The problem of Capitalism

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by stan1990, Mar 13, 2019.

?

Do you agree that the main problem of Capitalism is of moral nature?

Poll closed Apr 12, 2019.
  1. Yes

    33.3%
  2. No

    50.0%
  3. Maybe

    16.7%
  1. garry17

    garry17 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 7, 2011
    Messages:
    4,126
    Likes Received:
    176
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Ah so you are claiming rights of some description. The right to USE the land. Prey tell, just what natural right do you think exists on that measure. Forget owning the land should you plant a crop what is stopping me from putting my cattle on your crop and eating it to nothing??? Do you think nature decides that your crop is rightfully planted first so nothing will eat it??? Again your rights of anything is only provided by the violence or fear of violence that can be provided to establish such… Rights, this doesn’t exist in nature at all…

    As for your idealism, You want the land to be valued at some mechanism that is artificially determined, you don’t want free markets to determine that price because you don’t believe that it “precisely constitutes the compensation owed for depriving other people” except that is the point of making it valued by market. The value of the land is made by the use and production value derived from it…


    Thank you for your quotes but I don’t need them to discern the value of the comment at this point so building them to ascertain your credibility is waste of your time
    .
    1. To your point, it is irrelevant due entirely to the issue of demand of capitalism defining ownership. Ownership of land is made by the collective not capitalism. Should the collective decide land is not a commodity, capitalism still exists regardless of what you think is demanded. Making the point of ownership in the discussion pointless. Land ownership stands alone as a commodity from market principle.

    2. The pedantic measure is that you say all aspects or none… fact is state can own the land and the business and make for profit and still remain in capitalist system as long as it does not own ALL…

    Not completely, only if you expect socialism is Marxism or communism. Where Crank is from the evaluate of socialism as social policy regime not communism, I think this point is an argument of lost translation.
    In socialist market the capitalist principle can remain as long as it is not completely controlled (or closed) market. According to the point that it is a socialist democratic government…



    maybe I am wrong in translation here, but don’t you believe land ownership (or control) is part of the basis of capitalism???
    then maybe we are talking of translations but I am still unconvinced that is the case. On we go.






    It is the people who decide who and how land can be possessed or used. Either individually group or state. Should the people (through governance) decide ownership of the people to be by state then that is how it is. Nothing to do with capitalism and since ownership is not necessary to the market, has no relevance to the point of capitalism.
    That point is, that rights only exist in the presence of ability to uphold them, there are no individual rights.

    Here is a point of contention at this very moment “Land, atmospheric air, or the natural sunlight shining upon our planet need not be anyone's "property" for there to be a natural right to enjoy “today the many in the world believe we should tax the air we breathe. That we should tax the sunlight we feel because by doing so we can change the climatic conditions the world we live in. So in other words, they are claiming ownership, by the group over natural resources and demanding the people pay for them. Go figure…
    didn’t you say the quotation stated???

    Yes requirement not extortion demand. By saying such you demand that the owner of the land set the price. As stated value of the land is set by the market, that is the price the buyers are willing to pay. So the only way somebody could use land for extortion is by convoluting the market principle so the buyer pays less. In ALL markets that is called corruption and is generally illegal. However, as you might guess as capitalism is not a legal system, it allows such and the only mechanism to prevent such is the altruism of the people NOT the system

    As stated open to all who meet the requirements, thus we see the point of what land ownership is allowed and how people convolute the capitalist system to demand the world owns them( not you but the demand of the entitled)


    Again there we see “the land title, also called "license to steal" (by informed people), gets the owner more and more something for nothing for what would be there anyway”
    Doesn’t it take real effort and input to “you have to outpace economic growth in order to buy land where you work and live. This is mathematically impossible for most people”


    Let us put it this way, ! tribe has pigs and another tribe is great at slaughtering those pigs another tribe makes knives. So tribe 2 comes to tribe 1 and makes a deal to slaughter 20 pigs for half the slaughter… BUT they then have to make a deal with tribe 3 to get the knives to do so. Thus the value of dressing the pigs is considered to be 10pigs while knives are valued at 5pigs.

    Don’t you believe that is capitalism??? Well it is the very principle and it existed. What you are arguing is making a universal value and creating the basis of economy on that value. Developed nations use gold as the principle value of economy, thus I pig might be worth 1 ounce of gold… S***t that would make bacon bloody expensive don’t you think…

    My point is, the claims made on capitalism is by far no were near the reality of the principle, it is the corruption that humans have made to meet individual demands. Thus if we look to what issue is with capitalism and any failure, you cannot blame the corruption you freely put in just because that particular aspect is against your ideal.
     
  2. garry17

    garry17 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 7, 2011
    Messages:
    4,126
    Likes Received:
    176
    Trophy Points:
    63
    What are those necessities in life??? Are they, land ownership, or the ability to survive... again subjective matter nothing more.
     
  3. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 8, 2016
    Messages:
    5,000
    Likes Received:
    718
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Not land ownership, but ability to survive; the requirements for the latter are obviously not entirely "subjective", ie food and shelter are objective necessities.

    Now I know capitalism is a free-market, profit-seeking-by-individuals, (hence "invisible hand") system to facilitate efficient production and distribution of goods, whether such goods are necessary for survival or not...., and has nothing to do with 'morality or rights', which are concepts of human invention and which do not exist among animals, where 'distribution' of 'vital goods' - supplied by nature - is determined by predation.

    I hope you were making a point that I failed to grasp, because nations abandoned the gold standard decades ago.

    And this is the whole point of MMT, which explains why fiat currency issuing (with floating exchange rate) governments can never run out of money, a misunderstood term in itself).

    From Warren Mosler's book: 'The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy':

    <<Deadly Innocent Fraud #1: The federal government must raise funds through taxation or borrowing in order to spend. In other words, government spending is limited by its ability to tax or borrow.>>

    So MMT enables governments of all persuasions to guarantee universal above poverty level participation in a capitalist economy (whether in the US, Europe or China) simply because the raw resources required to achieve this outcome do exist*, irrespective of 'money' which is intrinsically worthless.

    *(except where pressure of population exceeds the capacity of the environment to supply those resources).

    Now I notice you also going astray with regard to 'climate change'.
    Fact is we have the resources to quickly compensate and transfer resources from filthy fossil to clean green; neither money nor morality has anything to do with it, but survival of the earth's ecology and hence life does.

    Note: CO2 emissions are only one issue - poisonous, carcinogenic particulates, smog and acid rain are also significant issues.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2019
  4. james M

    james M Banned

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2014
    Messages:
    12,916
    Likes Received:
    858
    Trophy Points:
    113
    People who don't have money have Medicare Medicaid Schip etc and have operations every day. Do you have any idea what point your are trying to make??
     
  5. james M

    james M Banned

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2014
    Messages:
    12,916
    Likes Received:
    858
    Trophy Points:
    113
    you have learned 27 times that capitalism is based on love and morality. Either you supply the best products and jobs to your customers and employees or you go bankrupt. If you doubt it for a second start a business and offer substandard jobs and products. Can you predict what would happen?? Notice how a conservative is made to feel like a kindergarten teach when a liberal is around?
     
  6. james M

    james M Banned

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2014
    Messages:
    12,916
    Likes Received:
    858
    Trophy Points:
    113
    this is obviously true! The only other source of money is to print it. A liberal will be so totally perfectly and 100% ignorant that he will imagine that if everyone could print their own money everyone would be rich! Printing money creates money not cars or bread. Cars and bread are needed to get rich!!
     
  7. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 20, 2013
    Messages:
    54,812
    Likes Received:
    18,482
    Trophy Points:
    113
    ONCE AGAIN .. how are you going to achieve this "better world" if we consistently vote against it?

    The only you will ever get it is at the point of a gun. You know it.
     
  8. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 20, 2013
    Messages:
    54,812
    Likes Received:
    18,482
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Explain exactly how you will achieve this 'systematic' change, please.

    Meantime, the reason we have so many disenfranchised people in the West, is because so many FAMILIES in the West refuse to take responsibility for their own. That isn't a problem of the system, that is a problem of culture. That's where your energies need to lie, because without force (ie, guns), you won't change a capitalist democracy. It's the best system for the most, and we all know it.
     
    Idahojunebug77 likes this.
  9. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 8, 2016
    Messages:
    5,000
    Likes Received:
    718
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The difficulty arises because Warren Mosler's first identified "deadly innocent fraud" of economic policy, namely,

    <<Fraud #1: The federal government must raise funds through taxation or borrowing in order to spend. In other words, government spending is limited by its ability to tax or borrow.>>


    is counter-intuitive, because our own lived experience tells us we have to balance our household budgets, and pay our bills as they arrive.

    [But consider this: we all think the earth is flat, and the sun moves across the sky from east to west every day): or at least we all did think that - because it was our lived experience - until scientists taught us otherwise].

    BUT government (issuer of the currency) is not subject to the same constraints as households (users of the currency). In fact, Government is constrained by resources, not fiat money, whereas households are constrained by money (ie balancing income and expenditures.

    In short, the task of government is to maintain full employment at constant prices, not to 'balance a budget' (unlike households, as already noted).

    This is a short introduction to macroeconomics, in a post gold standard era.
    It's time to learn about government, fiat currencies and fiscal policy options beyond balanced budgets.

    IOW, it's time to stop being a 'flat-earther'......
     
  10. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 8, 2016
    Messages:
    5,000
    Likes Received:
    718
    Trophy Points:
    113
    No. Capitalism is based first on profit seeking by individuals; any 'love and morality' are mere inconveniences to be dealt with. Hence patent law, copyright law, intellectual property law, employment law, wages law, anti-monopoly law etc.etc....

    Discovery, education, and dissemination of knowledge of economic reality. That's how any systemic change is achieved.
     
  11. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 8, 2016
    Messages:
    5,000
    Likes Received:
    718
    Trophy Points:
    113
  12. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 8, 2016
    Messages:
    5,000
    Likes Received:
    718
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Yep, neoliberal orthodoxy is falling apart at last, under the weight of evidence of failure of central bank interest-rate policy.

    This from - Bill Mitchell blog - today (google):

    <<"It (the British Labour Party's Fiscal Credibility Rule) was designed by economists who have repeatedly written that the conduct of macroeconomic policy, designed to address fluctuations in non-government spending and maintain stable growth and stable inflation, is best left to unelected and largely unaccountable central bank policy committees.

    This is the mainstream view that is rapidly being discredited by the evidence of the failure of central banks to achieve their stated targets, the array of negative interest rates out to the distant regions of the yield curve, the stagnation in real wages growth, the rising and unsustainable wealth and income inequality, the rising private debt levels, and the low to zero growth that many economies are now trapped in as a result of this reliance on monetary policy and the associated bias towards fiscal austerity.">>

    So... back to good ol' capitalism: it's fine as a motivator of economic activity by individuals, but hopeless "to address fluctuations in non-government spending and maintain stable growth and stable inflation" in the entire economy.

    Hence it's no surprise Powell is rated "number-one enemy of the state" - according to Trump - as recession appears to loom ever closer...and Trump has an election to face.
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2019
  13. garry17

    garry17 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 7, 2011
    Messages:
    4,126
    Likes Received:
    176
    Trophy Points:
    63
    The thing that makes that subjective is what you consider as basic necessities ie shelter meaning house not a cave... what food and so on. but you did answer the point.


    Obviously you miss the point... put simply you are discussing capitalism after the point of making universal value. Now you are clearly under the delusion that your money is the value. gathering your American, even though you think the US dollar is the mark of value around the world but it is not. Thus, the universal language has to set in some manner with equal value around the world which is gold. We could have done diamonds but the inconsistency in gems made this problematic... However, you are right that the gold standard has been abandoned that simply means you no longer carry it around. but your currency is underpinned by gold, the ability to buy and hold...

    Now you say nations can never run out of money, the problem is that it isn’t running out that is the problem. What happens is the value of your money falls. Take Zimbabwe for example, how do you think anybody is trading with them???


    again you have the wrong end of the stick, it was not about climate change but the "so called" environmental support. As pointed out the poster stated that it is fact that in the future the world will become so polluted that I will find it hard to breath... They know this because... they have faith that those who misrepresent the science tell them so. Just as you say " survival of the earth's ecology and hence life” the planet has been hotter, and higher levels of ALL greenhouse gasses and life continued…


    However, just to your faith, I have always been taught to question everything. Never to take things at face value. SO when you hear the UN is having climate crisis meetings stating the planet is on track to reach 3 degree of warming by the end of the century, but it is still possible to act to reduce that to between 1.5 and 1.8 degrees you have to ask yourself who is doing the maths. If man is producing less than 1% of the greenhouse gasses and reductions through abatement or reduction will see reductions of HALF the warming effect. Something isn’t right… Like the push to electric, increasing a far more detrimental gas in the environment OZONE gas.

    Simple to say, this “so called” environmental support to show empathy to the future of the planet to demand people live and pay what your faith believes is needed to change something that they still know so little about is laughable. People talk about the future of the people while they demand action that see the death of many present people. So I ask, how many people have to die to satisfy your need to appear like you want to sacrifice for the world… And that is the only point I see any moral issue in… Not sure what the rest of the moral righteous crap is your trying to push.
     
  14. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,398
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Wrong again. Prices are limited by extant purchasing power. Returns are not.

    See how easily I always prove all your fallacious and absurd garbage is fallacious and absurd garbage?

    What have you learned about your fear?

    The GFC would have taught you, if you were willing to learn, that people DO bid up the price of housing until no ROI is possible, and that then destroys the economy unless it is rescued by government bailouts of capitalist banksters.
    <yawn> You are the one demonstrating pure ignorance; I am the one schooling you in basic economics; and I will thank you to remember it.
     
  15. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,398
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Nonsense. Liberty can't include the right to remove others' rights to liberty, yet that is exactly what landowning does.
     
  16. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,398
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    You DO have a right to USE things that are not yours -- sunlight, atmospheric air, the oceans, rivers, land, etc. -- which is exactly how our remote ancestors survived for millions of years without owning the natural resources they used. Like them, you have a right to EXTRACT resources, remove them from nature, and fashion something that did not previously exist. But you can never extract a location, because locations can't be moved. See how that works?
     
  17. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,398
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    A landowner claims to have a privilege of depriving others in the community of their rights without making just compensation for what he is taking from them. That's just evil, sorry.

    And you are incorrect that the community has no rights. The community is the SOURCE of rights, and therefore has every right to protect its members from the depredations of the evil, like those who seek to own others' rights to liberty through chattel slavery or landowning.
     
  18. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,398
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    No, I am seeking a society where the exercise of productive ability is rewarded commensurately, and rich, greedy, evil, privileged parasites are not legally entitled to steal from the productive.
    Strawman. It's not random hardworking strangers. It's everyone in the community, who all know they could also suffer misfortune, and therefore each take up a small enough portion of the burden that it is not burdensome to anyone. You don't seem capable of comprehending the fact that if 50 people each have a burden of 1kg, they will hardly notice it, and it will not harm them; but if the full 50kg is loaded on one person, they will be crushed by it, and then the next person will have to shoulder it, and be crushed by it in turn, etc. ad infinitum. AND each crushed person then becomes an additional 50kg burden on someone else, so the burdens expand exponentially. That is why the community and everyone in it benefits from the broad distribution of such burdens.
    I told you: liberty, justice and truth.
    My not stealing does not stop the privileged from stealing from me. Duh.
    Why is it my responsibility to look after them? I did not cause their misfortunes. By contrast, the landowner DOES cause the oppression of the landless, and owes them just recompense.
    Right. My goal is to cure the disease, not just relieve the symptoms.
    Garbage I did not cause their misfortunes, much less their unwise choices.
    What on earth are you talking about? It's not "my" slack. I did nothing to merit a peculiar burden just by being born into the same family or social circle as someone in need. Your principle would result in the poor being peculiarly burdened looking after their fellow poor. That makes me wonder what YOUR real agenda is.
     
  19. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,398
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    By making just compensation to the community of those whom you deprive of it.

    See how easy that was?
     
  20. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,398
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    What an eloquent concession that you have been comprehensively and conclusively demolished, you know it, and you have no answers.
     
  21. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,398
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Starjet thinks ownership of property is the basic human right. I think owning "property" that consists of others' rights to liberty is slavery. Rand agreed with me that valid property rights are founded in an act of production, not an act of appropriation. She just didn't quite clue into how that invalidates property in land. She came so close, though, when describing the intellectual dishonesty of socialism:

    "An industrialist — blank-out — there is no such person. A factory is a 'natural resource,' like a tree, a rock or a mud-puddle.”

    By George, she's got it!

    But no, she was so wedded to capitalism, she refused to follow her thought where it obviously led.
    I can't blame you for participating in evil. The system gives you a choice of being either a victim, or both a victim and a perpetrator.
    No. Land can never rightly be owned. The state administers possession and use of land in any case, because that is what it IS: the sovereign authority over a specific area of land. The only question is, will it discharge that duty to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor, or only in the narrow financial interest of a greedy, evil, privileged, parasitic landowning elite?
     
  22. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,398
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    No, you are just makin' $#!+ up again. The mob is already there, ready to pounce on any unprotected person or property. It is the community and only the community that defends the landowner's exclusive tenure against the pre-existing mob. You just want the landowner to get that service from the community for free, at everyone else's expense, and you even demand that everyone be force to subsidize the landowner by having their rights to liberty forcibly removed by the community for the landowner's unearned benefit, without just compensation.
    Because it was absurd, disingenuous $#!+ that YOU made up.
    <yawn> It is those who seek to own others' rights to liberty who are the biggest thieves:

    "Behind every great fortune there is a great crime." -- Balzac
     
  23. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,398
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    That's right: it is not contributing. And yes, I am selective: I only consider contributions to be contributions. Buying a license to steal is not a contribution no matter how much it costs.
    No, I said I was owed my rights. You just made some disingenuous $#!+ up again because that is the only form of "argument" you seem to be capable of.
    No. Simply experiencing an emotion cannot be evil. Evil requires either violating someone's rights with intent to inflict injustice or rationalizing, justifying or counseling such a violation, as you do.
    I want you to quote me saying what you claim I said. So far, you have not done so.

    <snip bald denials devoid of factual or logical content>
     
  24. garry17

    garry17 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 7, 2011
    Messages:
    4,126
    Likes Received:
    176
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Yes, I am glad we agree on something. I am grad we agree you want to disregard anything that shows an ability to grasp capitalism.

    Err, in your case they go hand in hand. I have continued to say such and your only retort is that you mean community not world… me thinks you don’t like the fact your being shown to be jealous of others and their achievements…

    No, I agree “Simply experiencing an emotion cannot be evil” but acting on that emotion IS. Reporting on that action is not evil. So demanding anything of what is owed by simple fact of one’s evil intent is evil… it does not required that action of violation but the intent and effort to cause or act upon… Thus simply experiencing the emotion is not… it is how you let it interact in your life that makes it evil…

    As it is your claim of good and evil, I would have thought you understood the difference rather than try make insult to justify desperation.

    Simply experiencing an emotion cannot be evil
    No, you want to send me on wild goose chases because you have nothing but your constant circles. As stated comeback when you have something new. Maybe some sources as your credibility is lacking. As stated simply saying what comes from your mouth is fact does nothing… So get back to me when you have something.
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2019
  25. james M

    james M Banned

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2014
    Messages:
    12,916
    Likes Received:
    858
    Trophy Points:
    113
    prices of any asset are based on ROI. All the purchasing power in the world is used to equalize ROI among all assets. This is why a nuclear power plant will have the same return as a supermarket which has virtually no fixed assets. Finance 101. You should try college; they teach you things there.
     

Share This Page