"Integrity, justice, fairness, work-ethic, excellence--all have fallen prey to greed."
Greed is tempered by risk when the government can't save you.
Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw
21–30 of 96 posts
Re: Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw
#22The reason speculators can make tons of money on Wall Street, is because they can get people to play along. You don't make money because an asset you own rises. You make money because someone buys it at that price. (That's the same, I know, but it's an important point to understand - it's NOT just numbers going up and down in a computer, at the end of the chain there's actual liquid money changing hands). Now we've l…
Are you kidding? Most people are just looking to find the next bubble and get out before "the suckers" get in!
Re: Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw
#23"Integrity, justice, fairness, work-ethic, excellence--all have fallen prey to greed." Greed is tempered by risk when the government can't save you.
Greed would be tempered a lot more by risk if the government didn't save anyone.
Re: Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw
#24Perhaps a better title would be "Mercantilism's fundamental flaw". Rand makes few assumptions regarding the inherent integrity of "leaders"; in fact, she assumes no such integrity, and argues for liberty. While we trip over ourselves (as a society) to give up our freedoms and grant ever more sweeping power to "leaders" to save us, we will reap what we deserve -- ever greater examples of waste, bungling, abuse, malinv…
I hate to bring this to a general discussion of capitalism/Rand etc., but I have a question: How is Rand's "liberty" supposed to be provided? It seems to me we already live in a universe where people have as much free will as we ever will. Some people use this free will to restrict the free will of others. Sometimes this is a government, sometimes it's a corporation, or sometimes it's a kidnapper. But what hypothetic…
I was going to submit this a few days ago, but I don't like Rand-only discussions. However, I'd like to contribute to the thread with this recent Slate article, which abruptly reversed almost all my remaining positive feelings about Rand:
http://www.slate.com/id/2233966/
Not only was she a hypocrite who ignored her own teachings when things got personal, she worshipped a serial killer who raped and dismembered a 12-year-old girl, because she saw him as a hero defying society.
Re: Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw
#25There's a fundamental flaw in the logic that concludes that "government must intervene to stop the shameless looting of taxpayer money." Taxation itself is government intervention. Abuse of money received from a government that shamelessly loots its people for the "common good" and through manipulation of a highly regulated system is no more an indictment of Capitalism than failure to run is an indictment of a man ti…
There's a fundamental flaw in your reasoning too. You can't have capitalism without some form of government and you can't have government without some form of taxation.
Re: Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw
#26A fundamental flaw in the article:
"The banks, however, are another matter altogether, and this is where I think capitalism has hit a roadblock. The government has intervened to save many of them, and now, these bailed out banks want to hand out billions in bonuses to their non-performing employees. Capitalism gave way to welfare economics, and now the government has to intervene further to limit these looters from behaving badly by imposing taxes and regulations."
If the government hadn't intervened in the first place, and instead let these irresponsible banks fail, then the transfer of taxpayer money in the form of bonuses never would have happened.
What she's describing here is, in actuality, yet another flaw of government intervention.
Re: Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw
#27This article suggests, twice, that "most intelligent people" agree with the author. Surely there is a better way of proving these facts, than just using such an assertion?
Re: Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw
#28"Integrity, justice, fairness, work-ethic, excellence--all have fallen prey to greed." Greed is tempered by risk when the government can't save you.
Counterpoint: flash trading. If I can peek at the orders the little guys put in through scott trade and execute a trade before theirs clears, then I can benefit from the upward price pressure that their orders induce. Little risk, no government, hardly "fair".
In an ideal world new stock markets would pop up without flash trading and the little guys would flock to those instead but there are huge network effects to get over. In this case regulation, or at least shaming the exchanges into doing something, seems appropriate.
I'm totally with you on the bailout moral hazard, there are just definitely some zero-work-ethic, unfair, risk-less behaviors that are quite profitable even (especially?) under anarcho-capitalism.
Re: Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
We gave up our ability to directly monetize wealth 2 or 3 generations ago ?
Central bank money, created and debased at will, vs. Wealth-backed money, intrinsically valued by the wealth that backs it. Freedom to choose money that doesn't inflate allows multigenerational wealth transfer, etc.
I guess I'm curious what "wealth-backed money" is. All money is only a medium of exchange, and is only worth what people collectively agree it is worth.
I'm going to take a guess and assume you mean gold, but if that isn't the case, I'm really curious to know.
The fact that people collectively agreed that gold was a good form of money has nothing to do with any intrinsic (or god given) value of gold. It had everything to do with certain properties of gold that made it a good medium of exchange. Namely, it's durable, portable, hard to counterfeit, malleable, etc.
Eventually, gold's cause was assisted by tradition. People have been using it to represent money for so long they mistakenly believe it has intrinsic value. (Granted, gold isn't a bad choice, if you are betting on the fact that others will irrationally value it.)
So yes, it's harder for governments to manipulate a gold-backed currency... but it's not that hard. The US effectively did it twice, most recently after WWI with the Gold Reserve Act. Also, your money supply is now open to manipulation by private entities and even individuals. Gold mining companies, for instance, would have powerful sway over the amount and price of gold.
Re: Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw
#30There's a fundamental flaw in the logic that concludes that "government must intervene to stop the shameless looting of taxpayer money." Taxation itself is government intervention. Abuse of money received from a government that shamelessly loots its people for the "common good" and through manipulation of a highly regulated system is no more an indictment of Capitalism than failure to run is an indictment of a man ti…
There's a fundamental flaw in your reasoning too. You can't have capitalism without some form of government and you can't have government without some form of taxation.
you can have voluntary, free trade without government. whether it's called "capitalism" or something else can be a matter of discussion...