The problem of Capitalism

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by stan1990, Mar 13, 2019.

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Do you agree that the main problem of Capitalism is of moral nature?

Poll closed Apr 12, 2019.
  1. Yes

    33.3%
  2. No

    50.0%
  3. Maybe

    16.7%
  1. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    They're right though. You pretend and then support right wing injustice. Shame on you for that.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2020
  2. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    I support PEOPLE. You know ... instead of pretending I'm all for that, while doing nothing.
     
  3. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    There really is no support from accepting right wing economics. There is just acceptance of elitism and maintaining injustices.
     
  4. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    You aren't doing anything about the real problem any more than Mother Teresa was. You are in fact making it worse by distracting attention from it and pretending the real problem is something else entirely. I am the one actually doing something about the real problem -- unjust institutions -- not you, and I will thank you to remember it.
     
  5. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Don't you do that too by peddling a long obsolete Georgist storyline? Land is important but, as you ignore everything else, you're as guilty as crank.
     
  6. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    Jesus ... you're really getting desperate now.

    Your love of capitalism is showing, Dear.
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2020
  7. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    You're talking about yourself. After all, I'm not the one living it up in high capitalist style.

    Talk is unbelievably cheap. You can call yourself anything you like, but your actions tell us who you really are.
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2020
  8. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    You are doing nothing. You can never vote in the totalitarianism you want, and there's no other way to get it except via violent revolution - in which case you might as well just move to North Korea. What absolute vanity this is, pretending you're doing something. What a joke!

    And I'll thank YOU to remember that First World poverty is absolutely a result of the failure of people to care for each other (by caring for themselves first), and failure to share resources. If people like you provided property/housing to everyone you know who is struggling - and all those struggling people stopped making bad choices from that point on - poverty would literally end.
     
  9. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    That would be a reference to credibility in game theory. Your game isn't that sophisticated!
     
  10. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    That is false. I'm educating those capable of education.
    You are makin' $#!+ up again. What I want is liberty, real liberty, and justice. You hate liberty and justice (for other people, at least), so you call them totalitarianism. The only reason you think people won't vote for liberty and justice is that YOU would never vote for liberty and justice, and you can't imagine that others are more honest than you.
    False. It can also come through enlightened leadership. That will eventually happen as a result of SAI (if it doesn't kill or enslave us).
    You reveal your ignorance. NK didn't have a revolution. Kim Il Sung was installed by the Soviet occupation forces after WW II.
    I am doing what is necessary now: education. The real joke is YOUR pretense to be doing something. Nothing you are doing to "share" with others will have any lasting benefit whatever.
    No it isn't. It's caused by privilege, especially landowner privilege.
    Nope. It's not failure to share resources but the privilege of owning them in the first place that inherently makes others poor.
    Nope. Landowners would just take it all. As you intend they should.
     
  11. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    You are aware that I am not a Georgist and don't support the Georgist storyline, which you are aware is the Single Tax.
    I don't ignore everything else, and you know it. You just made that up. You are fully aware that I have devoted substantial time and effort to attacking other important privileges like bank licenses and IP monopolies. However, I do focus on the most important issues, and the ones I understand a lot better than others, so that my limited efforts will do the most good.
     
  12. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    One rarely meets a Georgist that admits it. They look for alternative titles like geoist; pretending relevance and avoiding the LVT trap. I can see pass that illusion. The Georgist tag is appropriate as it is indeed a monist approach which obsesses over land. A non-Georgist, in comparison, can adopt a pluralist perspective that fully understands the injustices in capitalism. That of course will include analysis into the importance of land. However, it will go much further. It will naturally include elements such as capital-labour conflict, embracing both classical economics and heterodox approaches that are capable of explaining modern economic phenomenon such as wage-productivity gaps.
     
  13. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    Capital-labour conflict? Can you elaborate?
     
  14. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Obviously that is false. I've encountered plenty.
    I.e., by not in fact being Georgists, though you falsely call them Georgists.
    I.e., you just make $#!+ up about what others have plainly said and make false claims about it.
    Nope. You continue to just make $#!+ up in order to avoid addressing the actual issues. Marx and Marxists are permanently unqualified to participate in economic discussion, as they seek to erase the difference between the factory owner, who has no power to do anything but offer the worker access to economic opportunity he would not otherwise have, and the landowner, who has no power to do anything but DEPRIVE the worker of access to economic opportunity he WOULD otherwise have.
    No. A non-geoist cannot understand the injustices in capitalism AT ALL. It is impossible.
    The injustice of private landowning is the essential injustice of capitalism, the injustice that is part of the definition of capitalism. Other injustices of actual modern capitalism such as private banks' issuance of debt money and government issuance of IP monopolies are incidental and contingent: they could be otherwise, while still leaving capitalism intact. Landowning cannot be other than private and still leave capitalism intact.
    There is no more a conflict between capital and labor than between a bakery and a customer.
    The wage-productivity gap is fully explained by geoist analysis involving the Law of Rent and the Henry George Theorem.
     
  15. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Twinning arrogance with knowledge deficiency seems to be your main hope. Its not going to be successful :)

    Now I'm no Marxist, but I know that Marxism must be adopted to understand the nature of capitalism. This is accepted by both orthodox and heterodox economists, as shown by the models (e.g. efficiency wages) that have piggybacked off Marxist analysis to understand empirical outcome. To suggest that you can refer to the wage-productivity gap without reference to labour economics really just advertises how far you go in your one-dimensional rant.
     
  16. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Nope. Capitalism could and would be understood much better if Marx had never existed. The notion that scientific understanding could not proceed without a certain fool's misapprehensions is absurd.
    Nope. Those models are wrong because they ignore the crime committed by the landowner against the worker.
    What is really one-dimensional is trying to explain the wage-productivity gap without reference to either land rent or the crime committed against the worker by the landowner.
     
  17. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    The idea that efficiency wages, despite support from multiple schools of thought and verified by empirical analysis, is wrong because it isn't Georgist merely shows the silliness of Georgism. The idea that the wage-productivity gap reflects land, despite developing without any change in the injustices associated with land ownership, is just inane.
     
  18. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Why do you hate liberty, justice and truth?
    You are of course wrong, as usual. The massive increase in land value over and above inflation at the same time the wage-productivity gap was opening up over the last 50 years is effectively proof that the injustices associated with landownership HAVE increased, that I am right, and that all your silly "efficiency wages" and "empirical analysis" garbage is wrong.
     
  19. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You do at least make me laugh. Let's set you two tasks. Refer me to an economic analysis that rejects the efficiency wage hypothesis. Next refer me to an economic analysis that concludes the wage-productivity gap reflects land ownership.

    I look forward to your choices! :)
     
  20. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Bringiton believes people have a right only to those resources that are due to what he terms their natural liberty rights eg access to the air, and the land.

    He has not explained to me how people who are "less productive" can nevertheless be assured that their contribution to the nation's well being will be rewarded at above poverty level.

    Meanwhile, Bernie is fighting consistently to implement an economy that works for all.

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1226536797565374464

    Even the Fox anchor couldn't divert him from his task!

    Btw, Bernie's economic adviser in the 2016 campaign, MMT'er Professor Stephanie Kelton, is gaining attention around the globe. MMT outlines expanded policy possibilities for governments, to deal with under or mis-allocation of resources, beyond the present neoliberal "austerity" straitjacket.

    MMT thesis:
    Mainstream neoliberal economists are leading us astray because they want us to believe the government's finances are like yours and mine. The reality is:

    1. We (individual citizens) must first earn the nation's <means of exchange> (ie fiat money, denominated in the nation's currency) before we can spend ie buy resources;

    2. whereas the currency issuing government can spend before it "earns" money (by taxing or borrowing), to buy resources and fund economic activity.

    Now this is the important bit: unlike you and me (private sector users of the currency) the currency issuing government is limited, not by money, but by the productive capacity and the resources, including labour, available for sale in the nation's currency.
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2020
  21. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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  22. Pag

    Pag Active Member

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    That's a very serious problem for humanity. Capitalism is making the wealthiest even wealthier and making the poorest even poorer. And it is eroding the humanity as we knew.
    Wealthers are getting more and more ruthless because they have the power to sieze opportunities and over time their greed has grown to the point that they would want to just increase a number in their bank accounts even if they don't need that number at all and even if it costs other human's well beings.
    And poorers are losing the humanity in other way. Since they are struggling for their lives, they are willing to do anything for just a penny. That's were lies, rooberies, crimes and even attacking to human's dignity will be a way to progress in the society.
    In one sectence capitalism is portraying vices as virtues.
    But I'm more excited to discuss about an alternative to capitalism. What is it really?
     
  23. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    SURPRISE, SURPRISE

    That's an awesome point-of-view. And you want to blame "Capitalism" for all that?

    Capitalism is not just a political philosophy. It's definition here: "An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state."

    And as an economic philosophy, it has its benefits. It's the political bit that makes capitalism unbearable for some - but not all. The difference being what you expect of it. And there is the BigDifference between the US and the EU (European Union). How do I know that?

    Easy - by the decision made regarding upper-income taxation. This single element has the most important impact upon a country's economic condition. And by "economic condition" I don't mean only "How many billionaires can be made in a given period of time due to a burgeoning GDP". I mean how "fair and impartial" is the generation of Wealth.

    In a free and open market-economy it is Supply&Demand that determines who gets what by who earns what. Simply because the more you earn the more you are able to get. And it is in the "getting" where systems go awry. At the heart of that "getting" is of course National Taxation. Meaning what?

    The answer is complex. But to keep it simple, let's say simply that it goes like this: The lesser the higher-end taxation on upper-incomes, the more of Personal Wealth is generated. The higher taxation of upper-incomes, the more that governments can spend simply on a common-platform of services for all the nation's constituents.

    Simply how? Simply like this: My high taxation here in Europe allows me this:
    *Access to a National Healthcare System that covers all medical/dental conditions - and I pay 20€ to see a doctor. (About a tenth of what your doctor costs in the US!) All further costs are assumed by the state were I to need medical attention. (Which thus means that here in Europe, I have a projected lifespan that is 3/4 years longer than were I still living in the US.)
    *I put my kids through postsecondary education (4 to 6 years) at a total tuition-cost of 800/900 Euros per year. In the US, your state-university costs on average around $14K a year. Which is why Europe is graduating per-capita more higher-end competence than the US at the moment. (And the highest proportion of US total National Private Debt is - surprise, surprise! - postsecondary education fees!)

    Now, if you don't think the fact that I pay higher taxation for those benefits listed above is not worth the personal pay-back, then there is nothing left to exchange with one another ...
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2020
  24. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Bernie is on the right lines, but needs to go further. Bringiton is naive to think his Georgism is sufficient. Ultimately, without worker ownership and control of the means of production, we are only treading water...
     
  25. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Do you know something about macroeconomics?

    A new description of how the economy works in the post gold standard era is gaining attention around the globe, namely, MMT (Modern Monetary Theory)

    Here is my brief outline of the basics:

    Households and firms - ie, the private sector, including you and me - must first earn
    or borrow the nation's <means of exchange>, ie, money denominated in the
    nation's currency, *before* we can buy goods and services;
    whereas the fiat currency-issuing government CAN spend *before* it
    "earns" its own currency (usually by taxing or borrowing from the private sector),
    via combined functions in the treasury and central bank (with direct deposit creation in the central bank).

    So the currency issuing government is not limited by 'income', as we are,
    but by the productive capacity and the resources available for sale
    in the nation's currency.

    Note: a fiat currency gains it value from:
    1. the productive capacity of the nation
    2.the fact that citizens need the currency to pay taxes*and fees etc.

    *But as noted above, the government does not need taxes to spend, but rather to control inflation.

    This heterodox theory contrasts with the orthodox neoliberal system currently responsible for enforced austerity around much of the world.

    Lafayette (see above post) thinks we only have to raise taxes on the wealthy to make capitalism work, but in practice even EU governments with their more progressive taxation regimes are forced to practice "austerity", as a consequence of neoliberalism, and so we have riots in France, of all places, for example.
    (Riots in Lebanon and Chile might more reasonably be expected than those in France....).
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2020

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