Forum Post: What are the goals of American capitalism ?
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 13, 2012, 11:15 p.m. EST by oneAdam12
(-7)
from Queens, NY
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The goal of capitalism is to add value to commodities such that products can be purchased by an entity, transformed into more valuable products, and resold at higher prices thus paying for all steps along the way and adding profit.
An example would be an entity (in this case an oil company) buying oil at a set price, refining the oil into one or more products with value added (gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, lubrication products) and reselling the products at a price to pay back the cost of refining the oil, transporting the products, and adding profits.
This example is just a single piece of the puzzle. In turn, a trucking company would buy the diesel fuel and transport products for retail companies, the retail companies pay the trucking company because the value added is the retail product distributed around the region, be it city, state, country, world.
This value adding would continue indefinitely, and in a sustainable manner such that all trading entities would ensure safety (environmental - to be able to continue harvesting resources, consumer - to retain a customer base), security (military - to ensure access to resources and maintain trade routes), and a sustainable growth rate (in order to add jobs for expanding populations). So what's to criticize here? Big bad evil capitalism.
The acquisition of wealth is not the only thing that motivates people. Indeed when you look at everything from major innovations to how people spend their spare time when they are not compelled to work, the acquisition of wealth would seem to be one of the least motivating factors.
I growth inherently a good thing? As the human footprint becomes ever greater on the planet, it may well be growth itself that is making human life unsustainable.
you need a human footprint in the ass.
Where is all that anger coming from? It's good to see that OWS really is having an undeniable affect on people.
I believe the word is effect...I guess the negative reaction is due to the OWS attitude on display,....ignorance mixed with malice.
I'm not the smartest guy in the world, though I have done considerable graduate work in history and I've spent most of the last 50 years active in a variety of social movements so I know a little about them as both a participant and an observer. I don't particularly have any malice toward anyone, though this discourse definitely effects my affect.
you seem to be a decent..however some what deluded, mixed up fellow. You promote communist and socialist agendas...w/o thinking it all through.. Are you so willing to give up your freedom? Do you take it all for granted? have a pleasant night..my friend.
I'm 68 years old. I joined the Socialist Party on my 21st birthday. I was expelled in a faction fight several months later, but I've been a socialist ever since and I spend a good deal of my waking hours for nearly the past 50 years thinking about capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchism and related ways of organizing society or opposing the organization of society.
People only call you "friend" to your face when they're being ironic comrade.
Human footprint rhetoric smacks of elitist propaganda. There are enough resources on this world to support double our current population and comfortably too.
Human footprint rhetoric smacks of elitist propaganda. There are enough resources on this world to support double our current population and comfortably too.
I would actually tend to agree, but given the rate of population growth the doubling of the population is not that far off. Also, the environmental crisis is typically used by middle class environmentalists to get the working classes in the developed world to sacrifice more and more, rather than demanding a redistribution of wealth. To the extent that there is a population explosion all the evidence suggests that the rate of growth tends to slow considerably as the mean income rises, which is yet another argument for the redistribution of wealth. But there's no arguing with the mean spirited.
If you want redistribution, you’d better first produce growth. Which the Obama Democrats’ policies have failed to do.
For the past 3 decades wealth has been redistributed upwards. Our immediate goal is simply to reverse that process.
Oh that sounds like a reasonable goal ! Let's get a wizard...or dictator...or..the tooth fairy.. or...I know reelect Obama...He will reverse the process..we need immediate satisfaction. Obama will make everything ok..I want the gov't to be my everything ...I want it all.
OWS is an independent movement and it is as hostile to the Obama administration and the Democratic Party as it is to the Republicans. There have been many occupations of Democratic Party and Democratic campaign headquarters. Sure the Dems would like to figure out how to co-opt us, but fortunately they haven't yet.
Haven't you heard? We're anarchists man! The last thing we want is a stronger state, especially a stronger capitalist state. As far as the redistribution of wealth downward, well, its been redistributed upward for 3 decades and before that it was redistributed downward from the end of the Gilded Age until the end of the New Deal.
OWS is not Anarchist, where does it say that? It's full of people with varying political beliefs from capitalists who want reform to anti-capitalists who want complete restructuring but the latter will abandon OWS when they do eventually become the hierarchical, pro-capitalist, populist wing of the Democratic Party that they so despise. If you think otherwise, so be it, just be prepared for disappointment.
OWS is specifically not political, but many of the movement's initiators have been strongly influenced by the anarchist intellectual tradition.
Just don't be surprised if it becomes like I said, because it will
Nothing is inevitable, especially in politics.
Well maybe not but then the movement will die and be another social movement to fail.
sure...what ever you say. have a nice night. the anarchist needs a cigarette.....and a big mac
You are left speechless when confronted with the facts.
Your facts are not facts to me.. they sound like typical rhetoric from someone lacking ability to think independently...heard it many times before. You are not so different...Good luck with what you say you are looking for...It might not satisfy your fantasy.
OWS does not consider itself a political movement. That position is all over the place in what little literature that OWS has produced, including the hard copy on the home page of this very web site. That would seem to constitute a fact to me. Do you seriously dispute that? It's been widely reported that the initiators of the movement are greatly influenced by the anarchist intellectual tradition, something that they would not only not deny if asked, but about which they are quite open. I know this because I have talked to them about it. That seems like a fact to me. Do you deny it? OWS repeated states that it is not political and in many instances it has demonstrated and even occupied Democratic campaign headquarters. I haven't witnessed that personally, but I have read about it in the news and again, I have also had long conversations with OWS activists. While many did vote for Obama they are in fact extremely disappointed in his policies and at this point unlikely to vote for him again and unlikely in the extreme to actively campaign for him. This is not rhetoric these are verifiable facts that would become evident to anyone who spent even a couple of hours at an occupation anywhere.
As far as independent thinking goes, socialism is such a dirty word in the United States and the socialist movement is so tiny that it hardly deserves to be called a movement. Whatever else one might say of the very few American socialists, one can certainly not accuse them of lack of independent thinking when the broad consensus of American thought is hostile even to the word socialism, much less any of its historical or intellectual content.
what is exactly OWS a zeitgeist? A movement? A philosophy? The Pepsi generation? People who don't want to pay college loans? people who are not happy that the job market is challenging? people who hope to be modern day robin hoods? Or people who just want to bang on the drum all day?
Precisely because of OWSs horizontalism it can be many things to many people. Depending on who you ask, I think it is probably all the things you mention, though I personally recoil at the notion of the Pepsi generation and so far at least, again, I think, because of horizontalism, it has been able to resist being co-opted by the advertising industry. What it clearly is not (to me at least) is a mass movement. It is a movement to be sure but since it has yet to resonate in a meaningful way with the vast majority of the American population I would hesitate to call it a mass movement. That is more than just thinking OWS is a good idea when polled on the question. It is about being actively involved in the movement and that is not yet the case with even a significant minority of the US public.
For me, what makes OWS significant is that it is a genuinely oppositionist movement and in this it is quite unique. There is really nothing like it in living memory, which is one reason why neither the media nor the interested public can get their minds around it. Unlike other movements that preceded it, it cannot be reduced to a single demand or set of demands precisely because its critique is so comprehensive, so global. There has been nothing like that in America since the last two decades of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th.
All the Occupy movements start with a premise that we all owe them everything. They take over a public park they didn’t pay for, to go nearby to use bathrooms they didn’t pay for, to beg for food from places they don’t want to pay for, to obstruct those who are going to work to pay the taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park so they can self-righteously explain that they are the paragons of virtue to which we owe everything. That is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country and why you need to look towards November and hope for change.
Who is "we?" And who is the we that owes what to whom? All occupy movements start with the premise that the 1% is screwing the 99% of us and for starters we have to oppose that. All occupy movements start with the premise that the way to correct the political inequities of the world (yes, the world, not the United States) is to stand in intransigent opposition to the status quo. All occupy movements start with the premise that the way to stand in intransigent opposition to the status quo is through a strategy of nonviolent direct action.
Freedom of assembly is guaranteed in the First Amendment. Everyone has the right to exercise that right. The First Amendment does not put any limits regarding time or space on that right, only that the assembly be peaceable. All the violence from the occupations has come from the police, not the occupiers
In New York the occupation was specifically prohibited from installing port a potties while at the same time the municipal administration that denied the demonstration port a potties also accused it of being unsanitary.
At its peak the kitchen at Liberty Plaza fed up to 7000 people a day. You could pay for it if you could afford to or wanted to, but you didn't have to.
Far from being paragons of virtue, OWS recognizes that it is still a tiny movement, which is precisely why it chooses not to raise demands. It is really in no position to raise demands until it is much more representative and it knows that. Far from wanting this or that, free food or anything else, so far OWS demands absolutely nothing except, perhaps the right to exercise its First Amendment rights.
The left in this country, a genuine oppositionist left, collapsed a long, long time ago, before any of us were born. A really viable mass oppositionist left was crushed when the Socialist Party opposed American intervention in World War I and it is yet to be reconstructed.
There will not be any change in November. Either Obama will be re-elected or a Republican will be elected. Either the Democrats or the Republicans will control Congress, which is to say that either one or the other of the two parties of the 1% will win. That is no change.
Actually to reply to your post:
I would actually tend to agree, but given the rate of population growth the doubling of the population is not that far off.
I disagree here's a link:
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/history/world-population-growth.htm
With birth rates nosediving world wide, we will likely peak at 8.8 billion in 2050 and if trends hold, the population will start a gradual decline
It's doubtful if our population doubles again, not making a judgement, just sayin'
Capitalism is the idea that there are infinite resources to be consumed. You could argue that by going to other planets and mining them that you could pretty much get infinite resources. Unfortunately we don't have our system and technology advanced enough for off planet mining.
The real issue however isn't the idea of Capitalism. It is that when you take humans and put them in a Capitalist society, you have then said it is okay to be greedy. It is also okay to expose the environment and population for what it's worth regardless of the damages caused. We have of course been countering Capitalism for the past 100 years with workers rights, welfare and so on. So in reality Capitalism doesn't work for those who are being born now and it doesn't work for those who are poor.
Not only that but the system is rigged against them so that by the time you retire, you have probably paid out in work far more than you have taken in when you factor in inflation, increases in costs of items that have no alternatives such as fuel, having to pay taxes to a corrupt plutocratic government and so on. Furthermore, big corporations, especially those who know of alternatives for a better life, will simply ignore the alternatives and risk of falling apart because they are lead by CEOs who get paid to fail (literally).
What is the alternative? Communism ? (Socialism...communism lite) ? Communism is atheistic.Atheism leads to the destruction of life. When any system trashes the idea of God, that system trashes the foundation for absolute moral standards. Morality becomes the invention of the mighty--those in power take the role of Lawgiver; men play God. The terrors of such a reality have been splattered upon the world by the swords of Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, and others who have slaughtered tens of millions of men, women, and children--all in the name of the Communist agenda. With no standards, who is to determine the value of life? especially human life? I stepped on an ant, and killed it...I shot a man, and killed him--in Atheism, there is no difference. Atheism is actually the foundation for communism..... which, without Atheism, immediately fall apart. Marx was smart enough to know this and evil enough to promote a lie.
It is not especially appropriate to use moral categories when addressing political, social or economic problems. The issue is not whether or not capitalism is good or bad. Good and bad are moral categories after all. It is not a matter of ethics or morality. It would be better to ask good or bad for whom? It is most certainly not a matter of how any individual capitalist treats his wife, children or pets or even of their business practices. The political question. Whose interest does capitalism serve? If capitalism served the working class no group of workers would ever have thought of organizing themselves into a labor union, which is, after all, a class organization that specifically excludes capitalists.
We need to ask ourselves what we stand for, beyond vague references to collectivizing the means of production.
What is likely to happen now that free markets are going out of fashion, and state supervision is becoming an intellectually respectable alternative? The short answer is:an increase in the portion of the economy controlled by the state. Everyone should know what it will mean: permanent economic stasis, if not contraction; a lack of innovation and development; a reduction of opportunity for everyone; and an enormous increase in bureaucracy, waste and inefficiency. That has been the long-term legacy of state control everywhere it has been tried.
We need to ask ourselves what we stand for, beyond vague references to collectivizing the means of production.
Why?
Outside of the military, the post office, treasury, public education, the highway system just where is the state control? There is not a single major enterprize in modern life, beginning at least with the Columbus expedition that could have gotten off the ground without the massive infusion of captal from the state.
The economy is in crisis because Mr. Obama proposes control & refuses to do what history shows will really repair the economy. The core problem is that Mr Obama is a committed socialist and believes that the govt can do everything. Thus the economy continues to stall and drift from recession toward a depression. People wisely refuse to risk the money they have since the Government is trying to take it all and redistribute it to the perceived victims of corporations; a basic tenet of the misguided left. The result is money and companies are driven out of the country. After all, people, and companies want to make money on the money they spend. They want to get some value for the money they spend. Everyone wants to get value for the money they spend.
Back in the 1930s the revolutionary Leon Trotsky quipped that the American Socialist leader Norman Thomas was a socialist as the result of a misunderstanding. Likewise anyone who thinks Obama is a socialist has a fundamental misunderstanding of what socialism is all about. If socialism was about state control then the greatest socialist project in history would have been the construction of the pyramids and no rational economic historian would argue that.
Socialism is about who rules. Is it the capitalist class or the working class? And socialism is about the rule of the working class. The role of the state is basically a secondary and in most instances a tertiary issue.
Any ideology which has as its goal to set up a completely human-constructed utopia on earth is certainly not derived from Christian theology or from any other religious theology that I can think of. Most religions envision a heavenly paradise, but not one created by man alone. Socialism is inherently atheistic....Hence abhorant..
Wow. That sure is out of left field. So, not only socialism economically unviable. It's also immoral because it is inherently atheistic. Oh well, like Walt Whitman, being both a revolutionary socialist and a practicing Quaker, I suppose I am likely to explode of internal contradictions. Fortunately I am not alone as there are countless people with strong religious convictions who are also socialists and who would take issue with the notion that a democratic, just, peaceful and loving society is impossible for human beings to achieve. If it can be imagined, like any human invention, it can be achieved.
Socialism takes at least some of the means of production out of the hands of those who own it, and holds them in common. How the means of production are administered is decided by the govt, violent revolution is possible...and certainly be acceptable to some socialists. Socialism can lead to communism, if it were frustrated to the point that it's adherents turned to the communist doctrine of violent revolution. and placed the means of production under the control of the govt. Hence socialism >>>>communism...... not good.
socialists share with anarchists the goal of statelessness. It's just that socialists think that the transition to statelessness will take longer than the anarchists envision. Socialism and anarchism are not about government control of the means of production. They are about workers control of the means of production. How violent that transition will be basically depends on how long and how strongly those instituions in society that have a sanctioned monopoly on violence (the military and the police) stay loyal to the bourgeois order. The more quickly and the more completely they come over to the revolution the less violent it will be.
You need to move to China, Cuba or North Korea..your utopia has already been created...and is waiting for you.. Don't settle for this lousy country..You belong in one of those other great countires.
China, Cuba and North Korea are one party Stalinist dictatorships having nothing to do with democratic socialism, which is about workers control and requires as a precondition democracy in every phase of our lives, but politically and economically.
Ideas always are first ideas before they become a reality and the reality is that democratic socialists everywhere for more than 100 years have been the most consistent fighters for workers rights at every level, including the rights of women, minors, and minorities as well as workers rights on the job and the rights of unemployed workers and for the rights and dignity of the imprisoned.
Go to China or North Korea...or maybe Taiwan..They need you ...and you would like it here...I bet
Why do you suggest that I go to totalitarian dictatorships when what I want is more democracy, not less? And culturally I can't imagine living anywhere but America. I love American scenery, American music, American movies and most of all the American people. What I have no affinity for is the imperialist capitalist, profoundly undemocratic American state and the undemocratic hierarchal social system that it props up.
well if you want to try socialism and/or communism you might benefit from living in a country that has system, already..it's already waiting for you.... .If you really dig it...then you could come back and help us to transform our democracy.
There is no socialist nation on the face of the Earth nor has there ever been for more than a matter of months at the most. As was quipped about the British Labour Party when it first came to power, it governed but it did not rule. That is the case with every socialist or social democratic or labor party that comes to power. It governs but it does not rule. So long as the capitalist class is in power economically socialist parties end up doing their dirty work and enforcing austerity programs that a capitalist party could never get away with.
I have no interest in being anywhere or going anywhere but America. There are at least pockets of opposition in American culture in the streets, in poor communities, in the handful of places left where there are strong trade unions, in prisons and in the occupations that still exist around the nation. That is my America.
I wonder if the US forcing other countries to stop trading with those countries has anything to do with their current economies?
From one of your comfortably conservative institutions even
Four Decades of Failure: The U.S. Embargo against Cuba
You don't really keep up with politics, you just like sounding dumb I guess.
MANFRED MAX-NEEF: First of all, we need cultured economists again, who know the history, where they come from, how the ideas originated, who did what, and so on and so on; second, an economics now that understands itself very clearly as a subsystem of a larger system that is finite, the biosphere, hence economic growth as an impossibility; and third, a system that understands that it cannot function without the seriousness of ecosystems. And economists know nothing about ecosystems. They don’t know nothing about thermodynamics, you know, nothing about biodiversity or anything. I mean, they are totally ignorant in that respect. And I don’t see what harm it would do, you know, to an economist to know that if the bees would disappear, he would disappear as well, because there wouldn’t be food anymore. But he doesn’t know that, you know, that we depend absolutely from nature. But for these economists we have, nature is a subsystem of the economy. I mean, it’s absolutely crazy.
And then, in addition, you know, bring consumption closer to production. I live in the south of Chile, in the deep south. And that area is a fantastic area, you know, in milk products and what have you. Top. Technologically, like the maximum, you know? I was, a few months ago, in a hotel, and there in the south, for breakfast, and there are these little butter things, you know? I get one, and it’s butter from New Zealand. I mean, if that isn’t crazy, you know? And why? Because economists don’t know how to calculate really costs, you know? To bring butter from 20,000 kilometers to a place where you make the best butter, under the argument that it was cheaper, is a colossal stupidity, because they don’t take into consideration what is the impact of 20,000 kilometers of transport? What is the impact on the environment of that transportation, you know, and all those things? And in addition, I mean, it’s cheaper because it’s subsidized. So it’s clearly a case in which the prices never tell the truth. It’s all tricks, you know? And those tricks do colossal harms. And if you bring consumption closer to production, you will eat better, you will have better food, you know, and everything. You will know where it comes from. You may even know the person who produces it. You humanize this thing, you know? But the way the economists practice today is totally dehumanized.
AMY GOODMAN: What have you learned that gives you hope in the poor communities that you’ve worked in and lived in?
MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Solidarity of people. You know, respect for the others. Mutual aid. No greed. I mean, that is a value that is absent in poverty. And you would be inclined to think that there should be more there than elsewhere, you know, that greed should be of people who have nothing. No, quite the contrary. The more you have, the more greedy you become, you know. And all this crisis is the product of greed. Greed is the dominant value today in the world. And as long as that persists, well, we are done.
AMY GOODMAN: And if you’re teaching young economists, the principles you would teach them, what they’d be?
MANFRED MAX-NEEF: The principles, you know, of an economics which should be are based in five postulates and one fundamental value principle.
One, the economy is to serve the people and not the people to serve the economy.
Two, development is about people and not about objects.
Three, growth is not the same as development, and development does not necessarily require growth.
Four, no economy is possible in the absence of ecosystem services.
Five, the economy is a subsystem of a larger finite system, the biosphere, hence permanent growth is impossible.
And the fundamental value to sustain a new economy should be that no economic interest, under no circumstance, can be above the reverence of life.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain that further.
MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Nothing can be more important than life. And I say life, not human beings, because, for me, the center is the miracle of life in all its manifestations. But if there is an economic interest, I mean, you forget about life, not only of other living beings, but even of human beings. If you go through that list, one after the other, what we have today is exactly the opposite.
AMY GOODMAN: Go back to three: growth and development. Explain that further.
MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Growth is a quantitative accumulation. Development is the liberation of creative possibilities. Every living system in nature grows up to a certain point and stops growing. You are not growing anymore, nor he nor me. But we continue developing ourselves. Otherwise we wouldn’t be dialoguing here now. So development has no limits. Growth has limits. And that is a very big thing, you know, that economists and politicians don’t understand. They are obsessed with the fetish of economic growth.
And I am working, several decades. Many studies have been done. I’m the author of a famous hypothesis, the threshold hypothesis, which says that in every society there is a period in which economic growth, conventionally understood or no, brings about an improvement of the quality of life. But only up to a point, the threshold point, beyond which, if there is more growth, quality of life begins to decline. And that is the situation in which we are now.
I mean, your country is the most dramatic example that you can find. I have gone as far as saying — and this is a chapter of a book of mine that is published next month in England, the title of which is Economics Unmasked. There is a chapter called "The United States, an Underdeveloping Nation," which is a new category. We have developed, underdeveloped and developing. Now you have underdeveloping. And your country is an example, in which the one percent of the Americans, you know, are doing better and better and better, and the 99 percent is going down, in all sorts of manifestations. People living in their cars now and sleeping in their cars, you know, parked in front of the house that used to be their house — thousands of people. Millions of people, you know, have lost everything. But the speculators that brought about the whole mess, oh, they are fantastically well off. No problem. No problem.
what is the solution? refrain from absolutist rhetoric.
seems to me he offered a solution to some extent - did you have something to say on the subject?
Socialism is consistent result of the view that human life no longer possesses an innate dignity, that we are only meat walking around, and we can be turned easily into means to the ends of others, just as we may turn others into means to our ends. It is the old master-slave scenario come to life, even as we congratulate ourselves on our enlightenment.
Ideas matter, and Europe is headed down a depressing path....Our Country can not follow or emulate destructive european ideas...with out grave consequences.
Capitalism works great," if " this planet had unlimited resources. As capitalism is based on growth- as long as the economy grows- everything is fine- In 2008 we reached earths physical limits- no farther growth is possible. massive amounts of stimulus will delay the crash for a while (a few years ) Its been nice knowing you- by.
Nice knowing you too. However, why do you own a computer? Why are you on the internet? You will be dead "soon."
not that nice. by to you
BS The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Socialism depends on the people involved in it being altruistic. We are not, like all life we have a tendency to get the most for the least amount of effort. Socialism falls apart as its participants realize they will be taken care of without putting in the effort. In simplest terms, the chance to keep what you earn is more attractive to people then working hard to provide for someone else who is slacking off.
yes Stacy...we agree.. The socialist fantasy is a load of commie crap...
nonsense. pure, utter nonsense.
spoken by a guzzler of the koolaid.. Your fantasy may fail to satisfy you. Think hard about how much freedom you are willing to surrender for your fantsy.
riiiight. go back to sleep, you troll.
When ever you disagree..or fear opposing thought...you name call.. This not a thoughtful response.. I would do some serious soul searching to see if you really want to be fully committed to ideals, that you are not able to or afraid defend or articulate.
[Removed]
Nice straw man, troll.
did not see that...But that is obvious, to the thoughtful... Sadly not alot of thoughtfulness amongst these OWS wacks.
Ever play Monopoly? Ever hear of the Robber Barons? That's always the inevitqable consequence of capitalism if left unregulated.
Great.. sounds good to me. survival of the fittest...and the hardest working and the ambitious. sour grapes to jealous slackers.
So, you like the fact that this country has turned into a plutocracy and stopped being a democracy. You like the fact that the income chasm has created unequal access to congress and that the rich are writing laws (literally) for themselves.
You like the fact that American soldiers are sent to die in wars to protect Exxon's profits.
How very American of you.
Asshole.
Dont use offensive language...it weakens your 'argument'. last time I checked we live in a democracy. hope u feel better soon.
Last time you checked? You didn't check. You just came here to troll.
My language is nothing compared with your offensive callous dismissal of people who have less, and your declarations arising from sheer and total ignorance on this forum. You yourself are an offense.
Go away. Go troll your mother.
You need to try to learn to tolerate other opinions..that is what we do in a democracy...Try Tolerance...not rage, defensiveness and disregard for opposing thoughts Suggestion: Try residing in another country if you can't hack it in the USA.
You came here to troll, not discuss. If you had wanted to actually learn anything, you'd have read some of the critiques of unfettered capitalism written here You clearly didn't. You could have taken a basic course in economics. You clearly didn't. You could have thought to yourself "this is a site in support of OWS, not a general political debate site. You didn't concern yourself with that.
I love democracy. You clearly don't care that it has been bought and sold. You, not me, are the one who hates, or at least doesn't give a shit, about America.
You came here to attack the very premise of OWS, and you did so uninvited.
That makes you a troll.
I treat you with the same contempt you have shown everyone here.
Fuck you. Go troll your mother.
you go to your Mom...this is a free country...Mr.Bully, who appointed you as the boss.here? Poor tolerance for any dissenting opinions is not an admirable quality. you have bad manners and a dirty mouth, anti social traits. have a good night. get help..
You claim "survival of the fittest" is OK by you. That means no survival for the weakest. That is the very definition of anti-social.
You come to a site dedicated to support change. Instead you come and insult everyone who seeks change.
That is also anti-social.
It seems you have no idea what anti-social is unless you can point accusingly at someone else. You hypocrisy is glaring.
Go troll your mother.
troll your sister..you are a lost soul.. please exit this forum...you are not welcome anymore.
You have never been welcome.
Go troll your mother.
You really have no clue, do you?
Capitalism is ok, but when you out source all work to india, china, capitalsim fails
The real question is who decides? When we enter the work place we leave the Constitution at the door. Basic rights that we assume are available to everyone are abandoned in the work place. There is no freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, equal rights or due process in the work place and the capital punishment of the work place is termination, which takes place in a hierarchal undemocratic setting, not a democratic setting where we are innocent until proven guilty and judged by a jury of our peers.
And whether it is privately controlled or controlled by the state there is no democratic decision making regarding the basic processes of production, what is produced, how it is produced, etc. Markets are invented and conjured up out of nothing and have very little to do with human need.
What is more, the profoundly undemocratic nature of the work place tends to undermine and corrupt our thinking and practice of democracy in the political sphere, where democracy theoretically does exist.
Espousing that 'your turn, my turn' playground etiquette by an adult in the real world leaves anyone with an IQ above 90 shaking their head.
Democracy is not about individuals taking turns. It's about all of us, collectively having control over the decisions that affect our lives.
To an extent that is true in our everyday lives, but that is undermined by the fact that it is most certainly untrue in terms of our working lives. For most people they leave the Constitution at the door when they enter the work place. There is no freedom of speech, no freedom of assembly, no due process, no ability to determine the conditions of labor, much less what is produced and how it is produced. And termination is the capital punishment of the work place. Even the activity of the self employed is circumscribed by a fundamentally undemocratic political economy and on top of all this, the profoundly undemocratic conditions in which most of us spend half of our waking lives tends to undermine what democratic rights we have the rest of the time.
Want a job, play by the employer's rules. Don't like the rules? Leave the job. Snap out of it.
That only works when jobs are plentiful and workers are scarce. When jobs are scarce and workers are plentiful, then employers know that they can treat their employees like chattle and no one will buck the system for fear that, if they lose this job, they may not find another.
When the CIO started in the mid 1930 unemployment was more than twice what it is today. There was a mild recovery. We were no longer in the depths of the Depression, but there was still a Depression. The opposite is also true. There are periods of high employment when worker militancy is extremely low. Worker militancy is a subjective factor and bears no automatic relationship to the level of unemployment.
Sucks to not be the boss I guess.
That's the cleverest thing you can think to say? Really? Sucks not to have a capacity for critical thought or human empathy I guess.
go away,...you are way too hostile...need to check yourself
Simple fact. Don't like the way they do things where you work? Leave.
Simple Fact: leave a job you have and you run a very real risk of not finding another.
Now you're catching on.
So you enjoy and accept the status quo? You think employers should have the right to treat their employees as chattel slaves?
What a sick fuck.
You ought clean up your vocabulary. you are offensive..and come off like a real bitter guy. what the heck happened to you? Stop blaming everyone else. have a nice night.
Language is not dirty or clean. it is a tool. And I will thank you to keep your half-assed opinions as to my usage of the tool of language to yourself you obsequious little Grammarian stormtrooper.
I thought you conservatives were all about personal freedom? Why are you projecting your dull-witted sensitivities onto me? You should be championing my individual right to free expression.
yeah but do you have to use vile offensive language..this is a perversion of freedom of expression...twisted to fit your need to shock...and express your bitterness. you would be taken more seriously if you reigned in the profanity.
See, he isn't for or against anything. he has a bunch of user names and just starts shit. if you say red he says blue, you say up he says down and so forth. the guy is mental and some how seems to suck up more use out of this forum than all of us combined. if you are arguing with extreme users, good chance it's just one of this guys many accounts on this forum.
Thanks for the heads-up richard.
I didn't see anything offensive. You just happen to be a sick fuck.
They don't have that right. You're free to leave.
And I don't know where you work but I don't and I don't know anyone who does work who is treated as whatever that Dickensian bullshit phrase you trumpet is supposed to mean.
Christ you're dull, the whole point is that you aren't free to leave. Jobs are scarce. Leave one, and there may well not be another in this economy. People are afraid to leave. It's the same reason many battered spouses don't leave...they feel they have no where to go.
If we had a sane society with ample social protections and abundant employment (a society like the one OWS and others are working for) Then people could leave their abusive employers.
And btw, you ignorant shitbag, if you don't know what chattel slavery is, I suggest you take your head out of Glenn Beck's shitter and bone up on your American History.
If there was anyplace as bad as your imaginary world of doom where people work, EVERYONE who works there would leave and how would that work out for the employer. Don't be an idiot. (Too late.)
Last week in China 300 people who work at an Xbox factory went to the roof of the building and threatened to jump, mass suicide, over low wages. They didn't threaten a drum circle.
Have you ever worked in a factory in your entire life, you ignoramus? The first factory job I ever had, in a cabinet making shop in the midwest, I worked in 115 degree heat, 12 hours a day, and when I was injured on the job (after 2 years working there) I was told that if I left to get medical attention I would be summarily fired. And I left, and I was fired.
Wake the fuck up, you pathetic, myopic, little dullard. Employers are denying employees safe working conditions and living wages all across the country, and treating their workers as chattel because they know they can get away with it. People are too frightened by debt and the economic recession, to pursue their own self interest (I.e., to find other employment).
Yes...agreed. These people are brainwashed whiners with a narcissistic sense of entitlement. Hope the USA can recover from Obama and lefty destructive actions........ If the masses are thinking like this bunch (OWS), we are in deep do do.
Ok I would like to add to this if you don't mind. Capitalism is where someone does try to make as much money as possible by creating and innovating so as to be on the cutting edge of new technologies.
what's not to like? Compete..If you have better widget market it.
Nothing at all. I just wanted to throw it out there. Better and cheaper technology means profit. The definition of capitalism. People who can't come up with the ideas either make them or market them. And they get mad when the creator gets paid more. I don't understand it. If you want money then you can create or own product and make millions if not billions of dollars.
Capitalism offers the most freedom and is the most moral system. When people are given the freedom to seek their own ways, to use their own sweat they improve their lot they improve the greater good. When governments are empowered to pick winners and losers or favor some over others, to take money from some and give it to others they may object to, this will become biased and meddling at best and immoral at worst. All other systems have others deciding what is right for everyone.
agreed ...It is the best system...needs to be regulated but not replaced. This ows rhetoric extolling the immorality of capitalism is baseless.
You can't regulate capitalism and call it capitalism. It's not capitalism anymore. The workers fought against the big corporations because they abused them through Capitalism and now the corporations have struck back by creating a plutocracy. This isn't good, lol!
Look how stupid the people are who are in power, are you daft? In the government you have demagogues who will do anything for a vote, that is wrong. In the business world, people will expose any loophole regardless the damage that it causes to others, that is wrong. Capitalism regulated? That's not capitalism that's just you kidding yourself that Capitalism is good just because it managed to expose a large portion of the worlds resources and then they started to run out.
are you a commie? what is the alternative to capitalism? Cuba, Red China?? OWS rhetoric is propaganda
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