The problem of Capitalism

So there is no 'blame' in your world? No responsibility?

Are you 12, Reivs?

 

There's certainly no supply side economics. That's right wing nonsense that only the likes of you religiously follow.

 

Sure, Dear. Sure.

You guys are failing badly in this thread. I like that when it happens to you of course, but I had hopes for our pal BetterWorld.

 

I'm not surprised that you've replied with guff. Defending supply side economics is an impossibility: theoretically or empirically.

 

But we all - 'voluntarily*'- make poor choices all the time, no "force" involved. That's the point. That's the human condition.
*but in reality the volition is markedly constrained, by many factors already identified.

You are simply repeating one of the poverty myths identified in my previous post, which you ignored.
You ignore the facts, because your conception of the economy, including concept of value, is based on an erroneous classical model of the economy. That's also why you have to concede the 'referee' argument.

Wrong, but even more egregious is the ignorance revealed in your original question: "What in hell is a poverty related disease".

Have a go at explaining the difference in life expectancy between Fairfax County and McDowell County.

The two counties identified above?

Yes, the Bangladeshi people are mostly subject to inadequate calorie intake, but that has nothing to do with the relation between poverty-related obesity (poor food choices* related to poverty in the first world, and lack of exposure to good education, which is both a cause and effect of poverty, identified in one of the linked articles above, in the first world). *junk food is often cheaper than healthy food.

 

1) It matters not how textured our personal 'constraints' are .. at the end of the day we live in First World democracies, and therefore have the freedom and opportunity to choose how those obstacles will affect us. That is - literally and absolutely - where the buck stops. If the only thing preventing us from progress is ourselves, then the system cannot be blamed. We may be able to blame our parents, but that's the extent of potential external blame - and even that has a time limit.

2) It's no myth. Why do you think so many lottery winners end up poor again after a few years (those that started poor)? It's not a result of the system, or inequity, or evil rich people. It's 100% their own poor choices. You can't get around that, no matter how you dance.

3) Poverty related diseases are malnutrition, dental problems, etc etc. OBESITY is not a function of poverty, it's a function of a calorie dense diet (something only the richest humans can access easily .. ie, First Worlders) and insufficient exercise (ease being another a symptom of First World excess).

4) Bollocks, Dear. An 8 year old in the First World knows a salad is healthier than a cheeseburger. Stop making excuses for people.

 

The main problem with capitalism is that it doesn't require government control over the population

 

Weird comment, given capitalism goes hand in hand with interventionism...

 

Note the word 'require'.

 

Surely it does. That was Starjet's argument - that we are 'free' to make 'rational' choices, when all individuals display irrationality at one time or another, if not most of the time, depending on many factors. That's obvious ...by observation...

It's at the basis of our debate here. I supplied the link to the "human condition" site, which offers an explanation of why we compete instead of cooperate.

Of course life would be much simpler - and finer - if humans co-operated in matters of macroeconomics (at the WTO level, as well as well as in production and distribution of quality goods and services - including the finest education - within the nation).

That's separate to the issue of whether people want to work or not. Fact: there aren't enough above-poverty jobs.

Eg, if Sanders were elected president (I know, not going to happen, due to ignorance about macroeconomics, and fears of confiscation of one's personal wealth (among the slight majority who are at least already reasonably well-off in the US); and Stephanie Kelton became the Fed Reserve governor, the introduction of an above poverty level Job Guarantee (as described in MMT) would reveal that maybe 200 people over the entire US would not be interested in taking employment.....

Actually malnutrition, including both lack of calories (in the 3rd world) and over-consumption of 'empty' calories, or junk food (in the first world) - is more prevalent among those living in poverty in either case, aided by the fact that junk food is cheaper than healthy food in the first world.

Dietary choices - and finding menus that are tasty and healthy - is a complex business. Profit driven junk advertising complicates matters.
[interestingly, the latest report from concerned scientists says we must eat more plant-based food...].

But as for individuals making the right choices, see my first point above.

 

Where I live, so-called 'junk food' is not cheaper than healthy food.

 

Yep, guff

 

Generally 'junk food' is cheaper (and more convenient!) than healthy food, in most localities where food is available for purchase from both supermarkets and fast food outlets.

Where do you live? And why would you pay more for junk?

I have heard the argument that healthy food is cheaper than 'junk', and on a nutrient for nutrient basis - including vitamins, minerals, and fibre, in a healthy (say) 3000 calorie daily diet with sufficient protein, fat and complex carbohydrates, this may be true - but on a purely (empty -calorie-rich) ready to eat, comparison basis, the junk is cheaper.

And mass junk advertising helps keep it that way.

Now....back to the joys of the "invisible hand", competitive, profit-driven private sector market....

 

"It" what? How in hell does "control over the population" make any difference?

Enough of your "cheap one-liner shots" because you are unable to formulate anything more cogent.

You're mimicking too many American TV-commercial "spots" for the idle-minded ...

 

A FACTUAL PRESENTATION OF RECENT HISTORY

These "people". I wonder who they are? You don't "name names".

I think the problem is more "we-the-sheeple". Because we piss&moan about anything and that's it. Just pissing&moaning. We can't seem to formulate our griefs into a political platform that elects better political leaders.

And then there is another fact. Which is our generalized lack of Economic-Acuity. Whazzat?

That's a kind of historical mental-vision:
*We elect Obama in 2007 just as the worst Economic Downturn spawned what we now call the Great Recession (Wikipedia) in 2008 - so we blamed Obama in the 2009-midterms for the mess-created.
*That is, we-the-sheeple elected the Replicants in charge in the HofR (from which all spending-laws must originate) because Obama did not wave a magic-wand and correct one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Recession.
*Upon which the Replicant-controlled HofR stonewalled any further government expenditure that might have got the economy back up to a more normal unemployment-rate despite the fact that,
*Obama had stopped dead a skyrocketing unemployment rate of 10% whilst in office, and
*The Replicants wanted to sink his reelection chances by refusing any more stimulus-spending that might put more people back to work.
*Which meant that (though Obama was reelected anyway) Americans out-of-a-job were forced to bear a further four lonnng, lonnnng years of No Net Job Creation in the US.
*Don't believe that? Take a look at the historical Bureau of Labor Statistic from here of the Employment-to-population Ratio:

*Note in the above graphic that from 2010 to 2014 NO NEW NET JOB-CREATION OCCURRED! And which party controlled the budget-spending in the HofR during those years? The Replicants! And who refused to pass any further government expenditure to promote employment in order to sink Obama's chances at reelection? The Replicants!
*And who anyway elected Donald Dork as PotUS? We-the-sheeple did!

By the time we elected Donald Dork in 2015, the E-to-p Ratio had been repaired and was on a permanent upswing. And so we want to credit DD with the fact that unemployment is so very low historically at the moment?

Yeah, right! Stop the world, I wanna get off ... !

 

It = capitalism

 

Would you care to dump "capitalism" and we go back to bartering?

Capitalism is not a political notion. It is quite simply (from InvestoPedia):

Do you see the word "politic" in that definition. I don't. Whyzzat?

Because political will (that is, by elected officials) determines what becomes political policy. And in that case, the policy can be more or less mixed depending upon voter sentiment. If Americans have wanted less government determination of key-measures (such as national healthcare-and-education), then Europeans want more.

Too each their own vision of needs and how to provide them ...

 

OK...but presumably the goal is universal above poverty participation in the economy.

MMT achieves this with a Job Guarantee, via a buffer pool of employees that increases/decreases as demand in the private sector falls/rises. The buffer pool employment is of a type that a)can be withdrawn without immediate negative impact on the community eg maintaining gardens or other assistance to the still living-at-home elderly, and b) pays a minimum above poverty wage which acts as a price anchor. (All wages in the private sector will be higher than this minimum above poverty buffer pool wage).

'Protection of property rights through democracy within the firm', in the macroeconomy, sounds like a rather fundamental change of the means of production; MMT merely increases the size of, and wealth creation within*, the public sector while maintaining existing capitalist modes of production for many consumer goods.
*through the fiat-currency issuing powers of the 'consolidated government sector', including treasury and reserve bank, of the Federal/national government.

Bill Mitchell (of MMT) certainly recognises the loss of union influence since the 70's.
But he sees the wages floor created by a Job Guarantee as a counter to this loss of workers' union power, thereby shifting the greater share of profits back to workers.

Are the polls improving for Corbyn? But then that silly Lib Dem leader claims Corbyn "will take us back to the 70's", without explaining why (or maybe that's the fault of the attention deficit news media....).

 

"Would you care to dump "capitalism" and we go back to bartering?"

I don't see those as competing systems.

No, I am not in favor of dumping capitalism.

I think that bartering is a perfectly fine way for anyone to conduct some transactions. I rhink that it would become cumbersome to conduct all transactions under the barter system.

"Capitalism is not a political notion."

Agreed.

While communism and socialism don't, in theory, require government, those systems are typically administered by governments. That, in turn, adds a degree of governmental control over the population.

 

CRUMBS FALLING OFF THE TABLE

There is a difference between all three "isms" - Communism, Socialism and Social Democracies. Capitalism is NOT a political philosophy. All three mentioned employ "capital" to run their economies. It is the accumulation of capital that is the most important and not necessarily the principal political-philosophy for operating a nation of individuals.

Moreover economists have long since moved on to another criteria that is likely far more important and it is the matter of Income Disparity. That is, unlike communism that thought people could only be happy if everybody earned the same amount of money was quickly proven inane as a concept.

Humankind since a long, long time has known and accepted that some people are smarter than others and therefore should earn more. That principle is more of less accepted everywhere. The problem, if there is one, is what level of DIFFERENCE in earnings are acceptable amongst workers?

Mankind is certainly not of one-mind on that question. Most Americans seem to think that Income Inequality doesn't matter that much. If someone earns one helluva lot more money than others, then so what?

Most Europeans have seen through the false promises of Communism. They have long since opted for something in the middle of both Left and Right - called Social Democracy.

Which is thought to "sound better" than Socialism (coming from the Left) because the word Social keeps the focus on the fact that we all live socially in communities and have expectations to be treated not all equally but all equitably. Meaning therefore insane amounts of money being earned by a small percentage of the population is unacceptable.

The US, to some, seems to be a place where the rich and even ultra-rich are adulated - like walking/talking earthly gods. After all, what fool would not want to be super-rich? Which avoids the further question of, "Well, if we are all in this "thing" together why should a poor-man's son die to protect the inherited unearned wealth of the rich-man's son?"

At issue is not a matter of economic philosophy but of human fairness or equitability. Those who see the world in two dimensions (the poor and the rich) are only fooling themselves. As regards income, most developed economies has gradations between the two extremes.

So, the question that remains is philosophical. Is it right-and-proper that the gradation in income earned should not be defined by a government by means of taxation and perhaps even capped? Or should we just leave it to both human nature and capitalism to see how the cookie crumbles?

And I, for one, do not care at all to just accept the crumbs falling off the table ...

 

I can certainly agree with your last sentence, what is holding you back from earning a greater income?

What I see holding people back from improving their economic status is not taxation, but regulation. Regulations that hamper ones ability to participate in the economy and facillitates the growth of corporations, and thus an ever widening gap in income disparity

 

Two aspects here. We have economic history from the 60s/70s that proves full employment is insufficient to eliminate poverty (and working poverty is now the most dominant form). Second, within traditional means of production, its exceedingly difficult to construct a non-poverty wage threshold. Take the minimum wage. It's well known to be a relatively ineffective anti-poverty device.

A radical change in the ownership and control of the means of production is required. Much of the macroeconomic analysis, by ignoring that reality, can only provide partial answers.

Simply not enough. Its the divorce of owner and worker that ultimately guarantees both evononiv inefficiency and class orientated inequities.

The polls were almost completely wrong in 2017. However, the smear campaign has been in full display since. The British media makes Fox News look sensible....

 

Thatcherism was based on Friedman (monetarism) and Hayek (deregulation to encourage entrepreneurship). End result? Extreme inequalities to rival Dickensian misery.

 

It isn't cheaper anywhere. People buy it because they're too lazy too cook and because they like to indulge their lust for calorie dense foods.

 

Are you seriously going to suggest that people are somehow compelled to buy the junk? You do realise that's ridiculous dontcha? Millions of people are subject to exactly the same 'marketing pressures', and yet don't buy it.

And once again, healthy is always cheaper. Stop making excuses for people.