Why my mind is closing towards Capitalism

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse

Originally posted by SayonaraJupiter
Look at the heroes of capitalism.

John D ROCKEFELLER, Jr, historymatters.gmu.edu...

...
Get it?

What is it about a FREE MARKET, which is what capitalism really is, don't you understand?...

Bull, Capitalism is a form of competition, the best way to win competition is to eliminate
or neutralize competition. Buying politicians or owning the source and application of law
is the best way to win in a free market, because you then own the rule of the boundaries
and rules of "freedom".

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse

Originally posted by dadgad

Look as far as I'm concerned, the free market poetry is nothing but poetry. Kinda similar to those who still believe in state-communism. Monopolies happen because for the capitalist a free market is a threat to him, nothing will stop him from trying to achieve his monopoly. It simply happens.

edit on 15-2-2012 by ElectricUniverse because: (no reason given)

And that monopoly, and centralization of power to a few, or one corporation is exactly tenets of leftwinger ideologies such as socialism/communism. Can you not see how they are trying to rewrite history?

Nope. As long as their is private ownership of production means you're still functioning in a capitalist system.

Can you not remember how not so many years ago EVERYONE knew that socialism was "the means of production and all infraestructure owned by the state" and now it means the same as communism?...

I think that has a lot to do with propaganda.

Can you not see that leftwingers are trying to rewrite history just so COMMUNISM can be implemented by them yet again?...

Perhaps something reminiscent of state communism maybe. But I see America more as fascist, moving towards a technocratic post humanist surveillant state. Lets go deeper into that ok, why you believe this, why we are moving towards communism.

Can you not see that leftwingers are trying to rewrite history just so COMMUNISM can be implemented by them yet again?...

You mean under influence of Colonel M. House? He wrote a secret book didn't he, about a communist America?

To me, and you may disagree, the Rothschild hijack is something that can be considered capitalism at its purest..

You have a tendency to consider any government action to be communist, that is a little extreme don't you think?

Other leftwinger tenets have been implemented and made law such as the government taking control over education, and every part of our lives, and what exactly has this done?...

The capitalists did it. They hijacked your government.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse

Originally posted by ANOK

BTW capitalism is centralization of power. Every single private company has a hierarchical system. There is always the minority making the decisions for the many.

It's like a collective dictatorship, instead of a single dictator you have many smaller dictators working together to control, manipulate, and exploit the consumer, and the worker, to meet their collective interests.

Socialism decentralizes by putting the control into the hands of the workers, the majority.

edit on 15-2-2012 by ElectricUniverse because: (no reason given)

You are talking aboout MONOPOLIES...and those have NOTHING to do with Capitalism... and the "minority always making the decisions for the many" is a tenet of your ideologies... SOCIALISM/COMMUNISM... where the few "claiming to represent the people" have all power and have taken away every individual freedom "for the good of all"...

You see this is where I think you miss the point. Monopolies happen. A free market as you put it is really nothing but a battlefield of competing private interests. The strongest win. And you blame them for getting a monopoly?

"Collectivism" is also a tenet of your ideologies of socialism/communism... You are so confused and so brainwashed that you can't even remember what your ideology is all about...

Well I happen to agree with Anok (surprise). But to understand this you have to look at capitalism in a slightly different way. Let me quote a piece by a (primitivist I think) anarchist, I think he nails it down.

And so it is, although it is nothing but a description of the modern workplace. The liberals and conservatives and libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phonies and hypocrites. There is more freedom in any moderately de-Stalinized dictatorship than there is in the ordinary American workplace. You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or a monastery. In fact, as Foucault and others have shown, prisons and factories came in at about the same time, and their operators consciously borrowed from each other’s control techniques. A worker is a part-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors, he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called “insubordination,” just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation. Without necessarily endorsing it for them either, it is noteworthy that children at home and in school receive much the same treatment, justified in their case by their supposed immaturity. What does this say about their parents and teachers who work?
The Abolition of Work

Tenets of your ideologies have been tried and implemented by LEFTWINGERS in the United States and in the world, and they have brought nothing but suffering and enslavement. Yet you want more...

You mean like workers union fighting for better wages and labor environment?

If you have some time I really urge/advice to watch this episode with Zizek Slavoj, a critical Marxist. From all the socialists I know he is actually the most tolerant towards capitalism. He makes very interesting points as to why capitalism is failing and why we according to him are living in some sort of end times. He answers all kinds of arguments similar to yours. He is also very entertaining to listen to (plus point no?).

Originally posted by charles1952
Capitalism is only an economic system. It's not political or philosophical. It's big concern is how to generate the most value from available resources, and it does that better than any thing else that's been thought of.

Everyone remembers Adam Smith's 1776 book on the Wealth of Nations, but few remember his book written 17 years before called the Theory of Moral Sentiments. The first sentence is:

'How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it'.

We can't donate to others' happiness unless the system has produced something to donate, and capitalism does that better than anything we've seen.

If only we HAD capitalism we would know if the above statement is true.

Its like the government was in bed with its wife (Capitalism) and turned the lights on to see its sister lying there naked...

Originally posted by danwolf
If only we HAD capitalism we would know if the above statement is true.

We don't have capitalism?

cap·i·tal·ism
   [kap-i-tl-iz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

dictionary.reference.com...

Originally posted by ANOK

Originally posted by danwolf
If only we HAD capitalism we would know if the above statement is true.

We don't have capitalism?

No, we don't, ANOK. I have to agree with this one. Under a system of pure, von Misen Capitalism, the banks would not have been bailed out. Capitalist theory advocates that a business which fails, fails; that is actually the entire basis of their thinking that the market will cure all ills. (Which in more general terms, I disagree with, incidentally)

Friedman and his ilk, however, were social Darwinists; and that was the basis of the system. Their thinking was along the lines of survival of the fittest, which is precisely the source of my grievance with it. What they've done right now, though, is give us the worst of both worlds.

The rich get government bailouts and socialist safety nets; if the banks or businesses deemed critical become insolvent because of fraud, the government will back them up, on the taxpayer's dime. Sink or swim, Friedmanite Capitalism, on the other hand, is reserved for the rest of us; the little people who aren't members of the oligarchic, exclusive clubs and think tanks.

I am not a friend of Milton Friedman; I have difficulty, to be honest, refraining from the belief that the man was literally demonically possessed. I will, however, give the Capitalists their due when they say that the system we have now, is not pure Capitalism. It is Capitalism for the poor, and Socialism for the rich.

reply to post by petrus4


I disagree, as I have stated all along capitalism is 'the private ownership of the means of production', it doesn't stop being capitalism because of some random practices associated with it.

If capitalists declared themselves to be the new government, and started putting people in gulags, and forced you to work for nothing, it would still be capitalism.

No matter what condition the political climate, or how totalitarian the system is, as long as the means to produce are mostly privately owed it is a capitalist economy.

There are no rules, other than those forced on them by government, most often through pressure from workers [unions].

Government bailouts, be they for the rich, or poor, is not socialism. Socialism is the workers ownership of the means of production, remember? Bail outs for the capitalists, is simply capitalists helping capitalists. The government is full of them and their lackeys.

reply to post by ANOK


By this line of reasoning, socialism is socialism no matter how despotic the government. If you want to apply this reasoning to capitalism, that's fine, but you must also do it to the other side of the coin.

Originally posted by ProgressiveSlayer
reply to post by ANOK

 

By this line of reasoning, socialism is socialism no matter how despotic the government. If you want to apply this reasoning to capitalism, that's fine, but you must also do it to the other side of the coin.

the thing, however, is that while fascist dictatorships such as Italy under Mussolini, Spain under Franco, Nazi Germany, etc., still allowed private ownership of the means of production, with all the tyrannical regimes that have called their movements "socialist", such as the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, etc., not a single one has actually practiced workers' control over the means of production. the few smaller examples of this principle being put into practice has been tied to very free and equal societies, the reason being that you can't expect to give workers democratic control over their labor relations while simultaneously expecting them to subvert themselves to a dictator. as a matter of fact, one could argue that the aforementioned tyrannical regimes could actually be described as capitalist themselves as in many cases, while the government own(ed) the businesses in those countries, they have a top-down structure in which there is very little difference between them and capitalist firms. in other words, bosses in these countries very often still had control over the means of production and therefore the workers subjugated to working with those means of production in order to earn a wage.

Originally posted by ProgressiveSlayer
reply to post by ANOK

 

By this line of reasoning, socialism is socialism no matter how despotic the government.

As long as the workers own the means of production, then yes it would be socialism. Just like a hammer is a hammer, whether you knock nails or heads with it. But it would be hard for a government to be despotic when the workers own the means of production. The only reason a government gets so powerful is from capitalist control of the economy, and their financial control of the state.

If it calls itself socialism, but the workers do not own and control the means of production, then it is not socialism.
If a country has a dictator, but the means of production are privately owned then it is still capitalism. If the state takes over the means of production it is nationalism (not socialism).

If the workers owned and controlled the means of production, why would they let themselves be under the control of a despot government? Whomever owns the economy controls the country.

If you want to apply this reasoning to capitalism, that's fine, but you must also do it to the other side of the coin.

I do. Capitalism and socialism are economic systems, not political, either one can be totalitarian in theory. It's just when a minority owns the means of production, as in capitalism, then there is far more opportunity to become totalitarian.

Socialism requires no government or state system to work, libertarian socialism, solves the problem of government/state.

reply to post by ANOK


You like to use definitions a lot, so here's socialism defined from the same source you use:

so·cial·ism    [soh-shuh-liz-uhm] noun

1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.

3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

From dictionary.reference.com

None of the definitions offered use your "workers own the means of production" theory, so you are not advocating socialism. Definitions are restrictive. You look at the definition of Capitalism and apply it to corporatism and fascism when clearly these are perversions of Capitalist principles, yet I am not allowed to apply socialism to communist governments when those are self-described perversions of socialist ideas.

No, humans do not have to subject themselves to a government with what I think you are trying to get at in your theory, but without the organization of even a small government how does your community handle things like defense from external sources, citizens who don't want to play by society's accepted rules, etc. I asked these questions before in a different post because I think it foolish to consider an economic system without looking at what the government structure around it would look like. No one wanted to answer even a single question about it so maybe I'll try to start a thread or something?

Your theory might work, but I'm not understanding how "workers own the means of production". Is this only true for the "company" they work for that produces a specific product and gets an equal cut of the profit or is this code for "everyone owns everything and gets to take what they need"? Certainly the former looks more Capitalist than I assume you prefer your economic flavor, but how can the latter exist for long without being corrupted?

Certainly the taking only what you need quickly turns into only taking what you need to be comfortable. As this happens people's definition of "comfortable" likely becomes more lavish until there is, wait for it, artificial scarcity of resources. Citizens would then be faced with needing to put in place, wait for it, an authority (read government structure) to maintain "fair" distribution of resources. When the "authority" has control of resources they have control of the Citizens. That situation looks wide open for a despot to me.

reply to post by ANOK


The video tells me what it is, not how it works. This is how I see a lot of people try to advocate socialism. They tell why any form of Capitalism is bad without ideal conditions and then go on to explain a socialist system that also couldn't exist without ideal conditions.

Originally posted by ANOK
Socialism requires no government or state system to work, libertarian socialism, solves the problem of government/state.

Somalia has that kind of state. Why dont you move to Somalia to enjoy what you consider paradise?

Dont you think its odd that none of the socialism-advocates on ATS actually live in a socialist state?

Mogadishu, the charming capital of the socialist-libertarian country of Somalia:

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Mogadishu, the charming capital of the socialist-libertarian country of Somalia:

Add to that a photo of Fallujah in Iraq, after what the American military did to it, in the name of the corporate contractors who invaded that country. In other words, this doesn't prove anything.

Maybe you're having difficulty identifying the type of information that is supportive of Capitalism, which I would consider constructive. I've already had a personal account from someone who described running a business in a manner that was mutually beneficial to others, as well as to himself.

In other words, I am already abundantly familiar with the horror stories that exist on both sides of this issue. What I am really looking for, are case studies of successful, positive implementations of either ideology. I am aware that examples of both exist. This could potentially have a reconciliatory effect for advocates of both sides.

Originally posted by petrus4
Maybe you're having difficulty identifying the type of information that is supportive of Capitalism, which I would consider constructive.

All socialist nations turning into run-down places of despair and all capitalist nations having high money, health and happiness levels is information enough for educated people.

reply to post by Skyfloating


so like why are american children eating rats for dinner?

Originally posted by Skyfloating

Originally posted by petrus4
Maybe you're having difficulty identifying the type of information that is supportive of Capitalism, which I would consider constructive.

All socialist nations turning into run-down places of despair and all capitalist nations having high money, health and happiness levels is information enough for educated people.

So in other words, the only safe course of action to take, is to accept this as a given, and construct a taboo around any analysis of it at all?

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Somalia has that kind of state. Why dont you move to Somalia to enjoy what you consider paradise?

Dont you think its odd that none of the socialism-advocates on ATS actually live in a socialist state?

Actually, I think you got that backwards. If anything, Somalia is probably the closest thing to free markets as you can get, so it should be the ideal place for those who say free markets are the only real form of capitalism.

reply to post by Skyfloating


Actually, Somalia has been used for years as an example of the free market. You can actually read a book called" Law of the Somali's" that explains why.

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329577234&sr=8-1

It is probably more anarcho-capitalist than anything else.