Thoughts on capitalism
Commy
Posts: 4,984
At its core capitalism is motivated by 2 of what i would call, and it may not be entirely true, but assuredly 2 of mankinds lesser traits....at its core a capitalist society is motivated by greed and selfishness. Its an environment of competition and struggle, you are pitted against your brother and neighbor, in a life long battle to 'get ahead'. Profit is the bottom line, not necessarily what's best for mankind....and i'm tempted to say rarely does it produce what's best for mankind, but assuredly sometimes....when profit is the goal...and whether or not that's true or not is irrelevant, because what is true profit is always the bottom line, and i can think of a few examples where the end result has not only been detrimental to humanity, and human beings in general, but because its profitable to do so, its actually beneficial for them to sell us the very things that make us sick, in order we pay more to treat those illnesses.
Take the fast food industry. They are feeding us shit.... literally and cheaply. The problem is the shit they feed us is making us ill. Diabetes, heart attacks, high blood pressure, low blood pressure....they have created two symbiotic industries, working together to drain our pocket books. First they feed us food that barely qualifies as sustenance....which makes us ill. We are then forced to pay for our treatment....amputated limbs and hospital bills and pills and treatment. Entire industries spawned-as the innovators and inventors are motivated-not by a desire to produce and come up with ideas that benefit society and individuals,,,but by a desire to make a profit, they are motivated by greed and selfishness. Its in their best interest to get us sick...because profit is the bottom line, not whats best for people.
Take the fast food industry. They are feeding us shit.... literally and cheaply. The problem is the shit they feed us is making us ill. Diabetes, heart attacks, high blood pressure, low blood pressure....they have created two symbiotic industries, working together to drain our pocket books. First they feed us food that barely qualifies as sustenance....which makes us ill. We are then forced to pay for our treatment....amputated limbs and hospital bills and pills and treatment. Entire industries spawned-as the innovators and inventors are motivated-not by a desire to produce and come up with ideas that benefit society and individuals,,,but by a desire to make a profit, they are motivated by greed and selfishness. Its in their best interest to get us sick...because profit is the bottom line, not whats best for people.
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take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
the idea is good. that you can make something of yourself from nothing....but what percentage of the immigrants would you say are pretty much working minimum wage or slightly better jobs? 90%? i bet its around there
Whatever the % may be I really don't know ,but Im sure it's a alot more then what they were making before they came here.
It's all short term, though (not to mention there's nothing "free" about it anymore). Capitalism works on existing and prospective new resources. When our resources are all tapped out (and we're pretty close to consuming most of our global resources right now), where exactly will capitalism lead us then? Capitalism doesn't work on what's already consumed. It's a dog eat dog world in capitalism country and when there's no dogs left to eat, capitalism will eventually die.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009 ... eps-rising
Executive pay keeps rising, Guardian survey finds
Executives at Britain's top companies saw their basic salaries leap 10% last year, despite the onset of the worst global recession in decades, in which their companies lost almost a third of their value amid a record decline in the FTSE.
'The Guardian's annual survey of boardroom pay reveals that the full- and part-time directors of the FTSE 100, the premier league of British business, shared between them more than £1bn.
Bonus payouts were lower, but the basic salary hikes were more than three times the 3.1% average pay rise for ordinary workers in the private sector. The big rise in directors' basic pay – more than double the rate of inflation last year – came as many of their companies were imposing pay freezes on staff and starting huge redundancy programmes to slash costs...'
we are not "pretty close to consuming our global resources". what a ridiculous statement. and even if we were, capitalism would lead us towards innovation for new resources.
http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Eco ... imit_.html
where is your proof? I didnt think so. fact is we are not in danger of anything. does the world have limit reources? of course. but there is plenty. trees grow and new fossil fuels are constantly being discovered.
but like I said, and the article confirms, capitalism will be the catalyst to drive innovation towards new energy and conservation resources.
Problems in Paradise
“If the levels of consumption that...the most affluent people enjoy today were replicated across even half of the roughly 9 billion people projected to be on the planet in 2050, the impact on our water supply, air quality, forests, climate, biological diversity, and human health would be severe.”
Today’s human economies are designed with little attention to the residuals of production and consumption. Among the most visible unintended byproducts of the current economic system are environmental problems like air and water pollution and landscape degradation. Nearly all the world’s ecosystems are shrinking to make way for humans and their homes, farms, malls, and factories. WWF’s Living Planet Index, which measures the health of forests, oceans, freshwater, and other natural systems, shows a 35 percent decline in Earth’s ecological health since 1970.
Environmental Impacts of Consumption
Calculations show that the planet has available 1.9 hectares of biologically productive land per person to supply resources and absorb wastes—yet the average person on Earth already uses 2.3 hectares worth. These “ecological footprints” range from the 9.7 hectares claimed by the average American to the 0.47 hectares used by the average Mozambican.
http://www.globalissues.org/issue/235/c ... onsumerism
Consumption and Consumerism
Using latest figures available, in 2005, the wealthiest 20% of the world accounted for 76.6% of total private consumption. The poorest fifth just 1.5%...
“Over” population is usually blamed as the major cause of environmental degradation, but the above statistics strongly suggests otherwise.
BUt, it is also a system that allows great freedom for people to decide their own futures.
Do some people have an advantage over others in this pursuit? Yes. Do to the success of their parents, grandparents, etc...but that is going to be the same in any system. Also Yes, due to some injustices of the past and present (discrimination).
While Commy believes that the 2 core values of capitalism are negative, I disagree. I believe the 2 core values of capitalism are Hard-work/passion/drive/what ever you want to call it and a need to better one's life and the lives of others. Capitalism breeds inovation which give people the products they want/need in order to improve their lives.
Sure, there is greed in captialism...because people are free to choose how they act and some people are greedy. Capitalism is really only ugly when it stops involving making people's lives better through innovation and starts being the need to make more $ off of only $, not innovation.
One other problem with captialism is individuals that are not hard-working or have been dealt a disadvantage of some kind do fall behind. So there is a need to help take care of those people...and who do you take care of and to what level?
So, do I hate capitalism? I think that maybe I do, as what most people today claim to be CAPITALISM is really economic FASCISM by its classic definition, which is the merger of corporation and state. This is what we have here in America. I am no fan of socialism, but I might even favor pure socialism (again, the classic definition) over this system if such a thing could be realisitcally achieved.
However, where "capitalism" features a dog-eat-dog principle as its base, so much so that competition can be eliminated via strong arm of the government, a much better system would be to NEVER let this interference by the government to happen.
One example I like to use is OIL. OIL is highly subsidized with our tax dollars by the government, making prices at the pump appear to be falsely LOW. What if we didn't give all of this money to oil companies, and saw that gas was in fact actually costing us DOUBLE what we pay at the pump? Would there not be a greater incentive for everyone to switch to cleaner fuels of comparable pricing? After all, the environmental incentive, coupled with the cost incentive would provide REAL competition to gasoline. This is how innovation is born, as well as true competition which benefits the consumer. How much less carbon would we be burning? Would a bill like "Cap and Trade" even be written let alone voted on and approved?
Competition is healthy when it is made FAIR, by not allowing ANY company to gain any additional favors from the supreme authority that is our federal government. When companies are not allowed to legislate each other out of business, everybody wins. Prices are kept low, tax dollars are spent where they should be, and the fruits of our labor go a lot farther.
I advocate an Austrian Free Market Economy. And will probably stop defending capitalism as no one seems to equate capitalism system with the system I like.
Downside is that it sucks for anything we dont like to consider goods or where profit really does not make sense or doesnt exist.
The sensible solution to capitalism's ills is tempering it with social programmes and limited state intervention. That is also the way it is done in any country with any success. (Yes, also the US grudgingly)
I rather see capitalism as a tool that is useful now. We may discard it when better tools are available. In the meantime, we need to make do with what we have, and just ensure that the downsides are properly tempered by legislation and democracy.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
I hear people say, 'Government needs to get out of the way and let market forces decide'. That means, as an example, when a hurricane is coming towards the Florida panhandle, Wal-Mart can charge 25 bucks for gallon jugs of water and 15 bucks for a 4 pack of D-Cell batteries. Home Depot can charge 100 bucks for 3/4 inch plywood. Market is driving the demand... why not accept these prices?
Then, there is the downside to Government intervention into commerce. You do not want to regulate companies out of business.
But, there needs to be a right mixture of both... Free Enterprise with Government enforced regulations. If companies and businesses possessed a conscience, regulation would not be required. But, just look at our financial institutions that conducted business without regulations... look at air safety when regulation was dropped and airlines used forklifts to swap engines to cut costs. Businesses cannot be trusted... EVEN SMALL BUSINESSES. If it weren't against the law to price gouge during a disaster, small business would charge whatever desperate people are willing to pay.
Hail, Hail!!!
Is there a correlation?
good question. and if not Capitalism, what economic system is better?
I don't get your hurricane example, Cosmo. Once WalMart decides to rape people for water, people will find water elsewhere for cheaper if there is competition, and there will be (unless of course, WalMart is the only place standing?). Even so, when has the government ever stepped in and price-controlled places like WalMart in a disaster? Not to mention in times of crisis, this country has always ante'd up and taken care of our fellow man. Let's see WalMart compete $25 / gallon versus donated water from other parts of the country. If anything, I bet WalMart would donate tons of supplies themselves to either help, or for some feel-good photo op for them.
I can never understand why so many people think that with more freedom with our own money automatically comes absolute ruthlessness and lack of compassion from everyone in the country, and businesses gone wild gouging people the hardest they can. If people have more of their own money to share, you don't think they actually would? I think we are a very charitable country considering how hard we get banged in taxes as it currently stands.
Most "regulations" are written by the people that are going to be regulated by them-- banks, oil companies, pharma, agri-business, whoever. They always appear to have some language that appears to reign them all in, but it never goes that way. They legislate special rules for themselves (such as fractional reserves for banks), and they legislate their competition out of business.
True free markets probably would prevent any company from becoming so sizeable to actually be able to buy Congress on a whim. I don't think you'd have companies like WalMart be as wildly successful in an enviroment where the government simply stayed out of business as much as possible-- even with Free Trade to China and whoever else currently (but won't always) work for next to nothing. Small businesses get nailed the hardest by taxes. Take a bunch of those away by limiting government spending through true free markets, and Billy Bob's Quality Chair Shop might be able to make QUALITY chairs that last a lifetime for double the cost of a chair made overseas from WalMart that will last 2 years. Which chair would you buy?
If it is necessary to impose regulations (protecting people from dangerous conditions, fraud, theft, etc...), it should be at state and local levels.
I haven't gotten through the whole thread but I'd like to interject here before I forget it. What you are describing is more corporatism than capitalism. The reason small business will eventually be taken over by bigger businesses is because of all the interferences that big businesses get passed through the government through lobbying which in turn allows those big businesses to be able to buyout these smaller businesses.
Example: if capitalism was at work here, any and all banks would be allowed to fail no matter how big they are. if capitalism was at work here, chances are those huge banks would've never been able to become as big as they are because competition would've been allowed to compete unhindered. Unfortunately, corporatism prevails and everyone mislables it as capitalism and thus capitalism earns a bad reputation for being the reason why our system has been so corrupt.
EDIT: Vinny Goomba says things I wanted to say much better than my post here
i agree.
and what happens when the poor pop gets poorer and grows larger? a Dem President is elected.
Wal-Mart was an example. After the 1994 Northridge quake, several convenience stores upped the price of batteries and drinking water in the surrounding areas. This prompted the Los Angeles City and Country to pass a law stating the such practices are illegal. Los Angeles City and County ARE Governments and have set regulations on business.
And in the case of an oncoming hurricane... it does not only apply to Wal-Marts and Home Depots. Would it be okay for roadside services to jack up the prices on gasoline and food along the evacuation route? The market is dictating the price, right? If you need gas, you need gas... shouldn't the market set the price?
Another example of true capitalism is ticket scalping. The market drives up the price for tickets. TicketMaster should be able to set ticket prices at a start price and as demand for these tickets increase, so should the prices. When the ticket sales slow, they can beging to lower the prices so more people will buy. When they do... just raise the prices or lower them until all tickets are sold.
Letting businesses self-regulate is asking for trouble. The example... again, financial institutions. Their self regulation almost drove us off a cliff. what was the driving factor? Greed. They were making a mint in wages and bonuses.
Hail, Hail!!!
FREE MARKET: That condition of society in which all economic transactions result from voluntary choice without coercion.
THE STATE: That institution which interferes with the Free Market through the direct exercise of coercion or the granting of privileges (backed by coercion).
TAX: That form of coercion or interference with the Free Market in which the State collects tribute (the tax), allowing it to hire armed forces to practice coercion in defense of privilege, and also to engage in such wars, adventures, experiments, "reforms", etc., as it pleases, not at its own cost, but at the cost of "its" subjects.
PRIVILEGE: From the Latin privi, private, and lege, law. An advantage granted by the State and protected by its powers of coercion. A law for private benefit.
USURY: That form of privilege or interference with the Free Market in which one State-supported group monopolizes the coinage and thereby takes tribute (interest), direct or indirect, on all or most economic transactions.
LANDLORDISM: That form of privilege or interference with the Free Market in which one State-supported group "owns" the land and thereby takes tribute (rent) from those who live, work, or produce on the land.
TARRIFF: That form of privilege or interference with the Free Market in which commodities produced outside the State are not allowed to compete equally with those produced inside the State.
CAPITALISM: That organization of society, incorporating elements of tax, usury, landlordism, and tariff, which thus denies the Free Market while pretending to exemplify it.
CONSERVATISM: That school of capitalist philosophy which claims allegiance to the Free Market while actually supporting usury, landlordism, tariff, and sometimes taxation.
LIBERALISM: That school of capitalist philosophy which attempts to correct the injustices of capitalism by adding new laws to the existing laws. Each time conservatives pass a law creating privilege, liberals pass another law modifying privilege, leading conservatives to pass a more subtle law recreating privilege, etc., until "everything not forbidden is compulsory" and "everything not compulsory is forbidden".
SOCIALISM: The attempted abolition of all privilege by restoring power entirely to the coercive agent behind privilege, the State, thereby converting capitalist oligarchy into Statist monopoly. Whitewashing a wall by painting it black.
ANARCHISM: That organization of society in which the Free Market operates freely, without taxes, usury, landlordism, tariffs, or other forms of coercion or privilege. "Right" anarchists predict that in the Free Market people would voluntarily choose to compete more often than to cooperate; "left" anarchists predict that in the Free Market people would voluntarily choose to cooperate more often than to compete.
Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy (New York: Dell, 1975) pp. 622-23
I think what he is saying is that capitalism bastardizes the free market, and then claims to actually be the free market. I agree with this.
The source of those definitions should have Drifting hopping into the batmobile to reply to this thread, as it came from "The Illuminatus! Trilogy"
No I wouldn't say that. The relationship is this; capitalists pretend to advocate for the free market when they couldn't want anything less. A truly free market would completely undermine their privileges in our capitalist society because their "forms of coercion" (listed above) would not exist in a free market - the state, tax, usury, landlordism, etc.
But hey, this "anarchist rhetoric" probably won't be given much value in this forum...
Oooooh! who is this Drifting fella? It is rare to meet another RAW fan! :geek:
i didn't write that. lol
and thanks for elaborating.