I disagree that capitalism is about the investment over labor. I view capitalism as a justification for growth at every expense. For much of history the most efficient way to grow was conquest. While that is still partially the case, now we’ve moved towards cannibalism capitalism in my opinion. Now capitalist seek their short term growth by stealing from future profits instead of stealing from other people (by and large)
Which is all to say capitalism will push people towards the minimum they can subsist on, while the capitalist suck up everything else. A three+ adult household is less efficient (from a cold logic perspective. I fundamentally disagree with that logic), so capitalist countries will enact the laws and customs that favor the fewest number of adults not participating in the workforce
In summary: I think we disagree about who the chicken is and who the egg is. I think capitalism is the chicken to societal norm’s egg
So, your line from “capitalism” to “nuclear family bias” starts at “line must always go up” and passes through a “more adults is less efficient” principle. Ok, I can understand that picture.
I think you’re wrong about what "capitalism* means, but not in a way that matters for this discussion.
What I’m confused about is who is asserting that a multi-adult household is less efficient. You aren’t, and I’m not, but that sounds like a economic paper trying to smuggle in “christian family values” in the way that creationism tries to smuggle religion into other fields of science.
I honestly just don’t get that argument, as multi-adult households are the norm in a lot of nations and a big reason for the shift towards multi-generational households in western societies is the increased wealth gap, where the rich support their extended families and entourages while the poor make do with less. Stable households with more than three adults are literally more efficient by any measure anyone cares to name.
My opinion is that the bias against them comes in large part from America’s “middle class” myth, (with working men each having their own fiefdoms), and partly from a belief that they are either inherently less stable or cause instability elsewhere.
First and foremost I want to say discussions like this are why I really like engaging on Lemmy over Reddit. This is an interesting discussion with good points and isn’t inflammatory
I have a math degree and tend to approach everything from that perspective. By sheer cold logic: if 2 adults are capable of raising a child that is a functional laborer, then a household that achieves that same objective with 3 adults is less efficient because each of these adults spends time with the child instead of 2 adults spending time and one fully working
Personally I think this is a failure of capitalism. Studies show happy people working fewer hours are more efficient. Why is it that every capitalist country continues to overload their workers and remove benefits that make them happy?
I think capitalists live in magical fantasy economic land and don’t think of laborers as people, but numbers on a sheet. I think too many people have gone through business school (as I have) and have a simplistic view of economics leading them to think capitalism is a meritocracy. It’s not, if anything capitalism is most closely related to feudalism. The momentum of money caries ideas much farther than the merit of those ideas
I fundamentally disagree that capitalism is an unemotional descriptive science. I think behavioral economics as a subset of sociology does a much better job at explaining the human approach to money, even if it isn’t perfect
I disagree that capitalism is about the investment over labor. I view capitalism as a justification for growth at every expense. For much of history the most efficient way to grow was conquest. While that is still partially the case, now we’ve moved towards cannibalism capitalism in my opinion. Now capitalist seek their short term growth by stealing from future profits instead of stealing from other people (by and large)
Which is all to say capitalism will push people towards the minimum they can subsist on, while the capitalist suck up everything else. A three+ adult household is less efficient (from a cold logic perspective. I fundamentally disagree with that logic), so capitalist countries will enact the laws and customs that favor the fewest number of adults not participating in the workforce
In summary: I think we disagree about who the chicken is and who the egg is. I think capitalism is the chicken to societal norm’s egg
Thank you for your response.
So, your line from “capitalism” to “nuclear family bias” starts at “line must always go up” and passes through a “more adults is less efficient” principle. Ok, I can understand that picture.
I think you’re wrong about what "capitalism* means, but not in a way that matters for this discussion.
What I’m confused about is who is asserting that a multi-adult household is less efficient. You aren’t, and I’m not, but that sounds like a economic paper trying to smuggle in “christian family values” in the way that creationism tries to smuggle religion into other fields of science.
I honestly just don’t get that argument, as multi-adult households are the norm in a lot of nations and a big reason for the shift towards multi-generational households in western societies is the increased wealth gap, where the rich support their extended families and entourages while the poor make do with less. Stable households with more than three adults are literally more efficient by any measure anyone cares to name.
My opinion is that the bias against them comes in large part from America’s “middle class” myth, (with working men each having their own fiefdoms), and partly from a belief that they are either inherently less stable or cause instability elsewhere.
First and foremost I want to say discussions like this are why I really like engaging on Lemmy over Reddit. This is an interesting discussion with good points and isn’t inflammatory
I have a math degree and tend to approach everything from that perspective. By sheer cold logic: if 2 adults are capable of raising a child that is a functional laborer, then a household that achieves that same objective with 3 adults is less efficient because each of these adults spends time with the child instead of 2 adults spending time and one fully working
Personally I think this is a failure of capitalism. Studies show happy people working fewer hours are more efficient. Why is it that every capitalist country continues to overload their workers and remove benefits that make them happy?
I think capitalists live in magical fantasy economic land and don’t think of laborers as people, but numbers on a sheet. I think too many people have gone through business school (as I have) and have a simplistic view of economics leading them to think capitalism is a meritocracy. It’s not, if anything capitalism is most closely related to feudalism. The momentum of money caries ideas much farther than the merit of those ideas
I fundamentally disagree that capitalism is an unemotional descriptive science. I think behavioral economics as a subset of sociology does a much better job at explaining the human approach to money, even if it isn’t perfect