Forum Post: Occupy Wall Street Crowd Blind to Benefits of Capitalism
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 18, 2011, 11:37 a.m. EST by keithill
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Interesting article By Gary Wolfram
Capitalism RULES. Just think about it. Consumers make the rules! We make demands and we are accommodated, through our highly sought after dollar. Consumerism can save the world! Big corporations who don't play by honesty, compassion and sustainability will crumble. Only to be replaced by those who will! We can make BILLIONAIRES out of those who do the RIGHT thing. Those who don't, can wait for their dinner at the soup kitchen line. So, if you are corrupt and soon to be out of business.. don't worry, there will be enough dinner for everyone.
Read this wonderful article by Brett Arends in the MArtketWatch ! THis will boil the blood of common man ! THe article is very true and that's what happening in this capitalist shark-friendly country. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-steal-like-wall-street-2011-11-18
Socialism and communism has failed everywhere it's been tried. Capitalism is the only way.
Fuck Capitalism!
http://metapolitik.org
OWS does not hate capitalism and the free market. I would love to introduce several American institutions to that concept. I think Wall street would do very well in the free market and if we bring back Glass/Steagall we could separate investment banks from retail banks. Investment banks would have no access to the fed window and none of their funds would be FDIC insured. Big oil is another . I think they would do well enough without government subsidies that they could afford to pay some taxes. Same goes for big food. I'd love to see those entities get off welfare and try capitalism. You know wall street should take a bath and get a real job
Pepper spray has a way of doing that.
OWS isn't against capitalism, it is against the abuses of capitalism.
Money must not control government.
Citizens are not leveraged assets to be disposed of when they no longer generate profit.
crony capitalism has to go!
Capitalism: http://vimeo.com/5570216
Affluenza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7_w3w9VLIw
Economy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-bknltXSgE&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL26681D0EA0726E78
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5OQjZln8RE&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
I was about to re-post this from an email I got. But I can see it is not necessary. I have one thing to say about this:
A M E N !
I don't believe it is capitalism that OWS is against, but rather unbridled capitalism.
We had unbridled capitalism prior to 1929 and we put regulations in place. Today those regulations have been emasculated and once again the spiral turns downward.
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Good article, but bad comparison. THe author is comparing apples to oranges in many examples. Socialism with extreme govt control is bad as much as unchecked capitalism we see in the US. What is needed is a balanced Socialism - more of Socio-Capitalism. Yes - there has to be a free market and freedom for people to innovate. China and Russia earlier days restricted that. But there has to be government controls on some of the areas in the country - like financial regulations so that banks don't loot common people (like what we see now in US), public transportation for all (unlike airlines exploiting money and recently even govt taxes went to their balance sheet!), healthcare (universal healthcare for ALL is a MUST) , education for all etc. What we see now is greedy corporate sharks usurping money on all the above from general public in the name of effeciency ! That is looting! THis OWS has arisen due to natural anti-oppression tendencies in the people. It cannot be stopped. Finally - the author is comparing the poverty in Mumbai (India) - India had a huge population and severe challenges for past 200 years - so it is coming up from a very dis-advantaged situation. Still people are happy and surviving there. If it were US or other western country with such challenges as India, it would have dis-integrated long back ! Aferall materialistic acquisitions are not higher 'standard of living'. It is the overall happiness of the individual.
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We are not against capitalism!!!
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A better use of time would be: http://unitedrepublic.org/ Capitalism has good points and bad points. What we need is a better "managed economy". Call it regulation if you like but lack of regulation is at the heart of all the "crashes" we have had. The economy should work for all not just 1%.
Capitalism is not perfect and yes it has drawbacks as well as strengths. The whole point is that it does work pretty well for all. People below the poverty line in the US are far better off than even moderately poor people in most of the world. If you have a roof over your head, at least one meal a day and access to a working car, truck or the funds for public transit you are in the top 15 % of the worlds population. Do we have room for improvement? Yes of course we do but go to places like India, Indonesia or parts of Africa and see what real poverty looks like, it will make you appreciate how good we have it in the West.
You obviously have never studied history objectively. Africa is the way it is because of Western Europeans that came there are forced people to abide by their rules and integrate them into the capitalistic system. The Western Europeans then formed arbitrary lines and called them countries that had nothing to do with the people or the culture there but rather about the strategic places of raw materials. Then they established indirect rule of imperialism that legitimized the system by picking "chiefs" or "leaders" that they let reinforce the capitalist ideals by letting these "chiefs" share some of the success. The next step was to force African people to work in the system by telling them that they can become like the wealthy Europeans if they worked hard and became "civilized." Read poems like "The White Man's Burden." The African culture and society was self-sustaining and worked perfectly fine and the people there were content. However, the greedy capitalist saw this as a waste of resources and took it upon themselves to exponentially increase the world consumption of finite resources. There is a direct correlation between industrialization and capitalism. In order to continue the fast pace of industrialization you need secure raw materials that Europe doesn't have so they went around the world and told people that they need to civilize and they are doing this for their own good. Look at what is happening today. We are depleting finite resources and now we have left Africa in shambles and blame them for their suffering. When it fact it is the white Europeans that destroyed millions of African lives and destroyed a society that was self-sustaining and content and never asked to be "civilized" or changed or "helped." Now we are doing the same fucking thing in the Middle East and telling the people here that we are going to give these people "democracy" when in fact everyone knows its all about the black gold OIL. No wonder they fucking hate us and want to destroy our country. The fucking politicians and crony capitalists sell the public bullshit like we are making them more free and democratic when in fact we are making them dependent on our goods and crap they don't want and they know it. So learn some history before you spread you stupidity on the web and make more ignorant people such as yourself.
There are obviously a lot of things wrong in the world but we need to work toward a better future. In the US we can set an example and the rest of the world can look at us and see what we do right! OWS is an example of what we do right! We can get out on the street and make change occur. We can lift the dialogue in the media. Right On!
This is a concern and I fear this is the direction OWS could go in if we don't educate the protesters about capitalism. Capitalism is what creates a healthy middle class. The middle class is what the elites are endeavoring to wipe off the map, so they can further enslave us. They have spent billions, and many years working on this goal. If we don't stop them now, we'll never get our freedoms back!
Over the last 30 years my family has collectively started 10 different businesses. They were bricks and mortar businesses...not huge but we were comfortable. We employed roughly 250 people over those years. There's your middle class!