BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness

Subject: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 03:06 PM

Capitalism has always been applied to the poor and middle class while Socialism has always applied to corporations in the form of corporate welfare, bail outs and tax break/ free status.

Capitalism has spearheded the wanton destruction of the enviorment for small short term profits. It does not even serve nations such as Japan that is the ideal culture for capitalism to theoretically be perfect.

There is nothing wrong with free markets under certain conditions.
I like the free market although it is very expensive.

The free market is a bit like Newtonian Physics but does not work well at the relativistic speeds of capital speculation and destruction in these recent times of total deregulation.

I think the new economics will be something strikingly similar to the economy of the United Federation of Planets on Star Trek ;)

There will still be room for you Ferengi's out there and your gold pressed Latinum. The rules for acquistion will however have to be regulated and the uptick rule must be reinstated.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 03:38 PM

Well are you talking about capitalism or free markets.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 03:43 PM

"has outlived " - I'm not too sure about that...

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 03:44 PM

Not so much dead, perhaps, as undead.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 06:34 PM

Zombie capitalism is the result of Wall Street USA cheating and lying to the entire global market. They killed their golden goose.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Peace
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 06:44 PM

The Golden Rule at work.

"He who has the gold makes the rules."

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Slag
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 06:48 PM

...und those who belief different, enter zeee gate on da right. We haff some vonderful parting gifts for you...

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Peace
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 06:52 PM

Yess. Ve haff good news and vee haff bad news. Ze good news: haff uf you are going to Norvay, zee otter haff to Sveden. Zee bad news: zee top half is going to Norvay, . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 06:54 PM

Capitalism has never been useful, other than to those who control it and has enslaved humanity for several centuries.
The sooner we are done with it the better and although, (as McGrath notes) it is not dead, it's unsustainability is becoming apparent to all.

When Capitalism goes into decline,we should guard against the next phase which is "Police State" then outright Facism. Within year or so we should see the first signs of a clampdown on protest as job losses and erosion of living standards begin to bite.

    "Freedoms are being lost in Britain because of the rapid growth of the "national security state." This form of militarism was imported from the United States by New Labour. Totalitarian in essence, it relies upon fear mongering to entrench the executive with venal legal mechanisms that progressively diminish democracy and justice. "Security" is all, as is propaganda promoting rapacious colonial wars, even as honest mistakes. Take away this propaganda, and the wars are exposed for what they are, and fear evaporates. Take away the obeisance of many in Britain's liberal elite to American power and you demote a profound colonial and crusader mentality that covers for epic criminals like Blair. Prosecute these criminals and change the system that breeds them and you have freedom." John Pilger.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Peace
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 06:56 PM

Neocons deserve the rope and then a ten foot drop, IMO. The enslavement of this world's population is a reality in progress.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 07:48 PM

Warren Buffet warned against justice/revenge against those who invented the worst theft and lies that has killed the golden goose for the entire world.

He said "We don't want victims, we want victory!"


That he dared refer to the Bond rating CEO's and Investment bank CEO's as "VICTIMS" is Orwellian.

Obama is better insurance against further victimization of the poorest victims of this collosal theft than the Bush regieme which was primed and ready to do battle against the American civilian withnew weapons, agencies like HLS and the regular military.

Yes there are people like Rush who will call for all kinds of craziness including civil war. Confident sane people are our best defense against the most irrational. Expect more than our fair share of irrationality all the same.

Equating capitalism to motherhood and freedom is getting harder to sell to people who know they are in tents because of the capitalist lies they fell for.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Slag
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 07:59 PM

Save some rope for the neoMarxists. They deserve a long drop too.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 08:06 PM

In one word... yes!!!

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 09:14 PM

Capitalism isn't dead, or even undead (although I love that reference). It's just in a chrysalis right now while it prepares to reform itself from a worm into a butterfly. The new kind of capitalism that will be left standing (or flying) after the shell of the old kind of capitalism falls away will be conscious capitalism. That will provide us with what we need for a long time into the future (until we can get our United Federation of Planets economic model sorted out).

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 09 Mar 09 - 10:48 PM

If you're reading this message, you're doing so on some type of device which someone created with the profit motive in mind. If you'd like to see total technological stagnation then, by all means, let's do away with capitalism all together. The potential for making money is the only reason anyone creates anything useful. Put everyone to work for the government and the only things that will get created will be bigger bombs, jingoistic art, and tractors that break down every other hour.

The problem isn't capitalism per se, but rampant, unbridled, unregulated corporate capitalism. It's not the small-town independent bank that's the problem. It's Citibank and Bank of America.

I believe that any corporation with over X number of employees or Y number of dollars in sales volume should have in house government regulators who oversee every aspect of the company's operation. Corporate America has been left unsupervised, and they've made a mess of the playground. If they still want to play, they're gonna have to learn to do it with someone watching over their shoulders.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: DougR
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 01:12 AM

Horsepucky! No other economic system can hold a candle to Capitalism. People will likely begin to recognize they elected the wrong person pretty soon.

Those of you who have a direct line to your hero, Obama, please communicate to him that he should stay off TV. Everytime he makes some baleful announcement about the terrible financial situation the stock market takes a dive.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Slag
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 01:20 AM

BWL, I guess I'd better send AVG a donation after all...!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 01:34 AM

No, no...it's idle talk that has outlived its usefullness.

With that in mind, you will note I am posting much less frequently on Mudcat lately.

I can only hope that others are inspired by my example... ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 01:55 AM

Before anyone starts announcing the expiration of capialism, I would like to see a workable alternative method demonstrated.

And a clear definition of what they actually mean by capitalism.

It takes an incredible amount of work and stress to bring about new inventions and make them into products that serve a good purpose; until you have succeeded at doing so yourself, you are scarcely in a position to analyze what works or does not.

I suspect that your are not actually waving your arms about capitalism, but about the untrammeled corporatism which has in the recent past been AMerican capitalism's worst example.

Those are two very different things. Ther is in fact such a thing as virtuous capitalism, just as there are corrupt Christians, and responsible socialists. The abandon with which some folks fly off on categories and broad generalities is a bit offputting.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 03:50 AM

Spoken like a true "liberal" Amos!.....virtuous Capitalism my arse!
The ethos is totally wrong, and as an economic system it's been used to herd people into a life of economic slavery to the machine.
"Liberals" don't want change, they want to tinker with what we have; and all the while the system becomes less sustainable.

"They have become comfortable on the train, and although the tracks will stop in a mile or two, they think it is unreasonable to contemplate alighting from the train and carrying on on foot"

A change to far Amos??

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 04:18 AM

and for those idiots who think "de-regulation" is the problem, ponder this. Why were our political leaders so keen to de-regulate?

To sustain our wasteful way of life even in the short term, continual economic growth is required....and the easiest way to promote a perception of growth is to de-regulate the financial system.

In simple terms Capitalism has run out of tracks!!
Our leaders are well aware of the situation we are in, but with the aid of a few useful idiots(Liberals), they obviously feel they can make their comfy train chug on a little longer!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Stu
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 04:27 AM

"Save some rope for the neoMarxists. They deserve a long drop too."

Thanks Slag - nice to know someone out there wants to kill you.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Stu
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 04:28 AM

I mean kill me.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 07:34 AM

Capitalism lives on and on and on... The rich get richer and the poor get poorer... the greed carries on and corrupts the people and the system... perhaps if those who have all the money were generous and heartfelt in their dealings with those less fortunate.. life as it is could survive.... but it is reaching the point where people in our own country are struggling even harder to make ends meet... so much so that Third World Countries will eventually be neglected in favour of our own. But who really cares except the victims... those who suffer.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 10:21 AM

Gunpowder has been used to herd people, too, Ake, but it has scarcely outlived its usefulness. Sex has been used to enslave people, too, but it is still useful for its intended purpose.

Perhaps you have never read about the hundreds of lives that have been changed by microloans, a form of capitalism which enables people to start businesses. I would call this virtuous capitalism.

The problem with your vague hopes for free distribution of everything to everyone is that you cannot make it work.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 11:12 AM

There's different kinds of growth, and not all of them are bad. The old capitalist model was essentially bankrupt, so it had to resort to fraudulent, unethical, and ultimately, unworkable financial "innovations" in order to give the appearance of growth. But it wasn't really growth.

With conscious capitalism, the potential for real growth is astronomical. The new and emerging markets in green technologies, and sustainable goods and services, and in technologies for solving our environmental problems, will provide an enormous engine for growth, and it will be sustainable, socially responsible growth.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 12:01 PM

Right on Carol !

I should add not only is the old capitalist model bankrupt ... but also the old socialist model and political models.

Are we about to enter a new dawn of a new age ? I really don't know but can only hope.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 12:36 PM

I would also add that the old capitalist model, all of the rhetoric of it's most ardent cheerleaders notwithstanding, was the opposite of a "free market" approach. The markets were as controlled in what we have called the "free market" as they have been with the socialist models. They've just been controlled using different (and sometimes less obvious) means.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 12:38 PM

...having said that, though, the derivatives market is the closest thing we've ever had to a truly free market, and that was an utter failure.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 12:59 PM

I cannot say what history has to show in other parts of the world but in Britain and the USA many of the benefactors that provided employment, housing, health care, educational establishments, libraries etc. did so because they were able to. They were only able to so because they were successful in the most cut-throat, competitive era of free enterprise driven by blatant capitalism. Thank the Lord for them. e.g. Cadbury, Carnegie, Armstrong, and many more.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 01:20 PM

They probably could have done as much good for people had they just paid them a living wage up front, though. The only difference would be their own lifestyles would not have been as extravagant.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: DougR
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 01:33 PM

Carole: If there is a lottery in your state (Powerball, etc.)and if you played it and won 200 million dollars, would you give it all away to those less fortunate than yourself?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 02:40 PM

What is the point behind that question?

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 08:12 PM

We have been told that if we just gave all the money to the rich that they would provide good jobs in return...

Well, 30 years into that little experiement we have the results that model has failed...

Face it, rich people use money for their own comforts.. Theyn have absolutely no interets in the security of the country or the other 95%... None... Zip...Nada...

So that being the case, why not just pool our resorces and turn over industry to the people... I mean, how many folks think that GM wouold be on the brink of failure if it were owned by all of US... It should be owned by all of US because in good times we would all enjoy the benefits and in bad times we would all share in the risk... Right now, in good tiimes the rich enjoy the spoils but in bad times the rest of US are asked to carry the load...

That is a sytem that cannot be successful...

Okay, I can understand a little capitalism in terms of samll businesses but not large corpoartions... Don't work no more!!! And too broke to fix...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Peace
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 08:17 PM

"Everytime he [Obama] makes some baleful announcement about the terrible financial situation the stock market takes a dive."

So calling an orange an orange screws up citrus producers? Who'da thunk it.

Doug, it's your birthday. Go read your thread ya ol' fart.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 08:28 PM

GM should be OWNED by the US? Just lik ethat? Nationalized? That's pretty extreme. I would remind you that a lot of people risked their money backing GM when it was a small venture and many times since. A lot of people invested toil and brain power to make it succeed. This sounds like that old joke about the different political systems and how they treat a cow you own.

I suggest that there is a world of difference between capitalism itself and unregulated greed using capitalist structures.

Capitalism espouses the belief that if you put your wealth at risk on a new venture, you should own a share of the profits if it meets with success. Because you are risking losing up to the amount of your investment if your effort fails.

This concept of ownership in a group's fortune's is a critical enabling feature of all kinds of endeavours that would not be possible otherwise. Without it, many of the explorations and trading expeditions that opened the world to Western Europeans would never have happened.

If I had a little reserve of money and was asked to invest it in a company that was going to be given away to thousands of people who never contributed to it, I can tellyou how much I'd put in the kitty. Like zilch, man.

Now--maybe there IS a better middle ground, a balance of ownership for effort as well as capital that could be better calculated. The old whaling ships and buccaneers made shares of their proceeds for those who risked their live3s as well as those who risked their dollars.

But just nationalizing a manufacurer is a bad idea.

Banks, now, are a different matter; the thing that sSHOULD be nationalized is the right to create money by fiat. No one should be able to do that by just writing loans, as it degrades the currency.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 09:22 PM

Who owns GM?
We do, through purchase of their stocks, our pension, savings, bank, credit union, etc. purchases of their stock (owned mostly by investors, not the corporation). I think I have said this before.
They provide hundreds of thousands of jobs within the company and have contributed to many more in businesses that use their products.
As stockholders, we have a vote on policies; if nationalized, none.

The system needs improving, but it has served us well for generations.

Rich means entrepreneurship and application of creativity. Without the ability to borrow, grow and create wealth, Gates and Microsoft, Dell, and a thousand others would never have succeeded.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 09:40 PM

From what I've been hearing and reading, though, average shareholders don't really have much of a real vote because the boards of directors have ways of overriding a lot of shareholders' votes.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 09:43 PM

Well, Amos... That was along time ago... That is like stuff from an old black and white James Stewart movie...

Reality is that GM has become soft in the belly, stubborn and not into success... No, they didn't go out to fail but fail they have done... Why??? Because they are bums who knew that they were too big to fail... They knew that if times got tough that the governemnt would step in... They had that leverage... They have acted irresposibly and lied to their stock holders and tried to BS the American public...

They went a decade building pure crap... Okay, maybe 2 decades but who's countin'...

That was pure arrogance on their part... If the American people had owned GM, like they do now, back in the late 80's GM would be healthy today because the American people wouldn't have put up with such crap... Congresss would have stepped in and said, "No mass, this stuff is junk"...

Ford??? Not much better...

Chrylser??? Worse yet... Junk...

I mean, if we are going to risj capital on arrogance then we are going to fail 100 times out of a 100...

Nationalize the auto industry and put a bunch of housewives and ol' hippies in the design department with the engineers and all will be fine...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Riginslinger
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 09:46 PM

"Capitalism has outlived its usefullness..."


                  It's done that before, but we keep bringing it back!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,guest jfl
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 10:14 PM

well i doubt that a bunch of old hippoes and house wives could do worse than gms present staff

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 10:25 PM

Oh ye of little faith!!!

We could do far worse if given the chance! ;-D By God, mister jfl, you ain't seen nothin' yet. I am talking total disaster. Complete meltdown. Fuck-up par excellence. End of the friggin' world as we know it.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Riginslinger
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 10:58 PM

I thought the election of Ronald Reagan was the end of the world as we know it, are we going to have to go through that again?

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 12:01 AM

Is Toyota (down 56%) pure crap? They are asking for support from the Japanese government. French Peugeot and Renault? They also must get support. German Volkswagen? Jan. sales down 21%. The inability to get bank loans and people tightening their belts is hitting them all.
Cars from GM, Japanese makers, have about the same life span, if the figures are checked.
About 20 years ago, GM had problems with paint and body part seams, but that was corrected. They are still having to live with opinions people formed then, but which no longer are valid.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 12:42 AM

Today's market leaped up in response to Citi's projection of profit. Wouldn't it be interesting if this downturn were just a temporary hiccup? Not that I believe it for a minute but if it turned out to be true, would we have learned a lasting lesson? I doubt it.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Mark Ross
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 12:53 AM

I remember the joke I heard riding across Wyoming on a Greyhound Bus sitting next to a Russian emigre. He told me that in Moscow they used to say, "Under capitalism, man oppresses man, under communism, it's just the opposite!"

Mark Ross
(Anarcho-syndicalist)

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 01:02 AM

Here is a link to a spine-tingling song presented in an amazing fashion.

Lovely!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 01:28 AM

If you're not an American, feel free to react differently. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 04:03 AM

"Before anyone starts announcing the expiration of capialism, I would like to see a workable alternative method demonstrated."

The age old cry of the "Liberal" capitalist, but it does make a point. If we wish to continue as a greedy,wasteful society, in the process of completely destroying the planet on which we live and in that process depriving the vast majority of the chance to fulfill themselves as members of their species, or attain any sense of real happiness in their short lives, then we have no alternative;

But if we refuse to see ourselves as a herd of crazed caged animals and as individuals start to lead a life which reflects the needs of nature and the planet, rather than the wishes of our political masters, we stand a chance of long term survival.

It is not simply replacing one economic system with another, that is bound to fail......but a slow change in the way we as human beings perceive our future and our quality of life......Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 10:44 AM

So who (or who's reputation) is forst against the wall when the revolution comes?

Ray Gun & Thatcher?

They let the market decide, and it has decided. Greed is Good. what a GiG!

I always said it was mortgaging the future. And we are into a bit of negative equity right now and for a long time as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 10:46 AM

Sounds like you have stirred a lot of ideas into a pot, Ake, some of which are good and others of which will not bear close inspection.

Capitalism is not the single thing which ruined the planet by any means. Organizing human effort in order to undertake large projects is not inherently evil--termites and ants do it and are not blamed. THe problem is large-scale projects and industries with unknown side-effects.

I completely agree that compassionate technology needs to replace the more hostile sorts of technology currently in use. That is a small idea but a huge undertaking.

As for "completely destroying the planet", I think you will find that is not the case. We definitely are harming the thin shell of the ecosphere and having an impact on the climate, but the planet is of a different scale and it will do just fine long after we are relocated elsewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 03:48 PM

I think we need regulation and I think we need a substrate below which we can not fall..especially in terms of food supply..

And there are some people who need a structured work situation, with the work being given to them according to their abilities, and them provided with benefits and salary. There are some people who need this on a temporary basis, and some who need it on a permanent basis, with various sorts of handicaps, and most of us might need it in a catastrophic situation.

But if that were secure, and if we had a trained and flexible and at least partly mobile workforce, we need capitalism to function..and we don't really understand why it does...but it does feed people and innovate things and create whole new job markets and industries and help things become more efficient or die...the trouble is it moves too fast..it needs to be tempered with public safety nets and public employment and public works in case of depressions etc. We need a backup system for when the buggy whip makers are totally and forever out of that kind of work.

Now, speaking of which..we are bailing out automakers. I have not heard of one single car, bus, motorized vehicle being produced by that. why IN THE NAME OF SAM HILL AREN'T WE GETTING AT LEAST POLICE CARS, AMBULANCES, HEAD START BUSES ETC. OUT OF THIS?

We keep hearing that Katrina effects keep lingering..partially because there are not enough carpenters etc. Why in the hell not?   If there were zero carpenters in the world, we have had plenty of time to train millions of them. We are idiotic when it comes to failing to train people for skilled occupations.

I could go to probably any high school in New Orleans and find young men with their feet up on their desks refusing to turn in their assignments and being sullen to teachers. And that is just the young men. Why aren't all of them, including the ones bound for UL etc...(and young women as well) taking some occupational courses?

Then of course we will build under sea level with wood again. Just watch. Part of what needs to be regulated is housing, made out of appropriate materials for the most probable emergency, and we need to stop saying..well we have to build out of wood because that is what builders know how to build out of. Tough shit. That is not how it should be determined. We certainly can train masons and cement workers as well can't we? Or have we lost the ability to think we even can????? Why should America tremble? mg

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 07:57 PM

The potential for making money is the only reason anyone creates anything useful.

How does that apply to the Mudcat, just for a start?

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 08:20 PM

Some very timely discussion here..

http://fora.tv/2009/03/03/Global_Capitalism_with_Jeffrey_Sachs_and_Matthew_Bishop

It might be necessary to click on "Full Program" just below the viewer, and then click on "Introduction" just below that, in order to watch or listen to the whole video.

One of my two most favorite economists, Jeffrey Sachs, has some very interesting things to say about the auto bailout and about GM in particular. It's definitely worth listening to. Anyone who wants to just listen to that part rather than hearing the whole discussion (all of which is worth hearing in my opinion), can click on menu option 24 - "Sachs on GM Bailout".

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 08:24 PM

I have to say that I also disagree with the idea that money is the only reason for useful creativity. Linux, Firefox, and much of the rest of the openware/freeware is proof of the opposite. They are much better than the equivalent Microsoft products, and they were not developed specifically for the purpose of making money. Money actually can have the effect of causing people to create and produce inferior products, because the primary motivation is to make money rather than to produce the best possible whatever is being created.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 08:44 PM

People create things to make their futures better or richer in some way; love, food, friendship, control of the elements, joy of song, intangible spiritual oscillations, getting laid, or acheiving power. It ends up LOOKING like it is all about money because of the widespread use of money as an index measurmeent of merit. This however is an insidious misunderstanding which underlies the ruination of many a career and a company as well. Money is an index of some values (profitability, sales, earning value, for example) but is a piss-poor index of other values including technical merit (remember Beta video?). A company solely fixated on money loses its direction faster than a fart in a hurricane.

But a company that fails to manage money well, among other skills, tends to go out of business.

THere IS a sweet spot of balance among the different values one tries to serve; but to believe they are all indexed by money is like believing the universe is only good for temperature. It's a silly, confused notion, no matter how infectious.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 09:01 PM

For many people, the joy and sense of fulfillment that accompanies the act of creating is the main motivation. In a sense, creation is its own reward.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 10:00 PM

Creation is improved if it is followed by a nicely marbled steak and a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 10:02 PM

Capitalism hasn't outlived it's usefulness..corruption has!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: mg
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 12:05 AM

Great thought there.

And the bad thing about socialism is that they are going to send a whole bunch of us down into the coal mines...or equivalent. MInes for clean coal. Of course, so does capitalism.

we have a great untalked about problem, which is that some people work way more than is healthy and some work way too little and it needs to be evened out somehow. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 12:16 AM

mg, However or as much as people work, should be left up to the individual, and capitalism allows that..if a person wants more..he works more, or harder, sometimes, even smarter.in any event, nobody should 'force' anybody else to work. The whole socialistic enticement, is nothing more than sugar coated, slavery!..That being said, so can any form..it should be left to the individual,..but alas, freedom isn't much tolerated, by the so called 'progressives'

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: mg
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 12:24 AM

Well I certainly think that there are very many people who want to work, or want more work, and don't find those opportunities. Some very ambitious and creative ones could create their own opportunities, but most of us are probably not going to for various reasons. There are also many people who are working 8 or 10 or 12 hours a day who would love to cut back to 6 or maybe 4 with young children (or zero), but can't because of the beneifts situation, or lack of part-time opportunities, or need to stay in the job market for security reasons. I don't think capitalism is for everyone and I don't think socialism is for everyone but some sort of mix, leaning heavily towards capitalism but regulated to prevent abuse etc. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 01:09 AM

Yes--capitalism within a firm social contract would be a different beast than wehave just now; instead, it is protected by some aspects of law and encouraged toward ramapnt self-serving aggrandization by others.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 04:09 AM

Can you not see that Capitalism, within a firm social contract, is now unable to sustain itself in so called developed countries.

The waste of resources, energy, materials and labour has become so great,that the economic growth required cannot be achieved by conventional Capitalism. We are now forced to manufacture false "booms" based on credit burdens much too heavy to ever be repayed.

The endgame of course is already in progress....."quantitive easing" or in good old fashioned speak....The printing of money!

When folks begin to realise that this term has a third meaning, (armed robbery of their savings, pensions and public sevices)...and start to protest about it, we move to the final stage of Police State and Facism.

"Virtuous Capitalists" soon turn into tyrants when asked to endure the same conditions as the common people.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Wayne, near Baltimore
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 06:02 AM

Under real capitalism we probably wouldn't see these "bailouts".

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 06:22 AM

But the common people can also be capitalists.   The term "capitalist" is not inherently one that only refers to the kind of large scale capitalism that tends to be in the forefront of our awareness these days. Capitalism can be one person with a milk cow who sells their wares down at the village marketplace, and who got his or her cow with a micro-loan that was provided by a taxi driver on the other side of the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 01:24 PM

Being the hottest thing on Mudcat, doesn't give you the right to post in "Bimboese"!!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 01:27 PM

Thank you very much..you flatter me and I will try not to write in Bimboese. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 01:31 PM

Ake:

I will say again that your observation that "capitalism cannot sustain itself" is inaccurate. The problems of large corporations, a culture of obsessive consumerism, and a money-motivation untempered by ethical principle are all issues of culture, and individual, codes of right conduct, and are not built in to capitalism per se, as Carol's Bimboese post makes clear.

IF you want to solve a problem you have to name the right problem, which means differentiating between what's wrong and what ain't. If you are using the word capitalism to mean "the system that allows large immoral corporations to take advantage of individuals" then you are redefining the word, which will make it hard for folks to understand what you are actually saying.

It is not private ownership of the means of production that is at fault in the offenses you describe, and that is the core concept that drives capitalistic systems. PRivate ownership of the means of production is a reasonable reward for bringing the means of production into existence from nothing and creating a game for people to play.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 01:33 PM

Hey Mary....haven't seen your picture yet...but I'm sure you're just as nice as the lovely Carol!!

However, Bimboese has been banned for all but the "inner circle"....you know who they are......:0)

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 01:50 PM

Amos..... regardless of the motives, capitalism will always end up in the sort of mess we now see around us.

Dont imagine that this is the end of capitalism, the new capitalism that you long for is likely to be very bloody indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 01:50 PM

Bimboese?

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 03:03 PM

The system of micro-loans (see Carol post) has helped some very small entrepreneurs in 'third world' countries.
The cases presented by BBC (on BBCNews) are very thought-provoking.

Capitalism, with all its faults, is the only game in town. Regulation is needed, but it will have to be through international agreements to be effective.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Goose Gander
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 03:09 PM

Funny how many people rattle on against capitalism while listening to CDs, driving in cars, eating commercially produced food (including nearly all organic produce, unless you grow it yourself or belong to a collective), living in comfortable housing, using computers,and so on.

But you think "capitalism has outlived its usefullness" . . .

What is the alternative? There is no way of going back to agrarianism or hunting and gathering on the scale necessary to maintain the population with food and shelter at even a minimum level. For all its abuses, capitalism has an unequaled record for creating wealth and improving living standards. The social benefits enjoyed by all of us (education, health care, social security, infrastructure, etc.) in developed countries were payed for with government revenues (taxes) gleaned from commercial enterprise. Regarding pollution, 'destroying the world', blah blah blah, the 20th century nation with the worst envirnomental record was not the US, Britain, Japan, or Germany but the USSR. So if you want to blame industrialism or modernism in general, then you're getting warmer, but again what is the alternative?

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: olddude
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 03:29 PM

Hey come on, it works great ... just look at guys like Madoff
he did well ... it took 65 billion before he went down

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 03:39 PM

Madoff is not an example of capitalism. Madoff is an example of hucksterism.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 04:03 PM

Ake:

Can you explain your assertion that it is capitalism, rather than individual corruption, that causes the klind of BS now rampant? Obviously, a social framework of limits has to be imposed, and under the free-market airheads of the Bushian Reign it was not.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Goose Gander
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 04:11 PM

If we had a genuinely free market, there would be no bailouts for poorly run companies. What we are seeing now - first under W. and continuing under Obama - is not capitalism but a perverse hybrid where gains are privatized and costs are socialized.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 04:39 PM

Capitalism is the economic system which allows individual corruption to flourish.....in fact it actively encourages individual corruption.

All the systems which attempt to "organise" society are to a large extent corrupt, but capitalism more than any other, is poison to the human mind. The desire to gain power over our fellow creatures through the aquisition of money causes our species to do the most unspeakable things to one another.

It is convienient to blame evil or some personal aberation, but the system must shoulder the blame for the monsters it produces...

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 04:41 PM

We've never had a genuinely free market. And we never will have a genuinely free market. And considering how badly the closest thing we've ever had to a free market (the derivatives market) has performed (utter failure), I think that's a very good thing.

In order to have a genuinely free market, we would have to eliminate our military industrial complex, and end our subsidies of agricultural products and corporate welfare. I don't see that happening any time soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 04:43 PM

Socialism and communism are no less likely to encourage corruption to flourish than capitalism.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 04:49 PM

The desire to gain power over our fellow creatures through the aquisition of money causes our species to do the most unspeakable things to one another....It is convienient to blame evil or some personal aberation, but the system must shoulder the blame for the monsters it produces...

You haven't answered the question, but instead have just re-turned your original assertions about the inherent evil of capitalism.

Definition:

1. an economic system based on private ownership of capital
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

2. Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are owned by private persons, and operated for profit and where investments, distribution, income, production and pricing of goods and services are predominantly determined through the operation of a free market.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

What is it in these definitions that you believe inherently causes evil?

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Goose Gander
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 05:08 PM

Why yes, Akenaton, capitalism practically invented evil. It certainly never existed in tribal cultures, in agrarian societies, in the medieval period, in socialist countries, or anything like that.

Furthermore, you personally certainly have never availed yourself of any of the products of capitalism. I have no doubt that you dress yourself in animal skins, dig for roots, and live in a cave, right?

But the question remains: what is the alternative to capitalism?

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Peace
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 05:21 PM

"But the question remains: what is the alternative to capitalism?"

The answer to that is simple, but no capitalist would ever understand because to effect a working answer would mean a relinquishment of control on the part of capitalists.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 05:22 PM

neither "pure" capitalism nor "pure" socialism is a workable system in today's world--the question is where to strike a balance.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: gnu
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 05:28 PM

Indeed, Dick. That balance may hang in the balance for eternity. After all, we are talking about humans.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 05:40 PM

The question is surely for you Mr Morris, as you don't appear to disagree with my contention that capitalism struggles to sustain itself in a "highly developed society", yet state that there is no alternative to it.

Talk of dressing in animal skins gets a cheap laugh I suppose, but seriously, does humanity really have to live in the fashion we do?
Slaves to money and debt, quality of life in many cases nil and a generation of rudderless young people smothering their despair in herion and cocain. Women and even children enduced to sell their sex and femininity for the gratification of moronic males, who no longer understand or appreciate the beauty of sex.

Does primitive society as practiced by the American Indians, or the clan system in Scotland (before capitalism drove the people from the land),not seem a better way of life,even to one as jaded as yourself?

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: gnu
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 05:44 PM

I like air conditioning.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Goose Gander
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 05:46 PM

Akenaton -

To return to life as practiced by American Indians or Scottish Highlanders (which, romantic dreams aside, included slavery, warfare, torture in some cases, not to mention a average lifespan much shorter than you or I can expect) would require the elimination of several billion humans. I'm not jaded, I'm realistic. When you can provide a realistic, working alternative to capitalism I'll be willing to listen.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 05:54 PM

The Native Americans made things and used some of them as barter. I would expect that the Scottish clans did so also. How is that different than capitalism?

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 06:10 PM

"Socialism and communism are no less likely to encourage corruption to flourish than capitalism"

Oh yes they are!!......If led by someone perceived to be incorruptible.....This does not apply under Capitalism where everyone is expected to be very corruptible, especially our leaders!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Peace
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 06:13 PM

When rifles were traded for their height in beaver pelts, that was trade and barter.

When the mother f##kers from the Northwest Company (Hudson's Bay Company) lengthened the barrels of rifles to get MORE pelts, that was Capitalism.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 06:24 PM

Mr Morris..I don't much care whether you listen or not, but I do believe that before the end of this century,the surviving humans will be living a lifestyle common to primitive people for thousands of years.
You say that we can expect to live much longer than primitive peoples, I would dispute that, and suggest that our quality of life and general health are much worse.....we rely over much on a capitalist drug producing and marketing culture, to be really healthy.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 06:32 PM

History shows us that corruption in communist and socialist societies has been just as much of a problems as in capitalist societies. Access to and control of resources (which historically has been the purview of the few rather than the many in communist and socialist societies) is just as much a factor in encouraging corruption as access to and control of capital.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 06:33 PM

How is trade and barter different from capitalism?

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Peace
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 06:33 PM

Too true, Carol.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 06:38 PM

I think it should be further pointed out, that all of the societies that have self-identified as communist or socialist have also practiced some capitalism. Just as all societies that self-identify as capitalist also practice some socialism.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Mike Morris sans cookie
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 06:45 PM

Akenaton -

Life expectancies in developed countries have steadily increased over the last few centuries, and infant mortality rates have dropped, particularly in the 20th century. You can look this up if you don't believe me. Anyone who prefers healthy food to garbage can choose the good stuff over fast food, it's often cheaper if you cook it yourself. Concerned about your health? Get off the couch and go for a walk or bikeride, or go play sports. Don't like marketing culture and its effects on mental health? Turn off the television.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 08:09 PM

You are mixing up your symptoms and causes, Ake. The issues of private ownership --where someone borrows or earns the means to build a factory and organizes it and makes products and therefore --after having paid those who worked for him and those who supplied him with materials--enjoys a portion of the profits therefrom--are NOT the causes of despondency, drug use, and so on. Your list of social ills would be reduced if those who are in apathy and despond engaged in a little productive capitalism of their own.

Unless you can enlighten me (as I asked above) as to how the nature of capitalism breeds these evils you bemoan, I will have to conclude that your speaking through your BVDs.

THis is not to say that I don't think a good deal of social engineering is necessary to make the whole social spectrum of people more productive and more decent. I do think so. But you have to name the right cause of the problem if you really want to cure the problem, and private ownership is not the cause of the problem.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 08:41 PM

C

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 10:32 PM

Actually, from reading what is pretty good arguments, both can be side by side, possibly on more than the other...or perhaps, one exclusively over the other...but the real question is...Who is the top dog?..and who do you trust???...Does it mean that the Chairman, or The President, or CEO,..what ever, can get an honest job, like the rest of those supporting him/her, ...I mean, in its 'purist' form???
Presently, with all the choices going up, before us, you're all routing to be sheep!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 11:01 PM

GfS, you say the most inane things sometimes.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 11:33 PM

Amos, Just trying to keep 'down' to your level. Did you trust Bush?..Uh-Uh, Obama??...(in spite of his out front lies?)..uh-uh?...Clinton??(whatever 'is' means..or was that trust??..) nope-er-roo! Reagan?? Was never really noted for his acting..but he was good at public speaking...that is, if you believed him.....Carter?..The well meaning incompetent?..uh uh..Papa 'New World Order' Bush???..Hey wait a minute....isn't that consistent with Obama??...hmmm....well, How about all those in between?...Actually, if you follow the money(TARP), it leads to China and Dubai. Isn't that funny?..The same Dubai, that George was trying to sell New York harbor to???...hmmm, something is fishy here...Oh, never mind...let's keep it at your level....you excel there....

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 03:11 AM

Of course 'capitalism' hasn't outlived its usefulness!! Globalist central bankers have been buying, selling, and bribing, then trading our elected officials, about the same way Wall Street does with stocks...of course they'll vote for 'bailouts'!!!!...I mean it would not be a profitable 'return on their investment', otherwise!!! Do you actually think it was because they liked their speeches??????????.....That's for you suckers to suck down and debate,..but the beat goes on.....and the 'transfer of wealth' is from the treasury, to the international bankers, after all, it was a 'stimulus package'....to their interests, overseas!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 10:42 AM

That's definitely a problem, but it's not really capitalism, either. It's more like a sort of feudalism.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 10:55 AM

Regarding corruption, the John Stewart Show last night deserves its own thread.

In my 24 years of railing against the corrupt market since I left the ltra corrupt Bear Sterns, John Stewart has put a national exclamimation point on the way the market trains all its employees to lie cheat and steal.

I am sure most of us have seen it already or have mentioned this ground breaking expose' that will not be forgotten for years.

John had Jim Cramer on the show. Stewart did not pull a single punch even as Jim curled into an embryonic ball of embarrased guilt.

See the full show at comedycentral.com

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 11:32 AM

Capitalism works for some things but not others.

When water systems are privatized the price goes so high that the people invariably demostrate, riot and eventually get their municipal water system back.

Imagined if the fire and and police departments were privatized.

If you want to get help from your society if you are hurt or in need your taxes are the wages every man must pay.

Free self adjusting markets when regulated for the fairmess of all, are what we would all like. The richest thieves in the world have a way of overcoming laws in ssuch as way that they have never answered to justice.

THis must change,

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 12:28 PM

Yeah. That's why it's not possible to have a system that's entirely capitalist or entirely socialist. Every system has to have a combination of those two things, at least at this point in human history.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 03:18 PM

We also need a well-trained, not just educated, but trained in physical skills, workforce, and an assumption that everyone pitches to the best of his/her abilities. We need to supplement those who earn poverty wages and applaud their diligence. Lots can be done, especially in high schools, which are like holding pens in many situations. Every last kid there should be trained for some sort of occupation even if they have Harvard buildings named after them. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 03:40 PM

That Jon Stewart - Jim Cramer interview was great! Jon Stewart is a national treasure.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Peace
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 04:31 PM

Call it what y'all want. We are witnessing the enslavement of this planet to multi-national interests and this thread ain't gonna stop THAT!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 08:46 PM

Capitalism necessarily leads to concentration. The greater capital drives out the less.

However, if the current projections for the Amazon rainforest are right, it won't matter for too long because we won't be able to breathe.

Recent UK studies strongly correlate the resulting (that is not their word) inequality with almost all of the problems of modern society and health.

In short, Ake is very right.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 02:52 AM

I read recently that in studies of primitive societies, it has been found that the concept of lying does not exist.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 07:30 AM

Is the awareness that something that is not truthful is a lie what the primitive societies don't have, or is it the absence of any untruths? Because we are hardwired to be capable of dishonesty. Even Chimps lie.

Capitalism isn't the only economic model that leads to concentration. Any economic model in which access to anything at all is centralized (as it is in historical socialist and communist models), the desired thing that is under the control of the centralized authority will be subject to concentration. And I think that is the most important point. It's not the particular economic model that encourages such corruption, it is the centralization of authority and access to resources that encourages corruption.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 10:59 AM

A lot of people owe their livelihoods to multi-national corporations, also, and feel employed rather than enslaved. There IS an important distinction, even though they engender similar feelings some of the time. If you want a pocket of dough with which to pay for your hash browns, employment is certainly one way to get it.

I have no drum to beat for large corporations, and the remark upthread that capitalism leads to an unhealthy concentration of wealth is interesting, but debatable.

But as always I think it is REALLLY important to identify the real problem, the correct elements that cause a problem, if you don't want to end up spinning your wheels. Some folks think the decline of Western civilization is directly caused by drink, others by a lack of Godliness, others by a lack of mindfullness, and others by a failure to teach common sense and critical thinking.

Perhaps all of these are factors, as much as the capitalist process. But even if the ocre thread of economic disruption could be traced to the capitalist process, and I doubt that is true, the question has to be asked "What about the process is not working?" in particular, rather than just screaming like a demagogue about the evils of capitalism. If you cannot be specific about what you are talking about, your propositions are completely unassimilable and unactionable, and only serve to stir up generalized anger without moving toward remedy. What the hell good does that do?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 12:02 PM

Before we can begin to be free, capitalism must be "wiped off the map".............no amount of tinkering will ever make it ethical, fair, or sustainable!.....and I'll shout if I feel like shouting, tho' shouting can never make the deaf to hear!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 12:04 PM

I would be interested in reading a description of what sort of economic, governmental, and societal model people advocating the complete elimination of capitalism envision in its place.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 12:36 PM

Free? Free only to take in each other's washing. No thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 04:54 PM

"economic, governmental, and societal models" are the problem Carol, not the answer.

The solution to humanity's problems is very long term, no social model or economic system can supply a quick fix, but understanding what doesn't work and why it doesn't work is an excellent start.
Capitalism has manipulated humanity into becoming cogs in a gigantic machine, personal happiness and fulfillment replaced by the addiction of consumerism. We need to effect huge radical changes in how we live and how we interact with nature.....we are no longer at one with the natural world. One poster above suggested that we need to get rid of billions of people to become sustainable, and to a certain extent he is right, but I believe the cause of most of the social problems we face, has more to do with the way we are herded together in an attempt to make the capitalist system viable.

Social engineering gone mad!....and we have been fooled into thinking it is in our interests.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 05:02 PM

I was just listening to a talk about indigenous peoples and their struggles to maintain their presence in the world despite the enormous stresses that the forces of globalization are putting on them. One of the tools that they are turning to in their struggles is capitalism. One group in the upper Midwest of the US wants to turn their land into what they're describing as "the Saudi Arabia of wind". They've got lots of wind and not much else, and they want to use that resource to generate electricity and income for the tribe. I say more power to them. (Pun not intended.)

Just as with fire, capitalism doesn't have to be destructive. It's how capitalism is harnessed and used that determines whether or not it does evil. And as with fire is possible to set things up so that capitalism is used constructively instead of destructively. I predict that this is how things are going to evolve.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Peace
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 05:08 PM

"we have been fooled into thinking it is in our interests."

No shit!

Good one, Ake.

One of the execs in an American company that needed bailing out by their government had a $35,000 (could be off by a few thou, but not many) executive washroom and a $1,400 waste basket. These fuckers deserve the blooy noose for what they have done to the people of this world. Gouging bastards.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 05:27 PM

Yes Carol, I believe there is an "Indian" tribe which has become prosperous through promotion of the very destructive gambling industry.   Both I think, are exceptions which prove the rule, the money they desire will in time alienate them from their natural roots and the way of life which has sustained them for thousands of years.

The famous "Indian" leaders of two/three hundred years ago knew that the white man's ways would mean the end of their ancient way of life and with it all the aquired wisdom of the centuries.
Many preferred to fight to the death than see their people shackled slaves....akin to what we have become.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 05:35 PM

I read that Bruce! Why are we such sheep? Why are we so willing to accept the shit they heap on us?

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 06:08 PM

"""Socialism and communism are no less likely to encourage corruption to flourish than capitalism"


Oh yes they are!!......If led by someone perceived to be incorruptible.....This does not apply under Capitalism where everyone is expected to be very corruptible, especially our leaders!""

You may be ENTITLED to shout Ake, but I would be wary of exercising that right if I, like you, had just made the single most stupid comment of the decade.

Rabid anti capitalist that you are, you cannot possibly BELIEVE that there can be incorruptible people ONLY in non capitalist societies, nor that only capitalist societies are subject to corruption.


With the evidence of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mau Tse Tung, Mugabe, Amin to advance, I would say your argument is easily shot full of holes.

If there are corrupt men in Washington, there are the same in Beijing and North Korea. If there are incorruptible men in the world, the same applies. They can be anywhere in any political scene including Washington, and that is the irrefutable fact.

I have left the United Kingdom out of this assessment, as we have the dubious distinction of having a totally corrupt government. So corrupt in fact that it professes to be socialist, and isn't apparently aware that it is as capitalist as was Thatcher.

I'm not interested in the outcome of this futile discussion, which will change NO minds, as ever. I do however like to point out nonsense when it is offered masquerading as truth.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 06:23 PM

Gambling casinos have become almost synonymous with Indian reservations here in the US. They're definitely not the exception to the rule here. Personally, I think that gambling casinos are destructive even for the Indians whose reservations they are on. Hopefully more of them will come up with more healthy and sustainable alternatives to the gambling industry in time, as the people with the wind farm idea have done.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 08:28 PM

The Tsuu'tina nation (bordering Calgary, Canada) have a casino on their land very close to where I live. I eat there occasionally, but don't gamble. Members of the nation are not allowed to gamble there (professional casino management). It is providing income for them, along with their other enterprises livestock, gravel,etc.). Other enterprises will come.
Canada has never provided proper schools or living conditions for Indians in Canada; now some are able to gradually improve their standard.

Their way of life? Nonsense! That was gone with the elimination of game many years ago, and the impossibility of a nomadic life. Their best lands were taken. Language, customs, are maintained to some extent, but the life style cannot be resurrected. If ya can't lick 'em, jine 'em!
http://www.greyeaglecasino.ca

The resort hotel-casino-golf course development at Pojoaque Pueblo in New Mexico, operated by the Hilton Hotel group, does have tribal involvement. Now they have income much higher than that provided by their hard-scrabble farms, a good school and other benefits.
Take a look through the website- a fancy set-up, 16 miles NW of Santa Fe. Ten restaurants, superior suites and rooms, an excellent shop selling authentic Indian handicrafts and art, etc.
Buffalo Thunder

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 10:11 PM

Gambling brings problems with it, like increased crime in the vicinity of the casino for instance. I agree that it's good they have that source of income right now, but I think they would benefit from developing other sources of income eventually, and I expect they will. There definitely is some poetic justice, though, about the nature of the relationship between the Indians and the people who gamble on their reservations.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: meself
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 10:20 PM

"Canada has never provided proper schools or living conditions for Indians in Canada"

The issues of schooling and housing on reserves are complicated, and that kind of blanket generalization is not particularly helpful.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 11:25 PM

It is a generalization that you would be hard put to quarrel with.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 11:52 PM

The flaw in capitalism is the opportunity to fleece. The remedy for that is a judicious and alert regulatory and enforcement system, and a set of laws written carefully and intelligently to define the limits of acceptable investment behavior.

The second great flaw is, as Richard meniotned, concentration--of wealth, of influence, and of control.

100,000 people, taken as a population, will have a dispersed, unfocused influence on public affairs, with all of them having different opinions.

Put them in one corporation that makes lots of profit, and those 100,000 people are now fueling an entity that is wholly steered by perhaps ten. And those ten deliver a lot more clout via the corporation than they, or all 100,000 members of the corporation, would ever do as individuals. So not only is the power concentrated, it is also steered by a small number not necessarily interested in the broadest or greatest good for their members, or for the public at large, but for the corporation and their share-holders.

It is true the 100,000 have many more votes than the ten, but in terms of influence and control, that is offset by political correctness and intimidation of labor pools.

And in those forms of influence outside the vote (swaying rewpresentatives, weighing in on legislation, promoting frameworks of popular issues) the ten at the helm can wield MUCH more power than the 100,000 as private individuals, with a few exceptions.

This concentration of leveraged power is the unsolved problem of capitalism, and I agree that it is a problem. The flip-side of the same issue is the inordinate influence of faceless shareholders which can be multiplied in force by influencing corporate policies, without regard for those who make up the body of the corporation--the 100,000 who actually do the work. This disconnect may be the fatal falw in our legal embodiment of the capitalist system, but it is not some fatal flaw in private ownership, jusst a hangover from feudal law, IMHO, one which can be evolved out of the machine and thus outgrown or cured.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: meself
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 12:29 AM

"It is a generalization that you would be hard put to quarrel with."

Not at all. I've spent the past twenty-plus years living and teaching on reserves, and I've seen a lot. I could argue either side of the issue all night. (I don't intend to, though).

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 03:28 AM

Bon....Thanks for the award for stupidest comment.....most difficut to achieve on this forum! However I think it ts deserved in this case, as it is so stupid that even you have failed to understand its meaning.
Carol's contention was that Socialism and Communism were no less likely to encourage corruption than Capitalism. I disagreed, but at no time did I suggest that there have been no corrupt Socialist or Communist regimes.

Although all these systems are destructive ultimately, Capitalism is the only one which encourages us to exploit one another for personal gain, any safeguards for the sick, elderly,unemployed or unemployable, have had to be fought for against the system.

People often say that Communism is right in theory but cant work in practice. No one ever says that about Capitalism; and the truth is that the ethos of the Capitalist system is corruption and exploitation which eventually leads to the systemic failure we see today

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 03:32 AM

Sorry that was addressed to Don(conservative and proud of it)

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 04:24 AM

AKe:

There is nothing inherent in capitalism that requires corruption, but as an economic engine, it certainly creates wonderful opportunities for people to become corrupt. The balancing issue is regulation, of course.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 04:40 AM

Both capitalism and socialism are great in theory but impossible to put into practice in their pure forms. Each has to be combined with some amount of the other in order to work, at least at this point in human evolution.

And even with socialism, there is an encouragement for people to exploit others for personal gain. The only difference is that in a socialist system, the ones who are doing it work for the government rather than corporations. When a government official won't perform the service they are employed to do without a bribe from the one receiving the service (and this is common in socialist regimes), that person is exploiting others for personal gain. And in the more totalitarian socialist/communist regimes, the workers are exploited for personal gain by the central government when the product of their labor goes to enrich those in government at the expense of the workers.

Some people are going to try to exploit other people no matter what system is in place.

I should note that when I use the term socialist regime, I am not talking about countries like those in Scandinavia which are, in my opinion, a healthy mix of capitalism and socialism.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 12:30 PM

AKE....""Carol's contention was that Socialism and Communism were no less likely to encourage corruption than Capitalism. I disagreed, but at no time did I suggest that there have been no corrupt Socialist or Communist regimes.""

Your response to Carol was as follows:-

AKE....""Oh yes they are!!......If led by someone perceived to be incorruptible.....This does not apply under Capitalism where everyone is expected to be very corruptible, especially our leaders!""

My response was as follows:-

Rabid anti capitalist that you are, you cannot possibly BELIEVE that there can be incorruptible people ONLY in non capitalist societies,

It would appear that YOU are the one who misunderstood Ake, since your comment states unequivocally that while an incorruptible leader may EXIST in a communist or socialist system, it is impossible in a capitalist system. THAT my friend is the STUPID part of your argument.

Capitalism is a system in which man exploits man. Socialism is a system in which the opposite applies.


Even in capitalist societies there are, and always will be good honest men. The Nuffields, Carnegies, even the Hearsts, and Hughes', who have made fortunes, true, but have also donated huge amounts to the benefit of their fellow man.

I'm trying very hard, without success to think of just one communist leader who has even attempted to fit THAT mould.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 01:42 PM

I don't think I would use the donating of money to charitable causes as any kind of indication that a man is necessarily either honest or good. I think the bigger measure of the man would be how he got his fortune in the first place, and how he treated his fellow human beings in the process of getting it. Giving away money late in life could just be salve on a guilty conscience.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 02:24 PM

Communism and socialism as presently practiced are in general grim and dehumanising.
Capitalism is uniformly corrupt and exploitative, it is not a man with a cow selling milk, but the huge monsterous system which has just failed in front of your eyes.....and you stand and applaude Mr Obama while he steals your hard earned tax dollars and prints money in an attempt to revitalise the monster which enslaves you.

Don't accuse me of stupidity!!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 03:03 PM

What you are calling capitalism is in fact an offshoot more properly described as corporatism, and if you are in fact opposing that, I'm right there with you.

Capitalism however IS the man selling milk to make a living, and the farmer supplying milk to a small community, and the man co-ordinating a number of farmers in supplying to a town, and so on, and so on.

It is not something about which you can generalise to the extent that you do Ake.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 04:21 PM

The man selling milk, with a bit of luck or hard work, soon becomes the man who buys out the other farmers or undercuts them by using migrant workers on cheap wages, then becomes the head of a nationwide milk producing corporation, supplying the corporation which owns the supermarket.........well thats how its gone so far!!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 04:54 PM

Capitalism is an idea, not an edifice. I agree with making a distinction between corporatism and capitalism. Capitalism is not at all the same thing as corporatism. I take old furniture and put art on it, and I will soon be making furniture, and I sell the product of my work. When I do these things, I am engaging in capitalism. There is absolutely nothing corrupt about what I am doing or the way I am doing it. If I lived in a strictly socialist or communist regime, and if I were to engage in the same kind of work on my own initiative, I would have to sell it illegally in the underground economy. If I did that, there would definitely be corruption involved in what I was doing.

It's backwards to suggest that only one or the other kind of economic model is inherently more prone to corruption. They both are equally prone to corruption, even thought the nature of the corruption may not look the same in both cases.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 12:18 AM

Oh, by the way, not in the history of this planet, has a nation, ever founded on socialism ever worked. The socialists always come into an existing society offering them two steps forward, and yet take three backwards!
Both Akenaton, and Peace, are correct!
As so far as education being the problem for the 'work force' I think it would be more suited to see the general populace educated, and in touch with morality, or the lies that formed these 'solutions' ever would not have been paid much attention to, for any credulousness! It is only the corruptness in ourselves that this kind of crap appeals to, so we rationalize it away, as 'a better form' of anything. Freedom and socialism are not synonymous...or even compatible.. But if you are lured by getting something for nothing, it is quite the sugar-coated bait!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 12:35 AM

Take that,>em> Yukers!

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 09:41 AM

I think one of them might be an Aussie.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 10:29 AM

What do you mean Ebbs?

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 11:06 AM

""The man selling milk, with a bit of luck or hard work, soon becomes the man who buys out the other farmers or undercuts them by using migrant workers on cheap wages, then becomes the head of a nationwide milk producing corporation, supplying the corporation which owns the supermarket.........well thats how its gone so far!!""

In my experience Ake, it's not usually the source producer who becomes the corporate problem. He's usually busy working himself into an early grave, just to keep his head above water.

What usually happens is that some bright spark sets up shop in the City, and buys product from the small producers, usually gouging an arm and a leg off them in the process, which he then sells on at huge profits. He wouldn't know a cow from a hole in the ground, but he knows how to rip off them as does.

HE is a corporatist, or an entrepreneur, and he is the problem.

The producers he rips off are capitalists, and THEY are the victims.

Hence my point! You CAN'T generalise about any system which has such a broad spectrum of factors. Capitalism is neither inherently evil, nor inherently corrupt, and many capitalists ARE honest and hard working.

The parasites who live off that honesty and diligence are the problem. It's corporatism that needs to be forcibly restrained.

Don T

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: pdq
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 11:23 AM

"The parasites who live off that honesty and diligence are the problem..." ~ Don T

That is it in a nutshell.

The financial crisis was caused by speculators, short-sellers and other parasites who manipulate the stock and commodity markets for their personal gain. Some make millions doing that. A few make billions. The free-market "worker bees" get a sore back, short wages and perhaps have their house lost in a foreclosure.

The gas and oil prices this summer were due to speculators. Period. The hard-working producers got the blame.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 11:26 AM

tru nuff said Don


Corporatists have ALWAYS fed on the Socialist tit.
Now they are getting bailed out on every tax paying tit in America.

Consumers have always had to play by capitalist rules. And heaven forbid if a poor person has to get (socialist) welfare. Now they are made to call it workfare and work minimum wage for the socialst coporations.


We will get the free market back when regulations are again respected and enforced. The banker's think tanks will continue to chant that regulations are bad and don;t tax the rich etc.

There will even some idiots out there living month to month who will repeat these ultra wealthy right wing chants to stop cheating the rich.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 11:28 AM

Parasitism is the key, isn't it--it is one thing to make fair exchange on the use of capital, and quite another to suck the blood out of others. It is ugly whether it is found in high places like corporate office, or in low places like welfare offices. I've seen people in both places who were NOT parasitic, and also those who were.

Another facet is that if one is entrusted with the management of a group, small or large, his scope of ethics has to grow beyond his own point of view. What is good for Numero Uno but harms the future of the group as a whole is no longer acceptable as an ethics equation. And if the corporation benefits from harming the commuinity around it, the consequences will similarly blow up in the company's face sooner or later.

And those who cannot think through consequences often miss the fact that consequences in the larger arena that are ignored come back to bite you in the ass. If the executives at Bear Sterns had had the ethical sense to understand why aggressive pursuit of rotten loans and turning them into rotten bundles was a form of pollution of the larger community, the company would not have folded in shame.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 01:30 PM

Bollocks.....Corporatism is the child of Capitalism, as inevitable as the rising and setting of the sun.
Richard Bridge defined the problems inherent in the system like the concentration of capital; there are others which apply to all systems of human organisation....work, in exchange for a right to life....technology, used as vehicle to produce profit rather than to benefit humanity(i.e.the drug producing industry).....consumerism, an addiction fed at the expense of planetary health, in place of true human happiness.

Capitalism no matter how you apologise for it, renameit, or otherwise try to conceal its true nature, is the most vile evil currently facing mankind,
The fact that removing its poison from our thought processes will be a long hard and bloody struggle, should not divert us from admitting the truth.....when it stares us in the face.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 01:37 PM

The human race will be long gone before capitalism is "removed."

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 01:41 PM

There is hope, today I heard of small areas in the UK which produce their own Local currency and quite a number of community owned and run cafes and shops have recently been appearing not far from where I live.

Perhaps this is just a symptom of the coming depression, but maybe folks are at last starting to use their brains....I certainly hope so.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 03:26 PM

AKe:

You may have missed the fact that technology which is profitably produced does in fact benefit humanity. The Cat is an excellent example.

Capitalism is not the same as corporatism although they often seem joined at the hip. This is a semantic point: if you use the word to mean "everything I don't like about big business" you will be having a very muddy conversation indeed, which very much seems to be the case here. There are specific weakness in the use of capitalism which I commented on up above, one of which is the concentration of money, another of which is the concentration of influence in the hands of a relatively small number of people. These are egregious flaws, no question. But they are remediable without changing the basic definition of capitalism.

For another example, the establishment of national Central Banks which are granted the right to create money by fiat is not inherently part of capitalism. But it is the seed of much harm.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 03:41 PM

I think capitalism is going to flourish. In different ways..fewer robber barons because there is a more educated populace and a lot of infrastructure, such as housing etc. Some social expectations in some countries at least of health care, some subsidized agriculture etc. so the basics are or should be covered. Once that has happened, what is the need for anyting else? An educated population, a probably stable population in a few years, some repairs to the environment, things like the internet, a merging of religions more or less to take the edge off that source of conflict..free or very cheap energy, machines that did what enslaved or certainly exploited people did...I think capitalism is going to take off and incredibly resolve some chronic problems of food supply (if and only if we are smart about this and don't pave over our farmlands), clean water, etc.

You have something free and flexible, with innate problems of being vulnerable to exploitation..and that can be made illegal..with a huge downside of being so flexible that whole chunks of jobs etc. can be wiped out in an instant. On the other hand, you have something that can not respond quickly and is ponderous..but provides a safety cushion. ONe can balance the other. We are smart enough to figure this out. Now is the time for hope and not despair because things are certainly correcting now that needed to be (except for the price of my house and the security of my job)...but with better controls in place and hopefully just a few more countries coming on board as non-enemies..things will be very rosy.

We need to get busy on desalinization, restoration of destroyed ecosystems etc...but it can be done. Where is our can do attitude? That is probably the biggest thing we have to restructure. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 04:14 PM

How are local currency and community owned and run cafes different from capitalism?

( ...answer - they're not. They're both examples of capitalism.)

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 05:05 PM

The two community shops are non profit Carol and the currency seems to be a mechanism to encourage local services. I only heard about it this morning so I haven't much information, but at least it's a start to move away from outright capitalism.

I never suggested that a different way of life could be adopted overnight, as i said above it will take a long time to change the habits of centuries and may even prove impossible given the power at the disposal of the capitalists, but if we want a future on planet Earth for our grandchildren, we must stop what we are doing and make a start on something new now.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 05:13 PM

We can rein in the capitalists. We are the capitalists. We don't need to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. We need to monitor it and feed it and see that it is not exploited.

Now here are some things capitalism needs to do:

Figure out how to move goods better in the public/charity sector. We have huge amounts of stuff we call garbage that would be very useful to developing countries. We just need to get it to them and the very thought paralyzes us.

Develop cheap energy. On its way. Here already basically.

Clean water..related to cheap energy..pumps, filters etc.

Figure out how to convert garbage to energy. Doable.

More later. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,crazyhorse
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 06:55 PM

The original question seems to conflate capitalism with free markets. I asked which he meant but there was no answer.

In the west, especially now, there are a number of countries where the government is (taking in and) spending more than 50% of the gdp, it seems strange then to call these capitalists when it is being centrally controlled.

Free markets do not necessarily mean capitalism.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Peace
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 07:25 PM

Problem is that the markets AIN'T free. When the seller also owns the means of production, means of transporting and means of manufacture--ie., multi-nationals/conglomerates, the pricing sure gets funny real quick.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Peace
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 07:26 PM

Last thing for a bit. IMO, I don't know whether capitalism's outlived its usefulness--but I goddamned guarantee you some capitalists have.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: GUEST,Nick E
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 07:55 PM

It shure Has, Everyone give me all the money they have.

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Stringsinger
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 02:20 PM

There is no such thing as a free market. It has always been regulated to some degree or other by legalities or agencies.

Capitalism is one form of applying a principle to government as is Socialism. They both have their uses and are found in Sweden, Norway, Canada, Germany and other civilized countries.

This either-or mythology explains why everyone gets so excited at the prospect of one form of government or another taking over as if a monolithic monster. It has never happened and never will. There will always be mitigating circumstances unless our country goes completely fascist.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 02:26 PM

Peace raises a good point; vertical integration undermines the dynamics of free trade by locking comeptitive pressures out of the supply chain for the integrated corporation. It's a bit of a thorny problem, since there's no reason you could prohibit a successful entrepreneur who started a software company from also starting a hardware company and an electrical parts company and a marketing company, and telling them all to give each other deals.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Capitalism has outlived its usefullness
From: Sookite
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 03:41 PM

I think there is good and bad in every system. We should take all the good stuff and make a new system.....We could call it communalism.