Capitalism - no. Greed and lust for money - yes.
Is capitalism a threat to democracy?
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Re: Is capitalism a threat to democracy?
#72"Is freedom a threat to democracy?" is another way to word the headline.
People use freedom as a platitude and have no respect for the meaning of the word. As if it's just a mantra that means absolute good and nothing more.
Is freedom a threat to democracy? Yes, it can be. Freedom to go around killing your political rivals and their supporters is definitely a threat to democracy. Absolute freedom is anarchy, and it's horrible for anyone who is not the most powerful. It's great for them, though.
That's a hyperbolic example. But the freedom of corporations to completely capture political parties and wrest the nation's tiller away from the people and hog it all to themselves is definitely an existential threat for democracy and our well-being. To allow their absolute freedom is a threat to our basic freedoms.
Re: Is capitalism a threat to democracy?
#73For anyone who doesn't have time to read the whole article, the conclusion is pretty much "No, as long as we have a strong social safety net." IE capitalism with some elements of socialism to preserve individual liberties and dignities when economies slow down. Which sounds reasonable to me as a capitalist but also as a human being.
> For anyone who doesn't have time to read the whole article, the conclusion is pretty much "No, as long as we have a strong social safety net."
Well, then the answer is "yes". The whole issue being debated here is whether capitalism inevitably leads to a concentration of wealth which can then be leveraged into political power to create more concentration of wealth in a positive feedback cycle. The theory goes that after a couple iterations of that cycle, the wealthy will dismantle the social safety net entirely so they can cut their taxes.
Which is exactly what we're seeing right now.
Re: Is capitalism a threat to democracy?
#74Simple answer: No. More nuanced answer: not exactly. Not Capitalism per-se anyway. But clearly you can see an unhealthy degree of commingling of big government and big business, in a way that is damaging to society at large. But to my mind: a. that's corruption, not capitalism b. that's an argument against big government, not an argument against capitalism
I think that to be at all fair we should treat the side-effects of capitalism as capitalism, just as we treat the side-effects of communism as communism. When we see that communist regimes have famines and vast imprisonments and corrupt party leaders stealing from the people, we correctly identify that as one of the realities of communism which stems from the impossibility of making communism work within the confines…
When it's the inevitable effects of capitalism, we deny it
I haven't seen any proof that there are any "inevitable" effects of capitalism. Certainly we can't take the existence of these effects that you are referring to as a given.
Re: Is capitalism a threat to democracy?
#75"Is [Abstraction A] a threat to [Abstraction B]?"
No. Human beings who put money and control of land and resources over and above the welfare of other human beings are a threat to us all and always have been.
I wish sociopathic hypergreedy control freaks were viewed the same way we perceive pedophiles instead of being rewarded.
Re: Is capitalism a threat to democracy?
#76Simple answer: No. More nuanced answer: not exactly. Not Capitalism per-se anyway. But clearly you can see an unhealthy degree of commingling of big government and big business, in a way that is damaging to society at large. But to my mind: a. that's corruption, not capitalism b. that's an argument against big government, not an argument against capitalism
"Damaging to society" is a a very subjective concept. The segment of society benefiting from said commingling of big government and big business might disagree with the assertion that their role is "damaging" to the broader society.
Re: Is capitalism a threat to democracy?
#77Simple answer: No. More nuanced answer: not exactly. Not Capitalism per-se anyway. But clearly you can see an unhealthy degree of commingling of big government and big business, in a way that is damaging to society at large. But to my mind: a. that's corruption, not capitalism b. that's an argument against big government, not an argument against capitalism
In the absence of big government, big corporate will become defacto government even more easily.
We are not talking about an absence of govenremnt.
A small government is perfectly able to regulated what is needed to regulate. It is an absolutle isllusion to believe that only a big government can correctly regulated cooperations.
In fact, I would argue there is little corrulation either way, both big and small govenrment sometimes have effective laws.
The ability to regulated derives from a monopoly on violence, not control of 50% of the economy.
Re: Is capitalism a threat to democracy?
#78According to many economists, yes. Capitalism does not appear to have a stable mode with a low Gini coefficient. Power that derives from wealth becomes concentrated, which is clearly anti-democratic. Democracy is only viable as a decision-making process in societies where everyone is more or less equal. When people gain power at the expense of others, the result is that the system may remain nominally democratic, but…
> it's also clear that most families are run as communes
Interesting observation. I'm not saying I disagree but growing up in an Evangelical religious culture (which describes much of America), this was definitely not the case. Men, specifically husbands/fathers were considered superior than other members of the family.
Re: Is capitalism a threat to democracy?
#79The problem is of cause that capitalism is a fiction that have never existed in the real world, with the "movement" that calls itself capitalist being captured by the mercantilist it was supposed to oppose as soon as it started.
And mercantilism which is what most economist is promoting as capitalism is basically feudalism by economic means and as such pretty much inconsistent with democracy the second you have a zero sum economy(which the west will for the foreseeable future be facing), especially when you remember that feudalism rose out of the concept of hereditary property not divine right(that came much later) as most textbooks state.
Weather capitalism is compatible with the real world is a much bigger question that few economist dare to ask because the last one to do so ended up founding communism as a response to the complete failure of Smiths actual ideals to survive in the real world.
Re: Is capitalism a threat to democracy?
#80Simple answer: No. More nuanced answer: not exactly. Not Capitalism per-se anyway. But clearly you can see an unhealthy degree of commingling of big government and big business, in a way that is damaging to society at large. But to my mind: a. that's corruption, not capitalism b. that's an argument against big government, not an argument against capitalism
I listened recently on a radio an interview where the claim was that it's easier to achieve equality in a benevolent dictatorship than in capitalistic democracy.
Capitalistic democracy tend to distort to an organization influenced by lobbies and corporations, and in the long run governments have to take that and pay back by allowing monopolies and their clients.
In a benevolent dictatorship, corporations can't have a big influence on government. It's clear who is more powerful, and benevolent dictator can actually care more about the actual wellbeing of the people more than some democratically elected government which is just a proxy for big corporates.
Pretty dystopian.