Thread: Capitalism isn't working ?

Originally Posted by Bruno

I haven't read the article.

However, it should be obivous that absolutes never work. Pure caitalism is as bad as pure socialism.
It's only when the extremes are tempered by compomise that things seem to work.

There is that word again "compromise". Nobody seems to want to do that and are too busy trying to win the my system is better than your system wars rather than acknowledge that there is a problem with a system. If you can't admit there is a problem you can't even begin to contemplate correcting it. Throw the word "best" into the dialogue and you really stymie the possibility of change for the better.

Bob

I have to say, I think that the meme below describes and illustrates capitalism in it's purist form, and at the same time illustrates why it has become perverted and "failed".

I do not think capitalism is bad, in fact, I think it's the best system out there, if not perverted.

Originally Posted by crouton976

I have to say, I think that the meme below describes and illustrates capitalism in it's purist form, and at the same time illustrates why it has become perverted and "failed".

I do not think capitalism is bad, in fact, I think it's the best system out there, if not perverted.

Uh...No.
Just no. Money is NOT capitalism; it's just money. Money in some form exists in almost every culture in which trade evolves beyond gift/barter economies. Money is a means of transformation.

Capitalism would be if he needed more money than he could make just trading a few oranges to buy a larger field, equipment, hire hands et cetera and Agent Smith there gave him the money in exchange for a return on investment -- in its purest form a contractual cut of the profits.

Everyone keeps redefining capitalism to give themselves an excuse to hate it...yeesh!

Capitalism is serving your customers and in return they reward your service with tokens of appreciation in the form of money(usually). Once the service changes to serving the board or the stock holders only is when it tends to break down. However everyone hass a choice to work and live at a different location. If one makes decisions that limit their ability to make the move, don't blame a business if it can't pay you what you want. Time for a nice relaxing shave with product purchased through/in the capitalist system. If I don't like there product I buy elsewhere. Happy shaving all.

Originally Posted by DarthLord

Uh...No.
Just no. Money is NOT capitalism; it's just money. Money in some form exists in almost every culture in which trade evolves beyond gift/barter economies. Money is a means of transformation.

Capitalism would be if he needed more money than he could make just trading a few oranges to buy a larger field, equipment, hire hands et cetera and Agent Smith there gave him the money in exchange for a return on investment -- in its purest form a contractual cut of the profits.

Everyone keeps redefining capitalism to give themselves an excuse to hate it...yeesh!

PS and it would be easy to decry his desire to expand in my above example as "greedy". This is short-sighted.
By expanding, he'd be better able to weather things like a bad year or a blight et cetera than if he just had a backyard garden or even small farm. By expanding -- for which he'd need capital! -- our farmer is better able to ensure the security of his livelihood.

The perversion lies in introducing concepts like central banking and corporatism which enable the investor to extort the farmer and the farmer his employees. In its purest form, capitalism would be a simple agreement between the producer (farmer) and the investor (Smith) dividing the profits for the farm either in perpetuity (another modern perversion brought on by the corporatist concept of stocks and shares) or more simply until an agreed-upon pay-off ROI was reached.

Originally Posted by JimBC

Capitalism is serving your customers and in return they reward your service with tokens of appreciation in the form of money(usually). Once the service changes to serving the board or the stock holders only is when it tends to break down. However everyone hass a choice to work and live at a different location. If one makes decisions that limit their ability to make the move, don't blame a business if it can't pay you what you want. Time for a nice relaxing shave with product purchased through/in the capitalist system. If I don't like there product I buy elsewhere. Happy shaving all.

That's not capitalism. That's money. Two different things.

DarthLord, sorry, but you're wrong.

Capitalism: an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

Step 1: Farmer owns orange grove.
Step 2: Farmer sells oranges to customer.
Step 3: ?????????????
Step 4: Profit!!!!!

That's capitalism in a nutshell.

The breakdown and perversion comes in when others (namely the government) step in and, under threat of force, coerce the farmer to give them some of his profits.

I think you have me mistaken for someone who is anti-capitalist, but as I stated earlier, I'm not and truly believe that it really is the best economic practice to follow, particularly since we've been doing it since nearly the dawn of time.

Originally Posted by crouton976

DarthLord, sorry, but you're wrong.

Capitalism: an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

Step 1: Farmer owns orange grove.
Step 2: Farmer sells oranges to customer.
Step 3: ?????????????
Step 4: Profit!!!!!

That's capitalism in a nutshell.

The breakdown and perversion comes in when others (namely the government) step in and, under threat of force, coerce the farmer to give them some of his profits.

I think you have me mistaken for someone who is anti-capitalist, but as I stated earlier, I'm not and truly believe that it really is the best economic practice to follow, particularly since we've been doing it since nearly the dawn of time.

You just contradicted yourself:

Capitalism: an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

IS NOT

Step 1: Farmer owns orange grove.
Step 2: Farmer sells oranges to customer.
Step 3: ?????????????
Step 4: Profit!!!!!

It is an economic system of INVESTMENT and private ownership etc... It is:
Step 1: I know how to farm but need money to buy a farm but don't have money
Step 2: Investor has money but no farming knowledge
Step 3: Investor gives me money in exchange for cut of profits
Step 4: I buy farm, grow oranges
Step 5: I sell oranges for more than cost of labor and orange seeds (profit)
Step 6: We split the profit by previously agreed amounts

Note the lack of ???.

Your example is nothing more than a simple exchange. Money is irrelevant to the situation; it could have been for goods (gift/barter economy) or "tokens" (money). But it has no exchange of CAPITAL.

However, I think your meme might be closer to the truth if Smith represented lawyers instead of investors...

Dude, relax that was just an old Internet joke.

For it to truly be capitalism the farmer would have to reinvest the profit back into his Grove repeating the process over and over again. The investor in your scenario can indeed be the farmer. It doesn't have to come from an outside source.

Originally Posted by crouton976

Dude, relax that was just an old Internet joke.

For it to truly be capitalism the farmer would have to reinvest the profit back into his Grove repeating the process over and over again. The investor in your scenario can indeed be the farmer. It doesn't have to come from an outside source.

Sorry. I do take this too seriously; if you look in my first post in this thread you'll see why: seeing investors running scared makes making my dreams come true harder to do. I hate seeing investors treated poorly because "they're the 1%" when I need them as do a lot of people with big schemes and no money to spare.

Sadly, most people blaming capitalism for all our ills are doing so by oversimplifying WHAT capitalism is.

And yes, the farmer could indeed reinvest and that would be capitalism... but without some means to buy the farm in the first place he'd have never gotten started. That's where I am and why I take this so seriously and get so frustrated by people blaming a system that works for all their problems when in fact the issues were caused by things entirely tangential to the problem (even Soviet Russia had a banking system, central banking is not capitalism!).

I apologize for ruining your joke. I CAN see the humor in it.