Is capitalism working?

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Adam

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Is capitalism working?

Let's look at the USA as an example. (The same problems exist here in Australia, but would be most apparent to all in the USA example.) Private enterprise means someone wins, and someone loses. Some companies gain the upper hand, buy out others. The private sector can pay more for better personnel, drawing quality away from the state resources. State education and health moves toward a lowest-common-denominator model, becomes progressively worse. Private education and health care improves. More and more, the smaller and smaller upper class gains advantages while the ever-growing lower class loses them. This is what's known as class polarisation. The USA provides a great model of class polarisation.

Yes, the USA is the largest economy on Earth. Yet at the price of massive and very obvious class polarisation.

So, does capitalism work?
 
Capitalism works for some but not for others.
For corporations it works very well, creating monopolies on markets and because of these monopolies there is little scope for the smaller buisnessman to progress and become successfull.
But yes, capitalism does work in my opinion.
 
i'd like to say that capitalism makes people materialistic and selfish and such - but i'd be wrong. People are like this regardless of what sort of economic system their government is involved in.. :rolleyes:
 
Class polarisation? Getting more Jewish than upper-class American capitalist?

The American classes are working rather harmonously and the tactic of class warfare and economic populism are both dying stragems. This is for the fact that they don't work and aren't really true.

People get left out in capitalism, but everyone gets left out in communism.

Capitalism without a concious is the greatest threat to political systems.

Capitalism seems to be working quite well. Let's look a nation that has embraced capitalism or at least major capitalist tendencies:

China
Since the profit margin was introduced in the 1980s, China's exports have increased from 1% in 1985 to 50% in 2000. Its become the worlds largest and fastest growning economy and amazingly weathly. China is now able to provide more for its people than ever before.

The profit margin and capitalism has percolated into Eastern Europe and more importantly Russia. Look at the improvements since 1992.

On the other hand...
You have North Korea, with a command economy that has completely failed. In the 1990s the Chinese told Mr. Kim that if he opened up the economy he could retain power and some resemblence of a state. Too fearful he'd lose control, Kim never did and now is resorting to building nukes to blackmail Asia and the US for more food and energy. Plus he wants to get out of any reunification prospects.

Capitalism works.
 
If you want to know weather capitalism (or democracy for that matter) works, look at immigration patterns. How many people emigrate from non-capitalist/non-democratic countries to capitalist/democratic ones vs the other way around? It might be a bit easier if you go back 20 yrs when there were a lot more communist countries around.

In fact, just take one example, the US. Does anyone have statistics for how many people emigrated from the US in the past "x" number of years? I'm not talking about expats, but people who gave up their US citizenship. I'd bet you could them on the fingers of one hand...
 
It really depends on what you mean by "capitalism" and what you mean by "works". Also, an economic system consists of 2 parts, the wealth creation part and the wealth distribution part and this needs to be discussed.

I use the word capitalism to mean private enterprise, in which private individuals (or groups of individuals) put together working capital to form a business to serve some need/desire in return for a profit. The people who make the business decisions for the companies involved are rewarded solely according to how much money they make, BUT (and this is why it is private enterprise instead of "free enterprise") they also are restrained in some of their actions by government rules and regulations (environmental laws, etc). If the hand of government is strong enough, it could, theoretically, make private enterprise as inefficient as socialism, but, so far, I know of nowhere that has happened. Anyway, clearly, the history of the last 100 years shows that no other system is better at creating wealth than private enterprise, capitalism. So, in that sense, it works.

As I said elsewhere, most people who dislike capitalism don't dispute that it creates wealth efficiently. What they don't like is that the people making the decisions are not concerned with social welfare and the environment AND they get confused about the distribution side, which should be taken separately.

You can redistribute wealth once the corporations and companies give it over to the owners. All the western democracies do a great deal of wealth redistribution. In the U.S. the bottom 40-50% of income earners pay NO income tax and the top 1% pays about 1/3rd of it. Of course, if you go too far in redistribution then there would be no incentive for anyone to undertake a private enterprise.

As for social/environmental issues, the democracies have also found out they can reign in and regulate private enterprise. They are doing more and more of this and the result is that private enterprise is becoming less and less efficient. Eventually, when laws go to far and too many jobs are lost, the people say "enough" and the legislators respond so as to make it easier for private enterprise to do that which they do best -- create wealth.

As for class polarization, I think you've got it backward Adam. If you go back and look at, say, England and the U.S. in the 1800s, you would see a much larger class differential than today. But, this really has nothing to do with capitalism. As I indicated earlier it has to do with the distribution side of an economy. All the democracies (by which I mean democratic republics) have voted to take money from the wealthy and give to the "masses". Why? Because the masses are much more numerous and have the votes.
 
Is capitalism working?
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No.

Edit: Actually, yes... because it does sustain itself. However, it is pretty excluding and creates violence as much as nuclear energy creates nuclear waste... (actually more...:eek: )...
 
Well haveing study just about every system i think i can awnser this questiopn entirely.
As said by the Russian president, captialism will consume itself, causing needless poverty.
That statement is a cold fact, infact the problems with many systems have already been determined many years ago, which is why you had Karl Marks ect....
Captialism is failing and failing rather quickly, this is due to the fact that free resouce has been eliminated,wherein all land and other resources are now comfined to a limited numder of corporations and indivduals, and the general population has no access, to make gain by dwelling meaning haveing a cost free place to live, no access to mineral or timber by which to manufacture products either for self or sale to pubic for gain, no access to sea resources for dwelling, minerals or food supply. this defines that free resource is eliminated and thereby crippling the common person and family.
The event leaves the population dependant on the system of employment, which with the invention and implication of the machine and its ablity to out preforme humans has lead to no need for works, this leaves the population in great threat of being lock in to pure poverty. Where in due to the invention of the machine only select employment is needed, here discimination of groups, races, and gender is very effective in oppression, leaving entire sectors of populations humilated and impoverised. The other fact of this is that the majority of employment is artifical, meaing that the person is on the job but without reason to the operation of the company.
Plainly when the entire system is overviewed it is a failure due to such constraints, as the population is stagnet and really with out growth on all levels except the upper classes. the current state of captialism in the USA actually produce a welfare economy, wherein the near entire population is dependant on goverment funds. All of this is and was predicatable with the progression of technolgical advancement. the event of technological advancement actually prescibes the eventuall institution of a socialist economy. The practice of captialism in the USA would have lasted longer if in the 1940s or the age of industry after the war did not relocate so many people to city living, however the the same event allowed the technolgical advancements to be achived, as information and education, medicaine ect... . the problem now is that corporations hold much of the land, laws regulate almost every aspect of citizen movement and resource,including taxation, selective employment is ramped, no physical resource is unchecked. Amogest this mental illness and goverment dependance of citizens is increaseing due to growing city populations set in trend from the industry movement into the cities. The only education that would allow for a final stage of free resource, Chemistry, is highly regulated, and the number of the population educated in such are few.
The truth about capitalism is that it is failing,as the russian president said captialism will consume itself its just a matter of time. This is even more evident in the event of laws that regulate citizens throught the country, many of them nearly enslaving persons under view point of the given region, generally to eliminate citizens dependancy on goverment resources, or turning the citizen into a money resouce for the regional govement State,County or City, and Local goverment adverts resposiblity burden on privte citizens. this as has resulted in gross injustice throught the country, causing the leagl structure to be a failure in protecting citizens rights, the fedreal goverment playing a inactive role in potecting citizen rights against States and Counties have cemented the ongoing abuse of the regional goverments. The Justice system which was designed to protect citizens rights has become a tool of the regional goverments to facilitate the abuse. As well the institution of justice has taken to abusing citizens, as lawyers and police judges ect... need a active work load to make money,The fact that there is is a very large overload of lawyers has not made it better but worse. Plainly the justice system has become a buisness market, rather than a Institution of Justice, for this reason the USA has the highest prison population in the world, and it is estimated that every person will have contact with or be effected by legal proccess. in the course of this 60 % of the prison population is considered to be innocent and 33+ % guilty. thats 33% completly innocent, 33% may have some knowlegde of the crime or associated with the actor of the crime, 33 % plainly committed the crime. In general the with such facts the current buget for policing forces, lawyers. prisions ect.. is not justified. Crime is has been at a alltime low for more than 5 years.., but its a big big bussiness. Futhure with such injustice one has to look at the events of any association with the justice department as it effects your ablity to find employment, or get creidt, auto insurance ect..... even just one minor contact.
the event of other govemrntal regulation regarding family, and other human relations makes current America very near third world countries, if not worse.
Economically again the majority of person can not afford to have a second child and there for the base life is completely controlled, the averge family can not afford to buy a home, as living cost. Also otherwise 40% of gosss earning goes to taxes, and 60 % of earning after taxation goes to housing. plainly there is no gain in sight year after year for the majority of the population. The random medical cost of a family can not be payed exccept through a payment procces, and major medical bills often cripple the familys earnings for several years or more. In many cases both father and mother must work leaving the children as wards of others in adolecence, this in general means that socially the children are almost handed over to a goverment institution after birth, simular to many mandatory education system that provide no legal responsablity for your children but demand they be present for endoctrination.
Like i said the USA is one step away from being a third world country or taken over by a dictator and this is what the russian president meant captialism will consume its self and fail. things could be done but that seems politically inpossible with the current motion of politics. Captialism is real not a bad parctice as long as there is a free resource, without a free resource it begins to fail due to constrainment.
Currently the only revival would be the distribution of land to citizen, where each citizen is given a portion of land to sell, live on ect... this would exstend the future of the capitalist regime for a lenghty period of time, with a small interuption for about 5 years, and another proccess would be to in addtion make a interstate public transportaion system that is free or exstremly low cost and under fedral operation (interstate super train). besides this there realy is not much that can be done to prolong capitalism as it has been taken to the maxium in the USA.

DWAYNE D.L.RABON
 
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The very premise of capitalism is whatever works is good and should be promoted, whatever dosnt is bad and should be left to suffocate in its own stagnation. This means society will go through psudo-darwinistic evolution and successful practices will eventually come to domitate. There will be kinks in the road but it gets where its going nonetheless.

Think of it this way: If capitalism is working, you dont have to worry about it as it will self propogate. If it is not working, you dont have to worry about it as it will die out by itself. If either happens this means capitalism is working. :p
 
Dwayne D.L.Rabon,

That's great stuff... :)
But where did you get the numbers?
 
Dwayne D.L.Rabon is right on the money. Communism is better. History proves it.
 
I don't think Dwayne was advocating that Communism is the better alternative. But I think that he's right in that Capitalism, if unregulated, will consume itself if taken to its extreme conclusion. In my opinion, the greatest threat to Capitalism is the increasing accumulation of wealth, power and resources in the hands of a few - namely giant conglomerates.
 
Originally posted by Joeman
Dwayne D.L.Rabon is right on the money. Communism is better. History proves it.
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HAHAHAHA, better in theory, but in practice, it fails every single damn time.

That is what happens if absolute power falls onto a "privelege elite few."

Fuck communism.
 
I used to advocate communism, but that won't work. There must be private enterprise if a country is to generate wealth, but there must be effective wealth distribution so that corporate execs who spend all day in health spas and at golf clubs don't get paid hundreds of thousands more a year than the people working 100 times as hard at their sweatshops.

Joeman-- were you being sarcastic? That doesn't sound like you, saying communism works.

Class polarisation? Getting more Jewish than upper-class American capitalist?

Can't you tell YJK was joking? Hello!!!

The American classes are working rather harmonously and the tactic of class warfare and economic populism are both dying stragems.

Yes, and that is why when you see a child prostitute you underpay her :) ...or him :p

This is for the fact that they don't work and aren't really true.

WTF? Of course they don't work. Aren't really true? OMG!!! Of course they're true! This stuff happened here, in Europe, in South Asia, it happened lots of places! HELLO!!!

People get left out in capitalism, but everyone gets left out in communism.

It depends on what communism is. If communism is a totalitarian dictatorship where everybody works for minimum wage while often people are lazy and do a very bad job, but most of the wealth is funneled to the dictator, then that isn't communism. Communism isn't China, it isn't USSR, it isn't NK, Laos, Burma, Cuba. Communism is where the wealth is gained unequally and distributed equally. That doesn't mean everybody gets left out. People like me who have disabilities can take advantage of the system-- well, actually, it isn't taking advantage because it's meant to be that way-- by working less hours at an easier job but getting the same pay. Whereas strong, muscular people like you can do more work before breaking a sweat than I can, and I'm assuming you don't have any sort of disability that makes it hard for you to work sometimes. So, you could do a job that was a little challenging for you, but for me it would be a nightmare, and you'd get the same wages I would for something much easier, something that would be a challenge to me. If we both do our jobs, everything works. However, if you decide to take advantage of the system by being lazy and doing bad work, then it won't work.

See, not everybody has to not-take-advantage, but a good %age of the people do. If everybody thinks that they are part of that percentage, then you will have a very prosperous economy. You could make national propoganda facilities churn out things relating to that. (ie, how well you work shows in the products you buy, if you could create a religion that really believed this, then that would be an ideal situation for communism, but people don't really believe that they're directly related.)

Capitalism without a concious is the greatest threat to political systems.

You mean conscience, right?

Capitalism seems to be working quite well. Let's look a nation that has embraced capitalism or at least major capitalist tendencies:

China
Since the profit margin was introduced in the 1980s, China's exports have increased from 1% in 1985 to 50% in 2000. Its become the worlds largest and fastest growning economy and amazingly weathly. China is now able to provide more for its people than ever before.

The profit margin and capitalism has percolated into Eastern Europe and more importantly Russia. Look at the improvements since 1992.

Erm... yes...

Too fearful he'd lose control, Kim never did and now is resorting to building nukes to blackmail Asia and the US for more food and energy.

Since when has NK blackmailed anybody? For energy, they're using nuclear power plants that they just started running again.

Plus he wants to get out of any reunification prospects.

If he did, he wouldn't go to any sort of summit.

Capitalism works.

That isn't a very good summary of your post. It's a bit short. Capitalism works only under certain conditions and for certain people. For example, I would be left behind because of my disability. I could work, but it would be very agonising and painful for me. I could do something like web design or programming, but I often need to rest because of pain, so I would need extended deadlines and if I were to be a freelancer I would get no patronage, and if I were to look to be hired by somebody they wouldn't hire me.

On the other hand, you could take up a career that was physically demanding-- prostitution, for example-- and you would be able to meet the demands of the average patron.
 
Of course Joeman was being sarcastic, for he would never advocate communism ;)

Plus he wants to get out of any reunification prospects.

If he did, he wouldn't go to any sort of summit.
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Thats naive. Your ruling out any chance that he doesnt want re-unification because he goes to a summit?
 
I would like to point out:
Capitalism does not equal democracy (vice-versa) as suggested by a previous post. An Communism/socialism does not equal a dictatorship (vice-versa) Both can work either way.
 
Okay, for the geniuses among us...

The USSR was not communist. China is not communist. Don't use them as examples of how communism fails.
 
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