Is capitalism good?

[davefb]

gubbi,

well since i'm in the uk//eu i'm guessing i can't elect people in india to help deepak's issue !!! . however something people in the eu/uk can do is to at least give respect to "3rd world"/"2ndworld" nations and pay a reasonable rate for goods.... it just beggars belief about how some countries have essentially slave labour just so i can have 2p cheaper jars of coffee ..

-dave-

btw , why has nobody mentioned that athenian "democracy" wasn't ?
it was just blokes who had power , not the servants/slaves and NOT the women ...

 

[Sabastian]

To answer the question "Is capitalism good?"... I like it. The market is one of my favorite places to go. Good as compared to what? It is the best sort of market system that I know of.

 

[RussSchultz]

It was a democracy of all the citizens. You just had to be rich and white to be a citizen.

Whether democracy, republic, etc the important part is that it is representative and has a constitution that protects the rights of the minorities.

Zaidin brings up an interesting aspiration: machines that become our slave labor freeing humanity to rise above poverty. That topic is explored a bit in a sci-fi series I recently read (Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction).

Beyond the not-so-obvious that it has happened in the first world (our "impoverished" are living like kings compared to India/Africa's impoverished) There will always be "rich" and "poor", its just a sliding scale as to what defines "rich" and "poor".

Anyways, at the end of the series, humanity took its first steps toward 'nirvana' by implementing nanomachines that could make any and everything essentially out of nothing. It was painted in such glowing light and was the saviour of humanity.

However, I wonder what sort of sustainable culture (if any) it would create. If every material item is free, then that destroys any trade and labor based economy. Services seem right out, also--as you could simply recycle the matter into newly working items. It would seem information would be the end-all-be-all, but as we're seeing now, information is a very difficult thing to base economies on--its too easily stolen.

So, basically, if this utopia were to come about, the human race would become a large race of couch potatos with no motivation for self improvement. There must be some impetous for our actions, beyond hedonism. Surely, there would be those who enjoy doing things and learning things, but the overall population would simply "enjoy" life. Heaven forbid we as a race were ever to encounter any obstacles that could threaten the species, we'd simply have lost the cultural ability to adapt or solve problems.

Of course, we could simply eat the lazy ones.

Hrm, I've entered a Zaidin like ramble. Forgive me.

 

[Himself]

Capitalism is survival of the fittest, a form of anarchy. Seems about right that there is less competition around and more monopolies. The end result of capitalism seems to be feudalism. Just like anarchy, it's unstable and ends up being something else. Whoever is bigger wins, doesn't mean they are better, just bigger. If you want capitalism again, you will have to wait for somebody to make huge mistakes or press a reset button on the system since it's reached it's end point.

One interesting idea I read was in a book called the carnival of destruction by Brian Stableford. There is one bit in it where there is a discussion about power and competition and how rules change things. Basically, it could be that the very rules against cheating in place are what enable the strong to remain in power and squash all competition.

 

[MfA]

That is the eternal laissez fair capitalist cop out : "the only reason there are monopolies is because the markets arent free enough" ... not saying it isnt true, but it is an awfully easy and totally unproovable theory (and as such mostly a cop out).

The only libertarians I have any respect for is those who recognize that every landlord constitutes a government. With limited resources necessary to survival a totally laissez fair capitalist system cannot be sustained.

 

[DemoCoder]

Unstability is good. A dynamic system is never fully stable, but teeters on the edge of chaos. Nature itself is unstable, but constantly becoming something else, a fact that anti-capitalism eco-nuts often forget.

The Marxist search for a clockwork predictable economy with definate outcomes is doomed to failure.

Moreover, capitalism rather than being a disservice to mankind has been the greatest service of all to mankind. Fixation on money is the wrong issue. Mankind has been abstracting all of the instruments by which he interacts with the world and people and it continues to this day, money was just the first abstraction invented (well, actually it was the written word, and the first written words were accounting/IOU records)

If money didn't exist, people would still strive to accumulate "things" and they would simply barter them. I'd be trading chicken eggs or cows off the farm with ATI cards, so then I'd be counting the number of cows or eggs I have as "money"


And on direct democracy, it's absurd. To make a decision on a issue or regulation, our representatives often conduct sessions for hearing experts present testimony before crafting and voting on a law. Now you expect citizens, who are busy with their lives, to step into a voting booth and flip levers for 100+ odd laws on election day and be able to know about the nuances of all of them?

California is a perfect example of direct democracy in failure. Voters have voted in tons of initiatives directly that require the government to spend billions more, then they approved laws that make it impossible to raise taxes, then they voted in initiatives for the government to sell bonds to raise cash. Result? Massive fiscal irresponsibility.

 

[Sxotty]

My theory is Capitalism is bad, but it works good b/c it uses the bad points about people to make it work, so therefore it ends up being good

Actually though the goverments job is to disperse acumulations of wealth and the peoples job is to acumulate it, that is the only way it works. People will always try to get wealth so that end is taken care of but redispersing it is the hard part, especially how to do it equitably through taxes and what not. maybe if someone gets all uptight i will further explain but for now peace.

 

[Himself]

Unstability is good. A dynamic system is never fully stable, but teeters on the edge of chaos. Nature itself is unstable, but constantly becoming something else, a fact that anti-capitalism eco-nuts often forget.

A chaotic system needs something to keep it chaotic. Without the stove being on, a boiling pot of water will cool down. Same thing. Anarchies cannot be maintained without constant revolution. Without the right set of conditions to keep things chaotic, capitalism becomes something else, but not another chaotic system, but one lacking any real momentum for change at all. Entropy is king. Monopolies are a form of socialism to me and the ultimate success of a capitalist company is to form a monopoly. Well when all the niches in the market are controlled by single companies you have some form of segregated socialism. The difference between some socialist state taking over your company and Microsoft buying you out is rather moot.

"anti-capitalism eco-nuts" from one guy, "laissez fair capitalist cop out" from another, not hard to tell the Americans. If you don't agree, deride. Insecurity.

Given Arnold Swartzenegger vs Peewee Herman, there is no chance for PeeWee to win if he isn't allowed to cheat. No hitting below the belt, sand in the eyes, etc. Right now we have Terminators cheating and Peewee Herman's being forced to follow the rules because they don't have the lawyers and cash to get away with cheating. Sounds a lot more like Feudalism to me, the nobles control everything, even the law, and the sefs can't advance.

If Capitalism were so great, I'd be able to use something other than Windows without having to bend over backwards, and my next cpu wouldn't be limited to Intel and AMD, with AMD a *** **** away from going under anyway. The said thing is that nobody is bothering to come up without something better, instead they point at other failing systems from the past. It's black or white, door number 1 or door number 2, never a grey or door number 3. The status quo is always the best and it's replacement has to be twice as good.

Distribution of wealth through taxes? Since when, as far as I can tell, the government takes money from everybody and wastes it, it never gives it back. What I am talking about is equal opportunity to create wealth, not socialism.

What you need is Capitalism V2.0 to fix all the loopholes in V1.0.

 

[Blade]

My take: Capitalism is good. Removing poverty is also good, but capitalism is good.

America isn't America without capitalism.

 

[MfA]

Oh sorry, I thought we were talking about pure capitalism. From which the US is about as far removed as the EU. The US has corporatism, and the EU is fast following in their footsteps.

The closest thing to pure capitalism was the early US and to some extent early stages of industrialization in parts of the EU. It worked better in the US because there was a lot of cheap land available.

 

[Fred]

The modern view of capitalism hinges on game theory. For instance, monopolies arise out of fluctuations within the game of 'regulation vs free market', almost like an iterated prisoners dilemma game. Were monopolies not to arise the actual system could be identified as not working.

My take on it is empirically based and simple. Never in the history of man has there been such a successful system for so many, that despite its obvious flaws, has reached a level of quality of life for the majority of people that has never been replicated over such a long period of time.

(you could argue that for instance, Rome was more perfect, but then that was only counting a few short periods with enlightened despots. On average and over a long enough time interval my view is given reason)

Its not clear that this is causal. For instance, maybe the US success is not from the actual capitalist sytem, but rather environmental factors like say the rise in technology and the availability of copious amounts of resources. But until such a time as ample evidence appears to discount my theory, I will go with it as a working model.

I wonder sometimes whether there is actually a way to drive the system to be even better, without environmental cues (eg alien technology) or if we really have hit close to a peak. For instance, it has long been known that unemployment can never on average go below a certain fixed quantity in a pure capitalist market. Is it true for quality of life as well (whatever that means) in the general case we live in?

 

[DemoCoder]

What the hell is corporatism? Sounds like something you would read in those stupid pop-political books.

Pure capitalism is a strawman. It never existed. Even before the income tax was instituted, the US had local taxes and regulations. The difference between the US and EU economy is that the US economy is far more dynamic. The barriers to start companies and evil corporatism corporations are low. The barriers to introducing new products are low. And the barriers to hiring and firing employees are low. Massive structural alterations (e.g. downsizing entire sectors of the economy) are tolerated more easily, Americans don't go rioting into the streets like French or Italians everytime someone wants to modify a subsidy or restructure a company. Lower taxes mean more of the GDP is allocated by private decision makers instead of centralized ones.

The biggest problem with creeping welfare statism is the graying of demographics in western nations and the perverse incentives that generous welfare benefits generate. We don't have pure capitalism, but we should turn the precautionary principle on its head and require extraordinary hurdles for any increase in socialism.

 

[epicstruggle]

What words mean should matter, a republic states the type of govermnent the founding fathers wanted to set up. A democracy wasnt even a close second choice. If we stop caring about the type of govermnent we have, because words loose meaning over time. Then why does what NV did with their drivers not considered optimizations, if they take the definition of opti. to mean what they feel like it.

The reason why I care so deeply about this, is because many people thought that just because Gore had more votes than Bush, that he should have been president. However thats not the type of govermnent we have. For Gore to have won, we would have need to live in a democracy. We dont, we live in a republic, and so have representatives (in the electoral college) that will decide for us who should be president. These people usually will vote the way the state they represent went.

Ok enough of this, capitalism is good. No other system is better. People should help out the poor but they should not be forced to. If you dislike the fact that Bill Gates doesnt donate enough, then stop buying Microsoft products and use that money to fund the charity of your choice.

later,

 

[MfA]

Of course what exactly the state wanted wasnt very clear at the time, which is why everyone brought up the popular vote ... if the election had been clean the popular vote would have soon been forgotten.

Pure capitalism wasnt my straw man, I just indicated I didnt think it was a very good goal. As epic demonstrates quite clearly there are people present who want to abolish welfare entirely and move closer to it.

France and Italy are not the EU, mass layoffs are quite common over here in my neck of the woods and welfare and subsidized industry not all that uncommon over there in the states. IMO compared to something extreme like say the former USSR the US and EU are close enough in an economic sense as to be indistuingishable.

Marco

PS. well one major new difference is that as EU governments are being forced into a position of fiscal responsibility the US is returning to Reaganism

PPS. Capitalism.

 

[notAFanB]

in answer to the question, it's all good.

 

[P4-Fan]

Deepak,

I would say it is sort of like going to the movies. Everyone shows up at the same time but there is only so much that can be built at a given time so a line forms to join the middle class. When you have corruption, doors are reserved for the powerful (and they were powerful well before free market reforms) the line gets longer. When you have a billion people the wait will be longer.

There is also the Chinese to worry about. They seem to be sucking up all the foreign investment in Asia along with a good junk of the West’s foreign investment as well. There are millions of Chinese entering the middle class and bettering their living standards. Even the poor are benefiting as more jobs are created and base wages are rising.


Here's a news snip from today:
"China's industrial production rose 16.9% in June from a year earlier, a pace that was 3.2 percentage points faster than in May, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. For the first half, industrial output increased 16.2% from the same period in 2002, amid accelerating production of passenger cars, garments and information-technology products.

The faster factory production has fed China's booming foreign trade. More production is shifting to China, as companies import materials to manufacture their goods that they often sell overseas. Exports rose 32.6% in June from a year ago."

 

[Deepak]

But FDI is not the only way to develop your economy....as long as we are privatizing our economy it is fine.

My major complaint aginst capitalizm is that it allows one to accumulate unlimited amount of money.....at cost of thousands others....there should be a ceiling on the money one can earn in a year....one million per annum is more than enough...!

 

[Fred]

Deepak, that assumes that this is a zero sum game. Its not, ergo your argument is flawed. Just b/c someone is getting wealthy, does not imply that he is taking away from what a poor person could earn. (The pie analogy, just b/c a person is taking a larger percentage of the pie, does not imply that the pie cannot grow b/c of it)

In fact, the more rich people there are, the higher they are taxed and the more a government has in its coffers. Moreover, the top 1% of individuals generate some enormous percentage of the economy since they circulate money far more efficiently than others.

Its also part of the American dream, and one always wants to keep incentive for the geniuses and great entrepenuers to keep innovating and doing better.

 

[epicstruggle]

My major complaint aginst capitalizm is that it allows one to accumulate unlimited amount of money.....at cost of thousands others....there should be a ceiling on the money one can earn in a year....one million per annum is more than enough...!

How about 100,000 per annum. There isnt a person in the world who couldnt comfortably live on that. Wait, how about 50,000, thats what it should be. No wait we could have the ceiling be....

So who decides what the ceiling is. One persons ceiling is anothers floor. Anyways I hope that kinda thinking never goes into practice.

later,

 

[pax]

Every gov has been capitalist to a certain extent since the dawen of the industrial age and the begginnings of democracy. Heck its only about bringing ressources together to make a product or service. The issue is how much moderation should be exerted by democratically elected govs as to how much ressource should be brought to bear on things that arent essential. I think we will see various forms of democracies co exist with free markets forever.

Any major problems like wars and social unrest will only happen if govs become less democratic and thus less involved due to lack of participation and\or some form of corruption as we have seen the begginings of in the western world and have been seeing in places like Argentina and Mexico for generations.

Some kind of renewal of democracy will have to happen to prevent degeneration of the economy (in terms of delivering essentials to the population as a majority or better, as a whole). We can point to charismatic individuals who can occasionaly bring renewed confidence in the system like McCain or lately Dean. Not that they are messiahs but they do seem to offer some answers to some of the serious probs facing us.

I personaly hope to see people just become more involved in their participation every few years to the electoral process without the need for 'heroes'. If people continue to become less involved then crony capitalism, authoritarianism and just plain corruption can only increase...