capitalism- is it workingFollow

But if the incentive is "making more money", and you remove that, then you've nullified this statement entirely. Capitalism uses the incentive of profit to get people to put their money into productive enterprises. Take that incentive away and *most* people will not do it. They'll put the money into something that directly benefits just themselves instead.



Not the money itself, nor the "things* that money buys. Certainly, the multi-billionare isn't hungry to make that next million. However, the satisfaction they derive is from "success". Past a certain point of wealth they may not be directly affected by any given dollar they earn, but they still enjoy doing it because they derive satisfaction from the process itself. The motive and method is still present. At no point in the economic spectrum does this not work. Other systems do fail though at a number of points. Merchantile systems enrichen those who own land and property but generate no "new goods" for the general consumers (there aren't general consumers). Communism (as close as we get anyway) provides no incentive for anyone to do more then simply fill a cog-like role in the economy, also stiffling inovation. While this system does at least provide for "the people", it does so in a very static way.

Only Capitalism ensures that the majority of "wealth" in the economic system is focused in progressive development of new products designed to improve overall quality of life. While the distribution of that wealth is not even (not by a long shot), the important part isn't who holds the wealth, but what it is doing at any given time. Capitalism forestalls the immediate benefit for a greater one in the long run (investment versus consumption). That's a good thing IMO and I think that since we all benefit from that process all the time (even if we don't realize it), most of us *should* think of that as a good thing.

This is not correct. Capitalism ensures that the majority of the "wealth" is used to create more wealth. The "new products designed to improve quality of life" is a by product of this, a secondary effect if you will. And even then, only in the best of cases. Most of the time, it only creates a need that didn't exist before. This is easily identifiable in advertising, for example, which plays on people's fears and insecurities to push them to consume more. Even though what they purchase clearly doesn't improve their "quality of life".



That's easy for you to say, i'm sure a lot of people are affected by "who holds the wealth".



Capitalism on its own is awful. Pure capitalism is Victoria England. It's as evil as anything.

The capitalism we have today is tempred, regulated, and controlled. It is a hybrid of capitalism (private sector) and socialism (taxes and public sectors). Amd this hybrid works pretty well on a national level, as demonstrated by the standard of living of most countries that adopted such a system.

On an international level, though, it is a shambles. The international rules of trades are grossly unfair and competely skewed. There is absolutely no "free market" in the world economy except when it is directly beneficial to Western nations. Otherwise, it is a duty-heavy, import-taxes, regulated, subsidised market.

Having said that, it is still a million times better than the previous international system, which used to be based purely on force and violent appropriation.

So, it is quite pointless to talk about "pure capitalism" apart from within a purely theoretical framework. "Tempered capitalism", the one we have today in various degrees depending on the country, is a delicate balancing act and is relatively efficient.

But, like all systems, it only works within a specific environment. and it doesn't take a genius to see that soon, survival issues will trump consumerism and the individual accumulation of wealth. There is no doubt that our way of life is not sustainable. Not only that, but tour way fo life is what 2/3 of this planet aspire to, and if they get close to it, the planet will be even more fUcked up than it is today.

Nothing lasts forever, and our way of life will have to change quite considerably in the next 50 years. That goes for our economic system too.



Edited, May 23rd 2007 10:10am by RedPhoenixxx

This is a semantic argument at best though. The process of creating more wealth and the "new products" are intermingled. Capitalism creates new wealth by creating new products. If it didn't do this then the total wealth would be static (and we'd be back under merchantilism in which governments acted heavy handedly to restrict imports and compete for global resources instead of creating new ones).

You can't have one without the other. I'd also seriously question the argument that this only happens in the best of cases. It happens in exactly the proportion to which wealth is generated. Wealth is created "only in the best of cases". The whole point is that capitalism encourages those with wealth (capital) to strive for that "best of cases", which ultimately results in an increase in wealth for them *and* new/better products for all consumers.




This is also very very arguable. I think this factor is relatively small. And ultimately the consumers still have a choice. Also, it's not like they're going to choose to buy that shiney wirly thing while they are starving to death (not often anyway). We can somewhat safely say that advertising only works well on consumers that have already benefited from capitalism in some way. Their quality of life is sufficiently high that they can waste money on products that don't really benefit them much (or at all).

I'll also point out that you put the "need" word in there. That's a bit of a bait and switch. I was talking about products that improve quality of life. You don't "need" a cell phone, nor a TV, nor air conditioning. But all of those things improve your quality of life. You seem to be making the somewhat odd argument that capitalism doesn't work because it enables consumers to have sufficient capability to purchase things that they don't actually "need". I think that contrasted to every other form of economic system, this should be viewed as a positive feature, not a negative one.



Not really. Does it really matter to you who owns the 10 million that was spent building the office you work in? Does it really matter who spent the investment money for (and will reap the profits from) designing that TV you just bought?

People are "affected" by who holds the wealth only because many people have been convinced that it's something that matters. Kinda like how people used to be bothered in EQ when someone /inspected them. It's all in your mind. Ultimately, it doesn't matter one bit as long as the bulk of that wealth is reinvested into things that improve your overall quality of life. That means job creation, economic growth, and creation of new products. Those things benefit everyone regardless of who's money is spent doing it.

It only matters if you're somehow bothered by the fact that the guy who spent 10 million on some venture gains a couple more million in profit. But ask yourself: Why does this bother you? He didn't take anything from you. Why does it bother you that others become more wealthy? Sounds kinda bizarre to me...



Technically, that was the tail end of Merchantilism and the very beginnings of early capitalism. That's not "pure" anything. You literally had the worst of both worlds in that situation. Capitalism takes time to generate those benefits, so they hadn't really appeared yet, but the wealth was still focused in a small number of hands (which really was a holdover from earlier days where those with titles and lands pretty much owned and controlled everything). Yeah. There was lots of abuse. But that process caused the rise of all the things that followed, which arguable made life "better" for more people then before.



Of course. Although I'd argue that socialism is like a tick sucking the blood out of otherwise healthy economies, but we'll just have to disagree on that. Remember, you can have taxes and government regulation of business without having "socialism". Socialism is based on what those taxes are raised for, not that they are raised in the first place. When you start taxing as a punative measure and spending for questionable social benefit, then you start running into problems.

But this is a discussion of capitalism, not socialism.



I think those are simply convenient definitions for you. Tempered Capitlism, is still capitalism. You seem to be under the impression that there's some "pure" capitalism that allows for no regulation or intervention (and I've certainly seen definitions to that effect). I'd argue that that's not the case at all, but are terms invented by those who'd like to impose more socialistic government action and use the percieved need to "temper capitalism" as a lever to obtain their ends. They really are completely separate entities.

Capitalism takes no specific action on taxation. Except that they should not be formed in a manner that actually discourages investment. Capitalism only requires that wealth accumulation be the result of investment in products that generate profits as a result of active consumption. Heck. Some could argue that you almost have to have some government regulation in order for true capitalism to work in the first place. Certainly, regulation helps ensure that investment aids instead of harms the economy and people of a nation. There's nothing particularly antithical about them. At least not until you start using taxes to "punish" capitalists for being successful regardless of benefit generated for others. But again, that's a whole different discussion...

You say this as though grubbing for money were the only way in which one can possibly be a productive member of society.

We both know this isn't true. Surely, there is no point even discussing this. Specualtive investment, house prices rising, venture gains, monetary fluctuations... There are a billion examples of capitalism creating wealth without any product coming out of it.



Not exactly. Capitalism enables, or allows for, the accumaltion of wealth and the privatisation of the means of production. That's it, really.

People choose whatever they want to do with that wealth. Some choose it reinvest it to create new products, some choose to invest it in property, some choose to buy a football club. Sometimes a good result comes out of it for the general population, but most of the time not really.

I'm not saying all of this is bad.

But it's not a magic wand either. "Our" capitalism has worked well for various reasons, but a lot of these are due to Historical factors: the colonies, slavery, the Opium war, the world wars, the international trade system that we designed and put in place...

Capitalism in Russia in 1990 caused a decrease in the life expectancy because it was so brutal and anarchic, for example. And if you look at China, it's an extremely interesting example of a mix of socialism and capitalism that is working very well for them, at least economically.

All I'm saying with this is that economic systems work within specific frameworks and conditions.

There is no silver bullet, as Buffy would say.



Edited, May 24th 2007 10:52am by RedPhoenixxx

Wow, that's a lot of replies to a guy who most likely has never checked back on this thread.

im here guys lol


i know my rant has alot of information with out the facts cause i was upset one night and wrote it right before i went to bed. I guess it really frustarates me that human beings can be so greedy and not realize the effect there having on the world. I know personally when im older im going to use my money for good and donate alot to charity and make a difference in the world, and i just wish more people would do them same.

Wow, I'm surprised Gbaji. Most of the points Red cited were examples of capitalism creating incentive for innovation. A business acquiring capital is essential to the development of new products. Speculative investing, house prices rising, venture gains, etc. all lead back to the re-investing of capital which inevitably leads directly to the creation or the motivation to create new products.

Okay, so maybe the person who is profiting off an investment didn't actually create a new product per say. But, he contributed toward innovation of some sort with the initial investment made into the business.

I know that. But I also know Red well enough to know that's not what he was talking about. He was specifically talking about a guy who "buys low and sells high", thus gaining wealth for himself without ever actually increasing the total productivity of the economy as a whole.

I'm certainly aware that overall even this sort of speculative investment does aid innovation in the long run, but Red does also have a point that the guy who's playing the market just to make some money isn't necessarily going to always cause that.

Thus, my "waves on the top of the ocean" analogy. The rise and fall of individual stock values (for example) is really just the surface of the whole economic picture. Yes. Some people will make money by playing on those changes (while others will lose money), but the fact remains that overall the effect is positive.


Most importantly, it's vastly more positive then any other economic system we could come up with. The "cost" in capitalism is that some people will end up with more wealth then others. But the benefits far outweigh that cost, and at a more philosophical level I'd argue it's really not a cost at all...

BAM!

The argument that capitalism creates demand rather than meeting it is pure *********

The argument assumes that people only want things that they wanted previously. Capitalism doesn't work like this. Capitalism doesn't just give you what you want, it also gives you what you have come to like. If the majority of people don't like something, it stops being produced. For example, the majority of people do not like dehorseraph's ********* As a result, nobody is paying him to continue. Because of this, he will (hopefully) never post again. Thank god for Laissez-Faire economics.

100 years ago there was no demand for the internet. But now, the "evil corporations" have created something that nobody even knew they wanted. According to your logic, we shouldn't be using the internet because it isn't something that there was a demand for. The demand is all artificial.

10 years ago nobody knew what an iPod was, now everyone wants one because they store all your songs in one convenient package, the technology is easy for everyone to use, and it's shiny.

2 years ago I played FFXI because I had never played WoW. Blizzard "created" my demand to play WoW. Through their shiny, evil advertisements they diverted my mind. Now my mind is blown by WoW's awesomeness where before my **** was getting forcibly penetrated by a LFG flag.

I think its silly. The word capitlastic pig. Was that paper a joke? I have an interest in history, and I dislike Communism. Yet I play the Soviet Union in a WWII miniatures game. I use that term A LOT, when joking with my friends or on the forums. Always as a joke, Ive yet to see it be used like that.

Edited, May 27th 2007 12:43am by Janoku

My god sir. What the fuck is wrong with you?

Maybe when you reach 10 years old you will realize that your political opinions are based on zero facts, and aren't even that good in theory. Maybe before you tout Autruism is the ultimate goal, you should learn that it's actually spelled Altruism, dumbass.

Your arguments make no sense at all. You say yourself that people don't care about other people nearly as much as themselves, but you tout socialism, which relies on this exact impulse to try to get people to work. Think about what you are saying. Would these "selfish" people you hate go to work every day if they knew they could get paid just as much to stay at home? Would the "selfish" scientists keep working on alternative fuels if they knew that they could just bullsh*t their research, get a fat government paycheck, and not develop a bit of technology?

Look around you, there is evidence everywhere. Look at China under communism. Mao Zedong tells everyone to increase iron production to fuel the economy. Everyone melts down their pots, pans, and old bikes and burns down the forests in order to produce low quality iron that nobody wants. 5% of the Chinese population starves because everyone is so busy making iron that they neglect to grow food. Look it the fuck up.

Your claims not only have no evidence, they are dead wrong. Socialism does NOT drive technological advancement, market forces do. Many of the technologies you are so in love with were created by "Capitalist Pigs" working for "Evil Corporations." We would not even KNOW about Solar, Hydrogen, and Fusion power if it were not for capitalism. If these really were equally efficient as the burning of fossil fuels, don't you think the capitalist pigs, in their quest to make money, would be using them now? This is basic lack of logic on your part. The real answer is that these technologies are sh*t. We don't even have fusion power yet, solar panels cost shitloads to make and solar panel factories produce tons of harmful chemicals, and hydrogen costs more energy to create than you will ever get out of it.

Please, do us all a favor and kill yourself. The world needs less people like you.

Also, the OP has most definitely not gone to college, else he might be able to spell better.

Edited, May 27th 2007 5:03pm by Plutonian

Edited, May 27th 2007 5:12pm by Plutonian

Edited, May 27th 2007 5:13pm by Plutonian