Debate #2: Capitalism

This debate will revolve around the question:

Should we purify, discard, leave unchanged or alter capitalism as the predominant economic system in the western world?

The 3 points that must be addressed individually in each participant's first post are:

1. Define capitalism as an economic system, and state whether you believe it should be purified, discarded, or altered to achieve the best result. What would these results be and how would they be implemented.

2. What moral implications, economic and/or humanitarian benefits or problems, and scientific possibilities or repurcussions result from the current manifestation of capitalism in your country (or another country of your choice if you do not live in a capitalist society). How would implementing your 'ideal' vision of capitalism (or lack of capitalism) affect the above in a positive way?

3. Do you think the 'west' should actively attempt to expand the capitalist system into other nations and cultures? Give an example of how this could or has been done successfully or unsuccessfully.

Keep in mind that these 'points' are not meant to be simple. Try to avoid using capitalist theories as 'truths' where possible, as that defeats the purpose of the debate. Try not to use the failure of other economic systems as a defense for capitalism, or the success of other economic systems as proof of the failure of capitalism. That is for another debate.

Edit: It is alright to use the points I ask you to avoid above, but they should not be the foundation of your argument, and should be mentioned only occasionally. The point is to keep the debate focused on capitalism, rather than on other economic system, and to avoid stating theories as facts. Sorry for the confusion.

The rules and format for the debate will be in the next post. Changes from the last debate will be bolded.

Debate rules

1. The topic for the debate will be established beforehand via a 'Debate Ideas' thread. The moderator would then post the thread topic, followed by a number of 'points' that must be addressed at least to some degree for the post to be accepted.

2. Each person's first post in the thread will begin with their thesis statement, followed by a paragraph for each point regarding how it relates to their thesis. Each point must be addressed in some fashion, and the length of any post in the thread will be limited by what the post character limit is for a single post.

3. After 48 hours, the debate would move to the next phase, which would be the Clarification phase, where, if they wish to, each poster may make one post asking for clarification of definitions or ideas which they did not understand from other posters. This is not the place to make arguments against those points.

4. Each poster would then be allowed one post to address questions asked to them in the second half of this phase.

5. After another 24 hours, the debate would move to the Argument phase, where each poster will choose a certain number of points made by other posters that he/she wishes to make an argument against. The number of points each poster may address will be decided by the moderator.

5. After probably 48 hours, the debate would move to the Defense phase, where each poster may defend their points against whatever arguments were offered against them in the Argument phase.

6. The final phase would basically be a free-for-all discussion like most of the threads we are used to, and would begin after each debater has made their Defense phase post.


7. If a debater wishes to join the debate after the initial phase, a post such as those made in the first phase must be made before any additional posts will be accepted.

A separate thread for less structured discussion for the topic will also be opened, and open to all.

Do not address other debaters directly in your first post. That is for later.

Thesis: We should purify capitalism.

The very bases of society is the individual, the human being – that is the starting point from which all other rights – all other considerations, actually - come from: individuals, seeking for their own happiness, are the center of their respective universes.

As the choices of these individuals tend to conflict one with the other, some form of minimal organization is required in order for the personal pursuit of happiness be fruitful – for single individuals can’t fight against the world, even if against an unorganized world.

Hence, society is a tool through which individuals, by acceptance of certain rules of common interest, create an environment that will allow them to effectively pursuit their ultimate goal – the seeking for personal happiness.

This creates a paradox – for at the same time individuals desire to exercise the freedom of their individualities without restriction, a restriction of their unlimited individual freedom is necessary, translating it from a theoretical freedom into a effective freedom, as the society guarantees the fruits of their efforts.

Such efforts are commonly translated into “economical gains”, be them on the modern monetary scheme, or more outdated forms of accumulation. Nevertheless, society has “set” that material goodies can be linked to individual personality, that has the systemic prerogative of excluding the urges of anyone else who wants to profit from such goodie. The mean through which society guarantees that right is force, there is, the building of an apparatus that can efficiently suppress any attempt to disrespect the reign of certain subject over certain object, that is considered legitimate under the eyes of the system.

This ends up at a problem – as possession and wealthy augments one's capacity to invest, and gives the elasticity to reach the most promising spots of the same society, than, it tends to create a self-serving circle – where the wealthy tends to become, each time, proportionally wealthier than the average man – resulting in gaps of ownership that by far surpass an actual indication of one man’s actual *eventual* superior capacity over the other men. In fact, this commonly translates in a shield, through which an average, or even lesser, man, if blessed by a great economical ballast, can still have a monopoly of the means of enrichment, inhibiting the progress of other that are more individually able – so, in a sense, all property is, effectively, theft.

Hence, the system of capitalism suffer from some inherent problems – these are the tendency of diminishing the productive capacity of the whole system by channeling the production resources to hands that aren’t necessarily the more able, and also the complete exclusion of those who didn’t have the necessary conditions to develop, nor even minimally, their potential, wasting "humane capacity" to enhance economy as a whole – what would mean, turning society more able as a tool for the pursuit of individual happiness.

That said, it’s necessary to recognize that there are no viable alternatives to capitalism – every single other suggestion suffer from even more fundamental illness that harms their capacity to achieve the “productive utopia” – all men having the exact amount of necessary resources to turn himself as productive as they can be – making it an “utopia” even more distant.

That recognized, than, the necessity of capitalism is undeniable until an effective better proposal is brought up. However, the flaws of the system exists, and the society under a “capitalist worldview” tends to concentrate power in few hands, such power being commonly used to oppress other people – what makes the society become the anti-thesis of what it should be, and turn into a channel to diminish the capacity of several man of reaching happiness, damaging it’s legitimacy to impose it’s command in the first place.

As it’s not a human feature the tendency to be subjugated, this creates conflict, which pressures in the direction of change – change, though, slowed down by the means of ownership, which generates the capacity of the minority of the benefited to impose their rules/ideology into the majority of the excluded.

This however, cannot go one forever, and eventually will reach a breaking point, as the clashes between the classes turn unbearable. To avoid a uncertain reckoning, potentially dangerous to all men, amendments should be made in the system, in order to sustain it’s function ability, and diminishing it’s tendency to create elites, to a point where the true scope of wealthy become a better translation of one man’s superior capacity above other man, instead of being an abyss of wealthy sustained by the casuist characteristics of the system as a whole.

Pont 1:

“Capitalism” is a system where the right of ownership, and the disposition of such ownership, to commercial or personal purposes, are the primary guidelines for the civilian relations. This system is powered by drives that encourages the individuals to acquire even more ownership, what creates wealthy from the accumulation of value derived from the commercial exchange, enriching society as a whole. Mere mitigations of the ownership status (such as redistribution by welfare) does not disnature capitalism, for the basic premises remain the same. Also, dictatorial tyrannies that tends to create large “states” don’t disnature a capitalistic system, because the ownership of one (the dictator, over the entirety – or almost – of the wealthy of society), is still a “personal ownership system”, even if with the creation of an artificial monopoly, and hence fundamentally different from any kind of non-individualist approach where the disposition of wealthy is collective.

I believe the system should persist, if for no other good reason, for the lack of a viable alternative. However, it should be altered to avoid the ebullition of a class conflict between the excluded and the benefited – potentially harmful to both classes.

The implementation of these changes is something tricky, and I believe a better man then me would be required to actually develop a functional system. However, the way I see things, exactly like, when the capitalism arose, a mentality of ownership was grown in the culture of the people in Europe – through the argument (and demonstration) that owning things would mean taking steps further in the search of personal happiness – a new humane mindset should be pursuit, one where the importance of the “social body” as a tool for making personal wealthy possible becomes more clear, and tangible, in the heads of the population. This would allow for the effective, intelligent, planning of the goals in economy, and history shows that the application of reason over natural processes tends to increase their efficiency. The problem with the attempts so far to rationalize economy – masquerading it as hopelessly depended of the natural dynamics of the market – is that such mentality was never set on a population, and the competition for exclusive ownership and immediate privileges – the political legacy of this systemic idiosyncrasy – tends to null any of it’s possible benefits, decreasing efficiency instead of increasing it.

Hence implementation is dependent of an actual reassessment on the immediatism that men have in the pursuit of their goals, and the acknowledgement that individualism can and should benefit from collectivism – for united we prevail, separated we fall.

point 2:

The moral implications are self-evident. Human beings are the very reason society exist, and the well being of such man is the society’s ultimate goal. If the current configuration of society allows for the suffering and the exclusion of a large parcel of these such men, then that society is failing at its goal. Truthfully, it should be kept in mind that doing so due to necessity (lack of alternative) is excusable – however, it’s not excusable to glorify such tragedy, nor to have any laziness in seeking alternatives that allows progress without the necessity to pay such inhuman price. Forgetting that happiness of individuals – even those who are less capable to produce – is the actual target of society, is inherently harmful, and we cannot simply apply a pragmatic excuse to make peace with the desecration of other human beings.

The problem, however, is that there is still no formula to avoid these dreadful consequences, and hence, we are forced to live with them – however, the conscientization of the waste of potential this means, as well as the empathy for the suffering of other people, are good starting points for the discovering of alternatives that are viable – even if this means a complete resetting of how humans perceive society and their relation with it.

The implementation of my grand vision would effectively mean a productive utopia – one where the potential of every man is put to full use. This would diminish the “relative” wealthy of the most privileged classes, as extremes of poverty would be erased – but probably would mean the augmentation of it in an “absolute” sense – for wealthy tends to generate wealthy, and the integration of the whole world population in the economical processes of the society would most likely create wealthy that is unreachable through today’s standards.

Point 3:

I don’t think that any forceful measures should be taken to expand the capitalist mindset, not even if one amended by the corrections I suggested, for, as I have said, it’s all about mindset. One cannot force someone to agree with their own postulates. However, well being and example, as well as non-invasive transaction between people of the different systems, should be enough to make that mindset penetrate – or, if it does not, than there would probably be a very good reason for that, what would, again, make the use of force be an error.

Regards .

Thesis:
Capitalism is an excellent way to advance the world, through the motivating ability of competition. Without some government intervention, it results in a hugely stratified society. For it to be a workable system in the long term, any government intervention must be limited, but also that governments cannot compete to promote self-interest.

1. Capitalism is a system that empathises the right and need of the individuals to compete for their own economic gain. Interference of the state in this business is limited. Free-market forces are prevalent in capitalism. As such, the market forces and competition make winners and losers. Without some caps on this, some successful individuals and companies can dominate. Such dominance reduces competition and removes the need to compete and evolve. Any threat to that dominance can be demolished. Therefore, government must have some invention: anti-monopoly laws for example.

However, becasue the strength of economy is related to strength of government, governments protect their capitalist economies from other economies. Examples are legion. Governments should not be able to protect their ecoomies to the detriment of other peoples, and instead such policies should be conducted at a world-wide level.

2. Essentially, the rich get richer and the poor get richer more slowly. Capitialism undoubtable improves the standard of living of all in my country. However, the gap increases. This creates tension in the scoiety, with many reprecussions. My idea would not change any of this, which is fine with me. You can't create a utopia, and only fools try. So long as life continues to improve for all, and government intervention remains to ensure the rights of the individual, it's OK. My idea would prevent rich, powerful economies exploiting poor ones, in essence doing the same for poor countries what the government does for porr citizens. It could be implemented in a worldwide treaty, with trading exclusions for those who don't sign up. It'll never happen, becasue the rich and powerful have the most to lose.

3. I don't think you can have a system based on free markets and actively try and export it elsewhere. If you have faith in capitialism, you must have faith that in the end others will adopt it because it is the best. Trying to force it on others (actually done so you can exploit them most of the time anyway) is not the nest way of doing anything. Many of the former Soviet states have moved to capitialism, and have nicely improving economies. However, it all went wrong in Albania - oncewcapitialism was introduced, the whole country started investing in pyramid schemes. The whole lot went belly up with bad consequences.

1) The following definition of capitalism (found on wikipedia) describes it IMO as easy as possible.
Capitalism = private ownership of property, including the right to make decisions of one's property, such as donating or trading it.

This means that if one has property one can do with it whatever one wants.
On first sight this sounds very democratic because it gives the maximum possible economic freedom for a person. Unfortunately this is only true for the person who has enough properties. The person who hasn't enough properties is restricted in a serious way. His economic freedoms are seriously limited and sometimes the lack of properties also limits his other freedoms and rights.

This means that pure capitalism is not advisable for a society which wants the best for all persons living in that society. For that reason the absolute freedom to do with your property what you want needs to be restricted. This can be done by the government by a certain redistribution of wealth, but also by issuing rules/laws what can be done with property and what not (for example stipulating minimum wages, forbidding monopolies or stipulating rules which guarantee free markets with fair prices).

The results of such government interventions are that more people will have the possibility of acquiring sufficient property so that they can live in dignity. This will in the end result in an overall better society.

2) We don't have pure capitalism in The Netherlands. For example there is a heavy redistribution of wealth, not only by taxes, but also by all sorts of obligated social insurances. The consequences are that too many people become too dependant of the government or social institutions and that economic freedoms are restricted too much.

For example quite a number of people become lazy, don't seriously try to get an income theirselves even if it is possible and at a certain moment (if they haven't worked for a number of years) they aren't in the position anymore to get a job and get an income theirselves instead of getting an income from the state even if there are enough jobs on the jobs market (something which isn't the case here at the moment, but that's another issue).

In the end the current influence (heavy redistribution) of the government will become unpayable with all sorts of undesired social and economical consequences.

IMO instead of this heavy redistribution the government should concentrate on setting up rules which guarantee free markets with fair prices and on creating an environment where everyone who's able to work can indeed find a job. This will lead to greater economical growth and prevent the current possible social division between people who work and people who don't have a job.

3) The last decades the west has seriously expanded the capitalist system to other countries (for example to Eastern Europe, China). I think this is a process which can not be stopped, due to the growing impact of globalization.

I'm not sure if this export of capitalism is a success or not. Does the majority of the people in the former communistic countries have better (economical)living circumstances now than 20 years ago or have only a few profited from the change from communism to a form of capitalism ? Unfortunately I'm unable to answer that question.

Thesis: capitalism is an economic system that allows for the private accumulation of capital and private contracting for the exchange and use of this capital (capital includes all property, both physical and intellectual, as well as labor). This is a highly effective system for producing individual excellence/productivity, technical advance, and advancement in material standard of living of the most of those involved. However, in the U.S. capitalism has become an ideology as opposed to an economic system. By that I mean ideologues assert that any economic problem can be alleviated by applying a more purely capitalistic approach to that sector. This is misguided as there are many problems produced by the practice of capitalism that we should attempt to ameliorate and capitalism is not an effective/efficient mechanism for commodities for which there is inelasticity in demand. Resolved: that capitalism should be modified and controlled in those sectors of the economy where it is effective and should be discarded for those sectors of the economy where the inelasticity in demand renders it inefficient.
1. The best example where capitalism is inefficient do to inelasticity in demand is in health-care. We have agreed as a society not to deny urgent health-care to those in need, irrespective whether they have insurance or not. This means that people with an acute health crisis are treated in usually the most expensive way via emergency rooms. For the uninsured this cost is passed on in higher expenses for those who do have insurance. The care is paid for one way or the another however with the system we use in the U.S. is inefficient. In addition, the system we have now does not encourage the providing of preventive health-care even for those with insurance. Because people move from one insurance company to the other as they change jobs and the payback from preventive health-care occurs only on a long time horizon there is no incentive for insurance companies to provide this type of care because the insured was likely to move to another provider before the benefits of this preventive care are realized. Again, an example of capitalism that does not lead to efficiency in this particular market. The inefficiency of the U.S. health-care system is supported by a comparison of the amount of money we spend vs. objective measures of health such as infant mortality, longevity, etc. compared to countries with a socialize medical system. There are many other examples where this is true. Think California energy crisis. There is a relatively inelastic demand for energy which in this case means that the commodity is subject to price manipulation. The overall economic impact of this kind of manipulation is negative. Thus, I would argue that capitalism should only be applied to commodities with sufficiently elastic demand.
2. There are a vast number problems that can be caused through unrestricted capitalism. One of the problems is the shifting of hidden costs in a capitalist venture onto those that were never part of the original contract. This problem can and is mitigated by strict regulations to attempt to recoup these hidden costs. For example, a plastics company sets up in your community and produces Tupperware, it employs many people at a good wage and produces a good product and is highly successful. However, during the course of making the Tupperware the company releases a tremendous amount of toxic waste into the local environment, perhaps even in good faith and without knowing the damage that is being done. When this is found out the company goes bankrupt due to lawsuits however the principles of the company have already extracted great wealth from the company but are not personally liable and are protected via corporate laws. The lawsuits yield only enough money to compensate personal damages at about a 25 percent rate, moreover the entire community is rendered uninhabitable for 10 years because of the pollution. The value of other people's property in the area diminishes greatly and the federal government has to spend $1 billion to clean up the site. Thus we have a situation where there was a tremendous hidden costs that was not passed on to the Tupperware purchasers and cannot be recoup. This cost is born by society in general and the people living in the area of the factory even though they never were part of the original capitalist contract. There needs to be extensive government regulation to try to avoid this sort of exploitation.
For better or worse in a democracy, well any system for that matter, money is power. There is a danger in capitalist democracies that those successful businesses that accumulate great wealth will use that wealth to subvert democracy and produce an oligarchy that is favorable to the capitalist's interests. I think we're dangerously close to that type of situation in the U.S. already. Solutions: elections should be publicly financed and no private entity should be allowed to contribute money to political candidates.
Finally, there are many areas where a capitalist approach would not be useful to technical or scientific advancement. Doing cutting-edge science has become very expensive and it is difficult to know where a direct payoff from this knowledge will come from. For example, the entire field of biotechnology essentially derived from studying obscure enzymes from bacteria which would have no obvious financial payoff and would never have been supported by application of capitalist principles. Funding of this research came from what is essentially a socialist system, i.e. your tax dollars funding government research whether you like it or not. Thus long horizon basic research, while it often produces important and ultimately lucrative results, is not amenable to a capitalist approach.
3. I have no problem with advocating a modified version of capitalism for other countries however I do not think that this should be done through coercion or military action. I have no good examples for this.

Moderator Action: I suppose I will leave this phase open one more day in hopes of more participants...
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

1)

AVN said:

Capitalism = private ownership of property, including the right to make decisions of one's property, such as donating or trading it.

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I agree with this

2)

Thesis capitalism leads to chaos

In a capitalist system, you can make what you want with your private property. This private property includes material things, but also land areas, money and intellectual property. The rights linked to that property can come in contradiction with common interest. In those cases, the laws and the state existe to balance both.

I can give many examples :
- expropriation for public improvements such as railroads or highways
- production of generic drugs if public health is in danger
- taxes to ensure wellfare
...

I think pure capitalism is the way to selfishness and chaos. Private ownership may exist, but limited by the state to ensure common interest. If capitalism is abolute private ownership, there's NO capitalist state on earth.


3)

We have to respect economical choices of population everywhere. It's not only a west/east problem. I don't think the next anti-capitalist revolution will occur in Asia...

Here's my 2 cents (I'm not the best debater in the world, and I probably don't understand everything about capitalism, but this is what I think...)

On the above - I would think that extreme capitalism (absolute ownership) would make you your own soverign nation, with rules and rights regarding what you can do on your own land. This would be akin to anarchy IMHO, unless you had some government control.

1 - Capitalism is the ownership of land and other things (for a lack of a better term).

2 - Greed. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. That's the moral disadvantage of capitalism. Big companies buy private jets, yatches, etc. for their own gain, which doesn't benefit society. My idea would be less capitalism, and more sharing the wealth where it can be used. Instead of maybe $200 million spent on say, Donald Trump's casinos, it could be used in medical and/or scientific research, or schools. While it does advance the economy, it can put a strain on it after awhile. Soon, there will be such a huge gap, that the poor can't afford to buy anything, cutting off the cashflow for the rich.

3 - I'm not really sure of how it could be expanded into other cultures. Does that mean making them a capitalist society by regime change or something? (politics isn't my forté (sp?)).

Moderator Action: The debate will now move to the clarification phase. Please read the second post in this thread for a description. Eyrei.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

FredLC said:

That said, it’s necessary to recognize that there are no viable alternatives to capitalism – every single other suggestion suffer from even more fundamental illness that harms their capacity to achieve the “productive utopia” – all men having the exact amount of necessary resources to turn himself as productive as they can be – making it an “utopia” even more distant.

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Can you please elaborate why (in your opinion) there are no viable alternatives to capitalism ?

Scuffer said:

So long as life continues to improve for all, and government intervention remains to ensure the rights of the individual, it's OK. My idea would prevent rich, powerful economies exploiting poor ones, in essence doing the same for poor countries what the government does for porr citizens.

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When reading your whole post I get the impression that you want as less governmental influence in the economy as possible. I do understand that.
However above quoted paragraph seems IMO to contradict that. Therefore I have the following two questions :

- What are for you the (economical) rights of the individual the government needs to protect ?

- Are you proposing that there should be some redistribution of wealth between countries ? This is the way it's done in countries to help the poor, but I'm not sure if you mean that.

MaisseArsouye said:

capitalism leads to chaos

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I'm really wondering why you think so, so can you please elaborate on this.

I don't think the next anti-capitalist revolution will occur in Asia...

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I'm bad in guessing, so therefore this question.
Do you think that the next anti-capitalist revolution will be in the Western World (Europe, USA) ?

AVN said:

I'm really wondering why you think so, so can you please elaborate on this.

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capitalism leads to chaos

The role of the state is make a balance between private and public interests. To do this, it sometimes have to make common interest prior to some persons interest. In that way, the state sometimes have to go over private ownership.

I think allmost everybody in Europe agrees on this. It happens quite everyday when states build highways and have to take people's land ( with compensation of course ! ), or when create some taxes.

If the state can't go over private property, then it's unable to do its job. And if the state is unable to do its job, you go to chaos.

AVN said:

I'm bad in guessing, so therefore this question.
Do you think that the next anti-capitalist revolution will be in the Western World (Europe, USA) ?

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No, I'm quite sure it will be in South America. But this is not an opinion due to evidences, it's just a feeling and I understand some people might think another way.

I apologize for not being with the clarification rules but it also says that i must post my thesis before i can post.
this sort of topic in this form is pretty new to me, but this is something that represents my opinion nicely

Capitalism is, in it's pure state, quite ineffective.

Capitalism in a pure state leads to greed and exploitation of poorer classes. The concept behind capitalism is to get capital (Hence the name) but in pure forms this leads to monopolizing and exploitation of both the lower working classes and the natural resources. By so you create an unstable economy. If though you dilute this pure capitalism with more left ideas such as antitrust and labor unions (and the like) in the proper ways you can create a prefect balance. In a pure capitalism the system is designed to drive people to find capital in any way possible, including using unfair and unethical business practices (Using cheap Chinese labor).

But the general concept of capitalism leads to freedom economically, which is needed for society to function. Both Society and Economy are deeply intertwined. And with pure capitalism it will collapse society leading eventually to the downfall of the economic system resulting in economic and social anarchy. You must moderate the flow of money and capital to create fair and ethical companies.

1.

As you could see above I am against purifying capitalism to any degree. I believe that it should be altered to create a more socially concerned system.

Large corporations can easily try and stop starting companies by using unfair business practices like lowering prices to drive other companies to the ground. Big business continually tries and stop companies this way before Anti-trust laws where put in place in some countries. By enforcing this in other countries we can help create a fair capitalist system.

2.
The ethical concerns are being pointed out thought the past few years. Enron is an example of a purer state of capitalism going arye. The quest for money is making people go out of moral and ethical limitations to achieve their goals. For example look at anything in your room, you shirt for instance. It is most likely made in one of the following places, China, Taiwan, Lesotho, Japan or perhaps another Southeast Asia country. But the shirt is most likely distributed from some American company. The reason why they are not making it inside America (or perhaps Canada or other 1st world countries) is that the countries people are amazingly poor that they must work for pennies a day at a sweat shop to feed themselves or there families. The factory owner of course knows this and can drive the salaries down lower to make more of a profit. Then the American company comes in and buys these products willingly even though they know that the people who made them are being forced to work long hours and paid little, Just to save money.

If countries like Lesotho or China or Taiwan, enforced better labor policies and the American companies where cared more about the people making these things, then this exploitation wouldn’t happen.
3.
This opinion can be easily seen in the above. I believe that West’s influence on the east is stunning. In the US the capitalist system is fair. But companies are going around those laws to other countries (The Big 4; Lesotho, China, Japan, Taiwan). They currently have practically no business and working laws, no minium wage and no working conditions laws. Young children are working for pennies. It is a very bad side effect of the capitalist system which can be solved by spreading more social capitalism rather than pure capitalism.

AVN said:

Can you please elaborate why (in your opinion) there are no viable alternatives to capitalism ?

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Well, it's not that no alternatives to capitalism will ever be possible - it's that, currently, there aren't any. I could say the same about feudalism right after the fall of the Roman Empire.

You see, in a sense, I do consider communism an "aberration" (only not in a pejorative way). It's that every other economical organization was not planned - they rose from conditions met by society.

Whatever will replace capitalism, will rise that same way - through little changes that will eventually de-caractherize it. So, actually, my stating that there are no *viable* alternatives to capitalism (currently) is actually, just an statement of the obvious - if there were a more able system, it would have been implemented already.

Nevertheless, and just in case I miscomunicated here - I am not preaching that capitalism cannot be ever replaced, it's quite the contrary actually, I'm plain saying that it's innevitable that it will - only that it will be by something that we have no clue of what it is yet.

Hopefully, it will be something better.

Regards .

Scuffer said:

Essentially, the rich get richer and the poor get richer more slowly. Capitialism undoubtable improves the standard of living of all in my country. However, the gap increases. This creates tension in the scoiety, with many reprecussions. My idea would not change any of this, which is fine with me. You can't create a utopia, and only fools try.

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There are three questions that I want to bring regarding this little excerpt from the text:

First:

Is being OK for you that the levels of improvement gets larger instead of smaller? I mean, being poverty something relative – how much one is poor is relevant only when compared to the wealthy of people around him – and through the same logic, being unsatisfied is also relative, the increasing gap between majority and minority won’t fuel a class conflict, regardless of continuous improvement of the lower class?

Second:

Is it ok to limit the scope of the analysis to the rich nations, such as the UK? In the US, UK, and much, if not all, of the first world, it’s relatively simple to live with human dignity. It’s not true about the third world, where only a small minority progress while the majority actually falls to a growing misery. Considering that the question posed is about the moral implications of capitalism, is it all right, in your opinion, to pinpoint just a dot of progress instead of looking at the accomplishments of the global application of capitalism?

Third:

If utopias are for fools, what are the guidelines society should look up at, and what accomplishments should it aspire, in order to enhance?

Regards .

#1 Person said:

In the US the capitalist system is fair.

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In the rest of your post you are promoting social capitalism (I have some idea what you can mean with that), but I wonder now if you consider the current capital system used in the USA social capitalism too, because you describe it as fair ?

Can you please elaborate why you think that the capitalist system in the USA is fair ?

Well all of what i said, anti-trust laws, minium wage, workers rights ect. all are in the US, I am not advocating a socailist system just more socaily orented. Although the US system is fair it is far from perfect.

Good questions!

FredLC said:

First:
Is being OK for you that the levels of improvement gets larger instead of smaller? I mean, being poverty something relative – how much one is poor is relevant only when compared to the wealthy of people around him – and through the same logic, being unsatisfied is also relative, the increasing gap between majority and minority won’t fuel a class conflict, regardless of continuous improvement of the lower class?

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I would prefer that the gap between rich and poor didn't get bigger. I think that it is an acceptable evil that it does. The systems and structures that could make the gap close produce may other effects that are harmful to the society as a whole, and may well lead to less improvement for the lives of poor people.
As an example, soviet bloc communist countries had a smaller gap between rich and poor, but the pace of progress that this meant was so slow that would would queue all day to buy food for the evening.

I would prefer to see everyone's life improve rapidly with a gap, then see everyone dragged into the mud together.

Is it ok to limit the scope of the analysis to the rich nations, such as the UK? In the US, UK, and much, if not all, of the first world, it’s relatively simple to live with human dignity. It’s not true about the third world, where only a small minority progress while the majority actually falls to a growing misery. Considering that the question posed is about the moral implications of capitalism, is it all right, in your opinion, to pinpoint just a dot of progress instead of looking at the accomplishments of the global application of capitalism?

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I don't believe I have. I believe that capitialism is a system that allows rapid and sustainable increases in the standard of living. I am also of the opinion that life has got better over the last 100 years for the vast majority of the world's population. That's whether we are talking rich or poor. The gap (might) be bigger now, but people's lives have improved.

However, I do think that the way rich governments apply capitialist principles across the world undermines capitialism. In effect, they are disrupting the free market. If this could be eliminated, then 3rd world countries would have the potential to become fully involved in the process. I say potential, because I am not convinced that all leaders are the least bit interested in their people.

If utopias are for fools, what are the guidelines society should look up at, and what accomplishments should it aspire, in order to enhance?

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I can't and won't write down a handbook for society, at least not yet . The main things that society should aim for is that no one dies from lack of basic needs, that people should have personal freedom, and should live free from fear - as far as possible.
This is a fairly half-hearted list of targets, but I would go further to lower these and say they are ideals. When dealing with people's lives, I believe it is better to aim low and hit, than aim for the stars and miss.

AVN said:

When reading your whole post I get the impression that you want as less governmental influence in the economy as possible. I do understand that.

"So long as life continues to improve for all, and government intervention remains to ensure the rights of the individual, it's OK. My idea would prevent rich, powerful economies exploiting poor ones, in essence doing the same for poor countries what the government does for porr citizens."

However above quoted paragraph seems IMO to contradict that. Therefore I have the following two questions :

- What are for you the (economical) rights of the individual the government needs to protect ?

- Are you proposing that there should be some redistribution of wealth between countries ? This is the way it's done in countries to help the poor, but I'm not sure if you mean that.

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To the first point, that governments should not remove or tamper too much with the economic rights of individuals to do what they like with their money. How they invest it, what they buy with it, and at what price. That wasn't quite what I was getting in the paragraph though. Government protects the right of people by preventing the have's exploiting the have not's. Various labour laws, minimum wage, allowing unions and all the rest prevent the poor from being trampled. Obviously, there is still an element of this, but going too far the other way would be disasterous IMO. I would like to see a set of similar regulations to prevent rich governments exploiting poor governments by the same method. The international application of capitialism does not run in a way that supports competition.

To the second point, I don't want to see weath redistribution between nations, except through that which happens with forgein aid. It wouldn't work in case. I would just like to see a more level playing field between nations, and not the current situation where the rich can exploit the poor.

Moderator Action: Please move to the argument phase. Eyrei.
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