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Case of capitalism
- Thread starter Master of plants
- Start date
VisualDistortion
Rising Star
I personally like capitalism. Marxism would be ideal but the manifestations that have been brought to fruition have all relied on goodness in human nature. Eventually the powerful corrupt and rob the average man in a marxist society.
Master of plants
Master of plants
,Ideas ruling in the class society are the ideas of ruling class.´ So this is probably why You like capitalism. Marxism is a economical theory, not a ethical. Born in a ,marxist´ ,society´, I didn´t claim it didn´t happen, but everything east of West Berlin saw distortion of marxist theory. I don´t advocate stalinism, but since Third world is starving, we have to find better ideas. Really it isn´t (capitalism) a good idea, since it mess with health of Gaia. It´s rather absurd economy theory, since it´s older than marxism and marxsm is it´s classles economical critique.
VisualDistortion
Rising Star
I know marxism might be an economical theory but it relies on ethics. It every manifestation thus far it ends up being used to abuse the people. What what you said, "Ideas ruling in the class society are the ideas of ruling class", that applies directly to marxism in every manifestation thus far. This is a bigger concern in marxism because you can never do anything to get ahead. At least in a capitalist society, you have a chance to work your way into the wealthy or ruling class.
Master of plants
Master of plants
Capitalism kills.
The great thing about marx is that he correctly analysed that every capitalistic system eventually implodes. This is exactly why true capitalist systems do not realy exist anywhere. Every economic system has some control mechanisms and whenever things are going pretty well so legislation and regulation are loosened, you get a sort of implosion. The current crisis is very much a result of this. Unfortunately marx concluded that therefore revolution is inevitable. So that's where he get's his bad name from since this conclusion is used by many as justification for all the violence and opression, seen in communist states.
Capitalism in itself isn't nessecarily a bad thing. Anti-capitalism is much worse. But whenever capitalism is being hailed as some divine truth or ideoligy or the essence of freedom itself, then something is going wrong. Capitalism NEEDS morality and can never be a guideline for moral philosophies itself.
What capitalist worshippers like good old maggie and W are actually saying is not so much "capitalism is good", but "there are no other moral guidelines". That's where "taking good care of yourself is good" changes into "greed is good", wich are realy different ways of looking at the world.
I believe that economical liberalism is basically used as a cloaking device for social conservatism. When there are no moral laws and there is only capitalism, the poor automatically end up poorer and the rich will end up richer. Without any law or government to ensure that everybody has some basic rights, you automatically end up in a traditional class-society. Those who hail capitalism (the GOP and the tories) are mostly the same as those who traditionally are in favor of those type of society's. That's no coincidence.
Capitalism in itself isn't nessecarily a bad thing. Anti-capitalism is much worse. But whenever capitalism is being hailed as some divine truth or ideoligy or the essence of freedom itself, then something is going wrong. Capitalism NEEDS morality and can never be a guideline for moral philosophies itself.
What capitalist worshippers like good old maggie and W are actually saying is not so much "capitalism is good", but "there are no other moral guidelines". That's where "taking good care of yourself is good" changes into "greed is good", wich are realy different ways of looking at the world.
I believe that economical liberalism is basically used as a cloaking device for social conservatism. When there are no moral laws and there is only capitalism, the poor automatically end up poorer and the rich will end up richer. Without any law or government to ensure that everybody has some basic rights, you automatically end up in a traditional class-society. Those who hail capitalism (the GOP and the tories) are mostly the same as those who traditionally are in favor of those type of society's. That's no coincidence.
Master of plants
Master of plants
Wow (I wonder what it means, probably world of wonder), amazing post, thanks!
I say it openly, in the case of proper e. t. (i. e. economy theory), I am a scientific socialist (i. e. marxist).
Fortunately we do not have to solve it, since there is the dmt.
I say it openly, in the case of proper e. t. (i. e. economy theory), I am a scientific socialist (i. e. marxist).
Fortunately we do not have to solve it, since there is the dmt.
VisualDistortion
Rising Star
Master of plants said:
What is this. I'm trying to have an intelligent conversation and instead of making a response to my position you just say this.
Master of plants
Master of plants
Oh, sorry. I just write what I see and what would best fit T-shirts.
Master of plants
Master of plants
And music sharing is one argument for communism. It goes against logic of capitalism.
Master of plants said:
Making music is expensive. If nobody's gonna pay for it anymore we're not gonna see any improvements in the musicworld. I realy think that MP3 and 'free music' is a curse.
Master of plants
Master of plants
Music industry is a curse.
Master of plants
Master of plants
Back to ,case of capitalism´, I can write a list of arguments against the e. t. of capitalism, i. e. wage slavery.
Let's define the major difference between socialism and capitalism.
Socialism = common ownership in the means of production
Capitalism = private ownership in the means of production
The defining characteristic of all forms of socialism is the above (Marx included).
The simplest and most obvious goal of economic activity is to satisfy the needs and wants of human beings.
So now the question becomes what system is better able to satisfy the needs and wants of the most number of people and why?
Before we answer that question, I must quote a great economist and political thinker who makes the case better then anyone I know of:
"Without calculation, economic activity is impossible. Since under Socialism economic calculation is impossible, under Socialism there can be no economic activity in our sense of the word ... All economic change, therefore, would involve operations the value of which could neither be predicted beforehand nor ascertained after they had taken place. Everything would be a leap in the dark. Socialism is the renunciation of rational economy." -- Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, 1981, pp. 103-105.
The inability to make rational economic calculation is the major flaw of socialism. If you can explain how socialism can overcome the problem of economic calculation you would win a Nobel prize. I can try to explain why but it would do those who don't believe me better to learn for yourself why economic calculation is essentially impossible in a socialist community (note I mean a nation or a large area not a small commune that's a different story). Refer to Mises either the book I quote above or this shorter paper:
mises.org
So if economic calculation is impossible and thus rational economic activity becomes inherently more difficult then productivity will be less in a socialist community then in a community who utilizes private ownership in the means of production. Therefore capitalism would be more productive then a socialist community and thus better suited to satisfy more human needs and desires.
And that's only the beginning of the case against socialism.
Don't give marxism that much credit.
The problem with this is he never proved it he only said it. Capitalism does not inherently implode in on itself. The only time capitalism does that is when its interfered with by socialist or interventionist policies. This current economic crisis and the depression of the 1930's were both caused by interventionist policies.
It has but true economical liberalism does not require social conservative attitudes. Its up to free people to decide their values.
Laws and governments should be meant to protect the liberty of individuals. Capitalism does not necessarily make the poor poorer and rich richer as again Marx claimed. He said it but he never proved it. If you look at what societies become the richest for the most amount of people in the fastest amount of time it was societies that were more capitalist. Note the U.S. today is not what I consider to be capitalist even though most people within it and who view it from outside would consider is to, but its more accurately a mixture of corporatism and interventionism disguised as economic liberalism.
:d :d
Socialism = common ownership in the means of production
Capitalism = private ownership in the means of production
The defining characteristic of all forms of socialism is the above (Marx included).
The simplest and most obvious goal of economic activity is to satisfy the needs and wants of human beings.
So now the question becomes what system is better able to satisfy the needs and wants of the most number of people and why?
Before we answer that question, I must quote a great economist and political thinker who makes the case better then anyone I know of:
"Without calculation, economic activity is impossible. Since under Socialism economic calculation is impossible, under Socialism there can be no economic activity in our sense of the word ... All economic change, therefore, would involve operations the value of which could neither be predicted beforehand nor ascertained after they had taken place. Everything would be a leap in the dark. Socialism is the renunciation of rational economy." -- Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, 1981, pp. 103-105.
The inability to make rational economic calculation is the major flaw of socialism. If you can explain how socialism can overcome the problem of economic calculation you would win a Nobel prize. I can try to explain why but it would do those who don't believe me better to learn for yourself why economic calculation is essentially impossible in a socialist community (note I mean a nation or a large area not a small commune that's a different story). Refer to Mises either the book I quote above or this shorter paper:
Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth | Mises Institute
This is the essay that overthrew the socialist paradigm in economics, and provided the foundation for modern Austrian price theory. When it first appeared in
So if economic calculation is impossible and thus rational economic activity becomes inherently more difficult then productivity will be less in a socialist community then in a community who utilizes private ownership in the means of production. Therefore capitalism would be more productive then a socialist community and thus better suited to satisfy more human needs and desires.
And that's only the beginning of the case against socialism.
Don't give marxism that much credit.
The problem with this is he never proved it he only said it. Capitalism does not inherently implode in on itself. The only time capitalism does that is when its interfered with by socialist or interventionist policies. This current economic crisis and the depression of the 1930's were both caused by interventionist policies.
It has but true economical liberalism does not require social conservative attitudes. Its up to free people to decide their values.
Laws and governments should be meant to protect the liberty of individuals. Capitalism does not necessarily make the poor poorer and rich richer as again Marx claimed. He said it but he never proved it. If you look at what societies become the richest for the most amount of people in the fastest amount of time it was societies that were more capitalist. Note the U.S. today is not what I consider to be capitalist even though most people within it and who view it from outside would consider is to, but its more accurately a mixture of corporatism and interventionism disguised as economic liberalism.
:d :d
Well as you know I like neither.
But Burnt, I know you believe in deregulation ('true capitalism'), so what do you think of the recent economic collapse?
It was, after all, caused by a lack of regulation, not a glut of it.
The mortgage lenders found an easy but economically destructive way to make themselves rich, so did it even though it was arguably fraud. 'Screw everyone else, get rich while you can.'
Regulation to stop them doing so was not in place, and sure enough, the tower of cards has collapsed, and now we're screwed.
If regulations were put in place like some whistleblowers were calling for, the depression wouldn't have happened. And now we have state-owned banks, the bankers getting bailed out and STILL giving themselves bonuses with taxpayer's money, and no doubt the taxpayers have been shafted on the shareprice.
But Burnt, I know you believe in deregulation ('true capitalism'), so what do you think of the recent economic collapse?
It was, after all, caused by a lack of regulation, not a glut of it.
The mortgage lenders found an easy but economically destructive way to make themselves rich, so did it even though it was arguably fraud. 'Screw everyone else, get rich while you can.'
Regulation to stop them doing so was not in place, and sure enough, the tower of cards has collapsed, and now we're screwed.
If regulations were put in place like some whistleblowers were calling for, the depression wouldn't have happened. And now we have state-owned banks, the bankers getting bailed out and STILL giving themselves bonuses with taxpayer's money, and no doubt the taxpayers have been shafted on the shareprice.
That's a good question and I've been really interested in this stuff lately so yea basically yes in some ways deregulation was the problem. But I mean deregulation in the sense that fraud is essentially legalized in many ways by the government. The government has the right to enforce laws against fraud as it should. The problem is the regulators turned their head and actively encouraged it in this case.
There are two root causes for this economic collapse. Low interest rates by the federal reserve (interventionism) and the buying and selling of other peoples housing debt (among other very crappy business deals) which were essentially legalized (de-regulated) by the government in ways that made it easier to do this.
You see the government wanted everybody to have a house so what they did is made a deal with this company called fannie mae and freddie mac which was and still is a government sponsered enterprise. Meaning it has the governments back no matter what goes wrong. The government then 'de-regulated' the buying and selling of subprime mortages and hence the business of selling other peoples debt which often included hiding the fact that it was most of it was bad debt that was not going to be paid back (the fraud part). The government also at the same time encouraged people to sell this debt and told this company fannie freddie whatever the frig to buy it which it gladly did because it made shit loads of money doing it (as did a bunch of other people who sold other peoples debt around during this period of time). But what really made all this possible was the federal reserve making money so easy to get because credit (debt) became very cheap in order to make it easy for people to borrow to pay for things like houses (again interventionism). Remember this was all to "make sure everyone can afford a home" a policy actively encouraged by both Republicans and Democracts in the United States. Then it burst because it naturally had to burst because it was based on nothing but bad business deals encouraged by an environment of easy money and an active encouragement to make bad business deals (ie loan people money who can't pay for it and then sell it to someone else a hundred times to everyone makes some quick cash).
So what made this crisis at its root is interventionist policies.
You see the funniest thing is there were plenty of people who knew something about economics saying to the government regulators this is going to happen and they laughed at them and ignored them and said the economy is fine. So the regulators not only didn't do their job but now they are being given more powers to fix more problems that other people told them was a problem who they still don't listen to.
There are two root causes for this economic collapse. Low interest rates by the federal reserve (interventionism) and the buying and selling of other peoples housing debt (among other very crappy business deals) which were essentially legalized (de-regulated) by the government in ways that made it easier to do this.
You see the government wanted everybody to have a house so what they did is made a deal with this company called fannie mae and freddie mac which was and still is a government sponsered enterprise. Meaning it has the governments back no matter what goes wrong. The government then 'de-regulated' the buying and selling of subprime mortages and hence the business of selling other peoples debt which often included hiding the fact that it was most of it was bad debt that was not going to be paid back (the fraud part). The government also at the same time encouraged people to sell this debt and told this company fannie freddie whatever the frig to buy it which it gladly did because it made shit loads of money doing it (as did a bunch of other people who sold other peoples debt around during this period of time). But what really made all this possible was the federal reserve making money so easy to get because credit (debt) became very cheap in order to make it easy for people to borrow to pay for things like houses (again interventionism). Remember this was all to "make sure everyone can afford a home" a policy actively encouraged by both Republicans and Democracts in the United States. Then it burst because it naturally had to burst because it was based on nothing but bad business deals encouraged by an environment of easy money and an active encouragement to make bad business deals (ie loan people money who can't pay for it and then sell it to someone else a hundred times to everyone makes some quick cash).
So what made this crisis at its root is interventionist policies.
You see the funniest thing is there were plenty of people who knew something about economics saying to the government regulators this is going to happen and they laughed at them and ignored them and said the economy is fine. So the regulators not only didn't do their job but now they are being given more powers to fix more problems that other people told them was a problem who they still don't listen to.
I don't know enough about it to know whether you're right there or not, but the thing is...
Surely in a true capitalist society, without any regulation, people would've come up with the same scheme anyway!
Or bypassed it and come up with more profitable and horrible ones.
It's only government regulation that stop us all working 16-hour shifts in the mills for peanuts like during the industrial revolution...
Surely in a true capitalist society, without any regulation, people would've come up with the same scheme anyway!
Or bypassed it and come up with more profitable and horrible ones.
It's only government regulation that stop us all working 16-hour shifts in the mills for peanuts like during the industrial revolution...
DMTripper
John Murdoch IV
polytrip said:
No I think it's a good thing. Then only real musicians that make music because of an inner need make music. That music comes from their soul and has soul. Fuckin idiots that are just innit for the money will give up! That cleans things up a bit.
But on the other hand I want people to get paid for a good job so that's why I pay for good music!
Perhaps but they would have quickly went out of business. Now they were able sneak around because the government was actively ignoring the fraud going on and actively encouraging this bad business (its a fact). In a true capitalist society where fraud laws are enforced people would never have gotten so involved in this dubious fake business practices. And if they did and they failed they went out of business and the cycle stopped. Now the government is propping them back up and blowing more fake money into the system to keep it going to "save jobs" or "save the economy" but thats all an illusion.
Another myth of the socialist writers, that without government intervention we would be slaves to big business. In capitalism you have more division of labor and business becomes more productive. The more productive a business the more wages can go up and the more work hours can go down, it is natural. But it requires technology and division of labor for this to happen and competitive businesses. For it to reach stable equillibriums it requires freedom from government intervention. In a free active society if you abuse your workers they leave and go work for someone else. Obviously thats an ideal situation but capitalism is more likely to bring that about then socialism. Socialism always lowers overall productivity thus everyone becomes poorer.
I dunno if master of plants wanted to turn this into a discussion capitalism versus socialism but it seems what he implied and unfortunately I think most socialist and intervensionist ideas (whether people realize thats what they are or not) often completely skip over these important issues and just quote Marx or Engels (two people who really didn't prove anything but inspired people with their words and ideas not with logic and reason).
Obviously this has been on my mind a lot recently. I was recently in the homeland of where these ideas started (berlin) and was struck by the history of that place. Where Marx first started out, where NAZI germany (a socialist party) came to power, where communism completely divided a city and society in half for years and years (berlin wall). All that a result of the socialist experiment Marx envisioned. The irony was amazing.
Well, I'm out of my depth now in terms of my knowledge of economic theory, so I can't really argue any more unfortunately.
But I have to say two things... firstly, alluding to the Nazis being socialist will only discredit your arguments. They were faschists, who ludicrously called themselves socialists, probably for votes. They called themselves 'national socialists', meaning Aryans living parasitically off non-Aryans in a master-slave relationship reminiscent of but even more revolting than Ancient Greece or Rome. To try to discredit socialism by saying the Nazis were socialists is silly. It's like me calling Genghis Khan a capitalist! (even if to me he is
) The Nazis were more environmentalists and anti-vivisection than socialists (it's true, they were a bizarre bunch). And pagan too in the cult Hitler was trying to invent... they were just absolutely insane.
And socialism did not start in Berlin with Marx and Engels, it started a LONG time before, I've read the books about the pre-dating utopian experiments. Socialism pre-dates the 17th century Diggers, the Levellers, the first Christians (anarcho-communists, as Jesus himself was).
But I have to say two things... firstly, alluding to the Nazis being socialist will only discredit your arguments. They were faschists, who ludicrously called themselves socialists, probably for votes. They called themselves 'national socialists', meaning Aryans living parasitically off non-Aryans in a master-slave relationship reminiscent of but even more revolting than Ancient Greece or Rome. To try to discredit socialism by saying the Nazis were socialists is silly. It's like me calling Genghis Khan a capitalist! (even if to me he is
) The Nazis were more environmentalists and anti-vivisection than socialists (it's true, they were a bizarre bunch). And pagan too in the cult Hitler was trying to invent... they were just absolutely insane.And socialism did not start in Berlin with Marx and Engels, it started a LONG time before, I've read the books about the pre-dating utopian experiments. Socialism pre-dates the 17th century Diggers, the Levellers, the first Christians (anarcho-communists, as Jesus himself was).