The problem of Capitalism

Wrong.
Flat, dead wrong.
In my country we slap "Made in Australia" labels on products.
It's to stir the patriotic soul and compel the buyer to purchase locally.
But the Australian product is more expensive than imported alternatives.

Nearly every single consumer has other ideas, ie him or herself.

The ultimate ethic is to care for yourself.
Many "ethical" people, complete with virtue signalling wrist bands
will quietly do the same.

Taking care for yourself prompts your local supplier to make a better
product, a new product or go do something else.

We could all be "ethical" and chose steam trains over cars. But
steam trains wiped out the paddle boat business. And paddle
boats wiped out the bullock and camel trains.

 

??
And rule of law exists to adjudicate, when that ethic comes into conflict with the other person.

 

Super true. But creating a "sharing" world must be severely tempered with the reality
that people are different. We need to have a safety net, and rich people should be
pay more tax IMO. But Capitalism has given the common man a standard of living
superior to even that of monarchs a few centuries back. Socialism cannot ever do
that.

 

Capitalism has more or less established itself as the accepted and most successful means of private sector production of goods and services around the globe. The problem is in the distribution.

There is a macroeconomic heterodoxy (MMT) that disputes neoliberal "trickle down" orthodoxy and which is gaining attention among central bank governors around the globe, not least because all of them are facing the failure of orthodox policy since the GFC … you will no doubt be aware of the problems facing Philip Lowe in Australia at the present time, same as Powell in the US and Draghi at the ECB, - this last having mentioned MMT in an article only yesterday.

Better than a (usually morale-destroying) "safety net" , MMT guarantees an above poverty level job for all who want one.....

Google: Bill Mitchell blog if you want to learn more.

And here is a recent article from a well known financial commentator in Australia, Brian Pascoe, who mentions MMT in a reference to "helicopter money", but he is mostly showing he hasn't bothered to study MMT.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/finance-news/2019/09/23/reserve-bank-using-helicopter-money/

And a link in Pascoe's article to a report from BlackRock:

"Dealing with the next downturn", authored by three BlackRock executives overseeing $10 trillion in investments (the largest in the world, I think)

https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/literature/whitepaper/bii-macro-perspectives-august-2019.pdf

Fun times ahead.

 

I have a friend who preaches the collapse of Capitalism ad nauseum. Sure there will be downturns.
That's the nature of the beast, or better put, the nature of humans. People go through boom and bust
cycles, and we expect the economy won't?
I am out of my depth on these things. I never studied economics - just the mind of the urban Marxist.
Just one point, the term "trickle down", like "too cheap to meter" was attributed to parties/philosophies
who did not coin it - yet are held in ridicule of it.

 

Do you even understand what 'community' means? Your definition appears to be 'nation', or even world.

Community is a group of people VOLUNTARILY choosing to live via mutual assistance/interdependence. Furthermore, aren't you one of these who thinks family/friends etc are a burden? Some community yours must be.

 

This is appalling, sorry. And incredibly naive.

What do you think goes into the making of a human being who is able to secure their own financial freedoms, AND avoids becoming an addict/gambler? I guarantee it's FAMILY/COMMUNITY. It's being raised by people who take responsibility for their own. It's being raised in an environment of certain worth and stable, continuous, meaningful support - something only a voluntary community of 'kin' can provide.

And 'your own' are those with whom you choose to either enter into mutually beneficial relationships, or voluntarily breed .. and those who did the same for you. We all have our people, and all of us like to know that they have us. Regardless of circumstances, it's the families/communuties who take this stuff seriously who 'prosper' the most, as do the individuals within those groups. ALWAYS.

PS: there is no room for 'spiritual' or mental illness. these are First World self-indulgences, just like addiction and gambling. I don't include physiological brain injury in this, FTR. the brain injured should be cared for just as the old and the young.

 

There is no such thing as 'distribution'. It doesn't exist outside of your ideas and theories.

It all comes from you. You want more of the goodies? Via the accident of your birth into First World privilege, you can just go get 'em. Or not. That's distribution.

 

Wrong again. I have, have always had, and always will have an absolute and indisputable right to take anyone's "property" that consists of my rights. That is why slaves had an absolute and indisputable right to take that "property" of their owners that consisted of the slaves' rights.

We have already established that your "property, right or wrong" mantra is grotesque, obscene, evil, despicable and indefensible filth. Why do you keep repeating it? Are you trying to get readers who care about liberty and justice to hate you?

<yawn> That must be why the condition of the landless has been indistinguishable from that of slaves in EVERY SINGLE SOCIETY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD where private landowning has been well established, but government has not intervened massively in the economy to rescue the landless from enslavement by landowners. That must be why the landless peasants of 18th century Europe were treated much like the contemporaneous negro slaves of the USA -- except that the latter, being valuable assets, were rarely starved to death. The landless peasants of Europe were, though. Routinely. That is the only reason America had slavery and Europe didn't: landless European workers could be treated like slaves, as their rights to liberty had been stripped from them and given to landowners as their private property. Landless workers in the New World could not be treated that way: they would just leave, and take up some good land of their own. They therefore had to be literally fettered. The landless working people of Europe were already fettered, by landowners' ownership of their rights to liberty.

 

He may ultimately be correct; however today we must deal with what we have, preferably avoiding social and ecological collapse.

And now people will not tolerate another "downturn", as the world's central bankers are entirely aware.

The unemployment, loss of homes and accommodation leading to more poverty and destruction of health and well being among those most affected by the downturns are no longer politically acceptable. Simple as that.

That explains your apparent satisfaction with the status quo, no need to concern yourself with the next downturn then, forget about the homeless who are already a blight in our cities. Meanwhile, you are content with your theories about "urban Marxists".

Regardless of the invention and attribution of the term, these are the facts.

<<trickle-down theory, refers to the economic proposition that taxes on businesses and the wealthy in society should be reduced as a means to stimulate business investment in the short term and benefit society at large in the long term.
A 2019 study in the Journal of Political Economy found, contrary to trickle-down theory, that "the positive relationship between tax cuts and employment growth is largely driven by tax cuts for lower-income groups and that the effect of tax cuts for the top 10 percent on employment growth is small."[7]

(I note you said you were OK with increasing taxes on the wealthy...).

 

How? If law could not extinguish slaves' rights to liberty, how could it extinguish everyone else's?

What on earth do you incorrectly imagine you think you might be talking about?

 

It was assets, child. Learn to read.

It can't. There is not enough extant purchasing power. For land to yield its rent, there has to be investment in improvements. If all the money goes into buying land, there won't be any for improvements. But then the land can't yield its return. The yield to land is greater than the yield to improvements, but without the improvements, the yield to land can't be obtained, so people have to invest in improvements even though it means land yields more.

See how easily I always prove your opinions shallow, ill-considered, and uniformed?

I can see something that is based in ignorance....

 

Read, "Judgment Day," by Nathaniel Branden. It might give you some perspective on her.

 

Oh, garbage.

 

Were you under an erroneous impression that that could be relevant???

 

Well, shall we call it "access to the production" then? The ticket required being money....acquisition of which requires access to above poverty employment....

Yet even the US government has a food stamp program....

By the community?

So caring for all of the nation's old, young and disabled will be carried out by a VOLUNTARY association of like-minded people....I think you will find the quantum of said volunteers not sufficient for the task at hand…..

 

I have, as well as The Passion Of Ayn Rand. I found each fascinating and illuminating, but I think the definitive book on the affair is The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics by James S. Valliant

 

He’s yanking our chains in order to escape his boredom.

 

Yes, I am very satisfied with the status quo.
It all comes down to my philosophy of "COMPARED TO WHAT?"
So if you are not satisfied with American dominance or Capitalism I just
ask "Compared to what?"
Certainly not compared to some socioeconomic theory or romantic vision
of a return to nature where everyone tends to their own little market garden.

 

Satisfied? With the status quo? Nope. I’m a radical for capitalism—this water-downed version sucks.

 

Not sure what that means. But any "radical" Capitalism must be tempered with the need
to care for those left behind - otherwise it fails its mission.

 

Says the person who admits to knowing nothing about economics.

(Homelessness in the cities no problem? Cool....)

Fortunately, Philip Lowe ain't "satisified" with flat Oz wages growth , and will "do what it takes" (eg, negative interest rates, helicopter money, or whatever), to stimulate growth to avoid a recession which would result in political chaos in Australia and elsewhere, caused by unemployment and associated mortgage defaults.

I notice Jetstar breathing down your back...he's completely blind to the potential violence of his self-interest instinct...... you at least pay lip service to " those left behind".

 

I am a part of the great unwashed who know next to nothing about economics and political
theory. But I know current events, and I know that the more nations adhere to Western
liberal democracies (which include property rights, suffrage and right of association) the
better these nations do.
On the status quo side are places like Taiwan, Poland and Japan. And in the other corner
we have Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba and North Korea.

 

Don’t care about that—I’m not a slave. It’s the same as saying freedom must be tempered with shackles and handcuffs, for our own good. No one for any reason has any claim of even one nano second of my life.

You want to take care of the unfortunate, go ahead, but don’t point a gun at my head demanding I do so. It’s my life, not yours or theirs.

BTW, here’s what it means: No government involvement in the economy.

 

You’ve never had a right to take property that doesn’t belong to you. If you try to take my property, I will stop you. As I have a right to private property I own. Comparing owning a human to owning land is retarded, as you know.