Capitalism is Stupid and it Sucks.

[Theda Baratheon]

Also some people like working retail abd thats awesome for them i love it when people enjoy their jobs so im not looking down on retail WORKERS just that it can be a shitty job and a lot of people hate it

[Radical Turtle]

I don't usualy post here, but i felt someone had to point out that one of the evils of capitalism is how itallowed large multinational corporations to shit all over the the third world nations for the sake of profit for their clueless shareholders.

[Altherion]

sure, but bailouts aren't capitalism

No, but some manner of rigging the rules to favor the very wealthy is an inevitable consequence of capitalism. Most industries have economies of scale which cause the more successful competitors to become big enough to influence policy. The only way this would not necessarily happen is in a system like China's (where money still matters to some extent, but ultimate power is held by a bureaucracy which destroys any capitalist that attempts to become too powerful).
 

Again, licensing is not capitalism

Again, no, but it is an inevitable development in a capitalist society -- there is no modern society without it. It's not even necessarily government which mandates it -- industries where fraud is possible will naturally agree to certain common requirements.
 

I am a CPA, so I will use this as an example. 
 
I work for a CPA firm. I want to be a partner, but there isn't room for me to be a partner at my firm. I can go out on my own, but as you said, this will require capital (need to eat and pay the bills), and will require I build a client list that I will depend on to pay my bills. 
 
There are loans I can take, I can finance myself, or I can buy an existing practice and do an installment sale to pay the existing practitioner. 
 
As you said, these amounts are not trivial, and require a huge leap of faith on my behalf, but my success is only constrained by my ability. 
 
The avenues are similar for persons in other businesses. I have a client who owned a disaster recovery business, and wanted to do something else, so sold it to his general manager in an installment agreement. At one time, that general manager was the laborer, going to peoples houses and sucking up overflowed toilet water, and now he owns the business. Capitalism works.

You are talking about middle or perhaps even upper-middle class people. I agree with you that such people can take a chance and strike out on their own, but I'm not sure that this is true of the poor. Let's say that somebody works at Walmart or McDonald's or some other place where the wages are close to the minimum and suppose that they have the average credit rating of people in that position. Do you really think that anybody is going to give them a loan or an installment agreement to purchase their own grocery store or franchise or whatever? And most of these jobs do not offer much in the way of advancement.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

No, but some manner of rigging the rules to favor the very wealthy is an inevitable consequence of capitalism. Most industries have economies of scale which cause the more successful competitors to become big enough to influence policy. The only way this would not necessarily happen is in a system like China's (where money still matters to some extent, but ultimate power is held by a bureaucracy which destroys any capitalist that attempts to become too powerful).

I think you're giving the Chinese system too much credit.

[Northernmonkey]

Let's be honest - if you live in a third-world or developing country capitalism is going to shit all over you. Western companies sucking all the wealth out of your country, stealing all your natural resources. The IMF and World Bank loaning you money as long as you follow their devastating conditions. Being under threat from environmental disasters that are almost entirely the fault of other countries. It's easy for us in our safe European homes to defend capitalism but it's a nightmare for most of the earth's population. And then we have the cheek to complain when a few migrants show up on our shores. 

 

Maybe it's because I'm a complete lefty but I agree with the OP - capitalism is stupid and it sucks. The one redeeming feature of capitalism is that it fuels technological advancement. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

WF, don't let the man get you down, man.

But yeah, pretty much what Shryke said. The idea that capitalism is an accurate and efficient meritocracy is delusional.

[IamMe90]

IAMME90, its the democratization of wealth that exploits the women and children involved in what amounts to slave labor.  The people that try to intelligently spend their income aren't generally buying $10 dresses to wear once.  They are the one buying $100 dollar dresses and financing Fair Trade practices. 

Uh, okay, that's irrelevant, though, because there is still a huge demand for such products, and mutinational corporations are more than happy to step up and fill that demand by exploiting child slave labor in order to accumulate wealth for wealth's sake. Which is why I reject such blanket assertions as "the pursuit of wealth in a capitalist society is virtuous" on their face when we have such pervasive instances of the complete opposite in capitalist economies.

[James Arryn]

This thread is full of limitations.

[karaddin]

IAMME90, its the democratization of wealth that exploits the women and children involved in what amounts to slave labor.  The people that try to intelligently spend their income aren't generally buying $10 dresses to wear once.  They are the one buying $100 dollar dresses and financing Fair Trade practices. 

This sounds great in theory, and I've certainly engaged in this thinking in the past, but to someone who literally cannot afford to feed their family nutritious food even the $10 item of clothing that will fall apart is something they can't afford but have to do so anyway, the $100 item of clothing is a fucking pipe dream.  That's not a real choice unless you are already above a certain standard. To tell someone that poor that they are just being short sighted is really condescending, this shit is the expense of being poor that keeps you poor.

[DreamSongs]

This sounds great in theory, and I've certainly engaged in this thinking in the past, but to someone who literally cannot afford to feed their family nutritious food even the $10 item of clothing that will fall apart is something they can't afford but have to do so anyway, the $100 item of clothing is a fucking pipe dream.  That's not a real choice unless you are already above a certain standard. To tell someone that poor that they are just being short sighted is really condescending, this shit is the expense of being poor that keeps you poor.

My intention is not to sound condescending and I am sorry if it does.  I am fully aware that there are neighborhoods in my own community that can eat more cheaply at McDonald's than they can buy an apple at their local food market.  That is why I participate in my local food cooperation which goes into the worse communities to bring fresh, reasonably priced food to homes through access and education.  Our coop members are aware that we are the fortunate ones that can afford to get what we want and agree to the yearly fees which guarantees that others in our community that do not have access to food will have it.  We are now throughout the inner cities of our town and people are growing their own, healthy food again.  Ultimately, it is a free enterprise system with supporters that make that possible.

[Spring Bass]

Uh, lease on a building? Seriously, what the fuck are some of you even talking about?

 

That literally does not connect to my point at all. They pay for the lease out of revenue, or go bankrupt. 

 

 

 

You are talking about middle or perhaps even upper-middle class people. I agree with you that such people can take a chance and strike out on their own, but I'm not sure that this is true of the poor. Let's say that somebody works at Walmart or McDonald's or some other place where the wages are close to the minimum and suppose that they have the average credit rating of people in that position. Do you really think that anybody is going to give them a loan or an installment agreement to purchase their own grocery store or franchise or whatever?

 

Immigrants poorer than your average American household start businesses (or get involved in various sectors as entrepreneurs) all the time. Like I said, most businesses early on are self-funded - they're either funding them out of earnings, mortgaging their house, using savings, getting money from family and friends, etc. Most Americans just don't do that because they'd rather force their employer to pay them what they want. 

 

 

 

It's easy for us in our safe European homes to defend capitalism but it's a nightmare for most of the earth's population. And then we have the cheek to complain when a few migrants show up on our shores.

 

Hardly.  The countries that have gone hard-core developmental capitalism like China and earlier South Korea and Taiwan are getting richer and more prosperous, while those that have consistently fucked it up on governance or kept themselves out of competing in international markets haven't.  One of the greatest reductions of poverty in human history has happened in the past 30 years from China going more capitalist alone, and India moving away from the disastrous "license raj". 

 

 

 

But yeah, pretty much what Shryke said. The idea that capitalism is an accurate and efficient meritocracy is delusional.

 

It's a more efficient and accurate meritocracy than the alternatives, and that's enough for me. 

 

Ugh the blockquotes got butchered in this. 

[Ramsay Gimp]

This sounds great in theory, and I've certainly engaged in this thinking in the past, but to someone who literally cannot afford to feed their family nutritious food even the $10 item of clothing that will fall apart is something they can't afford but have to do so anyway, the $100 item of clothing is a fucking pipe dream.  That's not a real choice unless you are already above a certain standard. To tell someone that poor that they are just being short sighted is really condescending, this shit is the expense of being poor that keeps you poor.

 

Is anyone allowed to defend capitalism at all without being told that they're condescending or rude or whatever? 

[all swedes are racist]

Yes, in fact quite a number of posters in this very thread.

[karaddin]

 

Is anyone allowed to defend capitalism at all without being told that they're condescending or rude or whatever? 

Feel free to try actually reading my posts and try again. And yes now I'm being rude, oops.

[A Prince of Dorne]

We live in a hybrid capitalistic-socialist society. It's not a pure form of one or the other in America. People who hate capitalism will blame capitalism for their problems. People who hate socialism will blame socialism for their problems. 

 

Problem is, there are just too many damn people in this world to make everyone happy and it's only going to get worse so buckle in and enjoy the ride because you only get one. 

[Weeping Sore]

Yes, Wise Fool, Capitalism is stupid and it sucks. And the argument that there is no better totalistic replacement system also sucks, but that is the argument that your totalistic rejection invites.

If you're used to living uncomfortably, why not join the Peace Corps?

[Spring Bass]

I read an interesting book by Jason Brennan called Why Not Capitalism? He makes a pretty good case that if people were saints rather than people, capitalistic markets would be the best system. After all, if people were saints, they wouldn't try to rip each other off, they'd immediately step up to help each other if someone fell into trouble, and so forth. Moreover, such a system would still let people choose to live in collective arrangements if they wanted to - they could live in a commune amidst the broader capitalist society while trading with it, etc. 

I've been thinking about alternatives, though. If you had

1. Something akin to replicators from Star Trek

2. Extremely powerful, integrated computers

3. Ultra-cheap energy

4. Robots that could do literally every job that people aren't willing to do out of passion/desire/personal pleasure alone

Then you could make something like Parecon work. Essentially, people would pull stuff out of the replicators to use and feed unneeded stuff back in for recycling, and the computers would constantly monitor and move energy and resources around to meet people's usual needs. If you needed an exceptionally large amount of resources you'd probably have to ask for permission (or at least put in a reason for it), but for everyday consumption and use you'd be fine. The Culture from Iain Banks' novels might have something like that, if I remember right from Consider Phlebas (it mentions that they fulfill all reasonable and "some unreasonable" requests with aplomb upon demand). 

And of course, the more resources and energy available, the more stuff you could have available upon demand. People might be able to request spaceships, airplanes, yachts, etc as long as they agree to use them within regulations. 

The tricky issue would be land, since you usually can't make more land. Would you let people have transferrable land rights? Nationalize all the land and give people long-term leases? Put people on a list to use it every so often? 

[Jo498]

The whole point of (political) economics is or should be that people are NOT saints and that there are actually scarce goods (everything may become scarce because people are not saintly but greedy) and we need some procedure to produce and distribute those goods.

So I have doubts that starting from completely unrealistic premisses will shed light on real economical systems...

[Spring Bass]

Perfect people doesn't imply a perfect world where scarcity doesn't exist. That's the point of the "calculation problem" of socialism - even if you assume away issues with selfishness, greed, etc you're still stuck with the problem of determining how to produce and allocate goods and services.

[Daemrion]

We are not just an economy, we are a society. Something that I think that the neo-liberal right wingers who espouse free market just don't understand (or choose to willfully ignore). Oh, and they also forget about externalities, both negative and positive which the market can't deal with.

US is a good example of the extreme pitfalls of capitalism and how it's good in theory but not in practice.

I'd much rather follow the Nordic (Denmark/Sweden/Norway) model of government. They seem to have gotten the right balance.