I Don't Hate Capitalism....

Whyte Horse wrote:

Star Forge wrote: but I've yet to see anything else.

Fixed that for ya! As long as people are afraid or unwilling to discuss the shortcomings of capitalism, they will never be addressed. But the reality is that capitalism creates a major crisis every 10 years or so, it can't put unemployed people to work even though there are factories sitting vacant and equipment gathering rust, it can't put homeless people in homes even though there are 6 vacant homes for every homeless person, etc.

After suffering through college for five years, I've seen that people- of all possible backgrounds- are more than willing to discuss and examine capitalism in a critical light. And mind you, I'm not in some crazy-house like Berkeley, I'm actually in the "Bible Belt," and I hear capitalism criticized left and right, literally. I can see where you're coming from, but still, it's not exactly taboo.

Capitalism is not the problem. Corruption and lack of regulation and accountability is, and those things will ruin any economic model. Nothing so far has worked better, on a large scale.

Star Forge wrote:

Whyte Horse wrote:

Star Forge wrote: but I've yet to see anything else.

Fixed that for ya! As long as people are afraid or unwilling to discuss the shortcomings of capitalism, they will never be addressed. But the reality is that capitalism creates a major crisis every 10 years or so, it can't put unemployed people to work even though there are factories sitting vacant and equipment gathering rust, it can't put homeless people in homes even though there are 6 vacant homes for every homeless person, etc.

After suffering through college for five years, I've seen that people- of all possible backgrounds- are more than willing to discuss and examine capitalism in a critical light. And mind you, I'm not in some crazy-house like Berkeley, I'm actually in the "Bible Belt," and I hear capitalism criticized left and right, literally. I can see where you're coming from, but still, it's not exactly taboo.

Capitalism is not the problem. Corruption and lack of regulation and accountability is, and those things will ruin any economic model. Nothing so far has worked better, on a large scale.

Lots of things work better, you've probably just never heard of them. Mondragon is a worker self-directed enterprise(e.g. democratically run company) and they're one of the largest companies in Spain, make up a significant chunk of the GDP, and employ like 100,000 people. Companies like these exist all over the world and are doing quite well, and they scale just as big as you care to imagine.

Occupy was an anarchistic society with a gift economy... of course it was so successful it had to be forcibly removed.

The real reason people support capitalism is because they think they will become rich. It's a selfish desire, really. But the sad thing is they never will become rich. They'll never join the ruling class. They're not special. No angel is going come down from heaven and make all their dreams come true. And so now we are hopelessly living in a delusional society with magical thinking forming the core of our beliefs.

Star Forge wrote: Capitalism is not the problem. Corruption and lack of regulation and accountability is, and those things will ruin any economic model. Nothing so far has worked better, on a large scale.

I've been researching "The problem with Capitalism" all day long and I have to agree with you Star Forge. The problem doesn't seem to be "Capitalism" per say but something different.

I found this book that I am exploring, thought I'd share it with you guys in case you're interested.

One thing is for sure, there is a serious problem right now in North America.

http://www.amazon.com/What-Went-Wrong-Hijacked-Countries-ebook/dp/B00B6TZKGS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1383856633&sr=8-3&keywords=what%27s+wrong+with+capitalism

Description:

Something has gone seriously wrong with the American economy.

The American economy has experienced considerable growth in the last 30 years. But virtually none of this growth has trickled down to the average American. Incomes have been flat since 1985. Inequality has grown, and social mobility has dropped dramatically. Equally troubling, these policies have been devastating to both American productivity and our long-term competitiveness.

Many reasons for these failures have been proposed. Globalization. Union greed. Outsourcing.

But none of these explanations can address the harsh truth that many countries around the world are dramatically outperforming the U.S. in delivering broad middle-class prosperity. And this is despite the fact that these countries are more exposed than America to outsourcing and globalization and have much higher levels of union membership.

In What Went Wrong, George R. Tyler, a veteran of the World Bank and the Treasury Department, takes the reader through an objective and data-rich examination of the American experience over the last 30 years. He provides a fascinating comparison between the America and the experience of the “family capitalism” countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

Over the last 30 years, they have outperformed the U.S. economy by the only metric that really matters—delivering better lives for their citizens. The policies adopted by the family capitalist countries aren’t socialist or foreign. They are the same policies that made the U.S. economy of the 1950s and 1960s the strongest in the world.

What Went Wrong describes exactly what went wrong with the American economy, how countries around the world have avoided these problems, and what we need to do to get back on the right track.

It's refreshing to see someone take the issue seriously. Thank you Jayden. I spent a good deal of time researching it as well and I used to be one of those people who supported capitalism.

The best answer I can find is that there is a labor surplus. There was a labor shortage until the 1970's and then a surplus thereafter. The labor shortage allowed rising incomes, each generation did better than their parents, and hence the American dream was born. Thanks to automation, computers, robotics, workplace equality, etc, we now have more workers(just think, women make up half the population and entered the workforce big-time in the 60's-70's) and workers are more productive so you need less of them.

Much of the 80's growth was fueled by families having 2 incomes. Then the 90's brought in a third and fourth income as teenagers would go to work. Then the borrowing began and kept the economy growing until 2008.

So now we have exhausted our borrowing and instead of delivering the goods, capitalism is delivering the bads. All of those countries you mentioned have strong socialist policies. I believe one of them even has a maximum wage for CEO's but I may be mistaken.

Whyte Horse wrote:

Star Forge wrote:

Whyte Horse wrote:

Star Forge wrote: but I've yet to see anything else.

Fixed that for ya! As long as people are afraid or unwilling to discuss the shortcomings of capitalism, they will never be addressed. But the reality is that capitalism creates a major crisis every 10 years or so, it can't put unemployed people to work even though there are factories sitting vacant and equipment gathering rust, it can't put homeless people in homes even though there are 6 vacant homes for every homeless person, etc.

After suffering through college for five years, I've seen that people- of all possible backgrounds- are more than willing to discuss and examine capitalism in a critical light. And mind you, I'm not in some crazy-house like Berkeley, I'm actually in the "Bible Belt," and I hear capitalism criticized left and right, literally. I can see where you're coming from, but still, it's not exactly taboo.

Capitalism is not the problem. Corruption and lack of regulation and accountability is, and those things will ruin any economic model. Nothing so far has worked better, on a large scale.

Lots of things work better, you've probably just never heard of them. Mondragon is a worker self-directed enterprise(e.g. democratically run company) and they're one of the largest companies in Spain, make up a significant chunk of the GDP, and employ like 100,000 people. Companies like these exist all over the world and are doing quite well, and they scale just as big as you care to imagine.

Occupy was an anarchistic society with a gift economy... of course it was so successful it had to be forcibly removed.

The real reason people support capitalism is because they think they will become rich. It's a selfish desire, really. But the sad thing is they never will become rich. They'll never join the ruling class. They're not special. No angel is going come down from heaven and make all their dreams come true. And so now we are hopelessly living in a delusional society with magical thinking forming the core of our beliefs.

Don't be so presumptuous about what I know or don't. I never engage in a debate about anything that I don't know, because that would be pointless. Like going to a gunfight without a gun, so to speak. I do concede that I'm not an economic expert, but few if any here can claim that.

Once again, I feel that this is the confusion of capitalism and greed/megalomania/et cetera. I support capitalism because I feel it gives me more economic freedom than any other system that has a serious chance of working on a large scale. It's not hard to create something that works on paper, but application- especially on a large scale- is a completely different issue. I know about Mondragon, and I commend them for what they have done, but, it's a company, not a nation, not an economy. In reference to your reply to Jayden, I want to point out that socialist policies can work well within a capitalist system. The two aren't mutually exclusive or anathema to each other. I'm not defending capitalism like it's a golden calf, it's just what I think works best, at the moment. If there's bits of it that can be tweaked, supplanted, amended, or otherwise altered, and yield good results, then fine. If ultimately this happens to such an extent that capitalism is entirely replaced, then fine. As long as it works.

Occupy was removed because it was a bunch of squatters pooping everywhere. Literally "squat"ters.

EDIT: Let me also add this: I think that the accusation that capitalism's support stems from greed and selfishness is no more valid than the claim that socialism's support comes from laziness, entitlement, and resentment of the successful. Sure, those things are true in some cases, but in reality, very few supporters of capitalism base their beliefs in megalomania or greed, and none of the socialists I have met sit on their asses in housing projects.

I do believe Mondragon is in it's own self-contained city and they provide their own educational system, transportation, housing, banks, etc. So in that sense, it could replace capitalism and function better.

Whyte Horse wrote: I do believe Mondragon is in it's own self-contained city and they provide their own educational system, transportation, housing, banks, etc. So in that sense, it could replace capitalism and function better.

I have to stress again that it's on a small, localized scale. The same way socialism works in Greenland with a population of 50,000 where everybody is culturally, linguistically, and racially homogenous. My experience is that there are several economic systems that can work, but on a national or global scale? Different story.

Star Forge wrote:

Whyte Horse wrote: I do believe Mondragon is in it's own self-contained city and they provide their own educational system, transportation, housing, banks, etc. So in that sense, it could replace capitalism and function better.

I have to stress again that it's on a small, localized scale. The same way socialism works in Greenland with a population of 50,000 where everybody is culturally, linguistically, and racially homogenous. My experience is that there are several economic systems that can work, but on a national or global scale? Different story.

First they said it only works with 2 people
then they said it only works with 10 people
then they said it only works with 100,000 people

@Star Forge:
Socialism in the economic sense, defined as a system with centrally controlled rates of production and distribution (look it up, that's what it is) never worked and never was tried in Nazi Germany. Besides, there was no day on which it was as homogenous as it seems to be required according to your assessment, and even less homogenosity was present in the enormous territory that is the Soviet Union where it sort-of-worked for several decades.

@Whyte Horse:
There is a clear definition of what capitalism is and it is entirely independant of our observations or opinions, because it is first and foremost a model of economy and not descriptive of people's behavior that leads to deviation from it. What is capitalist and what isn't is a matter of definition and not up to discovery through observation. For instance: The people that want no restrictions against their robbing the nation for their personal gain are recognizable to be not capitalists merely by the fact that this is what they do. What you see around you is not (at least not entirely) capitalism, its not even a (direct) result of (i.e. implied by) capitalism. And this statement is not about what you see, its about what capitalism is.
If we talk about frogs and someone argues that they are warm and hairy, because his definition of a frog also includes rats, we're no longer having a meaningful discussion. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying I have no idea what you're talking about because clearly, that caricature of a mixture of different ideas of economy has nothing to do with actual capitalism .

The US has been living under Reaganomics since the 1980s. It is a version of laissez-faire capitalism that emphasizes a minimum of regulations, especially in the financial sector; a lowering of taxes, especially on the wealthiest individuals; rapid growth in government spending, especially on national defense; and an indulgent attitude toward the business community.

Despite the slowdown in productivity growth during the Reagan era, there was still room for both wages and profits to grow, although at more modest levels than in previous years. But that didn’t happen; average wages went flat or worse. So where did all the gains from rising productivity and lower wages go???? You guessed it! Virtually all the gains flowed into corporate profits and into earnings at the very top of the income pyramid. Greedy b*****ds.

Other countries like Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands and Australia practice what is called Family Capitalism.

It is based on free-market economics but here is the difference:

-It understands the importance of selective government regulation, particularly in the financial sector.

-Puts a premium on long-term productivity growth.

-It recognizes and modulates the dangers of corporate influence on government

-Puts a priority on long-term growth in wages as the key to family prosperity.

This is what the US needs to go back to.

In the Ronald Reagan days it was called “trickle-down economics.” Well, thirty years on, most families are still waiting for trickle down to deliver.