Capitalism... Is it good or bad?

I spoke to a high level college teacher tonight that had a bit of influence on me tonight.

Any thoughts are welcome.

Which is why everyone should be very suspicious when a huge industry wants to be "de-regulated".

A well regulated capitalism, being necessary to the productivity of a free state, the right of the people to engage in free enterprise shall not be infringed.

Woodrow Wilson the "Monopoly Buster" didn't destroy or even stiffel capitalism one bit. In fact, with regulation comes a more level playing field that promotes competition.

Republicans don't have a clue how to sustain a capitalist democracy. They are economically clueless when it comes to a sustained economy that promotes healthy growth and profit along with benefitting the worker/consumer.

For the US to be truly capitalist I am convinced we would all have to be self employed and that isn't going to happen.

tooth and nail. It is a system that requires constant diligence and perpetuates a struggle whose outcome is never certain.

It works except when it doesn't and then it is so awful that it becomes almost impossible to recover from the damage.

For example, regulated capitalism (which has existed only since the 60's or so) worked sporadically, briefly flowering under Clinton. Still, under Clinton, the concentration of wealth was getting rapidly out of whack, environmental responsibility was sacrificed to the development of wealth, massive plagues and famine grew largely out of control and major environmental problems like global warming and deforestation got worse.

I do not believe capitalism, even regulated (unless someone knows a way to neutralize the greed), is sustainable.

Just ask the airlines.

Other industries that should be highly regulated: Energy, particularly electricity, medicine and drugs, insurance, and finance.

Business functions best under the rule of law.

Like all tools it may be used incorrectly. Like most incorrectly used tools it can be quite dangerous at such times. It is neither good nor evil - just useful when used correctly by those playing the game of Economics.

NGU.

I'm nothing if not an astute observer of the obvious. :)

"Carson Daly"

But seriously, I'm on your side. It's a useful economic system generally for humanity.

a bad system but the best we have so far

the old joke was "comrade, what is the difference between communism and capitalism?" "Under capitalism, man exploits man; under communism it is the other way around."

when it becomes a religion.

you have trouble. A lot of trouble.

:popcorn:
But I guess we need some new hot threads to keep us warm as we wait!
(What happened to the Wee-Wee Wars? ("Circs" vs. "Skins"?))

that has generally improved the lives of people over time. Unregulated, it is its own authoritarian regime.

but now I'm not quite so sure.

Where, let's say, 75% of GDP is slit between all workers on an even basis. Then "capitalism" works out where the other 25% GDP goes. Then, everyone can afford the basic necessities in life.

The only reason I could see where pure socialism might not be best is when someone really has no worthwhile skill in the area which they would choose to pursue.

FEUDALISM
You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

SOCIALISM
You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn
with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The
government gives you a glass of milk.

FASCISM
You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of
them, and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM
You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker
about who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need". Meanwhile,
no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of
starvation.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government
takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it
on the black market.

PERESTROIKA
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes
all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the
"free" market.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the
milk.

BUREAUCRACY
You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed
them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then
it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the
drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the
missing cows.

CAPITALISM
You don't have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows,
because you don't have any cows to put up as collateral.

PURE ANARCHY
You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your
neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

ANARCHO-CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica
lessons.

OLYMPICS-ISM
You have two cows, one American, one Chinese. With the help of trilling
violins and state of the art montage photography, John Tesh narrates the
moving tale of how the American cow overcame the agony of growing up in
a suburb with (gasp) divorced parents, then mentions in passing that the
Chinese cow was beaten every day by a tyrannical farmer and watched its
parents butchered before its eyes. The American cow wins the
competition, severely spraining an udder in a gritty performance, and
gets a multi-million dollar contract to endorse Wheaties. The Chinese
cow is led out of the arena and shot by Chinese government officials,
though no one ever hears about it. McDonald's buys the meat and serves
it hot and fast at its Beijing restaurant.

AMERICAN CORPORATE CAPITALISM
Both cows are bloated with toxic steroids. They are set out to graze on
privatized public parks, release massive amounts of flatulence that
destroys the ozone layer, die from excess ultraviolet light, and are
processed into meat-like products that look great as a result of clever
and unprincipled marketing strategies. When you mortgage your
artificially devalued farm at high interest rates in order to buy meat,
you consume the poisoned material and develop terminal illnesses because
there is no health care plan to treat you. The corporate management uses
your purchase price to acquire THEIR meat from cows raised "naturally"
on tree-free rain forest land outside of the country where labor and
resources are cheap.

BRITISH REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
Both cows are mad

I've seen different versions of that, but that is by far the funniest yet.

:rofl:

Neo conservatism -You bought your cow on credit because you could’t afford one after making house payments, car payments, buying gas to get to work, plus pay for the cow. You lose your job because of corporate outsourcing to foreign countries (where workers there get paid 1/5 of what you made). Interest rates go up and your cow gets repossessed. The cow is shipped to a central processing plant where the de-unionized plant is allowed to hire immigrant workers at ¼ the price the union workers made to process the meat. The de-regulated plant dumps all the waste from the cows and chemicals from the plant into the local river; poisoning the water that the immigrant children drink. The worker falls into a meat grinder due to increased demands on productivity. The children of the workers family get no compensation and the children along with your son who has dropped out of school all go work for less then what used to be called minimum wage at MacDonald’s. In the meantime you refinance your house for 110% of its value at 26% APR, get a credit card, take it to MacDonald’s (where your son was recently shot at from a disgruntled ex-employee) buy a burger made from the same central processing plant where the meat was mixed in with some e coli and the remains of the worker. You get sick but have lost your health insurance and can’t afford to go to the doctor. Your wife leaves with the banker that refinanced your house. You stop worrying about cows.

Recessions has terrible toll on the population!!!

stinks like day old fish.

Capitalism: The theory that some people work and others collect the proceeds of their labor. It also provides financial aid for politicians who toe the company line.

For the bosses, it's a bonanza, for the workers, "There'll be pie in the sky when you die."

It used to be about finding happiness, not about accumulating huge amounts of capital that is far beyond what one would need to live comfortably. I wonder if this is the reason Jefferson wrote "...and the pursuit of happiness" instead of the more direct "...and the pursuit of property."

Just curious...

with a teacher that I will not likely ever be giving me a grade.
Look for a follow up by me in a few days that has a broad explanation of what I'm still trying to figure out.

I'll pm ya my post.

Sorry I've been missing the discussion - I've had to actually be working for a while!

Sure its caused hardship. But remember, the modern free market is just a couple of centuries old. Even Adam Smith had misgivings about charging interest. And that is a crucial part of capitalism (time/value of money) Real capitalism is a 19th century creation. Social democratic/free market capitalism is a 20th century creation. Heck, we are still modifying it....

So what is the alternative? feudalism? The barter system?

Socialist/Marxist systems may work well in theory, but, I fear, do not account for human nature - people always look for an advantage (e.g. keeping up with the Jones)

Even if you can breed/educate that trait out of people, its hardly productive. Witness Russia: 7 decades of Communism and their birthrate has collapsed - they won't even procreate without instructions from the state.

Socialism is not Communism. They have some of the same ideals, but they are not one in the same.

At its best, it unleashes creativity and energy and dynamism that other economic models have found it near-impossible to replicate. Human beings are the product of evolution; we are naturally competitive and capitalism capitalises on the best aspect of that.

It also exemplifies the worst - leaving behind the weak, the sick, the poor. Hundreds of millions of people live and die in want because of capitalism. Entire nations and continents are held back by capitalism. Because Darwinist evolution has a fundamental difference to capitalism - while traits and abilities may be passed on through the genes, money and assets are not. So even the lazy may inherit capital. And the easiest way to make a million dollars is to have a million in the first place.

So capital breeds capital, and poverty breeds poverty. Without social programmes, that gap widens to a chasm.

Capitalism is great. It must be harnessed for the people.

Real capitalism is about free markets. Giving Halliburton contract after contract without competing bids nor oversight by cost accountants and auditors to keep costs in line isn't free market in practice. It's wholesale graft at the expense of the taxpayer and working class citizen.

That free-market capitalism is bad, because it increases poverty and makes the country more business dependent. On the other hand, regulated Capitalism isn't free-market capitalism. I don't think anymore can devise a better idea than capitalism, its a good way to get people working hard to create services and products which all seems to loop around in a productive cycle. But giving businesses no limits in my opinion is not a great idea, checks and balances make it so that every system is fair and balanced.

are needed to protect the workers. Other than that the idea of a free market is that businesses need to compete with each other to provide the best products and services available.

This was the problem with communism, where the state ran everything, there was no incentive to make a good product or deliver an efficient service. Everyone had a job and you didn't have to do it that well because you wouldn't get fired. So factories and infrastructure deteriorated. Towards the end of the Soviet union things got so bad that crops were left rotting in the fields because there wasn't a decent transport system to get them to market. Everything had gone to seed.

I am a social Democrat myself. I think we need a good social welfare infrastructure so that businesses can operate on a free market basis of competing with each other. Of course each business needs regulations to make sure they make a safe product, don't mess up the environment and pay their workers decent wages in a safe work environment.

What you see in most markets is oligopolistic competition between several firms, not true competition. See Microsoft. See the oil industry. See the car industry. See defense contracting and arms manufacturing. See the corporate news media.

Free market really operates more at a small business level, like restaurants competing with each other in a city. Of course, I remember when huge corporations weren't like they are now. I can remember when McDonalds was a single outlet.

I liked it better too when banks could only operate in one state, and Savings and Loans did a different service than the regular bank.

They use their control of vital resources to maximize their own benefit at the expense of everyone else. There is nothing in there about markets being necessarily free or competitive. To be a capitalist only requires you to be in a state of ownership or control over the means of production. That's it.

There is nothing there that says the capitalist has to treat his workers fairly or charge a fair price at the check-out line. Historically, he only charges a fair price and treats his workers like human beings when the workers organized and resisted and when there was heavy competition. That is the only reason that keeps him from exploiting his ownership at your expense.

However, he can get around that and make his enterprise more profitable by colluding with fellow competitors to manipulate prices (or defeat/absorb competitors) and engage in union-busting tactics such as rallying the government to pass "right to work" laws. History shows us that in an environment free from any regulatory obstacles, oligopolies if not monopolies emerge on their own. This is a natural course of events in capitalism. The end result in any market is a monopoly provided there is no outside interference such as state intervention.

don't consider that capitalism. I consider it feudalism. A disappearing Middle Class is a sign of this. In a true capitalistic society, there should be a very large middle or merchant class, a very small aristocracy and a working class that can still enjoy a quality of life because they get decent wages. Well, that is how it was imagined by my teachers back in the fifties. Truthfully, I don't know the answer.

Feudalism is simply a far more crude, brutal form of capitalism you enjoy today. Paying rent to your landlord is, in fact, traceable back to the relationship between the serf/peasant and the feudal lord. That is how the landlord makes a profit. The landlord owned your land, and he owned the oven you used to bake your food. You worked the land provided you pay for the privilege of working the land that he owns. It usually meant you gave up the crops you worked to grow, and you were allowed to keep what was needed to live. You did not have a right to that food, only the privilege your lord afforded you.

As a result, you become dependent upon your lord's grace to survive. It makes it easier for him to control you, and you are less likely to bite the hand that feeds you. A similar relationship can be seen in many companies. I've talked to enough workers to know many are afraid to join worker unions because the company gives them a paycheck each week, and they don't want to lose their jobs because they have a family to care for and bills to pay. As a result, they are glad to receive any paycheck at all because they think that's a guarantee over fighting and possibly losing their jobs and everything else. (See Wal-Mart's anti-union stance and its title as world's largest retailer)

I've said it elsewhere, and I'll say it here again: The ultimate expression of ownership and control over the means of production is human slavery. In such a relationship, you literally are the means of production he controls. It is the absolute lowest common denominator. To be a serf in medieval Europe simply meant you were one rung higher than the slave.

Modern capitalism, feudalism, and slavery all share a very defining characteristic: Being in a state of ownership and control. That, in my mind, is the core of capitalism.

It's just that wholesale Communism doesn't work either. So I guess we have to figure out what works best in each system and apply them to the future.

no more mass systems. But then I'm probably crazy, so...

Someone always wins then you have to clear the board and start over.

Look at it like this...

you start a business say for..lemons.Being in it for profit you compete and beat out the competition.You strive to be the biggest most well known in the publics face supplier of lemons.You strive to make your brand the first choice of lemon buyers.You have to maximize profits and minimize production costs to stay competitive and once you go"public" you have to please shareholders who invest in your lemons and make your business worth their money and give them returns.


Capitalism is bad because it makes profit,getting the most you can any way that works,the goal. And the lure of profit and prestige can corrupt people into cutting corners and cooking books.As more rich capitalists lobby government they seek to make the playing field favor themselves,they make small businesses that would become competitors harder to start up and succeed,they suppress worker's human rights because cheaper labor means more profit and"success"

Capitalism loses track of the human element when over ambitious over optimistic CEO look at their bottom lines they cut out alot of the costs that cannot be added up in dollars,like stress,missed time with family or the cost to the public environment.The focus of business is always on itself and selling it. The human element and human suffering among the workers or the public is ignored,denied or only permitted among the wealthiest..
So yes capitalism is wrong,because it elevates the wrong kind of people.Capitalism creates monopolies and croneyism when success becomes too successful. Capitalism gives people who are the most dysfunctional morally ,too much power to run our lives and control how people get lemons or live their lives all in the name of profit over people and the earth itself.
It's because too many humans have not figured out how to stop abusers of power and wealth and don't know how to recognize or how to stop bullies and sociopaths ,especially if they appear"normal" "professional"and congenial and charismatic,when they are conning.These sick personalities love capitalism because of it's exploitation of power and elitist games so sociopaths seek out positions of authority and set up empires for themselves by manipulating emotions and power dynamics/relationships in any group of people they enter.

It's not Capitalism that is bad so per se if capitalists were capable of admitting capitalism is flawed by it's own success drives...It is the people benefiting the most from it who make capitalism bad. They don't have any character.

It wasn't delivered by the gods. The notion of "pure" capitalism makes about as much sense as a pure language or pure race or purely benevolent leader, which is to say, no sense at all. It is a human social construct, and a very valuable one because of the wealth it creates and the opportunity it affords, but also one that necessarily is blended with other aspects of human society. And it has its warts. In these regards, it's much like democracy, and often going hand-in-hand with it.

I'll have a thread to follow in a few days.

eom

Ahem...oil...ahem.

The oil refinery market is one such example. Most of the money paid for high gas prices in European countries go to social programs and investments and maintenance of infrastructure. In the US, most of the money simply goes to the shareholders of companies such as Exxon-Mobil or BP-Shell instead of being used to help people who need it most.

I also believe capitalism should be removed from the process of investigating and reporting news. I'm talking about the corporate news media. It's time to remove the profit motive from this arena. They go for the stories that make them money (See Laci Peterson, the Runaway Bride, the Lost Boyscout in the woods, etc.), but at the same time they avoid stories that could cause upheaval in society because that leads to uncertainty in the markets, which can translate into decreased profits for shareholders.

I also believe the profit motive should be taken out of the market of health insurance. It is a pay-to-play system. As a result, the poorest get no help, and they live shorter, more painful lives as a result of a system built upon the idea that resources should be allocated according to ability to pay, not according to human need. If the damn government will not help the people by instituting a national health insurance program, then I say it is time for individuals, in their respective communities to communicate, organize, and finally work towards voluntarily pledging to each other that they would help each other in times of sickness and ill health.

Idealogically, I am a Libertarian Socialist, but because I live in a society built upon competition, not cooperation, I have to be pragmatic and pick and choose my battles. In reality, I appear to be more of a social democrat as a result, but in dreams, I believe a society built upon freedom, built upon mutual cooperation is one that should be aimed for.

A system fundamentally based on competition rather than cooperation is poisonous and spreads to all areas of society.

Or, if you prefer, get rich. Capitalism cannot survive if there is not a large mass of workers willing to trade wages for a pittance. Marx was on to something, but he missed the essentials. Huey Long had the right idea, but he was too simplistic. For all its faults, capitakism is the best solution as of now. Beats the hell out of communism, in my opinion.

MojoXN

EDIT: typos

Capitalism provides no promises. Not everyone can make it the top. By theory, it's the people that apply the most effort will rise to the top. I know there is more to it than that, but that is the basic idea isn't it?

Americans treat "free markets" like it's an ideology that is more important that democracy.

Capitalism can be an effective tool in spreading wealth fairly and providing people with opportunity and satisfying, dignified lives...when it is SUBSERVIENT TO DEMOCRACY.

capitalism may produce greater material wealth but it leads to a soulless, empty existence ...

"socially focussed" economic systems that value people more than profits make life worth living ...

ultimately, the better system values cooperation and planning centered around human values over competition and survival of the fittest ...

ultimately, capitalism and democracy cannot co-exist ...

it is unsustainable. even when regulated it results in social polarization and environmental damage. It also motivates people to cheat, steal, lie and break the law.

it makes money, not people, and not moral and ethical behavior, the measure of right and wrong.

Besides which, greed will perpetually thwart any regulation. Then, when the greedheads take power, they implement ever more radical reversals to the regulation. Just consider the trend from REagan to George the First to George the Lesser. These repuke administrations have gotten more and more radical in their anti-environment, antisocial agendae, to the point that the bushturd's agenda would have been unthinkable twenty years ago (and is, indeed, hard to believe today).

Then I ask does socialism create laziness? I'm pro-socialism, but in a small way, now I'm not quite so sure.

(but there is no evidence that socialism creates laziness)

(but there is no evidence that socialism creates laziness)

There is no evidence that it creates productivity either.

would be lazy?

That's the only way it would destroy innovation.

But it only takes a handful of corporatists in power to destroy generations of "regulation"

I'll take socialism, thanks.

If you don''t mind being seen as any thiing more than a conssumer, aand to give corporations all the power, maybe capitalism is ok.
A caapitalism/socialism mix works best.

Capitalism is a tool, it is a process that society uses. As a tool it can be used to do good or bad. It can be used properly or improperly. I believe that for some things, capitalism is the appropriate tool to use, and it does a fantastic job. However it's not the solution to everything, and when used inappropriately, it produces some pretty apalling results. There are some things that 1) capitalism just isn't equipped to handle or 2) are to important/risky to leave up to capitalism to manage.

You have a good answer here.
You'll get the PM.

forum. GD anything but leaks.

DU changed up on us after I stated this thread. {br] {br] Plame is messin' with our heads and blogs.

Most of the time, it's good for you...competition is good, it brings out a lot of things in people, pushes them to excel, be innovative, be disciplined, all that.

And yeah, Democrats believe in capitalism too; I know I do. The difference between Republicans and Democrats is like when someone gets hurt during the football game. Democrats would be the ones to be like hey, lets forget about the game for a few minutes and stop, make sure the player is alright, get him up and off the field, get him the attention he needs so he can get back and play, and welcome him back another game.

Republicans would keep on playing, step on the guy and even get mad at him for being on the ground in the way, tell him the reason he got stepped on is because he didn't get up from the first time he got knocked down, and start running around saying that if we helped the guy up then everyone would want to start laying on the ground too, and stopping the game would waste everyone else's time playing.

Capitalism is fine, but not with extreme corporatist in control. I also believe any economic theory ought to be mixed with another one to created a balance. Mixed economies always work.

Can a balance ever be achieved? Once you find center, will not someone try to find a way to swing the pendulum their way?

Capitalism is really oldest economic system because it is the most natural way of things, but phasing it out of society is long overdue. It promotes rewards for people for being more ruthless and having a blacker heart. Until that is overcome we can never truly say we live in a civilized society.

everything.

I even saw this in an academic paper recently, but it wasn't written by an economist.

The reasoning was that if a certain product, way of doing business wasn't already in existence it was because it wasn't any good. Otherwise the magic, my word, of the free market would have made it successful.

Duh. So anything not already in existence in the market isn't any good or it would be out there.

Haha.

Everybody stop everything. If it ain't in the free market already, it ain't worth nothing.

Personally I like a mish mash of capitalism and (shh!) socialism.

From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.

I doubt there has ever existed an economic system that was purely capitalistic nor one that was purely socialistic.

Nor a political system that was purely a Democracy.

and a great sig line to to match it. Please look for my follow-up post in a few days.

only people or governments can be bad. Capitalism is an economic system.

"Capitalism" is a fictional construct. All talk of "capitalism" in general is evidence of delusional thinking. Anyone who thinks that the economic system that governs life in the US, on this planet, today has anything in common with what Adam Smith described in the 1700's is a simple minded ideologue or a gullible fool.

(edit typo)

enough; those in trouble wouldn't mind bringing Lenin back if it would help them out.

keep it in check.

Whether it's being substituted for democracy is what's important (IMO). While the two can complement each other, they have different aims that can conflict. When the main purpose of capitalism, maximizing profit, becomes the purpose of a supposedly democratic government, we have a serious problem.

If a person wants to live under totally unregulated capitalism, if a person says, "the market will correct the price, don't worry", I think that person should be required to go out and kill some animal EVERY single time he wants to eat.

Every single time. If they're so hot on predation, to the exclusion of everything else, let's see them REALLY live by it.