Capitalism Is Bad. Time For Change?

Originally posted by -PLB-
Money has been the best motivator to get people off their lazy asses and build magnificent societies for the past several centuries. Not sure if we would manage without that motivator. I don't think so.

The current major problem with what the economic structure in the US is, is decades of laws and regulations designed to inflict cronnie capitalism and still label it capitalism. That is a flat, out lie. What is in the US today is not captialism but any stubbed toe is blamed on capitalism. Pure, unfettered capitalism with checks and balances in place that prevent mega-corporations from having an advantage in taxation, trade, hiring, transportation, general commerce, EPA/OSHA regs, licensing and inspections, etc. is what is needed. An absolutely even playing field in every respect and that MIGHT be capitalism.

Originally posted by newcovenant
Doing the right thing...that's a motivator. Praise (collective acknowledgement of a success or a good thing done) is the best and cheapest motivator. Ask any kid.

If you changed what you value, ie money to something more substantial like the planet and it's people....the whole paradigm would change.

I will praise you until eternity when you pick up my garbage, fix my plumbings, grow my food, build my house, etc etc. All while I sit on my lazy ass with beer in my hand that you just brewed and bottled for me.

It just won't work. We have to change a couple million years of evolution. Maybe with genetic engineering though. Create humans that want to work.

What should we do with the people who for one reason or another cannot "get up off their lazy asses" say maybe a vet who has lost legs or a handicapped person who no longer has parents to care for them? Shouldn't there be a way for these people to contribute. If your system is all about money you will not incorporate THEM. They will slow you down.

The trick is to find the right balance, which is what many western societies have been experimenting with the last 50 year or so. Europe is in general more socialistic than the USA for example. I think both have their benefits.

You are right in that it is ingrained and attached to us like a scar...this lust of material wealth.
That is because it is lorded over everyone. Who wouldn't want to be the master rather than the slave and that is essentially the system. A little of each. Masters and slaves. This has worked throughout millennium but now your slaves are revolting.

I think it is not the system but it is human nature. Capitalistic social democracy is nothing more than a working system to manage human nature. We have yet to discover a better one.

reply to post by -PLB-


Money HAS been the greatest motivator for our ancestors. But it was more controllable then. The problem today is the greed which has destroyed this once great motivator.
Money has destroyed today's society though. Greed has let to physical money being almost replaced by digital money. Why is this bad? Because physical money would have a value based on how much of it would be in circulation. Same principle with everything else: oil, gold, spaghetti etc. But when money become digital, they wont have a physical form anymore. So money would only be a number, a number that we base a value upon. And it becomes REALLY dangerous when banks and stock markets earn money on interests or how well the stocks are doing. That money doesn't really exist due to a number of things: they don't have a physical form and they have been made out of the blue so to speak (look at interest rates when you take a loan. The bank makes money of money that it has given out).
For that money to gain a REAL value, it would have to be printed. That would lead to more money out in the system and that's a good thing, right? No, because more physical money would lead to a lesser value of that money (inflation) because it would be easier to acquire due to the larger quantity.
So physical money is better than digital money? Yes, but physical money still has the value that has been given to them by those who make the money. And that is a bad thing as well. Some days ago, news came out about a possible solution to the debt crisis in America. Minting 2 coins valued at a trillion dollars each.
Sure, the coins are going to be made of platinum, but hey, I can take 2 coins of my own, give them a good chrome paint job and claim that their value would be equal to that of the trillion coins, right?

Money WAS the motivator for great societies. And sure, we have benefited from it. But it has been corrupted by power hungry people. With a different mindset, we could change the whole world. In a society were robots would do all of the manufacturing of goods, people would not have to work nearly as hard as we do now. The society should be based upon prestige and respect for other people. The greatest prestige and respect would be given to those, who actually decide to work, even though they didn't have to.
People can't imagine a society without money because it has been a part of human history for so long. But by changing the mindset of people, and changing the focus of materialistic things, to being part of society and do your best for human kind as a whole, we WOULD save human kind from destroying itself.

Money is only good if EVERYBODY has an equal share of it

Lot of ignorance on display here. Capitalism may be bad but it's by far better than any other system we have for managing an economy.

Some suggested reading:

"The Fatal Conceit" by F.A. Hayek

"The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality" by Ludwig Von Mises

"The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism" by Robert Murphy

"The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism" by Kevin Williamson

Originally posted by VikingDude
Money HAS been the greatest motivator for our ancestors. But it was more controllable then. The problem today is the greed which has destroyed this once great motivator.
Money has destroyed today's society though. Greed has let to physical money being almost replaced by digital money. Why is this bad? Because physical money would have a value based on how much of it would be in circulation. Same principle with everything else: oil, gold, spaghetti etc. But when money become digital, they wont have a physical form anymore. So money would only be a number, a number that we base a value upon. And it becomes REALLY dangerous when banks and stock markets earn money on interests or how well the stocks are doing. That money doesn't really exist due to a number of things: they don't have a physical form and they have been made out of the blue so to speak (look at interest rates when you take a loan. The bank makes money of money that it has given out).
For that money to gain a REAL value, it would have to be printed. That would lead to more money out in the system and that's a good thing, right? No, because more physical money would lead to a lesser value of that money (inflation) because it would be easier to acquire due to the larger quantity.
So physical money is better than digital money? Yes, but physical money still has the value that has been given to them by those who make the money. And that is a bad thing as well. Some days ago, news came out about a possible solution to the debt crisis in America. Minting 2 coins valued at a trillion dollars each.
Sure, the coins are going to be made of platinum, but hey, I can take 2 coins of my own, give them a good chrome paint job and claim that their value would be equal to that of the trillion coins, right?

I completely disagree that printing money would change anything. It is purely a pragmatic matter, and wouldn't change anything in the system. You can as easily set regulations for "printing" digital money.

Money WAS the motivator for great societies. And sure, we have benefited from it. But it has been corrupted by power hungry people.

Can you specify the period when the system was not corrupted yet?

With a different mindset, we could change the whole world. In a society were robots would do all of the manufacturing of goods, people would not have to work nearly as hard as we do now. The society should be based upon prestige and respect for other people. The greatest prestige and respect would be given to those, who actually decide to work, even though they didn't have to.
People can't imagine a society without money because it has been a part of human history for so long. But by changing the mindset of people, and changing the focus of materialistic things, to being part of society and do your best for human kind as a whole, we WOULD save human kind from destroying itself.

Money is only good if EVERYBODY has an equal share of it

I agree that with a different mindset we could change the world. But I think our mindset is for a large part determined by our nature, and there will always be people that try to exploit whatever system you throw at them. Democracy is basically a system where the goals of the exploiters and the exploitees are more or less similar. Not exactly of course, but we have to acknowledge that we currently have the largest number of humans that have it better than ever before. Except of course you are a proponent of a hunter/gatherer society, but I don't see that as a realistic goal.

The US certainly is not under a capitalist society, despite what the politicians, political and media elite would profess. We are under a corrupt corporatist society where every rubric of rights has been perverted to benefit the corporations and to the detriment of the citizen, the society and the form of a capitalist system of government.

For example, free speech has been granted to corporations, giving them the same freedoms as citizens. Unfettered lobbying has been allowed, paid for by the consumers to control and pervert every form of policy we currently have. Ironic that the consumers of a corporation’s products actually pay for the corporation to influence legislation that harms consumers, but that’s where we are today.

No form of government is ideal, but all take extreme measures to implement and maintain in their purest forms. Communism requires the jackboot to control those who would look to exploit the system for power and position, which invariably leads to wealth. Socialism requires the jackboot to ensure that the functionaries of the government don’t seek to grow their power via expansion of the state that benefits them. And yes, capitalism requires the jackboot to enforce regulations and a system of law that prevents corruption and corporate creep into all facets of society. Nowhere on the planet are any of these systems effectively managed.

We are so far away from a reasonably capitalist society, that the ills and blatant corruption we witness today mislead folks to think that it is a system of government that does not work. Any of these systems of government could ultimately work, although they all have one weakness and that is that they must be managed by human beings who are generally venal, prone to corruption and motivated by self-interest.

If someone had the authority to simply by edict turn the US into a totally socialist or communist society tomorrow, the leaders in Washington would practically in unison call out “OK, where do I fit in?” They would not care what the system was as long as they remained within the power structure of the system.

There is only one way to check this corruption of our political system and that is to devolve the government back to its constitutionally mandated functions and push the government closer to the people where there is far more influence, more volatility in elected officials and more accountability.

In a model where instead of a federal income tax rate of, say 40% and a state income tax rate of, say 7%, were we to move to a model that was as close to the reverse of that as possible, our system of government would be far more viable and capitalism would have a much better chance to be successful.

reply to post by Southern Guardian
i agree its capitalism that is being strangled to support this entitlement state

People voted for change last election and look what we got! No thank you... I have no change left. It's all going to cover expenses.

Translation = Freedom and voluntary exchange is bad. Time for an expansion of violence.

I repeat what I said in another post :
Marx did say it : capitalism will become neo-capitalism/neo-liberalism and in the end destroy itself because of intern contradictions, it's a schizo system where you have the extreme greed of a little group of people and corporations wanting always more and more profit and on the other side the need of a society that has to be in balance and needs that same money for everybody to live in peace together, for education, for logistics ( roads etc .. ), police, firefighters, hopitals, army, and so much more.
So, the evolution to always bigger corporatism, concentration of economic and financial power, the need and greed of the beast-system for always more and more $$$$ profit to become bigger and bigger with more and more power in its hands, that is the gun on our head !!

There is a certain amount of money available and when everybody pays taxes like it should be then yes society can function without trouble.
But if you take that money away out of the available amount by big tax cuts, leaving the $$$ in the pockets of the rich and wealthy, spending out of control and wars everywhere, yes then only the poor and the middle class pay taxes for the system to run, but your spending gets up also = CRASH.

What to do ? fight big corporations that kill economic competition between different players, fight politicians
who get paid and corrupted by those corporations to pass THEIR laws and not the ones that are good for the people !
lots of things to do but first of all LEARN and READ about economics, use our brain and not our guts before voting, and also after ....
Tea Party really is a fraud, it's a instrument of the rich and powerfull wealthy people and corporations to
manipulate the naive people for their own intrests, they use the guts of Joe Sixpack to obtain what they want =
more and more $$$$$ more and more POWER !! Poor world, we are at the end of the capitalist system, it is going to implode and make lots of victims of course !! The beginning was yet Lehmann fraud !! The end is near.
Be prepared, but you are not, you have no system to replace this one, there is a system possible,
it's called DIRECT DEMOCRACY on each level of society with possibility to dismiss/relieve the choosen politicians immediatly when not doing what they were voted for in office ....

If interested in actual economics then read about ERNEST MANDEL, RIP, he was one of the most intelligent actual economists, Belgian professor, he has LOTS of writings about neo-capitalism and neo-liberalism !!! Very very interesting stuf !

capitalism is not a bad system in se, but it has to be put under serious control by the people and the government ( same for the banks !!!! ) otherwise it becomes neo-capitalism, a real cancer, a $$$$ greed cancer system only for the rich and the corporations left ....
there have to be lots of economic actors in society to have a good system running with good competition !!
not just a few big corporations dictating their own law without control and without competition with their own agenda !!!

Peace.

reply to post by VikingDude


Capitalism is what makes American people think they are living in a dream , that they have some thing special that other people around the world like to have.

I love you people

reply to post by VikingDude


First of all... Corporatism is NOT capitalism. Just sayin'.

Second... If We eliminate the need for money, We won't have to worry about economics and all may choose to live as today's elite.

How do We eliminate the need for money? By replacing it with what it represents: energy. There is energy seething in all "empty" space, and We learned how to extract this energy back in the 1950's with the advent of the science, electrogravitics (EG). In late 1959, early 1960, EG went into black ops.

What was EG producing? "Free" energy and "antigravity." What has all the R&D of 50+ years given Us? I would LOVE to know, but One can bet that it's very impressive.

Let's escape the economic blues entirely and call for the release of the EG science. Here's a few threads relating to this and My (free) novella showing the whole plan in action:

The End of Entropy - the foundation - read first

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The Ethical Planetarian Party Platform - the structure

www.abovetopsecret.com...


Here's a simple schematic for drawing on the plenum ("dark"/Zero Point/Radiant/Orgone/...) energy:

www.abovetopsecret.com...


The Abundance Paradigm:

media.abovetopsecret.com...


IF We spread these ideas, We can free Humanity from slavery - wage or otherwise - and cast Our goals to high endeavor. Every One of Us.

Originally posted by objectivist
reply to post by Southern Guardian

 

i agree its capitalism that is being strangled to support this entitlement state

Well okay, but a rightwing Republicon said that government should be so small you can drown it in a bathtub. (It's just like them to make an example from the Andrea Yates case......)

The thing is that regardless, all social change happens quite slowly, whether it be for good or bad - unless of course it is forced by militia, which will lead to dissent by people no comfortable with being forcibly subjugated thusly. Look at feminism for instance, it took a while for people to accept it, and it's still in the process. I don't think I've ever met another woman who has not been treated with sexism at least a few times in her life, and it is decades since it was introduced!

So the question is, whatever the solution may be, how could it possibly be implemented?

To bring about drastic change in the behaviour of general society, I think it will require the division of said society - each following the group which holds their personal ideals at heart. Unification I think is a bad idea right now, globalisation is a terrible idea to be put into place so rapidly like it is being. Societies the world over are being rushed into dramatic change, and it is not fair on the citizens of each nation involved.

So if you're going to consider change, you must also think of its implementation, and perhaps consider unity through diversification.

Right now the globalisation idea is being forced on us through militant means and subversive political strategies, and it is major struggle. I mean, just look at the death of Carlo Giuliani as example, then turn to the television broadcast of all the wars in the world.

Besides, the first step to doing anything is to be organised in unison.

Pssst, come a little closer I got to tell you something.
Great and worthy things have been accomplished by capitalism. The western world has feed starving nations, helped disaster stricken countries and rescued peoples from unscrupulous dictators who were unable to defend themselves.
The problem is corruption. Not just by politicians but by the corporations they "serve". Capitalism has been high jacked by fascism. Millions of lives were lost opposing the Hitler fascists, now we have turned political power over to corporate interests which is fascism. I guess the old adage is true "you become what you oppose".
Each individual has a responsibility to protect their own freedoms and stand up and oppose these things. Apathy is what the ruling class expects. Remember there is no tipping point, things will just get worse and worse. Get out and vote, write letters, emails, and text your varying levels of government and tell them what you demand of them or you’ll make them go away. It is always the squeaky wheel that gets the oil. Make lots of noise and things will change (there is more of us than there is of them). You can restore all of your freedoms peaceably and make the world a better place at the same time.
Peace, brice

I'm going to say it point blank. Yeah there is problems with the system but capitalism works best with nations that are free. You have to be willing to work to get ahead though. Can't spend 40 hours a week on ATS and say capitalism failed you. I would much rather have the option of starting my own business knowing that if I'm not going to work hard or offer something of value, it will fail. All those big businesses didn't just start out as a big business. They started with an idea and it grew into what it is today. You can't do that in a socialist society.

Its not so much capitalism as it is materialism.

if you aint got the cash you cant do nothing thats a fact.

socialism is wealth destruction on a massive scale that can never ever be self sustained

you want to do all the good in the world great where are you going to get the cash from

and then fine you got it then what?

oh yeah you want to do more goodness and joy

and guess what?

oh yeah you want to do more goodness and joy

but where does all that cash come from to do all that?

doesnt come from that person who is benefiting from all that goodness and joy

it comes from all those evil rich greedy capitalists by taxation

and when that crowd who says at some point youve made enough wants to spread more goodness and joy

all those capitalists take another hit and from all those previous hits that capitial crowd has shrunk either by moving to a different country (outsourcing) or by going into the poorhouse and then starts getting their goodness and joy check that never ever has created sustained wealth.

point of fact all those goodness and joy checks never ever created their own self sustaining wealth by destroying the wealth of others.

and then at some point you taken too much and the tap runs dry.


capitalism is the nonstop wealth creation where the slaves have the chance to become their own masters where as those who push socialism put a lifetime without the possibity of ever becoming a master and a guaranteed life of poverty for the simple fact theres not enough wealth in the world to make everyone rich.

now if this country truly indeed have a free market wealth generation is never a problem and the transfer of wealth is never ending but enter the "socialists' with there the free market needs rules and regulations that destroys that wealth generatiion with any possible way to replace that wealth by redistribution through force.

capitalism aint perfect but socialism has been tried and tried and failed and failed

If markets were truly free, and government was "by the people", "for the people", the system would be about as perfect as man could make it. Instead it has been corrupted and perverted and turned into a fascist corporatocracy where government is an extension of special corporate interests. In this system special interests, like a virus takes over and hijacks government. Laws are changed to discriminate against all but the largest corporations. Government contracts go to favored corporate interests. Large corporate loses are socialized but profits are privatized. A new vocabular emerges where onerous concepts are sugar coated to be pallitable to a dumbed down, gullible public no longer capable of critical thinking. We hear terms like "too big to fail" (too big to save), Troubled asset relief program, Quantitave easing (money printing), Stimulus Programs (banks only) designed to dupe a one dimensional American Thinker. It is quite ingenious. Programs to discriminate against and subjugate the public are designed by special interests and are paid for by the public that gets robbed. The better educated American of 20 years ago could not be taken in by these scams but thanks to today's educational system nobody wants to think or analyze and are illiterate in civics and economics and they rely on the media to do the critical thinking for them.
This kind of system cannot be created without a corrupt government, dumb and lazy electorate and a compliant press. The same special interests control all major media. What america has is anything but a capitalism. It is monopoly power for the special interests and collectivism for the masses. As this system evolves the narcissistict and self-centered dupes in America witness the value of their currency vaporize while taxes and living costs explode. In the end you will live as serfs while the corrupt and evil special interests inherit the earth.