Forum Post: Basic capitalism 101
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 4, 2011, 9:23 a.m. EST by Rmarks1701
(103)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I feel that this movement is finally starting to settle on a objective, namely that of removing and/or replacing Capitalism with something new. However, as most engineer's will tell you, before you can change a system you need to understand how it works.
Word of caution here: I am no economic master, I do not even have a collage degree (yet). these are just observations, and if anyone out there is an economist please feel free to jump in and educate me in the way things really work :D.
So what is Capitalism? the dictionary defines it as: an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
Now Capitalism sits (i believe) on four main pillars, they are: Education, Innovation, work ethic and luck. With any one of these items you can reach only a certain height within a company, or a company can only go so far before failing. with any two of these things a company has a better chance of survival with the probability of modest growth. 3 of these things will almost guarantee survival and growth, and all for of them will produce the great mega rises of companies and individuals to the tops of their respective fields.
Lets looks at each category. Education: A Capitalist society requires a well educated work force, a well educated work force is able to adapt quickly to new situations and will produce new idea's.
innovation: capitalism requires innovation to succeed, this is because innovation = growth. with no innovation we have no new idea's, and become a static society, and a static society is a dead society.
Work Ethic: The top companies work, their execs work, their employees work, everyone works. Often the top individuals in a corporation will work 18+ hours a day, seven days a week. making huge sacrifices to enable them to succeed. this sacrifices may include, but are not limited to: family, friends, relaxation time, even health.
Luck: probably the most difficult to define, but in a broad term luck is the ability to see a new situation developing, and make changes in order to capitalize on new developments or even to change in order to survive.
from the view point of a small entrepreneur, I am not against large businesses/corporations (they are many of my clients!!). But when big business uses their 'big capital' to influence government rules in their favor this is clearly unfair. The role of government needs to be to maintain a level playing field between citizens, orgnanizations, businesses, etc. Then and only then will you have sustainable capitalism.
However, this can only be genuinely accomplished if two things are done:
1) create an absolute minimalist government that is only an administrative framework for enforcing decisions by citizens, (which can only be done by...) 2) 'Eliminate the Middle Man', or 535 senators and representatives (i.e. the 'bottleneck') and replace them citizens voting directly for what they want...
...so more of a Direct Democracy, but not fully, because you have to mitigate the 'mob rule' effect or it simply collapses just like in ancient Roman and Greek times. this is done by reducing voting power to 'armchair coaches' (i.e. put in 2 cents, you're vote is weighted at 2 cents), and increasing it to those that put in time to fully present issues to other citizens, both pros and cons, for further discussion and voting.
Let's discuss a free market instead of "capitalism" as it is now configured. There has not been a free market as in our life time. The most important item in an advanced economy for unhindered exchange of goods and services is the nature of its moneys. A functional definition of moneys is "those goods that are most easily exchanged for any other goods". Does this definition fit green paper ?
Capitalism has never created prosperity for all and has always maintained a certain level of unemployment and poverty.
You have mis-defined "luck". What you have listed for it is anticipation, and that would fall under education (you are making an educated guess based on market trends, etc)
Luck is if you win the lotto
What you are discribing is not capitalism. It is Corporatism corporatewelfare or the corporate state. Capitalism is the only system so far that has created prosperity for all. Beware not all capitalism is created equal.