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Does Capitalism Cause Poverty?
Authored by Ricardo Hausmann, originally posted at Project Syndicate,
Capitalism gets blamed for many things nowadays: poverty, inequality, unemployment, even global warming. As Pope Francis said in a recent speech in Bolivia: “This system is by now intolerable: farm workers find it intolerable, laborers find it intolerable, communities find it intolerable, peoples find it intolerable. The earth itself – our sister, Mother Earth, as Saint Francis would say – also finds it intolerable.”
But are the problems that upset Francis the consequence of what he called “unbridled capitalism”? Or are they instead caused by capitalism’s surprising failure to do what was expected of it? Should an agenda to advance social justice be based on bridling capitalism or on eliminating the barriers that thwart its expansion?
The answer in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia is obviously the latter. To see this, it is useful to recall how Karl Marx imagined the future.
For Marx, the historic role of capitalism was to reorganize production. Gone would be the family farms, artisan yards, and the “nation of shopkeepers,” as Napoleon is alleged to have scornfully referred to Britain. All these petty bourgeois activities would be plowed over by the equivalent of today’s Zara, Toyota, Airbus, or Walmart.
As a result, the means of production would no longer be owned by those doing the work, as on the family farm or in the craftsman’s workshop, but by “capital.” Workers would possess only their own labor, which they would be forced to exchange for a miserable wage. Nonetheless, they would be more fortunate than the “reserve army of the unemployed” – a pool of idle labor large enough to make others fear losing their job, but small enough not to waste the surplus value that could be extracted by making them work.
With all previous social classes transformed into the working class, and all means of production in the hands of an ever-dwindling group of owners of “capital,” a proletarian revolution would lead humanity to a world of perfect justice: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” as Marx famously put it.
Clearly, the poet and philosopher Paul Valéry was right: “The future, like everything else, is no longer what it used to be.” But we should not make fun of Marx’s well-known prediction error. After all, as the physicist Niels Bohr wryly noted, “Prediction is difficult, especially about the future.”
We now know that as the ink was drying on the Communist Manifesto, wages in Europe and the United States were beginning a 160-year-long rise, making workers part of the middle class, with cars, mortgages, pensions, and petty bourgeois concerns. Politicians today promise to create jobs – or more opportunities to be exploited by capital – not to take over the means of production.
Capitalism could achieve this transformation because the reorganization of production allowed for an unprecedented increase in productivity. The division of labor within and across firms, which Adam Smith had already envisioned in 1776 as the engine of growth, allowed for a division of knowhow among individuals that permitted the whole to know more than the parts and form ever-growing networks of exchange and collaboration.
A modern corporation has experts in production, design, marketing, sales, finance, accounting, human resource management, logistics, taxes, contracts, and so on. Modern production is not just an accumulation of buildings and equipment owned by Das Kapital and operated mechanically by fungible workers. Instead, it is a coordinated network of people that possess different types of Das Human-Kapital. In the developed world, capitalism did transform almost everyone into a wage laborer, but it also lifted them out of poverty and made them more prosperous than Marx could have imagined.
That was not the only thing Marx got wrong. More surprisingly, the capitalist reorganization of production petered out in the developing world, leaving the vast majority of the labor force outside its control. The numbers are astounding. While only one in nine people in the United States are self-employed, the proportion in India is 19 out of 20. Fewer than one-fifth of workers in Peru are employed by the kind of private businesses that Marx had in mind. In Mexico, about one in three are.
Even within countries, measures of wellbeing are strongly related to the proportion of the labor force employed in capitalist production. In Mexico’s state of Nuevo León, two-thirds of workers are employed by private incorporated businesses, while in Chiapas only one in seven is. No wonder, then, that per capita income is more than nine times higher in Nuevo León than in Chiapas. In Colombia, per capita income in Bogota is four times higher than in Maicao. Unsurprisingly, the share of capitalist employment is six times higher in Bogota.
In poverty-stricken Bolivia, Francis criticized “the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature,” along with “a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”
But this explanation of capitalism’s failure is wide of the mark. The world’s most profitable companies are not exploiting Bolivia. They are simply not there, because they find the place unprofitable. The developing world’s fundamental problem is that capitalism has not reorganized production and employment in the poorest countries and regions, leaving the bulk of the labor force outside its scope of operation.
As Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch have shown, the world’s poorest countries are not characterized by naive trust in capitalism, but by utter distrust, which leads to heavy government intervention and regulation of business. Under such conditions, capitalism does not thrive and economies remain poor.
Francis is right to focus attention on the plight of the world’s poorest. Their misery, however, is not the consequence of unbridled capitalism, but of a capitalism that has been bridled in just the wrong way.
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19th Century Economic Theories! To the Rescue!
Capitalism doesn't cause poverty, debt causes poverty.
Debt is the destroyer of all things.
Fuck you Krugman. A man has never been more wrong.
With all previous social classes transformed into the working class, and all means of production in the hands of an ever-dwindling group of owners of “capital,” a proletarian revolution would lead humanity to a world of perfect justice: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” as Marx famously put it.
This quote is vastly misinterpreted.
First, there was no “natural” transformation of feudalism into modern capitalism or previous social classes into workers but the brutally enforced government policies and laws that thrown millions of peasants out of their land directly to the streets and hoarded them into the wage slavery in support for new economic system, the Capitalism and Marx knew and wrote about it in The Capital.
Second, Marx knew that only after total collapse of capitalism on itself from exhaustion and destruction of the human and natural resources, a proletarian revolution of “perfect” justice i.e. working people revolution is possible but not guaranteed or even plausible, because it is not about taking over calcified power structures but about revolution of people’s mind such as the motto “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” is talking about.
As a matter of fact Marx himself advocated, in contrast to Marxists like Lenin, more rational, democratic path to achieve “better” justice for working class and the evolution of the system of power and that’s why he was declared a pariah by European authoritarian aristocratic governments forcing him into exile to England. Except for some journalist solicited wild speculation Marx did not developed a theory of the perfect post capitalistic state, such as Workers dictatorship or similar.
The brief historical review of how a reincarnation of modern political system came to be about five hundred years ago and to discuss its so-called disruptive innovations such as unemployment in context of current situation is addressed here.
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/slaves-of-wage/
And for those who after years of being bombarded by propaganda about Marxism and K. Marx from both sides of political divide, want to separate facts from political fiction I suggest very interesting and comprehensive read on politically motivated myths and misconception about Marx and his writings.
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/subversive-ideas-of-karl-marx-lessons-unlearned/
Unemployment isn't an innovation of capitalism. The priesthood attracted many men with talent but few other opportunities.
Underemployment was endemic in agricultural society. And the Black Death made for many new opportunities and less competition for resources.
There are no good labels to use to refer to the actually existing political economy system based upon governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks. Rather, there are intense paradoxes for which there is no good language available to enable people to think about that, or to use to communicate their thoughts.
Human beings and civilizations operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, which have developed to become based on enforcing frauds, in ways which require the vast majority of people to deliberately ignore and misunderstand the basic laws of nature in the most absurdly backward ways. That also applies to the bogus "solutions" as well as to the nature of those problems themselves. First there are superficial views of what the problems are, then followed by superficial "solutions."
Since human civilizations operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, those most closely match the principles and methods of organized crime, which generated consistent contradictions that the biggest forms of organized crime became governments, that have ended up being controlled by the best organized gangsters, the international banksters. Together, that has created the existing political economy, which is based upon governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks.
Those social FACTS have nothing in common with either dictionary definitions for any of the standard political labels, such as capitalism, socialism, communism, or fascism, etc. ... Rather, all of that language shares the basic characteristics of being the biggest bullies' bullshit, which was developed to enable professional liars and immaculate hypocrites to discuss political problems.
Actually, there is only one system, because there is only one energy. That system follows the principles and methods of organized crime, because that is what most closely matches the ways that human systems operate, as entropic pumps of energy flows. However, the intense paradoxes, or consistent contradictions, inherent to civilization being controlled by the principles and methods of organized crime is that all of the language that dominates that society ends up being the biggest bullies' bullshit, which has now primarily become the banksters' bullshit, as well as the bullshit of the various economists that are the banksters' intellectual mercenaries.
To cut through the Gordian Knot of those paradoxes, that governments enforce frauds by privately controlled banks, requires deeper analysis of how and why those are the social FACTS. That deeper analysis then generates genuine solutions based upon recognizing that there must be better organized crime. The essential situations are that money is measurement backed by murder, as the most abstract form of private property being based upon backing up lies with coercions. The death controls back up the debt controls. The only genuinely better resolutions to the real problems would require better death controls, in order to back up better debt controls. However, the history of successful warfare based upon backing up deceits with destruction, the morphing to become successful finance based upon enforcing frauds, has simultaneously generated a totally bullshit language to surround that.
It is necessarily the case that the human death control systems, with the human murder systems as the most extreme forms of those, are central to everything else. That is how and why we have ended up with civilization operating according to the principles and methods of organized crime. That was necessarily the result of human civilizations operating as entropic pumps of energy flows, whose social successes became based upon the maximum possible deceits and frauds. Therefore, the currently established civilization, which is based upon governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks, simultaneously requires that the vast majority of people deliberately ignore the principle of the conservation of energy as much as possible, as well as continue to misunderstand the concept of entropy in most absurdly backward ways.
The world's problems are due to the excessive successfulness of the established systems of organized crime, to the degree that they get away with being publicly presented as not being that. There is now almost nothing but a core of organized crime, surrounded by controlled opposition groups, both of which operate within the same frame of reference of the maximum possible ignorance and deceit regarding the death control systems that back up the debt control systems.
I REPEAT THE MAIN POINTS:
The only realistic resolutions to the real problems require different death control systems, with different human murder systems as the most extreme form of that. Where we are actually headed now are towards the runaway debt slavery systems, based upon governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks, generating numbers which become debt insanities, that will provoke death insanities. Inside of that context, there might be some opportunities for new death control systems to emerge, and back up new debt control systems ???
The first level of our political problems are that the civilization operates according to the principles and methods of organized crime. The next level is that the excessive successfulness of doing that has resulted in there being no publicly significant opposition to the established systems which are not controlled. It is pretty well impossible to have any genuinely rational public debates regarding the problems with respect to political economy and human ecology, because the actually existing systems are based upon the maximum possible frauds, and deceits, which are getting away with presenting that in diametrically opposite ways to what they really are.
AGAIN I REPEAT:
There are actually combined money/murder systems, and there must necessarily be. Those systems now operate through the maximum possible deceits and frauds, because those are the consistent contradictions that are driven by the ways that human beings and civilizations necessarily operate as entropic pumps of energy flows. Those intense paradoxes are manifested through how those systems make "money" out of nothing as debts, in ways which deliberately ignore the conservation of energy, while that also is done in ways which takes for granted presenting the concept of entropy in the most absurdly backward ways possible.
The deeper answers to questions such as "Does Capitalism Cause Poverty" only become possible to appreciate after one redefines capitalism in terms which are consistent with human beings and civilizations operating as general energy systems, that operate as entropic pumps of energy flows. However, doing that sufficiently requires series of intellectual scientific revolutions, and profound paradigm shifts in political science. Not only do the existing systems operate according to the principles and methods of organized crime, where governments enforce frauds by privately controlled banks, but moreover, that must necessarily be the case, and thus, the only genuine solutions to those problems would require better organized crime.
However, at this point in time, (where what actually exists are globalized systems of electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs), the meaning of "better organized crime" must be pushed through series of profound paradigm shifts, similar to how physical science was pushed through profound paradigm shifts, in order to make electronics and atomic power possible to be better understood. The only genuine solutions for the problems with respect to poverty are better death control systems, because everything else necessarily depends upon that. Furthermore, the actual default solutions that we are now headed towards within the established social pyramid systems are for there to manifest runaway death insanities.
Indeed, the most probable optimistically perceived futures are going to be the manifestations of endeavours to channel death insanities towards becoming new death control systems. Of course, it would be better if more people understood that better. However, at the present time, the overwhelmingly dominate natural languages and philosophy of science are all based upon the biggest bullies' bullshit world views, or based upon compromises with that bullshit. Hence, it continues to appear political impossible for enough people to stop believing in bullshit.
The article above stays too much within that language, while at the same time, it does not push that language far enough. For example, "division of labor within and across firms," includes the armed forces, with the most important form of human labour being when some human beings kill other human beings. The only things which exist are the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies. The banksters operate the supreme symbolic robberies, as frauds enforced by governments. Most of our problems are due to the extremely unbalanced ways that the most dominate systems of lies and robberies have become bankster controlled governments, whose excessive social successfulness enables them to get away with presenting themselves as not being the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.
As soon as we define human beings as separate from their environment, then they are necessarily living as robbers in that environment. They must live by being entropic pumps of energy flows. Those who were the biggest and best at doing that have become the bankster controlled governments. They tend to almost totally get away with publicly presenting themselves to be the opposite of what they actually are, while they also almost totally control their public opposition. Therefore, everything manifests within Wonderland Matrix Bizarro Worlds.
Human beings and civilizations necessarily operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, which match the principles and methods of organized crime. The most socially successful of those dominate society with their bullshit, and that bullshit language is the one used to discuss political economy, which operates inside of human ecology. Therefore, we are digging ourselves deeper and deeper into the ruts of the consistent contradictions and intense paradoxes that society operates with the maximum possible deliberate ignorance and absurdly backward misunderstanding of itself.
That runs the gamut through the natural languages and philosophy of science that we mostly take for granted to think with and communicate through. Since our political economy is actually based upon governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks, everyone tended to become proportionally successful within those systems by being professional liars and immaculate hypocrites. Hence, civilization is controlled by the principles and methods of organized crime, which are more socially successful the more that those can get away with bullshit about themselves.
It is possible to reconcile "capitalism" with the understanding of general energy systems, however, that takes way more profound critiques of our most common presumptions than mentioned anywhere in that article above. All of the other "isms" are variants of same basic principles and methods of organized crime, which in turn are ways that human beings and civilizations operate as entropic pumps of energy flows. However, I REPEAT, as reality REPEATS being stuck in the same ruts, that there continue to be increasingly intense paradoxes due to the consistent contradictions that arise from the excessive social successfulness of organized crime, being able to publicly misrepresent itself in the most absurdly backward ways possible, which, in turn, require extreme forms of willful blindness and deliberate ignorance, in order to continue to operate.
In those ways, wider and wider grand canyon chasms are opening up between previous progress in physical science, without surpassing progress in political science. The deeper reasons for that are that the language of political science is almost totally dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world views, which has become the banksters' bullshit world views. Furthermore, so far, inside of progress in the philosophy of science being applied to transform political science, the philosophy of science has more become another victim of the biggest bullies' bullshit world views.
Those problems now manifest as I outlined above: human beings and civilizations necessarily operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, which match the principles and methods of organized crime. However, the social successfulness based upon doing that results in the basic laws of nature being deliberately ignored and misunderstood in the most absurdly backward ways possible. That then also results in almost all of the bogus "solutions" for those problems similarly having their mechanisms backwards.
To restate what should be obvious, but which tends to be too taboo to be discussed, everything that society does is based upon its death control systems, with the human murder systems being the most extreme forms of those. Therefore, our political economy exists inside of our human ecology, and both actually operate through the maximum possible frauds and deceits. Those problems include the controlled opposition groups, just as much as it does the core organized crime groups.
The genuine solutions to our problems require better organized crime, operating better death controls, to back up better debt controls. That is the only context in which there could actually be less poverty. However, thousands of years of human history dominated by warfare whose success was based upon deceits, then followed by hundreds of years of political economy whose success was based upon frauds, has made it become politically impossible for those things to be done. First, enough people would have to engage in deeper and deeper levels of analyses, in order to fact the FACTS that the political economy is based upon governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks, and then enough people would have to understand how and why that was necessarily the case.
Only upon that basis might it become possible to develop more realistic resolutions to our real problems. Of course, that would require prodigious series of profound paradigm shifts in the ways that enough people perceive political problems, but then, that is exactly what is made more and more imperative by the development of globalized electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs. Any "solutions" which fail to do that sufficiently continue to be bogus.
Of course, that is the perspective with which I regard the conclusion to the article above:
"Capitalism" is one of the versions of organized crime. There is nothing else but different versions of organized crime. There is no good language that is widely understood that can be used to generally understand and communicate that, due to the degree that the principles and methods of triumphant organized crime have made and maintained civilization to be what it is now.
Indeed, one could say that the grand battle royal now is whether or not progress in science can transform political science, or whether the failure to make progress in political science will result in civilization committing collective suicide, due to technologies becoming trillions of times more powerful and capable, still being used inside social pyramid systems based upon backing up lies with violence, in the most deliberately ignorant and absurdly backward ways possible ???
Of course, I do not know the answer for sure. However, more and more it looks clear that the established debt slavery systems, based upon governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks, are headed towards their debt insanities provoking death insanities ... within which context it MIGHT be possible for new death control systems to emerge, which go beyond being merely more of the oxymoronic scientific dictatorship, applying science and technology to become better at backing up lies with violence, but that does not develop any better science to be able to understand and change how and why that is being done ???
RM: I would be curious to know the definition of 'organized crime' that you are using. Do you mean a sub-set of a group that is organized to enrich themselves through deceitful means at the expense of the larger group or whole?
I think you are stating that this is necessary in order to have an entity/group manage the death controls and backing up debt controls for the larger group. And this whole system is necessary because humans and civilizations act 'necessarily... as entropic pumps of energy flows' because as soon as individuals 'define(d) human beings as separate from their environment, then they are necessarily living as robbers in that environment'.
Considering the above, it seems like the root causal factor is the human unconscious belief in the existence of self and separateness from the whole (closed?) energy system in which we exist. So wouldn’t the paradigm shift of first importance be that of consciously recognizing the fallacy of self identification and moving into a clear understanding of our integral connectedness to the whole (energy system)? Would this fundamental paradigm shift make all of the subsequent ones that you described, unnecessary?
Not considering the above, what would a better organized crime, operating better death controls, to back up better debt controls, actually look like? Is it possible to describe using the terminology supplied to us by the biggest bully’s bullshit?
Rico, you appear to understand what I was attempting to communicate.
First, I may agree with your general definition of organized crime:
The theory of a democratic republic operating through the rule of law has very little in common with the reality of political processes dominated by their funding, which enables vicious spirals of the profits from frauds to be reinvested in more frauds. What we still mistakenly call "capitalism" has actually had overwhelming amounts of legalized fraud added into that! Some people call that "crony capitalism." However, such extreme corruption results in something that does NOT deserve to still be called "capitalism," no matter how that may be qualified with any adjectives.
Anyway, Rico, I think you hit the nail on the head here:
My most recent attempts to articulate that in a comment on:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-24/paul-craig-roberts-central-banks-have-become-corrupting-force
Paul Craig Roberts:
Central Banks Have Become A Corrupting Force
The poorest countries in the world are dominated by the Catholic Church.
The catholic cult breeds poverty so that it will always have a growing number of brainwashed drones. Look at the history of the catholic cult and you will see pure evil.
The poorest countries in the world are dominated by the IMF and World Bank.
Somalia? Eritrea? Congo? Mauritania? Afghanistan? Chad? Liberia? Yemen? New Guinea?
The problem is not social structure or economic system. The problem is that individuals are allowed to accumulate more than 10,000,000 in assets. Money is power and people are innately dangerous with many faulty psychological processes such as greed.
It's not even that there's no hard limit to asset accumulation. The idea behind any economic "ism" is to concentrate as much capital as you can for yourself, and it's every man for himself. Voluntarism in transactions is all good and well, but what is there to stop someone from accumulating all the capital they desire?
Soros, Gelbaum, Zuckerberg, Gates, Rockefeller, Gore, Clinton's, Obama, Adelson, Rothschild's.
"Does Capitalism Cause Poverty?"
What an inane question.
Production produces wealth.
Plunder of production produces poverty.
Zion is a scheme, not an ethnicity.
The real question is not some comparison of some "isms," but whether totalitarianism can produce anything more than theft and violence.
We could examine the results of the 123 years of Liberty that the American country had up and until Zion's colonization in 1913. However, a better example is the phenomenal rise of Hong Kong under Liberty up and until 1997.
While mainland China wallowed in tyranny and poverty, the people of Hong Kong's 426 sq. miles lifted themselves to great economic heights.
Liberty is the ONLY way.
Zion is a scheme, not an ethnicity.
Your ISMs are just puppetry for the pseudo-intellectual argument - CapitalISM it is not found in the real-world.
"F*-you pay-me ISM" has been and will be the guiding force of the murder-state.
Do ET civilizations a million years more advanced than ours have an economy?
Inquiring minds want to know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lyXi1efbYrk#t=4028
A series of technological miracles, surpassed by political miracles, appears to be the only way to mellow out, during the next Century or so, the effects of the Great Boom of strip-mining the planet's natural resources overshooting becoming the Great Bust that causes the miserable deaths of the majority of the human population.
The article above, as with all mainstream economic analysis, deliberately does NOT deal with the limits of growth. Although there are theoretically possible alternatives, that could be assembled into alternative systems, the existing systems are based upon ENFORCING FRAUDS, which are practically "weaponized economics."
Human systems, whatever their labels, can ONLY transform energy, which must have sources of those present in the environment. Furthermore, that environment must reabsorb the waste heat from any possible technology. The currently dominant views of anthropocentric economics are based upon pretending that humans are all the matter. That bias attains the maximum madness through social systems based upon some people being able to control other people through backing up deceits with destruction, or enforcing frauds.
If there are other entities that have survived developing advanced science and technology, then they MUST have developed their politics to be able to adapt enough to those powers and capabilities.
TECHNOLOGY HAS POTENTIAL TO BE WEAPONIZED.
& Our existing political economy was weaponized!
The first generation of human beings that have grown up with globalized electronic frauds, backed by the threat of force from atomic bombs, is still alive today. So far, "we" have NOT adapted to any of that in any significant ways.
I would like to believe that there are other entities which have managed to adapt to that sort of progress in science and technology, in ways which prevented themselves from committing collective suicide ... However, at the present time, I REPEAT, it would take series of technological miracles, surpassed by political miracles, for the existing systems of electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs, to not result in the human species destroying its possible future as a technologically based civilization.
The same old tired argument between the two sides of the brain. The Left Brain loves Capitalism, seeing only its positive side; the Right Brain hates Capitalism, seeing only its negative side. The Left Brain hates Socialism, seeing only its negative side; the Right Brain loves Socialism, seeing only its positive side. The TRUTH is (which can only be seen with both sides of the brain operating) is that Youth is Capitalistic and Age is Socialistic. Youth and Age have seasons, and take turns seeing the world. Youth (Capitalism) works for a time, and is relatively pure for a time: but always decays into State Capitalism, a form of economic fascism. Age (Socialism) works for a time, and is relatively pure for a time; but always decays into stagnation and corruption. Youth saves the world from Socialism; Age saves the world from Capitalism.
In the West we like our dualities: Capitalism is good; Socialism is bad. This also translates as Youth is good; Age is bad. That is why we treat our elders so horribly in the West.
The economic cycle lasts 36 years. 18 years of Capitalism (...1911-1929; 1947-1965; 1983-2001; ...) -- Capitalism (Youth) ends badly, with bank corruption and corporate theft and depression. Youth dies. Socialism tries to pick up the pieces after Capitalism crashes the system thrugh Greed.
We need to understand that life is a process, not a static polarized system. Youth flows into Age, Age flows into Youth, as Day flows into Night, Night into Day
1911-1929: Youth
1929-1947: Age
1947-1965: Youth
1965-1983: Age
1983-2001: Youth
2001-2019: Age
Youth is the Spending Season, the age of Spending Energy through Activity. Energy (Time) runs out. In 2001, we began to run out of time and energhy. Also in 1965. Also in 1929....take it back into earlier centuries also. Age is the Saving Season, the age of Conservation of Energy. The system is very much like Alternating Current (Electricity) -- the pulse flows in one direction, then stops, changes direction, and flows in the opposite direction.
From 1911-1929: God/Nature favors the re-creation of the material world, the West
From 1929-1947: God/Nature fabors the re-destruction of the material world, the East. 18 years of expansion (Zeus-Jupiter for the Greeks); 18 years of contraction, back into the seed, zero (Kronos-Saturn for the Greeks).
God/Nature destroys the world to punish it (this is the moralistic view, and one we can't ignore), but also to make room for the next model of the world. We build the world; we knock it down; we re-build a better model. Of course, watch out. The knocking down of the world runs from 2001-2019, and this season almost always contains major wars.
My thesis is that we all need to be both Capitalists and Socialists -- every society is both and needs to be both -- and the manifestation of each of these partners or opponent natures is sequential. The Capitalism builds the world and then vanishes, abandons it, leaving the degenerating world behind for the Socialists (in society and in us also) to administer. Youth is Spring-Summer; Age is Autumn-Winter. No growth occurs in Autumn-Winter. Growth is a province of Youth and the Sun seasons; Age is a province of lost enrgy and the Moon seasons.
Capitalism is good and evil; socialism is good and evil. Both are necessary. Both are imperfect. In 2019, this latest Deflation Season will be at its apex (as the Capitaist Inflation Season was at its apex in 2001 -- the Lunar religion attack on the Twin Towers, the symbol of the Global Economy, was a very powerful symbolism of the end of this cycle of capitalism, Day, and the beginning Energy Crisis (Spiritual Energy Crisis) that would lead to another 18 year Dark Age (described perfectly by the Book of Revelation) -- but the Light of the West will begin to reform in 2019, slowly, two steps up and one step back, bringing the light of materialism back to the world, for another 18 year cycle of growth.
Of course, the European Dark Age after the fall of Rome suggests only a number of such Day-Cycles occur before a larger cycle kicks in. The larger Dark Age runs for 2160 years (36 x 60), which governs the expected return of Christ and the institution of a new age.
A Millennium as a cycle lasts 1080 years (36 x 30). We need to let God back into our lives in the West, not as a function of the corrupt Christianity that exists today, but as a new religious reformation that shows us how to 'tell time' in the larger sense of the words. Science and reason is left brain. But the left brain is running out of energy and out of time. We need to be able to find our way back into the Right Brain, which alone explains the wave-function of life. We are experiencing the collapse of the object function. The object funcation is a very Western concept, alligned with individualism. The object function gets washed or wiped away during the Dark Age or Night-Cycle. And that is where we are going.
Lookiing at the world today, stock markets included, with the huge debt bubble we created so bravely and perhaps stupiidly: this debt-generated bubble is the Object Function World and today we are watching the collapse of the object function back into the wave function -- the flood -- so I hope we all know how to swim.
MJClark
CGTS@mindspring.com
oh yeah, robbing countries' resources for hundreds of years then turning around and telling them it's their fault because they are not practicing the right kind of Capitalims is how things operate in Libertarians' brains.
The game of money is saddled on the interchange of attention.
Attention itself is designed to find a solution.
Industry is catching attention after another plot.
The solution is to make money. And, preferable, the most of it.
The competition about making more money depends on to catch and bind further attention.
There is no way to get rich without charging other peoples attention to "pay" for.
The bookholding of attention clarifies all the illusions that are possible to make out of "capitalism".
We do not deny benevolent aspect of the enterprise. They had to be granted for to let that system grow.
I'm referring to the final bill that with stinky perpetuity always will show up in the same way wrong concerning what was the aim of all the spend attention.
when you allow private ownership of earth resources the concentration of it in the hands of the few leads to the poverty of the rest of society
P.S.
Capitalism - society system that allows private ownership of capital (earth resources and means of production)
If under capitalism we can not restrict concentration of capital in the hands of the few then yes capitalism leads to poverty
The answer is right in front of you, but you, as well as most people, miss it: Its not "private ownership of earth resources", it is *concentrated* private ownership of private resources in the hands of the few. You, and we all, need to use our gray matter to keep those distinct ideas, well... distinct.
Here's a cheap (FREE) method to prove to yourself that [unbridled] capitalism does work. Go get Tropico 3. Just get the free demo. (get it on Steam) You will find very quick whether capital controls or no capital controls makes you popular and re-electable. Whether or not the Soviet fleet gives you a visit or not ..
The Pope (not that Im any big fan) said "The SysteM..." not "Capitalism..." he knows wat the problem is, and we do to. Stop this capitalism vs communism crap and get to the real issues.
Niels Bohr was a Jew. As was Einstein.
Poverty 'IS' caused by poor choices, many people were poor choosers when it comes to parents and in particular their grand-parents, having rich grand-Parents is often the most important choice in the quest to avoid poverty!
One has to set aside all the 'isms'. "Freedom of exchange" creates prosperity. As does "Freedom of association". It you would prefer a one word summary of the concept I would suggest "Freedom".