butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Are there any other possibilities?
Capitalism has failed. So what is the alternative?
- Thread starter tbaldwin
- Start date
Are there any other possibilities?
!butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Well, it could be that the capitalist system produces 'greedy banks'?
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
I agree with you completely.
The capitalism we have at the moment seems to spend based on a mix of corporate power and corruption rather distribute resources for social good.
As well as the US $700bn 'investment' in US banks; in 2007 the US put $92bn into big business, 21bn into Agrobusiness, and introduced more tax loopholes for the mega rich. Not to even mention the vast sums of cash pumped into the arms exports.
Here in the EU car manufactures are demanding 40bn Euros in soft loans so that they can sell us 'green cars'.
A friend of mine argues the problems are all down to party funding. Get big business to pay for government (however they do it - donations, lobbying, bribes etc) and you'll never have a fair social democratic market based economy
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
s/he is of course being naive in the extreme.
I don't think capatalism produces greedy banks, I think the lack of oversight and transparency within our current system allows the greedy to take control of banks, therefore the greedy produce greedy banks.
Capatalism is amoral really, it is the people that operate within it who either act like scum like Enron or adopt a social/co-op model to how they do business like John Lewis. Greed is part and parcel of human society, no system would be able to prevent this in my opinion. However rewarding greed is wrong, and our current system does that by bailing out the greedy.
This partly because at the highest echelons of the establishment, there really is no line between business and government. We really live in a system of Corporatism. MPs on boards of directors, the revolving door of business and government positions (and the EU to add to the corruption), the merger of big business and government through PFI etc.
TomPaine
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I think you're very naive then. A system that enocurages greed but doesn't encourage greed in one sector? The argument that capitalism has been taken over by greedy people is a novel one though.
And you confuse amoral with neutral.
And you confuse amoral with neutral.
No I disagree with you there. The system does not encourage greed, it is amoral:
The system of capatalism like the market has no concept of right or wrong. Only those operating within it can taylor their operation to what is percieved to be right or wrong within any society at any given point in history.
I also pointed out that the banks had been taken over by "greedy people", (although monopolists is probably a better term) not the system of capatalism itself, since I believe the system to be amoral this wouldn't be possible.
TomPaine
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
You're confusing the same terms once more.
I don't know how you pointing out that what you think is impossible has happened helps either.
I'm off now anyway.
I don't know how you pointing out that what you think is impossible has happened helps either.
I'm off now anyway.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
So it's not just greed. It's greed combined with power and influence.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
I'm with TomPaine here. Cash has no morality.
Profit / Personal interest or even greed is not necessary problematic for society. However when it becomes a problem then it time for regulation.
glenquagmire
Rightwing NuLab apologist
But capitalism HAS to grow in order to maintain profits, because of the TRPD. It cannot survive without greed.
Therefore if you think greed is bad, you must admit that capitalism is bad.
Therefore if you think greed is bad, you must admit that capitalism is bad.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
Capitalism does not have to grow. It's the cost of the cost of money (interest) that means assets must be used with increasingly efficiency. This does not require greed.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
TRPD?
If you believe I am then so are some of the books I have as well such as "What's Class go to do with it - American Society in the Twenty-First Century" by Michael Zweig who is a Professor of Economics and the Director of the "Center for the Study of Working Class Life". Fair enough if you disagree with this interpretation though.
I'll point out also that even "Economics for Dummies" a good book explaining the basics of different economies uses the following phrase:
"Consequently, economics is amoral, rather than immoral".
I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, I don't believe that capatalism has failed because of the fact that monopolies can operate within it, I believe it ceases to be capatalism when the state becomes heavily involved in supporting these entities i.e. prevents the natural flow of the market. In many cases what we have is government being complicit in allowing monoplies to operate by suppressing opposition, using the state to support companies and control markets etc. That in my opinion isn't capatalism in operation, but crossing the boundry into corporotism or even in extreme cases such as South America in the past out and out fascism.
TomPaine
glenquagmire
Rightwing NuLab apologist
Tendency of the rate of profit to decline (google it).
Capitalism cannot remain still; if it does, it dies. In order to maintain profit levels company owners have to seek out new areas of growth. Capital is greedy in a capitalist system.
Capitalism cannot remain still; if it does, it dies. In order to maintain profit levels company owners have to seek out new areas of growth. Capital is greedy in a capitalist system.
SpookyFrank
Don't swallow the cap
^This. We haven't just been unlucky and found ourselves with irresponsible and greedy muppets running the world's banks, the world's banks are required to be irresponsible and greedy by the system under which they operate.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
Then I guess efficiency is another term for how you define greed.
To a certain degree you could say this regarding all systems that progress. Everything has to adapt to changes to grow or improve.
It is perfectly possible for a company to peak then plateau and continue to plateau for the forseeable future, should the owners wish to run their company that way protecting their market share or niche market. Obviously the majority don't and seek out new areas to expand into or create whole new markets. Something which the USSR obviously didn't and the stagnation eventually helped to contribute to its collapse.
TomPaine
glenquagmire
Rightwing NuLab apologist
How did you work that one out?
Do you think so? I have to say I am not that confident to be honest. It seems to me that the fuckers that created this mess and getting away with it. They are walking off with the pennies in the pocket and have left us with shit.
Unless there are massive changes to the system nothing will change. Brown will part nationalise the banks, the Tories will get in and flog off the shares back to the same sorts of people who created the mess at bottom dollar, without fixing the underlying problems.
No doubt like the current Labour administration, most of the power in the party will continue to work in industry as well leaving a massive conflict of interest.
Or things could become much worst, with some form of government that is a complete hybrid of business and the state run by monopolists creaming the profit and crushing competition... with Dave Cameron's or Peter Mandleson's smarmy fucking face at the front of it.
TomPaine
elbows
Well-Known Member
Well that perception is exactly why I think there will be change. Especially once we've had a few years of actually having to live with the shit. At minimum it will involve the adjustment of rhetoric and ideology. In practice that may not actually make things much better or fairer, but it will open the door a little to slightly broader political discourse.
I think it depends on how bad the pain is and how long it lasts. It will need to be pretty bad for there to actually be radical change, but I suppose I expect it to be pretty bad, and that peoples anger will lead us in a different direction. Not necessarily further to the left, but certainly away from what we've had for the last few decades.
For capitalism overall to be at risk, something fundamental will have to break. If mass production gets messed up by energy & environmental issues, confidence and trust does not return, the masses go on the rampage for a sustained period, things like that, then it could die. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.
Alternatively people may just end up needing a new dream to get them through the woetime, and if the current ways are discredited then the dream is going to be based on some other ideology.
Andy the Don
Wise men say only fools..
But new areas of growth does not have to mean increase in the cost to the consummer. A new area of growth can be anyting from a multi-national introducing a new product to the corner shop stocking a new chocolate bar. They both are done with the intent of increasing revenue.
northernhord
Active Member
It has failed because that bubble as you call it will kill it off, what will resurface, if indeed of anything of 'that' ilk does surface effectively wont be capitalism as you know it.
cozmikbrew
Bass case
call me stupid naive massively idealistic?but .... we daily accept the shit that capitalism foists uponus grumbling,arguing over stupid semantics im pretty sure that the majority of folk who post on here have a fairly good understanding of how and why the status quo is just that!theres a simple monosylabic answer to it short tem and thats no!!!we as people are "capitalism"whether dissenting or not theres alot of inter schism bickering that is at best "healthy debate"but ultimately a joke to the people that count!times running out for fucks sake wake up!!world say no day?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
communism will win
Normal service is boom and slump. Whether this slump is more serious or long-lasting than others remains to be seen.
It's very naive to think it's only about banks and their irresponsible lending. It isn't: it's also about rising prices of basic goods, especially oil and some foodstuffs, overpopulation, perhaps climate change.
It might not be the end of capitalism as we know it, but it's serious. At the least, it means rising powers such as China gain at the expense of the US and UK, and the rest of Europe for that matter. It's also likely to sharpen competition for fossil fuels, already a cause of some pretty major friction even within Europe and possibly a cause of some much nastier conflicts in future. Lest we forget, it probably means a fair few of the world's poorest are likely to starve - over and above those who would anyway, even were the market working at its best...
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
None of which point at anything but a continuation of capitalism - possibly managed sligtly differently (China). But that's it.
Capitalism as a system has centuries to burn yet. We might be right, but not yet.
Capitalism as a system has centuries to burn yet. We might be right, but not yet.
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