Capitalism is not the problem, the inherently ANTI-CAPITALISTIC merger of GOVERNMENT and CORPORATIONS, where the GOVERNMENT picks the winners & losers (not the market), is the problem. This is not free-market capitalism; and yes when we say capitalism, 99.99% of us mean FREE-MARKET CAPITALISM.
When the government, by force of law, STEALS your money and uses it to pick winners and losers, it is not capitalism failing - what is failing is something much more akin to actual FACISM (or any of the other forms of socialism).
Indeed, when the government doles out cash stolen from the populace, that action is in direct OPPOSITION to the most basic tenants CAPITALISM.
And the SOLUTION to our current sociopolitical woes would be MORE CAPITALISM, AND GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY. We need free-market competition in government spending, and every dollar proposed/spent should be openly documented for public consumption.
As it stands the obfuscated spending of OUR tax dollars allows the government to circumvent the protective nature of capitalistic free markets. Instead, those in control of the government, spend the money on whatever entities they are they are in financial bed with.
We need all bids to be open and competitive. Without that, the Pfizers and Lockheed Martins of the world will continue to be propped up, in perpetuity, by the corrupt socialistic government-control of these so-called "private" industry.
No market is 'free'. All markets are based on power relationships. I don't think you can point to any historical example anywhere of a 'free' market. To believe in free market Capitalism (or to somehow get there from our urrent system) is literally MORE utopian than to believe in Communism. We know for an absolute fact that human beings survived for thousands (if not millions) of years in what can only be called primitive communism. There was no money, individual land ownership, or intellectual property in primitive societies. Yet they survived and even prospered for thousands of years, and innovated all kinds of huge technology we take for granted without having a profit motive. Our brain is so addled today that we cannot conceive of openly sharing food and resources with people other than our nuclear family, yet that is how we survived for a long time. Communal hunting, share the meat. Communal work at harvest or gathering, store the food together. That is the crime of Capitalism - it divides us into striving individuals predating on each other, not as a collaborative group working towards common survival. The philosophy you are espousing also sounds a lot like Neoliberalism, and we all know how that turns out.
Please regale us with the "kinds of huge technology we take for granted without having a profit motive" you are referring to coming from these utopian "primitive communist" societies.
Also metallurgy, animal domestication, wine/beermaking, cheese, even writing systems were developed pre-capitalism. Massive building projects were also done pre-capitalism (pyramids, Native American mound systems, Nazca lines, irrigation projects, Stonehenge).
It always amuses me to imagine a primitive person who invents say, a new better bow and arrow, trying to patent it or force other primitive people in his tribe to pay him tribute in meat or hides for the invention. "Hey guys I invented this bow and arrow, I get 10% of all game we kill with this for ME and my family for a few generations." Or "hey guys, I invented the idea of how to milk these awesome cows we have domesticated. I get 30% of all milk anybody milks from cows, or an equal trade of something else."
It always amazed me that someone would think some primitive person would invent a better arrow and then someone else would want it and neither barter for it or simply take it by force.
Specialization of labor is what spurred the great technological movements of humanity, not the random tinkerings of serfs (or more laughably, utopian-era communists) who then willing gave of themselves their abilities to all who simply asked.
There has always been human nature. The plea that a type of government can curtail that is laughable.
How were any of these produced without a profit motive, maybe except fire? In fact the acquisition of these things and the use of these things all became object of wars, hardly a utopian ideal.
There has always been human nature. The plea that a type of government can curtail that is laughable.
The acquisition of anything can be used for violence. If I make a corncob doll for my child, another child can pick it up and hit another child with it.
I didn't make it with a profit motive, nor for the purpose of creating a weapon.
One oversight in this is that the huge technology discoveries required thousands of years for each step, slow crawling progress is what you are advocating. All the isms lead to stagnation. Liberty results in rapid progress but has inherently greater risk.
Recently published was evidence to show that the inegalitarian culture traces its origins to the onset of the agrarian age; other research shows that many prior cultures were not competitive, others were atheistic.
The profit motive is a focus on the advantage of the individual. An individual human, in the wild, without the massive infrastructural support afforded by our society, will die 99% of the time. That is the reality of the Hobbsian view of humanity: without society, human life is indeed "solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short". He believed, pessimistically, that humans need a sovereign or governor. We know much better, now as then, that it is our capacity for empathy that makes us human; those without it - sociopaths and psychopaths - are universally despised for the lack they show. Empathy drives cooperation.
Don't conflate capitalism with trade. Similarly, corporate capitalism with trade. Nor "ma-and-pa corner shop" with capitalism. That would also be "sole traders". Capitalism is investing capital (ie, liquid assets) into companies, which returns profit in the form of dividends or capital gains in stock and share values. Starting your own business is not capitalism; investing in someone else's company is.
I would say Capitalism is more than just investing in a company. Ownership is implied in Capitalism. To be a real capitalist, you have to own something (land, a business that produces something). Profits that you extract via rent or sale of the commodity you produce are then used to accumulate more profit-creating property (expand the business, buy more rent-taking land). That is capitalism - accumulation of more power to get control of more income producing stuff via re-investing profits you have extracted from unequal exchanges.
Just investing in stocks and getting dividends isn't capitalism. That is potentially letting somebody else use your excess money to let THEM expand in a Capitalist way. That you may be getting a small cut of their expansion doesn't make you a capitalist (unless you are a BIG investor who actually has enough shares to have an ownership stake and control of a company's decision making and ability to loot the company's profits). Stock investing may in some cases be you just getting fleeced by participating in a ponzi scheme. Unless you are using the profits you have extracted from the stock market to accumulate more income producing property (rather than just using it to live as retirement money), you aren't really a capitalist by just having a 401k (in my opinion).
A) I get really annoyed when someone repeats the academic myth that "human nature" encompasses all of the worst characteristics only, and conveniently ignores the better aspects of "human nature" like altruism, empathy, and compassion. Interestingly, for years biologists couldn't find any examples of these behaviors in nature, mostly because they didn't believe they existed. If you're not looking for something, you won't find it. Starting in the 1980s, scientists started studying altruism in nature, and - guess what! - they found it.
B) Read The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen for an analysis of exactly how those primitive societies could have worked, and how the change to a more brutal, competitive model developed.
It seems to me that you have steeped in the competitive model for so long that it seems to be the only way life can be. Too bad!
Human nature absolutely does not only encompass all of the worst characteristics. But equally as annoying are the people that think there is a group or sect of humans whose nature only encompasses the good. When you are dealing with a group and it grows past, I dunno 30+ people?, you are gonna into some impure actors, that's simply a statistical reality. I'm not saying these people are evil, but that they are simply subject to the ups and downs of their human nature.
Given that, a particular government framework (which is an enforceable restraint, by definition), you will have to deal with human nature, dissent, conflict, and the seven deadly sins.
The question that one is left with is, what is the most efficient way to manage all that? In practice, Communism has failed, perhaps Capitalism, now too, has failed. Primitive or other utopia has clearly failed.
Veblen is easily skewered as I showed you in another reference you made to him.
You're putting words in my mouth that I didn't say. I don't believe that there is a group of people who are only good.
Viktor Frankl, in Man's Search for Meaning, said that the line between good and bad didn't exist between one group of people and another, but down the middle of each person's heart, and that I DO believe.
THAT'S what I was trying to say: that "human nature" is not just the worst, but also the better.
The important point is that people are compassionate and they will be, they do not need to be told to. Socialism is a system that does not trust people to be compassionate. However, if you remove the profit incentive from society, you will remove a substantial amount of the incentive to innovate and advance the world. It is no coincidence that the period of massive charitable giving in the US was during the period of rampant capitalism.
Communism can last a long time and there may be examples eventually that show that it is sustainable but what is certain is that it will underperform capitalism in nearly every respect.
"There is no evidence that primitive societies were even egalitarian in groups, to say nothing of completely sharing resources. "
There's actually quite a bit of evidence. When Europeans came into conflict with native peoples across the globe, there are examples all over the place of living cultures, and evidence in the archeological/anthropological record. I'd recommend a couple of David Graeber's books on it: "Debt: the First 5,000 Years" and "The Dawn of Everything". Absolutely fascinating. There are more scholarly books out there too I'm sure.
""Human beings" have not been a species for even half a million years,"
Granted 'anatomically modern' humans have been around for maybe 400,000 years.
But something approximating humans has been around for at least a million years. Recent evidence shows camp fire use a million years ago, and we've been using stone tools for over 2 million years.
TAXES DON'T FUND SPENDING AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL. Stop spouting the lie that it is "our tax dollars."
The US has had a fiat currency since Richard Nixon took us off the last of the gold standard in 1971.
That means that Congress creates the currency every time they pass an appropriations bill. They don't need your taxes. (There are several reasons for taxes, but needing them to pay for government spending isn't one of them.) This also means that you can't stop them from spending money any way they like by withholding your taxes.
Will you please learn - really learn - Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to protect yourself from the lies that our politicians tell you, using your lack of knowledge against you? And don't think that because you heard something that "someone said" about MMT means that you understand MMT.
You can watch The Rogue Scholar, Macro'n'Cheese, or MMT Mondays on YouTube to learn about it. Thanks!
No one spends it. When your taxes go back to the Treasury Department, they are deleted (erased or subtracted) from the system. This is one of the reasons for taxes: it offsets the "printing" of more and more money.
Stephanie Kelton has several excellent videos on YouTube about this. Look them up. She has graphics showing how this works.
The solution you are looking for has nothing to do with economic models and everything to do with liberty. Eliminate government and most problems go with it.
I disagree. All of the theorists about society: Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and John Locke (read his Two Treatises on Government) said that governments are formed (in fact, societies are formed) because individuals can get their needs met better from a group than they can each by himself. Governments exist to have the power, that is, they are agreed to by the people, to curb the might of the powerful and protect the rights of the weak.
Of course, in your lifetime, you have only seen governments which have usurped their power and are oppressing their people, so you believe that that's the only form they can take.
Please read the entire Declaration of Independence. See what Jefferson had to say about governments that usurp their power.
Please drop the condescending attitude, I have read more of the founding documents than most. Are you suggesting that Chinese history where the government was nothing but a 1000 year long power struggle between war lords was an anomaly ? How about Rome where every transition was a coup, patricide or outright military regime change was the exception ? Perhaps it was the peaceful indigenous peoples of the Americas you had in mind that had non stop raging tribal warfare continent wide for generations.
Since you fantasize that government is benevolent please provide specific examples of such governments because I have found none.
Have you read Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Montaigne, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Machiavelli?
I didn't say that governments were benevolent. I said that the PURPOSE people have for creating a government is that it ought to be benevolent.
If you have read the "founding documents," you must have read the Declaration of Independence. I'm guessing that it must have been some time ago. I asked you to RE-READ it.
You cannot live in a civilized manner without a functioning government. The problem is not government - it is oligarchy, power focused in the hands of a few people - who then corrupt the government to serve their own sociopathic, suicidal ends.
GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE PROBLEM - IT IS THE CORRUPT, UNCONTROLLED GREED OF THE BILLIONAIRE ELITES.
How are the billionaires corrupt but the government isn't? This is South African judiciary logic where they convict Shabir Shaik of having a corrupt relationship with former president Jacob Zuma but somehow don't convict Jacob Zuma.
You've just said it! You're blaming the corporations for corrupting government but not blaming the government for being corrupt. How can only one side of a corrupt relationship be guilty?
Caitlin is a genius at exposing propaganda and narrative. However, when it comes to economics, I haven't seen her write any sort of detailed piece explaining anything about capitalism, socialism, communism, or fascism.
She hates billionaires. She would maybe pick up some good information if she listened to Russell Brand, who is on the left, and who loathes the tyranny of the fascist World Economic Forum in Davos. Check out this Brand video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCq9WBs6gzU
Again, I like her work. I will ally with anyone to stop nuclear war. But we could all stand to learn more about economics and how the world works.
This is why I plead with everyone to learn Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). This is what MMT does: it teaches ordinary people how the monetary system works, so that they can be armed against the lies of the politicians.
Most people have heard some gossip "debunking" MMT so they think that they know everything they need to know about it. Unless you KNOW MMT, you won't know whether its detractors are right wrong.
You can learn about it from The Rogue Scholar, Macro'n'Cheese, or MMT Mondays on YouTube. Also, Stephanie Kelton has several excellent videos with graphics about it on YouTube.
It will have everything to do with economics, since it seems that the West won't quit funneling money to the weapons manufacturers (who give back money to the politicians) until we end up in a nuclear war. After all, you have to use those darn bombs somewhere, so you can make more!
Im glad you have time to educate the author of the post. But I imagine that she will never learn. I already tried many times... I hope you have more patience and wish you luck.
I have to agree, Caitlin is a progressive communist that hasn't really experienced anything in life outside of capitalism. She has no real world comparison and so all evils in the world come from her identified enemy.
There are a lot of paid commenters in the world but I am not one of them. I have been a fan of hers since the gun carrying protest but sadly her ideology doesn't reflect anything even close to her public image.
Possibly her "public image" is a figment of your imagination that you projected onto her, and now you are disappointed when she turns out to be a real person and not the idol of your creation.
I've found Caitlin to be remarkably consistent over the years that I have been following her.
It's not that she turned out to be a real person, whatever that means. I clearly stated when I started following her and why I'm disappointed, deal with it.
I win nothing for educating the author of the post or her readers. I was doing it as a favor to them because I thought that they had good intentions but were simply ignorant. In the end, I lost patience.
I also think that the likelihood that they are just ignorant is very low. Still possible, but low. There is something deeply sinister with these people's desire to enslave the so called "capitalists" and create a dictatorship (of the proletariat or otherwise). It suggests a lot more than simple ignorance, much closer to being evil.
You are a low IQ no one that is resentful of the entire world and became a communist who is so deranged that believes that he understands what someone like me thinks. :)
Right. And since you need to be spoon fed, I was stressing that contradiction. Free market is what gave us the present situation, that is, the winners take over State power
Well, excuse me for not hanging on your every word. Corruption of the free market by collision between industry and the government gave us what we have. Without government protection large market players could not rise and become monopolistic.
No we are describing capitalism that until the 1920's and the interference of progressives in the market, was very real, and very possible. It was and is the socialistic-elements (things normally alien to capitalism) that poison/destroy free market economies, as theu do in all markets in ALL economic systems socialistic elements are introduced into. Socialistic elements will/do destroy capitalist economies and enable cronyism (a hallmark of socialism, and especially of hybrid socialist/capitalist systems - a la China). Socialism's inherent nature is that of corruption, and is largely why communism fails (among many, many other reasons).
If you keep government/"public" ownership (socialism) out of capitalism; than Capitalism has, does, and continues to be the system that brings greatest amount of prosperity & innovation to the greatest amount of the population. The cost of freedom is that some will fail. But they can also try again thanks to these same freedoms.
You cannot have social freedom without economic freedom. This is an undeniable fact.
I would also posit you cannot have "public" control or ownership of any part of the economy, without having horrible corruption in that segment of the economy.
The governments role in free market capitalism was to prevent trusts/monopolies from acting to stifle competition. Such as how the system largely was before amending the constitution to allow a federal income tax, and before FDR used court-stacking to blackmail the Supreme Court into reinterpreting interstate-commerce to mean ANYTHING (after they first ruled against him), we indeed had a very sincere capitalist society in the USA.
The progressives and socialists of the early 20th century sowed the seeds of the corruption we see today. They likely would not have been able to do this without one other horrible ammendment: the 17th ammendment.
Senators are no longer beholden to the states interest, but more so to the populace via promises towards their self-interest. This dissolution of states-power and republicanism via the 17th's appeal towards mob-control democracy has also destroyed much of the separation of state and federal power that enabled us to have a thriving capitalistic system. The founders should have made so that the tenants of our republic, such as thr state's legislatures choosing the senators, not the mob, could never he destroyed via amendment. The sins of the founders is that they faiped to protect the greatness that is/was the constitution and the original bill of rights. Granting more freedoms via ammendments was fine and an acceptable thing but destroying the foundations of system of republicanism, via amendments, should never have been possible.
The creation of Prohibition, the federal Income tax, and the 17th ammendments enablement of mob-rule should all never have been possible. That is one failing our system encountered that enabled creeping socialism to embed itself, like a parasite, within our economy/government - and like an unchecked parasite in the wrong host, it will grow and grow until its inherent corruption and bloat destroys our system.
Can you admit that there have been many many failures in the application of progressive ideology? If you cannot, then there is really no point in arguing. And no, capitalism is not perfect.
But if you prefer free people to domesticated ones, the choice is clear and progressivism will fail then, without force.
You're making the mistake of most Americans: you're confusing capitalism, an economic system, with "freedom," the outcome of a political system. We have been taught and brainwashed to confuse economics with politics. They aren't the same. You CAN have capitalism with totalitarianism. It's been done before.
Capitalism glorifies greed to the level of a sacred virtue. It's based on destroying the remarkably thin skin of earth (~6 inches) and the water that supports us (one drop, if our planet were the size of an egg). It destroys the ocean of air that supports all life, that could be represented by a thin tissue, if you laid that on a classroom globe. It turns people into slaves, killers of each other, and humans generally into lunatics. It has us competing violently for gold bars on the Global Titanic, which is already vertical. "And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made..."
Jesus freaking christ, dude. centralized government is your neon god. Not everyone wants to be a domesticated servant to the current fashionable Dear Leader...but apparently many do.
The glorification to which you refer is embedded in the relentless, 24/7 propaganda that distorts the actual amount of support among the populace, and masks the growing number of dissenters. I compare it to ad campaigns that seek to induce people to buy a product or see a movie. The system is amoral and caters to extremists and frauds. It usually attracts the worst of us, and the media present these ad campaigns as reality. It is a struggle to be honest and seek honest reportage.
I had a meteorology instructor say, "Imagine that this planet is a basketball, the bumps are higher than Everest and the grooves deeper than the Marianas Trench but it will do. Now dip it in water and take it out. The film of water on the surface? That's the thickness of our breathable atmosphere."
Capitalism is also just a word; words have been called the skin of thoughts. Strip off the skin here and and the pile of rot, garbage and death holds zero beauty.
We have crony capitalism, not capitalism in the West at the time.
That said, all systems can be made to work tolerably well, if and to the extent that these systems are not run by sociopaths. The problem is that power is to sociopaths what catnip is to cats, and they will worm their way to take over any system, no matter how well designed or well intentioned.
This is why capitalism will degenerate into crony capitalism, why socialism will eventually be corrupted, etc.. This is why, after 5,000 or so years of written history to pick examples from, there are no clear and simple answers as to which systems work and which do not, simply better and worse options at that time and in that place.
There were a few hundred thousand years of prehistory where all evidence indicates we survived via primitive communism. No money, no land property or intellectual property. Yet we survived and even prospered, developing agriculture, animal domestication, metal working, tools, even specialization and primitive writing systems before we had exchange currency for daily activities like we have now. All accomplished without destroying the planet and without a profit motive! Why were these primitive peoples so innovative without the ability to patent and profit from these developments? Then we introduce money, debt, and individual land ownership, and suddenly the idea of 'nation states' comes around, and little petty tribal conflicts explode into Total Wars of hegemony, colonization, and extermination.
Note the intensity of Glenn’s activity despite a serious health emergency in his family
• (re-tweet) unusual_whales @unusual_whales
JUST IN: Treasury Department officials have begun looking into whether they have the legal authority to start an investigation into the Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase because of Musk’s ties to foreign governments and investors, per the Washington Post.
Everybody knows exactly why this is happening.
• One day after a major story from @lhfang and @kenklippenstein proving the US Govt and Security State are directing Big Tech on what to censor, the #2 Senate Dem tries to radically restrict what "free speech" means in a way that contradicts all 1A caselaw:
Senator Dick Durbin @SenatorDurbin –“Free speech does not include spreading misinformation to downplay political violence.”
• By the way, one day after this massive story about the US Govt directing Big Tech censorship was published by a Dem-friendly site, with a popular left-wing figure as one of the reporters, neither CNN nor MSNBC invited them on, and no Dem politician has mentioned it.
Why is this?
• 2015, BBC: "Meet Twitter's second biggest shareholder, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal"
If DC Dems want an excuse to investigate Musk's purchase of Twitter on "national security grounds" because he won't censor for them, they'll need a better excuse.
• Also, few things are more darkly hilarious than Dems pretending to be so deeply concerned about Musk's involvement with Saudis when it's the US Government that is single-handedly responsible for propping up the Saudi regime with arms and surveillance tech
• Americans are being conditioned -- by "journalists" of all people -- to believe it's immoral or mentally ill not to immediately and uncritically accept whatever institutions of authorities claim.
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald weighs in on the Paul Pelosi attack: "Skepticism itself can never be wrong ... Even if evidence does emerge later on to prove it, the skepticism itself was not just valid, but necessary."
• To this very day, you can read articles in liberal corporate outlets branding as "conspiracy theorists" anyone asking about Nuland's comments - same for those who questioned claims about COVID vaccine efficacy and mask mandates, or *any* claim that the US Security State issues.
• The US corporate press is trying to train Americans to believe the first and most solemn duty of citizenship is instantly accept whatever institutions of authority tell you to believe. No wanting to see evidence, no noting contradictions: just happily recite what you're told.
• Rather than obey France's censorship order, Rumble turned its services off for France and will sue. But France should have no right to impose its censorship laws on the world.
• This is why I'm so proud to be working more with Rumble and why I believe in their free speech commitment. The easy thing to do would be to obey French politicians and remove anyone foreign governments demand. Rumble would rather lose France then submit to them.
People who believe capitalism is the best system will fight to the death for it. The death of other people. What other rationale was there in the Vietnam war, for instance? The US cited the domino theory: if Vietnam goes communist, it will cause all the countries in the global east and south to follow suit down the communist path. Communist countries everywhere - no matter what distance away - were a danger to the capitalist system. Indonesia was attacked in a different way in 1965 - the year of living dangerously - when the CIA lists of undesirables, people of a communitarian lifestyle, were murdered by co-opted Indonesians, and other CIA controlled thugs. Capitalism isn't its own good argument, or shining example. It takes muscle of one kind or another to enforce it.
There is a DIRECT connection between Russia-gate hoax concocted by St. Obama, Biden and Hillary and provoking capitalist Russia’s “Putin's war” by relentless NATO expansion.
The SAME lying team representing the US bipartisan War party.
Democracy and freedoms have left US – censorship is now nearly TOTAL; far worse than in Soviet Union 50 years ago.
I agree with the sentiment, but it is the philosophy of statism that has failed—not capitalism.
The state—through regulatory capture—has ensured the failure of capitalism. The state apparatus prefers one solution for many problems. That is the essence of statism.
Entrepreneurialism and free-market capitalism—a sovereign individual who is free to compete in the marketplace, creating goods and services to capture market share and capital—motivates individuals to create many solutions for many problems.
I don't want to assume anything, but intentionally or not, you are competing against other Substack newsletters.
Through the relatively free-market here on Substack, are you not creating a service that is attempting to capture market share/subscribers—paying subscribers or otherwise?
Its not even that the government "ensures the failur of capitalism", but that when the government controls the means of production of any industry, that is Socialism. The government nearly the sole of the "millitary industrial conplex".
That is a monstrosity of GOVERNMENT-CONTROLLED PRODUCTION - the basic founding principle of SOCIALISM.
What we have in our nation are sectors of the economy that controlled by means of SOCIALISM.
You can argue they are privately owned, by if you don't conteol what you make - you are not privately owned.
That's why NAZI-ism was executed largely in this manner, as they did not have time with the onset of their war, to take ownership of most of the economy - instead they took control. Indeed the Nazi party, The National SOCIALIST Workers Party of Germany, if far more in the line economically with the problematic parts of our economy:
Pharmaceuticals, War, Etc.
And they are sectors of our economy that are socialized, with no little to no private options remaining:
Welfare, SSDI, etc - all have supplanted any private unemployment or disability insurance. And without the competition of a free market, these socialized segments of our economy have become HORRIBLY CORRUPT; just like anything that is SOCIALIZED becomes.
THIS IS WHAT SOCIALIZING A SEGMENT OF THE ECONOMY DOES:
I know a drug addict on disability for 10 years now, that loves in a $200 a month 2 bedroom apartment by himself that would cost in excess of $1600 on the private market. And he pays for it with his disability check that exceeds $1000 a month. He also gets food stamps on top of that. The rest gets spent on DRUGS. On which our GOVERNMENT has ruled: we CANNOT DRUG-TEST WELFARE RECIPIENTS.
Private unemployment and disabity insurance would never allow this excess or corruption, they care about how the money is spent - unlike socialized government programs.
We need MORE CAPITALISM, and the government should do its one job there: PREVENT TRUSTS/CARTELS/MONOPOLIES from acting in anticompetitive manners.
It is the state that has a monopoly on the use of force and coercion. The state has the power to lock you up, or lock you down.
Corporations are merely the lapdogs of the state.
Sure, lots of back scratching going on between the entities—but if the last 2 plus years hasn't shown that it is the state that enslaves, I cannot convince you otherwise.
I really have to wrap my head around communism. It is tough to do. And I think I kind of agree with you to a point.
Let's say this, a doctor is an excellent doctor is tired one evening. There are no other doctors around and a Baker comes to the doctor in the evening. The Baker understands that the doctor is the best. But the doctor says I am tired, see me tomorrow. The baker sees that the doctor is tired but cant come back tomorrow. So he tries to sweeten the pot with an apple pie. The doctor accepts the pie and ignores his own feelings and sees the baker.
Soon everyone is doing little extras to get through shortages or to achieve excellent results. Soon the doctor is rich.
Now this is the purest form of capitalism. Probably pure communism.
Entrepreneurs finding each other and trading. Free will. No pollution. No big trucks or boats. Just doing our thing as value for work is paid.
Communism as is defined by Marx is a total sham.
Oh and by creating a local environment where people trade, work and talk the love will happen. Then there will be no need for abortion or any of the other crap lefties sell. We can teach biodiversity.
Because everything in life will have unmanipulated value.
Go to most small towns in the undeveloped world. This is how it is done. They seem to get along quite well without us.
If you're interested in understanding what socialism is please read theory by Karl Marx, Engles, Lenin, or Mao. Or peruse the Youtube channel Second Thought for an introduction to socialism:
I am simply not interested. There is no such thing as equal. Someone will run faster, doctor better, cook better, work harder and so on. So this supposed better form of government will fail. However a republic with a great constitution that protects the individual, the environment and the whole if society will work. Checks and balances to protect the individual from those who will harm any of the three parts are needed.
Then why did you say "I really have to wrap my head around communism"? You just explained the United States and other capitalist countries and they don't work. "Rights of the individual" only protects a select few people own capital. Wage slavery does not protect the individual. At least inform yourself beyond a surface propagandistic interpretation of socialism.
In their current form they aren't working. I can agree with that. Because they are corrupt. However communism in its current form has never really worked at all. Ever. It is unrealistic in a human sense.
"Communism has never worked" If the CIA/US hadn't meddled by overthrowing those countries governments we might have found out if that was true. I implore you to find non US sources about communism. Even a basic understanding of socialist principles would be helpful.
"It is unrealistic in the human sense" Social darwinism is unrealistic in the human sense. Communities, communal living, social cooperation is how our species has survived for millennia.
We're heavily propagandized too by people who don not have our best interests in mind. If you question the US and it's motives at all I would implore you to question what you know about socialism in general.
To me, what I have seen about communism, the state as in a country runs government for a few years, kills a few million people, then points a gun at you for the rest of your life. Thus creating fear, breeding hate, stifling creativity, creating massive poverty etc etc etc.
The west is experiencing this communist/socialist takeover right now. Clot shots, corporate takeover of government, ever increasing crime, ever more violent, the degradation of moral values, the dumbing down of our children and on it goes.
The people both left and right are tired of government. And now governments are crushing freedoms daily.
I despise industry. I know where pollution is created.
I despise large centralization of industry and government. That creates lopsided, psychopathic systems that puts industry and government over humanity. It creates us vs them.
We aren't going to stop competing. Destroying the testosterone of young men is only going to manifest other problems. People are naturally innovative, naturally curious. People fall into place rather than being shoved into line.
So a republic style small government that is based on protecting the freedom of the individual and the environment is where I see a successful world.
To create this, the world has to stop supporting psychopaths.
Communism and corporatism are psychopathic.
We need a system that better detects psychopathic behaviour .
The Menonites seem to have found that system. Overall not a bad way to live. And of course you can punch a hundred holes in my thoughts.
This one once again tries desperately to conflate capitalism with geopolitical power games that exist outside of any economic system.
Any-ism are all formed and led by elite power mad humans that use their unique abilities to position themselves to use humanity for their own gain. This has been true of theocracies, communes, cults, nation states, tribes and every other form of collective government.
Capitalism is not the problem, it is just your favorite whipping boy.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ... wish I had a solution. But as I see it, the power to tax is the power to destroy. End confiscation, reestablish voluntary taxation, and governments will be inherently smaller, and less capable of mass destruction.
Capitalism has not failed...it is the idiots that have been trying to turn it into a socialist free-for-all that have caused problems. If you can come up with a better system, please tell us. Communism? Socialism? Leftism? Fascism? All major failures. All causing more death and destruction than capitalism ever will.
We do not have capitalism today in the west, as many have stated below, we have socialism. thatcher was right when she said that the problem with socialists is that they eventually run out of other people's money. when that happens, socialism collapses and is replaced by authoritarianism. Democracy always leads to socialism as the politicians always find a way to buy votes.
There are comments below about fascism, yes, it is rearing its ugly head and the reason is that the socialism is close to collapse and authoritarianism is emerging. The fascism comes from the desire of the present political establishment to try and maintain their position after the collapse. They want to be the authoritarians. In the normal course of events, a collapse would result in revolt and the present leadership hanging from lamp posts.
When you have an appointment with a lamp post any future scenario is preferable including one in which you are still a big fish in a much smaller pond. Politics is the art of deflection and the present narratives from Global Warming, Covid Pandemic to War with Russia are all manufactured crises designed to blame the weather, illness, mad Putin for the quite soon lack of pensions, medical care and other socialist promises that western politicians have made.
We will move into a period of authoritarianism, the cycle is cast in stone. What is important is that the present establishment do not become the authoritarians. If the revolt is inspired it will move smartly from authoritarianism back to democracy, hopefully Direct Democracy and we can then rid ourselves of the inevitable corruption of representatives as in the present democracy.
What you wrote is provocative and interesting. I don't know if you are write, but you deserve a lot more engagement with your ideas than you have received here.
This article re: the failure of capitalism puts you squarely inside BOX THINKING.
If humanity has failed so far with capitalism, it's not because of the capitalist method of exchange for profit. Humanity has found the best system of doing business among themselves which simultaneously contributes to the advancement of the human condition.
So, the failure is not with capitalism, but with the social/political organization that allows relatively small gangs to get control of the entire economic process for their own greedy power crazed agendas. Humanity has just been asleep at the wheel. What's needed is not a throwing out the baby (capitalism) with the bathwater, but a sweeping away of the gangs of parasites riding on the back of the best economic exchange system ever developed.
To begin with, it's literally impossible and insane to think that relatively small gangs should be put into positions to make decisions over millions and billions of people from hundreds and thousands of miles away. Local control of all issues concerning the local community is not just common sense, but it is the way of nature. The beehive, many herd animals and even primitive human societies, upon reaching unmanageable population size would divide and create two smaller groupings. And at least among the human tribes, they would still maintain friendly family ties between communities.
Capitalism is not the problem, the inherently ANTI-CAPITALISTIC merger of GOVERNMENT and CORPORATIONS, where the GOVERNMENT picks the winners & losers (not the market), is the problem. This is not free-market capitalism; and yes when we say capitalism, 99.99% of us mean FREE-MARKET CAPITALISM.
When the government, by force of law, STEALS your money and uses it to pick winners and losers, it is not capitalism failing - what is failing is something much more akin to actual FACISM (or any of the other forms of socialism).
Indeed, when the government doles out cash stolen from the populace, that action is in direct OPPOSITION to the most basic tenants CAPITALISM.
And the SOLUTION to our current sociopolitical woes would be MORE CAPITALISM, AND GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY. We need free-market competition in government spending, and every dollar proposed/spent should be openly documented for public consumption.
As it stands the obfuscated spending of OUR tax dollars allows the government to circumvent the protective nature of capitalistic free markets. Instead, those in control of the government, spend the money on whatever entities they are they are in financial bed with.
We need all bids to be open and competitive. Without that, the Pfizers and Lockheed Martins of the world will continue to be propped up, in perpetuity, by the corrupt socialistic government-control of these so-called "private" industry.
No market is 'free'. All markets are based on power relationships. I don't think you can point to any historical example anywhere of a 'free' market. To believe in free market Capitalism (or to somehow get there from our urrent system) is literally MORE utopian than to believe in Communism. We know for an absolute fact that human beings survived for thousands (if not millions) of years in what can only be called primitive communism. There was no money, individual land ownership, or intellectual property in primitive societies. Yet they survived and even prospered for thousands of years, and innovated all kinds of huge technology we take for granted without having a profit motive. Our brain is so addled today that we cannot conceive of openly sharing food and resources with people other than our nuclear family, yet that is how we survived for a long time. Communal hunting, share the meat. Communal work at harvest or gathering, store the food together. That is the crime of Capitalism - it divides us into striving individuals predating on each other, not as a collaborative group working towards common survival. The philosophy you are espousing also sounds a lot like Neoliberalism, and we all know how that turns out.
The "free market" was the brainchild of Adam Smith, and arose merely in his imagination, to describe a perfect model of his economic system.
This is foolish drivel, free markets have existed as long as humanity.
Please regale us with the "kinds of huge technology we take for granted without having a profit motive" you are referring to coming from these utopian "primitive communist" societies.
Fire. The wheel. fishing. boats. Agriculture. painting. tanning. Tool use. Need I go on?
Also metallurgy, animal domestication, wine/beermaking, cheese, even writing systems were developed pre-capitalism. Massive building projects were also done pre-capitalism (pyramids, Native American mound systems, Nazca lines, irrigation projects, Stonehenge).
It always amuses me to imagine a primitive person who invents say, a new better bow and arrow, trying to patent it or force other primitive people in his tribe to pay him tribute in meat or hides for the invention. "Hey guys I invented this bow and arrow, I get 10% of all game we kill with this for ME and my family for a few generations." Or "hey guys, I invented the idea of how to milk these awesome cows we have domesticated. I get 30% of all milk anybody milks from cows, or an equal trade of something else."
It always amazed me that someone would think some primitive person would invent a better arrow and then someone else would want it and neither barter for it or simply take it by force.
Specialization of labor is what spurred the great technological movements of humanity, not the random tinkerings of serfs (or more laughably, utopian-era communists) who then willing gave of themselves their abilities to all who simply asked.
There has always been human nature. The plea that a type of government can curtail that is laughable.
Brilliant
How were any of these produced without a profit motive, maybe except fire? In fact the acquisition of these things and the use of these things all became object of wars, hardly a utopian ideal.
There has always been human nature. The plea that a type of government can curtail that is laughable.
The acquisition of anything can be used for violence. If I make a corncob doll for my child, another child can pick it up and hit another child with it.
I didn't make it with a profit motive, nor for the purpose of creating a weapon.
GREAT examples!
Stonehenge
The Library of Alexandria
One oversight in this is that the huge technology discoveries required thousands of years for each step, slow crawling progress is what you are advocating. All the isms lead to stagnation. Liberty results in rapid progress but has inherently greater risk.
Recently published was evidence to show that the inegalitarian culture traces its origins to the onset of the agrarian age; other research shows that many prior cultures were not competitive, others were atheistic.
The profit motive is a focus on the advantage of the individual. An individual human, in the wild, without the massive infrastructural support afforded by our society, will die 99% of the time. That is the reality of the Hobbsian view of humanity: without society, human life is indeed "solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short". He believed, pessimistically, that humans need a sovereign or governor. We know much better, now as then, that it is our capacity for empathy that makes us human; those without it - sociopaths and psychopaths - are universally despised for the lack they show. Empathy drives cooperation.
Don't conflate capitalism with trade. Similarly, corporate capitalism with trade. Nor "ma-and-pa corner shop" with capitalism. That would also be "sole traders". Capitalism is investing capital (ie, liquid assets) into companies, which returns profit in the form of dividends or capital gains in stock and share values. Starting your own business is not capitalism; investing in someone else's company is.
If you haven't already, you might like to read The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen.
I would say Capitalism is more than just investing in a company. Ownership is implied in Capitalism. To be a real capitalist, you have to own something (land, a business that produces something). Profits that you extract via rent or sale of the commodity you produce are then used to accumulate more profit-creating property (expand the business, buy more rent-taking land). That is capitalism - accumulation of more power to get control of more income producing stuff via re-investing profits you have extracted from unequal exchanges.
Just investing in stocks and getting dividends isn't capitalism. That is potentially letting somebody else use your excess money to let THEM expand in a Capitalist way. That you may be getting a small cut of their expansion doesn't make you a capitalist (unless you are a BIG investor who actually has enough shares to have an ownership stake and control of a company's decision making and ability to loot the company's profits). Stock investing may in some cases be you just getting fleeced by participating in a ponzi scheme. Unless you are using the profits you have extracted from the stock market to accumulate more income producing property (rather than just using it to live as retirement money), you aren't really a capitalist by just having a 401k (in my opinion).
A) I get really annoyed when someone repeats the academic myth that "human nature" encompasses all of the worst characteristics only, and conveniently ignores the better aspects of "human nature" like altruism, empathy, and compassion. Interestingly, for years biologists couldn't find any examples of these behaviors in nature, mostly because they didn't believe they existed. If you're not looking for something, you won't find it. Starting in the 1980s, scientists started studying altruism in nature, and - guess what! - they found it.
B) Read The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen for an analysis of exactly how those primitive societies could have worked, and how the change to a more brutal, competitive model developed.
It seems to me that you have steeped in the competitive model for so long that it seems to be the only way life can be. Too bad!
Human nature absolutely does not only encompass all of the worst characteristics. But equally as annoying are the people that think there is a group or sect of humans whose nature only encompasses the good. When you are dealing with a group and it grows past, I dunno 30+ people?, you are gonna into some impure actors, that's simply a statistical reality. I'm not saying these people are evil, but that they are simply subject to the ups and downs of their human nature.
Given that, a particular government framework (which is an enforceable restraint, by definition), you will have to deal with human nature, dissent, conflict, and the seven deadly sins.
The question that one is left with is, what is the most efficient way to manage all that? In practice, Communism has failed, perhaps Capitalism, now too, has failed. Primitive or other utopia has clearly failed.
Veblen is easily skewered as I showed you in another reference you made to him.
You're putting words in my mouth that I didn't say. I don't believe that there is a group of people who are only good.
Viktor Frankl, in Man's Search for Meaning, said that the line between good and bad didn't exist between one group of people and another, but down the middle of each person's heart, and that I DO believe.
THAT'S what I was trying to say: that "human nature" is not just the worst, but also the better.
Maybe you should read as many books as I have.
The important point is that people are compassionate and they will be, they do not need to be told to. Socialism is a system that does not trust people to be compassionate. However, if you remove the profit incentive from society, you will remove a substantial amount of the incentive to innovate and advance the world. It is no coincidence that the period of massive charitable giving in the US was during the period of rampant capitalism.
Communism can last a long time and there may be examples eventually that show that it is sustainable but what is certain is that it will underperform capitalism in nearly every respect.
"There is no evidence that primitive societies were even egalitarian in groups, to say nothing of completely sharing resources. "
There's actually quite a bit of evidence. When Europeans came into conflict with native peoples across the globe, there are examples all over the place of living cultures, and evidence in the archeological/anthropological record. I'd recommend a couple of David Graeber's books on it: "Debt: the First 5,000 Years" and "The Dawn of Everything". Absolutely fascinating. There are more scholarly books out there too I'm sure.
""Human beings" have not been a species for even half a million years,"
Granted 'anatomically modern' humans have been around for maybe 400,000 years.
But something approximating humans has been around for at least a million years. Recent evidence shows camp fire use a million years ago, and we've been using stone tools for over 2 million years.
TAXES DON'T FUND SPENDING AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL. Stop spouting the lie that it is "our tax dollars."
The US has had a fiat currency since Richard Nixon took us off the last of the gold standard in 1971.
That means that Congress creates the currency every time they pass an appropriations bill. They don't need your taxes. (There are several reasons for taxes, but needing them to pay for government spending isn't one of them.) This also means that you can't stop them from spending money any way they like by withholding your taxes.
Will you please learn - really learn - Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to protect yourself from the lies that our politicians tell you, using your lack of knowledge against you? And don't think that because you heard something that "someone said" about MMT means that you understand MMT.
You can watch The Rogue Scholar, Macro'n'Cheese, or MMT Mondays on YouTube to learn about it. Thanks!
So where does the money I send to the IRS go? Who spends it?
No one spends it. When your taxes go back to the Treasury Department, they are deleted (erased or subtracted) from the system. This is one of the reasons for taxes: it offsets the "printing" of more and more money.
Stephanie Kelton has several excellent videos on YouTube about this. Look them up. She has graphics showing how this works.
So if I don't send my money, they have to print more? That means that the money i send does get spent.
The solution you are looking for has nothing to do with economic models and everything to do with liberty. Eliminate government and most problems go with it.
I disagree. All of the theorists about society: Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and John Locke (read his Two Treatises on Government) said that governments are formed (in fact, societies are formed) because individuals can get their needs met better from a group than they can each by himself. Governments exist to have the power, that is, they are agreed to by the people, to curb the might of the powerful and protect the rights of the weak.
Of course, in your lifetime, you have only seen governments which have usurped their power and are oppressing their people, so you believe that that's the only form they can take.
Please read the entire Declaration of Independence. See what Jefferson had to say about governments that usurp their power.
Please drop the condescending attitude, I have read more of the founding documents than most. Are you suggesting that Chinese history where the government was nothing but a 1000 year long power struggle between war lords was an anomaly ? How about Rome where every transition was a coup, patricide or outright military regime change was the exception ? Perhaps it was the peaceful indigenous peoples of the Americas you had in mind that had non stop raging tribal warfare continent wide for generations.
Since you fantasize that government is benevolent please provide specific examples of such governments because I have found none.
You read "the founding documents," fine.
Have you read Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Montaigne, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Machiavelli?
I didn't say that governments were benevolent. I said that the PURPOSE people have for creating a government is that it ought to be benevolent.
If you have read the "founding documents," you must have read the Declaration of Independence. I'm guessing that it must have been some time ago. I asked you to RE-READ it.
You cannot live in a civilized manner without a functioning government. The problem is not government - it is oligarchy, power focused in the hands of a few people - who then corrupt the government to serve their own sociopathic, suicidal ends.
GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE PROBLEM - IT IS THE CORRUPT, UNCONTROLLED GREED OF THE BILLIONAIRE ELITES.
Can you name a single government that has never fallen to the elites in society ?
Off the top of my head no. But obviously that doesn't mean we ought to ignore the problem.
How are the billionaires corrupt but the government isn't? This is South African judiciary logic where they convict Shabir Shaik of having a corrupt relationship with former president Jacob Zuma but somehow don't convict Jacob Zuma.
Who said that?
We all know that governments can be corrupt.
The problem in the United States is that the government has been corrupted by the money that they are getting from the corrupt corporations.
You've just said it! You're blaming the corporations for corrupting government but not blaming the government for being corrupt. How can only one side of a corrupt relationship be guilty?
Caitlin is a genius at exposing propaganda and narrative. However, when it comes to economics, I haven't seen her write any sort of detailed piece explaining anything about capitalism, socialism, communism, or fascism.
She hates billionaires. She would maybe pick up some good information if she listened to Russell Brand, who is on the left, and who loathes the tyranny of the fascist World Economic Forum in Davos. Check out this Brand video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCq9WBs6gzU
Again, I like her work. I will ally with anyone to stop nuclear war. But we could all stand to learn more about economics and how the world works.
This is why I plead with everyone to learn Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). This is what MMT does: it teaches ordinary people how the monetary system works, so that they can be armed against the lies of the politicians.
Most people have heard some gossip "debunking" MMT so they think that they know everything they need to know about it. Unless you KNOW MMT, you won't know whether its detractors are right wrong.
You can learn about it from The Rogue Scholar, Macro'n'Cheese, or MMT Mondays on YouTube. Also, Stephanie Kelton has several excellent videos with graphics about it on YouTube.
Yeah - I'm sure Caitlin should stop talking about a possible World War III since it will have nothing to do with economics. Whatever.
WHAT?
It will have everything to do with economics, since it seems that the West won't quit funneling money to the weapons manufacturers (who give back money to the politicians) until we end up in a nuclear war. After all, you have to use those darn bombs somewhere, so you can make more!
Im glad you have time to educate the author of the post. But I imagine that she will never learn. I already tried many times... I hope you have more patience and wish you luck.
I have to agree, Caitlin is a progressive communist that hasn't really experienced anything in life outside of capitalism. She has no real world comparison and so all evils in the world come from her identified enemy.
Which is why people like you are rushing to her comment section. Whoever is paying you is wasting their investment; people here have thinking minds
There are a lot of paid commenters in the world but I am not one of them. I have been a fan of hers since the gun carrying protest but sadly her ideology doesn't reflect anything even close to her public image.
Possibly her "public image" is a figment of your imagination that you projected onto her, and now you are disappointed when she turns out to be a real person and not the idol of your creation.
I've found Caitlin to be remarkably consistent over the years that I have been following her.
It's not that she turned out to be a real person, whatever that means. I clearly stated when I started following her and why I'm disappointed, deal with it.
That condescending approach should do the trick
I win nothing for educating the author of the post or her readers. I was doing it as a favor to them because I thought that they had good intentions but were simply ignorant. In the end, I lost patience.
I also think that the likelihood that they are just ignorant is very low. Still possible, but low. There is something deeply sinister with these people's desire to enslave the so called "capitalists" and create a dictatorship (of the proletariat or otherwise). It suggests a lot more than simple ignorance, much closer to being evil.
Thank you so much for your crusade in favour of Good against us who cherish Evil. Your defence of man's right to exploit man is admirable
You are a paranoid fool that thinks life is black and white.
Names! Hurling names at your opponents is always one of the most effective and distinguished methods of debate.
You are a low IQ no one that is resentful of the entire world and became a communist who is so deranged that believes that he understands what someone like me thinks. :)
As I said, I don't have time, I am sorry... If you want to learn, there are lots of material on the internet.
Cheers
You win a great deal of puffing up of your ego by exposing the "failings" of one of the best thinkers of our times.
Bully for you!
Oh man… my ego, seriously?
I only observe reality. The writer wants to enslave the people that she calls capitalists.
If you don’t see how despicable this is and/or if you think this is ok, I can just hope that you will face justice one day. At some spiritual level.
I wish you exactly what you wish to these other people that you call capitalists.and I believe it will come to you, fortunately.
No, thanks for the attempt to apologize for capitalism, but what you are describing IS capitalism.
Who would enforce your free-market capitalism?
Nobody enforces free markets, otherwise they wouldn't be free
Right. And since you need to be spoon fed, I was stressing that contradiction. Free market is what gave us the present situation, that is, the winners take over State power
Well, excuse me for not hanging on your every word. Corruption of the free market by collision between industry and the government gave us what we have. Without government protection large market players could not rise and become monopolistic.
And that corruption erupted by sheer bad luck in your simplistic world view
"ENFORCEMENT" mean s no freedom. So, ditch that system/ idea.
Right. So the military-industrial complex would be free to do business as usual
The MIC are apparently free to do as they please in our current fascist regime.
Yes. Free market eventually leads to fascism. You can call it black and white but reality doesn't care about your labels
That's simply ignorant of human nature. Tyranny is independent of economic models.
No we are describing capitalism that until the 1920's and the interference of progressives in the market, was very real, and very possible. It was and is the socialistic-elements (things normally alien to capitalism) that poison/destroy free market economies, as theu do in all markets in ALL economic systems socialistic elements are introduced into. Socialistic elements will/do destroy capitalist economies and enable cronyism (a hallmark of socialism, and especially of hybrid socialist/capitalist systems - a la China). Socialism's inherent nature is that of corruption, and is largely why communism fails (among many, many other reasons).
If you keep government/"public" ownership (socialism) out of capitalism; than Capitalism has, does, and continues to be the system that brings greatest amount of prosperity & innovation to the greatest amount of the population. The cost of freedom is that some will fail. But they can also try again thanks to these same freedoms.
You cannot have social freedom without economic freedom. This is an undeniable fact.
I would also posit you cannot have "public" control or ownership of any part of the economy, without having horrible corruption in that segment of the economy.
The governments role in free market capitalism was to prevent trusts/monopolies from acting to stifle competition. Such as how the system largely was before amending the constitution to allow a federal income tax, and before FDR used court-stacking to blackmail the Supreme Court into reinterpreting interstate-commerce to mean ANYTHING (after they first ruled against him), we indeed had a very sincere capitalist society in the USA.
The progressives and socialists of the early 20th century sowed the seeds of the corruption we see today. They likely would not have been able to do this without one other horrible ammendment: the 17th ammendment.
Senators are no longer beholden to the states interest, but more so to the populace via promises towards their self-interest. This dissolution of states-power and republicanism via the 17th's appeal towards mob-control democracy has also destroyed much of the separation of state and federal power that enabled us to have a thriving capitalistic system. The founders should have made so that the tenants of our republic, such as thr state's legislatures choosing the senators, not the mob, could never he destroyed via amendment. The sins of the founders is that they faiped to protect the greatness that is/was the constitution and the original bill of rights. Granting more freedoms via ammendments was fine and an acceptable thing but destroying the foundations of system of republicanism, via amendments, should never have been possible.
The creation of Prohibition, the federal Income tax, and the 17th ammendments enablement of mob-rule should all never have been possible. That is one failing our system encountered that enabled creeping socialism to embed itself, like a parasite, within our economy/government - and like an unchecked parasite in the wrong host, it will grow and grow until its inherent corruption and bloat destroys our system.
Oh, right, it was those "dirty progressives" who are to blame for all of the ills of our otherwise perfect world!
Can you admit that there have been many many failures in the application of progressive ideology? If you cannot, then there is really no point in arguing. And no, capitalism is not perfect.
But if you prefer free people to domesticated ones, the choice is clear and progressivism will fail then, without force.
You're making the mistake of most Americans: you're confusing capitalism, an economic system, with "freedom," the outcome of a political system. We have been taught and brainwashed to confuse economics with politics. They aren't the same. You CAN have capitalism with totalitarianism. It's been done before.
Where was that done?
Where was communism and "freedom" done together?
Capitalism glorifies greed to the level of a sacred virtue. It's based on destroying the remarkably thin skin of earth (~6 inches) and the water that supports us (one drop, if our planet were the size of an egg). It destroys the ocean of air that supports all life, that could be represented by a thin tissue, if you laid that on a classroom globe. It turns people into slaves, killers of each other, and humans generally into lunatics. It has us competing violently for gold bars on the Global Titanic, which is already vertical. "And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made..."
...before Capitalism, there was utopia.
Jesus freaking christ, dude. centralized government is your neon god. Not everyone wants to be a domesticated servant to the current fashionable Dear Leader...but apparently many do.
Like many people, you are confusing capitalism, an economic system, with government, a political system.
The glorification to which you refer is embedded in the relentless, 24/7 propaganda that distorts the actual amount of support among the populace, and masks the growing number of dissenters. I compare it to ad campaigns that seek to induce people to buy a product or see a movie. The system is amoral and caters to extremists and frauds. It usually attracts the worst of us, and the media present these ad campaigns as reality. It is a struggle to be honest and seek honest reportage.
I had a meteorology instructor say, "Imagine that this planet is a basketball, the bumps are higher than Everest and the grooves deeper than the Marianas Trench but it will do. Now dip it in water and take it out. The film of water on the surface? That's the thickness of our breathable atmosphere."
Much like Wars are never lost by the Oligarchy.
Capitalism never fails. It always successfully serves the Oligarchy.
Capitalism's enemy is the rights of the people and planet.
All economies are planned. Capitalism
is planned to exponentially profit the Oligarchy.
All else is devoured and destroyed.
Capitalism is a death cult built to the God of the very worst humanity can conjure against it's own existence.
Capitalism is also just a word; words have been called the skin of thoughts. Strip off the skin here and and the pile of rot, garbage and death holds zero beauty.
As someone not educated in social science forgive me for this description of that comment as post-modern nihilistic BS. YMMV.
We have crony capitalism, not capitalism in the West at the time.
That said, all systems can be made to work tolerably well, if and to the extent that these systems are not run by sociopaths. The problem is that power is to sociopaths what catnip is to cats, and they will worm their way to take over any system, no matter how well designed or well intentioned.
This is why capitalism will degenerate into crony capitalism, why socialism will eventually be corrupted, etc.. This is why, after 5,000 or so years of written history to pick examples from, there are no clear and simple answers as to which systems work and which do not, simply better and worse options at that time and in that place.
There were a few hundred thousand years of prehistory where all evidence indicates we survived via primitive communism. No money, no land property or intellectual property. Yet we survived and even prospered, developing agriculture, animal domestication, metal working, tools, even specialization and primitive writing systems before we had exchange currency for daily activities like we have now. All accomplished without destroying the planet and without a profit motive! Why were these primitive peoples so innovative without the ability to patent and profit from these developments? Then we introduce money, debt, and individual land ownership, and suddenly the idea of 'nation states' comes around, and little petty tribal conflicts explode into Total Wars of hegemony, colonization, and extermination.
Capitalism is a dead hand.
The thing keeps killing long after we are all dead already.
Why do they, the rich fuckerwhores, hate us so?
Tis because they can.
...
They can so they do this, rather than learn to dance and to someone else's music?
Only the blues...
GG tweets – extracted ~Nov 2 period https://twitter.com/ggreenwald
Note the intensity of Glenn’s activity despite a serious health emergency in his family
• (re-tweet) unusual_whales @unusual_whales
JUST IN: Treasury Department officials have begun looking into whether they have the legal authority to start an investigation into the Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase because of Musk’s ties to foreign governments and investors, per the Washington Post.
Everybody knows exactly why this is happening.
• One day after a major story from @lhfang and @kenklippenstein proving the US Govt and Security State are directing Big Tech on what to censor, the #2 Senate Dem tries to radically restrict what "free speech" means in a way that contradicts all 1A caselaw:
Senator Dick Durbin @SenatorDurbin –“Free speech does not include spreading misinformation to downplay political violence.”
• By the way, one day after this massive story about the US Govt directing Big Tech censorship was published by a Dem-friendly site, with a popular left-wing figure as one of the reporters, neither CNN nor MSNBC invited them on, and no Dem politician has mentioned it.
Why is this?
• 2015, BBC: "Meet Twitter's second biggest shareholder, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal"
If DC Dems want an excuse to investigate Musk's purchase of Twitter on "national security grounds" because he won't censor for them, they'll need a better excuse.
• Also, few things are more darkly hilarious than Dems pretending to be so deeply concerned about Musk's involvement with Saudis when it's the US Government that is single-handedly responsible for propping up the Saudi regime with arms and surveillance tech
• Americans are being conditioned -- by "journalists" of all people -- to believe it's immoral or mentally ill not to immediately and uncritically accept whatever institutions of authorities claim.
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald weighs in on the Paul Pelosi attack: "Skepticism itself can never be wrong ... Even if evidence does emerge later on to prove it, the skepticism itself was not just valid, but necessary."
• To this very day, you can read articles in liberal corporate outlets branding as "conspiracy theorists" anyone asking about Nuland's comments - same for those who questioned claims about COVID vaccine efficacy and mask mandates, or *any* claim that the US Security State issues.
• The US corporate press is trying to train Americans to believe the first and most solemn duty of citizenship is instantly accept whatever institutions of authority tell you to believe. No wanting to see evidence, no noting contradictions: just happily recite what you're told.
• Rather than obey France's censorship order, Rumble turned its services off for France and will sue. But France should have no right to impose its censorship laws on the world.
• This is why I'm so proud to be working more with Rumble and why I believe in their free speech commitment. The easy thing to do would be to obey French politicians and remove anyone foreign governments demand. Rumble would rather lose France then submit to them.
People who believe capitalism is the best system will fight to the death for it. The death of other people. What other rationale was there in the Vietnam war, for instance? The US cited the domino theory: if Vietnam goes communist, it will cause all the countries in the global east and south to follow suit down the communist path. Communist countries everywhere - no matter what distance away - were a danger to the capitalist system. Indonesia was attacked in a different way in 1965 - the year of living dangerously - when the CIA lists of undesirables, people of a communitarian lifestyle, were murdered by co-opted Indonesians, and other CIA controlled thugs. Capitalism isn't its own good argument, or shining example. It takes muscle of one kind or another to enforce it.
There is a DIRECT connection between Russia-gate hoax concocted by St. Obama, Biden and Hillary and provoking capitalist Russia’s “Putin's war” by relentless NATO expansion.
The SAME lying team representing the US bipartisan War party.
Democracy and freedoms have left US – censorship is now nearly TOTAL; far worse than in Soviet Union 50 years ago.
I agree with the sentiment, but it is the philosophy of statism that has failed—not capitalism.
The state—through regulatory capture—has ensured the failure of capitalism. The state apparatus prefers one solution for many problems. That is the essence of statism.
Entrepreneurialism and free-market capitalism—a sovereign individual who is free to compete in the marketplace, creating goods and services to capture market share and capital—motivates individuals to create many solutions for many problems.
I don't want to assume anything, but intentionally or not, you are competing against other Substack newsletters.
Through the relatively free-market here on Substack, are you not creating a service that is attempting to capture market share/subscribers—paying subscribers or otherwise?
Its not even that the government "ensures the failur of capitalism", but that when the government controls the means of production of any industry, that is Socialism. The government nearly the sole of the "millitary industrial conplex".
That is a monstrosity of GOVERNMENT-CONTROLLED PRODUCTION - the basic founding principle of SOCIALISM.
What we have in our nation are sectors of the economy that controlled by means of SOCIALISM.
You can argue they are privately owned, by if you don't conteol what you make - you are not privately owned.
That's why NAZI-ism was executed largely in this manner, as they did not have time with the onset of their war, to take ownership of most of the economy - instead they took control. Indeed the Nazi party, The National SOCIALIST Workers Party of Germany, if far more in the line economically with the problematic parts of our economy:
Pharmaceuticals, War, Etc.
And they are sectors of our economy that are socialized, with no little to no private options remaining:
Welfare, SSDI, etc - all have supplanted any private unemployment or disability insurance. And without the competition of a free market, these socialized segments of our economy have become HORRIBLY CORRUPT; just like anything that is SOCIALIZED becomes.
THIS IS WHAT SOCIALIZING A SEGMENT OF THE ECONOMY DOES:
I know a drug addict on disability for 10 years now, that loves in a $200 a month 2 bedroom apartment by himself that would cost in excess of $1600 on the private market. And he pays for it with his disability check that exceeds $1000 a month. He also gets food stamps on top of that. The rest gets spent on DRUGS. On which our GOVERNMENT has ruled: we CANNOT DRUG-TEST WELFARE RECIPIENTS.
Private unemployment and disabity insurance would never allow this excess or corruption, they care about how the money is spent - unlike socialized government programs.
We need MORE CAPITALISM, and the government should do its one job there: PREVENT TRUSTS/CARTELS/MONOPOLIES from acting in anticompetitive manners.
Nah ah don't, Bill.
Let me help you a little here:
A corporation is a legal entity that only exists in the context of the state/government.
Corporations cannot / do not exist outside "The Matrix" that is the state.
PS
It is the state that has a monopoly on the use of force and coercion. The state has the power to lock you up, or lock you down.
Corporations are merely the lapdogs of the state.
Sure, lots of back scratching going on between the entities—but if the last 2 plus years hasn't shown that it is the state that enslaves, I cannot convince you otherwise.
I really have to wrap my head around communism. It is tough to do. And I think I kind of agree with you to a point.
Let's say this, a doctor is an excellent doctor is tired one evening. There are no other doctors around and a Baker comes to the doctor in the evening. The Baker understands that the doctor is the best. But the doctor says I am tired, see me tomorrow. The baker sees that the doctor is tired but cant come back tomorrow. So he tries to sweeten the pot with an apple pie. The doctor accepts the pie and ignores his own feelings and sees the baker.
Soon everyone is doing little extras to get through shortages or to achieve excellent results. Soon the doctor is rich.
Now this is the purest form of capitalism. Probably pure communism.
Entrepreneurs finding each other and trading. Free will. No pollution. No big trucks or boats. Just doing our thing as value for work is paid.
Communism as is defined by Marx is a total sham.
Oh and by creating a local environment where people trade, work and talk the love will happen. Then there will be no need for abortion or any of the other crap lefties sell. We can teach biodiversity.
Because everything in life will have unmanipulated value.
Go to most small towns in the undeveloped world. This is how it is done. They seem to get along quite well without us.
"Now this is the purest form of capitalism. Probably pure communism."
Which shows that you know neither capitalism nor communism. They can't, logically, occupy the same space.
Please go study both.
If you're interested in understanding what socialism is please read theory by Karl Marx, Engles, Lenin, or Mao. Or peruse the Youtube channel Second Thought for an introduction to socialism:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fpKsygbNLT4
I am simply not interested. There is no such thing as equal. Someone will run faster, doctor better, cook better, work harder and so on. So this supposed better form of government will fail. However a republic with a great constitution that protects the individual, the environment and the whole if society will work. Checks and balances to protect the individual from those who will harm any of the three parts are needed.
Then why did you say "I really have to wrap my head around communism"? You just explained the United States and other capitalist countries and they don't work. "Rights of the individual" only protects a select few people own capital. Wage slavery does not protect the individual. At least inform yourself beyond a surface propagandistic interpretation of socialism.
In their current form they aren't working. I can agree with that. Because they are corrupt. However communism in its current form has never really worked at all. Ever. It is unrealistic in a human sense.
"Communism has never worked" If the CIA/US hadn't meddled by overthrowing those countries governments we might have found out if that was true. I implore you to find non US sources about communism. Even a basic understanding of socialist principles would be helpful.
"It is unrealistic in the human sense" Social darwinism is unrealistic in the human sense. Communities, communal living, social cooperation is how our species has survived for millennia.
We're heavily propagandized too by people who don not have our best interests in mind. If you question the US and it's motives at all I would implore you to question what you know about socialism in general.
To me, what I have seen about communism, the state as in a country runs government for a few years, kills a few million people, then points a gun at you for the rest of your life. Thus creating fear, breeding hate, stifling creativity, creating massive poverty etc etc etc.
The west is experiencing this communist/socialist takeover right now. Clot shots, corporate takeover of government, ever increasing crime, ever more violent, the degradation of moral values, the dumbing down of our children and on it goes.
The people both left and right are tired of government. And now governments are crushing freedoms daily.
I despise industry. I know where pollution is created.
I despise large centralization of industry and government. That creates lopsided, psychopathic systems that puts industry and government over humanity. It creates us vs them.
We aren't going to stop competing. Destroying the testosterone of young men is only going to manifest other problems. People are naturally innovative, naturally curious. People fall into place rather than being shoved into line.
So a republic style small government that is based on protecting the freedom of the individual and the environment is where I see a successful world.
To create this, the world has to stop supporting psychopaths.
Communism and corporatism are psychopathic.
We need a system that better detects psychopathic behaviour .
The Menonites seem to have found that system. Overall not a bad way to live. And of course you can punch a hundred holes in my thoughts.
That is easy.
"Babbling about Stalin and Mao" is deeply unfortunate phrase.
This one once again tries desperately to conflate capitalism with geopolitical power games that exist outside of any economic system.
Any-ism are all formed and led by elite power mad humans that use their unique abilities to position themselves to use humanity for their own gain. This has been true of theocracies, communes, cults, nation states, tribes and every other form of collective government.
Capitalism is not the problem, it is just your favorite whipping boy.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ... wish I had a solution. But as I see it, the power to tax is the power to destroy. End confiscation, reestablish voluntary taxation, and governments will be inherently smaller, and less capable of mass destruction.
Capitalism has not failed...it is the idiots that have been trying to turn it into a socialist free-for-all that have caused problems. If you can come up with a better system, please tell us. Communism? Socialism? Leftism? Fascism? All major failures. All causing more death and destruction than capitalism ever will.
We do not have capitalism today in the west, as many have stated below, we have socialism. thatcher was right when she said that the problem with socialists is that they eventually run out of other people's money. when that happens, socialism collapses and is replaced by authoritarianism. Democracy always leads to socialism as the politicians always find a way to buy votes.
There are comments below about fascism, yes, it is rearing its ugly head and the reason is that the socialism is close to collapse and authoritarianism is emerging. The fascism comes from the desire of the present political establishment to try and maintain their position after the collapse. They want to be the authoritarians. In the normal course of events, a collapse would result in revolt and the present leadership hanging from lamp posts.
When you have an appointment with a lamp post any future scenario is preferable including one in which you are still a big fish in a much smaller pond. Politics is the art of deflection and the present narratives from Global Warming, Covid Pandemic to War with Russia are all manufactured crises designed to blame the weather, illness, mad Putin for the quite soon lack of pensions, medical care and other socialist promises that western politicians have made.
We will move into a period of authoritarianism, the cycle is cast in stone. What is important is that the present establishment do not become the authoritarians. If the revolt is inspired it will move smartly from authoritarianism back to democracy, hopefully Direct Democracy and we can then rid ourselves of the inevitable corruption of representatives as in the present democracy.
What you wrote is provocative and interesting. I don't know if you are write, but you deserve a lot more engagement with your ideas than you have received here.
This article re: the failure of capitalism puts you squarely inside BOX THINKING.
If humanity has failed so far with capitalism, it's not because of the capitalist method of exchange for profit. Humanity has found the best system of doing business among themselves which simultaneously contributes to the advancement of the human condition.
So, the failure is not with capitalism, but with the social/political organization that allows relatively small gangs to get control of the entire economic process for their own greedy power crazed agendas. Humanity has just been asleep at the wheel. What's needed is not a throwing out the baby (capitalism) with the bathwater, but a sweeping away of the gangs of parasites riding on the back of the best economic exchange system ever developed.
To begin with, it's literally impossible and insane to think that relatively small gangs should be put into positions to make decisions over millions and billions of people from hundreds and thousands of miles away. Local control of all issues concerning the local community is not just common sense, but it is the way of nature. The beehive, many herd animals and even primitive human societies, upon reaching unmanageable population size would divide and create two smaller groupings. And at least among the human tribes, they would still maintain friendly family ties between communities.
Keep capitalism. Just get rid of the parasites.