Sam Vaknin on Capitalism

[Lindsay]

Im probably late on the Sam Vaknin band wagon. I’m curious, do you think he really  had the highest IQ? Are his perspectives legit? I think I have Complex PTSD and narcissism so I been watching his psychology stuff. But I was surprised he talks about finances and government . What do you guys think of his insights? I don’t want to be mislead cuz I like what he says, it seems logical in my mind. But I understand I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. 
 

thanks in advance for your take if you decide to share. 

[commie]

I had never heard of the dude so I gave him a try out of curiosity. I watched the first video until I couldn't countenance the bullshit anymore, which didn't take long.

It doesn't matter whether what someone says is logical when it's based on lies and/or delusions. Likewise it doesn't matter how sharp you are or what anyone's IQ is. Unless you're doing something abstract like math, start with the facts of the matter and not with big words. Looking up facts isn't some great intellectual feat... far from it! The most important skill that requires nowadays is being able to tell facts from abstractions (looking up "the market" would yield nothing useful for instance).

Why are you interested about this? Tell us and someone might be able to suggest stuff to look up. I don't suppose you actually are into medieval economic institutions!

More broadly, I would be very skeptical of whatever this fast-talker says about psychology. And I recommend you be careful about labelling yourself (narcissism and so forth).

Edited February 1, 2021 by commie

[Leo Gura]

Anyone who relies on claims of high IQ isn't very smart

Don't judge a person's IQ, look at the merit of their ideas stripped of any humanness.

[Hardkill]

I remember Sam Vaknin 12 years when he was in a documentary on Egomania. In that doc, he claimed that he is a self-aware narcissist who was diagnosed as having the most extreme level of NPD. He said that he acknowledged his own malignant narcissism after having financially hitting rock bottom many times in his life. According to a wikipedia page on him, "In Israel in 1995 he was found guilty on three counts of securities fraud along with two other men, Nissim Avioz and Dov Landau. He was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment and fined 50,000 shekels (about $14,000), while the company was fined 100,000 shekels.[5][6] In 1996, as a condition of parole, he agreed to a mental health evaluation, which noted various personality disorders."  

Edited February 1, 2021 by Hardkill

[Megan Alecia]

@Lindsay his narcissism videos are good. Not something to stick with because unless you have a strong kind of outlook in life its very easy to be terrified by them. But if you consider yourself to be a self realized (?) person they're harmless. 

[Preety_India]

His narcissism videos are perfect for my everyday learning. 

 

[Girzo]

7 hours ago, commie said:

I had never heard of the dude so I gave him a try out of curiosity. I watched the first video until I couldn't countenance the bullshit anymore, which didn't take long.

Any meritoric contrarguments against his ideas from the first video?

I have thought it's good, curious what you are actually diaagreeing with him as it is not obvious.

[Lindsay]

11 hours ago, commie said:

I had never heard of the dude so I gave him a try out of curiosity. I watched the first video until I couldn't countenance the bullshit anymore, which didn't take 

Lmao thanks. I guess I just like to brainwash myself every once in a while . Na.

I enjoy perspectives and ideas. Thanks to everyone for commenting.

10 hours ago, Hardkill said:

I remember Sam Vaknin 12 years when he was in a documentary on Egomania. In that doc, he claimed that he is a self-aware narcissist who was diagnosed as having the most extreme level of NPD. He said that he acknowledged his own malignant narcissism after having financially hitting rock bottom many times in his life. According to a wikipedia page on him, "In Israel in 1995 he was found guilty on three counts of securities fraud along with two other men, Nissim Avioz and Dov Landau. He was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment and fined 50,000 shekels (about $14,000), while the company was fined 100,000 shekels.[5][6] In 1996, as a condition of parole, he agreed to a mental health evaluation, which noted various personality disorders."  

Whoa! I had no idea, thanks for doing the research for me .

[commie]

3 hours ago, Girzo said:

curious what you are actually diaagreeing with him as it is not obvious.

It's not obvious to me what is there to disagree about.

Like I said, I don't suppose you're actually into medieval economic institutions. Likewise I don't suppose you're into Adam Smith. So my best guess is that the issue at hand is magic. To put it an awkwardly explicit way, I suppose I disagree that magical thinking is a productive approach to the workings of societies.

[Lindsay]

@commie I have a conservative client who listens to right wing audiobooks, gets his news from Fox, CBN Pat Robertson 700 club, and EWTTN live Catholic. I was an atheist democrat most of my life. After working there I’m more of a independent socialist agnostic. 
 

What I agree with Sam Vaknin was how civilizations osalate back and forth between Feudalism and Capitalism. Under Feudal systems the peasants become reliant on their family and religion for survival. Capitalism promotes narcissism and selfishness and concentrates wealth at the top until it collapses back into Feudalism from wage stagnation, social immobility to move up in class in the social hierarchy. Capitalism is more secular and it emphasizes individuality over family. Work more hours and have less time for family and religion. Richard Wolff is another economics Professor on YouTube who makes these claims as well.  This is why it was logical in my brain. This is why I love Spiral Dynamics. I like to think of human social/wealth structures/ hierarchies. I’m family oriented and society is like the macro level family. Capitalism just goes against family values. In Feudalism, family and religion is needed to cope with the harsh reality of not being able to improve your life and move up the hierarchy. We are headed into a Neo Feudalism. I recommend this book. And I thought this little pic was cute ?. 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Lindsay

[commie]

3 minutes ago, Lindsay said:

Under Feudal systems the peasants become reliant on their family and religion for survival. Capitalism promotes narcissism and selfishness and concentrates wealth at the top until it collapses back into Feudalism from wage stagnation, social immobility to move up in class in the social hierarchy.

Value judgements and meaningless words aside, this is factually all wrong. I like learning about lots of useless facts. So when people who obviously don't know they're talking about abuse my beloved facts to construct magical narratives, it makes me sad. Whatever narrative these people want to tell, they should do it as is proper: with constellations, gods, heroes and such.

[Lindsay]

@commie

38 minutes ago, commie said:

Value judgements and meaningless words aside, this is factually all wrong. I like learning about lots of useless facts. So when people who obviously don't know they're talking about abuse my beloved facts to construct magical narratives, it makes me sad. Whatever narrative these people want to tell, they should do it as is proper: with constellations, gods, heroes and such.

What? It went over my head. What are your beliefs? Capitalism is a fucked up system without healthy doses of socialism. Healthy (heavy) taxation on the billionaire class and those tax dollars should be put into social programs that help build communities and lift people out of poverty.  I believe it would do us all justice to try and rebuild communities in our metropolitan areas. The churches used to do that but religion is in steady decline. Family oriented values are in steady decline. Grandma gets put into expensive nursing homes because families don’t have time to take care of their parents. In China, it was a cultural norm to support your aging parents until death and in return the aging parents would raise their grandchildren while they go to work but that is also declining in China as the new generations are born into orange society in urban areas. Capitalism is an exploitive system. Laborers do the work and the investors and managers get to send jobs over seas or automize and eliminate jobs. I like Richard Wolffs ideas of democratizing the CEO positions in large companies. Or co-ops. Where the unions or workers get to vote on leaders who will keep the laborers best interest in mind. Capitalism as it is right now does not care about humans. It emphasizes profit, growth,  and efficiency over people. It’s sad cuz Jeff bezos could not run his corporation alone. All the workers, even the people at the bottom helped him get to where he’s at. The least he can do is invest in his employees. Capitalism rewards exploitation. And they have all the wealth to control the “free market” and they have the wealth to buy politicians and Lobbyists. The rich class has been chipping away at the unions, regulations, and taxation on the rich for decades. The boomer generation has generational trauma or ptsd from communism and socialist ideas which is bullshit. That’s the key way to maintain a healthy capitalist social hierarchy. Please explain to me your point of view. Capitalism is on life support. I work 60 hours a week at $17.50 an hour as a CNA. My rent is $1400 a month for a two bedroom apartment 750 sq feet in Chicago Illinois. The public schools I went to were low quality. I was privileged to have experienced highschool in rural Wisconsin and it was like a whole other country. Culture shock for sure. Class sizes were 12 kids compared to 32 students in Chicago. The small school had brand new computer rooms and gyms. The quality of education was extremely different. It’s very complex.  

[Nahm]

Capitalism is the belief in democracy. 

Or is democracy the belief in capitalism? 

Depends if you’re abiding by, or creating, laws. 

[commie]

1 hour ago, Lindsay said:

Please explain to me your point of view.

My idea of an idle chat about such matters is 2-5 hours so that is a big ask, and I will of course have to decline. But I can try to give you some hints: I'm obviously a communist. And I've been one for long enough not to be impressed by people's fanciful notions regarding the demise of whatever it is they call capitalism. I went to a public highschool that was very good indeed by US standards, same as the children of regular workers or the children of their bosses (the ones that got good enough grades in middle school, that is). My income is about half your rent even though the cost of living is higher over here. As you might have guessed, the flipside is that I work nowhere near 60 hours. Instead I've done stuff like poring over medieval documents to track some rich peoples' purchases of dog food in order to argue against prejudices about the way money was and wasn't used.

Edited February 1, 2021 by commie

[Lindsay]

2 hours ago, Nahm said:

Capitalism is the belief in democracy. 

Or is democracy the belief in capitalism? 

Depends if you’re abiding by, or creating, laws. 

Is it possible to have libertarian communism and authoritarian capitalism? 
 

right now Americans don’t have a real democracy. Our democracy is an illusion. We need term limits on government positions, rank choice voting, and we should get money out of politics. We need to regulate all the safety nets they deregulated starting with the Nixon era. I learned that money buys the media and the politicians. Money deregulated environmental regulations, business regulations, it’s all above my expertise. American politicians are completely out of touch with the bottom of the hierarchy. And vice versa. How is this a free market? Look at the wealth concentration! lol ? it’s laughable. Like Africa. China is gonna develope Africa the way we developed China and we have the audacity to demonize China for using American playbook. 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Lindsay

[Nahm]

29 minutes ago, Lindsay said:

Is it possible to have libertarian communism and authoritarian capitalism? 

Is it possible for man to create a system which man is not above? 

[Lindsay]

1 hour ago, Nahm said:

Is it possible for man to create a system which man is not above? 

You answered my question with another question! 
 

What about the people above the current system decide to manipulate  the oligarch manipulators? I just want to get everyone on the same page. I’m learning as much as I can. I’m doing a lot of cramming and thinking the last 3 years. The wealth inequality disgusts me. It upsets me that I paid more taxes than Donald Trump’s lousy $750 in 2016. 
 

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Lindsay

[commie]

29 minutes ago, Lindsay said:

I just want to get everyone on the same page.

Not gonna happen. For instance if you want to become a socialist, you'll have to give up on populism at some point. The propaganda you've been subjected to most of your life makes this stuff about fairness and the "middle class" feel right but your 60 hour week and your rent tells me a fairer distribution of wealth would not serve your interests.

Edited February 1, 2021 by commie

[Lindsay]

1 hour ago, commie said:

Not gonna happen. For instance if you want to become a socialist, you'll have to give up on populism at some point. The propaganda you've been subjected to most of your life makes this stuff about fairness and the "middle class" feel right but your 60 hour week and your rent tells me a fairer distribution of wealth would not serve your interests.

Also I didn’t say I had a goal to be a socialist. I just agree we need socialism to balance out the inequality. 
 

And I have two jobs. One job is 17.50. The other job pays only $13. I take care of 3 dependents. At the end of each month I’m only able to save like $200. And I’m considered well off in my neighborhood. What is populism? Why don’t you just tell me what you think instead of picking a part what I have to say? 
 

I don’t want to have to work two jobs just to get by. I had a shit childhood and I don’t want my son to live in poverty so I work a lot. But then I barely have time for my family cuz I’m always exhausted after 16 hour shifts making beds and wiping wrinkled ass. Although I love my job, I just want more time with my family. I only get to come home to eat and sleep. The rest of my life is work .

Edited February 1, 2021 by Lindsay

[commie]

9 minutes ago, Lindsay said:

What is populism? Why don’t you just tell me what you think instead of picking a part what I have to say?

Populism is a political tradition associated with the petty bourgeoisie and infamous for its magical thinking and incipient antisemitism. The image you posted featuring central bankers and monarchs at the top of a triangle is typical of the more politically correct type of populism. Maybe you don't notice it as a distinct brand of politics because it's everywhere in your culture.

I'm not sure what you want me to tell you other than what I've already told you. I commend you for managing to save $200 a month (I'm eating into my savings most of the time, which is OK since I don't have kids) but you're obviously never going to become rich that way and are evidently more in need of things like public services, shorter hours and a lower rent. Having more wealth than most is a handy privilege indeed but obviously that can only work for a minority. As you pointed out, stuff is complicated but generally speaking, the more wealth is spread around, the more unaffordable and risky home ownership in (sub)urban areas is likely to become for instance.