves from various forms of economic models, but it was in no way purely communist before or now, and the changes toward capitalism in recent years have benefited a small minority while making the important measures of quality of life (access to school, housing, food and medical care) for the majority of Chinese actively worse.
Ben, I've never argued that capitalism is a better(or worse for that matter) system, so please stop making arguments based on opinions I've never expressed. My argument was that various social problems are inherent regardless as to which system you're using, which I think we can all comfortably agree on.
No, I do not agree with that, and that's why I continue arguing.
Where does society get it's values? You're implying all societies have equal values, and they are all gotten through genetics rather than any impact from propaganda.
Why is it that Americans (and really the rest of the world tends to believe it about America) think that the US is the "land of opportunity" when it has the lowest social mobility in the developed world? that's certainly not coming from people's genes. It's a carefully cultivated message that has been pushed for decades to imply the system as is, works great, when we can now see tons of obvious signs we can no longer ignore that America is not (and never was) a meritocracy. This is just one example of many I could bring up, where a broken system that benefits the few, allows them to convince everyone else to culturally, as a society, believe this system is great.
These are the kinds of end results that come from a system like capitalism. A few people accumulate all the money and power, and can use that money and power to propagate the system to continue benefiting them and their offspring.
You are trying to imply that this kind of stuff "just happened" and I disagree, adamantly.
Oakland's General Strike yesterday evolved into more tear gas and rubber bullets. Some businesses were damaged, but I'm hearing that money is being organized to help repair the unfortunate pockets of vandelism.
In lighter news, the seventh continent is now "occupied"
I'm saying Capitalism as a system is the problem. (and a shitload of Occupy protesters agree) You seem to take some kind of umbrage to this statement. It's pretty obvious you disagree with that assertion, unless you're just making minor semantic nitpicks.
Do you agree or disagree that Capitalism is the problem we are currently facing? If you disagree, and believe Capitalism can be somehow made to "play fair", why are all the various models of capitalism failing for the working class across the world at the same time?
Capitalism *explicitly* as part of the founding principle, appeals to greed.
As opposed to what?
And what is greed? Of course you're not the one that's greedy, the other guy always is.
I've heard it before that if only businesses could be run as a co-op, or an industry would be fully unionized, the greed coming in from the top would go away. Would it really? Sure, it sounds nice to say that the community will hold the business. But someone will be in charge, wouldn't they? And those people are immune from greed?
Judging by the way unions behave, I would say they're definitely not immune. We've seen instances of unions turning violent, assaulting those who would break their strike, and physically preventing a factory from operating. They're not immune from these things.
I wonder, if the US was fully unionized, capitalism-free, when the automobile came about, do you believe the horse&carriage unions would have just peacefully stepped aside? Or would they have been "greedy" and tried to maintain the industry?
For you to present it as if capitalism invented greed, is more than a bit disingenuous. I don't think that you actually believe that, but you are arguing that type of strawman.
I feel capitalism is A major problem. I do not think it is THE ONLY problem, I do not think another system is necessarily the answer, but I am not apposed to it either. I think it is extremely unrealistic that another system would be implemented though. So, for the sake of reality, I am for doing whatever we can to improve the current system.
Within capitalism, Publishers start out with all the capital. They put up some money they already have (or use credit only they have access to), fund our studios long enough for the games to be made, then they get all the profit. Right now there is basically zero method for one of us as a 3d artist to ever move to the position of gaining that huge profit pool, so why the fuck are we in favor of this system? It doesn't even have the mythical promise of "one day that will be me!" that most careers subscribe to.
I personally know an awful lot of game devs that have made a large amount of money from selling their games (most of them have not retired, because they like making games). If you look around you will see there are a lot of options out there. If you don't like the existing options, make a new one. That is what capitalism is good for.
The games Poop worked on were mostly big hits, but what about people working on games that flop or get canceled? Do you want a share of the losses too?
Profit should be defined as utility gained in excess of costs. Economists usually talk about profit using money as a proxy since it is hard to measure utility, but money exists as a tool to create utility.
What I love about the Marxist world-view is that they think if someone benefits it's at the expense of someone else. That there is this finite pie of stuff, and if one person gets more, other people have to get less. The reality is that business people and scientists create utility and wealth out of thin air by making some thing that was previously useless into something desirable. For example, oil was just this annoying black shit until people came up with the gasoline engine, and then all of the sudden it was a valuable commodity.
here is a simple example of how real utility is created: you have a guy with two hammers, and a guy with a bucket of nails. Dude with two hammers is like "fuck, two hammers and no nails!" and the guy with the bucket is like "I can't do anything with these nails!" Then they meet, and they trade one hammer for half the nails -- now both of them can hammer shit together when neither could before. The utility gained came out of this air! Both people are better off, and nobody is worse off!
And what is greed? Of course you're not the one that's greedy, the other guy always is.
I've heard it before that if only businesses could be run as a co-op, or an industry would be fully unionized, the greed coming in from the top would go away. Would it really? Sure, it sounds nice to say that the community will hold the business. But someone will be in charge, wouldn't they? And those people are immune from greed?
Judging by the way unions behave, I would say they're definitely not immune. We've seen instances of unions turning violent, assaulting those who would break their strike, and physically preventing a factory from operating. They're not immune from these things.
I wonder, if the US was fully unionized, capitalism-free, when the automobile came about, do you believe the horse&carriage unions would have just peacefully stepped aside? Or would they have been "greedy" and tried to maintain the industry?
For you to present it as if capitalism invented greed, is more than a bit disingenuous. I don't think that you actually believe that, but you are arguing that type of strawman.
As apposed to socialist models. You are assuming that if society was magically entirely socialist, that we would all have our same goals, ingrained ideals, and values that we have now. Who's not to say that if it were the case, that everyone's dream wouldn't be to find a way to work on what they are passionate on, for enough money/units/whatever for a comfortable life, and desires contributing to a functional society? Ideal? sure, but you're also someone putting forward an economic model that relies on idealism (and I would say an ideal far further from reality than mine, as libertarian-ism relies on everyone's equal greed canceling out everyone else's)
You are also taking violence caused by companies exploiting their workers, and heaping it on the heads of the unions. There wouldn't need to be strikes or any kind of violence if the companies weren't abusing the employees (and let's face it, when unions were first formed, the companies were *literally* abusing employees). It's like complaining that a person uses force on someone who tries to kill them, the onus is on the original aggressor.
If the US was capitalist free, do I think it would exist forever as a utopia with no failings ever arising? Certainly not. In fact I'm sure at some point I'm sure it would become corrupted in some new way, but I think it both less likely, and periods of stability would last longer than these wild swings we've seen under capitalism.
And nowhere did I say capitalism invented greed. I said that capitalism allows a small chunk of people to accumulate enough wealth to convince everyone else that their greed is not only justified, but doesn't even exist and should even be idolized.
The games Poop worked on were mostly big hits, but what about people working on games that flop or get canceled? Do you want a share of the losses too?
This is false. Both GUN and Bloodrayne II were flops from the standpoint of the publisher. However GUN was the highest selling original IP the year it was released, selling around 2.5 million units stateside and about that much more abroad. BR II I believe sold around 140k units stateside (not totally sure). Both games were "losses" from the publisher side, but if the profits from them had been going to those of us on staff, we would be extremely wealthy. And yes, if we were all owning it equally, I *do* think we should share the failings equally since then it's actually our fault. Instead of what we have today, where we the workers have almost no say in what the game should be about, who it should be marketed to and how, and yet we are the ones who are first to be fired and last to get raises, while the people who do actually have that responsibility are the last to get fired and first to get raises. So your idea of accountability is completely misplaces from reality, as we have the opposite of accountability now. If shitty managers/publishers/bankers/leaders had to pay for their failures, I'd be far less concerned, but we have all seen that those in power are never held accountable.
And my implication that I could retire doesn't mean I would. I'd love to be able to keep making (good, fun) games till I'm in a retirement home.
Also your implication that we aren't in a zero sum game is proven false. If it were true, why has the quality of life for the working class in the US stagnated or gone down since the 70s? This is fact, born out by all statistics. So if a small percentage keeping all the profits doesn't mean the other 99% aren't getting the shaft in your mind, why has it played out exactly the reverse in reality?
I personally know an awful lot of game devs that have made a large amount of money from selling their games (most of them have not retired, because they like making games). If you look around you will see there are a lot of options out there. If you don't like the existing options, make a new one. That is what capitalism is good for.
The games Poop worked on were mostly big hits, but what about people working on games that flop or get canceled? Do you want a share of the losses too?
!
More than half of the games I've ever worked on haven't seen the light of day. I've been working in the games industry for 8+ years. Profit-sharing based economics would not be a win-win situation for the majority of projects in the game industry, as many fail or struggle to make back the initial investment.
Sure, this would have an interesting effect on the quality of games overall if everyone did this(more "attachment" to the project for each worker) and could potentially result in better projects/success rate. However, this is just wild speculation.
It would be interesting if profits were shared in addition to salary, but I feel finding initial investors would be extremely difficult for anything but budget/mobile projects.
If you disagree, and believe Capitalism can be somehow made to "play fair", why are all the various models of capitalism failing for the working class across the world at the same time?
Economies are failing because banks are sitting on a mountain of bad debt and trying not to let anyone know. A lot of that bad debt came from lending money to normal people who were buying giant stupid fucking SUVs and huge houses they didn't need and couldn't afford. A lot of people at every level made bad investments because they unrealistically projected that things were going to keep up the way they had been. The other HUGE reason our economy is struggling is because we have been at war for 10 years. War is the most economically damaging activity that exists. If the banks are not bought up, cleaned out and resold, then they will probably be able to clear all that bad debt in another 5-8 years on their own.
I personally don't know why people can't find jobs. My wife and I have people offering us jobs unsolicited sometimes.
This is false. Both GUN and Bloodrayne II were flops from the standpoint of the publisher. However GUN was the highest selling original IP the year it was released, selling around 2.5 million units stateside and about that much more abroad. BR II I believe sold around 140k units stateside (not totally sure). Both games were "losses" from the publisher side, but if the profits from them had been going to those of us on staff, we would be extremely wealthy.
I'm honestly not trying to be an ass here, but can you explain further how these projects were a "loss" from the publisher side but still made a profit?
Do you mean that they simply sold less than projected?
A lot of that bad debt came from lending money to normal people who were buying giant stupid fucking SUVs and huge houses they didn't need and couldn't afford.
This is 100% completely false. Small consumer loans plaid an insignificant portion of the current crisis AND they were pushed far more from the sides of the banks knowing they could make a profit off of it even if the consumers failed to pay it back by playing juggle-the-debt than it was from "dumb over consuming consumers" "deceiving" banks.
(How that would ever even work, a bunch of uneducated in finances Americans duping these captain of industry bankers, I'll never know.)
And as far as spending on war, sure that's played a big part of debt, but the reason we do, is directly because of capitalism. Defense contractors make a shitload off the tax payers, and they turn around and spend a small portion lobbying the government or pushing media stories that create more war, needing more pew-pew planes, lining their pockets, wash-rinse-repeat.
75% of Americans are now against the war in Vietnam, 60% against the war in Iraq, 55% against Afghanistan, despite all 3 wars being in favor at the times they started. This same group of Americans are *for* a war with Iran around 65%. Is it any wonder with all the islamaphobia, Iran-fear mongering, etc, that is an exact repeat of what led the US into war with Iraq/Afghanistan/Vietnam? A war with Iran would make the defense industry a lot of money, and they already have a lot of money, so they can use it to ensure they get even more.
You are consistently using points that actively disprove your argument, or are just outright incorrect.
I feel capitalism is A major problem. I do not think it is THE ONLY problem, I do not think another system is necessarily the answer, but I am not apposed to it either. I think it is extremely unrealistic that another system would be implemented though. So, for the sake of reality, I am for doing whatever we can to improve the current system.
Hey, nice completely loaded question though.
You think that capitalism is a problem, but replacing it isn't the answer? How do you reconcile that? If something is broken beyond repair, you replace it. End of story. Another monetary system will likely not work because monetary systems do not function in equilibrium with the nature of our planet, but a resource based economy would. Human beings have to get out of this "every man for himself" paradigm and move to a "what's good for all is good for me" philosophy. We all suffer from an ego-centrism affliction that will serve to end us someday.
Your relying on a system that created and doesn't care one iota for our woes to solve our problems for us is nothing short of delusional. And if you don't understand why people can't find jobs, you're obviously out touch with the struggles of the impoverished blue-collar people of this country.
I'm honestly not trying to be an ass here, but can you explain further how these projects were a "loss" from the publisher side but still made a profit?
Do you mean that they simply sold less than projected?
For BRII I believe 120k just wasn't enough to make up development cost plus advertisements. I think it would have needed around 500k to have made a decent profit to make a III for sure right after.
For GUN, the claim was that someone in Activision predicted a sales of 4-6 million units. (and to be sure, this person was definitely making many multiples of my salary) and they supposedly spent advertising money to match this expected sales number. The sales were not enough to make enough profit over what development+marketing cost. Now whether that meant the profit was only 1 million, nothing, or 10 million, whatever "not enough" was, I have no idea. I just know that with a staff of 175 people at NS, even with a healthy advertising budget, 2.2 million US sales would have been more than enough to pay all of us way more than we got.
Also I guess it was confusing about what I said with losses and profits. I mean that if all money from the sales of the games, minus the packaging cost, shipping and retail store cut, were divied up between those of us who did actual development, we would have had a lot of "profit". However the way it was divided up, not enough raw money was left over for the publisher to consider it "enough profit". Lots of money was absorbed by inflated publisher salaries that contributed very little (or even active harm) during the process, a much larger amount needed to be made to make Activision or Majesco stock go up for it to be considered worthwhile (verses what you or I would need to see in our bank account to be happy). Etc etc. I just mean in the metric of "should we make a sequal with this same team" both games were "losses" even if they were bigger name games with big budgets. If the same exact game+team+sales numbers were to have happened within a socialist model, each of us would have seen a lot of money. (and been able to keep working on sequels should we have so chosen)
Replies
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/02/BA5G1LQ06S.DTL
http://www.mercurynews.com/occupy-oakland/ci_19247016
"Interest represents a counter-balance to that risk."
That statement is a lie that has been fed to you by those that want to maintain the system. You obviously don't know where money comes from. There is no risk in a loan that justifies interest. The only risk that is taken is by the borrower who puts up their real property as collateral for the loan. The bank creates money out of nothing. They make a hole and make you promise to fill it with your real wealth and labor, calling it a "loan". What you're describing is not how it actually works and you are the one lacking the understanding.
Interest is how they keep the debt as money system afloat. All money is backed by debt. They need interest to keep the debt greater than the money supply. If the money supply ever becomes greater than the total debt owed to the banks, the whole thing falls apart like the giant Ponzi scheme it is. Interest is not a balance for the cost of "risk" it's a profiting tool to keep the rich wealthy and powerful and to keep the system going.
When loans go south, the defaults are paid off by the taxes paid by the people. That goes directly to the central bank. There is no risk for the bankers, only us.
"The part that you call "unearned", that's the part that someone previously invested in stuff like R&D. Just like how your time is worth money, so does his when he develops something new that everyone likes."
That's not profit, that's costs. If it costs $1,000,000 to develop a good, then dividing that amongst the goods produced would be part of the value of the good. If you're putting revenue back into the company to pay for that which helps it succeed in the market, that's not profit.
"You have a very specific problem in mind, and you're dancing around the issue. The problem in your mind is materials+labor costing $120, and the owner selling the product for $130, and pockets the extra $10 for his own selfish wallet. He then goes on to live like a king, while the people he took the $10 from are essentially $10-poorer."
I'm not dancing around the issue. The owner is taking more than the value of the collective resources put into producing the good. If R&D adds $10 of value per good, then $130 is a justifiable price (actually the R&D would be part of that initial $100 I mentioned). I'm talking about the extra money that owners add to the price that is not part of the labor, R&D, and other finite resources that go into producing goods. That profit that comes from nothing but the owner's sense of entitlement to the money "because it's my company and that's what I deserve".
Somehow a person who puts in about the same amount of time into the company as the rest of the employees is entitled to a percentage of the revenue each worker generates for the company resulting in many times the amount of wages the rest of the workers get without doing as much work to meet that scale of income? For example, why should the owner get a 10% cut of the revenue each employee generates without doing the same amount of work equal to 10% of the labor they all collectively put in? If you think that's the way it should be, then you're nuts. If there's $130 worth of labor and materials put into the production of a good (including R&D and anything else that gets the product to market), then $130 is the value of the good. Anything more is not fair value.
"See, money does more than just let you know how much to pay for things. Among its many functions, it's also a way for people to vote with their wallets. When you buy something, by definition you didn't buy something else."
To quote Jen Luc Picard, "That kind of control is an illusion".
"You're just making an arbitrary decision that anything over the cost of labor+materials is waste. It's not waste. It goes into all sorts of things, like say R&D, expanding, hiring more people, etc etc... Surely you don't think those things are all a problem do you?"
You keep bringing things up that are costs, labeling them as things that are paid for with profits. Those things should be included into material costs (space, raw materials, equipment, etc.) and would be part of the price. Profit is the money that goes directly to the owner for no other reason than that he has the power to control the flow of goods between the workers and the consumers. It isn't arbitrary either. It takes into account the reality of finite resources. Money is the basis of exchange for resources. So if you're taking in more money than you're putting into what you sell (i.e. profit), you're following a path that is unsustainable because you're deplete resources eventually by centralizing them. Profit is can't be sustained in a world of finite resources.
I'm sorry, but what knowledge of economics and banking you're exhibiting here is actually falsehoods that you've been fed ever since you first asked about how money works and only appears to be how things work because you've never been told the truth. What you know comes from a very indoctrinated view of economic theory, one that has been drilled into your head since childhood. You think I'm wrong because you're looking at it from a set of ideas that are actually deceptive in themselves. You think interest is just the cost of risk? You've been deceived. You think that your money gives you power to control your life? You've been deceived.
People cling to this idea that profit is a natural economic concept, but it's not. It takes natural resources to produce goods. It takes raw material and manual labor that is fueled by the energy we get from foods (another raw material and a finite resource) we produce. If you're taking profit on the goods you sell, you're taking more back in resources from the market than you're giving to it in the goods you sell. Profit relies on this idea that resources will grow forever and everyone who produces something of value can take in profit. That's just not a sustainable model. It demand endless and constant growth. The earth only has a finite carrying capacity for life here. We haven't truly tapped in to that potential because we're still burning stuff for energy, but we are raping good resources from the earth and then wasting them.
The whole system (interest loans, profits, non-renewable energy) is completely wrong, but as long as it puts a few powerful people in to very comfortable positions, they're going to run this whole planet into the ground.
If humanity is ever to continue to move forward and survive, we have to do away with the ideas of profit and interest. In fact, we have to do away with money altogether. This whole system of trade and market is not conducive to a world that exists on finite natural resources. We have to get past the petty wants of a materialistic life and work collaboratively rather than competitively to do what is good for everyone and not to simply "take care of me and my own". It's going to take everybody to exercise self-discipline, restraint, and cooperation to build the science, art, and technology to keep us alive on this planet. It's going to take a brand new human paradigm because we are at the point that our own competitiveness will serve to destroy humanity.
There is so much technology that's sitting "on the shelf" or tied up in patents because it either costs too much money or would poach the profitability of a particular industry. Things that could end world hunger, renewable energy, cure disease. These things don't get done because they don't bring profit for those that would sell them, but if you just made them based on what natural resources are available to us, they could make life here a lot better. Geothermal power for example. Expensive to implement, but very cheap to operate. It would provide huge amounts of energy 2000 Zeta Joules per year actually (we currently use .5 ZJ). But that would put Big Oil and Nuclear power out of business. Curing disease wouldn't be as profitable as just treating the disease indefinitely, so cures to many drugs are probably not even know outside of the pharmaceutical labs because curing disease is antithetical to drawing endless profit.
You'll probably denounce everything I just said as fantasy and impractical (in fact, I expect it), but I'll know it's only because you've been trained to think within a certain set of parameters, that humanity can't live without money and trade, which is a lie. I personally never fully accepted those parameters and always found the idea of money an unrealistic concept. After all, we are the only species on this planet that pays to live here. So go ahead, dismiss me as some whack-job, utopian idealist, ignorant, fool if that's what you think of me. I really don't care what you think, I care what people will do about this mess. If I'm right and we do nothing, then we are in some deep shit in the next few decades. If I'm wrong, then all of this concern about the environment and the wholesale slavery of the people through debt and profit is just an illusion.
Known as 'usury'
You just wrote a 2 page argumentative essay to agree with the guy. Sure, there is a lot of fluff in there that seems argumentative, but the majority of it John has never said he's in favor of. So you're just arguing against a brick wall. You throw in a lot of feel-good shit like save the planet yada yada, to make it look like you've got the high ground, but all you're doing is throwing out a massive strawman.
His main point is that conceptually, capitalism isn't really the problem, the problem is greed and corruption. You can say that capitalism breeds greed and corruption, but every monetary system does, so this isn't a problem that is exclusive to capitalism. Now if you agree or disagree with that is another issue, but please at-least take the time to try and understand his point.
You've completely glossed over what he's saying, simply so you can rant off on your little soap box and push your agenda, even when he's essentially agreeing with you. But hey, you've gotta feel good about yourself somehow eh?
Blammo. Nailed it in one sentence.
What you guys are talking about is a mix of profit/greed/etc.
Profit via Websters: the excess of returns over expenditure in a transaction or series of transactions; especially : the excess of the selling price of goods over their cost
Stop trying to redefine words to suit your own retarded notions and agendas.
This is the accepted definition as defined by Marx. Whatever you think of him, he sure as hell has more legitimacy (and education and respect) than you do. And as one of the foremost critics of Capitalism, in a thread discussing a movement upset with the current outcome of our capitalist system, his definitions are highly relevant.
Profit within the bounds of capitalism is specifically that value kept by the owner of the company in excess to manufacturing cost and labor. This is basic 101 Economics, but I'm pretty sure you haven't taken that class, so your patronizing tone pretty much backfires.
And the reason that sentence is so good I quoted it, is because it shows exactly the problem with capitalism. Because this is how the system works (someone owning the company keeping all the excess value) they benefit from actively shitting up the system for everyone else. You are trying to imply one can run a capitalist company without succombing to greed. This is impossible. It is the number one goal of capitalism, to increase the return of profits, and as we can clearly see, companies will do it through lessening take home pay of employees, destroying benefits, union busting AND bribing the government to lesson worker protections, increase corporate handouts, make the taxation system more regressive, etc etc etc.
The fact you are arguing with any of this when we have countless real world examples of it playing out *exactly* how Greevar and I are explaining is simply mind boggling.
We also don't know what kind of impact that will have on the planet. Everyone thought burning oil was cleaner than coal. Co2 and water? Are you kidding me people breath out Co2 and trees use it, we're doing the planet a favor! Besides no more dirty coal smog! Sweet!
100yrs later, oh that's why...
The Geothermal idea, is the same kind of thinking that lead to people using trees, natural gas, coal and oil. "You just gotta tap into it, there's a lot of it so we'll call it limitless. Lets not ask questions like side effects because that would cost money and raise more questions. We'll just deal with the problems as they pop up instead of avoid them, like Fracking!".
We have a chance to invent truly sustainable, renewable, solutions instead of just turning our current rape and reap method on a new pocket of resources.
Honestly you won't get rid of 90% of the worlds problems until we work out a reliable renewable source of energy. You won't get to stability if your only method of generating energy is to bleed an "unlimited resource" dry. A lot of the hurt we're in today is because of resource scarcity and our fight to keep those resources flowing in our favor.
The scary thing is that even if the US and EU could solve their energy problems places like China and India are blazing ahead and building their future on the same old unsustainable practices. China is eating coal at an incredible rate and its only growing more and more hungry.
The fact that you guys are both making up imaginary arguments so you can rant is even more mind boggling(well not really, its just what you do), you both just want soap boxes to rant, and will pull out all your best strawmen to do it. You're giving me an imaginary viewpoint so you can argue against it.
Profit, as a word, has a clearly defined meaning from Webster's, generally regarded as the authority on word definitions. This is all I have said.
I also attempted to sum up John's opinion, as Greevar completely missed his point.
Certainly, this is grounds for you to be a total cunt. Makes sense.
Within capitalism, Publishers start out with all the capital. They put up some money they already have (or use credit only they have access to), fund our studios long enough for the games to be made, then they get all the profit. Right now there is basically zero method for one of us as a 3d artist to ever move to the position of gaining that huge profit pool, so why the fuck are we in favor of this system? It doesn't even have the mythical promise of "one day that will be me!" that most careers subscribe to.
In a socialist game studio, each of us who has worked on a shipped title or two could already retire, as even a shitty game's sales would have been enough to give all the actual artists/programmers/designers at least a 6 figure salary for a couple years. Instead, we're the ones that slave away, hone our craft on our own dime beforehand, get near zero input on what the game is going to be about or the themes, and are the first to get let go if the studio underperforms.
Is the wealth worship and propaganda so ingrained that despite the fact none of us will ever move from labor into the oligarchy that we will literally ignore or outright demonize the system that would benefit us most directly?
Again, more wild rampant assumption and baseless accusations. Who are you to say i'm not Marxist? What have I ever said that would allow you to form such conclusions? A few sentences on an internet forum and you've got all of my philosophical ideals figured out? Really? Get over yourself.
You're making hysterical conclusions to serve your agenda and allow you a platform to rant. Nothing more.
This is the functional equivalent of one of our mom's coming into a conversation on 3d art and saying "normal maps are a made up word, what are you crazy people saying?". Of course if you have a beginners understanding of economics you're going to be confused when trying to jump into a grown ups conversation.
In a socialist model, workers keep the "profit". In a capitalist model, the owner keeps the profit. This is not a complex idea (in fact it's been defined since the 1800s) and this difference is exactly what most OWS protesters are upset about, even if they can't say it clearly. They are the working class, doing the work, but they are reaping none of the rewards. A select incestuous group of pseudo oligarchs who control all money/power/social mobility have been gaining all increases in wealth since the 60s and 70s.
You can belittle the definitions all you want, but you're the one that is confused and posting in ignorance. The reason we have the corruption we do now, is exactly because a small group of people gets to arbitrarily keep all the excess value, giving them the power to destroy the quality of life of the rest of the population through direct and indirect methods.
What's your opinion of why things are so fucked? just some random confluence of factors that just happens to have affected nearly every country on earth at the same time?
Here is your original post trying to imply we are making up terms. This post of yours, it is bullshit.
We are talking about Profit (capital P) within the realm of Capitalism. Since we don't have any socialist companies within the west at a ratio that even matters (I can think of only 2 that employ more than 50 people) Profit in terms of craftsmen, co-ops, etc doesn't really matter does it? So your simplified websters quote is a ridiculous semantic argument that does nothing but give you an opportunity to try to belittle people.
Profit within CAPITALISM (which is what we've been talking about for the last 5 pages before your nanny bullshit came in) Is excess value (above labor and material costs) kept by the owners of capital (ie the business owners). This is a very basic, very widely accepted (at least among educated people) definition of profit.
I figured it'd be clear within the scope of the conversation, but obviously not. You're welcome for clearing up your obvious confusion.
RAAAAA
Greed is not exclusive to capitalism
Abuse of workforce is not exclusive to capitalism
You can't define profit in relation to capitalism along these terms, if none of these factors are actually exclusive to capitalism. In context or out of context, its the same made up bullshit. These are social problems, not problems exclusive to capitalism. You swap capitalism for socialism and you still have the same problems, to a lesser/different extent, sure. But still the same problems.
For the record I am heavily in favor of socialism.
Hallelujah brother! Go tell it one the mountain!
Sorry, had to do it, but well said nevertheless. If we can't find a better way to do it, I'd love to be part of a group that makes games and gets to keep 100% of the value of their work instead of handing it over to a publisher that sucks up all the value for themselves.
I see the tide of business in the industry shifting to a much more egalitarian style mostly out of passion and necessity, but because it also works. I've worked for one of them for the past 5 years. We're all in this together from the bottom to the top and everyone shares in the pain when it rolls around. We had a rough spot a while back and got through it by cutting at the top instead of the bottom. Those at the top understand what those on the bottom do to make the company successful.
It works, I've had a stable job and above average pay for 5 years. I can walk into our CEO or COO's office and lay down a handful of improvements or ideas and if they are good they will go into effect. There isn't a bureaucracy that separates everyone even though our corporate structure isn't much different than other companies. What is different is how people use that system and interact with it. That is what is so important to figure out in interviews.
Normally you get what you chase the hardest. If that's money then exploitation of labor normally is the easiest way to make that happen. If you're goal is to sustain your business while fulfilling your passion then you will more than likely hit a wider range of goals and will probably produce a better product than the guy working his people to death.
"Profit is not exclusive to capitalism"
Explain please.
"Greed is not exclusive to capitalism"
Perhaps not, but it is power and power corrupts, which leads people to be greedy.
"Abuse of workforce is not exclusive to capitalism"
Example?
Profit is quite simply the excess money gained beyond the costs of labor, materials, and infrastructure needed to produce goods. Only capitalists follow this pattern that I know of. Please show us an example of non-capitalist business that takes in money beyond the resource value of the goods it produces.
"Abuse of workforce is not exclusive to capitalism"
Example?
China? Russia? There are far greater examples of abuse in socialism than there are "Utopian Socialism" examples.
Power is also not exclusive to capitalism, that is just silly and nonsensical.
greed is human nature, everyone has it to a certain extent. it is definitely not exclusive to capitalism.
what ever system you want to adapt, whether anarcho syndicalism or not it doesn't really matter.
there will always be people who exploit a perfectly good system and find ways to do horrible things.
sollution is to prosecute those who are responsible, so that people dont think they can get away with it.
Yeah, I agree 100%. Trying to pin it all on the specific monetary system we use is just scapegoating.
Who said power was exclusive to capitalism? Not me.
China is a non-capitalist system? I beg to differ. Most of the corporations produce their goods there under a capitalist system. It's specifically because they are so amenable to capitalist ideals.
Is that not a contrary point, are you agreeing with me but still throwing in a "however"?
Right, so we agree that greed and corruption are not exclusive in any way to capitalism then?
Are you implying that every system ever has exactly the same exploitable weaknesses as every other?
Capitalism *explicitly* as part of the founding principle, appeals to greed. Whether it's part of human nature or not (and that's debatable itself and far too easy of an "answer"), There exist systems that make exploiting others harder than other systems. Capitalism makes it extremely easy for greed (regardless of whether it is present through nature or nurture) to destroy the system for everyone else by putting the power in the hands of the few, and insulating them from any and all consequences.
Also the fact that you imply China's abuse of the workforce is separate from capitalism is both laughably ignorant and just hilarious on it's face. While the top level central planning is done at the government level, the companies that have been destroying the environment and worker's rights the most are purely arms of a capitalist model. (and ironically most of them do work for US companies, imagine that!)
Which is fairly recent from my understanding, and conditions have actually improved since China went to a more capitalistic system as far as production goes.
No, simply that the driving force, greed, curroption, desire to abuse a system/workers/people is not a trait exlusive to any form of government, monetray system etc, these are social/education/moral problems
This is something that really bothers me, the vitriolic way some people go about expressing their opinions makes it so hard to listen to them, even if you fundamentally agree with what they are saying.
I agree with most things Ben says, but I somehow always manage to argue with him. Its certainly an interesting phenomenon. Even Greevar makes a lot of reasonable, well though out points, though it pains me to admit it.
Here I'll even outline for you a relevant example for us as videogame artists.
Company A is capitalist, 3 people own the deed to the company and have the highest salaries and most stock shares, but have a team of 47 more to do code/art/design. While profitable they gain the majority of all profit, and stand the most to gain by keeping the other 47 people's salaries low, or the medical plan not great, or the hours long, as long as they are just fractionally less abusive as the other game studios the employees have to eat it up. At some point they are not competent enough to make a profit with a 50+ person company the way the managed through either luck or abilities when they started it with 10 people. They need money to keep going. They sell to a publisher, getting fat checks, continue to mismanage the company, company goes belly up, all actual workers are laid off with little or no severance pay, the end.
Company B is socialist. Their profit is shared equally based on tenure and hours put in. When the game sell well, they all make out like bandits, and if they sell too poorly for too long, and not enough people leave to make it profitable with what little income they have, and are all forced to find new jobs, well they at least gained the income equally while it was there, and they all face the consequences of the company ceasing to exist equally.
At no point in time will the owners of Company A be held accountable for their actions. At worst they will lose their company after accumulating huge chunks of the profit for however many years it was profitable, while all the actual workers got some minor fraction of the pay they did. Equally those 3 owners of company A are most likely to go and get a job making another inflated salary at a publisher or new startup than any of the people from Company B.
In both models there could of course be jerks making things worse for the rest of the employees, but within the capitalist model it not only makes it easier, through lack of accountability, but also encourages it, since the owners benefit immediately by keeping a larger slice of the pie. Even if you argue that theoretically every person has the same desire to fuck over his peers, capitalism makes it far easier to accomplish.
I agree. I think the "scrap the current system for a new different system" argument falls apart because all systems have weaknesses and a new system would just bring new problems along with most of the old ones you already tamed years ago.
It's probably more stable and sustainable to reform the current system whatever that is, so things are fair and equal, or toss it out and get ready to slay all the dragons you already dealt with? Not to mention there are more people who would rather fix the broken car rather than try and build a new one out of twigs and berries.
Its the systems put in place to deal with natural imbalances as well as new ones that pop up in the process that will create stability and prosperity. That is where America has lost its way, it fired its engineers and mechanics and stripped out all the safe guards so it could go even faster. Which you can do in any system at any time.
Whatever the system, you need a way to reform and modernize it while putting in power the people who thoughtfully consider the ramifications of those actions instead of doing whats popular or what will net them more money or win their party the most seats.
I see the "scrap the current system" a lot with people who instead of learning how things are done and possibly improve them, they want to reinvent everything from scratch and even if it comes out worse, is less friendly and takes 10x longer, its their system and they love it, they often don't weather criticism of their system well tend to view it as a personal attack rather than an opportunity to improve. Ultimately these people isolate themselves and earn the badge of "does not play well with others". They start to become pretty narcissistic, egotistical and even a bit megalomaniac as things progress.
You get a select few people who try to force their crazy system on the rest of the population that is perfectly fine with the current system, tinkering and making changes as needed.
Is see the toss it all out crowd as doing more harm than good. I don't think communism or socialism have failed, but that people scrapped the current system in favor of those new system and the growing pains of switching systems where too great to bare so they said fuck it again and started over. Instead of reforming those new systems they scrapped them for something else and now those same growing pains are manifesting again. The systems themselves aren't bad, they would work but governments are a work in progress not a strict set of guidelines that someone sketched out on a cocktail napkin one weekend that can never be altered. That's a dipshit cult mentality and leads to nothing but problems.
There are great examples of socialist countries that haven't said fuck it and started over. Is socialism the answer? Or is stability and determination to fix what breaks the answer?
Can Capitalism in a democracy or republic work? That depends if you want to toss it out and start over.
It's a bit like Dreamers thread about finishing projects, if all you ever do is say fuck it and start over, you get really good at saying fuck it and never get to the valuable parts where you really need to practice and hone your craft.
Incorporate some of those idea? DEFINITELY! Say fuck it and screw yourself all over again?
Probably not advisable.
This is incorrect unless you are looking at the conditions of China's 1%. Yes there are now business men with gorgeous trophy wives who buy purebred panda-chihuahuas and decorate them with diamond dog-collars. But the corollary is that there is a huge swath of people with no access to education or medical care, can no longer sustenance farm because the rivers are fluorescent pink from chemical runoff, and work for near slave level wages.
Historically there is a lot of factors going for the quality of life in China based on their moves from various forms of economic models, but it was in no way purely communist before or now, and the changes toward capitalism in recent years have benefited a small minority while making the important measures of quality of life (access to school, housing, food and medical care) for the majority of Chinese actively worse.
No, I do not agree with that, and that's why I continue arguing.
Where does society get it's values? You're implying all societies have equal values, and they are all gotten through genetics rather than any impact from propaganda.
Why is it that Americans (and really the rest of the world tends to believe it about America) think that the US is the "land of opportunity" when it has the lowest social mobility in the developed world? that's certainly not coming from people's genes. It's a carefully cultivated message that has been pushed for decades to imply the system as is, works great, when we can now see tons of obvious signs we can no longer ignore that America is not (and never was) a meritocracy. This is just one example of many I could bring up, where a broken system that benefits the few, allows them to convince everyone else to culturally, as a society, believe this system is great.
These are the kinds of end results that come from a system like capitalism. A few people accumulate all the money and power, and can use that money and power to propagate the system to continue benefiting them and their offspring.
You are trying to imply that this kind of stuff "just happened" and I disagree, adamantly.
You're just pulling out your stat sheet to try and make me feel bad. I haven't made contrary statements to any of your tangential points.
In lighter news, the seventh continent is now "occupied"
/derail
Do you agree or disagree that Capitalism is the problem we are currently facing? If you disagree, and believe Capitalism can be somehow made to "play fair", why are all the various models of capitalism failing for the working class across the world at the same time?
Personally, I'm not, but...
As opposed to what?
And what is greed? Of course you're not the one that's greedy, the other guy always is.
I've heard it before that if only businesses could be run as a co-op, or an industry would be fully unionized, the greed coming in from the top would go away. Would it really? Sure, it sounds nice to say that the community will hold the business. But someone will be in charge, wouldn't they? And those people are immune from greed?
Judging by the way unions behave, I would say they're definitely not immune. We've seen instances of unions turning violent, assaulting those who would break their strike, and physically preventing a factory from operating. They're not immune from these things.
I wonder, if the US was fully unionized, capitalism-free, when the automobile came about, do you believe the horse&carriage unions would have just peacefully stepped aside? Or would they have been "greedy" and tried to maintain the industry?
For you to present it as if capitalism invented greed, is more than a bit disingenuous. I don't think that you actually believe that, but you are arguing that type of strawman.
Hey, nice completely loaded question though.
Because of course, your original jump in calling us retarded for using widely accepted terms was the way to start a respectful conversation.
Thanks for the clarification though.
I personally know an awful lot of game devs that have made a large amount of money from selling their games (most of them have not retired, because they like making games). If you look around you will see there are a lot of options out there. If you don't like the existing options, make a new one. That is what capitalism is good for.
The games Poop worked on were mostly big hits, but what about people working on games that flop or get canceled? Do you want a share of the losses too?
Profit should be defined as utility gained in excess of costs. Economists usually talk about profit using money as a proxy since it is hard to measure utility, but money exists as a tool to create utility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_maximization_problem
What I love about the Marxist world-view is that they think if someone benefits it's at the expense of someone else. That there is this finite pie of stuff, and if one person gets more, other people have to get less. The reality is that business people and scientists create utility and wealth out of thin air by making some thing that was previously useless into something desirable. For example, oil was just this annoying black shit until people came up with the gasoline engine, and then all of the sudden it was a valuable commodity.
here is a simple example of how real utility is created: you have a guy with two hammers, and a guy with a bucket of nails. Dude with two hammers is like "fuck, two hammers and no nails!" and the guy with the bucket is like "I can't do anything with these nails!" Then they meet, and they trade one hammer for half the nails -- now both of them can hammer shit together when neither could before. The utility gained came out of this air! Both people are better off, and nobody is worse off!
As apposed to socialist models. You are assuming that if society was magically entirely socialist, that we would all have our same goals, ingrained ideals, and values that we have now. Who's not to say that if it were the case, that everyone's dream wouldn't be to find a way to work on what they are passionate on, for enough money/units/whatever for a comfortable life, and desires contributing to a functional society? Ideal? sure, but you're also someone putting forward an economic model that relies on idealism (and I would say an ideal far further from reality than mine, as libertarian-ism relies on everyone's equal greed canceling out everyone else's)
You are also taking violence caused by companies exploiting their workers, and heaping it on the heads of the unions. There wouldn't need to be strikes or any kind of violence if the companies weren't abusing the employees (and let's face it, when unions were first formed, the companies were *literally* abusing employees). It's like complaining that a person uses force on someone who tries to kill them, the onus is on the original aggressor.
If the US was capitalist free, do I think it would exist forever as a utopia with no failings ever arising? Certainly not. In fact I'm sure at some point I'm sure it would become corrupted in some new way, but I think it both less likely, and periods of stability would last longer than these wild swings we've seen under capitalism.
And nowhere did I say capitalism invented greed. I said that capitalism allows a small chunk of people to accumulate enough wealth to convince everyone else that their greed is not only justified, but doesn't even exist and should even be idolized.
This is false. Both GUN and Bloodrayne II were flops from the standpoint of the publisher. However GUN was the highest selling original IP the year it was released, selling around 2.5 million units stateside and about that much more abroad. BR II I believe sold around 140k units stateside (not totally sure). Both games were "losses" from the publisher side, but if the profits from them had been going to those of us on staff, we would be extremely wealthy. And yes, if we were all owning it equally, I *do* think we should share the failings equally since then it's actually our fault. Instead of what we have today, where we the workers have almost no say in what the game should be about, who it should be marketed to and how, and yet we are the ones who are first to be fired and last to get raises, while the people who do actually have that responsibility are the last to get fired and first to get raises. So your idea of accountability is completely misplaces from reality, as we have the opposite of accountability now. If shitty managers/publishers/bankers/leaders had to pay for their failures, I'd be far less concerned, but we have all seen that those in power are never held accountable.
And my implication that I could retire doesn't mean I would. I'd love to be able to keep making (good, fun) games till I'm in a retirement home.
Also your implication that we aren't in a zero sum game is proven false. If it were true, why has the quality of life for the working class in the US stagnated or gone down since the 70s? This is fact, born out by all statistics. So if a small percentage keeping all the profits doesn't mean the other 99% aren't getting the shaft in your mind, why has it played out exactly the reverse in reality?
More than half of the games I've ever worked on haven't seen the light of day. I've been working in the games industry for 8+ years. Profit-sharing based economics would not be a win-win situation for the majority of projects in the game industry, as many fail or struggle to make back the initial investment.
Sure, this would have an interesting effect on the quality of games overall if everyone did this(more "attachment" to the project for each worker) and could potentially result in better projects/success rate. However, this is just wild speculation.
It would be interesting if profits were shared in addition to salary, but I feel finding initial investors would be extremely difficult for anything but budget/mobile projects.
Economies are failing because banks are sitting on a mountain of bad debt and trying not to let anyone know. A lot of that bad debt came from lending money to normal people who were buying giant stupid fucking SUVs and huge houses they didn't need and couldn't afford. A lot of people at every level made bad investments because they unrealistically projected that things were going to keep up the way they had been. The other HUGE reason our economy is struggling is because we have been at war for 10 years. War is the most economically damaging activity that exists. If the banks are not bought up, cleaned out and resold, then they will probably be able to clear all that bad debt in another 5-8 years on their own.
I personally don't know why people can't find jobs. My wife and I have people offering us jobs unsolicited sometimes.
I'm honestly not trying to be an ass here, but can you explain further how these projects were a "loss" from the publisher side but still made a profit?
Do you mean that they simply sold less than projected?
This is 100% completely false. Small consumer loans plaid an insignificant portion of the current crisis AND they were pushed far more from the sides of the banks knowing they could make a profit off of it even if the consumers failed to pay it back by playing juggle-the-debt than it was from "dumb over consuming consumers" "deceiving" banks.
(How that would ever even work, a bunch of uneducated in finances Americans duping these captain of industry bankers, I'll never know.)
And as far as spending on war, sure that's played a big part of debt, but the reason we do, is directly because of capitalism. Defense contractors make a shitload off the tax payers, and they turn around and spend a small portion lobbying the government or pushing media stories that create more war, needing more pew-pew planes, lining their pockets, wash-rinse-repeat.
75% of Americans are now against the war in Vietnam, 60% against the war in Iraq, 55% against Afghanistan, despite all 3 wars being in favor at the times they started. This same group of Americans are *for* a war with Iran around 65%. Is it any wonder with all the islamaphobia, Iran-fear mongering, etc, that is an exact repeat of what led the US into war with Iraq/Afghanistan/Vietnam? A war with Iran would make the defense industry a lot of money, and they already have a lot of money, so they can use it to ensure they get even more.
You are consistently using points that actively disprove your argument, or are just outright incorrect.
You think that capitalism is a problem, but replacing it isn't the answer? How do you reconcile that? If something is broken beyond repair, you replace it. End of story. Another monetary system will likely not work because monetary systems do not function in equilibrium with the nature of our planet, but a resource based economy would. Human beings have to get out of this "every man for himself" paradigm and move to a "what's good for all is good for me" philosophy. We all suffer from an ego-centrism affliction that will serve to end us someday.
@Ninjas
Your relying on a system that created and doesn't care one iota for our woes to solve our problems for us is nothing short of delusional. And if you don't understand why people can't find jobs, you're obviously out touch with the struggles of the impoverished blue-collar people of this country.
For BRII I believe 120k just wasn't enough to make up development cost plus advertisements. I think it would have needed around 500k to have made a decent profit to make a III for sure right after.
For GUN, the claim was that someone in Activision predicted a sales of 4-6 million units. (and to be sure, this person was definitely making many multiples of my salary) and they supposedly spent advertising money to match this expected sales number. The sales were not enough to make enough profit over what development+marketing cost. Now whether that meant the profit was only 1 million, nothing, or 10 million, whatever "not enough" was, I have no idea. I just know that with a staff of 175 people at NS, even with a healthy advertising budget, 2.2 million US sales would have been more than enough to pay all of us way more than we got.
Also I guess it was confusing about what I said with losses and profits. I mean that if all money from the sales of the games, minus the packaging cost, shipping and retail store cut, were divied up between those of us who did actual development, we would have had a lot of "profit". However the way it was divided up, not enough raw money was left over for the publisher to consider it "enough profit". Lots of money was absorbed by inflated publisher salaries that contributed very little (or even active harm) during the process, a much larger amount needed to be made to make Activision or Majesco stock go up for it to be considered worthwhile (verses what you or I would need to see in our bank account to be happy). Etc etc. I just mean in the metric of "should we make a sequal with this same team" both games were "losses" even if they were bigger name games with big budgets. If the same exact game+team+sales numbers were to have happened within a socialist model, each of us would have seen a lot of money. (and been able to keep working on sequels should we have so chosen)