No, really! Capitalism is an economic system in which trade, industries, and the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned and operated for profit.[1][2] Central characteristics of capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labour and, in many models, competitive markets.[3] In a capitalist economy, the parties to a transaction typically determine the prices at which assets, goods, and services are exchanged. i don't see words like "Richest 1% own more than the rest of us" or unequality in distribution of wealth. http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2015-01-19/richest-1-will-own-more-all-rest-2016 I think that fact is one of the most serious arguments! Capitalism destroyed American labor movement and didn't give to us anything useful, why?
The article you linked has a link within it to a page at Oxfam where they want to "Even it Up" which I take to mean spread the wealth. How do they propose to do that and what result do they expect if they do, considering that requires taking from the top and spreading it across the rest to come to some "equitable solution"?
Even the redoubtable Ayn calls Capitalism "The Unknown Ideal" It hasn't failed because it's never existed. Even in the 1890's. Say what you will, a Plutocratic assemblage of government backed monopolies is NOT what Adam Smith had in mind. We give a few of our poorest poor the pittance that keeps them from starving to death because we give our richest rich literally billions and they still want more. This is where all forms of anarchism fail, they don't realize that government mainly exists to protect us from ourselves.
I don't think total wealth equality should be the end goal. But I do think we might want to do something to keep the money flowing, as it is a vigorous flow of money throughout the economy which is what allows capitalism to work for the benefit of the people. -Meta
Those things you mentioned (concentration of wealth, for example) are a byproduct of the massive government intervention into the economy. It can be traced to the regulation of the financial industry - which allows executives within the industry to reap the rewards of legislation they can take advantage of but is also a channel through which other wealthy individuals can expand their wealth. It's a shame that so many people are ignorant of this fact, and just blindly blame "capitalism" or the "free market."
Ever play the board games Monopoly or Risk? The markets start out competitive, then one person ends up with all the goodies. The outcome is usually determined within the first 15 minutes of the game. Sometimes we play the game out just to appease the winner. That's where we are now. We're 20 minutes into the game and the winners have already been determined. The losers are playing it out just to be good sports.
That's too simplistic, because it ignores the entity that is integral in helping to determine the "winners" - i.e. the government.
Capitalism and free markets really are a thing of the past. In the below Youtube clip, Dr. Pippa Malmgren, a former member of the US government's so called "Plunge Protection Team" outs what's really happening --- the government now "imposes prices on the markets". In other words prices are controlled, and for want of a better description are fixed. [video=youtube;mEGzfxHcbMA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEGzfxHcbMA[/video] It makes you wonder if this is because the US economy would collapse and go bust overnight if they now didn't control prices. Why else do it?
Capitalism cease to exist when the chaff is not blown away from the wheat. How can an economic system be considered a capitalist sytem when certain sectors are to big to fail. Failure is at the heart of capitalism and weeds out the ill managed and irrelevant. We have become a plutocratic croany capitalist system where the unproductive sectors own the government through lobbying and fear of our reps to do their jobs. We lost our capitalist system when the banks werent allowed to fail. They should have gone to jail for giving mortgages to everyone and their dog then bundling and selling them to our paid off retirement fund low lifes.
To me, TBTF is the essence of capitalism. Rigging the system is also the essence of capitalism. But my definition of capitalism has very little to do with market economics.
It's not only relevant to them. The government enables the "winners" to remain on top. So all of the things the OP was upset about (concentration of wealth, lack of competition and upward mobility, etc) are affected by that.
Capitalism, has not yet failed, but is more and more being influenced by Government....which is the antonym of Capitalism, Socialism (State Ownership). In short and in my opinion, the public doesn't understand that Federal Government today, can control business/commerce via regulation and taxes. Just one example; Not many people (voters) are opposed to Corporate Taxes, but fail to realize those taxes and frankly most all taxes (Local/State/Federal) in the end must come from them, not the Business or Corporation, those cost are built into the wholesale/retail cost of any product/service. The American Labor Union movement, was designed to help a portion of labor, with a cost. It has been those that labor, that decided that cost vs. return was not worth it.
Capitalism has never been tested, and therefore cannot be considered a failure. However, it is no coincidence that the United States has had the closest thing to a large-scale free market economy since the 1800's and is the most prosperous and wealthiest nation on earth.
Capitalism is about one thing and has only one definition: Capitalism is the concentration of resources to gain advantage in the market. Resources are not defined, gain is not defined, advantage is not defined, market is not defined. All these terms are undefined so everything and anything can be a resource, or a gain or an advantage or a market. Capitalism is a mindset of resource gathering and exploitation for advantage in every imaginable venue, regardless of anything and everything else. It is the single most productive and destructive impulse of human behaviour and endeavour. It is as foolish to be for it as to be against it outside the specific context of each application at a very fine level of detail. General applications of narrow minded economic conceptions of capitalist ideology have proven to be less than ideal means of improving the lives of those most intimately involved in making a living at it. This sort of application was, and is still possible through the application of resources in other than economic markets, most importantly in the political market and the market of public opinion. Only an idiot would consider what is said by the mass media and politicians to be somehow free from the influence of capitalists seeking market advantage. For example, since many people are ignorant of how economies actually function it is quite easy to convince people that raising taxes on corporations is bad because of the overly simplistic, but completely false logical argument that because consumers buy things from corporations if the taxes on corporations go up they will just raise their prices so the consumers pay all the tax increase. This is a lie but because there has been such a relentless propaganda campaign across the media and political spectrum it has convinced the people that they pay all the taxes on businesses so businesses should not be taxed. What reducing taxes on businesses does is transfer the taxes that business owners and shareholders pay on their profits directly to consumers in higher fees and other taxes. Tax revenues that were previously raised from business owners cost consumers even more when they are reduced, the direct opposite of the propaganda.
Thank you. Government involvement/subsidization renders our notion of capitalism null and void. If this were a truly capitalist society, banks like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and the like should have gone bankrupt when the real estate bubble popped. Instead, they get subsidized by the very same people who they exploit, and they actually write their own legislation. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/spending-bill-992-derivatives-citigroup-lobbyists Likewise, government is a necessity. I don't think our form of government or economic system is so much an issue (though I loathe the Federal Reserve), so much as the people we have running it.
Pure Capitalism disappeared in early 20th century, today we live in socialdemocracies [also US are a socialdemocracy and well before of Obama, just to be clear]. So, what are we talking about?
What keeps the money flowing is free trade. Producers creating products and services of value to the marketplace. Consumers spending money to get the products and services provided by the producers. It is the win/win transaction that keeps money flowing. Consumers have wants and needs that providers provide for. It works as long as the government doesn't interfere.
Where does planned obsolescence fit into Capitalist theory? What kind of car did Karl Marx drive? psik
Capitalism does not fail, but this system fails it. The market system must coexist with the government and thrive based on a stable arrangement where powers are properly checked. The legacy of liberal conservatism is that proper foundation upon which capitalism can properly be built to truly fluorish.
I don't think you can state that capitalism has failed. UNREGULATED capitalism ALWAYS fails. It caused the Great Depression and our economic collapse. however, capitalism which does NOT have monopolies (a few owning it all) but rather has stiff competition in the market place, strong laws preventing one group from having a monopoly does thrive and naturally creates a booming economy as it did post WWII.
price-increasing monopolies cannot exist without govt backing/licensing/aid. Competition, in one form or another, breaks up any one group's "hold" on any given part of the economy.
