paulsol wrote:
Wealth = money/possessions.
Thats the myth that has led 'most people to become consumers'.
Thats the myth that has led 'most people to become consumers'.
Yes (well, depending on how you mean "money"). But that's also not what wealth really is. Which is the real reason why so many people don't become wealthy.
Quote:
The social and environmental problems we face in the world today have their origins in rampant thoughtless consumerism.
Ok. But that's a concept that's broader than capitalism, socialism, or communism. Unless you are advocating a return to simple agrarian lifestyle, then I'm not sure how relevant what you're saying is going to be.
Quote:
Consumerism, on the scale that is encouraged by government and corporate levels today, is unsustainable for those participating presently, and inconcievable for the planet as a whole.
Consumerism is the driving force, the raw material, that sustains Capitalism.
Consumerism is the driving force, the raw material, that sustains Capitalism.
Yes. However, it can be more properly said that capitalism focuses consumerism into productive and efficient results. All other forms of economics in an industrial world still feed consumerism, but do so in less efficient, more environmentally harmful, and less long term productive ways.
Quote:
Capitalism is an unsustainable system that relies on the short term greed of all parties.
Sure. Now explain to me why that's bad? What it does is provide a naturally balanced means by which the relative values of things can be established. And yeah, it uses "short term greed" to make those determinations. But it does so more efficiently than other systems, which attempt to use some sort of planning mechanism to decide how much things should be worth, and how many of a given thing should be built, and otherwise do the same thing, just not as well.
Quote:
Those who produce goods at the expense of the environment and its poorest citizens, and the eager consumers who have been led to believe with an hitherto unmatched (quasi-religeous) fervour that the route to happininess lies, not in a connection with your friends and family and our place on the planet that we share, but in the amount of stuff we can buy, own for a short time and then discard to make way for the next purchase.
Those who produce goods do so at the expense of the environment whether they are using capitalism or any other system of economics. Capitalism does have the virtue that over time it massively increases the rate of R&D, thus allowing for a small amount of regulation to result in significantly more efficient production of goods, with ever diminishing environmental impact. If the entire world had adopted socialism or communism in the late 19th century, do you honestly think that environmentalism would *ever* have gotten off the ground as a movement?
I'm not joking. Really stop and think about it. The apparent social and environmental consciousness which is commonly attributed today to socialist thinking really didn't originate there at all. It was the people living in free markets who used the government to reign in private industry. Had those industries been run by the government in the first place, it's quite likely we'd never have seen environmentalism take off. One need only compare the relative pollution levels related to industrial production between economies indexed based on the degree to which they are "free" or "command" to see a pretty obvious patterns. Countries with free markets usually have more strict environmental rules than those with more government controlled ones.
But that's another area where the facts don't match the fiction.
Quote:
Listening to Consumers defending Capitalism is akin to listening to members of those mega churches defending their Rolex wearing Pastors.
Same can be said of them defending socialism. The difference being that the consumers have a chance to become more than just consumers under capitalism. They're pretty much stuck being eternal consumers in the other systems. Work for what you can produce, consume what the people and/or the government allow you to consume. The fact that other systems limit consumption is not a positive thing. They're still subject to market forces. Theirs are just manifested in the people pressuring the government to give them stuff.
Quote:
And as the congregation is getting fu'cked up the **** by its leader, consumers are being screwed by a system that they will defend until their dying breath.
Again, consumers exist in any economic system. Let's not pretend that's unique to capitalism. Capitalism is just vastly more efficient at providing consumers with what they want than any other system. I'm not sure how that's a bad thing.