Forum Post: We Are the One-Hundred Percent!
Posted 12 years ago on March 9, 2012, 12:42 a.m. EST by center93
(12)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I was told in a forum, "You are either for democracy or you are for capitalism. You can't be both because capitalism is the opposite of democracy."
How very simplistic, black and white, us vs. them. Besides that, Capitalism is not the opposite of democracy, they are not mutually exclusive.
The us vs. them mentality will never work!! It is divisive and encourages scapegoating.
We are the 100%!
I will answer here the same way I answered in the other thread.
Democracy is a Greek word. But it is not a Greek word for "voting" or "mob rule" or "majority wins". It is Greek for "people power". It means power rests with everyone equally.
All power comes from economic power. Whoever has the economic power has the political power and has the power to live any way they want. So a democracy is a society where everyone has equal economic power.
Capitalism is the exact opposite. It is a system that maximizes economic inequality. The more money you have, the easier it is to get more money. And everyone is mostly striving to get as much money as possible. So it is a system that is designed to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few. It is the opposite of democracy, it is a society with an unequal distribution of economic power.
If capitalism is somehow compatible with democracy, explain to me how a person making $35k has the same power as someone making $1 billion.
Your income determines how much power you have. So if you have unequal incomes, you have unequal power. And if you have unequal power, you do not have democracy.
Of course income does more than just determine your power. It is also used as an incentive to get people to do difficult work and give their maximum effort. So income must be allocated in a way that is both democratic and maintains its ability to continue to perform as an effective incentive.
In order to do that, in order to make the economy both democratic and effective, income must be allocated so that differences in income are limited to just what is necessary to get people to do difficult or undesirable work and to get people to give their maximum effort.
Allocating income in that way is the only way to have a democratic society.
You can read more about what I advocate here:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/1-replace-capitalism-with-democracy/
A democracy is a society where everyone is treated equally. Unlike in a capitalist society, your quality of life will no longer depend on whether you were born into the right country or were born into the right family or were born with the right genes or were lucky enough in the market.
Capitalism is unfair, cruel, medieval and barbaric. It has no place in a fair, humane society.
Puffffallusssh!
Incoherent replies further confirm the post.