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Paul Farrell On The 10 "Doomsday Trends" Set To Destroy America
Feeling like the daily dose of objective "truth" from Tim Geithner's latest media circuit has got you down? Fear not: here is MarketWatch's Paul Farrell summarizing the 10 ways in which the very system is destroying America, to lift your spirits up. To wit: "Doomsday Capitalism? Capitalism is killing America? Yes, that’s the message in my tenth book. “Doomsday Capitalism, 10 Self-Destructive Trends.” But you’ll never see it in print. No one, even book publishers want to read this truth: Capitalism is destroying America. Why? Super-Rich Capitalists get rich off these macro trends. They want happy talk. Back in 2007 Vanguard founder Jack Bogle called my warnings “prescient.” But that didn’t stop the meltdown. Next time financial historians warn of a bigger meltdown; a total collapse has been the destiny of every nation for eight centuries. This time, capitalism is the saboteur." Cheerful stuff.
10 Doomsday trends America can’t survive
Capitalism has become a religion for the Super Rich, with many such
“saviors.” Heresies must be denied, such as this one: Doomsday
Capitalism is destroying America from within. Here are highlights, with
links to a few of the earlier hundred columns on topic. Ten macro trends
building to a perfect storm, a critical mass, a flash point:
1. Doomsday Capitalism: Death of the American dream, spirit, soul
After our bankrupt Wall Street was resurrected in 2008 — thanks to their
Trojan Horse, an ex-Goldman CEO inside the Treasury conning trillions
from a clueless Congress — it became obvious that
capitalism is killing America’s soul.
Nobody trusts government. And no matter who’s elected, wealth, Wall
Street and the Super Rich rule America; total collapse is coming.
Why? Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, said it best:
“There is a war going on in this country … the war waged by the
wealthiest people in America on the disappearing and shrinking middle
class of our country. The nation’s billionaires are on the warpath. They
want more, more, more. Their greed has no end and they are apparently
unconcerned for the future of this country if it gets in the way of
their accumulation of power and wealth.”
2. Doomsday Democracy: ‘Mutant Capitalism’ killing ‘We the People’
Stop kidding yourself, democracy is dead: “All men are created equal” is
a quaint political fiction. The public has no real say in a nation
where wealth buys votes, a naive public is easily manipulated and
elected officials have a price.
In “The Battle for Soul of Capitalism,” Bogle warned us the “Invisible
Hand” no longer serves “We the People” nor the public welfare. Today,
Wall Street and the
insatiable Super Rich 1% rule America.
And they are obsessed with restoring the same unregulated free-market
Reaganomics that loves gambling in the same speculative $580 trillion
derivatives casino that triggered the 2008 meltdown.
3. Doomsday Conspiracy: Wall Street takeover, the new ‘Invisible Hand’
The Super Rich have always had some hand in America’s destiny, operating
from the shadows. Today, this conspiracy of Wall Street, Corporate
CEOs, politicians and Forbes 400 billionaires operates openly, with
absolute power and an arrogance that is corrupting the nation’s soul,
their souls, your soul.
This conspiracy has no moral compass
, yet ironically, is legal.
Why? Wealth can easily buy favorable laws, making even the most
unethical, selfish, corrupt behavior legal by fiat. And their
high-priced lobbyists all over Washington, Congress, government
regulatory agencies and the Fed all have the power to grab the rewards
of capitalism for the Super Rich, while transferring the liabilities to
the other, clueless 99% of America’s taxpayers
4. Doomsday Politics: Monopoly of Super-Rich Anarchists rules America
Forget buzzwords like oligopoly, plutocracy, socialism. Today Washington is a
pure anarchy, a game
played by tens of thousands of high-priced lobbyists squeezing the best
deals out of America’s budget, solely for their clients’ interests,
never the general public. Our economy is a monopoly of Super-Rich
Anarchists. They know the only votes that count are in Congress. And
they’re for sale.
Lobbyists are “brokers.” Today there are 261,000 lobbyists brokering
special interests, all fighting for the maximum possible slice of a $1.5
trillion federal budget pie — special regulations, exemptions, loans,
tax loopholes, earmarks, access, agency appointments, defense contracts,
you name it — endless gambits that further consolidate the power and
wealth at the top for Super-Rich Donors
5. Doomsday Economics: Growth is a numbers game for politicians
The principle of grow or die, once a given in economics and politics, is being challenged by new
“growth and die”
research, while a bizarre
numbers racket
is used by economists as propaganda to hide the truth, manipulating investors, consumers, voters, the public.
All economists tend to be biased, work for banks, politicians, corporate
CEOs, think tanks and the Fed, all with political agendas. They’re more
speech writers, supporting partisan slogans like “drill baby drill,”
ignoring long-term consequences. For example, global population will
increase 50% by 2050, yet old-school economists keep pretending natural
resources are infinite.
6. Doomsday Psychology: The broken promises of behavioral science
Back in 2002 behavioral science offered investors hope: Psychologist
Daniel Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics, exposing Wall
Street’s myth of the “rational investor.” Their promise: We’ll help you
understand your brain, make better decisions. You’ll be “less
irrational,” control your brain, be a successful investor.
Wrong. That will never happen. Why? Because
your brain will always be irrational.
Worse, Wall Street quants are always light-years ahead of our
home-school brain rewiring; they know you’re vulnerable, easy to
manipulate. They also hire the top neuroscientists for their casinos. No
wonder the house always wins.
7. Doomsday Technology: Innovation, derivative casinos, the singularity
Sophisticated new technologies, mathematical algorithms and neuroscience
all guarantee Wall Street insiders huge margins
gambling in their derivative casinos,
leveraging deposits from Main Street’s “dumb money.” Today Wall Street
is even more obsessed, grabbing for high-risk profits in a tough “new
normal” of high volatility, increasing risks, lower returns.
Average investors are no match for Wall Street’s high-frequency traders
who easily win by huge margins on this rigged playing field. Still,
naive Main Street investors keep betting despite warnings that the more
you trade the less you earn.
8. Doomsday Warfare: Pentagon math: population + commodities = wars
The Pentagon predicts that by 2020
“warfare will define human life”
as global population explodes 50% to 10 billion in 2050. Powerful
commercial, political and ideological forces drive globalization.
Emerging nations compete for scarce resources. This is “the mother of
all national security issues,” warns the Pentagon.
“Unrest would then create massive droughts, turning farmland into dust
bowls and forests to ashes. Rather than causing gradual,
centuries-spanning change, they may be pushing the climate to a tipping
point. By 2020 there is little doubt that something drastic is
happening. As the planet’s carrying capacity shrinks an ancient pattern
reemerges: the eruption of desperate, all-out wars over food, water and
energy supplies and warfare defining human life.”
9. Doomsday History: This time really is different — the final meltdown
Bubble/bust cycles have been well documented for eight centuries. But
the lessons of history are never learned. Euphoria blinds us in boom
times. We deny risk. Bubbles blow. Meltdowns happen. We will always
recover.
Wrong. Many now challenge that naive assumption. Financial historian Niall Ferguson comments in his
“Rise and Fall of the American Empire:”
“Collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine.
Fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States
may be the next empire on the precipice. Many nations in history, at
the very peak of their power, affluence and glory, see leaders arise,
run amok with imperial visions and sabotage themselves, their people and
their nation.”
10. Doomsday Investing: Survival strategies in the post-capitalism era
Former Morgan Stanley guru and hedge fund manager Barton Biggs, offers
his Super-Rich Investors a doomsday strategy in his “Wealth, War and
Wisdom.” He warns of “the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized
infrastructure.” No hippie radical, he says “think Swiss Family
Robinson, your safe haven must be self-sufficient, capable of growing
food, well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine,
clothes. And be ready to fire a few rounds over the approaching
brigands’ heads, to persuade them there are easier farms to pillage.”
But will that work for Main Street investors in the next meltdown/depression? Read our
12 tips
and
six worst-case scenario rules
for average investors preparing for the doomsday scenario.
Farrell's conclusion: eat the rich... more or less
Has America passed the point of no return?
Can’t we deflect the trajectory? Yes, but America would need a
fundamental shift in how our leaders think, says Jared Diamond in
“Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.” We need leaders
with “the courage to practice long-term thinking and make bold,
courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become
perceptible [like in 2011] but before they reach crisis proportions.”
Bottom line: Underneath America’s endless political drama lie deep
wounds that are widening the gap between the Super Rich and the other
99% of America, wider today than before the 1929 Crash. And now as then,
we know the Super Rich don’t really care about the needs of the rest of
America — witness their agenda in states like Wisconsin and Michigan,
and the GOP’s new “Path to Prosperity” budget, a rush to restore failed
Reaganomics policies.
»
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We didn't have any regulations to speak of until 1913. How did we survive those 100+ years?
Government didn't take control, the Fed did. Just 16 years after they were put into power, the great depression hit, after our biggest credit expansion in history (at the time) which they created. Before there would have just been small banks going under, people withdrawing their money from the banks too. But with the Fed, they took on all the debts, stole all the gold, revalued the dolar, and put us into a depression until WWII.
"We didn't have any regulations to speak of until 1913. How did we survive those 100+ years?"
Well every time you had a crisis of capitalism you went and invaded some nation and stole their wealth, we also had a lot more poverty, revolution and instability - a true free market. If you lost your job - you died, if you got ill, you died, unless you were wealthy in which case there was a chance. Generally though the answer is "we didn't" - you and I would probably both be dead by now - even children died working quite frequently.
I don;t want anyone to confuse what I say with 'support for the fed' .
IMO the fed was created as a 'solution to the turmoil' that capitalism created - and the people sucked it up because they hated the instability of the economy. However it wasn't a fix, it was a 'can kicker' - and I suspect following this crisis there will be a 'new fix' which the people will cling onto in hope of it 'fixing capitalism' - when actually that is impossible.
It's all about the source of profit - collapses are inevitable when you extract the wealth from the people who create it and eventually prevent them from being able to feed themselves.
Governments aren't features of capitalism, because of the very use of aggressive force you cite. Governments existed long before Capitalism came to be en vogue, and they were a LOT more oppressive back then, because they dealt with each other by the point of the sword rather than the voluntary exchange of goods and services.
Capitalism is a model that is useful in describing 'something.' It is not a dogma.
The condition that is capitalism existed before it's definition. Our current economic reality is something else, but whatever that is probably shouldn't be shoe-horned into your pre-conceived notion of how things should or shouldn't be.
And you confuse causation with correlation.
It was neither specifically. It was an Unconstitutional reaction to any number of situations that accrued power to the government to solve problems after the fact that government generally cannot solve. Government promises to be savior and protector just as a fox might do the same for the henhouse. Just like the government could not close the oil well at the bottom of the Gulf but it could write loads of regulations, but only after the fact. In fact, government drove drillers to deeper waters where the accident occurred. However, not one person in government even knows how to drill at those depths and the physics and mechanics involved. If they do they got it in the private sector.
In a free system you make deals with each other and enjoy or suffer the consequences. There is a societal learning curve that government aborts with regulation. Regulations are always about the past and seek to maintain the past. With bailouts and the like, government has removed the worst consequences from the guilty and socialized the losses and negative consequences to society. Welcome to collectivism 101.
We constantly morph between the various economic models depending on how the wind is blowing... generally speaking, going from one pole to another... one pole purporting to favor individuals and the other pole purporting to favor the collective.... we never perfectly realize either... rather, we bounce around between the poles, largely depending on the degree of apathy of the general populace. In the end, virtually all result, practically, in a select top that wields substantial economic power. The difference between the models largely rests with the relative wealth of the remainder.
You missed a step on the way to fascism. When equality of outcome and equality of housing and foodstuffs becomes a nation's battle cry, then Credit becomes the Great Equalizer. At which point government and banks merge to insure Plenty (of credit) and devotees of each vie to control the other at the expense of the real production of Real Wealth.
Bankers need neither encouragement nor allies in creating credit. It's the only way they survive.
No, but they need assistance in hiding and then socializing the losses.
@ writingsonthewall
I mean does anyone really think that after accumulating capital over centuries that major corporations are going to be 'outdone' by snivelling little SME's?
How ironic that you wrote that on a site like ZH (snivelling SME) instead of say...um...let me think...the NYT (major corporation).
Let me explain it to you, because you're pretty stupid. You are a member, of your own free will, of a snivelling little SME that is outdoing (in your own mind--that's why you are here and not there, is it not?) a giant well entrenched media corporation.
My comment was designed to show the distain corporations have for SME's - it was not my opinion of them. Clearly it would be lovely if SME's were able to bring down the giant corporations with more efficient production methods (it would be good for all)
However free markets require banks - banks issue capital - SME's are dying daily all over the world because the banks have their feet on the windpipe of credit - now required to run a business thanks to economies of scale.
Contrary to your ill-judged assumption I am on ZH specifically because it's discussing the contradictions within western economic systems - openly and frankly.
All I am saying is that the problem doesn't stop with the banks, the corporations, the oligarths or the Government - it's capitalism that is at the root of the problem and until everyone accepts this then any 'fix' will simply be creating bigger problems further down the road.
...but like most people - I expect you will vote for whichever politicans claims they can 'fix' the problem - because it's nice and easy for you and you don't have to turn your life upside down by changing economic systems.
THE REAL DOOMSDAY COMES FROM AN EARTHQUAKE IN CALIFORNIA!
http://fiatsfire.blogspot.com/2011/04/fairewinds-arnie-gundersen-tears-t...
Arnie Gundersen also rips TEPCO A NEW ONE!!!! DOOM IS COMING!
This isn't capitalism.
It's fascism. It really is.
The economic system in which the government gives public money to private corporations to help them or to fund them - that is the economic system of fascism. If we weren't a fascist system (at least partially) there would be no Goldman Sachs - heck there wouldn't even be a Federal Reserve.
Everybody is blaming capitialism (the liberals do this) or socialism (the conservatives do this) but it's inbetween. Bailing out corporations is fascism. Liberals think it's capitalism because it's a private company, conservatives think it's socialism because public money is supposedly use for a "social good", it's neither.
It's fascism.
HAHAHA, all you people are so certain that you know what Capitalism is and isn't.
agreed. a rather poorly-supported thesis in this one. lowest rating I have ever given a post here.
If you think of "capitalism" (a Marxist, straw man term after all) as any system dominated by abstract representations of capital (which is what pretty much every developed nation has at this point) then yeah, all those nasty things are there for the those in positions of power to take advantage of...think fiat currency.
But if by "capitalism" you really mean "free enterprise" then No! - that's where almost all real wealth creation and betterment of the human condition arises from and at the end of the day...that's all we have.
You're confusing 'humanity's progress' with capitalism - they are not the same thing.
Free enterprise is a myth - people who do things for the 'greater good' are not counted as 'free enterprisers' but those who profit from anothers misfortune / desperation - are.
Whenever you are only doing things for the profit motive - is where the goal (profit) outweighs the deed (enterprise).
This is why selling arms goes on - it's bad for the world as a whole and yet it is profitable. A self destructive activity driven by profit.
No, I said (essentially) that capitalism and free enterprise aren't necessarily the same things.
Free enterprise is not a myth and if you are doing something in whole or in part for "the greater good", personal fullfillment etc. and you aren't being coerced into doing it - why shouldn't that be credited to free enterprise?
...but within capitalism - people are motivated by profit. There is no free enterprise in capitalism, not 'neccessarily' - but 'never'.
To want the fruits of your labors to be your own and to want your designated beneficiaries to be able to effectively stand on your shoulders and repeat the process isn't an "-ism" it just is...like the impulse for shelter seeking, sex and food gathering just is. It's part of human nature which is something you probably don't recognize since it's obvious that you prefer a system of centralized authority with maximum power over individual liberty.
The good news (for you) is this is exactly where we're heading.
Your obsession with freedom (which you think you have but you don't) is skewing your view on any solution.
I am productive, I don't mind others benefitting from my production. This is because materialism is not the b-all and end-all of everything.
You will learn as the economic crisis worsens and you find yourself broke, unemployed but being able to spend more time with your family and community - rebuilding the bridges that have been lost over time as you tried to supplement the hole in your life with materialistic trappings.
Life has more rewards than monetary ones - that is why rich men are 'never satisfied' - because money does not complete a human - it's other emotions and feelings that do that.
Liberty and freedom aren't quite the same thing. You may have the physical freedom to whack someone on the head but under the law you are not at liberty to do so.
But yes, I am obsessed with liberty and I think I'm in better company than you in that regard thank you very much.
At this point, the biggest threat to my liberty, property and quality of life is self-serving government and the arbitrary authority it's declared for itself.
So, you're afraid that the tit you milk may be taken away by the government?
Thus, you've put yourself on dangerous ground and you blame your danger on the arbitrary authority of the government?
If by "tit" you mean my land and property then, yeah.
Having that taxed away to support an ever-expanding government that provides fewer and fewer "services" that are of any value to me - yes, that's the most likely unfavorable outcome from where I sit.
A good large scale question to ask any leftist is, "How many people have been harmed and enslaved by liberty oriented ideologies?" Then, "How many have been harmed and enslaved by collectivist-statist ideologies?"
I think the score is rather lopsided and approaches our national debt in magnitude.
I dunno, has any corporation ever gone into say a low government area and abused the local societies/systems? nah of course not!!
Has any corporation ever covered up say an environmental disaster? nah of course not!!
Do the global media companies use their power to misinform the populace? nah of course not!!
Do private banking interests look to drain the productive capacity of societies? nah of course not!!
Those commie/leftist/socialists do all those things through the evil gubmint of course- don't you know it was cause of government that those things happen!!
One thing we forget about the state is we still get a vote just as much as we get to choose where we spend our money in a capitalist society, whether that vote = representation is another can of shit full of worms.
(full disclosure - not long left or right idealogies, just see a need for both at the right time and believe that dogmatic adherence to one philosophy against another can lead to narrow thinking that will be used against us as individuals and/or representatives of a collective).
"At this point, the biggest threat to my liberty, property "
YOUR property? - how did you obtain this property? - was it bequeathed to you by God himself? Did you speak to mother nature and she handed it to you as a gift?
This is where it all starts....
"The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, “This is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.” Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right to step, save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the proprietor and his servants. Let these sales multiply, and soon the people — who have been neither able nor willing to sell, and who have received none of the proceeds of the sale — will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor’s door, on the edge of that property which was their birthright; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, “So perish idlers and vagrants!”"
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
...but of course it's yours right? it was gained fairly and without coercion (well at least not coercion by you, maybe your forefathers killed a native Indian for it)
on Tue, 04/19/2011 - 12:25
#1184352
Your obsession with freedom (which you think you have but you don't) is skewing your view on any solution.
I am productive, I don't mind others benefitting from my production. This is because materialism is not the b-all and end-all of everything.
You will learn as the economic crisis worsens and you find yourself broke, unemployed but being able to spend more time with your family and community - rebuilding the bridges that have been lost over time as you tried to supplement the hole in your life with materialistic trappings.
Life has more rewards than monetary ones - that is why rich men are 'never satisfied' - because money does not complete a human - it's other emotions and feelings that do that.
You are funny as hell. Only unproductive people say things like that. You're not an air traffic controller are you?
WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!!!
If you work for a private corporation, OF COURSE others benefit from your production.
That's why you have a job--so someone who holds shares can take a cut of the company profits, which you, as a worker, contribute to.
Capitalism requires others to benefit from your production or it's not really capitalism.
...well if you believe capitalism is a meritocracy then I am supremely productive.
Again - like many capitlaists you cannot handle the fact that someone who has done very well out of capitalism may recognise the system is a) Doomed and b) unfair.
In order to get around this you will dismiss what I say - because only a fool would call for the end of a system that serves him so well wouldn't he?
...it's called recognising that the human race's progression is rather more important that my desires of materialism. I don't expect you to understand - you would need to do some hard consideration about what you're here for in order to do that - and I'm guessing you don't think that far outside of your own little world....
and if they were not motivated by self interest, they would have to be motivated some other way, say severe injury. Something like the famines in Russia and destroying the Kulaks. Or, personal fear, say, like the Cultural Revolution of Mao. Or, just to be oh so happy helping their fellow man, say, like Detroit. And there's your contradiction, how to make people act in un-natural ways to satisfy your "Natural Economic Law" to fulfill history's dialectic.
I see, so you want everyone to live like impoverished monks rather than providing the goods and services people want (and need).
You are filth.
" want (and need)."
There is your problem - distinguishing between want and need. Why should some in society go without in order to pander to the desires of morons?
Capitalism directs resources into production that is not needed - creating waste.
...and I presume by your insult you cannot take the argument presented - because you're talking out of your ass and from the point of pure self interest.
...and tell me how does self interest work if society is developed around it and there aren't enough resources to go around....?
lol, and who decides what's needed? You?
My "insult" is a commentary on your inability to see that the way to prevent filth is not to stop cleaning. You claim that capitalism leads to fascism, which is exactly analogous to saying cleanliness leads to filth. You then make the leap that in order to prevent filth, you must never wash. In reality, this leads to your becoming filth much faster.
Which is to say, you are filth, and your warped worldview has caused hundreds of millions of deaths.
"lol, and who decides what's needed"
Well that's not difficult is it? What do you need?
Food, Water (clean), Shelter - it's not difficult is it?
Ask people what they want and they will ask for all sorts of crap - hey they will even borrow from the money lender (without considering the consequences) in order to buy shit they desire (but don't need)
"Which is to say, you are filth, and your warped worldview has caused hundreds of millions of deaths"
My warped view? - I have caused no deaths so I don't know what you're talking about. However capitalism has ensured that half the world lives in poverty while the other half makes 'choices' to own 4 cars (when you can only drive 1 at a time) and to produce ooodles of waste in order to maintain diminishing profits.
...oh and the odd war has been started by Capitalism - or rather the methods of keeping it going for a little longer (oil wars, QE etc.) - a few have been murdered as a result - but I bet you don't attribute these deaths to capitalism do you?
It's not unusual to see the blindness of self interest trample all over logical thought.
Let me guess the rest here - each person's needs will be collectively provided by each and everyone else according to their abilities...
Hardly.
Intelligent people will provide for their own needs out of necessity. No "-ism" required. What has happened is that people can no longer provide for their needs because the tools have been taken away. Ask anyone who once ran a family farm and they will tell you how it is done. As went family farms so went small towns and small town merchants and local economy, the life-blood of any nation. Jobs were outsourced and factories sold to the Chinese, you had to take up dog grooming or enter the military to pay your student loans.
There are people today with nothing but money. They cannot fend for themselves. They can buy things only so long as the corporations are willing extend credit to provide for their needs, and not a moment longer. Americans have never been so vulnerable as today, and our masters never before so ruthless and predatory. Our future is dark indeed.
Then you should sell your computer and give the money to someone who doesn't have those things, you damnedable hypocrite.
Also funny how "clothing", "medicine", "heating", and many other necessities don't make your list. Christ, if anyone paid attention to you and your twisted ideology, the whole world would perish at the first freeze.
It was not a comprehensive list - you're splitting hairs because you can't make succinct points to defend your position.
As for being a hypocrite - well it's not the first time I've been called black by the pot - but clearly my gift to you (no charge) is education and enlightenment - something you're sorely in need of. I need the internet to do this.
Here's a fact for you - the world could support 3 times it's current population with an egalitarian wealth system - none of this "we're overpopulated" nonsense you lap up as an excuse for your shitty life.
There's nothing better than watching a slave accuse another slave of slavery - in the hope that it will curry some favour with the master.
I declare you don't "need" that computer. So get off my internets bitch!
Not so funny when shit goes sideways on you, now is it?
Secular universalist alert! Your progressivist bullshit is nothing more than Christianity without the historic theistic corollary. While the human altruistic tendency evolved to replicate the selfish gene, the gene is still selfish. To simplify it for you, the carrot has always got to be there or humans won't progress, your faith-based claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
Well said. See my earlier post on the score of liberty vs. collectivism.
"Capitalism directs resources into production that is not needed - creating waste."
I think Stalin and Mao said much the same.
Yeh, that worked out well for the people living under them...
The Chinese own us. Your point again?
It took them 30 years to shake off the malaise that Mao's policies created. They overcame that socialist depression by adopting free market philosophies. Sadly, they did not liberalize the government itself.
They have not liberalized it, YET. The story is still playing out and I would argue that compared to the Mao days it has liberalized significantly. I have been there and have a son who works there. Impossible three decades ago.
Want and need is also your problem. Who is to judge that? You? What moral authority do you have or those YOU deem worthy? You do not even believe in God. Accordingly, without a supreme being, all morality and ethics are merely personal opinion. So how does you opinion become so superior to anyone else's?
You're living the last century.
See this big thing we're on now (the world wide web) - well it's worldwide - and a web - and it can obtain the opinions, directions, needs and decisions of the entire planet in seconds.
Capitalists all seem to still be living in the industrial revolution and applying the principles as such. All they can see the internet for is 'profit making' - they are too dimwitted to recognise it holds the key to the freedom they crow on about having (but don't) under a free market system - but without the waste and without the problem of a minority ruling fascist state.
Please drag yourselves into the 21st century.
Where you are missing the boat is that any system that ignores human nature's inherent self-interest is doomed to fail. Capitalism produces good for society not because it is designed to, but because when free enterprise is (relatively) unfettered by power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats, self-interest ensures that resources are used more effectively. Economic growth raises standards of living generally even if, yes, the best capitalists become inordinately wealthy. The key is to keep the very rich from skewing the rules and regulations so as to eliminate competition. As long as the lobbyists are writing legislation we have failed. As long as a normal human being cannot read and understand legislation we have failed.
The reason the other 'isms' failed are manifold, but chief among them is that they run counter to human nature. Unless a system harnesses man's self-interest and minimizes its deleterious effects, the system will fail. The fact that we have corrupted capitalism by allowing government to try to yoke capitalism to its own preferences is not an indictment of capitalism, but of our corruption of our republic's constitution.
"Where you are missing the boat is that any system that ignores human nature's inherent self-interest is doomed to fail."
Where you missed the boat is assuming that self interest is inherent. I watched the videos of the Tsunami in Japan - I didn't see people fleeing to the top of the hill and then dancing around for joy while the 'less efficient' drowned.
No - they went back for them, to help them - against their self interest.
The problem you have is that it's hard wired into your brain that self interest is a natural phenomenon - now I wonder where you got that idea from?
Ah yes - the idealist world of individualism - the "I can do it all by myself" syndrome. Well unfortunately you can't, and despite all the stories you've heard - nobody else did either.
No man is an island - we all rely on each other. The greatest achievements of man have been done through working together without competition.
NASA put a man on the moon in 1969 - now imagine the chances of that happening with a market driven solution?
It wouldn't be in anyone's 'self interest'.
Wrong. Self interest is inherent in every conscious action humans take. It may be possible to overcome this interest in an emergency or shocking situation, but I do not believe your example qualifies. Rather, these persons went to help others because the personal satisfaction of attempting to help others outweighed the risks of death or injury. Mother Teresa was an economist. [this is also why capitalism is the best system we have devised because it best attempts to harness our fundamental human nature... obviously not without its own drawbacks].
"Wrong. Self interest is inherent in every conscious action humans take. It may be possible to overcome this interest in an emergency or shocking situation, but I do not believe your example qualifies."
Emergency or shocking situation - you mean like world economic meltdown perhaps?
"Rather, these persons went to help others because the personal satisfaction of attempting to help others outweighed the risks of death or injury. "
Now that it total bullshit - you can't tell me those peope risked their lives for their own satisfaction? What about the 'heroes of fukushims' - are they doing it because they want to get a TV show? - or are they doing it because they know millions of lives could be saved by their sacrifice.
Some people on here need to look into their morality a little - see what they have become. See what capitalism has made you into.
Look at congestionin rush hour - that is the end result of everyone following self interest (i.e. driving for convenience). Nobody goes anywhere as a result.
Read up on the scientific basis for altruism, you religious zealot.
I would posit that most altruistic actions happen in the blink of an eye and ultimately come at the expense of conscious thought... e.g. taking a bullet because you threw the intended target out of the way... falling on a grenade, etc. Once conscious thought enters the mix, we begin weighing the benefits and detriments of every action... so, no, I do not believe that a prolonged economic deterioration, in and of itself, sufficiently rises to the occasion of an emergency or shock... rather, shock was watching the flash crash... not a couple years of stagnant economic growth trailing a maniacal driver of a money machine. It may be possible for the economic conditions imposed upon someone to cause them to lose conscious thought... but, this would be momentary at best.
[you don't think we've been in a real "emergency" since 9/11 do you?]
Yes, I am telling you that people risk their lives for their own satisfaction. I am telling you that the standard, hard economic theory of extrinsic motivation is only a portion of that which guides humans... and, in the end, I think subservient to our internal machinations... I am telling you that self interest encompasses not only extrinsic motivation, but also intrinsic motivation... for example, I have a client who decided to finish a repair job despite being told of his client's bankruptcy... he just took pride in his work and wanted to finish it... same thing, different situation...
Morality has many faces... ultimately, integrity is a measure of the degree of our adherence to a moral code... some persons are guided by self interest to adhere as closely as possible to their moral codes... this makes them feel complete... gives their lives meaning... these people have integrity... whether or not their moral codes coincide with some objective standard is anyone's guess... but they are guided by self interest nonetheless. If someone acts against their moral code, then it means they maximized their self interest by tossing integrity aside... this happens for most humans on a daily basis... there are few perfect dilemas in the world.
I hope he got that idea from science, you twit! Good grief, is the earth flat too?
Did those people run to the top of the hill with their own family first or let their family drown as they rescued the neighbor's cat?
Self interest in no way eliminates virtues such as compassion, generosity, honesty, etc...even selflessness. In fact, it rewards and allows a better expression of it. I am often thankful for the fabulously wealthy as I enjoy theaters, parks and hospital wings they all built. Seems there are a lot more of them and better equipped in capitalist societies than collectivist. Funny how that works out.
I contend that compassion, generosity, honesty, etc. are all the results of self interest. Clearly, the concept of self interest, in and of itself, cannot exist in a vacuum and, as a result, cannot prohibit a plethora of potential consequences... Further, if I am incorrect about the foundation of these actions, then I think we can quickly devolve into a separate debate on determinism whereby the actions of philanthropists, saints, et al, are not so much conscious acts as a long line of programming or founded in a belief system incorporated prior to their age of reasoning.
Either way, I clearly discount these acts and disagree with the concept of selflessness... Obviously, self interest can make the world go round just the same... the effect is the same... the only difference is what we decide to think about the purpose of rational actors. If you're inclined to stand them on a pedestal, fine... but I don't see any unique snowflakes.
I've been through these psychological arguments about whether selflessness is truly selfless or even selfish. Frankly they bore me now. Let's just take it at the surface level. Many people do good things for other people and we are all better off for it. Mother Theresa did some good and you do some good if you volunteer at the soup kitchen.
Capitalism/free trade/free enterprise does not eliminate these decent impulses but in fact makes them possible more often.
I guess I don't call tax deductions for charitable donations good... nor 501(c)(3) subterfuge whereby you extract your profits through a "salary" rather than a dividend... nor collection of tax revenue from unwilling participants to pay for all of god's creations under the auspices of social good...
I also have some serious qualms about the "possibility" of doing good... that sounds a helluva lot like not doing good to me... I see no reason why a system that requires people to perform various tasks couldn't render more "good" work than a mixed capitalist society...
Further, I have no idea what "good" is in this context... it seems to me that any system where tax revenues are either distributed or not collected from protected classes the collection mechanism is morally neutral at best... in order to generate the wherewithal to do "good" the entity more likely than not had to get some help from an unwilling participant... does the end justify the means? I dunno, that's for your moral compass to decide and impose upon your neighbor, like every good democracy.
I just don't think the analysis is that simple...
The argument has gotten so far out of hand I find it really impossible to slow things down enough to make any other comment. We need to clear away the chaff and begin to see our condition as perhaps a Martian would see it. We need to get outside ourselves and see reality in a new way. For most of us it is an insurmountable task.
It is frustrating and depressing to see what happens to otherwise intelligent people when they can't get out of their personal religion long enough to listen to common sense. Come on people. Listen to what you are saying. Christ on a crutch. This thing has degenerated into mud-slinging gibberish. I can't even flag anybody. What's with that?
Right, but the problem, of course, is that without a strong central government, there is no check upon the political power of the financial elite. This is presently our American dilema. If we implement austerity and attempt to live within our means and reduce the size and scope of our governments, then what check and balance to we have against the tyranny tha twill be imposed by those who have tremendously benefitted from the titled field and who may exercise the spoils of the wealth gap? If we are to enter the gladiator arena with experienced foes, it would be very kind to at least get a sword, otherwise the affair may not be so sporting. This give-take relationship is exactly why no pure economic model may be adopted...
This is what I was thinking. Free enterprise, something relatively close to equal standing under the law, and enforcement of contracts equals prosperity and happiness. "Capitalism" is a strawman to argue for collectivism. No thanks.
"Capitalism" is a strawman to argue for collectivism. Nice analogy
We don't have capitalism, we have crony capitalism. With a bought and paid for government beholden to the Federal Reserve Bank, corporations and the super rich. Globalisation helps to widen the gap between super rich and the masses of slaves. Only a thriving upper middle class threatens the super rich for a spot at the table. It's a club, and you're not in it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
everythime i watch that, i'm like, dayum.
Exactly right, and mea culpa, by the way.
For a time I believed in globalization as both inevitable, and an obvious application of comparative advantage. What I did not see, what hardly anyone saw, is that the best organized tribes and thugs would win. When honest labor loses all purchasing power, bad shit happens.
You were right on until your final point: globalization has been a hugely positive thing allowing for a couple of billion people in Asia to rise out of abject poverty. That it has come at a great cost for both the developed world and the third world is undeniable. The equalization of standards of living was bound to be a hard thing for the western world.
And, yes, the super rich become richer, but I'm afraid that that is the result of an arithmetic identity, and not a poorly-designed system. To prove this simple point to yourself, open an Excel spreadsheet. I defy you to design a system whereby somebody making $10K per year and somebody making $150K per year do NOT see their incomes become more unequal over time.
"You were right on until your final point: globalization has been a hugely positive thing allowing for a couple of billion people in Asia to rise out of abject poverty. That it has come at a great cost for both the developed world and the third world is undeniable. The equalization of standards of living was bound to be a hard thing for the western world."
Oh you mean like the Chinese who are enslaved to produce 'cheap goods for Americans'?
You talk some crap man - don't you think that 'the rise out of poverty' might have less to do with globalisation and more to do with human and technological progression?
Capitalists and Globalists love to attribute the progession of man with their systems - even though man managed to progress quite happily without either of them prior to their existance.
...and of course in true contradictory style....they forget about the 'going backwards' part - which is what we're experiencing now - it's always talk of the boom, never the bust.
It's fraudulent to attribute the rise of anything with Capitalism, other than poverty, waste and dissatisfaction.
So you are saying that capitalism and freedom did not bring them out of poverty? So then they were more prosperous under Mao's communism? Maybe they would be more prosperous if the right kind of commies ran it, right? That's always the answer to the failures of collectivism. It's always that the right people haven't done it.
I've been to China and going back soon. I have lots of Chinese friends including Taiwanese. I have relatives working in China. Let me say with authority, you don't know a damn thing about China or their prosperity. Mao had them picking up nails in vacant lots to boost their antiquated steel industry at one time. All progress stopped in 1949 very similar to the Soviets.
Let me suggest that free trade in and of itself is not the problem at all. People, goods, money, even services crossing borders is generally a good thing. It actually contributes to world peace. You are much less likely to want to go to war with your trading partners. By trading successfully with other people you may find you even like them or at least some of them. This part of gloablism is good.
The "going backwards" parts and similar problems assumed to be at the doorstep of international trade I submit are in fact mostly our own fault. As America goes more collectivist and runs up unpayable debts, debases the currency, piles on regs, raises taxes, and generally makes life and business more miserable it will continue to chase business and productive people offshore. China, as it prospers can develop its own large internal and regional markets, as well. There is huge demand for everything and now that they have gotten the technology and management skills needed from the West they are able to meet those demands. As they prosper they also become a market for foreign goods. The same thing happened in America and other places.
I always find it interesting that those who favor the collective and profess to admire collectivists never go to live in those countries.
The idea of an American factory worker working for 65 cents/hour to compete against an Indian worker isn't going to fly. Globalization has slightly raised the condition of some laborers, while creating structural unemployment in many Western nations (including the US). The last great boom for the American laborer was the housing boom (domestic jobs, decent wages). Now that the construction industry is dead for the foreseeable future, we will see a 15-20% unemployment for decades. A larger percentage of un and under employed workers dependent on government handouts and "craigslist" odd jobs in the underground economy.
The American worker does not have to work for 65 cents an hour and we don't. We have many advantages here that we give up. Remember, virtually all imports have to cross continents and oceans, be packaged, shipped, taxed, maybe at both ends, unpacked here, repacked, retransported, warehoused, distributed, etc. We have huge advantages to start with not to mention skilled workers who generally know how to make what we want. Our goal should be to make sure this is still a good place to do business. When an obscure snail stops a project, when legal procedures can tie up plant or productivity expansions for years, when local and state governments raid developers and producers in general for money, when tax rates are many multiples of foreign rates and the tax code is an impenitrable morass...well, you get the picture. You can throw in intractable labor and incompetent management at times, as well.
The construction boom was artificial jobs created through a government sponsored bubble (central planning). Unfortunately and predictably it burst and everyone from lumberman to truckers to construction crews got crushed as the bubble burst. Many of those will have to find new types of work as the economy rebalances. This is an unfortunate result of government morons playing with the levers of an economy. We suffer as they make excuses and assure us their intentions were good.
Maybe all the lumbermen and brick layers can start making Ipads for Apple? Do you think Foxconn will open a sweat shop in Arkansas? Could Apple maintain their $200-300 dollar profit margin if they had to pay $3K/mo. instead of $300/mo. to each worker?
The unemployed brick layers are lining up to flip burgers at McDonalds for $10/hr. instead of laying block for $30. Welcome to McAmerica.
Look at the alternatives to your question. Okay. I buy the fact they will not make ipads. However, they were doing something before and now have to do something after. Do you think government central planners can tell them what to become next? Didn't government planners create this mess (YES!)!
What is your solution? What will you tell them to do? What will you force people to do? Will you build government houses that no one wants to buy to keep the bricklayer in business? Won't that depress house prices further?
As far as Apple goes, do you believe in freedom? If they own their company can you make them trade with people you prefer? Can someone force you to do the same? If they used American labor and pay the costs of working in America what would they have to charge for an iPAD? Would you be outraged at that price? What if they went out of business because the costs were too high in America? Would America be better off with no Apple or Apple going out of business? Would Microsoft like that and then establish a monopoly? Should Microsoft now start lobbying Washington to force Apple to manufacture back in America...maybe in CA to be fair since they are hurting and where costs are highest? How selfless?
Look, I think you have good intentions at heart. I want everything to be made in America, if possible. My German car was actually built in America. I kind of like that. I suspect Germany doesn't. However, you have to look at the effects on freedom and what the results will be of any action you take. You generally end up in a place you never intended and don't like. When in doubt, go toward liberty.
you do realize that without individuals, capitalism is "just my imagination" like the Cranberries would say. Where there's money there's fraud, lying, theft and corruption. Not everybody is like you, a saint that wants to honor the altar of capitalism.
Yes, but you seem to think that those people can be made to disappear by giving them more power, especially the power to use aggressive force with little or no consequences.
Capitalism does not allow force, or threat of force in transactions. Capitalism does not require saints. Indeed, the reason capitalism is so successful is that it forces demons to work for the betterment of society in order to accumulate wealth and power. ANY OTHER SYSTEM, gives those demons guns, and may or may not admonish them not to use them.
"Indeed, the reason capitalism is so successful is that it forces demons to work for the betterment of society in order to accumulate wealth and power. "
What like Goldman Sachs?
What total horse manure. Power and money corrupt - don't forget that when you're singing the praises of a system which encourages accumulating money (and therefore power)
Goldman Sachs? You mean Government Sachs, right? You know, the guys who have merged government and corporate power, to create fascism, rather than capitalism?
Your utter inability to understand basic definitions means you will never understand anything, nor be able to carry out even the most basic of conversations on any subject.
Shoo.
I didn't want to say this - but you're a real moron.
Goldman Sachs are a company - their aim (as most companies are) was to accumulate capital (it's called the profit motive)
When they started they were small, they grew by being 'good at accumulating capital' - they reached a point where they own so much capital they can dictate what the Government does.
Which part of 'leads to fascism' didn't I make clear?
Are you saying Goldman started as an 'arm of the Government' - I think you'll find that a tricky one to sell - especially as they were formed before the Fed was.
You need to read more books and spend less time on the internet spouting about capitalism when it's merely doing what it was inevitably going to do - make the most successful capital accumulators the most powerful.
....or do you think the aim of capitalism is to 'be nice and provide goods and services to clients'? - have you been reading those corporate pamphlets again?
Goldman Sachs has infiltrated every stratum of the government with their former employees. This is the definition of a merger of corporate and government power, which is the definition of fascism, NOT capitalism.
Your argument that capitalism leads to fascism is exactly equivalent to the argument that cleaning a thing leads to that thing becoming dirty. The point isn't that cleaning it means it will never get dirty, it means that it delays it. You don't see the difference between clean and dirty, nor the states in between.
It doesn't matter how something started. Their current form is what matters. The Fed started as a de facto arm of the government with some corporate features. It is NOT a capitalist organization.
How do you want to allocate goods and services, if not through capitalism? You going to employ a hundred million armed thugs to go into every dairy farm and bottled water plant, seize the goods, and distribute them to everyone who "needs" it?
...so please enlighten us - how did Goldman get to the position of power that you call it 'Government Sachs' if not through wealth accumulation?
I have a friend, he runs a small shop in Fresno - he's not happy with the Government so he wrote a letter to complain - they ignored him.
Why are they listening to GS and not my friend? - do you think it's to do with the threat GS have with 'removing capital' (which was accumulated) from the country?
Come on - please explain to us all why GS are listened to an my Fresno mate isn't? They are both capitalist businesses after all!
If your problem boils down to resource allocation - then I'd say the resource allocation by the banks (which is their function after all) - isn't really going so well is it?
It's not fair, it's not balanced and it's failing - they allocated resources to businesses and property which have since failed (or fallen in value) - that's why we're expriencing asset devaluation.
It seems you have set the bar very, very low for any alternative system of resource allocation.
Actually, it's where there are people all those things exist. They do not eminate from economics. They eminate from the dark side of men. The question is how you minimize that. It will never be eliminated until man's character is perfected. My suggestion is to give imperfect men with corruptible character the least amount of power possible over yourself and "others".
And bottom line, its NOT the fraudsters, the liars, the thieves fault, its OUR fault for being complacent and lazy and just rolling our eyes at them but not actually doing anything about it. 300 million against a few thousand, but 'Oh no, cant do anything, they have all the power'....lol.
The French Revolution should be the playbook for American Revolution v 2.0, but the elites have learned to keep the proles bellies full (food stamps) and their T.V.s on (to fill their idle minds full of shit) and the chances of bloody revolution are slim.
The continued "endless war on terror" will provide fear, focus and national pride to the masses, as Orwell predicted in "1984", and will continue to erode our freedoms and the Constitution.
But revolutions are not done by the 'masses', they are done by a very few people.
The leaders are few, but the masses provide the momentum. The "tea party" events I have attend are filled with 60+ year olds sitting in lawn chairs (and the attendance is shrinking, not growing). The middle class is dying a slow death by a thousand cuts, by they will accept their fate due to the pace of decline. They will cut back on expenses, eat less meat, drive smaller cars, raise their deductibles, etc... New generations will have lower expectations of economic success, the "American Dream" will be recast, reinvented to match the realities of the New World Order.
This is exactly the sad state of affairs in which we currently exist.
You are making the same mistake that the communist apologists always make. They keep saying that their theory is unassailable, but its those lousy human beings, like Stalin and Mao, that keep fucking it up.
.....and if it was human nature (which I don't agree exists anyway) - then why persist with a system that promotes the worst of it - i.e. Greed.
A system where motivation is profit is always going to bring out greed in people and those who are most greedy end up with most power and therefore can ensure the game continues (think banks)
You again show your inability to carry a conversation by destroying definitions. You don't agree that "human nature" exists. "Human nature" is a set of empirical observations about how humans interact. That's like claiming religion doesn't exist, rather than claiming to be an atheist.
You can't get rid of "greed". Instead, you can harness it by forcing people to fulfill their desires by providing goods and services to others. The only problems come when violence is introduced into the system. By definition, a government is an entity that can use violence without recourse. This is where the problem stems from.
Are babies born greedy? - or do they learn it from their parents?
It's nurture not nature, that was my point. You are now changing the definition of human nature to be 'human social interaction' - which is the first time I've heard it defined as such!
"Instead, you can harness it by forcing people to fulfill their desires by providing goods and services to others"
...again, more rubbish - you're not harnessing it - you're promoting it!
lol, you think a baby thinks about anyone other than itself?
No-one is buying your Marxist bullshit. Time to go.
In order to make a rational and logical conclusion you need to understand all sides of the argument.
You only understand 1 side of the argument - and not very well at that!
No you don't. You need to have a good command of logic, and sound premises (by definition, actually). You have neither, I have both.
Logic?
So how does one ensure economic freedom without impacting others economic freedom on a finite planet?
I'd love to know the logical thinking behind that one.
"Human nature" is a set of empirical observations about how humans interact.
No it's not. It's a trope that people pull out in conversation when they don't have good data available to describe the motivations for behavior.
Ontologically: creating a name for something you don't understand doesn't cause it to exist. I name all gorillas who write books "gorillauthors." That doesn't mean gorillauthors are empirically observed.
False, I made no such argument. I made the argument that you should call things what they are.
Having a centrally planned economy via the Fed is anathema to Capitalism. You and a lot of other people like to use doublethink to try to justify our economy as it is as some sort of capitalism when it is not. We DID have capitalism prior to the central bank. This isn't a slippery slope, or a no true capitalism argument. It's a logical argument--IF central bank, then not capitalism.
You speak of the gilded age when disperity of income was at least as great or greater than it is now.
So? Disparity of income isn't a problem, when the source of that income is community service (then) rather than misappropriation of tax dollars, and the printing press (now). Further, remember what the world was like 150 years ago, as a post-colonial backwater that still employed slavery. All of the economic progress that resulted between 150 and 100 years ago was the result of capitalism, and occurred in a single generation.
While capitalism may have a part to play in that progress, the primary driver was cheap energy via fossil fuels and scientific inventions which allowed to harness that energy. Human labor was no longer needed to sustain soceity and fuel growth. Capitalism may have accelerated the progress but it was not the cause of it.
Humanity had access to those fuels for thousands of years. Why didn't they use them then?
Your "peak oil" outlook on life must be depressing.
Seems to me that all the progress of the last 150 yrs is the product of cheap energy.
Cheap energy that miraculously appeared as refined products and especially in tanks beneath the ground to be pumped into automobiles that were, of course, a product of government ingenuity?
You lefty / collectivists are so damned funny. Since you have made it to your current ripe age without internalizing the basic lesson of human motivations, here you go:
There are two ways that things happen in the world:
1) Self-interest
2) Coercion
You lefties cannot seem to grasp that one of these is immoral--probably because it is your preferred method of implementing your program. You cannot sell your idiotic ideas anymore, so you wish to jam them down our throats. All, of course, in the name of it being for our own good.
"There are two ways that things happen in the world:
1) Self-interest
2) Coercion"
That's known as 'defining the world by your own inadequacies. I often do things which do not require coercion and are not in my self interest.
...as do millions of volunteers around the world each day - but of course you dismiss these because they don't fit into your world view.
Also there are many hobbyists who do what other people do for a living - for fun, no coercion and any self interest is the joy of achievement - again these people don't exist in your world.
...and if you live in your world what happens? - you get screwed over by those who are better at serving self interest than you are - i.e. the banks.
It's classic game theory - you still think you can win, when actually the only result is assured destruction.
your volunteers and hobbyist still perform said acts in the name of self-interest, despite what they may tell you. They may find intangible rewards, such as joy or gratification, instead of physical goods but if there were no rewards or incentives at all they wouldn't be doing it for long, as ennui would set in.
Is that the whole platform for your socialist redistribution? Producers should do things for no other reason than someone else, some crackheads, starving fly infested youth in an equatorial country or limp wristed bureacrats polishing chairs with their asses need to eat and live at ease. All from the sweat and time you donate. No thanks, no pat on the back, food, no big screen tv? No incentive?
No wonder that socialism shit ends in violence and fire, it's pissed me off just thinking about it.
Yes,stating the obvious, that cheap abundant energy is the reason for the ability of our species to propagate and innovate at levels seen since the industrial revolution makes me a lefty. I'm so busted. My secret NWO,Trilateral commission,Bilderberg friends will be so disappointed.
The fact remains that anybody advocating any form of goverment advocate putting the fox in charge of the hen house. Call it any kinda of ism you want , bloviate about how this system is this or that and if only the bad people didnt get into the game we could win. Reality is a bitch. And she will slap this shit out of anybody that thinks philiosophy about the nature of people will overcome the fact that people..or animals.. have one simple,undeniable need...survival. Anything else is extra and a species will rob, steal and kill to survive. All your ism's do not change the simple fact that people will do whatever it takes to get to the top of the heap,including taking fom others. This happens in any system of goverment.
You forgot greed and fear.
Same thing I think. Greed is the want to survive at all costs. Fear is obviously the fear of not surviving. Adam discovered his own mortality in the garden..the original sin.
So many electrons put to waste.
I agree with you, t, as to the need for a precise definition of the term "Capitalism". I suspect that people might differ in defining that term, but that is sort of besides the point, since that has not been what you are arguing about on this thread.
You are defending a theoretical construct. You object to anybody who tries to describe a real-world socioeconomic system by using the term you insist must only be used to describe your theoretical construct, or a real-world system so closing resembling your theory as to deserve the same label.
This is a silly argument, like one person holding an orange, another holding an apple, with each person earnestly trying to persuade the other to call their fruit by the same name.
I don't think there is any theorist who would describe the socio-economic system we now observe in 2011 USA as pure "capitalism". At best they might say it is one "based on capitalism". Some folks might call it "fascism", some might call it "crony-capitalism", or some might argue it is more akin to capitalism than to any other coherent economic theory. Maybe we could call it "Durdenism", in honor of its exposer.
But, whatever it is, the theory of capitalism is deserving of its own definition. I applaud you for defending it. But I also agree that, in the real world, capitalism gets perverted by the political process. It is a basic intellectual error to spend too much time on pure economic theory unsullied by what history shows us will happen when that theory meets human beings in the rough-and-tumble real world.
It is quite possible that if true, pure capitalism were capable of being implemented in a society, that its members would achieve nirvana. I'm not going to waste my time discussing such matters, since I am convinced it has never happened, and ain't ever gonna happen, if only because businessmen despise the "free enterprise" part of capitalism theory, and spend all of their time divining ways to avoid free markets and competition, inevitably coming up with the idea that if they can control and enlarge the government, they can legally exempt themselves from those nasty competitive forces, thereby achieving the goal of easy, large profits.
A good economic theorist would meet this problem by simply assuming their way out of it, which is the gist of most of the later comments in this thread posted by many commenters.
Good post. A little gem in a pool of shit.
tmosely, you rock! Can we reason with the unreasonable? My thought is just to present our best observations and arguments and hope those with the ability to reason and a fairly open mind will be persuaded. The data are all on the side of greater liberty. It's why collectivists always rewrite history, a.k.a. George Orwell.
I tell my libertarian type conservative friends to keep faith. Statists can always assemble large groups of constituents who want government favors but they can never make their ideas work. It's like the laws of physics which they deny. It also drives them nucking futs in the long run. Make's 'em mean at the end of the day, too.
I enjoy your posts.
We havent had capitalism as the founders intended for the last 70 years since social security began. Laissez-faire capitalism is the cure. Crony capitalism is killing us.
http://guerillatics.com/?p=666
...but the removal of regulation and a move towards Lasse Faire is what got us in this current mess!
Please try to learn from your mistakes.
Google the term "mortgage regulations" followed by any year of the last three decades and tell me about Laissez Faire.
Not really. If I'm not mistaken bawwney fwank is part of the govt, and he certainly did a lot of mucking around in the system. Again, true capitalism has zero govt involvement.
If it wasn't for Bawwney and his ilk "encouraging" banks to loan to people who couldn't afford it, the mess would never have occurred. The banks were getting their arms twisted to loan, because an increase in home ownership rates is a good thing don't cha know.
Wrong: The creation of the Federal Reserve Bank--the chief culprit in the destruction of our currency and enabler of the financial crisis--was created by government regulation. Fannie and Freddie--who distorted and enabled the securitization of mortgages--were created by government regulation. The Community Reinvestment Act was government regulation.
A couple of questions: How did the SEC regulation do during the crisis? How did regulation of the rating agencies work out?
You're seriously going to have to do something more than watch one half-assed documentary movie to understand what has been going on for 98 years since the creation of the Fed, and how those dynamics led to the crisis.
...and before the Fed there 'were no crises'?
Oh - forgot about those ones didn't you.
I knew my libertarian-type brothers would come out! Good points, all.
I have a new theory I am playing with. Consider my thesis: Capitalism in the sense of voluntary exchange is what is everywhere and every country. What every country does is torture it into some other form. Communism is the most extreme form or torturing capitalism and it gets the worst results. Notice, that even in communism we can predict what will happen with the distortions of goods and services and the demise of supply and quality. Used cars sold for more than new ones. Mole skin gloves favored by gov't piled up uselessly. The quality of anything made was crap and labor...well, didn't labor much as there was no gain to it. There were extensive black markets in the USSR to meet demands even though they were officially criminal enterprises. China tortures it less now and does better. The U.S. had the closest thing (but not pure) to it in its first century or so. Taiwan and Hong Kong survive by it.
It's a thought I am exploring.
Liar.
...but the removal of regulation and a move towards Lasse Faire is what got us in this current mess!
Please try to learn from your mistakes.
...if you think about the price of food - try tripling it - and adding some on top - that would be the consequence of lasse faire......or would you propose you would take you shopping elsewhere when the grocers decided they should have a bigger piece of the pie?
Can you grow your own bananas?
You are incredibly stupid. People don't just "decide" they want more money. It's called competition. If we had capitalism in this country, we would have grocery stores in the inner cities. This socio-fascism we have that you seem to love so well has destroyed choice, and has in fact driven prices through the roof. Prior to 1913, food prices were extremely stable. Now, they go up--always.
What dribble are you talking about? Prior to 1913 Crises of capitalism were more frequent and more damaging.
The Fed was introduced in an attempt to stop the crises - a bad fix I'll agree - but that's what it was for - in fact it was introduced just after the panic of 1907.
"Productions and real income declined during this period and were not offset until the start of World War I increased demand.[22] Incidentally, the Federal Reserve Act was signed during this recession, creating the Federal Reserve System, the culmination of a sequence of events following the Panic of 1907.[24]"
Please educate yourself before you start talking about the days of old and how great and stable they were.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States
Right, so instead of getting relatively brief recessions, we now get decade long depressions that now threaten to destroy the economy en totalis. MUCH better system.
Did I say it was an improvement?
I merely commented on the fact that it was the attempted cure for frequent crises.
...and if you look at recent history - we've been having frequent short recessions for the last 50 years or so - it's only this one which is a long one - due because I believe the Austrian crowd cite it happens every 70 years or so.
...but don't let me educate you - you already have all the answers don't you?
How can someone who can't even understand simple definitions and simple logical principles teach anyone anything other than dogmatic BS?
You really don't know anything about markets and economics do you.?.
What sets the price of a good in an economy?
a. The producer?
b. The market?
c. The government?
d. The cost of inputs?
e. Evil conservatives who want to starve people?
If you triple the price of food I guarantee you the response will absolutely be that more people grow their own food. More farmers will appear and drive the price down, too. It is a market signal. Governments completely screw up market signals and destroy the currency, too. Soooo, to you it means we need more government, right?
And yes, I can grow my own bananas. I have done it. They are messy and snakes and cockroaches love to live in the roots.
An axiomatically succinct summary, NOTW777. +100.
"dont indict a system for failure of individuals"
they say the same thing about comunism
Fortunately, we don’t have to rely on individual failure to diagnose the lack of success of Communism. Many examples have shown it to be the consistent failure of the system itself. Substitute any individual in Stalin’s place or Mao’s place and the result is the same. Substitute James Madison for Barack Obama and the result would be spectacular.
The primary differences exist in the reactions of the people involved. In Mao’s case, there was no future for individual success; in Madison’s case, the individual could go on to incredible progress and success.
For a utopian society to work you need utopian people.
All systems are exposed to the human element and are corruptible.
Santa clause meet the easter bunny now the both of you head for the end of the rainbow and collect your pot of gold.
God Damnit, this isn't capitalism. This is the OPPOSITE of capitalism.
Failing to call fascism fascism only allows various brands of collectivism (INCLUDING fascism) to flourish. These word games are more destructive than most realize, and they need to stop.
It looks more like feodalisme.
Bureaucratic fascism is wealth destructive and attempts to create a stasis like system, ala the kaput system at the end of the Roman empire...which directly led to feudalism.
The thematic system of the Byzantine empire (Eastern Roman Empire) looks very similar to feudalism which looks very similar to the big man systems of third world countries today which looks very similar to the ancient tribal systems. Mankind, despite all the technological progress, is still struggling with the escaping stone age tribalism. We'll learn sooner or later.
Debt peonage. The rule of Bondholders must be preserved at all costs. Nothing you possess matters if another can denominate what you have to use as money.
That is an illusory concept (with a few exceptions). Declare bankruptcy.
Where I'm from, the spoken language has been so utterly destroyed that people don't know the difference between "State" and "society". It's nearly completely impossible to have an intelligent discussion. about politics in that context.
State controlled capitalism = fascism. It is really that simple.
...and capitalism without state control = barbarism.
So what's the common problem here?
You warp definitions to acheive your goal of total state power.
Barbarism is the arbitrary exertion of force.
Capitalism does not allow the use of force in human interaction, but only trade of goods, services, and money, whether or not there is a state there.
You might as well lambast pacifism as barbarism.
"You warp definitions to acheive your goal of total state power"
So now I am trying to achieve total state power? - what were you saying about warping definitions?
That has been the result of all of the many attempts to put into practice your "philosophy". I guess you think it'll be different this time.
What's my philosophy?
Assumptions cost lives - remember that one.
Also don't forget the same argument you use to justify 'capitalism' is the same one used to justify 'communism' i.e. "we've never had it in practice"
It's up to you, you want to put your fate in the hands of a faceless private wealthy minority - or your fellow working productive man?
I know whihc one I would trust.
"Your fellow working productive man", guided by the gentle hand of a servant of the people, no doubt.
You can live in this workers utopia now - it's true! Head on over to the worker's paradise of North Korea. It's a wonderful land, unspoiled by free enterprise, and everyone works for the benefit of someone other than themselves. It's bliss, from what Dear Leader says...
He still has to get his DVD's from the West.
People who point to North Korea and China and other 'Communist' (by name) countries and suggest they are communist - demonstrate their lack of knowledge of communism.
In any of these countries - when was there a period of a dictatorship of the proletariate? When did the working class take control of the means of production?
This is like trying to debate the structure of the solar system with astrologists.
It's funny because they call themselves communists. Generally, astrologers don't call themselves astronomers.
No, it is the foreseeable evolution of capitalist economic thought combined with a political system that runs on financial contributions from the wealthy.
The road to Hell can truly be paved with good intentions.
I see that when I clean something, it will become dirty. Does that mean that never cleaning it will prevent it from getting dirty?
The price of clean is eternal cleaning. The price of capitalism is eternal restraint of aggressive force.