USA Capitalism is no Longer working

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by Quadhole, Oct 6, 2020.

  1. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    No. Neo-liberal Capitalism whether based on a gold standard or fiat currency, is way past its use-by date. Global ecological stresses resulting from business as usual are reaching breaking point. The costs of a 100% recycling industry and a global green economy with fair access to resources can only be accomplished with global public oversight and co-operation, to intervene in "invisible hand" private sector markets.

    Back to the drawing board. That's what this thread is about. National economies in the developing world are collapsing all around the world, the US shows soaring inequality with entrenched poverty causing increasing hyper-partisanship, while "socialism with Chinese characteristics" is performing well enough to increasingly threaten US global hegemony.....which is what the US confrontation with China is all about...the US couldn't give a damn about conditions in China up until recently......

    https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/go...-us-china-catastrophe-on-scale-of-world-war-i

    [WASHINGTON] Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said the incoming Biden administration should move quickly to restore lines of communication with China that frayed during the Trump years or risk a crisis that could escalate into military conflict.

    "Unless there is some basis for some cooperative action, the world will slide into a catastrophe comparable to World War I," Dr Kissinger said during the opening session of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. He said military technologies available today would make such a crisis "even more difficult to control" than those of earlier eras.
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2020
  2. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No, you are missing the point. Your non-Capitalism system you were advocating seemed to be based off monetary theory.

    It's like you changed the topic, and then when we argued with you about that, then you turn around and claim that is off-topic and irrelevant.

    If you want to discuss Capitalism vs non-Capitalism (economic systems), rather than monetary theory, we can do that.
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2020
  3. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    (Sigh) MMT is a description of financial arrangements based on the capitalist system, as the antidote to the unsustainable capitalism based on neoliberalism funded by private banksters. How hard is that to understand?

    I hope you now understand your error; even "socialism with Chinese characteristics" - with which the US will have to co-operate (as Kissinger has noted) - is based on capitalism these days.
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2020
  4. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If you shutdown the economy in response to a pandemic, will any system "work" ?

    We might want to address that before we talk about tossing out capitalism.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2020
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  5. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Firstly, I for one am not talking about tossing out capitalism. Even China has adapted capitalism, resulting in an increasing number of billionaires; but China also subsidizes housing and healthcare costs for ALL its citizens, and has officially eradicated poverty this year, on its way to achieving 1st world per capita GDP levels by 2049, a century after the founding of the CCP.

    Secondly, the claim that entrenched poverty and soaring inequality in the US can be fixed by simply reverting to the gold standard, without increasing tax rates on the wealthy, is obvious nonsense as already point outed, given the massive international trade flows in the present global economy.

    Thirdly, to your point about a life-saving lock-down of the economy as a response to the pandemic:
    any system that was functioning before the pandemic, can be adapted to ensure the provision of the essentials during the pandemic, by means of a government takeover of the free market economy.

    Food production, manufacture and delivery can mostly be carried out with social distancing (though some meat processing works might need to be closed); and vital utilities can like-wise remain operational.
    The funding model available to the national currency-issuing government during such a lock-down is obvious...with essential workers being rewarded with their usual wages, while the remainder of the population (non-essential workers) 'treads water' financially, but with all bills/expenses paid by the government during the compulsory lock-down 'holiday'.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2020
  6. James California

    James California Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    ~ Capitalism is not the problem - corporatism, greed and political influence is the problem. ✔
     
  7. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Last edited: Nov 20, 2020
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  8. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That doesn't sound like it will improve the economy, it sounds like you are talking about reallocation of scarce resources.
     
  9. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    How convenient, since the Left would prefer us all adopt a non-meat diet anyway.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2020
  10. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Where is the wealth going to come from to pay the non-essential workers? I am not talking about money, I am talking about wealth, purchasing power.
     
  11. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    {sigh} it's not meant to "improve the economy", it's meant to save lives....

    The Left? Anyway, the UN has said that ecologically sustainable food production and good health are best achieved by a reduction in meat consumption.

    Why do you need "purchasing power" during a pandemic, when the government is enabling you to purchase food, internet access, and paying your rent, mortgages and utilities (power, water etc)
     
  12. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    But capitalism is driven by self-interested profit-seeking competition among individuals and companies in free markets.
    aka 'greed'.....or human nature...
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2020
  13. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Um... How is government doing that?
    I'm not sure you understand economics.

    Your mentality here seems very similar to one of Communism.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2020
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  14. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    By utilizing its sovereign currency issuing capacity (via the national treasury and reserve bank) while the economy is in lock-down, the government is supplying you with all the "purchasing power" you need, without you having to risk your life by trying to earn an income in your tattoo parlour....

    I'm explaining how a government can maintain an economy in 'hibernation' during a pandemic lock-down, in order to save lives.

    Guess what: the free market is inappropriate, in this scenario dedicated to saving lives in the pandemic.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2020
  15. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Don't really see anything in your list that can be considered a problem with our 'economic system'??

    Everything you mention above is the responsibility of people...voters...governments, etc.
     
  16. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    I don't agree with anything here...
     
  17. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    I think you are mixing capitalism with society...
     
  18. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    - Wants to more deeply politicize every aspect of everyone's life and subject to the whims of unaccountable central planners with unlimited authority.

    - Can't figure out why people are so divided over who ought to be in power.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2020
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  19. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Of course; and you can't even begin to say why...

    But while the Pope insists that Jesus is God, he is prepared to say that that particular doctrine (the Trinity) is a matter of belief, not science.

    Whereas you are claiming your economic dogma is science, when it too is nothing more than false belief.

    Hint: in a world of plenty, there is no need for systemic generational poverty.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2020
  20. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Everyone's economic circumstances under a system of governance (ie rule of law) is already "deeply politicized" UNTIL a fair and free system is created.
    "It's the economy, stupid".

    Hint: neoliberal economic orthodoxy is THE problem.

    That's THE problem with 'blind-leading-the blind', adversarial, two party democracies, in which the average citizen knows nothing about money creation, or reserve bank/treasury operation.

    Hence the current hyper-partisanship seen in eg the US will only worsen, as poverty and soaring inequality grow.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2020
  21. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    Hmmmmm. Why do you ask? Of course! I wouldn't have posted it otherwise.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2020
  22. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No, I'm not. Society does not inherently aggravate the problems I listed; in fact, it usually ameliorates them. Capitalism does aggravate them.
     
  23. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Those are natural and inevitable results of capitalism, especially modern finance capitalism.
     
  24. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    What does capitalism have to do with these?

    Inadequate healthcare
    Global warming
    Reluctance to work for alternative energy
    A minimum wage that should have been incremented with inflation
    The highest prison population in the world per 100,000 population
    Systemic racism which acts as a buffer to keep the worst economic oppression off whites
    Extreme wealth and income disparity causing increasing poverty
    Citizens United and other barriers to fair elections
    Campaign financing laws favor the rich who then buy policies they want
    Denial of women's right to control their own reproductivity
    Gambling in the economy that contributes nothing to society, like hedge funds and derivatives
    No solution available for companies that are "too big to fail"
    Failing education with pockets of superior ed. for some who can afford it
    College education becoming more and more for only the rich
    The insanity of more guns in circulation among civilians than the total population
    Continuing growth of a severely bloated defense budget
    Inability to secure Social Security
    Manipulation of tax cuts vs. program cuts to eliminate an increasing number of socially-beneficial programs, harming the people while benefitting the rich
    Crumbling infrastructure
    "Fake News" is killing us
    Clean water crisis

    All of these are society's responsibilities...
     
  25. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Especially in the USA, monopoly privileges have made health care 5-10 times as expensive as it would be in a free market for the unearned profit of the capitalist medico-rentier complex.
    These are BS. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels do not cause significant warming and are a net benefit to humanity through their fertilization effect.
    Minimum wages are only needed because capitalist privilege, especially landowning, deprives the least productive workers of access to opportunity and increases both the cost of employing them and their cost of living. In a free market there would be no need for minimum wages.
    That is for the profit of the private prison industry and capitalist corporations that thus get access to slave labor.
    Again, if not for capitalist landowner privilege, racial economic disparities would be far smaller.
    The extreme disparities are caused by massive, systematic, institutionalized injustice, which is caused by capitalist privileges like private landowning, private commercial banks' money issuance, and IP monopolies.
    Capitalists use the profits of capitalist privilege to corrupt politicians and get even more privilege.
    I agree that has nothing to do with capitalism.
    That is an inevitable result of modern finance capitalism and its debt money system, which force the economy into ever-expanding coils of debt.
    Capitalist privilege favors bigness by making returns depend on how much you own, not how much you produce.
    An educated populace capable of critical thinking is the greatest threat to capitalist privilege and parasitism.
    Agree, nothing to do with capitalism. OTC, capitalists would be interested in disarming the civilian population to make sure they can't rebel.
    Who do you think is getting the money??
    Non-issue. SS is fine.
    Obviously for the benefit of capitalists.
    Capitalist landowner privilege stops governments from recovering the value that investments in infrastructure create, forcing them to give it away to landowners.
    Six companies control all information media via capitalist IP monopoly privilege.
    Because under capitalism, public watersheds are treated as private property.
    Nope. See above.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2020

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