Are You Ready to Consider That Capitalism Is the Real Problem?
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Re: Are You Ready to Consider That Capitalism Is the Real Problem?
#2What about neoliberalism
Re: Are You Ready to Consider That Capitalism Is the Real Problem?
#3Everyone complains about capitalism. Is there an actual solution? Is there an alternative that benefits the community as much as Socialism does? And then, what do we do with the crap parts of Socialism? Do we just TRY it and hope it works? There's never been a real plan set forth other than "Capitalism sucks!" or "Capitalism is the root of all our problems!" How do we solve for it?
Then... how do we get people to buy into it on a global scale without it falling apart under the weight of social discussions?
Re: Are You Ready to Consider That Capitalism Is the Real Problem?
#4This article reads to me like a long list of problems caused by government and blamed on capitalism.
I'm biased though - I'm an anarcho-capitalist, and I've spent orders of magnitude more time considering these sorts of questions than the vast majority of people who are not so politically involved.
Re: Are You Ready to Consider That Capitalism Is the Real Problem?
#5Socialists/Communists not satisfied with 200 million+ deaths, must want to hit an even 1 billion.
Blows my mind people can even be calling for socialism while we have a real time implosion going on in Venezuela right now. It's ending like every other socialist regime in history, cannibalism, famine, riots, and murder. Meanwhile one of the United State's biggest problem is obesity due to being so prosperous.
Actually I'm not surprised, just look up Yuri Bezmenov's talk on ideological subversion he foretold everything 30+ years ago
Re: Are You Ready to Consider That Capitalism Is the Real Problem?
#6This article reads to me like a long list of problems caused by government and blamed on capitalism. I'm biased though - I'm an anarcho-capitalist, and I've spent orders of magnitude more time considering these sorts of questions than the vast majority of people who are not so politically involved.
Do you think that everyone who disagrees with you has spent less time considering these sorts of questions than you have?
As a counterpoint, I'd suggest the thousands of political-science, economic, and philosophy scholars who all disagree with you (as do the vast majority of humans who have ever lived and appreciate the social contract).
You may be correct and everyone else may be wrong, but I don't think it's accurate to dismiss other people as not having considered things as much as you have.
Re: Are You Ready to Consider That Capitalism Is the Real Problem?
#7Every system has problems. Capitalism is the best we have found at managing resources at scale. The problem of course is that wealth tends to create wealth, which causes wealth to accumulate at the top. This leads to a completely distorted economy, civil unrest, and eventually a crash. The usual solution is to task a government with making sure that wealth is taken from the top and reinjected at the bottom to keep the system from crashing. It's an ugly hack, but it's the only thing that has worked. The big problem with this is that wealth also tends to accumulate political power which weakens this check on capitalism. There's no easy solution, but the first place to start would be strengthening campaign finance rules and conflict of interest rules. The legislators should never be cozy with industry. In fact the heads of industry should be angry with government pretty much all of the time, if they are not then the government is probably not doing its job. Apple should be on a massive propaganda campaign about how cruel and unfair it is that all of the world governments are taking away their profits and giving them (indirectly) to poor people. They should be crying about how greedy governments have stolen like three quarters of a trillion dollars from them. Hedge fund managers should be angry about how the government is always there when they make huge windfalls. It should seems super unfair what the government is doing, because what capitalism does to the poor is just as unfair.
Re: Are You Ready to Consider That Capitalism Is the Real Problem?
#8I think the deeper problem is that labor has no pricing power. Capitalism works for more people when people who earn a salary can buy things that increase real demand for companies. But workers are strapped for money, and have no real political assistance or prospects for a better future. Earning a living is increasingly a sucker's game.
Unfortunately, America's political system doesn't allow for a nuanced solution that gently puts the brakes on rampant globalization. Instead, talking heads who only play for ALL THE MARBLES see this as an either/or situation. I believe in the inevitability of globalization. The question we need to ask ourselves is, do we need to get there next week? Can we get there just a tiny bit slower? Can we create an economic space where people not living on space station Elysium (the 2013 movie) can have a life not defined by exasperating financial anxiety?
Re: Are You Ready to Consider That Capitalism Is the Real Problem?
#9Everybody knows that capitalism has problem. The trick is figuring out what the next better bad system would be. And as far as I can see the richest, smartest and most powerful people are currenlty all thinking hard exactly about that question. So far nobody has found the answer, but suggestions are welcome.
Re: Are You Ready to Consider That Capitalism Is the Real Problem?
#10Socialists/Communists not satisfied with 200 million+ deaths, must want to hit an even 1 billion. Blows my mind people can even be calling for socialism while we have a real time implosion going on in Venezuela right now. It's ending like every other socialist regime in history, cannibalism, famine, riots, and murder. Meanwhile one of the United State's biggest problem is obesity due to being so prosperous. Actually…
You mention Venezuela, but what about India? France, Sweden, Belgium, Canada, Finland, and Denmark are all arguably socialist -- certain much more so than the US.
Any economic system fails when practiced by corrupt or incompetent governments. There are many failed capitalist states, too.
Edit: if you want to talk about scaling, China and India are debatably doing well (or at least improving rapidly), and both countries have 1.3B people.
China had an interesting idea with special economic zones: let people opt out of socialism if they want to, but stay within the country and get basic protections.