Capitalism is breaking my heart

It seems like a new business is closing every day in palm coast Florida and Efforts to revitalize my area keep failing one by one. When I do get a chance to talk to shop owners (Some of which end up going out of business), they always seem to believe that a turn around is right around the corner. As this terrible situation goes on and on and more businesses close, I just don't know what to believe anymore in regards to capitalism.

I don't know if capitalism really is the best way to run a economy, but watching all these businesses close because of the fuck up of someone way at the very top of the Free enterprise ladder is really shaking my core beliefs. To say it again, maybe it is the best way to go about things, but right now it's just breaking my heart.

but hey, who am I to defend capitalism. I never was that big of a fan.

...business is good when it is about community. People (consumers) have become merely the means to make money... Smith's invisible hand didn't take into account corporate personhood, industrialism and 20th century greed...

I was reading somebody's critique of the central planning aspect of communism causing all these failures in the USSR. Then I see all these stores shutting down because somebody a thousand miles a way at what amounts to a financial "central planning" facility, rather than a local issue. The old conversations about communism and capitalism don't really seem to totally address the modern financial landscape.

except for all the other ones.

seriously.

capitalism has recessions. that's part of the game.

is it the best system? yes. is it all light, hearts and pink faeries?

no. life can be difficult.

Is its "success" a de facto declaration of its universal superiority to other systems, across all lands (which are different culturally and economically)?

I'm not sure why the inheritable "right" to profit from other's labor is consistent with a meritocracy, and thus, such a system would naturally decentitize laborers from participating in production.

There are some major problems with capitalism. Such problems are often the very factors in its "success", but they present fallout such as massive wealth disparity and a depraved laboring class. While the model may be useful to create profitable businesses, and reward shareholders, this doesn't always amount to the most good for the public at large.

...it has only gotten a bad rap because people associate it with anarchy... not necessary

Just wondering. I've never known syndicalists who weren't anarcho-syndicalist.

I have always associated syndicalism with just workers owning their means of production. I suppose my point was that, either because of actual histories or perception, the idea of worker control has most often been associated with chaos and lawlessness... Worker's Councils, Co-operatives, Employee Owned,... all good. ...suppose I am not being a good historian here, just a utopian thinker...

You voted and argued in your workplace and send immediately recallable, representatives to fight for your viewpoint to the central committee where the decisions were hashed out. Then the solution was tried and people argued more and analyzed what could be improved/where it went wrong. All representatives were unpaid. Then Stalin took over after Lenin's death and he was a paranoic nutcase nationalist who founded a new class society, mass executed his own supporters (etc.) After than the USSR just shriveled into an inefficent pseudo-corporate hell.

Anarcho-syndicalists see society as being a serious of council-like structures (I think organized by whole industries though?) and no voting government beyond that. I don't quite get how you get the media syndicate to deliver your paper on time or fight them if they decide that they won't deliver to people with blue eyes if there isn't an apparatus for political argumentation. :shrug:

History is good! You needn't be utopian! This is actually where the real answers are. Environmental devastation isn't far off and it'd be good to establish some sort of "people/worker-oriented" democratic society before the elite get to reorganize the habitable zones. (I think its funny that people argue about nation and patriotism when we face a 50-100 year scenario where whole regions of the earth are uninhabitable.) It's not so much about utopian as it is about human survival. This system is not only bizarre, it's untenable. In the future, material analyses matched with democratic goals will be absolutely key.

:)

and my utopia is one of distinct possibilities, albiet ones that too many don't seem to see or understand. ...could not agree more with your analysis.

"...a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many" Spinoza

I'd really like to know if you are speaking specifically about laissez faire capitalism or heavily regulated capitalism.

Socialism still incorporates aspects of capitalism. But, for the most part, it involves heavy regulation.

I think when people are complaining about capitalism failing, they are speaking about unregulated markets. And I doubt you are arguing for unfettered capitalism.

I had a good carry out pizza and Italian place in Tampa last year. Every day, my customers were losing their jobs, food prices were going through the roof, and suppliers were adding fuel surcharges to deliveries.

It ain't pretty out there right now.

I really hope this gets better soon, I'm really scared for my home state.

The switch from the Keynesian model to the Friedman model is at the heart of our current troubles. We may never be able to fix our problems as long as wall street continues to fight regulation.

I know I don't want the government to step in and run everything, but right now a society where these sort of busts can destroy the dreams of millions is intolerable.

You don't always need to prop up capitalism with social programs. You can also keep it going with war and conquest. Friedman was opposed theoretically to such an idea. Of course, if you needed a fascist to kick a social democrat out of office in a foreign nation, that's just realpolitik for Friedmanites. But they technically go against the whole Military Keynesianism thing.

even though we didn't see the housing bubble and we've been relatively lucky when it comes to all the other problems that have hit states like Michigan so hard.

Stores are closing, service businesses are closing, and everybody is reporting a huge slowdown because people who are terrified their jobs aren't going to be there for them are trying to save enough to survive on, at least in the short term.

This is pretty much what happened in the Depression, too, and why FDR made the statement about nothing to fear but fear, itself.

As long as Americans don't feel secure, they're just not going to spend.

As long as they don't spend, businesses will continue to go under, putting more out of work.

As long as more people are being put out of work, people won't feel secure.

The only thing that worked then was intervention to put people back to work on projects that helped the country, as a whole. Likely it will be the same now, but it's not going to happen until the movers and shakers realize no business will survive long without customers.

business was local. There were big businesses of course, but they did business within the country. Even the most heinous parasites bought the raw materials, manufactured, and sold their goods within the country, so if people did just go out and spend what they had, it did stimulate the economy, which stimulated the economy further.

What we have now are drains, the money we pour into the banks is drained into other nation's banks, the wealth created here drains into ventures in other countries, the goods purchased here are manufactured overseas, which accelerates the exodus of jobs from our country, etc.

This, like so many things that we have been warned about for decades, is generally the fatal flaw in globalism. It is avoidable, but avoiding it would cost the parasites far more than they are willing to pay for it, so instead of an overall rise in the welfare of humanity, we get an increase of inequity across the globe.

and worker owned businesses ...manufacturing and service industries, farms and stores, etc....

America needs to return to the American banking system. To learn more about the American banking system that the founding fathers wanted for American go here:
http://www.webofdebt.com/

That is a dead horse that has been beaten to hell and back.

The US economy is dominated by a small number of vast, powerful firms. They use the government to legislate in preferential treatment at the expense of society and would-be competitors, and they use their wealth to undercut smaller firms and drive them out of business so that they can continue to charge as much as the economy can bear for the sake of profits. In recent years, some of these corporations have built themselves the equivalent of private armies to enforce their will at home and abroad.

There is nothing free about an oligarchy controlling a market. That's just feudalism with a new face.

That screws themselves and their children right out of good paying jobs in America.

They usually don't figure that out until its too late though.

Thats the way it works around here anyway.

Sad situation.

Watch them as they drive their Toyota's and Honda's to the unemployment office.

Don

decided to line their pockets and raise taxes $2.2 BILLION.

Their Recovery Mantra? Citizens are just Mules.. Pack Animals.. designed to be taxed to death to support the State Legislators and the life style they are accustomed to.

Floridians will not even be able to treat their grandkids to a day of fishing at the local park without an expensive fishing license and tax stamp. Thanks to the 2009 Legislature.

And now Governor Crist skampers off to Washington to run for Senate on his 'exemplary' record, while Rush Limbaugh blovates on every radio station in the State. Something has got to give...

actually read "The Wealth of Nations" (it's probably a good idea for you to have done so).

I've yet to meet one that has, myself. Smith based his system on a foundation of a community of established security, IOW people's basic necessities are met and capitalism expands on this foundation.

They're like the majority of self proclaimed Christians that don't know what is actually in their Bible, they just take a few ideas from it and follow what others tell them.

about 30 years ago; keep the masses ignorant. Information and knowledge is power - not just a cliche.

Is your handle in reference to something you do or the next instruction manual to be used against us?
:hi:

down education and I use the wrong grammer...

My handle is just happenstance; I tried to use handmade once for a login and handmade34 was available. But, yes, I appreciate handmade things; I do custom design and fabric art and I make (and sell) cloth shopping bags from recycled material. I believe we have become too dependent on overly processed and massed produced 'things' at the detrement of the environment and sense of well-being personally and communally. I have in the past and will again (once I can quit this job, although I do work on 2 sewing machines while I'm on the road), grow my own food and make my own beer, wine, clothes, lipbalm, toothpaste, bread, etc, etc... I have in the past taught basic skills to kids, 'alternatives to consumption', homesteading and general survival stuff... I getting pretty soft in my old age though!

I was agreeing with your point, and was just curious. http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-038549081x-0">The handmaid's tale is one of the most relevant books written, IMO.

Becoming more self-reliant is, I think, going to be more and more important as we go through these "interesting times", I feel.
:hi:

That's why our system costs us about $7000 a year for each person in the country, twice what Canada and UK spend.

... in a nation where the market wasn't free, but stacked in favor of a corporate oligarchy blinded by it's own greed and bizarre numerologies.

Their intricate spreadsheets did not reflect reality, and the people of the world will increasingly suffer for it.