Does Capitalism have any business in a New World Order?

[Inter.spem.et.metum]

Thats because you assume, like many others, that there will be no motivation without some kind of monetary gain. Do not group all people into the same category. Production in an economy isn't based on consumption unless its a consumer based item, such as an economy that creates products that aren't made to be consumed by the population, but rather used to further advance production. Those items that are not essential to life on earth that are produced to be consumed should be done away with. This would leave only the necessities of life, which would be produced to be given away, not SOLD and BOUGHT.

 

Your assumptions convey this theme: The only thing that advances humans is economy. This is obviously false since humans have yet to step out of the level of evolution we entered a VERY long time ago. Economy only advances luxuries, and only for those on the winning side. The other half of the world has to live on the edge of survival so some of us can live "happy" lives.

 

The internet and computer systems are not necessary to life, and people will rant and rave about everything with or without them. And if you assume that there will be know economy without this mindless state of consumerism, you are greatly mistaken. Economy can't be dissolved, but it should be evolved. Ecology before economy my friend.

[TheBigDog]

Thats because you assume, like many others, that there will be no motivation without some kind of monetary gain. Do not group all people into the same category. Production in an economy isn't based on consumption unless its a consumer based item, such as an economy that creates products that aren't made to be consumed by the population, but rather used to further advance production. Those items that are not essential to life on earth that are produced to be consumed should be done away with. This would leave only the necessities of life, which would be produced to be given away, not SOLD and BOUGHT.

 

Your assumptions convey this theme: The only thing that advances humans is economy. This is obviously false since humans have yet to step out of the level of evolution we entered a VERY long time ago. Economy only advances luxuries, and only for those on the winning side. The other half of the world has to live on the edge of survival so some of us can live "happy" lives.

 

The internet and computer systems are not necessary to life, and people will rant and rave about everything with or without them. And if you assume that there will be know economy without this mindless state of consumerism, you are greatly mistaken. Economy can't be dissolved, but it should be evolved. Ecology before economy my friend.

What is necessary? What is a legitimate need? How are the standards established? Who makes the determination?

[OldBill]

Ecology before economy, indeed. Well then, at your earliest convenience, please shut down and disconnect that unnecessary computer of yours, being sure to properly dispose of it as it contains all kinds of metal compounds known to be hazardous to the ecology.

And then vow to break free of this viscious consumer cycle as quickly as possible. A hammer, chisel and decent size rock is probably all you'll really need anyway - to continue railing against the system. Good luck, my friend.

[HydrogenBond]

Money is the water used for the many gardens of capitalism. But like in any garden, watering will also produce weeds. The weeds of capitalism, is the aspect of capitalism, which socialists dwell on. But capitalism is not just weeds, there are also many beneficial things that grow in the gardens. These makeslife better and easier for all. Plentiful and cheap food is a good plant that grows in the garden of capitalism.

 

Since this is an anti-capitalism topic, it is useful to discuss some of the weeds of capitalism, which gives capitalism a bad name. I don't have any problem with marketing and advertising, using desire, to get people to buy products. Human desire is fickle and people are always distracted by the next pretty faced product. This is all part of the fun of life.

 

But on the other hand, when marketing and advertising uses fear as the root emotion for marketing, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. It is not very sporting. One is not simply drawn to the nexy ugly face of fear. The fear will accumulate, until this fear turns desire into necessity.

 

This type of marketing is easy with children. One starts out by creating a new market,for a product, that didn't exist. There is nothing wrong with that. But if one can make it a fad, then every child will need to have one, not just due to desire, but also due to a social necessity. There is a cross contamination between desire and fear. The parent is sensitive to their child and will sense their social predicament or fear, and may be forced to buy this product. Adults can also be pulled into this with adult toys.

 

Someone with a lot of money, could care less having to spend 0.01% of a weeks wage, so there is little fear. But the average person gets roped into a higher percentage. The fear is needed to tap into this market. If we had a graduated price schedule, so the fad hits all families the same way, then the richer capitalists would be able to feel the impact and would react the same way as the sheep that are being sheared with the fear.

 

A good real life example of the above effect, is the water shortage in Atlanta. Everyone is being affected by this. Those who need more water, such as the richer people with larger estates, get hit with the same proportion of fear. Rather than let free enterpise rule, many of these capitalists are seeking govenment intervention to force the Army Corps of Engineers, to share its water, i.e., socialist distribution. When the shoe is on the other foot, then the capitalist system may not seem like the best solution. There will be a redistribution of the water wealth.

 

Health care is heavy on the fear. That is what is causing cost to increase so rapidly, which means weeds are making a lot of money off fear. In other words, if the medical state of the art is advancing, then the amount of sickness should be dropping. If the state of the art is getting worse, then one would expect problems and costs should be increasing. So we have better care and higher costs. The paradox is due to fear.

 

Socialized medicine essentually switches who gets the fear. Those with fear now, would be able to lower their fear, since something is better than nothing. While those with only free market desire, due to good insurance or extra resources, all fear they will lose all their pampered care. So it is a battle of fear. If capitalism got rid of the fear factor, that is generating a lot of weed wealth, the collective fear would decrease and the existing system would be cheaper and not need to socialize.

 

I have no problem with two hospitals advertising "our x-rays are cheaper". This is free market competition using desire and will cause prices to fall and the technology to get cheaper and cheaper. But the marketing uses fear. For example, there is now a new superbug that was created due to the overuse of anti-biotics. This occurred because profits made a lot of money with this particular service. There is no warrenty or rebate because the medical community screwed up. Instead, everyone needs to go to a care center, so we can shear the entire herd, once again. In the process of shearing the entire herd with fear, the herd is starting to get spooked. The medical fear is like the water shortage that will require sharing. Without the capitalist weeds of fear, there is not the same sense of shortage. This will make more room in the garden so the good plants of capitalism can grow.

 

Here is a free market-socialist compromise for medical care. Socialize just the critical care that gets very expensive, like cancer, etc. You keep the capitalist medical system, but a govenment fund takes over cost, if the bill reaches a certain ceiling. The insurance will see a lower max ceiling causing the price of basic insurance to fall. One can also allow the government to socialize the arbitration for malpractice. This will get rid of the malpractice premiums paid by doctors. The doctors can then share this huge cost savings, with some free services for the poor. With some of the weeds gone, the free market will make it more efficient.

[Inter.spem.et.metum]

Sorry, I do not need this computer to have these kinds of conversations. There is major difference between appreciating a luxury and needing it.

 

Life is fear. We are born with the natural ability to tell pain from pleasure. We all know that we are going to die, and we do what ever we can to extend that deadline. I agree that capitalism produces fear, fear for oneself. Socialism is based on the fear for others. Its about who you care more about. Most people who are opposed to socialism are so because they don't believe it will work, which simply the fear of its failure and the effect it will have on them. Since humans have never had an advanced socialist society, its validity is debatable.

 

Speaking of health care, hydro, I think you are being naive. The health care system is expensive for one reason, our lives are the most important commodity to us. We live in a capitalist society, and supply and demand control the price. Also, insurance costs so much because people are suing doctors left and right because their procedures didn't turn out the way they thought it should. Not only that, but plenty of people are getting free health care because they can't afford it, which is fine, except that this doesn't affect those with plenty of money to afford. It only affects those who are trying to pay for their own health insurance but can barely afford it.

 

Doctors should only practice to help people, not to make money.

People should realize that medical procedures are risky. We are machines. When you work on a car, there is no guarantee its going to work, and it will never work as good as it did brand new. People should only be able to sue on blatantly negligent grounds, and the hospital and the rest of the medical environment shoudln't be affected by some doctors mistake.

 

But this is off subject. Tell me, hydro, what are the fruits of capitalism as represented by this democracy?

[Michaelangelica]

I always find this guy interesting

perhaps he deserves a thread on its own. But I'll stick it here and see what you think

Interestingly on the day of this interview our CSIRO our premier science research body axed 100 jobs, due to Government cutbacks and the CEO of Macquarie bank retired with 80 million just for this year.

 

Robert Reich speaks about 'Supercapitalism'

 

Print

 

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

 

Broadcast: 21/05/2008

 

Reporter: Kerry O'Brien

 

Kerry O'Brien speaks with Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's Labour secretary in his first term as president and now professor of public policy at the University of California's Berkeley campus.

 

Transcript

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: It wasn't politics or sport dominating radio talkback or talk around the water cooler today. It was Alan Moss' final paycheque as the head of the so-called millionaires' factory, Macquarie Bank.

 

The Sydney Morning Herald headline said it all: "$80 million - it's off the planet. Moss payout uproar."

 

The Prime Minister was forced to tut-tut, as politicians usually do and even Mr Moss had the grace to acknowledge it was, "a very legitimate debate", even though Macquarie had just recorded yet another dazzling profit result.

The 7.30 Report - ABC

[OldBill]

What astounds me most about all this is that, even in this day and age, we still perceive that $80 million as somehow being hoarded away, pulled out out of the economy and stuffed under a mattress or something. The truth is that every one of those eighty million dollars is still out there in the economy, creating and sustaining jobs, and couldn't care less who is (temporarily) listed as owner. In fact, every time significant money changes hands, a different mind is in charge of sending 'some' of it in a different direction. This is how new ideas get off the ground, creating new industries - and ensuring that capitalist nations will always fare better than their weak socialist step-sisters.

[questor]

$80,000,000 is a lot of money.What did Moss do to earn this bonus? Did he take a low grossing company and increase its income by $ 100,000,000., or did he add new ideas to create better profits, or did the board of directors

just award the money for no reason?

[Moontanman]

Sociology classes. :(

 

The richest people are usually of the inherited type. With an exception of say a modern day Bill Gates...

 

And while there are plenty of jobs and low unemployment - those jobs are ones that pay little, with few benefits.

Making it difficult to raise kids despite working 40+ hours a week.

 

I agree with I would rather be poor in America. People come here because a $7 hr. job is better than NO job.

 

Compound the fact of high health care and College costs, with Inflation of energy and food prices, with a devalued currency bogged down in Tremendous National Debt and Trade imbalances... That while the surface may seem rosey >>> often times it is not.

 

People are More in Debt than ever! Do they Own their homes and Cars??

No. The bank does. (unless they have zero mortgage payments)

 

and as soon as you get laid off, outsourced, or sick and miss a payment or three>>> then will you realize who owns the home and/or car.

 

I'm not bashing Capitalism. You should know that. :)

There is a reality factor though too...

 

The Middle Class is getting squeezed :lol:

 

I have to agree that the middle class is getting squeezed out of existence. I have the unenviable position of having fallen from upper middle class to barely lower middle class and it's a rough trip.

 

I went from pretty much being able to buy almost anything with in reason to pinching pennies until they squeal but it's not enough. Inflation eats up every gain I make, I see others in my situation and worse situations having the same problems.

 

All I know to do is keep trying as hard as I can and hope things get better. Hard work and even smart work doesn't always work out but I will say quickly and with no hesitation i wouldn't trade my life in the USA for an equivalent life anywhere else. A bad as things are I am still able to put a roof over my head and eat with regularity.

 

A great many people in the world who put much more effort into life than I do get much less in return. I'll stay here and continue to struggle in the bonds of capitalism thank you:hyper:

 

BTW I do own my cars but I rent my home, I do know many people who are still in the upper middle class and they are begining to feel the pich as well. Most of them refuse to acknowledge it but it's still there.

[Kayra]

From my perspective so very many of the suggestions put forth here are quite naïve. I am not directing or intending that comment as an insult, simply an observation.

 

I believe the truth lies in the evolution of our species. The path humans have found themselves on is (as I see it) as follows.

 

We as individuals are:

• mostly selfish
  
• selectively altruistic
  
• mostly honest
  
• somewhat deceitful
  
• mostly observant of others.
  
• mostly empathic of others.
  

 

What does this have to do with capitalism? Everything.

 

Altruism is a POWERFUL survival trait for a community, and generally speaking detrimental to the individual's survival or well being. Community living provides so many advantages and has such a significant impact on the colonies ability to survive and thrive that such things are inevitable. The only requirement is that most individual cell/organism/person sacrifice something so that the colony as a whole will do better then competing colonies.

 

Any system that requires cooperation and altruism (as any colony does) will give rise to cheaters. Those cells/organisms/people that "discover" that they do not need to be altruistic in order to thrive within the colony. These cheaters would eventually overwhelm all of the others in the colony due to the advantage of gaining the benefits of the colony without paying the price. Here is where evolution and natural selection at a systemic level steps in, as those colonies that have evolved ways of dealing with the cheaters will end up being the most fit to survive. As in most evolutionary systems, it will only evolve to the point where the cheaters are small enough in number that they no longer significantly affect the colony. This system becomes almost self evident in retrospect.

 

These effects are seen everywhere in nature. There is a colony of fungus that has evolved the trait that when it is time to reproduce, some of the fungus will form itself into a stalk, die, and harden, all to ensure that the bud with the spores will be in the right place to catch the wind and spread. When scientists tried to suppress the stalk forming genes in some of the fungus and re-introduced them to the colony, they discovered that not a single "cheater" produced spores. Evolution and selection at a colony level had taken care of this particular cheat by tying the stalk forming behavior directly tot he reproductive system to prevent this type of cheating. Note that none of the individual spores would have evolved this trait by themselves as they are a very selfish lot (as is expected of any living thing). Altruism was forced on the individual's nature by the colony as the price for the benefits the colony could provide.

 

Evolution has shown us repeatedly that in any cooperative system, from the cellular on up, there must exist the assurance that enough of the other members of the community will do what is required of them for the colony to thrive. Methods of defeating most of the cheaters evolve after the cheaters have had significant effect on the colony's ability to compete with other colonies, or the colony WILL give way to those other colonies that have.

 

We humans are driven, and a very deep level, by these same forces that have shaped almost every aspect of our entire historic existence. From the cells to the individuals to the family to the village to the state to the country.

 

While it is dubious that mankind is still evolving (a conversation covered in many other threads) I believe that law systems and societal networks are the new expression of evolution in mankind. I believe that generally the individual can be counted upon to be greedy and self serving for themselves, their family(direct relations), their community(people we directly know), and their society(people with common goals? {not quite right}) in that order. Balance this with the altruism that evolution has infused in us to give of ourselves to our family, our community, and our society, also in that order.

 

We seek for ourselves and for our own. This had been endemic and necessary since competition for scarce resources started the whole evolutionary process. Expectations that we will, or even can, turn our back on so many eons of evolution is naïve and unrealistic. Capitalism thrives because it plays to this deeply embedded trait.

 

This does not mean that we are done in though. The main difference between all of evolutionary history and now is that we (unlike cells) have the ability to observe our surroundings and project into the future, allowing us to adapt ourselves without requiring selection to first weed us out. I doubt this will allow the majority of individuals to escape our evolutionary drives, but it is enough to allow us to seek to change the laws that govern our societies and our nations.

 

With the above in mind, think of the country and it's laws as the evolutionary means of deterring cheaters and trying to ensure that as many members of the country as possible are as altruistic as they have to be to ensure the country can compete for resources. Also keep in mind that if this system follows evolution, it will go as far as it needs to go and no farther. It allows us as a societal creature the expression of our altruistic nature without directly kicking up our need for greed.

 

Generally speaking, corporations and individuals are continuously finding methods of cheating the nations while continuing to reap the benefits of operating inside of these nations. (note: by cheating I do not mean breaking the law but deriving far greater benefit from the nation then is their due based on benefits the nation receives from them.) This is the nature of some of the cells/individuals/corporations/nations. It is expected and normal. This will continue until the inevitable outcome of extinction of the nation or adaptation of laws to mitigate it.

 

Capitalism is not the issue in the new world as it is only an expression of our heritage, part of the essence of who we are. Deny it at your own peril.

 

If you want to resolve the issues you have brought up and restore perceived balance, seek to do so through the natural means that evolution has provided. The perceptions of society and laws of the nation. One way might be to work to limit lobbyists and special interest group’s ability to influence the political process. Or work to changing tax laws so they are more balanced (easier to do once the lobbyist issues is resolved). As with the spores mentioned above, an appropriate level of altruism must be forced on the corporation by the nation as the price of the benefits the nation can provide

 

I am not so naïve as to think such a path is either simple or easy, but as I see it it’s the only real path open to us. I am not as worried as most as I believe generally the more drastic the issue to society the greater the pressure to bring about change.

 

Adapt or die.

[Michaelangelica]

What astounds me most about all this is that, even in this day and age, we still perceive that $80 million

it could be stuck in some off-shore account, frittered away at a Macua casino.

It would be nice to see some social value for it, such as hiring 100 CSIRO scientists.

This is the point, I think, Robert Reich is trying to make.

[OldBill]

"it could be stuck in some off-shore account, frittered away at a Macua casino.

It would be nice to see some social value for it, such as hiring 100 CSIRO scientists."

 

Good on you, Mate! I think you just made my point.... Whether stuck in an offshore account, or frittered away at Macua casino, the capital is now on the move. No bank, local or offshore, would be in business for long if it just let money sit in its vaults. Having already met its reserves quota - and now, being handed some 80 million dollars, it is faced with the immediate need to 'distribute' those dollars out where they will bring back interest or investment income. This is what covers their payroll and all other expenses, including paying interest back to Alan Moss, so that he can (hopefully) fritter that away at the casino, too.

 

And that offshore bank will almost certainly have a different investment philosophy than Macquarie bank, which will lead to the funding of new - or at least different -ventures.

 

The casino's cut is the same story - payroll & expenses - and then banking the rest, ensuring that it too goes out into the world.

 

As for the CSIRO scientists, neither Macquarie bank nor Alan Moss had anything to do with the govt. layoff decision, BUT.... there's the best point you've made yet. Macquarie bank, with all of it's other expenses and write-off tricks, would have probably paid zero taxes on that 80 mil. Handing it over to a private individual, Alan Moss, was a great boon to the Aussie tax collectors - and to whatever charities and new technology write-offs he could come up with in an attempt to reduce his tax share.

 

And, the more PRIVATE money that gets spread around, the quicker those 100 scientists will be re-employed in the private sector, and with much less govt. restraint on their thinking processes and research incentives.

 

So, jealous of Alan Moss or not, we may all have just gotten a slight benefit from his ludicrous 'golden parachute'. That's how capitalism works.