The real problem is Capitalism

Everyone can benefit from real free market capitalism however you must take responsibility for the actions you take in life..you cannot believe that without a good education and making good decisions in life that you will be successful in any system out there... You must make choices that will benefit you not hinder your way of life and living. Truth is 99% of us are where we are from decisions we have made in the past.

Gotta want it all to get it all and you will never have anything with a defeatist attitude..We would not have a USA if it were for defeatist attitudes running around way back when.

reply to post by Tanulis


I agree with your dissertation on these issues. Corporatism is a small problem compared to the greed that is present in current society. I too value that a person can work and earn more than they need to survive. But I also recognize that the less cash moving throughout society means less people without that opportunity. I do not think capitalism as is currently practiced is the exact capitalism our founders may have envisioned. Remember our founders wanted the money in the peoples hands, with natural cycles of the market making rich spend their money. What has occurred is that many of the rich now influence the government and Americans have become dependent on jobs. As a result Americans are demanding the government do something to give them a job, when the real problem is our society has been arranged where a persons ability to live is dependent on a rich person.

The problems are multifaceted and cover a broad spectrum of issues. But, I agree, there are problems with the bulk of your essay and in theory I agree with everything you said. The solution from what I see is making all life essential services food, electricity, basic housing, and medical care rights of the people of the nation, and making those industries be ran as not for any profit. Not non-profit mind you, but not for profit. The difference is that a not for profit industry can still make some profit but that it should only make profits for the purpose of expansion, research, increased jobs, etc.

Originally posted by seachange
I think that food, clothing, and shelter result in happiness. Try getting rid of all your food, clothing, and shelter and then decide whether you are more happy or less happy. Money is simply a convenient way of trading one item of food, clothing, shelter for another more valued item. Therefore, I question you as to why its so awful to be able to exchange one thing for another using a convenient system of exchange. Do you believe that trading should be inconvenient and difficult?

It is convenient, but it is also used to manipulate and control. Give me convenience, or give me death?

I have no problem with trading, and no it should not be difficult. You're missing the point I think?

Money is not the problem, private ownership of the mean of production is, and under that system money is used to control and manipulate the population. Under a system that does not keep resources artificially scarce money could not be used that way.

You also seem to value self-sufficiency.

I was just making the point that in the capitalist system we are controlled to benefit them, not ourselves. We are not taught to be self sufficient, we are conditioned to live a life of being subservient to the capitalist class, and not be able to survive outside of their controlled system. I mean as whole, not as individuals.

depending on each other for different things seems to have a better result, because some of us are better at certain things than others. We all live in a reality of dependency where people who are totally self-sufficient often have zero free-time. Is being a slave to a corporation for 8 hours a day worse than being a slave to tending to your own basic needs for 16 hours a day? If you've managed to be self-sufficient with loads of free-time, then by all means post the Youtube video and I'll consider doing what you're doing.

Again you missed my point, sorry, I was not taking about survivalism. If we were producing, as an industrialized society, for the world needs, rather than producing crap just to make money, we would have far more free time than we do now. We already have the resources to feed the world over but we don't, because it would upset the capitalist economy and not make anyone rich. Feed the poor, eat the rich!

The world produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day (FAO 2002, p.9). The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food.

www.worldhunger.org...

With the land and machinery they could feed themselves, like they used to before capitalists took their land, for example, to raise cows for hamburgers to sell to Americans and Europeans.

Originally posted by ANOK
Money is not the problem, private ownership of the mean of production is, and under that system money is used to control and manipulate the population. Under a system that does not keep resources artificially scarce money could not be used that way.

When Liberty Dollar started to become successful at competing with the US Dollar, the FBI defined the founder as a "domestic terrorist", and he now faces prison time as if he were a murderer. Given that is the case, I'm not sure how you consider the US banking system to be privately controlled. It seems to me that the government is carefully controlling (and therefore owning) the banking system to a large degree. Isn't a key anchor or definition of capitalism is the allowance for competition?

While its true the ownership of the banking system is based on the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve appears to be a private party, isn't it just as much controlled by a public party: the US Federal Government? Are not US banks opening and operating accounts carefully and entirely defined by US federal banking legislation and the Federal Reserve? And, there are other messy issues that cause me to question whether the banking system is private. Supposedly, much of the stock market is "owned by the public". Stocks are supposedly public-owned companies, and members of the general public are by and large the owners of most stocks such as through retirement accounts.

So, not only is there brute delegation of authority by government that presumably can be revoked at any time, there is a positively huge volume of banking regulations that effectively do place the government as partial owners of all banks, and there is the idea of public ownership of banks through the stock market as well. For you to say that the current banking industry is in private hands isn't accurate. Its in the hands of a shadowy mess somewhere between public and private hands. And as I've said earlier on this thread, public-private corporate monopoly is fascism, not capitalism.

While its true that the US has delegated its authority to a private party, the fact that the authority is delegated makes the money system a government ownership system more than it makes it a private ownership system.

If we were producing, as an industrialized society, for the world needs, rather than producing crap just to make money, we would have far more free time than we do now. We already have the resources to feed the world over but we don't, because it would upset the capitalist economy and not make anyone rich. Feed the poor, eat the rich!

The world produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day (FAO 2002, p.9). The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food.

www.worldhunger.org...

Maybe greed is a factor in the fact that people are starving in other continents at a much greater rate. But there are other factors at work. Religious nationalism in the US indoctrinates people to care more for people who live in the borders of the US than to care for people who live outside those borders. Secondly, the attitude that the government has so much money that they should solve the problem is I think the most important problem. People have an attitude that since the government is getting all that money its their responsibility to take care of people in need. But this is not true. If someone is starving, its well proven that the government of the world care very little and don't do much to help.

The best solution I think is to give up on the idea that we can use the government to stop world hunger and try solutions that do not involve government at all. Not to say I think it would be impossible to use the government to achieve that, but rather to say that our efforts are more or less wasted when compared to starting up charity organisations and educational programs designed to teach people how to be generous.

Our family has gardens etc.
The insects and wildlife look at us like we are capitalists with big bounties of food.
We share some water with them and they steal a portion of crops.
I feel they look at us as greedy not wanting to share.
They protest, destroy stuff but never leave they have worked out a life style, from our
families capitalist ways.

reply to post by Tanulis

The real problem is Capitalism

Nice rant but... really, it sounds like the same logic that blames guns for violence and not those pulling the trigger.

Capitalism is simply a tool and like a gun, can be abused to do harm to innocent people. The question is whether we can identify the source of the problem or simply hit the Easy button and blame the object or concept.

Violent tendencies will survive even if the gun is eradicated. Greed will survive even if Capitalism disappears.

The problem is the human condition, not the machine.

Originally posted by ANOK

Thing is corporatism is a result of capitalism. It is just another way for capitalists to protect their interests.

No, corporatism can be a result of capitalism. Pure capitalism is unregulated (by the government) business for profit. That mom and pop Chinese restaurant down the street from your house is practicing capitalism, though not in its pure state, as our economic system has moved toward a socialist (government regulated) system.

Is the owner of that restaurant greedy? Yes, he is. He opened a restaurant because people like to eat Chinese food, and he knew he would have customers to give him money for it. He takes that money and pays wages, buys more food to sell, and keeps a portion for himself to live on. If he weren't greedy, he'd take the money and lower his prices enough so that revenue equaled expense only, not taking any for himself.

But a certain amount of greed is required isn't it? He may have a family to feed, keep clothed, keep a roof over their head, send his kids to school, etc. His "greed" keeps him and his family from starving. So he is required to keep a portion for himself.

It's ironic to hear the OP condemn greed. He grows his own food to keep his money for himself. The OP's greed keeps he and his family from starving. If the OP was motivated by altruism, he'd buy his food from the market so that the sellers could pay wages to their employees, buy more food to sell, and keep a roof over their head. He'd inject money into the economy, which helps businesses create jobs.

You can go on about capitalism being bad. Unfortunately you've obviously no idea what capitalism is, or is not. Nor are most of you willing to admit that we all have a certain amount of greed, and that there is not a thing wrong with it.



/TOA

Originally posted by brokedown
It seems that we are starting to confuse Capitalism with Corporatism, which really is Fascism.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

Any country that allows the Corporation to direct and influence its policies is Fascist. This is exactly where we find the United States today. I could site examples ad-nausea, but the Gulf / BP oil disaster is a gleaming proof to the point.

Capitalism is in no way, shape, or form Corporatism. In true Capitalist culture the Corporation is rarely found, and is only used for the benefit of the entire population, as it was during the first hundred years or so of the United States.

Exactly!

Stop calling our corporatism capitalism. This country is long ago turned corporatist. Calling our structure capitalism is like calling the stars, a monkeys scream. They have nothing to do with one another.

reply to post by Tanulis


I hate Capitalism and when I say that I get attacked because I hate what we ended up with. Capitalism itself is not a bad idea but I think before you plan anything you need to determine your goals.

If your goal is to make some people very rich - then Capitalism is your strategy.
If your goal is to make everyone pretty well off with a good quality of life off then you might modify Capitalism to better reach those goals.

If there were not scammers and false deceptive advertising Capitalism should work but because so many crooks sell crap to unsuspecting citizens using creative sales pitches ...Capitalism benefits scammers and thieves.

Even the "Best Companies" selling excellent products eventually find a way to make those products using less labor and cheaper material and get more for it.
Everyone uses PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE as a part of their manufacturing credo and we accept that. That is the way it is...make it to break so we have to buy another one.

People have little money left for necessities like housing food and clothing when they are constantly duped into buying things that are unhealthy for them, things they are tricked into thinking they need, things that don't do what they are supposed to, things that break after using them once.
The average consumer, the one who can't afford to buy gold standard model once ends up buying 10 refrigerators instead of one good one. Regular people have to hope they get lucky and if they happen to get lucky they have to hope it holds out. It is a constant struggle and the end result is the biggest shysters and the greediest and most unscrupulous win and the consumer loses.

Originally posted by ANOK
It is capitalism that dictates government policy.

Capitalism keeps resources artificially scarce, by underproduction, in order to keep prices high. It keep us competing for with each other for what we need, including 'jobs'.

They do that with digital items now online. The items themselves can be duplicated an infinite amount of times for free, but they create a demand for it and raise the price, and make PURE profit because there are no costs to reproduce the product. Kindle books? Please. After they sell it, they can take it back again for whatever reason they choose, there is no freedom. Everyone knows they did that with 1984, incrementalism shows that this will occur to a vareity of books deemed ''offensive in nature'' or ''anti-police''.

Originally posted by Cuervo
reply to post by Tanulis

 

Those thoughts echo my own so closely that I thought maybe I drank too much and created another profile last night. Well said. All of it.

Of course, many on here will fight for the distinction between capitalism and corporatism. There is truth in that but the only way to prevent capitalism from becoming corporatism is to put in place strict regulation on corporate growth... but then you cease to be capitalist. Basically, there is no way to control true capitalism without killing it.

That paragraph was definitely something that I was trying to portray in my own essay but couldnt find the exact words. ''there is no way to control true capitalism without killing it'', thats perfect! So does capitalism mean freedom? Its just a big sad joke.

Originally posted by seachange

Originally posted by Tanulis
And then we hear about all the terrible things these huge mega-corporations do to take more and more money. For example:
- Suppressing alternative energies Link

Thats really is just scratching the surface, as you all well know. And its obviously not just the corporations committing all the atrocities here. They have so much money that they have the government by the balls, and can force any legislation through and buy any politician they want, and that politician becomes a talking head for that company, rather than the people.

I believe you do not understand either capitalism or fascism.

Once the corporation, a corrupt fascist entity to begin with, successfully convinces the population to embrace authoritarianism they now use their wealth to write the laws that keep the smaller businesses out. There is no better example than the FDA. The FDA has all but destroyed medicine. If you think you can as a small independent company, develop a medicine that helps people, you're wrong and you will be destroyed because the FDA will destroy you. This isn't a joke. People who do this go to *prison* with a felony record. Try it and see what happens. Thats what the FDA is about. They are about large companies using the anti-capitalist principles of authoritarian economics destroying you and your neighbours if you dare compete with the big players.

I do understand both Capitalism AND fascism. In this country Corporatism and Capitalism are one in the same. The FDA is a prime example, I agree. The corporations have the FDA pass all this regulation for smaller businesses who want to compete, and they just smack a big FDA sticker on the red tape and pretend the regulation just got passed because the FDA thought it would be fun. ''We dont make the laws, sir''.... yes you f*cking do. Thanks for the replies though everyone!

Originally posted by redoubt
reply to post by Tanulis

 

The real problem is Capitalism

Nice rant but... really, it sounds like the same logic that blames guns for violence and not those pulling the trigger.

Capitalism is simply a tool and like a gun, can be abused to do harm to innocent people. The question is whether we can identify the source of the problem or simply hit the Easy button and blame the object or concept.

Violent tendencies will survive even if the gun is eradicated. Greed will survive even if Capitalism disappears.

The problem is the human condition, not the machine.

I understand, but then what is the solution? Unfortunately you're suggesting that humans are the problem, and although I would agree with that, to an extent, you havent suggested an answer to curb greed on a human psychological level. Is it something we can teach our children? I doubt it. Humans want more, always.

Originally posted by newcovenant
reply to post by Tanulis

 

If your goal is to make some people very rich - then Capitalism is your strategy.
If your goal is to make everyone pretty well off with a good quality of life off then you might modify Capitalism to better reach those goals.

If you were to actually do actually do the research, you'd find that the most capitalist countries (actually the least anti-capitalist countries because all countries except Hong Kong are by and large anti-capitalist) have the lowest amounts of poverty-related problems such as malnutrition and infant mortality.

Capitalism helps the poor the most for the simple reason that they need money the most. As for the rich, they are simply more rich under capitalism.

Even the "Best Companies" selling excellent products eventually find a way to make those products using less labor and cheaper material and get more for it.
Everyone uses PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE as a part of their manufacturing credo and we accept that. That is the way it is...make it to break so we have to buy another one.

And government does nothing to solve that problem. What solves the problem is shopping at good companies, forming consumer groups, and participating in ethical shopping practices designed to give business to good companies that for example treat the environment with respect.

reply to post by newcovenant


Your entire post can be sumed up thusly
"I am too stupid to exist in a free world and I need mommy and daddy to protect me from evil greedy businessmen"

There is so much stupid in this thread I really hesitated to comment on it but I wanted to complement THE OLD AMERICAN on his absolute touchdown of a post!

Originally posted by Dragoon01
reply to post by newcovenant

 

Your entire post can be sumed up thusly
"I am too stupid to exist in a free world and I need mommy and daddy to protect me from evil greedy businessmen"

There is so much stupid in this thread I really hesitated to comment on it but I wanted to complement THE OLD AMERICAN on his absolute touchdown of a post!

Perhaps if you wanted to read it that way but then you could also read it "two dogs take a trip to the zoo" or you might just see a mess of numbers, or you could read it the way it is written. Whatever your creative imagination wants to see, that's what is there.

I have two words for you my learned friend. Take them to heart or people might underestimate your mental alacrity....spell check.

Originally posted by seachange

Originally posted by newcovenant
reply to post by Tanulis

 

If your goal is to make some people very rich - then Capitalism is your strategy.
If your goal is to make everyone pretty well off with a good quality of life off then you might modify Capitalism to better reach those goals.

If you were to actually do actually do the research, you'd find that the most capitalist countries (actually the least anti-capitalist countries because all countries except Hong Kong are by and large anti-capitalist) have the lowest amounts of poverty-related problems such as malnutrition and infant mortality.

Capitalism helps the poor the most for the simple reason that they need money the most. As for the rich, they are simply more rich under capitalism.

Even the "Best Companies" selling excellent products eventually find a way to make those products using less labor and cheaper material and get more for it.
Everyone uses PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE as a part of their manufacturing credo and we accept that. That is the way it is...make it to break so we have to buy another one.

And government does nothing to solve that problem. What solves the problem is shopping at good companies, forming consumer groups, and participating in ethical shopping practices designed to give business to good companies that for example treat the environment with respect.

edit on 9-9-2011 by seachange because: (no reason given)

I don't need to research to see where Capitalism has hit a wall.
When was the last time you got your moneys worth for anything?
Capitalism needs integrity to work.
People used to stand behind their products and now caveat emptor means the carnival is in town. Without license requirements, inspections, minimum standards and industry regulations you are going to have a lot of dead people, a lot of grieving families. But you just won't shop there anymore and somehow it is all going to correct itself? Not to mention monopolies and price fixing.

reply to post by Tanulis


non sense, the real problem is division. there are no sides to choose from...capitalism?lololol there are no sides! beliefs has divided people to the point that it is a trade system.

reply to post by The Old American

That mom and pop Chinese restaurant down the street from your house is practicing capitalism, though not in its pure state, as our economic system has moved toward a socialist (government regulated) system. Is the owner of that restaurant greedy? Yes, he is.

And in fact I notice a lot of the neighborhood cats have gone missing and they seem to be feeding quite a heard of strays there in back of the restaurant but no worries...it is open to the public so they must be doing alright. I might even learn to like cat.

You have any solutions for this?

When enough people die or get sickened or eat cat...is that when we collectively take a peek at what is going on over here?

I guess all this is self regulating?


If your goal is to make everyone pretty well off with a good quality of life off then you might modify Capitalism to better reach those goals.

Is this such an offensive idea?

Before you undertake even this, you have to think like "a country" and not simply be out to better yourself, everything else be damned including your neighbors livelihood welfare and safety.

Yeah, greed is great and Capitalism is all that.
Look where we are today.

Corporatism is the problem, not capitalism. Capitalism allows for everyone to start a business, whereas corporatism has laws in place that large corporations can get around by paying some fines or hiring lawyers, but small business owners and small farmers get squashed by the enormous fines and legal red tape. In a true system of capitalism the government isn't butting in and telling people not to create business (while at the same time pretending to be passing "jobs" bills).

Originally posted by filosophia
Corporatism is the problem, not capitalism. Capitalism allows for everyone to start a business, whereas corporatism has laws in place that large corporations can get around by paying some fines or hiring lawyers, but small business owners and small farmers get squashed by the enormous fines and legal red tape. In a true system of capitalism the government isn't butting in and telling people not to create business (while at the same time pretending to be passing "jobs" bills).

Do we have corporatism?

Do we have Capitalism?

Or has unfettered and unregulated Capitalism morphed into Corporatism?