How does capitalism have a happy ending?

Based only on what I know, what I learn and what I see, the thorn in the side of capitalism is greed. Once capitalists move from fair profits to unadulterated greed at any expense, the poor and middle class lose. And they continue to lose, inch by inch, until the two blend into one lower class with the only other class being rich. We're not there yet because we still have a strong middle class, but we're seeing the effects of its continuing decay.

We, the citizens and stockholders, expect returns on our investments. And we seem to demand always growing returns. That places a lot of pressure on businesses to perform and to always seek returns and efficiencies everywhere. Once they've gained as much efficiency as they can gain, then what? Seems to me they then go into the abusive side of profit creation (thinking Enron, derivatives, banking industry, price gouging, price fixing of the likes of Apple and Archer Daniels Midland and so many others, government intervention in markets). And they also involve governments at all levels to help them profit even higher using often illegal methods.

Capitalism is wonderful with honest players. We just don't have many left, or so it would appear from the outside looking in on how things run in our culture.

 

Isn't your first paragraph exactly what happened in the Soviet Union, but with only the political apparatchiks being relatively well off?

 

I believe it is, unfortunately.

 

The happy end to capitalism would be one huge corporation owning everything with everyone an equal shareholder with voting rights.

Wait, isn't that communism?

 

China and India still have a long way to go, becoming a first world country is a process

you say eliminating poverty doesn't help my cause, but you know full well it's a good thing.. none of those protesters are asking for higher poverty

the fact is we have reduced poverty globally to half of what it was, along with reducing the number of people who do not have access to clean drinking water to half of what it was through the free market. And in another 20 years it'll likely be half'd again, and then again. Are conditions still poor in China, India, and Brazil compared to 1st world countries? absolutely.. but again the best way to improve those poor conditions is the free market, as we have seen in the past and we continue to see today. In fact China is far from being a free market (yet), they have only made improvements in trade and private poverty rights. They're making steps at becoming a free market

I never said it would happen over night, in Hong Kong it took about 30 years to go from being a third world country to a first world country under a free market system.. but again, look at the nations with the highest human development and the lowest poverty, they are all nations with freer markets, and the nations on the bottom of the human development list are all repressed markets. It's like comparing what works with what does not work

 

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Go to Beijing and Shanghai. You will enjoy yourself. Then tell me that China is a third-world country. Maybe it was 20 years ago, but it isn't now.
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China is more second world than third world

 

There is no private property rights in China because there is no law and no courts to defend any right to private property from its seizure by arbitrary acts of authorities. China has morphed from a communist dictatorship to a pseudo-capitalist oligarchy that will impose the rule of law only after the prerogatives of its elite have been assured.

Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, even western Europe did not get where they are today without government industrial development policy which directed public and private investment into specific areas that would spur wide economic growth. Except for the US, every developed and most developing nations in the world have a formal government industrial policy that directs public and private investment into areas that are deemed important to long term economic growth and away from areas that are deemed risky or foolish.

For example, some years ago an entrepreneur in Taiwan sought local financing for a memory chip factory. The government squashed it because it would have tied up almost all of the nations available capital for two years and by the time it was built factories in Korea and Japan would have made back their costs and dropped the price by orders of magnitude. It was a losing proposition. Instead the government offered tax breaks and financing to move all that investment money into motherboard contract manufacturing, which Taiwan manufacturers now dominate, and generated the excess capital that allowed HTC and others to move quickly into cell phones and smartphones.

 

It seems that China is much less of a legalistic bureaucratic nightmare of government paperwork and controls than what the US has become. Creative forces have been unleashed there and China most definitely is not stagnating.

 

Actually, that is the US government, with all us citizens (of tax paying age, through those not yet born)sharing in the loss. See how well out ability to "vote" worked out.

 

Please describe this utopia.

How do you avoid tragedy of the commons?

 

This week's Economist points out that the proportion of profits paid to labour are, everywhere, falling. As labour creates all wealth, Marx's predictions are bang on, as we might expect.

 

Capitalism clamors for a relationship with socialism; happy ending.

 

Labor, which still makes up about 70% of the average products cost, does not create all wealth.

Automation creates wealth with ever decreasing contribution from labor, and automation will only increase. Automation is cheaper, safer, and provides higher quality than manual labor.

Automation doesn't just replace the high cost of labor in the US. Foxconn, the largest contract manufacturer in the world employs over 1 million Chinese has stated they will install 1 million robots.

 

Who else creates any wealth - the bloody tea party? Automation results in stuff so cheap there's no profit, as everyone knows. The Economist points out that the Foxconn argument is only marginally convincing, and obviously, if you deprive the mugs of money no-one will buy your bilge. Are you all half-witted, you extremists?

 

The people that take risks, invest their own money, and create the opportunities for "laborers".

So cheap, that consumers of today can buy luxuries not available to the rich of 100 years ago.

So people are better served by spending 12 hours a day doing mindless, repetitive labor? Or, they could be designers, doctors, entrepreneurs.

Half witted would be the person that wants to burn it all down, so they can live in the "glorious" past, where the unmotivated can earn the middle class wage of the 50's, with all the luxuries of the 50's.

Or, better yet, tax the rich until there are no more rich - so we can all be poor.

The future is here. Instead of spending all your effort whining, spend some effort learning how to live in it.

 

Twelve hours a day doing mindless, repetitive labour is a Worker's Paradise for those who love it-- that is, other people.

 

Bovine turds. You mean you think madmen who gamble with people's lives do some good.? You are off your head.

Obviously: that is what capitalism was for - a primitive madness that builds up the means for democratic humanity to live when it collapses. Don't you even know that?

As you know, we could get by with about two hours work and spend the rest of our time doing useful and creative things without your insane system. What a gang of boring slavers you are!

Well, your masters have got you nearly back to the '50s, as they eat into your wages. Are you drunk, or what?

Take our wealth back from the thieves so that we no longer need to spend our time on spite and thieving, yes.

Your system will, as you know, destroy humanity within three generations. If you are happy with this 'future' you are one very sick bunny. Myxematosis, I suppose, from the brainwashing!

 

You do need to learn to read

ROTFL - gooberment has you convinced they are the good guys, while they accept the wealth of the thieving class to make sure the status remains quo.....

 

They're clueless about minimum wages! They're actually required to reduce market failure.

This is a very basic error. The evidence shows that there aren't any significant price effects from minimum wages.

Not true either. Capitalism is good at harnessing entrepreneurial spirit (but so would market socialism!) and finding opportunities from innovation.

 

This is not the right thread .

 

Deregulationistas, "privatize all state services" types, neoliberals, Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats have never understood the words "Dishonest dealings tend to drive honest dealings out of the market." The only way capitalism has a happy ending is if all of these groups disappear tomorrow.

 

Socialism has already made it to the moon and back, last millennium; capitalism still doesn't have a profit motive or a printing press at an official Mint.

 

Have you answered that in any other thread that you can point to?

 

Which requires government to play it's proper role as police, instead of the police on the take.

The more laws / regulation / taxation government imposes, the better return on investment business from buying politicians / regulators. The only way honest companies stay in business is to compete with the dishonest for government favor. So your statement is accurate, it is dishonest dealings drive out honest dealings, not dishonest companies drive out honest companies.