Why do people say that Capitalism is good?

[Pimppeter2]

Yes because going to school , then going to a job for 40 years, being unable to do anything but the job as you need money to survive, and some cant even get out of the country.

Im sorry, but being chained to an office for a few decades isnt freedom either. People can choose what job they want, but their likely to end up ina job they hate.

And? Whats the alternative? Being forced to do a job you don't like?

You have to work in communism as well. Either way you are unable to do anything but the job needed because the community needs it to survive.

So what sounds better?

Anyways, Capitalism is overrated because people are taught nothing else works is why people say capitalism is best. Capitalism needs to be regulated to prevent coorporation and goverment domination of peoples rights.

Again, this is where the "Pure" doesn't work part of my post. Which you seem to be neglecting.

I dont see how the best system is where everything is done in the name of growth,business and money.

As opposed to in the name of cuddles and rainbows?

Who said that communism(which never existed, and never will due to it being an utopia) was the ONLY alternative?

In capitalism your forced into a job you dont like too, out of the need for money, and im not being lazy or dismissing hardwork, i just cant stand that i will have to be in some fucking job for the next 40 years to survive, that is souless, its not the correct way to live for humans.

Lol at the myth that your forced into something that you dont want within "Communism". My grandfather loved literature and writing, and was an editor for a news paper in his town, my grandmother was good with languege, and became a translator, my uncle became a doctor,my other grandfather became a sailor, and my grandmother was good at engineering and sience so she got the job to vigilate if all factorys are fine and stuff.

None of them ever complained about being forced into these things, they were good at things and they took their jobs, all within the soviet union they got the jobs and positions they wanted.

Well done for listening to some propaganda bollux that capitalism is the only way.

Those who say that, its like they are too damn scared/closeminded/silly too acctually try and think of an alternative and solution, this system is flawed and we need more alternatives than the usual Socialist/Capitalist way.

So everyone in a Capitalistic system gets stuck in a crappy job?

But that's not necessarily true in Communism?

As you so eloquently put, "LOL"

I was only pointing out your obvious hypocrisy genius. Thanks for taking the bait like a good fish.

 

[Citrus]

Capitalism definitely isn't good. Capitalism sucks. So does communism. So does every other socioeconomic system out there. But capitalism sucks the least.

 

[loremazd]

All the "I'm free to do anything" stuff people are going on about.

However, I'm not so free to do anything. I'm getting a college education, but there are no jobs available where I live that will make use of it. I also don't make anywhere near enough money at my current job to move elsewhere and find jobs. I'm stuck in a dead end job because it's all there is. Still sound like a wonderful flowers and happiness system?

So you would rather have someone just choose a job for you saying "You do this now. If you don't like it tough luck." instead of having the option to pick your career?

Well it would be more like "What do you like to do? Okay, do that." The state would have no reason to turn all its great minds into janitors, especially if the only remaining motive is 'progress'.

No one -wants- to be a janitor, yet society needs them. So someone's gonna get -forced- to do it.

 

[johnman]

Crime and corruption was much higher in the USSR, extremes of every system are flawed and combinations work best. For example, social security and the NHS. capitalism is the only working system we have at the moment that provides the most freedom and economic performance.

 

[CaseySmith]

snip

First of all pure capitalism is not perfect and their is no pure capitalism.
second capitalism is great because you have the freedom to succeed or the freedom to fail.

You think people only steal in capitalism? wow you are stupid, blaming capitalism for theft.

"But it's so much easier to convince people of the superiority of your product than it is to make a genuinely superior one." So you pick up a candy bar that was advertised as great but its tasted like shit. Are you going to pick up another one?

...why do you want the freedom to fail?

I didn't say Capitalism invented theft. I said it incentivizes it.

And what if you spent your life savings on that candybar? What if we're talking about a house or a car?

Then you made a bad and ill informed decision. Which would be your fault.

If you buy a used car without asking about the history of the past ownership, then its not really anyone's fault but your own.

People should be free to make their own decisions. The alternative is the government giving you a car, one that you have no choice to select.

I'd rather have the opportunity to drive a Ferrari than be forced to drive a Toyota.

Yes, people need to be able to make their own decisions, but it can only go so far; people can only be informed so much.


Example:

Take into account the capitalist medical system in America: doctors pretty much tell people they're ill just to sell them a pill. This is an example of people who're supposed to KNOW about a subject area which they're supposed to advise you on. But they're taking advantage of that position for their own personal benefit.


This is where the problem lies: it is far too easy to take advantage of ignorance with this system. And no I don't mean stupidity, just ignorance; no one has professional knowledge in every subject.

 

[Pimppeter2]

snip

First of all pure capitalism is not perfect and their is no pure capitalism.
second capitalism is great because you have the freedom to succeed or the freedom to fail.

You think people only steal in capitalism? wow you are stupid, blaming capitalism for theft.

"But it's so much easier to convince people of the superiority of your product than it is to make a genuinely superior one." So you pick up a candy bar that was advertised as great but its tasted like shit. Are you going to pick up another one?

...why do you want the freedom to fail?

I didn't say Capitalism invented theft. I said it incentivizes it.

And what if you spent your life savings on that candybar? What if we're talking about a house or a car?

Then you made a bad and ill informed decision. Which would be your fault.

If you buy a used car without asking about the history of the past ownership, then its not really anyone's fault but your own.

People should be free to make their own decisions. The alternative is the government giving you a car, one that you have no choice to select.

I'd rather have the opportunity to drive a Ferrari than be forced to drive a Toyota.

Yes, people need to be able to make their own decisions, but it can only go so far; people can only be informed so much.


Example:

Take into account the capitalist medical system in America: doctors pretty much tell people they're ill just to sell them a pill. This is an example of people who're supposed to KNOW about a subject area which they're supposed to advise you on. But they're taking advantage of that position for their own personal benefit.


This is where the problem lies: it is far too easy to take advantage of ignorance with this system. And no I don't mean stupidity, just ignorance; no one has professional knowledge in every subject.

Agreed, this is why the system need to have its checks and is not completely correct in its pure form. But is still the correct way to go, just altering its faults where they appear.

 

[tobi the good boy]

Capatalism is our way of performing natural selection, has any organism in our history of creation ever survived and moved up the food chain without destroying another creature, no, the fundementals of capatalism are the laws of nature albiet a more tame varient but it is how we progress foreward and weed out the weak, things like comunism breed stagnation and ultimatly self destruction

No, bad. Capitalism is not natural selection. Stop confusing the issue with your poor understanding of evolution. "Moving up the food chain" is not what natural selection is about. (Not to mention "the food chain" is really "the food web;" there is no strict hierarchy) Propagation and continuation of genetic material is what natural selection is about; it isn't individuals that are being selected for and against, but heritable traits and the genes which cause them.
Now unless you have a GOOD analogy to genetics, stop comparing capitalism to natural selection.

The closest analogy I can come up with is: money is heritable. Descendants who inherit that "fit" money could be said to carry "rich genes." Poor people would constantly be striving for the attention of rich people for the purpose of taking their money. But rich people would know not to hobnob with the poor people, because their "monetary fitness" is too low. The poorest people would die out, because their "fitness" is lowest, thus preventing those "poor genes" from being passed on to their children.

Sounds like an aristocracy filled with fatcats, gold-diggers and dire poverty.

hmm when you put it like that ... i suppose it was a terrible analogy, sorry

 

[SilentLeviathan]

Not to nitpick, but what you seem to be criticizing is money and, to a lesser extent, Fiscal Conservatism. Capitalism, while requiring and using money, is something a little different.

All that Capitalism means is that the means of production, or capital, is privately owned. This is in contrast to Socialism, where it is owned at least in part by society, or Syndicalism, where it is owned by those who operate the capital. "True Capitalism" would simply mean that all capital is privately owned. i.e. Socialism = "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need", while Capitalism = "From each according to his ability, to each according to his ability."

What you are describing when talking about having to pay for everything is a combination of capitalism and fiscal conservatism. A clean definition of fiscal conservatism is the belief that government should play as small a role as possible in the economy as possible. Capitalism does not beget fiscal conservatism, but those who believe in a fully privatised economy tend to believe in fiscal conservatism.

Capitalism by itself has, like all other kinds of economic structures, both upsides and downsides. Proponents claim that it offers the best incentives of any system, which spurs economic growth. Detractors, like yourself, point out how Capitalism unfairly distributes wealth and power, among other things. Personally, I take serious issue with it both in theory and in practice. Capitalism, especially when combined with fiscal conservatism, puts emphasis on the dollar above all, and the free market places more value on the bottom line than is healthy for society. The only kind of economic system that seems to work with almost no downside is small scale communism (REAL communism, not Leninism/Stalinism), on a town/village level, but somehow I don't see the G20 getting on board with that.

Isn't the purpose of society in general to remove the burdens of survival through community?

Brilliant quote.


To touch on a few other comments:

- True free market capitalism has never been truly attempted, so we cannot say if it works perfectly or not.

- The freedom to fail is not a good thing.

- Capitalism is not the only system that can encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.

- Human psychology is too complex to be used as support for capitalism. The altruism/greed debate over human nature will never be over.

- People in the US tend to really, REALLY support capitalism, at least in part, because of the massive pro-capitalist, anti-communist propaganda during the Cold War that has soured public opinion against anything that can be realistically, or even unrealistically, called socialist. On that note, Socialism =/= Communism, and Socialism certainly =/= Fascism, no matter what Glenn Beck would have you believe. For that matter, Socialism does NOT involve the removal of all incentives.

- Social Darwinism is an ugly way to live, and humanity is truly foolish if we want to build our society and economy on it. Social Darwinism and Capitalism both function on the premise of scarcity. Thus when you get something like the internet that eliminates, for example, the scarcity of music files, as new copies of the files can be created at virtually zero cost and shared, everyone scrambles to re-establish scarcity through things like DRM. And when other kinds of advanced technology threaten other kinds of scarcity, there is an economic incentive for those with something to gain from scarcity, namely money, to ensure future scarcity; thus, even if it is theoretically possible, a capitalist society will never become a post-scarcity society.

- What are "the best prices"? The cheapest ones? What if paying so little means that not enough trickles down the economy so that factory workers in the third world can't afford to feed themselves? The incentive system of capitalism may drive prices down, but is that really a good thing when it means more human suffering?

- "I'd rather have the opportunity to drive a Ferrari than be forced to drive a Toyota." While this seems a noble sentiment, let's remember that very few people *get* the opportunity to drive a Ferrari. Only those with abilities that are valued by the economic system, such as being able to guess which stock prices will go up and which will go down, will get that choice and opportunity. This is one of the prime failings of Capitalism: it dishes out rewards based not on usefulness but on supposed importance. But even if it were to pay according to how much one benefits society, would it really be fair? Say we want to pay a doctor 100 times the amount we pay a janitor, which seems to make sense considering how much good he does for society, keeping people alive and all. But why should he be entitled to a higher standard of living, and in many ways a better life, simply because he had the good fortune to be born with both the mental and physical capacities to be a doctor, and had the means to put himself, or have someone put him, through medical school? This is what really makes Capitalism rotten for me: it doesn't take into any account the fact that, on a very fundamental, real and important level, all human beings are the same in the nature of their existence, and thus unfairly punishes some while richly rewarding others.

 

[SilentLeviathan]

Capatalism is our way of performing natural selection, has any organism in our history of creation ever survived and moved up the food chain without destroying another creature, no, the fundementals of capatalism are the laws of nature albiet a more tame varient but it is how we progress foreward and weed out the weak, things like comunism breed stagnation and ultimatly self destruction

No, bad. Capitalism is not natural selection. Stop confusing the issue with your poor understanding of evolution. "Moving up the food chain" is not what natural selection is about. (Not to mention "the food chain" is really "the food web;" there is no strict hierarchy) Propagation and continuation of genetic material is what natural selection is about; it isn't individuals that are being selected for and against, but heritable traits and the genes which cause them.
Now unless you have a GOOD analogy to genetics, stop comparing capitalism to natural selection.

The closest analogy I can come up with is: money is heritable. Descendants who inherit that "fit" money could be said to carry "rich genes." Poor people would constantly be striving for the attention of rich people for the purpose of taking their money. But rich people would know not to hobnob with the poor people, because their "monetary fitness" is too low. The poorest people would die out, because their "fitness" is lowest, thus preventing those "poor genes" from being passed on to their children.

Sounds like an aristocracy filled with fatcats, gold-diggers and dire poverty.

Sounds like Ayn Rand's perfect world.

 

[IamQ]

Politics and Religion forum maybe? I think this is the wrong one.

 

[Abedeus]

Because what was before capitalism in Poland was horrible. You had some money, but there were no things to buy. There were papers every family received, and for instance, you had 4 loaves of bread a week, 2kg of ham a month, 4-5kg of cheese a month... of course, those papers were divided, so you would have, for instance, 4 papers saying "1k of cheese" or more papers for less cheese.

True, everything was cheaper, because everyone wanted to buy, but there was rarely enough for everyone. Oh, and lines were 6-7 hours long.

 

[CaseySmith]

-snip-

I deffinately agree with what you're saying, but the problem with that is, if money can be made in these areas, people are going to have their hands in the pockets of those companies. This presents corruption, especially in the government, which ultimately hinders the introduction of these restraints/checks.

Bring back eunuch politics I say! =p

 

[Baby Tea]

I didn't say Capitalism invented theft. I said it incentivizes it.

Bull.
Theft comes from basic human desires to want more for less, not a economic structure.
There would be theft no matter what type of society you lived in. It's simple human greed, and it's ever present.

All the "I'm free to do anything" stuff people are going on about.

However, I'm not so free to do anything. I'm getting a college education, but there are no jobs available where I live that will make use of it. I also don't make anywhere near enough money at my current job to move elsewhere and find jobs. I'm stuck in a dead end job because it's all there is. Still sound like a wonderful flowers and happiness system?

Yup. It does.
What's the alternative? You work a job day in, day out for something that's needed for the country, but something you hate?

I work in radio broadcasting right now, and I get paid a pretty low salary compared to most other full time, careers. I'm actually in the lowest tax bracket. But I love my job, and I had the freedom to choose it. I don't get everything I really want, but I get to goto a job that I love.

I worked for 6 years at a Burger King, I worked for 4 years in retail (And one horrible summer at a Wal-Mart), and I got out of there and into the job I love doing. I had to sacrifice a lot of 'extras' to do it (No cell, no cable, no internet, cheap groceries, crappy apartment), but I did it because I had the freedom to do it. Now I've got my job that I love, I get steady raises every year because I work hard, my income increases, my quality of life increases, and things look up and up.

Thank you, capitalism.

 

[Commissar Sae]

Crime and corruption was much higher in the USSR, extremes of every system are flawed and combinations work best. For example, social security and the NHS. capitalism is the only working system we have at the moment that provides the most freedom and economic performance.

]
Crime and corruption only really became prevalent during the Brezhnev era. Before that corruption and crime was significantly rarer. Mostly because Stalin just shipped you out to the Gulags or had you executed. Also Russia still has a hih rate of crime and corruption and its a Capitalist democracy now, so the problem is more the fact thats its Russia than because it was 'Communist.' Hell corruption and crime were rife in Imperial Russia too so its really part of a larger socio-economic trend that has nothing to do with the shifting political ideals of the country.

OT: I stand on the line here. I like the ideals of communism but know that they are utopian and ultimately impossible. I also like the potential to rise and improve that capitalism offers, but tend to be against the exploitation that becomes inherent within the system. True ideological capitalism would be a living hell for everyone but the elite,(see the industrial revolution) and true ideoloical communism is impossible because of human greed and desire. Balance is needed, and while I tend towards the left, I still support the idea of capitalism, provided it has proper checks and balances.

 

[Yopaz]

Capitalism is good because communism failed. It's also what we think as the start of the free market thus giving us other freedom. Honestly though I don't think capitalism is the way since Norway who uses socialism is (according to the last thing I read) the only country in Europe that has money at all while the others are in the red.

 

[mechanixis]

Secondly, in hardcore Capitalism, you need to pay for everything. This includes food, water, shelter, healthcare. Let's think about this for a moment. Without these things, we literally will die. So if you don't have money, you can't stay alive. Money = lifeforce. So if you're unable to work, or lose all your money in an unforseeable calamity - say, you've been robbed - you're fucked. Is it too much to ask that we not live on the fucking edge all our lives? Isn't the purpose of society in general to remove the burdens of survival through community?

Capitalism incentivizes the stealing of people's lifeforce.

And that's really the root of the issue here.

Which is why some companies provide a service known as 'insurance' to protect from vampires/thieves. Which then blows apart your strawman.

Yeah it sure is awesome how we can get all this free insuranOHWAIT.

 

[mastiffchild]

Whoa! This is a big one, really it is. Fact is no country has been in a real position to try anything different with any degree of hope of it working.

I think, but my memory isn't so hot these days, that it was Trotsky who maintained a truly Marxist system couldn't properly work while existing alongside capitalism-that if it was being used in one country while the next remained free market the jealousies and conflict seen between the two systems would cause it to corrupt and fail.

As such you only see it "tried" in isolation as governments try to avoid this cross pollination that harms communism fatally. Then there's the terror of "reds" as proven by what happened to Chile when they freely elected a Marxist government in, i think, the 1970s. Socialism, let alone Marxism or Communism were demonised to such an extent in the US(Christ look at McCarthy to see why we're conditioned to HATE Red politics in the west and the lengths capitalism will go to to protect those right at the top. the same people who are getting THEIR money back and businesses saved by general population/tax money in both the UK and US following the banks screwing us all up in their march towards even more gross greed. Capitalism serves those ALREADY wealthy and legitimises itself by offering the illusion of social freedom in that a rare few are seen to be "breaking" out of their working class roots and don't get me started on people who think that they're "middle" class! If you NEED to keep working to feed your family you're working class whether you like to think so or not.

Whether you agree with pure Marxist doctrine or not I think most would accept a large degree of false conciousness among those who aspire in our society. the "greed is good" mantra of the eighties being a particular case in point. I don't expect many people brought up in the west to accept MY belief that every man should work for society and get paid what he needs rather than some "worth" purely prescribed by the god given talents he had from birth. I feel that if someone is working to their full potential and can "only" cope with being a binman he shouldn't, somehow, be worth less than someone capable of brain surgery. It's an argument many people just cannot, or will not take seriously as if they can't see any other reason to work except it making them richer and feel superior to their fellow man. Why isn't the human reward of being able to do a more challenging job, or a job with more glory and satisfaction reward enough? I'll tell you-because we're taught to believe that money is what defines us, what we buy, or CAN buy defines us as men and as successful because of the capitalist system we live in.

That's my view, but as I say I understand it's totally alien and even laughable to some minds and I don't expect anyone to change their views over a short debate here in any case. however, my point is the way people can't take it seriously, won't take it seriously and honestly, and I can see it, can't even get their heads round it enough to TRY to! This is why I particularly dislike Capitalism(alongside the obvious class and monetary divisions it causes)-because it encourages fear and closed minds and it rally discourages open political thought despite seemingly being the politics of freedom. Any system which exists purely to keep the wealthy wealthy and the divisions in society comfortably wide while feeding those with aspirations an empty dream is sinister in and of itself. When you get back into the assassinations and witch hunts of those with different views and the way Marxists and Anarchists, for example, have been abused by capitalist societies then the illusion of actual freedom crushes the soul.

As I say, i'm not trying to preach here and don't even want to change any minds but if a few of us can discuss things like this sensibly somewhere like here then maybe there's hope that one day people, or more of them, might actually bother understanding a little about Socialist, Marxist or Communist thinking without immediately going on a defensive caused by centuries of mistrust and conditioning. In fact the treatment of political prisoners since the lessening effect of religion in the west(it truly WAS the opiate of the masses and very well used to control societies in the past)has been startling to many people. The way Capitalism looks after itself is brutal.

Obviously, no system is perfect but I'd say Capitalism is the one which has been well and truly tried to death and NEVER worked as the only worldwide system ever really bothered with and it doesn't look like letting anything else have a pop any time soon. the failings of China and the USSR cannot really be said to be any kind of actual Marxism to begin with and, as such, it winds me up when they're used as evidence of the theory failing but that's not here and it's not there either! Capitalism itself isn't a BAD thing but the actions it forces certainly are, the cruel division it creates IS and the violence with which it reacts to any threat is truly scary.

Why do people say it's a good thing though? Because they have been taught to think that way since they left the womb and on a societal level since well before. The way a lot of people here cannot even consider proper investigation of other systems is evidence to me of this happening and of Capitalism doing what it always does best-keeping the status quo while offering the view that it's a meritocratic way of life but when the same people still hold nearly all the wealth as did aeons ago just what freedom is there? Let alone fairness. Anyway, some great posts and great thoughts which, though I don't agree with them all, have certainly got me thinking again about why I feel the way I do and worrying whether there's any way out of the mess the world is currently, and seemingly endlessly, struggling within. Seriously, some great stuff and not all stuck in the language of the classroom either which is even better.

Good job fellow posters, good job. I apologise for my pinko, lefty, commyness in advance of the tirades of indignation and hate!

 

[silversnake4133]

Difference between Original Capitalism and Current Capitalism? Greed.

 

[solidstatemind]

This is in response to the thread "Why do people say that Capitalism is 'good in theory'?" The fact that Capitalism, and its beloved nephew the Free Market, are held up as the greatest socioeconomic system by so many people confuses me to no end.

Okay, so first of all, let's talk about money.

Money is something you get for working to better society. It is a representation of how much you have contributed. This is the crux of Capitalism: the harder you work, the more money you get. And then you get to take that 'work' and translate it into goods - food, housing, a new car. So, with money as an incentive, it's believed that people will compete to be the best in their field, so they receive the most money.

So my first gripe is, money represents work. But it isn't work itself. You can acquire money without working. You can rob someone, for instance. In fact, if you can get away with it, it's much easier to rob someone than it is to make the same amount of money through your own labors. See investment loan scandals. Because money is an end in itself, there's no incentive not to steal it - in fact, there's an incentive to do so. It's the path of least resistance.
The idea behind the free market is "If the market has no regulation, then people will only buy the best products, and therefore people will be incentivized to make better and better products." But it's so much easier to convince people of the superiority of your product than it is to make a genuinely superior one.

Secondly, in hardcore Capitalism, you need to pay for everything. This includes food, water, shelter, healthcare. Let's think about this for a moment. Without these things, we literally will die. So if you don't have money, you can't stay alive. Money = lifeforce. So if you're unable to work, or lose all your money in an unforseeable calamity - say, you've been robbed - you're fucked. Is it too much to ask that we not live on the fucking edge all our lives? Isn't the purpose of society in general to remove the burdens of survival through community?

Capitalism incentivizes the stealing of people's lifeforce.

And that's really the root of the issue here.

Oh, the issues:
1) you do not appear to want a discussion. Your verbiage makes it clear that you have staked out your position and are looking for an argument. That isn't very productive, and I don't really wish to tilt that particular windmill.

2)'Free Market economy' is not synonymous with 'Capitalism'-- capitalism is commonly referred to as 'liberal market'. In fact, when people say 'Free Market economy', they are most often (incorrectly) referring to Laissez-faire economics.

2a) Most economists agree that Western societies are most accurately thought of as mixed-market economies, as they incorporate elements of a liberal market and market socialism.

3) Your premise is fundamentally flawed. You begin with the statement "Money is something you get for working to better society." Uh, no. Money is something that you obtain in exchange for providing goods or services. Those goods and services may even be detrimental to society, such as is the case with drugs. The moment you start loading your statements moralistic aspects(such as 'the betterment of society', 'right and wrong', etc. etc.), you are introducing subjectivity into the discussion, and it rapidly becomes evangelism instead of an exchange of information.

4) "Capitalism incentivizes the stealing of people's lifeforce." I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be insulting here, but that really is an excellent example of Reductio ad absurdum.

And I'm too tired to keep going. But I could.

 

[Caligula_II]

Because the amount of wealth in the world is not static.