What's wrong with Capitalism?

[viscus]

Originally Posted by vindicatedxjin

Well the majority of people would consider capitalism a good thing, especially those here in the US. Technically yes, there are pros....considering that the main reason why the standard of living in the US is better than in most countries is because of capitalism...since it gives everyone a chance to succeed financially...the harder you work, the better your reward, it also encourages competition. But the downside though...is it lets people get left behind to fall through the cracks of life without government assistance, it exploits the underpriviledged, and it promotes greed. Over all I don't really know where I stand on it all...I need to read into it more.

Money doesn't necessarily make people work harder: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Also, I can name a number of Western European countries with quite a higher average standard of living than the US and are quite socialist.

[Red Menace]

I'd actually disagree quite strongly that capitalism gives people an equal motivation to succeed. It certainly doesn't give people an equal opportunity to do so. Under capitalism untempered by socialism, the children of the rich will always have better health, better access to education and more opportunities.

There's a kind of naive belief that, in a completely free market system, people would be rewarded according to the work they put in. They wouldn't; how they succeed would depend on their social backgrounds, the wealth of their parents, their genetic inheritance and pure blind chance.

As an extreme example, I have a cousin with Down's Syndrome and in no way could she thrive without help in a system that didn't have the safeguards won by socialism.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by JCC

It's not? The poor either work for the rich's profit or we starve, we are all bound to 'masters', they privatise land, the means to production and have enslaved the workforce as a result. If a rich man uses the profit that poor people have created for him out of their necessity for the scraps that he throws down for good, it doesn't change the fact that his wealth is illegitimate and his workers are slaves to him, having to accept whatever he feels is adequate to give. And you can say things like that we have minimum wage now, but we wouldn't have that if it wasn't for socialism. Everything that makes capitalism approach legitimacy is rooted in socialist reform.

Versus everyone being a slave to everyone else. Unless you decide not to work, in which case you'll be poor but everyone else will still be your slave as they'll be working to support you.

Work harder, bitch. Millions of people on welfare depend on you.

Any other bullshit rhetoric you want to throw out there, or did you work that out of your system?

[Solumina]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

Work harder, bitch. Millions of people on welfare depend on you.

I hate this quip so damn much and people use it so frequently.

You hate socialism then fine, stop benefiting from it.

[JCC]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

Versus everyone being a slave to everyone else. Unless you decide not to work, in which case you'll be poor but everyone else will still be your slave as they'll be working to support you.

As if welfare fraud doesn't exist in capitalism? Don't be such a bellend.

[Solumina]

In true capitalism there wouldn't be any welfare

[JCC]

Yeah, but with Beneath the Shadows bemoaning the greed of capitalist individuals I have a feeling that he prefers the mixed economy approach. If he genuinely supports unfettered capitalism and is against benefits and so on then he really is a twat.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

Versus everyone being a slave to everyone else.

Am I a slave to my father because I have responsibilities in the house?
SEriously, what a fucking hyperbole.

But let's work with your definition of slavery. So because in socialism everyone is 'a slave' to everyone else, it is better that billions are 'slaves' in much, much shittier conditions so that a handful in the whole world aren't 'slaves' to anyone, in a society of the type of 1984 where this obsession with hierarchy (the handful of free capitalists being better than the billions of working slaves) comes with the sacrifice of net material wealth?

[Duane]

Why is it when some people argue they resort to spiking instead of going for a more reliable score? Socialism is fine, it's just that people are lazy and expect the more fortunate to spot them a bit of rope. The less fortunate just need to work harder, like their "superiors" did.

[gothicusmaximus]

Originally Posted by Terminus

What's the objective standard for "good", in this case?

The producers', for the most part. I'm not bemoaning the fact that I personally don't enjoy every single film ever created, I'm addressing the fact that, under capitalism, movie studios often very deliberately prefer their pictures to be optimally profitable rather than optimally well-made, e.g. "That writer is too expensive, the cheaper script won't make the trailer any worse", "You need something for the teenage boys", "No one will see a three hour western, Mr. Leone."

I understand that capitalism can suffer from human nature, but what would then make socialism less impervious to this (or is it)?

Do you mean "less susceptible" to this? Assuming you do, it isn't, it's simply susceptible in different ways, the nature of which depends on that of the socialist state.

[Joker_in_the_Pack]

From a scientific standpoint, Socialist economics is much more natural than capitalist economics. Look at wolf packs, colonies of apes, or even ant colonies. The whole society benefits when the whole society is fed.

By the way, another answer to why capitalism is bad. It's theft.

Profit is exploitation of someone by someone who isn't as useful.

An overly simplified example just to give you the concept.

A factory produces good A.
In order to produce good A they need materials 1 and 2, machine Z, and X man hours, which are provided by the factory worker.

The owner of the factory will then take the good and set the price so that it covers the costs of materials 1 and 2, machine z, and x man hours. Where is his capital coming from? He gets it by removing a share of it from one of the costs. He can't do it from machine z, as without it he won't be able to make more. He can't take it from material 1 or 2 for the same reason. So he takes his cut from the only remaining source. The factory worker and his X man hours. The factory worker gets payed a fraction of what he should have received and the remainder goes to the boss. For actual situations, simply take this, and add thousands upon thousands of overhead costs, including fees, licenses, and so on and so forth. After all those costs, figure how much the worker is being cheated.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by Solumina

I hate this quip so damn much and people use it so frequently.

Apparently you didn't catch on to the fact that I was using it ironically. Responding to bullshit rhetoric with bullshit rhetoric.

You hate socialism then fine, stop benefiting from it.

And where, pray tell, did I ever claim to hate socialism?

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by JCC

As if welfare fraud doesn't exist in capitalism? Don't be such a bellend.

Did anyone claim that it doesn't? After reviewing the topic... no. No one made any such claim.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by Alan

Am I a slave to my father because I have responsibilities in the house?

No more than I'm a slave to my boss because I chose to accept the job I have.

SEriously, what a fucking hyperbole.

Oh, and JCC's little spiel wasn't?

But let's work with your definition of slavery. So because in socialism everyone is 'a slave' to everyone else, it is better that billions are 'slaves' in much, much shittier conditions so that a handful in the whole world aren't 'slaves' to anyone, in a society of the type of 1984 where this obsession with hierarchy (the handful of free capitalists being better than the billions of working slaves) comes with the sacrifice of net material wealth?

I love how you say "let's work with your definition of slavery," and then you don't.

The United States and Japan are the epitome of capitalism in this world. We are what anti-capitalist complain about. (The US more-so, of course.) Oh, yes, our poor have such shitty living conditions. Flat-screen TVs, LCD monitors, iPhones, Blu-ray, enough food to throw away a large portion of it uneaten. Even our homeless have cellphones, MP3 players, and laptops. Oh, those poor things.

[Onyx]

Originally Posted by Konstantin

I like the idea of capitalism. I like the idea that those who work harder, or are more innovative, get paid more. For example, I was never down with the fact that doctors in the USSR were piss-poor despite being maybe just a tiny bit more important than the kid flipping burgers. And as for that whole rich-poor gap, well, that's what the different taxation brackets are for - those who earn more pay more in taxes to help redistribute the wealth. Then there are all the freedoms. Say what you will, but having lived on both sides, I'm rather partial to this one. That said, I try to remain more or less apolitical, because any system is bound to have more than a handful of flaws.

You know, at least in my experience, people from former Soviet Block countries have a very idealised concept of capitalism. While it may be nice to believe that, under capitalism, the harder you work the better you will do, it just isn't true. In fact, the opposite is true to a huge extent. The people who brown nose the most/best are the ones who get ahead and that takes time away from being productive. Hell, I've been told before that the reason I wasn't receiving a promotion is because I was so good at the job I was doing that they'd have to hire two people to replace me and then gave the manager promotion to one of the biggest slackers. Of course I promptly quit and they had to hire three people instead of two but that isn't the point. Sure, in a perfect world hard work would equate to success but this world is far from perfect and, the harder your work is, the less you get paid because, in a capitalist system, you're just labour. You bust your ass for eight hours a day while the person kicking back in their office all day, your "manager", gets paid twice as much as you do.

As for doctors making little more than burger flippers in the USSR, you want to know why doctors make so much more than burger flippers in the US? You could say because of superior educational needs to be a doctor. More time and money invested into readying themselves for their career, more important job function or whatever else you can think of. Sure, any job that requires years of educational investment is going to be paid more than someone who invests nothing in it past high school.

But there's one huge difference between doctors and burger flippers. Doctors get paid in a fee for service manner, which is actually pretty socialistic. Something like 56% of every health care dollar goes to the doctor. At least to me this equates pretty well to socialism because the doctor has a lot of control over the means of production. Though, at least in the US, this leads to spending $100 for ten minutes of the doctor's time. I wonder how much a burger flipper would make if they got paid a decent portion of the profit on each burger they produced.

Now look at doctors in Europe. Yes, they do work under a more socialist system, however, their means of pay is salaried and, at least in some countries, bonuses for better outcomes. Which is exactly like the capitalist model that most of us work under and they make half of what a US doctor does.

As for your different tax brackets, the progressive income tax structure is a socialist reform on capitalism and isn't even the reality of the situation. First of all, when people think of higher tax brackets they tend to think that these people pay that x% on their entire income. That isn't the case. For example, if the lowest income bracket is taxed at nothing, up to say $6,700, and the next income bracket gets taxed at 15%. Say I make $10,000 this year then, rather than paying 15% of $10,000, I really only pay 15% of the $3,300 over the untaxed $6,700. And that's how it works on up the tax brackets. First $6,700 is tax free, I pay 15% on everything over that up to the next tax bracket and so on.

Another big problem is that this only takes into account income taxes. The most wealthy in the US don't tend to have incomes that get taxed as income like the rest of us. All their money comes from investments and our capital gains tax rate is only 15%. This includes people like hedge fund managers and people like Warrent Buffet, who pay a lower portion of their income than all but the lowest, untaxed, income earners.

[DepthsofSpace]

Originally Posted by JCC

Virtually everyone on this board holds socialist sentiments of some sort, to varying lengths of extremity, many of us as far left as you can get.

And you forgot the an-caps still floating around here. =P

[Delkaetre]

BtS - Dunno what sort of homeless people you know, but even some people *with* homes that I know don't have iPhones, laptops and MP3 players.
I'd go so far as to say that the flatscreen TV and iphone owning populace is the minority.

And, of course, there's the concept of relative poverty, often ignored by the sort of people who say "well, you have food and a roof so stop bitching".

[Onyx]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

Versus everyone being a slave to everyone else. Unless you decide not to work, in which case you'll be poor but everyone else will still be your slave as they'll be working to support you.

That's not called slavery, it's called society. Unless, of course, you're a capitalist. This happens to be one of my biggest complaints about capitalism is that it not only divorces people from societal duty, it tells people that it is wrong to think of others and, instead, one should only think of themselves.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by Delkaetre

BtS - Dunno what sort of homeless people you know, but even some people *with* homes that I know don't have iPhones, laptops and MP3 players.
I'd go so far as to say that the flatscreen TV and iphone owning populace is the minority.

I know all sorts. My point is that in America, even the lowest rungs of society has the means to acquire nicer things, such as the above examples. How can capitalism be so bad if it provides our poor with the means to raise their quality of life in such a way? How can it bad when some of our homeless even have vans and Winnebagos to live in and drive around in?

Like I've said previously, it's only bad when individuals exploit it.

And, of course, there's the concept of relative poverty, often ignored by the sort of people who say "well, you have food and a roof so stop bitching".

As I indicated before, I was referring to the United States. I'm well aware that in many other places of the world, "poverty" truly means just that. But since America is often the example used to describe the downfalls of capitalism, America is the example I use to describe the opposite.

[Onyx]

Originally Posted by Delkaetre

BtS - Dunno what sort of homeless people you know, but even some people *with* homes that I know don't have iPhones, laptops and MP3 players.
I'd go so far as to say that the flatscreen TV and iphone owning populace is the minority.

And, of course, there's the concept of relative poverty, often ignored by the sort of people who say "well, you have food and a roof so stop bitching".

I'd also like to know where all these Iphone and flatscreen owning poor people live so I can move there. Our income, at a little over $30k a year, is considered lower middle class, we have no children and yet I'm typing this on a computer built last century and don't have any flatscreen TVs.

As for homeless with cell phones, yeah they exist. I've been one of them. Then again, I had the cell phone before I was homeless. It was a prepaid model and I kept a few bucks on it so that I had a phone number to put down on job applications and calling friends to see if I could take a shower or crash at their place for the night. You should also know that not everyone who is friends with someone homeless is homeless themselves. Some are pretty young or, for the most part, broke themselves. Being as poor people are generally pretty helpful to others in need, they tend to give their friends things like that old pre-paid cell phone that they don't need any more because they or, especially among the younger ones, their parents purchased them a new one.

And lets not forget that there's organisations in existence that take cell phones as donations and get them rigged up so they can only dial 911. These phones are then given to vulnerable populations like the homeless and battered women to try and ensure they have a means of calling for emergency assistance. It started out as for battered women but, as cell phones became common, pay phones have become rare and people saw the need for the homeless. I've also seen organisations that helped the homeless have functional cell phones in order to receive call backs for jobs.

All this is assuming the cell phone is functional for calls at all. Making calls isn't the only reason to have a cell phone. Even with no minutes that hand me down or found cell phone makes a nice, portable, alarm clock.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by Onyx

You should also know that not everyone who is friends with someone homeless is homeless themselves. Some are pretty young or, for the most part, broke themselves.

For the record, I lived on the streets for five years straight, and on and off for a couple years prior to that.

[Onyx]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

I know all sorts. My point is that in America, even the lowest rungs of society has the means to acquire nicer things, such as the above examples. How can capitalism be so bad if it provides our poor with the means to raise their quality of life in such a way? How can it bad when some of our homeless even have vans and Winnebagos to live in and drive around in?

Like I've said previously, it's only bad when individuals exploit it.



As I indicated before, I was referring to the United States. I'm well aware that in many other places of the world, "poverty" truly means just that. But since America is often the example used to describe the downfalls of capitalism, America is the example I use to describe the opposite.

I don't know if you're lying or just have a skewed perspective on who the poor are, but your comments reek of Reagan's Cadillac driving welfare queens. Either way, as someone who spent a good chunk of their life poor, with mostly poor friends, I call bullshit on your claim that you "know all sorts" of poor people with luxury electronics. Those that do probably either had them given as Christmas gifts or they don't really own the items. There's a whole wonderful world of exploitation out there called rent to own that will allow a poorer person the ability to make low payments on TVs and computers for the low low price of 3X market value. Plenty of people are stupid enough to be taken advantage of in this market but, given that they're poor, they tend to lapse in the ability to pay at some point and lose the item. That's how these companies make their money. They let you use the item for a period and either make 300% profit on it or, after you've probably already paid enough for the item if you bought it at a store, they get take repossess it and then use the same item to do the exact same thing to the next person.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by Onyx

I don't know if you're lying or just have a skewed perspective on who the poor are, but your comments reek of Reagan's Cadillac driving welfare queens. Either way, as someone who spent a good chunk of their life poor, with mostly poor friends, I call bullshit on your claim that you "know all sorts" of poor people with luxury electronics.

Call bullshit all you like. What I said is the truth, and saying "bullshit" won't change anything.

Those that do probably either had them given as Christmas gifts or they don't really own the items.

In some cases, yes. But I wasn't thinking of those cases.

There's a whole wonderful world of exploitation out there called rent to own that will allow a poorer person the ability to make low payments on TVs and computers for the low low price of 3X market value. Plenty of people are stupid enough to be taken advantage of in this market but, given that they're poor, they tend to lapse in the ability to pay at some point and lose the item. That's how these companies make their money. They let you use the item for a period and either make 300% profit on it or, after you've probably already paid enough for the item if you bought it at a store, they get take repossess it and then use the same item to do the exact same thing to the next person.

Most of the homeless people I know wouldn't choose that option simply because being homeless they're discriminated against. A homeless person walks into a store wanting to pent-to-own any piece of electronics, and the cashier and/or manager will instantly assume that that person just wants to pay a small amount for the item, turn around and sell it for more, and then disappear without paying the item off. No, if we wanted something like that, we'd save until we had enough money, and we'd lay our money on the table. (And I say "we" because once upon a time that included me.)

[JCC]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

Did anyone claim that it doesn't? After reviewing the topic... no. No one made any such claim.

So what was the point of what you said? A socialist community wouldn't give someone welfare if they just said "RIGHT, I AM NOT GOING TO WORK, PAMPER ME", so the only opportunity for someone to sponge off the labour off the rest of the community is through fraud, and welfare fraud exists now as much as it would in socialism, so what's your point?

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by JCC

So what was the point of what you said? A socialist community wouldn't give someone welfare if they just said "RIGHT, I AM NOT GOING TO WORK, PAMPER ME", so the only opportunity for someone to sponge off the labour off the rest of the community is through fraud, and welfare fraud exists now as much as it would in socialism, so what's your point?

You painted a ridiculously exaggerated picture of capitalism. I replied in kind.