reply to post by apushforenlightment
Demand and supply are being manipulated just like they are meant to.
When one (or several) have enough influence to manipulate market supply, then you can't really say it's a free market, now can you?
Similarly - if one can manipulate demand (by, say, mandating the purchasing of insurance - a financial service) - then one is also not participating
in a free market.
Those are known as command economies.
Obviously - command capitalism is not going to turn out so well for those who are not in command.
Capitalism is the way of competition, divide and conquerer, and is supposed to increase ego.
Capitalism is a philosophy. It is the idea that one has the liberty to make a profit off of an exchange of goods/services.
Free market competition seeks to gain more of the market share (have more customers). To do so - one must cater to the needs/demands of the market.
Better products are not always market favorites due to low availability, high pricing, poor customer service, lack of consumer knowledge (of
the product), etc. Similarly, cheaper products are not always market favorites. The exact nature of the competition will vary within market
demographics (people with plenty of money are going to pay attention to quality over pricing, for example), market segment (clothing and drill bits
are two substantially different markets with their own intricacies) - the list goes on. However - the idea is that businesses compete for the
patronage of customers.
For this to work, customers must have choices; and businesses have to have competition.
Free market is only a marketing scheme from my point of view.
Ultimately, the free market is all there is. Governments that attempt to operate in spite of the free market will be consumed and absorbed by
populations that do operate in light of the free market.
People, like myself, will never accept the restrictions of a command economy, and will eventually out-innovate and out-manufacture such simple minded
constructs into collapse. When you think of what defines a nation - 90% of your criteria will directly correspond to its economy.
People will go where the exchange of goods/services is good. Thus, governments will always rise and fall on the backs of the population's economic
efforts.
Belive what you want, but if we don't have a level system and are not equal the we just create hate, anger, ego and deserve the violence from
below that it causes.
The free market is as equal as it gets.
If a person is being parasitic and is by taking to much of the cake is rising the cost of the goods while lowering the wages so that I cannot
have my dreams why should I let him have his.
That's a selfish line of reasoning.
Why must someone employ you? If someone has a considerable amount of money - perhaps you should be dedicating those mental faculties of yours toward
thinking of a good/service that will appeal to their needs/wants.
I'm more than happy to know that there are people out there with enough money to buy jet liners. I'm an electronics and avionics guy. The more
people there are be-bopping around in airplanes, the more opportunity there is for me to get in on building and/or maintaining that aircraft. Perhaps
I could even design one, one day, and sell them while employing a couple hundred people to help me make them.
I'm not saying it is "fair" for someone to end up with so much more money. But - in the free market, there's plenty of
opportunity for
them to spend that money; and for us to come up with new things they will want to spend that money on.
Some belive they can be uncorrupted by ego when they have power. That is an illussion. The only way to not be corrupted is to split the power.
Most people are so blind to their own ego.
Spare for the fact that group-think is an emergent intelligence that arises within groups of individuals and allows their behavior to be described as
though they are all acting under the influence of a single intelligence.
Which makes splitting the power an illusion in and of itself.
In this system I might be changing upwards a bit or downwards a bit but even if I go all the way up I will be a slave to the system. The system
sucks and people around the world are seeing it for what it is now. Powerpyramids (pyramidschemes) do not work and will never work.
I hate to sound like a dick - but all I see in this is another person looking to play the victim.
You victimize yourself by asserting you are, and always will be a slave; then try and vindicate this with a "but we see what is wrong, and we will
all do something about it." ... Except that still doesn't answer how you will cease being a slave. You'll simply change masters.
You lack identity and, thus, integrity.
