23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism

[Seth]

My point is that capitalism itself is essentially predatory, and left unchecked, treats its workers in horrible ways.

And Marxism isn't? Need I remind you of Stalin yet again, or Mao? To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Capitalism may be the worst possible economic system, except for all the others.

The industrial past of the west is littered with such examples.

And that would be...the past. No Wayback Machine fallacies please.

Third world countries today with free market economies, but without the web of counterbalances we have evolved over the years to counteract the rapacious reality of capitalism, are truly dreadful places to be a worker...

... Except for all the others.

... In our past, companies did not quietly evolve into being more caring and sharing; they were dragged kicking and sceaming to improve their treatment of workers, partly because of heroic efforts by unions, and partly by democratically elected governments, often centre left, who were not beholden to the monied classes.

e

Not really true. Child labor, for instance, was already on the way out of the Industrial Revolution when child labor laws were enacted, which only hastened an already in-progress reformation started by industry, at the insistence of both workers and the public, long before the laws were passed. Other industrial reforms certainly were forced by organized labor, but that victory has long ago been won, making unions redundant, unnecessary, and harmful to the economy of today, at least in first-world economies. There may still be a place for workplace health and safety related union organizing in the third world, and I acknowledge this as a potentially useful expedient, in the absence of proper police power exercises for the protection of workers by third-world governments.

But such examples are not particularly useful in this particular analysis, because there is no dispute that industrial reform of working conditions and health laws are legitimate police-power functions of the government. Protecting workers is a laudable and honorable objective that many labor unions were formed to address. But that was then, and this is now, where we have stringent workplace health and safety laws rightfully created and administered by the government. What remains of the labor movement in first-world countries is merely a government-favored and supported wage and benefit coercion organ that has little or nothing to do with workplace health or safety. It's all about the money and socialist power and control.

The specific regulation of Capitalism that is not acceptable, for the umpteenth time, are those regulations that favor one private economic interest over another, or that favor the workers economic interests over those of the business owner, or that favor the public interest over the private interests of business in making a profit.

Conflation of legitimate police-power exercises in pursuit of workplace health and safety are red herring arguments and serve only to deflect the debate away from the real harm of socialist/Progressive attempts to centrally-control and manage the economy and the markets.

With all of that, it is also true that capitalism delivers efficiencies, motivations and innovations that simply do not emerge in planned economies. The trick is to find a balance that works. Possible in many places, but globalised corporations hunt for places they can let their true nature shine, though, with friendly, bribable governments and not a union in sight...

And that balance lies with carefully distinguishing between police-power regulation in the interests of health and safety of workers and consumers, and redistributive regulations intended to manipulate the markets to achieve Progressive social engineering programs.

[sandinista]

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Capitalism may be the worst possible economic system, except for all the others.

Where's the overused line of bullshit smilie? hmmm...this'll do.

[Seth]

[

fascism is a style of governance, but Spain was still capitalist , albeit a very highly controlled one

Ignorantly incomplete. Fascism is a style of social AND ECONOMIC governance. And under Fascism, Capitalism is only permitted to flourish to the extent that private business and industry supports the Fascist regime. The whole point of Fascism is tight and rigid control of not just social behavior, but economic activity through micromanaging regulation that punishes commercially resistance to the Fascist sociopolitical agenda. Fascism is Capitalism in name only. And it's also important to note that Fascism is neither at the right nor left ends of the political spectrum, but is an "overlay" of regulatory control used by both right and left to control populations and economies.

and there are no examples of communist states that haven't devolved into totalitariansim because there haven't been any communist states

Pettifogging obfuscation. Socialism is, as Marx himself said, only a step on the path to Communism. That no Communist states, in the utopian and unattainable meaning of the word have existed is merely a natural fault of the entire collectivist ideology. Communism has always been the utopian end-state of socialism, and you're right that it's never been achieved, and never will be achieved, because socialism always fails before it gets there, as you point out below:

Russia was Statist for example, not even socialist.

Yup. And that's because attempts at Communism failed utterly due to simple human nature, and as I've described many times before, the socialist progress towards the utopian Communist ideal ended, as it ALWAYS ends, in State Socialism if not outright totalitarian dictatorship.

The Paris Commune was a good example of a nascent socialist society. Unfortunately they were all slaughtered before they could establish themselves.

With good reason: they failed to respect private property and assumed, incorrectly, that everyone owed a duty of labor to the commune. In a city of two million people, such utopian ideals are simply unworkable. Communes only work in very limited situations, on a small scale, and ONLY when dissenting members who are dissatisfied with the "dictatorship of the proletariat" are free to leave the commune and find individual liberty for themselves.

This takes us right back to the inevitably fatal flaw of all collectivist political ideologies: people want to be free, and they do not want to give up either their private property that they have worked to obtain, or their labor, in the service of others, against their will. Any social system that holds the abolition of private property and a duty of labor to the collective as a principle cannot succeed at any scale beyond the very smallest and most voluntary communities. Whenever such principles are imposed on people against their will, resistance and rebellion will soon follow as people seek to exercise their most fundamental rights; the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of individual happiness.

And those rights always prevail, eventually, though sometimes at the cost of hundreds of millions of lives as the collectivists struggle to maintain power and control, as we see in Stalinism and Maoism.

[Seth]

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Capitalism may be the worst possible economic system, except for all the others.

Where's the overused line of bullshit smilie? hmmm...this'll do.

Mindless, propagandistic Alinsky rebuttal devoid of reason, erudition and native wit.

Fail.

[sandinista]

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Capitalism may be the worst possible economic system, except for all the others.

Where's the overused line of bullshit smilie? hmmm...this'll do.

Mindless, propagandistic Alinsky rebuttal devoid of reason, erudition and native wit.

Fail.

Fail? So forum posts are not only competitions where one "wins" and "loses" but its also a project where one can "pass" or "fail" according to who? You?

[Seth]

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Capitalism may be the worst possible economic system, except for all the others.

Where's the overused line of bullshit smilie? hmmm...this'll do.

Mindless, propagandistic Alinsky rebuttal devoid of reason, erudition and native wit.

Fail.

Fail? So forum posts are not only competitions where one "wins" and "loses" but its also a project where one can "pass" or "fail" according to who? You?

Yup. Me. You didn't know this? How...ignorant...of you. Why did no one tell Sandinista that I'm in charge of everything? Somebody's head is going to roll over this...

[sandinista]

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Capitalism may be the worst possible economic system, except for all the others.

Where's the overused line of bullshit smilie? hmmm...this'll do.

Mindless, propagandistic Alinsky rebuttal devoid of reason, erudition and native wit.

Fail.

Fail? So forum posts are not only competitions where one "wins" and "loses" but its also a project where one can "pass" or "fail" according to who? You?

Yup. Me. You didn't know this? How...ignorant...of you. Why did no one tell Sandinista that I'm in charge of everything? Somebody's head is going to roll over this...

No one tells me anything.

[.Morticia.]

1. Marxists typically don't waste their time arguing. Especially with abusive reactionaries. Personally, I prefer to spend my time listening and doing actual political works.

2. Marxism is about more than Marx and Engles. Try Lenin, try Trotsky, try the frankfurt school, try the situationialists, there are a hundred different left schools of thought.


etc etc

and for the last time, Stalin was not socialist. None of his policies were socialist in any way. They were Statist.




What kind of Capitalist was Pik Botha?

[JimC]

My point is that capitalism itself is essentially predatory, and left unchecked, treats its workers in horrible ways.

And Marxism isn't? Need I remind you of Stalin yet again, or Mao? To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Capitalism may be the worst possible economic system, except for all the others.

Look at my later statements, and you will see my opposition to the inevitable totalitarianism of Marxis. Seeing that does not preclude a rigorous critique of capitalism...

The industrial past of the west is littered with such examples.

And that would be...the past. No Wayback Machine fallacies please.

It is perfectly legitimate to use past examples. Simply, my thesis is that unchecked capitalism is a robber baron state, which is only effectively opposed by workers acting collectively, and that the history of western capitalism and its gradual leashing by unions and governments show this to be true.

Third world countries today with free market economies, but without the web of counterbalances we have evolved over the years to counteract the rapacious reality of capitalism, are truly dreadful places to be a worker...

... Except for all the others.

Very cryptic, and so not a rebuttal to my point; that there are third world countries whose ruling oligarchies are intertwined with robber baron capitalists, and whose workers are treated atrociously. One day, there will be uprisings in such places that will make Bolshevism look like a grade school picnic...

... In our past, companies did not quietly evolve into being more caring and sharing; they were dragged kicking and sceaming to improve their treatment of workers, partly because of heroic efforts by unions, and partly by democratically elected governments, often centre left, who were not beholden to the monied classes.

e

Not really true. Child labor, for instance, was already on the way out of the Industrial Revolution when child labor laws were enacted, which only hastened an already in-progress reformation started by industry, at the insistence of both workers and the public, long before the laws were passed. Other industrial reforms certainly were forced by organized labor, but that victory has long ago been won, making unions redundant, unnecessary, and harmful to the economy of today, at least in first-world economies. There may still be a place for workplace health and safety related union organizing in the third world, and I acknowledge this as a potentially useful expedient, in the absence of proper police power exercises for the protection of workers by third-world governments.

But such examples are not particularly useful in this particular analysis, because there is no dispute that industrial reform of working conditions and health laws are legitimate police-power functions of the government. Protecting workers is a laudable and honorable objective that many labor unions were formed to address. But that was then, and this is now, where we have stringent workplace health and safety laws rightfully created and administered by the government. What remains of the labor movement in first-world countries is merely a government-favored and supported wage and benefit coercion organ that has little or nothing to do with workplace health or safety. It's all about the money and socialist power and control.

The specific regulation of Capitalism that is not acceptable, for the umpteenth time, are those regulations that favor one private economic interest over another, or that favor the workers economic interests over those of the business owner, or that favor the public interest over the private interests of business in making a profit.

Conflation of legitimate police-power exercises in pursuit of workplace health and safety are red herring arguments and serve only to deflect the debate away from the real harm of socialist/Progressive attempts to centrally-control and manage the economy and the markets.

You say it is not acceptable. I say it is. Let the people decide in a democratic vote. Plenty of centre-left parties have been elected on such a basis...

With all of that, it is also true that capitalism delivers efficiencies, motivations and innovations that simply do not emerge in planned economies. The trick is to find a balance that works. Possible in many places, but globalised corporations hunt for places they can let their true nature shine, though, with friendly, bribable governments and not a union in sight...

And that balance lies with carefully distinguishing between police-power regulation in the interests of health and safety of workers and consumers, and redistributive regulations intended to manipulate the markets to achieve Progressive social engineering programs.

People in general (certainly those of us in those weird parts of the world that are not the Land of the Free... ) do not have to follow your romantic and absolutist views of personal freedom at all costs; there is a wider world than this rather quaint position, one that is quite happy with a certain degree of progressive social programs and intelligent government intervention. The American libertarian position is not some shining vision of perfection for a dazzled world to follow. The Wild West, and its lantern-jawed sheriffs and gun-slinging murderous vision of liberty died long ago...

[Coito ergo sum]

[
You've nailed the root cognitive disconnect. Communists, when challenged with the evidence of history, resort to "dictionary Communism" much like atheists resort to "dictionary atheism" as a way to avoid culpability or recognition of the fundamental failings of the ideology.

I thought you were an atheist. I guess not, ay?

Absolutely not. I'm a non-theistic Tolerist™

Atheists can be non-theistic tolerists, so the fact that you are that doesn't really relate to whether you're an atheist or not. Do you think that gods don't exist? If you think not, then you're an atheist.

No, it means that my belief/practice system is a-theistic.

Then you meet the definition of an atheist, it seems.

If you think you can't know whether there are any gods, then you're an agnostic. Or, colloquially, some folks suggest that if you seriously doubt there are any gods, but don't feel sure enough to say you don't think they exists, then you're an agnostic too.

So, are you an atheist as well as a non-theistic tolerist? The non-theistic part - no god - implies atheism to me. Can you clarify the difference?

Well, perhaps I should have specified that I'm not an "Atheist." Certainly I'm dictionary-variety a-theistic in my beliefs, but as I say, I choose to be identified as a non-theistic Tolerist™ in order to clearly distinguish myself from Atheists, and "atheism," which term implies some sort of organized system of beliefs and practices.

Atheism implies no organized system of beliefs or practices.

I'm curious - what beliefs and practices does it imply to you? (other than the belief that there aren't any gods, of course).

I don't know if I fall into the agnostic camp because my understanding is that agnostics feel they will never really know if God exists, whereas I say that we absolutely WILL know whether God exists or not...when our understanding and knowledge of the universe(s) is perfect.

These various ambiguities are why I developed Tolerism™ as my self-stated religion.

Fair enough - but atheists can be Tolerists, can't they?

But, atheism is not an ideology. I'll just correct you right there. Atheism is one thing: lack of belief in gods - atheists hold every conceivable ideology on the planet from libertarianism or objectivism to platonism to epicureanism to Marxism to fascism to anarchism to whatever. Atheism is a belief, or lack thereof. It can be religious (some Buddhists are atheists, for example) or non-religious. But, that's another thread...

Isn't it just. For my take on it, which I'll import to another thread presently, you can visit The Broadside.

Link doesn't seem to work.

http://thebroadside.freedomblogging.com ... -religion/

Should work. I'll transfer it to a new thread right now... and then come back to comment on the rest of your post...

I addressed it in another post here.

[Coito ergo sum]

the guy calls himself a libertarian, and apparently he really is pro-Life - so, o.k. - that puts him in the statistical minority of libertarians and is not in accord with the Libertarian Party in the US. So, he's a fringe libertarian. Good enough?

Just half a step away from the "true Scotsman" strategy. We'll just add this to all those christians that deny that the other sects are not true christians (or fringe, or pure christians, if you prefer), the communists that deny that the other factions are not true communists, and so on.

No. Just defining terms.

Yes - of course every faction can hold whatever opinion that want about who is the true what. That's why we have to define what we are talking about. It's definitely true that most libertarians are pro-choice on abortion. Isn't that correct? Or, do you deny that fact and we have to produce evidence for either position?

The idea is this - if someone says - "I'm a Marxist." Then one is entitled to assume the common definition of the word "Marxist" when dealing with that person. Otherwise, how would we ever communicate? If the question arises as to which faction of Marxism the person belongs to or whether that person has a unique or novel take on the philosophy - that has to be made explicit.

But, we can't get very far based on the assumption that every person has a different definition for every word we use. Then we'd have to preface every conversation by agreeing on all definitions. That would make communication ponderous indeed. And, by "communication" I mean..... and, by "ponderous" I mean.... and by "would" I mean.... and by "indeed" I mean.... and by "mean" I mean....

[Clinton Huxley]

Then we'd have to preface every conversation by agreeing on all definitions. That would make communication ponderous indeed. And, by "communication" I mean..... and, by "ponderous" I mean.... and by "would" I mean.... and by "indeed" I mean.... and by "mean" I mean....

CES, you've just described your own personal heaven

[Coito ergo sum]

Then we'd have to preface every conversation by agreeing on all definitions. That would make communication ponderous indeed. And, by "communication" I mean..... and, by "ponderous" I mean.... and by "would" I mean.... and by "indeed" I mean.... and by "mean" I mean....

CES, you've just described your own personal heaven

Why do you hurt me, CH?

[Clinton Huxley]

Then we'd have to preface every conversation by agreeing on all definitions. That would make communication ponderous indeed. And, by "communication" I mean..... and, by "ponderous" I mean.... and by "would" I mean.... and by "indeed" I mean.... and by "mean" I mean....

CES, you've just described your own personal heaven

Why do you hurt me, CH?

Aw, coochy coo!

[Coito ergo sum]

Then we'd have to preface every conversation by agreeing on all definitions. That would make communication ponderous indeed. And, by "communication" I mean..... and, by "ponderous" I mean.... and by "would" I mean.... and by "indeed" I mean.... and by "mean" I mean....

CES, you've just described your own personal heaven

Why do you hurt me, CH?

Aw, coochy coo!

Wait...what's your definition of "coochy?" I know what mine is...