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Capitalism isn't working and here are the reasons why

theguardian.com

31–33 of 33 posts

Re: Capitalism isn't working and here are the reasons why

#31
post #28
post #2

Seems important to note that the article doesn't seem to be about capitalism per se , but "business-friendly" capitalism as currently practiced in the U.S. and parts of Europe. In that regard the conclusion (regarding wealth inequality) really isn't that surprising. If the ROI of having money is really higher than the ROI of earning money (i.e. by wages) then the conclusion over time is as simple as the solution to a…

> Seems important to note that the article doesn't seem to be about capitalism per se, but "business-friendly" capitalism as currently practiced in the U.S. and parts of Europe. Interesting how I've seen this argument a lot lately. It's a nice mirror of the exact same argument I heard a lot about communism and/or socialism in the 1980s: that criticism of communism wasn't so much about communism per se, but about the…

> I think the big lesson of the 20th century is that both have their weaknesses, and that we should be looking for a good balance between the better aspects of the two.

Yes, life at the extremes of any philosophy or ideology tends to turn out badly IMO. Things are just too complex to be distilled into very simple solutions, try as we might.

Re: Capitalism isn't working and here are the reasons why

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Marx is saying...bosses are evil, capitalism is evil Actually Marx said capitalism was a positive historic development. > So X - Y, is what? Pure profit in bosses pocket? Not really...It's the cost of everything needed for the company and for the worker to do their job When I said... >> What happens with that $1000 in sales? $800 of it goes to buying wood, nails, hammers etc. ...that is what I was covering. > carte…

>>>> What happens with that $1000 in sales? $800 of it goes to buying wood, nails, hammers etc. >>...that is what I was covering. But the cost of materials is one thing (and not related to the employees), the value added by the company, another. >> And I can go on and on about how government can't break up monopolies Cue the communist states creating the biggest and most useless ones.

> Cue the communist states creating the biggest and most useless ones.

Communism wasn't Marxism. Marxism has the probably even-bigger flaw of being completely impossible to put into practice in the real world.

That's the problem with the genius of Marx. He was able to quite convincingly deconstruct the issues with capitalism, without being able to recommend a better replacement that could survive first contact with the masses.

Re: Capitalism isn't working and here are the reasons why

#33
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, we can label it whatever, but a turd is still a turd. If we're experiencing crony capitalism then we need to take action to correct it.

The turd in crony capitalism is government.

Add in corporations?
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