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Does Capitalism Inevitably Produce Inequalities? The answer is yes.

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posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 02:33 PM
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First off let me just start by saying this isn't an attack piece on Capitalism as a system. In my opinion, as much as it can be flawed in many ways, it is the best system our level of civilization can cope with at this period of time. Now whether we're talking regulated or free market capitalism, that's a whole other discussion. I'll just be focusing on the basic concept of capitalism and it's inevitable impact on society.

There seems to be this attitude from much of the public and here on ATS about the poor and those less fortunate being in the positions they are in because of their own decisions. I was discussing an article the other day with a good friend of mine, very conservative, about how it's becoming unaffordable for those on minimum wage or low wage to rent in the US. Only 6 counties in the country can you afford an apartment on minimum wage. The response I got from my good friend was all too familiar.... "They shouldn't be working minimum wage jobs by that age" "Don't like your job? Move on" "They had every opportunity to get something better but they chose that job they're in" and of course the oh so common "minimum wage laws are to blame in the first place, get rid of it".

This argument had me thinking... is it really a valid one? Putting aside one's circumstances which may lead them to settling on a minimum wage job, what happens if that person moves up from minimum wage? Gets that cozy office job in the city and starts earning decent? What becomes of the vacant minimum wage job? The answer is, somebody in a similar predictament fills it again.

The truth of the matter is that Capitalism will inevitably produce unequal classes. There needs to be a bottom line working force earning close to or on minimum wage. It's the only way Capitalism can function.

The arguement that everybody has the opportunity to get out of these cirucmstances, get out of minimum wage, doesn't come off all too true when you factor in reality. That somebody has to take up that low paying job within the system. It is a requirement for Capitalism to function:


More importantly, at the very heart of capitalism lies an incentive that leads to the increase of inequalities. Capitalism is based on the principle of competition, and businesses must compete with one another in order to survive. Each company, therefore, strives to maximize its profits in order to achieve a competitive advantage. For example, they can use extra profits to offset lowering the price of their product, undersell their opponents, and push them out of the market.

But in order to maximize profits, businesses must keep productive costs to a minimum. And a major portion of productive costs includes labor. Consequently, as a general rule, in order for a business to survive, it must push labor costs to a minimum. And that is why, of course, so many businesses migrate from the U.S. and relocate in countries like China, Viet Nam, Mexico, and Bangladesh where wages are a mere pittance.

www.commondreams.org...

What's the point of this thread? Well my point is, demonizing the poor, those on minimum wage and those in need is not only wrong, it also makes little sense. Somebody in society has to fill that position, such is the sad reality of capitalism. This idea that everybody can lift themselves up in the current system we're in, at the same time, is naive. This is what I don't understand as well from my conservative friends. We should be ensuring those unfortunate enough to find themselves in low paying work, poverty, have some safety net in place. This is based on the fact they are the inevitable bottom line that makes Capitalism function. If not them, it could you or your family member in that position. Somebody has to do the dirty work. This is the reality of the system we're in. Does this mean that everybody in that position are there by no fault of their own? No. But it's a fact that those on the poverty line, those on the bare minimum, are part of an inevitable function of our current economy.



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 02:49 PM
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Who is it that is demonizing poor people or those in need ? And do not all systems to include Socialism, Communism, our Republic system create the same inequalities ? There maybe a system out there which does not create the haves and have not's but I don't think we have come up with it yet. Even the communes in the 60's were not equal and usually desolved over the differences.



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 02:50 PM
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a reply to: Southern Guardian

Interesting OP; a lot of food for thought there. Of course, "Common Dreams", is, I suppose you know is a socialist news outlet...........but that's o.k., not condemning just pointing out.

I've been pro-Capitalism all my life; but as the years have passed the capitalist version of the American dream has died; it was killed by innovation, the computer age, etc., but it was also killed by government regulations that have crushed small business which is the largest source of jobs in the US. Once entirely deceased, I doubt that the small business capitalism that made life for aspiring entrepreneurs fun will ever recover. So what we're left with is the Corporate Capitalism of the huge multi-national corporations who owe no loyalty to any sovereign country. They hover overhead at 30,000 ft. sucking profits out of what ever "nation" they happen to be operating in. The "fly-over" nations are really just colonies of these Corporations. A lucky few can get jobs with these corporations, the rest are left to fend for themselves.



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 02:55 PM
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a reply to: DJMSN


Who is it that is demonizing poor people or those in need ?


You're saying you're not aware of those on minimum wage, the poor, being looked down upon? I see it everyday. I see people on here criticize those on minimum wage for being where they are because of faulty choices, not unfortunate circumstances.


And do not all systems to include Socialism, Communism, our Republic system create the same inequalities ?


Read the first paragraph of the OP before you comment. That would be a start. This isn't a debate against capitalism or comparing other systems.


There maybe a system out there which does not create the haves and have not's but I don't think we have come up with it yet.


Again, first paragraphy of the OP. Maybe read it first then come back to me. I'm already aware of this.



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 02:55 PM
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a reply to: Southern Guardian

I agree with your thread.

And we are now reaching the end of a cycle. It has to be "refreshed". Now what does this mean? Depression? War? Market crash? All or a combo is more likely.

The twisted capitalist system we have now will drive at 80MPH into a cement wall without blinking or flinching. Meaning what we are in for is avoidable, but it will happen, perhaps part of a plan.



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 03:04 PM
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So does communism where everyone is "equal" but some are more equal than others.

All economic systems suck.

Capitalism is just the one that sucks slightly less.


Hopefully we can find a better system one day but until that time we are stuck with capitalism.



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 03:07 PM
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a reply to: crazyewok


Capitalism is just the one that sucks slightly less.

Hopefully we can find a better system one day but until that time we are stuck with capitalism.


I agree. We still have a ways to go. I was watching Star Trek the other day.... find it amusing they had these machines that particalize food, water, anything before your eyes. Sort of a 3D machine that produces almost anything. Food, water, endlessly produced out of nothing. Povery becomes a worry of the past. You'll never go hungry. Hopefully in the future we'll get to this point.



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 03:10 PM
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Inequalities exist regardless of the socioeconomic system that is created to say otherwise.



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 03:15 PM
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originally posted by: butcherguy
Inequalities exist regardless of the socioeconomic system that is created to say otherwise.


Just look at the Soviet union.

You had the political class that lived in decadent luxury, eating the best food, driving around in luxury cars, living in nice houses ect while rest of the people where packed into slums, queuing in food lines and living on rations with no hope of advancement.


Least in our current system there is SOME probability of bettering your lot.



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 03:19 PM
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There is always someone on top and someone on the bottom. At least with capitalism ypu have a chance to succeed.



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 03:36 PM
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our system is cruller then the Russians could ever be .
With ours they have to get people to believe they can have a better life ( why do you think its called the American dream ? Thing about dreaming is one day you wake up .
No our system isnt better look at Detroit and tell me its better look at philly look at any intercity we have and convince your self our system is better .
Any type of government can rise But they ll have one thing in common All have to expand to keep growing .
If they dont they ether fall or stagnate into a cesspool .
Our world reached the top of this cycle in the mid 1960ds . After that they have just been moving it from place to place sucking each dry .
Now the time for payment is getting near every Government knows this most people know this .It is the reason why violence has escalated .Un rest call it what you will .
every person here who takes about how the poor should just all be left to die isnt because they think they are better then the poor . Its they kNOW IT WILL BE THEM soon . You dont need to be a econimist to know you cant run a country on services or cyberspace or housing .
Its Industry tat runs a country all teh other stuff revolves around it . Without it you ahve no services .no net no nothing .
And guess what America does not have ?
Nope Capitalism cant go teh distance it has to grow and when it cant collapses like any other .



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 03:43 PM
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www.thenation.com...


Empire of Cotton explains the industrial take off of Europe and North America as a result of the emergence of peculiar kinds of uniquely powerful states, who built peculiar connections to capital owners who then, jointly, succeeded in integrating distant regions of the world into a European dominated world economy. They did so by engaging in violent trade with Asia, by transporting enslaved workers from Africa to the Americas, and by capturing huge expanses of land from native peoples in many regions of the world. In the story that follows from that account, the countryside matters as much as cities, slave labor as much as wage labor, violence as much as the rule of law, and coercion as much as contracts. The history of the United States is central to the ensuing story, because it was there that most of the cotton for world markets was grown, and, until 1865, almost exclusively grown by slaves. The United States matters to this story because it was one of the earliest examples of successful industrialization—in cotton textiles. And the United States matters because it helped pioneer new relations between industry and agriculture with the emergence of sharecropping regimes in the wake of the American Civil War. Just as much as the United States mattered to cotton, cotton mattered to the United States. Cotton reinvigorated slavery, established the young nation’s place in the global economy and eventually helped create the political and economic conflicts that resulted in civil war.

My first thought, when I learned that Sven’s Empire of Cotton and my book, The Empire of Necessity won the Bancroft Award, was to wonder whether cotton was a necessity or a freedom. And then I thought, of course, they are both, the wealth created from the trade and the labor needed to create the wealth. The two books complement each other well. Where The Empire of Cotton focuses on the material, institutional, and economic foundations and legacies of slavery, state formation, and market expansion, The Empire of Necessity (though describing in detail the labor and environmental processes associated with a range of free and unfree labor) is concerned more with the psychic and imaginative structure of slavery.… Capitalism is, among other things, a massive process of ego formation, the creation of modern selves, the illusion of individual autonomy, the cultivation of distinction and preference, the idea that individuals had their own moral conscience, based on individual reason and virtue. The wealth created by slavery generalized these ideals of self-creation, allowing more and more people, mostly men, to imagine themselves as autonomous and integral beings, with inherent rights and self-interests not subject to the jurisdiction of others. This process of individuation creates a schism between inner and outer, in which self-interest, self-cultivation, and personal moral authority drive a wedge between seeming and being. My point is that slavery was central to capitalist individuation, to the schism between inner and outer, which I believe accounts for the endurance of racism in American society, its quicksilver nature, as well as for its deniability. This is a dinner, not a conference. So I’ll end by cutting to the chase: I think the story at the center of The Empire of Necessity—revolving around the New Englander Amasa Delano’s complete and utter blindness to the social world around him—captures the power of a new kind of racism, based not on theological or philosophical doctrine but rather on the emotional need to measure one’s absolute freedom in inverse relation to another’s absolute slavishness. This was a racism that was born in chattel slavery but didn’t die with chattel slavery, instead evolving into today’s cult of individual supremacy, which, try as it might, can’t seem to shake off its white supremacist roots.


there are some fairly compelling arguments here... the takeaway being that industrialization and capitalism together has fostered an atmosphere of inequality that reinforces the stacked deck we call an economy.
edit on 18-6-2017 by TzarChasm because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 03:46 PM
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It is impossible to have a system of equality, but what are we really talking about here? What kind of equality do you want? If one person can afford a 60 foot yacht and another can afford a 13 foot dingy is that inequality? If one person lives in a 20,000 sq ft house all by themselves and a family of 4 live in a 2 bedroom flat, is that inequality? If one person works hard and is extremely successful in life with few bad life choices and another person doesn't really do much and has a string of poor life choices is that inequality too?


edit on 18-6-2017 by Xtrozero because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 03:47 PM
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a reply to: Southern Guardian

Can personal responsibility bridge an equality gap for the individuals wanting to elevate themselves? The answer is yes.



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 03:57 PM
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originally posted by: Bluntone22
There is always someone on top and someone on the bottom. At least with capitalism ypu have a chance to succeed.


Such a true statement. In socialist and communist systems, you generally get stuck no matter how qualified or level of success at the job.

Everyone is equal (except the special political class) systems suck. I will take capitalism any day over that. Our problem here in the US is Crony Capitalism.... Bribing our politicians to screw the competition and keep them on top.



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 03:58 PM
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originally posted by: Xtrozero
It is impossible to have a system of equality, but what are we really talking about here? What kind of equality do you want? If one person can afford a 60 foot yacht and another can afford a 13 foot dingy is that inequality? If one person lives in a 20,000 sq ft house all by themselves and a family of 4 live in a 2 bedroom flat, is that inequality? If one person works hard and is extremely successful in life with few bad life choices and another person doesn't really do much and has a string of poor life choices is that inequality too?



It's just a thinly veiled disguise to say they want equality of outcome over equality of opportunity!!!!! Cultural Marxism can be a tricky language to understand at times!



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 04:18 PM
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originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: Southern Guardian

Can personal responsibility bridge an equality gap for the individuals wanting to elevate themselves? The answer is yes.


I feel that because I can't be a rock star there is inequality there. I can't sing or play guitar very well but I try and try...lol

How is that fair?

edit on 18-6-2017 by Xtrozero because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 04:33 PM
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originally posted by: seeker1963

It's just a thinly veiled disguise to say they want equality of outcome over equality of opportunity!!!!! Cultural Marxism can be a tricky language to understand at times!


I started off enlisted in the military, had roommates until my 30s, reset everything after a divorce at 39 and today I'm top 5% wage earner. How? Just kept going getting better and better though life.

I see so many young like the 99%ers who have the I want it all now! attitude. They expected that 100,000 job out of school...
They don't get it and it becomes an inequality thing...
edit on 18-6-2017 by Xtrozero because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 04:44 PM
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originally posted by: Xtrozero
They don't get it and it becomes an inequality thing...

And if things don't change, then it becomes a revolution thing...
edit on 18-6-2017 by daskakik because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 18 2017 @ 04:48 PM
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a reply to: Southern Guardian

All of this assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game. It's called the "fixed pie fallacy", that one class gets rich at the expense of the rest. It's simply untrue.
edit on 18-6-2017 by LesMisanthrope because: (no reason given)




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