Though it sure does seem like about half the people posting here are outright socialists, commies, progressives, liberals and or leftists, according to your poll only 25% claimed to be anti American with them saying they don't support Capitalism.
Your problem is that you try too hard to control the uncontrollable. No one controls capitalism. Capitalism is evolution. It is nature. Stop worrying about the masses and worry about yourself.
Capitalism is hardly "natural". Capitalism is, after all, just a social construct made real by the cyclical progression of human civilization. The natural state of humanity is primitive communism. The U.S. definitely had more freedom in the early days of capitalism, indeed this was the unique situation of American capitalism. America never went through the historical economic systems that the rest of the world did - like the UK. America had all the tools from the beginning to produce a unique, decentralized capitalist economy. In the beginning of American capitalism the interests of the capitalists were often not competing with the interests of the workers. In fact it was a lot like in Australia where workers invested in the companies they mined for - and the bosses acted as useful economic organizers, even though they took a sizable portion of the surplus. But just like Australia, in America as the gap widened between the workers and capitalists this social harmony was lost and suddenly there was no real difference between the economies of the UK and America. Capitalism becomes sour over time as it centralizes.
After hearing her name mentioned many times over the years I finally took the time last week to watch a video on Netflix about Ayn Rand and her landmark novel, "Atlas Shrugged." Anyone curious about capitalism and the like should do like I did and dig deeper into her works.
No viable answers to this poll - not really a fair question because it isn't an either/or proposition. If, by capitalism, you mean laissez faire economics in which the state does not intervene in the economy at all then no, I don't support capitalism and neither do the vast majority of people - not just in the US, but globally. In fact, if capitalism is strictly understood to mean laissez faire economics then NO country on Earth is capitalist and even conservative US economists aren't true capitalists. Political-Economic Systems vary greatly across countries, but can generally be placed on a spectrum from 'Pure Capitalism' to 'Pure Communism.' No country has ever had a pure capitalist political economy (though communism does essentially exist in North Korea today, as well as in Laos and Cuba). All countries intervene in the economy to some degree, though there is a great deal of variation. I am a social democrat - I support a mixture of capitalism, 'socialist' programs, nationalization and state regulation of the economy to deal with market failures. Most industries should, in my opinion, operate in a relatively free, capitalist environment. Regulations need to exist to ensure equality of opportunity in employment, worker safety, workers' rights, fair wages, pollution, externalities, etc. Industries in which profit as the primary goal would lead to pareto-inferior outcomes for society due to the importance they have for values and concerns other than economic efficiency should be nationalized. These include education (all should have equal access to high quality, free education), healthcare (all should have access to free, quality healthcare - including preventive healthcare - with exceptions made for medical procedures that are not needed [such as plastic surgery]), any industry that tends towards monopoly or oligopoly (utilities), natural resource industries (as natural resources are part of the wealth of a country, should benefit all in society and should be managed with conservation and sustainable development as important concerns) and industries critical to national security (prisons - or rehabilitation programs as prisons are far too widespread and socially detrimental, various defense industries).
Not trying to be mean but Ayn Rand was a petty bourgeoisie idealist, and in the end a hypocrite (in her later days she took social security payments, if I'm correct that would make her a "moocher", in her own words.) Anyone looking to understand the mechanics of the capitalist system (which happen to be quite fascinating) should look elsewhere.
Hmm. Poll results are almost entirely what I expected them to be (save for the fact that the last option got far more votes than I expected). Mostly realists, people who understand that capitalism, for all its flaws, is the best functioning system, and then a bunch of nutcases who think it's utterly flawless. Yep, seems about right.
I always get flack when responding to these capitolism threads, from both sides of the equasion. I am totally for capitolism. I believe capitolism works fluidly and is the best system for small moderate and reasonably large companies. When it comes to the big corporate conglomerates and the big banks the too big to fail group. The corporations that spread to befuddle and hide their criminality like the Emrons and Worldcoms. My answer to that capitolism is it cant be left to its own designs it needs oversight and regulations to protect all the little people and that INCLUDES little business owners and mid sized business owners who are not immune to the rape and pillage and profit at all costs mentality of the too big to fail should be convicts.
It doesn't take society all clicking at once, but those that are concious of it truly taking it on in their lives. I'm pretty "broke" these days. Though, I managed to donate $15 to Greenpeace this month. I made this game: http://irl-rpg.com and was doing my budget and realized that $15 was only 1.5% of my income (traditional tithing is 10%, 5% is roughly the National average). Beyond that, and most importantly, it is how we both treat each other and treat ourselves. We are evolving. I believe though, that this is a concious evolution, so unlike evolving to stand up right because your parents carried genes that your grandparents carried and etcetera, this evolution has to do with each of our personal ability to truly "believe" in what our minds and hearts are telling us is right. In my article I write about 3 dates: 2012: When enough people in the world know about the solutions to our problems, that all that is required for progress is for these people to act and network (the networking will passively come through acting, so just act). 2020: When these people will have established a functioning example of a large number of people living together in this way (for instance, either a region that has adopting a lot of community oriented principles and has releaved need for money and built a better region; or a city that a bunch of folks construct out in the mid-west, some sort of living proof that the skeptical can see and feel and experience). 3013: ??? That by then our life experience will have expanded beyond our imagination. Both physically, with our expansion into the stars, and spiritually, with us fully engaging and experiencing the beauty and wonderment of life and the universe, with the idea of "survival" being remote, and our self-centered egos kept in check (whether that be; "Woo is me..." or "I'm the greatest!"). The beauty of this evolution is that it is personal, so each person can chart their own path, and must do so. I focus on growing food, being resourceful, and bringing a calm mindset into politics so that we can make the changes to our laws needed to make our government more relevant to the emerging culture. I go to community events that are gatherings of people focusing on those things. The evolved mind set is that which doesn't spend much time at all thinking about what others could, should or must do. It is up to you to decide to evolve this time. Up to each of us individually. The "better society" is that one that is created through the naturally occuring process of those who evolve making those cognitive decisions guide their action. They will start to progress the field of science in the direction that the Venus Project talks about. We are already doing it. Permaculture; 3D Printing, Open Source Ecology, Free Education (khanacademy, codeacademy, duolingo), Open Source Software, Nutritional Awareness, Yoga and the Martial Arts, and the Internet, which allows us to exchange all of these ideas. It is happening, that is why I think a lot of these questions are irrelevant. Do you support Capitalism? How does that fit into my day? Am I financially concious? That is more important. Is my budget balanced? Am I in debt? Do you give unconditionally? Do I have a plan to free myself from the need of money? These are your issues in a "Capitalist" society and a "Communist" society. No matter the society, the issue is how we act.
Capitalism has flaws but I can see the merit in this approach. If we could only stick to capitalism when it really counts and let those big banks and business go bankrupt. Some would argue the capitalism has never been tried on a grand/national scale.
