blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!

Subject: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 10:49 AM

It has always been obvious to me that capitalism itself is the enemy. Conversely, socialism's demise has never been in the interest of PEOPLE the whole world over.

Where, and how, ought we go from here??!!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 10:58 AM

Apart from this being erroneously supralinear, you shouldn't ask people like me. I once thought there was hope for humanity, now I think we're, how you say, f***ed. Not that I'm a malthusiast, I just can't see any way we can wrest communications from the greedbags classes, get hold of physical power, and convince the minority of people who are needed to keep them in power that they are acting against their own interests., before the population hits catastrophe levels. And even then we've got to get it down to perhaps less than a billion without cruelty, coercion or discrimination.

Still, if half the punters here are right, we'll get to experience what comes next, if not as a human, as whatever evolves out of the mess, so why worry?

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 11:00 AM

The next place this ought to go, important though it be, is below the line.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: SINSULL
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 11:05 AM

Not pessimism but an observation. I believe that the scales have been tipped and the human race is on its way out. The universe will go on without us.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 11:17 AM

The world has turned, from survival of the fittest, to survival of the shittest.

The physically and morally superior shall not inherit the earth, but instead it shall be those with the money who survive.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Stu
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 11:23 AM

We are the universe made conscious, able to contemplate itself yet sadly unable even to leave the most basic of superstitions and ignorance in the past where it belongs. Capitalism is an extension of this ignorance, the influence of religion an extension of this superstition. The two have led us to being a constant state of war these days, and things don't look any better for the future.

Earth will go on without us - we're a mere ecological blip, unable to restrain ourselves in the exploitation of natural resources, unable to control our numbers, unable to realise a fraction of our own potential even though there are plenty of navigators to guide us.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 01:54 PM

...a new and obviously imposing machination for a working New Deal --- complete with a real acknowledgment that Goldwater and Reagan and Bush -- with their recent leaders Cheney and, now, Palin/McCain (as opposed to McAbel)-- were / are absolutely wrong throughout their wrongheaded meandering dismantling of our American experiment with it's necessarily malleable constitution that readily adapts to the realities of changing times, demands, and NEEDS!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Ernest
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 02:06 PM

"Capitalism" as you call it will survive this crisis just as it survived the crisis in the 1930s.

Socialism on the other hand has failed everytime and everywhere.

Socialism is opium for agnostic people.

Ernest

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 02:21 PM

Socialism has only failed when it is erroneously blown apart by the excesses of a capitalist funded war amachine.

The mistake socialism has consistently made is to tie itself to the absolutly repugnant totalitatian dictatorship models. When and where it has not done that, it has shown itself to be admirably humane, fairminded and even-handed---.

Art

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Big Mick
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 02:30 PM

Ernest, there has not been a decent trial of Socialism anywhere that I know of yet.

While I am tempted to jump up on the soapbox and rail against the monied interests who continue to oppress the average folk, I will confine my comments to this. The opiate of the masses isn't socialism. It's the old okey doke bullshit being spread that says something like, "if you are willing to work hard, you can make it in this country". Tell that to the single parents working three jobs and trying to raise kids. Tell that to the honest and hard working members of the working class who have seen their jobs, livelihood, and the future of their kids sacrificed at the altar of capitalism so that the rich got richer, and the gap between the richest and the poorest just got bigger. Tell that to the average bloke, yourself included, who will pay several thousand dollars this year just to finance the rescue of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG. Oh, and by the way, the fellas that ran these companies into the dirt walk away with obscene golden parachutes. I saw that the fella that took Lehman Brothers into the dirt got 66 MILLION bucks for doing so.

Time for folks to start using some of that old working class common sense they are so proud of and quit voting against your own economic self interest. Time for us, as the bards of our age, to start using the tactics taught to us by Woody and Utah to get through to folks. And part of that should be to put a pretty good coat of tarnish on that old statue of the great communicator, Ronald Reagan. That friggin' cowboy actor is the one who started this whole bit about pissin' on our feet and convincing us it was raining outside.

Mick

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 02:40 PM

"Within the broader music industry, and beyond, what some get for their hour's work, compared with others, is ridiculous and inhumane; hence, many relatively competent musicians within the folk-scene are really struggling to make ends meet; so, if we like fair competition, we don't like capitalism. A better way, as I've suggested in verse, is to accept that humans are competitive, and have strong regulations (partly via nationalisation) to make that competition as fair as possible – whilst also providing "safety-net" support" (from here).

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Stu
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 02:44 PM

"Ernest, there has not been a decent trial of Socialism anywhere that I know of yet."

Spot on Mick.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Big Mick
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 02:44 PM

Thanks, Stiggy!

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 02:53 PM

"The wonder is that folks like you haven't hanged folks like me in our own guts."
                         --Bill Gates to Ronald in "Bloom County."

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Teribus
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 03:05 PM

Jettison it and replace it with what??? So far no suggestions and that is why you "socialists" always proclaim as each experiment fails that:

"...there has not been a decent trial of Socialism anywhere that I know of yet."

Odd thing is none of you beggars ever states that at the beginning of these ventures, on the contrary you are cheering them on and boasting of how this one will show the way - never does of course, the reason for that being because "socialism" is fatally flawed and as such is doomed to failure. All it has ever produced is stagnation.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Big Mick
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 03:11 PM

problem with you, TB, is that you are a reactionary to words such as this, but you lack the depth to think it through. First off, you never seem to be upset with things like subsidizing profits but socializing losses. That is precisely what is going on with the current bailouts over here.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Ernest
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 04:00 PM

Thanks for pointing out that no one trying out socialism has ever been decent.

And that it always tied itself to the absolutly repugnant totalitatian dictatorship models.

And still you think that socialisms failure has always been someone elses fault.

Even though socialist science claims it to be the superior system.

"When will they ever learn..."

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Big Mick
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 04:05 PM

Nice job of simply ignoring the rest of the post. We call your style of posting, "Debate by cliche'". When will you ever learn to quit voting against yourself.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Ernest
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 04:22 PM

Nice job of ignoring the reality of socialism.

It is socialism that promises people an earthly paradise without ever fulfilling it.

A free economy does give people the chance to make it - no one ever said that there is a guarantee to that. Still even poor people are mostly better off in western countries than in socialist ones.

It is the people in favour for socialism who are voting against their own interests.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: CarolC
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 04:22 PM

Socialism is alive and well in many countries, including the US. There has never been any economic system that was purely socialist, nor purely capitalist. All systems are a combination of the two. Some systems have more capitalist elements than socialist, and some have more socialist elements than capitalist, but they all have both.

People are confusing socialism and totalitarianism, which are two entirely different things. Socialism is an economic system, and totalitarianism is a political system. There can be (mostly) capitalist countries that are totalitarian in nature, and there can be (mostly) socialist countries that are very democratic in nature. The thing that has been discredited isn't socialism, it's totalitarianism.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 04:26 PM

Teribus plainly believes that he can survive and prosper because he has the biggest gun.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Big Mick
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 04:28 PM

You still haven't answered the contentions. Perhaps, ernie, you could begin with defining for us what it is that you call socialism, and the exact problems you have with it?

I don't think I will see an answer here, or if I do, it will be a cut and paste of some sort.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Teribus
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 05:22 PM

Basis for that rather idiotic statement please Richard Bridge.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 05:39 PM

I've got a bigger gun than Teribus. I've got GREAT BIG guns.

Don't do me a damned bit of good in this discussion.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jettison it!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 08:45 PM

"The thing that has been discredited is totalitarianism, not Socialism." ---Carol C

That is exactly what I am pretty certain I said in my posts to this thread. Carol, right on!

Yes, it was the violence and oppression, and totalitarianism inherent in Communism---but not in democratically decided upon Socialism (as in Sweden and in Canadian health-care---that I firmly think of as being preferable to the excesses we are trying to deal with right now in the USA. The Roooseveltsian years were an indication of where we might try to go now. But those measures were never ever enough. If we were at all intelligent about looking at this present debacle, we would NOT be thinking of the massively dumbed down revolution of the last 8 years as a possible or proper road to follow. Indeed, their stupidity allowed them to take personal credit (no pun intended) for being in the "lucky" position to pick up all the chips. We would, instead, see it as a totally inexcusable path that was only seen as a positive because of all the capitalists that legally stole, and then ran away, with massive amounts of mega $$$$$$$$$ to hide behind the walls of their fortified compounds.

I have said it before in numerous other threads that, when Reagan was given CREDIT (again, no pun intended) for bringing down the Soviet Union, the Russians threw out the baby Socialism with the filthy   scummy wash-water of Totalitarianism! That is why some of us shed real tears at the dissolution of both even while the violent overthrow of totalitarianism was surely completely appropriate. ----

Back to music: PLEASE, listen to Al Grierson's wondrous song "A Candle For Durruti."

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 08:50 PM

I'll try to post that song later.
Art

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 09:01 PM

of course socialism is alive in the US..

Only have to look at how the Eisenhower govt built the interstate hwy system...
big business just looked on in support (this is only a few years after the big automakers were caught dismantling many of the large intercity tram systems.. so that everyone had to buy a car in live in the burbs)

but if govt. has no place in business - which has been a keystone of the republican policy - it certainly has no place in bailing out banks, or too big to fail INSURANCE companies whose expertise is SUPPOSED TO BE RISK ASSESMENT.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 09:04 PM

I have been always confused by a simplified equation in the USA:
         Capitalism = Democracy
         Socialism = Dictatorship

Surely one in no way defines the other! As CarolC says "we live with both. "

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 11:24 PM

Sandy,
You are correct in your observation--or so it seems to me. In the USA those equations are often held to be gospel---even though they promote faulty assumptions and conclusions.

Art

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 11:43 PM

Well Art, I define myself as a socialist, but I also demand more democracy from our Canadian government. My political hero was a man named Tommy Douglas whom Canadians regard as the greatest Canadian ever, but they are still reluctant to vote for the party that he founded. I don't think that I'm stupid but I can't get my head around that one!
I guess in Canada we also have strange standards!

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 09:42 AM

I don't see the problem as being capitalism per se, but rampant capitalism. The traditional, mostly beneficial, uses to which capital has been put for many years (manufacturing, mining, agriculture, commerce) have recently been shoved unto the back burner while the interests of the financial sector have been brought forward. Well, the financial sector creates absolutely nothing. All it does is facilitate the flow of money from one party to another while keeping a bit of that money for itself. Yet, for a number of years now, financial companies have been the darlings of investors. What's needed, and what the current shakeup will doubtlessly provide, is a realignment of the priorities of our capitalist system. Financial institutions are meant to be the servants of those who use money to actually create something of value. Money is merely a representation of something of true value. A loaf of bread has true value and our economy should be based upon the value of the bakery that creates that loaf of bread, not the bank that loans the baker money.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: pdq
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 09:51 AM

"...interests of the financial sector have been brought forward. Well, the financial sector creates absolutely nothing."

Right on, as they used to say. And investment bankers are the worst as they often manipulate the value of their investments for personal gain. See George Soros, an economic terrorist as much as an investment specialist.

Benefits should go to those who do the work under any system. That doesn't happen more from greed than fundamental flaws in "the system".

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 09:57 AM

That's a very Marxist view of unrequited labour, PDQ!

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: pdq
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 10:11 AM

As I have said before, the US system is a amalgum of all possible systems you can imagine. What works for the Army Corps of Engineers does not necessarily work elsewhere. We try what looks best and change if it doesn't work. We have a "whatever works" system where people can buy, sell, consume and produce the best way they can. Clumsy, sloppy, inefficient, slow to change and imperfect, it still produces 40% of the world's wealth and the US is the #1 dream of emmigrants from all over world. We also accept more new people each year than all other countries combined.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Stu
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 10:23 AM

"Benefits should go to those who do the work under any system"

A fairer system to be sure, but not really Marxist. It would be if the workers owned the means of production though . . .

. . . and this has some implications in the service industries, where individuals can own the means of their production, and still be engaged the capitalist system. The problems really start when more than one person is involved.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 10:55 AM

"anyone caught short selling will be caught and persecuted to the fullest excent of the law."
GWB today announcing the great bail out.

Indivicuals will be persecuted is a fraudian slip

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 12:01 PM

Bee-dubya-ell - 'I don't see the problem as being capitalism per se, but rampant capitalism.' Can anyone suggest any way other than regulation (preferably global as it's a global problem) to prevent one progressing to the other? Where, indeed, do we draw the line between one and the other, where do we find the threshold/watershed?

It's a difficult question to answer but I agree with the sentiment!

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: sapper82
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 12:11 PM

At least when Capitalism screws up you only get a few billion pounds/dollars getting lost in the system.

When Socialism screws up you get the Stalin Purges, Mao's Cultural Revolution or Pol Pot's Year Zero.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 12:15 PM

We had reasonable regulations until Ronnie Reagan dismantled them.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Ernest
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 12:17 PM

Big Mick:

„Socialism" is the political system that existed in the states otf the former eastern block: The Union of Socialist Republic (UdSSR), the so called „German Democratic Republic" (East Germany), various peoples republics etc. The fundamental part of it is that there is no private property in means of production: everything is owned by the collective of the people (represented by state or party). As a consequence there are no free trade unions with rights to strike - every strike would by definition be against the people and a sabotage of socialism (You might remember that the founding of a free union named Solidarnoscz in Poland stood at the beginning of the eastern block`s downfall).

Connected to this is the fact that socialism always tied itself to the absolutly repugnant totalitatian dictatorship models. This is inherent to the system. You can`t give people free speech and other civil rights and prevent them from demanding better pay, work conditions etc. at the same time.

I do have a problem with dictatorships. And working in former East Germany after the wall came down I have seen what socialism has done to a part of my country and its people - ruining the economy and depriving people of their civil rights (even the right to leave).

Democracy and a market economy have been far more successful in solving the problems of mankind than socialism. I don`t claim our system to be perfect, but the people in your examples above would be better off in a free market democracy with an improved social system like most western european states have (what we call „Soziale Marktwirtschaft" = social market economy). I guess the aims of the US democrats go in that direction. Also Carol C.`s definition, if I understood it right. If that is what you favour we only disagree about words.

Now I would like to know your definition of „socialism" and any possible practical experiences you had with it.

Regards
Ernest

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Stringsinger
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 12:18 PM

Art, a lot has to do with your definition of Capitalism. If it's just the acquisition of dividends from stock investments, then it has been somewhat counterproductive to American Democracy. Why should middle class and lower class workers be taxed more than the
investor who sits by his swimming pool and waits for the dividends to come in?

OTOH, capitalism and socialism seem to work hand-in-hand in Germany, Denmark,
Sweden and other civilized countries in the world. Government plays a role in subsidizing schools, infrastructure, public health and head-start programs. The capitalist can assist the government through the creation of libraries, educational institutions, safety nets for
those who are in the cracks of the health care debacle and other itineraries.

If capitalism goes and socialism takes its place, where are the safeguards from those
who can game the system like they did in USSR or in Nazi Germany?

I think a mixture works ala FDR.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 12:50 PM

The optimistic view:

The current debacle has taught the folks in the financial sector a very valuable lesson. They've played with fire and, while we've all been singed to various degrees, they themselves are the ones with the third-degree burns.

The pessimistic view:

When the hell has anyone in the financial sector ever learned a lesson from his past mistakes? MBAs or no MBAs, they exibit all the psychological charcteristics of habitual gamblers. They'll forget about their losses just as soon as they see the next opportunity for a big score, no matter how risky.


I think we should hope they've learned a lesson, but regulate the hell out of 'em just in case they haven't.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 01:09 PM

sapper82 - when capitalism screws up. its not just a few billion lost..
its. wwI wwII (Hitlers Germany certainly wasnt socialist)
the 1929 financial collapse that led to the depression.. Andrew Mellaon then secretary of the treasury said let the banks fail..the govt will do nothing.

since then of course we have had the federal reserve..
Ironic that in the US which is supposed to be the FREE ENTERPRISE system with no govt interference in the economy - you still have this body (the Fed) that sets the interest rates.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Big Mick
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 01:23 PM

Well, Ernest, for starters, Socialism is not a political system. It is an economic system. Just because someone usurps the name does not make them that same thing. There are many examples around the world of "Labor/Labour" parties that have very little of the working classes interests at heart. The USSR, after it's various and sundry revolutions, ended up with a system it called communism in which the State owned everything. If we are to call Socialism and Communism of the same ilk, well..... they may be related but they are not the same thing. Communism is on the far edge of the spectrum and, once again, there are many variants to the system. I would have to spend a lot of time trying to get you to understand the difference between communism as practice by Lenin, Marx, and Trotsky. All had a different take on the practice. And then, I would have to get you to understand that the folks that ran the USSR took the pure ideals and perverted them with a totalitarianism and, in the case of Stalin, a ruthless cult of personality, till in the end the grand experiment failed. But Socialism is not necessarily communism, other than embracing the idea that some things in a society can be done better if they are done for the betterment of all peoples instead of the privileged few that were lucky enough to be born to wealth, or hit on something that benefitted them. I am not trying to tell you that we should kill individual initiative, but if you can't see the evils of the laissez-faire style of capitlism that we are currently using, then you are blind. Socialist ideas are rampant in our society, and embraced by most folks that just don't realize they are socialist ideas. These are the programs designed to share the burdens that befall some among all so that it is easier for all of us. Examples would be Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment compensation, and Disability provisions of various State laws. Another concept that is really a Socialist concept is the regulatory acts that keep our food safe, our environment safe, our workplaces safe, and provide fair opportunities for folks to organize for better wages, hours of work, and conditions of work. The Interstate Highway system was a socialist concept. I could go on and on.

Examples around the world of functioning governments that have many socialist programs are Great Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Netherlands, in fact, most of the EU, Canada, and on and on.

Someone further up the thread pointed out that in the US we equate Socialism with Totalitarianism. That is due to the affliction we have in this country that I have named "Politics by cliche'". It is characterized among countrymen/women of mine who are intellectually lazy, and whose lifestyles have become so soft from the fabulous success of the unions in creating a middle class, that they have lost the desire to dig into a problem, preferring instead to use cliche'd statements to answer anything. It results in posts like yours that are incorrect on so many levels. We fail in the desire to understand the intricacies and the distinctions, and we end up making political decisions based on who hires the best media wizard to give us our views in 90 second commercials. Hence you still have people arguing whether Obama is a Moslem or not. In 2004 it was what allowed the Swift Boat Veterans to move the campaign from a discussion of issues to the besmirching of the reputation of a genuine hero, and even John McCain called that shameful. And this malaise is what causes people to suspend their self interests economically and politically as soon as someone can attach some label such as "tax and spend liberal" or "conservative nazi". And it is what causes you to mischaracterize what socialism is, and the positive things it has already done for you and yours, and prevents you from seeing that the wealthiest folks in this country are waging war on your middle class ass to see if they can get all the money instead of you and your grandkids having a decent life.

Look around, Ernest. Drop your cliche'd and preconceived notions. Figure out what things really mean. Be willing to acknowledge the good aspects, as well as the bad aspects, of the various systems. Who knows, we just might get somewhere. Being a progressive means one is trying to constantly fine tune the beast. It is possible. But not as long as otherwise good folks like yourself continue to hold onto to tired, trite, and unfactual perceptions of what something is.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Ernest
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 02:18 PM

Big Mick:

according to Karl Marx socialism is a transitional stage between capitalism and communism. So what you call aberrations is the manifest destiny of socialism.

Socialism already includes the concept of means of production not being owned individually but by the collective of people. This as well is not just a cliche but a fundamental position of socialism.

As I wrote before that concept can`t go together with the ideas of free speech, free trade unions etc. Socialism is not equated with totaliarism because people are too lazy to think but because socialism always went together with it (as Art and others here have stated before).
Its not lazyness but experience.

Your message still leaves me a bit puzzled on what your understanding of socialism is. That is because you didn`t say anything about the fundamental concept of collectively owned means of production etc. and ist consequences.

Social security etc.is not exclusively related with socialism. It is rooted in the christian concept of charity, in the age of enlightments concept of equality etc. And the capitalist system is able to provide more money for social security systems than socialism ever was.


Regards
Ernest

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 02:40 PM

Right wing Christians in the US (some of the most phobic people there are when it comes to equating any kind of government run social program with socialism) will say that although the concept of charity is Christian in nature, it is anti-Christian for governments to force people to act charitably.

In the US, many people equate any kind of social program that is administered by the government with socialism and marxism (and many right wing Christians equate them with Satanism). Which is why the people of the right wing work so hard to conflate in people's minds the idea that socialism equals totalitarianism. Such people say they want to shrink government down until it's "small enough to drown in a bathtub". They believe in privatizing everything. Of course, the people who buy this idea haven't really put any thought into what would happen if we really did this. They don't realize that they would have to pay a toll just to drive down the street on which they live, and that they would have to pay up front for all of the things they take for granted now, like libraries, schools, fire and police departments, the military and the coast guard.

These beliefs, of course, are being promoted by large multi-national corporations that want to own everything so that we will have to pay them whatever price they decide instead of having any say ourselves how we will deal with these questions.

The privatization of the water in one of the Latin American countries is a very good example of what the world will look like if they get their way. I believe it was Bechtel that owned the water after it was privatized, and the people weren't even allowed to collect their own rainwater with out paying Bechtel for it. People were having to choose between eating and having water to drink and clean with. The people rose up and got rid of the government that made that deal, and their water is once again a public resource rather than a private one.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 03:23 PM

I am religious, Christian in fact, and socialist. If anyone is interested, I'll explain why.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 04:47 PM

Of course, there is now GOP semi-socialism: While profits go to the capitalists, losses are owned by the people.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 04:57 PM

Ernest,
In order to see this more clearly, you must get rid of the idea that humane Socialism cannot exist except as a step toward Communism. It can, and it does, exist where it was the choice of the people to have it as their economic system preference.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Ed T
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 05:16 PM

Corporate welfare is now in fashon.
Enjoy it, you pay for it.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Ed T
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 05:24 PM

A small example of corporate welfare:
http://www.progress.org/corpw30.htm

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 05:42 PM

Now that the politicians have purchased, with our tax money, an entire huge insurance mega-company, I, as an owner of that ought to be able to purchase health insurance. No company out there will sell me any of that because of all of our pre-existing medical conditions.

I have Medicare, but Carol, because she has never been ABLE to work enough, cannot get Social Security Disability or ever be on Medicare. As a result, after spending everything on medical bills, I finally became poor enough to secure Illinois Public Aid. In order for Carol to get needed treatments, we MUST remain in poverty to keep on getting a Medicaid card each month.

Medicaid, every month, gives us what they call a SPEND DOWN AMOUNT of several hundreds of dollars---that is money we MUST SPEND in order to, once again, every month, be poor enough to get that card.   If I earn or secure more cash, the spend-down goes up by that amount. That's only fair, correct?!

In reality, if it means Carol is covered, I am glad to do it; it's like paying a big monthly insurance premium. Our life now is much as it has been during the years before I lost the ability to make my music. It was never about the money. It was, and is, about our folk music! I have always venerated Jack Kerouac and Woody and learned from them that beatniks were always glad to fill the cheapest, highest, seats at the concerts. Other than the thin air up there, and a bunch of nosebleeds, living with this broken down safety net, full as it is with gaping holes to fall through is something we are rather accustomed to. Like living gig to gig. ;-)

This was, up to 3 days ago, the richest country on earth---fully capable of providing health care. But, as John Reed, said, "It only took ten days to shake the world."

It seems our powerful ones in the USA have managed to do it in record time! --- Actually I would prefer to shake the world as E. Hemingway would have us do that.

May you live in interesting times -- and finagle a way to live through them!!!

Art

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:00 PM

Ahhhh, not to over simplifty but it isn't as much the economic system but the extent to which it is "fair"... Both capitalism and socialism can work if they are fair...

Fair requires two things: 1. Real democracy and 2. Intellegent people participating in that democracy...

The US has neither...

It's democracy is a sham... You have states with virtually no population with 2 senators verses states like California which has 78 times as many people as Utah and it has only 2 Senators... This is a formula for disaster...

Intellegent people are also in short supply... Too many people are so poorly educated that they will vote the for a candidate who their buddy says is the right choice... Tom Jefferson would be sick to know that so many ignorant people vote... This is the main problem with our survivability...

If you fix these two problems than the corruption that makes US fail will disappear... St6upid candidates won't get elected... People will empowered... Things will work correctly...

Face it, we don't have a capitalist system... We have a very corrupted system and that is why it doesn't work...

And for the record, the so-called capitalists, which they aren't, are out to tell every one who will listen that they, the upper 5% of wage earners pay 60% of the taxes... Well, that sounds fine until you see that these same 5% control 80% of the wealth... That means that the bottom 95% are carrying an unfair share of the tax burden but that is the way it is in a corrupt socialistic or capitalistist system...

B~

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:07 PM

i think there is confusion of the classic marxist understanding of socialism - and what
a more recent or western understanding of socialism -

ie.the Marxist definition was - transitional to communism- once a true communist society is achieved there will be a withering away of the state etc..

most people really dont use the term in that sense anymore- they use it in the sense of a mixed economy where the state provides various social services such as medical, employment insurance etc..

as I said before the US has plenty of examples where the state is involved in providing services...

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Teribus
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:13 PM

"Teribus plainly believes that he can survive and prosper because he has the biggest gun." - Richard Bridge

Basis for that rather idiotic statement please Richard Bridge, or did you just feel the need to hear your gums flapping??

The "socialists" on this thread appear to object and complain bitterly with regard to Government intervention to stave off a crisis, which appears to have been precipitated by lie and rumour. I find that rather difficult to understand as in any political system that subscribes to a "capitalist" economy such interventions by Government are extremely rare, whereas in their "ideal" socialist politico-economic system such intervention would by necessity be a permanent feature.

Sandy Mc Lean states that he has always been confused by a simplified equation in the USA:
         
Capitalism = Democracy
Socialism = Dictatorship

Maybe that is because people in general mistakenly think on "capitalism" as a political system - it isn't, it is purely a system of economics. I disagree with Big Mick, "Socialism" is both a political ideology and an economic doctrine.

Now let's see:

Capitalism - relies on free-enterprise, competition and reward - efficiency and market driven - that flourishes best in free-thinking societies - for those to be truly free-thinking societies certain freedom's must exist - innovation must be encouraged which requires constant challenging of the status quo - that requires tolerance, pragmatism and flexibility - lack of central control and guidance rather than regulation - All of which has the ability to exist under a democratic form of government, the social conscience of the society being set as agreed by the people who make up that society.

Socialism - social conscience of the society set by government - means to support the social programmes required have to be imposed by government - means of production in public ownership - innovation discouraged as it challenges the status quo and imposes unnecessary costs - competition is non-existent as it is not rewarded - requires strict central control of all aspects of production ruled by regulation - lacks flexibility and is thus unable to repond rapidly to change - The political system required can easily be corrupted into totalitarian dictatorship.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:39 PM

The problem as I see it, T, as that as long a there are people who think they are above the law then capitalism = corruption...

That's where democracy should step in and keep capitalism pure and fair... In that case, all should be fine...

But when you don't have an informed electorate and you don't have a truely democratic system then capitalism tends to get way off course, as in the case of the US today...

This wouldn't have happened if we had democracy, which we don't, and if we had an informed electorate, which we don't...

Capitalism or socialism cannot thrive under such a misorgainized system...

B~

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 01:35 AM

I put this on another thread (Crash of U.S. Economy):

http://www.greeneconomics.org.uk/

We should give this a try (everything else seems to have failed us)!

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: akenaton
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 03:13 AM

Bobert.."Both capitalism and socialism can work if they are fair..."

Capitalism can never be "fair"
Capitalism involves selling your life and the lives of your children for the means to exist week to week.

It also involves feeding a taxation system, which is used by the Capitalists as a tool to keep the system running, not to safeguard the welfare of taxpayers.

This is patently obvious in America, where the Capitalist governments of both parties refuse to supply a "fair" National Health Ststem, while being quite prepared to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the US financial system in an attempt to save it from itself....Ake

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Teribus
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 05:12 AM

Guest Jim Martin - Absolutely at £79 per "Conference" the organisers must be doing quite well, but then of course all the faithful have to haul their butts to Oxford to attend these bashes and get the word - hardly all that "green" in the final analysis.

Bobert - 19 Sep 08 - 08:39 PM - Is classically protraying Capitalism as a political ideology - IT IS NOT, nor has it ever been so, it is an economic ideology that can quite successfully co-exist with whatever political system choses to adopt it. The ills of which you speak would not disappear with "capitalism" they are a matter of law which is governed by the political system and it's judicial arm, which everybody gets the opportunity to vote on - True? As to a well informed electorate, tell us all Bobert, supposedly as one of those who makes up the electorate of the United States of America
whose responsibility is it to see that you are well informed?? I think you will find Bobert that that particular responsibility is yours and yours alone.

akenaton - 20 Sep 08 - 03:13 AM

"Bobert.."Both capitalism and socialism can work if they are fair..."

Capitalism can never be "fair"
Capitalism involves selling your life and the lives of your children for the means to exist week to week.

It also involves feeding a taxation system, which is used by the Capitalists as a tool to keep the system running, not to safeguard the welfare of taxpayers."

Well sorry Akenaton, but I would state with a certain degree of qualification that what Bobert has said there is perfectly true. I would also say that what CarolC has said previously regarding there having to be a mix, some sort of compromise to produce the optimum achievable result is also true. Nearest actual examples that I can think of off hand are Finland; Sweden; Denmark; Norway; Iceland . note all "small" countries in terms of populations; all "northern" countries with a historical tradition whereby their citizens due to climate and conditions had to work together so that all could survive; all follow "capitalist" economies; they maintain a democratic system which incorporates proportional representation which successfully curbs the excesses of left or right; all are fiscally responsible.

Your claim, tenet, bleat, call it what you will that:

Capitalism can never be "fair"

Really?? So it's rather like life then is it?? Because Akenaton, and I hate to disillusion you at your time of life but "life" is not, nor will it ever be "fair".

"Capitalism involves selling your life and the lives of your children for the means to exist week to week." - Akenaton

Arrant nonsense. Now were that indeed the case Akenaton, tell us all how long "capitalism" has been the driving economic ideology of the USA and of the British Isles? Having answered that question in your own mind go back to the 1820's when what is known as "modern" photography began with the first permanent photographs. Can you explain to us Akenaton how a system which you says demands the enslavement of the working class and their children in a downward spiral of poverty and deprivation has produced such improvements in life expectancy; general health; education; employment opportunity as can be witnessed by looking at any representative photograph from the 1820's and comparing it to one taken today?? In the 1820's was Longleat open to the public? Oh yes, social conscience, trade unions and Labour Governments played their part on the political side of things, but it was the economics of "capitalism" that provide the wealth and funding for it. All systems with a "socialist" agenda that have rejected "capitalism" and opted for state dictat and control have stagnated and failed - Fact.

Taxation systems you vote for Akenaton - this you will discover if your dearly held hope of Scottish Independence ever comes to anything, only then it will be your "socialist-until-failed" SNP Government that will be taxing you, it will not be "capitalism" taxing you. It is the government for which you vote that decides how and on what the tax revenues of the country are spent, not "capitalists".

Your example of Government not safeguarding the welfare of taxpayers:

".....America, where the Capitalist governments of both parties refuse to supply a "fair" National Health System"

Ever since America became independent Akenaton, any political party or any politician in America, at any level of politics in the land, could have stood on the "Hustings" and proposed what you describe as a "fair" National Health System" to his electorate. They would all go wild with joy, until he then tells them exactly how much it will cost to set up and how much it will cost to run, and then tells them that they will have to pay for this through taxation year in year out - That is the point at which that particular candidate becomes unelectable. The USA does not have a "fair" National Health System because the American people in general are not prepared to pay for it, pure and simple, it's got nothing to do with the economic system in place that generates income.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Peace
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 05:16 AM

The old saw:

Capitalism is the exploitation of people by people. Communism is the other way around..

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 08:41 AM

I think we need to go back and redefine "capitalism" in terms of reality and not ideology or mythology... The reality is that, yes, capitalism is an economic system that only works when properly governed...

Reaganites lost sight of that and removed the governing aspect with the misconcepyion that the markets would police themselves... That has shown to be a flawed way for capitalism to work for the betterment of the population...

Yeah, I guess as a purely academic exercise one can try to seperate capitalism from governemtn but that won't solve any of the apparent problems that capitalism faces... Free markets sound all peachy but they really have never actually existed... Free-er markets, perhaps a better way of looking at the situation but free??? Nah... There will always be someone using governemnt to create an unfair advantage...

BTW, I consider myself to be a capitalist in some ways and a socialist in others and I don't see capitalism as evil... Corruption is evil and poorly governed capitalism is evil...

B~

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 08:53 AM

'Terribus' - at least somebody is trying to offer an alternative to the present corrupt world!

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Teribus
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 09:22 AM

"The reality is that, yes, capitalism is an economic system that only works when properly governed..." - Bobert

That is it in a nutshell and the definition of the proper governance is that regulation is flexible enough to appreciate what steps have to be taken when and where required.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 12:26 PM

100,000 jobs have been lost this week by people who believed in their wall street job as fervently as people who believe in Jesus.

Half of them will find some sort of job an average of 7 months from now. They will carry with them a vengence that they will not show the outside world but will burn inside them like boiling betrayal.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 12:39 PM

Please see GLOBAL REGULATIONISM - down on "The Weekly Walkabout" BS thread.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Stringsinger
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 12:44 PM

Regulation should not be flexible enough to permit corporate cronyism and union busting.

Regulation worked under FDR.

Evidence: Are you better off today than you were say ten or twenty years ago?

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Ed T
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 12:57 PM

I submit it is the primary role of government to protect the interests of the people.

Unfortunately, there is a misguided belief (by some), that in a capatilist system business will take care of the interests of the people first, not the interests of the company. Taken further (by some) government has no role in ensuring that business operates in a manner that protects the public interest.

There is also a belief that business will take care of the financial interests of the people of the nation in which they operate (i.e. trickle down economics). However, Globalization and associated tax structures has changed how companies operate and minimized national loyalities and benefits.

IMO, there are definately areas where business should operate with as little government control as possible. However, there is a clear role for government. there are also cases where government intervention is required where the public interest is not being served. In some more extreme cases, (ie government sponsored health care in some nations), I suspect it would be called socialism.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 01:24 PM

That Green Economics Institute is a great idea. The fee for the workshops is extremely reasonable and they hold events in a lot of different places. By itself it won't change the world, but along side of all of the other organizations and schools that are doing similar things, it will make a huge difference.

My son has decided to go to graduate school to get an MBA with a focus on sustainable economics (some schools do actually offer this program). It costs money, like all other graduate school programs, but it definitely serves a very good purpose and is sorely needed in the world today.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 02:05 PM

I've been listening to quite a bit of news on the radio (various stations) within the past week, interviews with different figures in politics and economics, mostly economists, and I don't know how many times I've heard the majority of them voice the same opinion:   the only way the country is going to get out of this mess, and stay out, is to reinstate the controls that FDR established in the New Deal—and keep them in place. The current crisis started when Reagan began dismantling these controls.

It's very popular to demonize Roosevelt these days, particularly by conservatives and those who don't know much about the history of the "Great Depression," what led up to it, and how it was dealt with, but he knew what he was doing. Capitalism without the kind of controls that the New Deal instituted is like a traffic intersection with no lane lines, no traffic lights or signs, and four blind corners.

A difference between the Great Depression and now:   in the GP, CEOs of companies their mismanagement ruined committed suicide by jumping out of their office windows. Now, they're given $150 million dollar bonus by way of severance pay.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 06:53 PM

I have it on very good authority that earlier this week before the new infusion of billions and billions we were very close to a complete lock-down of the world's economic systems.

I have no way to understand all of this input, even from people whose opinions I respect, except to say that he verified that there is nothing backing up the money being allocated but the wet ink we are printing it out with. How the hell can brilliant people be espousing this alchemy? This does seem, once again, like wishful thinking to me!! I can't believe in it.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 06:57 PM

The idea is that it's "trust" in our economy that is backing our currency. Which is why our economy had to be shored up in order to continue to keep itself going in the global sense. It's quite a racket, in my opinion. But the world is run by organized crime, so it's hardly suprising, I supposed.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Teribus
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 09:26 PM

Well yes let's just blame CAPITALISm & jettison it all and ignore completely that it was that system that got us to where we are. Having jettisoned it please tell me what replaces it?? Come on you who are so strident in insisting that it be done away with you must have some sort of alternative to replace it - Or haven't you thought that through yet??

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 09:27 PM

THEY ARE COMING TO DUMP ON YOU

cartoon the trillion dollar truck

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 01:04 AM

I think there's going to be something new that replaces capitalism, myself. I think it's going to be an outgrowth of both capitalism and socialism, and it's going to have as its central set of considerations, integrity, sustainability, and social justice. I don't know how long it's going to take for this to evolve out of what we have now, but I can see the beginnings of it emerging already.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: DougR
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 01:08 AM

Art: If socialism is so great, why has it eventually failed wherever it has been tried? Why do so many people from socialistic based countries try so hard to get into the U.S.? Capitalism is not dead, it has just been used by many unscrupulous corporate and government leaders who have abused the system.

DougR

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 01:46 AM

Because the form of government masquerading under the name of socialism is a totalitarian one, usually based around a worship of the leader. Socialism has been used in various Scandinavian coutnries, as well as Israel, with success.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Teribus
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 06:19 AM

"Socilaism has been used in various Scandinavian countries, as well as Israel, with success." - Volgadon

And the economic ideology that generates the wealth to pay for it is?

I know you don't like anwering my questions Volgadon so I'll provide the answer myself - Capitalist.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 06:47 AM

I never said I was against capitalism, I'm against a capitalistic society, by which I mean one where that ideology dominates.
As I've seen the shift in Israel from socialism to a more capitalistic society, I've also seen people become colder and less caring.
My ideal, support those who need support, and place things like culture, recreation, education and health within people's reach.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Stu
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 07:18 AM

"Capitalism is not dead, it has just been used by many unscrupulous corporate and government leaders who have abused the system. "

There's been no abuse, only the capitalist system working as it should. Short sellers and hedge fund operators are simply doing what capitalists do, and if you're for unregulated capitalism then this is it working perfectly; it encourages greed and short-termism and always has done.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Sawzaw
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 08:57 AM

Lao Tsu:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Socialism

Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Capitalism

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 09:52 AM

Ah, but socialism teaches you to share with those who either can't fish, or had a lousy haul that day.....

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 10:31 AM

"Socialism always fails and disappears" Geezuuus Doug,

Did France and England disappear?

I better google Earth right now.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: olddude
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 10:37 AM

Did France and England disappear?

          yes they did disappear

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 11:27 AM

"Capitalism - relies on free-enterprise, competition and reward - efficiency and market driven - that flourishes best in free-thinking societies - for those to be truly free-thinking societies certain freedom's must exist - innovation must be encouraged which requires constant challenging of the status quo - that requires tolerance, pragmatism and flexibility - lack of central control and guidance rather than regulation - All of which has the ability to exist under a democratic form of government, the social conscience of the society being set as agreed by the people who make up that society."

Teribus

Perhaps, Mr T, if that's your take on Capitalism, then real Capitalism hasn't been tried ...

The system that we've got in the US/UK may depend on 'free-enterprise' and competition - but only the 'fat cats' seem to get the rewards. And it's not very efficient to allow the banking system to wreak such havoc that the whole f***king system collapses, is it?

In the capitalist enterprise that I worked in, until recently, innovation was certainly 'encouraged' (I think that senior management believed that they could have innovation by 'fiat'!) - just as long as it DIDN'T challenge the status quo. The whole 'enterprise' was run by the Marketing Dept. - who were among some of the most contemptible people I've ever met - shallow, vain, stupid,ignorant and insanely competitive and ambitious, yet, when it came to the crunch, terrified of risk. They wouldn't have recognised an innovative product if it had bitten them on the arse! All they really wanted to do was to slavishly copy the competition.

And when did you last challenge the status quo, Teribus? I thought that your whole aim in life was to defend it!

Recent events suggest that your darling 'free market' Capitalism is just as much of a shaky theoretical concept as Socialism. Still, look on the bright side, if we're patient, and wait for just a little longer, some of that wealth just might 'trickle down' - just like Thatcher said it would ... just a little longer ...

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 02:06 PM

Socialism and Capitalism were not concepts during the time of Lao Tsu. So trying to attribute that meaning to his words is dishonest.

Capitalism turns everyone into consumers (we have to buy buy buy!!! to keep the market growing because you can't keep capitalist systems going without growth), and when we become consumers, we don't do anything for ourselves, and we either forget how or we never bother to learn.

Socialism, on the other hand, is completely neutral in its effect on whether or not people will learn to do for themselves.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 02:14 PM

Lao Tsu:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Socialism

Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Capitalism

Give a corporation access to TNT and they blow up the lake, making a short term killing, after which nobody gets any fish. Unregulated Capitalism.

Sawzaw's economic religion, like Bush's seems to ignore the most powerful force in economic behavior, enlightened self interest. Where the individual's (or corporation's) interest conflicts with society's, we need regulation. If the current crisis hasn't told you this then you have slept through it.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 02:17 PM

Excuse me please, I meant to say, rational self interest, not enlightened. Thanks to the lovely wife for pointing out my error.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 08:31 PM

Regardless of political theories, it's clearly the responsibility of a government to make sure that any venture cannot become so large that its failure would jeapordize that government.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Ed T
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 09:21 PM

American Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.
http://www.funny.co.uk/stuff/art_71-2341-Capitalism-with-Cows-Part-2.html

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 09:34 PM

There you go again.

I remember your support of rampant militarism on other threads.

I see your belief that you can profit and others starve on this one.



From each according to their means. To each according to their needs.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 10:16 PM

American capitalism...

You have two cows. You genetically engineer them to produce five times the amount of milk as the other cows, and then make thousands of clones of them. You then genetically engineer some of the clones to be bulls, and release them in the pastures of all of the other dairy farmers in the area. After they mate with the other farmers' cows, you then sue the other farmers for stealing intellectual property.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 06:22 AM

'Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime' - but we're killing all the fish, so, this takes us back to sustainable living! Can anyone come up with anything better than the green economics concept? - I don't think so!

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 07:13 AM

Well, I agree with Carol in her opinion that what we are going to end up with is a "hybrid" mix of regulated capitalism, much like we had before Reagan, and socialism... There are sectors of the economy that lenbd themselves to one or the other or a mix of the two...

But let's face it... With this bailout socialism has certainly stepped in where capitalism has failed...

Actually, as I have proposed, I would love to see the federal governemnt take over the entire mortgage industry (rather than just the bad loans), make safe loans and then apply the interets from them toward shoring up Social Security... This is doable...

B~

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Stringsinger
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 05:38 PM

Debt has been socialized while profit has been privatized.

In short: Corporations profit from the bailout.
The public gets screwed.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 07:42 PM

sorry - I couldnt get the link to work..
Gwynne Dyer: Comrade George W. Bush and the banks
By Gwynne Dyer
After Comrade George W. Bush nationalized the two giants of the US mortgage market, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, earlier this month, Anatole Kaletsky wrote in The Times of London that "the most capitalist administration ever, in the world's most capitalist country, had decided to wipe out the private owners of its biggest and most important financial companies and replace them with state-appointed bureaucrat".

Wikipedia defines "nationalization" as "the act of taking an industry or assets into the public ownership of a national government. It is a central theme of certain brands of 'state socialist' policy that the means of production, distribution and exchange, should be owned by the state....Nationalization may occur with or without compensation to the former owners. If it takes place without compensation it is a case of expropriation."

Well, this was expropriation. When the U.S. investment bank Bear Stearns went belly-up in March, the shareholders used their political influence to get the price of the buyout raised from the originally agreed $2 per share to $10 per share. By April, however, it was known that the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank was talking to the Scandinavian authorities, who had survived a rather similar crisis in 1991-93 by nationalizing their banks without compensation for shareholders.

And that is essentially what happened with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, whose combined liabilities of $5.5 trillion were equivalent to about two-thirds of the existing U.S. national debt. Those liabilities of those two institutions, which hold around half of all US mortgages, have now been added to the federal government's debt, bringing it to about $14.8 trillion––approximately three times what it was when Comrade Bush first took office. But the shareholders got nothing.

In its desperate attempt to keep Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae afloat over the previous six months, the U.S. Treasury had encouraged investors to pump an extra $20 billion into them. As the situation worsened and the likelihood of a federal nationalization without compensation loomed, Yu Yongding, former advisor to China's central bank, warned: "If the U.S. government allows Fannie and Freddie to fail and international investors are not compensated adequately...it is the end of the current international financial system."

That is what actually came to pass this month, although the consequences will take years to play out fully. Then came last week's effective nationalization of American International Group (AIG), which made the U.S. government the world's largest insurance company.

"The move represents the largest lurch toward socialism that this country has ever seen, and signals the end of the vibrancy of America's once vaunted free market economy," said Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital.

The current proposal by the U.S. Treasury to spend $600 billion of taxpayers' money buying up the worst of the subprime mortgages only emphasises how far we have travelled from the triumphalism of the free-marketeers in just a few months. Just as China has developed a "socialist economy with Chinese characteristics," so the U.S. is getting a socialist economy with American characteristics. (Indeed, the two countries even share some of the same characteristics, like the lack of a comprehensive national health service.)

The most extraordinary part of this upheaval is that there has been virtually no public outcry in the United States itself, the bastion of free-market capitalism, about these nationalizations. The word "nationalization" is never used, and the irony of such a socialist measure being implemented by this most doctrinaire of Republican administrations is scarcely commented on.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain let a bit of the old free-market ideology show through when he told reporters that "the Federal Reserve should get back to its core business of responsibly managing our money supply and inflation", but he is not really fighting nationalizations and government subsidies. Indeed, he agrees with Democratic candidate Barack Obama that the subsidised loans to General Motors and Ford now pending approval in the U.S. Congress should be raised from the proposed $25 billion to $50 billion.

The panicky flight from free-market orthodoxy in the United States is bound to fuel a revival of government intervention and welfare-state policies in the rest of the world. In the United States itself, however, they are likely to hang the wrong culprit in the end.

It was the ideologically driven deregulation of banks and markets by the Bush administration, encouraging wild speculation and the proliferation of murky financial instruments, that made this crisis possible. When one set of Bush-appointed regulators brought garden shears to a press conference to show their dedication to cutting the "red tape" that allegedly kept banks from realising the full potential of unregulated financial markets, a rival Bush appointee, James Gilleran, head of the Office of Thrift Supervision, brought a chainsaw to his photo-op.

So will the Republicans be punished for their willful fiscal irresponsibility? Not if Barack Obama wins the presidency, which seems the likely outcome of the November election. American voters won't remember who actually caused the financial crisis that impoverished them. They will end up blaming the party in power, the one that actually has to try to lessen the misery and clear up the mess. The Democrats, in other words.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 08:44 PM

Capitalism is bad for humanity?? Sorry, I can't buy that argument. Unless, of course, you think there's a significant chance of it increasing in value over the next few days so that I can sell it high.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Amos
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 09:13 PM

Definition of "fascism": A political system that glorifies the nation, minimizes individual rights, and operates through an autocratic central government that tightly controls all economics, political, and social behavior. ...
www.chuckallan.com/fccj/amh2020/Vocabulary.html


Definition of "capitalism":

Capitalism is an economic theory which stresses that control of the means of producing economic goods in a society should reside in the hands of those who invest the capital for production. It is a system based on the production of goods and services for exchange rather than use. ...
www2.truman.edu/~marc/resources/terms.html


I don't think we are suffering from capitalism.



A

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:23 AM

Right Amos!!!(even a broken clock is right, twice a day)..
We can blame ourselves for tolerating and rewarding corruption....and by being corrupt, ourselves... by ignorance(the act of ignoring), thereby, being stupid....and letting our minds being 'entertained' by distractions, from what really matters. Yes, the chickens have come home to roost...and we're acting 'all so indignant'. tsk tsk!

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 01:40 AM

Stringsinger, your post of 22 Sep 08 - 05:38 PM is a gross misrepresentation, particularly where it involves insurance companies and mortgage lenders. You state that:

"Debt has been socialized while profit has been privatized.

In short: Corporations profit from the bailout.
The public gets screwed."

So your solution would be to let them go to the wall is it? Tell us what would happen then Frank? After all the debt does not go away.

For all those people paying insurance premiums, or relying on insurance pay outs, they would then have to find another insurance company and pay what outstanding claims they have against their existing policies.

With the mortgage lenders going under, all debts would be called in, thereby throwing the vast majority of their customers out of their homes.

The knock-on effects of the route you would appear to advocate would be catastrophic for a great many people Frank, but then as always that's the "socialists" way of looking at things, make sure the ideology is right and never ever look further than your nose.

Oh and by the bye Frank the money given by Government is a loan it does have to be paid back, I dare say all that Supposedly "privatised" profit will be used for that.

Subject: RE: blame CAPITALISM & jetison it!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 11:12 AM

My turn...100!