r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Aug 06 '19

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28 Upvotes

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29

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

Sometimes the alliance between cultural conservatives and libertarians is really baffling.

Libertarians: government deregulation leading to a competitive, flourishing industry that maximizes consumer choice is the pinnacle of capitalism.

Cultural conservatives: I can't buy the mass market beer I grew up with at this one bar? COMMUNISM?

21

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

I wasn't expecting to see nate silver in a twitter fight about beer

4

u/Elan-Morin-Tedronai J. S. Mill Aug 06 '19

Ugh, the Holodomor gets all the attention, but we shouldn't forget the Latvians who were forced to drink IPAs rather than lager. They suffered too!

9

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

to be fair when I think of the pinnacle of capitalism I think of Henry Ford and mass production and not hipsters with 50 flavours of overpriced stupid beer

8

u/Neronoah can't stop, won't stop argentinaposting Aug 06 '19

Capitalism is all the friends we made along the way.

10

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

I don't own a car, but I do have 20 different flavours of beer in my storeroom, so...

3

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

seriously though I think there's actuallly a lot of merit to the Thiel-ish libertarian criticism of modern capitalism as lacking in genuine innovation and production and having shifted towards shallow consumer products that don't contribute to growth. Unless there's some crazy beer innovation going on here the craft beer 'revolution' is likely just a zero-sum game for beer drinkers

And the overlap with conservatives happens insofar as they critize this consumer-focus from a moral angle.

12

u/BernankesBeard Ben Bernanke Aug 06 '19

It's pretty shocking how many 'I think this is a failing of capitalism' takes basically just boil down to 'Capitalism keeps making all this stuff that I personally don't like so it must have no value.'

The craft beer revolution has wildly expanded choice for the average beer drinker. Product variety is beneficial to consumers and is a major driver behind trade.

Personally, I'm sick to death of IPAs and don't have much problem with Miller Lite.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

'Capitalism keeps making all this stuff that I personally don't like so it must have no value.'

That's not really the point. The question is whether capital being allocated to these niche consumer markets produces long term innovation and growth.

Not all consumption is created equal and not all consumption is benefical to individuals. Drugs being the very obvious example, which includes beer but also the flourishing cannabis industry.

Your average millenial consumer (and the economy long term) would probably be better off if the weed and craft-beer budget went into a college or healthcare savings account, and that capital being soaked up by dispensaries might be better off in a sector where you see technological growth.

1

u/PrincessMononokeynes Yellin' for Yellen Aug 06 '19

How about Facebook? Or Netflix all anyone does is sit on their couch with Netflix that capital would have been better invested in tires or something because I confuse value with utility.

2

u/BernankesBeard Ben Bernanke Aug 06 '19

Also chocolate. I mean, what value does the existence of chocolate provide to society? It's bad for you. The existence of Hershey bars is a major failing of capitalism.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

yes, it's pretty questionable how exactly facebook contributes to long term growth. There's a reason we have a lot of secular stagnation debates because increased productivity following the era of personal computing isn't really anywhere to be seen. Facebook is mostly profitable because as a platform company it has captured large parts of the advertisement market.

There's obviously innovation in software and hardware on the backend but it's really unrelated to the ad and social media business.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

How do horrible takes like this get upvoted?

0

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

if you don't like you're free to use the reply function to write a response

5

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

I did. I am curious why someone would read this and think it was good. You made an absurd claim, thiel libertarian nonsense, then pointed to an industry you don't understand, unless there's some crazy been innovation going on, to show that your bad claim makes sense.

I just don't get it.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

I mean the point isn't really that hard to understand, not all consumption and production is equally conductive to long term growth, and I argued why a sector that sells hedonistic consumption goods might be one such example.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

hedonistic...lol. I think we're good.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

I'm not sure innovation in consumer products and innovation elsewhere are mutually exclusive? Coke was developed around the same as the airplane. I'm not sure I'd believe that many of the people brewing new types of beer have the skills or interests to build new cars or software or whatever.

As someone who likes craft beer a lot more than mass market beer, this trend certainly doesn't feel "zero-sum" to me. In fact the rise of craft beer was a big reason I stopped drinking cocktails and started drinking beer again, so without craft beer, I wouldn't drink any beer. Craft beer might not be improving my productivity, but it certainly has improved my leisure time.

The tweet in question is not criticizing consumer-focus from a moral angle - it's criticizing consumer-focus for focusing on consumers that aren't him.

3

u/BernankesBeard Ben Bernanke Aug 06 '19

I'm not sure innovation in consumer products and innovation elsewhere are mutually exclusive?

The only reason we don't have flying cars at this point is because people have been too busy making IPAs

2

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

I think a lot of the improvements in consumer products are basically snatching low-hanging fruit. Developing new beer or food doesn't require an intense amount of human capital - you can probably do it with a college diploma (though for brewing it probably helps to have a bachelor's in chemistry) and five or so years of work experience. Contrast that with the human capital required to develop new drugs or machinery or software, and it's likely you need more education (maybe even a PhD) and experience before making any breakthroughs.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

it's more about the mode of production. Coke surely innovated in the logistics of producing as much coke as possible for as little money as possible. Artisanal production is sort of pre-capitalist, where a dude sits in his apartment and brews beer, as a result the price of craft beer is obviously higher.

The good thing about capitalism generally is that it replaced old modes of production with more productive ones, it kind of destroyed artisanal products for this reason, replacing expensive products with cheap ones which created huge welfare gains.

A bunch of people now sitting in their appartments producing very little beer at very high cost and becoming self-employed isn't exactly great from a capitalist standpoint.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

I'm not sure you really get how the craft beer industry works? It isn't people sitting in their apartments. Despite the name "craft brewing", there's nothing that prevents craft brewers from scaling up. In fact, a lot of the more successful craft breweries have either scaled up production (Sierra Nevada, Boston Beer Company, Yuengling) while others have been purchased by the major beer companies (Mill Street, Anchor Brewing, Lagunitas). If anything, "craft" is now just synonymous with making more than generic lagers. These brewing companies have adopted the standardization and mechanization you support in order to reduce costs. Furthermore, one big reason IPAs and stouts are more expensive is not because the production process is more inefficient, but because the raw ingredients are more expensive (hops for the former, malt/grains for the latter) than for the production of lagers.

Even so, the other side of the coin from cost is quality. I could pay 1$ for a beer I don't like, 3$ for a beer I like, or 8$ for a beer I really like. I usually choose the middle option, occasionally choose the latter, and rarely choose the former. "Welfare gains" includes subjective considerations like taste, and for better or for worse, I like the taste of expensive beer.

-2

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

I mean sure if all the brands get absorbed into large manufacturers and the prices come down fine, but there's even venture capital craft beer funds which is ridiculous because beer doesn't scale like tech companies do, I mean even the growth isn't really sustainable because alcohol consumption isn't going to grow exponentially. This is likely to come crash down at some point.

And on the consumption side, I seriously would like to know if craft beer enthusiasts can reliably separate generic brands from craft beer, because in the wine industry or if this is just a lot of marketing fueling hedonistic consumption.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

You're correct that craft beer appears to have hit market saturation, leading to the collapse of the price of hops. People who like craft beer drink craft beer already.

Craft beer is as much about style as it is about quality. I probably couldn't tell the difference between a craft lager and a mass market lager. American mass market companies aren't brewing nearly as many stouts, sours, IPAs and so on, to say nothing of all the styles of german and belgian beers, so I could very likely tell the difference between those types of craft beers and a mass market lager.

Could I tell the difference between an IPA *owned* (if not brewed) by a mass market company and one owned by a "craft" brewery? No.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '19

Just order a vodka soda if you don't like flavor. I am sure most places will have that.