Forum Post: WE WON!!!! Down with capitalism!!
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 14, 2011, 9:21 a.m. EST by ArrestAllCEOS
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No one can stop us now, we get to stay in the park. Revolution is coming!!!
even cuba, china, and russia have had to admit capitalism is required for society to progress. it's a blend, a meeting in the middle. everything in "moderation".
This is either a troll or a bad attempt at co-opting. Yawn.
These comments are absolutely too funny! Here you are using modern technologies that came about from capitalistic markets complaining about 'the system.' Then you talk about the ecological disaster and yet you wear clothes, use mechanical contraptions, and proclaim how pure you are. Revolution might sound good but they are normally bloody events that do not make things better andmany are harmed in the process. You delude yourselves to think otherwise.
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Keep your eyes on Eurozone. £2 billion needed to recap banks + £2 trillion needed for EFSF to work. Where is the money going to come from? This could be the endgame for eurozone. If it fails, expect Global Depression 2.
Keep your eyes on Eurozone. £2 billion needed to recap banks + £2 trillion needed for EFSF to work. Where is the money going to come from? This could be the endgame for eurozone. If it fails, expect Global Depression 2.
We cleaned up the park, now you clean up Wall Street!
Another right-winger trying to stir up fears about us being socialists. Hey, I served in the Republican party. This is post-partisan. It is about reclaiming the American dream and reclaiming American Capitalism.
Socialism & Communism does not work! We just need to change the ay our country is!
Trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls. Yo dawg I heard you like trolls so we put a troll in your trolling so you could troll trolls while you troll.
Capitalism is the only way out of this mess. And no. Capitalism does not mean spend trillions of dollars on the financial sector. Captialism let you keep what you earn but more importantly it actually let you earn.
Call it what you want but that is greed. Why should we allow people to hoard what they earn when that money can go to help The People?
Wow. How far the demands of this movement have fallen.
Down with capitalism? Do you even understand what you're saying?
Capitalism isn't the evil - it's deregulated capitalism that is. It's capitalism left unchecked. It's capitalism run rampant with human greed.
If you honestly think socialism is some magical tool - I promise you you'll be surprised that is no better at controlling the power structures.
Do you really believe the government is capable of handling MORE power? The little bit we gave them has only led to more, more, more. You want to give them near unlimited power? Good grief, do you even understand how we got in this mess?
if you want to keep capitalism, how are you going to prevent an oligarchy from occurring.
If people are allowed to maximize their profits, be rich, by more land, commodities and attain the same power which they have today.
How is 'regulated' capitalism going to help millions of poor people living in tents who can barely feed themselves.
Capitalism, to the millions of people around the world who have nothing, is slavery. All land and means of production is private. Everyone who is without is forced to sell their labor. Slavery.
There's only two options available for people living in this civilization:
Exploit others, or be exploited.
It's not acceptable.
It's not that capitalism is the answer.
But the assumption that socialism somehow going to prevent an oligarchy from occurring is pure nonsense. If anything it helps promote it by consolidating more power into fewer hands.
Socialism, or it's more base foundation "communal-ism" is a wonderful theory and is a great model for a society to enact. The unfortunate reality is that it is no better than what we have currently.
If you look at communal-ism, it works best in small societies. Take the example of a small tribe of 20 people. Each person has their role in the society and the entire society depends on its members to perform. If someone is unable to perform, society can band together and fill the gap. If someone decides not to perform their role, society is small enough to chastise them and motivate them to produce.
As the society gets larger the people that don't perform get larger and the punishment for not participating is less severe. It becomes impossible to demotivate this behavior.
Further, the larger and more advanced a society becomes, the more distance is put between those that run the society and those it intends to rule. The same happens in capitalism, but the consolidation of power is mitigated by our constitution that we've allowed them to usurp.
I would ask what successful government program you are very proud of? I can't think of one. The war on terror? No child left behind? The public school system? The Federal Reserve? The war on drugs? The current welfare system? The EPA and it's many blunders?
And you want to give these same individuals MORE power? Let them invade aspects of our lives that they don't know how to manage?
Would you buy a television from the Coca-Cola? I would bet not as it is too far outside their comfort zone. They make drinks, not electronic products. The same with the government - they would diversify into areas they don't have expertise in.
My feeling is that there is nothing innately wrong with a government that runs with a socialistic society. I can see that there is a need for many social programs in an organized civilized society.
My issue is that we are consolidating power to a select few with no roots in the common person's world and are asking them to understand what the common man experiences.
I would put forth the proposition that the Federal Government should be relegated back to its Constitutional authority levels. Very limited internal powers. Each state should be granted much more power, limited only by the spirit of the constitution.
This allows the populous to better engage and be heard by their elected officials. People could leave the state should they disagree with the regulations or programs the government is involved in.
What hurts me with this movement is that I hear more and more the notion of "tax the rich, tax the rich". As if this is going to magically solve the problem. Taxation is but one aspect of our problems and not even a huge one. The problem is how our tax money is being handled without accountability. Solve that before you give them more money to bilk.
I would put forth the majority of the top-1%, of which I'm a part of, wouldn't have an issue paying more in taxes so long as the money was being spent properly. That the social programs were devised to help the people and motivate them to reform as opposed to being simple gravy trains and structured to dis-empower the individuals.
I agree that taxing the rich isn't going to magically solve everything. It needs to be more than that.
I also agree that each state should have it's own representative democracy, with less power on the federal level. I believe this is a good direction - and it might be a stepping stone towards having representative democracies within even smaller communities.
I believe the reason why government programs don't work is because they are profit driven - which is an issue I believe to be inherent to capitalism - although some might describe it as simply greed or exploitation, or maybe even neoliberalism.
If you remove the ability to accumulate capital through private ownership of land and means of production, you stop the influence of capital over the democratic process.
I think we both agree that there is massive problems with the way things are. There might be multiple solutions, but we want a solution that fixes all the problems, including wars, environmental destruction and poverty.
Everything might happen in small steps. I suppose the only thing that really matters for is the continuing discussion and reclamation of the democratic process!
Yes, we see eye-to-eye in some respects.
But when you remove the ability to accumulate capital through private ownership and production - then you innately stifle innovation and creativity. While there is a certain segment of the populous, especially scientists, that simply enjoy the notion of innovation and are so obsessed with it that they don't care about anything else. That's more fringe and isolated. Most refinements and innovations come at the hands of a profit driven motive.
When it comes to land - I'm not sure I understand you. You can't possibly assert that all land is equal. It completely contradicts supply and demand. For instance, there is only so much oceanfront property available. As more and more is utilized - it becomes more scarce. Scarcity makes it more valuable. You can't possibly think that we should force a flat cost on these buildings across time.
Hmm.
Well there are some examples
I look up Dr Salk. He cured the world of polio, but chose not to capitalize on a patent for his vaccine.
Nikola Tesla was also experimenting and working a project to provide free energy for the world - except because this concept would not be profitable, JP Morgan cut his funding.
I think there is reason enough to believe that money is not a necessary motive for innovation and creativity, in the example of Tesla, it shows that money can actually be a limitation, rather than a catalyst.
Another issue created by the profit motive is planned obsolescence in manufacturing, which creates a lot of waste in order to maximize profit.
Technological automation and outsourcing - which are other effects of the profit motive, mean that productivity is reached whilst human labor becomes superfluous, so there isn't enough jobs to support the population.
There's unemployment which simply can't be fixed within a capitalist system.
The biggest problem of all, to me, is that capitalist economies have to constantly expand. People with money will spend it on land and labor power in order to earn more money. There's only so much money in circulation, and capitalism gives no obligation for that wealth to be redistributed. The treasury might print more money, but this causes inflation, so that businesses must increase profits. I suppose this system could be tinkered with, but I cannot see how another oligarchy will be prevented if we allow people to end up with heaps of wealth and power through accumulating capital.
I don't see why you would mention Salk or Tesla when I all but admitted that there is an element of society that has a truly philanthropic desire to create and innovate. That group is usually quite small. Further, most developments at this point requires capital to being innovation.
How do you think this would change in a socialist or communist society?
No system currently in existence truly does more than partially stop gap the issues you're noting. No system is truly altruistic and does not create a ruling class.
I agree - the issue is the growth mentality. There's only so much growth that can be had and eventually this "profit growth" has to be subsidized by "expenditure shrinkage". But the same will happen in any form of system.
What you are advocating is shifting the oligarchy from one subset of people to another. You're advocating redistribution of wealth and government funded innovation and social services -- the assumption of which is that the government is actually adept at proving these things.
Eventually you create a powerful class of people in government that rule everything. Each and every minor step along the way to this may be altruistic and benevolent in nature, but eventually rights give way to the federal.
It will not work any better than what we have currently. What's worse is that there is far more examples of this type of system failing in large societies than not.
The US, despite this current crisis, is still the best example of a powerful, industrious and free society. The reason it has been usurped is because we trusted some Washington elites to have our best interests at heart - and they have sold us out.
The oligarch consists of those who have accumulated large amounts of capital.
My suggestion is removing the ability to accumulate capital from the equation, which leaves the oligarch powerless.
You suggested giving state governments more power and the federal government less power.
This a step in the right direction, though I would take it further and have the democratic process installed at the level of community, which means town democracies, factory democracies, school democracies etc.
You suppose that a socialist government would be just like the oligarch, however a socialist government which is democratically elected on the communal level would not be influenced by capital in a system where it is impossible to accumulate capital.
What would such a government have to gain by making decisions against the will of the people? They can't gain money, land or means of production from their decisions.
Governments right now are only approachable to the absurdly wealthy, and generally only make decisions that serve business interests. That's where we agree.
I think your concern is that socialism will allow another oligarch.
I think that capitalism is what allows oligarchs -through the ability to own private property and have lots of money and thus influence over lot's of people.
Socialism means that some property is owned privately (your house) and some is owned by the state (the state school, the state hospital, the state farm, etc)
What has happened is that now the farms, the schools, the hospitals have all become privatized.
In terms of productivity, the USA is very powerful - and this is because of capitalism, but there are consequences of having too much production.
Democratizing the economy will simply allow people to have better working conditions. The outsourcing will stop so that unemployment will go down. Decisions about environmental destruction will be made by the communities living nearby, not some government which is miles away who is accepting bribes from lobbyists.
There is no proof of any of this. At this point it is simply "pie in the sky" thought.
No large and productive society has ever existed, that I know of, that actually adheres to this. It cuts out individuality.
If you think that politicians and those who want to run society are naturally benevolent then we disagree in our innate belief of what people that want this power are actually after. Whether they amass wealth or not - the nature of any government is to amass power.
It is why our founding fathers espoused revolution when the system fails.
well, it's good that you demand proof and evidence.
I also try to be as unbiased as possible in my observations.
Politicians and governments have so far not been benevolent. We agree there, believe me!
The democratic process - on a smaller and more efficient scare, might fix this.
Maybe you could have no federal government or no state government, and just have self management.
Luparb,
Great concept, but it's too idealistic. Humans have proven, much like corporations, that they need regulation.
This is why corporate greed is such a cancer. It appeals to our basest nature. It's easy to justify doing the wrong thing when you profit from it or don't profit by not doing it.
Corporations become selfish and childish in nature - and this is why they need regulation.
Humans, unchecked, have the exact same nature. Assuming that people would do the right thing - in today's level of enlightenment - is just too much.
At the end of the day - the goal of any government should be to protect the rights and freedoms of the citizenry from assault from another. Anything more grants too much power to the government.
You said:
it's too easy to justify doing the wrong thing when you profit from it or don't profit by not doing it.
My suggestion is removing the ability to make profits altogether.
Nothing is too idealistic.
And taking away the ability to profit completely negates people doing it in the first place.
It's a poison apple.
You have to provide an incentive for people to want to pursue innovation. Assuming the best of people and assuming they are always going to altruistically come up with ideas to benefit society will stifle innovation.
There is a middle ground. Either extreme is dangerous and will lead to ruin.
WOW....Such lofty goals
Actually...thats down with corporatism. So long as there is trade there will be capitalism. Just saying.
It's inevitable.
Either it will destroy itself and the world along with it, or we will destroy it.
It survives by expanding itself through war and environmental destruction.
Now there is nowhere left to expand. They can keep printing money all day long, but there's not going to be anymore trees to cut down or oil to burn.
Nobody decent wants to live in this world where the only two options are being exploited or exploiting others.
I don't think capitalism is the problem. Greed is the problem.
I think we can have capitalism, with a healthy dose of responsibility and ethics, that creates an environment that can lead to prosperity for the majority of people.
Our goal should be prosperity under capitalism.
Greed is a personal failure of morality, and should be rooted out in order for capitalism to be most successful. Greed always destroys ie: the Financial Crises.
You want to remove greed from a system that glorifies greed.
._.
Maybe this sounds nutty - but yes, I think we should strive for removing greed. Not that we could do it completely. I'm not that nutty! Somehow maybe part our culture has come to glorify greed. Is there a good sociologist out there somewhere?!!
I think that MOST people are inherently good. And greed is inherently bad. So that leads me to believe that it is possible to root out MOST greed. I think??
I don't believe MOST people are greedy. I think most people want prosperity, which is a balance of money, security, health and happiness!
which leads me back to communism.
It leads me to lets improve our democracy and culture and keep capitalism.
As you say, people are inherently good, want health and happiness, so why ought we pit them against each other in the most barbaric of ways?
Agreed the system creates Narcissism. The intelligent people on Wall Street will always find a way to exploit the system and without regulators whose interests are independent of Wall Street, the system will never succeed for the greater good.
I agree with you that greed is a problem.
I believe there are also other failures of morality which include environmental destruction and wars.
We do want prosperity, peace and fairness for everybody, and we want to meet every-bodies needs.
Capitalism is the most successful in terms of productivity, however there are certain aspects of it that are a great concern.
I feel that for a lot of people, capitalism represents certain individualistic freedoms, which is true. However such freedoms aren't being expressed to their full potential.
For all the people with nothing, who are living in tents with no money, food, education and healthcare, capitalism, in it's current design, cannot provide for these people.
The profit motive ensures that the costs of labor are reduced as much as possible, resulting in outsourcing and technological automation.
This means that there isn't enough jobs in existence to support the population. The required level of production is met, but not everyone can be employed.
Another problem is that all land privately owned. The only way that people who have nothing can afford to survive is to sell their labor. This represents an inequality, as the only two options for people living in a capitalist system is to either be exploited or exploit others.
If capitalism can exist with responsibility and ethics, by meeting the needs of everyone and looking after the planet, than I support it. But I feel that such a model for economics and society is yet to exist.
All in all,
The only thing that really matters for now is the movement and the discussions and the restoration of democracy. We want to fix the problem of corporations having so much influence over congress.
I myself am attending a demonstration in my city in a few hours - would you believe this movement has spread all the way to Australia =)
Agree with much of what you say. And my #1 "hope" is to restore democracy through publicly funded elections.
I don't think capitalism is a perfect system. But I think it is the best system we have. It will not provide the eutopia to fufill ALL needs and wants. There is no eutopia, except maybe in whatever heaven you believe in.
But I think our capitalist culture has lost its way in terms of responsibility and ethics. And is not realizing its full potential. That is part of the reason why there are so many people suffering.
1- Democracy in shambles
2 - Greed
3 - A culture lacking responsibility and ethics
I think people can strive for prosperity (which is a balance of money, health and happiness) without being exploited. So long as the person on the other side is not behaving with greed, but also with the intent of prosperity!
Interested in your thoughts! Good luck at the demonstration.
It's a shame you don't think that utopia is possible.
There might always be sickness and death, depression and anger...
But the struggle will continue until there is no inequality, because there is enough resources for everyone, just not enough for everyone to hoard land and resources - capitalism will always allow this happen. It's what allows the oligarchy to maintain itself.
I'm not sure I follow you. Maybe we have different ideas about utopia. I don't think perfection on earth is possible. But of course I think we should always try to do better! There is always room for improvement, because perfection is impossible to achieve.
As far as the oligarchy goes, I think thats why we are all here, no?
To limit that influence.
Maybe we're both saying the same thing, I'm just not reading your post right or something. Tell me. Because I really want to make sure I understand what you are saying.
I'm with you brother. We will arrest all of the rich for their Crimes against humanity. I am down for the struggle just like you man. Soon after the revolution we will all live in harmony and provide for the Greater Common Good. VIVA LA SOCIALISM!!!!