It's really late and I'm pretty tired, so please excuse me when I get rambly with this...

That's a solid example of one of the ways capitalism has failed, rather, not that it's failed but has fallen short of the promises that the system has made. The issue has less to do with pure economics and more to do with the dog eat dog nature of the system it's self. The trouble with capitalism is that it offers the greatest rewards to those willing and able to exploit others.

You spoke of free trade, which as a Canadian is an issue that bothers me to no end. The North American Free Trade Agreement was sold to the Canadian people on promises of a stronger economy and cheaper goods. It has, however, done quite the opposite. As a nation, Canada is rich in resources and poor in people, so we entered the free trade agreement in the belief that we could sell our resources to the U.S. for a fair price and expand our markets. I'm sure I don't need to get in to too many examples, such as the softwood lumber travesty in which an illegal terrif was placed on Canadian lumber sold to the U.S. in order to protect the U.S. lumber industry, stealing millions of dollars which the U.S. was ordered to repay in a internation hearing and has yet to do.

I'm rambling, but the issue is, resources the U.S. has they don't want and will ensure we are unable to undercut them and gain the maximum market for our considerable resources. However, resources the Americans need such as Albertan oil, we are forced to meet certain quotas every year. Unable to jack up the price to a prohibitive level or scale back our sales, we sell the U.S. the majority of the oil we produce. We are then forced to buy nearly half the oil we use from foriegn markets at a price higher that the production cost of our own oil despite the fact we produce more than enough to be self sufficient.

My point here is that the U.S. is the big dog in this yard. It has greater economic, military and political power than Canada. They can openly thumb their noses at us, exploit us for our resources, fail to live up to their end of the agreement and ignore the international community. So Canada suffers, the Americans benefit. This is another example of the capitalist failure to live up to it's promises of opprotunity and riches to all those willing to work for it.

Capitalism, I'm afraid, is something that is unbeneficial to the vast majority of people. It rewards shady buisiness practices, paying the least amount for resources, parts and labour while charging the maximum amount for the finished goods or service is par for the course and is accepted as proper buisiness. Capitalism will never be an answer to problems such as poverty or unemployment, because it is in the interest of capitalism that these things remain. A level of unemployment ensures that the workers will have to be cautious of any demands for increased wages or better working conditions, because there is a ready and willing workforce waiting in the wings. People hungry (literally) to take the job that you now posess.

Even the very idea of contentment runs contrary to the interests of capitalism. If the vast majority of people were happy and content in their lives, there would be much less drive to try to fill the voids in your life with new products and services. With trying to show people your life is better than theirs by way of your possesion of goods. We always have to want more, better, flashier and more impressive things to continue to drive our economy.

In essence capitalism is nothing more than the new feudalism. Instead of working some Lord's land and giving up a certain amount of our goods for the privaledge to continue to survive we're merely working in some wealthy man's factory or buisiness for the most part, buying their goods with the wages they pay us. Nearly everything we buy is just handing our money back over to the old boys club that gave it to us in the first place. There are of course exceptions (buisiness owners here, please, I meant no offense. You all seem like great people and small operations, whom I fully support the buying of goods and services from) but by and large all of the money we earn, given to us by the wealthy class quickly returns to whence it came, back to the wealthy class.

There are always a few examples of people who have risen from little to great places in the world, but they are few and far between. Also, despite the idea of the 'American Dream' something that done on a large scale would be intensely damaging to the economy. In terms of the way our nations are currently run, everyone owning and operating their own buisiness would be a unimaginable disaster. Thus, the vast, vast majority of those not born in to wealth and ownership are thrust in to a life time of labour for those who are.

Basically, any benefit granted to us by capitalism is basically given to us only because it is the bare minimum we will accept. It's necessary to be given to us to continue life as normal under a capitalist system. Much of the time, even this is done grudingly. Is anyone familiar with the early days of the labour movement?

All of the things that I can think of that would point to capitalism being a safe and monitored system are actually infringements on the very idea of capitalism. Things such as anti-monopoly laws, legislated quality controls and so on...

Anyhow, I'm exhausted. I hope this made sense to someone other than me. Also, as a side note... Am I proposing another system? No, I just like to complain.