Capitalists - you really don't see a problem?

a reply to: deadlyhope

Totally, not realistic because of human greed. Just like how a liberal utopia can't work either, or Communism can't work. Communism is great on paper, but it never has worked.

I know a ton of conservatives that think they ought to be able to decide how much in taxes they pay.

I told them, "Dude, if people got to decide how much in taxes they'd pay, that'd be like tipping at the restaurant. There would be A LOT of people wouldn't pay anything at all. They'd shirk their social responsibility and be greedy. Look at communes where everyone is supposed to help out. What always happens? Only a few hard working people do anything. The same thing would happen if income tax was discretionary..."

They kind of had to agree with me, as they even said they didn't feel they should be paying into a system they don't agree with in principle.

There is a difference from the capitalism of the early 20th century and the crone capitalism we see today. More like a plutocracy really.
Capitalism in concept works.
The free market works.
Both of those things created the wealth of the nation. Lets not throw out the baby with the bath water now. The government is the one that consolidated it down into a group of filthy rich people. You mention the Koch brothers but why not George Soros? Conflict of interests?... But I digress.

Must you people always be reminded that capitalism has outlasted communism and socialism numerous times? There is a reason Russia and Germany are capitalist nations now. Because they lost the economic war!!!


Side not:
Going to college doesn't guarantee you a good career.
Being of economic value will guarantee you a career.
I'm not paying for someones diploma if I or my children will never see any return in the investment. In fact a diploma will eventually be seen as a mark of debt, and indoctrination if this keeps up...

a reply to: JAY1980

I could also note the free er market of the early 20th century also without regulation was responsible for some of the largest scale human rights violations to ever occur in the West. (Other than the obvious slavery and reservation policies).

You had child labour and in humane conditions. Not to mention at several points it was cheaper to hire women and children so males just didn't work in many jobs.

We moved the labour market offshore to deal with cheaper labour markets where no such regulations were in place. Which is still imoral and unethical.

The free market does not correct these things on its own. It takes market and labour regulations which are seen as interventionalist.

a reply to: luthier

In the end the consumer regulates all markets, if a company has "unethical" practices buy from the "ethical" competitor. They lose and the "good guy" wins. Simple yeah?

a reply to: sycomix

Why hasn't that happened then?

That is classic idealism. There is no record of this happening on any large scale. It took government regulation to stop it and all we did was move it out of sight. Why is Nike still in business and new Ballance not replace it?

Why do conservative building firms love illegal immigrants?

a reply to: luthier

Because people are vain, they want they popular "name brand" I wear cheap made in the USA steel toed work boots they cost all of $40 US and last for years. I tend to pass on the popular/trendy crap, sadly most people don't. Heck I even live in the same metroplex where both my car and truck were built. If people wanted to make an impact on these "unethical" companies they would shop local and look for made in _______ insert home country here. But hey they just love keeping up with the Jones's don't they?

a reply to: sycomix

And so the free market is only as ethical as it's consumers. Which only proves my point that it requires some oversight.

Of course we could get into inflation and using the CPI to control prices in Keynesian economics but...

Ulitmatley the free market also has problems that need monitoring. Or lake Erie ends up on fire.

I used to be a finish carpenter. Regardless of my degree I loved it. When I moved to Texas which was booming guess who was building all the homes? I certainly found my own market installing and doing millwork but everybody was doing illegal and immoral acts having millions of illegals do the work to give consumers lower prices and make higher margins. That is a capitalist approach. Hence the need for regulations.

a reply to: luthier

Yep and basic lack of ethics in the majority of people is why things like socialism and communism fail faster than capitalism, at least in capitalism the consumer still has a choice, even if they make it poorly.

At least dictators are human, people heel to the wills of corporations. Boards are not even safe from the lifeless entity that is a corporation.

a reply to: o0oTOPCATo0o

Meritocracy.

a reply to: DrakeINFERNO

What would you suggest??? The Forbin Project??? Dictators are a no go in any sense of the word, corporations only have the power that sheeple consumers give them. A democratic republic is the only reliable form of government so long as we the people remember it is our job to regulate the people in "power". Voter rights need to be defended, campaign funding needs to be audited and regulated, lobbyist need to be removed from the equation, then maybe we can catch a glimpse of the USA of old and still look forward to all these novel ideas and progress toward the next great idea. Never gona make forward progress while we sit around and whine and moan about who makes how much or not and why.

a reply to: sycomix

It was more a joke than anything. Corporations amd dictators are no good.

a reply to: DrakeINFERNO

That is the trouble with text sometimes, plenty of text but no context via inflection. Still waiting to see who says hey The Forbin Project isn't a bad idea LOL

a reply to: o0oTOPCATo0o

According to what I've been reading, capitalism and a free market are very similar in practice.

No. Capitalism, as the term already says, is the "accumulation" of capital in the hands of a few groups of people, who gained that capital and the property they claim to own, by installing and inventing laws, constitutions and law-systems that benefit exactly their agenda of private ownership of property and resources. Keeping the old money-dynasties in power by those laws, constitutions and law-systems. (And no, I'm not a marxist. I'm a social democrat).

Both rely on the exchange of goods and services to produce money. Both (ideally) have limited, to zero gov't influence and both rely heavily on supply and demand. Maybe you can show me where I'm going wrong and explain the difference between the two. I am having trouble finding big differences between capitalism and a free market.

A free-market economy, compared to the capitalistic model, allows all participants of a market to exess the market freely and without restrictions (other than environmental issues, for example. Not using poisoning methods for producing their products). A free market economy never existed on earth for longer than a few years, if ever.

Just as in the middle-ages, the monarchies and aristocrasies together with clergy, have ruled and regulated the markets. nowerdays it's not very different. Just the names have changed and the buisnesses are bigger.

Capitalism allows the biggest players, the ones who have the most monetary power, to do what ever they want on any kind of market-place. A free-market economy in comparison first establishes new rules, laws and regulations for the sake of AVOIDING that huge amounts of capital can even be gained and further expanded in just a few hands.

A free-market economy does have other premises than just the accumulation of capital, the goal of mere growth of certain parts of the system as being the one and only goal. A free-market economy has the best interest of ALL market-participants in mind, who are citizens of a society.

A good premise for a free-market economy would be: Don't harm the environment. Don't harm the society. Don't harm the indivdual. The well-being of all members of a market and keeping nature pure and clean is the most high premise. Well-being on a physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual level, under the condition to keep also nature clean and as unpolluted as possible.

I hope you get my point. I'm not a native english speaker.

a reply to: deadlyhope

Too bad i had to find this 12 pages in.

Heres your issue: you are blaming capitalism for problems that capitalism has nothing to do with. Not sure how old you are....but in the last socialist utopia that a case study was done on, when it finally imploded the ruling class still had all the value. Even more so. They called capitalists "pigs", but were at the trough right alongside us chowing down and getting fat. So i call shenanigans.

Who you want to blame:

- our government for loosening regulations on industry, especially financial industry
- our currency, for being set up as a giant funnel into the Reserve Bank (Rothschild). Your loss of value from "inflation"? Yeah. That is just them cutting off a chunk of each dollar and putting it in their pocket as it passes through their hands
- humans. Its our nature to be greedy.

The real problem is that we live in a country, and for the most part a world where we are taught how to be capitalists. The fact that people strive to be rich is the problem. When all we get taught growing up is that money will solve our problems, that money will buy us happiness and that money will make us better then the next guy is what needs to change in order for us to eventually not destroy ourselves. We worship money, and that is like worshiping the devil. This topic can't be discussed because it really hurts TONS of ego's, and people will usually defend $$$$ to their deaths, whether they have a lot of it or not.


Someone who makes a lot of $$$ automatically thinks they are better then those who don't, and therefore USUALLY doesn't care about those who don't make the kind of money that they do. When they see a homeless person, they automatically blame it on their choices and won't even take into consideration that homeless person didn't have the same opportunities that they did, which is NOT always the case.


Capitalism is based on greed and checked out people; people who truly don't understand why we are human and why we are here on Earth together.

originally posted by: JAY1980
There is a difference from the capitalism of the early 20th century and the crone capitalism we see today. More like a plutocracy really.
Capitalism in concept works.
The free market works.
Both of those things created the wealth of the nation. Lets not throw out the baby with the bath water now. The government is the one that consolidated it down into a group of filthy rich people. You mention the Koch brothers but why not George Soros? Conflict of interests?... But I digress.

Must you people always be reminded that capitalism has outlasted communism and socialism numerous times? There is a reason Russia and Germany are capitalist nations now. Because they lost the economic war!!!

Side not:
Going to college doesn't guarantee you a good career.
Being of economic value will guarantee you a career.
I'm not paying for someones diploma if I or my children will never see any return in the investment. In fact a diploma will eventually be seen as a mark of debt, and indoctrination if this keeps up...

Capitalism did so well because bankers could earn more off of tax payers so the global bankers tipped the scale in their favour.

I dont think any of the stock "isms" is the way to go but a hybrid of many systems might work.

Look at Canada, Australia and the UK. Capitalist, sure but heavily regulated by central government and with all due respect we are kicking everyones ass.

Saying you cant base pure unregulated capitalism off of what we see today is run away nostalgia. What we see today was always inevitable. If you dont regulate capitalism and set checks and balances then small groups will ban together and force regulation on everyone but themselves. It is a double edged sword. Dont let people or groups get too big is the only answer I see. The public good has to remain the most powerful force or the public will eventually have no control over what is good for them.

Capitalism brought cancer to what it is today. You have to give capitalists a profitable alternative to stop poisoning people before they even consider doing anything differently.

a reply to: deadlyhope

you really don't see a problem?

Yeah, I sure do. The problem is that we do not take account of and care for the products of society's combustion. We don't take care of the detritus that we leave in our wake.

That's the only one, though. Although it's a big one, the problem that is.

You can see the persistence of the problem evidenced by the abandoned trash heaps that once were some of our earliest cities in the Syrian, Iranian and Iraqi deserts.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

If you've paid any attention I actually truly advocate for free market capitalism. I've said so in this thread, and many others.

However, if "socialism is the road to communism"
I would also like to say that
"capitalism is the road to corporatism"

I realize I've gone this way and that within this thread, but my title calls out capitalists, obviously not all of them, for defending the ways of the rich, and I do mostly generalize when it comes to multi national corporations. If you take your business over seas in order to be able to pay slave wages.. You are on my list of bad people. If you defend such actions and call it freedom and great, I have the personal belief that you are anti altruistic and support the elite.

I agree that the federal reserve is a huge problem, government is a huge problem, and that human greed will always be a problem.

This thread is only one facet of any of the problems. I am most definitely arguing that capitalism inevitably causes such situations - so can socialism, so can any system really. Once again, if you've actually read all the pages, I think we need to adapt, change, to mix things up. A stale system with the same politicians for decades is bound to be full of corruption.

I'd advocate moves towards a fair and free market and smaller Government just as much as I would a move towards socialism, sharing, and a bigger government. Replacing the men in DC is what I would want in either situation, though. And making an amendment separating the corporations from the government.

I see a huge amount of hyperbole in the OP.